Veracruz, Mexico. 1974.

I’d been alone for so long now, drifting from town to town through endless, lawless, aimless days and nights that all blurred together under a common cloud of solitude. But my eyes and all my senses had always remained open and my happy encounters with other people – however brief and superficial – were generally friendly, perhaps by the virtue of their very superficiality…
Everything was new and exciting, even joyful along that long unknown road – at least it all seemed so in retrospect. And after so much time alone on the road, solitude had now become a good and faithful friend to me – a constant companion as I made my solitary way along the highways and back roads of Mexico…
I’d always had my little daily routines in traveling through life. Now, after all the years of disaster and mayhem that made up my past, the imposed solitude of constant travel had become a welcome relief. A state of being that gave me a real sense –  however illusory – of total, unconditional freedom, that deep soul-nourishment so necessary to my very survival.
But one thing had led to another, as things always do and, like a river that runs to the sea, propelled by its own natural impetus, I’d eventually wound up in Veracruz and made myself a home of sorts there.
And it had been a good and happy home for me, full of dreams and laughter, adventure and camaraderie. Camaraderie- that was the ticket. And up until now, I hadn’t fully realized what a central part of that home my good friend Paco had been. Like an anchor.
And with that tie now broken the ship was drifting again, aimless and rudderless on a dark, uncharted sea. Were there storms ahead? Land? Drifting aimless I had no idea what was coming next. It was disconcerting and I found myself wondering again, more than I was comfortable with, about the future, the past, the present. Whatever. Wondering. Shit. Again, that empty hollow feeling of wondering…
Sometimes I got the vague and haunting feeling that for all my travels and day to day adventure I was just like a top spinning around that would eventually lose its momentum just to end up right back where it started, lifeless, spent, lying on its side. I couldn’t seem to hide from myself, for all my running, but still I muddled along, what else could I do?
During the days I mostly managed to fill my time with the usual activities, visiting the ships in the port, seeking work that seemed more and more a futile daily exercise and roaming the chaotic crowded colorful dusty downtown streets around the bustling mercado, feeding momentarily off the magnetic, frantic energy of the place itself. The colors, the smells, the sounds. That stuff I never got tired of, the sights and soul of Veracruz, the eternal strident, upbeat rhythm of life that so attracted me to it in the first place. And after having my fill of that I’d return momentarily exhausted to The Hotel Buenos Aires for a cool shower and a restful siesta, interspersed, as had become the pleasent routine there, with sessions of idle banter with Ramon and Memo around the radio, hanging out in the cooling shadows of day’s end chatting of this and that with this one and that one around the enchanted old place with its verdant dilapidated courtyard and crumbling dirty walls stained with the patina of so many generations of life and love and work and play, death and humanity. Those walls seemed to live and breathe themselves, charged forever with the phantoms of passing life. And the incredible light of that place that invaded my soul with a longing so deep and moving, like the first smell of fresh orchids. Lounging on rickety chairs on the dusty sidewalk outside smoking cheap cigarettes and watching the people come and go under the constant black smokey rumbling of the ramshackle mufflerless old buses that shook the sidewalk defying gravity careening around the corner. Those moments, that movement, that rhythm. Yeh, it was alright.
But as the shadows lengthened and darkness fell over the barren wall of the railroad yards across the street, people going home now, the rumbling traffic thinned and as if on cue my casual companions began to move off to their rooms, their world, sleep, whatever. Life was winding down for them The day was done and it was that simple.
For me, the world of night in the ancient port of Veracruz was just beginning to stir in the hot, hazy shadows of restless imagination…

Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.  ~Ray Bradbury

Jonathan Shaw is finishing up his rewrite of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes and is suiting up for a cross-country motorcycle trip of Brazil. Over the next few weeks we will be featuring some travel-related blogs. This one was found in an old journal from 1978 and takes place in Suriname. Enjoy!

RUNNING AWAY
by Jonathan Shaw
Suriname, 1978

He climbed down off the little ship and looked around, slightly amazed at the lack of movement, at the stillness of things. After two months at sea his whole body was brown, browner than it had
ever been and his hands were big in front of him, palms red and swollen and calloused from pulling the big fishing nets out of the deep blue water. His arms and legs were scarred and scraped from the sharp, spiny submarine things that had brushed against him.
He stared out at the jungle for a moment. Beyond the docks and the little brown houses it was very green and flat and immense. He picked up his valise and turned around to wave goodbye to the shiny
negro boys who were still standing on the deck of the ship smoking and passing a bottle of rum. His companions for the last two months, they stood there like statues smoking and smiling and waving goodbye to him. They looked like they’d been standing there forever, carved from some decaying wood and photographed a long time ago. The photo was fading away already. He was alone again.
He turned and walked down the wharf, past the little fishing boats with their dark yellow ropes laying coiled on their decks like entrails of great, prehistoric things, past brown stevadores with
straw hats and the larger cargo ships, great looming hulks floating floating floating. It was all a dream.
He walked out on the road that cut like a hot black snake into the jungle. he had two hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket. He lit a cigarette and waited, and only as the little red and green and yellow bus rumbled up in the distance did he turn around again and see the port, the little wooden houses and figures moving about all frozen and tiny. Black and white and fading away.
The crazy gaily colored little bus pulled up and he took a seat beside a big black lady who was singing to a little baby that was resting in her arms. She offered him a piece of cassava bread from a
bag at her side. He smiled and thanked her though he really didn’t want the bread. The bus bumped down the road into town and the hot wind felt good blowing in the windows. The bread sat like dry cotton
in his mouth and the jungle was green and alive.
It seemed he’d been alone for as long as he could remember. Everything else was vague and black and white and faded away- not like this funny little bus that chugged along through the green green
jungle on its way to somewhere. This was real, this was life.
As he stared out the window at the blur of green green green his thoughts sunk into a lazy blur of black and white hazy things that he couldn’t understand. He looked out at the green, lost in the haze
of recollections. He tried to come back, but it was too late. He was tired, exhausted really. He was lost in it. He was a shadow.
He thought of a girl, though he couldn’t remember her very well; it was all hidden in the haze. Her face was a blur. It made him sort of sad that he couldn’t remember- only a dry hollow pit in the bottom of his stomach and even that was unreal and far away now. He saw other girls and other faces, some so old and faded away that it hurt his mind’s eye trying to distinguish one from another. Sad.  All just a ridiculous painful blur of nothing. What did it matter? Why did this bloody thing have to creep up like a cloud of mosquitos and bother him?
He was drowning, oh God, come up for air, asshole… and like so many times before the phantoms retreated to their own far away place and he inhaled the deep fragrance of a new and unknown place and
sat back and lit a smoke and looked around at the bumping tumbling colorful mass of now and waited, waited, waited in the darkness of the burning sun, waited for the bus to arrive somewhere, some goddamned place.
He had two hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket and the little bus was moving. He sat back, relaxed and closed his eyes.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1978, 2009.

From the opening chapter of the new edition of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes

I open the door and step inside my new neat little doll house. It smells of mildew. A putrid, nostalgic scent of the past, scent of memories… I pull the string and turn on the 40 watt light attached to an old wooden overhead ceiling fan, surprised it works. A high cieling… I look around. I vaguely remember the furniture. A masculine, no-frills little loft bed with nice fluffy feather pillows at the top of a short wooden ladder. Good. A comfortable old leather sofa. Two chairs, a little table, a tiny kitchen with a small fridge. No television. Good. A pile of books in Portuguese, my native tongue. Occult Spiritism, mostly. The Book of Spirits. The Gospel According to Spirits by Alan Kardec. Chico Xavier’s Nosso Lar. I’d read some of those books years ago in another long-forgotten haphazard quest for sanity.

I go into the bathroom, have a piss. Flush the toilet, brown water fills the bowl… Flush again and it’s replaced by clean, clear water. Decent water pressure for Rio de Janeiro plumbing. Better than what I got used to in a Mexico City Colonia. I test the faucet on the dirty seafoam green porcelin bathtub, looking out the large window by the shower at a scruffy green plaza five stories below.

I open up the window and smell the lush humid air of the city, hear its lumbering machinery pounding and humming, buzzing in my ears. Ship’s horns. Motors. Sirens. Roosters. Dogs. People. I’m still alive. Good...

I walk back across the little apartment, throw open the dirty whitewashed shuttered windows, the wooden door to a tiny dust coated Portuguese tiled balcony with the same sunny green view, a comfortable view. A blank canvas. Yeh, clean this place up and this will be all right for me. I can do this here now…

Not much else in the way of personal items in there though. It looked as if somebody has already pretty much cleaned the place out of any valuables. I guess that’s what happens when you die. I don’t really care. I’ve never cared much for televisions or valuables or personal effects. A motorcycle and a change of clothes. A few good books, some spending cash… Freedom, that’s about all I’ve ever aspired to.

And, just for today, that’s cool too… Now I gotta get out. The night is calling.

MAYRA GOMES!

JS and Eugene Hütz and other gypsies in Rio.

JS and Eugene Hütz on the bike in Copacabana.

OLD MAN — 1971

I wonder what it would be like
if this house was like it was in
that picture I took of it
in 1920 crisp and new
if things were still like that
the city was no more than a
sleeping dream phantom
then.

The streets so quiet and subdued
and routine was a beauty, an adventure
in itself
not just another nail in
yer goddamn coffin.

I lay back on the bed and stare at
the walls and ceiling around me,
walls and ceiling withered and tired
from age and neglect… and routine
like me.

I am tired.
I close my eyes
no! not ready to die yet
maybe tomorrow
but not just now
I have found something to dream of again.
I will put off my death
for another day.
I’m sure nobody will mind. Just one more day…
now I will
dream, and I will forget about that
old man lying on my bed like a fucking corpse.
He doesn’t matter now…

I am a boy. Thirteen years old in October. I live here with my mom and pop and my brother and sister too. They’re both eleven, twins, they are. Mom and Pop are okay except when Pop comes home drunk boy, the old man sure can tie one on. And then, boy howdy look out! John- that’s my little brother- he’s a pretty good sport… sometimes. Sis is okay too I guess. you know how it is with little sisters. It’s real early in the morning now. Probably wont be light for another hour. I been layin’ awake here waiting an waiting and it’s been so quiet I could hear a cat runnin a mile away. Now I hear something coming from way off down the street and I’m listenin for a long time until it’s right up next to the back door. It’s just the milkman but I know it won’t be long now till Jimmy gets here. Jimmy’s my best friend. He’ll come over soon and I’ll sneak out the window and I won’t have to get back for breakfast till nine cause it’s Sunday morning and then go to church at ten. That’s alot of time. The milkman’s finished with the bottles and I can hear him driving away now down the street. Now something’s moving through the bushes outside my window real slow and quiet but I can hear it anyway cause I been waiting. Jimmy. I’m out of bed now moving as fast as I can but real quiet so nobody will hear me. By the time I hear a tap at the window, I’ll have my trousers on and be tying up my sneakers…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1971, 2009.

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy. And at the bottom of their motives, there lies a mystery.-  George Orwell