King of Boredom

A novel

‘There is nothing worse than boredom’ his father used to say.

His father used to think that intelligent people are never really bored, so he decided to be never bored. Ever. His father was a figure that he had seen only few times a year as his parents have never married and lived in different areas of the world. He was living with his mom in New Mexico most of his life, his father was from Mexico or Old Mexico as he liked to call it.

There was nothing special to his life until he went to study literature at New Mexico State University. He loved reading since he was a kid, especially old editions of Penguin classics and all sorts of local newspapers.

Whenever he was travelling with his mother and younger brother, he would always look for some local ‘periodicos’ as he used to call them after his father. There was no special topic or section that he was longing to read, what interested him was the font, type of paper they were printed on as if it were the introductory pages to the place that he has just been to. ‘Show me your local newspaper and I will tell you what type of people live here’ he would say.

So there he was, studying, reading and writing for the university’s newspaper. He loved his life and just couldn’t wait for the summer break that he was planning to spend in Palm Springs. Just killing the days by the pool, suffocating them with martinis and writing. His plan was to write some kind of diary of his summer, he was happy that there was nothing specific that he wanted to happen to him during the break as this would leave a lot of space for his creative mind. ‘It might be boring there but I am definitely not going to be bored’ he thought to himself.

And so it happened, from one day to another, the summer break was on and he started packing for his summer experience.

‘Palm Springs is more Palm Springs than Palm Springs’ he thought. The hills surrounding the desert were like a beautiful grey wall that was protecting the place from its total predictability. His hotel looked like one from a standard postcard that your grandparents used to send you back in the days from their vacation. One big white building hosting the reception and dining area and next to it a swimming pool glittering with its moisture blue color of water and hotel rooms, one next to another, surrounding the pool in the semicircle. ‘It looks perfect’ he said to himself. ‘I will just read and write here for the next few weeks’ he thought, his eyes focused now on the reception hoping that he will find some local newspapers over there.

After successful check- in he decided to sit by the pool, ordering before some French fries and coke with ice. There was nobody else at the pool except from him and a young woman, her body almost totally covered with tattoos, mostly colored ones. She was having black hair, not too long, reaching just under her ear, light red juicy lips and sunglasses that were covering almost the entire upper part of her face. She was wearing a one piece black swimsuit. She looked at him briefly from where she was seating and then got into water.

He didn’t even notice when she approached him, still in the water, just her hands and face outside, she looked like a mermaid if mermaids lived in the sunburned California desert. ‘Ciao, how are you?’ she asked and he noticed, not only by the Ciao that she was Italian. ‘All good, what are you doing so far from home’? ‘Well, I feel at home here. Are you a writer?’ she was looking at him with a smile. ‘I consider myself more of a reader’ he joked, thinking though that there is nothing funny about it actually. ‘Do you want to read me or rather have a talk at the bar near here later today?’. ‘Sure, let’s do it’ he answered lightly disappointed as this did not look like a start to a boring stay in Palm Springs anymore.

He put on his only shirt that he had packed with him for the meeting, a typical white guayabera that his father gave him. They met at the local bar.

‘Looking good!’ girl shouted from a distance when she saw him waiting outside of the meeting point. ‘You deserve to know my name, because you are so elegant. I am Francesca’. He introduced himself too. They smiled at each other and went inside. Seats at the bar were available so that’s what they went for. He ordered daiquiri, she just went for Coke. ‘You don’t drink?’ he asked, ‘I do, but I just love Coke so much these days’.

‘How long are you going to stay here?’ she took a long sip of the ice- cold Coke after the question came out of her mouth. ‘Few weeks, I just want to read and maybe write a bit, why?’ ‘I am meeting my friends later today, a couple I got to know here few days ago. We are going for a road trip tomorrow. Maybe you would want to join?’

There was the moment of hesitation in his voice when the words jumped out of his mouth. He heard himself saying ‘Yes, I am curious where you guys would take me’ but the voice seemed to belong to somebody else. ‘Amazing’ she shouted cheerfully ’ my friends will be here soon. We can discuss it then’. ’ Sounds good’ he answered ’ where are you planning to go?’ he looked at her with hope and fear. ’ Somewhere south, maybe to Mexico’ she said and laughed with excitement’. ‘Mexico, huh?’ he tried to sound strong and brave but there was a wave of hesitation taking over his body now.

‘Come on, it will be fun. You know what they say- nothing is worse than boredom!’ she said and ordered another Coke.

He looked at her and then outside at the road and the eternally blue sky. ’ You better be right about that’ he said, looked at her and took a big sip of his daiquiri.

Francesca’s friends were a happy couple of thirty- somethings. He was from Chicago, his name was John and he looked like a hockey player with his long blonde hair, blonde beard and the upper front tooth missing from his smile. Her name was Rosa and she was Cuban, her dark skin and curly hair were a nice contrast to his looks. They met in Havana where he was on vacation and then decided to show her his homeland. All four of them have stayed in the same hotel so the swimming pool became their ‘office’ as they called it.

After few days filled with sun and watery daiquiris they just jumped on the car and went south to Mexico. It took them three slow days of driving down through Arizona and then finally to Nogales, Sonora, where the crossed the border.

He has never been to Mexico before and it was definitely not how he has pictured it. No colorful fiestas in the streets nor women looking like Frida Kahlo. Just some small industrial villages, dirty streets and lots of street dogs. They kept driving until the evening and decided to spend their first night in Mexico at a shady hotel right on the main street of a small town. The light bulbs were so dusty and sticky that they could hardly see anything with the lights turned on. They went for a walk. He didn’t like it at all and that’s why he started liking it. He was pleased with his disappointment, as if the sad esthetics of the place made him discover something unexpected.

The night was very hot and dry, they had some gorditas at a street stand that were delicious with their chili and beans. They were laughing with the locals who were not used to seeing many foreigners as there were no tourist attractions in the range of few hundred miles around.

They decided to enter one of the cantinas, filled only with older drunk men watching some telenovelas running on the old TVs placed in every corner of the room. The cantina they went to was called King City, a funny name he thought, so funny that he wanted to ask the bartender about it but when he saw how unhappy or rather angry his facial expression was upon their arrival he decided to let this name stay a mystery. They ordered a round of mezcal. The bartender turned waiter put the glasses on their wacky table.

‘Anything else?’ he asked with his low voice in English. ‘We are good, thank you’ said Francesca and send him a sweet smile that didn’t change his unfriendly looks. ‘I know your face, you seem to look familiar to me. And this is not a good thing, boy’ bartender told him and it felt like every person in the cantina started looking at his face that even in this shady and dark bar was becoming visibly red. ‘I have never been to Mexico before, I am sure you must be confusing me with someone’ he said in a very low voice, almost whispering. ‘We will soon find out if that’s true’ said the waiter and moved back to the bar where he picked up the phone and dialed a number.

His travel companions looked at him with amazement mixed with doubt. ‘ Man, who are you?’ asked John with a weird smile on his face. ‘ I don’t know what is going on’ he said and started thinking. ‘Wait, didn’t you say your father is Mexican? Maybe he is confusing you with your father?’ said Rosa.

He started thinking again and trying to remind himself the moments when as a kid he was shown a map of Mexico by his father and the moment when his dad pointed to a place somewhere on a map and told him that this is where he is from. Where was it? He couldn’t remember if it was in Sonora or somewhere near. Why couldn’t he remember that? The bartender stopped talking on the phone and started approaching them with a bottle of mezcal in his hand.