The Balneario Hilda (1965-2)

Continuing from yesterday...

(We pick 19-year-old Plotnik up in the back of a cattle truck heading for Villahermosa, state of Tabasco, Mexico.)

It wasn't so bad in the trailer of the cattle truck. Plottie only had one old cow to deal with, and she said little, but chewed and chewed and chewed. Plot actually enjoyed himself after the sun went down, because there were zillions of stars to stare at, and the ride was rough -- he felt a little more like Kerouac when he was moving and could feel the road.

In retrospect, the cow was probably easier to handle than the truck driver and it didn't smell much better up there either. Later, Kate said the driver's hand mysteriously kept appearing on her thigh, like clockwork, every five miles. Plus, he had a terrible cough, and kept smoking cheap cigarillos the whole way.

At 10PM or so when the truck pulled into Villahermosa, the driver suggested the three Americans stay with him at his regular hotel, which Plotnik remembers to this day was called the Balneario Hilda. The driver had his reserved room, and he intimated that either dark haired Marlene or blonde Kate, or both if neither were able to convince herself to pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, were welcome to come up to his habitations and pass the evening with him. Both declined.

The Balneario Hilda was not exactly a resort. Plotnik isn't sure what the symbols are for accommodations that measure that far below No Stars. He remembers that the room cost maybe 75 cents, but as things turned out was still considerably overpriced.

But it was cheap, and they had one room left with three beds, so the hotel desk clerk walked upstairs to show it to them. He had the only key, a large iron one on a rawhide string. The terrible moment came: the clerk opened the door and Plotnik heard a sound like a small army decamping -- or a herd of cats clomping on the floor. When the clerk pulled the string on the one bald ceiling bulb with a flourishing "Para Servirles, Senor y Senoritas!" all three screamed in unison: AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEE!!!!

There were at least a thousand cockroaches swarming in the room. They were everywhere, on the floor, on the beds, on the walls, and running out the door, and they weren't the little laughable light brown tiny muchachos we call roaches but the big, red Mexican Chris Crafts, the ones they call cucarachas but we give the grander name of palmetto bugs. God DAMN there were a lot of them.

The clerk was unfazed, and so was the truckdriver, who showed up at the door upon hearing the screams. Both men took off their shoes and so Plotnik did too. For the next twenty minutes it was carnage, as the three hunted the room on their knees, cornering scurrying palmetto bugs and squashing them with one shoe in each hand. After the shock was over, Marlene and Kate took the two thin bathroom towels, soaked 'em in the sink and began mopping up the bodies.

When every palmetto bug that was visible was now also dead, and an outlandishly large red pile had been perfectly placed just outside the door like a really bad room service order, the clerk smiled, bowed, said once again "Para Servirles!" and went back downstairs, unfazed, like this was part of his everyday job description.

Same with the truck driver, who realized he wasn't going to score any American Pie that evening, especially now, despite his good deeds of the afternoon, and so gallantly turned back down the hall with a "Muy buenas noches, viajeros. Que les vaya bien!"

Plot shut the door. He, Marlene and Kate each took a bed and sat down on it, staring at each other, saying nothing. It was really hot in the room, but the one window was stuck, which was probably a good thing because more palmetto bugs would just climb in, to say nothing of the swarming mosquitoes.

And also -- this was the first night the three had spent together.

Backing up a bit -- Plot had met Marlene in Oaxaca, and Kate too, who did not know Marlene previously either. How the three of them ended up hooking up and taking the bus together down to the Pacific Ocean and Salina Cruz, and then a few weeks later continued their trip into the Yucatan, Plotnik really cannot remember.

He does remember he had been traveling with another woman, a good friend with whom he had begun his trip in California and had been hanging around with for a month or two already. Then he met these two. Ai yai yai, don't ask questions, por favor, because Plotnik doesn't have answers.

There is always the question of how much modesty new traveling companions of the opposite sex can engender when it's 100 degrees, 100 per cent humidity and you've spent the last seven hours in a cattle truck and then down on your knees squashing palmetto bugs -- you kind of know each other already.

They were hot and exhausted. Kate decided she'd use the shower first.

Plot discreetly put on his one clean pair of basketball shorts while Marlene and Kate went into the bathroom. The water in the shower went on. Ten seconds later he heard first one AIIIIIIII-EEEEE! and then another AIIIIIIIIII-EEEEE!

Marlene threw the door open and pointed to the shower. Now it was just Kate who was screaming, in the shower, behind the curtain. Plotnik had many thoughts at that moment (one of them was probably that he'd love to go see what the problem was) but was not sure how to proceed. HURRRY HURRRRY HURRRY! Kate screamed and threw open the shower curtain.

Oh, Plottie would love to leave you here wondering, but he won't.

When Kate threw open the shower curtain, covering herself as best she could, the Young Great Plotnik, gentleman that he was, instinctively looked down first, DAMN, and there he saw the half dozen monster palmetto bugs swarming on Kate's foot and ankle, feelers twitching, getting ready to head north. One seemed to be chewing on her big toe. Apparently there was a nest in the drain.

"M-F Chingada maricon puto Mother-F!" Plot shouted, bilingual in a time of crisis. It's hard to convey to you just how disgusting this was. Now The Great Plotnik was mad.

There were no towels, they'd already used the only two in the room to mop up dead insects. Marlene stripped a sheet from the bed and threw it to Plot -- Marlene refused to come in the bathroom -- who handed the sheet to Kate. "Hang on!" he shouted and ran out and got his tennis shoes. This time he put them on.

"Just M-F sweep the M-Fs off you and I'll M-F kill the M-Fs with my M-Fing shoe," he shouted and stepped into the tub. Kate screamed, shuddered and swept down with the sheet. When a roach would hit the tub Plot stepped on it. In the tub, with all the water, it made a sound like jello. Squarch! AIII! Sweep. Squarch! AIIIII-EEEE! Sweep. Squarch! Soon they were all dead. Plot was breathing hard like he'd just run a marathon.

They stopped up the drain with the sheet. Plot stepped out of the tub. It was still really hot. Humid. Mosquitoes. Palmetto bugs. They hadn't eaten all day. Their room was a horror movie.

But here's the deal: None of the three ever thought about ending the journey here. Plotnik remembers thinking if we survive this night we're all gonna have a great time. It's really easier to be nineteen.

Kate and Marlene slept in one bed. Plot slept in the other. The cockroaches could have the third.