the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Visit to America

(July 17, 2008)  There we were, a good portion of my extended family, just about ready to indulge the perennial Humboldt itch to get someplace sunny and warm, at least for a couple of weeks, at least every other year. And though I didn’t have any real illusions going in, I would say that the moment that illustrated everything for me, the moment that foreshadowed our next 12 days, was the moment the plane started to turbulently descend.

As we bounced up and down in the air on the way to touchdown, our fellow passengers, most of whom seemed to hail from the U.S.A., started to hang loose, getting into the spirit of their upcoming vacation, the week they had been anticipating for months. The celebration started with little party yells, some yip-yip-yips and yee-haws at every sudden 100-foot lurch in elevation. The excitement burbled up and down the aisle. The general view seemed to be that we had all been unexpectedly treated to something like free roller coaster passes at a dodgy Mexican amusement park. It heralded great things for vacation week, and the only response known to the collective mind of my countrymen was to loudly share the thrill.

The party was on! The plane shuddered and trembled, and it was like spring break all over again. Half the passengers danced up from their seats, stripping off clothing piece by piece and tossing it down the aisle, while the other half whistled and roared. Finally, as the wings separated from the plane and the fuselage snapped in two, there let loose a whoop of tequila-drenched ecstasy: “CA-BO!”

For the first few days, we stayed at the millionaires’ resort. This was a few miles out of town, on a secluded cove. It would be the location of Rosie and David’s wedding, which was the primary factor in our choice of destination and which we were honored and delighted to attend. It was a serene place. There were only two causes for discomfort. One: the mortifying obsequity of the staff, and the impossibility of giving people a tip that would match the ones George Clooney and Jennifer Aniston gave them. Two: the ever-present terror of accidentally ordering something that would be charged to the room.

After the wedding, we moved closer to town and rejoined the party from our plane. We could gauge the shift in circumstances from the windows of our taxi as we pulled up. Bikini-clad babes roamed the lobby, while the beefcake, shirtless, held forth with crooked elbow its ubiquitous plastic mug of beer. Upon checking in, we found that there were signs all over every wall, forbidding this and that. Everywhere we turned, people tried to sell us a “gold card” that would entitle us to various discounts. We learned that there were theme nights in the hotel restaurant, a different one for every day of the week, and that they would feature Broadway-style singing and dancing. “Mucho tequila!” one teased. And when we first went to town, it was all much the same — booze, disco, hawkers, chain stores and crowds of revelers eating it all up.

We had need to visit a local doctor, who had an office at our resort. And if there’s one thing that I can pin down to succinctly describe the kind of place we were staying, this is it. In his office in a remote part of town, the doctor had plastered all over his walls numerous citations from national and international organizations recognizing his dedication and service, and commemorating his time as an instructor of medicine at the University of Guadalajara. On a side table, sitting behind photos of his family, there was a framed and autographed picture of Brad Pitt, thanking the doctor for his services during the filming of Troy. But at his consultancy in the resort, there was only the photo of Pitt, and it hit you front and center the moment you walked in.

And that, in a paragraph, is how America is correctly imagined in the places it vacations.

On a road trip to the art town of Todos Santos, an hour outside the pleasure zone, my eye landed on a familiar type sitting alone at a lunch spot: male, mid-to-late 40s, faded Hawaiian shirt, shaggy blond hair and beard, vacant stare, face like corrugated cardboard. Here, I felt, was a kindred spirit, despite his probable flaws. Here was someone from the U.S.A. but not of it, someone who sought refuge from the carnival of vapidity in tiny places near the fringe. You could, at that moment, find clones of this fellow, in various stages of intoxication, littering cheap beach villages all over the globe.

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