The drive to the airport was fast. We got picked up by a man in a white Mercedes-Benz with an off-white leather interior and it was just us—not like the van we had to take to get to the resort. We were the quietest family in Mexico inside that car. None of us said one word. Not a word. Dad sat in the front seat. Bruce had another ice pack on his jaw. Mom had slathered me in enough aloe that it wouldn’t dry and I had to sit forward in the leather backseat so I wouldn’t stick to it. Mom sat in the middle. Bruce sat to her left. I sat to her right. We both stared out our windows and Mom looked straight ahead.
The driver started talking about ten minutes into the drive and he told us about things that happened in the news in Mexico and when we passed by a part of the road that had a lagoon to the left side, he told us stories about people who go fishing in the lagoon for small crabs. “It’s so stupid!” he said. “These crabs are so small they are not worth being eaten by a crocodile.” The whole stretch of road where the lagoon was, there were white wooden crosses to mark the places where people got eaten by crocodiles—just like the way we mark places along the road in America where people died from car accidents. But there were so many. Maybe twenty. The driver told another story about a man who got drunk and fell asleep at the side of the lagoon. Crocodile ate him. Another white wooden cross on the side of the road. A tourist who stopped to take a picture of a crocodile in the lagoon. Eaten. Another cross. As we drove by a crocodile farm and zoo on the right—a tourist attraction —he told us how the workers there hold a live chicken above where the crocodiles are so the crocs jump and people can get pictures. He said twice a worker at the zoo lost his hand just so people can take a picture. He said that there was an American man suing a golf course because he played from the rough that was a swampy area near the lagoon and got his leg chewed off by a crocodile.
I was fascinated by this man’s crocodile stories, but I didn’t ask any questions. We were the quiet family. I watched the overgrown wilderness pass by me to the right. Then the entranceways with what looked like gates but with no gates—just the pillars, some crumbling and many only half standing and covered in aggressive vines—one after the other. The houses I saw were smaller than an American garden shed. There was a billboard for Coca-Cola. Stone walls around a small roadside kitchen. A cement truck. I loved the road signs. The signs for bumpy road ahead looked like boobs.
The driver said, “Do you see the windmill over there? This big, expensive windmill is not generating electricity. It’s only for that small office building there. Do you see it?” None of us answered. He kept going. “That’s what electricity it provides. Just for that building. That’s it. Three years ago we had a global market meeting. There were people from all over the world. Dignitaries, diplomats, presidents, ex-presidents, et cetera. They all stayed at the nicest hotel over there in Cancún. The meeting lasted a couple of weeks. Then, the Mexican authorities decided to put up the windmill. To show to the world and to our visitors that we are, you know, using this kind of energy. But in this part of the country, we cannot use this type of energy because we are next to the Caribbean Sea and we have rainy season also called hurricane season.” This was when I fell in love with this man’s accent. The way he said hurricane. The way he said season. The way he said windmill. “So this kind of windmill is very risky here. But in the meantime the Mexican government spent thirteen million pesos, or one million dollars. Which means that I have to work and pay taxes for a windmill that will never do me any good.”
When none of us responded to this story, the driver clammed up. He’d worked for his tip. He’d told his crocodile stories. He’d told us about the windmill. Now he shut up and moved into the fast lane and I could see the signs for the airport showing fewer and fewer kilometers and I could see planes in the air—taking off and landing. And I thought about how badly Bruce’s jaw must hurt and how badly my sunburn hurt.
Stop signs in Mexico read ALTO. That’s what I wanted to scream. ?ALTO! ?ALTO! ?ALTO! But I didn’t scream anything. I went to the airport, stood in the security line with my quiet family, saw a girl wearing a T-shirt that said ALL MY FAVORITE RAPPERS ARE DEAD. Saw another girl in a T-shirt that said I’M IN CANCúN, BITCHES.
After security, Mom took Bruce and me to buy souvenirs from the trip. Bruce dug into the pocket of his shorts. He said, “I already have a souvenir.” He held up his tooth.
“I want this,” I said, holding up a toy cube that unfolds that said ?Viva la Muerte! on the package. The cube was magical—like a Mexican puzzle. It folded and unfolded in different directions and on each panel there was a different drawing by José Guadalupe Posada. The poster next to the display said that Posada lived from 1852 to 1913 and was well-known for his representations of Mexican life and people. It said he was prolific. It also said he lived in poverty his whole life and was buried in a grave that eventually was claimed by someone else, at which time his skeleton was removed and tossed into a mass grave alongside other poor skeletons.
The pictures on the cube game were all skeletons. Dancing skeletons. A skeleton playing a small Mexican guitar. Skeletons at war. Skeletons in love.
Mom said no at first. “Too morbid,” she said.
I begged and explained the artistic relevance. She bought it.