Something Real

In time travel experiments at McGill University in the mid-seventies, I was once asked to recall and focus on my earliest memory in order to establish a marker. I remembered being in car accident in San Salvador.  I remembered being in the cotton pleated lap of my mother in the front seat of a red and white car.  The year must have been 1958 and cars then were all large dense metal objects. Cars were a hard cold two toned metal with no plastic parts to speak of.  Also in the car was my uncle Mario through a marriage to my mother's sister Mabel .

Mario, a government press secretary with a pencil thin moustache, was driving and laughing, driving and laughing and the chrome laden AM radio was playing quite loudly. My father and aunt in the back seat also laughed about things that my young mind could not understand as we sped down the dusty road in wild abandon in those reckless days before the advent of standardized safety features. Seatbelts were a luxurious option that would not appear until many years later.

We were a lone vehicle speeding down a road lined with white washed low adobe buildings. The white wash shimmered as it reflected the brilliant morning sun. All moved as in a dream and the only element  missing was a giant melting pocket watch just below the horizon. Up ahead my two year old eyes saw an empty plaza with a dry dust covered fountain.

All of a sudden a large dark green dump truck pulled across the plaza moving at great speed and shrouded in a veil of dust.  It pulled in front of us and my laughing uncle could not brake in time.....
My little head hit the edge of the dashboard and all went black....

Now I am back again after 47 years. I have been here for two weeks and will be here for two more. It started with a mobile tooth and is ending here amidst volcanoes in a valley of hammocks.

A few nights ago there was an earthquake here that registered 6 on the Richter scale. No one was hurt and moments later everyone went back to bed.

In the mornings I rise, drink exotic fruit juices and die ever so slowly in the glorious beauty of this mysterious and conflicted eden.

I spent my afternoon wandering through the Mayan ruins and relaxing on the steps of a pyramid while talking with my uncle Rene about the state of things. He is an engineer and a devout evangelist. As we meditated on the Mayans and their mathematics, young Indian children flew their colorful kites on the lush green mounds surrounding the pyramids. A warm breeze made the palm trees sway and I thought about the circumstances that brought me here.

Over the summer of 2005 I was diagnosed with periodontal disease. I was told that my condition was severe and would need surgery or rather surgeries. One doctor talked to me about reconstructing my upper jaw almost entirely. The diagnosis was one shock but when the estimated cost was presented to me I had another shock. They wanted 40 - 70.000 to repair me. I am insured but not to that degree. And so I became a bit depressed, uneasy and even frightened. I know it is ridiculous but it is true.

In the spectrum of things happening to unfortunate people in this chaotic world I am truly blessed. However, I still became confused and experienced some inwardly directed anger. I blamed myself, yes I did, but, I also was angry at the lousy healthcare in the USA . Eventually the doctors in NYC came up with a 45.000 plan, but I was investigating options.

I had shared my dilemma with my partner in Tucson and he invited me to consider coming to Arizona and have the work done in a town on the Mexican border called Nogales . I considered it and spoke with one or two doctors there in a mixture of English and Spanish. I had very good impression of the doctors I spoke to there. In NY the doctors were pressuring me to make a decision and to take some action soon. However, my mind was now open to idea of going south of the border.

Unexpectedly, I received a call from my aunt Mabel in El Salvador . El Salvador was a place that I had lost touch with. I knew that I had some family here but really did not know any of them. She told me that another aunt had recently married a macular surgeon who teaches at the local university and who specializes in facial trauma. As he explained it to me in broken English, "Trauma like car accidents and gun shot wounds to the head". I sent this stranger my x-rays and once he viewed them he implored me to consider coming to El Salvador to get the work done. He was newly married and I suppose I am now sort of a nephew to him. I also think that he was eager to do a service for his new family.

And so two weeks ago in early November at 5am I boarded a Continental airlines flight to San Salvador with a 2 hour stopover in Houston . In the past two weeks I have gone through various assessments and had most of the required surgeries. I have yet another tomorrow morning. I have sat in various waitng rooms thumbing through dated issues of Hola magazine. I have watched the armed guards wander tensely through the parking lots with their fingers ever close to their triggers. I have spent weekends on the most beautiful beaches and met an industrialist uncle who was the target of an attempted kidnapping. I wandered through a greenhouse containing an aunts prize collection of orchids. I shared a smoke and discussed American foreign policy with a long lost first cousin and bodysurfed with his pal Ralphie in the Pacific sunset. I have sailed into cypress lagoons in the dark of night and seen millions of stars perfectly reflected in the mirror of still water. I dragged my foot in the water and left a glowing wake of blue phospherecent algae. I have swum in volcanic lakes and shared paella dinners with coffee barons and ex-atomic scientists from Lawrence Livermore laboratories. I have sipped fine Chilean red wines while watching private slideshows featuring image after image of macular trauma. So far everything is going well. I am impressed with the quality of care here. The quality of the work is very good and at a fraction of the USA prices, but each night I hear gunfire in the distance.

There are many guns in the streets here. All private security guards wander their perimeters with shotguns slung over their shoulders. However, while I have been here, I have encountered a large and wonderful family who seem to love me by default. Each day I meet new cousins, uncles and aunts who go out of their way to come, meet, feed and entertain their blood relative from the north. Perhaps they are just curious, but they have been very hospitable and have managed to distract me from the tri-weekly assaults on my upper and lower jaw ...although... I did wake up one recent morning...with a hell of a hangover, the sweet and sour taste of day old salsa and novacaine in my mouth...groggy, disoriented...in a bathtub filled with ice... and missing a kidney.

Tales of the International Jetset Homeless

It was supposed to be a city ambulance and I suppose it looked like one from the outside, but the interior looked more like a prison cell or an interrogation chamber. It was a tin can on wheels and I was inside and strapped to a gurney. It was just me strapped down in a dark van with a man in NYPD blue sitting next to me...not the doctor I needed, but an officer who loathed me for the barely living, waste of time that I had allowed myself to become. I had walked on the wild side and tripped on the poorly laid shag carpeting.
The mask had fallen away and exposed me in a thoughtless moment, a selfish greedy moment where I had wanted nothing more that to get as high as possible and then, hopefully, pass myself off as just another sleeping passenger on an L-1011 bound for Frankfurt.
A few minutes earlier, 30 45 or 60...I have no real idea; I had been in an aircraft bound for Frankfurt with a jet full of strangers who I would unintentionally delay with my stupidity and my lack of control.
That afternoon, in fact the whole week had been unusually hot and humid. The only thing cold to drink in the mini fridge of Caroline's downtown apartment was the vodka in the freezer. I drank from those bottles freely and on an empty stomach. It was a strange day that would take a horrible turn. I did not know it then, but I was about to crash and burn. I look back on it and see that all the fuel was there, the alcohol the drugs and the ego, and I was standing in the middle and playing with matches.
"So, what kind of drugs did you take?" asked the mustached officer in a somber cracked monotone. I said nothing. I was still woozy and semi conscious but aware enough to know that I was in deep and had better choose my next words carefully. "So, what kind of drugs did you take?" he asked again. I heard the siren of the ambulance as we drove across the tarmac to the nearest emergency room.
It was raining and drops of water the size of fists pounded on the roof of the vehicle. This was not your typical ambulance with white sheets and cabinets. There were no doctors in white or hanging bags of plasma. There was just one dim bulb casting Kafkaesque shadows, the officer on his wooden stool and my drugged body. I needed information as to how much trouble I was in and if I was under arrest. My first explanation to him was that I had had nothing to eat and plenty to drink before the flight. Actually that was true, but the officer suspected, probably just by looking at my dilated eyes that there was more to it than irresponsible drinking. He was right. So he pressed on repeating the same question in his monotone. The only thing we had in common was a mutual desire to be in any of a thousand other places doing anything but what we were doing. However, as I started coming to realize that I was going to a hospital I thought I should tell him about the heroin. After all I would be in the hands of doctors soon and they should have an honest appraisal of my situation. Yes, I would tell him about the one bag of heroin that I had snorted in the bathroom of the plane as passenger were taking their seats and loading belongings into the overhead compartments.
Just the one bag and I inhaled it fast barely having time to notice its dark brown color which was unusual for street dope in New York at the time. However, this was not from the street. It had been given to me but a rather successful screenwriter named Zoë in her kitchen earlier that day. I had been visiting Zoë regularly and trying to recruit her as a writing partner for a talk show pilot to be shot in Europe and LA. She was quite famous for writing drug themed scripts and in the quieter circles it was known that she was still using. I had not been as I had too much responsibility and too much visibility.
We did talk about drugs one afternoon. She got up from the couch where we were sharing tea and went to her bookshelf. There she pulled down an old binder that looked like a dusty family photo album. She held it for a moment to her breast as if it were a living but sad child. Her eyes closed for a private memory and when she opened them she sat down beside me and smoothed out her skirt. She slowly turned back the cover to open her scrapbook and reveal what I suppose was, to her, the equivalent of vacation snapshots. Each page was lined with row upon row and column after column of empty glycine bags. All of them were neatly and evenly spaced with great care. All of them looked quite similar with the exception of the various brand stamps. They had brand names like blue tape, red tape, ballerina, roadrunner, Mercedes Benz, Q-45 and on and on. She would point at one of the empty bags and recall its flavor and the circumstances surrounding its purchase and use. She did not show this book to many people but she claimed that ABC television was aware of it and wanted permission to interview her about it. It was quite a document really and it held a collection of names that had been whispered from the darker doorways of the neighborhood.
On some afternoons an older man in a fishing cap would arrive with a Mc Donald's bag in one hand and a soft drink in the other. We would go to the kitchen and he would spill the contents of bag on the table. Soft drinks and hard drugs … bundles of narcotics on the linoleum tabletop. Every couple of days I had witnessed the same routine and had resisted partaking. Why, well...because I had meetings to go to and people to meet. But today I had thought that just one bag would be OK. It would help me sleep on the long overseas flight. I would wake up in Germany refreshed and ready for POPCOM. I would splash on some 4711 walk through customs and no one would be the wiser.
Now I was entering the emergency room. It was a Saturday night and it was busy. Sounds of crying, moans of pain and general medical clatter filled the area. I was placed on table and a thin green shower curtain wall closed around me. Some earnest young man tore at my sleeve and jabbed a needle in my arm. Above my head institutional fluorescents flickered and I was scared. A large German looking nurse came in to look me over. She explained something to me about what they would do. She wanted to inject a chemical into my system that would immediately negate the opiates in my blood. It would in effect put me into a state of instant withdrawal. What would usually take a few days would happen in an accelerated period of 15 minutes. They lifted a large syringe that had a piss yellow liquid in it and into my arm it went.
After a moment I had a strange burning sensation in my toes. This very painful and unusual feeling started moving slowly up my legs and every inch of my skin that was left in its wake felt burned and felt like it was converting to a hard baked breakable plastic. It is hard to describe but I remember thinking about burning seat belts. It was terrifying and I was convinced that I had been inadvertently poisoned. I bucked in the restraints; I cried and felt so incredibly stupid that this was the way I was going to die. The sensation went up my legs toward my groin. Oh god, please make it stop! However, it continued its slow trip up my body and through my torso until it engulfed my head. Stupid stupid I am so stupid, I screamed silently to myself. The nurse looked on with sorrowful eyes and very aware of the violent chemical reaction taking place in my bloodstream. She did not move although I was pleading with her that I thought something was very wrong. I bucked and arched my back fighting the restraints until I lay there exhausted in a tepid pool of my own sweat and blood.
Soon my gurney was taken out and placed by a wall for observation and so they could decide what to do with me. I felt like a pie being placed on a shelf to cool. After some time an Indian doctor came to speak with me. He told me that I was very lucky and that when I was found that I had zero blood pressure. “How was I feeling?”, he asked. Actually I was feeling quite good. I felt clean, hungry, and anxious to move. This doctor was quite cool. He removed any reference to narcotics from his report. He gave me a doctor's note to present to TWA. An hour later they decided to let me go. They released me out into the streets of Jamaica Queens at midnight. I had bloodstains on my torn shirt and $10 in my pocket. I would now have to call my hostess and explain to her why I had missed the flight and would need her hospitality for one more night.

Kill City

I am out shopping in this vicious and violent world. They say the streets are very unsafe these days. Stay off the streets and get where you have to go by car or taxi. However, I admit that lately, against the advice of family and friends, I have been making brief forays into the city, alone and on foot. The sunlight is too tempting and after all I need my vitamin D, that soluble vitamin that is found in food and can also be made in your body after exposure to solar radiation. The warm fresh air relaxes me but I cannot let my guard down and in this town I can trust almost no one. And as I wander away from the safety of the medical plaza and set further out of reach of its gravitational pull, I have a clear moment of doubt. I am concerned because I am carrying a sizable amount of cash.

Well, all I have to do is make it the three blocks to the next oasis of relative security, the Gallerias, the name of the local mall. These blocks are tree lined and have well appointed houses behind their thick razor wire topped walls. This is actually a good neighborhood but you can't be too careful these days. However, any one who lets their guard down is fair game. I hear stories all the time of strangers being followed and attacked, robbed or worse. It is hard to reconcile the glorious beauty of this day with the potential violence it holds.

Vanessa, the attractive young student who works as an assistant to Dr Machuca, was robbed on her way to the office the other day. She was on the bus during rush hour when the entire bus was hijacked. All were held at gunpoint and all were denuded of any valuables.

Rene the Pixel artist was late to visit a friend at his friend's parent's home. He rang the doorbell and was quickly let in. When his eyes adjusted to the cooler darker light of the salon, he saw the entire family sitting together on the couch surrounded by gunmen. No one was hurt but he lost his precious laptop, an item that in this economy will not be easily replaced.

These are small crimes and the victims can muster wry smiles because they walked away unhurt. In today's world they are hardly worth mentioning I suppose. And I walk, knowing that I am a prime victim and wondering if the D vitamins now synthesizing in my cells was really enough justification for this stroll. I walk and I feel eyes upon me. Most are curious and today none are menacing. Soon the guards of the mall are in sight. They were mushroom colored shirts with large numbers loosely stitched to their shirts. They look underpaid and expendable and I hardly think that any of them would take a bullet for me. On the corner an old man in a straw hat wanders from car to car begging for food money and waiting her turn is an Indian woman with a child in a makeshift sling. Behind this scene is a bill board that states that in fact, that this is a future location of a Staples office supply store. Coming soon...ah yes...it will be soon. Yes, I think to myself, something is coming but I‘ll be damned if I know what it is. I see all this out of the corner of my eye as the glass doors slide open and I step out of the glare and into the controlled atmosphere of the mall and somewhere in Greenland another huge chuck of glacier breaks off and falls into the sea.

Our planet is heating up much faster than any of our most knowledgeable scientists predicted. Just yesterday while wandering along the black sand beach of the Costa Azul I, in my coating of anti-ultraviolet ray lotion, came upon an enormous dying sea turtle. They are dying in large numbers and the reason is as yet unknown. Three buzzards circled in the air above me.

However now I am back in the cool, back in the familiar and though I have never been here before I have been here before. This place is one of those places that stand as a reminder to reread “The Air Conditioned Nightmare”.

I must admit that I do feel secure in the safety of the mall. Air-conditioned and safe surrounded by familiar brands and logos. Nothing is better than the taste of a brand name coffee while checking out the latest designs in jeans, sneakers and weaponry. New weapons… to assist me in protecting my synthetic realities. A weapon to level the playing field should I tip my hand in a careless moment. An arsenal to deal with anyone from the external mall reality, someone who might attempt to burst my bubble. These weapons are expensive and cost real money but if you buy those $250 sneakers you will increase your chances of provoking conflict with a have-not. Such is the price of high style and delusions of relevance.

That bullet proof vest is how much? Ouch…Do you have anything less pricy? Perhaps one that is just a bit less bullet resistant and in a darker shade?