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09/01/2010: "Mexico Part II"
So much time has passed. Mexico turned out to be less dangerous than New York is, at least for me. I returned to Italy after the trip was all over, and spent a few months digesting the things that I had experienced. Then, in October of 2009, I went to New York to visit my Alzheimer's afflicted mother for her 88th birthday. I was so sleepy after that long flight, and there I was at JFK once again. I threw my bags onto the bus, and headed for Grand Central. I caught a train almost immediately, and tried to stay awake so I wouldn't go past my stop, Bedford Hills.
Suddenly, at the Chappaqua station, one of my in laws walked determinedly into my car. This guy had written me threatening e-mails, and I was surprised to see him getting on a train in Chappaqua, since he worked in Manhattan. Then I realized. He'd waited for me in Grand Central, because he knew I'd be coming at around that time, on that day. He'd sat a few cars away, and at the Chappaqua station, had simply gotten out and walked the distance up to where he'd seen me get in.
He plopped down next to me, and offered me to drive me home if I got off in Mt. Kisco. But the e-mails kept coming back to me, and I thought, well he just wants me alone with him so he can do whatever. I said no, thank you.
"C'mon, my car's right outside! he said, progressively getting more aggressive. "I'll SAVE YOU THE CAB FARE!!!"
When the train doors opened in Mt. Kisco, he said, "LET ME GET YOUR BAG!!!" and grabbed it off the overhead rack, and threw it to the floor, smashing the legs off. Still holding it by the handle, he ran with it towards the door of the train. I caught up, and we struggled over the bag, right there in front of all the other passengers. I fell, and he ground his shoe heal into my hand on the floor. Excruciating pain. He looked around, thought better about doing anything more, and fled.
After the police reports were filed, I thought, well what do I do now, sit around nursing my hand and wait for him to knock on my Mom's door? No witnesses would give me their names, even though the car was half full. That’s New York.
I got on the internet and bought my Mom and I two tickets to Chihuahua. We left the next day from a tiny airport twenty minutes away. Back to a place that I remembered as magical. On the way down we talked, and got away from all the trouble at home, part of which was on her plate. As the trip unfolded, she became brighter, more alert, and started to behave the way she did in the old days. Nothing like an Adventure to take the "A" out of Alzheimers!
I called my client and he flew from Houston to meet us at the Chihuahua airport and drive us to a hotel in Delicias. He never left us, the whole time we were down there, and drove us back to the airport when we left.
As we visited the people I had worked with, it all started coming back to me. There was Juan, who had become my best friend there, the son of the owner of the marble yard. And Jose, and Sofia, and all the others. They were happy to see me, and especially happy to meet my mother. It gave me another connection with everyone I’d met…each person has a mother, and if I had one too, then it was just another thing we shared.
The end game had been a twisting, turning roller coaster ride of emotion back in February of 2009. A television producer had come to the studio and arranged for me to do a one hour interview on TV, in Spanish, which he said he wouldn't release for transmission until he was sure I was out of the country.
"Why?" I remember asking,
"For your security…" he'd responded.
A newspaper also photographed the sculpture and published an article for El Diario of Chihuahua, and they too promised not to print it until I was out of the country.
Well maybe Mexico is a dangerous place, but as I sat there nursing my swelling hand, it sure seemed a hell of a lot better than New York.
Someone had come to the studio several times to admire the statue as I was finishing it, and I became friendly with him. My co-workers seemed hesitant and kept their distance. He invited me to lunch. We walked out the gate, and then I saw his car. A black Hummer, with black windows. I had never been in a car less than thirty years old the whole time I was down there. We got in, and he had a friend waiting inside. There was an ice bucket custom built into the dashboard with cold beer and wine. I thought, how could I have let this happen? Not before I finish the statue anyway! But art lovers are art lovers, whatever else they may do, and as the day and evening wore on, I was pretty sure I'd come to no harm. We passed a roadblock, and they saluted the police with a beer.
"Don't worry," my friend said, "we own this town."
They brought me home at four AM. It was one of the few nights I'd ever been out, and nothing had happened. Perhaps I could've been more open to exploring. Then again, no!
Two nights before I left, I heard three thuds coming from somewhere around my dwelling. I went into the cemetery the next day, and there were three bullet holes in the outside of my wall. But I hadn't heard any gun shots!
There had been killings every day I had been there. One night, they picked up thirty bodies in the road ten miles from where I was. Another time, the head of a local police chief had been delivered to the police station in a gym bag by men who smiled into the surveillance cameras as they set it down. But it seemed that there were people everywhere that had nothing to do with this stuff. And I was surrounded by them. The only time there was a mix was at the supermarket. Half the parking lot was full of Hummers, the other half full of wrecks that still ran, but none of them ever parked anywhere near a Hummer. Inside, you really couldn't tell who was who. At my favorite restaurant, the parking lot was full of Hummers. But man, could you eat well there!
The next night when my Mom and I returned to the hotel, it was surrounded by thirty or forty military men with black masks and machine guns. My client smiled and said,
"Probably a judge or someone like that staying here tonight. It's the best hotel in town."
As uneasy as this made me, I looked over at my Mom, and saw she was taking it all in stride. Perhaps the experience of Nazi prison camps made all this seem sort of ho hum.
I had thought Casa Grande was pretty nice when I made all those little pieces while waiting for my big marble block to arrive. I asked the management if I could do a show there, they said yes. So easy! The show ran for two weeks, and I sold every piece. This was the only time in my life that such a thing has happened.
In the evening, we went to the cemetery where the statue is. I've always tried to involve my mother in the sculptures I've made. She has the need to know, and it gives her a good feeling to see things first hand, in whatever corner of the globe they may be. She is, of course, my biggest fan. It's good for artists to think about why things seem to flow easily in more troubled places than our own country, because after all, everything to do with the arts just seems so difficult in America. Normal people aren't interested in anything they haven't been taught to like by their social group. And of those who have been taught to like art, many of them have abandoned it for more satisfying pursuits. Like tennis or golf at the club, where there's always a chance that you'll meet the person that’s going to make your ship come in. In a place where there is no hope, or rather where people aren't so addicted to social and perhaps economically rewarding encounters, people tend towards taking joy in the things that just drift into their path. And a lot of joy! There's music. When we drank beer at the end of the day after work in the studio, a guitar player used to come by and sing for us. On my first day there, I had woken my wife up at four in the morning back in Italy and he sang to her over the telephone. When I completed my Angel, he sang to the statue. Naturally. Without question, and as he stared into her eyes, I could sense he was sincere, not grandstanding.
When my co workers invited me to their houses one at a time, they seemed comfortable in places that we might not consider visiting if they'd been here in our country. There was no sense of false modesty or any apology for torn couches or broken walls. This was the way it was, and if I didn't adapt, then I could go eat in a restaurant. The food they served was…not exactly 'good', but it was served sincerely. There was so much hot stuff mixed in there with the cartilage and the fat in that menudo that I knew I'd be safe from any sort of parasite. Some people I met were more cosmopolitan, and everything was just perfect. But you know what…in a minute I'd go back to the places where things weren't so perfect. There was spirit there…and here in Tuscany that’s been missing for almost thirty years. I need to hold onto it, and get it to flow into something I make, so that a small part of that spirit can seep into the lives of whoever's house that something ends up in.
