|
 |
BREAUX BRIDGE
There are things that happen once in a lifetime. To
become forty years old one of those you never want to happen, but what you can
do about it? I didn't plan it, to celebrated my fortieth birthday in San
Francisco, neither my twentieth in New Delhi, or my thirtieth in Athens. But if
you are on the road it is quite normal getting wet one day or the other. Should
I go back to Mexico, jump in the plane and get back to old boring Europe? I had
been one month in the USA. And what had I seen? Nothing! How many times in my
life would I have the chance to do the round of the USA? The money, oh yeah, it
was fading away. So what? I had learned some tricks at that time. All along the
highway you can find truck-stops. Shower for free, coffee for free, biscuits
and few light things, too. It may happen to crash around a Motel on the road.
In the morning you get in, sit in the breakfast room and serve yourself. Well,
you know, always clean and good-looking. How will they know if you had been
sleeping in or not? It's not a crime to eat. My Visado gave me five months. I could hang out in the South during the Winter, hit the
road in early spring to Seattle, stop in San Francisco, celebrate my fortieth
birthday. Why not? There is the Grand Canyon, the Valley of the Death too, the
Redwood Forest, the Rocky Mountains, the Niagara Falls, Woodstock, man! New
York City, Nashville, Denver, and how many things more? It was a New World for
me. People looked at me nicely. The road was entirely for me. Hitch-hiking was
prehistory for the Americans. Only hobos and bums did that.
“Bum”, I never heard this word before. A couple picked
me up in the early evening. She was a Mormon, and the guy was a kind of highway
wanderer. He suddenly look at me and said “I am a bum”.
“Excuse me” said I; “you are a bomb?”.
“A bomb? No, man, a bum”.
“I don't get it”, said again I. The woman was staring
at me with big eyes. He said then, “give me a quarter”.
“You want a coin?”.
“Yeah, give me a quarter”.
I did so. He grasped it and put it in his pocket.
“You get it now”.
I could not stop laughing. That was a “bum”. He could suck
my money as quick as his Mormon girlfriend my cock. Useless to say, he drove us
to a Motel, checked a room for us, and I paid it the bill, he was a bum, you
see?
He had a shower, and went out, his girlfriend stood in
the room, and a minute later she jumped on me.
“He’s no coming back?”, I asked her nicely.
“You pay the room, remember?”.
Yeah, when the morning came I left them sleeping
there, they wouldn’t bother to say goodbye. There was a “bum” sleeping. Beyond
that, it was a good guy. He could had dug a hole in the desert, bury me and
take my money, who would bother? I would.
I decided to hang around Louisiana till I made my
mind, would I get that plain back to Europe or would I do the USA's round?
Downtown New Orleans it was kind of Paradise, all the
girls looked at me and said with the most angelical smile in their lips “Jesus
Loves you”. Man, I got so much love from Jesus as none from his angels! “Show
me, baby, show me how much”. No chance. They kept pouring their litany on the
wind.
(For a forastero everything happens and begins here in
Jackson Square)
One week later, perfectly convinced that Jesus loves
me, I took the decision to finally take the final decision. Would I go or would
I stay? I walked my way out of the city and wandered the day long
God-knows-where, small roads, beautiful countryside, gorgeous little birds all
over. I made my mind. I would stay. But where I was? A pick-up, loaded with
furniture to the top, pulled off. The introductions made, he came up with an
offer. If I helped him to download and take the things in the new house he
would pass me some dollars, I could stay the night with his family too. Good
deal. I said “yes, sure”.
It turned that his place was called Breaux Bridge. A
tiny southern town between Lafayette and Baton Rouge. It was obvious that the
French had been there. The name of the guy was C.D. He had three daughters, his
wife was a Canadian Indian Princess whose old, old, old parents emigrated South
when the English massacred the Indian allies of the French. She was pretty and
very polite.
C.D. had closed a deal with a millionaire of some
kind. He bought his old house in a bargain and was moving in. A wonderful southern
houses like those in the movies, with a yard big as a soccer field and a
fantastic oak tree in the middle. There was a little hut, probably for the
gardener, it was mine for the time being. She was a fantastic cooker. And he
drank beer nonstop. I found out there and then that the common American beer
never gets you drank. C.D. explained to me why. It seems that the Europeans
producers add to the juice that product by the Egyptians employed to preserve
nice the mummies. I could not grant him that.
“Yeah bro”, he insisted, “people in your place are
fuckers. Drink with me, you will wake up tomorrow headache free”.
Holy shit, he was right. I drank at least twelve or
fifteen bears, never got me drank, and in the morning me head was so clear that
I could get a ten in a math’s exam.
We had a breakfast and told me to stay for few weeks.
I could help him with the painting. Just like my house. It would pass me some
dollars when I was to go, to buy me that guitar I left back home. Basking
around the USA, that would be fun. I said “yeah, sure”.
Well, the couple of weeks turned into a month. It
didn’t bother me at all. Breaux Bridge was a delicious spot. It was sunny all
the time. And C.D. used to take me with him to wherever his jobs would call
him. He was in the business of selling and buying old pumps for the black-oil
industry. He had to drive hundred of miles per day,
he could do with some company for a change, would I mind? “Of course not”.
Texas was fun. They really dance like the cowboy in the movies, eat huge steaks
and the girls are crazy for gold. But the place I liked most was Lake Charles.
CD. Loved to play cards in one of those old casinos on the steams boats from
the old Mississippi trails. I wandered on my own watching the stars.
And so the month came to an end.
“Am leaving C.D.”.
“As you please, bro”.
It was good to be back on Highway Ten, and heading to
L.A. Next day, I don’t know how it happened, but it did, I was somewhere around
nowhere with a guy crazy to breed fishes in a pond and get rich. The thing is
that he nearly run me over.
“Are you OK?”, I said. He was so drunk that he could
not say his name, just “Come in, come in. You drive”.
It was going to get himself killed. No joke. God knows
how he made it until then. Of course to tell him that I had never driven a car
it was out of order. Even C.D. when I told him so he could not believe it, he
thought I was joking. I had to get in the car and following him for a while,
until he realized, at last, that indeed I was car-virgin. To late anyway.
However, I found American cars to be a toy. And I made it.
Who was this guy? How would I know? He was to get
himself killed? For sure. I took the wheel, and slowly I followed his words.
Right, left, straight. We were heading north and into the forest. He lived in a
truck-house. “Crash yourself wherever you can”, say to me, and began to sleep
like a log. I unfolded my sleeping bag and slept beneath the stars. In the
morning he poured on my ears his story. He had a pond with water and was
looking for a partner to invest in breeding gold fishes. I was interesting? “In
gold or in fishes?”, said I. He did not get the joke, and kept creating his own
golden business. “Can you take me back to the road, man?”. He would not listen.
It was obvious to me that the guy was lonesome and could do with some company
for a while. I had the time on my side. His pond was full of frogs, it needed
reparation but he would not set himself at work. He just loved the idea of
watching his pond full of gold-fishes. To me he was the first time in my life
that had the opportunity to see a truck-house. As time passed by I knew many
people living in those tiny houses. As a matter of fact a large of the
population in the South lived in those truck-houses, some more large than
other, some more dirty than others, a very weird place to live in for the rest
of your life. However, I managed to convince the goldfish dreamer to give me a
ride back to Highway ten. He fetched a box full of cans of beers and did so.
After a time I found delicious the American Beer. American Coffee is shit. But
so the English’, and the German’s. The Anglo-Saxon tribes cannot handle a real
cup of coffee. Weird to think that Colombia and Venezuela are just round the
corner. I guess that the French, the Spanish and the Italian buy it all,
leaving for the rest of the world the left-over after the coffee machine pours
in the cup the real coffee. Americans have good beer and terrible coffee,
European-Latins have horrible beer and good coffee. No one is perfect.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
