After a few last hurrahs by the sea, I went back to Guadalajara and had three farewell parties three nights in a row. While I was there, I had dark feelings about leaving the sea and the pueblito I’d found. In the short time I was in Sayulita, I’d made a couple friends and couldn’t help but feeling like I was leaving a good thing.
The last night in Guadalajara was a sleepless one though it wasn’t insomnia or stress keeping me up but festivities. I was drinking in the lobby of my hotel with some friends, most of whom were classmates from the teaching course I’d gone through in June. The course had been pretty thorough (as thorough as a month-long course can be) but had been a lot of work and another of those times where the only answer is to put your head down and go which was part of the reason I didn’t start looking for work until after I graduated.
I’d booked a 7 a.m. flight and was still there at the hotel drinking with friends at three in the morning when a few of them decided to make a twilight taco run. Back in Sayulita, Borrego had joked with me and a mutual Aussie friend, who’d recently suffered Montezuma’s Revenge, about gringos always blaming sickness on the tacos they ate the day before and not the thirty beers. I laughed and thought it ironic at the time, but when my friends returned with the order and I ate one taco al pastor hardly larger than a silver dollar and Montezuma unleashed his vengeance, I decided it was no joke and that one little taco can bring you as near to the abyss as anything.
I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary until I was checking in at the airport. I arrived about an hour before my flight and sat at the boarding gate with a knotted stomach trying to make sure to use the airport facilities rather than the plane’s but nothing was coming. To my benefit, the flight only lasted an hour and nothing moved my bowels in that time. I got an overview of Torreon flying in and hoped it would look better from the ground. After collecting my bags, I jumped in a cab and was barely holding on. I was shaking and sweating while the driver told me that Torreon was only slightly over a hundred years old. I asked if he knew any mid-range hotels while we sped away from the airport. The view wasn’t getting much better, and I knew I was going to be sick soon.
We soon arrived at a hotel downtown. Through my daze, I was able to note the cute receptionists and get a room on the tenth floor. I barely got to my room when it hit. I threw my bags down and flew to the bathroom just making it to the toilet before I let vomit fly. Taco, beer, vile, and tears. Barely able to catch my breath, it hit me from the other end but then that was it as far as projectiles go. It was 9:30 in the morning and I went to sleep. I chilled, sweated, and suffered feverish nightmares. If I’d paid attention, I might have been able to decipher prophecies revealed by the terrible creatures that tormented me. When I woke up, it was eight o’clock the next morning. I went down to reception, paid for another night then returned to my room and slept another fourteen hours. This is an ominous start, I thought when I finally woke up.
I felt somewhat better and quite hungry too, so I went down to see if the hotel’s restaurant was open. It’d closed at ten, which led me to inquire about a place to get something to eat. I was told there were restaurants around, but they were all closed. However, there was an OXXO two blocks down the street. I walked down to the OXXO, the most prevalent of Mexican convenience stores found on nearly every corner. En route, I saw the tallest transvestite hookers I’d ever seen in the shortest skirts I’d ever imagined. I know I glimpsed hang down. They offered me company as I walked by. “No gracias,” I said. “Tal vez otra noche.”
The next morning there was no answer at either number Chester had given me, so I stayed another night. The following day, the same thing occurred. I ended up staying four days and four nights downtown. I walked around a bit and was quite bored. I wasn’t in drinking shape so I watched TV and chatted up the cute receptionists. Daniela and Sarai were both about ten years younger than me, but that wouldn’t have stopped me one bit from getting to know either of them on more intimate terms. Unfortunately the opportunity never presented itself at that time. There’s also the problem when they come in pairs. Do you choose one then get shot down and ruin it with the other? Making decisions has always been a hard one for me. I figured I just flew into town and there’d be plenty of time for making amorous connections soon enough.
On the fifth morning,Chester, his assistant Lili, and a driver from the school picked me up to take me to my new home. Lili seemed nice, the driver didn’t say much, and Chester right away seemed a bit of an odd duck. I couldn’t help but note the vertical challenges he was faced with. He really actually looked physically, with his stubby limbs and munchkin face, like he’d landed in Torreon from somewhere over the rainbow. Far from a crime of course, but his demeanor suggested it was something he was fighting against. He was very matter of fact in all that he told me about Torreon in his pronounced Canadian accent. He had the habit of replacing the “aye” (which I’m supposing) with “yes” and seldom ended a sentence without that specific verbal attachment which turned statements into questions.
“Torreon is a big city, but real easy to get around in, yes? We have everything here, yes? We have Chili’s, Applebee’s, Tony Roma’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, and most of the chains, yes?”
Wow, I hoped those weren’t the city attractions he spoke to me about on the phone. Later I found out there weren’t many. A couple museums. A few statues. Some less than well-kept parks. There was the Cristo de las Noas, the third largest Christ statue in Latin America which sits on a hill over looking the city. The most famous of course being Cristo o Redentor in Rio de Janeiro which actually comes in second to Cochabamba, Bolivia’s Cristo de la Concordia by some centimeters.
I must admit the mountains surrounding the city were real cool though. The famous Rio Nazas River used to divide Torreon and its sister city of Gomez Palacio but has been dammed and rarely flows. There were also two prominent lagoons that have subsequently dried up. During the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa fought key battles in and aroundTorreonand the cities of Gomez Palacio and Lerdo (both counted as part of Torreon’s metropolitan area). Villa is said to have hated Chinese immigrants and executed 300 unarmed Chinese immigrants in Gomez to demonstrate that.
We drove past the school on the way to my new home. “Do you want a tour?”Chester asked. I responded that I’d like to get settled in first if it’d be all right.
The house I’d be living in for the year was a block away from the school. When we pulled up to the front door, I thought it looked a bit different than what I’d seen on Chester’s slide show. The driver helped me with my bags while Chester fished for the keys. Upon entering, he told me he couldn’t stay because he had other engagements to attend to. He said that there were people at the school, and anytime I wanted, I could go over to check it out. He said he’d be in and out but that I had his number and could call if I needed anything.
“Otherwise I’ll see you in a couple days when your other roommates get here, yes?” he said or asked, or both.
After he left, I took a look around. It wasn’t the place I’d seen in the slide show. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what was promised either. It was quite a bit smaller and not as well furnished. First thing I noticed was all the noise that came from the street outside as cars ripped past at average speeds between 60 and 80 miles an hour (still not sure on the kilometer conversion). Since I was the first to arrive, I picked the room closest to the bathroom and farthest from the street. The beautiful backyard I’d hoped for was all concrete with twelve-foot walls on all sides, about 15’ by 30’. The one bright spot was the orange tree tucked to one corner. Though not the abode advertised, I decided it was a luxury compared with the garage I’d spent anOregonwinter living in. I’d be located on the corner of Pablo Neruda and Jose Vasconcelos, which I thought was interesting.
Earlier on the way over, Chester mentioned that my roommates would be a guy from Wisconsin and a Canadian gal. In the other house there’d be a married couple from New York and a gal from Texas. I figured they’d given the house from the slide show to the married couple. Chester told me which street the other house was on and that it was two blocks away, but when I went out for a walk later that day, I couldn’t figure out where it was. I didn’t see anything resembling water or a desert oasis. There were some pleasant looking homes, but graffiti covered and rundown places as well.
In the two days before my roommates arrived, I explored the vicinity on foot quite a bit. There wasn’t a lot of green space, and the air was a bit dusty, but I reminded myself I was in the desert and to shut the fuck up and focus on things like the mountains and the abundant sunshine. Some of the bordering neighborhoods, especially those to our east seemed a bit questionable. I wasn’t too fond of the looks I got from some shirtless and tattooed types that had I been alone walking through the neighborhood after dark might not have been so shy either.
I went to see the school on the second day and met some of the guards and maintenance crew who all seemed to be pretty cool and down-to-earth guys. The school looked pretty nice. I took the opportunity to try out the pool which lent itself nicely to swimming laps. As I reclined in a lawn chair poolside after a good swim, I thought the environment had some shortcomings but the school wouldn’t be such a bad place to work for the year.
