18% Gray. Zachary Karabashliev
sucked me out of our empty house on the canyon, away from go-to-work-in-the-morning suburbia.
I go into the first bar I see. The bartender, thank God, speaks English. I ask if he can make a vodka martini.
“Sí, señor.”
“You got olives?”
“Sí, señor.”
“Can you make a dirty martini?”
“Sí, señor.”
“Now, the señor here wants a dirty martini with three olives.”
“Sí, señor.”
Three martinis later, Señor finally looks around. It hits me that if I had done so earlier, I surely would have left. What kind of a place is this? Dirty, dark, and it stinks something awful. A TV set on a wooden crate in the corner plays a never-ending soccer game. A few customers in cowboy hats watch the crate and drink beer from green bottles. During every commercial break, though, the hats turn to look at me. I pay and get out.
Outside, Tijuana enfolds me in its sweaty, open bosom. Noisy merchants pull me left and right, trying to lure me into their stuffy little shops.
I dive into another bar. This time I look at the crowd carefully. A TV set on a wooden crate in the corner plays the same soccer game. Men in cowboy hats are drinking beer and watching the game. The commercials begin, the hats turn toward me. I stay. On my way out, the stairs seem funnier.
The night now is hot and throbbing. I need panocha now. Panocha. A fat tattooed neck pulls me up fluorescent stairs. A whorehouse? No. A nightclub. The speakers slam Latin-Electro. The lights change with every beat, the girls under them, too. It’s full of girls. A waitress shoves her huge tits under my drunken head. What do I want to drink?
“Martini,” I yell.
She brings me a margarita. I’ll drink margaritas, then.
The dance floor is packed. The crowd consists of American military men, Mexican pimps, bleached-blond hookers, drug dealers, and losers like me. While normal people north of the border rest before the workday, Tijuana is wide awake.
An hour later I realize that the margarita was a mistake. I get dizzy from the lights, bodies, mirrors, boobs, sweat, glasses, tables, chairs. In the bathroom a geezer with a bowtie and pencil mustache hands out toilet paper for pesos. I dig out crumpled bills, drop them in his bowl, stagger to the sink, and splash water on my face. In the spattered mirror, a gray man frowns at me. I frown back. His wife left him. Boo-fucking-hoo. If I were her, I’d leave you, too.
Outside the john, Tits greets me with a new margarita. I didn’t order a new margarita.
“Sí,” says Tits.
“No,” I say.
“Sí, sí.”
“No sí sí,” I say.
“Sí, sí, sí, señor!” Tits insists.
“I did not order a margarita!”
Tits is angry. She whirls around and heads over to the bouncer. I pull out money and chase her. Mexicans understand English when they want to. I pay before she makes a scene. I down the watery margarita and shove the glass in my pocket—a little payback, fucking extortionists. They treat me like a regular gringo. I might be boracho, but I wasn’t born yesterday. And, no, I am no gringo. The whole world spins fiercely before my eyes; I am going to die here. I stagger down the stairs, grabbing the railing with all my might, and end up next to the tattooed neck. I attempt to hug the bouncer as I stammer panocha. I’ve got to have a panocha before I die.
“I want panocha!”
“Panocha, sí, sí.” The fat neck grins and makes that gesture that all of us idiots make. “Fucky, fucky, huh, señor?”
“Fucky, fucky, yes.”
“Fucky, fucky?”
“Yes, find me a panocha before I perish! I need panocha.”
He points to a man on the other side of the street. I can’t quite make him out. I set off in that direction, but the sidewalk has something else in mind—it suddenly ends. I trip and hop on the pavement, barely keeping my balance. Out of nowhere, a little hunchback midget in a white sombrero appears and pulls me aside. “Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show.” I have no idea what’s going on. To my right against a wall, a sailor kisses a whore while tugging on her g-string. She smirks at me over his shoulder.
To my left, leaning on a crumbling wall, a man with no legs stretches out a plastic cup—he wants dolla.
A scruffy five-year-old girl sucking snot from her upper lip stretches out a plastic cup—she wants dolla.
An Indian with a baby on her breast reaches out a plastic cup, she wants dolla.
A one-eyed grandma holds a plastic cup, she wants dolla, too.
Dolla-dolla-dolla-dolla, everyone wants dolla.
Something swings over my head, I duck at the last second and make out Spiderman.
“Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show . . .” the white sombrero wiggles his ass back and forth. “. . . fucky, fucky . . .” I don’t understand. “Donkey fucky señorita.” A-ha! A spectacle involving a donkey and a naked female suddenly seems appropriate. I follow him. “Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show . . .”
We cross Revolución and go down the steps of a side bazaar. The white sombrero stops in front of a beat-up door lit by a dirty naked bulb and rings the bell. The door cracks open and a shaved head peeks out. Sombrero turns to me—he wants dolla. I give him dolla and he slinks away up the stairs. I pay the shaved head an entrance fee and go a few steps further down.
Smoky bar, maroon booths, brown padding on the walls, columns painted in black enamel, Christmas lights, on the walls are faded posters for Corona, Dos Equis, and Tecate. Leather jackets, Hawaiian shirts, and navy uniforms are crowded around the tables. There’s a stage at one end of the room. I enter when the music stops and go to the end of the line at the bar, behind a row of square backs, so I have to stand on my toes to see anything. Now all eyes are focused on the red velvet curtains, which draw open. A couple of Mexicans drag a gray donkey on stage and disappear. Whistles and claps. Dollar bills reach toward the bartender. He hands back beers.
The curtains open again and a naked brownish woman with short legs, a flabby stomach and floppy breasts comes out. I picture her, laundry pins in her mouth, hanging saggy bras on a clothesline. Her legs perch atop a pair of white glossy sandals and meet in a black bushy tuft on top. Her hair is the color of henna. The makeup is bad. Her eyebrows have been waxed off and drawn in with a brown pencil. Booing from the audience. Ungrateful bastards, what do you expect for five bucks—Shakira?
After a little foreplay, the woman shoves herself under the animal. She grabs his thing and starts rubbing it energetically. The donkey shakes his head, showing two rows of yellow teeth. The woman keeps working it, but the donkey does not respond. The woman moves her hand faster and faster. Suddenly, the donkey snorts and reaches back to bite her, but only gets a bit of her hair. The woman manages to escape cursing and yelling at someone behind the curtain. Two Mexicans hop out; one of them grabs the donkey by the muzzle and the other hits him in the teeth.
A-a-a-a-h-h-h-h! The crowd groans in disapproval.
The animal snorts louder and rears back, but a pair of mustachioed mariachi show up and tackle him to the floor. One of them, guitar hanging from his back, traps the animal’s head between his bow-legged pantalones and firmly grabs the front hooves, which are now pointing towards the ceiling. His buddy, accordion strapped to his back, grabs the hind legs.
The entertainer works the donkey’s hard-on with both hands now. The audience, who thought they had gotten ripped off just a minute ago, now exclaims its approval.
The donkey reciprocates with size.
Silence. Then someone claps. A drunken female tourist starts laughing