Jack Boulware

A trip to Mexico on the eve of the California gubernatorial election culminates in an unforeseen encounter with a bigshot celebrity.

Teotihuacan Tango

The week California recalls its governor, I’m in the airport bar in Guadalajara, Mexico. A woman sits smoking and drinking a Bud. She’s headed to Puerta Vallarta from Florida, where she dropped off her kids with Granma. She’s very chatty and forthcoming. Her personal story of missed plane connections is a rich and textured tale that bears retelling in a loud voice without interruption. I learn she has a husband in the Army in Iraq. His name “Dave” is tattooed on her bicep. She lives on a horse farm in Kentucky. Fake tits. Dyed blonde. There’s a whiff of Fox News about her. She knows Mexico very well: Cancun is beautiful. Cozumel? Beautiful. Acapulco? Beautiful. I ask what she thinks of Mexico as a country, and she immediately says, “Oh, the service is A-MAY-ZING!”

I’m on a travel press trip outside the U.S., hoping to absorb another culture and hear something besides rah-rah America, even just for a few days, and this woman is reminding me I am American in the worst possible way.

She is confident, self-assured—definitely the wife of a soldier at war. I picture the husband in Iraq, defending our freedom, sitting in a trench, masturbating to her photo, the kids at Granma’s, under the sink drinking bleach, while mommy’s in Puerta Vallarta at the Hyatt Regency, on her hands and knees, a busboy going at her with a big smirk on his face, and she’s yelling, “God damn it Pablo, ride me like a burro!”

At the Hyatt, the service is amay-zing.

I can pass judgment on her because I am American, and I have freedom of speech. Also, I live in San Francisco, and so I think I’m smarter than most people. I am a sovereign organism, and my knowledge is vast. I deliver opinions on all issues, even if uninvited or inappropriate. When I attend a protest, I always bring my own camera. I speak for all nations and all peoples. Even though I can’t drive an hour out of town without bitching about the coffee.

I’m sitting in a Guadalajara hotel room with two other journalists. We’ve been out all day on the Jose Cuervo factory tour, and now we’re watching CNN, restless about the world’s events. Americans are getting killed every day in Iraq, Bush and Blair and Rumsfeld are lying to the cameras. We’re tossing the governor out of California. Rome is burning. The empire is crumbling. I feel disjointed, torn in half. On one hand I feel connected to America because you automatically feel some emotion to your homeland—it’s hardwired into your head and heart. And then again, I’m watching it from another country, where the world looks like an aquarium filled with fish, and some of them are assholes. Overfed, stubborn, go-it-alone asshole American fish, carrying flags in their fins and beating up the little fish.

I sit and drink tequila with the boys until 4 am. Conversation is frustrating. Standard-issue liberal perspective, regurgitated factoids from NPR and other lefty news. I always thought talking politics meant you stand up and point fingers and yell out half-remembered statistics and convince people they’re wrong—or at least more wrong than you. But tonight we agree on everything. It’s boring. I want to say, “I have no problem with the war. It�s the troops I can�t stand.” We pour another round of tequila.

The next night we walk through the pock-marked stone plazas of downtown Guadalajara, looking for a certain restaurant. We pass the Museum of Journalism. How fitting that it’s located in a building named “House of the Dogs.” We turn a corner and run into a street theater show: two clowns and a unicycle, performing for children and their parents. One clown spots us and says in English: “Ah, the Americanos are here!” The clown gets laughs, so he continues: “For you, Americanos, a special fee!” The moment hangs. We must react, we must do something besides stand there with no comprendo grins. We start to reach in our pockets. The clown takes off his clown hat and extends it to us and says, “For Americanos, one hundred dollars!”

There’s nothing worse than the mocking squeals of children. I must smell like the United States. This really bugs me. I thought I was being Mister open-minded sovereign organism. Am I just another cliche gringo, with pockets full of cash to throw at everyone’s problems? I feel like showing them the meager contents of my wallet: “See this, amigos? 14 bucks. Pretty funny, isn’t it. Laugh it up.”

A few days later, I visit the ancient city of Teotihuacan, a collection of pyramids and plazas outside Mexico City. Until 1901, when these temples were discovered, Mexico had little idea of its own history. I climb to the top of the Temple of the Sun. Once you’re at the summit, it’s considered good luck to take your left hand and touch the middle finger to a small metal disk imbedded in the stone. Women, children, all of us stick our fingers into a big pile, and together as one, we flip the bird to the Mexican sky.

That night, in a restaurant in Mexico City, after much interrrogation on my part, a Mexican woman reluctantly admits that yes, American tourists do seem arrogant and entitled. I don’t know why, but this makes me feel better. Like it’s not just me. She posits a theory that US citizens always call themselves Americans, when in fact there is a North, South, and Central America, and technically all of us are Americans. A few minutes later she slips and refers to me as an American, so it’s more or less moot.

At that point, whispers circulate around the tables: Sylvester Stallone is here in the restaurant. I’ve spent five days in Mexico, running around to pyramids and mariachi clubs and churches and tequila factories and goat-meat restaurants and cantinas and wine cellars. But now I’m kind of excited about Stallone. I don’t know why, really. I’m not a fan. I saw the first Rocky movie on a prom date, fell asleep and woke up just in time to catch the scene where they lance the boil above his eye. I heard it was a good film.

And now Stallone is in the house. I want to see him. Maybe it’s because California is just about to elect a muscled-up action hero as governor, and seeing another muscled-up action hero will put my mind at ease. They’re kind of similar. Both a bit long in the tooth. It’s hard to understand what they’re saying. Their movies are popular because of the explosions, and there’s only ten lines of dialogue to translate. But in general, Stallone’s more of a boxer, and Arnold’s more of an alien. What does Sly think of Schwarzenegger as a politician, I wonder. Is he jealous?

I walk back through the restaurant and linger by the seafood display, pretending to admire the prawns. Stallone stands up with two male companions, all wearing black suits with black T-shirts. He’s short and his face looks shiny and leathery, like a finely tanned pair of boots. He walks through the tables, beefy arms hanging from the shoulders, eyes flickering around the room, wary yet hoping for recognition. You see the same behavior in every club in L.A. Except this isn’t a flavor of the month TV actress. This is a mega-star, a self-made Hollywood icon. He wrote and starred in his very first film, which was a huge hit and won Oscars.

People look up from their tables, but nobody says anything or stops him for an autograph. There would be more commotion if he were Salma Hayek, or even that guy who hosts the game show Sabado Gigante! But the presence is enough to be felt by everyone. He embodies America. Confident, buffed. Likes attention.

I feel like jumping him.

I’d shout “Yo, nice man tits!”, grab him by the neck in a mid-air headlock and send us crashing into a table of tartare and escargot. We’d roll around the floor, me scratching at his eyes, because they’ve got to be sensitive � I’ve seen the boil lanced. He’d get to his feet and assume a boxer stance, and I’d pick up a chair and smash it across his face, because it’s not a Stallone fight unless his nose is bleeding. He’d hit me four good body blows, I’d stagger into the kitchen and fall into a cupboard of pans, everything clattering to the floor, we’d struggle closer and closer to a big pot of scalding tortilla soup, huffing and grunting and suddenly I’d tip the whole thing into his face, he’d scream like crazy, and then his goons would drag me out to the parking lot and kick the holy crap out of me.

That’s would I would have done. If I felt like it.

The next day I fly back to San Francisco, with an hour left to vote on the governor recall. I barely make it to the neighborhood polling place in time, then walk home and turn on the news. Arnold has already won. It’s announced, in fact, that everyone knew he won 24 hours ago. The election was decided the day before the election. Other nations take note: THAT’S how you run a democracy.