8:16 a.m. Well, I'm on surveillance. Somewhere. The streets aren't marked and neither are the houses. Until it's later in the day and I can call, I won't know for sure where Subject's residence is. I go to the Gonzalez Bakery just up the street and ask the cashier where Calle de Caliente is. She speaks pretty good English and tells me (generally) where to find it. I THINK I'm on the right steet, anyway.
I go to the Burger King before I start surveillance this morning. (I have to use the little damas' room.) When I get back to my car a short man in a white wife-beater tank top has his face pressed against my passenger side window with his hands cupped at the corners of his eyes. He is checking out my equipment. I raise my right hand in the air and yell across the parking lot. "Hey!" The man, who looks about 20-years-old, smiles and waves at me before walking off. That was weird. Probably best if I put my stuff in the trunk when I leave the car from now on. I am not used to a vehicle without super dark tint on the windows.
Oh! I think I've got my Subject. Or at least somebody that will pass as him. An old man is out on the patio of his house. He's moving slow and seems pretty frail.
There are three palm trees in the yard. One has coconuts on it. Hmmm. I've always had this fantasy about climbing a palm tree and dropping a coconut on the unsuspecting head of somebody below. Maybe I just watched too many Tom and Jerry cartoons when I was a kid.
The people live in such poverty here. The roads are cracked and full of potholes. Most of the houses are tiny beat-up shacks with tin roofs. Strings of laundry hang on the sides of houses or over balcony railings. Almost every residence is surrounded by a white painted caste iron or chain link fence.
I watch as a small rooster wanders along the fence of a house. Two stray dogs stand at a street corner while another one crosses to them from the other side. They take turns sniffing each other before the lot of them go loping off through a yard, tongues hanging out of their mouths.
It's already very hot and it's only 8:30am.
6 comments:
Whoever told you that you could get used to the humidity was lying. Trust me.
Actually I miss the humidity. I grew up in Virginia and lived in Miami and Atlanta. California has chunky air, but it isn't from humidity. Whenever I travel back east I gulp in the moisture.
Polly, sounds like every street in Pwwerrrrrrrrrto Reeco is Calle de Caliente.
Mad, you should be here this week, then.
When I get back to my car a short man in a white wife-beater tank top has his face pressed against my passenger side window with his hands cupped at the corners of his eyes. He is checking out my equipment.
Oh, the equipment in your car. I get it.
Never mind.
Jeff I wish I was there now. I will be there in August though and then in Texas so I am sure I will get my whole summers worth of heat and humidity in 2 weeks.
Mad, if I could, I'd ship you some of our humidity.
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