I ask about the house fire. His phone is equipped with a police scanner, and whenever disaster strikes, he scrambles out to take photos. But all the fires have been the same, he laments. "I'm waiting for a certain type of fire." He's writing a book. The details are vague. From his familiarity with Detroit, I would've assumed him a long time local - turns out he commutes every weekend from Ohio to pick amidst the rubble. Apparently Detroit's not his only stop. "Dearborn is my Disneyland," he says.

We pile into my rental, a miniature Fiat. It takes some finagling before the chaser can fit. Here in the heart of american muscle and I'm stuck with the J-Lo mobile. You'd expect some more chunk in the trunk.

I'd been milking him for a little more direction - a list of his favorite spots. An itinerary of some sort. When none was forthcoming, I asked him which was the hardest to get into. He took me to Fisher.

The old plant sits on Piquette, neighbored by a few large scrap yards and factories. Windows are broken, fences rent apart. It may have been difficult to enter at one point, but today, as we scout the southern side, we see a large breach in its decaying hull. It looks like someone's driven a truck through. "That's new," the chaser says. Apparently he visits these sites often - taking notes on their progression or regression, like some sort of foster father. He can tell you when they became abandoned, when they caught fire, at what point things started disappearing from inside, and when the building was finally demolished.

Inside Fisher is a glimpse of the past. The framework of old machinery still stands - paint sheds, assembly conveyors, lifts, hoists, joists. "This was a Kahn building." Taggers have painted over what windows remain, and the light that shines bathes the scene an eery blue. From the ceiling hang thousands of snot-like stalactites. The chaser reads my gaze. "Calcium carbonate. Water seeps through cracks, combines with chemicals in the air and concrete, and these things form."

On the roof we stand and survey the scene. "That's Russell Street." He's pointing a fat finger toward a large warehouse district. "It's been converted into an arts studio." It is a rare example, I will soon learn, of salvaged space. The finger swings toward downtown - "there was a skyscraper there, a skyscraper there, Majestic there, Ford auditorium there. That one, that one, and that one are abandoned. You can walk right in and up to the top of that one. Forty stories." He spots a guard in the nearby yard who looks back up at us. I move back a pace but the chaser remains. "They only care about protecting the scrap."

We see an abandoned police station, an abandoned fire station, an abandoned luxury housing complex stripped bare. "This was standing six weeks ago." At Brewster Projects we're chased away. On Robinwood we see the signs of folks that were chased out long ago - classic homes collapsing in on themselves, their corpses litter the street - modern day mastodons extinct or headed that way. Maybe one in twenty is occupied. Residents wander here and there, zombies amidst the wreckage. The chaser waves out his window to one such zombie. "That's Lucy. She's cool." Atop the Packard plant I see a sign of what the apocalypse might look like - three million square feet of shattered industry.

"I don't understand why there are so many fires. Surely the insurance companies aren't paying out on widespread arson?"

"Not insurance, usually."

"Squatters?"

"Sometimes. They start a fire to keep warm, they leave it going, the building burns. But mostly it's scrappers."

"Scrappers?"

"When a building burns to the ground, all of the heavy stuff from all of the floors collapses to the ground, so it's easier to haul out." He points to a truck in the distance. There's some scrappers there."

"Should we go talk to them?"

He shakes his head. "Best not to. Some of them can be territorial. If I was on my own I might."

Another figure enters our field of view - a lone photographer with a large camera and tripod in tow. It brings to mind a story I read. An author for Vice, in an article entitled "Something something something Detroit," once lamented - "If you live on a block near one of the city’s tens of thousands of abandoned buildings, you can’t toss a chunk of Fordite without hitting some schmuck with a camera worth more than your house." Photographers being sent on assignment to sum up the essence of Detroit in a six hour stay - shoot some ruin porn, crop the shot to shave off the city's functional side, head back to New York, Chicago, LA. I suppose my own mission, though recreationally motivated, hasn't been much different.

What I want from the chaser is some sort of value judgment - on Detroit, on its residents, its leadership, the scrappers, anything. But he stays aloof. I can't tell if he knows about the city, cares for the city, or if he's just another pornographer. So I do my best to form my own value judgment.

The stories are old but the scene hasn't changed. Detroit is wounded, and its hard fought battle to return to former glory has failed time and time again. A city once the richest in the nation, one point seven million residents strong, now stands at seven hundred thousand. White flight, they say, but it seems to me that everyone is fleeing - black white or otherwise. Hundreds have even gone so far as to disinter their dead and bury them somewhere safer, like the suburbs. What logical conclusion then but for these vampire scrappers to crawl out of their coffins and salvage what is left? The king of the vampires might be Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit's former mayor - sentenced to five years probation for perjury and obstruction of justice amidst widespread accusations of corruption. Banished, the former Mayor claimed financial hardship in response to his inability to pay a hundred and sixty dollars a month in restitution. Yesterday he bought a house in Houston for three million.

And while thousands focus on calling out the causes of decline - industrial collapse, drug wars, race wars, arson, bankruptcy, etcetera, no one seems to come to agreement on a solution. The city pours money into repopulating its core, trying to raise this tumbled tower of babel. But the money's not enough without some self sustaining industry to stand on. And the thing that scares me is that Detroit seems like a blueprint. As economies falter and markets fail, this scene before us seems a very likely scenario for other U.S. cities.

So what's to be done? The best solution I've heard comes from local Detroiter John Gallagher, in a book called Reimagining Detroit. "Many politicos tout fantasy versions of the city's comeback. Repopulating vast empty spaces, returning downtown to the shopping mecca it once was. That ship sailed a long time ago. The more time and money we waste on such fantastic visions, the worse Detroit will become. A better future is possible if those of us who call the city home make the right choices. And where does that possibility lie? In an unqualified acceptance of Detroit as a smaller but better city. Detroit will continue to lose population for a time, and too many ciritcs will see that loss as a death sentence. They believe that a shrinking city is a shameful place."

Gallagher goes on to suggest that the vacant lots once slated for development could be turned into community gardens. Ten lane trafficways could be turned into bike lanes, transit lines. Streams and wetlands buried to provide sewers for a growing city could be unearthed to create a greener environment. Shattered government kleptocracies could make room for strong local leadership. It's a nice picture of Detroit's future. It seems a plausible one to me.

The sky is darkening, rain is falling, my time with the chaser is dwindling. We make one last stop on Heidelberg, where the street has become a canvas. The six remaining homes on this two block span are bedecked in color and shape. The detritus of a declining Detroit has been repurposed as art, tacked to the sides of houses, painted on sidewalks, and scattered about the yards, a surreal escape from an otherwise muted reality. The artist, Tyree Guyton, grew up on this block. Realizing that his chosen audience would not go to some upscale art gallery, he brought the gallery to his block, and welcomed the audience in on the action. The work of city officials, local artists, and school children is on display, come what criticism may. Huddled under my rain jacket and peering at the rain soaked scene, it's hard to tell what's winning, the color or the gloom. I look to the chaser for answers and he simply nods, a signal that our time is done.

At his doorstep we shake hands, and I ask him what his plans are for the rest of the night. "Probably sit by the scanner," he says. "Wait for another fire." 

I'd always possessed the skill of falling asleep at the drop of a dime. As a kid my parents said I was easy – strap me in a car seat and I'd be out cold. Tuck me in at night and tell me a story and I'd fall asleep before the flip of the first page. The sound of a fan was my lullaby. An airplane engine – forget about it. My father was a pilot. One time he let me fly and I passed out almost instantly – slumped over the yolk, sending us into a sideward spiral. I'd fall asleep mid-sentence with my eyes open. Sometimes the sentence would continue while the body slept, a verbal chicken with its head cut off. It was hard at first for my folks to distinguish the line between dreaming and awake. I'd converse with myself, laugh hysterically at jokes only my subconscious could decipher. Dad's preferred place of rest was on the couch in front of the TV. He'd look back some nights to see me standing at the foot of the second-story staircase, contemplating a downward plunge which he could only watch with fascination and terror. Once I woke in front of the fridge – the door was wide open and I held a melting stick of butter in my hand. A bite was missing.

The issue went away for a time, and I felt a bit betrayed. As much as it scared me, I enjoyed hearing from others about my subconscious antics. So I wasn't too concerned when my condition resurfaced in college. Roommates noted that if they asked me questions while I slept, I would answer nonsensically. Classmates watched in amusement as my head would dip and recover – a slow mo head bang to the music of the droning professor. My notes were of a script that steadily degraded as it made its way across the page. Primary school penmanship to senior scrawl, and then a jagged vertical line when I lost all muscle function and my hand slid down the desk.

The worst of it came during an accounting class in one of the University's largest auditoriums, Chem 140. By then I'd learned to come late and sit in the back to prevent unwanted attention - safe from sight of all but those who sat beside me, or so I thought.

The desks in this auditorium were the lap-top kind, thin beveled planks on hinges that you could fold over your lap once you were seated. As class began I sat determined as ever to stay awake, but prepared to snooze. What I hadn't prepared for was that sensation of falling that sometimes seizes you as you come to consciousness. When I awoke, my mind plummeted back to its earthly confines with such velocity that I panicked. I kicked my knee up and banged the bottom of the laptop desk, which bucked and spilled my notebook into the next row. My left hand, holding a pencil, shot skyward, and the pencil was launched into the air like a homing missile on a collision course for the front of the room. My right hand seized the nearest purchase it could find – the leg of the girl sitting next to me. I gripped her thigh tightly, she shrieked and slapped at my hand, and by then the entire auditorium was looking. I was beet red. The professor made me recover all of my things while the crowd watched. The lesson of the day had been inventory management, and in honor of that topic I earned the nickname Last In First Out.

I was determined to overcome my affliction. I went to bed early, I took naps during the day. People thought I was a prude because I wouldn't hang out on a school night. I drank caffeine, I changed my diet, my breathing. I sought help from friends, strangers, and experts. I was offered a wealth of home remedies, prescription medications, and illicit narcotics, which I politely refused. It was no use. There was nothing that could keep me from nodding off. My grades dove with me.

The end of the semester couldn't come soon enough, and when it did, I packed up my things to head home for the summer. My family lived on the western slope of the Colorado rockies, my school was on the east. The road between them was about five hours of windy, sleep-inducing wilderness, a drive I'd be forced to make alone. I would need a miracle to stay awake and alive, and that miracle came in the form of a lone hitchhiker, standing at the entrance to Interstate 70, and looking surprisingly not crazy. This was it, my ticket to staying awake. A passenger with which to share conversation, maybe even the driving duties.

His name was Edward, and he was from England. If his accent was heavy, his chain smoking was even heavier. I figured either trying to understand him or trying not to smell him would keep me awake. I was wrong. It was all well and good for awhile. We talked about him, he hand rolled cigarettes and attempted to puff them out the window – ashes scattering in all directions. But when he had exhausted himself, I saw him slink back into his chair and drift off to sleep. I tried to stare him down. Oh no you don't. I gave you a ride dude. You keep me awake! He fell asleep. I fell asleep.

This time when I awoke, there was no one manning the wheel. My car had veered off into a large grass median between the opposing lanes of traffic. We were going sixty, the car was bouncing and leaping like a gazelle through the dips and peaks in the uneven terrain. The engine was smoking. The steering wheel was smoking. There was a lot of smoke. It made Edward's habit seem not so bad in comparison. Up ahead I could make out a large cliff, rapidly approaching. I slammed on the brakes and Edward, unbuckled, crumpled against the dashboard with an awkward and guttural “ungggh.”

We clambered out of the vehicle, and, embarrassed more than anything, my first instinct was to see if anyone noticed. If anyone had, they hand't bothered to stop. Then I locked eyes with Edward, expecting to find anger or scorn or shame, or something. But his English eyes were smiling, a mile wide. “That was fuckin' amazing!” he said. “That's the greatest thing that's happened to me since I been here.”

We popped the hood of the car and I noticed a lime green liquid oozing steadily out of the oil pan. The fan belt had cut through the radiator hose. Power steering too. There were a number of other problems I'd only discover later. “It looks fucked” Edward said excitedly into my ear. “Is it fucked?”

“Think so Ed.”

He shrugged and cuffed me on the shoulder. “Well then,” he answered, extending a hand. No Ed. Don't leave me. I need you. I need to get this car out of the median. And I still need to get home in one piece. I shook his hand, refusing to let go until he jerked it away. With that, Ed headed for the highway, already aiming a thumb skyward before he'd even crossed the highway.

I managed to drive the car another three hundred yards or so, out of the ditch and on to the side of the road. I spent some time concealing the evidence of the blunt force trauma my car had received, already rehearsing my lines. 'It just broke down! I don't know what's wrong. Piece of junk. Yeah that's the third time!' If I played my cards right, I might even get some sympathy, maybe a new car out of the deal, who knew.

'If you think you're getting another car, you're dreaming,” my Dad said when he drove the three hours it took to pick me up. “From now on you're riding the bus.” He had a point. I wasn't safe on the road. And so ride the bus is what I did. I never did find a cure for my condition. But I've since moved to a city with good public transportation where I won't have to drive. Nowadays when I fall asleep, the worst that can happen is I end up in the South Bronx, with an MTA employee handing me the card for a homeless shelter and telling me I can't sleep here tonight.
 

He spills out into the morning's lazy chill, fingers fumbling through his bag until they find his gloves, then he unlocks the chain on the lame horse that brought him here just half the way before poorly shod hooves gave way to brooklyn's battered streets. Once freed, he leads it by the neck toward home, its only complaint the arrhythmic whump of treads trodding across the cracks of uneven pavement. 

In the absence of his glasses the street and city lights sparkle like tree lights beyond the focal length. Where the camera's lens might have focused, his eyes could not, and so he made his way through the blur, toward better sleep in the vaguely familiar direction of his own apartment.

The tick of switching traffic signals and the whir of distant passing cars command his attention more than the dimmed tableau that presents itself to faulty vision. From a subterranean cellar a voice calls out in Farsi, some unintelligible request seeking a recipient he cannot see. A chain jingles somewhere across the street - the leash of a collared, trotting dog, an ink black spot dark against the warming sky. Otherwise it's welcomed silence as he makes his way toward Lafayette.

It's a plastic bag that wakes him from his dull dreaming, scooting across the concrete like a cowering apparition before catching wind and sailing in asynchronous orbit around a nearby lamp post. He is aware now of all the detritus on the street - piles of garbage wrapped black and blue, cardboard crushed and trampled and wedged amidst the splintered rungs of cast off furniture, antiquities of boring familiarity discarded in favor of the desire for something new. The scattered tableau alerts him to the threads of memory which hold him, puppet-like, upright within familiar present, while a resolution to right past wrongs marches him toward hazy future.  He ponders the impermanence of things, a numb sadness washing over him when he thinks upon how easily things that one minute could so completely capture our heart could the next be cast out and discarded. But what else can be done? What's gone is gone. What is, is. What will be is something he can only hope to tame. 

He passes a statue on the street, hunched and rank and mumbling something unintelligible. He responds in kind and presses on, the whoosh of the train from the grated great-below reminding him he's almost home. For a moment he's bathed in light poured forth from the open doors of the all-night deli. He feels the eyes of the shopkeeper upon him and waves a hand in the suspected direction, then hefts his bike onto his shoulder where it perches precarious while he fumbles for his keys. Up the stairs and to the door, he moves with a calculated quietude he hopes won't wake the neighboring dogs. Jimmied keys in splintered lock produce a click that welcomes him back to the place that he currently calls home. Dimmed domes of ceiling light remind him that his return was inevitable. 

The noise spills in from everywhere. From nowhere. Is there an attic? Because if so, it is definitely coming from the attic. If there is an attic, maybe there is someone trapped in the attic. Maybe the pounding is a plea to be rescued. Or perhaps some sort of code. Maybe he's not trapped at all - just hungry for a Baby Ruth, like Sloth, or some toast with mora. Mmmmm...mora...I wish I'd learned morse code...

Or Spanish? I thought I knew Spanish. I watched telenovelas, listened to audio tapes, filled out little workbooks, painted by number. I repeated lines like "Donde es tu casa gato" endlessly like a rosemary. No one seems to respond when I ask aloud to the banging walls - "donde es tu casa gato?" No one notices me at all.

Except the elevator man, who notices me with an intensity I find discomforting. He never lets me take the stairs even though that's all I really want to do. The stairs are pretty and the elevator is tight and stuffy, like a coffin being raised and lowered in and out of the cold hard earth. I feel awkward inside it, trapped with the elevator man. "Hola Miiiiiike," he says in his dazed, and distant voice. He draws out the syllables in my name suggestively, like he knows What I Did Last Summer. He won't look right at me when he talks; instead he gazes just past my left ear. "Como te fue Miiiiiiiike?" Whenever I turn around, he is there, gazing...I think he has taken a liking to me. And not in the good sort of way.

I'd been looking for a place called El Pueblito, a lost city somewhere in the rainforest of Parque de Tayrona. It was supposed to be the city that was lost, not me. I vomited on the bus. Several times actually. I'd fill the bag and dump it out then fill it back again. "Blat!" then bag it. "Blat!" then bag it - the sound like the noise of mash potatoes hitting a cafeteria lunch tray. I'm feeling quite nauseous again, and my leg is turning yellow, and my only source of solace is the sleepiness that has just crept upon me. The bus last night was full of bugs. I wonder if they were on vacation too. I didn't sleep at all last night, I don't think. I can't think....

Someone must have been thinking when they set up our hotel minibar. They thought of everything. Since I don't feel like leaving my hotel room ever again, it's nice to know I have a decent supply of rations. There's all the basic stuff, of course: booze, soda, chips, candybars. In Thailand they always have tea and slippers, in Europe there is barely enough room for your own backpack, let alone a mini bar. Here, I have the following unique additions: nuts wine aguardiente rum toothpaste alkaseltzer mini-toothbrush abrelatas razor shampoo beers gum and, most curiously, condensed milk and canned sausages. Is it normal to wake up in the middle of the night with a hankering for canned sausages? And were they supposed to be enjoyed along with the condensed milk, or was that a separate meal altogether? Were these items supposed to be cooked, or heated, and if so where was the stove? Do they make aerodynamic stoves? If so, I wish someone would throw me one. I should feel hungry, I haven't eaten in quite some time, and right now I feel dizzy and I'm certain I'm out of Dramamine but I go to the bathroom anyway to check.

I can't find the Dramamine. I can't even find the light switch. Somehow there is light in the bathroom, an eerie blue light that seems to stem from a small open vent in the wall near the ceiling. I stand on the toilet and lean against the opposite wall to look through the open space but all I can see is a fluorescent light and a small passage. Maybe the passage leads to the attic, if there is one of course. If there is an attic and a man trapped in the attic and this passage leads to the attic then maybe I should feed the man trapped in the attic some canned sausages. He's gotta be hungry. I decide to run to the fridge. I run back and grab a can of sausages, the can opener, and the toothpaste too. I peel back the lid of the sausages and throw a few through the open vent and think of that phrase about throwing a hot dog down a hallway. I think one of the sausages makes a splash. I wish I had one of those mirrors that dentists use to get a look at the back of your tonsils so I could see if maybe there was someone down there. There must be, because the light is on. Then I throw the toothpaste. It does not splash.

My head aches and my muscles ache and my joints ache and I've decided to sit on the bed and I've also decided to try the sausages to satisfy my own curiosity - marveling at the foresight of the hotel staff to provide a can opener. Abrelatas. I try the word out like they do, with a little flair. Abrelatas. Abrrrrrrelatassssss. Very debonair. I open the can with the can opener and cut my hand on the lid and it bleeds a lot so I lick it and let it bleed just a little. The little canned sausages are cute but not tasty, especially smeared in blood, and so I decide to make little sausage men. Surely the mini bar man remembered the toothpicks? I rifle through all the items again, no toothpicks, not even Q tips. In Thailand there would have been Q tips. Wine bottles, chocolate, cigarettes. I don't smoke, and right now I can't think of a better use for a pack of Marlboro lights than to be the arms and legs of my little Latin sausage army. When I run out of sausages I use the chocolate bars and I stand them up but after awhile they bend so I chew the gum and use it to make them stand better. Now I'm wishing I had mixed and matched the chocolate bars and the canned sausages. It would have looked better. Their leader, I've decided, will have a toothbrush head.

Is it hot in here? The weatherman said it'd be fifty degrees outside but I'm burning up. I am bleeding my blood on the sausage army and they look like they've been injured in the line of duty . I put the sausage army on shore leave and lie down and everything's quiet, except for the alarm of course which I think I already mentioned, for about twenty seven seconds before I hear the banging again, and the sound of a clubbed seal. Silence. Banging. Now I hear footsteps. Are they coming from my bathroom? I get up and peer through the door into the bathroom and there is no one but there still sounds like there is and I realize it is coming through the vent and so I stand on my toilet and peer through the vent but that's before I realize there's no light coming through the vent now. I glance over my shoulder and notice there is another vent coming from the other side of the bathroom too. Two vents too weird. I turn around on the toilet and look through this vent, out in to pitch blackness. My head does a somersault like I never could and I'm dizzy and scared. What if they are watching me. What if they followed me to the Pueblito and they think I know something that I don't really know like in the DaVinci code, or Pi. "I don't know anything!" I yell. Everything is quiet. Even the alarm is quiet. All of the sudden there is a loud voice that sounds like it exploded from a megaphone and a horrendous pounding on the door which frightens me and a step off the edge of the toilet seat and slip and fall and pound my head on the hard porcelain bath tub and the bang my head makes is louder than the banging on the door and now I've got more blood to worry about then what's on my little finger. There's blood everywhere and I'm lying in it and it's actually kind of nice and royal red really, like the sheets I used to have on my bed when I was younger.

From inside the bathroom I can see the door to my hotel room burst open. Although my vision is blurry and there's blood in my eyes from the cut on my head from the tub I can kind of see the outline of a man and he's letting himself in and closing the door even though I know I had locked the door. And the windows. He comes cautiously closer and I think that man is the elevator man and now I know it is. The elevator man has come for my cornhole, and after he gets what he wants, he'll put me in the attic with the other guy. I told you he likes me. And not in the good sort of way.

* * *

Juan David Morales had seen some strange things in his thirteen years as porter of the Hotel Escorial. Sex toys, dirty needles, even once a room whose walls were covered in human feces. But nothing like this. The guest of room 303, an American who had seemed nice and normal enough upon arrival, now lay in a contorted heap in the bathroom in a puddle of blood. The toilet seat had been ripped from its hinges. On the bed there was more blood, as well as several small figurines which had been constructed from chewing gum, cigarettes, canned sausages, and chocolate bars.

From his hip, Juan's radio blurted out loudly. "Que pasa Juan?"

"Senor, I think we have a small problem," Juan said, radioing in to the concierge.

"Did you find the man who was throwing the sausages?"

"Si. Room 303. But senor, I think we need to call the medics."

"Just a concussion," the doctor said when he arrived. He had spent the first few minutes just making sure the guest was still breathing, and that his neck had not been broken in the fall. Meanwhile, Juan David was doing what he could to mop up the spilled blood.

"Interesting..." the doctor mused.

"What is it?" asked Juan David. The doctor pulled up the hotel guest's shorts to his crotch and revealed a ring of yellow, blotchy skin surrounding around a small black spot. "That, hermano, is Lyme Disease. This man has been bitten by a tick.

"A tick?"

"This yellow ring here is caused by spirocheta, a type of bacteria which is transmitted by deer ticks to humans when they bite the skin. Untreated, this bacteria travels through the bloodstream and affects the body in various ways."

"Such as...?"

"Fatigue, aches, fever, numbness, all sorts of nasty things. If it gets bad enough, which, judging from the look of this bite here, it has, it will affect the Central Nervous System. No wonder this poor guevon has been acting so strangely. He must have been out of his mind before he fell."  

I had even had a real Mexican for a locker partner once. His name was Sebastian Recalde and he was cien porciento cabron. A real Mexican's Mexican. The kind of guy that gets respect, even if he is five-two. He had this jet black hair that he slicked back into a pony tail and that shined like a halo every time he passed under a fluorescent hall light. Sometimes he covered it up with a hair net. He had a whole closet full of ribbed wife-beater t-shirts depicting a giant, placid Jesus looking lovingly over a street full of lowriders and pistol packing gangsters groping the oversized breasts of voluptuous Chicanas with faces frozen in mid-orgasm. And best of all were his double-knit polyester Dickies, so baggy they swept the floor when he walked. We were locker partners for a semester and-a-half. He lucked out and got kicked out of school for bringing a bong. I, unfortunately, got student of the month.

That's was the real problem I guess. I was white, middle class, and well-behaved, so categorically I wasn't even allowed to hang out with those guys, although almost every single member of the Barrio Trese (our local gang) knew my name. The guys were the coolest. They didn't care what anyone else thought, they didn't try to be anything but themselves, it didn't matter to them that they were poor and that everyone in our redneck town called them Beaners and never expected them to do anything more than farm and work in grocery stores. They were real and cool. Real cool. I wanted to be in their gang. I even offered to let them beat me in, but they respectfully declined. And the girls, the girls were tantalizingly unattainable, dark skinned with attitudes and infectious laughs. I wanted to date a Latina more than anything in the world, if for no other reason than because I couldn't.

The only way to atone for my whiteness was in Spanish class, where I absorbed everything - vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation. Sometimes our teacher, Senora Balerio, told us to perform a skit using the week's vocabulary words. While most groups reenacted a family dinner or grocery shopping at the local market, I made my group smuggle weapons across the frontera, or drink cervezas and hit on hembritas at the playa. As you might expect, I got quite an earful from my mother after parent-teacher conferences, which was totally unfair. Didn't Senora Balerio realize I was her best student?

At any rate, it dawned on me that what I had been doing was not working. I was no closer to being accepted into La Familia now than I ever was. I needed to do something drastic. Something authentic. I decided to go live in Mexico.

My high school offered this program through a company called Fenix or Phenix or something like that, where kids were matched up with families in Mexico, and went to live with them for a couple of months. The minute I saw it I knew it was for me.

My Mom thought it was a horrible idea, of course, and was certain the experience would lead to my imminent abduction and violation at the hands of dirty Juarez gangsters. My father thought it was a wonderful idea (to get me out of his hair for awhile, no doubt), vetoed my Mom's decision, and even paid the three hundred dollar fee to send me there, but not before my Mom had preached upon me the dangers of spicy Mexican food, Montezuma's Revenge, Chiapas, and the corruptness of the Mexican government. She bought diarrhea medication in every form imaginable, and had me sent to the red-cross clinic to get every vaccination my body could handle. I got on a plane filled with small traces of measles, mumps, malaria, and dengue fever, and bid my family a fervent farewell.

* * *

I couldn't wait to meet my new family. The Limones, they were called, which in English means "Lemons". The fact that my host-family was called the Lemons should have been a clear sign to whoever screened these families that something was not quite right, but I was happy as a lark as we drove to the pick-up spot on our hulking brown bus. I felt like I was being adopted. Jose, Reina, Sergio and Alicia - father, mother, son and daughter. The family lived in a city called Puebla, which means town. This may have at one point millions of years ago been true, but today Puebla was a city. A big one. A giant, grey, mess of a city a couple hours outside of the Districto Federal.

As the bus came to a stop with a hydraulic puff, all of us exchange students poked our heads out the windows to try and spot our host families. They had come in droves with big posterboard signs extolling our names, names which they mispronounced atrociously and without coordination so that the whole experience was like a slave auction. I was scanning the crowd, trying first to spot the hot latin girls and only then looking to see if their sign contained my name. Slowly but surely my gringo friends found their hosts, while I wandered through the dissipating crowd with my bags.

At last I found the Lemons, waiting patiently beyond the throng with big white smiles on their tanned brown faces. They looked almost as happy as I did, and when I introduced myself they greeted me with hugs like we were old friends. They were chattering away in Spanish and I realized, despite all my diligence in school, that I couldn't understand a word they were saying. I couldn't even seem to pick out an "el" or "los" in the jumble, so I did my best to respond based on voice inflection. When something sounded like a question, I would nod my head, smile, and say cheerily, "si!" to which they would respond with hysterical laughter. It didn't seem to matter what I said, they always laughed, a quality I found admirable.

We drove close to an hour through the chaos that was Puebla traffic, while I clung with white knuckles to the "oh-shit" handles of the family's VW bug. Apparently I wasn't the only scared passenger that had graced the seats of the vehicle, for the interior was rife with scratch marks and seat tears, a testament to the complete and utter lack of planning in the city. Stoplights and caution signs seemed non-existent here, and "drive it like you stole it" seemed to be the modus-operandi. We nearly had our rearviews taken off numerous times, but Jose, who drove the car, seemed oblivious, chattering on unintelligibly while I tried to pry a smile from my pale-faced grimace.

We came to a stop abruptly in front of a large white wall with a little red door, and everyone extracted themselves from the Bug. I took a quick glance at the tires of the vehicle to see if by chance they happened to be smoking.

"Aqui Estamos" Jose proclaimed as he pushed open the little red door in the wall. I stepped through the door and nearly tripped on the television stand as I entered. My first thoughts were of how bright it was inside, and then I realized that above our heads the sheet-metal roof was torn and rusted, leaving a gaping hole above where I was standing. I wonder what they do when it rains, I thought. I would soon enough find out. My next thoughts were of the kitchen, which was the size of my closet and doubled as the washroom and storage room. The sink, in which a murky brown substance floated, doubled as the dishwasher and clothes washer. Further down a dimlit corridor, past the kitchen table and fly infested bathroom, were the two bedrooms where the three of us would somehow be sleeping. This was not that idealized, commercialized stuff you saw on TV - guys in sombreros playing mariachi in some dusty, rustic old-west bar, or beautiful people drinking Coronas on an empty, sunny beach. This was real Mexico, and the house was exactly what I had hoped for.

* * *

Or so I thought, before I attempted to take a shower, wash my clothes, go to the bathroom, eat, sleep, or watch television, for each of these ordinarily mundane activities came with its own unique challenge in Puebla. The household rule for the shower was three minutes to wash, soap, and rinse. "Three minutes..." I scoffed as I stepped into the shower and turned on the water. And that's when the water unleashed its icy wrath upon me. I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing when the first stream splashed down on top of me. My balls disappeared inside me and my voice raised a few octaves as I let out a yelp. "Is everything okay?" I heard someone call out from outside. I tried to speak but couldn't. I let the shower wet my skin and jumped back out, a minute and a half after I started. "Well," I said to myself. "These three minute showers shouldn't be so tough."

My "welcome to Puebla" meal was Mole con Mierda. That means shit in Spanish. I'm not sure what I really ate, but I am sure that it should have been reserved for misbehaving pets and people who eat intravenously. You would have thought it was the Body of Christ the way the Lemons' eyes lit up at its mention. They sat around the table and peered into the kitchen with hungry eyes and drooling mouths. They sniffed the air as Reina brought in the dishes, piping hot. She set it down on the table, and I remember how sad it looked, hunkered down on the plate; a forlorn brown heap of chopped up chilis covered in chocolate sauce. Accompanying it was a blackened heap of grilled banana peels which, I learned, were to be used to scoop up the mole and deliver it to one's mouth. The peels, apparently, were to be eaten along with everything else. I was asked if I cared for a drink - Tequila was offered, but thinking of my complete lack of alcohol tolerance, I opted instead for some water. Days later, convulsing and heaving on a smelly toilet, I would regret my decision. The water was drawn from a ten gallon water tank in the living room. Alicia made her way into the kitchen and took a small vial of what looked like iodine, squeezing two tiny drops into the giant drum. The iodine dissipated quickly, and Alicia scooped out a glass. The solution, I suppose, was for purifying the water, although I think a fifty-fifty mixture might have been more appropriate.

Clothes washing, as I mentioned earlier, was done in the sink. Judging from the lack of cleanliness of the tap water, I can only suspect the Limones used Mole to eat away the dirt and grime on our clothes (lord knows it cleaned out the muck in my bowels...about twenty seven times in two days). At any rate, after the clothes were washed, they were strung out from a rafter above the hole in the ceiling to dry. When finally they did dry, they were rather stiff and pliable. In the boredom of the days to come I would amuse myself with sculpting large biceps and pectoral muscles into my t-shirts and wearing them around the neighborhood like a body builder.

Of course, that was when I was not hanging out in the bathroom. I spent a good portion of my day in that room, every minute of which I loathed. I usually arrived there in full sprint, spurred on by the flames churning and broiling in my backside, as if the Mole had somehow survived the digestive process and was now seeking a way to get back at me for eating it. The cool, porcelain seat did little to relieve the burning in my bowels. I sat in a pool of sweat, while a swarm of flies buzzed about the trash can, waiting for scraps (the used toilet paper in Puebla must be placed in the wastebasket, not flushed). I would strain and squirm, unable to evacuate anything of substance until suddenly, the pressure would build in my stomach until I erupted like a chocolate-chili-banana peel volcano. After the eruption, just about the time I would stop sweating and start breathing easier, the aftershock would come.

Television, as much as I hated and still do hate it, was a savior of sorts for me in Puebla, for I had no friends and understood no one. I would wake every morning to an empty house - the kids having gone to school, Jose to work, and Reina not yet returned from her night shift at the Volkswagen plant. So it would just be me and the television - watching endless hours of futbol and telenovelas. The futbol I liked, and since that time it has become one of the few sports I can watch on TV. The telenovelas I detested, but they were inescapable. On every channel, some incredibly buxom, beautiful, and incredibly well-preserved mother was renouncing her love to a father in favor of the love of another, which more often than not was the father's brother or mortal enemy or some other highly unlikely coincidence. I watched them and despised them and yet was unable to do anything else, enrapt in implausible plotlines and too afraid to stray more than ten meters from the toilet. It was horrible, but my television watching, believe it or not, served one important purpose for the Limones collective good. In the summer, when the rains of Puebla were at their most potent, a storm could happen upon our barrio within instants, clouding up and casting down fury upon the unsuspecting residents. Our home, with its hole in the tin roof and TV directly below, was a prime candidate for utter ruin. I'm not sure what the Limones had done previously in my absence, but at the first hint of rain, I would quickly shut off the TV, drag it to the corner of the room, and push the couch back against the dinner table, just steps ahead of a torrential downpour. Then I would run to the bathroom and poop.

Sleeping, though, was the hardest thing. Having five of us in two bedrooms was not nearly as hard as I thought. Sergio, Alicia, and I shared an ample sized room painted in blue and bedecked with Winnie the Pooh sheets, curtains, and memorabilia, which was fine. I had a little mattress on the floor all to myself and Sergio and Alicia would share the slightly larger bed. Reina and Jose were to share the other bedroom. Reina, however, was almost never there, and in her absence Alicia would sleep in the bed with her father, Jose. Jose, unfortunately, snored like a wildebeest, each and every night. His guttural snorts would saw through the paper thin walls of the house and into my ears keeping me awake and miserable. This matter was complicated by my sickness, which confused my mind into thinking I was cold when it was hot, and hot when it was cold, but never just alright. At night I dreamed an endless string of unfamiliar Spanish words, drilling their way into my skull while I smiled under the excruciating pain and nodded "si," "si," "si," to each.

Just about the time I had devised an elaborate and foolproof scheme to rub out Jose Limon, he inexplicably disappeared. It was not until nearly a month after, when I had managed enough of a command of the Spanish language to even ask, that I learned he and Reina had become separated. I instantly felt bad and hoped it was not on account of me. He visited a couple more times, once for some religious festival and once to take me back to the bus station for my departure from Puebla. It was then I learned what he did for a living - sold sewing supplies out of the back of his car - door to door to endless door. So we were four, then practically three, with Reina never home. Alicia, whose charge it had been initially to look after me, would acquire an extreme distaste for me, and so then it become just Sergio and I, between which a friendship would develop that lasted far longer than I ever imagined. But that will take some explaining.

* * *

Alicia was my preordained caretaker, a full-figured Mexican girl with solemnity and experience beyond her sixteen years. She was dating a Mexican boy who looked to be quite a bit older than she, and, after the novelty of having a gringo in the house wore off, became concerned only with him. In the spare moments she had she would make a half-hearted attempt to hang out with me. Being that we were all poor and that Puebla was a largely industrial city, when I was asked what I would like to do, I usually had no response. And so we would go do the only thing we could afford to do, because it was free - we would go to visit churches. Puebla must have a church for every family, because they are everywhere, each unique and ornate enough to draw visitors but yet somehow totally uninteresting once you actually arrive. And arrive we did, like Archbishops, to all reaches of Puebla, giving a polite once over to the all-too-familiar vaults, arches, and cisterns, making an absent comment about that particular stained glass window or this gilded tabernacle before realizing we would much rather be at home numbing our minds on whatever soap might currently be showing than paying our homage to ingenuity of Catholic faith. My devotion to extracting myself from that dismal home was stronger than hers, however, and Alicia soon became sick at the mere sight of me, for fear that I might ask her to escort me to yet another house of God. I believe she even began to hate God himself in those days, for she stopped going to church with the regularity that she had when I first arrived. Luckily, as Alicia quietly inched toward the door of gringo-free living, Sergio obligingly stepped in.

Sergio was the youngest of the band, maybe twelve years old I guess, and acted even younger. He looked like a Mexican Kermit the Frog, with spikey hair, wide, ogling eyes, and a big gaping, always flapping mouth. He was flamboyant and obtrusive, prancing about the tiny house like a bull in a china closet, constantly throwing his arms around whomever he talked with, unable to speak with anyone if it was not six inches from their face. For an American like me, for whom space and solitude is a commodity oft-taken for granted, it was quite unnerving at first. He was for me that persistent ray of sunshine that pushes past clouds and curtains both, waking you up when all you want to do is sleep. No matter how down I got - about my sickness, about my dismal surroundings, about my inability to understand a lick of what was going on around me, Sergio was there, arm around my shoulder and smiling. He didn't understand the concept of miserable and would not allow me to understand it either, and his love of United States culture could not be deterred.

When I first met him he offered to buy the clothes off my back. He took one look at my shoes, Nikes, and seemed ready to kneel at my feet and kiss them. It seemed that Nikes, real ones at least, drew a hefty premium here in Puebla, and only the cheapest brands and least desirable models seemed to make it to Puebla shelves, even though they had probably been manufactured here in the first place. And so Sergio, a size 6 at best, offered to purchase my size 10 Nikes with money he didn't have, and as much as I wanted to give them to him, I was forced to decline for they were the only pair of shoes I had.

Sergio then proceeded to demonstrate to me his familiarity with American pop-music by turning on quite possibly the most atrocious line up of songs I have ever heard, beginning with Aqua's one-hit wonder, "Barbie Girl", which he sang in eardrum-shattering soprano, with a school-girlish enthusiasm. From Aqua he transitioned into a rendition of Michael Jackson's 1981 smash hit "Billie-Jean," replete with crotch-grabbing and moon walking. I begged him to stop, but one could not stop "the Surge." He was there at six a.m., every morning hovering over my face to say goodbye before he went to school, and returning precisely at 2:10 in the afternoon to say hello again.

It was only after I realized I was completely and utterly alone that I acquiesced to Sergio's emphatic pleas to leave the house. I bought him a basketball and started teaching him how to play on a nearby court. He was a quick learner, tall, gangly, and persistent - and after a short time he could hold his own against me. The playing was difficult, for the court we used doubled as a concrete soccer field. Soccer, the only sport according to most Pueblanos, took dominance over our infidel's game, and if nearly getting trampled to death on each team's charge to the goalposts did not deter us, a few resounding blows to the head by soccer balls eventually did. We learned to find time in the quiet hours of the morning to play - him dragging me out of bed and hauling me out onto the court, displaying whatever move he had practiced in gym class the previous day - a hook shot, a one handed layup, a spastic round-the-back pass. I learned to love those early morning hours because they were all I could love, confined in solitude the rest of each day to the tiny house while the Limones were at school and work.

Somehow Sergio's eternal sunshine eventually began to brighten my spotted mind, and the sickness that had plagued me for so long seemed to retreat into the furthest reaches of remission, still present, but pleasantly powerless. Feeling better, I resolved to explore what lay beyond the borders of our barrio. Of course, that meant taking a Combi...

* * *

What is a combi? It is a terrifying death contraption. A hulky, rattling casket-like VW bus with the seats removed so that the drivers can prod passengers inside like cattle. The typical Combi carries no less than twelve human cattle, and it carries them like they are stolen property. The procedure if one wishes to embark on such a journey is this -

1.Wait on a street corner. Seemingly any street corner will do. I'm not even so sure Pueblanos know from where their journey should begin.
2.Wave maniacally at the approaching vehicle. As it slows, squint and lean out and try to read the hand-written sign to figure out of the vehicle might go somewhere near the vicinity of where you are going.
3.Give up, because Puebla is enormous and the little signs only ever list one or two destinations, and board the first Combi you see anyway.
4.Push your way past the crowd of people toward the driver. Dig your toes down toward the floor and press your head firmly against the metal ceiling while you fish around in your pocket for change.
5.Throw the change over the seat at the driver and hang on for dear life, for he almost never will wait for you to actually hand the money over before rocketing off into oncoming traffic.
6.Pray to the good lord that you will live to see just one more day, and as an afterthought, add something in about maybe also arriving at the correct destination as well.
7.Exit vehicle. Vomit. Wash, rinse, repeat.

My first mission beyond borders was an attempt to find something in the city to eat that would not rend apart my insides. I made my way to the nearest main street and flagged down a particularly rickety looking Combi. As I hopped in and we approached warp speed, I attempted to crane my neck down through the dirty, bouncing, jarring windows and catch a glimpse of the surroundings that passed blurrily by, and somehow eventually managed to spot a supermarket. I hollered at the driver and he let me out near the corner, dizzy and tottering, in a cloud of his exhaust.

The "supermarket" as it turned out, was not quite so super. In fact it was little more than a group of tents posted up in a dusty lot and guarded by a couple of scant, dying dogs. The smells from a hundred different stands mixed together in the air and became almost solid, and I choked on the pungent aroma they created. Near the entrance was a carniceria, where a white-aproned Mexican was chasing down a chicken with a large butcher's knife. He wrangled the animal, slapped it on a table, and ended its life, holding it still on the carving block while the body writhed, long after the head had rolled off to the side. I threw up in my mouth a little bit, then quickly abandoned the market.

That first journey scared me, but it also gave me the confidence I needed to escape the solitude of my surroundings. When Sergio learned of my expedition he begged to come on the next. And begged. And begged.

I ended up taking him ice skating at a giant rink in the center of the giant city. He had never been, and from the look in his eyes when we arrived, you would have figured our pilgrimage might as well have been to Mecca. His eyes lit up at the huge, empty white patch of ice, the unfamiliar cold that chilled our bones, and the big, domed ceiling far above. It was then that I realized, Sergio probably hadn't been much of anywhere in his twelve years. He was a quick learner. By the end of the day he was skating on his own, swooping around corners and grinning like a fool, whooping and hollering as he passed. I bought him ice cream and rented him ice skates which, at the end of the day, I had to wrench from his feet as he pleaded to stay just a little bit longer.

It was to be the first of many journeys for me and Sergio. We went and watched a movie and ate Pizza Hut, a slice of heaven for me and an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for Sergio. He looked as if he was tasting food for the first time, awakened from a Mole induced slumber to the wonders of American grease. We went to race go-karts, where Sergio unleashed twelve years of Combi-induced road rage into his poor little vehicle. We were asked to leave and never return when Sergio drove his car over a grassy median and beyond the borders of the track, crashing into a ravine and starting a small brush fire. We went to a nature reserve called Africam, and had a good laugh at the monkeys which climbed up into the open windows of the tour bus and rubbed their oversized balls in unsuspecting tourists' faces. We visited the underground temple of Cholula and got lost, not emerging to the surface until long after darkness had fallen and a full blown tempest had set in.

It was here, hunkered down under a snack-vendor's awning and waiting for the bus, shivering, cold and sick, that I realized how happy I was. Or rather, I realized how much less it took to make me happy. Somehow I had learned to glean enjoyment from such simple things as the sound of rain, the release of silence, or one of Sergio's simple, apish grins. In poverty, I felt rich.

* * *

At long last it came time for me to leave Puebla, and, in truth, I was eager to return to familiar territory. I spent my last night at the dinner table talking with Sergio and Alicia. Sergio, having discovered my talent for drawing, asked me to make him a picture, and so I sketched out a scene from the Lion King, one of his favorites. We talked late into the night, and had a laugh when I finally realized that, from the very first moments of my stay, I had been confusing the words pobrecito with lo siento, so that for every time someone had spoken to me in Spanish and I had attempted to apologize for my lack of linguistics, I had replied in Spanish with "you poor thing." That night I also realized that I was speaking Spanish. Garbled and butchered, but Spanish nonetheless.

We were still awake and laughing at 3:00 AM when Jose Limon appeared at the little red door to the house to pick me up and take me to the bus station. As a parting gift from a kid who had next to nothing, Sergio gave me a little pin that he had received in school to remember him by. A heartfelt goodbye is tough enough in English, but it's nearly impossible in a foreign language, so I settled on an honest thank you, and turned my back on Puebla.

The trip was an experience I'll not likely ever repeat, but one I will never forget. When I arrived back to the States I reveled in the joys of drinking fountains, grassy space, clean clothes, and home cooked meals. I no longer wanted to be a Mexican, but in some respects, I wanted to be a Limon. A few days later I went to a shoe store and picked up the nicest pair of Nikes I could find and shipped them off to Sergio, a metaphorical thank-you for allowing me to live life in his shoes.

* * *

Sergio wrote back to me after receiving the shoes, a long winded letter complete with drawings of his Nikes covered in flames, sparkling rays of light, and other general radness. He told me about how he had made the basketball team at his school and was a starter. We kept corresponding for years, calling on Christmas or sending a letter when reminiscence gave us pause. He called me years later and told me of his plan to visit the States soon and of course I offered to put him up. Shortly thereafter there was a severe earthquake in Puebla, in his neighborhood region of Tlaxcala measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale. I haven't heard from Sergio or the Limones since. And while I have since traveled to many parts of the world, learning and forgetting countless lessons on my journeys, the lessons I learned from Puebla cling to the forefront of my frontal lobe. Enjoy the life you live, live it to the fullest, take pleasure in small things, and never forget those who are less fortunate than you...you never know when you could be in their shoes. 

Casco Viejo. The Old Helmet. For centuries it has stood, taking the brunt of the blows delivered by these vicious coastal storms. The neighborhood is no stranger to turmoil. In 1671, the city was sacked and burned by the pirate Henry Morgan, but the spirit of the people could not be incinerated, and they rose again to rebuild their lives. The carcass of the dungeon in which they were enslaved still remains as a testament to what they have overcome. In the 1900s, over 22,000 people gave up their lives in pursuit of the dream of free passage from Atlantic to Pacific via the Panama Canal. Their story is told on the large stone tablets which adorn the walls in the Plaza de Francia. But more than anything, the people's resilience can be demonstrated in their resistance to the stalwart hand of poverty which tugs unceasingly at their haggard clothes and scant pocketbooks. And while Casco Viejo may be one of the poorer neighborhoods of Panama, it is also the most intricately beautiful and well preserved, a dichotomy that attests to the people's fortitude.

The streets flood and out of the mud the residents of Casco Viejo plod on down cobblestone streets determinedly. A weary back supports a heavy rucksack which must be delivered to the other end of town before nightfall. Calloused hands dart deftly down and up against an old wooden desk in a domestic fabrica, plunging needle and thread through a rough-hewn swatch of fabric that will one day become a Quinceanera dress. From the ornate balcony of a faded blue building, a voice sings out unrestrained to the scratchy tune of an old Hispanic ballad playing on the radio. For a moment the song, which talks of unrequited love, becomes less words and more a raw feeling, reaching out to everyone and no one at all. Out the open door of a local eatery pour the smells of pan-seared corvina caught fresh each morning, ceviche, sancocho, and cazuelo de mariscos. At old wood barstools sit old Panamians, drinking a potent concoction of aged Seco and watching reruns of old telenovelas on an antique television in the corner of the bar, their inebriant breath attesting to the old slang definition of Casco Viejo: "empty bottle."

Somewhere in Casco Viejo a man is starving for food, two dirty, scabbed palms open to the mercy of the passersby, who have little but give much. Somewhere in the city two youths are starving for adventure, sneaking their way into the shell of an old cannery by way of an old boarded up window. Somewhere in Panama a wily thief lays eyes upon a group of tourists who look about with fascination at the ornate architecture of the Plaza de Independancia. And while Casco Viejo hosts a battalion of guards (the Policia Turstica de Panama), true security is maintained by the old grandmothers sitting in door stoops and behind rusted iron bars, eyes and ears attuned through the years to the beating pulse of the barrio. Somewhere in Casco Viejo, a band strikes up and people begin to dance, their measured Merengue steps doing more to announce nightfall than the setting of the sun.

Somewhere in the old city our silhouettes pass hand-in-hand underneath a flowered arch on an old stone bridge, headed toward the pier. From there we can see the rocky cliffs turning back the crashing waves. In the distance, the grim countenance of the mainland frowns back at us, a faded spectre consumed by fog. And while mainland Panama says a grumpy good night, we hold close our rain soaked bodies and kiss to whatever may lay ahead, and to the untiring spirit of Casco Viejo.  

Perhaps it is an overdose of this Rastafari Psychadelia that gives way to such bizarre and unexpected pleasures - a roadside stand called "Mister Dickhead's" which sells, among other things - Seaweed, Fishballs, and some other food (not pork) offered "with or without Pigtail"; towns with names like Ladyville, Orange Walk, and El Remate (Fleamarket) and trees which grow no leaves but bloom abundant with what look like Marigolds. From within the bus, we absorb the mottled culture, Spanish, Mexican, Black, here and there a group of clandestine Mennonites trudging around in in full length overalls and long sleeve shirts, studying the world under straw hats that shade them from the smoldering sun.

As I follow a canal in Belize city, studying the direction of flow to gain my bearings, a sun-weathered man asks in a slow, scratchy voice if I'm a Rasta Man. "Only on the weekends", I tell him. He tosses this response around in his head for a moment and, after a beat, smiles, claps me on the shoulder, grabs my hand in a tight grip, pulling it close to his chest. "Respect" he says, staring at me intensely with eyes so blue it seems as though they contain a dose of the Caribbean itself.

Respect indeed.

Our carnival had the usual assortment of scams, shams, and lawsuit-inducing death traps, nicely paired with an excess of teeth-rotting fare, but the minute I handed over my year's allowance for a roll of flimsy red tickets and passed through those gates, there was only thing on my mind - the Gravitron.

I'm sure you've seen it, probably rode it. A big silver disc propped up on a platter and covered in rainbows of seizure inspiring LEDs, an amalgamation both futuristic and nostalgic. The Gravitron was a sort of 1950s version of what the future would look like , past, present, and future.

Its stalwart exterior revealed nothing about what waited inside, which, for me, was the initial draw. I wanted to step into that steel spinning fortress and see what all the fuss was about. I remember the first time I took my place along the padded walls. I was with a neighborhood girl and a couple mutual friends, and I wanted to impress her with my steel stomach and nerves. The operator, a lanky, dark-featured goth, stood safely in inside a cylindrical booth at the center of the machine and appraised us dispassionately.

When we had all boarded and the entrance was sealed, the machine began to hum, softly at first and then with increasing force and pitch, and we began to turn. From sequestered speakers burst the music of Twisted Sister, as hearts leapt into mouths. The pinpoint lights became colored comet streaks as our speed increased. Our timid perch against the wall was broken as the panels rose upward on creaky tracks, pinning us in limbo.

As "We Ain't Gonna Take It" reached its grand finale, replaced by Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar", the operator got on a tinny, muffled mic and asked us who wanted to ride some more, to which every boy immediately screamed the affirmative, and the ride continued its nowhere / everywhere trajectory. Our newfound understanding of gravity left us free to walk on walls, turn ourselves upside down and inside out, to swish and slosh the blood inside our bodies and achieve a novel head rush. Def Leppard's sugar effectively poured, the carnie in the middle once again got on the mic and asked if we wanted to party. The cheers again arose, albeit this time less heartily, and Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood filled the air.

Only this time we weren't feeling so good. The walls became a giant twister board - the shoes of strangers flailing about to kick heads as faces became buried in unfamiliar sides, this but one distraction amidst the onslaught of lights, sounds, and the curious examination of the contents of our stomach. Around and around we spun - and at the height of Mick Mars' guitar solo, our tormentor again inquired as to whether we wanted to keep going. This time there were only a couple of cheers, and a smattering of queasy and vehement "No!"s. At this point I'm certain a few passengers had vomited - the smell hung thick in the whirling air, but the sheer mechanics of getting anything out of ones mouth against the force of four G's baffled me. The man in the middle smiled, and the ride sped up. I looked to my female companion and found her head back and eyes shut, face white as a ghost. I couldn't be certain she was still breathing.

Safe within his stationary perch the operator at long last grew bored and hit his magic button. The lights receded, Megadeth's "End Game" drew to a close, and the whirring hum subsided. We filed out of that round metal tomb like a drunken funeral procession, close-lipped and eager to return to the sturdy ground of the land of the living. Once stabilized, we fled toward sunlight, scattering like ants to vomit in different recesses of the fairgrounds. We told stories about it afterward - the length of the ride growing with each repetition. "I rode the Gravitron for twenty two minutes" we'd say. "People were puking back into their own faces! It was awesome!"

Needless to say, I struck out with the neighborhood girl that day - She wasn't impressed by my death breath and I found her less attractive with the vomit on her sleeve. But despite that harrowing first ride, I kept coming back for more every year - each time with a mix of excitement and trepidation. The Gravitron was a rite of passage through summer - you didn't have to love it, you just had to do it.

It's been a long time since I've been to the carnival, but in some ways I feel like I've never stepped off the Gravitron. After all, what is life but our shiny tin spaceship - our past, present, and future? It is an ever spinning cycle we are inevitably powerless to stop. And so we steel our stomachs and go along for the ride, to experience the sights and sounds, to make the most of this brief passage as our worlds are continually turned upside down and righted once again. As much as we may yearn to stand in the center, we never will. We are not in control. From time to time we may secretely wish to escape, but openly we beg for more. And when we finally do return to stable ground, we look back on it and tell our tales. I came, I saw, I hurled. And I'll take that ride again.  

You could say the journey’s been long, sixteen hours so far. Luckily, for the majority of the trip, I have been surrounded by good company. Eduardo and Felipe, the two high-spirited individuals who were so generous with the fifth of cane liquor they brought on board, the little girl two rows back who likes to play peek-a-boo, and of course, my girl, who has made a constant effort to stay cheerful and keep things interesting. And even when her face began to turn green and she could no longer speak, there was still the old Sanyo mounted on the wall behind the driver’s head, a relic, much like the movies currently playing on the screen - high class flicks with lines like “I ain’t got time to bleed,” or “I’m gonna hit you so hard your ancestors will hurt.” Why is every movie on these buses a Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson Flick? It’s so bad I’d rather ask the driver if he could please put on a soap opera. Pobre Pablo or Pedro Escamoso. I’d rather eat a turd than have one force fed into my eyeballs.

But you gotta see the silver lining. The bus is clean and well maintained; it would have to be to stay in service over several decades on all manner of roads. The entire ceiling has been decorated with a festive mural. The driver has adorned the headliner with a plethora of stuffed animals, stickers, and decals extolling such phrases as “Jesus is coming - look busy” and “Drive it like you stole it.” The seats are covered in soft, stretched, well worn leather that has seen countless travelers. When you sit in them, you sink into their embrace. A button on the armrest of each seat allows one to recline back and catch some sleep. In my chair, however, I am wide awake. Between my legs I have placed my backpack, in my hand is a small plastic bag, and digging a hole through the nice worn leather and into my back are the go-go gadget knees of a passenger whose snores tear through my thoughts. I contemplate suffocating him with the plastic bag in my hands, but realize I can’t because the plastic bag is filled to overflowing with my girlfriend’s vomit.

It’s best not to think of that though. Sixteen hours on a bus leaves plenty of time to take in the subtleties of the land, to think about the journey ahead, and contemplate life in general. At first I thought that it would be difficult to travel for so many hours without stopping. For example, where does one go to the bathroom? How does one eat, or drink? What does one do to stay entertained when the television doesn’t work or the movie is over? Elsewhere in the world, these bare necessities have been ignored. But in Latin America, a travelers basic needs have been looked after. For entertainment - live performances! At every stop sign, railroad crossing or slow turn, someone will jump on board and begin his act, usually claiming to be poor, lost, or extremely misfortunate, in which case he will spend five to ten minutes launching into the tragedies of his life. Or he will evangelize, exalting the Good Book or singing Hosanna on Highest, in which case the crowd is invited to sing along (which they frequently do, especially if the evangelist sings poorly). Should one become thirsty or hungry, there’s no need to worry, for frequently those who jump on the buses come bearing food and beverages. The faire normally involves stale Funyuns and home brewed Horchata but it is sustenance none the less. And, lastly, of course, should one feel the need to relieve himself, he needs not wait for the next stop, for there is a bathroom right there on board the bus. I had to use it once. It is quaint. By which I mean no bigger than a broom closet. Better yet, coffin. With all the room I’ve got in here, I might as well be sharing it with a corpse. God knows it smells like a corpse. In fact you can almost picture him as you look down into the stall, his head bobbing up and down in a solution of toilet bowl water that smells like formaldehyde. Is that a limb, or entrails soaked in gastric juice? Oh, no, it’s just the ol’ Brown Round from the last visitor, too thick to make it down the little hole, so you gotta sit there and stare at it while you contemplate whether you should even try to drop a deuce, or whether, if you flush the toilet, it will overflow and you’ll end up swimming in a closet full of caca. And as you sit there trying to decide what is worse, pooping your pants or risking dropping trow into that ring-o-disease, the bus is banging and bouncing and dancing its dizzying dance, threatening to shake the shit out of you if you don’t hurry up and get down to it yourself. “Your ass is mine!” the toilet seat seems to say as it flaps up and down with the bumps in the road. “No,” you beg, silently, trying to fight the physical urge within yourself to relieve yourself. “No, I will never sit on you.” “DROP EM!” the toilet screams back. “NO!!!!!”

Enough. I digress. Sometimes I lose sight of why I embarked on this journey in the first place. It’s not about traveling in style or comfort or having the amenities of everyday life at your beck and call. It’s about adventure; hitting the open road, doing as the Romans do, tapping in to the pulse of the people. I don’t want to be That Guy - the American Tourist who sports too-short day glow Bermudas and pasty white skin, who insists on staying at the Sofitel but complains about the prices, and prefaces every question with “DO - YOU - SPEAK - ENGLISH?” and becomes frustrated and confused when one does not. Who needs first class? Who needs legroom and climate control? What’s the big rush? You’re on vacation, here to see the countryside; while you’re looking down from your comfy little window at the top of a cloud, I’m down below in the thick of it man, I’m taking it all in. I don’t mind the arctic wind blowing through the AC vents; I don’t mind the cockroaches crawling under the woodgrain. I’m…I’m…I’m gonna flip. I’m gonna hijack this thing. I’m gonna start a mutiny and yank Juan Pablo Montoya here out of his seat and throw him into oncoming traffic so we can SLOW THIS FUCKING THING DOWN!”

“Senor,” someone says. “Hemos llegado.” I retract my claws from the leather interior rising from my slouched position to look at the man who is addressing me. It is the conductor. We are stopped. “Estamos en Manizales,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, pulling myself out of my muscle tensed slouch to peer out the window. Day is just dawning, warming the quiet bus yard with its golden glow. I stand up, stretch, and grab my things. “That wasn’t so bad,” I say. “Come on babe, we’re here.”