I Was Not Run Out of Town; I Left Because I Wanted To
By Don Adams © Don Adams 2004

Every morning she showed up on my terrace with her white plastic pail containing that day's offering of the fresh horse turds she'd gathered on her journey up the hill.

Right now some of you are thinking, "how appropriate". You know, it's not like I didn't get a daily ration NoB, but that's exactly what I came SoB to escape.

Not horse manure--pushy women. In this case, my landlady. She was engaged in psychological warfare--determined to force me to move. Her weapon? Those road apples--delivered each morning to disturb my peace, and ostensibly to feed the seven large potted plants on the terrace. If the effect had been as profound as the constant fertilizing warranted, those plants would have made Jack's beanstalk look like an Ethiopian truck farm.

She wanted me and my dogs gone and she was leaving no turd unturned to accomplish her goal. It happened that after the rental deal had been agreed upon and pesos had passed hands she decided that she'd rather keep that little hillside casa with the spectacular bay view as a museum rather than a source of income.

Not that she needed the money. She owned half the village, such as it was, paid for with the money she'd earned from working the cathouses. Not as one of the lay-down girls--this was a squat and homely woman, attractive and desirable to only the most desperate, depraved, or down and out--but as a peddler of other goods.

She realized early in her business career that any woman who spends twenty hours a day in bed; eight sleeping, twelve working, had little time or energy left for shopping. She filled that void (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) by setting up the CDS--the Cathouse Delivery Service. Brilliant idea. She hustled up (Again, sorry.) a supply of scented soaps, cheap perfumes, nail files and polishes, disinfectants, antibiotics, mouthwashes, creams, make-up, and cheap and sleazy boudoir wear of all colors and descriptions and began running her traps in all the area boom boom rooms.

Sales were brisk and bargaining was almost non-existent. The girls usually had only a few minutes between tricks most days and she made her sales calls during the busiest periods. The gods smile down on those who find a hole in the marketplace and then fill it. (Okay, okay, I'm truly ashamed of that one. I'll stop!)

All of her diligence paid off because she now owned a small beachfront hotel with a simple but well-attended open air restaurant on the sand, three or four of the local fishing pangas (and their crews) several of the biggest houses in town, a lime orchard and retail plant nursery, and a money lending concern that held two-thirds of the male population of the place in perpetual bondage.

That's how she ended up with Romero. He was the live-in "handyman" at the hotel. Twenty years old, handsome, athletically built, and of somewhat adequate fix-it skills and native intelligence, he was trapped by debt; although his needs, up to a point, were well taken care of. Good food from the restaurant, excellent living quarters--the lair of La Doña--and just enough freedom to be able to occasionally slip off to the plaza in the evenings to sit and drink a beer or ten with those of us who had no one to answer to at the moment, and no better options to distract us from the good life.

And of course we all made up a hand to draw to. Walter, known as Tattoo, the narcoleptic former college professor and martial arts fanatic who lost interest in all things Oriental just as his elaborate and colorful upper body Japanese artwork was nearing completion. The night watchman of both the González Construction Company and Marco's place, Gilbert--El Chivo, a personable Frenchman, who since he followed the well-documented Gallic hygiene regimen was always invited to sit downwind. Myself, known to the locals as Moises since as I bailed off down the hillside on the way to the plaza, long hair blowing, walking staff securing my balance, shirttail lifting in the breeze, and my usual entourage of every damn dog on my side of town following I reminded some of that leader of the ancient Jews. Marilyn, the six-foot three blonde half-Mexican, half-German transvestite who had other friends but joined our group frequently because Ricardo--Ricky Smooth, the local herb dealer and reputed car thief and cousin of the ejido chief--was known to pick up the tab for the night's dining and drinking anytime he had a successful day, and for several evenings thereafter.

On really successful days, those when a dumbfounded tourist found himself staring at the empty space where he'd earlier parked his shiny SUV, Ricky would hold court with the rest of the brain trust at Marco's Crocodillo, the finest eatery and the gaudiest tourist attraction in the village, where we all shared our tales of serpents in Paradise.

Ricky was usually quite upset because a new president had been elected in part on his promise to clear up crime and corruption. He'd seen and heard it all before but this time it might be different. That son of a bitch Ramírez was actually sending investigators in response to car theft reports and hinting that certain long-standing agreements could no longer be honored.

Tattoo was perfectly happy about most things but bewailed the fact that after meeting one of the internationally famous porn actors who was starring in a movie being filmed at the big resort just up the coast, and after being invited to visit the set during rehearsals, he hadn't been offered a role. We all sympathized, mostly telling him how disappointed we were to miss watching him fall asleep in the middle of the action and possibly smothering his co-star.

Marilyn, too, had aspirations to stardom but felt her lack of a "real" bosom kept her from achieving fame on the smaller stages and tabletops of Mexico City. The rest of us religiously tossed our change into a jar behind the bar of the Crocodillo for her benefit. It's hard for a girl waiting tables at a juice bar to earn enough to save a bit back to finance a boob job so Tattoo, in one of his infrequent non-somniculous periods suggested that we salt the pot and encourage the tourists to finance the addition of Marilyn's long hoped for cantilevered front. Luckily Marco had the scruples of a timeshare tout and agreed to sponsor the ongoing fundraiser. And it did give the tourists a bit of tittilation. (Last one. I promise.)

And then there was Gilbert. His problem, as Chivo himself explained it, was that his live-in lover Lola demanded that he work for a living rather than allowing him both access to her abundant assets as well as the freedom to enjoy life as it should be lived in a semi-tropical Eden. For several years he'd relied on his charm and his wits to eke out an existence that evoked either wonder, envy, or pity.

A modern day Robinson Crusoe at the fringes of civilization, he constructed a three-walled palapa just a kilometer or so outside of the village. The spot he picked was where the beach joined the jungle near the river. He gathered adobes and cement blocks from various backyards in the village to construct his cooking grill and used wooden produce crates to hold his few belongings. An old hammock kept him off the sand at night, and the rest of his needs were taken care of through barter, guile, theft, charm, or chicanery until Lola "saved" him from bliss and brought him under her roof and authority.

Romero never spoke much of his situation and we never brought it up in his presence, although it was rumored that he was saving every centavo he could get his hands on so that he could travel to Manzanillo for a glaucoma transplant. The human psyche and 20/20 vision can deal with only so much horror on a daily basis, and believe me, getting up close and personal with La Doña must have been enough horror to occupy several dozen hawkeyes and psyches at once.

This was a bunch that I could, and did relate to, but I held a special kinship to Gilbert and Romero because we all shared the same damn problem. Women. Pushy, bossy women; although my burden seemed to me to be disproportionately heavier.

I stopped going by Vero's house for my thrice weekly language lesson because it seemed like I was paying her good money to ask me---in English---why I didn't have a woman in my house up on the hill. "Why do you live with all those dogs? You need a woman up there." After barely surviving three spectacular marital crash and burn adventures and crawling out of a couple of non-legally binding lust quagmires, the very last thing I needed was a woman up there. Or a woman telling me I needed a woman. Or a woman delivering horse turds to my door.

Or a woman trying to highjack my junior dog. Olivia harassed me for months with repeated demands to turn him over to her and the seven half-civilized spawns of Satan she proudly called her own. Or Luz rushing to the back room of the store to send her unwed (for many good reasons) sister to wait on me every time I stopped in for supplies.

And that's why I finally gave in and drank my farewell round with the crew at the Crocodillo. And why I now live on this isolated beach in my own version of Gilbert's little grass shack--just enough larger to accommodate me and three dogs. And no pushy women.