SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME – the book

We didn’t immediately go to Guatemala City. We drove back to Luke’s and Sara’s little Love Cottage in Arriaga the following day.

Before leaving the thriving metropolis of Chanal, Chiapas, I cornered Luke. He was saying goodbye to his sheep in the sanctuary. I stood two feet from him. Luke ignored me. I moved 6 inches from him and whispered, “When you’re done fondling these people, I need to talk with you.”

Luke gave a non-committal response.

“I’m not asking, Lukey. I’ll be standing right over there.” 

I stood next to the main entrance doors to the church, folded my arms, and stared dispassionately at Luke. After 20 minutes of saying goodbye to his flock, Luke approached me. “Uh, hey. Can we talk late….”

“No. Not until you tell me you think Sara and I had it off in that hotel you shoved me in.”

Luke looked at me in unconvincing shock. “What?” After a pause, he asked if Sara had told me that. 

“She didn’t have to. I overheard it from your disciples all night. Now, here is your opportunity to let me know all about it. Tell me Sara and I had sex. I want to hear from you. Do tell. I’m dying to find out.”

I kept the tone low-key and maintained an unrelenting deadpan stare.

Luke was uncomfortable. “Look, do we need to do this right now? This isn’t…”

“Yeah, Luke. We do. Sorry. We can finish this conversion fast. Easy. Answer this question: Did Sara and I bang away while you were up-country? Yes or no.”

“Well, did you?”

“I’m asking you. Tell me. Did I hit on your girlfriend? If you told your 12 best friends that she and I consummated things, you can tell me, yes?”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but me and Sara are having problems. Okay? I guess…”

“Luke, a blind and deaf two-year-old, can see you two falling apart. What’s the answer to my question?” I kept things conversational, although my urge was to smack him upside down.

Luke’s roundabout accusation was, “Why is she so happy when you’re around?” 

“I dunno. Ask her.” I deliberately repeated, “Did I try my luck with your girlfriend?” 

My calm demeanor was teetering. Luke looked a little alarmed. He stared at the floor as he formulated his answer.

“No.”

“Thank you. You would be right. Congratulations. You win two parking passes to last night’s hockey game. I’m not nearly the low-class maggot you’ve been advertising.”

Luke made sure I knew who he blamed. “All I know is, you got here, and she changed. Now she loves you. Not me. Why?”

“You are giving me way too much credit. I don’t have that kind of effect on women. Sorry. You’re telling anyone willing to listen that you and Sara had this wonderful, happy relationship. Sara was hopelessly devoted to you. I show up, and in a matter of a few hours, she shoves you off the cliff. Really?”

After a pause. “You said something, or you did something.”

“You know this for sure. How? Do tell. Or are we exercising our right to free speech by playing that time-honored game of blaming someone else for our problems?”

“She’s not the same. Nothing is the same. We were fine. Then you showed up. You must’ve done something.”

After another pause, my sad reply was, “Well, I didn’t.”

Luke remained silent. 

I gave him a very stone-faced stare. “That’s it, huh? Oh, well.” 

I returned to the jeep, sat on the passenger’s seat, and pondered my next move. Having established the indelible truth that I had no idea what that move would be, I took the bold step of falling asleep. I woke up to the sight of Luke staring at me. 

I didn’t wait for customary pleasantries. “When we return to Arriaga, drive me to the hotel and tell me the fastest way to the States.”

Luke impersonated Marcel Marceau, pretending to look surprised. 

I went on. “I can’t do this. How I ended up between you two is beyond me. We will write that off to limitations vis-a-vis my functional neurons. It hardly matters.

“You’re making me feel like a criminal. I don’t want to feel like a criminal. I’ve spent my whole life feeling like a criminal. The longer I stay, the worse I’ll feel. 

“Please and thank you. That’s all. Done.”

Luke, clinging to his faux-astonishment, bleated, “No one said you’re a criminal. I think…”

“What? You just told me it’s my fault you two are coming unglued. In the church. Ninety minutes ago. I did something to get her to break up with you and come running into my arms. I intentionally made poopy your harmonious bliss and swooped in to have my evil way with your girlfriend. That was your narrative. You were certain of it.”

Luke’s response was not a surprise. “Look, she changed, and you were….”

I barged ahead. “So, you shared your faulty narrative with the children in your flock. It was all they could talk about. I listened to it all night while I pretended to be asleep.”

Luke gave me this self-righteous “how dare you accuse me” look.

I continued. “That’s the thing about narratives. People make them up and then scramble to find any shred of evidence to support them. The narratives, that is. It’s all part of the human tragedy, I suppose.

“I don’t know if you told your followers that Sara and I spent the day having sex. They seemed to think we did.”

“What?!”

There was a problem with that question. Luke didn’t ask it. Sara did. She was standing on the other side of the jeep. We couldn’t see her. She could hear us. 

After a very icy silence, Sara appeared. 

While staring at Luke, Sara said, “Drew, dear. Why don’t you fuck off for a few minutes? We need to have a private chat.”

Luke demanded I stay and listen to them bark at each other, to which I responded,  “Fung dat! Not gonna happen. No.” I started walking back to the church. 

Luke’s response was, “This involves you, you know.”

Until that moment, I had never yelled at anyone for an extended period. Ever. If the potential for an argument existed, then I always backed down. I had never stood my ground on anything. I spent my life avoiding confrontations at any cost. The cost, of course, was all mine to pay. 

However, Luke’s statement was the camel that broke my straw back, and I, for the first time, verbally pimp-slapped another human being.

I stood, hands on hips, and said (well, bellowed), “What a load of shit! Just because you decided to involve me doesn’t mean I am involved. I’m not. Involved, that is. So do not, I repeat, do not give me a role in your ridiculous Beggar’s Opera. 

“I’m not done! Do not interrupt. When I’m done talking, I’ll let you know. Because this shit ain’t gonna flush!

“Listen to these words carefully: I, Andrew Stephen Lowry, can assert, without fear of recourse, that I did not fondle, tempt, rub, lure, poke, bribe, cajole, grab, seduce, entice, tickle, steal, marry, or screw your girlfriend! It never happened. In other words, it never happened. To elaborate, it never happened. Has any of this gotten through to you at all? Do I need to use little words? Well, do I? 

“Don’t answer. Rhetorical.

“Now, I don’t know what the major malfunction is between you two, but it does not, I repeat, does not involve me. It’s not my fault! Blame yourself. Blame each other. Blame the weather. I don’t care! Do not blame me. Ever! I’m not the problem. 

“Oh, yeah. While I think of it, please dump the woe-is-me shit. If you have girlfriend issues, take it up with your girlfriend. For clarification, that would be Sara. Not me. You see, when it comes to involvement with your relationship, I haven’t got any! Involvement, that is.   

“So, stop trying to drag me into your mess. Stop blaming me! Stop treating me like garbage! And stop making up stories about my sex life! I’m perfectly capable of making up my own damn stories. Since the problem is between you two, you two can figure it out! 

“Now, I’m taking myself and my hip flask and returning to the church. That’s right. I am reduced to doing shots of tequila in church! You two can have your chat. Figure out what the problem is, fix it, and find me. Do it in that order. Do you understand? Good!

“That’s it. Done! Finito! Factum! Basta! Adios.”

Feeling pretty happy after my little tirade, I walked away. I guess Sara and Luke stared at each other with facial expressions, saying, “Did that just happen?” 

Luke and Sara walked into the church to fetch me less than an hour later. They looked relaxed and gave every impression that, for the moment, peace had returned to the valley. Or, maybe they declared a cease-fire.

I smiled sheepishly and said, “After my inspirational speech, I figured you’d return home and leave me here to start my new life. I already came up with my new name: Cogito Ergo Doleo. I should have my updated business cards tomorrow. Got a job in town. At the Brown and Stiff Funeral Home. Assistant manager in the erotic embalming department. If I do well, then I could move into casket repos. That’s where the real money is. Shall I apologize now, or would you prefer something in writing?”

Luke laughed. “You are not well. Any holy water left?” 

I passed him my hip flask. Luke produced three paper cups. He proposed a toast to starting fresh with a promise to remove his head from his silo. We drank. Apologies all around, and we drove back to Ariaga, singing along to a recording of Rolling Stones songs. In those days, the Mexican government banned rock and roll music, especially anything by the Rolling Stones, making our singing much more fun.

We hung out in Arriaga for a couple of days. I stayed at the unlovely hotel one day, so Luke and Sara could have time to exchange recipes without me within earshot. However, I could have stayed and been like Howard Cosell or Don Dunphy in the movie “Bananas,” providing boxing commentary during the sex part and interviewing the combatants afterward. 

Commentary during sex:

– “They seem to be feeling each other out this round.”

– “Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier!”

– “Oh, his legs are gone. It won’t be long now.”

– “Wow, he is eating a lot of leather just to get inside that jab of hers.”

– “Oh, she nailed him with a rear hook! He’s down again and in serious trouble.”

Post-sex interview:

– “You were beating him with body shots. Was that part of your game plan?”

– “Will you ever be able to come back from such a rough performance?”

– “You took a couple on the chin early on. How did you keep your composure?”

– “Do you think this lived up to the hype?”

There was a little complication with the hotel’s running water. There wasn’t any. If any honored guests wanted to drink some water, a handy hose was free of charge. Outhouses behind the hotel were available—unlimited use for valued customers. I don’t know what was in the outhouses. I stayed out of them. 

In those days, no one was selling bottled water, so drinking water from a hose wasn’t uncommon. It wasn’t your first choice, but it was a workable possibility. We did this sort of thing in the 1970s. And we lived to tell you all about it.

People drank well water, spring water, groundwater, mineral water, water from fountains, water from fire hydrants, and water that had been sitting in a bucket. You didn’t know how long the water had been in the bucket, who had drank the water before you, or what else was in the water. You were alone, and your decision to drink the water required common sense.

When I played football, the approved hydration process involved the communal scooper, which drew water from the communal bucket. The bucket’s water had all kinds of stuff: hair, grass, snot, blood, etc.

Judging from the labels on bottled water today, we must have gotten considerably more stupid over the last 40 years.

I’m looking at a label on the bottle of water I have right now. It says, “Warning: the cap is a small piece and poses a CHOKING HAZARD.”  Two words – Charles Darwin. Dump the warning label.

The bottle I have contains one liter of water. The label tells me that there are no calories in this water.

Now, 1,000,000 milligrams equal 1 liter. This measurement is helpful information as there are elements in this water that, by law (I guess), must be accounted for. If you ingest too much of the items below, you may shuffle off this mortal coil.

If you add all this together, you’ll be ingesting 72.9 mg per liter of water (or .00729% of the water) of potentially lethal substances. That’s assuming the water’s 356°F while you’re drinking it. 

Think about that.

Now, how valuable is this information? Let’s say you’re concerned that drinking too much bottled water will cause you to die from a sodium overdose. The label tells you the bottle has 4.7mg of sodium in it. What’s a potentially lethal amount of sodium? If you weigh around 150 pounds, you must quickly consume around 50,000 mg of sodium before entering dangerous territory. How many liters of this water would you drink to hit that 50,000 mg target for sodium?

A little over 10,000.

In one sitting, you’d have to throw down over 10,000 liters of water to ingest a dangerous amount of sodium. Now, if you drank 10,000 liters of water and OD’d on sodium, you should line up behind the people consuming the bottle caps.

It’s a matter of time before some elected official (probably in California) hears about the possibility of people drinking from garden hoses and demands warning labels be attached to all of them—especially those bought off eBay because the used garden hose business is big these days. I’ll have the warning label ready once the “Hose-Gate” crisis takes over the newscasts. It reads like this:

“Look, it’s a hose. Okay? It’s probably been sitting in grass, weeds, and mud for eons. It may have been under a tree, and somebody’s dog may have let forth on it. I mean, it can get ugly. Then there’s the issue of where the water is coming from. You probably ought to check on that. For all you know, it could be coming from a sewage treatment pond. NOTE: The Surgeon General suggests giving it a miss if the water comes from a sewage treatment pond. 

“Water from this hose has the following items per liter:

1) Dirt – 28,000mg (2.8%)

2) Wet Dirt (Mud) – 27,000mg (2.7%)

3) Rust from the Metal Connectors on Each End of the Hose – 65,000mg (6.5%)

4) The Spit from Other People Who Drank from this Hose – 12,000mg (1.2%)

5) Dog Urine – 13,000mg (1.3%)

6) Pieces of Insects Who Crawled into this Hose and Died – 8,000mg (0.8%)

7) Hair – 17,000mg (1.7%)

8) General Debris (Defined as, ‘S*** we don’t know what it is’) – 20,000mg (2.0%)

9) Dry Reside (Your guess is as good as ours as to how it got there) – 10,000mg (1.0%)

“The point is this: 20% of what comes out of this hose is considered UFD. U stands for Utterly, and D stands for Disgusting.

“WARNING – The Center for Disease Control has determined that if your daily intake of rust exceeds 260,000 mg for an extended number of days, then your teeth will turn black, you’ll have dog breath so bad that people will see black air coming out of your mouth every time you speak, and the likelihood of you going to the prom by yourself is 100%.”

Right, back to Mexico….

After two days of taking in the sights and smells of Arriaga, we headed to Guatemala City, which, as the crow flies, is about 300 miles away. In the States, it would be a journey you could make in under 5 hours. Since this was Mexico and Guatemala, we were looking at 10 hours. On the first day of the drive, we stopped in Tapachula, which is very close to the Guatemalan border. When it came to Tapachula, I don’t think the Mexican government officially had done much in providing its standard suite of taxpayer services, including torture, mass murder (sorry, extrajudicial executions), extortion, property destruction, terrorism, making groups of people magically disappear, theft (sorry, asset reallocation), kidnapping, genocide (sorry, ethnic cleansing), censorship, drug dealing, corruption, incompetence, child molestation, rape (sorry, an inappropriate sexual advance) racketeering and arson (sorry, combustion engineering), among other things. 

Maybe they hadn’t made it to Tapachula yet. Or, they got lost attempting to get there. Or their convoy ran out of gas. Or all the vehicles got stuck in potholes. Hell, it’s the Mexican government. Who knows? I’m sure no one in the government does. It’s probably no coincidence that Tapachula was doing rather well by comparison.

I mean, it wasn’t fabulous. The city was similar to Camden, New Jersey. 

Tourists. I saw tourists for the first time. You could spot tourists in those days. They were the ones with cameras hanging around their necks. There were no mobile phones back then. The place was, by all means, tourist-worthy. Nice weather, beach to the south, remarkable architecture, beautiful scenery outside the city, and active commerce. 

The coffee was unbelievably good. There were extensive coffee bean plantations nearby. The entire city smelled like a coffee shop. One place served the 2nd best coffee I’ve ever had. (The best was at a shack (literally) in Hamilton, Bermuda. Story for another day.)

We had fun walking around the city. The vibe was good, and people were reasonably content. Everything was fine. I was looking forward to seeing Guatemala and Guatemala City the next day. 

Things were looking up. 

Then I saw Guatemala. And, oh shit. It was horrifying. The scale and severity of poverty was unbelievable. The oppressive presence of death squads was frightening. 

It turned out that, when it came to destroying the lives of its citizens, Mexico’s government had nothing on Guatemala’s. The ruling party in Mexico, the PRI, pretended it wasn’t killing anyone. The PID (Guatemala’s equivalent) didn’t bother pretending anything. In 1960, it officially declared war on Guatemalans it didn’t like and had no problem telling everyone all about it. 

Who did the government not like? Peasants, unions, poor people, cooperatives, farmers, Indigenous people, and those stupid enough to think for themselves. That’s a lot of people. You’d think the PID wouldn’t stand a chance in general elections. And you’d be right. Fortunately for the PID, it didn’t matter who you voted for. The PID declared itself the winner every time. Since it had the full backing of the US government, the country’s richest 2% (who owned almost 70% of the nation), and the United Fruit Company* (aka, Chiquita Bananas), the PID made it work with room to spare.

I’ll say this for the PID. It had an excellent election campaign strategy, which involved dropping leaflets advising you that if you didn’t vote for the PID candidate, then the PID would have a hand-picked, friendly, helpful, customer-oriented representative come to your door and torture you to death. Some flyers even referenced the tens of thousands of Guatemalans who didn’t get with the program and ended up in one of the country’s many mass graves. I’m not kidding.

Sara and Luke bludgeoned me with information about life in rural Guatemala as we drove. Over 80% of children under five years old were malnourished, the infant mortality rate was almost 10%, the government had killed over 100,000 of its beloved citizens, and a typical wage earner made well under $1 per day. 

Well, that was depressing. Rural Guatemala may not work for a summer home. “How are things in Guatemala City?” I asked. The response was that it came down to what zone you were in. The lovebirds said there were approximately twenty zones in the city, and three were okay. How were the other seventeen? 

Not okay. 

I asked what I could expect at whatever unfortunate zone we’d be visiting. Luke said, “There are a lot of homeless children. A lot. It’s terrible.”

“Awful,” Sara chimed. “The ones we’re seeing are under ten years old. It’s so sad. I don’t know….”

Luke barged in, “We try to help. These kids are amazing. So strong. So resilient. I…I wish…I don’t know. Something…” 

“Where are the parents?” It was a reasonable question for me to ask. 

Sara’s response was, as usual, blunt. “Parents? What parents? They’re probably out of the country. Or dead. Or both. The kids are better off without their parents. Most of…”

Luke’s turn. “Too true. The parents force their kids to be prostitutes. It’s sick.”

I followed up with the most foolish and painfully ridiculous question I have ever asked in my entire lifetime. “The police do anything useful?” 

Sara got on her emotional bicycle and peddled hard. “Fucking POE-lease. The only thing the fucking police do is beat the shit out of them. Break a few bones for fun. If they’re feeling lonely, then they kidnap a few girls, rape them and toss them back on the street. Twelve-year-old girls! Sometimes, to impress their fellow officers, they kill a couple of kids because they can. Bastards. These kids are starving to death. They’re sniffing glue so that they can make it through another day. Fucking police just….fuck!”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I still can’t. 

Luke’s turn. “The only reason they won’t come after us is we’re Americans. They want our money so….”

I interrupted. “Wait. I thought the US cut off funding. Or am I way off?”

Luke and Sara started laughing. They gave me my first lesson in money laundering. In brief, they said the US was providing the Guatemalan government more money than ever through two indirect channels: Mexico and the United Fruit Company (who had the entire PID on its payroll).

As we approached Guatemala City, the atmosphere deteriorated in a hurry. Driving through the poorer zones of Guatemala City (which amounted to about 85% of the city) was frightening. The place smelled of rotting garbage and gas fires.

While driving, Luke repeated the following instructions to me. “Look straight ahead or look down. Don’t turn and face anyone. Keep your voice down.”

I should have blindfolded myself during the drive. On one side, there was a massive pile of smoldering garbage where women, children, and dogs were digging around for food. Groups of maniacal, jacked-up children were dashing around on the other side. Some were trying to steal food from street vendors. Others were running from adults who were threatening to kill them. Some were fighting among themselves. A few tried to grab what they could from the jeep. 

The rush of competing emotions brought on some panic. It was the same feeling I had the last time I went skydiving when I got hit with sudden and very turbulent blasts of wind. I was knocked well off course, and I seemed to be plummeting to earth much faster than was considered healthy. Since this was my first solo dive, I panicked, which is the first stage of the DMFP (Dead Man Falling Process), and had the following thoughts:

Okay, this is bad, not good, entirely out of control. This isn’t nice. I’m a dead man, not good. I don’t believe this. Not gonna end well. Shit.

Well, that’s what I thought while sitting in the jeep.**

We stopped at a small, heavily fortified, locked-down building that served as a school/refuge for 50 (or so) young street children. The place was there to help the kids break their addictions to sniffing glue, give them something to eat, teach them how to read, and, in general, provide a little shelter from the storm. 

We parked behind a barrier that was initially made of concrete but was a bunch of twisted metal rods. That barrier symbolized the entire country very well. I suggested taking a picture of it and making it the new national flag. 

We grabbed all the supplies from the jeep and quickly brought them into the school. The children in the school began congregating around me. As is always the case with youngsters, they identified me as a sucker. 

I handed out more coloring books and crayons to the kids, who all reacted like they won the lottery. 

I met Juliette, the woman running the school. She was very nice. Luke and Sara had stepped away, so I felt obligated to converse. Juliette said she was from Fort Saskatchewan, northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. 

“Edmonton? Wow. Do you prefer Juliette, Julie, Jules, or none of the above? Juliette, I got it. Thank you. If I remember my geography, the number of miles between Edmonton and Guatemala City is approximately…a lot, as the crow flies. What brought you from there to here? If you don’t mind me asking.”

I thought it was a reasonably benign question—a non-invasive conversation starter. And, no, Juliette didn’t mind me asking. She was glad to tell me all about it, including the part where she was married to some drug-dealing animal in Fort Saskatchewan who physically abused her, made her his prisoner, cut her off from the rest of the world, and supplemented the household income by encouraging a steady stream of paying customers to have sex with her. Whenever Juliette mentioned her objections to the status quo, hubby would overcome said objections by threatening to behead her. Oh, one more thing, he told her if they ever got busted for selling drugs, then he’d say to the police that she was responsible. One day, having become weary of being routinely raped and beaten, she grabbed the money lying around the house (which was a considerable amount) and escaped. A sympathetic neighbor volunteered to drive her to the nearest police station. 

During the 1970s in North America, the last place any abused woman would ever want to go was to the local police. Or any police. Law enforcement would not be on her side.  

She gave the neighbor’s offer careful non-consideration, requested he drive her to the nearest bus depot and jumped on a bus destined for Regina (pronounced with a long I), Saskatchewan, Canada, where Glen, a family member, lived. 

I thought about interrupting her to say that naming your city Regina with a long I does nothing other than remind me how immature I am.

Glen wasn’t surprised to see Juliette. Her husband had already called him to say if he, Glen, was harboring Juliette, then he could expect his house to be fire-bombed. Two days later, the husband showed up knowing all about Juliette’s bus trip. I’m guessing the police told him. Glen gave Juliette his Smith and Wesson Model 59 handgun for her protection. Hubby banged on the door and bellowed a few threats. Getting no response, he broke into the house. Things then went sideways for the husband. Once inside the house, hubby was, courtesy of Juliette, shot in the leg. Did I mention the crowbar? Well, this was where the crowbar came into play because, while hubby was on the ground holding his leg, Glen hit him on the side of the head with it. The crowbar, that is. 

Oh, it got worse for the husband, who was lying on the floor and semi-conscious at best. Plus, he had that pesky bullet in his leg. Glen, having hog-tied hubby to a pillar, began working on some unresolved aggression issues as, according to Juliette, Glen and his crowbar went medieval on the bastard and destroyed, among other things, his face and head. Some ribs were broken, too. In addition, hubby’s ability to procreate was dramatically reduced after Glen speared him in the groin a few times with the crowbar. 

It was at this point in the festivities that, according to Juliette, a few decisions were made. One related to Juliette’s immediate future. Glen suggested she get out of Canada quickly. I mean, she did shoot the guy. Then there was the issue of the police, who were not going to be doing her any favors. She was liable to be arrested on drug-related charges. To say nothing of the husband’s crew who’d be looking for her to collect the money she stole. Due to potential extradition, Glen thought it best not to stop in the US. He suggested Mexico, which was music to Juliette’s ears. She had stolen over $50,000 of hubby’s drug money so she could start a new life in Mexico. 50,000 Canadian dollars probably translated into 135,000,000 pesos. They both thought a change of scenery would be nice. So, she moved to Mexico, fell in with a large church group, and decided it was her duty to help the oppressed. Since the lack of oppressed people wasn’t the issue in Guatemala City, that’s where she set up shop. With the church’s support, she cobbled together this little school in the chaos. 

Oh, yeah. The husband. That was another decision. At that moment, the hubby wasn’t looking sharp and couldn’t clearly articulate his feelings. He let out a groan, which inspired Glen to kick him in the stomach six or seven times. After some lobbying from Juliette, Glen agreed not to kill him. Instead, after applying some finishing touches to hubby’s kneecaps, Glen threw him onto the flatbed of his pickup truck, tied the guy to the truck’s liftgate, and drove to the hospital. Once he arrived at the emergency room entrance, Glen untied the husband from the liftgate, pulled him off the truck, dropped him on the ground, told someone at the admitting desk to scrape the guy off the sidewalk, and went home.  The hubby, whose post-crowbar quality of life couldn’t have been outstanding, died not long after.  

And that was her answer to, “What brought you from there [Edmonton] to here [Guatemala City]?” 

Well, how do you respond to that story? I had no idea what to say. It didn’t matter. Juliette kept on talking. She gave me a thorough update on her post-Canada life. Next was a review of her childhood. She recited all the traumas sequentially. And the poverty. Don’t forget the poverty. It reminded me of the Monty Python sketch, where the guy talks about how poor his family was when he was a child. At eight years old, he had to work at the mill twenty hours a day. His family of twelve could only afford to live in a septic tank. Dinner consisted of a crust of bread and some hot gravel. After dinner, the father beat all the kids to sleep with a broken beer bottle. 

If they were lucky! 

It was clear why Luke and Sara left so fast. Watching death squads in action and street children chased by the police was much more rewarding than listening to Juliette, who had moved on to her extensive list of ailments.  Finally, she ended with a statement that she was in the market for a new husband, as much as the previous one was dead.  

I busied myself helping the kids with their coloring, only to have Juliette tell me each child’s history. I finally asked her to stop with the backstories. The stories were brutal. I couldn’t listen to any more details. 

There was commotion outside. I stepped out to have a look. Sara and Luke were there. We watched five guys beating the hell out of someone who looked to be in his late teens. The kid, whose shirt was soaked with his blood, was thrown into a military-style van and driven away. He would be “disappeared” shortly after that. Gone, tortured, and killed in short order. Simultaneously, a couple of children were being hauled off by the police. 

By this time, the locals’ general mood was relatively poor. No one was looking or acting pleased. The plan was to spend a couple of days at the school. That changed after Juliette, who had stepped out of the building, told us that now, right now, would be a fine time for us to hop back in the jeep, leave Guatemala City, and, if possible, get the hell out of the country. She hugged us for a long time, sobbed, ran inside the building, and locked the door.

So, we got in the Jeep, and we skedaddled.  

The quickest way to get out of the county was to go to El Salvador. I asked if that was the plan. Sara’s reply was, “Not a chance! You think Guatemala’s bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet. El Salvador makes this country look like the Magic Fucking Kingdom.”

So, back to Mexico, we went.

Although, we stopped for the night in a rural village in Guatemala, about 80 miles from the Mexican border.

My faith in humanity, which had left the building, was restored in this village.

—END OF CHAPTER EIGHT—

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* If you’ve ever wondered what a genuinely criminal corporation looks like, then check out the United Fruit Company (AKA, at the moment, Chiquita Brands International). They did it all: crimes against humanity, attempts to overthrow governments, bribery, monopolization, theft, weapons smuggling, extortion, and “employing” slave laborers. Oh, it gets worse. In 2007, they pled guilty to aiding and abetting a Colombian drug trafficking operation that the US Government had identified in 2001 as a terrorist organization.

** I stopped panicking long enough to remember the training on how to deal with these little dilemmas. You’d be amazed at how fast the earth comes at you during uncontrolled vertical dives. I broke my ankle on the landing. You know the whole “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” hoo-ha? Debatable.