Becoming a Writer

Becoming a Writer

I went back to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to work and save my money,
planning to return and spend an entire year in San Miguel to
write and begin to “live.” Everyone said, “Write about what you
know.” But at eighteen what did I know? Nothing! I intended to
change that….

The plane ride home was a relief, my hangover was nearly gone, but it didn’t feel like coming home, it felt like I was goingaway. Not even the lights of Miami and Miami Beach, seen from
hundreds of feet up, could cheer me.

I lay in my own bed that night awake, and thinking. I had experienced something new,something foreign. There had been a different feel to the place I had gone, That San Miguel de Allende. I had nothing in common with the people that I had met, nothing. Yet I was drawn to them
and them to me. It was a mystery that was to draw me back. Back
to Mexico.

Overland Trip

Back in Florida I bought a car in order to drive to Mexico, and
have transportation while there. It was a 1955 Oldsmobile, a red
convertible with a white top. It was six years old when I bought
it in late 1961, and in good shape except for the top and the
paint. I had it repainted a beautiful, fire engine red and with a
new, brilliantly white vinyl top prepared to return to Mexico with
$2,000, a small fortune to me then, to last, I hoped, for at
least a year.

My first night on the rode I spent on a side street in
Tallahassee Florida, having driven all day. A drive through
Florida, like Texas, is not a trip but a career. It was chilly
sleeping in the car, but I had a blanket and made myself
comfortable in the back seat and dozed off.

About four in the morning my chattering teeth woke me up. It was
freezing! I climbed into the front seat and cranked up the car
and started the heater. The radio DJ told me it was 4:00 A.M. and
22 degrees in the capital city which did nothing for my shivers.
I hadn’t felt 22 degrees for at least six years when my mother
and I had moved from Pittsburgh to South Florida.

The heater was not making a dent in the freezing temperature in
the car and I pulled away from the parking space on the quiet
residential street that I had found and with my hands deep in the
sleeves of my only sweater steered the car toward the already
famous Route 66.

It wasn’t until a weak winter sun came up, and I was deep into
Alabama that I started to feel warm again. The highway was two
lane, the Interstate Highway Program had not gotten started yet,
and it was full of logging trucks. Lumbering along.

I drove all day enjoying my new freedom, not knowing what was
around the next bend in the road, and unconcerned about it.
Whatever came would be new and different, of that I was sure, and
I relished the adventure ahead.
I arrived in San Miguel without incident after the long drive
from South Florida, alone and eighteen. I thought nothing of it.
I drove into town with the top down and the toneau cover on,
straight to the store, the Nueva Alfonsina where Roselia worked.
It was a joyful reunion and I set off with instructions to find
myself an apartment. I found one with a parking area at the end
of Jesus Street, and was at once approached by a one-legged guy
on a homemade crutch offering to wash and wax the car. I accepted
at once being too tired to do it myself, and foolishly allowed
him to move the car one-block up the street to the shady park
(Parque Juarez). That was the last I saw of him until I was
summoned to the police station.

The police station was in City Hall right in the heart of
downtown San Miguel. In those days there probably weren’t more
than 20,000 people in the entire district. A crowd had gathered
to stare. At first I couldn’t figure out why, but I soon realized
that they were staring at my car. It was a beauty, but I wasn’t
used to the kind of attention it was getting. In South Florida it
was just and old car with a new paint job.

I was charged with allowing a cripple to drive my car without a license. The fine was $16, and had to be paid to let the crippled guy out of jail. I tried to convince the Presidente to leave him there, but the car was also under arrest. I had to pay the fine, and I drove home with my newly waxed car gleaming. Welcome to
Mexico….