EL GRINGO PERDIDO (The Lost Gringo) PART 6
Le Hôtel Itchy-Scratch
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BLOG POST #023 - El Gringo Perdido (The Lost Gringo) Part 6, Le Hôtel Itchy-Scratch
How I learned to ride a motorcycle, speak Spanish and not die. Riding solo in search of adventure from Detroit to Argentina.
"Was that a café Mocha? Aggressive sex act? Stabbing?" Terrible thoughts flooded through my brain about what this stain could be.
The hotel room was filthy, but I didn't care. I must have been a dog in some prior life, judging from the privation of personal hygiene I'm willing to accept in certain situations,.
All I needed was a quick meal, a few hours sleep, and an early start to my ride the next morning. These short, one-off stops all through Mexico were the last leg of my journey south towards Oaxaca before the Day of the Dead festival. After four or five days there, I would continue my long-term plan of riding all the way to Argentina.
The door handle to my room was slightly sticky with the residue of old glue or fresh snot. I couldn't tell which. The walls were stained and pitted. The carpeting was at least thirty years old, and embedded with dull, yellow, grimy dust. Little crumbs vibrated out of carpet fibers every time I took a step. My guess was that a DNA analysis of these particles would return Cheez-It cracker flecks, morsels of human scab, and ground-up segments from a cockroach leg.
I'm sure that one day long ago, the place started off shiny and new. I wonder if there was a public event for the ribbon cutting and a fancy white cake that said, "Grand Opening!"
Maybe it was a low-budget chain hotel that had a few good decades, before hard times hit. Then it staggered onward through years of neglect until even Motel 8 wouldn't fly their flag on the lawn anymore. Next thing you know, it was bought by some fat, middle-aged man in a wife-beater tank-top from New Jersey who left his home town because of "a few minor warrants."
Whatever the case, I could measure the level of degradation by the generations of dirty paint—layered like the cracked, filthy, rings of a long-dead tree stump.
Having stayed in similar rat-hole motor lodges all around the world, the moniker I coined for this kind of place was, "Le Hôtel Itchy-Scratch." The name was meant to be a combination of both disgusting (as descriptive) and classy (as ironic). Saying something in French always seems to sex it up a bit, so I use the accent whenever I say the name out loud.
Referring to a "Motel 8" is also an inside joke. One franchise is called "Motel 6" and another is called "Super 8", but they are equally trashy. I combine the names to see if anyone notices. When a friend points out my "mistake,” it becomes clear I know more about their lodging preferences.
There's a half-full beer can in the corner of my room. According to conventional wisdom, "half full" indicates an optimistic view of life. In this case, however, the reverse applies. Suspecting that something might crawl out of it, I set the can outside of my door.
Having a better look around, "Please let that be a coffee stain on the bed," I muttered to myself.
For once in my life, genetic red/green color blindness worked in my favor. Not being able to identify the dried-up substance on the duvet blocked out any ugly possibilities for a moment.
A second later, terrible thoughts flooded through my brain, "Was that a café Mocha? Aggressive sex act? Stabbing?"
"MAKE IT STOP!" I blurted out.
A broken flat-screen was mounted on the wall above a second defunct TV, with a stray coaxial cable hanging nearby. The last component in this junkyard of electronic appliances was a CD/DVD player with no power cord.
Three or four generations of fruit flies had colonized orange slices were left on the TV stand, and based on a quick google search for the life cycle of D. melanogaster, I could deduce that this room had been un-used for around two weeks.
The bed was set, which seemed to imply that a cleaning service did enter the room.. However, in order to miss the beer can and peeled orange, the maid must have only stuck her head in the door by a few feet.
"Well, great. She didn't make it as far as the bathroom." I thought to myself.
In any case, if you are someone who wants such finery as a towel, toilet paper, or a toilet seat for that matter, then this is the wrong eighteen-dollar-a-night establishment, my friend.
It is important to get off the road before nightfall while riding my motorcycle alone in this area of Mexico. I didn't really choose this hotel, it was more like I landed there.
Once my gear was stowed in the corner, I went downstairs to forage for some grub. The hotel had a little courtyard between buildings where there was a makeshift bar set up using a folding table and white table cloth. There was a woman in her fifties serving beverages. As I worked through my choppy-Spanish to order a drink, she waited with a patient smile. She wore a bright, red, lacy dress. Her clothes were a bit snug, it seemed like she was trying to pass as a trashy-hot twenty year old. Unfortunately she looked a little more like a lukewarm-desperate forty year old.
I'm not saying she didn't look great for her age, but I wished she would have held something back to save a little dignity. Prepping for the night's business, she tidied up the table and put on some music. As always, it is way too loud. She was sweet and welcoming to me. A bit of warmth is much appreciated when I travel on my own, so I did my best to return the kindness. As a compliment to her fancy dress, I asked if she came from a wedding nearby. She giggled and batted her eyelashes, soaking up the flattery. She was cute and I enjoyed talking to her. I was pleased that she took the time to understand me, as we chatted about a few different topics.
Other than the bartender being very over-dressed and the thump of reggaeton streaming out of speakers at knee level, it didn't seem like there was going to be a lot of action kicking off here. The modest little service-table had a few liquor bottles, a small plastic bag of ice, and a twelve pack of beer. There were only two other men in the place, sitting in stackable flimsy lawn chairs at a stained, plastic, white patio table. Calling out in their direction, I asked if anyone needed another beer.
Generosity is usually a good ice breaker and decades of traveling in strange places wore out my awkward-with-strangers-bone long ago. They invited me to sit and before you know it we were all pals. My Red Wings hockey puck is a lucky-travel-totem that gets pulled out for photo ops at the drop of a hat. For people who know nothing about ice hockey, it looks like an alien moon rock to them. This starts the conversation smoothly and gives me the opportunity to talk about my home town.
There seemed to be some father-figure relationship here, yet I don't think the two men are family. The old man's body looked worn out. He must have been six inches shorter than a decade ago from the way he was bent over at the spine. A mottled pattern of liver spots covered him from head to toe. His leathery skin sagged over his face and neck, and was pulled tight over bulging joints at his knees and knuckles. His aged frame was deceiving.
Jumping up to greet me, his agile movement and sturdy handshake did not match his weathered appearance. He reminded me of a YouTube prankster in an old-man suit surprising people in the park by suddenly showing off how strong and nimble he was. Maybe this guy was only twenty-five years old and the victim of some time machine experiment gone wrong. A better explanation would be that this is what it looks like when you spend fifty years of your life harvesting produce in the hot sun. He's the human version of a trusty old farmyard tractor with too many miles on it.
The regional accent here slowed my ability to translate on the fly and the music did not help either. Communication was based on stilted sentences with long pauses in between, that included a lot of hand gestures and eye contact to gauge comprehension. Stealing glances as we talked, I was a little bit obsessed with his hands. Even at rest, his fingers involuntarily curled into a half-fist like a chimp's. On days when I rode La Barra for thirteen hours, my hands looked about the same from gripping her handle bars for too long.
As he told me stories, it was clear that the old man had spent much of his life in the shadows, traversing the US-Mexican border for work every year or two. That opened up a conversation about the complex issue of immigrants in America. It was fascinating to approach the topic from a point of view I had never heard before. Treading lightly on this sensitive area, I asked questions with as much respect as possible.
Back in the day, he had picked apples in my home state of Michigan. In Florida, he harvested cherry tomatoes and oranges. Moving around the USA to follow the work, he picked okra and a half-dozen other vegetables. There is not a lot of opportunity for a man like this in rural Mexico. Working in the USA generated way more money than he could ever earn at home, even given months of layoff time and a few deportations over the years.
Crossing the border illegally was a misdemeanor. He didn't want to break the law, but also had no respect for it. He wasn't hurting anybody, he needed money and the American farm owners needed him to work. He wasn't indignant at all, but talking about this way of life like it was a crime simply didn't make sense to him. The concept of law is fuzzy at the best of times.
For example, I was involved in a home improvement job a while back when I threw out some old paint; putting it in a separate bag so that it wasn't obvious to the garbage man, I tossed it out with the weekly trash. I'm not sure there is a correct way to dispose of paint. However, I'm pretty sure it is not legal to put it in the trash. As far as I know this is how the system works and what everybody does with it. Whether or not there is a law about disposing of paint, there is definitely one for crossing into the USA under-the-radar as an undocumented migrant worker. However, in both cases—nobody cares. Day-to-day life goes on.
The old man talked about the coyotes ("ko-yo-tays") that smuggle people over the border, and about living together with six or eight friends to save on rent. He earned his living in America while he built a life, family, and a home, back here in Mexico. He is now able to retire in relative comfort. It is not an extravagant existence, but he can put food on the table, he has a place to live, and he can afford a few niceties on top of it all.
The popular view is that immigration and border control in the USA is broken. After talking to these guys for a while, I'm not sure about that. A certain amount of defect, dysfunction, and black-market-trade is baked in to the system. American society benefits greatly from those defects. The first and most obvious up-side is that prices are kept low. There is a large population of Mexican migrants that will work for wages way cheaper than what home-grown Americans will. If we deported all of these workers, strawberries would suddenly cost $26 per quart.
Using migrant workers is a cash economy, so farmers don't pay taxes, worker's comp, or unemployment. There are no state filings or red tape to deal with. A structure of indentured servitude emerges where the workers have very limited rights and zero social mobility. There is no possibility of promotion. God forbid they get hurt on the job. What's more, they have no voice or influence in their communities.
I'm thinking, "So what was the problem, again?"
We use them and throw them away, at no cost to us. However, if only it were that simple. The "us" that pays no cost, are the upper middle class consumers. For blue-collar workers in the USA, this system is one of the mechanisms that society uses to artificially keep their domestic wages low as well. While Mexican migrants are confined a shoebox of meager subsistence, many of our workers are also imprisoned in a slightly larger banker's box of the American working poor.
The idea that immigrants are committing violent crimes en-masse seems silly to me. A simple bar fight could get them thrown out of the country. Of course there are cases of horrible crimes by un-documented people, but my guess is that the rates per capita are much lower for this very vulnerable population. After all, they survive by staying under the radar and not causing waves. Furthermore, there is an issue of a non-taxpaying population draining the American system.
The worry is that immigrants put an undue burden our medical institutions, get free schooling, and cash in on fraudulent welfare checks. As I learn more I start to think that each person's opinion on this is a direct indication of their personal confidence in our government's competency. Surely there are cases of fraud, but I trust the controls in place, that are meant to minimize it. Maybe the fraud and corruption number is 5%. If you have a more cynical view of our state run institutions then you may see it more like 95%. I believe that our political differences are often split along these lines. In the end, there was no clear winning side, argument, or proposed solution to these social problems I could discern. The only political point of view that I will take a hard line on, is the idea that this is simple. It is not.
Suddenly the Cinderella's carriage in my mind flipped back to a pumpkin and I was acutely aware of my early start the next day. My focus turned to forward progress. After a last clink of Modelo bottles and another death-grip handshake I made my way back up to the room.
Living out of my pannier boxes and having slept in a bush a handful of times so far, keeping clean is not a major consideration right now. Even if I do spiff-up tonight, I'll be back to emitting the muggy-pong of my sweat as soon as I start my eight hour ride the next day. With the exception of a few unintended ventilation holes from crashes, my safety jacket bakes in the juices.
Just the same, I decided to shave and wash off to help me relax. The shower stall was covered in grody-brown-stains, with a hole in the wall for a drain, and a single long strand of hair on the floor. That's what you get, at Le Hôtel Itchy-Scratch.
After showering, I somehow felt more gross than before. I'm used to being dirty out in nature with the mud, rain, leaves and twigs. However, there is something extra-crispy-yucky about the grungy ick of bed-sheet dander left behind by other humans. People-filth is a whole different category of disgusting.
The plan was to sleep in my clothes as a prophylactic barrier and hope that my HepB shot was not just a front for the a Big Phrama conspiracy to re-program my DNA with Chinese mind-control microchips. With the lights out, and my head on the pillow, I stared at the ceiling, hating the loud-ass music echoing off my walls. Suddenly the whole place lost power, and I praised El Niño Santo Cristo.
Sadly, the silence didn't last long as the power came back on a few minutes later. I was surrounded by filth and noise. Yet I slept like a baby. Along with my unique ability to eat food well past its expiration date, I am also able to sleep just about anywhere. It's a gift.
On my ride the next morning, I kept thinking about the old man and his shriveled fingers. They struck me as a powerful symbol of so much social complexity. Every time a god-fearing, xenophobic-leaning-family says grace at the Christmas table, or your Buddhist "HSP" therapy friend speaks of gratitude before dinner, that sinewy old Mexican man is the guy they are thanking.
Maligned and feared as these people are by some, with gnarled and grotesque fingers—these are the hands that feed us.
(rage)
The Haunted Television
NEXT POST COMING SOON: October 8th, 2025
