The Isle of Treasures: Chapters 1-9

One

On the Road Again

 

Lyle Robertson was happiest when he was back on the road.

And for a man from originally from Sydney, Australia now living in Mérida, Yucatán it had been quite a road trip from there to here.

How he ended up in the Yucatán was a story that had its origins a generation ago, back when André Emmerich was a force in the New York pre-Columbian art market. This was in the early 1970s. Lyle Robertson, a youth at the time, was mesmerized by Emmerich’s Art Before Columbus, first published in 1963.

He knew, one day, he would travel to see the pyramids for himself and behold the spectacular art of the indigenous nations of the American continent.

His parents, however, were of a different mind. Not unlike most decent Australians, the Robertson family was descendant of accomplished criminals sent to England’s most distant colony as punishment. But if banishment from civilization was intended to be a form of expulsion from decency, it didn’t work.

Australia was a continent of unlimited resources and the penal colonists thrived.

As a schoolboy learning history, Lyle Robertson marveled at the dim view of humanity the English had towards their fellow countrymen. New England, after all, had been established as a sort of penal colony for religious zealots and radical fundamentalists who were determined to have no rightful place in their own homeland. The Puritans, as far as the English monarchy was concerned, were radical extremists best left to fend for themselves against the severe winters of North America.

As time passed, the English sent religious extremists to New England and hardened criminals wenr to the other end of the earth: Australia.

Distance, however, is relative. And from his parents’ perspective, the distant Yucatán was a form of banishment. They did not understand their son’s desire to travel to the other side of the world where, presumably, nature was so harsh that civilization could not be sustained—and therefore collapsed, and swallowed up by jungles.

If the Robertsons hoped their son’s fascination with pre-Columbian art was a boy’s fleeting obsession, they were mistaken.

“Here, Lyle,” his mother told him on his birthday, handing him a copy of André Emmerich’s book, Sweat of the Sun and Tears of the Moon: Gold and Silver in Pre-Columbian Art. The year was 1969 and while most of his friends could not stop talking about the spectacular Apollo 11’s moon landing that summer, Lyle only wanted to talk about the gold of the Aztecs.

“Of course,” his father said, humoring him. “Have you decided on a major, now that you’re a sophomore?”

Lyle Robertson was an honor student at the Australian National University, an institution of international ranking. Economics, geology, and history filled his coursework.

His parents thought that their son’s fascination with pre-Columbian art was subsiding and were pleased. They were right until, of course, something spectacular occurred.

Mexican President Luis Echeverría’s term ended in 1976. His successor, José López Portillo, inherited an enraged country; Echeverría was loathed. This had to do with events that occurred both during his administration and before he was elected president.

Mexico had hosted the 1968 Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz was president at that time. Echeverría served in the Díaz Ordaz administration as Interior Secretary, the highest cabinet position. During a series of student protests—students around the world were agitating and rioting as part of the excesses of the youthful exuberance that characterized the 1960s—police violence occurred. These protests sought to bring their demands to the world’s attention. Interior Minister Echeverría took a hard line against the demonstrators.

Clashes between students and police culminated in what history now remembers the Tlatelolco massacre of October 1968. Echeverría was the man responsible for this dirty war against Mexico’s youth.

It surprised observers when he was nominated to be elected president in 1970. His corruption, cronyism, and outright theft during his administration created tremendous resentment among the Mexican public. When his term was over, Mexicans were only too happy to see him go.

That’s where destinies collided.

If José López Portillo wanted to govern without Echeverría’s shadow over him, he had to get his predecessor out of the country. The easiest way of doing this was to name him as Mexico’s ambassador to Australia—as far away as possible.

Lyle Robertson, unaware of the intrigues of Mexico’s political classes, was fascinated when, in 1977, it was announced the former Mexican president Luis Echeverría had arrived in Australia to serve as his nation’s ambassador.

Corruption, cronyism, and theft were unleashed at the Mexican embassy in Canberra with the same passion that corruption, cronyism, and theft had been the hallmarks of his administration. And it was during this time that, realizing a virgin opportunity was to be found in the world’s fascination with pre-Columbian art, Echeverría used Australia to develop a new growth industry: the black market traffic in Mexican antiquities.

Australia thus became, in the mid-1970s, under Echeverría’s corrupt hand, a hub for the black market traffic of pre-Columbian treasures. With his mercurial presence Down Under, the ancient art of the Americas entered his nation’s imagination for the first time. It could be said that in the same way that Frida Kahlo informs the American imagination, a nation enamored with the glamour of mental illness, the Aztec calendar fascinated the Aussies in ways they did not fully understand.

From those humble beginnings—a banished Mexican former president who found kindred spirits in a land founded by banished English convicts and criminals—Lyle Robertson gave up on a career in geology and entered a new one that led him to a gracious home in the Centro Histórico in Mérida.

Yes, André Emmerich was a wonderful resource on this journey. The German-born Emmerich, whose family fled Europe when he was a child, invented a life for himself as an influential gallerist in New York in post-War America. He proved a wise mentor to neophytes in the fine art of acquiring—and bringing to the market—exquisite examples of pre-Columbian art.

 

Mexican President Luis Echeverría

Art Dealer André Emmerich

Now a man in his early 60s, Lyle Robertson maneuvered around the periphery of the American and Canadian expat community in Mérida, a sad village of philistines and alcoholics whose marginalized lives orbited the Mérida English Library of Scams. He was familiar to some members, but he kept his distance and held them with disdain.

He loathed, for example, the sight of Lewie Connor, often seen walking more dogs than she could responsibly handle, down the narrow streets. That woman, personally responsible for little piles of dog feces up and down Calle 68 and Calle 55 in Mérida’s historic center, embodied everything he loathed about Americans; she was vulgar, ignorant, and overbearing.

 

Lewie Connor, the very creative accountant at the Mérida English Library of Scams

 

This morning, as he drove out of his garage door, he saw the American wreck and her movable kennel sauntering down the street. She stood impatiently while one dog took a dump, and two others sniffed the warm turd. Another dog pissed on a neighbor’s car’s tire.

Lyle Robertson knew Lewie Connor was still angry at him when he mocked her lame sexual advances and lewd innuendos. He found her laughable, but he knew she was a horny old woman whose lust was stronger than her resentment.

He was right: As he drove past her, she smiled and waved at him.

Was he an Aussie hunk? That was his reputation.

He didn’t think so.

Then again, he knew that everything in life was relative. With so many old gringos and effete gay twinks among the pathetic expat ranks in town, he knew he was, by comparison, positively Herculean. Lyle Robertson stood 6’ 2”, had played rugby in college, and was fit.

He didn’t bother to wave back at Lewie Connor as he drove past her. He was headed to Calle 59-A in Santiago on his way out of town.

In a moment, he was deep in the heart of Santiago, driving south on Calle 74. Taking a right, he found it amusing to drive past the abandoned building that had been the administrative offices for the Flamingo Lakes Country Club, a real estate scam pulled off by Neil Baines, an English lord and master grifter.

He really had nothing to do with it, other than having surveyed some land on occasion and having made recommendations on marketing campaigns. His background in geology came in handy in analyzing the geological features and subsoil deposits for the imaginary real estate development. Lord Baines had paid him well and Lyle Robertson appreciated the opportunity to see if there were any significant Maya settlements of note in the area.

The Flamingo Lakes Country Club purported to rise a short distance from Dzibilchaltún, a Maya ceremonial center that had brought fame and renown to E. Wyllis Andrews in the first half of the twentieth century. It was possible that another significant center lay due east, especially since the northern Yucatán coast was the most important salt production region in the Maya world.

 

Gustavo Álvarez

 

A smile came across his sunburnt face as he took a left building that had house the former administrative offices of the Flamingo Lakes Country Club—how many swank cocktail parties had taken place in that building when the talented Lord Baines swindled stupid gringos out of tens out of thousands of dollars in down payments for a resort that was nothing but a scam?

In a moment, his cell phone rang.

“Are you on your way?” Gustavo Álvarez said.

“Yes, mate,” Lyle Robertson replied.

“Do you have the case?” he asked.

“Too right!” he said, meaning “definitely.”

The case was of Herradura tequila. It was to be used to bribe an alcoholic archaeologist who would trade a few choice pieces for some cash and spirits.

“Good,” Gustavo Álvarez replied. “I think he’ll come through with five.”

Lyle Robertson was driving to Campeche State. The archaeologist in question was desperate for a few thousand dollars—and his favorite tequila. Gustavo Álvarez, a former curator of a museum in Texas, was now back in Mexico, his business associate in this lucrative trade.

“That’s good oil,” the Aussie said, meaning useful information.

“Yes, it’s excellent news,” he said. “I think he’s finally perfected the art of being a functioning alcoholic.”

The men laughed.

“The buyer’s a bit anxious,” Lyle Robertson said. “He saw an exhibition of Merle Greene rubbings at the DeYoung Museum and he’s all in. We can flick it on.”

Flick it on was Aussie for buying something and selling it immediately for a quick, considerable profit.

“Those are the best deals,” his friend said. “ETA?”

“I should be pulling in around 1:30,” he said, making good time on Avenida Aviación driving past the airport.

 

Figurines from Jaina are coveted around the world.

 

The men had agreed to take their hapless archaeologist to lunch at La Pigua in Campeche City. There they would work out the details of the transaction. The sale of six figurines from the island of Jaina was no ordinary deal. Lyle Robertson knew it. Gustavo Álvarez knew it.

That there was, in Mérida, a lucrative black market in the trafficking of pre-Columbian artifacts might sound ominous. It wasn’t. As far as Lyle Robertson was concerned, it was a fun little business and his intellectual birthright.

He turned up the music. He moved to the beat, echoing the song playing, which was a pop ode to the land Down Under. The song praised the land where women glowed and men plundered.

Aussie women did glow and Aussie men excelled at plundering. Lyle Robertson smiled and sang along: “Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover.”

“Excellent,” Gustavo Álvarez had said before ending their conversation. He was the Mexican to whom everything was either “excellent” or “dismal.” There was no in between.

In this case, as André Emmerich had taught Lyle Robertson decades back, when one could flick it on, then things could not be more excellent.

 

 

 

Two

Anything You Can Do

 

Harriet Riggs, the volunteer librarian at the Mérida English Library of Scams, was happy when the she finally closed up the library after the last drunk left.

Each month the library had its “MELL-o-Nites” gathering. It was an opportunity to practice enthusiastic alcoholism in the company of other drunks. Susanna McKibben, the new administrator in charge, in fact, had reworked the entire library’s social program to celebrate and embrace excessive beer drinking.

Susanna had replaced the previous administrator; a Mexican who was an authority on affected mixed drinks—a Millennial mixologist. Harriet Riggs had not easily fooled, however. She knew that Irving Not Cool—who was really more of a sex worker than a mixologist—would not last long at the library. He was incapable of multitasking. It proved too much for him to juggle the competing demands of running a clandestine cantina in the patio, perform a few management duties, and handle a full schedule of sex tourism clients.

 

Susanna McKibben, Mérida English Library of Scams administrator and beer drinker.

Susanna McKibben, on the other hand, was single-minded in her dedication to artisanal beers and public drunkenness in the best of Irish traditions.

MELL-o-Nites under her capable alcoholism, had become, as the Mexicans say, borracheras—drink-fests.

After Harriet Riggs closed the library she walked to the patio out back. It was time for her to unwind. She put the last of the beer away and then reached for her personal stash of Cabernet Sauvignon. But, mindful of her friend’s preferences, whose arrival was imminent, she had an ice-cold Bohemia six pack stashed away in the back of the refrigerator.

Geriatric Ginga Volunteer, her friend, was an American senior citizen who was a selfless and devoted volunteer at the Evolución dog shelter, a popular cause among members of the American and Canadian expat community, regardless of drinking habits.

The women were the best of expat friends.

Harriet Riggs pulled up a chair out on the patio, lit up a joint, and poured herself a generous glass of wine. She turned on her lap top went to YouTube.

She searched for “In the Yucatan” and “La Calle Escondida.” Keith Heitke had uploaded this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg77ZD95FtI. He was one of the realtors about town who snagged people into writing checks and making investments in Mérida’s Centro Histórico, known as “Gringo Gulch.” A 9/11 refugee from New York, Keith Heitke was a sweet man, but was also one of the more effeminate and fragile-looking queers in town. That was a major turnoff to many people.

Harriet Riggs was one of them. She was convinced that flogging him with a Palm Sunday frond would be enough to break the queer in two. On occasion, she fantasized sticking her foot out in his path and making him trip just to see if, hitting the pavement, he’d shatter into a million pieces like a glass Christmas tree ornament.

The video came on. It was a very popular and much mocked marketing video about Mérida’s real estate market on YouTube.

Why?

Because the video in question showcased Ian Arthur’s house. He was a Scotsman living in Mérida. He was also just another pathetic aging faggot, the kind of queer who found it necessary to pay hustlers to fulfill his sexual fantasies.

That was common enough, expats who had to pay for sex if they wanted to have a sex life apart from masturbation. In his case, however, Ian Arthur’s proclivities were unusual. His preferences for S&M and bondage fantasy sex were well-known—and ridiculed—in expat circles.

How well-known?

Taking advantage of the fact that, in Mexico, police reports are public documents, several expats use these transparency laws to get copies of the criminal complaints for their amusement. (“On the evening in question, after I paid the subject one thousand pesos at Las Vigas restaurant we walked back to my residence. I then told the subject I wanted to be punished for being a ‘bad boy’ by being handcuffed, blindfolded, slapped, and fucked with a dildo. The subject blindfolded me, handcuffed me, and slapped me. But he did not fuck me with a dildo. Instead, he stole my wallet, took four bottles of tequila, two bottles of gin, and fled my home. It was not until the following day when the gardener, arriving at my home, that he discovered me.”) These humiliating police reports were circulated behind his back.

No one was surprised by any of this. It didn’t take much of an imagination to know that, if you paid rough trade to tie you up and beat you, then these were the kind of people who would tie you up, beat you—and rob you.

At the Mérida Police Department, Ian Arthur was, of course, a familiar figure, one of the sadder expats, lonely men who would periodically show up to report having been beaten up and robbed. (“Señor Arthur,” the police detective never tired of counseling the old faggot, “if you’re paying male hustlers to play these sex ‘games’ with you, you have to know who they are. And why don’t you use a ‘safe’ word when playing these ‘games’ of yours? You know we had a terrible case where an expat died of autoerotic asphyxiation recently.”) All the police officers had been instructed to be sensitive to Mr. Arthur’s circumstances.

 

Ian Arthur, the subject of ridicule

Keith Heitke, Realtor to the Gullible

 

Other expats, of course, were not sensitive to a stupid old faggot who let strangers into his house, handed them a pair of handcuffs to use on him, and expected all to end well.

Harriet Riggs had started the video to see Keith Heitke’s tour of Ian Arthur’s home when her cell phone rang.

“Don’t you dare get to the good part without me!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“Are you here?”

“Of course!” she replied. “I’m standing outside.”

“Just a minute.”

Harriet Riggs got up and walked to let her friend in.

“How was the evening?” she asked the volunteer librarian.

“The usual,” she told the Evolución volunteer.

“There was vomit?”

“Just a couple of losers, but out back,” Harriet Riggs answered. “We hosed it down. Did you bring it?”

“Of course,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteeer said. “It’s here in my shoulder bag.”

She had brought over artisanal popcorn made from non-Monsanto corn kernels; the women preferred to share gourmet popcorn when watching YouTube videos uploaded by the various gay realtors around town.

“Let me get you a Bohemia,” she told her friend. “Just go out back.”

Geriatric Gringa Volunteer made her way to the patio and took the artisanal popcorn out of her shouder bag. Harriet Riggs walked over to her a moment later.

“Oh, you’re a dear,” she said, taking the Bohemia.

“Here, let’s watch it!”

Harriet Riggs had paused the video at the 6:58 minutes point. When the women were settled, they toasted, and Harriet Riggs hit the “resume” button. The women were eating popcorn when Keith Heitke picked up the tour.

“Here we have a huge master suite,” Keith Heitke said on the video in his delicate voice, his limp wrists struggling to close the mammoth bedroom doors shut. “Which is basically the whole width of the house in the back. It’s really private back here, really the quietest part of the house.”

“The quietest part of the house,” Harriet Rigg said, laughing.

Geriatric Gringa Volunteer paused the video.

“Maybe that’s why they can’t hear the old faggot screaming, ‘Hello? Hello? Is the game over? Take the blindfolds off! Unlock the handcuffs! Hello? Hola?’” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, chuckling. “Is anybody there?”

“And then the front door is slammed shut!” Harriet Riggs managed, laughing.

The women were having a grand time.

“Let’s watch it again!” Harriet Riggs suggested.

The video had been seen thousands and thousands of times, according to the YouTube counter.

“Okay, but just a few more times,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

Neither woman felt guilty at laughing at the wimpy sissy-boy Keith Heitke’s sad tour of poor Ian Arthur’s home, the hapless sexual degenerate.

While the women amused themselves over popcorn, YouTube videos, and the sex lives of Mérida’s gay expat community, the doorbell rang.

“Who are you expecting?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked.

“Oh, that must be the beer delivery,” Harriet Riggs said.

“Beer delivery?” she asked. “At this hour?”

“Yes,” the volunteer librarian said. “It’s a special delivery.”

She got up and walked inside, yelling “Vengo!” Spanish for “Coming!” She opened the door, greeted the Mexican delivery man, and pointed to a corner where he was to stack the cases of beer. Geriatric Gringa Volunteer was standing behind her.

“Foster’s?” she asked her friend.

“It’s Susanna’s idea,” Harriet Riggs explained. “She thinks if he have a stash of Australian beer, then Lyle Robertson will come over. She thinks he’s gorgeous.”

“Oh, please,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer. “That man is not going to be tricked into showing up at this place for a bottle of beer!”

Harriet Riggs thanked the delivery man, tipped him, and showed him the door.

“I think he has a crush on him, Susanna,” Harriet Riggs said a moment later. “He’s a real catch.”

“I don’t doubt that, but why would he be interested in a run-of-the-mill American drunk?”

“It saves him the trouble of slipping an Ambien or some other date rape drug in her drink,” the volunteer librarian said.

“Superfluous!”

“What do you mean?”

“Harriet, a drunk like Susanna puts out willingly!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “That girl might as well have an ‘Open 24/7’ sign around her neck! I’ve seen the pictures that Millennial moron posts on Facebook!”

The women continued to discuss Susanna McKibben’s drinking habits, as documented on her Facebook page, when there was another knock on the door.

“What?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“More beer!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer joked.

“Droll, my dear!” came the protest.

Harriet Riggs walked over and opened the door. She opened it and saw Ronnie Bush, the most prominent Jewish expat standing before her.

“So, that’s how you do it!” she said in an accusatory manner.

“Do what?”

“Don’t think for a moment you can talk your way out of this,” Ronnie Bush said. “Remember, you’re a stupid goy!”

“Come on in, Ronnie,” Harriet Riggs said. “Unlike you’re people, we Christians don’t turn unfortunate souls who ride mules away in the middle of the night!”

“Hi, Ronnie!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“Is the library now taking in the pathetic expat homeless as well?” Ronnie Bush said, entering. “I thought that woman slept with the dogs at that disgusting pound.”

Geriatric Gringa Volunteer walked back to the patio. She took opened one of the new Adult Coloring Books and reached for a box of crayons; she wanted to amuse herself as her friends went at it. Harriet Riggs and Ronnie Bush followed, stopping briefly in front of the refrigerator.

“Would you like a drink?”

“What?” Ronnie Bush asked. “Do I look like a fucking Muslim?”

“What will you have?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“I’m fine with some wine,” she said.

“Of course,” the volunteer librarian said. “It must be time for a Xanax.”

“What if it is?”

“Here,” she said, handing friend an empty glass stored on top of the refrigerator. “Is a Sauvignon Blanc okay?”

“Of course,” she answered.

“Remember, white wine goes with Xanax and red wine goes with valium,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, coloring in the book.

“Yes, my dear, we all know that,” Ronnie Bush said. “Now, Harriet, I suspected you had clandestine deliveries of booze in the middle of the night!”

“You’re wrong, Ronnie,” she corrected, pouring her friend wine. “We have booze deliveries at any time!”

“Then why this delivery now?” she challenged.

Ronnie Bush walked over to the stacked boxes of beer.

“Is it okay if I went outside the lines?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked.

“No one cares, my dear,” Harriet Riggs commented.

“I knew it!” Ronnie Bush exclaimed, turning around.

“Knew what?” Harriet Riggs said, startled.

“I knew it!” she repeated, raising her finger in an accusatory manner. “Foster’s!”

“What of it?”

“Yeah, what of it?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“Foster’s!” Ronnie Bush repeated, smugness in her voice. “The library is trying to ensnare Lyle Robertson!”

“Oh, you’re being ridiculous!” Harriet Riggs protested.

“Then why Foster’s? And why now?” Ronnie Bush challenged.

“We’re just trying to diversify our offering, that’s all,” Harriet Riggs protested.

“Yeah, Ronnie,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Susanna is an authority on artisanal beers and that’s all there is to it!”

“You stay out of this, you destitute old woman!”

“Don’t speak to her like that, you fucking Jew!” Harriet Riggs said. “No wonder the Palestinians stone your people!”

“My people!” Ronnie Bush said. “At least we’re not being beheaded by ISIS, which is the only way anyone can shut a fucking Christian up!”

“What?”

“You heard me!” Ronnie Bush protested. “Christians suck up the world’s oxygen!”

“You take that back!”

“I will not!”

“Enough!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer shouted. “Behave!”

Ronnie Bush walked over to the patio table where Geriatric Gringa Volunteer was coloring a drawing with crayons.

“Put that crayon down, you imbecile!” she demanded. “What kind of fucking library is this, anyway?”

“It’s a hip and current library!” Harriet Riggs said. “Don’t you know anything, you old woman? This is the Age of Millennials!”

“Yes, that’s right!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, slamming her crayon on the table. “Didn’t you see Susanna’s résumé online? It had pictures, not words!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” the exasperated old fat Jew asked.

“If I give you a crayon would you be able to connect the dots?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“What?”

“I think what she means is that you have to be sensitive to the generational shift,” Harriet Riggs said, defusing the situation.

“What?” Ronnie Bush repeated.

“Why is it so hard?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Your people gave us Einstein! Be smart! Make your people proud!”

“Ronnie, have you considered that if this Millennial generation submits résumés with pictures instead of sentences, then they might prefer books with drawings instead of words?” Harriet Riggs said.

“That makes no sense!” she protested.

“Why?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked. “Maybe we’re devolving back to hieroglyphics!”

“I know you’re trying to be useful, and I admire such ambition, especially for someone who’s so useless,” Ronnie Bush said to the Evolución volunteer. “But could you please shut up.”

“I have as much right to speak my mind as anybody else!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer protested.

Ronnie Bush said nothing. She took a sip of her wine. Harriet Riggs filled her glass.

“Foster’s?” she asked, with suspicion in her voice. “I’m not convinced.”

“It has nothing to do with the Aussie hunk,” Harriet Riggs insisted. “Besides, what the fuck are you doing out this late at night loitering outside the library?”

“Yeah,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer chimed in. “Who appointed you the Gringo Gulch Gestapo?”

“That’s low!” Ronnie Bush protested. “The Nazi Secret State Police were evil incarnate.”

“I’m sure they were hunky, muscled boys!” Harriet Riggs joked.

Ronnie walked over to Geriatric Gringa Volunteer, who offered her artisanal popcorn.

“Nice drawing,” the old fat Jew said.

“Thank you,” the Evolución volunteer said. “You have a good eye, for a Zionist zealot.”

“That had better be non-Monsanto popcorn!” Ronnie Bush said. “We all have to support Mérida Rouge!”

“Since when do you give a fuck about that drunk, Nancy Anza?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“Ever since she introduced me to her smoked salmon!” she said. “Have you tasted it? It’s out of this world!”

“Fair enough,” the volunteer librarian said. “It is good.”

“I think it’s great!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“Well, let’s be honest,” Ronnie Bush said. “You spend so much time breathing in the scent of dog food at that shelter that canned tuna fish tastes gourmet to you!”

“You take that back!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, standing up to get herself another Bohemia.

“I will not!” Ronnie Bush said. “The most I will say is that you’re talented—when it comes to coloring drawings.”

“That’s something,” Harriet Riggs pointed out.

“And it more than I can say about Harriet!” Ronnie Bush said.

Geriatric Gringa Volunteer laughed. She poured Harriet Riggs more wine.

“The claws are out!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer pointed out, laughing.

“Yes,” Ronnie Bush said. “When it comes to talent, Harriet is three bottles short of a six pack!”

“You take that back!” Harriet Riggs demanded.

“I will not!” the Zionist zealot replied. “You have no talent!”

“Ha!” Harriet Riggs said. “Anything you can do, I can do better! I can do anything better than you!”

Ronnie Bush started to laugh. Geriatric Gringa Volunteer reached for the bottle to pour Ronnie Bush more wine.

“You’re a stupid goy, aren’t you?” Ronnie Bush said. “Those aren’t even your own words! Those are Irving Berlin’s lyrics from Annie Get Your Gun!”

Harriet Riggs was stunned. Geriatric Gringa Volunteer thought about it for a moment.

“Oh, Mother of Jesus,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“What?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“Irving Berlin was a Jew!” she said.

“That’s right!” Ronnie Bush said. “Goys are so stupid you have to quote a Jew when you think you’re being clever! Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidore Baline—a Russian Jew!”

Harriet Riggs felt humiliated at the realization that she had inadvertently attempted to insult one Jew by plagiarizing another Jew. She said nothing but walked back to the refrigerator where, in the produce drawer, she had a handgun hidden.

“Foster! The People!” she said to Geriatric Gringa Volunteer.

“What?” Ronnie Bush asked, confused.

“I hope you realize, Ronnie, that as we grow older, we have to work harder at staying young!” Harriet Riggs said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This library is hip because we have Adult Coloring Books,” she said. “And we are with it because we have an administrator that is an authority on artisanal beers and can drink a sailor under a table.”

“Foster! The People!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, reaching for the laptop.

“You’re both nuts!” Ronnie Bush protested.

“No, we’re not,” Harriet Riggs said, taking the handgun out of the refrigerator. “And part of being hip and with it is keeping current!”

“Tell her about the active shooter in the shopping mall!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer interjected.

“Active shooter?” Ronnie Bush asked. “Are you both drunk?”

That reminded Harriet Riggs of her responsibilities as a good hostess. With the handgun in one hand, she reached for the bottle of wine with the free hand. She poured Ronnie Bush more wine.

“He’s coming for you, yeah, he’s coming for you!” she said.

Ronnie Bush was confused.

“Yeah, he’s coming for you!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “He found a six-shooter gun in his dad’s closet!”

“What are you talking about?” Ronnie Bush wanted to know.

“You better run, better run, outrun my gun,” Harriet Riggs said, raising her handgun.

“Yeah, all the other kids with the pumped up kicks,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“You better run, better run, faster than my bullet!” Harriet Riggs said.

“I have no idea what either of you are talking about, but you need to see your respective pharmacists in the morning!” Ronnie Bush said.

“That Foster’s isn’t about beer, Ronnie,” Harriet Riggs said. “It’s Foster the People!”

At that moment, Harriet Riggs raised her handgun over her head, looked at Geriatric Gringa Volunteer, and nodded her head. Geriatric Gringa Volunteer clicked on the “play” button the YouTube video of Foster the People’s song, “Pumped Up Kicks,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ.

“What the fuck?” Ronnie Bush asked, confused.

“You old fat Jew are so clueless!” Harriet Riggs said.

“Don’t you know anything?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Kids today in America are listening to songs that celebrate active shooters in shopping mall! That’s what America has become in our absence!”

“You better run, better run, outrun her gun,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“You better run, better run, outrun my bullet,” Harriet Riggs said, raising her handgun again and pointing it at Ronnie Bush.

“You’re drunk!” Ronnie Bush said, putting down her glass and moving to the exit.

“I doubt very much that anything I can shoot, you can shoot better!” Harriet Riggs said, pointing the handgun at her friend. “Remember! I can shoot anyone better than you!”

Ronnie Bush, without saying a word, made a dash for the door. Harriet Riggs, handgun pointing straight at her friend, was in pursuit. The women reached the front door, and Ronnie Bush ran out.

“Outrun my bullet, you Gringo Gulch Gestapo bitch!” she screamed at her friend.

As Ronnie Bush disappeared in the dark streets, Harriet Riggs stepped inside and slammed the library door shut.

“Don’t pay her any attention,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “You have more talent in one finger than she has in her entire body!”

“I’ll show her!” Harriet Riggs said. “I’ll come up with something spectacularly creative!”

“That’s right, Harriet,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “You don’t have to be here, with these fucking ingrates! You could be doing lots of cool things!”

“Cool things?” Harriet Riggs said, in a pensive manner.

“Yes, very, very cool things!” her friend said with encouragement.

“Yes! Cool things!” she said. “Very cool things!”

“You and Jeb Bush!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

 

Three

All the Way to the Bank

 

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist had a good appetite, devouring the Sir Francis Drake seafood salad before him.

Lyle Robertson smiled as he looked at Gustavo Álvarez, who rolled his eyes.

“It’s clear that the island of Jaina was an important ceremonial center,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said, mouth half full. “There are scores of ceramic idol and jade ornaments in the burials.”

Gustavo Álvarez smiled.  Lyle Robertson wondered why this drunk had such a voracious appetite; alcoholic was an appetite suppressant.

“In other words, there’s a stable supply of figurines?” Gustavo Álvarez asked.

“And jade,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist added. “Jade and shell necklaces.”

“Red paint?” Lyle Robertson asked.

He had learned that residue of red pigment was highly coveted among connoisseurs.

“Yes,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist answered. “There’s residue in the incisions of the carvings.”

The conversation continued as the men ate. The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist ordered grilled octopus and a total of five beers. The men discussed the logistics of smuggling pre-Columbian artifacts out of Mexico through Mérida and the Port of Progreso.

Lyle Robertson knew that the do-nothing authorities in Mérida were clueless about Maya antiquities. That was one of the beautiful things about Mexico’s terrible public education system; Mexicans’ ignorance about their own history and science made it fabulously easy to hide archaeological treasures hidden among tourist souvenirs. Gustavo Álvarez had a wonderful relationship with maritime outfits along the northern shores of Yucatán State, from Sisal to Telchac Puerto, ideal spots where leisure vessels could venture across the warm gulf waters and arrive in Florida.

“There’s one thing,” Gustavo Álvarez added as the men wrapped up lunch.

“What’s that?” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist asked.

“If we are to make this into a sustainable enterprise, we’re going to have to have an organization formally set up,” Gustavo Álvarez explained. “The world’s a different place these days. Money laundering, currency controls. We can’t just be wiring large sums to personal bank accounts.”

“This has nothing to do with me,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said. “I’m getting paid cash—and that’s that.”

Then Lyle Robertson, who had been largely quiet throughout the meeting, spoke up.

“I understand your point, Gus,” he said. “We need to have, I would say, a nonprofit organization set up just so we can have funds wired with fewer suspicions of Mexican regulators. A nonprofit organization would give us the cover of wiring money for ‘humanitarian’ work of one kind of other.”

“Exactly,” Gustavo Álvarez said. “Having a ‘philanthropist’ in the U.S. wiring money for humanitarian efforts in Mexico makes regulatory sense.”

“I’m not accepting checks or wire transfers,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist, in a belligerent tone familiar among drunks, said. “It’s cash for me.”

“Of course, of course,” Lyle Robertson said. “But before I make cash withdrawals for you, there have to be incoming wire transfers.”

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist nodded his head in agreement.

“It’s my understanding that, in Mexico, it takes five people to form an asociación civil,” Gustavo Álvarez said. “Is this still the case?”

An asociación civil was the equivalent of a nonprofit organization, but unlike the U.S. asociaciones civiles were not automatically tax-exempt organizations. There was a different, rigorous procedure by which an asociación civil enjoyed tax-exempt status.

“Yes, it is,” Lyle Robertson said.

“Where are we going to get along enough people to form a bona fide nonprofit organization?”

The men pondered about this obstacle. The waitress brought over coffees—and another drink for the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist.

“You don’t need that,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said.

“What do you mean?” Lyle Robertson asked.

“I know a Notary Public who will form an asociación civil without the requisite number of people,” he said.

“Is that legal?”

“Who know?” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said. “And who cares? You need an asociación civil founded by one person, I know the Notary Public who can form an asociación civil founded by one person.”

“Who?” Lyle Robertson asked.

 

Raúl Alberto Pino Navarrete, where one person can form a nonprofit organization.

 

“Raúl Alberto Pino Navarrete,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist answered. “He’s your man.”

The clouds had been lifted and the three men were relieved. The lunch concluded the men left. Lyle Robertson called car service for the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist. He and Gustavo Álvarez went to Lyle’s car.

As they were getting in, Lyle Robertson noticed that Juana La Loca, the Countess of Self-Delusion, in the company of some old gringas, arrived. “Most people don’t know it, but I am the inspiration for La Pigua,” he overheard the pompous ass say, lying to her minions. “Before I arrived, there was almost no seafood in the Yucatán. Well, being from Vancouver, I just told the Mexicans—the sea is filled with life! Sea life! And you can eat sea life!”

The men chuckled as they drove off.

On the drive back to Mérida, they planned on how best to set up a nonprofit organization.

If the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist was right and Raúl Alberto Pino Navarrete would form an asociación civil with only one person, then that alone would be worth a nice chunk of change. The men agreed that Lyle Robertson would make an appointment with this Notary Public and offer him $400,000 pesos just to form the organization.

It had been a good meeting, a good lunch, and Gustavo Álvarez was delighted with the Jaina figurines the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist had sold him. Lyle Robertson was happy, or at least hopeful, that they had found a mechanism to create a sham organization to finance their systematic rape of Mexico’s archaeological patrimony to feed the insatiable black market in pre-Columbian artifacts.

As André Emmerich had taught Lyle Robertson, the world was full of opportunities and the world had the promise of making lots of money. Lyle Robertson had the brawn. Gustavo Álvarez had the brains. The men were bound to make lots of money, and they knew it.

Lyle Robertson thanked God Luis Echeverría has served as Mexico’s ambassador to Australia. Gustavo Álvarez thanked God the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist knew of a Notary Public who would set up the framework for funneling money back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico for this enterprise.

The men were men of faith.

And this is how, at the Registro Civil, or Civil Registry, in Mérida the following week, it came to pass that Fundación Best Archaeological Investigations, A.C. was duly registered:

“Fundación Best Archaeological Investigations (BAI)” asociación civil, presentó hoy siendo las: trece horas con cinco minutos, por conducta de Aida Molina, un testimonio librado en esta ciudad el trece de abril del año dos mil nueve, de una escritura pública número: siente de protocolización, otorgado ante la fe del Lic. Raúl Alberto Pino Navarrete, Notario Público, titular de la Notaria Pública númbero: setenta y seis del estado y en protócolo a su cargo el nueve de enero del año dos mil nueve, y en que consta que: comparecio la ciudadana Ana Cristina Villafane Flores Alatorre, quien mantifesto haber nacido en la ciudad de México, Distritro Federal el diecinueve de abril de mil novecientos setenta y cinco, de quarenta años de edad, soltera, empleada y de domicilio en el predio quinientos noventa y cinco A de la calle cincuenta y siete de esta ciudad.

Fundación Best Archaeological Investigations, A.C. was now up and running.

The Best Archaeological Investigations in Mérida were about to produce some very, very wonderful returns.

All the way to the bank.

 

Four

The Pussy Paintings

 

Juana La Loca, the Countess of Self-Delusion, could hardly contain herself as she walked into the Mérida English Library of Scams.

The Canadian charlatan, who had married a Mexican and pretended to rule over expat community as the founder of the International Women’s Club, was a woman of no consequence in reality.

That was the operative word: reality.

She had, after years of living in the sweltering heat of the Yucatán, almost no understanding of what was real, what was imaginary, and what an annoying woman she had become.

Harriet Riggs, the librarian on duty, closed her eyes and sighed softly when she was the Countess of Self-Delusion approach her.

“Well, good morning, Harriet,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said.

“It’s 2 in the afternoon,” the volunteer librarian replied. “It’s no longer morning.”

“Oh, time does fly!” she said.

“So do the clichés, Joanna,” Harriet Riggs said.

The Countess of Self-Delusion forced a smile and was contemplating not disclosing the juicy bit of gossip to this twit. That, of course, crossed her mind for only a nanosecond; she couldn’t keep the gossip inside.

“Well, I was hosting some of my dear fans who traveled from the Netherlands to meet me—they adore, simply adore my writings in WritingFromMerida.com, the world’s premier platform for wisdom—and I simply had to take them to Campeche,” she said.

Harriet Riggs realized she would need a drink to slog through this conversation.

“Oh, of course,” she humored the Canadian charlatan. “Seafood.”

“You remember?” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado said. “You could be one of my fans, with your razor sharp memory of fun facts about my life!”

“I’ll bring that up at the next board meeting, setting up a Joanna altar next to the Virgin of Guadalupe,” the volunteer librarian said, a caustic tone.

“That’s what I’ve always lobbied for!” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “I think that if the International Women’s Club is a temple to my grace, then the library should be a depository for biographical tidbits about my life!”

“Is there a reason you’re here, Joanna?” Harriet Riggs asked, wishing she had a scotch with soda.

“All in due time, my dear, all in due time!” she replied.

“Time,” Harriet Riggs said. “Due.”

“Well, when I, accompanied by my faithful entourage, was in Campeche, I thought it would be lovely to have a sumptuous lunch at La Pigua—you recall that I inspired that wonderful restaurant, an homage to my teaching the Mexicans that the sea is full of life called sea life that is suitable for eating,” she said.

Harriet Riggs was getting a headache.

“Yes, I remember,” the librarian said. “You discovered seafood.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I discovered seafood,” the Countess of Self-Delusion explained. “People were already eating seafood in Canada when I was born, but when I moved here from Vancouver, I told the Maya that they could fish things out of the gulf waters and eat those creatures.”

“So, you took your guests to lunch?” Harriet Riggs asked, trying to steer the conversation back to the present and away from the Twilight Zone.

“Yes, I was telling you just that, Harriet!” she said. “We drove up to La Pigua and just as I, accompanied by my entourage of Dutch fans, were about to enter, I noticed that Lyle Robertson and Gustavo Álvarez were heading out.”

Gustavo Álvarez, connoisseur and art consultant

 

“Gus?” Harriet Riggs said, perking up.

“Yes, Gus, the connoisseur from Texas,” she answered. “What was he doing in Campeche? And why was he with that Aussie? I’ve never liked Lyle, as you know. He’s up to no good. I just know that. And if he’s having lunch with Gus, then they’re scheming. I just know it. They were there at that restaurant to cook something up.”

The Countess of Self-Delusion demeanor changed as she spoke. Her face became flushed, her eyes focused. Harriet Riggs was intrigued.

“Do you think so? Do you think they’re up to something” she asked the Countess of Self-Delusion.

“Harriet, my dear!” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado said. “You weren’t born this century!”

 

Lewie Connor, horny old woman and creative “accountant” at Mérida English Library of Scams

“Lewie is always telling me that Lyle is too good to be true,” the volunteer librarian said.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I know—everyone knows that Lewie is one horny bitch and she has her eyes set on that Aussie hunk! Jesus fucking Christ Almighty—if I was married to that dog like Lewie is married to that dog, I’d also be playing with my danger zone all day long!”

“Tell me about it!” Harriet Riggs chimed in. “Lewie better get a chaperone cause she can’t stop messin’ with the danger zone!”

The women laughed.

The Countess of Self-Delusion immediately got Harriet Riggs’ reference to Cyndi Lauper’s hit song about female masturbation, “She Bop.”

“Aren’t you going to offer me a cocktail?” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “Why the fuck is that clandestine cantina out back for?”

“Of course,” Harriet Riggs said, chagrined. “I’m making myself a scotch and soda. What would you like?”

“That sounds good to me,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “But there’s something going on. Mr. Robertson is not in town to be eye candy and make horny wenches wet their panties!”

“Oh, I agree with you on that point,” Harriet Riggs said, getting up to make the women their afternoon cocktails. “There’s an edge to that guy.”

“I know what you mean,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “His petulance is admirable; it reminds me of me.”

“So you’re convinced that he and Gus are up to something?”

“I certainly do!” she replied. “And I’m not the only one.”

“Oh?”

 

Ellen Fields, a festering boil on the anus of the American expat community

 

“I spoke to Ellen Fields about it,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said.

“Why?” Harriet Riggs said, making her drink a double. “That bitch is a mindless loser.”

“True,” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado said. “But she’s first-rate when it comes to trashing people on that stupid website she and her husband run. I think their kid was involved until that loser committed suicide. Good riddance!”

“So why did you speak to that wrinkled-up witch?”

“She’s a master manipulator, that’s why,” the Countess of Self-Delusion replied.

“Honestly, Joanna,” Harriet Riggs said, handing her friend a drink. “Ellen Fields is a festering boil on the anus of the American expat community in Mérida.”

“So what’s your point?”

“Cheers!” Harriet Riggs said.

“They say he has money, that Aussie hunk,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said, having tired of thinking about insufferable Ellen Fields.

“Oh, I know he’s not hurting, but is he rich?”

“That house he owns is a gorgeous property,” the Countess of Self-Delusion noted.

“I’ve never been to his place,” Harriet Riggs said. “He likes to invite a different kind of crowd for his dinner parties. That much I know for sure.”

“Well, he has been negligent in extending me an invitation, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what his house looks like.”

“Drones?” the volunteer librarian asked, knowing the answer.

“Of course!” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado answered. “My husband got a drone and we’ve been checking out who has what!”

“So he’s rich?”

“My dear Harriet,” she began. “That man has ceremonial Maya sculptures all over his courtyard. He has a Chac-Mool sculpture by his pool!”

“Damn,” Harriet Riggs said, thinking. “That takes money.”

“And connections,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “That Aussie hunk has money and connections.”

“Pre-Columbian sculptures in his courtyard you say?”

“You know how he made his money,” she whispered in a conspiratorial manner.

“No, I don’t,” the volunteer librarian confessed.

“Well, I found out he got a contract from the city of Houston to operate their suicide hotline.”

“A suicide hotline?”

“Of course!,” she said. “Texas is teeming with whacked-out loser veterans from the bullshit War on Terror shit you crazy Americans are crazy about. And you just know that America doesn’t properly medicate all these loser vets.”

“But a suicide hotline?” Harriet Riggs asked. “There’s money in preventing suicides?”

“Well, I found out he outsourced the call center to Pakistan,” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado said.

“Pakistan?” Harriet Riggs asked rhetorically. “I’ll bet he was paying the hotline operators a dollar a day.”

“Of course, exploit those Pakistani losers the way we exploit our chachas in Mexico!” the Countess of Self-Delusions said, giggling.

“Chacha” was a derogatory term for Mexican domestic help, derived from the word muchacha, Spanish for young girl.

“Is that where he gets his money? From running the suicide hotline in Houston?”

“No, he lost the contract,” she answered. “But he did make a killing!”

Then Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado started to laugh uncontrollably. Harriet Riggs was alarmed. She wondered if the scotch was having a pharmaceutical reaction with whatever sedatives the Countess of Self-Delusion was taking.

“Are you okay?” she asked her friend.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, Harriet,” she answered, bringing her hand to her chest. “It’s the unintended pun.”

“What pun?” she said, finishing her drink.

“That he made a killing!”

“I don’t get it,” Harriet Riggs said. “What pun?”

“Oh, my dear,” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado said. “Let me fill you in.”

“Go on,” she said, walking back to the Mérida English Library’s clandestine cantina. “Another?”

“Of course!” she answered. “And make mine a double. Just like yours!”

“Yes,” she said, wondering how the Twilight Zone denizen noticed she had made herself a double.

“The pun, Harriet, is that Lyle made a killing,” she explained. “And he lost his contract with Houston city government precisely because of killings!”

“I still don’t get it,” the volunteer librarian said, preparing the women’s drinks.

“My dear, naïve Harriet!” she said with a flourish. “Everyone in the world knows the United States is overflowing with crazy War on Terror veterans, the poor, pathetic losers that they are. So when these suicidal idiots called the hotline to say they wanted to kill themselves, the person on the other end—who was in Pakistan taking the call—asked them if they wanted to drive a truck.”

“What?”

“Recruit as recruiting can,” she said, taking the drink Harriet Riggs handed her.

“And now he’s up to something with Gus, you say?”

“Oh, my dear, mark my word,” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “The pre-Columbian sculptures in his courtyard? The lunch with Gus—who is a renowned connoisseur and art consultant? Thank my dear husband, Jorge, for that drone!”

The women enjoyed their drinks when the conversation turned more personal.

“I heard you were going back to Vancouver for a visit,” the volunteer librarian said. “Is that true?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “I’m going to find my artistic voice.”

“What?”

“You don’t remember, Harriet?” she asked.

“Please remind me,” she said, finishing her second drink.

“Well, it surprised me that even though I had not drawn in more than thirty years, I could still render a bit,” the Countess of Self-Delusion began, staring a soliloquy. “I had not worked constantly at my drawing and painting, but over the past six years, I had improved little by little. As I did in my high school art class, I like to copy the masters. In fact, the other day I finished a painting based on Claude Monet’s Palazzo da Mula. I enjoyed working on this piece so much. The colors and the light make me feel peaceful and relaxed. But I need to find my own voice!”

“And Vancouver is your inspiration?”

“Oh, I think going back home is more than a trip down memory lane,” she said. “It’s a way to find inspiration!”

“Inspiration in Canada?” Harriet Riggs said, amused the way Americans are amused by the very idea of Canada.

“Yes, inspiration,” she said, finishing her second drink as well. “I don’t think we should listen when people say it isn’t possible to be creative and active as we age. And it turns out that Vancouver is known for inspirational painting.”

“What?”

 

Vancouver artist, Brent Fraser, creating a Penis Painting

 

“I’ll have you know that Brent Ray Fraser, from Vancouver, is world renowned for his Penis Painting,” she said, a reference to the Canadian painter who paints with his genital.

“And you have a penis?” Harriet Riggs said, laughing. “It seems to me you’re missing a brush!”

“Oh, very funny!” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “I’ll have you know that anything a man can do, a woman can do better!”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I have found, as the years have gone by that I have things to say through and with my body,” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado said. “And my body is telling me to express myself!”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“If Brent from Vancouver can create penis paintings, why can’t Joanna from Vancouver create pussy paintings?” she explained.

“Pussy paintings?” Harriet Riggs said.

“Yes, Pussy Painting!” Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado insisted. “My pussy has many things to tell the world! If Eve Ensler’s cunt spoke to the world through The Vagina Monologues, why can’t my cunt speak to the world through Pussy Paintings?”

“Well, I guess you have a point,” Harriet Riggs, ever a feminist, said.

“Of course I have a point!” the Countess of Self-Delusion said. “And I’ll have another drink to go with that point!”

“Sounds good to me,” Harriet Riggs said, walking over to the clandestine cantina.

“Another double,” she asked.

“Of course,” Harriet Riggs said “We’ll toast Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado’s Pussy Paintings!”

“The entire world will!”

“Pussy Paintings,” Harriet Riggs said, as she made another round of drinks for herself and her friend.

 

Pussy Painting, Inspiration for Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado’s artistic expression

 

 

Five

Plundering Jaina

 

Joanna van der Gracht Rosado, who has “appropriated” the books, artwork, and possessions of people in town, from Harriet Riggs to José Luis Loria

 

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist was delighted with the cases of tequila that arrived every other week. Indeed, the tequila kept rolling in from every side.

He was opening a new case of tequila that had been delivered to the colonial house he leased in Campeche City, a break from the digs on the island of Jaina.

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist recognized Lyle Robertson was a man of his word. This was swell, for the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist’s hands reached out and they reached wide.

There was a comfortable life to think about. There was the dream of a gracious home in Vía Montejo and a beach house in Chelem. There was a villa at the Fiesta Americana Condesa in Cancún and the condo at the One Biscayne Tower in Miami.

There were many needs that a modern, hip Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist needed in this world. And he knew he was fortunate to have gone into business with Lyle Robertson and Gustavo Álvarez.

It was an odd coincidence, his thinking how lucky he was, as he poured himself a drink, Lyle Robertson was in his home in Mérida’s historic center.

He was standing outside his home as a truck arrived. He approached the driver side of the vehicle.

“A smooth ride?” he asked.

“Not a hitch,” the driver replied.

“Not even at the checkpoint?” the Aussie entrepreneur asked.

As part of the War on Drugs, Mexican federal authorities had checkpoints throughout the region, stopping vehicles on the highways leading to and from Mérida. The federal officers were on the lookout for narcotics, firearms, and undocumented migrants. In the Yucatán, human trafficking in Cubans fleeting their homeland for political asylum in the U.S. was big business, and so was the transport of marijuana for export to the U.S.

“They just waved us through,” the driver said, opening the door.

Another young man then approached. The men went to the back of the truck to begin unloading the pre-Columbian artifacts while Lyle Robertson looked on.

Lewie Connor, the old, horny thief at the Mérida English Library of Scams, was admiring the handsome, hunky Aussie. She adored the muscularity evident through the tight Brooks Brothers St Andrews Links Dot Polo shirts he wore. She was walking five of the dogs she and her loser husband kept in their home, which had become an unintended kennel for unwanted Mexican mongrels rescued from the Evolución dog shelter.

She walked over. Lyle Robertson was opening a wooden crate with two Jaina figurines.

“Mérida is a river of men flowing past my door, and when I’m thirsty, I drink,” she said, ripping off what writer Alice Denham had said about New York.

“Excuse me?” he said, turning around, quickly covering the box.

“I just meant that as a proper southern girl, I was bred to be good at men,” she said, approaching the Aussie. “I am, too.”

She then scratched herself in the most elegant way, reminiscent of the way Ultra Violet used to scratch herself at Andy Warhol’s Factory.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Lewie,” he said, laughing off this crude American’s desperate come on. “Are you properly medicated?”

She wasn’t; she ignored him.

“As any American high school girl, when you tire of sucking on your boyfriend’s dick, you finger his ass, pressing against his prostate,” she said, by way of explaining American cultural norms to the Australian man. “That makes him ejaculate, and the chore is over.”

“Really?” he said, wishing she would go away.

“Of course, I’m sure that feasting on your cock would never be a chore!”

One of her dogs was pissing on the truck’s rear tire. Another dog was taking a shit on the side walk. Another was trying to hump the smallest one in the pack.

“Why don’t you go home and a tall glass of lemonade, Lewie?” he asked. “It’s hot and you might be a bit dehydrated.”

Dehydration was sore point for Lewie Connor. That was exactly what that Irish-American asshole, Sussana McKibben, kept throwing in her face at the library. That snotty-nosed gringa, who could drink a keg of beer by herself, kept telling Lewie that her skin was so dried up and wrinkly because of dehydration. “Beer is mostly water, Lewie,” Sussana McKibben would say, helping herself to a beer at the library’s clandestine cantina. “You should drink more beer.”

She smiled politely, wondering if Lyle Robertson was staring at her turkey neck, all wrinkled and withered.

“I know it’s hot,” she said, moving her hand to her neck, forgetting that the back of her hand and wrist were covered with age spots—and wrinkles. “But that’s because of the aura of testosterone you exude, Lyle.”

“As you can see, I have work to do,” he said, picking up the wooden crate.

Ronnie Bush, the fat, old Jew who considered herself the spiritual leader of the American Jewish Diaspora in Mérida parked her car a few spots away. She sat in her car and watched Lewie Connor, that goy nymphomaniac, waste her time flirting with the Aussie hunk.

She got out of her car, walked over. Lyle Robertson was walking back to his house, carrying the wooden crate.

“That man is never going to go down on you,” Ronnie Bush said in a loud voice. “You and Allison Nevins are living on Fantasy Island if either of you think you can get that man.”

Allison Nevins, who had been voted Gringa Alcohólica del Año, was also after Lyle Robertson.

Lewie Connor turned around, sneering.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you fucking Jew,” she said.

“At least I have a man who can get it up!” Ronnie Bush said. “That’s more than can be said of that limp-dicked loser you’re married to!”

The women stared at each other. The Mexican driver and worker continued to unload the contents of the truck. Lyle Robertson returned to get the second wooden crate with more Jaina figurines. The men ignored the women.

“How dear you speak to me this way?” Lewie Connor said.

“You’d better get some Thinx underwear to keep your flowing juices from staining your panties, Lewie,” she said.

Lewie Connor was shocked that such a potentially misogynist statement could come out of another woman’s mouth. It was almost as outrageous as well Harriet Riggs called another woman a cunt: a betrayal that would give Gloria Steinem a heart attack.

“You fucking bitch!” Lewie Connor said. “You have some nerve!”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, leave Lyle Robertson alone, and why don’t you pick up some of the dog shit your stupid dogs shit all over the place!”

With that, Ronnie Bush walked away. Lewie Connor was furious.

At the Mérida English Library of Scams, Harriet Riggs was waiting for Ronnie Bush.

Ever since that unpleasant encounter when Ronnie Bush had accused Harriet Riggs of ripping of Irving Berlin’s lyrics from Annie Get Your Gun, she was determined to prove to Ronnie Bush that she was talented and gifted.

While Lewie Connor tried to untangle the mess of leashes her brood of mongrels had managed to make while she flirted with Lyle Robertson, Ronnie Bush walked with confidence into the Mérida English Library of Scams.

“It’s so good to see you!” Harriet Riggs, who was smoking a joint, said, greeting her friend.

“How are you, Harr?” Ronnie Bush asked.

“The name is Harriet, not Harr,” she said, handing her friend the joint. “I loathe diminutives, don’t you, Arse? “

“Oh, you’re funny,” the old Jew said.

“This is medicinal marijuana,” Harriet Riggs said. “Would you like to help me test it? What do you think?”

“Help you test it?” Ronnie Bush said, taking a drag. “I can be the entire focus group if you want!”

“Focus group?” Harriet Riggs said. “That’s what the board of directors of this library is for!”

“So true,” Ronnie Bush said. “Can I have a drink?”

“You? A drink? So early?” the faux librarian said.

“I just finished speaking to Lewie,” Ronnie Bush said, by way of explanation.

“Say no more! A scotch with soda, on the double!” Harriet Riggs said, getting up to go to the library’s clandestine cantina.

“You’re a dear, for a no-talent goy!” she said, laughing.

“Oh, just you wait, Ronnie,” Harriet Riggs said. “Let me remind you of Genesis 18:13-14 which states, ‘Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.’

“Oh, God of Abraham!” Ronnie said, laughing. “You know the Old Testament?”

“Of course I do, you fucking arse!” she said, making drinks for her friend and herself. “But it is you who will laugh this time! After you mocked me by saying I had no talent, well, I just started working on a piece that will remove all doubt of the authenticity of my talent.”

She handed her friend a drink. They gossiped for a moment, while Harriet Riggs looked through some folders for music sheets.

“I heard she’s an improvement over that sex worker, Irving Cool,” Ronnie Bush said.

Irving Cool was a Mexican sex worker who had been an administrator at the library for a short spell, thanks to his skills as a mixologist. The “she” referred to Sussana McKibben, the current administrator and perpetual Millennial alcoholic.

“Oh, Sussana’s doing well,” Harriet Riggs said. “If she falls and can’t read her beer, she reaches for a children’s book and reads to the kids.”

“That makes sense,” Ronnie Bush said, not really carrying about a drunk Irish-American in town. “I heard she really drinks beer.”

When Sussana McKibben falls down and cannot reach her beer, she reaches for a children’s book and reads to the library patrons too young to purchase a drink at the library’s clandestine cantina.

 

 

“Well, have you seen the stupid photographs that idiot posted on Facebook?” Harriet Riggs said, leading Ronnie Bush to the room with a piano. “These young people have no sense. They’re morons! Who posts pictures of yourself shitfaced on social media? I mean, what a fucking idiot! And now those pictures are all over the Internet, for heaven’s sake!”

“Well, I don’t really give a fuck one way or another, Harriet,” the old Jew said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to play the piano!”

“Yes, I am,” she said, giddy with delight.

She put her drink down, spread the music sheets out, and sat down. Ronnie Bush, ever the skeptic, took a sip of her drink.

“This library is really a mess, isn’t it?” Ronnie Bush rhetorically asked. “Irving Cool, that HIV positive sex worker. This Irish-American drunk. And to say nothing of that fat spic who stole $450,000 pesos, José Martínez.”

“Now listen,” Harriet Riggs said. “I have been working on a musical!”

“A musical?” Ronnie Bush said, trying to suppress a giggle.

“Yes, Ronnie, it’s a musical,” she insisted. “I want to do a revisionist musical, one that reexamines history and reimagines what the world could be!”

“It sounds like you’ve put some intellectual thought into this,” Ronnie Bush said. “That’s out of character.”

“Well, you know what I always say,” the faux librarian said. “Fuck character!”

“Ever the Clinton supporter!” the old Jew said, laughing.

“Well, if that if that Puerto Rican lowlife, Lin-Manuel Miranda came up with Hamilton, then I can come up with something as compelling!” Harriet Riggs said. “And while it took him ten years to come up with his musical, it only took me ten days!”

“Ten day?” Ronnie Bush said, incredulous. “I’m sure it sounds like it’s a 10-day old draft!”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you old Jew, and listen to my masterpiece,” Harriet Riggs said. “It’s better than anything Irving Berlin ever could have written!”

“And does this masterpiece have a title?” Ronnie Bush said, putting her drink down.

“Yes, it does,” Harriet Riggs said. “It’s called My Fair Nazi.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding!” Ronnie Bush said, stunned. “This is a terrible joke in very, very bad taste!”

“No, Ronnie, you and bullshit Holocaust shakedown of the world is a terrible joke in very, very bad taste,” Harriet Riggs said. “I am reimagining a Nazi triumph in Europe!”

Then she started to play the piano. Ronnie Bush was unable to do anything; she was so stunned.

Harriet Riggs cleared her throat and began to sing: “They’re be spring … every year … without JEWS! England still be here … without JEWS! They’ll be fruit on the trees and a shore by the see … without JEWS! Art and music will thrive … without JEWS! Somehow Keats will survive … without JEWS! And there STILL will be RAIN on that PLAIN down in SPAIN! Even THAT will REMAIN … without JEWS!”

Ronnie Bush was gasping in horror; her chest tightened. She raised her hand to her chest, moved back, and gasped. Then she fell to the ground.

Harriet Riggs stopped playing the piano; she was stunned.

“Ronnie?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Ronnie Bush was dead. And as soon as Harriet Riggs realized it, she screamed.

Some say her screams were so loud, they could have been heard all the way in Campeche, where, it turned out, Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado, the Countess of Self-Delusion, was entertaining some Dutch nincompoops she had ensnared into paying her to be their tour guide.

She was explaining to them how she, and her husband, the short, little fat spic, Jorge Rosado, introduced seafood to the people of the Yucatán peninsula, when her cell phone vibrated; it was a text message.

“Ronnie Bush is dead. Harriet Riggs killed her with her musical.”

Everyone knew Ronnie Bush was old, but dead? And Harriet Riggs killed her with a musical?

None of it made any sense. And to make sense of things, she went to Google. And sure enough, the obituary notice has been posted online. The Countess of Self-Delusion knew that if it was online, it had to be true.

And she was stunned to read the death notice:

Dr. Ronnie Beth Bush, age 72, of Tustin, California and Mérida, Mexico passed away, Friday, February 18. She was born August 4, 1938 in New York, New York to Abraham and Estelle Schwartz. Dr. Bush is survived by her husband, Dr. Daniel Ninburg, five children, Dr. Alan Bush of Seattle, Washington, Dr. Steven Bush of St. Charles, Michael (Lily) Ninburg of Seattle, Washington, E. Patrick (Shannon) Ninburg of Seattle, Washington and Rebecca Ninburg of Los Angeles, CA., eight grandchildren, a sister, DeeDee (Steve) Price of Newport Beach, CA. She was preceded in death by her parents. Memorial service will be held 3:30 P.M. Monday, February 21st at Yurs Funeral Home, 405 East Main Street, (Corner of Rt. 64 and Rt. 25), St. Charles. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Jewish United Fund, 30 South Wells Street, Chicago, Illinois 60606.

She looked up, alligator tears in her eyes, and announced to that her best friend in the entire world had died suddenly. Her body was being flown to Chicago. She had to leave at once.

The assembled Dutch nincompoops agreed and the group immediately finished their meal at La Pigua before racing back to Mérida.

Joann van der Gracht de Rosado was desperate to get back to Mérida and rush over to Ronnie Bush’s house. She was determined to seal all of the dead woman’s books to augment the library at the International Women’s Club, in order to ingratiate herself to the new generation of members, most of whom thought she was a crazy old woman.

As they raced on the highway, the Countess of Self-Delusion’s van almost struck the car the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist was driving.

He had the right of way, but he was a bit distracted; he had meetings with the architect designing the pool for his beach house in Chelem.

Lyle Robertson was a man of his world. And Gustavo Álvarez certainly had access to privileged collectors with deep pockets. Plundering the island of Jaina was child’s play. It was that easy—and lucrative.

“When the money keeps rolling out you don’t keep books,” he was singing to himself when the Countess of Self-Delusion’s van almost sideswiped him.

Not keeping books, now that could have been the philosophy of the Mérida English Library of Scams, where the police were still asking questions about how it came to be that Ronnie Bush died from a massive heart attack.

 

Harriet Riggs: Mérida will still be here without … Dead Jew Ronnie Bush.

 

Dan Karnes, mastermind behind the Mérida English Library of Scams

 

Dan Karnes almost had a heart attack when he was served legal papers: the Mérida English Library of Scams was being sued for fraud, theft of services, and tax evasion.

A Mexican citizen had finally done what most observers thought was only a matter of time. Dan Karnes, originally a lawyer from New Orleans, deep down, knew there would be a day of reckoning; now, it was a matter of what the consequences of the library’s scofflaw ways would be. Still, he felt his chest tightened and felt his blood pressure rise.

All those years of screwing Mexicans, Americans, Canadian over by pretending to be bona fide nonprofit organization and all those years of cheating Mexico’s tax authority had come to an end. Dan Karnes, an unattached old gringo in Mexico, had always wanted to live in Nicaragua or Ecuador; now might be right moment to flee.

That is, of course, if the old thief and tax cheat he didn’t drop dead of a heart attack first.

It was a good thing Harriet Riggs wasn’t at the library at that moment; she was still shocked from having witnessed Ronnie Bush gasp her last breath after she suffered massive cardiac arrest at the library.

Harriet Riggs, in fact, was taking a stroll down Paseo de Montejo with her friend, Geriatric Gringa Volunteer, the old American expat who volunteered at the Evolución dog sanctuary.

“It must have been horrible,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“I just don’t understand,” Harriet Riggs said, still enamored of her clever take on My Fair Lady. “What it all of heaven’s could have prompted her to croak? I just don’t understand these Jews at all.”

“Now, Harriet,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, a bit concerned over her friend’s state of mindlessness. “Let’s move beyond Rex Harrison.”

“What?”

“I mean, perhaps a sorbet would do you well,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer offered. “Let’s walk over to Sorbetería Colón.”

The women began to walk north along Paseo de Montejo.

“There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Ronnie Bush with a rusty implement and watch her entrails go running down my forearm, in some Macbethian stance. I wanted her to die in my arms, while looking into my eyes, and I wanted to say to her, ‘Oh, Ronnie, you thoughtless little Jewish pig,’” Harriet Riggs said, with a gentle twang reminiscent of humbled gringos.

“I know, my dear,” her friend said. “You truly loved her.”

“Loved her?” Harriet Riggs said. “I loved Ronnie! I shot her car! I almost shot her!”

“I know, I remember,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“You don’t truly love someone until you want to kill them,” she said, holding back the tears. “That’s true love.”

“But there are other expat Jews you can love, Harriet,” her friend said. “There’s Beryl Gobrman.”

“Her?” Harriet Riggs said, surprised. “Yucatán Yenta? But she eats pork! If I’m going to have a Jew as my best friend in the whole expat community, she has to be kosher!”

“But why?”

Beryl Gorbman, the pork-eating “Yucatán Yenta,” struck down by the God of Abraham for breaking dietary dictates.

 

“But why?”

“Oh, my dear,” she said. “That’s not how it works. Beryl Gorbman, like Abe Opincar, are faux Jews! They walk around reviewing pork dishes at restaurants around town!”

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, please, it’s like that vulgar cunt, Adele Aguirre!” she said.

“She’s a Jew?”

“Of course she is!” Harriet Riggs said. “That’s not her name; that’s some ex-husband’s name she kept just to disguise the fact she’s a Rosenblatt or Rosenberg or some other Jewstein!”

“Why that sneaky little bitch!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer. “I’ve seen her try to pass herself off as Catholic when she was trying to sell a piece of tacky art!”

“See what I mean?” Harriet Riggs said. “There’s no authenticity! Adele Aguirre is a scam artists who wakes up every morning trying to figure out who she can swindle; her Jewish faith is the last thing on that bitch’s mind. Ronnie Bush, on the other hand, was the real deal: a kosher Jew! Not like these frauds who think that just because you eat a bagel and can say ‘oy, vey’ is enough to make you Jewish!”

“Authenticity,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “I suppose you have a point. I mean, I’ve seen Beryl Gorbman stuff her fat little face with pulled pork sandwiches.”

“And have you seen Abe Opincar order side after side of bacon on the side?” Harriet Riggs ask. “What kind of fucking Jew does that?”

Now that she was back to using bad words, Geriatric Gringa Volunteer knew feeling better.

“Oh, look, it’s Barry Zahn-bie,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer.

Barry Zahn was an American expat asshole about town. Harriet Riggs was familiar with the odious loser; he had been one of the loser no-show directors on the library’s board.

“Oh, my God,” Harriet Riggs whispered. “Look at the man boobs on him.”

“They jiggle like jelly.”

“Someone could make a small fortune selling man-bras for all these old fucks with man boobs walking around,” Harriet Riggs commented. “Look at the way his tits bounce!”

“He’s disgusting!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Imagine if he went commando!”

“His balls would hang all the way down to his knees!” Harriet Riggs said, giggling.

The women looked the other way, pretending not to see him walk by, the nonentity about town that he was. Barry Zahn-bie tried to make eye contact, but was unable; he and his bouncing nipples jiggled along their way.

“Loser Nobody,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said a few moments later.

 

Barrh Zahn, just another of the American expats in town with massive man boobs

 

“Ain’t that right!” Harriet Riggs said. “If you’re a man and you have man boobs, the very least you could do is be cute.”

“Like Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer, ever the hipster, said.

“Oh, I love ‘Counting Star,’ great video!” Harriet Riggs said.

“Even if he’s bouncing around, his man boobs shaking like jelly,” Geriatric Gringa volunteer said.

The women laughed. Paranoid Barry Zahn-bie turned around; he thought they were laughing at him.

“You know, so many of these limp-dick losers have man boobs,” Harriet Riggs said. “Durwood, or is it Dogwood? Man boobs like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Durwood?”

“Yes, that loser Cherie Pitillo had sense enough to leave,” Harriet Riggs said.

“Oh, isn’t his name Darwick or Dagwood?”

“I think his given name is Douglas,” she said.

 

Doug Greenwood, another American expat in town who needed a man bra for his man boobs.

 

“Not Durweed or Dumpkin or Low-Grade Mortal?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer mocked.

The women were naming all the horrible put-downs Endora called Darrin on Bewitched.

“Glum-Dum is the most appropriate, if you ask me,” Harriet Riggs said. “Whatever you want to call him, Mr. Greenwood could be nurse a calf, if you ask me. His tits jiggle like jelly. What the fuck is up with all these loser old fucks with tits?”

“Now, don’t get yourself all worked up about it, Harriet,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “It isn’t as if you had any desire to hook up with creepy expats like Barry Zahn-bie or Doug Greenwood, for heaven’s sake!”

“Or that Jeffrey Scherer creep,” Harriet Riggs said.

“Who?”

“That old, bald creep with man boobs,” she said. “He thinks he can paint, when the truth is that his derivative canvases are reminiscent of Julian Schanbel when drunk.”

“Oh, that loser,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “That loser is a nobody, for heaven’s sake?”

 

Jeffrey Scherer and his sagging man boobs, another reason to open a Victoria’s Secret outlet in town to get these losers some bras.

 

“Speaking of heaven, I still can’t believe my Best Jew Friend is gone!” Harriet Riggs said, in an emotional moment.

“Poor Dead Jew Ronnie,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer lamented. “Your music killed her? I still can’t believe it.”

“It was supposed to be a tribute, ‘My Fair Nazi,’ you know?” Harriet Riggs said.

“Well, I suppose you’re going to have to change your musical now,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you can’t continue on with ‘My Fair Nazi’ now that Ronnie’s dead!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer speculated.

“Well, what should I do?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“I don’t know,” the dog shelter volunteer said. “You’re the musical artist!”

“Oh, I got it!” the faux librarian said. “I’ll change it to, ‘The Jew I Slew.’”

“What?”

“Well, the music did kill her, so the musical should be an homage to Ronnie, someone who went through so much in her time on earth,” Harriet Riggs said.

“She always told me all those fabricated stories of how she survived the Holocaust,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “No one believed those stories, like when she said she bit the balls off a Nazi that wanted to face fuck her at Auschwitz.”

“Oh, I know, it was all bullshit,” Harriet Riggs said. “She was nowhere in Europe during World War II, but she always wanted to be a Holocaust survivor.”

“Do you think she just said that to shakedown the German government the way so many Jews have made a living from Nazi reparations?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked.

“I’m not sure,” Harriet Riggs said. “I just thought it was part of her quest to live a life of Judaic authenticity. You know, like a black person that wears a slave’s shackles to bond with their enslaved ancestors.”

“Speaking of slaves,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer began.

“What?”

“Have you seen John Powell?”

 

John “Afghan Boy” Powell, as ubiquitous in town as herpes

 

“What of Afghan Boy?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“He’s a slave to fashion these days!”

“I hope, like a good dog, he’s fashionably collared!” the volunteer librarian joked. “I was heard that Harry Barker is going to set up shop in town.”

“Oh, great, just what this shithole city needs: Canine Couture!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteers chimed in.

The women laughed at the thought of John Powell. He was a ridiculous man. But he was, like herpes, ubiquitous and always popping up at the most inopportune moment.

As Providence would have it, when the women approached Sorbetería Colón they saw Afghan Boy sitting with some American woman whom the women assumed was a visiting fag hag. The women gave each other a look. Harriet Riggs rolled her eyes.

John Powell looked more like a haggard dog with each passing day.

“Oh, my mother-fucking God!” Harriet Riggs whispered. “That old fag looks like shit.”

“Does he ever!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteers. “If he shows up at Evolución, they might not let him out, he looks like such a dog.”

“And who is he with?”

“Not sure,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, squinting through her eyeglasses. “Don’t recognize that his fag had du jour.”

John Powell saw the women and waived in his frail, delicate way.

“Oh, girls!” he said, summoning them to his table.

He and his guests were sampling various sorbets. The women cautiously approached; Harriet Riggs was terrified of rabies shots and was, naturally, reticent in getting too close to Afghan Boy.

“Hello, John,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“It’s good to see you!” John Powell said. “I’m glad to see you out and about town, Harriet. I heard your music, killed Ronnie.”

“You heard wrong, John,” Harriet Riggs replied. “Ronnie had chronic medical conditions and she died of a heart attack, and not because of my musical recital.”

“Oh,” John Powell said, disappointed. “Well, that’s not how I heard it went down. Skip Connor and now Ronnie Bush.”

He old queer giggled like a six-year-old girl.

“And who’s your lovely companion?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, changing the topic.

 

Sara Ruffin Costello, tragic fag hag destined to wander through chicken shit barefoot

 

“This,” he began, clearing his throat, “is Sara Ruffin Costello!”

The name meant nothing to either woman. Afghan Powell noticed their blank stares.

“Yes, of course, it is,” Harriet Riggs said, feigning politeness to this nobody fag hag.

“Sara’s fabulous book, Domino, co-authored with Deborah Needleham, is the Bible for interior decorating and transforming your home into a sanctuary!” John Powell said. “And she’s a contributor to the New York Times with fabulous articles!”

Harriet Riggs instantly knew what was up: Afghan Boy was brainwashing this bitch who was too stupid to realize she was being played when she was being played.

“When I arrived in this gorgeous—but sleepy—little town of Mérida, I wondered what all the fuss was about!” Sara Ruffin Costello gushed. “So picturesque, what low-key atmosphere—and with savvy early-adopters like John Powell.”

Harriet Riggs looked at Geriatric Gringa Volunteer.

“Mérida was founded in 1542, making it more than a hundred years older than when the Pilgrims first arrived in the wilderness that would become New England,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “And the American expats in town are the early adopters?”

“Of course!” Sara Ruffino Costello, like an ethnocentric idiot, replied. “John told me how he discovered mescal and he has fabulous tastings and events!”

“Yes,” Afghan Boy said. “I told Sara that the mix here is New Yorkers who come down for a week every six week, the locals, the Casta Divina, and the art crowd.”

“I love it here!” Sara Ruffin Costello said. “I loved it when John pointed out that the Maya smile even when there’s nothing to laugh about!”

“You said that, John?” Harriet Riggs said.

“Yes, like lobotomized losers, they seem to be happy all the time,” the depressed degenerate said. “I have never understood that. I mean, they’re as happy as retards with Down’s syndrome!”

“Isn’t it great?” Sara Ruffin Costello said. “All this shit is so hip!”

At that moment, Geriatric Gringa Volunteer’s cell phone went off.

“They’re looking for you,” she told her friends.

“Who?”

“The drunks at the library,” she replied. “Where’s your phone?”

“Oh, I turned it off,” Harriet Riggs said. “I was getting bombarded with hate text messages from all those fascist Jews who blamed me for Ronnie’s death.”

“Well, they’re looking for you,” she said.

“What for?” Harriet Riggs asked. “It isn’t as if Dan Karnes needs my help to steal money from tourists who want to make a donation to the library.”

“No, it’s the Chili Cook-Off registration.”

When John Powell heard Chili Cook-Off, he stood up.

“Oh, I’d love to sign up!” he said. “I have the winning recipe this year!”

The Chili Cook-Off was an opportunity for the Mérida English Library of Scams to rake in the tens of thousands of pesos, off the books. Expats competed to see who could sell the most tickets to unsuspecting fools. Other expats wanted to showcase their culinary skills by making the best chili.

“I’m sure you do,” Harriet Riggs said.

John Powell stood up, excused himself, and left Sara Ruffin Costello with Geriatric Gringa Volunteer. The waiter came over to see if the older woman wanted a sorbet.

“You know, thanks to Jeremiah, I have a great recipe,” he said.

Celebrity chef and cokehead, failed at a comeback at Tavern on the Green, like the loser that he is

 

Jeremiah Tower, the former celebrity chef and cokehead who tried a comeback taking over Tavern on the Green in the New York, only to flameout spectacularly, was back in town.

“That would be lovely, John,” Harriet Riggs lied.

She hated the idea of his signing up as a chef. She remembered how the slop he served two years back look like a bowl of warmed over Alpo dog food.

“I have confidence in my culinary skills!” he said.

Harriet Riggs didn’t care about his culinary skills, or lack thereof.

“So, what the story with Sara?” she asked, wanting gossip.

“Oh, her,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m trying to get her to write me up in the New York Times, you know, publicity.

“You’re just using her?” she asked.

“Hello?” he said. “Do Mexicans eat tacos?”

“Yes, they do,” she replied.

“Besides, look at her,” he continued, rolling his eyes. “I took her to Jorge Marín’s hacienda for a soiree, and she was walking around the grounds—in her bare feet! And there are chickens all over the place!”

“Chickens?”

“Mark my word, Harriet,” he said, whispering. “That stupid bitch will probably end up in a loser city like New Orleans with a flock of chickens in her home, and there she will be walk, walking around barefoot stepping into chicken shit, surrounded by unruly children.”

“Sounds disgusting,” she said, looking over at Sara Ruffin Costello and Geriatric Gringa Volunteer enjoying sorbets while engaged in animated conversation. “That a new one for you, John.”

“New what?”

“A pathetic fag hag with chicken shit all over her white trash bare feet!” Harriet Riggs said, laughing.

They continued to talk, John Powell expressing his contempt for his guest and Harriet Riggs dishing dirt about the ingredients other chefs used. Mérida’s expat community was a community of stool pigeons. Everyone ratted everyone out, just to be invited to a free margarita somewhere.

A block away, Lyle Robertson was walking over to a meeting with Gustavo Álvarez. Their shipment of artifacts from the Island of Jaina was all set. The buyer, a former associate the men had met when Arte Primitivo was a tour de force in New York, was eager for these pieces …

 

Lyle Robertson, eager to sell

Arte Primitivo under the direction of the late, great Mildred Kaplan was legendary … legendary, indeed!

 

Seven

From Sisal to the World

 

High Fashion Model Wannabe, Suzanne Larimer

 

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist needed a couple of large dogs.

The men had established a warehouse in a beach house near Telchac Puerto. Leisure boats would sail around the peninsula, from Sisal to Telchac Puerto. There was nothing about the operation. The men looked like just guys on holiday, fishing, swimming, enjoying the emerald green gulf waters.

On occasion a Mexican patrol boat would near and the men would wave. They law enforcement officials would near, but there was nothing amiss.

Then again, Mexican law enforcement was on the lookout for drugs, human traffickers, or illegal catch of endangered sea cucumbers. Mexican law enforcement was not aware of leisure boats being used to smuggle pre-Columbian artifacts from Campeche State to Yucatán State.

Lyle Robertson had a comfortable operation going. From Telchac Puerto yachts would sail north to Florida. The Mexican Navy seldom came close and the U.S. Coast Guard never found anything suspicious. Only on one occasion had the authorities near Key West approached, but U.S. authorities realized there were no drugs or undocumented passengers.

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist, however, was there at the Evolución dog sanctuary to adopt large dogs. Gus Álvarez wanted to have dogs to patrol the beach house the men had rented; it was to be used to warehouse larger pieces and an office. Lyle Robertson chose Telchac Puerto because he could hire Maya to chisel limestone sculptures for architectural details.

American and Canadian expats were in the market of having one or two Maya glyph sculptures as motifs in their middle class houses, ambitious Frida Kahlo fantasies.

The commercial works would be an appropriate cover for the curious who would never suspect that priceless artifacts were stored in adjacent rooms.

After he parked his truck, the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist walked up to the front gates and entered the dog shelter. Geriatric Gringa Volunteer was enjoying a Bohemia beer, holding a manila folder of papers of some sort.

“Oh, it’s good to see you!” she said when she saw the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist. “What will you have?”

“A Bohemia sounds great,” the Mexican drunk said.

She walked over to the refrigerator to get her friend a beer. The dogs barked, excited at the prospect of being adopted.

He looked around, trying to see if he found a dog or two big as a German shepherd or as fierce looking as a Doberman. That was easier said than done; Mexican dogs rescued from the streets of town were medium-sized mongrels.

She returned with a Bohemia in hand. They began to continue their conversation on the two dogs he wanted to adopt. She had already identified two large dogs, suitable for forever homes at a beach house.

“Now, remember, you promised you weren’t going to abandon these dogs on the roof,” she said, stern tone in her voice.

Mexicans were in the habit to leaving dogs on the roofs of their houses for protection, exposed to the heat of day, cold of night, and thunderstorms.

“Of course not,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said. They’ll have a complete run of the place and you know how much I love dogs.”

She was not entirely convinced. She didn’t trust drunks, herself included.

“We reserve the right to have surprise inspections,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“No hay problema,” he replied, chuckling.

“Good,” she said, taking out the adoption papers.

“I’d like to see the dogs,” he asked.

“What difference does it make?” she asked. “They’re two dogs, in good health, well behaved. One is 55 pounds and the other 70. That’s all you need to know.”

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist wasn’t that drunk, but he knew that all dogs were equally capable of being affectionate and obedient.

“I suppose,” he said, signing the adoption papers.

As they were signing their paperwork, Suzanne Larimer walked in.

An old woman, the accomplished alcoholic told people she was a retired designer for Gucci, when she was no such thing. She supplemented her retirement selling tickets to events for fundraisers Brazos Abiertos held to raise money for a clinic that, somehow, never managed to open, despite glowing articles in Yucatán Today and Yucatán Living.

The old scam artist, smiling, walked over.

“What brings you here, Suzanne?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“My love for dogs, of course!” the gravel-voiced harpy said.

Geriatric Gringa Volunteer smirked. Suzanne nodded in the direction of the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist’s direction. They all knew each other from various museum and gallery openings when they showed up to drink as much free booze as they could before stumbling out of whatever venue it happened to be.

“In your case, that’s a form of self-love,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist laughed.

“Oh, you’re droll,” Suzanne Larimer managed. “I’ll have a beer, thank you.”

Geriatric Gringa Volunteer was surprised; she almost always offered her friends a drink when they first set foot in the sanctuary.

“Of course,” she said, getting up.

“I’ll have another,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said.

“Are you interested in a buying a ticket for our Fall Soiree to benefit Brazos Abiertos?” the scam artist asked the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist. “We’re so, so, so close to having all the money we need to open the AIDS/HIV clinic!”

“Who are you kidding?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “You’ve been so, so, so close since 2009 and where’s the beef?”

“Where’s the beef?” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist asked, unfamiliar with the American cultural reference also popularized in Canada during the 1980s.

“That means it’s a scam,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “There’s never going to be a clinic, but there certainly will continue to be big, big fundraisers!”

She laughed. The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist also laughed, getting it. Suzanne Larimer feigned shock.

“This is a legitimate charity!” she protested. “Ellen Fields so confirms on Yucatán Living!”

“Ellen Fields?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “That bitch never met a scam she didn’t like—provided she got a cut!”

“How dare you say such a thing!” Suzanne Larimer said, taking the bottle of Bohemia beer. “It’s all on the up and up!”

“Listen, Suzanne,” the dog sanctuary volunteer said. “I’m not one to let reality burst your fantasy, but neither of us is interested in buying a ticket to some bullshit so-called fundraiser for a clinic that will never be!”

“Speaking of fantasy,” Suzanne Larimer said, to change the subject. “I’m now working as a model.”

“A model what?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked. “A model asshole?”

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist laughed. He loved watching old American drunks go at it like feral cats.

“I’ll have you know that through John Powell I am now a model for Laura Kirar!”

“Afghan Boy?” she asked, incredulous. “What the fuck does that dog-faced loser know about modeling?”

“He happens to be a model.”

“A model?” she asked. “I thought he was from Texas.”

“Yes, he’s originally from Texas, but he arrived in Mérida by way of Paris and New York,” Suzanne Larimer explained.

“I thought he made buttons,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said. “So he was a button maker and a model?”

“It’s not that complicated,” Suzanne Larimer said, taking a swig of beer. “One can be more than one thing in life. Look at yourself! You’re an archaeologist and a drunk! Think it over.”

She hated when she advised anyone to think things over. Thinking ruined her days. That was what drew her to Mexico, the way the Mexicans floated through life without thinking, a spectacle of nothingness.

“What do you call a man who makes buttons?” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist asked.

“Superfluous,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“Oh, how droll,” Suzanne Larimer said. “Have your little fun, you old bitch!”

“And where are you going to be a model?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer challenged. “Is Laura Kirar selling prunes?”

“You can stop being droll anytime,” she replied. “I’m about to be a star! Watch out Beyoncé! Watch out NOLA!”

“Watch out mother from ‘Psycho,’ too!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“Why are you so negative, old woman?” Suzanne Larimer said. “And I’m ready for another beer.”

“Trust me, Suzanne, when I tell you I am your friend,” she said, getting up to bring her friends another round of beers. “Anyone who tells you that, at your age, you can be a high fashion model is either lying to you to your face—or is crazy.”

“Why are you so negative?”

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist was curious about where this conversation would go. Americans engaged in diarrhea of the mouth with unexpected results.

“Because the life is negative, bottom line,” the dog shelter volunteer said. “It’s not your fault; it’s life. You’re an old woman. It’d be as if a man wanted to marry you—and wanted you to have his child. You can’t. Time’s past.”

Suzanne Larimer looked glum.

“I’m more than a menstrual cycle,” she said.

“Periods are having their moment,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said, trying to be helpful.

“What are you talking about?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, coming back with a tray of beers.

“I wish I was still menstruating,” Suzanne Larimer lamented.

“Thinx, it’s called,” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said.

“Thinx?” Suzanne Larimer said. “Menstruation. Think about it, how liberating.”

“Oh, to be a young woman these days, and be able to bleed with abandon,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“You’re so right. Men are such pussies when it comes to the sight of blood. Let them faint and break their necks when they hit the ground!” Suzanne Larimer said, looking at the Alcoholic Mexican Architecture with contempt.

“Thinx?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “What the fuck is that?”

“Period-proof underwear that absorbs two tampons’ worth of blood. And no, you don’t have to change every few hours. And no, they don’t feel like diapers. And no, it’s not like sitting in your blood all day,” he said.

“Wow, that’s so well said. Have you ever thought of going into copy writing for advertising?” Suzanne Larimer said, paying him a compliment.

“You’re an old, wrinkled up old woman,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer. “And so am I! So I only tell you this because I love you: Watch out! Don’t let them make a fool out of you!”

“You’re just trying to rain on my parade!”

“Rain on your parade?” the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist said.

“Yes, you know, thunderstorm on my Carnival!” Suzanne Larimer said by way of, in a culturally-sensitive manner, translate for the drunk spic.

“Do you know much about dolphin rage?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked the high fashion model wannabe.

“What?” she asked.

“You know, that’s when male dolphins become frenzied and rape another dolphin,” she explained. “Don’t let them take advantage to you.”

Suzanne Larimer thought about it for a moment. The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist enjoyed his third beer.

“Now, are you sure you don’t want tickets for the Brazos Abiertos soiree?” the relentless ex-Gucci salesgirl asked.

“Help me help you fuck you over,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, smiling.

The Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist laughed.

“You’re impossible!” Suzanne Larimer said, slamming the empty bottle on the table. “I’ll see you never!”

She turned around and started to walk off.

“If they take advantage of you, Suzanne, I’m going to beat you up like a tied-up Billy goat!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Don’t make me beat you up like a tied-up Billy goat!”

She and the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist laughed. Suzanne Larimer turned around, gave them both the finger, and mouthed “Fuck you!”

“Now, what about my dogs?” he asked.

“Well, with that bitch dispensed, let’s go get your mongrels,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

 

Chapter 8

My Love is Here to Stay!

 

While Geriatric Gringa Volunteer and the Alcoholic Mexican Archaeologist were getting the two Evolución dogs ready for their forever home on the beaches near Telchac Puerto, over downtown, Harriet Riggs was walking down Calle 55 on her way to the Mérida English Library of Scams.

She had finished lunch with a Miranda Barrows, an African-American woman from Richmond, Virginia who was living in Mérida. Whenever Harriet Riggs got together with a descendant of American slaves, she met them at Bistro Ave del Paraíso.

She adored the chef, Marcel Stierli, at Ave del Paraíso. Chef Marcel was originally from Switzerland, although she didn’t care for his wife, Alma Rosa Matos Navarrete. It wasn’t that Harriet Riggs had anything against Alma Rosa, apart from her being just another spic in Mérida, also mocked as “Spiclandia” by the catty queens in Gringo Gulch. Harriet Riggs thought that moniker was royally funny. No, she held no animosity towards the sexy Swiss chef’s spic wife. It’s just that she often fantasized sucking on Marcel Stierli’s cock—and his having a wife was an impediment that ruined her fantasy.

(“He’s European, right?” she once confided to Ronnie Bush before Ronnie Bush became Dead Jew Ronnie Bush. “If he’s European, he’s sure to have foreskin, right? It’s not like America, where Jewish doctors brainwashed the American Medical Association into cutting off the tip of just about every American boy’s dick. I just don’t understand how the United States became the Nation of Men with Mutilated Dicks. Vladimir Putin is right in his contempt for Jews and Muslims.” Ronnie Bush had slapped Harriet Riggs and Harriet had retaliated by slapping the soon-to-be Dead Jew Ronnie Bush across the face. The women had then made up over a drink. )

As she walked to the library, she let a little fart go; she loved Chef Marcel’s Thai curry chicken, but it did give her gas.

 

 

Darin Williams, as a she, taking a walk on the wild side

 

Darin Williams, as a he, taking a walk on the wild side

 

As she walked she noticed the enigmatic Williams Creature. That’s what folks called the crossdressing expat, Darin Williams. As if Mexico didn’t have enough problems, here was an expat that was a walking Lou Reed song: “Shaved her legs and then he was a she / She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.”

But there was “Mx Darin Williams,” the “T” in the LGBTQ community of weirdos in forsaken town overrun by demented expats: Tawdry.

The Creature, seldom in town,  was walking the Creature’s dogs, and was distracted by one of the dogs relieving itself in front of Doug Greenwood’s house.

Mr. Williams or Ms. Williams, whatever that pathetic creature happened to be that morning, did not see Harriet Riggs as she quickly made a dash through the library’s door.

“Oh, God, I was spared,” she said to no one in particular. “The pobre pendejo didn’t see me.”

Her cell phone rang. She answered.

“You won’t believe it!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Old prune Suzanne thinks she’s a star about to be born because she’s modelling for Laura Kirar! Delusional old bitch!”

“Are you kidding?” Harriet Riggs said, laughing.

“That’s why I said: You Have Got To Be Kidding,” she said, amused. “Are you at the library?”

“I wish I weren’t, but I am,” the volunteer librarian said. “It’s going to be a zoo.”

“The Chili Scam Out?”

“Don’t say that!” Harriet Riggs said, knowing that the Chili Cook Out was another money-making venture for the Mérida English Library of Scams. “I’m stuck here signing up all the losers.”

“I don’t pity you, Harriet.”

“Thank goodness I had a good lunch,” she said.

“You know what the Bible says, ‘Man doth not live by cocktails alone,’” she said.

“Speaking of which, I’m going to need a scotch before I start this shift,” Harriet Riggs said.

“Didn’t you drink at lunch?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Didn’t we make a commitment to reviving the three-martini lunch?”

 

Harriet Riggs had the hots for Chef Marcel … his curry chicken … and his … meat, but his Mexican Mongrel wife was always hanging on …

 

“I was over at Ave del Paraíso, you know how much I love Chef Marcel’s curry!” she gushed. “And he’s so adorable!”

“Who did you lunch with?” she asked, miffed.

“Miranda—”

“—The Negress?”

American expats in Mérida thought they were living in Victorian times, when people of color were servants; Miranda Barrows was called “The Negress” behind her back by her compatriots.

“Of course, she’s my token black friend.”

“She’s more than token, Harriet,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “She’s a good person. You can tell that, somewhere in her family’s past generation, Master had his way with the womenfolk.”

“I guess she’s a mutt, like Barack Obama,” the volunteer librarian volunteered.

“Did I tell you that my friend in Philadelphia took that DNA test from Ancestry.com?” she said. “Well, when she got the results, she was 100% of French, Wales, and Scotland. Then she made the mistake of listing her results … and wouldn’t you know it? She got emails from all these black people all over the Mid-Atlantic region … cousins! Distant cousins! Can you believe it?”

“What?”

“Harriet, put two and two together,” she said. “Her ancestors were slave owners who fucked the slaves and her family’s DNA is scattered throughout the land!”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Harriet Riggs said.

“How is Miranda?”

“She’s doing fine. Busy working. She told me about the cooking school she’s working on.”

“What about the lavender?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer asked.

“I did ask her about it,” the volunteer librarian said. “She told me that it’s too humid in the Yucatán—but she’s had success growing it indoors, with humidity control.”

“Where?” she asked, inquisitive. “I’d love to get some!”

“She says she takes the bus out to Valladolid, where that guy from Argentina has his place.”

“The bus?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I remember the Civil Rights movement, years back,” she said. “I sympathized and I marched—once with Martin Luther King, Jr. himself!”

“You did?”

“Of course!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “It was the social thing to do! My husband and I had cocktail party for the Black Panthers!”

“How progressive!”

“Bernie Sanders isn’t the only white guy who got arrested,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said, proud. “But I never understood the bus thing.”

“Understood what?”

“Well, what was Rosa Parks so upset about?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“All this uproar over sitting in the back of the bus,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Don’t they know? The back of the bus is the safest part of the bus.”

She paused.

“What? Are you there?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“Yes, I’m here,” she replied. “I was just reminiscing.”

“About what?”

“Well, if you ask me, the back of the bus is the best part of the bus, if you have to ride a bus,” she said.

“Why do you say that, my dear?”

“Oh, Harriet,” she said. “If you sit in the back of the bus, you can masturbate in peace!”

“You, too?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“Of course!” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “Who hasn’t pleasured herself while riding public transport?”

“Really!”

“You know me, I can’t help myself,” the dog sanctuary volunteer said. “It’s in my DNA!”

“Well, speaking of unfortunate DNA, I saw Darin Williams when I was coming to the library.”

“That thing is in town?” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer wanted to know. “Was it dressed up like a boy or like a girl?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Harriet Riggs said. “If you ask me, he looks like E.T. in a wig.”

“Hot Mess Not, as the kids say,” she said.

“Listen, my dear, I have to hang up,” Harriet Riggs said. “I need a drink before I start signing up these fucking losers to see who can make chili that gives the most gas.”

“I have a good mind to set up my own stand,” Geriatric Gringa Volunteer said. “To sell self-administered enemas!”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Harriet Riggs said.

“And that’s out of place in this town!” she protested. “What did you tell me about the former administrator, the faux mixologist?”

“You’re right, my dear,” the volunteer librarian admitted.

“Say it!” she said. “I want to hear it!”

“Oh, Irving Not Cool is going on about how many tricks he can fuck now that he’s working at Remixto, where he has keys to scores of houses,” Harriet Riggs said. “You know, he’s mad about his ‘Happy Hooker’ exploits.”

“Ha!”

“Well, I do have to go,” Harriet Riggs said. “I need a drink and I see the assholes lining up to showcase their chili recipes.”

Harriet Riggs hung up her cell phone and went to the clandestine cantina out back. She poured herself a double scotch. She farted once more; Chef Marcel’s Thai curry chicken was that authentic that it made her fart the way she had when she spent ten days in Bangkok back in the late 1970s.

It was days like these, when she had gas, that she missed Dead Jew Ronnie Bush the most; the women had bonded years ago trying to see who could fart the most after eating habanero chili in their tacos at the food market in Santiago.

 

Keith Heitke, American realtor in town who cannot be bothered with being licensed to be a realtor in town, since Mexican laws apply only to Mexicans, right?

 

She turned around, drink in hand, and saw the assholes standing in line to sign up for the Chili Cook Out. The first in line was Keith Heike, a superstar real estate agent who was not a member of the Asociación Mexicana de Profesionales Inmobiliarios, since Mexico’s laws applied only to Mexicans, not American expats in town, who were above the law.

Harriet Riggs smiled, waved at the frail homosexual, pursed her lips slightly, and walked over, a slight sigh escaping through her nostrils.

“I’ve been listening to Major Lazer and DJ Snake,” the aging queen said, desperate to remain relevant. “I can’t get enough of ‘Leon On,’ it’s speaks to now. What are you listening to these days, Harriet?”

“I love listening to Peggy Lee,” she said, sitting down at the desk. “It makes me wet.”

“Oh,” Keith Heike said, not sure what that meant.

“So, let me guess, you and your partner, David Sterling, who has no formal culinary training but insists on using the title of ‘chef’ professionally, want to sign up for the Chili Cook Out, right?” she asked.

“I guess so,” the meek realtor said in his trademark wispy voice.

“Here’s the application,” she said, handing the sissy boy the form.

“Oh, I have it here!” he said with enthusiasm. “I downloaded it off the website last night and filled it out, in duplicate.”

Harriet Riggs was not amused.

“Oh, goody,” she said. “Ever efficient, Keith.”

“Why, yes!” he gushed.

“Do you have the fee?” she asked, “In cash.”

The Mérida English Library of Scams loved cash.

“Here it is,” he said, handing her $500 pesos. “I’m not sure if our recipe will win, Harriet. But I’m sure we won’t kill people—like you do. Poor Skip Connor. Poor Ronnie Bush.”

He smiled. Her nostrils flared. She took a gulp of her scotch and let loose.

“Is David still living his life as a Maya woman?” she asked.

“What?”

“That’s what’s on his blog, how he starts his day as a Maya woman,” she said. “I’m just wondering when, in the course of the day, he becomes a man. If he does.”

“You’re drunk,” the sissy boy managed, intending a fact to be a put down.

“Isn’t it time you went back?”

“Back?”

“Yes,” the volunteer librarian said. “Back to New York. It’s been more than a decade since 9/11, so I thought you New York 9/11 refugees hiding out in Mérida should be getting to head back.”

“Well, if your music continues to kill the innocent, we might have to leave, just to prevent our being killed by your music,” he managed.

“I think you’re better off using underground mass transit,” she said. “You know, go back to New York. The subway rats miss your company.”

“You stupid old woman!” the sissy boy said.

“Don’t take it out on me that you’ve run out of lube, you faggot!” she yelled at the faggot.

How did she know? Keith Heitke thought. How did this destitute old woman know they were short of lube at Los Dos Cooking School and Occasional B&B?

She did know. And he knew she knew. And she knew because she had looked it up on Google. And Google had told her that if gay men put too much lube on a butt plug, they walk in a swishy manner, trying to keep the butt plug from slipping out. If, on the other hand, they are short of lube, then the butt plugs adhere to the rectal ampulla.

Keith Heitke was walking as if he had a dried out tampon stuck up his sphincter.

“You’re impossible!” he cried. “I don’t know why Sussana keeps you around!”

“That drunk?” Harriet Riggs replied, laughing. “She’s a millennial moron to begin with—and she’s more interested in drinking than anything else!”

“I don’t even why you’re in this town!”

“Me? You’re a fucking 9/11 refugee from New York!” she yelled. “Get the fuck out of Mexico, you prematurely-wrinkled up old faggot!”

“You cunt!” he yelled out.

Upon hearing that word, Harriet Riggs lost it. She stood up. Hit her tumbler on the table, reached over and slapped Keith Heitke across the face. He was stunned. She walked around the table, reached for his shoulders and pushed him down. His knees gave in, and he fell, kneeling down.

She grabbed the top of his head and pushed it towards her groin.

“Eat pussy!” she yelled.

Then she kicked him in the groin, laughed, and he started to cry.

“Stop it!  You’re evil!”

Then, in a musical spirit, Harriet Riggs began to sing: “Got to be real! Got to be real! My love is your love! My vagina is your vagina! My pussy is here to stay! Stay! STAY!”

“You’re crazy,” he managed, pulling himself away and struggling to get back on his feet with some semblance of dignity.

“Don’t you miss New York City Transit? You know, traveling around Manhattan like a rat in a sewer?” she said. “My pussy is here to stay!”

 

Sussana McKibben, the borracha on the right.

 

At the commotion, Sussana McKibben staggered out, holding a beer.

“What’s going on?” she slurred.

“Nothing, nothing at all, Miss Mérida Borracha,” Harriet Riggs said.

“Are you being mean to these queers again?”

“Well, no, I’m not,” Harriet Riggs said. “But what if I were.”

“Didn’t we have a talk about that?” Sussana McKibben said. “We need their money! Hello? Beer runs!”

Keith Heitke, huffing like a six-year-old girl, looked at the women: “Fuck you! And your Chili Cook Out scam!”

The reached over and grabbed his registration fee. The women looked at each other.

“Do you see that?” Sussana McKibben said. “That’s beer run money out the door!”

“Who gives a fuck?” Harriet Riggs said. “His recipe is better than mine, so I’m glad I don’t have to compete against that cocksucker.”

And she was right. She was happy she didn’t have to compete against that little cocksucker.

“We need beer run money, Harriet,” Sussana McKibben said.

“I could use a drink,” the volunteer librarian said.

“No, that’s the librarian I know and love!” Sussana McKibben said.

The women smiled and walked over to the clandestine cantina to get drinks.

Not everyone in the world appreciated how hard librarians worked.

 

 

Keith Heitke sought cultural relevance in a desperate bid to remain young

 

 

Harriet Riggs preferred jaded despair

 

 

 Great Again

Michael Berton, who lashed out against Ellen Fields and Jose Urioste demanding that people unfriend them on Facebook and send them hate messages, was a Disco Queen of a Public Spectacle

 

Michael Berton, the hysteric from the Villa Verde, the dismal gay ghetto in town, was still angry at Yucatán Living and The Yucatán Times for being critical of the no-kill dog shelter, Evolución.

The former disco queen, whose face was ravaged by the passage of circuit parties, was still waging a campaign against Yucatán Living and The Yucatán Times, both superfluous websites that had attacked Saint Silvia Cortés, patron saint of Mexican mongrels.

The haggard creature, who could certainly use a better pharmacist, was seen staggering through Santa Lucía, screaming, “Unfriend them on Facebook! Send them hate email!”

Tourists were shocked; locals were amused.

The deranged queer, eyes sunk deep in their socket, cheeks hollowed out by the passage of time, skin wrinkled like a lizard’s, continued. “Ellen Fields is a bitch, has a cock-starved cunt! José Urioste can drink my pharmaceutically-enhanced piss!”

Ellen Fields was the disreputable editor of Yucatán Living. José Urioste published The Yucatán Times. Michael Berton had declared them both enemies until such time as they forked over thousands and thousands of pesos to buy dog food for the Evolución dog shelter.

Harriet Riggs, enjoying a margarita at Apoala, was amused by the sight of that raving lunatic.

“I beseech you!” Michael Berton shouted. “Get a drone and have a drone drop dog shit on their fucking heads! I know where they live! I know where they are! Ellen Fields is a ‘Happy Endings’ masseuse at Plus Massage at 1140 Railroad Street, Paso Robles, California! José Urioste squanders his worthless time at Paseo de Montejo #475-C! I looked it up on Facebook, the Social Media New Testament of our time! We must unite together as a community and help Evolución and we must do so by attacking that Prick Ellen Fields and that Cunt José Urioste!”

Harriet Riggs wished she had a bowl of non-Monsanto popcorn, the fool was that entertaining.

“And we must take this fight to the next level!” he said, standing in the middle of Santa Lucía. “We must Make Mérida Great Again!”

Harriet Riggs was really enjoying the show now. She motioned to the waiter. She wanted to order some guacamole and another margarita. It was clear the crazy queer was only getting started, the way the strung-out Gay Pride revelers in rainbow tutus and on rollerblades make spectacles of themselves before they puked.

 

Vince Gricus, who was working on a tell-all story of sexual abuse by José Xool, who killed Sam Woodruff after years of being raped

 

“Well, hello there,” Vince Grigus, a large man who was one of the owners of Casa Santiago, one of the more gracious B&B’s in town said, a few bars from El Cardenal, a trendy bar.

“Oh, Vince!” Harriet Riggs said. “You don’t mind that I had a couple of margaritas, do you? I got here a bit early.”

“Of course not, Harriet,” he said, taking a seat. “You know I don’t mind.”

Vince Gricus didn’t drink alcohol, but he enjoyed watching alcoholics get shitfaced; Suzanne Larimer, he always said, never failed to put on a great show.

“Look,” Harriet Riggs said, pointing to Michael Berton. “The Queen of Dementia.”

Vince Gricus looked at the pathetic cocksucker.

“To Make Mérida Great Again we must build a watchtower! We must be on the lookout for Donald Trump refugees which are sure to storm the border!” Michael Berton said, thrusting his arms in the air the way Diana Ross used to do when Diana Ross was hot, which was decades ago.

 

Once, Diana Ross was hot, before she became the Hot Mess that she is today.

 

“A watchtower?” Vince Gricus said.

The waiter approached with the guacamole. Vince Gricus ordered artisanal lemonade and shrimp cocktail.

“I guess we need to build an Anti-Trump Watchtower,” Harriet Riggs said, giggling.

She ordered her third margarita.

“We must Make Mérida—the White City—Great Again!” the spectacle continued. “Why? Because while it’s true that Black Lives Matter, so do Brown Lives Matter! And White Lives Matter Most of All!”

“That is not a well woman,” Vince Gricus said, mocking.

“If I were still fertile, I’d have tampons in my purse,” Harriet Riggs volunteered. “And if I had tampons in my purse, I’d go over and shove them in his mouth just to shut that asshole up!”

Vince Gricus chuckled, amused.

“Make Mérida Great Again!” he continued, as a police officer approached. “Mérida, the White City, matters! White City lives matter! White lives matter most of all!”

The policeman tried to calm Michael Berton. That’s all the hysteric wanted: attention from an authority figure who was equipped with handcuffs. Harriet Riggs lost interest in him once his exhibitionism wound down.

“Oh, why were you late?” she said, turning her attention to Vince Gricus. “Same excuse as always.”

“You know,” Vince Gricus said, somewhat embarrassed.

“Let me guess: like a good expat man, you were watching Golden Girl reruns,” Harriet Riggs said.

“I still can’t believe Bea Arthur is dead,” he said.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “I had nothing to do with her death! People here are still blaming me for Dead Jew Ronnie Bush!”

“I don’t blame you, Harriet,” he protested. “I know you weren’t responsible for her death.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she said.

The waiter brought over the artisanal lemonade.

“But you’re right that rumor around town is that you were responsible for Skip Connor’s death and caused Ronnie Bush’s heart attack,” he told his friend. “Of course your friends don’t blame you, but that’s what the rumor mill is saying.”

“You know, Vince,” she said, putting down a nacho chip with guacamole. “I’ve had it will all these vicious rumors about me!”

“I know, I know,” he said.

“I’m just a mild-mannered librarian who is trying to enjoy her golden years in peace,” she said. “I practice yoga, I eat healthy, I smoke pot, and I try to enjoy as many orgasms as I can to make up for decades of sexual oppression living in Puritanlandia, what most geographers call the United States of America.”

Vince Gricus chuckled and summoned the waiter.

“But you have to admit, you have been known to wanting people dead,” he pointed out.

He ordered seafood cocktails and another round of drinks, a margarita for her and artisanal lemonade for her.

“That’s not true!” she protested. “In fact, I’ve been dedicating my time to studying Spanish. And, in fact, I agree with that gorgeous actress, Ana de la Reguera, about Spanish being so intriguing!”

“Ana de la Reguera?” he asked. “Isn’t she the actress that hams it up in the Kahlúa commercials?”

“Yes!” she said. “She’s great! And she’s right!”

 

Harriet Riggs was intrigued by the idea of Spanish being so intriguing.

 

“Spanish is hard, Harriet,” he said.

“It’s intriguing, Vince!” she pointed out. “Why say ‘shoe,’ when you can say ‘zapato’? Why say ‘stapler,’ when you can say ‘engrapadora’? Don’t you agree? Zapato! Engrapadora!”

Vince laughed, spilling some guacamole on his white Tommy Bahama silk shirt.

“Look what you made me do!” he said in jest.

“Guacamole. Guacamole,” she said. “It’s the same in both languages.”

“Like piano,” he said.

“Yes, but just about every word in Spanish is more intriguing than its English equivalent,” she said. “You know what word has me so, so, so intrigued?”

“What?”

She smiled. She took a sip of her margarita. She put the glass down. Then she spoke.

“Sicario!”

“What?” he asked?

“Sicario!” she said. “I love that word!”

“Do you know what that word means?” he asked her.

She didn’t pay him attention. She broke into a soft song.

“Sicario! Sicario! Say it loud and there’s music playing! Say it soft and it’s almost like praying! I’ll never stop saying ‘sicario’!” Harriet Riggs sang.

The waiters looked over and so did a Mexican couple sitting next to them.

“Sicario! I’ll never stop saying ‘sicario’!”

“Harriet!” Vince Gricus said. “It may come as a surprise to you, but ‘sicario’ is Spanish for assassin!”

“What?” she said, surprised. “I thought assassin was ‘asesino,’ Vince.”

“Yes, assassin is ‘asesino,’ but in Spanish, there’s a difference between assassins for sport and assassins for hire,” he explained.

“Assassins for hire?” she asked. “Isn’t that a hit man?”

“Well, yes and no,” he said, rolling his head. “A hit man for hire is a freelance assassin. An assassin for sport, like Mark David Chapman who killed John Lennon, does it for free. But a ‘sicario’ is an assassin on payroll.”

“Payroll?” she asked. “I need another drink. Spanish is more nuanced than I had thought.”

She motioned the waiter.

“Well, like I said, someone who kills for free, like in the John Lennon case, is an assassin,” he said, enjoying the guacamole. “An assassin that kills on contracts, like they do in the mafia, is a hit man. But someone who’s on a payroll to kill people full time is a ‘sicario.’”

“What kind of fucking company has assassins on payroll?” she asked.

“Organized crime, like the drug cartels,” he explained, nonchalantly.

“Drug cartels?” she said, suddenly more interesting. “That’s hot!”

“Now, Harriet!”

The waiter brought her another margarita. Vince Gricus ordered another guacamole and two ceviche appetizers.

“Say it soft and it’s almost like … spraying bullets!” she said with a laugh, and a glimmer in her eye. “I could see myself killing a few expats around town.”

“It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look,” he said, quoting Saint Francis of Assisi.

Vince Gricus was in the habit of quoting Franciscan saints.

“Saint Francis can go fuck himself, Vince,” she said. “There are a few expats I’ll like to assassinate!”

“Really?” he challenged. “Name one!”

Harriet Riggs laughed and took a sip of her margarita. She didn’t have to think too hard about this one.

Harriet Riggs fantasized about shooting Sam Woodruff dead, but she was beat to it by a Mexican teenager who stabbed the American child-rapist to death first.

 

“Sam Woodruff!” she said. “I’d like to shoot that old pervert right between the eyes!”

“Sam?” Vince Gricus. “If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” she challenged back. “Maybe God wants me to work through me and wipe that pedophile off the face of the earth!”

Harriet Riggs was getting worked up. She forgot that Sam Woodruff had already been murdered.

“Poor Sam,” Vince Gricus said.

The waiter brought them their guacamole and appetizers.

“Poor nothing!” she said. “I feel sorry for that teenage boy he was trying to rape. That boy is the one who’s traumatized, having had to kill off an old child-rapist.”

Vince Gricus said nothing. He started to eat his ceviche.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said after a moment. “José Xool is the true victim.”

José Raymundo Xool was the teenager who stabbed Sam Woodruff to death.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing fine, considering,” Vince Gricus said.

“Are you still mentoring him?” she asked.

Vince Gricus was part of a mentoring program at the local prison. He was working with José Xool so when the young man was released on his eighteenth birthday, he could pick up and get on with his life.

“Yes, and he’s doing well,” Vince Gricus volunteered. “The poor boy first began to be sexually abused when he was only eleven. Same story of child molestation.”

“See?” Harriet Riggs said. “You sit there and quote Saint Francis to discourage me from doing what’s morally right: Shooting down one of the American pedophiles in this town who are nothing but criminal child molesters! Worse than Catholic priests, if you ask me!”

“Now, Harriet,” he said. “No one is to be called an enemy; all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.”

“Will you stop quoting Dead Saints, I swear!” she said.

It was clear the margaritas were going to her head.

“Harriet, I know that Sam was misguided and that he harmed many Mexican children, but he was still a person,” Vince said.

“No, he wasn’t,” she declared. “Sam Woodruff, a child-rapist, was a monster. And you’re not the only one who can sanctimoniously quote saints: ‘Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.’”

“Meaning what?”

“It’s necessary to start assassinating the American pedophiles in Mérida that are going around raping Mexican kids!” she said, a mouth full of guacamole. “‘Sicario,’ say it loud and there’s music playing!”

“Well, I’m not interested in talking about Sam,” Vince Gricus said. “What I’m hopeful about is being able to help José Xool tell his story!”

“His story?”

“Yes,” Vince Gricus revealed. “One of the projects we’re working on is helping Mexican youngsters who’ve been abused by American sexual predators is to tell their stories. He wants to let the world know who Sam seduced him when he was fourteen and how, for three years, he was sexually raped—until he fought back—”

“—And assassinated that sick fuck!” Harriet Riggs interjected.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Vince Gricus agreed. “That man was a menace, one sick puppy.”

“He was ‘una amenaza,’” she said. “That’s Spanish for ‘a threat.’ Sam Woodruff was a threat to every child in this city! ‘La amenaza’ sounds so intriguing, doesn’t it?”

The two friends continued to enjoy their gracious lunch at Apoala when Vince Gricus spotted Lyle Robertson arrive at the restaurant next door, Rosa Sur 32. He was accompanied by Gustavo Álvarez. Harriet Riggs noticed the men being seated at table under the portales–covered arches—that graced Santa Lucía.

“Well, if it isn’t the talented Mr. Robertson,” Vince Gricus said. “You have heard?”

“About his world-class collection of pre-Columbian art?” Harried Riggs asked. “Of course I have! The Countess of Self-Delusion got her limp-dick loser of a husband to use their drone to fly all over Lyle’s courtyard.”

The Countess of Self-Delusion was Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado, one of the more odious Canadians in a town of odious Canadians.

“Yeah,” he said.

While Harriet Riggs and Vince Gricus continued with their lunch, stealing glances at the men’s table, Lyle Robertson and Gustavo Álvarez had their business lunch, oblivious to the interest from the volunteer librarian and volunteer prison mentor.

 

Harriet Riggs confused “sicario” and “Maria,” not that she cared.

While Harriet Riggs and Vince Gricus were trying to eavesdrop on the conversation at that Lyle Robertson and Gustavo Álvarez were having, John “Afghan Boy” Powell showed up, catching them off guard.

“Oh, Harriet! Oh, Vince!”Afghan Boy said. “I’m so busy! Busy, busy!”

Then the insufferable queer went on: “Apoala is nice, but it is not, not, not as nice as Casa Lucia. Casa L, as I call it, reminds me of a lot of neighborhood restaurants in Milan from my former life in fashion. Marble and glass and laminated menus. It’s not at all a bad choice for lunch. I eat there all the time. It’s never been great and it’s never been bad. The desserts are the only real disappointments here. They are sitting there staring at you all through your meal and they look great. They all suck. I have tried them all. They suck. I know they look really, really, really good but they all suck. Yes the pecan pie, the chocolate layer cake, the carrot cake and even the cheesecake suck. Sorry. Have that order of fries and skip the dessert. Even the bathrooms make you feel like you’re in Milan.”

Neither Harriet Riggs nor Vince Gricus said a word. Then, like an annoying mosquito, Afghan Boy moved away from them.