Chapter Seven - The Five Bundles

As to why we were hauling five large bags, I can only speculate - let's see, beside a bag apiece containing our personal belongings, we had the tent and a bag of fabrics that was leftover from Larry and Zulma’s forays into the Guatemalan highlands. The tent was shelter, the textiles could be used as trade goods. It was the books. Ah yes, the twenty-five pound bag of books. That's why we had five bags, we needed books!

The day went by and slid into dusk. We’d become acquainted with the whole family who ran the little tienda beside the road at the edge of the sleepy Copan settlement. All day we watched chatty tourists return to their buses after milling about inside the quaint ruins, looking over their itineraries; checking off this one - that one coming up next, like reading through the TV guide. Who among them would guess the legends told by the guides are much truer and nearer than might be imagined. I'm sure the freshly fallen tree caused some excitement; we felt quite superstitious about returning that morning to find out.

The towering structures stood mute.

The little shop provided a supply of Cokes and confections, and as the sun descended toward the tops of the coconut palms, a small girl and her slightly older brother surprised us with a plate of rice and beans from their household dinner table, our reward for being the day’s best customers. At dark all human life vanished so we drug our belongings into a thicket and bedded down for the night.

When a bus rumbled into our outpost late the next morning, we had to consider: spend our money to get out of here or spend another day frittering it away at this snack shop, trying to hitch a ride but getting nowhere? What little traffic there was had snubbed us, and into the second day of this, our chances of a free lift were looking bleak. We inquired and found that the bus would take us to some port town, gulping to learn the fare would gobble up the last money we had between us. My imagination formulated a scheme: “Look Larry, from there we can board a freighter and work our way to the African continent. I've checked it out – it's a straight shot to Dakar, across the Atlantic - at the 15th parallel. What do you say, shall we do it? It's a good plan, eh?”

We paid our money and took our chances.

A plan is as good as wherever it takes you, and this one took us to the end of the bus line. We unloaded our freight on sidewalk of the main street of the grimiest town I had ever seen; everything seemed to be coated with a layer of engine grease. Glum store fronts stocked with bulk commodities were patronized by a clientele who needed no frivolous ad teasers, they knew what they were after and were not about to make any impulse buys. We weren’t about to make any buys at all, not even in the most inviting spot in town - the little café in the middle of the block.

The avenue ended at the shipyard; it appeared more like a graveyard for old tankers than the thriving seaport that I had envisioned. We straggled down to the end and made a fortress with our bags on the dirty sidewalk. Larry went back for the extra one. He returned with a banana and a couple of oranges that he bargained for with the tiny bit of change left over from our bus fare. I drug a large slab of freshly tossed cardboard to our spot, which provided a reasonably clean surface to spread out on. Pulling some bolts of our Guatemalan weavings from the bag we laid them down across the cardboard palette, brightly contrasting and removing ourselves from our gloomy surroundings. Making a banana and a couple of oranges last an hour, we sat smoldering in mute resignation, not feeling particularly gripped by this ‘spirit of adventure.’

It was early evening, about 7:30, and dark. We wanted to stroll about town, but had to guard our worldly goods. The street lamps gave off that kind of deadening glow that, even if you were dressed in the colors of the rainbow, it would all appear as brown. The few people who passed by eyed us quizzically, this place didn’t look like it had ever seen a tourist - why would a tourist come here? The road running parallel to the wharf, pompously named 'El Embarcadero,' was wide and rutted, packed earth made solid by years of truck tires and spilled engine oil. Litter was strewn about everywhere; wrappers, beer cans, plastic bags, garbage, broken bottles and greasy oil drums. ... rats scurried about poking their noses into piles of rubble, squabbling and chirping. Mosquitoes were abundant in the hot sticky air, and there were hordes of flying cockroaches, dozens of them, my greatest dread in the world. With our backs to the wall we stared out across thickets of dead grass and dirty weeds choking the railroad tracks running between us and our port of call, with its dingy docks and massive black cargo ships moored to creaking piers in the stinking harbor. The air we breathed came into our lungs carrying a mixture of molecules from all manner of loathsome elements: decomposing land and sea creatures, crude engine sludge and ship's sewage blended with the rancid vapor of untold decades of piss having been leaked along our sidewalk campsite by drunken dockworkers heading off to bed down after a night's drinking. Within the ingredients of this airborne soup we could barely discern the aromatic taste of pure unpolluted briny sea air. We tried to extract only that, filtering out all the rest. We kept our heads above water by entertaining each other with stories from our lives, and amused the drunks as they stumbled past. That was easy - our mere presence was enough to make them laugh. I was mad at myself for bringing us to this dead end – hadn’t I experienced enough failure at finding passage aboard a ship? My confidence had waned. Fitfully we tried to sleep among the nocturnal vermin on that hard walkway, and nowhere in my dreams appeared any allusion to sailing off to the Mediterranean any time soon.

First light - Larry woke me with a tin of water he’d procured from somewhere; we washed the sleep out of our eyes, cleaned our teeth. With renewed resolve I struck out over the railroad track, through the chain link gate to the shipyard. Knowing just enough to ask for the harbor master I was led to him by a longshoreman. I found him behind a counter at a desk with a couple of guys in a musty office. He broke off his conversation to eye me as an unexpected curiosity, but had a friendly demeanor and listened through my wavering Spanish until he had the idea what I was looking for: work in exchange for passage aboardships to anywhere. We should go over to Puerta Cortez, he told me, a day’s train ride away to the major harbor, and there we’d find a ship, “¡No problema!” We could buy the train tickets from him, it would make a stop right here mid-morning.

“Si Senor, gracias, pero no tenemos plata para bolletos.” He looked thoughtful but not surprised when I explained to him that my friend and I didn’t have any money for tickets; I’m sure he’d already spotted us at our homeless camp across the street. He either took pity upon us or knew it would be the quickest way to rid us from his town, but some capricious whim provoked his acts of generosity: I returned with two cups of hot coffee, a couple of sweet rolls and - two rail passes to Puerta Cortez!

“Now don’t forget - when you get to “Cajon Pass” you must change trains.” he’d told me. “ Get off the train there, then get on the one that goes in to Puerta Cortez,” I took the tickets, studied them, and thanking him profusely backed out the door balancing doughnuts on the paper coffee cups. “Don’t forget - ‘Cajon Pass! Change trains!” he reminded as a parting shot.

The train had been sitting still for an interminably long time; it was scorching in the mid-day heat, the open windows only brought in gritty air and soot. Filtering through to my semi-consciousness droned a voice: “Cajon Pass.... Cajon Pass...” the conductor was shuffling through our car making his announcement, at the same time I felt the train lurch. I sprang to life. “Hey man, we gotta get off! - Cajon Pass! - we gotta change trains here!” I shouted as I began flinging our bags out of the window. As the last one went, we jumped. When I took stock of our location, I could see only sage brush and cactus, and some crows. I spotted what looked like the terminal- down the line, a mile away. As the last car groaned slowly by, the conductor was standing on the back ledge of his caboose, slack jawed and shaking his head in disbelief at what he was seeing.

Our comfy coach rumbled off leaving us in our dead calm. More crows gathered to watch.

Larry shoulders two of the bags and commands “Sit down! Just stay here!” and heads down the tracks toward the station, truly pissed off. I sat with my misery, the crows grew bored and flew away.

In twenty minutes I see him returning alongside the railway line in a great rush; he arrives red faced and panting.

“The train is leaving in fifteen minutes.”

I console myself, thinking that, at the pace everything moves around here, we’ll have plenty of time. When we got there, the train had come and gone.

“Where’s our bags?”

“On the train.”

The bags were on the train, and the train was gone. Which bags were they? Not the tent or the bag of fabrics. Not the books. The ones with our passports and visas, and all of our clothes. Those ones.

We staggered out of the drowsy station, an outpost in the scruffy desert. We slumped down at a dusty junction of two dusty roads, I on one side, Larry on the other. Nothing moved but lizards darting about in the thorny bedrock of a hundred twenty degrees and no shade.

We glared at the ground. Our trip was over. There was no possibility to continue. You can’t get across a border without passport and visa, so we would have to return to a major city and deal with it - inconceivable, as we had no money. An agonized hour put itself into slow motion; time warped, then stopped altogether – we died and petrified at that crossroad deep in the desert.

I lifted my head at the sound of a roaring motor which had materialized dead between us. The 326 engine was planted under the hood of a dirty red Firebird with two Honduranian hipsters planted and growing in the front seat. Credence Clearwater was pounding from twin speakers in the door panels. “Where going?” shouted the guy riding shotgun . “Puerta Cortez! Train station!” I yelled back over the din. “Nos Vemos!” he orders as he pulls his seat forward to let us in.

With great purpose they blasted down the rutted road then swung right onto a major paved highway. Passing one car after another, they came upon a pickup truck loaded with pigs. Coming up alongside the driver they shouted for him to pull over. They seemed to know him.

Our rescue man squatted down on the precarious shoulder as traffic screamed dangerously by. Gesturing intently to the grizzled driver in an old straw hat, he then hurried back to us saying, “This man, he take you - Puerta Cortez!”

The next moment Larry and I are beaming at one another, delighted to be riding with pigs, strong arming them to keep from being squashed against the rails. The pickup swayed madly down the highway. He dropped us off in late afternoon, right in front of the rail terminal.

Thanking the pig farmer heartily, we presented him with a beautiful Guatemalan shawl for his smiling wife riding in the cab with him, then ran to the platform. No sign of our bags. Inquiring about the train at the ticket counter, we were greatly relieved to hear it would be arriving in an hour.

The day had cooled. Outside the station the evening air was refreshing. The relaxed and fragrant atmosphere of this end of town buoyed our spirits. The old train station was picturesque, with a long canopy to provide shelter from the rains. Large leafed magnolia trees shaded everything giving an oasis-like quality to the quiet urban neighborhood, and across the road a friendly bistro beckoned to us, pouring out the aromas of good food.

“So fucking hungry,” Larry said.

“Yeah, what’d we have today? Coffee and doughnuts. Seems like last year. We gotta eat.” But how?

“I have an idea,” I say as we crossed the street. We entered the gleaming restaurant and stacked our three bulky sacks inside the door, covered in grime and dust, muddied and frayed by snouts and hooves of bad-mannered hogs. We strode to the lunch counter, taking a seat at the bar stools, doing our best to ignore the shock on the faces of the small cluster of waitresses who’d gathered at the far end of the counter.

Looking like bums or possibly two men about to take hostages, we did our best to feign an air of confidence and nonchalance.

Not having had a proper meal in over two days, it was time to get enterprising and I had one ace up my sleeve: my good luck charm. He had been riding along with me for quite awhile, now it was time to say goodbye. From the bottom of my pocket I pulled out one very cute little jade crow and pushed him across the counter to the edge. He stood facing the girls, a defiant but enticing glint in his jaded eye. I motioned to to the three wary waitresses, but they stood their ground. Again I gestured and they sort of nudged one of them out of the pack, probably the new girl. She reluctantly started toward us; I could see her eyes darting glances between us and the little green crow.

“Agua frio, por favor?”

“Si.” She brought two frosty and very welcome glasses of water from the cooler, careful to avoid knocking over the crow. I knew she was curious. Moving the little bird one inch closer to her, I said simply, “From Tikal.”

“Siiii?” She brightened, happy to have a familiar point of reference in all this strangeness. She asked if she could pick him up. I told her he’d also been to America, to Hollywood.

The other girls were watching from a distance.

“Could we get some more water?”

Tikal was a name which conjured mystery – it was in another country, it was deep in the jungle. Tikal was King among the Mayan kingdoms, and right now a sliver of its allure was reaching out from across the centuries. The stories this crafty little bird could tell...

“Go ahead, pick him up.”

She held the jade crow, they were eying each other. I could see she liked him.

“He likes you.” I said.

She called the other waitresses over. Holding him up she said, “El es de Tikal!” Ah, I thought. She said ‘he’ is from Tikal, not ‘it.’ They were bonding – I knew that look; the one he gave me when he overheard I was going to Hollywood. He was passed around, to adoring eyes. Now there were three young girls excited over the Mayan amulet. “He is from Tikal?” “Si.” “Si, tengo que vender, no quiero, pero….”

“You want to sell him?” she asked, her eyes widening,

“No, I don't want to....”

“how much?”

“Hmmm.... you want to buy him?”

“Si!” two girls said ‘si! at once, our water waitress and another. The figure sitting on the tip of my tongue doubled itself.

“hmmm… ok, you like? Then for you, forty lempiras.”

“Ohhh no, our waitress hesitated - the other said ‘OK!’ but our girl couldn't let him go - she had the advantage of possession, so clutching him tightly she said ‘OK!’ over her shoulder as she ran to get her purse.

“Where did he come from?!” Larry was incredulous, as we enjoyed the breaking of our near fast of two days. Honduranian cuisine at its finest – rice with eggs, black beans with thick cream, tortillas with goat cheese and tomatilla salsa, slices of lime, cucumbers and tomatoes, cilantro. I told our waitress to tell the cook to make it especial.

“Pedro,” I replied.

“You got that from Pedro?

“Si.”

Pedro was the archaeologist with the little shop beside the church, in Panajachel.

“Yeah, and not only that piece. Remember I told you I bought a bag of jade pieces from him, to take to LA. The rest are in the bag on the train. He said they’d be worth a lot of money there, but I didn’t sell a single one. I took them to shops up on the Strip, and all around, but no one was interested. One guy wanted the crow, but I decided to keep him for myself. Good thing, huh?”

“Yeah man, that was somethin’ else….. I didn’t know how we were going to get out of here.”

“Ah, we woulda’ sold books. On the street corner. Woulda’ made a killin'.”

Forty Lempiras in those days was as good as a hundred bucks in the states, maybe better. If we were frugal, we could make this last a little while, but we’d already rented a room on the balcony of the hotel out back. We were clean and fresh from a quick shower while they were preparing our meal, but still in our pig wrestling clothes.

When we heard the train whistle, I stayed put, nursing my cup of café con leche. Larry was on the platform when the steaming locomotive glided serenely into the terminal. He disappeared behind the corner of the station and was out of sight for ten long minutes – then suddenly there he was, both bags slung happily over his shoulders. We went through them carefully and found all the important stuff was right there, unmolested - passports, visas - “See, here’s the rest of the jade pieces,” I exclaimed, emptying the dozen remaining centuries-old carvings of green stone out of my little crimson velvet pouch onto the table. We leaned back and sighed, contented, the perfect end to a perfect day.