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Mexico...
Going and going. Way far away.
Roosting, finally, in Tonala. His money goes further down here.
He takes up residence in a hut on the ocean, slowly getting to know the other gringos. Drinking, visiting the whorehouses, fishing.
When he's not seeking out pleasure or excitement with a new, feral intensity, he's parked in a sagging beach chair for hours, smoking continuously and emptying Dos Equis bottles, contemplating the surf.
He lays in bed each night and during siesta, cigarette between his teeth, masturbating slowly.
He seems to like it here.

Month after month goes by.
He's tan, and somewhat less intense. Smoking a little less. Still a barbaric sex partner - he prefers being on the bottom - but since he hooked up with a woman from San Diego, he looks much calmer. She can wear him out. He's only masturbating for an hour a day, instead of three.
Her friends have got him bungee-jumping, parasailing - he's still balking at a skydive. Mountain biking. High-adrenaline fun. He has an incredibly high capacity for... intense excitement.
This behavior indicates the higher level of "feeling" is still in effect for him. Good news. Of course, there are now calluses that have formed on his feet. More work, there, to remove them.
And - at her insistence - he breaks down and gets a few cavities filled. Still needs a crown, but no decay is left in his mouth. One more potential difficulty, alleviated.
He has over seven thousand dollars left, sitting on deposit in the town bank.

Letters arrive at various businesses. They bear his signature. The Spanish is more fluent than his own, but still mawkish. They bear a return address of a house in Corpus Christi.
It's a small matter to review the contents of the mailbox before the owners come home from work...

The hunt for a new location continues, interrupted by frequent visits back to observe how he's doing.

Finally, the options are narrowed down to two eminently suitable choices. Letters of inquiry are written, offers exchanged. Bribes proferred. Regrets about an inability to make contacts directly, a tale of recuperation from throat surgery, an expressed desire to conduct all business... through the mail.
And when one of the properties is no longer available, letters fan out concerning the other. Across another border, confirming a possibility.

The day after he makes his weekly withdrawal - the same amount of pesos he draws out, nearly every time...
A wire transfer to his Tonala account increases the balance by a thousand percent.
Within 36 hours, it's back to the amount he would expect to see there.
During that day and a half, a transfer is made to a foreign bank account. Cash bribes arrive in the mail for a half-dozen bureaucrats and constabularies. Contracts and legal documents are received, signed, and mailed off.
A service bureau receives a payment... for a post office box. Yet another bank account is opened.
Large orders are placed for dry goods, staples, home improvement materials, household and medical supplies...
And cigarettes.

Risks - sometimes they can't be avoided.
But the activity went undetected.

Three days later, an envelope arrived in Corpus Christi - by regular mail, as requested. Inside were keys, taped to a piece of paper and wrapped up.
Additional confirmations, which humbly express appreciation and thanks, are dropped in a mailbox. Signed with his name.

Really, it's amazing. Anything can be ordered through the mail, if sufficient cash is included. Delivered right to your front door, no matter how... inconvenient. A country's borders are not an obstacle.
Two of the delivery trucks fail to materialize. Stern warnings are issued, with subtle and well-chosen threats. More orders are placed, and invoices arrive...
The items from his apartment are shipped. South. To a delivery company.
 

Some construction and renovation is necessary.

He's kept occupied by his insatiable girlfriend.
Finding time, somehow, to frequent the neighboring bordellos, do some rock-climbing, get some ugly tattoos, raise a little hell with the yanquis chido.
And he's considering that static-line jump.

Letters arrive at local newspapers and colleges.
Correspondence begins, back and forth...
And the replies are even better than the most optimistic expectations.

One more order. A marital-aids store in Los Angeles.
Delivered. Confirmed.
All is made ready, and locked away.
Awaiting a guest.
 

He spent most of the previous night, and today's siesta, with his bedmate. Somewhat more distant, emotionally. On both their parts. Self-preservation...
Because she left two hours ago. Returning to the States. One of her male friends left with her, and two others left last night for points east.
The sun dipped below the ocean a half-hour ago. He sits in the warm dusk, taking a pull off his bottle of beer, lighting a new cigarette off the old...

Twenty minutes later, his head lolls back. And he snores. Destined to sleep for at least ten hours, under the influence of a reliable barbiturate slipped into his beer bottle.
His things are stuffed in the back of his car. A gas can empties into the tank, and another...
The last leg of his journey will cover more than six hundred kilometers. More gasoline has been stashed along the route. A gamble, surely. But inevitable - and with an incalculable return if the objective is achieved.
He's eased behind the wheel, and a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses are stuck in place. His head is held up - at a brief glance, even that of a Federale, he'll pass...
The engine is turned over... and, on a whim, his beach chair is plucked from the pale sand. It's worth opening the trunk again, to bring along something he'll no doubt want to use again.

A brief stop at the bank.
Sliding a letter through the mail slot, closing his account and transferring his money... elsewhere.

Driving all night, with a thoroughly unconscious guest behind the wheel.
A couple of close calls, the worst involving some drunk youths. But many klicks of "ignoring" their intimidation cause them to gesture wildly at the driver one more time, smash beer bottles on the car's roof - and roar away.
Leaving the errand to be finished in peace.
 

When his car creeps up to its destination, morning has fully arrived. A bit more windy than usual. Overcast.
The car pulls around into the garage, and stops. The hood opens, and the distributor cap is removed. It lands on the ground. A sledge hammer rises, landing squarely -
There is a new distributor cap, hidden inside the wall of the garage. Just in case.
After the battery cable is disconnected, his possessions are hauled inside. And he's slipped out from behind the wheel, gently...

After a long while, he clears his head enough to move, and stand.
He's still wearing the sunglasses. After a couple tries, he manages to remove them...
Seeing the boots. Brown shitkickers, scuffed, well broken-in. Dust is blowing over them. It's a slow, fitful wind.
A pair of his jeans... and a heavy shirt. Suede, or unglazed leather. Very dark brown. A rawhide tie is loosely wound through holes, down to the end of his breastbone, and the top three inches are designed to stay open. No sleeves; his tats are showing, huge and blurry and tasteless.
The shirt is soft. Worn before... as are the boots. New to him, though.
He's facing the front of the building.
Posada de Cosquillas.

It's a long two-story house of adobe with a mud roof. Heavy, lasting, somewhat barnlike, it towers over him.
Staring for a minute or two, then looking all around himself... he stares at the door. Thick and old, halfway open. A miniature tornado of sand twirls past it, disappearing inside.
There's a rusty wrought-iron gate, which will swing closed to block access through the front door.
Slowly, he digs for a cigarette.
The shutters are squares of unpainted plywood. New wood. Being open, they reveal screens on the inside of the round windows.
Log-ends protrude from the adobe - the support beams for the roof and second floor. No other door is in sight.
He lights up.
All of the windows are too small for him to fit through.
Around him... slowly dancing sand. A dry creekbed serves as the driveway, until a fair-sized hill gently rises about a hundred yards away. The tracks of the delivery trucks' tires have been covered over with fine dust.
Clouds are crawling across the sky. There are no sounds, except the faint crashing of waves or chirp of a seagull. No other buildings. It feels remote, even for southern Mexico...
Or some places other than Mexico.

No sign of any ... icons, from the motel where he was kept. He's being given time to adjust.
After lighting a third cigarette, he checks yet again. Nothing's about to pounce on him. Peers intently, all around, for something - a rescue party? Cuffs, hurrying over? His car? - and takes a slow, reluctant step toward the house.
He watches his feet as he walks. Dust, passing by, leaping into motion from the toe of his boots.
It's dark, inside. As could be expected. He sucks on his cigarette - and stops. Looking in, again... and then starting to chuck it away. Unwilling, or uncertain about bringing his smoke inside? Is this, too, a non-smoking room?
He stands at the threshold, looking all around... and thinking.
Then he scowls, and steps inside.

No second floor. dark round beams, some cross-members - the loft fell down long ago.
He's ready to dart back outside, given the slightest motivation. But none is forthcoming. There are small rooms to his left... and a larger room to his right, filling a good third of the area. Wooden walls, recently erected. A closed, painted door prevents him from seeing what's inside. Directly across from him is the kitchen.
Electrical wire is tacked up. Sloppy job. It loops over from the kitchen ceiling, to the large new room, and then up to the roof. Later, he can examine the line of windmills and batteries, placed dead-center on the roof slab. They can't be seen from the ground...
Crude table and chairs, scattered about. Two-by-fours nailed together, stained and set out. The wood looks new... Seeing an ashtray, he finishes his smoke and snuffs it out. And he freezes in mid-exhale, staring...
In his hand, it's the spitting image of the goofy Trout Farm ashtray in his apartment. The place that originally sold it is three thousand miles away from here. He looks around warily...
Nothing happens.

After another minute, he decides to move. When he looks toward the big room again, he gulps. His feet start moving straight ahead, even as he eyes the... dark orange door. The color, or at least the reminder of another orange door in his past, seems to have some resonance. As well it should.

The kitchen consists of a brick oven without a door, a pair of rickety narrow tables, a pail, a tub. One light bulb. A hand-pump. He declines to test it. Perhaps what else he's seen has led him to the correct answer - the pump works. The groundwater is muddy, but not unhealthy.

The first of the smaller rooms has no window. He can make out cardboard boxes and bags, burlap sacks... piled to the roof. Smells of corn, and brine, and onions. Small hibachi, coffee percolator, frying pans, knife block with protruding black handles.
The next room contains cases of... first aid. Most of it is for skin.
There are high columns of various-sized boxes. Blocking his access to them are about a dozen carpetlike rolls, hidden by thick black plastic. He pulls one of these wrappers open, and jumps back - from the familiar sight of white satin.
He backs out of the room, scanning fearfully...
The last room is also dark. He leans in, careful and alert.
He makes out the word Cuervo on a good twenty cases. He says the word to himself a couple times. He stares at other cases that display the logo of his cigarettes.
A few cases printed in Spanish, dominated by the word Vitamina.
On several cartons, in dark yellow ink: Aceite de Limon. Other oils too. A dozen large bags, and many more cartons. Waiting.
This room smells of leather.

There are no hidden nooks that he can see. Scanning all over, studying the wiring and the windows...
Nothing left to inspect, inside the house... Except the closed room.
Standing in the center of the house, he flicks a live butt toward the door, and misses. It doesn't move or open, but it still commands his attention...

He was next to another orange door, back braced against the rough wall, ass and legs and feet on a towel. Cold concrete walkway underneath the towel, running off to stairs, right and left. There was no departure for him, though. Finding himself outside the motel room, at last. Familiar smoke in his lungs. Comforting?
The cuff around his ankle. Strap in place to recall him to his bed, for more...

He stares. The number isn't there. Room 240. This door is unnumbered.
Other than starting a new cigarette, he doesn't move. Eyes unfocused somewhat, and still aimed at the door.
But nothing approaches him. At last, inexorably, cheerlessly, he takes a step closer.

There's a slight gap under the door. Nothing to see...
He holds the knob for a long moment, and pushes. As the door swings inward, one dreaded shape grabs his attention. But it's dark...
He looks at the light bulb - unlit, high and center - for several amusing seconds. Peeking to the right, he eventually reaches in. The wall is flimsy, and the light switch is not level. He flicks it on -
A big bed. White-sheeted, pillows, nightstand - large fence-posts at each corner, protruding maybe eighteen inches from the floor. Ready, all ready.
An inner wall, as if from a smaller room inside the room. Benches, chairs... and racks are piled up behind it, to the ceiling.
Rings and brackets are scattered all over the ceiling and the walls.
And past the light switch, ugly drapes hang on a rod. He looks carefully, and confirms there is no window under them.

The motel room has been... recreated.
Of course the dimensions aren't perfect. The bathroom wall should be closer to the bed - and there's no dresser here.
He looks at the posts - seeking, perhaps, a glimpse of the straps and cuffs. They're further underneath, at the moment. But they're here.
There's an ashtray on the nightstand...
But the tub filled with tools isn't in place.
Yet.

His nerve breaks, and he fairly runs out of the house.
Another building... smaller -
He sees his car. Running in earnest -
As he reaches for the door handle, the shards of black plastic catch his eye. Freezing, eyes roaming over the ruins...
He sags. Lowers his head, takes a few breaths... and squats carefully. Propping himself up against the car door, as if he's been weakened - or punched in the gut. He picks up some of the fragments, studies them for a long moment, and lets them fall.
Scans the walls of the hut, taking in tools, boards, metal bars, pails. A garage door - his eyes narrow, and he gets out of there fast.
He looks behind him, all around, back at the garage. And at the big house. Then he turns toward the sea.
It's perhaps a half-mile off. Sand rapidly giving way to tall, gnarled scrub... which leads to jagged grey and black rocks -
On the sand before him sits his beach chair.

He stares at it... then at the banquet laid out there -
A warped aluminum platter loaded with fruit, tortillas... sea bass, dried and salted. Empanadas. A selection of vitamins.
The baked goods were stolen from the village, but he'll soon be smelling more of them as they're fried. Hot and fresh.
Bottled water and a six-pack of Dos Equis are closer to the chair.
Closest of all is a carton of cigarettes. It holds down a bundle of papers, which rustles quietly in the wind.

Frozen in place. Lost in his thoughts. Ten minutes, fifteen...
And he sits himself down, and grabs a beer.
Looking out at the surf, sniffing the salt in the air.

He sits and drinks. Four of the bottles are emptied in a hour. The cigarettes he's finished are thrown onto the sand, lazily tumbling off end-over-end.
Tries the fish, grimacing - but he chews and swallows. The other food is sampled mechanically. The fruit appears to be new to him. The empanadas and tortillas disappear, as does the water.
Then he exhales smoke and looks out to sea.

Later, he reaches for a cig and finds the pack is empty. Crumpled, thrown angrily, he picks up the carton...
And the papers. On top, there are dense leaves of small print. Spanish.
His signature is on the last page!
He stares again, blinking. Appears to be trying to understand how he could have signed the document - or how it would come to appear that he did.
With great concentration, he pores over the legalese, moving his lips as he does. On the second page, he halts - and flips back to page one. His eyes unfocus, and once again he stares dumbly at the dark coral. Now that's recognition.
He's deciphered just enough Español to understand...
Ninety-nine year lease. Essentially, he owns the Posada de Cosquillas.
It's his.
His home.

He opens the fifth beer and drains it.

Another word caught his eye... Riffling through the lease, to the last page. There, above the signature block:
Guatemala.

The last letters are the result of an incredible stroke of luck. A woman, working at a newspaper in Guatemala City who grew up about twenty kilometers south of his house. Chatty, overly helpful, glad for the opportunity to practice her English.
She kept writing letters to him. To an address... in Texas.
As he continues reading, he closes his eyes for a few moments, breathing as if to calm himself. The page before him begins with her reiteration that she was quite glad to receive his prompt letters...
His replies.

The letters tell quite a bit. The nearest village, where the road comes to an abrupt end, is about ten klicks from his front door. On the coastline, she is certain he would not be bothered by intrusive neighbors from her village or the next nearest one, which is over thirty klicks to the north. Noisy parties will not be a problem, ha ha.
The ridge behind his house is one of the "earth's bones." This is apparently of great significance to the older locals, who frowned when the house was built so close - too close?! - to the hill. Disrespectful, insolent, no good will come. When the beach was washed away over the course of a summer or two - was it in the mid-fifties? - and the coral was exposed, the owner fled and rebuilt. All of his family were taken by a flu... which only serves to frighten those who believe such myths.
If - If ! - he should choose to buy the house, he must know that the property on which it sits is feared and avoided by most of the people in the region, and is of no interest whatsoever to the others. Due to the lack of any compelling reason or benefit, people turn back to where they came before coming anywhere near the coral. Revenge of the earth, for the desecration of its bones.

She hoped, of course, this was not scaring him away, ha ha. She has sailed past the coral many times, seeing the house - very small, because of how far the sharp rocks jut out - can remember her mama telling her a frightening story, warning her almost with tears to avoid the cursed property. It is primitive beliefs like this that caused her husband to be so determined to escape to Guatemala City. Such old wives' tales carry far more weight than one would expect in this modern day and age...
Even so, he will find the people helpful and kind. Well, many of them.
As if aware of the contradiction, she carefully explained that it was the fondo, the bedrock under the property... that's viewed as, how would it be said, haunted. While he would have no trouble buying goods in any of the surrounding villages, she gently warned him he must not expect anyone from the immediate region to deliver, let alone come out for a social visit!
People would certainly be aware of his arrival, but would wait for him to come to the villages and introduce himself. Gringos and privacy, shyness... Well, they would probably wait forever before seeking him out because of the old wives' tales, and the distance from the road, and the coral. Do not expect the constable or postman or even an egg-seller, ha ha, to make the trek. If the children's curiosity about him was stronger than their fear, even once, she would be greatly surprised. The journey would take them several hours, at least. When he did visit a village, he would do well to be extremely friendly, and prepare for endless Yanqui loco's...

Regretfully, she would not be able to meet him until he found occasion to travel to la ciudad, since her husband greatly loathed to revisit the backward region... But if he should travel south to her village, a long day's walk, he should find the cantina quite nice - unfortunately, her family had moved further down the coast...

He drops the papers, and reaches for the last beer... and sits. Staring, lost in thought.
As the deed and the letters blow away, they're snagged and retrieved from the scrub, and surreptitiously taken into the house. Stored.

It's warm, here. No cold winter approaching...
He sits in his chair, and thinks, and smokes his cigarettes.
After a while, he stands up, takes a few steps to the north, unzips and urinates... looking fearfully back at his home.
Returning to the chair, drinking a little water.

After the sun has set, he sees something new, a foot or two behind his chair -
Another six-pack of beer. Five more empanadas...
Laying on a dusty black serape.

Based upon the way he adapted to the motel room, it is possible he will visit the towns, and the city - and return here. With an escort of white gloves, riding along under his clothes... in case he gets a ridiculous notion.
This will permit emergency trips to the hospital, the dentist. Going, and returning. Here.
Telling anyone what happens in his house, the cause of the screams and howls and endless laughter... how it happens, or that the house was purchased and stocked without his knowledge - that could only bring about commitment to a manicomio, followed by immediate or indirect assistance in returning...
Home.

In his chair, under the serape and the starless sky, he opens another pack of cigarettes, and groans to himself.

His new level of tickling sensitivity has not gone away. The daredevil behavior strongly suggests he'll be back to that considerably more intense place within a few days.
There are more levels to be reached.

The next time he relieves himself, there's a certain binding pressure around him - preventing him from closing his fly. He drops the cigarette hanging from his mouth, and flops back violently...
But the strap has already been wound around his arms and chest. When he falls, something catches him... holding him up by the strap. His boots are seized and held together, and more leather binds them as he floats in the air, flopping around and yelling.

The third level will require months of slow, painstakingly sensitive tickling.
There's really no telling how long it might take him to reach level four.

Noisy, frantic, caught as he was that first afternoon in August... He's carried toward his house.

And there are some ticklers who believe in... endless sensitivity levels.

Feel free to e-mail me and set me straight on my ignorance of Español y la costa de america central...

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