Gone in a Flash

2-6-2013

Antigua, Guatemala

18:48



"GGGGGGGGGGGK GGGGGGGGGGGK."

My phone was buzzing on the nightstand. Even though I'd turned it to silent, I could still hear the vibrations through my earplugs. I pulled one out, rolled over and answered the call. 4:28 in the afternoon. *Umf*. I'd slept for three hours in the middle of the day. Delicious.

"Hello?"

"Hey Lito! What are you doing? I thought you were coming over?!" Ale was super pumped.

"Yeah. *Hhem* You guys are building a bunny cage or something?"

"Yeah. I got two bunnies at the market, they're so cute."

"Alright. I'm getting up. Which camioneta do I take?"

"Take the one going to Ciudad Vieja and get out at the parada, tres cuadras past la iglesia on the left."

"Errright. Let me get my pants on... You want me to bring anything?"

"Yeah. Can you bring some cervezas? And some champiñones?"

"Deal."

I shook the sleep out of my face, donned the trousers, jumped in my Chocos and headed for the door. The Chicken Bus Terminal is a quick three minute hop across the street; just past the colony of glue-huffing street zombies. I snatched up my Canon before ducking out. 'I never take enough pictures...' I thought.

I swung by the Bodegona to check off my grocery list. I grabbed a twleve-pack of Brahvas, (the local poor man's beer), a couple of munchies and the last package of mushrooms they had. I noticed the shrinkwrap was torn - something that would have deterred me at any grocery store in the U.S. But then again, this was the first time I'd bought produce inside a piece of plastic since I'd gotten here. Who needs UPC's when you've got the world's freshest fruits for pennies on the dollar. (God, I love the Guatemalan mercado.) So I shrugged it off; happy to have them at all. 

A couple of hot, cramped and bumpy minutes later I deuced out of the metal rattle wagon and met Ale at her front door. She cracked it open and walked me into her beautiful indoor/outdoor Antiguan home. The kind where bedrooms open up to a roofless courtyard instead of carpeted hallways or a teched-out living room. I will have this in my house someday. I started taking mental notes.

I'd missed most of the action. I'd slept entirely too long. Diego was already hard at work, scratching his head conceptualizing the bamboo cage's finishing touch. Billowing yoga pants draped around his bottom half. With one hand picking his scalp and the other wielding a bamboo scrap he and Ale went back and forth as to how to spread the chicken wire.

"Debemos poner la puerta alla."

"Si, pero then we won't be able to open it from the front."

"Ah tal vez we could make a frame for it so the door would last longer?"

"Si MON! Good idea."

"Where're the bunnies?" I chimed in.

"Over there." He pointed to the grass.

"OH MY GOD! You are so CUTE!" It was like a fuzzy grey softball. A squishy puff with ears.

"Wait. Wasn't there another one? Didn't you say bunnIES? Plural?"

"Yeah! But DEY killed the other one!" She pointed at Diego.

"Gwuat?!" Diego retorted.

"You told me dat dey were okay to stay outside at night, and one of dem fell into the baril of water and drowned!"

"Oh, gwow. Come on! It jumped into that barrel. That bunny was stupid."

"Yeah, this one doesn't look too bright, either," I said. "This guy hasn't moved for like twenty minutes."

"Oh, yeah... He might still be high. He ate like a gram of weed the other day."

"Uhhhh... What?"

"And some chocolate."

"Are you seriou--"

"And some cream cheese."

"You guys are the worst pet owners of all time. How did he get into a tub of cream cheese?"

"I donnow mang. He's a hungry bunny. Hehe."

"He doesn't look so good. He's skinny as hell. What's his name?"

"He's got like three names right now."

"Not anymore. I dub thee, Budz Bunny. What's up, Doc?"

I petted the bunny and they went back to their bilingual bartering. He'd point with his wand, and with each accentuated *TAP*, I expected the whole thing to burst into a bitty bunny paradise. It was the pants. He looked like Ali Babba. Mejor, a genie.

This went on for as long as the light would allow. Them pointing - not building. Me, holding the skinny, stoned bunny, coaxing it to sober up. I looked around for something to feed it. "Ah! Here you go, little guy!" I plucked a fresh citrus blossom from the lemon tree. "Mmmmm, smells good, Budz. Want a nibble?" Budz sent it to the shredder and ate another half before returning to his thousand yard stare. "Buen provecho."

The sun dropped fast behind the volcano. It gets dark quick in the valle. Ale and Diego tried to soldier on through the twilight, but it was a losing battle. I offered them my headlamp for support. I checked the usual dedicated pocket. "Damn." It wasn't there. I'd lost it somewhere between the chemicals and card games in Semuc Champey. Instead, we decided to spark our own fire and pass it around, hoping that might shine a light on the best logical solution.

We sat around in a circle, slowly spinning into the smoke. Budz took up center stage, still not showing much motivation to move. Damn, man. Easy on the herb next time. A few minutes passed and Ale placed the furr ball into her front hoodie pocket. "Holy hell, that's cute. I'm taking a picture. So glad I brought my camera. I made sure the flash was on and let one off.

I'm not sure how long it was. It was a minute. It was ten minutes. I can't remember. I was high. But all of a sudden, Ale started freaking out.

"What are you doing?! Oh no no no no nooooooo!" She reached for her pocket and pulled the little guy out.

I couldn't tell what the hell was going on. Budz was freaking out. His head jerked back in a violent arch. His feet thumped uncontrollably. He looked possessed... Like he was... Oh shit. He was having a seizure. We tried to calm him down, but it wasn't working. Ale and Diego bolted out the door to find the neighborhood doctor. I wasn't sure what kind of bunny CPR they teach in Guatemalan medical school, but Ale looked pretty distraught. So I wished them the best of luck.


Left to my own devices I started to replay the evening in my head. There was no doubt that this rodent was doomed eventually (his brother was dumb enough to jump up into a barrel of water to drown. Budz was dumb enough to eat a whole nug of dope. Chances were, these genes weren't going to be stretching to far into the future. Nonetheless, somewhere in the cracks of my brain was a voice telling me citrus blossoms might be poisonous to animals. Whatever was happening, this animal was in bad shape. 

I flashed back to ten years old. I'm standing in front of the fossilized remains of a chicken-sized dinosaur at The Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque, NM. The sideview of the skeleton shows the final "resting" position of the bite-sized reptile. It's long neck is cocked back in an inverted question mark. The head is parallel with the tail and the interpretive plaque below the specimen reads, "This whatever-a-saur lived during the something-acious period. Palentologists know the cause of death of this creature as this extreme body position is congruent even to this day with the ingestion of a toxic substance." Shit.

I started to feel worse and worse the more the dots started to line up. However, not wanting to accept full responsibility without consulting the interweb, I took Ale's absence as an opportunity to jump on the computer to investigate my lurking suspicion.

A couple of quick searches delivered the following information:

Lemons:

Scientific Name: Citrus limonia
Family: Rutaceae

Toxic to:

Dogs
Cats
Horses

(No mention of rabbits. But they're all mammals and I know for a fact that horses are fairly closely related to rodentia.)

I checked on other citrus fruits.

Limes: Exact same information
Oranges: Ditto
Grapefruit: Ditto

Let's see... I didn't notice any vomit... Depression? Mehhhh... I think just stoned. Photosensitivity? You've gotta to be kidding me. Does that mean that after all of the horrible things this bunny wabbit ate that the one nice treat I tried to give it ended up being poisonous? Unbelievable.

I hear the door creak open as I'm stringing the dots together. Diego sneaks through the dark entrance and Ale trails close behind. I close the computer and tell them what's been going through my head, summarizing but getting the point across.

"...So basically, I think Budz was already pretty sick. He was skinny as hell and he couldn't have been healthy from eating all that human food and weed and stuff - he didn't look good. In addition, I did some research and it looks like the flower I fed him might have been slightly toxic. Some of the symptoms being depression and photo sensitivity. Now, I'm not sure about this but I think that with all those things in place that the blossom might have just been the icing on the cake. And... I think the flash from my camera might have been the candle topping it all off. In short, I think taking a picture of your bunny threw him into an epileptic seizure..."

"Well, we've got some bad news. Budz is dead." She extended the limp body out in her arms.

"Oh man... I'm really sorry, Ale..."

"I guess I wasn't meant to have bunnies after all." I couldn't entirely argue with her. OH for TWO is a pretty bad track record for three days of pet parenthood. I looked over to the ramshackle pile of bamboo sticks. 'Looks like we won't be needing that anymore...' I thought. 

The night passed on. We made delicious coconut curry and tried to keep Ale's mind off the fact that we'd murderized her precious bunny rabbits. Once or twice, I whipped out my camera and flipped to the picture of Budz, his black eyes sticking out of the sweater pocket. Big ol' nocturnal eyes - dilated from the drugs and perfectly evolved to soak up every bit of evening light. It was the perfect storm.

They say it's better to go out with a bang. Maybe that's how this crazy domino universe started in the first place. But this little guy's world went out in a flash.

*POOF*

Just like that.

No crash. No boom. No bang. Just one beep; the autofocus sound right before sending Budz headfirst into the bright beyond.

I'd like to say it was a great photo. That it honored the life of a cute furry little creature. But it was actually pretty crappy. There was nothing cute about it. Just a tiny head with two bright blotches of reflective retinas. I'd post the picture here, but I got too drunk on my birthday and left my camera on the bar. (My reverse present to the world, I guess.) So somewhere floating around the gutters of Antigua (or the happy new home of some Guatemalan locals) squeezed in between aerial shots of local fare, beautiful landscapes and my drunken face is a picture of one sick and literally dying bunny rabbit. Sorry, Budz. Enjoy the big carrot in the sky.

Cafe No Se - Promotional Travel Writing

So I have been doing lots of writing, but not a lot of posting. This little bit was originally me just describing this really cool bar called Cafe No Se (Cafe I Don't Know) in Antigua. The funny thing is that the owner of the bar runs a local magazine as well and asked me to transform it into a promotional piece for the bar. It's a pretty chemical induced spray of words. Most of the writing was done between swigs of the burning and the bubbles. Therefore, it's pretty good. Hope you enjoy.

You Don't Se?

Well you certainly should.

Cafe No Se. It's the first Antiguan bar you could hope to stumble into and the last one you'll want to stagger out of. Tuck yourself into this hole in the wall, fill up on some free popcorn and soak in the live music jammin' every single night.

Pushing this creaky door aside sinks you straight into what I like to call “The Real Deal.” You took the red pill, hombre. If what you're looking for is the back alley cultural melting pot, then this is it. No Se is the real deal; like the bastard child of a Wild West saloon and an old pirate hideout. It's dark. It's dingy. And it's exactly where I want to be.

Simmer down, saddle up and step on in. You won't have to search for the blasphemy here. It'll bite you in the face. It's the kind of stuff you couldn't buy in Vegas and can't burn off once you've gone. It's hanging on the walls, it's etched on the tables, and it's served hot on a plate: Grilled Cheesus sandwiches. Only Q15... Or your eternal soul. Either way, it's pocket change.

Bow under the halfling door and you're on sacred soil, now. Welcome to The Mezcal Bar. Time to pay the piper. But only the penitent man will pass. So drop your elbows to the bar and PRAY, brother! Grab an Oferta for Q44 and Randy will swing you a Vicky and a shot of the Joven. A quick glance at the sign: “Two Shot Minimum” and you reevaluate. Better make it two.

Mezcal. Some call it the Mexican Scotch. I call it delicious. “Illegal” brand Mezcal is served from what appear to be funny looking shot glasses. But a second nip, a double take down the barrel and the joke is out. There's a cross on the bottom. On all of them. They're sacramental candle holders. Add this to the photos of lusty nudes humping crucifixes and it's the kind of sacrilegious irony I could only dream of in Catholic school. Will this be the bite-sized evil that keeps me out of Heaven... Or am I already there? I still have half a shot left. So I take another swig to find out. Waste not. And oh yeah - Amen.

Take a look around. There are some real characters here. It's is the kind of place you'd hope to see Tom Waits growl or Kerouac scribbling away. Sometimes I scan the flame-lit faces, just to check. If you get the chance, buy one of the regulars a drink. I chose Pete. He's a part-time wordsmith, full-time Mezcal worshiper. Fill his glass and he'll fill your head. Stories, sonnets, shamanic songs; he knows them all. Make sure to check out his latest literary work, available in the sober hours at the adjoining bookstore.

But he's not alone. Drinking here are intense personalities from all over the world. The cream of the grime. And they're not all pretty. Most of them are dreamers, and a few of them are real assholes. This isn't Applebee's. And no, we don't all have to get along. This is the black sheep herd, and they're chewing up the moonlight.

But there's no reason to get your panties in a bunch. There's no need to wear panties at all. No Se is a place for everyone. Where anyone can show up, drink, and say exactly what they feel. Even the walls speak their mind. Ask them and they'll dish out their favorite one-line philosophy. There's plenty of fading Sharpie to write the book, but one quote says it all. And it's enough to throw you tits first into their boiling brains.

"Today is not for thinking."

I can drink to that.

In this bar, your sins are never forgiven, they're only forgotten. Until the next nearest moment of clarity, that is. Old dreams wither and new ones are drunk away. It's Cafe No Se. It's the bottom of the barrel. It's the end of the road. It all drops off from here. But that's all right. It's okay. Because every good dive needs a town.