Free Trip to Cabo
FICTION ALERT! FICTION ALERT!
The Bonus
“You know I love to come down here. I love this place. I need to come down here. I need to just slow down, let the pace get slower and slower. I’m
just like the other tourists here, the effect kicks in just as I have to go back. So why do we have to go up there to see your uncle Earl? Why now?
You know what it does to me. You know I get very uneasy around the guy. Why can’t we just call them, tell them you got the runs or a cold or we have
to go back early? Why can’t you go by yourself? He hates me. He’d rather you come alone.”
This Place is Mexico. It is late May at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. Up There is a little pueblo on the beach. Up There is
Uncle Earl.
Earl Waddel has lived in Mexico for 15 years. He and his wife Darlene like living close to the shore, like the laid-back, easy going ways of a small
Mexican village.
Elizabeth Dorn adjusted the air conditioning in the little rental car, lit a cigarette.
“Tim, you take him too seriously. He doesn’t hate you, he just likes to pull your chain. Just don’t buy into it. Anyway, we have to go. It’s been
two years. There’s so much I want to talk to Darlene about. If it gets too bad just say you want to walk down to the beach for a swim. We’ll take
our swim suits. It’ll be fine.”
Tim just gripped the steering wheel a little harder, gnashed his teeth, shook his head in resignation. They pulled away from the parking area at the
Cabo Real Hotel in Cabo San Lucas at ten after nine in the morning.
A few rich gringos had found their way to the little village, La Ribera. Their multi-story palaces dwarf and overshadow the few tiny huts of
Mexicans who have yet to sell out. Then there’s Earl. He bought an old Mexican house with a great view of the ocean, fixed it up a little and now
enjoys his rustically comfortable little casa at one tenth the cost and hassle of his gringos ricos neighbors. Liz loves the little house. The patio
lifestyle is the antitheses of the noisy box of an apartment she shares with Tim in Provo, Utah. She adores the tropical look of the house on the
beach; the luxuriant garden of palms, tropical fruit and flower trees spilling into the living area where ferns and hanging plants make a softer kind
of jungle.
As they pulled up to the house Tim said “Remember, let’s make this short.”
Darlene came to the gate, ushered them in with hugs and smiles. The old man just waived over his shoulder from his lounge chair on the seaside
patio. He only got up when the small group came out for another round of greetings. Liz joined Darlene in the kitchen, helped carry the lemonade,
chip and dip back out to the shade of the palapa where the two men would play their conversational equivalent of extreme dodgeball.
“Timmy, Timmy, how you been? Still selling those klunkers up in Brigham Land?”
“Tim, it’s Tim and yes I still sell cars.”
“Whoa son, whoa. Timmy is a comeup not a bringdown. Think of it as a term of endearment, it brings you up to the status of family, a name I might
call a grandchild. Around here almost everybody has a nickname, a sobranombre. I’ve got a couple more of em for you that I don’t use because you
seem to be easily offended. Was somebody mean to you when you were a child? You can tell me. Who am I gonna spill it to around here?”
A small white puppy came trotting out to the patio with a big bone in his mouth.
Earl said “Tino, I was wondering when you were gonna get up. What’s that you got? Come here. Give it to me.”
The old man and the puppy began their game of tug of war with the bone. Tim watched the old man’s face light up, his eyes just slits as he grinned
and giggled.
Tim thought “He’s losin’ it. The old man is definitely gone. Liz is right, he’s just an old fool. What the hell was I so afraid of?”
Without missing a beat in his game with the puppy Earl said “What did you do before you got the car lot job?”
“Stocks, I was a stock broker in Salt Lake City.”
“Timmy, you seem a little spooked. You have my attention, so does Tino here. I’m old but I still have the capacity to enjoy this golden time with
both of you.”
“What’s that bone. What kind of bone is that?”
“It’s not a bone. Looks a little like a bone. It’s valuta, walrus tusk. It had some scrimshaw on it but Tino’s rubbed most of it off.”
Tim took some chip and dip, a drink of his lemonade. “Is that like ivory? Is it expensive?”
“Yes, it’s a kind of ivory. When I got it in Hong Kong it was legal and it was dirt cheap. It holds great value for Tino. He’s gettin' a lot more
pleasure from it than I did.
Tell me something. When you’re hagglin’ with a would-be buyer on a car, when it gets late in the game, when you say Let me go talk to the manager,
see what we can work out, where do you go? Do you ever talk to anybody else or do you just go have a smoke, pour some coffee, go to the can? I’ve
always wondered about that.”
Tim said. “I go talk to the manager. I don’t know what you’ve heard but I go talk to the manager, get the best deal I can for the customer.”
“What about stocks? When the market went south, is that when you left, when nobody had confidence in the market, the system, their brokers? How did
you feel when all your stock customers lost their ass?”
“I felt horrible. Some of those people were my friends. My own family suffered losses. I wasn’t in the market myself, thank God, because I hadn’t
had my license that long, but it hurt, it really hurt. I just didn’t have enough savings to hang on for the turnaround.”
“Turnaround? Turnaround? If you were sellin’ those high flyers for 500 times earnings just how and when did you think they were ever gonna turn
around? If you held a license you know 500 times earnings really means the expectation that the company could hold the same profit every year for 500
years. Unless you can reinvent the calendar there aint gonna be a turnaround. Not the kind you and yours will be happy with.”
Tim put down his glass, began to stand up.
“Sit down, don’t run off, I’m just an old fool. We don’t get that much company and when we do I just run off at the mouth. I’ll stop talking.
Maybe you’ve got some questions for me.”
The younger man sat back down. “I’ve got one. Just what do you do? What the hell do you do with your time? You can’t just sit here all day and
stare out at the ocean. It’s nice, it’s the ocean but after a few minutes, then what? You don’t have any hobbies, you don’t fish or play golf.
There’s nothing to do in this little village that I can see, no movie theaters, no bars, no shopping places except the little tiny stores. What can
possibly be so wonderful about just sitting and doing nothing?”
Two yellow dump trucks came lumbering up the hill, filled the air with fumes and roars, punctuated for a moment, the point-counterpoint.
“Timmy, may I help you a little with your question? Wouldn’t it be a better question if you asked me what occupies my time? The way you put it
sounds like you want to know my exercise schedule, not what fills my lovely days and nights. Your question, in an historical context, What did he do?,
paints the gadfly as a hero, the philosopher as a worthless sluggard. It suggests that busywork becomes the measure of, the absolute sum and substance
of a man to be admired and revered. If I turned it back on you, you would have to answer I try to talk stupid people into paying too much for old
cars.”
“Okay then, what occupies your time?”
“That’s better, Timmy Boy. Where shall I start. First, I guess I would point you to my bodega, that’s Spanish for a place where you keep all your
stuff. In there are hundred of books, old classics and new ones hot off the press that friends and neighbors bring me from the states. Then there’s
my music. I have a library of all kinds of wonderful music from Classical masterpieces to the blues. The TV has 30 channels of every kind of music
one might wish to listen to. We’re on the internet so I can connect myself to the world of cybernews, search the world’s libraries for interesting
information. I can putter in the garden when the weather’s just right. I walk to the beach, splash around some. The puppy goes with me now. He’s
just learning how to swim.
I’ve got that little tin boat there if I feel like some fish but I mostly enjoy walking in the shallows throwing a spoon for pompano, halibut,
ladyfish. More fun than landing a marlin if you get the right fish on real light line.
Somehow I found the time to write a couple of books about this little part of Mexico. I also write articles for newspapers and magazines when they
ask me. I’ve written more than a hundred short stories.”
“Darlene gives me little projects around the house now and then. I’ve got three cars to keep running; have to stay just a little ahead of the rust
where I can.
Then there’s the memories. I could spend 50 hours a day softening the edges of all my misdeeds; rewriting every scene, finding vindication, creating
validation, discorrupting all my evil acts and intentions back to about age 12. I’ve done that enough. Hardly mess with it anymore. I won’t go back
beyond 12.
So, Timmy, my big ass is in this chair but my mind is wandering all over the universe. I imagine you sometimes do the same, just sit and think.
This is a good place to do it, here by the ocean in this quiet little village. You probably do most of your heavy thinkin’ at the car lot, when
there’s no customers around. You probably get deep into it because there must be hundreds of ways to get more money out of those Mormon gomers.”
Earl stopped talking long enough to wave to an old Mexican man walking up the dusty road. They both smiled, the Mexican said two words Tim didn’t
understand.
“Octavio, a friend of mine.”
Tim said. “What does he do?”
“Well, there you go again. Nothin’. He does nothin’, just like me. I thought we just talked about that Timmy!”
Elizabeth and Darlene came onto the front patio chatting and laughing.
Darlene said “I’ve made us a light lunch. Fresh fruit and a nice salad. Earl, you get the drinks. The table is all set up on the back patio.”
Earl put on some light classical music, they all sat down amid the palms and ferns for a lovely lunch.
Earl took a sip of his beer. “Timmy here must be doing alright at the car lot for you two to be able to afford the prices of things in Cabo. They’re
getting $300 or more for rooms in those big hotels along the corridor. I hear a Margarita now might set you back $12 and a friend of mine from
Montana told me they stung him for $90 a day for a little bitty rental car.”
Liz said “Uncle Earl, Stewart Title, where I work, is paying for the whole thing, car and all. We were pushed to do the title work and closing on
four big new tracts in West Jordon. Me and Susan Whitsome, the branch manager, both got bonuses. She went to Hawaii, we came down here so we could
see you.”
Earl piped up. “Well I thank you for that little white lie and I say Good On Ya! Congratulations. How about Timmy? You ever get any bonuses down
at Crazy Al’s?”
“It’s South Provo Auto Sales. And no, I don’t get any bonuses. They don’t give bonuses.”
His wife interjected. “Tim, they do give sales bonuses. Don’t you remember last Christmas they gave us that nice blender?”
Earl was just barely able to keep the beer from coming out of his nose. Instead, he coughed, sputtered and smiled, wiped his face with a napkin,
sprinkled some more lime juice on his mangos. The smile showed right through the chewing.
Tim said. “Well, Darlene, that was a wonderful lunch. If I may, I’d like to get out of these clothes, put on my swim suit, walk down to the beach
for a swim.”
“Sure, you can change in my room. Maybe you can get the old man here to go down with you. He hasn’t been to the beach in over two years. It would
do him good to get some exercise. He mostly just sits on his butt out there on the patio. He used to read some, play around on the computer, do some
gardening but now it’s mostly just sittin’ and starin’.
Earl’s chew-grin wilted like cooked lettuce. He took another sip of beer, stared at Darlene. As he hobbled down to the beach with the puppy pulling
him along by the leash he was breathing so hard it made speech mercifully difficult. He let the puppy splash around with Tim while he did some more
starin’ from his seat on the transom of a small, white fishing boat.
Tim and Tino came out of the water, walked to the boat.
Earl said. “Nice change for you I bet. No beaches in Utah.”
“Yeah, I love the water. You probably wouldn’t like Provo. Nothing much to sit and stare at.”
Earl shot back. “One thing Cabo’s got you might like. It’s got lots of nudie night clubs. Probably not many nudie bars in Provo. Have you been
able to slip away from Liz, get a little looksee, a little slap and tickle at the Cabo flesh pits?”
“No, I’m like Tino here. She keeps me on a short leash.”
“Just as well. Those Cabo nudie bars can take $400 from you, leave you busted and disgusted, drunk and throwin’ up behind the bushes as the sun
comes up. Stewart Title don’t pay for that part anyway.”
Tim showered and got dressed. Time for goodbyes. They all shook and hugged and promised.
Darlene said. “Well, I hope you win some more bonuses so we can see you again real soon. I won a trip myself one time. A cruise, to Hong Kong. It
was exciting, we loved it. Earl spent almost every dime we had on that silly scrimshaw stuff. He was a little crazy back then. Twice he left the
hotel, I had to go find him. He was in the nearest bar pinching the Chinese hoars.”
As the little car found its way back to the highway Liz said. “Well, that wasn’t so bad was it? How’d you do?”
Now Tim with his own big grin. “Better, much better.”
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CaboRon
