The people of the village know him as El Perro, Corazon. The dog is old, blind and scarred and is said to have been born with an exceptionally keen nose that the years, and his travails, have not diminished. Day by day he survives among the open sewers, steep slopes, craggy cliffs, armed and wanton adolescents with facial tattoos, insane automobile traffic, tar pits, poisoners, quicksand, corrupt officials, quagmires, starved coyotes, and the cruelty and indifference of both time and men. Constantly in motion, they say to watch him is to witness purpose in action, but exactly what purpose cannot be readily deciphered. The story of the dog is what brought me here.
I arrived in the village by bus after settling my affairs and erasing my outward existence in another country to the North. I have in my possession three sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a jug of water, stiff new hiking boots, my entire net worth in American currency stored precariously in an inside pocket, a letter opener with its point ground dagger-sharp strapped to my arm, and a variety 12-pack of Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy.
I ask numerous people, both humble and affluent, about El Perro and where I might find him. I ask the question again and again across weeks. Perdoname Senor/Senora, pero adonde es El Perro, Corazon? I ask drunk and I ask sober, and the answer is silence, Spanish ridicule, dismissal.
Borrachco. Loco.
The air smells of burning tires, it is very hot and incredibly dry. I have completely transformed from pale gringo spectacle to invisible man. I have learned the words for food, bed and drink, and I am drinking more than regularly now. My net worth no longer fills my pocket. I am coming to accept the fact that I have made a fatal mistake - a backpack full of canned goods in place of a parachute at 10,000 feet.
This morning, dawn, leaving a cantina in no condition to stay or to go, I ran into a very small boy with a cleft palet selling chiclets. The boy of 5 or 6 helped me to my feet, and at a point in the process of trying to stand, we came eye to eye with each other. His brown eyes had a depth that shamed me, that made me ask him, mijo, adonde es El Perro, Corazon?
The boy smiled and pointed to the East. My sore eye followed his arm and finger squinting into the painful rising sun. There on the ridgeline was the silhouette of an upright-sitting dog. He appeared to be facing us. He appeared to be waiting for me.
I arrived in the village by bus after settling my affairs and erasing my outward existence in another country to the North. I have in my possession three sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a jug of water, stiff new hiking boots, my entire net worth in American currency stored precariously in an inside pocket, a letter opener with its point ground dagger-sharp strapped to my arm, and a variety 12-pack of Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy.
I ask numerous people, both humble and affluent, about El Perro and where I might find him. I ask the question again and again across weeks. Perdoname Senor/Senora, pero adonde es El Perro, Corazon? I ask drunk and I ask sober, and the answer is silence, Spanish ridicule, dismissal.
Borrachco. Loco.
The air smells of burning tires, it is very hot and incredibly dry. I have completely transformed from pale gringo spectacle to invisible man. I have learned the words for food, bed and drink, and I am drinking more than regularly now. My net worth no longer fills my pocket. I am coming to accept the fact that I have made a fatal mistake - a backpack full of canned goods in place of a parachute at 10,000 feet.
This morning, dawn, leaving a cantina in no condition to stay or to go, I ran into a very small boy with a cleft palet selling chiclets. The boy of 5 or 6 helped me to my feet, and at a point in the process of trying to stand, we came eye to eye with each other. His brown eyes had a depth that shamed me, that made me ask him, mijo, adonde es El Perro, Corazon?
The boy smiled and pointed to the East. My sore eye followed his arm and finger squinting into the painful rising sun. There on the ridgeline was the silhouette of an upright-sitting dog. He appeared to be facing us. He appeared to be waiting for me.
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