My Visit with Andres

My Visit with Andres

                The drive from Houston to McAllen was only supposed to take about six hours, but it ended up taking me eight or nine.  As I progressed towards the lower part of the state, the highway designations became more confusing, and it appeared that my directions were wrong.  Before that, even, my low fuel emergency light had gone on during a particularly desolate stretch of highway and I prayed for about a half hour that I would not be stranded on the side of the road.  This was the closest I ever came but luckily a gas station came up after a very long time, and I thanked my lucky stars.  The rest of the night was treacherous though, and I had to keep calling Andres to get more detailed directions, which ended up just being confusing to me in the car.  But I made it alright, finally going over a crazy bump when I wasn’t too far away from his apartment, making me think I had damaged my car in some way.

                Andres had been working at a newspaper down in McAllen.  He had recently accepted a job in Mexico City, where he would be moving with his girlfriend in a few weeks.  I was lucky because he had no plans for the stretch of three or four days that I planned to stay with him, and there was very little to do in McAllen.  I spent most of the time arguing with Andres about how unfair he was being not to allow me to smoke pot in his apartment.  He was moving out and he was paranoid, totally unjustifiably, that the smell would linger and that it would affect his security deposit and potentially get him in trouble.  I assured him countless times that this would not happen and he was absolutely unrelenting.  The first night, I got in very late, and we decided to walk to a nearby bar and have a couple drinks.  That was a pretty good time—I even met one of his local friends who was a really big New Order and Smiths fan.  Then we went back to his apartment and I begged him some more to let me smoke, and he finally allowed me to do it outside, though he was nervous as hell because two of his neighbors were policemen. 

                The next day we drove down to the Mexican border at Rio Grande and I brought a Frisbee with me.  It was extremely hot.  Andres pointed out a drug runner across the river, and an unmarked FBI vehicle that was watching their movements.  I did not find this as fascinating as him, maybe because I wanted the drugs myself.  Later on he took me to a restaurant that specialized in Chicago food and that was very heartwarming, to be able to have an Italian beef in the southeast corner of Texas.

                We did have some good times though.  We went to a Radioshack and I bought an iPod boombox for about $130 because it was the loudest one they had.  We picked up some beers.  We went back to his apartment complex and invited his friend from the newspaper (whose name I can’t remember so I’ll call him) John, who lived in the same complex, to join us, and we had some beers by the pool, and listened to the iPod boombox and one of his neighbors complained and told us we weren’t supposed to have glass by the pool.  I begged John to let me smoke in his apartment and he told me he couldn’t help me out.  Andres kept telling me that his friend James would smoke with me, as he was a stoner, but he was out of town and would be back the next day. 

                We didn’t do much else.  We rented The Lives of Others, and I fell asleep though not before reflecting that it was similar to the conceit of my first novel, minus the totalitarianism.  The next day we went to the supermarket and bought ingredients for a dinner we would collaborate on, and that was much fun.  Later on in the evening when Andres was on the phone with his girlfriend I snuck into his bathroom and smoked a bowl thinking he wouldn’t notice, and he did.  He was angry, but once it was over it was kind of a wash for him.  I apologized profusely but was feeling very good.  It removed the anxiety that had been present before.

                James came back the next day and I smoked with him in his apartment while Andres hung out with us.  We listened to the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa.  We really didn’t do much else in McAllen.  We went swimming a couple times in the pool.  One night we watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which Andres had on DVD, and that was very funny. 

                The last day, Andres had been invited to an authentic Mexican lunch, cooked by one of his other co-workers grandmothers, and John and James were present.  The lunch was very delectable, and I was headed to Austin afterwards.  Andres had let me know shortly after arriving that I would have to pass through Falfurrias, which contained a United States Border Patrol checkpoint, including drug-sniffing dogs.  Andres had put it into my head that, no matter how deeply I could pack the weed into my trunk, inside a Cubs metal canister, inside a duffle bag, buried under clothes and towels, packed in the back in front of many other items, the dogs would still catch a whiff of it, react, and I would be stopped and arrested.  He told me I should just flush my weed down the toilet.  Otherwise I would be going to jail.  I protested that I would refuse to toss the weed because I had to take it with me to California.  I told James and John at the lunch about how scared I was about passing through Falfurrias and they gave me sympathy.  I told them that I was walking into a death trap.

                I left Andres, and he wished me well, and I him, and began my drive back north towards Austin.  I put on the Dismemberment Plan album Change and nervously awaited the signs for Falfurrias.  I was finally upon it when the song “Time Bomb” came on, and I felt like I might be at the end of my rope.  I slowed down as I came to the checkpoint, looked at the officer there, stopped my vehicle, and he looked at me as if to say, “What?” and I said, “Oh I just thought I was supposed to stop.”  He said, “No, you’re good to go,” and I said, “Thanks!” And I put on the Sleater-Kinney album Call the Doctor and blasted the song “Anonymous” and felt happier than I had in a week.  I saw a group of Mexicans carrying knapsacks on their back trying to get a ride, coming out from behind the grass, and I did not stop—there wasn’t room anyways!  I was headed towards Austin where I would stay with Jaime.  This moment itself might have been my happiest for the years 2007 and 2008.