Bajada 1

                   “Hitchhiking is an open road
                    Hitchhiking is window without glass
                    Hitchhiking is loneliness
                    Hitchhiking is drifting through time and space
                    Hitchhiking is finding a corner to call your own
                    Hitchhiking is not unlike the seasons, the tides
                    Hitchhiking is believing you’re Walt Whitman
                    Hitchhiking is being told you’re nothing but a bum
                    Hitchhiking is learning to cope
                    Hitchhiking is getting it all together
                    Hitchhiking is seeing it all fall apart
                    Hitchhiking is knowing no words but “Thank you”
                    Hitchhiking is discovering how dark is dark
                    Hitchhiking is discovering your name whispered in forests
                    Hitchhiking is rolling out of ice cream wagons into moonlight
                    Hitchhiking is losing your last pair of pants
                    Hitchhiking is going naked
                    Hitchhiking is hearing something crack in the bottom of your pack
                    Hitchhiking is poetry
                    Hitchhiking is only a dream
                    Hitchhiking is falling skywards
                    Hitchhiking is finding doors locked
                    Hitchhiking is learning combinations
                    Hitchhiking is a constant erection
                    Hitchhiking is a royal pain in the ass
                    Hitchhiking is the sort of thing that makes you long for chicken soup
                    Hitchhiking is food for thought
                    Hitchhiking is nourishment for the soul                                                      
                    Hitchhiking is leaves in the wind
                    Hitchhiking is an open road”
                                      Paul Coopersmith, Hitchhiking Is, Rule of Thumb



A born-again Christian took me five miles, to the corner of thirst and tedium. The shadows of lizards on adobe walls were the only thing that moved for an eternity. Finally, an 80 year-old retired machinist named Chris, pulled over in his Oldsmobile. Red, white, and blue. Shirt, hair, and jeans. He dropped me at a cantina and wished me ‘buen viaje.’ The yellow and carmine exterior sported two Carta Blanca beer logos, and an open ‘abierto’ sign on the restaurant door. I pushed through the swinging doors like I was entering an old western. Three drunken campesinos sat drinking noisily at the bar. I picked a table as geometrically far from them, and as close to the exit, as I could calculate. A gum-chewing senorita came over sooner than I expected.
“Si, Senor?” She said.
Hungry, I had to respond fast in a language that was not my own. What could I order that was safe, easily understood, and available anywhere? I had a tuna sandwich epiphany.
“Un sandwich de tuna, por favor.” Thinking myself rather clever.
There was a pause I didn’t like, punctuated by shrieks of shrill laughter from the hombres at the bar. Only Mexicans can laugh like that. The waitress looked puzzled, and amused at the same time. Not a good sign.
“Serio, Senor. Un sandwich de tuna?”
I should have backed off, but there was now honour at stake.
“Si, Senorita. Un sandwich de tuna.”
She shrugged her shoulders and left. The howling at the bar only got louder. It echoed in the kitchen a few minutes later.
The sandwich eventually arrived. The colour was all wrong. I looked up ‘tuna’ in Steve’s dictionary. It said ‘atun’.
I looked up ‘tuna’ on the Spanish-English side. It said ‘prickly pear cactus.’ I asked for the fish.
“No hay.” She said. We don’t have any. I would hear it a lot before I broke the code to eating well in Latin America. Bread is called ‘Bimbo’ in Mexico. It would prove to be a long study. Before this trip, I had been a vegetarian. In Latin America, it was a synonym for ‘communist.’
I left the cantina in time to flag down a supercharged Dodge Dart brown and white Super Bee muscle car, containing two surly looking bandits flying at speed. The Pancho moustache on the passenger side had nasty narrow eyes; the driver was husky with a feathered Las Cruces cowboy hat, and a gold tooth. I shared the back seat with a leather truncheon. The radio was up loud. I knew what shit was. It went along with that masa corn tortilla smell I couldn’t get out of my head since I crossed the border. And I was in it now. Gold Tooth pulled out a large handgun and placed it on the dash.
I reached for Steve’s dictionary, channeling ‘O.’
“Occupacion?” I uttered.
“Policia.” He replied.
“Policia?”
“Si. Policia Especiale.”
And then, as if to assuage my incredulity, Gold Tooth reached under his seat, pulled out a flashing light siren, thrust it onto the roof of the Super Bee, and buried his right boot to the floor. The siren was almost as loud as the radio. Within a few seconds, we had pulled over a loaded pickup truck. Gold Tooth grabbed a pair of handcuffs and sauntered over to the driver’s side. He returned a few minutes later, counting pesos.
“Policia Especiale?” I inquired.
“Si. Muy Especiale.”
I looked up ‘muy.’ It said very. My vocabulary was improving, a word at a time. I probably knew enough now to get stabbed.
They dropped me on the other side of a washed out bridge and wished me a “pleasant churney.”
The sun slowly melted my afternoon into a syrup of long walks, lengthening shadows, tumbleweeds, and tailgate truck rides. Somehow, I got engine oil all over Serendipity. The smell of the earth grew strong in the desert dusk. I begin to anticipate a scorpion and spider sleepout under the stars. But just when you have resigned yourself to your zig, along comes a zag.
Third Rule of Hitchhiking: Wait a bit longer.