Mexico City

They picked us up near the transparent square-foot glass tile that revealed the underground remains of Tenochtitlan.  The central cathedral stood a few steps in front, and I imagined some random door inside it with stone steps that would lead you down to the canals of the manmade Aztec island metropolitan.  Alas, instead of streaming down a canal in a canoe, my friend’s friends arrived in a four-door Ford sedan.

Inside the car we were greeted by Elena, and her tall forehead, long smile, and magnetic green eyes; reminiscent of an Aztec princess. (She wasn’t Mexican, but of mixed descent; part Philippine I believe.  Anyway, I promise not to overdo the Aztec references.) It didn’t take long for me to see that she was the kind of girl that broke hearts.  Her smile had a way of making your stomach sink.  Her effortless charm could be confused for affection, her affection for attraction, and her attraction for love; and one could see how a man could be lead down this self-destructive path, a path that would always lead back to that same stomach sinking smile; that smile that at times seemed flirtatious and at other times distant, when really all along it was just her way of smiling.  The innocent smile of a beautiful girl. (That’s one argument, at least.)

Her most recent victim was sitting in the driver’s seat.  I later learned that after the inevitable estrangement, she had called him up when she learned we would be in town, because he owned a car and could drive us around. (That kind of puts a dent in the innocent smile theory.)

Maybe half the time we spent in Mexico City we spent in that car, stuck in traffic, listening to Spanish reggae, looking out the windows, watching paper trash float up into the gathering storms of the evening sky.  Every time we went somewhere it felt like a family field trip, with Elena and her pursuer up front, and us three travelers, the kids in the back.  The drives were a mix of tedium and exhilaration; we were either parked in the middle of a highway, with cars all around us, moving a couple of feet every couple of minutes; or zooming down an open lane, cutting people off, cursing others for cutting us off, running through red lights and stop signs, and driving the wrong way down one-way streets.  I thought it might just be our driver, he might just be nuts, but I soon saw that everyone in Mexico City drove like that.  Everyone was nuts.  A memorable example of what driving looks like in el D.F.: as we drove to Elena’s friends’ house, our driver (who didn’t know the directions) accidentally turned onto the wrong street, Elena (who wasn’t paying attention) didn’t notice until we were five or six blocks in.  Upon informing our driver, he simple came to a screeching stop, put the car in reverse, and drove backwards at full speed down the neighborhood street until we got back to the main road.

Elena’s friends were mystics.  They were out loading up a Volkswagen with snacks and booze, when we reached the house they shared.  One of them came over to our car, was introduced by Elena to everyone, and said: “Follow us.”  He ran back to the Volkswagen, took a long swig of an eighth of Jack Daniels that had been making the rounds, and got into the driver’s seat.  Putting the car in drive he hit the gas hard, and rammed right into the car in front of his.  The mystic in the passenger’s seat, stuck his head out the car window, and waving the bottle of Jack in the air, he yelled at the frightened middle aged woman they had just rear-ended: “Get moving!”  She sped off, and we continued our little journey.

We followed them for almost an hour, leaving the city behind us and entering the wilderness of the hills that surround el D.F.  After reaching deep enough into the forested hills, the Volkswagen stopped at a small rest-stop on the side of the road with a wooden picnic table.  Everyone sat around the picnic table, drinking and laughing, and one of the mystics unfolded a crumpled piece of paper and began to read off instructions that I didn’t understand.  They finished off the bottle of Jack, and then entered the forest.  We retired to the car to take a nap.  A half-hour later they came back; each mystic holding several rocks.  All the rocks were placed into a bag, and then they were taken out one by one as the mystic with the piece of paper tried to identify the message transmitted by each rock (he consulted the piece of paper for help).

Drunk, and satisfied at the completion of the ritual, they returned to their house and we followed.  The house was filled with instruments: guitars, drums, a keyboard.  On one of the walls hung a large whiteboard, where someone had drawn their class schedule.  One of the mystics explained the schedule to us.  It was the group’s weekly schedule.  Each mystic played a different instrument, and they had designed a rigorous schedule where each member taught the rest of the group his or her instrument.

The day ended with us sitting crisscross applesauce on the grass lawn in front of the group’s house, listening to Elena play the guitar and sing.  My friend, a childhood friend of Elena’s, sat next to me looking up at the stars, receiving the warm breeze of the night like a lover’s embrace, and smiling with tears in her eyes.