Gone to Birmingham.

Final Mexico reflections coming sometime next week.

I have this really cute great-niece. I never have quite wrapped my head around it, but somehow I've turned into a great-uncle at the ripe old age of 27. I was 26 when the child was born but that's beside the point.

The interesting part is the fact that she's now a pretty 13 month old baby with pouty lips and eyes that make you melt. Since this is the evil internet, I will not disclose her name. Anyway, interesting thing is, she's 13 months and her mom is...as of October of THIS year, 2005, 15. Fifteen. Can you believe that?

I don't know what's wrong with kids these days. When I saw her 2 years ago, she was a little shorter than me. My niece is a sweet kid, honestly she is. She's been cursed with being built like a grown woman since she was 12. I fussed at her to no end when I saw her 2 years ago, due to her drug addled friendships, her boyfriend and the fact that she was living with her mom at the time. (Her mom is the reason I learned all about Napoleonic Justice back in the day).



I saw her this time around, as a 15 year old. A married fifteen year old. (wtf)
She ran off, and married this real winner. He has gapped front teeth, wears earrings, and is gainfully employeed as a burglar. My bro in law has informed him that if he shows up at their house, he will find out how much Kung-fu my bro in law really learned back in his martial arts days. So when my niece visits her dad (HERE SHE COMES!! HIDE ALL THE FOOD AND THE VALUABLES!), he stands outside by his bike.

He has her living in a dirt-floored house in a bad part of town (IS there a bad part of town? Read my last entries. Where we were was not a bad part of town. You be the judge) The kind of area where mosquitoes thrive, the prostitutes have track marks, and you will almost never leave alive if you enter at night with a fat wallet, a chain, and a decent pair of tennis shoes.

Before I realized what level of squalor/depravity/idiocy my niece has fallen into, she occasionally would be responsible for her sex trophy. (husband isn't dad) She would take her on walks, go out to eat, that sort of thing. Well, this last time, the baby came back with something wrong. It didn't make itself manifest until I was there. She got red. I mean REALLY red. She had a rash from head to toe, and she acted like she was in constant pain. She didn't let ANYONE sleep because she screamed like a posessed banshee all night every night. So we took her to the doctor. They claim it's dengue, but some non-life threatening form. I'm no tropical doctor, but I thought dengue was some serious sh*t. Anyway, she got some doxycycline or something or other. Sounds like it's strong enough to cure an 89 year old case of the clap, but it comes in a yummy bugglegum flavoured suspension.

She was therefore saddled with the nickname (at least in my head), Dengue Baby.

Dengue Baby is being raised by her grandpa (my 35 year old bro in law), and her great grandma in her 50's. It's a weird combination, but it's all she knows. It's sad that she is having to go through life like this, but I'm grateful she has at least TWO loving family members. It's all she knows.

Her mom came twice to see us while we were there. It almost ALWAYS seems to go into how much things cost: "Tio, how much did your cellphone cost?" "How much did that silver chain cost? I bet a lot." And it makes me uncomfortable. Especially since I found out from her dad that she's probably tooting nose powder up her nose now. He suspicioned this shortly before the deciding moment where he kicked her out and kung-fu threatened the street urchin husband, who did NOTHING but eat all day. NO work, NOTHING. And my broinlaw is a waiter and the sole breadwinner in the house.


There came a moment where he thought she was tooting, so he goes and BUYS some and catches her stealing it. He stopped letting her breastfeed the baby after that. Speaking of which, how do you tell a 15 year old to button her damn blouse up because she's got really obvious cleavage? It's uncomfortable, and plus people think you're a mongoloid because you're staring at the floor the entire time someone's talking to you.

I will not relinquish my hopes that somehow, some way, she will straighten up, and the rest of my in-laws will somehow come out of poverty.


Later:

Fun with US Border Patrol guards

Taterchip mens and wreck whore.
(or is it Taterchip Whore and the Wreck?)

Sounds like a Cat Stevens album...

Anyway, the sidewalk rapidly became our buzzards' roost of choice, when Niurka wasn't there.
(I want you to see why they call this guy Niurka. Now for all of you non-hispanics and non-hispanic affiliate gringoes, Niurka is this whacked out Cuban broad who left her rich, influential soap opera empire king husband for a hot, young, 'sexy' dude with pork chop sideburns named Bobby Larios. Her husband made a soap opera to launch her. She had this husband on-camera [enter Bobby Sideburns] husband, and she started banging him. After she left her real husband (who she said was impotent and *gasp* forced her to masturbate herself on her birthday because she's a whiny, long-nailed nympho island harpie), Niurka and Bobby started taking weird, fetishy pictures. Google image search 'Niurka' and you will find said island harpie naked and covered with mud, with mexican coiffe boy.) [ / whine ]

Mexico Niurka is a gimplegged Mexican dude with long, curly locks like Cuban nympho island harpie Niurka. He steals the pink apartment complex of loves' water to wash cars and rinse turds from the street. He does NOT live here, but he likes to drink his caguamas (read: quarts of beer) on MY sidewalk and make my life miserable. I gave him 20 pesos to go get a sammitch one night and leave me the hell alone.

Anyway, Niurka wasn't there this night, so we run outside and claim the stoop for our own. There are no moaning diabolical temptresses, no soliders, no turds, no roaches, so we enjoy the fresh air at 1 am. The buses are passing as workers are leaving the maquiladoras. And all of a sudden, BAM!!! *insert Batman 60's-era flash blurbs*. Out of nowhere, a beatup maroon car peels out and leaves. With the satisfying sound of crunching metal, we decided someone may have been run over and this bastard was leaving them to die. I run up the hill, in boxers and American Flag flipflops, and start crossing this 4 lane nightmare to see what's up.

I get there, and the windshield's crushed. A piece of the axle LITERALLY ROLLS up to my feet, and I step over it in my efforts to inch closer to the car I am expecting to find someone dead in, or at least lying nearby.

Airbags are deployed and there is a dude standing on the sidewalk, yelling into a cellphone. (bear with me here I've had several beers and 2 episodes of Stargate:Atlantis have passed since that last paragraph).

His hands are shaking, and he's like, 'no guey (pronounced 'way'...see El Mariachi to appreciate), we didn't hit him, HE hit us!!!'. He's eating potato chips nervously from a bag. Side note:I just opened another bottle of Sol! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRICOOOOOOO!!!

Anyway.

He's standing there, i hear sirens in the distance, and due to my last brush with Napoleonic law, I'm wanting to leave before the pigs get there to avoid being 'taken in and processed' along with chip man and the car people. I see the other car WAYYYY off in the distance, exactly in the same spot where the moron was hit after inching foward from the red light into the highway. Asshole.

While I'm talking to tater chip man (yes, I did establish contact), I am asking him if he's ok. I look over after a second due to an excessive taterchip bag crumpling sound, and my nephew is digging into taterchip man's bag. He's TAKING HIS CHIPS FROM HIM. They are staring at the car, shaking their head, and my idiotic 12 year old nephew is telling him such helpful and meaningful things as 'Dude, you messed up bad.' He eventually finishes the guy's bag of chips. And on that note, 8 Ford F150's from the transito police show up. I nonchalantly begin to walk backwards, staring into the sewage ditch there on the opposite side of 4 lane nightmare, and i make my way into the darkness, across the other 2 lanes, and back down to our sidewalk. The crackhead is walking by but at this point the only thing left to do is half-heartedly check to see if my van is locked. We wouldn't want them stealing my club anti-theft device or change from the ashtray now, would we?

Finishing SG:Atlantis Season 1 tonight, I'm noticing that my 2 year old nephew is making Wraith sounds in his dark room, trying to scare his siblings. It's so cheesy it's cute.

Tomorrow:

Is that Dengue? And man, your chest has grown.

Ok. Now on our street, it's a relatively quiet area. Neighbours are friendly enough, despite the aforementioned midnight mewling from the 2nd floor window.

One night, a crackhead poked his head through the burglar bars to my motherinlaw's window and showed us a jar of Kroger(Tm) [wtf. In MEXICO?] peanut butter. He begged us to buy it, and finally we did, for 10 pesos [$1], and off he waddled into the darkness of 21st street. I went to the front door, into the 'courtyard', and peered into the black to see where he was going. My brother in law is behind me, and startled the crap out of me because I didn't see him follow. He says, 'Oh him? He's heading down to the piedrero four blocks down.

SPANISH LESSON:
Piedra=rock

Do I need to go further? Thought not..

Anyway, dude's going to see the crack dealers, two dudes who are unassuming and sit on a stoop all night eating ice cream and cookies (which makes me think they spend their evening smoking herb, not crack, but that's another story, as it turned out that my suspicion was correct).

NEXT DAY...

We are driving around running errands (Read: seeing divorce lawyers, threatening people that owe my brother in law money, etc).

There are SIX FRIGGIN HUM-VEE's on 18th street!!!! It wouldn't bother me, but they AREN'T the yuppie mobile H-2's we've seen lately. They are old, olive green, and have MACHINE GUNS mounted on top, loaded, with short little brown people aiming them menacingly. I thought in a short instant, "Is this it? Am I a statistic a la Nuevo Laredo on CNN?"

We drive by, and for kicks, drive back the other way after pulling a U-turn. Turns out they are at the 'tiendita' (the 'little store'), a housing project building where hard dope is sold in that neighbourhood as well. They're supposedly 'busting' the drugpushers. Yeah, right. We go home, and ALL the monkeys are over on our street!!! ALL the piedreros from several blocks. They're hiding, also eating junk food, squatted down on the sidewalk and laughing. I get pissed, and enter into manifest-destiny cowboy of justice mode. We turn around (by this point, G n R are on the Sirius radio playing 'my michelle', which fit), and go back to the checkpoint. We roll down my window, and say the following in spanish: 'Yo, army dude. The rock slingers are on our block. Why don't ya'll actually do something about it? Thanks.' and drive off before he can respond. We get to the end of the cross-street we've barrelled down...AND IT'S CLOSED OFF AND IMPASSIBLE DUE TO REPAIRS (arrrrgh). We have to turn around, and drive back towards short brown men with machine guns, who flag us down at this point. I contemplate urinating in my pants as i picture my parents with a bad VHS tape of me chained to a shower head sans an ear and two fingers, and dude pulls us both out. He checks my papers to see if I'm 'legal' in Mexico *snicker*. He goes through our van thoroughly and after finding a Bible under my seat, he lets us go. We leave, and 4 to 6 hours later, my butt begins to un-clench.


Tomorrow:
Wreck boys and tater chip thief.

Ok. Let's try and get some of this down in 1's and 0's format.

On the way down, jamming to the satellite radio, I run over a diamondback rattlesnake. Eastern? Western? I have no clue. All I know is that the sucker was/is fat. It kept crawling afterward.

(Anyone seen the expose' on North Korea on CNN? I'm watching it as I type this and it never ceases to amaze me. Google 'Camp 22' and read articles. Why the hell isn't someone doing anything about this?)


Anyway...

I get there, and everyone has to pee. Again. So we stop. Then sisinlaw has to go get money from Western Union. So we have to ask directions for a W.U. depot. Finally we get there. Sun is failing, and I hate driving in Mexico at night, after driving from Mississippi. Damn. We get the cash, and head down the last 4 miles or so. We get to the bridge, and the sun is in my face to the point where I can't see anything. Not the toll sign, not the signals, nothing.

I get there, and we hold our breath as we slowly head through the 'Nothing to declare' lane. The traffic light is green as we go through, and we breathe a sigh of relief. A red light means a document check and customs check. Anything made in China is usually taken, since there is bad trade blood 'tween Mexico and China. Yeah, for some reason the US like to give 'most favoured trade partner' status not to its neighbours, but to a semi-hostile Communist country on the other side of the world that likes to crush the genitals of political prisoners and...and...blah blah.

So back to the point. We begin to drive down Avenida Alvaro Obregon, which is like the main drag from the Puente Nuevo. God, it's different. The moment you drive across that damn bridge it's different, and I don't just mean the traffic. The buildings are different. It's like someone played pick-up sticks with buildings, signs, and power lines. It's fun. It's VERY random. People also drive like buttholes.

We get there, hugs, crying, kisses, and gifts are handed 'round. Sleep on the floor comes. Brother in law gets off work, kicks me, wakes me up and tells me to sleep on his mattress. He sleeps on a blanket. Don't flush that toilet paper! Into the garbage it goes, else the sewer backs up and there is a square pit under the sidewalk you can peer into outside that has turd soup boiling out of it. More cockroaches that Joes apartment in the thing. Good thing it stays shut most of the time. ..

Out of nowhere, women start coming out of this outside bathroom. Now, let me describe the house. It's at the base of a 4 lane thoroughfare. Concrete sidewalks, and concrete houses. The entrance to the multi-home dwelling is an iron gate that shuts. Inside, there are 3 apartment-houses in a boxed in 'courtyard'. If you can call a pink concrete room a 'courtyard'. Everyone's clothes washing machines are outside. You fill them with the hose, and when they are done washing, you put the washer's drain hose into a plastic PVC pipe that runs into the bathroom I'm mentioning. The door to this bathroom is several boards nailed together and also painted pink. Like saloon doors. It's the bathroom to the prostitutes' apartment. Yes, I said whores.

Our apartment had its own bathroom and they keep the place clean, but it's not a paradise. Don't drink that damn water! Can't you see it's brown?

I wake up, and can't remember what I did, but that night i had a few beers and sat out on the sidewalk waiting for my brother in law to get off work. He usually walked home around 12:30 AM. While waiting, I hear a woman, that, pardon my graphic description, is apparently getting nailed. She's moaning and barking and yelling. I, horrified, go into fat-kid mode and start hyperventillating. I start coughing gently hoping they'll shut up. And to my surprise they do. Finally my brother in law comes home and we immediately get sent out to the store to go buy milk for dengue-baby. It's dengue? I don't think so, but it's definitely some damned mosquito-borne illness that has her covered from head to toe in some red rash.

I have to finish this later.

Tomorrow: The Army Checkpoint and the Piedreros.

I'm back and in one piece. Too sick and zonked on Benadryl to post, but I will post in the next couple of days my adventures involving tequila, a scorpion, the INS, a rattlesnake, the Mexican Army, prostitutes, a bad-ass car wreck, and antibiotics without prescriptions.