Chapter 29

The same weekend in which Henry evaluated his film with his editor, Eduardo and Lindy went on a trip to Mexico which turned out to be a trip in every sense of the word. Lindy not needing to shoot on Monday gave them an extra day, and as soon as the filming wrapped on Friday, they headed south in Eduardo’s jeep.

The trip had been planned for a while, long enough for Lindy to get a passport. It came from a comfortable post-sex discussion, something both of them enjoyed, in which Eduardo told her his family history so compelling that she wondered how he could find her interesting, growing up in the comfortable mundanity of a Minneapolis suburb.

“My mother’s Huichol, an indigenous tribe who live in the Sierra Madres Mountains of Western Mexico who wanted nothing of the rural life and became a runaway at fifteen, though she must have looked older and seductively attractive because she found a sugar daddy, a much older American from some rich family, an eccentric scholar and poet who’d decided to study her people, but from the comfort of a house in a coastal town, more of a resort. She basically traded sex and her knowledge of the customs and language of the Huichol for lessons in Spanish and English. Other things as well like philosophy, economics and sociology, my mother having a capacious mind, which probably led her to want to run away from what she would consider a stagnant society. She remained with him for a year or so until she stowed away on a yacht being used by some popular boy band staying at the resort, stowing in the sense of sneaking into San Diego, because she stayed pretty obviously in the bed of one of the band, or maybe more than one. The timing may have been more to do with wanting a safe abortion than being prepared for a new life north of the boarder.”

“She told you she had an abortion?”

“She can be cruel sometimes, saying I could have been as well when I’d get on her nerves, but really she’s just like that, honest to a fault, even proud of her adventurousness. She next became mistress to a Chicano man, more white than indigenous much like the political leaders in Mexico, though he was second generation American and a lawyer specializing in getting people naturalized and was one of the best at it and cost a lot more because of it, not just people of his heritage, in fact most were not, more Asians and people from the Middle East with families who could pay his fees. I think he started doing pro bono for his people before figuring out his talent could actually make him some money. Her fucking him created me, though her sleeping around put that in doubt, they checked my DNA for obvious reasons.”

“So he wasn’t much of a father to you?”

“Not even a little. Once she had me he wasn’t interested in her anymore and he had a family so we were his dirty and expensive little secret. My mother got her GED and went to college studying pre-law while also attending drama classes. Her hopes of making it as an actress were dashed pretty quickly, too indigenous looking, mostly background extras with the occasional bit part of a pretty if vacuous native.”

“So yours was a vicarious success for her.”

“A backstage mother, she had me auditioning as a baby, and I found success as a child actor, the token brown skin, and I already tended toward the villain parts, the bad boy, which was fine with me, it’s always the meatier roles.”

“And what did she think of you quitting?”

“Yeah, that didn’t go well, especially when I’d come home proselytizing. My mom’s a lush.”

“Did she ever become a lawyer?”

“Yes, but not the success of her ambition, partly because of prejudice I think, but also her drinking. She’s mostly done research on civil suits, not getting to be the face of it like she wanted or hooking onto a big class action suit, but she’s burned a few bridges as well, the firm where she works now if you can call it that is pretty much bottom of the barrel.”

“Couldn’t she just retire?”

“She needs to keep what gray cells she has left active. Anyway, there’s a point to all this.”

“Not telling me about your wild and crazy mother, because it’s definitely interesting.”

“And I guess the fruit didn’t fall far from the tree. But the point is her heritage, the Huichol tribe, use peyote as part of their ceremonies. It’s actually protected by the government. When mom told me about it I begged her to bring me there for it, and I’ve been a couple of times since then. I’d like to bring you there as soon as we can have a long weekend together.”

“Probably not until the end of the studio shoot.”

“That’s fine. You need a passport?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll take care of that.”

“It’s okay if some white girl joins you?”

“My mom has a cousin who’s a shaman. He’ll accept you as part of the family if not the tribe.”

“Meaning he’ll think we’re married.”

“He is a priest. The religion combines original beliefs with Christian ones.”

Lindy laughed. “So this is all so you can marry me?”

“Your boyfriend married someone else.”

“But he remains my boyfriend,” Lindy reminded him.

“Honestly, it isn’t about that. I genuinely believe this will help you. We can just tell him we’re married, or...”

“Let me think about it.”

“Then there’s hope,” he grinned and kissed her, soon moving his revived, covered cock to her pussy and pushing back in, the space more accommodating of his thickness, but the friction of her interior against him still felt incredible for both of them, and the lengthy lovemaking, with tongue play becoming more like tongue fucking, her lips gripping his tongue like the lower ones gripped his other, much larger protrusion, and his hands working her breasts and nipples masterfully, created two intense orgasms for her, and the third, the biggest, arriving at his own release.

A couple weeks later and Eduardo drove well into the night before stopping at an old roadside motel for too few hours of sleep for him, Lindy napping during the journey.

They arrived at the village in a valley with a mountain looming over it. Small houses, more huts, and two or three larger ones seemed built in a circular pattern with a church at the center, an open area in front of it where tables had been set up to sell wares and vegetables. Being Saturday, the entire village seemed to be at the impromptu market.

A big man built somewhat like a several inches shorter version of Eduardo and a couple decades older greeted them with a strong hug. A woman looking to be Lindy’s age took Lindy’s hand and told her in Spanish to come with her, Lindy’s rudimentary high school and more advanced college classes had her understanding. Before separating, she heard Eduardo and his second cousin chatting in a language she didn’t understand and knew it to be Huichol, since Eduardo said he and his mother had spoken it when he grew up, the intent being not so much keeping the culture than to develop his brain, becoming multi-lingual.

The woman led Lindy to one of the larger houses, and a couple other older women arrived as well, the three women talking their tribal language and laughing.

“They are saying you are a very tall woman,” the younger woman translated.

“Is that a problem?”

“The dress will ride high,” the woman giggled.

The dress indeed rode high, showing her calves, being secured by a cloth belt making it look fine on her. Like everything else, it had been colorfully embroidered, a flowery motif, repeated on the lacy shawl and the shawl which Eduardo also wore over his blouse like white shirt, his pressed black suit pants made him look quite handsome.

The ceremony, typically Catholic in its length, Spanish mixed with Huichol, seemed attended by most of the town, and to be truthful, the heat made it a bit uncomfortable for Lindy. It ended, after an exchange of rings, just gold bands as demanded by Lindy, her finger still wearing her ring from Joe, in a hand fasting with a cloth that looked to have golden threads in it. Eduardo lifted their tied hands and the audience cheered, again when he undid the binding and kissed her deeply.

The open area in front of the church changed from a market to a party, beer, sangria and a mix of juices and Mescal the couple avoided, instead drinking tea offered by Eduardo’s cousin which tasted as bad as anything Lindy had drank. “Peyote tea,” Eduardo explained and Lindy drank it up.

The consummation in the large house ended up vigorous after a blow job became a sixty-nine and moved to a missionary position fuck. Lindy found the sex especially piquant, feeling a bit stoned from the tea. It didn’t last long, both achieving orgasm swiftly, the sky unnoticed as it darkened outside the draped window, but they did notice the knock on the door, Huichol pronounced by the knocker and Eduardo shouting back in the same language. “We need to go,” he told Lindy in English.

They dressed in the clothing in which they had arrived, conveniently left for them, and outside the house followed a group of mostly men down a long trail which arrived at a broad hut beside a river. Outside of it they consumed three dried peyote cacti which ended up making Lindy feel nauseous, and looking at the others, they looked to have reacted similarly, though not to the same degree as her. About an hour later, the hallucinations began, dark and scary, evil creatures seemingly glanced at the periphery of her sight not quite able to be fully seen. Not long after that, the cousin led them into the hut. They sat in a circle and the shaman chanted, her new husband beside her translating the call to the gods.

And somehow the gods manifested as transformations of the people surrounding her. Most had a welcoming presence as if inviting her to their world which was her world actually, the natural world manifested. One in particular felt more threatening, looking like a fat stalk of corn or more a combination of corn and the peyote buttons she’d consumed. It appeared to envelop the shaman, or the shaman existed within it, and the combined form approached her. Despite the language she supposedly didn’t understand, she understand him/it! It told her to close her eyes and see it, and she did! It led her on a journey through her past like a psychoanalyst might, seeing moments she hadn’t thought about in years, her parents’ drunken spats, the disconnect she had barely noticed, her transgressive drinking and her protectors: Mary and Joe and Eduardo, and then a sudden, powerful awareness in the connectedness of his friends to her and her to them, the selfish acts that required their protection becoming a shared caring for each other. Her eyes opened and she looked around the room seeing strangers who could no longer be strangers because they were her as much as she was them and she became overwhelmed by a surge of peace, almost absurd in its power creating something so placid and calming, and a profound recognition became obvious to her, that she had been selfish but her selfishness didn’t matter, she didn’t matter except for the fact of her consciousness, her perspective necessarily unique to her amongst the rest of humanity, equal in their separate consciousness and their connectedness. It didn’t make her feel less individual, but more, because she realized what she brought, uniqueness amongst the connectedness, could bring substance to humanity, her peculiar substance, just as others did, like the shaman and Eduardo and Joe and everyone else.