smiled. “Okay, when should we do it?”
He shrugged. “Whenever you want. Hell, stay at the hotel as long as you can. When he
mentions it, tell him you're moving tomorrow.”
He gathered his equipment and we went out the back door to avoid the mob in front. It was
so hot that I began to sweat each time we stopped for a red light. Then, when we started
moving again, the wind would cool me off. Sala weaved in and out of the traffic on Avenida
Ponce de Leon, heading for the outskirts of town.
Somewhere in Santurce we stopped to let some schoolchildren cross the street and they all
began laughing at us. “La cucaracha!” they yelled. “Cucaracha! cucaracha!”
Sala looked embarrassed.
“What's going on?” I asked.
“The little bastards are calling this car a cockroach,” he muttered. “I should run a few
of them down.”
I grinned and leaned back in the seat as we drove on. There was a strange and unreal air
about the whole world I'd come into. It was amusing and vaguely depressing at the same
time. Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car
that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and
humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs
yelling in a foreign tongue -- and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish
Puerto Rico, where everybody spent American dollars and drove American cars and sat around
roulette wheels pretending they were in Casablanca. One part of the city looked like Tampa
and the other part looked like a medieval asylum. Everybody I met acted as if they had
just come back from a crucial screen test. And I was being paid a ridiculous salary to
wander around and take it all in, to “find out what was going on.”
I wanted to write all my friends and invite them down. I thought of Phil Rollins,
breaking his ass in New York, chasing after stalled subways and gang-fights in Brooklyn;
Duke Peterson, sitting in the White Horse and wondering what in hell to do next; Carl
Browne in London, bitching about the climate and grubbing endlessly for assignments; Bill
Minnish, drinking himself to death in Rome. I wanted to cable them all -- “Come quick stop
plenty of room in the rum barrel stop no work stop big money stop drink all day stop hump
all night stop hurry it may not last.”
I was considering this, watching the palms flash by me and feeling the sun on my face,
when I was suddenly thrown against the windshield as we came to a screeching halt. At the
same instant a pink taxicab streaked across the intersection, missing us by six feet.
Sala's eyes bulged and the veins stood out in his neck. “Mother of God!” he screamed.
“Did you see that bastard? Right through the red light!”
He jerked the car into gear and we roared off. “Jesus!” he muttered. “These people are
too much! I've got to get out of this place before they kill me.”
He was trembling and I offered to drive. He ignored me. “Man, I'm serious,” he said.
“I've got to get away -- my luck's running out”
He had said the same thing before and I think he believed it. He was forever talking
about luck, but what he really meant was a very ordered kind of fate. He had a strong
sense of it -- a belief that large and uncontrollable things were working both for and
against him, things that were moving and happening every minute all over the world. The
rise of communism worried him because it meant that people were going blind to his
sensitivity as a human being. The troubles of the Jews depressed him because it meant that
people needed scapegoats and sooner or later he would be one of them. Other things
bothered him constantly: the brutality of capitalism because his talents were being
exploited, the moronic vulgarity of American tourists because it gave him a bad
reputation, the careless
He shrugged. “Whenever you want. Hell, stay at the hotel as long as you can. When he
mentions it, tell him you're moving tomorrow.”
He gathered his equipment and we went out the back door to avoid the mob in front. It was
so hot that I began to sweat each time we stopped for a red light. Then, when we started
moving again, the wind would cool me off. Sala weaved in and out of the traffic on Avenida
Ponce de Leon, heading for the outskirts of town.
Somewhere in Santurce we stopped to let some schoolchildren cross the street and they all
began laughing at us. “La cucaracha!” they yelled. “Cucaracha! cucaracha!”
Sala looked embarrassed.
“What's going on?” I asked.
“The little bastards are calling this car a cockroach,” he muttered. “I should run a few
of them down.”
I grinned and leaned back in the seat as we drove on. There was a strange and unreal air
about the whole world I'd come into. It was amusing and vaguely depressing at the same
time. Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car
that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and
humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs
yelling in a foreign tongue -- and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish
Puerto Rico, where everybody spent American dollars and drove American cars and sat around
roulette wheels pretending they were in Casablanca. One part of the city looked like Tampa
and the other part looked like a medieval asylum. Everybody I met acted as if they had
just come back from a crucial screen test. And I was being paid a ridiculous salary to
wander around and take it all in, to “find out what was going on.”
I wanted to write all my friends and invite them down. I thought of Phil Rollins,
breaking his ass in New York, chasing after stalled subways and gang-fights in Brooklyn;
Duke Peterson, sitting in the White Horse and wondering what in hell to do next; Carl
Browne in London, bitching about the climate and grubbing endlessly for assignments; Bill
Minnish, drinking himself to death in Rome. I wanted to cable them all -- “Come quick stop
plenty of room in the rum barrel stop no work stop big money stop drink all day stop hump
all night stop hurry it may not last.”
I was considering this, watching the palms flash by me and feeling the sun on my face,
when I was suddenly thrown against the windshield as we came to a screeching halt. At the
same instant a pink taxicab streaked across the intersection, missing us by six feet.
Sala's eyes bulged and the veins stood out in his neck. “Mother of God!” he screamed.
“Did you see that bastard? Right through the red light!”
He jerked the car into gear and we roared off. “Jesus!” he muttered. “These people are
too much! I've got to get out of this place before they kill me.”
He was trembling and I offered to drive. He ignored me. “Man, I'm serious,” he said.
“I've got to get away -- my luck's running out”
He had said the same thing before and I think he believed it. He was forever talking
about luck, but what he really meant was a very ordered kind of fate. He had a strong
sense of it -- a belief that large and uncontrollable things were working both for and
against him, things that were moving and happening every minute all over the world. The
rise of communism worried him because it meant that people were going blind to his
sensitivity as a human being. The troubles of the Jews depressed him because it meant that
people needed scapegoats and sooner or later he would be one of them. Other things
bothered him constantly: the brutality of capitalism because his talents were being
exploited, the moronic vulgarity of American tourists because it gave him a bad
reputation, the careless
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