[67—Cieba]

Not all of us went to town, but all the fun ones did—except for July.

Camaraderie was made of this stuff, so I decided not to let the chance to bond with my squadmates go to waste.

"Time for a Spanish lesson."

"Like hell," Kwame protested.  He was our Nigerian Don Juan from this morning.

"Yeah, it's Sunday."

"Then I'm only gonna speak to you in Spanish.  How's that?"

"Not fair," Davy retorted sullenly.  Davy was a sloth, I swear.

"Why not?"

"Because," this was Geyla, sitting beside her little trip.  Reyla wasn't anywhere to be seen; I did mention it was only the fun ones.  "We don't know Spanish."

"Entonces..."

"You're just being mean," Keyla quipped from beside Geyla.

"Pienso que no."  Maybe I was being a bit mean, but they wouldn't learn otherwise.

"Ahora," I continued, "es la tiempo para cantar."

"What the hell are you saying," Davy grumbled.

"Hola Ernesto..." I sung out.

"Who's Ernesto?"

"Muy Bien," I told him and patted him on the arm.

"Hola Carolina," I continued, but Geyla stopped me again.

"Who are these people?  If you're gonna sing, sing to us, dammit."

"Claro," I agreed and started over. 

"Hola Chi-ban-i, Hola Mi-guel-it-o," I sang to two of the boys.

"te presento la cucaracha."

"Hey," Chantré piped up suddenly.  She was usually very quiet. "I know that song."

"Problamente," I answered her and continued singing.

"La cucaracha,

"La cucaracha,

"ya no puede caminar."

"What's it about, Dani," Chantré asked.

"Ah, so you are interested.  I thought you guys didn't want a Spanish lesson."

"Not today," Davy put in.  "But we need to learn."

"So you want to know Spanish but not learn it?  You know, we're heading into a Spanish-speaking town right now.  What better time to learn?"

"But we can't understand it."  It was Geyla again.  "What good does it do to hear it if you don't understand it?"

"How did your parents teach you what an English word meant when you were a little-bitty kid and didn't speak any other languages?"

"That's not the same thing," replied Davy.  Maybe they decided to gang up on me.  Good, they might stand a chance that way.

"Chantré, do you know all the words?"

"I know some.  I don't think it's like a regular song."

"That's right.  It's a corrido.  The lyrics are traditional, but there are many variants.  La Bamba is a corrido as well."

"I'd rather learn that one," Myki said from the back.  "Ritchie Valenz was hot!"

"We'll get to it.  Chantré, you sing what you know, and I'll translate.  How's that sound?"

There were a few grumbles, but a general air of assent.

"La cucaracha," Chantré began in an amazing voice.

"The Cockaroach," I translated into English. "La because cucaracha is female; it ends in an 'a'."

"La cucaracha,

"The Cockaroach."

"ya no puede caminar."

"Already he cannot go—no puede 'one cannot' caminar 'to go'."

"porque le falta,

"Because he is lacking."

"porque no tiene,

"Because one—he—does not have..."

"una pata para andar."

"A foot to walk upon."

"That's all I know," Chantré said.  She seemed embarrassed to be the focus of so much attention.

"That's okay," I told her.  "We can talk about what the words mean.  Thank you Chantré.  Everybody say thanks to Chantré."

They did and I pushed on.

"La Cucaracha was the name of Poncho Villa's chuck-wagon.  Possibly where we get the word 'Roach Coach', but I think that may be a more northerly invention. 

"The song came about during the Mexican Revolution, and has since become traditional.

"There are verses that reflect that:

"ya no puede caminar."

"porque le falta,

"porque no tiene,

"Marijuana que qeu mal. Or alternately Marijuana por fumar.

"The last lines were 'marijuana so-so bad' and 'marijuana to smoke."

My audience erupted with cheers.

***

"Where to," Geyla asked me as we watched the truck drive away in a cloud of dust.

We were on what passed as a highway between the local town of Cieba, and Rand AFB. 

"What do you want to do?  The town will give you a chance to practice your Spanish and try some local cuisine, but that could be good or bad.

"The base, on the other hand, is secure and we can show our ID's and eat in their chow halls.

"It's up to you, but I think we should go in a group, whatever we decide."

"I wanna know," Myki said, snapping flamboyantly over his head, "where there's beer and mens."

That reminded me I was still wearing a condom on my head.

"Well, be sure and use these things, you dig?"

"Uh-huh, little sista'.  I'm gonna par-tay."

It turned out that about half wanted to do each, and no one was willing to compromise.  In the end, both groups left me there on the road.

***

Instead of doing either, I wandered about aimlessly.  I went around the base and ended up near the ocean, just outside Eleanor Roosevelt Interplanetary Spaceport, which despite its impressive name, was a non-event.

There was a triangular pad, no fence, and nothing like the dome encampment of Offutt.  There were three rockets, all sitting idle with no one to attend them.

But there was another, much larger craft lying derelict along the shore.  It was enormous—it dwarfed the Mickey Mouse. 

It was lying half in the surf, nose pointed out to sea, a twisted burnt-out hulk.  The superstructure was demolished; the hull had been breached and I could only see the remains of four of the six engines.  The others were probably buried underneath.

There had clearly been an intense fire here. 

It reminded me of being up there, for such a short, frantic time.  And now, like the wreck of the U.S.S. Burk..something.—for that was all I could read of her name—I was stranded on the rock on which I was born. 

I wondered if I'd ever get to go back up.  Would that be my legacy? 

Here lies Dani Hey-something,

Touched the Heavens

and burned up on reentry?

I felt a hundred thousand miles from anywhere right then.

***

I knew better than to fall asleep on the beach, but I was exhausted and in a precarious state.  I woke up damp and cold sitting in the shade of the former giant. 

There was a crab sitting on my knee, brandishing its claw like a weapon.  Clearly I was an intruder in its territory, and it felt inclined to defend it.

I watched it scramble around, trying to find a way to get at my face, which must loom enormous in its view.

I lowered my knee and it started walking down my leg, then skittered out into the sunlight.

I got up and stretched, watching it amble towards the shore.  There were crabs running up and down the beach and some kind of sea bird hunting them.  They would land right near the shoreline where the crabs were plentiful and pick them off with their stiletto beaks. 

I wasn't sure, in the end, if mine made it to the sea or a bird got it.

The hot of the day was just breaking, maybe 2:30 by the sun, which hung a handspan above the mountains, south of west.  It'd be down by 5:00.

I got up and reoriented myself, then looked at my watch.  2:22. 

I headed back toward the road.

I found the two Spiner sisters walking toward the town.

"Did you wet yourself," Geyla asked me as I came abreast of them.

"No, I feel asleep on the beach.  I had a dream I was flying, in the water."

"Sounds like SCUBA diving."

"It was incredible; like low-gee.  Surely somebody teaches it here."

"In the Jewel of the Carrib?"  I was impressed with her trill.  "I can well imagine."

Cieba was a smallish town, probably a village before the Americans came in after the Eleven Years' War.  It retained its Old World flavor, but it was muted somehow, like the pink stone buildings or stucco villas were actually wallpaper.  What stood out was the modern world; the neon sign of the deli, a late-model sedan from the States. 

It boggled the mind.  There were few cars, but bicycles aplenty, I even once saw a burro, packed high with beans and being driven by a child no more than ten.

It was dirty too, the kind of dreck that builds up in the wake of expatriate Americans.  I saw cigarette packs and butts, broken soda and beer bottles, candy wrappers, and all manner of left-over western food, too much for the tourists to bother with.

Never once did I see a discarded tamale, or bowl of beans.

We found a scuba shop by its flag.  The red jack with a white bend was flying under a flag I knew about, but had never seen flown.  It was often called the Pacifist Flag, because it was white with blue bars, and a red canton of stars.

Americans, whether expatriate or tourist abroad, who flew this flag were rarely pawns of imperial capitalism.  We decided to drop in.

The shop was in a hollow, mostly obscured by a large sandbank and well shaded by a stand of coconut palms.  There were bats hanging from the eaves, among peppers and banana leaves.

It was five degree cooler in the courtyard.  The sand was wet, and a refreshing mist wafted from somewhere.

We went through a wall of wet muslin curtains and it was downright chilly.

Everything was rough about the place, the structure, the decor, the crude furniture, but not the merchandize.

The centerpiece featured a tall hexagonal fish tank, a column of light itself, on a black dais, which held the larger gear, but there were mirrored shelves above that, holding masks and flippers, and all matter of things I didn't know what they were for.  It sure was pretty.

"Can I help you," a swarthy young man asked in a voice upon which countless teenage fantasies have been built.  He was twenty-something, handsome, and well-groomed.  I saw Geyla's eyes glaze over.

"I sure hope so," she said, and slid in closer to him.

"We would like," I said in Spanish, grabbing her elbow and towing her away from the hunk, "to inquire about SCUBA lessons for me and my friend.

"And obedience training for my dog here."  I patted Geyla on the head.  "She gets so excited around strangers.  She always goes straight for the crotch when she's off her leash."

He brushed back his long, dark hair and looked at us all.

"Yeah, I could do that."

"When?"

"Anytime, bambita."

He seemed a bit too focused. 

"Excuse me," I said in English, "Can you tell me when classes are?"

"Classes are held every day," a soft voice said in Spanish from the doorway, "but you needn't attend every one."

It came from a short but voluptuous woman maybe forty years old.  She floated across the room, as if her feet never touched the ground.

"I would be happy to schedule."

"Thank you," I answered her in the same tongue.  "How long does it take?"

"Seven classes, but you may attend them at your convenience.  The first three classes are here, in the classroom, then we practice in the pool, before moving out into open water."

"How much does it cost?"

"Ninety dollars, US."

That seemed like a lot, but I wanted to do it.

"What about you two," I asked Geyla and Keyla, "do you want to learn to SCUBA dive?"

"How much," I asked the woman, "if we all took the same classes at the same time.  You wouldn't have to teach extra."

"There is always extra, but I will give you a discount.  Eighty apiece for two of you, seventy each for all three."

"She says seventy apiece if we all do it."

"I ain't got seventy bucks," Keyla said.

"And I got better things to do with the money I do have," Geyla added.

"What if I paid for it?"

I could spare two-hundred and ten dollars from my bank account.

"Does that include gear?  Can I do it all on Sundays?"

"Yes," the old woman assured me, "and yes.  You can do the whole course in two weekends, if you can stand it.   But it's a lot to take in and you need to be able to swim."

I've had my YWCA Swimming Cert since I was nine.

"I don't know," Keyla said, "This seems like a lot of work.  I was thinking about having fun instead."

"Yeah," Geyla cut in with the same pitch and timbre, "me too."

"Okay," I told them.  But I wasn't gonna just give up.  "Y'all go on ahead.  I'm gonna stay and check it out."

They left and I turned back to the woman.

"So it's three hours of class, and I can do it all in one Sunday.  Can I start next weekend?"

"You can start today," she said and held out her hand, "if you give me ninety dollars."