Living in Peru : your everyday companion

One day another white-hair turned up at Norton Rat‘s Tavern.  He sat down right in the middle of the long bar and ordered a Bourbon and water.  When his drink was served he glanced down and up the bar.  I raised my glass to him and we drank.  After about five minutes I hopped down off my perch and went over to him.   I would never do this in the States, but for some reason, it seems natural here in Cusco, at least in this bar, where time and consistency have elevated me to the status of fixture.

I mounted the stool next to him.  “What brings you to Cusco?”

“I needed to go someplace different,” he said.  He had a southern drawl that sounded very close to home. 

“Where are you from Ron?”

“High Point, North Carolina.  Ever heard of it?”

I laughed.  “Charlotte,” I said.

“No kidding? Well, how about that!”

We shook hands again.

“Where’d you go to school?” he said.

“Chapel Hill”

“I’m damned!  More coincidence.  Me too.  Graduated in Business Admin in 73’.”

That was more than a decade after my time, so there was no way we would have known each other there. “Let me guess,” I said.  “Business Administration, High Point.  You must be in the furniture business.”

“Was. I had a little factory that made institutional furniture.  Mostly stuff for schools.   I just sold the business.”

“Retired, hunh?”

“I guess you’d call it that.   I’m trying to figure out what to do next.”
   
“Family?”

“Two sons.  Grown and out on their own.  My wife died about a year ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.   That’s why I sold the business.  Seemed like I needed a turnover.”

“And that’s why you’re here?”

“Pretty much.  I’ve been all over Europe and some of Asia.  I wanted to do something really different.”

I had gotten a lot of this man’s story in a hurry.  He must have been doing quite well with that little furniture business to have done all that traveling.  Or maybe he was selling desks in Europe and Asia.  There was nothing ostentatious about Ron.  He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt.  His watch, I was glad to notice, was not a Rolex, but a Timex. He was wearing brown wing-tips, a strange sight in Cusco, if you don’t count the bureaucracy.

“Different,” I said.  “Well this place is different.  How long have you been here?  How long you staying?”

“Jus got in two days ago.  I don’t know how long I’m staying.  So far I like it.”

Never one to miss an opening, I launched into my Cusco Chamber of Commerce mode, telling him probably more than he was ready to digest about the town.  We ordered more drinks and began to glow. I learned more and more about Ron Strickland.  He seemed strikingly decent, a church-going, upstanding, philanthropic citizen. As the night went on he got a little tipsy and started talking about his wife.  They had been married just out of high school and had been that rarity, a happy, devoted couple.  After she died, something inside him seemed to die, and he was out trying to restore his life.  He started using a phrase I loathe and despise. 

“When you get to be an old feller like me...” After about the third of these self-defeating pronouncements, I touched his forearm.  “Ron,” I said, “I’m about ten years older than you.  Please don’t say that around me.  If you’re an old feller, where does that put me?  Damn near the grave, I guess.”

He gave me a puzzled look that quickly dissolved into a smile.  “By god, you’re right!”  He banged his glass down on the table and spilled some of his drink.  The barman Carlos rushed over with a towel. 

“Another drink,” said Ron.  “Por Favor Señor.”  He started laughing.  He continued laughing until he was dangerously near tears.  “OLD FELLER?  Well fuck that!” He caught himself and put his open palm to his mouth.

“Pardon my French. I don’t usually talk like that.”

“It’s okay here.  You’re not in church.” 

He looked at me, his eyes shining with tears of laughter and relief.  “I don’t have to be an old feller, do I?”

“Not yet, anyway.”  I remembered a long-ago birthday party that my oldest daughter organized.  Her invitations said: “It’s Richard’s 49th.   But don’t tell him.  He doesn’t know it.” 

“It seems like a lot of it’s attitude.” Ron is Thunderstruck.  “Yes!”  He banged his glass on the bar again, spilling more bourbon.  Once again, Carlos was on the spot with the towel.  “Uh-Oh,” he mumbled, “I think it’s time for me to go home.  I’m embarrassing myself.”

“Don’t worry about it.  Probably the altitude.  It affects people that way.”

“You’re not drunk?”

“I’m used to it.  And I’m not drinking bourbon.”

“I thought all good Tar Heels drank bourbon.”

“That’s where I started, but I sure can’t do it anymore.”

He pointed at my glass.  “What’s that, gin?”

“Good God no.  That stuff kills me worse than bourbon.  This is Vodka.”

He eased carefully off his seat. “Hm.  Vodka.  Good idea.” He motioned for Carlos to give him the check.  When it came, he laughed. “This can’t be right.”  He produced a pocket calculator and figured the exchange rate.

I looked at it.  “That’s right,” I said.   “Five wild turkeys at 12 sols each.  Seem like too much to you?”  No wonder the guy was unsteady.  Five 100 proof Wild Turkeys would have put me way under the table.

“Too much!  Do you know what this would have cost in High Point?”

“A lot more.”

“A whole hell of a lot more.  This is ridiculous.”  He paid the bill and left a huge tip. 

“Vodka’s even cheaper,” I said.

“I’m gonna think about that.”  He weaved a little.

I was worried about him.  “Let me go down with you and make sure you get a safe taxi.”

“No, no.  I can walk back to the hotel.”

“I know you can walk, but it’s not a good idea at night.  Especially after you’ve been drinking. If there are thieves out there looking for easy prey, the flashing light points down to a drunk, white-haired gringo.”

It was difficult for Ron, the former CEO of what I suspected was a fairly substantial private enterprise, to take orders from anyone else.   But as part of his new life he left the old ways behind him and said, “Okay.”  There are about twenty steps from the bar down to the street level.  Ron clutched at the railing and took his time.  “I’m gonna think about that vodka,” he said.  “I don’t like feeling this way.”

We went out to the street and I hailed a taxi for him, one that had a yellow sign on top with official taxi numbers on it. “Where are you staying, Ron?”

“Let me see, something about a monastery.”

“Monasterio,” I said.  “Ron, that place is outrageously expensive.  It’s the most expensive hotel in town.”

“I can afford it.”

“Good for you.  But do you need it?” 

“Need it?  Whaddaya mean?”

“This isn’t Paris, Ron.   If you want to stay in Cusco for a while, let me take you around to a few other nice, comfortable hotels that cost a tenth as much and are a lot closer to the reality of this town.  Save Monasterio for the fancy nights.”

“Fancy nights?”  The words schlepped out of his mouth.

I opened the cab door for him and bent down to speak to the driver.  “Monasterio.  Tres sols, no mas.”

Again, Ron says, “Fancy nights?”

“When you’ve got a brichera.”

I closed the door and shook Ron’s hand through the window.  “Hey,” he said.  “Are you gonna be in the bar tomorrow night?”

“Invariably,” I said.

“I don’t want to impose,” he said, “But I need someone like you to show me the ropes.”

“Glad to do it.  At least I’ll show you the ropes I know.”

As the cab pulled away Ron leaned out the window waving at me.
   
“What’s a Brichera?” he yelled.  Then he was gone.   

I climbed the steps back up to Norton’s and thought about all the earlier times when Jeff, the owner of the bar, had walked me down the steps and selected a safe cab for me.  It made me feel like a graduate.

The next night Ron showed up at Norton’s around nine.  He was wearing a shirt  he had bought at one of the local handicraft shops.  He had dropped the wing-tips for hiking boots and he was wearing a cap that had a coca leaf on it. Ron was sliding right in.

He came down to the end of the bar where I was sitting and pulled up a stool. 

“How’s it going, Ron?”

“Great, great!”  He ordered a vodka tonic. “I went shopping today.”  He indicated the shirt and the cap.  “Whadaya think?”

“Good one.  You’re wearing in well.  Good one on the vodka, too.”

“I’m sorry about last night.  I hate getting drunk in public.”

“I hate getting drunk anywhere, but there are times, too many times.  And I couldn‘t drink five Wild Turkeys and remain standing.”

“Thanks,” said Ron.  “That makes me feel better.  We Tar Heels can hold our likker. Cheers. Here‘s to the pros.”

It was the beginning of a friendship.   I liked Ron and he liked me.  We were both straight shooters.  We were both Tar Heels.  We were both white-hairs. 

Ron let his Cusco days roll by without a thought to moving on.  As time went on, it seemed  that I somehow became his confessor.   It’s like that with me.  Something about me makes people feel comfortable opening up.  I think it’s because I don’t have eyebrows, I look defenseless.  Also, I’m a pretty good listener.  

“Something’s changing in me,” said Ron.  He stumbled around with “uh’s” and “ah’s”  and finally found his words.  “I still grieve for Helen, but...I don’t think I’ve told you much about Helen, have I?” 

I shook my head.    

Ron fiddled with his drink.  He started to say something, then didn‘t.  He looked directly at me for a moment.  His face was guileless, vulnerable.  He looked down into his glass and let one big laugh erupt.  “I don‘t usually talk about things like this.”  He took a deep breath.  “Helen was what you might call highly sexed.  You know, on our first date we got to first base.  After that first date, right away we got to second base, then third base.  Godamighty!  Real fast, you know.  We had the major hots for each other.   But the funny thing is, we didn’t hit home run until after we were married.  You know what I mean?” 
   
I nodded. He took a gulp of his Vodka and then gave me a funny sort of look.

“Then, after we were married, I had to run hard to keep up with that girl.  Seemed like if a day went by without us…you know…it would ruin her health or our relationship or something.   I started taking multivitamins.  I found out about that Brazilian root, Yohimbe? And I started taking that. 

“It took me a while, but I finally got into her stride.”  He shot me a proud and satisfied grin.  “It was wonderful.  Oh, my God, it was something else.”  He was shaking his head and chuckling.  Then he sort of caught himself.  “Oh, after a while we cut down a bit.  Cut down from maybe eight or nine times a week to maybe six or seven.  Helen was one wonderful nymphomaniac.  It got better and better, and we never got tired of it.  You would think that after a while you'd get tired of it, but that's not what happened.  We'd keep finding new ways to connect.” 

He took another gulp and then coughed, spewing vodka.  “Oh, I don’t mean weird stuff.  Just, you know, subtle things that, I don’t usually talk like this, but it’s something I need to talk to someone about.  He shook his head and there were tears in his eyes.  “It was something else.  It was really something else.”

Neither of us said anything for a while.  He looked away from me and brushed his eyes with his sleeve.  Then he looked at me.  “You know what I mean?”

I thought back and nodded.  “Yeah.”

“But for thirty years?”

“No,” I said.

He hung his head over the bar and shook it slowly.  “It’s getting to me.  You know, you get used to something like that and it’s hard when it’s not there.  You know what I mean?”

“So what are you gonna do, Ron?”

“It’s been over a year.  At first I didn’t think about it.  I was just too busted up, you know.  But lately it’s been creeping back up on me.”

We were sitting at the bar.  He touched my elbow.  “I need some fresh air,” he said.  Want to join me on the balcony?”

We had the balcony to ourselves but didn’t talk for a while.  We just watched the scene below.

There was a gringo standing on the sidewalk, obviously waiting for someone.  Every couple of minutes he would look at his watch.  He had graying hair, looked to be mid forties and cut a fine figure except for the anxiety.

I pointed him out to Ron.  “Watch this. I’ll bet he’s waiting for his date.  I have a feeling it's a local girl.”

“What gives you that feeling?”

“Just wait and watch.”

The guy began to pace.  Twenty yards this way and a glance at his watch.  Twenty yards back and another glance at his watch.  The humiliating ritual goes on for fifteen minutes.

“I feel his pain,” says Ron.

“Yeah.”

“Wanta bet on whether she shows?”

“Only if you’ll let me bet she won’t,” I said.

“Yeah,” says Ron.

Forty minutes later the guy kind of schlepped off, his sails sagging. Ron and I both felt his pain.

“That’s not unusual,” I say.  “Getting stood up.  Not if they are local girls.  She‘ll probably see him tomorrow, or even later tonight in the disco where he met her last night.  She‘ll tell him she is so sorry but, something about her mother.”

“Mother?” 

“Yeah.  It’s always the mother they say.  But it’s really about her two-year-old child she’s not gonna admit to any time soon.”   

Without comment, Ron puzzles this for a few moments.  A scant few moments.  Then Ron spots three girls crossing the square.  Long thin legs clad in bells.  Walking in lock step. 

We are both reverentially silent.
 
When they are out of sight, Ron fires off a brittle little laugh.  “Wow!” he says.  “Did you see that?”

“I love this plaza,” I say.

Ron shakes his head and shivers like a washed horse throwing off water.  “I’ve gotta do something about this.”  There is more head-shaking, then he looks at me with that wide-open, desperately vulnerable look, and says to me...

“I’m scared.  I’m really scared.  Helen was the only woman I’ve had any real sexual experience with.    I don’t know if I can do it with anyone else.” He takes a gulp of his drink, puts the glass down, pauses for a moment, then lifts his glass for another gulp.  Then he repeats the process. 

I say nothing. 

Then finally, in a small, quiet voice, he says, “I’m scared shitless.  Honestly, I don‘t know if I can get it up for anybody else after Helen.  That woman could get me up even if I was drunk.  Helen just wouldn‘t take no for an answer.”

“Maybe you need a re-entry program,” I said.  It was an inadvertent double entendre. 

“Like what?”

“Well, let’s think about this.  Let’s brainstorm.  What are the ways?”

He looked at me like this was the first time he had come across the thought.  “Well, maybe a prostitute?  But the problem is, I don’t think I could get it up for a stranger, a professional.   Can you buy viagra in Cusco?”

I nodded. “Without a prescription.”

“Hmmm.  Do you know anything about those kinds of places here?”

“No,” I said, “but I have contacts.” 

Now it so happened that I had been feeling derelict in my reportorial duties in not covering the whorehouse scene in Cusco.  Well, it’s a nasty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

So then Ron and I, two white-haired gringos, enlist the aid of my knowledgeable friend and go off to what was promised to be the “best whorehouse in Cusco”.  We get there around midnight.

Thankfully it’s not intimidating.  Immediately inside the door is a dance floor.  Two couples are dancing.  Flanking the floor, left and right, are long benches.  Upon them sit about fifteen pulchritudinous putas - Cusco’s finest. Beyond the dance floor is a bar that seats maybe six people.  Ron and I go to the bar and order drinks.  Surprisingly, no one approaches us.  We drink our drinks and try to look comfortable.  Ron doesn’t take long to actually get comfortable.  Soon he nods to a very pretty girl at the other end of the bar.  They get out on the floor and dance.  Ron is sort of awkward, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind at all.  She’s making all the right moves.  She’s wearing this wonderfully sexy white garment that’s cut above to show a grand cleavage and parted below to reveal legs as fine and full as her breasts.   It’s easy to see she’s arousing Ron from his long sleep of celibacy.        
    
Another of the girls approaches me.  She’s not bad.  Not the prize Ron’s surrendering to, but nice enough.  She starts hanging on me and hustling these very expensive drinks.  When a drink is delivered and paid for, she is handed a chit that I assume is redeemable for cash at the end of the night.  She’s telling me how handsome I am.  Even with my limited Spanish I understand her.  Clearly, it’s easier to understand words you want to hear.   However, I have to ask her to repeat herself.  Like most of us, I crave hearing compliments twice.  I am so taken with all this flattery that I totally forget about my friend.   Later, when I surface and look for him and his girl, they are nowhere to be seen.  I get a little tweak of satisfaction, thinking of Ron embarking upon his re-entry. 

My newfound ardent admirer suggests that we repair to private places.  I’m not much for institutionalized dalliance, especially in a bed still warm from other bodies, so I decline and continue to buy these inordinately expensive drinks.  The girl is blowing softly in my ear.  I don’t even think about the money.  In the back of my hazy mind I am secure in the knowledge that if I run out of cash, I can borrow from Ron. 

Every few minutes a boy comes through, mopping the floor with vigorous strokes.  I don’t think much about this until I spot another girl pouring her drink on the floor.   Then I remembered what someone had told me about these places.  The girls make their money having you buy drinks, but they don’t want to get drunk themselves.   I am about ready to say something to the little hustler beside me when I am interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.   It is Ron and he doesn’t look too happy. 

Flat… expressionless, he says, “Can we go?”

“Okay,” I say.  I give the girl a kiss on the cheek and tell her some other time.

In the cab, Ron is silent.  He is turned away from me, looking out his window.  I leave him alone.  We are almost to his hostal when he leans over to me to speak. He doesn't look at me, he just points his mouth in my direction and whispers.

"You know what the worst part was?  I couldn't get it up for her.  It was too cold, too professional.   She just bounced around on me and faked an orgasm."  He didn't say anything for a moment.   He didn't move, either.  Then he said, "It was a really bad imitation of the real thing.   God, after Helen....she would start with this groan that seemed like it was coming from the bowels of the earth and her toes would start curling."  He shook his head.  "I felt like I was playing in the wrong sandbox.  I don't think I'm cut out to be whorehound."
 
“I understand.   I’m not either."

The next night we met again at the bar.   Ron seemed to have recovered from last night’s embarrassment.    He was eyeing every girl that passed. 

“Haven’t given up huh, Ron?”

“What do you mean?”

“Given up on girls.”

“Oh no, except there’s a problem.   I’m lusting for girls who’re young enough to be my daughter.  You know, back home, girls stopped looking at me a long time ago but here, I keep getting these sly looks.”

Meal ticket, I’m thinking.  I’m also thinking of the old saying:  Men are drawn to beauty.  Women are drawn to the wallet.

But I keep my counsel.  “Well,” I said, “Young girls is about all you see in this bar.”  It was a perfect opportunity, and I seized it.  I launched into another historical lecture.  I told him about the attitudes on virginity in Inca times.  “See,” I said. “The Inca sent his emissaries around the empire to seek out the cream of the crop.  It was sort of like Cinderella except that the Inca king needed more than one...

But Ron wasn't listening. He was watching a couple of girls who had just entered the bar.   Actually, “watching” hardly covered it.  Ron had spied a fine pair of bottoms and was laser locked to them.  I understood.  It was indeed a lovely scene, an undulating cannonade.  The girls dipped out of sight into a booth and Ron turned to me with a strange look.   It was like he had taken some kind of recreational drug that I didn’t know about.

“What did you say?” said Ron.

“I can’t remember.”

“Did you see those girls?”

“Would I miss something like that?”

“Do you think they’re prostitutes?”

I shook my head.  “I doubt it.  More likely bricheras than prostitutes.”

“What’s a brichera?”

I was trying to think of the best words to convey the meaning of  “brichera,” but then Ron nudges me and nods  his head in the far direction of the bar where the girls are.   He’s getting flushed.   His feathers are rustling.  His tail is flailing about this way and that. 

Yes, Ron is horny. 

Ron is also nervous.  He detours, chattering, “Did I ever tell you about my hobby?  Woodworking.  It’s an antidote to making school desks for a living.  I got into my business because I loved woodworking.  You know?”

Ron is talking to me, but his eyes and his head are somewhere else.  Occasionally he flicks a glance in my direction just to let me know he knows I’m sitting right there in front of him and listening.  Just a flick, then his eyes go back to the prey, devouring.

“I have a woodworking shop you wouldn’t believe.   Every hand and power tool you’d ever need.  I can miter, I can dovetail, I even learned, and it took me damn near forever to learn it, how to inlay.”    

Then, all of a sudden, he’s no longer interested in his woodworking.   He looks me right in the eye and says, “I’m going to buy those two girls a drink.”

“Very good idea.  I don’t think anybody’s ever done that in this town.”

“Bought a girl a drink?”

“Bought a stranger across the room a drink.”

“Well, do you think it’s alright?”

“I think it’ll knock ‘em out.  I’ll pay for one of the drinks.   Have you picked yours out yet?”

For a moment he seems offended. Then confused.   Then he lights up with laughter.  “You can have first choice.”

“We’re talking through our hats,” I said.  “You know as well as I do that if there’s any deciding to be done, it will be done by the women.”

So we call Joel over and tell him we want to buy drinks for the two cute girls at the end of the bar.  Whatever they want.   Joel, suave as ever, nods with understanding.   Like he has seen this maneuver a thousand times.  But I can see a smidge of astonishment in the corners of his eyes.

The girls, of course, know what is going on.  Girl radar is far more powerful than boy radar.  Nevertheless, they make an excellent display of surprise when Joel asks for their order and gestures toward us.  The girls light up.  Ron sweeps his arm in invitation.     The girls look at each other in elaborate confusion.  Ron makes another sweep of his arm.    The girls giggle a little and point to themselves.  “Us?” they seem to be saying.  “Is this something about us?”

“What’s going on?” says Ron.

“I don’t know, but I think they expect us to come to them.   Isn't that the way it's usually done?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve never done this before.”

But Joel, who has seen Ron’s gesture and knows who is paying the bill, sets the girls’ drinks beside Ron and I.  That Joel is no fool.   The girls pretend not to notice, so I go down there and simply ask them if they would like to talk to us.  That seems okay to them, so I suggest that we sit together.   That seems okay to them as well, so we gather in a booth.  Two girls on one side, Ron and myself on the other.  

Then it got hard.  The girls didn’t speak much English, I don’t speak much Spanish, and Ron speaks none.  At times like this, I find it best to make faces rather than to struggle with the language.  Ron, who seems not much for making faces, hauls out this talking electronic translator.  You type in something in English and it speaks it back to you in Spanish. 

Ron typed in something, pressed a button and pointed the thing at the girls and it squawked, tinny and electronic, “Como se llama?”

The girls giggled, then answered.  “Soy  Friné,” said one.  “Soy Farídé,” said the other.  Thusly did Ron, Richard,  Friné and Farídé  commence our electronically facilitated  social intercourse.  The machine was a godsend.  It greased the wheels of conversation like a pint of vodka.   Most of the translations were laughable and that was all the better.

Ron was all charm, all lit up with enthusiasm.  If he had ever hesitated over charming a girl thirty years younger than himself, he had certainly lost that hesitation tonight.   It was the first time I had seen him so lively.  As the night went on, his focus began to hold upon Friné, who was sitting diagonally across the table from him.  She was all attention for Ron, smiling and making flirty little faces.

I got up to go to the bathroom.  When I came back Friné had moved over to my seat to be closer to Ron.  They were deep into it.  I sat next to Farídé and we attempted conversation, but there wasn’t much spark.  On the other side of the booth it looked like the flame of love had been ignited.   Ron and  Friné were whispering and essaying tentative little touches.  

After a while the girls got up and went to the bathroom.   When they came back they announced that they had to go.  Something about somebody’s mother waiting for them. 

Oh Boy.

Ron stood to say good bye.   He kissed both girls on the cheek, first Farídé, then Friné.  He held on to Friné’s hand for a moment, and a signal passed between them.

We went back to the bar and ordered more drinks.   Ron was sort of glassy-eyed and didn’t have a whole lot to say. After a while, he finally spoke.

“That was really something else.”

“What was really something else?”

“I did something I haven’t done in over thirty years.  I asked a girl for a date.”

“Yeah? What are you going to do?”

“Lunch tomorrow. I thought it would be the best place to start.”

I wanted to remind Ron of the guy who paced and kept looking at his watch, but I didn’t.   I doubt he would have heard me anyway.  

Those fears, at least, were not realized.  The next night he showed up at the bar with something akin to a swagger.

“How was the date?” 

He grinned and said.  “Great.”

“Tell me about it.”

Ron sighed and grinned again.   “I took her to the best restaurant I could find.  She was all smiles.  She kept touching my arm. I felt really good, like a teenager again.   After lunch she wanted to go for a walk, wanted to show me the market.   On the way we passed a clothing store she wanted to go into.  She said there was a friend who worked there who owed her money and when she got the money she was going to buy some jeans.  The friend wasn’t there, so I offered to buy the jeans for her. I ended up buying two pairs of jeans and three blouses.” 

“Brichera,” I said.

“What’s that?” Ron said through his funk.

“A gringo chaser.  A girl looking for a bridge to the USA.  A guy doing the same thing is a brichero. It‘s one way for them to get out of here... hopefully to a better life.”

The definition just waved over him.  He was in his own head.  Then he said, “There’s more.  But don’t tell anybody else, Okay?”

“No way.   We’re fellow Tar Heels.”
   
“I feel really stupid about this.   After I bought her the jeans, she pulled me into the little dressing room and kissed me by way of thanks.”

“Kissed you on the cheek?”

“Mouth.”

“Tongues?”

He couldn’t look at me.   He just nodded.

“Then what?”

“I bought her a silver bracelet.”

“That’s okay, Ron.   If you can afford the Monasterio, you can afford a silver bracelet.  Besides, if you keep it up you might get laid.”

“I want to change hotels,” said Ron.  “She asked me where I was staying.   I didn’t want to sound rich, so I told her I was in some little place near the center of town.   Of course, I couldn’t give her a name, so I just evaded.  Now I‘ve really got to find another place to stay.  Can you help?  A place where I can have company.”

The next day we went in search of more modest lodgings.  He put me in charge of the search and pondered more important matters.   “Can you buy viagra in Cusco?”

I didn‘t remind him that this was a question already answered.  “You can buy just about any prescription drugs here without a prescription.”

“She doesn’t seem nearly ready yet, but I want to be prepared.”

“Be sure and get some rubbers as well.”

He looked at me as if offended.

“You don’t want to be getting her pregnant.”

“That would be impossible.  I had a vasectomy years ago.”

“You might want to keep that to yourself.”

“Why?”

“She might be looking for a baby.”

He thought about that for a while and we went on in silence.  We set out to climb the steep hill of Cuesta San Blas, and Ron started huffing and puffing.  “I don’t think I want to get much farther away than this,” he said.  “Especially if it’s more uphill.”  We stopped so Ron could catch his breath.

“We’re about there,” I said.  I took him to a place I’d been staying at off and on for years, the Amaru Hostal.  It’s a family-run lodging that has rooms with private bathrooms and 24-hour hot water.  The owners are nice, polite and honest.  We got Ron a nice room with a view for $17 a night.   Breakfast included. 

We checked out his room.  We stood at the window, looking out over the tiled rooftops and the intensely green mountains rising beyond.  I don’t think Ron saw the view.  “Do you think they’ll let me bring a girl in here?” he said.

“I remember seeing a sign once that said no unregistered visitors after midnight.  The sign said it was for security reasons.  But I imagine if you tip a little at the right times, you won’t have a problem.”  I paused for effect.  “Not at your age anyway.”

He shot me a confused look, then, a beat later, caught on and laughed.

The next day I went to Ollantaytambo for a few days to see old friends and revel in the raw beauty of that incredible place.   I should have known better than to leave Ron to his own devices.    There was something different about him when I got back.
   
He came into the bar with the vulnerability of a man who wears no clothes.   His eyes reminded me of someone accustomed to eyeglasses when he removes them.   It is not naivety, not stupidity, just what looks like a reckless exposure to danger, the danger of walking into a lamp post in one case; the danger of walking into the wiles of a very pretty and much younger woman,  in the case of my friend and fellow Tar Heel.

“She asked me, ‘What if I fall in love with you and you don’t love me?’,” he said. He looked at me with those stark naked eyes. “I already felt guilty on account of she's so young.  If she really loved me, I’d feel bound.”

Oh boy. 

It reminded me of a couple of lines from a couple of different works.

In Zorba the Greek, Zorba, played by Anthony Quinn, is loved by an old woman who is teetering near the end of her life.  She adores him and needs him.  Zorba, who has agreed to marry her, says in his defense, “There is only one thing God will not forgive and that is, if a woman asks you to come to her bed and you do not go, that God will not forgive.”

On the other hand, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman the mother says to her two sons, Biff and Willie, “Sons, never be afraid to disappoint a woman.”

I thought of enlightening Ron with these pearls of wisdom, but since they countered each other, it seemed pointless.

“I know how stupid this seems to be.   Old guys like me...”

“Watch that, Ron,” I said.  “You’re putting our friendship in jeopardy again.”

Ron looked hang-dog.  “Sorry.”

“Okay, go on.”  

He wasn’t looking at me.  He was looking down into his vodka.  “Right now I don’t trust myself.   I’m like a kid who just got out of high school.”  He glanced at me, the eyes so naked it was embarrassing for me to look at him.  “Maybe junior high school.  I’ve been protected from the real world for a long time.  Especially from the world of women.”  He paused for a few moments, contemplating his vodka, and then looked up at me again.  “You’re older than me, Richard.   You’ve had more experience.   I need your help.”

“Ron.   You don’t need any help from someone who’s never had a relationship with a woman that lasted over seven years.   I don’t know jack, Ron. You’re asking a blind man to guide you.”

“Okay, okay,” he says.   “But you’re an old timer in Cusco...”

“Watch it.”

“Sorry.   What I meant to say was, you know more about the folkways and mores here than I do.”

Folkways and mores.  I love Ron for that.  He hadn’t forgotten Anthropology 101.  I hardly cared to be put in the position of advisor.  There’s only confusion and antagonism there.  But I didn’t tell him that, I just said, “Okay.”

“Thanks,” said Ron.  “I won’t hold you responsible for anything.  I just need a friend, an experienced friend to talk to.”

“Ron, try to look back, way back even before you were married.  Do you remember the ‘Southern Belle’ mode?”

His heretofore naked eyes slipped into some underwear.  “Ooooh, yeah,” he says.

“Here, it’s in spades. These girls are specialists.  The more macho the men in a society, the more manipulative the women.  Protection, self preservation.” 

“Huh!” said Ron, and it seemed to me his eyes pulled on a pair of pants.

But I should have known.   Wisdom gained in lucid moments is atomized in the presence of the primeval lunge

The next time I saw Ron, he was shaking his head in sorrow.  “These people have such a hard time,” he said. “I met her mother.” He paused for a goodly swallow of his vodka.  “She’s about fifteen younger than me and a good looking woman for her age.” 

“For her age!” I stifled a guffaw and let that one pass.   

He screwed up his mouth, then went on.  “Her husband left her a long time ago.  She has to take in laundry.   They don’t have hot water.”  He pounded on the bar for emphasis.   “They don’t even have a goddam refrigerator.”  He lowered his head in sorrow.

Oh Boy.

I ask him, “How many live together in this broken family Ron? Or is it just the mother and the daughter?”

He looked up at me with those two big eyes, like he didn’t understand what I was saying.   He came back slowly.   “There’s an older sister and a two year old niece.   Her sister’s daughter.  The father‘s working in Lima.”

The “niece” part was all too familiar.  I couldn’t even look Ron in the eye.

“I want to help them,” he said.   “I’ve made a lot of money and I don’t need it all for myself and my kids.   I can think of it as tithing.”

“That’s an admirable sentiment, Ron.  So you’re going to make a project of this family?”

For a long time he said nothing.  Then finally, without looking at me, he said, “I’m in love.”

Believe me, I love love as much as the next guy, maybe more, considering my absurd past.  So I got right in there and played it out.   “That’s great Ron!”  I slapped him on the back.   “Who would ever have thought it from an old feller like you?”   The “old feller” thing had become an acceptable joke between usm, like Richard Pryor using the “N” word.

But in the back of my mind was that two year old “niece.” 

“Have you, er, ah, shown her your room yet?”

“Not yet.  I get the feeling that these people like to go slow.”  Then, as if to change the subject, he pulled out a little package.  “I got this for her.  Do you think she’ll like it?”  It was a necklace of silver and jade that he had bought at one of the new upscale jewelry shops that have sprung up around the plaza. 

“She’ll love it, Ron.”  

His financial condition was getting about as naked as his eyes. 

“I’m going to tell her how I feel tonight.”

“How do you feel?”

“I told you already.   I’m in love.”

“How does she feel?”

“I think she feels the same way.  But she hasn’t said anything yet.  I think she’s trying to protect herself.  Remember what I told you she said, ‘What if I fall in love with you and you don‘t love me?’”

I thought about that for a while, marveling at the cleverness of those words.  This girl may be young, but she was in possession of some ancient woman ways.

The necklace must have been effective in at least one way.     Two days later I saw Ron in the bar in the afternoon.  It was an uncharacteristic time for him to be there.

Ron was drunk and talkative.   We sat at a corner table at his request.   He absolutely had to talk to me. 

“We finally did it,” he said.

I like that “did it.”  It hearkened back to my youth.  “And?”

“Well there’s the thing about viagra.   I was always taking it on the chance we might do it.  You never know what a woman’s feeling.   She can seem all ready and then bring things to a screeching halt at third base.  It’s been a while for me and I’m not very sure of myself.   I had already used up my supply of viagra on dry runs when we finally did it.”

“How’d it go?”

“I didn’t need the stuff.”

“The sex?”

“The viagra.”   He burst into a boisterous laughter.

*     *     *     *


Four days Ron was not to be seen in the bar.  I imagined him in a bed of roses with Friné, screwing his brains out day and night.   I was happy for him.  But it wasn’t as I had imagined.   Ron had quietly left town without a word.   In a few weeks,  I got an email message.

    Hi Richard,

    Sorry to leave without saying goodbye.   I got a bad shock from Friné the day after you and I saw each other the last time.   Actually, the shock didn’t come from Friné, it came from her mother.   When I went to their house, Friné wasn’t there.   Her mother, Adelle, asked me in and sat me down on the sofa and told me what had happened.  It turned out that the niece wasn’t a niece after all.  It was Friné’s baby and the “brother-in-law” working in Lima was the father.   Friné had taken the baby and gone to Lima to get married.

    I felt like I had been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.   I’m afraid I cried.  Right there in front of Adelle.   I was too embarrassed to face anyone.   I just ran away.   I’m back home in High Point now.  I’m selling my house.   In spite of everything, I want to come back to Cusco.   I want to live there.

    See you in a few weeks.

    Ron.

That seemed strange.   After all that heartbreak, why would he sell his house and come back to Cusco to live?
   
It was more like two months before I saw Ron again.  He called me on my cell phone and asked to meet me in front of the Cathedral in the Plaza.  I got there early and sat on the topmost of the steps, waiting and warding off postcard vendors and shoeshine boys.   He appeared almost exactly on time.  He bounded up the steps, all smiles, and threw his arms around me. 

“When did you get back?”

“Three weeks ago.  Have you got some time to spare?  I want you to meet somebody. Then you’ll understand why I haven’t called you sooner.”

We walked up the street of Suecia up the hill of San Cristobal until we came to a door that was newly painted.  Ron pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. We entered a patio that looked like something out of a Cusco House and Gardens, if any such thing ever existed.  All was fresh paint, flowers, grass and new lawn furniture. 

Bewildered, I started to speak, “Ron, what the...”

But Ron interrupted me with a very old cliché, speaking out.  “Honey, I’m home!”

A pretty woman who appeared to be in her early forties came out into the patio.  Ron embraced her and then turned to me.   “This is Adelle,” he said.   “We’re going to get married one of these days.   Come on in and look at the house. There’s even a refrigerator here now.  And please stay for dinner.  Adelle’s teaching me local cuisine.”

“Cuy?” I said, referring to the popular Andean dish. “Guinea pig?”

“Not yet,” he said.  “But probably soon.”   

Adelle went ahead of us into the house.  She had a girlish walk and a very nice figure.  

Ron watched her with undisguised admiration.  When she was out of earshot he turned to me and whispered, “She’s a lot more like Helen than her daughter was.”  
   
Then old Ron shot me a sly wink to make sure I got his meaning.  He took a deep breath, exhaled with satisfaction, looked around his domain with a big grin all over his face and said, “Come on in, old pal.”