Puerto Calavera
By Steve Frederick
The web site touting Puerto Calavera
promised sunshine, beaches, several centuries of New World history. But the
first thing Morrow noticed was the police.
They slouched against the walls in Customs and leered at tourist women, loitered
in the streets, filled the beds of unmarked pickups, their weapons always on
display. Only their khaki shirts, bearing gold-embroidered patches, marked them
as cops. Otherwise, they had the look of a guerrilla army—some
pony-tailed, some shaved bald, some wearing headbands or tattoos, some wrapped
in bandoleras heavy with brass cartridges.
In the airport concourse, one peered over a Customs agent’s shoulder, lifting
women’s underwear from open suitcases. Several held back the taxi drivers and
money changers who yammered outside the airport gates. After collecting his
baggage, Morrow waded into the throng and found a cabbie who spoke English.
“Take me to an old hotel,” he shouted. “A quiet place, far from the
casinos.” He threw his pack and duffel into the back seat, then climbed in
beside them. He unzipped a cargo pocket and thumbed through a brochure.
“There,” he said, pointing on a map. “Somewhere near the Mission.”
The driver picked his way through the traffic until he reached a colonial-era
barrio with cobbled streets, pulled up in front of the Playa del Mar Vines
snaked up its stuccoed walls, sprouting crimson blooms. Lizards sunned
themselves on its tiled roof. The owner, Don Francisco Perez, brisk and formal
in a starched shirt and bow tie, sent his sons to shuttle Morrow’s bags.
Francisco’s wife, Eva, inquired about his flight, invited him to join the
family for dinner that evening. After Morrow worked his way through a brief but
good-natured conversation in his schoolboy Spanish, Francisco’s uniformed
daughter, Alejandra, led him to his room.
He unpacked, took in the view from the deck. Even with a light breeze rolling in
from the bay, he found the seaward side of the hotel uncomfortably warm. He
changed into a T-shirt and thin cotton pants and descended the broad mahogany
stairway, settled into a wicker chair in the shaded entry facing the street.
Alejandra, though barely a teen-ager, appeared and took his order for a cold cerveza.
He savored the beer and unwound, studied his brochures, planned visits to two
museums and the ruins of a Spanish fort.
As he sat reading, three barefoot boys ran from an alley kicking at a ball,
their laughter filling the street, sweat gleaming in the gaunt furrows of their
backs. He winced at the collisions of their dark, bony shins. The ball shot past
the porch rail and bounced off the wall behind him.
The boys, suddenly quiet, stood and watched him, their faces lacking expression.
He rose and retrieved the rubber head of a doll, its tufted scalp nearly
hairless, pursed lips worn smooth and pink. He looked into its painted pupils,
smiled and gave it a kick. The three grinned back and gave chase, resuming their
game.
Francisco banged on a window screen, yelled a few sharp words that Morrow
couldn’t understand. The players ignored him. But within minutes, a Jeep
bearing three policemen rounded the corner. "Vaya!" Morrow
yelled. “Go! Go!” The boys fled down the alley. Francisco emerged from the
door and exchanged a few words with the cops, who turned their grim stares on
Morrow. He smiled and shrugged, turning up his palms as if to say, “What can
we do?”
The next morning, he arose early and jogged on the beach, finishing at the
water’s edge in front of the hotel. Wallowing in the luxury of the warm surf,
he laid in the shallows, let the shore break wash over him. After he showered,
Alejandra brought a breakfast of tortillas and scrambled eggs to his deck;
later, he decided to walk to a nearby open-air market. Along the way he passed a
police station, an unpainted cinder-block hut with barred windows. The guard out
front paid him little attention, flashing shiny teeth and a Chinese assault
rifle as he flirted with a pair of teen-age girls.
At the market, Morrow browsed among blankets scattered with handmade wares and
cheap trinkets—sandals,
necklaces, painted wooden boxes. An embroidered cotton pullover appeared to be
his size, but he lost interest quickly as insistent peddlers clustered around,
waving shawls and blankets and shouting their shifting prices. He held up his
hands, repeating, "No, gracias. No, gracias." On his way out of
the plaza, a soccer ball displayed in a booth caught his eye. He spun it on his
fingertip, bought it on a whim.
The next few days brought more guests to the hotel. Morrow plied a German couple
for news from the rest of the world, found himself ignored by a pair of
thick-hipped Latinas. He tried to spend part of each afternoon on the
shaded porch, the ball concealed under the table, waiting for the boys to
return. They didn’t, and on the day he was scheduled to check out, he offered
the ball to Francisco’s sons. The father stepped in and thanked him, but
forbade them to accept it.
“My guests, they don’t care for the noise,” Francisco explained. “Maybe
you give it to the policemen. Tell them from me.”
Morrow tucked the ball under his arm as he entered the cab for the trip to the
airport. When the cab passed the police station, Morrow told the driver to stop.
He took the ball with him, pounded on the metal door. Getting no answer, he
walked around the building. Out back, behind a rotting couch and a truck with no
wheels, a cluster of crows scuttled on the edge of a dumpster, squawking at his
approach. A thin, greasy smoke rose from its depths. He recoiled as the thick
stench of decay hit his nostrils.
A young uniformed gunman burst from the back door, yelling, "Alto! Alto!”
and pointing a shotgun in Morrow’s face. A girl with bare shoulders peered
from a window. The policeman moved between Morrow and the dumpster. Morrow
raised his hands and let the ball bounce in the dust, then tipped his head
toward it, said quietly, "Para ustedes,” and tried a smile.
The officer lowered the weapon and grinned, tapped the ball with his foot to get
it bouncing, kept it in the air with a few deft kicks. He caught it in his palm
and smiled again, cradling it in the crook of his arm. "Gracias,"
he said.
Morrow felt his breath return, heaved a sigh. He nodded and waved and started
walking toward the cab. As he looked back for a moment he nearly stumbled, an
object like a battered orange scooting from between his feet.
He looked down and saw the rubber head of a doll, its long-lashed eyelids shut,
head bare, tiny holes in straight rows piercing its scalp.
Copyright © 2002 Steve Frederick