We call it Puerto Perdido. It's an acre or so of lemon, mango, orange and palm trees. There's a tiny creek filled with icy water and a couple of huts looking out over a valley. It's changing, but, in truth, Puerto Perdido is still small-town '50s America. The kids leave their bicycles outside, unlocked.
People congregate in the streets at all hours, male or female, young or old.
The asphalt parking lots are filled with cars, but I see no people, and suspect that I've arrived in a dead land created, perhaps, by the Texas Chamber of Commerce, filled with false storefronts, cardboard houses, plastic lawns. The moment I come over the border into Mexico, I am home, and for the next five days of driving, I am on my way to paradise. He was big and hairy. He looked vaguely like King Kong before he got hooked up with the Empire State Building and that screechy woman. Those of us who had been around him for a while knew that, despite appearances, he wouldn't hurt a fly, but he was a menace to a bottle of mescal if he happened to pass one.