My Day Away

Let me tell you about my Saturday. I agreed to spend the day in Reynosa with my friend to help him keep his mind off of his recent break-up. Reynosa is a city of about a million people seven miles south of McAllen, Texas. There is a big parking lot next to the bridge and that is where we met and parked our cars. We walked across the bridge and took a taxi to the Mercado, which is a big shopping district in the Zona Centro of the city. It's really like a big cobblestone street where there are dozens, if not hundreds, of stores all selling basically the same thing-backpacks for kids with unauthorized Disney and Sesame Street images(Goofy and Miss Piggy holding hands on the same tote bag) counterfeited DVD's, clothes that Calvin Klein never even dreamed of, much less designed, dulcerias selling dulce de leche and pulpos de tamarindo covered in chili powder. There was a man with a crowd gathered around him and statues of Santissima Muerte (Saint Death) at his feet explaining how for 50 pesos he could cast a spell that would keep your lover faithful, and another man playing a version of three-card-monte using a ball of felt and bottle caps. I was standing behind him and could see him palm the felt ball before people picked the wrong bottle cap. We bought churros- delicious, hollow, tube-like pastries filled with strawberries and dusted with cinnamon and sugar. In Mexico, everyone is out on the street on a Sunday afternoon.
We made our way to our first stop on our little expedition. The Banos Colon is a bath house in the old sense of the word. You pay $7 to enter and you are given a ratty old towel and a bed sheet ripped in half length-wise to cover yourself. You proceed up one flight of stair to the changing room where you exchange a little numbered poker chip you have been given for a key, attached to a stretchy type cord which you wear around your wrist, to a wooden locker where you store you personal belongings. The bath area is lined with blue tiles and there is a dry sauna (Sauna Turko is written on the glass walls) and a steam sauna (Sauna Ruso). There were a dozen men milling around. Nobody talks (except me, and my English voice sounded so very loud) and there is a lot of pointed and deliberate eye contact made, but no one seems to ever follow up on anything. As I have often noticed when I am in Mexico, my foreignness, my Angloness, seems to cloak me in an invisible force field where I am free to observe, but am not required to interact with, whatever crowd in which I find myself. It's not a bad feeling, but it would be intolerable for a long period of time.
The main reason, for me at least, to go there is to get a massage. For $15 you can get the best massage anywhere. The masseuse takes you to a private room where you he covers you in a layer of soapy water. You are nude-it is sensual, but not sexual. He then massages, taps, and stretches every part of your body from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes. I was as pliable as a piece of warm taffy when he was done. Marvelous.
After our massages, we went to a restaurant specializing in Mexican seafood. I had Camarones de Mojo de Ajo-Shrimp with roasted bits of garlic. It was delicious. We sat by the window in the restaurant for nearly two hours watching the crowds go by. I counted three men dressed as clowns. There were plenty of older men wearing cowboy hats, pointy shoes and big belt buckles. There were younger people dressed like the goths you would see in an American mall, their Spanish seemingly out of place coming from their black lip-sticked mouths. There were abuelas dragging grandchildren home, and young men and women walking in groups just heading out for the night. It was very good people watching.
After we left the restaurant, we went to Farolito. Farolito (the little lamp) isn't so much a gay bar as it is a hustler bar. Most middle-class to upper-class gay Mexicans wouldn't be caught dead there. Drag queens, who were probably asked to leave home when they were twelve, go there, old men who seem to be content to buy beer for the three or four young men who sit with them and mock them behind their backs go there, people who can't afford the $10 cover at the upper class bar because that is what they make in a day, if they are lucky, go there. My friend and I sat at a table and drank Topo Chico, a brand of mineral water. A drag queen sat with us at the table for a moment and asked me in flawless English if I want to "be introduced" to someone and then whispered in my ear "he's cheap". When I declined, she fanned seven fingers in front of my face and said, "I have seven boys. When you come back, ask for Gemgirl." She then tottered off in her platform heels. At Farolito, my Angloness ceases to be a force field and becomes beacon attracting moth-like wisps of young men, street hustlers. It is then that my pidgin Spanish becomes useful. As they approach, like thin stilettos out of the disco lights, a big smile of greeting on their faces, I murmur, "No tengo dinero. Soy pobre." ("I have no money. I am poor.") They usually smile and move on. Sometimes they are more aggressive and my friend has to put on a stern face and act as if he is a jealous lover.
As the night wore on, the crowd became more animated and aggressive and we decided to go while the going was good. We walked back to the bridge, which is about 25 blocks (at least that is how it felt). When we got to the bridge, we had to take the pedestrian crossing, which involves climbing a ramp like structure to a height equal to a six-story building, walking over the automobile traffic crossing into Mexico and then walking back down. When we had finally crossed, I was exhausted and covered in sweat. It was a memorable day though, something out of the ordinary.