MEXICO CITY DISPATCHES: WOMEN

In less than a week I will be leaving the cool climes of Mexico City for the tropical heat of Brownsville. I have lived without sex for two months and I am looking forward to making love to Karla and Carolina in the comfort of my air-conditioned hotel room reunited once again with the other two-thirds of my clothes, my guitar and my tennis racket. I will return to a different solitude. I have been living in a self-imposed exile in Mexico City, but I have been residing with my compadres and I have grown tired of them and their family. It's natural. If I were forced to live with anyone for two months, I would be screaming at that individual for leaving dirty dishes in the sink or peeing on the toilet seat.

I have several matters that require my immediate attention. The direct deposit of my retirement money hasn't been rerouted from my old bank to my new bank. The old bank didn't receive my retirement deposit, so a check may be sitting in my P.O Box and the next payment due a few days later may find its way to my desired location. If all goes well, I will have a chunk of cash. The bureaucrats did inform me that the process could take as many as 60 days. I don't expect any complications, but this money is the foundation of my economic well-being and I need that matter settled for peace of mind.

There are also other financial matters. I have to fill out a new financial form in order for Michael to receive his child support payment from the new bank. I have been selling ads for my blog and Facebook page and I must chase down and collect from the politicians. I have been shaking down politicians for years. I'm good at cornering them because nobody wants to pay, but I give them a product and exposure more than worth the price.

I have to come face to face with Claudia and come to terms with my mother informing me that I am no longer wanted in California. I thought I discovered someone special when I met Claudia, but there was nothing special about her. She's like a sample in a store that everyone manhandles. I envision an indigenous tribe sitting together after a day of cutting cane and passing a bottle of mescal around the circle. Each takes a deep gulp and passes the bottle to his neighbor. How many Indians have deposited their viscous gulps deep inside her? I can never escape that image.

Besides her sexual past, I am constantly repeating her family destruction tree: She separated a father from his two sons, separated another father from his son and daughter, separated a step-father from his step-children and finally separated a father from another son. I have lived without seeing or talking with her for two months. I desire her, but her hair has changed to straw, the dugs of her breasts drag along the ground like those of a downtown mongrel, her stomach is a combination of flab and stretch marks and her ass is expanding faster than a balloon. She will soon enter her menopause stage. If her temperament fluctuates hot and cold on a daily basis, imagine the misery of her company when she enters that cycle. I have had her for most her best years although she must have been quite a delight as a teenager. At 44 and time passing rapidly, she is no longer young. Her face retains its beauty, but she isn't a pleasant sight from the neck down. Let the Indians break the bottle and lick the remaining liquid.

I received a letter from my mother before I left that I was no longer welcomed in California because the second oldest of my five sisters had accused me of raping her. Almost sixty years ago, I was more or less ten and she was more or less eight, we started touching each other. As we grew older, I would finger her while I masturbated. We averaged these encounters on a weekly basis for several years. As we matured into teenagers, we seldom had these moments. One day, however, it was late afternoon and we were at home alone. She called me into her room and from her purse extracted a condom. I can remember the setting sun shining through the window. She wanted to have sex and I cooperated. It was the only time we had sexual intercourse. To the best of my knowledge it was the last time that we were intimate. My sister stuttered from the time she started talking and throughout the years she had terrible confrontations with my mother. On one occasion my mother called the police and the officers took my sister away while all the neighbors watched her being placed in the squad car.

"Looking back I now realized the cause of her distress," my mother wrote as I became the convenient scapegoat for her failures. If anyone has suffered from those encounters, I have been the victim. I can blame my sister for turning me into a sex addict because the pleasure has always been too overwhelming to resist. With the exception of my youngest brother, I don't communicate with the rest of my siblings. We have no problems when I visit, but they have their kids and grandkids, so I hardly rate of their list of priorities, but my youngest brother and I retain a strong bond. When I informed him that mother had exiled me permanently, he wrote in disgust, "We're talking about something that happened more than 50 years ago. Our sister doesn't quit, does she? If it isn't one thing, it's another. Don't worry. You will always be good with me."

When I talk about tragedy, I am talking about Claudia, but there is this cloud that hangs over me that renders me a rapist. It's hard to believe that a mother would abandon her child without investigating if their were extenuating circumstances, but she immediately deserted me because the alleged rape liberated her from the guilt that had burdened her for six decades. I will return to my apartment, call my girls, communicate with my sons, resolve my finances and take one last peek at Claudia to see if there is a light at the end of the tunnel or should I finally consigned our tortured and unhappy relationship to darkness. Most times I hate her more than I love her. To sacrifice my love for her to free myself of my hate seems the logical solution. But I am an animal and oftentimes, my entire life spent luxuriating in licentious behavior, I can't think straight. Nevertheless, it will be nice to be back on the border. It is home.