SOUTH OF MATZATLAN 1975

A traveler stands on Route 15.
All around Bobby BeBadd the Sonoran desert
The hot asphalt
Under his feet.
The sun parching his Gringo skin

Skag soothing his soul
But Bobby wants more
Water
Shade
A cold cerveza
More Culiacan heroin
And Mazatlan.
A coastal city.
He just liked the name.
Mazatlan.
The name sounds like old Aztec magic.
Nahuatal for abundant deer.
He knows nothing of Mazatlan.
it doens't matter what he knows
Mazatlan draws him closer
A senortia's siren.

If Bobby BeBadd was a child he might have be lost,
but there was being no lost here.
Route 15 only went north or south.
Skitting the Pacific
With Mazatlan to south.

Black glassed cars speed by
Buses roll by.
Faces stare out the open windows.
Children wave bye bye.
In the desert only fools stood in the sun
The sun rose higher.
Toasting Bobby's flesh brown.

The color under the Rio Grande.
It was winter in New England.
A wet cold winter in California too.
Here it was hot.
A season unknown to gringos
Where Bobby BeBadd is was where he is.
Two college girls stop for him.
Arizona Plates
Bobby gets in back of the Caprice.
Tina and Lena are going to San Blas for the surf.
The AC felt good.
Being out of the sun felt better.
Bobby Be Badd was only going to Mazatlan.
Only three hours away.
America more distant
With every passing every second.
Freer every mile.

Tina and Lena drop me on the Avenue de Mar.
They say Adios.
Bobby stands on the boardwalk
The Pacific stretching to the forever horizon
The smell of diesel on the salt air.
He crosses the Avenue de Mar Enters a cafe serving food and beer. Bobby sits A young one-armed waitress asks what he wants. "Un Cerveza y un camera."
The cafe is also a hotel.
She smiles.
Her name is Maria. After a frist sip of Coruna
Bobby is home.
Nowhere he has been before.
Someplace of none of his dreams.
Away from the desert
Away from the USA
Away from Wintah
Mazatlan
Mexico.
Viva la Revolution