Did You Ever Want to Be Anyone Else?
Did You?
The Story: Easy Rider meets The Quiet American and both dance with Little Miss Sunshine.
How to Choose a Psychologist: I ask you, “What possible good can any psychologist be to you if she can’t– out of nowhere, out of nothing, ‘back into’ a magical world and have the most take-my-breath-away fabulous gift of a night?”
Last night the evening of my Accidental Miracle begins when I step out of the Mexico City Hilton and wedge my body into the sidewalk crowd. I wave good-by to English speakers, face recognizers, and the many watchful cameras placed on every corner of the deluxe haven of safety.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Within six blocks, the dark skies boom with thunder then open and dump paintball-sized big drops all over everyone. Perfect. Still I don’t reverse, zip up to the executive lounge, and order a fine wine or a sandwich. I weave my way along, a soaking segment in an endless tired and hungry beast. The rain is too dense for me to miss the potholes, but I can clearly read the question in the eyes of the tiny man next to me: “What’s wrong with you, lady?”
I’m a tourist boob on a quest. Out there beyond the rain, in one of the hundreds of look-a-like cubicles on the street that sells only eyeglasses, Isaac, the glass grinder, and Arturo, Isaac’s popup ad who’d snagged me off the street, wait for the blond loco lady who’d ordered four replicas of her US assembled $400 a pair glasses. Isaak charged $41 a pair. Who wouldn’t ignore silly newspaper stories for that kind of savings?
I arrive. “Aye, so sorry, Miss. Just one more hour, Isaac promises…” for you lady, for sure.”
Of course he does. “What’s wrong with me?”
I slog out into the ankle deep water. I’m only a few blocks away from the religious articles stores behind the great Cathedral I wrote about in The Mercy, so I linger. Three blocks later the sky is falling. The sky is falling!
“What’s wrong with me?” The fancy Italian scarf (bought in Vegas from a Honduran) is now a giant slime pile of pink degenerating on my head.
“What’s wrong with me? It rains here in Mexico City every day, you, lady, have gone out walking at this time of day for six days in a row and guess what? It’s pouring down and you, for the sixth time, did not remember your umbrella!”
Also, by now I’m lost. I could have collected my bearings by spotting the LatinoAmericana Tower if I didn’t drown from the rain when I looked up. Finger creeks roil above my ankles. Yea flip-flops! I didn’t have the courage to even look up and hope to spot the dang tower. I was done.
I tramp through puddles splashing my hideously saggy black jeans, the pockets over-stuffed so that I look like a weird chicken with a disease of the middle area. I don’t carry a purse. I’m not responsible enough for a purse. Obviously. Every other woman has a purse. And an umbrella.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Now the skies boom and water chunks hit the top of my head so hard I gulp. I give up hope of progress and back into a space under a wine-colored awning. Some kind of elite restaurant, not the kind who will tolerate a soggy jeaned woman with some kind disease of the middle area hanging around. The owner or more likely one of the seven thousand circulating policemen will soon come and poke me along my way.
More rain. Harder. How long can I stand here trying to look like I am totally surprised by the rain?
There’s a man next to me watching the rain, too. I attempt nonchalant Spanish and further affirm my tourist boob status.
I am so intent on squinting as if I’m just about to take off, I didn’t recognize the shoulder tap at first. When I did, I turned, expecting to blather an apology and be along my way. Instead, the owner of the house, Juan Paz, invited me to come inside for a coffee on the house.
Juan Paz just happens to be the owner of this house—this that just happens to be the house of General and later Presidente Santa Anna. Yes. I cannot breathe. That Santa Anna. I’ve just been offered a coffee on the house—a coffee on Santa Anna’s house
Anyone who knows me, has read The Mercy, has heard me speak, or has sat next to me on an airplane knows that the histories of Texas, the Southwest, and Mexico are my favorites literary subjects of all time. And I’d just backed into the real house of Santa Anna. For non-Texans, General Santa Anna was the Mexican officer who defeated the Texians (not a misspelling, that’s how they spelled it) at the much ballyhooed Alamo. Yes, that Santa Anna.
Juan Paz sees that I’m glowing. I tell him I’ve written about Mexican history in The Mercy and Too Rich and Too Thin, Not an Autobiography and he gives me the private tour. I take way too many photos babbling gratitude the whole time and my hands shaking so bad I don’t have much faith in the pictures. I sit at the majestic dining table of Santa Anna. The ceilings are forty feet high. Etched glass doors. We stepped out onto the balcony (the original where Santa Anna spoke to the people).Here Juan Paz plays an air violin and I spoil the moment with a few bars of La Paloma belted to the tune of Tanya Tucker’s Delta Dawn.
Easy Rider is part of this story because of a scene in a smoky cave where glassy-eyed Dennis Hopper says to Peter Fonda, “I was thinking about something. Have you ever wanted to be anyone else?”
Peter says, “No.”
Dennis says, “Me neither. I never wanted to be anyone else.”
I stood there on the balcony of Presidente Santa Anna’s house and knew exactly what Dennis Hopper meant.
The Quiet American (movie from a Graham Greene novel taking place in Vietnam in the sixties) comes in during my walk back to the Hilton in the light rain. About a dozen blocks from my Hilton home: “Pop! Pop!”
In The Quiet American Michael Caine (playing a crusty journalist) leans across the bar and assures Brendon Frasier (playing an American spy pretending to be an American ‘advisor’) after they’ve both heard loud pops. Caine says, “Don’t worry, my man. After a few weeks here you will be able to tell the automobile backfires from the gunshots.”
It’s true. You can. And of course the gunshots are followed with unbelievable quickness by police sirens and ambulances. Here, not only do the vehicles have disco-level lights and dat-da-dat sirens, they use wildly amplified microphones to tell people to get out of the way. “Policia! Adelante! Por favor, rapido! Ahora! Por Favor!” Yep, they’re screaming into a mike, sirens, flashing lights–and still they are saying “please” that is, “por favor!”
The idea of using polite requests while zooming to a shooting strikes me and I realize I’m grinning as I pass the little fella you see here sitting in the rain playing his tunes like the whole world was listening. I’d seen the boy playing there in the morning so he’d been there all day and now into the night. Between his tiny bare feet was a plastic cereal bowl with a few coins.
I struck up a deal to take his picture for what was to him a considerable stash of folding money. He stuck out his hand for upfront payment, his eyes dancing. I could almost hear him later, “Mama, I have . . . . I really do!” After he’d grabbed the bills, he stood up suddenly. He scoured the street left and right. Then he turned his back to me and stuffed the bills in his underwear. He sat back down and began to play. No way he was leaving folding cash out in the openness of his little collection pan.
I took this foggy photo and strolled up to the sophisticated glowing entrance to the Hilton.
You’d think the night would be out of miracles, but you’d be off by one. The little boy ran up behind me and shoved something in my hand. The angel slipped quickly into the wet night. The bracelet you see was his gift.
Values at probably a dollar on this street but there is no price high enough.
Here’s where the movie Little Miss Sunshine comes in. It’s the night before the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant. Olive (Abagail Breslin) who ended up a contestant through an error has no chance of winning and a strong chance she will be humiliated. She’s not the prettiest or the best dressed. At some level she knows she’s not like the other girls and is afraid. Olive asks her grandfather (Alan Arkin) if she’s a loser. Grandpa says, “A real loser is someone who’s so afraid of not winning he doesn’t even try.”
