By
JOHN SCHERBER
COMING TO AMERICA
Until my last trip,
I had never seen a sixty-mile long strip mall, but then I hadn’t visited the
States for five years and you never know what improvements might have been put
in place. Coming in through security in Houston, I was groped more than what I
imagine goes on in the average New Orleans gay bar after midnight. I suppose
this is the new touchy-feely policy of the TSA. Give security a more human
face.
My destination
was a chain of island cities off Pensacola. I discovered it’s a hopping area,
although few of the people are under seventy, and if you revert to a gentler,
more Mexican-style pace as you drive, you’re likely to get a little friendly nudge
on your rear bumper.
I was traveling
along what appeared to be a long white sand barrier island edging the Florida
panhandle. The white sand peeks through here and there in small, protected
zones, and all the rest is ruthlessly paved over. Highway 98 is the corridor
that goes on and on, through Mary Esther, Destin, Fort Walton Beach, and
others. Aside from the charmingly antique character of parts of Mary Esther,
thee towns seem indistinguishable. And don’t ask, like I did, about her sister
Polly. They’ve heard that one before and you get glared at.
After living in
México for eight years I had gotten used to a much different lifestyle. One
with local organic markets, one that often means traveling on foot, one with
admittedly less shopping. Sometimes you have to dig a bit for your size jeans,
and your breed of vacuum cleaner filters can be elusive, even at the place that
sold you the vacuum.
One solution is
the shopping trip to the north. I was really there for a wedding, but the shopping
took up most of my time after the airline lost my luggage coming in. As far as
anyone could tell me, it had arrived safely in Raleigh, North Carolina and only
a day late. Thank God my rental car had a GPS to guide me to the stores,
because I felt much like Ma and Pa Kettle, the yokels who came to town with
catastrophic results in a series of about ten films in the forties and fifties.
Some things I
did know. Driving is different in the States. For example, stop signs do matter.
You may not drive the wrong way on a one-way street. Speed limits are not a
tasteless joke. There is no free style driving there, such as we enjoy so much
in México, where it can be a source of both creative fulfillment and raucous
humor in an otherwise overworked life.
I found I had
to focus on traffic lights to see them. We don’t have any at home. In México
you tend to look down as you drive, not up, just to watch for the pavement to
disappear with no warning. I had to remember to stop at stop signs. In San
Miguel they’re conceptual. Of course they exist, but the general view is that
they’re there to show you what one would look like if one were there. You’d
never stop for it unless failing to stop would result in an accident. I guess
in that respect, they work pretty well. In eight years I’ve never had an
accident, and I’ve stopped for one about six times altogether.
Three days into
the visit, I was still waiting for my luggage and starting to avoid close
contact with people because of my smell. Even bathing often doesn’t work that
well if you climb back into the same clothes that you earlier stood in the
corner. I was starting to dread the wedding.
I had forgotten
how enormous the stores are. Mixed with all the discount outlets are numerous
walled shopping cities for the working poor, called Targets. In places like
that in México you would find entire families living quite contentedly under
the counters. Every now and then someone would reach up and pluck a shirt off
the stack, or a pair of knee socks. No one would know.
In the States they
attempt to teach children English from an early age and many adults know and
use it too, although manners are quickly forgotten. Few youngsters around the
age of ten appear to have full time jobs. You have to wonder what they do all
day. I fear it gives them the wrong idea about how easy life is. I had to
remind myself not to keep complimenting people on how good their English was
when I observed that many responded with a sour look. Maybe it was only my own
way of patting myself on the back for how well I remembered it.
My luggage
arrived just in time for the wedding. I repacked all the clothes I had bought
in the same bags with the appropriate receipts. Fortunately I had kept the
addresses of all the stores so I could find my way back to return my purchases.
The wedding was
a joyous affair on the beach in a forty-mile-an-hour gale coming off the Gulf.
The women’s hair all shot out in a straight line to the landward side of their
heads. Because most seemed to be bowing and bent over nearly double, at first I
thought they were all humbled by the honor of being invited. Then I realized
they were merely trying to keep their skirts down around their legs. Even with
preoccupations like these, many had a jolly good time, judging from how
disheveled everyone was on leaving.
The next day I
was not sorry to leave myself, although on arrival in Houston, I ran into a
rainstorm that dropped ten inches on the city in five hours. Naturally all
planes were grounded, even the ones they couldn’t find. Yet, in a touching
awareness of symmetry and its uses, on the following day my recently recovered luggage
went to Querétaro while I went to León.
At home I spent
some time on the customer service line trying to straighten this out. The
representative closed by saying to me, “Thanks for flying the friendly skies.”
“And may the
farce be with you,” I replied.
I climbed the
stairs to my second floor terrace feeling like I needed a vacation.
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