and shrugged her shoulders.
"A veces El Camelo no quiere salir. Teine sueño, tendremos que despertarlo." Her tone was that of a statement and a question at the same time. She looked at me with her expression of permanent curiosity, her thin face raising with her eyebrows. Jaime Saenz says to come to love a person, you have to imagine their body without flesh. You have to see them as skeletons. This concept has floated around in my mind since June and I sometimes make an effort while walking down a street which starts Eugene, becomes Guadalajara and then Queretaro and now stretches on toward Oaxaca, to envision the skeletons; to see the presence of death in peoples daily ambulations. Mama's face is so thin, you don't have to guess what her skull would look like. She has a beautiful skull, and because of this, her wisdom seems even more appropriate.
We push El Camelo back to Saturday morning, feeling the lactic acid build up in our muscles and the shallow pool of tequila our brains are still floating around in. It's a sore and groggy jog. When we stop time traveling, I'm waking up on the couch. My cousin Jorge, Diego and I are all passed out on the couches. For some reason, Diego prefers sleeping on a couch the length of his torso with his legs hanging over the armrest to sleeping in his Diego-sized bed, which was left empty last night as Jorge supported his feet on the small living room table and sat with his head rocking from side to side in a cushioned chair. I laughed at this first scene. It was 8:30. I heard my mamá and Jordan (the student from a Baptist school in Texas occupying my past position as resident Gringo in the Montes/Espinoza household) making a very noble effort to communicate. However it wasn't my urge to practice translation or a desire to contribute to intercultural understanding that made my whiskey stiff legs bend at the knee and pulled me off the sofa like a corpse under a spell... it was the smell of coffee. I remembered how fortunate I felt last fall when I saw that my house had a genuine coffee maker and that Nescafe was not to be found in the cupboard. I walked into the kitchen and Buenos Diased my mamá and offered Jordan a high five before pouring a cup of black gold. I sat down with the two of them at the small kitchen table covered in a plastic sheet that has always made the kitchen smell laminated. I can tell Jordan wants to get something across to mamá, and I struggle with my fellow Gringo for a while as he gesticulates confusedly, reaching out into the air and trying to pick nonexistent vocabulary from invisible trees of words. Immense pauses punctuated by tormented facial expressions serve as Jordan's comma's in his second language narration: "Mi novia..." he says, "tengo?" he asks, "un noche que es mal," he finishes and raises his eyebrow at me. I nod encouragingly. "Mmhmm." He stars again. "Ella..." the pause lasts even longer than usual. I shrug at him as if to say "just tell me." Relieved, he recounts the whole story to me. After hearing it, I relay it to my mamá. Only when I get to the end of my own narration does the gravity of the story hit me.
Jordan's girlfriend, who's on the same abroad program and staying with another family, woke up at 5 Am to see the señor of her casa standing over her bed and staring at her. El Camelo sputters unexpectedly and my memory is clarified as the engine turns over once, maybe considering waking up. Kelly, Jordan's girlfriend, is now standing in the kitchen alongside her man, a stunned look on her face. Actually, as I now remember, she had called Jordan as soon as the incident occurred and he'd loyally trotted over to her house and brought her back to safety here at our place. She shook her head and said (in Ok Spanish and a unique raspy high pitched voice) "Me da miedo Señora." El Poderoso sputtered again and she disappeared. Rusty old Nissan was jumbling up my memories...that didn't happen till Monday. The scene doesn't change much however, except for Kelly's absence, Jordan, Mamá and I all sat in the same seats, I still had a cup of coffee in my hand. The food on our plates morphed from huevos rancheros to huevos a la mexicana and the kitchen still smelled laminated. I'm describing a dream I had to my Mamá. She's interpreting it. She says that recurring snake bites probably mean that I'm soon to awaken in another plane, o sea, if I was to become conscious in my dream state, after the bite, I'd raise to a higher form of consciousness. Mamá tells me all about the power of lucid dreaming and about different ways to interpret dreams. I don't know if any of it is valid but, something about her presence and her tone of voice and the reality of her inspirational life story make everything she says true to me. forgetting the barrier for a second, she turns to Jordan and asks if he knows any Biblical interpretations of dream images. Admirably persevering through the point where most Gringo's I know give in to "culture shock" and stop trying, Jordan responds slowly in Spanish. However he starts fragmentedly retelling a dream he once had so I interrupt and repeat her question in English. I'm probably interfering with his learning process, but I want to have a good conversation. He switches to his more comfortable tongue as soon as the last syllable is out of my mouth and explains Joseph and his coat of dreams. His talk of pharaohs and such reminds me of the "Cartoon History of the Universe" and I bring up some of the contradictions and omissions in the Old Testament noted by Larry Gonick. I ask him how literally he takes his faith. What percentage of the Bible does he think is actually true and should be taken completely seriously.
"100%!," he answers solemnly.
"It's the word of God." To avoid exposing my lack of knowledge of the actual stories of the book itself, I go straight to my most important point.
"Don't you think it's a contradiction to believe that one must love their neighbor and simultaneously believe that if their neighbor doesn't believe in Jesus Christ he's condemned to eternal damnation? Isn't that kind of conceited, and, well...not so loving?" Unlike most people I've asked this question to, he actually considers it for a while.
"Well, Jesus says that the only way to heaven is through him. I guess God just chooses who receives Jesus and who doesn't."
"So, if someone happens to live up in the hills of some really remote region and they never have even heard of Jesus or had the option to believe, they're going to hell?" He thinks again. (Which makes me feel that overall I've accomplished what I set out to do with my questions)
"I guess thats just Gods will," he says in a sad tone.
"Well, just consider it," I say, "and maybe you'll eventually come around and let them into heaven."
"It's not my choice," he says.
"I think it is," I tell him.
Jordan pauses for a long time, like I'd asked him something in Spanish..."Well, that's very interesting," he says finally.
I've got a lot of respect for people with faith, I decided, after learning quite a bit from my chat with Jordan, if, that is, they're willing to investigate it.
Later on, while we puttered around in El Camelo, I'd tell my Mamá about this conversation we'd had.
"I know you're not religious," she'd say "but how would you describe your religion." I look at her, a "Catohlic" who sings her charkas every morning, takes classes on gnostic teachings and symbology, believes in the Tarot, reads about the holy place of corn in Mexican indigenous cultures and incorporates these stories into the way she flips the tortillas and how she defines herself as Mexican, has more faith in her favorite authors than any icon and spreads her good will and love through the world by helping people grow productive crops...I think about it and answer:
"This moment right now, this old car and you and me talking about religion and scurrying around Queretaro... this is my religon."
She laughs..."And if we were sewer cleaners, and we spent all day digging around in shit, would that be your religion?" she asks me.
"I guess so."
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