Changes in Latitudes Read online

  One thing I saw right away: this end of town where we were going was Mexico, not a transplanted piece of America. The streets were narrow and packed with little shops and restaurants, and the Mexicans outnumbered the gringos two to one. I didn’t know how I felt about that. But then I sensed it was making my mother uncomfortable, and I started to get into it.

  The Sol Mar turned out to be right at the beach and it didn’t look half-bad. There were two wings, one along the beach and one facing the side street where we drove in. Four stories, hundreds of rooms, and every one had big sliding glass doors that opened out onto a balcony.

  “Cuánto?” my mother asked the driver, blowing a quarter of her Spanish vocabulary.

  “Cuatro mil pesos,” he answered.

  Teddy, Jennifer, and I got out and stood around stretching and looking it all over. At the top of the stairs into the hotel, two guys in cheesy uniforms were checking us out.

  “We survived,” Jennifer said.

  My mother fumbled in her purse and came up with four hundred pesos. I had a feeling that wasn’t right, but I couldn’t remember what mil meant.

  Our driver shook his head with a big smile. He wasn’t upset or anything. “Cuatro mil,” he repeated.

  When he saw how confused Mom was, he wrote out the number 4000 for her on a slip of paper.

  “How much is that, Travis? I can’t think.”

  “Around twenty-five bucks.”

  She was sick, too stunned to close her mouth. The driver waited patiently. When he wasn’t behind the wheel he was the most laid-back guy you’ll ever meet.

  My mother wasn’t going to let him rip her off. She spied an older gringo couple coming out of the hotel and told me to go ask them what it should cost.

  “Cuatro mil pesos,” I told her when I returned. “Twenty-eight bucks.” Then I added, just for fun, “Two dollars apiece if you take the van.”

  Meanwhile, the driver had taken our bags out of the trunk. I was watching Mom pay him off, and before I knew it the two guys in the cheesy uniforms had their hands on our luggage and were starting for the stairs. “Hey, hold on there Jackson—no gracias!” I yelled.

  That got their attention. There was no way I was going to let them get away with carrying our bags thirty feet and get paid for it.

  I couldn’t recall the Spanish, so I pantomimed “we” and “carry.” These guys looked at me like I was a complete fool, dusted off their tarnished dignity, and retired to the top of the steps.

  As we took up our bags we were caught in the full bloom of Number 22’s exhaust. He ought to have his catalytic converter and his pollution control valve looked at.

  The lobby was practically empty. On the right was a long counter with three clerks behind it, two young men and a young woman. They didn’t seem to see my mother at the desk holding her reservations in one hand, her phrase book in the other.

  “Perdón—excuse me—yo tengo una reservación por cuatro.”

  They didn’t pick up on that.

  “What’s ‘today,’ Travis? You took Spanish.”

  “Flunked it,” I said cheerfully. “But I think it’s ‘hoy’—something like that. Say ‘para hoy’—‘for today.’”

  “Yo tengo dos cuartos para hoy,” she said.

  One of the men looked at her and said in perfect English, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any rooms available.”

  “There must be some mistake,” Mom told him. “We have two rooms reserved for five nights starting tonight and we already paid for the first two nights.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “but we don’t have any rooms. When you get home you can get a refund through your travel agent.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Mom said. “We had a reservation—I’d like to see the manager.”

  “Sorry,” the man told her. “I am the manager.”

  Dog-tired and demoralized, we retreated into the lobby. “What are we going to do now, Mom?” Teddy wondered in a shaky voice.

  Right about then a young guy walked up to us. A gringo. He couldn’t have been much older than me. He wore a blue T-shirt that said “Punta Tours” and had a leaping marlin on it. He had a mess of brochures in his hand.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Mom. “I think I can guess what happened to you up there. Maybe I can help.”

  She looked him over. Instinctively, she didn’t like him. I think I felt the same way—I don’t remember. There was something about him pretty flaky around the edges.

  “You had a reservation,” this guy went on, “probably paid in advance, and didn’t get a room?”

  “That’s right,” Mom said impatiently.

  “Happens all the time down here.”

  She looked away from him and over to us and said, “Let’s go find another place to stay.”

  “That’s going to be hard to do,” he said quickly. “They’re usually all full. Of course, you could try the Strip.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The high-rise American hotels up the beach a few miles—you probably saw them on your way in. But they start at a hundred dollars a night.”

  “A hundred dollars?” Teddy said, big-eyed.

  “Per room of course.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” Mom demanded.

  “Just ask if there aren’t some other rooms, if yours are full. Pull out twenty dollars while you’re talking and say you wouldn’t mind spending a little extra to get into something a little more expensive, because you really like the hotel.”

  “I’m catching on,” Mom said wearily, and started off.

  “What happens to people who don’t get a room?” I asked him.

  “They pound the pavement, maybe sleep back at the airport. Usually they find a place to stay the next morning. Sometimes they just go home.”

  While he was talking to me, he was checking out Jennifer.

  “Do you live here or something?” I asked.

  “I’ve been down here for … almost a year. I work for Punta Tours.”

  He handed Jennifer a brochure, gave her a smile. “We’ve got bus tours, fishing trips, snorkeling, diving….”

  “Sounds really good,” she said brightly. “That’s the kind of stuff we want to do.”

  Mom was back with keys, a whole lot happier. “Money talks!” she said.

  “Got your rooms—good deal. Well … maybe I’ll see you around. Name’s Bill.”

  “Thanks a whole lot,” my mother said. “We really appreciate it.”

  “Sure—glad I could help.”

  POOR MOM. When she turned the key and first entered her room, she stepped on a cockroach. It made the most exquisite crunching sound you can imagine. I had to crack up.

  Poor Mom. A world-class beauty who could put the most splendid females in the jet set to shame, she somehow finds herself the mother of three, married to an unambitious, downwardly-mobile junior high school science teacher, and mired somewhere below the middle of the middle class. Her first-ever tropical vacation finds her herding her kids to Mexico on a budget. She’d like to be in the Greek islands gracing the deck of a yacht.

  Teddy and I liked our room just fine. It was bright and spacious and we had it all to ourselves. From the balcony we looked out on the edge of town, the ocean, and the mountains. Quite a sight. Rock ’n’ roll loud enough to energize the whole city poured out from under one of the palm-thatched roofs of the open-air huts they call “palapas” down on the beach. Imagine “Twist and Shout” in a Spanish accent. The funkiest aspect of our view was the block right across the street from us. Behind a stone wall a few families lived in small cinder-block houses and had a regular farm with gardens, papayas, and coconut palms, and chickens running around. Teddy really liked that. Dad would have liked it too. It would have made him feel more comfortable about being down there. I think he had the idea it was all going to be like the Strip.

  We heard a shriek through the wall and I ran over to see if Mom or jennifer had been savaged or something. It seems my mother got in on the last thirty seconds of hot water the Sol Mar was going to offer in the next week, and then found out about the normal state of affairs the hard way.

  At breakfast the next morning the waiter brought Mom a note. She read it and tucked it in her purse. When Jennifer asked her what it was about, she said it was from the airline. Something about our flight back needed to be fixed up, and she’d take care of it during the morning.

  We spread out our beach towels, all four of us, a little ways down from the hotel. Cooing over her baby, Mom lathered Teddy with sunscreen right away. “He’s nine years old,” I reminded her. “He can do that for himself.”

  She’s quick. “I should have packed your swimming suit for you, Travis.”

  “You didn’t bring much of one yourself,” I said with a grin.

  She just glared at me.

  “What’s wrong with cut-offs?” I snapped. “They’re good enough for Dad.”

  She glared at me again.

  “So, am I not supposed to mention his name? Is he dead, or what?”

  Jennifer the peacemaker stepped between us right on cue. “Travis, please….”

  “Have you noticed any beachwear inspectors around here, Jennifer? I’m not the one making an issue out of nothing.”

  My mother heaved a sigh and smiled. “From what I’ve been told, they do have an attitude inspector. Fifteen years in a Mexican jail for bad attitude.”

  I like her when she’s like that. She had me on the ropes.

  “Let’s all get along, Travis, please. Let’s make this a perfect vacation.”

  Teddy’s and Jennifer’s eyes were saying the same thing.

  “Hey, I’m cool,” I said. “Pass the lotion—I’m thirsty.”

  After awhile my mother took off on her errand. Jenn
ifer offered to go with her. “No,” Mom said, “it might take all morning just to find the place. You guys enjoy yourselves. If you’re not here I’ll look for you in the hotel.”

  The beach was filling up. About half the people were Mexicans, mostly families with lots of kids running around screaming and playing soccer with their beach balls. Most of the gringos were over fifty. This scene wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

  I asked Jennifer to stay with Teddy while I had a look around. She was on to me. “Cruising for foxes?” she teased.

  I found one down at the very end of the beach, where the sand runs out as the bay turns a corner and the surf smashes into the rocks. She was lying on her back with her top off, erasing those unsightly tan lines. There was nobody down there but me and her, and she didn’t know about me. I was close by in the rocks, as inconspicuous as the crabs.

  She was a spectacular attraction. Punta Blanca should put her on the billboards.

  I racked my brain for how I might approach her. “Great place, isn’t it?” “Mind if I lie down?” “Can I help you with that lotion?”

  Before I thought of the right line, she put on her top and left. But I was sold on Punta Blanca.

  MOM’S ERRAND did take her all morning. Aero Mexico had discovered computers, she said, but not how to use them.

  And I believed her. I didn’t doubt for a minute that she had just spent the entire morning on a fool’s errand. If we hadn’t been in Mexico I might have suspected something sooner. But I was as naive as Teddy and Jennifer, enjoying my last hours of innocence.

  In the afternoon I checked the end of the beach for my sunbather. Three times. Probably she’d left on an airplane.

  With her gone I soured fast on our beach. In the evening, the rock ’n’ roll started up again and I went down there to see what was happening, but I found out only the Mexicans went there at night. I stayed only long enough to verify that you can buy beer in Mexico without an I.D. It’s good stuff, too.

  The next morning found us on a walking tour of the old town, which Mom’s guidebook described as an “absolute must” for local color.

  I thought I’d hate it, but the guidebook was right. There’s so much to look at, you see only a fraction of what’s going on. A vendor offering all kinds of fruit I’d never even heard of peeled oranges, one after the other, with a razor-sharp knife the size of a machete. I tried one. It didn’t taste anything like an American orange. Once you eat a Mexican orange, you realize that ours are victims of a conspiracy. Over the years, only the ones with less and less flavor have been allowed to reproduce, until there’s no flavor at all.

  Right next to the vendor there’s a stand with dozens of whole chickens revolving on spits, and shish-kabobs of pork and beef. The locals are chowing down but you’re not supposed to eat it. It looks great and smells so appetizing you can’t stand it and have to move on.

  But the bakery is two doors down. No American bakery smells that good. Come to think of it, nobody goes around smelling American bakeries.

  We followed our noses inside. From a huge brick oven at the back of the shop a man was fishing out fresh loaves with a long-handled scoop. The guidebook says everything there is perfectly safe to eat. We went crazy, grabbed one of this and three of that, and ended up with two loaves of bread and at least a dozen rolls filled with jellied fruit. Everything was still warm. I handed the guy up front a thousand peso note. He gave me nine hundred and twenty back. All that for less than a dollar.

  The indoor-outdoor cafes were everywhere. There was one right next to the bakery. We chose a table by the sidewalk and gorged on the pastries. Mom and I had coffee, so rich I have to wonder if the Latin American countries ship their used grounds north, and we’re too stupid to figure it out.

  We giggled and joked our way through the streets, actually having a good time together. Ordinarily I can’t stand browsing in shops, but the colorful stuff they dangled out front lured me in behind the other three, and I was hooked. If I’d had the money I would have bought everything from the hand-woven rugs and the abalone-inlaid jewelry boxes to the ceramic birds and the onyx eggs. Everything in those shops was a work of art, even the junk.

  At one of the shops Teddy tried out his Spanish and asked, “Dónde esta tortugas?” or “Where are the turtles?” A day had passed and he still didn’t know where to find the nesting beach. The shopkeeper was confused for a moment, then sent his son out with some kind of instructions about tortugas.

  A big stuffed sea turtle came through the door a few minutes later with a small boy’s legs moving underneath. I was impressed—I didn’t have any idea how beautiful they are. This one was gold and brown, with a streamlined, heart-shaped body, large front flippers, and head forward just like he was swimming. You’d never know his eyes were glass. Everything about him was smooth and clean and symmetrical. Whoever the taxidermist was, he did a great job.

  As soon as I saw the turtle I started thinking, maybe I could chip in with some of my spending money and help Teddy out. The only problem would be, it’s two feet long and maybe we couldn’t get it home without breaking it.

  But Teddy wasn’t thinking about buying the thing at all. Wonder was written all over his face all right, but that quickly gave way to dismay as he said softly, “That was a hawksbill.”

  Then I remembered the display at the airport.

  After the shopkeeper figured out he’d misguessed Teddy’s request, he tried again, and directed our attention to a number of clear plastic bottles on the counter. They were filled with an off-white cream. “Esta?” he asked, handing me one. It had a picture of a sea turtle for its logo.

  “It’s very good for the skin,” he said.

  I could see Teddy was taking this personally, getting worked up about it.

  “Ah … muchas gracias,” I told the man. “Buenos días”

  “Lighten up,” I told Teddy as we left. He wasn’t saying anything and he looked pretty down-in-the-mouth.

  In the next place we split up, and I found something I knew I had to have as soon as I laid eyes on it: a stuffed frog on a wooden pedestal, a huge stuffed frog standing on its hind legs and playing the bongo drums. When I saw it up close I realized it was a real frog—that’s what made it so perfect. Somebody had actually skinned a bullfrog and stuffed him in this crack-up pose with the drums. I couldn’t believe it. He was mine in a minute.

  I found Teddy across the shop. He was tapping one of two middle-aged American women on the shoulder. They were standing by a pyramid of turtle lotion bottles on a counter.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the woman with several bottles in her hand. “You can’t take that back to the United States.”

  She was sure surprised to hear something like that out of the mouth of a little kid. “Oh?” she said.

  “Why not?” asked the second woman matter-offactly, with a twinkle of amusement.

  This was going to be too good to interrupt, so I hung back.

  “Because it comes from an endangered species,” Teddy said earnestly.

  “Come to think of it….” the second woman said.

  “They’ll take it away from you,” Teddy added.

  The first one was thinking fast. “We won’t get one for Miriam, and we can use ours here.”

  Teddy was slow to react. He didn’t know if he should let them off the hook or not. The first woman was hopeful, but then he spit it out. “You see, as long as people buy it they’re going to keep making it.”

  That did it. The first woman leaned down and started getting loud. “Well, they sure don’t seem to be endangered. This lotion is all over the place,” she blathered, waving one of the bottles in his face, “and there’s turtle soup and turtle steak in every restaurant!”

  This outburst happened to fall on the ears of Mom and Jennifer, who’d just entered the shop. They appeared on the scene just as I had decided to make my move.

  Mom made it for me. “Excuse me,” she said, and pulled Teddy back.

  “I can’t believe this child is lecturing us about turtles,” the first woman huffed.

  “Well, I think he’s right,” her friend announced decisively. “We shouldn’t buy it.”

  “Speak for yourself, Betty.”

  The two women left, upset with each other. But without any lotion, I might add.