But as much as I like SMA now, I sometimes find myself missing the
days when it seemed like most anything could and would happen.
Even then there was a staid community of gringos living up on Balcones
going from cocktail party to cocktail party. Things were different
downtown. Things were less predictable.
McGinty and Fast Eddy
McGinty was in his 60’s when I met him. He
had been to Harvard but it didn’t show much. He was
a good storyteller and although we got off to a bad start my own
ability to tell a story led somehow to our becoming friends
of a sorts. “Brief, funny and quick to the point,”
he observed the first time I recounted a tale sitting at the large
round table in the piano room at La Fragua. Once I mentioned
at that same table that I hadn’t sold a picture in a while
and might be leaving town. McGinty heard me, reached in his
pocket, and shoved an inch thick wad of bills in front of me, “Don’t
go,” he said, “We could use a good artists like yourself
in town.” I was pretty sure he had never seen my work.
I pushed the pile back in front of him, thanked him, and said I’d
come see him when I hit rock bottom.
McGinty had been letting a young Mexican woman of about 25 and her
girlfriend stay with him. Her name was Irma. Things
went bad and McGinty accused Irma and her girlfriend of stealing
from him. He said a lot of other unkind things about her.
Not long after Irma left McGinty’s house, she took up with
Fast Eddy. Fast Eddy was one of nine brothers who grew up
in Revere, Massachusetts. Revere was a hard town, and I imagine
it still is. One of Eddy’s brothers also lived in San
Miguel. His name was Bo and he was one of the nicest and gentlest
men I have ever known. He told me one evening while we were
talking families that he had a brother in prison for manslaughter.
“He got over enthusiastic in a bar fight,” Bo explained.
I asked Bo what Fast Eddy was like, as I hadn’t yet got to
know him that well. “Well, Eddy is about 70 now,”
Bow said. “He’s mellowed out some.”
Bo at the time was a tough, solid, 60.
 Fast
Eddy and Irma would take walks around the Jardin in the evenings.
Eddy said Irma was a fine young woman in need of a little voice
training to polish up what he called “a fine singing voice
with potential.”
McGinty had a different idea about Irma’s character and when
he would spot Fast Eddy on their walks he would yell out terrible
insults about them. Eddy would just ignore McGinty.
I guessed Bo was right about Eddy turning mellow.
One day, walking through the Jardin a friend stopped me and said,
“You gotta go over to La Fragua, some old man just gave McGinty
a bloody nose.”
Sure enough, I found McGinty standing in the front room of La Fragua,
blood all over his t-shirt. For some reason, spotting me, he mumbled
from behind his hand that was attempting to stem the flow of blood.
“I didn’t do nothin’.” I remember
thinking this was a strange, a double negative coming out of the
mouth of a Harvard graduate.
This, according to witnesses, is what happened. That evening
McGinty had been particularly vicious in his criticism of Irma’s
character. Fast Eddy had shown up an hour or two into Happy
Hour, tapped McGinty on the shoulder, and clocked him one square
on the nose. McGinty, eyes watering and nose bleeding, cried
foul, and claimed he hadn’t been ready. Fast Eddy immediately
challenged him to step outside and headed for the door. The
evening had turned chilly and the big main door was closed leaving
only the smaller door, part of the big one, open. When going
through the small door you had to step over the framework of the
larger door, which stuck up about six inches.
Fast Eddy apparently went outside and waited just out of sight,
beside the small door. When McGinty lifted his foot to step
over the big door’s frame Fast Eddy hit him right on the nose
again.
“Bastard,” yelled McGinty going down, “You did
it again.”
“That’s the way we do it where I come from ya Harvard
fuck!” yelled Fast Eddy. Then he went home to bed.
He was, after all, over 70, and old guys like to go to bed early.
Zayin
Zayin had been asked to ride her horse, with a lit birthday
cake in hand, to the back of Casa Mexas, a popular sports bar and
restaurant in San Miguel. It was a deep restaurant and Zayin
had to walk her horse between the rows of tables all the way to
the back where the owner Mark ran the cash box. She had to
do this while balancing the birthday cake and singing happy birthday
to Mark. She pulled it off without the horse even brushing
a table or her losing the cake. Mark came around the counter
with a big smile and accepted the cake just as the horse let loose
a dump even bigger than Mark’s smile. Not missing a
beat Mark plucked a couple of the still burning candles from the
cake, stuck them in the pile of horse dung, and got a tourist to
take a picture of him blowing them out. A solitary man sitting
at the nearest table with a blank expression and his soupspoon suspended
half way to his mouth, commented, “This is a hell of a town,”
and went back to his Sopa Azteca.
Zayin lived out on a ranch with her horses a couple miles out of
town. She would ride this pretty gray stallion with pale tail
and main and had a tendency to dance. She had a lot of bright
red hair that she would tuck into the band of her black Spanish
hat. She wore a big Mexican skirt and the horse’s tack
had sleigh bells connected to the reigns. She usually had a sack
of flowers from the market slung on her shoulder. She asked
me once if I though she looked too conspicuous.
She was conspicuous enough to attract the attention of Louise, a
horse trainer in town between jobs training horses in Texas.
He took off at a run and jumped up on the back of that horse just
like in the movies, wrapped his arms around her and said giddy up,
or something like that. They had a fine time until Louise
got another job in Texas and they had to say a sweet goodbye.
Rerun
I was on the border with a three-hour wait in Laredo for
my bus connection to San Miguel. The temperature was about
120 degrees. There was a small bar, one of those bars with
no windows, just an air conditioner sticking out of the wall.
I just wanted a cold beer. I went in and once my eyes adjusted
to the dark, took a seat at the bar. The bartender and I had
the place to ourselves. He didn’t talk much.
Halfway through my beer a big nice looking guy came in carrying
a guitar case. He had a Texas accent and was wearing a Johnny Cash
outfit. No hat.
I liked him right away. I don’t remember what we talked
about but we used up a good portion of my three-hour wait.
Finally he got to it and told me he had his bag stolen in the bus
station and needed to get to Puerto Vallarta for a gig. I
lied and told him I had just enough money to get back to San Miguel,
so not to hurt his feelings. He knew I was lying. We
shook hands and said good-bye.
On the bus ride back to San Miguel I thought, if I was right about
him, that it must be depressing hustling money in grubby border
bars from well meaning and confused tourists heading to Mexico on
the cheap. I also thought about what a nice guy he seemed.
I don’t remember how much time had passed when the same guy
found his way to my rear of the courtyard 2nd floor studio.
I was painting and I stopped a moment to hear what he had to say.
He told me he had his bag stolen in the bus station and needed money
to get to Puerto Vallarta for a gig.
I told him that he had told me the same story in Laredo. He
recognized me and immediately said, “Oh shit,” and left
my studio.
I had been stolen from on occasion and it has always made me mad.
I can’t say I particularly like hustlers, although sometimes
I have admired their technique. Just the same I was sorry to see
him go. Also, I was glad to see, like me, he was just passing
through Laredo.
 Perhaps
it is unfair to think the town is not the place anymore of adventures
such as these, characters like McGinty, Fast Eddy and Zayin, who,
by the way, can be found on occasion having a snack and beer at
Bar Berlin, and still has a bunch of horses, although it has been
a while since she rode a horse into a bar.
Then again, maybe I just don’t get out enough these days.
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