I had this dream or nightmare or whatever you want to call it.  It was early in the morning.  I was walking with a small cup of coffee in my left hand, and my surfboard under my right arm.  I was headed for a surf.  The plan was to do some light stretching on the shore, and enjoy a cup of joe.  I walked upon a riff between a big wave Gringo Guy from Texas, and a notorious, bad news, Gringo Guy that has been around these parts for the better part of the last 20 years.  The Gringo Surfer Guy is real cool and calm.  The Gringo Asshole Good For Nothing Drug Guy probably has more dirty tricks up his sleeve than you could even imagine.  I just put my head down and walked past it.  I thought it might get ugly.  And if it got ugly today, it would get uglier tomorrow.  And if for whatever reason it didn’t get uglier tomorrow, there would be a day, down this short road of life, where it would get Mother Fucking Ugly.  Eye for an eye kind of ugly. Like I said, I didn’t want to even be remotely associated with any of it.

Here’s where I totally blew it though.  Moments later, while stretching etc., I see Cheeto walking towards me.  Well not towards me, but in my direction.  This guy is a bad ass.  Normally I wouldn’t look at him either.  You almost can’t.  This guy has a tropical glare to his eye that will work you into submission.  But since this was a dream or a nightmare, I decided to engage Cheeto.  “Hey what’s up Cheeto?  Hey look man, I’m a writer.  I am in the process of doing a book of sorts about the surf culture here in Puerto Escondido.  You’re obviously a big part of that.  I know you’ve seen some shit go down out here.  I was hoping maybe we could sit down and talk.  Maybe I could take a few pictures.  Stuff  like that.”  I do have recall of being popped in the face with a right elbow.  My cat like reflexes prevented my already crooked nose from catching the blow. He still caught me good on the lower part of my forehead.  He then walked away with my surfboard, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

I have a hard time minding my own business here.  I say here, because I most definitely mind my own business in my country of birth, yet the manner by which I refer to minding my own business in the US, is NOT minding your business here.  

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You see a GIANT man made ladder.  A ladder made by the 20 laborers on a particular construction site.  You are blown away by it.  You have to see it up close.  A pack of three laborers are close by.  You tell them how awesome it is.  They are out of Coke and take it the wrong way.  You wish your Spanish Brother George were here. 

You see an adorable pit bull puppy, and have to see it.  You begin explaining to this owner that you are a dog whisperer, even though you are not.  Not at all actually.  So you are lying to a stranger about their dog.  They don’t understand you and pull their dog away thinking you are going to steal it.  They tell their big brothers.  

You begin wondering why the most popular yoga studio isn’t so popular any longer.  You find out why.  You see the owner of that yoga studio.  You ask her how business is going.  She has an intuitive feeling that you already know the answer.  She is right.  You sense that you are in trouble.  You ask how bout them Cowboys?

You tell Tino that you are feeling sick.  He thinks that Mexicans make you sick.  You sense that you are talking on thin ice.  You try to explain that it’s just different here.  Different bugs.  Different air.  Different flora and fauna.  Different food.  Now he and his wife think you don’t like the food they have been making you every morning.

You see someone here that could be considered a friend.  You notice his dog isn’t in the backyard.  You ask where’s his dog is.  Right there!  Can’t do that here.  It gets you in trouble.  It’s goes beyond not minding your own business.  It encroaches on meddling in someones business.  Meddling is really, really bad.  Shame on me.

  

I finally made out.  I’ve been getting ding donged and taken advantage of night and day around here.  For years.  Just yesterday it appeared there was a 30% discount on Special K cereal.  Love Special K.  I get up to the register, and it was full price.  I say, “No descuenta?”  She rattles off three hardliners of tomfoolery where I probably needed to buy two and the third one would have been 30% off.   Or maybe that my next visit I would receive my discount.  Who knows.  In the States, I would have said that I didn’t want it, even if it meant that the checker had to, “God Forbid” cancel out a transaction on the computer.  Wouldn’t even phase me.  I might even wink and ask the checker if she could give me the discount anyway.  “Cmon Lady, you know it’s Corporate Pricing Trickery!”

In my heavily Minoric position,(i guess Minoric should mean a human being of a certain color that is not the same color as just about everybody else) you just take your lumps.  This is a good one too:  I went to buy one fork, one knife, and one spoon.  In the States I would just rip them off from my favorite(or not so favorite) restaurant.  And I’d be doing them a favor.  Ask me why another time.  Needless, I don’t steal here.  OK so fork, knife, spoon.  I spot a 10peso bin.  I pull a fork, a cutting knife,(both matching and w/ wood handles) but can’t find a spoon.  On the shelf above, there is a set, and packaged as so.  Bingo!  Had to be 30p so I thought.  35 at the most.  Of course there was no listed price.  I get to the register, and they ring up as 51p.  50 fucking 1.  Like I said…Lumps.

But Alas!  Long overdue.  It went down like this:  Today I stopped into my favorite fruit stand.  I bought two bananas, two apples, and six oranges.  The nine year old, on what appeared to be her first hour on the job, in what was clearly too small of a plastic bag, put the bananas on the bottom and everything else on top.  Bananas ripen quickly here.  They don’t any help help by getting smushed by fellow fruits.  I saw the bananas going in first and just had to laugh.  Again.  Then the mother tells me that it’s like 27 pesos.($2.25)  I just knew that was way too high.  But what’s a white guy to do except pay The Indian.  And that’s what I did.  I gave her 50 pesos.  She gave me back 73 pesos in change.  I looked left.  I looked right.  I exited straight the fuck out.  Heavens to Mergatroid.

          

This is what was up on this particular day.  Nothing premeditated about it, which would seem obvious.  It’s just how it all went.  I had heard about a place that sells blocks of ice, and apparently I wanted one.  A half block actually.  Media Barra de Hielo.  But all one word.  And said very fast.  That’s what I needed, and I decided to find it via bicycle.  Thinking ahead, I grabbed a backpack, and both plastic-zippered thingies that protected the two new pillows that I had purchased years back.  These thingies, when not being used to transport a half block of ice, slip perfectly over my Peavy speakers, when not in use.  Basically US landfill.  So I folded up both of those, put them in my backpack, and soft pedaled off on my piece of shit bicycle in search of a half block of ice.

It was midday, with some cloud cover.  I knew about where to go, and took the back way to avoid too much time spent on the highway.  This meant a lot of soft pedaling up steep cobbled roads and the like.  I had to stop into a ModeloRama for a sixty cent ice cold Corona, but more importantly, to hang out inside the ModeloRama and soak in the AC.  You have to drink the beer there anyway so that you can return the bottle.  Might as well spend that time inside a cold room.  Wouldn’t you agree?  Anyway, I did ultimately find the place I was looking for.  Pretty cool spot.  Pun.  I rode up to a couple of hombres who looked pretty cool.  Pun.  I was soaking wet.  Ice was everywhere.  I had flashbacks of my days w/ Champion Nutrition.  Couldn’t tell you why though.

“Media Barra Por Fa”, I said.  “Where you gonna put it Jackass?”  Well I told them I was first gonna put it in this thingie, and then that thingie, and then in my backpack.  They both laughed, and If I had any idea what they told me, I would have known that they were saying that I needed a Quartito and to go pay the lady over there, and come back with your receipt and we will have the quarter block ready.  So that’s what I did.  And surprisingly, that’s what they did too.  Being the hero that apparently I already was in their eyes, I said a couple outlandish things and soft pedaled off with a quarter block of ice on my back.  First time for me.  Despite being that additional 20 kilos to muscle around on a piece of shit bicycle, I must say the freezing cold felt nice on my back.

I stopped by my favorite dude that sells coconut water out of his red van.  That’s where I learned what the word heavy was in spanish.  Because that is how the ice felt on my back.  Pinche Pesado!  For the first time EVER, my guy asked if I wanted Dulce or Simple.  Well Dulce is the way to go around here if you ask me.  It’s loaded in sugar, and ICE cold.  But I told him Simple just to go opposites.  That would be straight coconut water.  Still super cold.  He makes it in advance and it’s sold out of those giant plastic chingaderas.  But anyway…since I’ve become addicted to his Dulce, the simple wasn’t cutting it for me.  So he told me to slam half of it, and then he will fill it again with half Dulce.  I soft pedaled off, one handed, drinking coconut water with ice on my back.

The End

      

White Man of Leisure can be is a fragile state of affairs in Puerto Escondido.  You’d have to walk a couple miles in my flip flops to feel what I feel.  White Man of Leisure sure better mind his P’s and Q’s if he knows what’s best for him.  You see, Every Mexican around here is working in the hot sun.  And not like one might work in The States…you know checking their cell phone every five minutes and texting all day long.  No, these people are actually working.  And for not a lot of money.  And I know it.  And they hope I don’t know it.  But I know it.  And lately, it’s all been extra right in front of me.  So when one White Man of Leisure strolls by a 55 year old laborer carrying buckets of sand up the hotel stairs where WMoL is living, and Whitey has to do that everyday in every way, then one White Man better figure out how best to do it.

Word somehow got out that I was in the market for an Igloo.  You know, a cooler.  In my case a fridge.  A dime a dozen where you live, but a coveted money maker here in the tropical frontier.  Expensive buggers so I have found.  I’ve come to admire them in a whole new light actually.  I can’t imagine how many perfectly good Igloos, you know, coolers, are going unused and unwanted in the USA.  You would never, and I mean ever, spot a cooler going unused here in Puerto Escondido.  No way Jose.

He drove up beside me in his 1982 Ford F250.  The windshield was so cracked that you could barely see through it.  This beater wouldn’t last 15 miles in The States before being given a fixit ticket or impounded.  He said he needed a favor.  I had a full, hot coffee in my hand.  His dog and daughter were both in the front seat.  He told me to get in anyway.  He said he was low on funds and was looking to “sublet his Cooler”  The cobbled road that led us to this cooler was bumpy.  I protected my coffee.

There it was.  I was told that this Igloo has seen 20+ years in Puerto.  Used for weeks upon months at the most secret surf spots, under the most gnarly conditions imaginable.  He then went into a story about a two week trip back in the 90’s to Barra de  la Cruz.  Blocks of Ice.  1000’s of beers.  Hot Dogs.  Burgers.  The whole 9.  I was like “Yeah Yeah, how much?”  I got the ‘You’d be doing me a big favor’ spiel one last time, and then he said 800p.  It was a fair price, so I paid it.  Included delivery.