To Hellholes and Back Read online

  Not that his commentary reveals a latent devotion. As he darkens the door of a church for the first time in two decades—the Metropolitan Cathedral is a principal tourist attraction—we stumble into a Spanish mass in progress. Bob listens in respectful silence for a moment before whisper-cackling, “As boring as I remember it.”

  Just as it did me, the food wins Bob over right away. Two things you’re filled with after every street meal in Mexico City: meat and regret. This is because every time you leave a puesto (stand) serving the best greasy tacos you’ve ever eaten, you pass one on the next block that looks even better. That remark about jumping a pant size wasn’t a joke. According to a recent report, 75 percent of women, 69 percent of men, and 35 percent of school-age children in Mexico City are overweight.

  Sadly, not every meal is perfect. For The Big Dinner—the celebratory binge set aside by friends who haven’t seen each other for so long that they conclude the only appropriate response is to feast like blue whales at a sea lion rookery—Bob and I select Hostería de Santo Domingo, a landmark establishment that specializes in a creation unique to Mexico called chiles en nogada (and which has nothing to do with Max’s Santo Domingo).

  Every guidebook to the city praises this “festive” and “hugely popular” restaurant. One goes so far as to proclaim the signature chiles en nogada the culinary equivalent of Greek drama, with its hot spices and mild walnut cream sauce battling for preeminence, its chewy pepper and savory stuffing of meat and cactus leaf serving as both emblem of Mexico’s riotous mash-up of cultures and symbolic substitution for the human flesh that comprised a sacred part of the national diet before the killjoy Spaniards showed up to outlaw all the primitive fun and replace it with their own weekly make-believe flesh-munching ceremony.

  We arrive at nine o’clock, Bob in a tailored suit from Hong Kong and me in my church jeans and the least wrinkled shirt in my closet. A corpselike maître d’ greets us at the door and escorts us to a table on the edge of a completely empty dining room. Barren. Deserted. Quiet as the Pope’s tomb. The kind of place you know you should leave the second you walk in, but before you can pull your thoughts together you’ve got a table, menus, drinks, and a commitment.

  From the back of the room, a chef pokes his head out of the kitchen to make sure he’s not being misled, that there really are customers who want to eat. The wait staff nods at him—see, gringos no less—then returns to eyeing us with shame and despair. Just when things can’t get any less promising, an elderly couple emerges from behind what looks like a closet door. The oldsters wheeze across the silent room to a violin (she) and a Technics electric piano (he) that sits on a massive stage. Someone hits a switch and a feeble string of Christmas lights trembles to life behind the piano. The crushing stillness of the restaurant is broken by a keening version of “As Time Goes By,” sung out of tune and in Spanish by the old woman as though she’s entertaining at a Bulgarian funeral.

  It’s a ghastly performance. Fiesta Mexico may be right outside the door, but we’ve stepped into a Soviet Black Sea resort circa 1955. The restaurant clearly had a stroke a few years ago but nobody’s bothered to come around and commit it to a home yet.

  The much-ballyhooed “riotous blend of chiles en nogada flavors” arrives less than two minutes after we order, always a bad sign. The plate is cold. The food is chilled. I find out later that chiles en nogada is most often served at room temperature, but you could use this walnut sauce to sooth third degree burns.

  Unwilling to concede easily to the failure of The Big Dinner, Bob and I gamely attempt to validate the meal despite the desolate echo and pulmonary rhythms of the geriatrics on stage. True, ice-flecked cream sauces can be off-putting to the untrained palate, but this one has an attention-grabbing way of lingering on the roof of the mouth. The meat is interesting. Mixed beef and alpaca? Pork and ostrich? The filling isn’t exactly hot, yet it’s warm, sort of, a welcome contrast to the rest of the dish.

  I down a hefty gulp of wine. I savor a quarter-forkful. The band shuffles through its songbook in search of another number—it’s so quiet you can hear the pages turn. Shanghai Bob sets down his fork and the clang of silver on porcelain reverberates so loudly that the violinist looks up to see what all the hullabaloo is about.

  “If I’m going to eat mucus, I prefer it to be hot,” Bob says, tossing his napkin onto the table.

  “Something wrong?”

  “It looks like dog vomit.”

  Bob whips out his camera and snaps a photo of the atrocity on his plate. The flash reflects across the entire room, startling the old man at the Technics into an off-key note.

  I inform Bob that the green pepper, white walnut sauce, and garnish of red pomegranate seeds represent the colors of the Mexican flag, just one reason chiles en nogada is revered across the nation. This little chestnut appears in all three of the guidebook descriptions I’ve read about Hostería de Santo Domingo, and I’m hoping it might enhance Bob’s appreciation of the dish.

  “A recipe based on the colors of a flag?” he says. “How fucking dumb is that? That makes this abortion worse.” As a longtime hotel man, Shanghai Bob is famously testy in the face of inferior F&B standards.

  I struggle through a few more bites, trying to prove a point, then drop my fork in defeat. The waiter doesn’t ask if we want a box. He just carts the plates away like dead bodies. The staff appears as relieved as we are when we reach for our coats and head outside in search of the nearest taco stand.

  I’m certain that Bob and I have witnessed a legend in its death throes, a restaurant that won’t possibly be open three months from now. Later, however, several locals assure me that the Hostería de Santo Domingo remains popular with a certain “mature” demographic, that it bristles with activity between its prime time of three and six in the afternoon, and that no matter what uncultured opinion I may have to offer on the matter, this is still the best place in the world to get chiles en nogada. I’m happy to take these experts at their word.

  The most rewarding attraction by far is Plaza Garibaldi, ground zero of mariachi culture, where dozens of groups converge every night for a massive Mexican-style battle of the bands. Though groups can be found specializing in every type of indigenous music in the country, mariachi dominates Garibaldi with bands of anywhere from three to twelve members playing violins, trumpets, guitars, drums, upright basses, and whatever else comes out of the Mexican kitchen sink.

  Music is everywhere in Mexico City, but in Garibaldi it’s everywhere all at once. Standing in the middle of the wide, outdoor plaza while four, five, or six bands play simultaneously—partying patrons purchase individual songs for a few bucks a pop—it dawns on me why mariachis sing with such loud, proud voices. It’s the only way they can be heard in proving grounds like Garibaldi.

  Facing the plaza, Salón Tenampa is the most famous mariachi bar in the country, a musical universe unto itself that’s celebrated in such songs as Los Lobos’ “Río de Tenampa.” Inside, Bob and I quickly down three margaritas. No ice, no froth, not particularly cold. Just lime and tequila. Are these “authentic” margaritas? There’s no way of asking over the din of roving musicians banging on guitars, blaring on trumpets, and singing like drunken ranchers at a sheep-shearing festival. Either way, the drinks are going down so fast, we start ordering two at a time.

  A quartet dressed in Virgin Mary white—hats, jackets, shirts, belts, pants, even boots, all blinding white—approaches the table and asks if we’d like a song. One of the guys is hauling a full-size harp, the centerpiece instrument of the sweet sones jarochos music of Veracruz. Where else can you slam margaritas with Tecate chasers while a guy jams on a harp five inches from your head?

  “I don’t know any Veracruz songs by name,” I tell the guitarist. “You pick.”

  “La Cucaracha?”

  “No, something different. Something from Veracruz.”

  “La Bamba?”

  “For God’s sake,” Bob says. “We get it; we’re gringos. Play something
that won’t embarrass us.”

  The band rips through two up-tempo numbers that sound pretty good, though it’s hard to tell for sure. Next to us, seven vocalists in gaudy charro suits with silver-studded black sombreros are singing for a table of Mexicans, every one of them enjoying the hell out of “La Bamba.” Every sound in the bar—the music, laughter, talking, and shouting for more drinks—merges into a muddled roar. This must be what it’s like to be an old dude with the batteries running low on his hearing aid. I can barely pick out the harp notes, even though by the end of the song the harpista is practically in my lap.

  When the band finishes, a spindly character with slack, greasy hair and the wide, owly eyes of a child approaches the table and sets down a crude wooden box the size of a hamster cage. A pair of wires protrude from small holes cut in the side of the box. From the minute we walked in, I’ve been watching this guy make the rounds through the bar. Whatever he’s selling, lots of people have been buying.

  “Hola!”

  “Hola.”

  “Would you like to play?” he says in Spanish, holding up the wires. Up close, I can see they have thin metal handles, like a pair of rudimentary jumper cables.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  He places the handles on the table and turns the box around. On the back are a pair of thick, round dials, like knobs from an AM radio control board Wolfman Jack might have worked with. The dials are numbered zero to ten.

  “You hold the handles and I turn the knobs,” the man explains. “The higher I go, the greater the intensity of electrical current that enters your body.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” I ask.

  “To test how much you can take.”

  “So, this isn’t some kind of therapeutic thing?” I ask, ruling out an earlier guess. “There’s no alleged medicinal value at all? Just a pure test of machismo?”

  “Yes, just a test. For fun. See that one? Moments ago he made it all the way to nine. He is very strong. His friends were impressed.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “It’s easy. Why not give it a try?”

  “You ever hook that thing up to someone’s nuts?”

  “Oh, señor, no. Give it a try.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten pesos.”

  So, less than a dollar to get electrocuted in a Mexican bar.

  “You do much business with this?” I ask. “Make a lot of money?”

  “Yes, it’s very popular.”

  How exactly one drops into the business of talking guys in bars into getting jolted with an electrical current I don’t know, but I like this man’s idea of a good time. Even more, I like the fact that what little Spanish Shanghai Bob understands was drowned and left for dead somewhere between the ninth and tenth margarita of the night.

  “This guy’s contraption looks pretty interesting,” I say to Bob. “I’m going to treat you to a piece of authentic Mexican culture.”

  “It doesn’t look safe.” Shanghai Bob didn’t just roll into town on top of a load of avocadoes.

  “It’s perfectly safe. I couldn’t get everything he said but I think it’s a sort of relaxation thing.”

  Now, it goes without saying that a man doesn’t earn a name like Shanghai Bob for being a downy innocent easily conned into barroom scams. But as I “explain” the box, and its owner stands by with the placid trustworthiness of an Amway salesman, I absolutely know that despite the glaze of skepticism in his eyes, this far into the evening a ferocious tequila mallet is hammering away at Bob’s better judgment. And that inside his head my margarita accomplice is imploring, “C’mon, big fella, how often are you in Mexico? Take some chances. Live a little. Chuck has a lot of Mexico experience. He knows what he’s doing.”

  Bob looks at me like a baby harp seal and slowly reaches for the handles. I offer a “Good show, old boy” expression and turn to the man at the dials.

  “Do your worst,” I say, fully expecting a first-round knockout. But the guy isn’t just electrician, he’s part artist, with a deeply refined appreciation of the dramatic essence of his craft. He moves his fingers over the dials like a ballerina putting on her tights.

  Level one passes without incident.

  At level two, Shanghai Bob’s face acquires a kind of beatific radiance, the countenance of a simple man touched by the innocence of a child or the splendor of a spring meadow.

  At level three, he appears mildly stoned.

  At level four, the electrocutioner lingers. A creeping confusion in Bob’s eyes evolves rapidly into suspicion and alarm.

  At level five, Bob’s cheeks begin to tremble. His eyelids flutter like a hummingbird’s wings in front of a bright red flower the instant before penetration.

  At level six, Bob’s head snaps back and he howls like a child who’s just seen his dog run over. “Holy fucking shit!” he screeches, flinging the scorching handles to the floor. “This guy’s trying to kill me!”

  The electrocutioner calmly bends over and picks up the handles. Bob sears both of us with a glare of unfiltered contempt.

  “What the fuck is inside that box, a car battery?” Bob asks—guessing correctly, as it turns out.

  “How high did he make it?” I ask the electrocutioner.

  “Almost seven.”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “It’s typical. See the girl standing at the bar? Last night she reached nine and a half.”

  This is a dubious claim. The trick, it turns out, is simply hanging on. Once the current becomes strong enough—usually between seven and eight—the arm muscles seize so tightly that it becomes physically impossible to let go. Had Bob’s “uncle” instinct not kicked in just before he reached the point of no return, he might still be clinging to those live wires.

  After a dozen margaritas and the shock-and-awe gimcrackery inside Tenampa, Shanghai Bob is desperate for fresh air. Back in the plaza we buy a couple of Coronas from a guy toting around a Coleman cooler. To drown out the sound of Bob complaining about being electrocuted, I pay for a song from a wandering norteño outfit in matching black-and-white fringed leather jackets and hand-tooled cowboy boots.

  A small crowd buzzes around to hear our accordionist and two singers barrel through a loud polka. A man carrying a four-foot-high stack of cowboy hats in one hand wanders by and talks Bob into buying a black one for fifteen bucks. For cardboard covered with felt, the hat doesn’t look all that bad.

  “I hate cowboy hats,” Bob says as he puts it on. We’re in that drunken, irrational, freewheeling mood in which temporarily stepping out of character makes perfect stupid sense. “Only Mexicans look good in cowboy hats.”

  The cowboy hat either has magical powers or, in concert with Shanghai Bob’s own mystical faculties, it acquires an explosive synergistic authority. Bob isn’t bald, but like Tim McGraw, he undergoes a godlike transformation with the black hat on his head. For the first time I sense the potential for the redoubtable charisma of the expat’s expat from the Orient to be fully realized in the Latin world.

  Almost as soon as he gets the hat on his head, an exceptionally good-looking, long-haired young Mexican woman in low-cut, pube-teaser jeans and a tight green top leaps out from behind the band and into Shanghai Bob McGraw’s arms with a feral take-me-now shriek. At first she appears to be joking, or maybe on the losing end of a dare, but when she straightens up and asks him to dance, Shanghai Bob hands me his beer and makes a few gallant turns around the plaza. As adept at the thankless role of the wingman as anyone, I discreetly feed more money to the band.

  As the polkas speed up, so does the interest of the girl in the green top. After three songs and an ever-tightening grip on the girl’s waistline, Bob looks over his shoulder and shouts, “Charlie, I’m not sure where this is going, but we might be taking separate cabs home.”

  I shoot him the old “no problemo” sign and slip another two hundred pesos to the band. While the music plays on, I wander the plaza checking out more bands and buying more dollar Coronas
. Thirty minutes later, Bob taps me on the arm. The black magic cowboy hat looks like it’s never coming off, but Bob is cruising stag once more.

  “What happened to the girl?” I ask.

  “Eh, you know,” he says. “She wasn’t looking for anything seedy.”

  They usually aren’t, but that’s never stopped Shanghai Bob before. Still, he doesn’t look disappointed and I let the comment pass. I don’t want to think about Shanghai Bob growing too old to be vulgar.

  The night in Garibaldi Plaza ends at three thirty on Sunday morning. Although it’s always enjoyable to recount drinking binges in Mexico, there’s a larger point in my retelling of this one. Neither Bob nor I tend to be belligerent or obnoxious drunks, but on this night we are by any measure two red-faced gringos blasted enough to test a homemade device that sends an electrical surge through the body; to slam room-temperature margaritas without once uttering a complaint; to open our wallets and drop cash like pirates on holiday in full view of anybody who happens to be stalking an area well known for impaired tourists throwing their money around; to listen to five bands at a time and love every one of them; to buy CDs that we’ll lose before the night is out from bands whose names we’ll never know; to pretend to be pros at the norteño hustle in front of a crowd of hooting strangers while holding on to a twenty-year-old girl and coming God knows how close to a Mexican shotgun wedding. And at the end of it all, not only not getting rolled, but reeling off the sidewalk into the middle of the street, flagging down the first cab that comes by, and trusting the driver to get us back to our hotel and apartment in the heart of Mexico City with most of the money in our wallets and all of the virginity in our asses intact at the end of the ride. And having it all go down exactly like that, having it end on a harmonious note that mistrustful worry warts the world over who have never set foot in Mexico City would not possibly believe it could.

  Gloom, fascism, and matching unisex outfits are standard futurist predictions for human society, but despite prophecies of doom and evangelical hard-ons for the end of days, some parts of the world are getting better with the march of time. Mexico City appears to be one of them.