A few minutes later the three of us tapped ever so lightly on Sanita’s door and were relieved as she opened it, standing right inside with one large suitcase in hand. We could hear Alex snoring in the dark.
We tip-toed down the few steps to the parking lot, loaded our bags in the trunk, just as Joel showed up with his small bag. Sanita, Joel and I crowded in the back seat, Sanita in the middle, a bit crowded, our bodies touching. Louie started the car and eased us out of the driveway onto the road. But glancing back, we saw him there, Alex, standing under the light of the metal landing, half-dressed and looking bewildered.
I didn’t think of it then, but I wondered later what kind of reception Joel received when he returned to that lazy town eight days later. It might have been ugly. You could never blame Sanita for skipping out of such a rotten situation but one thing she did do, in packing up, was to include a few hand-knit shawls and purses and a small bag of some ten carved stones, green, (jade, I guessed) but obviously from the Mayan era and worth money.
Sanita beside me, with her black eye still visible the next day (and already in control) and Robin, looking dismayed.
Louie and I looked at them closely several times over the next week and told her they were ancient, (she didn’t know). But they were like jewelry to her, and payback to Alex for all the abuse she suffered, none of my business. She left them in Texas. I wonder where these museum pieces are today. One was a fertility charm, a jade, pregnant woman the size of my thumb, intricately carved. But this was a few days later. We were now driving down the highway at five a.m. fast and free.
The plan we agreed on the night before was simple, frank and innocent in intent, despite the fact that she was an attractive woman in distress, and Joel and I were, ‘young dogs’. We would drive her to the nearest local airport. I would buy her a ticket to Mexico City and give her the money, three hundred dollars, (more than enough for a flight to Dallas) for a flight home. She’d also have my number in California if she cared to call or wanted to repay. This was my promise to her the night before, delivered in kind, altruistic words. I doubt anyone could have offered a more gentlemanly proposal.
When we arrived at this airstrip it was a dismal sight. There were a few small hangers, a runway with green weeds growing out of the many cracks in it and a two-story control tower, nothing else. We drove our car right up to this tower, parked and went inside. There were no other vehicles around. It was deserted, not a plane in sight, not even a Piper. Here we found the single Mexican with his thermos in hand. He twirled in his chair as we asked for a flight to Mexico City. In perfectly good English he calmly replied:
“There are no flights today. There are pigs on the runway”.
Extremely dangerous, vicious, feral pigs.
So our ‘plan’ was completely foiled by some fat, middle-aged Mexican official, sitting in his swivel chair at a desk, coffee in hand, unwilling to even get up as the five of us pleaded with him at eight a.m. for a flight. He sealed our fates, Sanita and I, a lazy fool sipping coffee, heedless of his job or anybody’s future.
Of all the unexpected answers I ever received in my life, this tops them all. Only in Mexico can such a reply exist or even be credible. “You’re supposed to be running a business here. Why not simply ‘shoo’ the pigs away?" was my first thought. Or perhaps they’re vicious, ‘feral’ pigs, biting pigs, far too dangerous to confront with a broomstick, my wild imagination suggested as I looked down at him. But I didn’t go that far in our brief conversation. It would be pointless.
I turned to Sanita and said: “Why don’t you stay with us? We’ll drive you to Mexico City and buy you the ticket there. You’ll see all the sights for a week and by that time your bruised eye will be all healed, so you won’t feel bad or need to explain it when you meet your mother”.
She immediately agreed. So ‘pigs on the runway’ changed our two lives. Can any of you say the same?
I remember, as the five of us drove off, we all burst out laughing, imagining some American airport with ten thousand people inside and hearing the announcement made: “All flights are cancelled today. There are pigs on the runway”.
