HOOKED ON COCALAND

book four:

Here and Home:

good riddance paradise forever

the coastal Colombian city of Barranquilla at night

friday, 10/14/94.

95.  SEPARATION WITH EQUANIMITY: A MODEL.

early morning. the last full day in Cocaland begins, sammy. it's unnerving. something is. everything's unnerving this morning, and i just woke up. by noon i'll be a basket case.

by five i'll be on a litter.

today it's good-bye Chalo. tomorrow farewell Adriana.

i'm not up to it. i hate good-byes. i want it over with.

part of me is content. i sit on my side of a double bed, back against the creaking, flimsy headboard, writing, waiting for Robbie and Chalo to decide. who must get up and shower? who gets to sleep in? Robbie, knowing i’m partial to the kid, gives in. poor little Chalo goes back to sleep, wrapped in both of the bed sheets, bumping into me, leaving a threadbare hotel towel between me and the stained mattress. he seems not as ‘little’ or as ‘poor’, when he's sharing a bed with you, taking your sheet.

traffic rages in the street, below the window, giving rude, noisy, horn-honking vent to my feelings about leaving: anger. frustration. despair. nervousness.

Barranquilleños[1] love to honk honk. it's part of the traffic system. honk honk means you're plowing through an intersection that has no stop light, or means you're pissed, get the honk out of the way.

yet i've seen no accidents. i can't imagine why.

i'll never forget the horse cart here in Barranquilla yesterday. in a big industrial seaport city of a million and a half, a horse cart was moving down a major thoroughfare which had three or four rush-hour lanes in each direction. the horse and cart were in the passing lane (!) ON THE WRONG SIDE, clip-clopping against traffic. and nobody honk honked, because there was nothing unusual about it.

who can say how many lanes a street has, or where they might be? few streets are lane-marked. you can't tell street from shoulder from median from sidewalk from yard.

in this country few rules or boundaries are marked, sammy. you have to know them. and i don't.

you have to know when and how to violate them, as Cocalanders do all the time. i know that part less.

Robbie turns on the shower and Chalo rolls and groans. i pat his head, not sure how much to touch my cute new parentless child. at some point in the next twelve hours we'll see each other the last time. we’ll ‘negotiate in private’. he won’t pull any stunts hopefully. no offers of BIG favors for BIG money. i’m uneasy about it. i'll give him my number so he can call me collect in Denver. we can plan to meet the last week of December, maybe even talk about his coming to the states with help some day, to live with me.

i can't believe i'm writing this. at the beginning of the trip i told Robinson i’d concluded it was impossible to practice psychiatry, write books, and still have time to pay attention to another person in my home, giving them the love they deserved. i'd tried it with my own two teenage kids and it hadn't worked. i'd tried it with Jaime. everybody felt cheated.

Robbie wasn't swayed by any of this. he thought it should be possible. and that statement from unadorned common sense, has reached some less complicated spot in me. maybe it is possible to devote myself obsessively to a cause, such as a book, and have time left to care for somebody.

my caring toward Chalo is parental, as if he were the son i lost, now returned. there's affection, certainly, on my side, and ostensibly, on his, for reasons less clear. survival? a father? adventure? a same sex attraction? let's hope nothing of the kind pops up today. i’m stressed enough already.

being apart for two months, may help us sort it out. from experience with Jaime, however, i know that when you think you've defined a relationship, it can change in a second. what you thought it was, it wasn't. you were dealing with an illusion. next you conclude, logically, that all caring is illusion, all life. if love can become not-love in a second, a mirror can become not-mirror. peace can become war.

Robbie says from the bathroom, "You're defending him so much!"

"I'm his protector now," i explain.

overnight Chalo has gone from stranger to protégé. all is illusion. togetherness becomes separation. the spot where my feet touch the ground today is called Cocaland, but tomorrow will be called U.S.A. a few days ago i was incurably world-weary. Ibrahim gave me a hand and cured me, never to be depressed again. twenty-four hours from now i'll have to leave a country i hated and now love, returning to one i grew up loving but now hate.

it’s all getting me a little depressed, sammy.

96.  NEVER LOSE YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR, EVER, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN COCALAND.

11 am. we're on the bus, Chalo and i, waiting for Robbie. Chalo watches me write, understanding nothing. he's in the window seat. i'm disoriented. everything is changing, from wild tropical wandering through Cocaland, to mundane reality in the states.

Robbie and i saw the wisdom in not going to Bogotá, so we could spend today with family. we've thought of a way i can spend the afternoon with Chalo while Robbie spends a last few hours with family. then it'll be pack, goodbye to Adriana, and off to New York in the morning.

a driver climbs aboard. the bus’s TV set in the front flickers and lights up with pictures. this beached whale on wheels is leaving, and Robbie's in the bus station, buying presents for Caridad and Tobías. he'll make the bus at the last second, if at all. typical. play, play, play. he had to fool around before asking when the next express bus left for Cartagena. i had to tell him to check the schedule first, then play, because we had to get back and have plenty of time to spend with people we’re leaving.

who do you think was right? the bus for Cartagena was leaving in five minutes. we got the last three seats. yet now he's playing inside the station and the bus is about to leave without him. he'll be stranded in this blighted third world city the size of Detroit. i'll be left without guide and interpreter. there won’t be time to ‘negotiate in private’ with Chalo and say goodbye.

i walk forward to ask the bus driver to wait for my friend Robbie Rivera who forgot to grow up. behind me i hear a quiet, "Mj."

i turn to be greeted by Robbie in the front seat. he claims he's been there five minutes, “At least.”

playing.

always playing.

sometimes i lose patience with the lack of organization, sammy.

i don't know why. more than anyone, Robbie has stayed by me these last few years. wherever he's moved we've gotten together. he has opened doors for me in California, Mexico, New York and Cocaland. he led me to Jaime; the boys of Santisima Cruz; and Chalo.

i should forgive his childlike points, all things considered. usually they are assets, not detriments.

what can i say?

with a friend like RawBEANsawn, there's no choice but lighten up.

”with a friend like RawBEANsawn there's no choice but lighten up”

97.  THE VERY LAST COCALAND FIX SHOULD BE ENLIGHTENING, IF NOT PAINLESS.

the bus is stuck just a few blocks after leaving the station, at a major outlying Barranquilla intersection. we’ll never make it to Cartagena today, sammy. out the window writhes a stupendous leviathan of traffic, a groaning, hissing gridlock of every road vehicle known to man: high class buses, very low class burro carts, huge Mack trucks, jitneys, rattletrap colectivos, beat up multicolored city buses, yellow cabs ancient and modern, scores of bikes and motorcycles of every imaginable type, and a dozen other classes of human road transport, jamming every square inch of intersection, sidewalk and front yard in sight. i can't see it all, fortunately, because Chalo's knee is in the window.

he shows me the heel of his sneaker, pulling it away from the rest of his smelly shoe. day and night he walks the streets, sammy. if it rains, shoes come apart and fall off, he says, even when you pay as much as $40 for them. you would think industry moguls might have solved this problem for the third world’s sake, if not for ours.

where did he get 40 bucks anyway?

“jitneys, rattletrap colectivos, beat up multicolored city buses”

this afternoon in Cartagena, if we get there, will be our last little time together. i'll buy him shoes, deodorant for shoes, and a book for studying English when it rains and he can’t work.

he’ll insist on renting a hotel room to negotiate one last time (good lord!).

no one can see us now. we're in the back. he leans his leg into mine constantly, or cuddles against my shoulder, then pulls together and straightens up. Cocaland kids are more physically affectionate with pals than U.S. kids. like other men of the coast he adjusts cock and balls through pants shamelessly every few minutes, no matter who's looking.

it's the heat, i think. they all do it.

who knows? it could be a message he’s sending. i’ll have to ask Robbie about it.

we're on the highway and it's easier to write. fewer ruts and potholes. no more jerky, bouncy stops and starts. Chalo's on my shoulder. he looks in my shirt pocket and laughs. it's the Master Card hotel receipt i insisted he return me, so he couldn't use my card number, once i'm back in the states. i doubt he knows why i was adamant he give it back when he grabbed it and held onto it playfully. he stuffs the bus ticket in the same pocket in my shirt, muttering something in Spanish.

now his eyes are closed, innocent as the baby Jesus, head on my shoulder, foot in the seat in front, knee blocking view of cattle in lush grass. the knee goes down. both feet go to the bus floor. i want to kiss him affectionately on the forehead, this new son of mine, but can't tell what he'll accept and not.

though he's complained about nothing i've done so far......

Robinson's voice yells, "Come on, mj!  Mj!!!" and something else i miss. i wake up to an eyeful of green camouflage and automatic rifle.

befuddled, i leave Colombian cloth bag and exit, walking in front of the soldier, carrying pen and tablet on a bizarre impulse. if they throw me in prison for adopting a street urchin, fine. i'll write about it.

outside the bus there's confusion. i put the yellow tablet with uncensored diary on the dirt, so i can stretch my hands up the side of the bus. two soldiers frisk me. why don't they grab the tablet and read about guerrillas and boys? they could jail me on suspicion of something. anything. keep me hooked on Cocaland in a new and different way.

but no. most Colombians don't know English. for once it’s to my advantage.

what are they saying?

how can i not understand, after years of speaking Spanish?

they've checked for weapons and now they want I.D.

Robinson yells in English, "Colorado drivers license! Colorado drivers license!"

i know better. ignoring Robbie's panic i hand them my passport.

several short golden-rosy-brown sixteenish-looking soldiers in green fatigues walk around ‘reading’ it with frowns and mutterings. they look at me puzzled, hand it back.

a routine traffic check by Colombian armed forces, says Robbie, as i climb aboard and walk by him smiling nervously, tablet in hand.

maybe so. but routine in Cocaland can be unnerving.

we're on the bus again now, watching a U.-S.-American movie with Spanish subtitles. Chalo opens up the air conditioning vents because as soon as the bus stops and idles, it turns hot as an oven. when we start again, it gets as cold as a walk-in freezer. they call it a 'luxury' two-hour ride, for five dollars, on bumpy, potholey roads from big, industrial 19^th-century Barranquilla back to Cartagena, a city smaller, friendlier and more historic, founded in 1533, almost a hundred years before Plymouth Rock. you get conditioned air, a bathroom, a movie, and seats which lean way-way back.

big draped windows frame walled cattle ranch after walled cattle ranch. walls with balconies behind. haciendas with fuchsia bougainvillea climbing everywhere. and inside the walls, campesinos in white muslin, walking with shovels on shoulders, straw hat and all.

Hernando should be here to explain why Colombia, after centuries of political slaughter and counter-slaughter, still has intact haciendas. in Mexico they started breaking them up in the 1860’s, peaceably, and pretty much finished the job with the grotesquely violent 1910 revolution. and since then NOBODY in Mexico except on holy days has worn old-fashioned country-peasant white muslin.

on TV at the front of the bus, three ordinary light-skinned U.S. youth run from police after one kills a cop.

what excuse is there for crime like that, sammy, surrounded by U.S. wealth and opportunity?

crime in Cocaland makes more sense to me.

i wonder if Chalo has ever committed a crime.

the bus movie talks about status offenders.[2]

Chalo is a status survivor.

is he a status offender too?

"Why don't you get another job besides cigarillos?" i ask. "Can't you go back to waiting tables?"

there aren't jobs.

"How did you find the job of waiter that one time, then?" i ask.

a lady he knew gave it to him...

and anyway, if they broke up Colombia's haciendas and parceled out land to campesinos, there still wouldn't be enough. poverty, starvation and disowned children wouldn't stop until birth control started. not even then, maybe. such conditions might lessen, at least. the Chinese government put a cap on population growth, and look what happened to their economy and standard of living. they took off like fireworks. why don't other poor, developing countries wake up and fly right?

the main road between coastal cities makes you sick to your stomach, sammy. (the bus takes coastal curves too fast!)

the gringo TV delinquents are in jail, finally, where they belong.

Chalo and i sit up straight, leaning hard into each other's arms. he finds a weird position with one elbow on my shoulder, and a warm forearm against my head. i push my face into his forearm and he pushes back. every change in position includes some kind of warming contact, initiated by him, reciprocated by me. we're father and son. brothers. soul buddies, maybe.

who knows what we are.

whatever it is, it feels better than worrying about just me all the time.

Colombian-American singer Shakira

in her hometown of Barranquilla

during Carnival 1998

98.  LIFE ISN'T OVER, JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK IT IS.

later. 6 pm. from downtown i have gotten to Efrén and Brenda's apartment by taxi.

and nobody's here to let me in.

Robinson said we'd have dinner at 6 or 6:30, but today has been sheer disorganization and bad planning; nervousness; depression run rampant; world-weariness; resignation; a terrible turn of events, sammy, that i'll do my best to explain when i find the words; and longing, almost, to get home to the states, as unbelievable as that sounds.

i'm in over my head. it's time to let Cocaland wash out of my system, and i'm glad. Denver could hardly be worse than this.

if i were fool enough to leave home again, i'd leave with a hard-backed journal. no more yellow tablets! this eight and a half by eleven tablet has gone with me in a woven Latin American man’s shoulder bag wherever i went, two whole weeks, and is now turned at the corners. water spilled in the bag today. the BIC ball point moves down an aqua line, scraping away damp yellow paper as it writes.

i sit on Brenda's outside patio, shaken, literally, by a heavy musical beat from somewhere, nowhere and everywhere. it carries through concrete walls and floors from several stereos in nearby apartments, each tuned to a different Caribbean music. nothing's distinguishable. it's not rock. not vallenato. no melody or harmony can be discerned. it's cacophony with a demonic vibrating base of rumbling thunder.

i look in vibrating flower pots for hidden keys. nothing.

somebody will come eventually, i guess.

everybody knows we have to pack tonight, and get to the airport by 10:45 in the morning.

“I left Chalo where I jumped in the cab”

i've had it with this place, sammy.

i'm ready to forget it.

i left Chalo where i jumped in the cab, across from Centenario Park.

we worked up a sweat several times in the heat, buying him tennies, finding a book that could teach him English, then ‘negotiating’ again, as he called it, in a cheap hotel room.

negotiating came down to this today, believe it or not.

if i helped him get to the states, said Chalo in a manly businesslike way, once we were in the hotel room: he would sell me his body at a reduced rate after he got there. if i'd take him with me on the plane tomorrow, he said, smiling playfully, still manly and completely undressed: "You can do what you want with me right now, no charge."

i could hardly breathe after that, sammy. i think i was mad, but i tried to be funny. i didn't want his body, i said, "Juicy as it is." he was naked and lying on the bed now. i kept getting more upset, and kept trying harder to hide it. "I just want to help you," i said, breathing in short breaths. i couldn't debate it with him at length. i was too upset to talk.

i asked him as nicely as possible to get up and put his clothes on.

i was, and remain, almost too upset to think, sammy. what bothered me most was my own reaction.

this was just an hour ago, and i'm still vibrating. he didn't threaten. he didn't take anything from my wallet or money belts. the whole time he stayed friendly, as always. i was the one who got a little unfriendly.

no one has so blatantly invited me to sex in two and a half years. and the adrenalin rush it gave me, reminded me of scenes from my questionable past i'd somehow managed to forget.

i'm working myself up to the details, slowly, so you can get the full unbelievable picture.

and you know, the stupidest part, i thought nobody would ever want me again. so here's something to remember: life isn't over just because you think it is. more than likely there's somebody in this world that wants you, even if for reasons only they understand. and having somebody, anybody, want you, for any reason, sammy, as long as it's not destructive, should be better than having nobody at all want you. yet that's not the way it feels at the moment.

you have to know how to react to something like that when it happens. i don't any more. i'm out of touch.

Chalo didn't mean to be destructive, i'm sure. he wasn't trying to unnerve me.

it wasn't his fault.  it was mine. i hadn't told him the full story. would he have made that offer if he’d known what kind of bug i carried? maybe, come to think of it. he was desperate for someone to love and help him. he probably would have had me as i was, HIV and all.

i can't send for Chalo from the states after this, sammy. i can't handle Cocaland here, there or anywhere. there's too much sexual energy in this country. it's dangerous for me and them.

yet, i told him i'd help.

what was i supposed to say? ‘No’?

we've been through too much together to say no. i couldn't ignore his begging me for help. but how will i help him now? i can't deal with it any more. maybe i'll wire him twenty dollars from month to month. what else will he need? twenty dollars goes a long way in Cocaland, when it's nothing but you and fleas.

“twenty dollars goes a long way in Cocaland

when it's nothing but you and fleas”

decrepit 18th-century balconied townhouse in old-town Cartagena; sign reads:

‘Gomez-Rombo is selling this magnificent property’, phone numbers etc.