Gavin scrutinized his reflection in the cracked mirror as he combed, then recombed, his hair. He couldn’t decide whether to use gel. It improved his look, but if it melted, it would seem like he was sweating ooze. He decided to risk it and squeezed a copious amount onto his palm. After five minutes, he congratulated himself on the natural-looking wave that had been his goal. He pulled on his blue, flowered board shorts and carefully slipped on a white shirt. He didn’t want to mess up his hair after all that trouble. Before leaving the room, Gavin gave himself four quick spritzes of Polo Sport. He figured it was at least twice as difficult to smell perpetually fresh in Mexico.
Finally satisfied with his appearance, Gavin went to the kitchen for a glass of water. There he found Juanita, appalled and repentant that it was 10:55 and he had yet to be fed. “Pobrecito Gabon. He’s probably dying of hunger.” Gavin tried to explain to her that “Pobrecito Gabon” was not dying, but he was in a hurry. This she didn’t seem to understand. “I’ll make you some eggs.” She moved towards the refrigerator.
“I don’t have time. The family is going to come for me in five minutes.”
“You have time. You don’t have to teach class today.” She took out the eggs.
“No, I don’t. I’m going to La Presa with one of my student’s family. They’re coming at eleven.” Juanita started to protest, but Gavin ended the argument by leaving the kitchen and then, subsequently, the house. It was 10:58.
Twenty minutes later Gavin was still standing on the dirt of the front porch. Three cars had passed. None had showed any inclination to stop and retrieve him. Juanita peeked out the bedroom window for a moment. Her expression showed more worry for the fact that he hadn’t eaten than surprise that he was still there. Gavin was sure she was hiding some satisfaction at her vindication under that benevolent mask.
Gavin was seconds away from going back inside for another glass of water when his ride arrived. His chariot for the day was an old Chevrolet pickup truck. It was grey, not the clear-coated silver grey of his mother’s minivan, but a primer grey, flat and boring except for frequent reddish-brown patches of rust. On the windshield, separate systems of spiderwebbing fissures told of at least three distinct encounters with rocks along the road. The passenger’s side mirror hung at an angle that made it useless. The one on the driver’s side was missing. “Oh boy,” thought Gavin.
The truck was a fairly large vehicle, but it appeared much too small for the number of people in it. When it had pulled up, Gavin had noticed three adults, a small child and a baby packed into the small cab. The back, however, was much more crowded. Gavin was sure that at least nine people were packed in there.
Even before the wheels of the overloaded vehicle ceased rolling, Jesus had exited and was pulling Gavin toward the truck. “Hola, Pablo,” he said. Like most Mexicans in the little town, Jesus couldn’t pronounce the “v” in Gavin’s name. Unlike most of them, he didn’t really bother to try and had just decided to re-christen his teacher. Jesus was obviously excited and not a bit uncomfortable that he was 25 minutes late. “This is my papi.” He pointed to the driver, partially hidden behind a dirty window. Gavin thought he detected a wave from behind the glass, so he returned it and added a polite “Mucho gusto.” Jesus tugged him towards the back of the truck. “And that’s my mami.” Gavin wasn’t sure which of the bed’s inhabitants he was being introduced to, so he gave an impersonal “Mucho gusto” to the whole group.
“Well, here we go,” Jesus said, then grabbed a hold of the cross bar of the frame and swung into the bed of the truck. Gavin attempted to imitate his student, but failed. He caught his trailing toe on the lip of the bed and landed ungracefully on top of a cooler. It was all he could do to keep from sliding onto a small child lying asleep on the floor. The occupants of the truck smiled, but only Jesus went so far as to laugh out loud.
Gavin took stock of his company. Besides himself, Jesus and the tiny boy he had nearly squashed, there were eight other passengers in the back of the truck. One was another sleeping child, even smaller than the first, who was using an empty two liter soda bottle as a pillow. Stroking his dark, closely clipped hair was an old woman, probably his grandmother. Unlike the other women in the truck who wore jeans or shorts, she wore a long, tan dress with red, widely spaced stripes. She had on her lined face a calm look of satisfaction unique to grandmas observing sleeping children.
Next to the grandmother was a blue plastic cooler. On it sat two women on the near side of middle age, one of whom Gavin assumed to be Jesus’ mother. Probably the one with the crazy dyed hair. It would seem natural.
Jesus had sat down on a wheel hub beside a boy roughly his age and size. They jockeyed for possession of a deep dent that was apparently the more comfortable of the two available positions, until their tussle was cut short by a stern look from a man standing in the very back of the truck who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Mexican Marlboro ad. Gavin took a position in the back corner across from him.
On the opposite side of the truck’s bed sat two girls with their backs resting against the cab. They were facing Gavin, but due to the massive amount of people in the truck, he couldn’t see them very well. This was a disappointment. One of them was the whole reason he had come in the first place. The other girl appeared to be about twenty. She was chubby, but exceptionally happy looking. She laughed, giggled and gesticulated wildly. Jesus’s sister sat beside her smiling as she listened to her more boisterous companion. In doing so, she revealed beautiful teeth that fit perfectly in a face graced with high cheekbones, smooth skin and large, dark, sparkling eyes. Gavin was staring at the last feature longingly when the truck began to move, thinking that he could have used one last spray of cologne.
A ride in the back of a Mexican pickup is sublime. As the vehicle moved through town, its occupants dispersed more waves and smiles than a fair queen at a parade. All bounced as one when the truck passed over the town’s big speed bumps. Outside the pueblo those hazards were forgotten and the driver quickly accelerated. Speed transformed the air from a stagnant promoter of sweat to a high velocity fan, making the midday heat almost bearable. The road unfolded in a line for miles. The only spot where it appeared less than perfectly straight was at the horizon where waves of heat radiating from the asphalt played tricks on the eye.
In the back of the truck the tricks were being done by the two little boys. They had woken up and immediately begun a performance of the Spanish equivalent of “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider.” Their hand motions were wildly exaggerated by the bouncing of the pickup. When they were done they took small bows. The expression of the grandma showed that she was suitably impressed, so the munchkins started their routine a second time. Their mothers watched from the cooler, more concerned with the proximity of the little ones to the side of the bed than with the merits of their performance.
In the back, the lone man watched all of this contentedly with one eye. Gavin, on the other hand, missed the transcendent joys of the ride. He spent his time worrying about whether the wind was strong enough to overcome his hair gel.
The truck bounced along the washed-out access road that formed the last leg of the journey to La Presa. Being the tallest, Gavin sighted it first. Soon everyone was on their feet, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of that elusive spectacle, standing water. At the base of an earthen dam, the truck stopped. The kids immediately disembarked and sprinted up the shale foot path to the water. The adults lifted the coolers, food and chairs out of the truck and carried them to a flat area where several twisted trees provided small bars of shade.
La Presa was a small lake occupying the area between several small mountains. Even at its edges, there was little green vegetation. The water was smooth and dyed brown by silt. It gave the overall impression of a giant mud puddle. Gavin wasn’t impressed.
The little boys, however, seemed to be having the time of their lives. They were throwing handfuls of pebbles into the water and cackling maniacally when they disappeared into the abyss. Jesus was trying to teach them how to skip the stones, but only the tragic end of the rocks’ journey seemed to interest them.
The girls had rolled up their pants and were soaking the feet in the water. Gavin decided to be brave and join them. He picked his way onto the large slab of shale where they were sitting, sidled up and took a spot next to Jesus’s sister. “Hello,” he said. “I have your brother in class.”
She looked at him as if to say, “What? We didn’t just pick up a random foreigner off the street for the afternoon,” but then smiled and said, “I know. He talks about you. Your name is Pablo?”
Gavin did his best to chuckle endearingly. “No, Jesus just tries to make it. My real name is Gavin. He just can’t say it.”
“Oh. Gabin. My name is Luisa.”
“GaVin.”
“Gabbin.”
“No, Gavvin.”
“Gabin?”
“Not quite, but better,” he lied.
“I’m sorry. Can I just call you Pablo, too?” Gavin nodded his head and agreed, while secretly ratcheting up his antipathy toward Jesus by several notches.
“So why did you want to come teach English here?” Luisa asked. Gavin thought about it. He wanted to sound adventurous and noble, but not condescending. A fine question to make a good impression. He didn’t get to answer though. At that moment Jesus came bounding onto the rock.
“Hey, do you guys want to climb the mountain before we eat?”
Gavin looked at him unenthusiastically. “It’s so hot right now. Why don’t we go swimming?”
“I’ll go,” Luisa cut in. She stood up, unrolled her pants and put back on her sandals.
“Fine, fine, I’ll come too.” Gavin got up and joined the procession to the mountain.
The sun was beating down unmercifully, and the three prospective hikers were sweating freely before they even began their ascent. Jesus wisely decided to return to the truck to grab a jug of water for the trip. He bounded down the path as if the heat and he had a mutual agreement that neither would molest the other.
Gavin glanced at the mountain in front of him. It appeared rocky and steep, so he decided to switch his flip flops for the tennis shoes he had in the truck.
“Jesus!” he yelled. Three of the eight people surrounding the truck and coolers looked up. “Great,” he thought, “I’m stuck in a country with a messianic complex.”
“Uhh, my student Jesus, can you bring my tennis shoes up when you come?” The correct Jesus nodded and grabbed the shoes. He then bounded back up the path as energetically as he had gone down it. When he reached Gavin and Luisa, he wasn’t even breathing heavily.
Gavin sat down on a rock to change shoes. He could feel its hot surface even through his shorts. He had forgotten socks so he just slipped his feet in the sneakers and hastily tied them. He wanted to get this over with.
A cow path provided an easy route for the first 150 meters of the climb. It was littered with large red rocks and overhung in areas by scraggly branches, but walking on it wasn’t substantially more difficult than traveling the side streets of El Venado. Because of this, Luisa didn’t realize that she was improperly dressed until they were almost out of sight of the truck. The path ended in several large boulders. Jesus was leading. He glided onto the lowest of them, a flat stone on the right, then climbed onto a larger, oval-shaped rock. On it he walked the whole way to the other side of the roadblock. Twelve feet off the ground he sauntered along the foot-wide path of rock as if it were a covered bridge.
Luisa was next. She started onto the first rock, but her heel slid out of her sandal and she stumbled back to the ground. She adjusted her foot in the sandal and tried again. This time she got one step further before falling victim to a similar footwear problem. The climb only got more difficult ahead. Gavin chivalrously offered to accompany her back down. From his perch of rock, Jesus laughed and declared that now he knew the reason that Gavin had agreed to come today. Gavin denied this and was subsequently forced to give up his ambition of returning to the cold sodas at the base of the hill. Luisa descended alone. Gavin and Jesus continued upwards.
“You know,” Jesus said as the pair was scrambling up a second set of boulders, “I don’t think you two would be good together.”
“What?”
“You and my sister. I don’t think that you two would be good together.”
“Who said I wanted to get together with her?”
Jesus laughed, “I think you do.” He was quite observant for an 11-year-old. “Oh well, too bad for you now. We’re going up.” They continued to climb.
“You see that?” Jesus said pointing to a large cactus, the kind seen in the imagination of millions of temperate zone dwellers when they picture the desert. “That’s a saguaro. Sometimes they get much bigger. On the inside there’s always some water. That’s why the bird there is pecking at it. If he can get through the skin—it’s really tough though—he can get a drink.” He mimicked the rigid posture of a college professor. “See Pablo, now I’m teaching you things.”
Gavin didn’t understand much of the lecture, though. When Jesus got excited he spoke in rapid-fire Spanish that Gavin found nearly unintelligible. Still, he saw the tiny brown bird being pointed out to him. It was pretty. Gavin hadn’t noticed it before.
Jesus located a deer path and the pair wound their way ever upward. Gavin stumbled every few steps over protruding rocks, fallen cacti or long brown vines that he nicknamed “stealth creepers” for their near invisibility against the flaky, impossibly dry soil. He sweated more profusely with each step. Jesus, on the other hand, moved like a hyperactive pinball between the thorny walls of the trail. He ran around a bend in the trail, was gone for a second and returned.
“It’s not much farther, just around this next bend, then up.”
Gavin was contemplating what “then up” might mean when both of his now filthy tennis shoes became ensnared in a particularly thick vine. He tumbled forward onto the rocks of the trail. He put down his left hand to break his fall but found no support on the uneven bed of rocks. He landed with a thud.
After several long seconds of self-pity, he managed to get up. Blood dripped from his left hand and knee. The cuts were annoying, but not at all dangerous. The face of his watch was also smashed in, forever preserving the exact time of the indignity.
“Jesus, maybe we should start back.”
“No, no, we’re almost there.”
“But I’m bleeding.”
Jesus stopped walking. He checked his hands, arms, legs and even lifted his shirt to look at his stomach. There was no blood on him anywhere. He turned to Gavin slightly disappointed. “Well lucky you.”
Now Gavin was just confused. “What?”
“At least you look like you’re having an adventure.” Jesus bounded recklessly over a boulder and disappeared around the bend. At that moment, it seemed to Gavin that he had no choice but to follow him.
Gavin soon regretted this decision. Around the corner the trail abruptly ended at a wall of rock. Gavin gazed at it. It was probably 20 feet high and, while not vertical, was near to it. The red and brown rocks weren’t smooth. Instead, large protrusions, outcrops and a small chimney created an irregular silhouette. In the crevasses where tiny amounts of soil had managed to collect, small, thorny-looking plants grew.
“So what do we do now?” Gavin asked.
Jesus didn’t answer. He approached the base of the wall and nonchalantly began to climb. He moved easily between the ample handholds and soon reached the top. Jesus turned and waited for Gavin to follow.
Gavin had watched his lithe movements and knew that he could never mimic them exactly. He wondered if he should even try. The climb looked a bit dangerous. Jesus was sitting on a large outcrop several feet away from the route of his ascent and, having taken off his guaraches, was dangling his dirty feet over the edge of the cliff. “Come on!” he yelled down.
“Just a minute.” Gavin thought about his options. He would have preferred to just return to the coolers and eat, so he looked for an excuse. He glanced at his watch, but in its current state, it provided no help. He suspected that if he went up the last part of the mountain, he would be late getting back to the truck. Still, right now he couldn’t tell Luisa that he made it to the top. “What can you see up there?” he asked Jesus.
“Everything,” Jesus replied. Gavin could see nothing. In stopping, he was perspiring even harder than before. His eyebrows failed and the salty sweat from his forehead ran into his eyes, stinging him and making him partially blind. Jesus became nothing more than a black outline against a field of light. “Come on, Pablo,” Jesus encouraged.
“Give me a second. I’m not a climber. And I’m not Pablo.”
“You can be.”
Gavin stood at the bottom of a small rock face on an obscure hill and pondered this for a second. It wasn’t a bad thought. He reached up and felt for the ledge above him.
