Dispatch Number 11 -Richard

Baja California is a rugged outback when measured by any standard. A dry barren and unforgiving dessert landscape that claims scenes from the old westerns you once watched with intensity and curiosity trying to understand the life of cowboys in such harsh lands. Baja is such a place, it is a frontier of vast open space unsettled by people with just one major highway running north to south for about 1,000 miles, dirt roads make up the rest. Water is scarce and cactus aplenty. Some roads are graded while many are in poor condition that border on treacherous.

Americans are the foreign faces you see here. Many of them are tourists, some have seasonal homes, others come for last refuge. The refuge of the outlaw, the person running from something. It is perhaps this person that Baja offers the most to. Outlaws love Baja because no one asks questions here, police presence is limited and enforcement almost nonexistent. For the outlaw Baja is a very good place to hide or vanish.

Meet Richard a 64 year old man with a compact lean frame standing at 5 feet 6 inches tall with a full head of silver hair, unkempt that sprayed out from its part like pages of a book. And eyes that actually had a glint. He laughed and jabbered like smokers do and lit one after another with a Coke or coffee in the other hand. He was missing a large tract of teeth on the lower jaw. Richard was a tireless monologue that always knew more than you and would interrupt you to say so, then keep talking. He was a poor listener which was hard to endure because his tall tales would excite my own memory eager to tell some long forgotten exploit. You rarely completed a thought, a question or short story, as he would plow steadfast into one of his oft repeated stories.

His baying smile would leak out as he recanted an adventure with the result almost always being about him getting the better end of some deal. These exploits were his treasures which he happily told over and over. "I never cheated a man.", he touted when I first met him. I checked my wallet frequently after that. Life in camp with him was as colorful as his stories. He fueled his small camp fire with gasoline that shot flames up into the night sky.

He lived off the sea for most of his food by fishing and clamming, his grocery store was the Sea of Cortez, his car was an 18 foot aluminum boat. He shaved everyday yet managed to look wholly unkempt. In town he looked like a bum, hair straight up listing to one side wearing soiled clothes. To compliment this wild appearance he wore dirty goose feather house slippers around this balmy beach town. It made him all at once look wild, poor and eccentric. He could have been Howard Hughes wealthy or white trash poor, his jumpy dog, Paco would not tell me. Once again I was victim to my curiosity and needed to know more about Richard and his life story.

Richard was a guy with something to prove and stories to tell. All of the memories he shared had the same ending -Richard was a winner. Whether he was training a neighbors dog to stop killing chickens, selling green (nonburnable) firewood in San Francisco or life on the battlefield in Vietnam. In the contest of life Richard was a flurry of success.

After the Vietnam war, which he served in, he returned to his hometown of San Francisco, California. He had trouble making a living with his limited skills and resorted to something very unique: mugging muggers. He would dress up very nice with a pair of fake diamond rings and flash a thick wad of cash which was actually a stack of singles wrapped in a couple $50s, then order a ginger ale at the bar acting like a player. He would appear drunk while looking for a mark, another mugger, who thought he was setting Richard up, then Richard would mug him. He would walk outside prepared for the mugging, then catch the guy by surprise and take everything he had.

When mugging muggers did not pan out he discovered through some military buddies of a profession he was very well prepared for: the Professional Soldier. Soon he was off on his first two year contract fighting other peoples wars. This was his life for 14 years until he stepped on a landmine in Syria that left him club footed. A soldier that cannot run is no longer a soldier and it forced him to retired at age 51.

I noticed that he did not use the term mercenary. He explained the difference. The professional soldier works for the government in control of the country, lives in barracks and enjoys a soldiers routine while training and leading men in countries all over the world. A mercenary, on the other hand, is employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group. Mercenaries, he explained, tend to be men who enjoy killing. "They are killers.", Richard said with a finality and severity in his voice.

He had been shot twice, had his teeth rifle butted out, right hand sliced open by a bayonet, and his left foot shattered by a landmine. I saw the scars, holes, missing teeth, club foot and those glinting blue eyes. In Vietnam he was a nuclear weapons specialist in the Navy and spent much of that time in the deepest bowels of the ship performing maintenance on them. Even though he was in the Navy he somehow managed to go AWOL in the jungle with a machine gun and take up residence in a remote jungle village for six months until caught stealing ammo from a U.S. Army base only to be returned to his ship to perform nuclear duties again. He deflected my questions about court-martial with a wave of hand explaining that he played dumb and led them to believe he had shell shock.

After being returned to his ship, the U.S.S. Independence, he requested a transfer from that duty in hopes of a plum location at a ship yard only to be placed on a dangerous Navy river patrol boat running the Mekong river. It is the same kind of boat featured in the film Apocalypse Now made of plastic and about 30 feet long. His boat was attacked and the crew captured. Richard became a prisoner of war. While in prison at the infamous Hanoi Hilton in North Vietnam his fingers were broken with pliers and his testicles shocked so badly it kept him from ever having children.

Some life. From Vietnam in the mid 1960s to the streets of San Francisco then to far away countries to fight other peoples wars. Richard was entertaining. His stories were always colorful even though they did not always manage to dovetail very well. My public laughter often morphed into private brooding by doubts I had about his outrageous stories.

It took two days for Richard to reveal why he was living in Mexico for the past 1 and 1/2 years. He owned a small ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in California raising cattle and growing marijuana. He had two prior marijuana related charges and routinely exceeded his legal right to grow pot for medical purposes. A third violation of California's liberal marijuana laws would put Richard almost certainly in jail.

During a small brush fire on an adjacent property his pot farm was discovered by fire fighters. His neighbor rang him and said the authorities wanted to talk with him. Richard stalled them off by pledging to rush over with his medical marijuana papers to straighten everything out. He grabbed a bag of dirty clothes, ten grand in emergency money and fled for Baja in a truck.

He receives money from the States which is smuggled in by some friend. Richard is stranded. He has no U.S. passport and his tourist visa for Mexico has long expired. Every visit ended the same way with him saying, I'll see you when I see you kid.

Who else would I meet on this journey into The Americas?

Dispatch Number 10 -Death in Mexico

Sunday Mass near 8 pm the church sings in beautiful tones with guitar accompaniment to a near empty chamber while the town squares are at capacity. Life lived out in the open is the Mexico I see and experience. The parks are full, the streets are full, street vendors are everywhere, restaurants dot every street. All of it with open doors. Jewelry stores, butcher shops, Internet cafes, auto parts stores and the most difficult for this traveller to get over, the funeral parlors -yes, they too are out in the open. Caskets on display like the VW dealer displays cars up the street.

I squirm each time I pass one and this confounds me since I am relatively OK with death, but seeing caskets just inside an open door under bright lights is beyond me. Don't even believe in caskets, cannot understand why someone would put another in one. Fancy shinny caskets the blind worms cannot see. A puzzling ceremony, yet I turn light in the stomach and head when I pass an open door or big window with them on display.

What is the peoples relationship with death when life is lived out in the open, like it is here in Mexico? Death seems to be very much a part of life as much as shopping for food is. Here funeral parlors are not a private affair. Open to the street. I walk by look in and see a group of six women talking to the coffin seller as he holds something silky over a sparkling open casket. From the street I see the women's backs and the attentive face of the coffin seller under bright fluorescent lights. Flushed with guilt I feel like I am spying.

Life unvarnished. Real, accepted and authentic. There is a practicality to it all, a matter-of-factness to what life perhaps really is, a life lived without masks, curtains or closed doors. Lovers meet in the park to share new found excitement, new babies are held high, whole families run busy restaurants. The funeral parlor shines as brightly as the restaurant I just ate at and lets a passerby like me voyeur upon anothers loss.

I am an American and have been taught that death is a shameful thing, something to be hidden from view and hidden from my own feelings -to treat it and interact with it as if it had not happened. And all of it takes place behind closed doors for no one else to see. Picking out the fancy casket that the blind worms can't even see.

Dog in the street around 8am in final death tremors, it is a German Sheppard in its final life passage, its fur twitches and limbs shake non-stop, laying on its side on a narrow cobblestone street while people continue their day for fresh bread or a job. The dog is noticed and quickly accepted without much sentiment. The street is narrow, only wide enough for two cars to pass each other -to the pedestrian the dog cannot be ignored.

Death and life are different here.

Dispatch Number 9 -Room

This room, my first room in three months, is slightly bigger than a four-man prison cell that is painted in cheery blue and yellow pastels. It has no windows. It is made entirely of concrete except the roof and door. The walls, vanity, open faced closet, floor and bed bases are made of concrete that serve as testament to how long they expect to be in business here at Pension California. The property is set in the heart of La Paz, a buzzing port city in southern Baja California where the Spanish set their first flag nearly 400 years ago. The room is indestructible. Fury himself could stay here and it would not make a difference to the next guest.

After three months living out in the bush, this is what I thought I deserved. Actually, I have resolved to be frugal and travel 3rd class to more deeply experience the countries I travel through, make the money last, and be closer to the people. Nothing worse for this traveler than to be on a resort lounge chair feeling wonderfully rich while surrounded by the colorfully poor.

The depressing and menacing feel of this small concrete room is offset by the happy colors it is painted in. I lay on the firm bed and take in its simplicity. There is a ceiling fan, a single fluorescent tube light, a shower and toilet. Along the ceiling, as wide as the room, are wood slats that allow fresh air in and let mosquitoes wonder about. To secure the room when leaving you swing a padlock into place. Latin American utilitarianism. Later, I think darkly about that lock on the outside and how someone in the middle of the night will lock the doors and set fire to the place. I'll be trapped and die trying to escape.

With such a dense layout of rooms built in concrete the sound travels remarkably well. The rooms are noisy; you can hear everything and when you realize this, you begin to get excited and anticipate hearing things that are forbidden. It is a matter getting the wheat separated from the chaff; where I can hear all of life going on around me: sneezing, showering, flushing toilets and pissing in them, coughing, burping, and clearing of the throat. A collection of voices in Spanish, English and an assortment of European languages full of chatter. There are giggling women followed by lovemaking, the sounds come then fade almost as quickly as they arrived.

It is close quarters cell block living like government style housing. On first night I slept poorly, too many new sounds all of them urban. After three months in the bush sleeping under stars, watching wildlife and waking up at dawn, this windowless room was an extreme shift for my senses.

I don't know why I sleep in campy cheap places like this one or why I spend so much time in the bush. Maybe I am not comfortable anywhere, except in this dark cement cell that suits my mood to be alone in this large city.

Dispatch Number 8 -Joe

Joe was an American I met a few hours south of Mexicali in Baja California, Mexico. On this Halloween night the waterfront promenade was filled with parents and children in costume. The beach was lined with dozens of fiberglass skiffs called pangas. The Malecon, as the waterfront is known, is an active, colorful and lively part of town, filled with working fisherman, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and tourist trinket shops.
I felt lucky to find a copy of the San Diego Tribune, the only English newspaper I had come across since leaving the U.S. The Tribune is an awful newspaper that makes the San Francisco Chronicle read like a first rate paper. Yes, that bad. To those unfamiliar with the Chronicle it is a pulpy daily thin on news and analysis. To find a newspaper worse than my hometown paper was a surprise. Back to Joe.

A lifetime in the construction business and long days in the sun made Joe look older than his 50-something. He was missing large tracts of teeth, but that didn't keep him from smiling. He had a chain smokers body -lean and sallow. Joe was not a good listener in the way most people are when they think they know more about a place than you, however, I managed to squeeze in questions about life in this town between his breaths or when he lit a new cigarette.

Until recently San Felipe was a backwater fishing village. Today, it is a small city of 25,000 people that manages to retain much of its original charm despite the flux of Americans moving there. I learned of the current real estate boom-bust cycle from Joe and witnessed the desperation of real estate hawkers hustling property on the north end of town (didn't they know I recently sold and gave away my possessions?) Joe was on to some investment scheme for a golf course development led by an unnamed Hollywood mogul and explained without much conviction that he was gonna get a slice of the pie for $5,000 through a connection of a connection.

Joe liked to talk. What he spoke about the most were the Back Street Bars, it made him anxious, excited and obsessive. These bars, San Felipe's Red Light District, were tucked off the main drag away from the Halloween celebrants. He told me all about it with a whisper in my ear. A place of instant companionship, cheap drinking and sexual delights described as 40 to 100 dollar pleasures. With a wink from his weathered face he told me that if I would come with him I would be taken care of. A frequent victim of my curiosity, I could not resist the prospect of seeing the Back Street Bars.

Joe settled the dinner tab with urgency. He was anxious to leave the restaurant and spoke of Back Street with increasing frequency that came across as both excited and agitated. He kept inviting me with persistence that bordered on desperation. He described fun and pleasure and for good measure threw in an offer to buy me a beer. I said I would like to see Back Street, but was uncertain I would enter any of the establishments. On the walk over the streets darkened and my imagination ran ahead to women swinging and cajoling us 'Johns' from balconies and doorways.

I have always enjoyed the dark seedy underbelly of society. Vice is colorful. Vice is one of the best ways to observe desperation, loneliness, false bravado and sweaty men with bloated faces. No matter how cheery the voices are in places like this the fact remains -most bars smell of urine and disappointment. It was dark as we turned down a one-way street that felt like an alley -dark and uncertain. Cars lined both sides. Without lights bodies were reduced to shadows in doorways. It definitely enhanced the experience, yes, I thought, this is what a Red Light District is supposed to be like, just like the movies! Suddenly, Joe stopped walking when we approached a bar with closed doors. He pleaded with me to come in for a beer, No. You go in, I said. The bar door opened and sucked him backwards into the drowning sound of men, rough looking women and loud music. Joe looked like he fell backwards into a swimming pool as the doors shut behind him and anonymous arms reached out. That was the last time I saw Joe's black & white grin.

The street was filled with women in skimpy outfits, others leaned disinterestedly against buildings. I'll be generous and say the women of Back Street were not attractive in size or shape. And as usual, whether in Japan, Germany, United States or Mexico it was the cross dressing men that looked more attractive by way of fashion and feature than the straight women did with their ghoulish and sad features.

Without Joe I would have missed this glimpse of San Felipe's seedy underbelly. I walked back to camp wondering what else the dirt roads would offer.