Cena Final

      Rebecca's flight comes in at 8:30 p.m., so Silvia, Enrique, Cherie, Rebecca, and I gather at 9:30 to have some wine and cheese and the home-made macaroons that Rebecca brought. Finally, I can lean on my fluent-in-Spanish wife.

            Juan is still not home from working in the capitol so I'll never find out how he really feels about queers. Silvia, on the other hand, has been wonderful, asking about Rebecca, helping me to plan this get-together.

            The topic soon moves to immigration and Rebecca uses a lot of technical legal jargon that I miss but I'm able to make my point that the plot to use private prisons to house immigrants is exploitive, greedy, and evil. It's all pretty choppy. "Privada," I say. "Dinero," I say. "Mal," I say. But I get my point across.

            I'm really happy that I'm not just ordering a beer or asking for street directions--I'm participating in a full-speed adult conversation in Spanish.

            Sure, I'm a minor player. And I miss a lot. I miss at least 40% of it. I totally miss the part when Silvia tells Rebecca that she had invited me to the baby shower during that very first phone call. I missed it then, and I miss it now, with Silvia saying it right in front of me. 

            Then Cherie mentions that I talked to Antonio for a long time on his last night. What did we talk about, she wants to know. This is when I realize that although Antonio's Spanish was better than mine, he had always kept his conversations with our host family polite and simple. I retell his first- communion story and everyone laughs hard, shocked by how different my version is from Antonio's vague, courteous telling which omitted any mention of head trauma or neck braces.

            I'm on a roll, so I break out a story Antonio had told in conversation class. "How do you say out-of-body experience?" I ask Rebecca in English.

            "I don't know," she says. "Give it your best shot."

            "Una vez, Antonio salió tu propio cuerpo," I tell the group.

            "No," Silivia says in disbelief. Cherie just starts laughing.

            "Es verdad," I say. I somehow indicate that Antonio had told his tale of astral projection during a discussion of ghost stories, but the conversation moves too quickly for me to tell how Antonio's mom had taken him to a healer in a cave (at least I think it was a cave) who said he had shoulder pain because a spirit was inhabiting that part of his body, and that night he'd somehow floated above his own body and, from his position near the ceiling, had watched himself sleeping below in his bed. 

            The conversation moves on and I struggle just to catch up. I'm still a hack who stutters out fragments and mistakes. But I'm beginning to understand other people. To know them....in Spanish.

Error

  In another class conversation with the teacher Karen we discuss the good and bad love relationships we've had. I tell her about the on-and-off nine-year affair I had with a married woman when I was in my twenties. "Fue un error," I say.

            Karen starts laughing really hard, bouncing up and down in her seat. My phrase isn't quite right, but I have no idea how to say that although I don't really regret the affair, it's not something I'd ever do again...but I can't even think about this because Karen is laughing harder at this than she has at any intentional joke I've made. I have no idea why she finds it so funny.

            "Un error," she repeats and shakes her head, chuckling softly.

Arma

         In a one-one-one conversation with the other Spanish teacher Karen we discuss gun ownership in the U.S. versus that in Mexico where it is illegal.

            "My brother once gave me a handgun one Christmas as a surprise," I say. Usually my liberal friends meet this statement with concern and a series of questions, but Karen's just flashes a huge smile. "What a wonderful brother," she says immediately.

De Jefe

            During a phone conversation with Rebecca, I call the capital of Mexico, "De Jefe."

            "Did you just say 'De Jefe,'" she asks. "It's D.F. De Efe. for District Federale."

            "I know," I say, "but I said 'De Jefe' by accident one time and now I'm thinking I like the phrase as slang, " of the chief" for the "capitol,"

            "I think you are just covering up for getting it wrong," she says.

            "No, I'm starting a trend," I say. "You'll see someday."

Comunión

       It's the weekend and Antonio leaves to visit his first host family in Puebla to celebrate their daughter's first communion (or confirmation--I always get them mixed up but the girl was about twelve) with a big party.

            At breakfast, Antonio gives me only polite answers, so I hit him with the real reporter questions as soon as we leave the language school for our walk home. "Was there a live band?" I ask.

            "No, I think that's too expensive. I think that's only for weddings," he says. "But let me tell you what happened: In the middle of the party, a big storm struck and the wind knocked down the canopy above us and downed an iron pole that hit the little communion girl right in the head and her little twelve-year-old boyfriend tried to rescue her, but her eight-year-old brother just ran away and everyone made fun of him for that later. The whole party fell apart and the family went to the hospital and all the guests went home and the next day the girl showed up with a neck brace on and all she wanted to do was open her presents finally but she had trouble seeing the presents with that neck brace on so she had to hold them up to her face and her parents got upset with her because it looked like all she cared about was her presents instead of talking with any of her visitors because she was holding all of the gifts up to her face like that."

            As we walked, he told me about the whole trip, how the family talked him out of buying a bus ticket in advance and insisted on taking him out to breakfast in a nearby town known for its Italian immigrants and great Italian food, and how he then had to pay a bunch of extra money for a first class ticket to avoid traveling in the "madrugada," which is how I learn the term for "middle of the night," and as he tells me this, our Oaxaca host family's house comes into view, and I feel this surge of happiness. Instead of feeling sorry for the little girl in the neck brace, I feel elated because I have understood this whole story, a sustained tale in Spanish for a nearly twenty-minute walk. Poor kid... but lucky me. 

Gran Cañon

  In conversation class I describe how a rainstorm in the Grand Canyon opened up a series of new waterfalls from the canyon walls one time when I was backpacking there with my dad. Juan, our teacher, asks me about how dangerous it is in the Grand Canyon and I tell him that people die there every year.

            "What do they die of?" he asks me. "Dehydration?"

            "Yes," I say, "but mostly from small airplane accidents."

            He and Antonio refuse to believe this, so I tell them I will bring the research to our next class. Then I tell them that I think that there was this guy in the eighties who killed four people by pushing them off the edge of the Grand Canyon. Antonio gets more excited about this topic of a serial killer/pusher than he has about anything we have discussed the entire week. "How was he caught?" he wants to know. "How do we know he did it on purpose?" "How many years was he sentenced to?"

            The next day I bring in the research and cite it in carefully practiced phrases. I was right about the small planes. According to Michael Ghiglieri's book about deaths in the Grand Canyon, 379 of the 683 total recorded Grand Canyon deaths were due to small plane accidents.

            But I was wrong about the serial pusher. He did kill four people, but he only pushed one person off the edge of the Grand Canyon. His third wife. After the authorities nailed him for that, they reopened the case of his first wife's death. As it turns out, the pusher had killed his first wife and two kids and then staged the scene so it looked like his wife had commited the suicide/murder.

            I also tell Juan and Antonio about the guy who committed suicide in the Grand Canyon by jumping out of a helicopter mid-tour. He fell 4,000 feet and it took fifteen park officials to recover his body parts.

            And then I tell them about the dad who pretended to fall off the edge of the Grand Canyon to make his eleven-year-old daughter laugh. This all backfired and he actually fell to his death.

             "What do you think of Arizona now?" I want to ask.

            But that would be a bad idea...unless I could use the usual ploy. The nice thing about Arizona is that whenever someone in Arizona does something idiotic, you can usually point out that this person is not originally from Arizona. This is because, although there are some people like me who were born here, the majority of the adults are people who moved here from some Minnesota or Michigan in the 70s and 80s... or California in the 90s.

            I tell Antonio and Juan, "The last guy who just fell off the edge of the Grand Canyon and died in March 2014--He was from Texas."  

Chonies

            I try to drop off my bag of dirty laundry at the lavanderia I've been going to for the last three weeks, but the young woman at the counter tells me, "No ropa interior."

            "Que?" I ask, and she tells me they will not wash my underwear.

            It is moments like these that force one to truly evaluate the condition of one's undergarments. I try to envision the crotch of each pair of dark-colored Jockey bikini briefs I have handed over. I'm mostly certain that my chonies were free of skid marks or other bodily evidence. What's the problem, then? What's wrong with my underwear? Why won't they take my underwear? Is it because they know I'm a lesbian and I have lesbian underwear? Is this all because I'm from Arizona?

            I move to take my whole bag of laundry elsewhere, but the lavanderia girl stops me and says they will wash my underwear this time. Of course they don't want to lose the sale altogether--my hardball bluff has worked and I'm going to get my underwear washed one last time, by God.

            At comida I tell Silvia what happened at the lavanderia. "Is this normal?" I ask. Silvia gets the look on her face that she gets when she honks at some laggard driver in traffic. She's more pissed off than I am. "Yes," she says, "if they have a sign posted. You should tell them if they don't want to wash underwear they need to post the sign."

            I really want Silvia to tell them this for me. I'd love to walk into the lavanderia behind Silvia when she is all pissed off and speaking rapid Spanish.

            Instead I end up washing the next batch by hand. I hang seven pairs of underwear to dry in my bathroom. With the Oaxaca humidity, this takes nearly three days. 

Dulce

I go to the corner store that is decorated with birthday balloons and piñatas, hoping to buy a birthday card for Silvia. The late-teen or early-twenties girls at the counter tell me that their store doesn't sell such a thing as a birthday card for an adult. And the grocery store didn't even have a greeting card section. I settle for a candy bar that says "Feliz Cumpleaños" on the wrapper and doesn't look too juvenile. 

            Then one of the girls tells me how she wants to travel to the U.S. but feels she has no chance. We discuss some options when she says suddenly, "You know English. Please translate this."

            She hands me a piece of paper with words written on it in neat pencil print, "let me love you."

            "Oh, are these from a song?" I say.

            "No," she says. "It's from a guy."    

            I'm not sure what to tell her. First of all, I don't know "let" or even "allow" in Spanish. And then there are all the nuances. Maybe this is just some innocent guy trying to quote song lyrics or lines from a movie. Or maybe this is really the equivalent of "Let me fuck you." I need to know more about the guy. If he's cute, maybe she should just go for it. I wish I knew the Spanish word for "cheesy" so I could find out whether this guy is a total cheeser or someone she actual likes.

            Instead I say, "Es similar a 'te amo," pero...no." I don't know how to say "not quite." I promise them that I will come back one day with a better translation, and I decide this would be great homework for me and I also decide that I should take Antonio to this store because the girls are cute and right around his age, but, for some reason, I never actually do either.

La Pelicula

        I want to see the movie Maleficent which is called Malefica in Mexico. And I want to see it dubbed in Spanish, which is why one student decides not to go. "You're going to be miserable," she says. "It's better to see it in English with the subtitles."

            So it ends up being just me and Antonio. The tickets are nice and cheap, only five dollars for 3D. Even though Antonio's Spanish skills are stronger, he prefers to let me buy the tickets, pick out the seats, and ask directions to the correct theater.

            "Are you sure you want to see the dubbed version?" he asks me right before I pay for the tickets. "I did that during my first few weeks in Puebla and I was lost through the whole movie."

            I insist on the dubbed version. If no one is actively correcting or harassing me, I have a high tolerance for confusion. I like watching movies on planes with no headphones. Elf was actually better that way.

            Malefica is anti-Disney but it has enough Disney cues to make it very easy to follow. Although the movie's content is not quite right for children, its structure is perfect for them. And it is perfect for me, with my bad Spanish. I feel like I get about 65% of the dialogue and the stuff I don't get is lost anyway under all the images pushing along the story. It's a weird movie and I enjoy it, though the 3D could have been used to greater advantage.

            Antonio is even happier about the movie than I am. When we walk home discussing it in Spanish, I say, "La ex-novia y la hija del Rey matan él juntas. No príncipe. No boda. Es diferente."

            "Esto es porque me gusta la pelicula," Antonio says. "And best of all," he says, in Spanish, "for my first time, I understood every single word." He pauses and he has this beaming smile on his face. "Gracias a ti," he says.

Teléfono

     I ask my fellow student Karen, "Did you hear Antonio's story about the Swiss student's experience in Guatemala where she saw a group of robbers shoot and kill the bus driver and she and all the passengers were stuck out in the jungle? Do you think she actually saw the shooting or that she just heard about it? "

            "Oh, is that what she was talking about?" Karen says. "She has that Swiss accent and she told me something about a bus in Guatemala and I could tell I was supposed to be impressed or scared, but I didn't know what she was talking about."

            Since the story had originally been told with a Swiss accent to a Korean student who later spoke it with his Korean accent into my untrained Irish/German American ear, I have a feeling that I am never going to get it quite right.  All I know is that Antonio is thinking about taking Guatemala off his itinerary.

Monte Alban

I'm following the tour guide's Spanish as well as I can when he asks me, "Entiendes?'
I reply, "Mas o menos."
"No," he says, laughing, "I asked 'where are you from?' De donde vienes?"
If only he'd spoken into my good right ear instead of the bad left one, this would have been a question I would have understood. But now it's too late. When the tour guide says, in Spanish, that he can speak to me in English, "Puedo hablar contigo in Ingles," or something similar, I understand him perfectly, but immediately five young Mexican tourists yell at me in heavily enunciated English, "He can speak to you in English!"
"Gracias," I reply.

El día nuevo

When I used to write profiles for ACORN I could get even the most reticent interviewee to open up because I'd ask the right questions. The first morning after I decide to turn things around, I ask Antonio at breakfast, "What's the strangest thing for you about Mexico?"
Nothing, he insists. I really like it here, he says.
So I try again. "What is something you like about Mexico that is very different from Korea?" I ask.
"The food," he says, finally.
I had tried several times to tell Antonio that there are Korean tacos in the U.S. but each time he had looked at me like I was a liar or a mental patient. Now I ask him whether they have Mexican food in Seoul.
He tells me that there is one area in the city where all the foreign food restaurants are located, English pubs, Italian bistros. The way he describes the area makes it sound like it is not some organic neighborhood created by immigrant communities, but something more planned, a kind of outdoor, overgrown food court.
"And it's dangerous at night," he tells me. "If you're going to get robbed in Seoul, that's where it would happen."
I've just gotten more out of Antonio in five minutes than I have in the entire two weeks put together. Maybe I've found the solution. I have to interview Antonio.

lógica

After comida, I go to my room and start digging up the fear I know is somewhere under all this anger at Juan, at Antonio. Being pissed off is my usual defense, but if I don't want to be miserable for the next two weeks, I've got to work this out. I'm new, I'm vulnerable, I feel stupid when I'm being corrected all the time--this is what's really going on. I talk to Rebecca and she says, "You've got to look at Antonio as a blessing. If there was some American living there, you'd just speak English all the time."
But how to deal with him insulting me to my face? Well, I rationalize--who isn't a dick at age 24? When I was twenty, a friend and I were given a generous ride-board car-ride from Portland to Seattle, and we showed our frumpy 40-something driver our appreciation by mocking her musical taste for two hours straight. We all suck sometimes. And a world without dicky 24-year-olds would be a gray cold place with no punk rock and no skateboard tricks.
Maybe Juan is actually right, I decide. Maybe I am the one who isn't talking enough to Antonio. I had somehow decided that having him around was going to ruin my whole Mexico experience. I had decided that a kid young enough to be my son was my nemesis. Yeah--I'm kind of ridiculous when I'm scared.
And how to deal with Juan himself? I decide use the tactic I use when dealing with petty, competitive, or snotty writers in the literary community. I just say fuck 'em and focus on putting the right words down as well as I can and as much as I can. Juan wants me to speak more Spanish? Then I will speak more Spanish. Isn't that why I am here? I'll interrupt, I'll over-talk, I'll over-share. I'll put the Spanish first. Watch out, Oaxaca, here I come.  

No Me Gusta

The day before the class period that ended with me wanting to choke my Spanish instructor, Antonio had asked me what my teacher's name was and whether I liked him. He had used a different verb than "gustar" and told me how the father of his host family in Puebla told Antonio to use this other verb when referring to his preteen daughters. "It's an important difference. Entiendes?" Antonio had said and I agreed, that, yes, it was an important to use the right kind of "like" when telling a man you like his young daughters.
So instead of ever answering the question, I had talked grammar with Antonio.
Now, during comida after the class period when Juan told me I needed to speak more, I decide to answer Antonio's question. "My teacher's name is Juan," I say. "And no, I don't like him."
Enrique, Cherie, and Antonio all just stare at me, open-mouthed.
What the hell did I just do? I would never sit down to dinner in Arizona with people I know casually and suddenly announce that I don't like a person. This kind of public shit talk is never cool, even in bad Spanish.
But then, out of nowhere, right when I am feeling weak and meanspirited and kind of dumb, Antonio says in Spanish exactly what I have specifically requested my wife Rebecca tell me when I'm suffering through some bout of depression.
"Maybe tomorrow will be better," Antonio says.