Mexico Dreaming - Part One

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Aug 15, 2001

One of my happiest memories of Mexico is standing in the "yellow sea" of Mazatlan with the Mexican writer Cesar Ibarra, both of us in our underwear (actually, he had borrowed a pair of mine!) and the waves crashing against our backs.

There was no way I could've prepared myself for Mexico. I'd first gone there in 1993 to research a play I was writing, but had come away after two months without really knowing the place, having met only a few gringos and a handful of Mexicans.

An email from Charles and Dorothy Hasty during the time I was in Santa Cruz helped me make up my mind to go back. Charles explained that the University Press at Culican was doing a world literature series and wanted to translate and publish two of my books. He urged me to come down as soon as I could. Thus, I began what would turn out to be one of the more curious episodes in my extended exile from Australia.

I booked my ticket and emailed Charles and Dorothy, who told me I'd be met at Mexico City Airport by their friend, Angel.

Ah! My Angel! Angel Jaramillo, to be exact - a small, bespectacled Mexican intellectual with a five o'clock shadow and a furtive look that could've well been interpreted in any one of a hundred different ways.

I didn't see him at first. Coming out of Customs, I gazed out on a sea of strange brown faces, and thought maybe he wasn't going to be here. What then!? Luckily I was about a foot and a half taller than most of the people in the terminal, so I decided to stay put and let him find me.

It was only after most of the other passengers had disappeared that he came forward, rather unsurely, and asked me if I was the American poet, Billy Stoneking, who was a friend of Charles and Dorothy's. Yes, I said, and we shook hands, rather uncomfortably. Even his handshake seemed unsure.

Your bags? he asked politely, and when I nodded he grabbed the smallest one of the three and told me to follow him.

Angel was a curious mix - part bureaucrat, part desperado. His expression was such that you could never be sure what he was thinking. Though he seemed personable enough, and was well read and spoke ENglish fluently, there was something about him that didn't inspire a great deal of confidence. But then the Hastys had assured me I could trust him, so I was willing to follow him... almost anywhere.