Always a good selection of crutches at the Salvation Army thrift store. Wood and aluminum. Christian music promotes personal responsibily and postive thinking. Wildfire prayer request.
Every day down here is the longest day of the year. Rhyme.
I order a mysterious lunch from someone who doesnt speak English by pointing at a handwritten menu not in English and trading nods and she serves it in a styrofoam box and the corn tortillas and rice are delicious and I apparently ordered a type of beef stew with potatoes. There is no air conditioning and a woman with gold teeth sets a fan near me and aims it at my face. I say gracias and she flashes the valuable smile. I drink a tall coke in a sweaty glass bottle and even the bottle does not speak English.
A television televises the news from a station across the border. Dogs. The anchor folds his arms and looks pissed. Something about dogs. Lots of dogs.
I drink constantly down here, second-most southernmost, and you have to because the heat is deadly and that is not a joke. Surface of the sun on earth. Death. Medio litro.
The across-the-river weather lady is dressed to party. Cockroach on the wall. My food is gone. Temperatures in Celsius.
Downtown streets, presidents and alphabet. A store rents tires. A sign for a boozeria with “coldest cans in town” written in a hand-drawn icy font, frost on top. I am melting.
Bone-bleaching heat, but art on bleached bones. An old woman’s painted face, charcoal eyebrows.
“How many grandaughters do you have?”
“Almost a baseball team.”
Driving. Neighborhoods. A fuchsia house with lime trim. Why not. Homeowners associations crush individuality and self-expression.
Loose bricks and rubble and broken stone. Murals. Tin can recycling but aluminum.
A dog with lots of ribs is roped to a truck with the doors open, tiny barks and tiny barks and I fold my arms angry in the heat so hot so heat so hot.
~O~
Posted at 10:59am and tagged with: writing, lit, one column,.
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