Osprey - 6-20-2007 at 07:08 PM
Crystal Summer
Part One
Jacqui
I keep track of the seasons by watching television. Down here in the tropics the seasons blur into each other making calendars useless. I think
Jacqui showed up in late May or early June. I was in the bathroom. I heard the dogs whining and then a voice.
“Hello. Anybody home? Hello. I just want to use your phone. ?Tiene telephono¿ Is there a phone in this P-nche town? One phone? Well, hello,
what’s your name?” I heard her sweet-talking the dogs. She was all the way up to the patio when I came out wrapped in a towel, dripping wet.
She was here, in the house, until August sometime. I can’t tell you the exact day because she kinda came and went a lot. She was, is, unique. I’ll
tell you about her.
Jacqui Cotton. She told me that was her name but I really doubt it. After a couple of days I began to think of her as a photon. A photon is a
sub-atomic particle that does not exist unless it is in motion. Jacqui fought inactivity as though she lived in a move or die world. My life here,
this house, this little village is like a wax museum. Nothing moves about much. Especially in the summer time. So I was surprised she stayed here
for more than a few days.
Such extreme energy has a price. When sleep overtook her she was usually exhausted, collapsed more than reclined. Sometimes the pent up power
coursing through her small frame would almost hum – I would awaken not knowing why until I felt the terrible throbbing; a dynamo, an engine grudgingly
at idle touching my back.
About five foot nothing, she wore her auburn hair short, paid little attention to it. She didn’t shave her underarms or her legs. She had two small
tattoos – a small green fish on the small of her back and a rose on her ankle. For all that Euro trash wild-child look, I was surprised she wore no
body jewelry. In fact she wore no jewelry that I ever saw and although she made a big deal about the little bracelet I got her at the local art fair,
I never saw her wear it after that day. She was thin through the waist but a little hefty at the hips and thighs. Her posture seemed almost
unnatural – she stood so perfectly erect and stiff at the back that it gave her a c-cky look. Her breasts were firm and natural. She must have been
proud of her overall physique because she loved to go about without a stitch of clothes. My yard is like a jungle but the little house is on a major
dirt street, well traveled by all the village and at times I suppose one could get a glimpse of a naked torso through one window and perhaps the
kitchen door. I was forever throwing my shirt, towels, etc. at her, asking her to kindly cover up lest she offend the Mexicans or their children with
her nudity.
It didn’t take me long to find out that having sex, for her, was not something she wished to do, it was something she had to do, at times felt
obligated to do. That’s how it went when she was sober and straight – when she was high or drunk she let herself go a little and actually got
involved, enjoyed it a little. Enrique kept me in weed and a big liquor store in San Lucas kept me in rum. Jacqui loved mangos and bananas and when
the mangos began to ripen in late June we had sweet, potent daiquiris by the bucketful. She loved to cook and we both got skin rashes from too much
mango resin from the booze and food. I never learned where she got her tropical cooking skills. She said she had been raised, went to high school,
in Seattle.
She used my computer to contact her friends and family but their replies were short, didn’t clutter up my space. She got a couple of long letters
about her daughter, Hunter, who was living in Vancouver with Jacqui’s mother.
Over all Jacqui was fairly low-maintenance, as they say, didn’t make a hard footprint on me or my place. She smoked a little of my dope but from
time to time brought home a trunk-load of groceries in her little Honda. When she wasn’t out in my kayak, swimming or running on the beach she
cleaned and puttered around the house. She didn’t rag me about all the ugly around the place; I haven’t been much into cleaning since Patty left in
2004.
Jacqui only went fishing with me once. She was good in the boat, loved being out on the water, seemed at ease and unafraid. I was surprised she was
so squeamish about dealing with killing fish. When I clubbed a nice dorado and two tuna she caught on that trip she got a little freaky and withdrawn
– stayed that way for two days. She loved to eat fish. We must have had fish twenty different ways. The poached fish put me off a little but she
really knew her stuff and never overcooked a filet no matter how it was prepared.
She was well-traveled, well-read but for all her gadabout, woman of the world persona she was not a people person. She lacked communication skills
because she lacked the self esteem one might want to have handy when one bonds through the wonderful tool of language. Jacqui was blown away when I
showed her my novels, when she learned that anyone with $5,000 or so in the bank could become a published author. Her face lit up with a score of
ideas when I laid out the process I followed in publishing seven books. To be polite she tried to read one or two of my 19th century crime tales but
after three or four pages she always found something that she had to attend to, something she forgot to do. While she was with me she tried to jot
down some free verse poems. She had no talent for it – they were mystical nonsense, rambling without form or purpose.
She didn’t laugh much; not nearly as much or as often as I do. She only cried twice that I know about; once while reading a letter about her
daughter, the other time in the middle of a television commercial for cookies.
I think she really needed the time she spent here with me in Mexico. I won’t say it was a healing place for her but I always had the feeling that a
whole lot of her life had been spent in a place where you feel like you’re always on your hands and knees. She looked content to be here and still be
in her own space. I can still see her standing at the kitchen counter, hairy red legs and all, proud, unabashed in her nudity, shoulders back, hands
and eyes coordinating a tasty salsa, chutney or roux.
She was not what I’d call moody or broody but she did slip into a funk twice. When it rained. I’m an old desert rat so a good gulley washer is
cause for celebration where I come from so when I couldn’t pull her out of it I drove down to Rancho Leonero and had a hell of a time at the bar. The
second rain brought on the same condition and when I came back from the bar in Santiago she was gone.
She didn’t take any of my stuff, didn’t leave anything of hers – except for the cleaning you couldn’t tell she’d been here. The dogs and I moped
around for a few days. I will try to sum up her visit for you. We got along. We had some things in common. Mostly I think that we were both so
self absorbed that we didn’t spend much time measuring, judging, evaluating each other against some irrational standard. I guess if acceptance is not
love, it is real close to the next best thing. Just at a time I was about to try to reach her on the internet Harold Kinsey showed up.
amir - 6-20-2007 at 07:32 PM
OK, I'm ready for Part Two.
Marie-Rose - 6-20-2007 at 08:42 PM
Fabulous character sketch!!! Oh... just saw part two posted!!!!