By Walter Agnew Moore II

Friday night I tried to teach my TOEFL class to say "black people" instead of "Negroes". Not only can they not pronounce "Negro" properly, mangling it in a most unfortunate way, but I cannot convince them that bad things are sure to happen to them if they use this mangled form. Ah, innocence.

Saturday night I did my bower bird act and threw a party at my house. All the cool girls showed up, and we got real drunk. A pint of tequila has a kick. A bottle has more.

Sunday I got in my car and rode west up into some North Carolina green mountains. Two lane winding along up and up. Destination: Minatitlan, about 30 miles from nowhere, up in the mist.

It is still a Really Big Deal to see a Gringo in Minatitlan. People sitting in front of houses poited out my Texas tags to their friends as I circled the guys playing basketball in the square. Then I stopped at a cafe and had myself a cup of coffee, ordered in Spanish by the way. Apparently the lady forgot that, because when I went to pay the bill, she just flashed up five fingers with a nervous smile.

"¿Usted quiere decir cinco pesos?" I said.

She bit her lip and nodded rapidly.

I really feel that at that point I should have leapt about like an ape or howled like a wolf, really give them something to talk about, but I just paid and thanked her.

Drove on down to the coast and saw Manzanillo rising from the sea for the first time. I cruised on into its towering semi-deserted apartment blocks, found a little restaurant, and had a beer on a balcony. Only had about 4 dollars left, so I drank it slow. Rain came down, and I watched the cops guarding the abandoned ship in the harbor while teenagers in the store below me took turns ducking out into the drops to take a look at me. Caught the eye of one girl doing it, she said "hi".

It would probably be really cheap to rent one of the big empty apartments I could see across the narrow street.

 

WALTER MOORE IS IN MEXICO—1 July 2003

Last weekend I went to find the mythical backroad-direct-route that-is-not-on-maps between Colima and Manzanillo. I am now convinced that this road is not on the map because it truly does not exist. Supporting evidence for this conclusion:

1. I went on every farm road that looked likely.

2. I went on every other road as well, including one that had a 3' deep narrow rut in the middle that I had to straddle perfectly or else be eaten by the pumas at nightfall.

3. I tried one creek-bed as well. Don't laugh, this was an improvement over some of the roads.

I never got to Manzanillo. I did wind up under a thatched roof in a ceviche place in Armeria conversing with 4 drunk guys who had all worked in the US for a good stretch of time before fleeing back home to avoid paying child-support to their wives. They were happy drunks, inviting me to go fishing, to stay in their houses if I was ever back. Happy drunks can turn weird a few beers later, so I bailed while they were still smiling.

Today I taught my students these things:

1. How to make wishes about things that you regret in the past.

2. The difference between must/could/may/might.

3. The importance of the Green Bay Packers to the NFL and to civilization at large.

4. How to sing an Army running song where you drink wine for breakfast and your parachute fails to open and so you go to hell and scream abuse at the devil.

Oh, and today in the plaza in Comala a ninety-year-old man with one tooth was trying to sell me, the Kiwi, and the Mormon some sort of vegetable matter in a bag.