Xanax, Vodka and Beautiful Women: Another Strange Night on The Border
"I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
- Hunter S. Thompson
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A 3:30am drive in a futile attempt to find tacos instead found a gorgeous girl that I made a passing acquaintance with shortly after I moved here. She was walking down the street with the same half sexy-half in the bag swagger that makes her strangely easy to identify from any angle. Indeed, any angle is appealing with her on a physical level.
She has, like so many in parts of Mexico, lost much to the cartel wars. Her father specifically. She gave up her education in the United States in order to return to Mexico to care for her mother, only to discover upon arrival that her mother was not so bad off as she had been lead to believe and the immigration officer who handled her case "inadvertently" gave her the wrong forms to fill out so she went from a naturalized US citizen to illegal with the same rapidity and slight of hand that David Copperfield makes super models appear and disappear on his private islands.
She lives on the border in more ways than one, trapped in Mexico. A stranger in a semi-strange land. So now she roams the streets of Nuevo Progreso looking for work and chemical escape with the same enthusiasm that I do most of the time. She won't take a position as a dancer in the local clubs she says, because she doesn't want to have to engage in the 'extras' that seem almost mandatory.
Instead she hustles with the best of them, trading one thing for another and selling to tourists too dumb to realize that a beautiful woman offering you a fabulous deal out of thin air is a thing to generally be wary of. Most men don't hold the same paranoia I do, mental illness does have its advantages.
Still, I like her. She is mostly upbeat and despite a hard life she has a strangely positive attitude most of the time. I have seen her at other times. Maudlin, sitting on the street drinking tall boys of Tecate from a brown paper bag, and clearly lost in thought over hardships best not contemplated by the average person. To say that I have a few things in common with her would be an understatement.
She was on her way to buy some pot from an ex boyfriend when I ran into her, and she seemed less than enthusiastic about the prospect. I offered her some vodka and company for a little while to distract her and because its been awhile since Tessa and I had company of any sort in the apartment.
[[Just another night in the deserted streets of Nuevo Progreso, long after the tourists have escaped back across the border.]]
A few twists and turns and a conversation about how people who don't wear their seat-belts are idiots because its such a simple thing that can save your life and we were back at my place. She was already high as a kite, but I figured she could use a bit of calm in the storm. And again, I need to get out and interact with people more. Or in this case bring someone home to listen to their stories.
During our conversation which jumped about but mostly focused on her family issues she said something to me that was almost a word for word quote from one of my favorite films, 'Lord of War'. She didn't quote the film intentionally, which made it all the more sobering.
"Why should I worry about tomorrow when I might end up dead later today?"
She's 20 years old.
That sort of fatalism is usually reserved for veterans' of combat or the occupants of nations beset by constant conflict mixed with an unhealthy combination of war and the AIDS epidemic. Its also usually found in people older than the age of 20. Usually. But here she was, sitting in my apartment explaining to me that one wrong move, one ill-advised association could leave one dead or vanished into the ether just like that. So she doesn't concern herself. Instead of becoming overly cautious she throws it to the wind like an empty cigarette pack from a speeding car and lives each day like it might be her last.
I don't think these circumstances were what the samurai had in mind when they developed the code of Bushido.
In a lot of ways she reminds me of someone who was once, and still is in some ways, very dear to me. Forced to grow up much to quickly due to familial decay, finding solace in chemical escapes, hustling from one deal to the next to stay sober as little as possible, and living with a fatalist worldview that allows for only the slightest occasional happiness. The more we spoke the more it seemed I had found my lost friends Mexican doppelganger.
The prospect was far less entertaining than is typical of finding someone who looks or acts just like someone you know. It was absolutely heartbreaking in a way I'd rather not describe or dwell upon.
We spoke of family a great deal as the chemicals in her system seemed to put her on a much happier and much more manic sensibility. I on the other hand sat mostly and listened. No matter what sort of strange chemical concoction be it medicinal, recreational, or some combination of both usually puts me into a happy yet relaxed state. I have my manic times to be sure, but in this case she was manic enough for the both of us.
Over the course of the later half of our conversation I got the distinct impression that at least part of this gushing about her personal history was simply because most people she deals with don't actually listen. They want to deal with her for one reason or another, just as I did. My reasoning was probably a little different than that which she is usully accustomed and certain behaviors proved that to be at least somewhat true. People want drugs from her, part of one hustle or another. They want sex, she is a gorgeous young woman with little to no shame (I can relate to that, I am after all a non-traditionally somewhat attractive middle aged man, they line up around the block for that action let me tell you...). They want her to get them something, she is well connected. Or they want some combination of those.
It seemed like more than anything, even drugs, what she wanted was to be heard. So I did my best to listen to her tale. Here I have recounted some of it, hopefully not enough to identify her with any certainty, and my impressions of that tale. or tales, she told many stories in our relatively short time together in the small hours of the morning.
This is a short post, as we had a relatively short interaction, but it was one I value. Here along the militarized border between two countries that have not truly been at war since 'Remember the Alamo' was more than just a popular Texas State Fair t-shirt or souvenir bumper sticker I have had many unusual interactions with a variety of colorful characters. Locals, day-tripping Americans, those strange folks who seem to live on both sides of the border truly calling neither home. She certainly stands out among them. She has since the first day we met, when our interaction was much more brief and decidedly 'business' on her part, but what I took away from that I got in spades last night. This is an interesting woman.
She has more than a small element of tragedy to her; in her past and in her personality, but she deals with it in some rather unconventional ways. Some, as I said, remind me far too much of someone I once loved, others are wholly unique. Either way she is as I just described her, wholly unique, and I do hope that her chosen lifestyle doesn't get the better of her because she is one of those people whom the world is better for having in it. Much like that other person mentioned in this article.
[[Tessa, confused and annoyed by the presence of unexpected company in the apatment.]]
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This post and its original content copyright James Radcliff, and has been brought to you by Mexico, tequila, and generally poor decision making. If you would like to donate to support this bizarre little travelogue, feel free to do so via Patreon or PayPal. As always, this strange and debaucherous adventure has been brought to your screen by viewers like you. Thank you.
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