A Pilgrimage in reverse

It was my way of entering the journey; of losing myself in the dark forest. I had no revolution to join, and no flag to carry, so my mission was of singular purpose and selfish intent. It had struck me a while back, that the best thing that I could ever do to help anyone else, was to help myself. I became my own litmus paper, I became my own experiment. It wasn’t that I was weary of others, of joining the “movement” (whichever flavor that may be), but rather, that it struck me that I was coming across shards of answers. There were too many things that worked, but that rung incomplete within me. The puzzle I was piecing together demanded that I take the long way home; that I let go of the reigns and to simply allow my life to unfold.

A pilgrimage in reverse, we took a road trip from Chicago over to New York (during a ridiculously sticky heatwave), down to DC, (where, ironically enough, we stood on the outside of the Masonic Temple and its awesome architecture and where I wondered: Who the heck goes through these doors?!) past Texas, with a pit stop in Mexico City. We went all the way down to Cancun, (hey, I never said my pilgrimage was going to be ascetic and, dare I say it, celibate) some buds and I, in a 2 door dodge shadow. There, we partied and drank ourselves broke. We all had to be gainfully employed. And I took the first job I could find. which was as a...

...wait for it...





...wait for it...





... a busboy.


Getting paid in pesos does something to renew your faith in the American way, and in the fact that you have papers. I think I’m the first Mexican to cross INTO Mexico to be busboy. My first night as a busboy in Cancun had me running up and down the Dady Rock Restaurant. As my first hazing a waiter asked me to grab a small bowl of sauce for him, which had been dutifully placed on the service counter by one of the head chefs. They all smiled and waited for me to grab the scalding hot bowl. I winced and dropped the bowl. Everyone was back working, as if nothing had happened, and the waiter gave me an order to go clear such and such table and to make sure the ice cubes were still cold.



When the night was over the head waiter pulled off to the side, gave me the glorious sum of the equivalent of approximately 5 Dollars and sent me on my way, telling me me I needed to "hustle" more.



The next day I called an old flame back in Chicago. I confessed to her the error of my ways and asked her to send 300 bucks (U.S.) to get me out of this crap. She new I was feeding her bull, but she sent me the cash anyway (Thanks Gris!). We headed to L.A. next.
http://www.dadyrock.com.mx/
http://www.cancuncare.com/Cancun_Nightlife/dady_rock.htm