Monday, May 13, 2002
He strolled through the courtyard of this small Mexican villa like the town was his own. He didn’t really own it, not in the sense of actually holding property rights over every square foot of land in the town or anything, but really no one person can actually own a town, not really, so the fact that he didn’t actually own the town shouldn’t say anything about how much he felt at-home there, or how well he was loved by the townspeople.

As Sam Rothman strolled through the warm Mexican sunshine, he could faintly hear a band of mariachis (street musicians) playing in the town square up ahead. The spirited strains of La Cucaracha became clearer as Sam approached. It was his favorite song, and they always played it when they saw him.

“Yo burro es tambourine, Senioritas!” Sam shouted as he passed the mariachis, complimenting them on their playing. The Mariachis launched into La Cucaracha even more robustly, as if to say “You're Welcome!” back to Sam. Sam approached a happy shopkeeper who loved his family. “Buenos díaz!” shouted the shopkeeper cheerily.

“Quesidillas!” responded Sam. This was truly his town. All of the townspeople loved him; they looked to him as a father, a brother, an uncle, or a stranger on the street, depending on their individual inclinations. And the small children who played in the streets looked to him as if he were their father. Maybe he was, the subject had never really been broached.

Had it really been nine months since it all happened? It seemed impossible. To Sam it seemed more like seven. Seven short months since everything had gone down stateside, since his wife left him standing at the altar when they were supposed to be renewing their wedding vows, and he later found out from a sex tape he found in the VCR that she had left him for his best friend, Ted Spencer. What really hurt the most was that Sam had advised his friend to go for it, not realizing that the extramarital affair Ted was describing involved Sam's own wife. An irony bitter like vitamin pills. Seven months since he’d lost his job, refusing to toe the line with his company's vow of silence concerning the CEO’s home telephone number.

“Buenos Nachos!” Sam greeted a group of young Mexican women who were weaving a rug. They smiled back, warmed by Sam's subtle charms and the beans they had been eating for lunch.

Sam fixed his gaze upon the most beautiful of the young Mexican women, a white-eyed beauty named Maria Conchita Consuelo Alonzo Montalvo Garcia Esteban Rodriguez-Gutierrez. “Oy,” Sam said to her with a smile, flashing his expensively acid-bleached pearly white things. “Mai yabbos es frito bandito,” he continued, laying the charm on thick like butter on a tortilla.

“Usted está bloqueando la luz,” beautiful Maria CCAMGERG replied. Sam knew then that she was his for the taking, her delicate Spanish flower would open for him and him only. But he had to do this the right way, for in this foreign culture a woman’s honor was all she had. For her there would be no cheap wine and horse tranquilizers, not like those street boys in Mexico City. No, this was a Mexican creature of rare grace and dignity. This would require some paper plates and a bottle of Electric Reindeer, at the least.

Just then a young man approached Sam, casually brandishing a machete big enough to hack the nuts off a cashew tree.

“¿Por qué usted está hablando con mi esposa?” he shouted in Sam’s general direction.

“I know just how to handle this,” Sam thought to himself. “Hola, mi amigo! Menudo la bamba soy capitan!” he said, tucking his penis back into his trousers.

For more of this great story, buy Amstel Graves’ novel
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