Maudlin week part 4: Beach parties, scars, and what a smile hides.

The end of 98 was brutal. I had to stop my part time job at the computer lab because it was affecting my grades and the pay wasn’t enough to quit school. I had gone through a major break up with Jean in September, and I didn’t really do well in all subjects. Tampico was always my healing place, like a fortress of solitude.

I was free to move around town and just go and waste money on arcade machines, disappear a whole day at the cinema or just wander on. My cousin started working as an English teacher at a university back then, and she introduced me to her students. The age difference between her and them wasn’t much, so they got along famously. Most of them were my age and there a few nerds in there too, so at least I had someone who could speak my language.

They all had ICQ, which was in style at the time, so we added each other to keep in touch. By 98, my parents had stopped going to Tampico for Christmas and I was the only one doing the trip, mostly to hang with my aunt Tatay, and to check on her too on behalf of my mom.

I always suspected not all of my cousin’s students had good intentions by hanging out with her, and with the wisdom of years, and by being now a teacher myself, I think I was right. Perhaps that’s why I always keep a wide berth with students, I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s a line and it has to be respected.

One thing that my cousin never went to was playadas, which are beach parties at night. As long as you’re in a large group, you’re safe at the beach, and the parties lasted until 5 or 6 am the next day, with a couple of refilling missions carried at the nearby OXXO or 7 11. Breakfast would be dirty and greasy, of course.

In one of those night beach parties, I was feeling a little out of place. Most of the people were pretty friendly in an honest way, and it was easy to pick out the bad apples from the bunch. So I was strolling around, getting offered smokes and italian style burritos (bring them back, OXXO!) when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“You’re Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you or not?”

“Yeah! I meant yeah? as in a short “it’s me”, not as a question, sorry.”

“Okay, so you’re Ed’s convoluted friend.”

“I resent and resemble that remark, I guess!”

“My name’s Sonia. I’m a friend of Ed’s. I’m also on computer science like him.”

“Oh, cool, which semester?”

“Seventh with traces of sixth. You?”

I open a Modelo light and offer it to her. I crack open another one for me.

“Seventh, sixth, and fifth. I’m good at making electronic bits and bobs, not so much at designing on paper. Guess I should’ve gone for a trade school instead.”

She draws a faint smile. One of the cars has a tricked up stereo and we can clearly hear the “doo doo doot!” intro to Third Eye Blind’s semi charmed life.

“It’s the song from the clothes shop.”

“The one in Madero’s centre, right? Hope they paid the rights to use it.”

“I don’t think the band cares about my town.”

We continue talking for a while, bumming drinks from this cooler and that cooler, giving high fives to people and just having a good time.

“Which car are you a riding shotgun?”

“What? You don’t think I drive here?”

“You’re a few beers over tipsy.”

“I’m with Brontolópez on his Mercury Montego.”

“That junker should’ve been crushed three presidents ago. Good driver, though.”

“I agree, but it’s a free ride and he lets me have sips of his flask. What about you?”

“I’m with Nora and Isabella. It’s a Ford Geo tracker.”

“Ah, one of those ‘one speed’ cars?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, you reverse and let it go, that’s the only speed it has. Like a dime racer.”

“I’ll tell Isabella to run you over, see how much you laugh.”

We keep talking about music, mp3s, the best FTP sites to get the latest hits, and what have you, until Nora collects Sonia’s two bottles past tipsy ass and takes her home. We exchange ICQ numbers. Beats paying long distance to Telmex, man.

I hop into Brontolópez car. Ed is downing vodka shots and ranting about América, his fave football team, with Llanero, a friend who hates football but whose hobby is to keep Ed talking about América when he gets way above the drinking limit. Which is not seldom in this town.

Brontolópez steps in the gas while some punk band bellows. Dead Kennedys? Dead Boys? I had little to no knowledge of punk music back then.

“So, new girlfriend?” Bronto lights a Benson & Hedges, which he mistakes for a high falutin’ cig brand.

“Just meeting new people, buddy boy.”

“You keep using ‘buddy boy’? Oh boy, Theresa messed you up then.”

“I told you about Theresa?”

“About 8 fucking times already, dude. I already hate you for being slow there.”

“Things never came through.”

“You gotta push it sometimes, chilango.”

“Oh, name calling, yeah? How many guerras floridas did your people win? Ah, sorry, your fucking historians got skinned alive to appease a hummingbird.”

“Fair play, fair play”

Bronto stops by a burrito joint and sweet talks Ed and Llanero to get fully loaded breakfast burritos. He orders an extra one to bribe my aunt. As Ed and Llanero leave the Montego, Bronto lowers the volume.

“Sam, listen to me. Stay away from Sonia.”

“Why? What’s wrong? Why do people keep telling me to stay away from women this year?”

“Because you gay.”

“What?”

“Kidding, you idiot. But seriously, stay away from Sonia. That’s a bag and a half to carry.”

“I’m getting a little tired of being told what to do, man.”

Bronto looks behind to see if Ed and Llanero are still far.

“Did you see the scars?”

“Which ones?”

“On her face.”

“I thought it was a rash or vitiligo.”

“Her father was a sailor.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Sailors had a bad reputation in some parts of Tampico Madero. Heavy workloads and bad wages made for, let’s say, fragile home lives. Brontolópez starts telling me things he knows from Nora, as they used to be a couple and Nora knew all about Sonia. The more I listen, the more sober I get but I feel like I’m sinking into the cracked vinyl seats of the Montego.

“That fucker did all that? Why didn’t her mum go to the police?”

“It’s Mexico, Sam. Get used to it.”

He offers me a cigarette and I take a couple of puffs. Guess he mixed his grass with tobacco and passed it off as normal smokes. I don’t find it particularly tasty.

“And the scars…the father did it?”

“No, you see, it was a bad night, the dad was yelling at her mom and her younger sister. The mom pushes back and she shoves her so bad she falls to the ground and starts crying. He kicks her once and in comes Sonia with a frying pan and hot oil. She was cooking onions and peppers for dinner.”

“Oh, no.”

“Sonia sees her dad raise his foot again, and without thinking, raises the pan and throws it towards him. Some of the oil falls on her face but she’s overcome by rage. The dad immediately falls down after receiving the hot pan on his face, and Sonia grabs it, burning part of her hands and beats her dad senseless with the pan, more and more burning oil splashing parts of her face. Splotches and freckles that won’t go away sear through.”

“Then what?”

“The police came because of the neighbors and took her to a reform school for two years. Never got proper treatment for the burns. She was an outcast for a while, but once she got to university, some of us tried to talk to her, help her get a new social circle.”

“What about the mom and the smaller sister?”

“They moved away while she was in reform school. Her grandma adopted her.”

“And the dad?”

“Back on boat duty, living somewhere in Lucio Blanco now. Guy’s supposedly afraid of people now.”

“Jesus fuck. Give me another puff, dude.”

He does so and offers me a big sip from the flask.

“Look man, I don’t want you to just terminate your friendship with her, just keep her at an arm’s length. I hear you fall quickly for people. Curb yourself this time, and if things are ok, then go. But I don’t think they’ll ever will.”

“Man, fuck this country…”

“It’s the only one we have. Might as well change it. Walk a higher path, son.”

Ed and Llanero arrive with the burritos. We eat them and they leave me at my aunt’s gaff as she is brewing some strong coffee. I offer her the burrito and asks me if I’m okay. I just sit down and cry and tell her the story. She gives me a hug and tells me to sleep it off.

-Sam J. Valdés López