Page 121 - Exile-ebook

120 AN EXILE OF THE MIND A BOXCAR TO PALENQUE 121

I am not taking a souvenir from the Mayan ruins in Chichén Itzá. Me, Rosita, Phil and Russell in our apartment, Mexico City.

Anne’s dress was too small for her and above dark Mexican heads I was was quickly found with the arrival divorcees lived it up in luxury hotels,
didn’t completely cover her thighs. pushed along the sidewalk towards of Russell, a good friend from New waiting for Mexicans who looked like
Arms flailed in argument. We walked black limousines moving slowly Zealand. It was located in a national debonair stars from the 1920s.
away and left them standing there. towards us. A tall figure in an open monument building. A plaque to I dated Rosita, a waitress from
We fancied a break at the seaside. A car extended a large hand which I honour a famous architect was the restaurant, the better to learn the
real-life toreador took us to Acapulco, instinctively grasped. It belonged to displayed proudly on the Spanish language. Working long footsore hours
describing in gory detail the ancient the President of the United States, colonial façade of this classic edifice. she carried plates of food with one
art of bull slaughtering. On returning Lyndon B. Johnson. We paid six months’ rent in advance hand and slapped away unwelcome
to the capital, strumming our newly- That night I invited Ricardo, the to Salvador, our landlord, who was so hands of the patrons with the other.
bought guitars to the amusement of owner of a restaurant I frequented, desperate for money he would have Rosita earned 20 pesos a day,
bus passengers, Anne and I went our to shake the hand that had graced the sold his grandmother for a ten pesos. about US$1.60. Mechanics, insur-
separate ways. hand of the U.S. President. He took Salvador had the Hollywood looks ance salesmen, office workers and
Drawn by a crowd cheering loudly my hand, studied it, turned it palm of a debonair star from the 1920s. secret policemen made up the motley
in the city centre I was jostled along up as if to give me a reading and spat A professional gigolo, disappearing group of regular diners. On Rosita’s
the sidewalk. A motorcade came into in it. Words were not needed. occasionally to the hunting fields rare nights off we would go to Plaza
view. Standing head and shoulders An apartment in the city centre of Acapulco where rich American Garibaldi to listen to the distinct