Homeless By Choice

The jewish tico (Costa Rican) and the Spanish/Croatian Colombian were in a bit of a cookoff. Tico had a mass of chicken hindquarters while Hotto, the furtive beer snatcher from yesterday was going to cook a roast. The tico family was gathered, the refrigerator technician, Hotto, Ivonne and I gathered under the rancho.

While the chicken was marinading in a mustard based sauce the tico kept bringing drinks to Hotto alternating between 5 ounces of vodka neat and beer, each served 10 minutes apart. We toasted, I with a large glass of water and they with their respective drinks. After a toast the glasses were emptied, excepting mine. The tico spoke no English, his wife some, his 25 year old daughter, who looks 16 teaches it. Hotto speaks Spanish and is intermediate in English.

The kids were cavorting noisily in the pool and conversations were amicable and covered a large variety of topics.

Hotto told me about a guest that had left two weeks earlier with whom had become good friends. It seems some guy from Denver was in town and somehow in his drug dealings ran afoul of the Colombians and woke to find a guy pointing a gun at his head while he lay in bed got into a scuffle. It was a long tale but in the end the target of the Colombians was staying here and somehow got on TV. Hotto suggested it would be in everybody’s best interests if he left.

Upon inquiry hotto told me that he was in the crocodile shoe business from end to end, buying untanned hides from Indians in the Darien, tanning them in Panama City to shoe manufacturing.

More drinks and Hotto started telling me about his proficiency with guns but he couldn’t name the calibers of a long list of popular guns. More drinks. I told the tico he had to stop bringing Hotto drinks, he was going to kill him. The chicken was put on the grill, more bullshitting. More drinking.

Finally we sat down to eat. The chicken was the best chicken I’ve ever had. The tico had been drinking at the same rate as Hotto. The tico merrily served everybody chicken and drinks while Hotto sat in the chair with a glazed look in his eye.

“Jim, yer all smilz tnite but sher you were in Texas and I guy touch his balls you smash him in face? Am I right? Am I right? You don’t take the shit. Am I right?”

He put his fork in the chicken, manipulated the chicken with his knife, lifted an empty fork to his face and missed his mouth. This happened up to half a dozen times consecutively before he would get a piece into his mouth. He talked incessantly in a language no person on earth could comprehend. The 25 year and I kept glancing at each other in extreme amusement, her mother was just astonished.

Later it came time to throw people in the pool. Everybody was thrown in but me. That was considerate. I went to bed at 10. The Tico hit the hay at 1 slept until 2:30 and decided this was an appropriate time to drive half the length of Panama.

My good friend Walter suggested that I might be more comfortable and find my commutes to the hospital shorter if I stayed at a different place and informed me that a friend of his liked to stay in a private house that rents out rooms.

Omar, the operator of Panama by Luis called Villa Michelle for me, secured a room and wrote down the address.

Altos del Golf
Villa Michelle
Entrar por Waikiki
al final de la calle
En El Muro Naranja
porton negro

which translates to

Altos del Golf
Villa Michelle
Entering Waikiki (a famous restaurant)
at the end of the street
Orange In The Wall
black gate

Interesting addresses down here, but I’ll go into that later.

Thanking Omar, the hard working operator of the operator of Panama By Luis I checked out. A 10 minute taxi ride later I found myself in front of an 8 foot orange wall with a massive 8′ tall black gate. There was no sign in front to indicate that this was anything other than a private residence. I pressed the buzzer and walked up the drive to be greeted by a flat chested woman who showed me around.

I was given a bedroom which was formerly the library. The walls and ceiling are mahogany planks. Two walls are outfitted with wonderful shelves but no private bath. The queen sized bed had 600 thread count sheets. Ahh, this is more like it.

Presently the maid receded into the depths of the house and a cylindrical blonde appeared with a ready smile on her face. “I am Ivonne, this is my home of 28 years.” Ivonne appears to be in her mid fifties.

We walked out past the pool and entered the rancho. She pulled out a business card and flipped it over. There was a map of the immediate neighborhood three streets by three streets and she put in little boxes and said things along the lines of “This is the closest and cleanest chino.” Again a chino is a grocery store. The Chinese do nothing but own grocery stores and all grocery stores are owned by the Chinese. Restaurants, ATMS and other things of interest were marked off.

She collected four days rental at $45/day asked for no identification and I filled out no forms. Certainly walking around the grounds was within the scope of my physical condition. The large rancho ended at a drainage ditch. The concrete wall on this side dropping fourteen feet to the bottom of the ditch which flowed with clear water. On the far side the wall rose six feet surrendering to a ledge filled with rich black soil support all manner of greenery many of which where vines which ascended the 18 foot wall on the other side of the ledge. A security moat and an arboretum in one.

Looking as I turned clockwise I saw successively a massive stainless steel Brinkman grill a full sized refrigerator a sink, four feet of tiled counter, a two burner stove, an extreme high output stove, the swimming pool, a bar a large glass fronted beverage refrigerator that was most certainly was intended for a retail establishment, a massive deep freezer and a TV. In the center were two large tables six and eight feet across. This is obviously the center of activity.

My fellow guests were described as a family of Colombians and some jewish Ticos. Not feeling well enough to walk three blocks to a restaurant I chose from a list of menus and had Seafood Soup delivered, popped a painkiller and sat down to read.

The tico kids splashed in the pool a cute little eight year old asked me if she could charge her ipod on my computer, which of course I graciously accommodated. She then went over took out a huge block of ice and seeing that it wouldn’t fit into the glass took a big butcher knife and was going to drive it toward the palm of her left hand. “ALTO!” I took the ice block and beat it with the wood handle of a spatula.

I found out the maid was male and just an employee not Ivanne’s lesbian partner.

While sitting reading I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. A guy in a long sleeved shirt and underwear was crouched on the far side of the refrigerator furtively opened it, grabbed a beer and scampered away. What the hell was that? That was my introduction to Hotta, the Colombian.

Needing money I walked five blocks to the ATM, which requires oh, two turns. On my way home, I got lost and had to take a taxi.

Come dinner time everybody here came under the rancho and cooking commenced as the families gathered around. A quiet, peaceful, sociable evening. Just what I needed.

The next thing I needed to attend to was the urine in my blood. I scheduled a 2:00 taxi ride to take me back to the San Fernando medical center. At about 1:50 the skies opened and thunder boomed. The type of thunder that was setting off multiple car alarms and shaking the building. The rain was torrential.

I went out front, intending to wait under cover but the cab was there. By 2:08 I was in the office for my 3:00 appointment. In half an hour I saw the doctor. We had a short interview and he gave me an exam. He pressed on my chest and abdomen and then worked on my back, when he hit my kidneys my legs kicked, my body shook and I groaned. The exam was finished, he brought into his office and ordered a UROCAT TOMOGRAFIA, a CAT scan for examining the kidneys, marked “URGENTE”.

So, off I made my way to imaging services service order in hand, paid my $240 fee, waited 10 minutes and got my exam. “Quentos tiempo pora resulta?” “Manana” “No, este urgente.” “Media hora”. I was told to have a seat in the waiting area and they would give me the results in half an hour. I have never had a cat scan result delivered to me. I waited an hour and a half and went back to the urologist. The receptionist called into the doctor who was with a patient. The doctor acknowledged that he had received the results and that I should wait there. About 5:30 I saw the doctor who advised me that although my kidney is bruised there are no hematomas present. The good doctor wrote me up a prescription for some serious pain meds and a cream to be applied over the traumatized area. I paid his $45 fee and left.

Off to the pharmacy I fulfilled my prescriptions in four minutes. The boxes were pulled off the shelf and the little plastic aluminum pill trays pulled out and scissored if a fraction were necessary. The usage labels applied to little paper bags and the packets put inside.

In the states it would take 30 to 60 minutes and little plastic bottles would be filled with loose pills. This system seems a bit better.

?? Dollars later I headed out and started to the street to catch a taxi. I spotted the McDonalds next to the hospital and thought, yeah, this is easier than doing anything else. I ordered an Angus Burger Meal. I received my fries and water and was given incomprehensible instructions. I walked off ate my fries, drank two glasses of water. No burger was delivered to me so I walked back to the counter and gave them a WTF look. They immediately surrendered a burger to me. I sat down and looked at it and thought “who the hell eats this much food?” I ate half the burger, threw the rest in the trash and caught a cab back to the hostel.

In my room my applied the cream, then I popped one of Dr Feelgood’s painkillers. Thirty minutes later, life was good.

I awoke at 11 thinking it was 5. There was next to no light coming through the frosted slatted windows of the room. How the hell could it be 11? I cranked the handle to see that the window did not really open to the out of doors but to some strange corridor.

After a quick examination of the bathroom, I decided just to wash myself from the sink.

Down two flights of stairs, my pack banging against my poor ribs.

A quick $2 taxi ride to Mamallena, a trek up the stairs. No room? I suspected so and probably won’t be for weeks. The staff is a score of clones of a really hot young woman and all friendly as hell. “Well, can I use your internet to find a place?” “Absolutely.”

So I got online, looked around and found the number three rated spot in the city had room, wrote down the address, thanked the women and headed back down the stairs and down the street to find a taxi.

I hailed a taxi who stopped in the second lane, what the hell? So I opened the door and handed him the the address to a hailed taxi. “Quento?” “Cinco.” All right, five bucks and we are off. As I crawled into the front seat the door, open into the curb side lane was about to be rammed by a bus, who wasn’t about to swerve or slow down. I managed to close the door with a half second to spare. Now the road rage, my driver took off chased the bus and the two yelled at each other for three minutes.

Then he took off to begin the most aggressive driving I have ever witnessed taking off full throttle, breaking just in time to avoid impact, swerving in and out of traffic. Panamanian intersections are generally just a game of balls no traffic signals, no stop signs no round abouts four lane roads intersect and are crossed with just a horn and a large set of testicles. Sometimes the traffic drove on the left, sometimes the right. I could never drive in this city. Corners were negotiated at a speed that peeled rubber off the tires. Half an hour later we arrived at what he thought was the destination.

Addresses are more like descriptions, there are no street numbers. He tore around and pulled next to every security booth and person standing on the road and asked for the location of our destination. At least a dozen times he followed and grew increasingly frustrated. Finally we located the place.

I rang the buzzer and a bald headed guy leaned over the landing. Despite what the web availability had said, there were no private rooms. To hell with it, I’ll take a dorm. Fortunately I secured a private room for the next three nights.

The common area was filled with scores of backpacks. Seems this place also runs a lot of tours to San Blas. Little is needed in San Blas and it is nothing but sand and salt water so a prudent person sheds everything possible. The furniture consists of three couches, a computer table, a coffee table and a TV. Using a laptop on a couch sucks, especially if one must use a detached keyboard. At least its chilly. I booked my room, sight unseen and Omar showed me around. To get to the kitchen one must merely go down a flight of stairs, around the front of the building and up the other side. It’s the rainy season. Even more special, the dorm is located 70 meters away.

I passed the time, chatting with my fellow guests, the reason I much prefer hostels over hotels. Who wants to sit in one’s hotel room alone day after day?

Intermittently I tried to catch up on my sleep. While lying in my bed an Indian walked in, threw his pack in the corner and went off to take a shower. He came back and started to go through an elaborate toilet. When he was done I opened my eyes and said, “Hi, my name is Jim.” Man this guy looked familiar. “I’m Tony.” Ahh, it was all coming together. You come from Franklin’s Island? That’s the other half.

Ok, this guy is a legend. Two different groups of Indians share an island in Kuna Lana. Tony’s half is, let’s say, pretty damn wild. He was coming to Panama City for a month to find some tranquility. This is city of honking horns and insane traffic. This guy is so crazy he lives at Aqua Lounge when he is in Bocas. This a place where you have about a 25% chance of getting robbed on any given day.

At 5:30 in the morning a flashlight was flicking about the room, I asked him just to turn on the lights. In ten minutes he was done packing and I was able to see where my stuff was. “That was a quick month. Bye” He shook my hand and headed out the door, the room filled with the smell of alcohol.

I walked to the airport and was greeted by a bud Flaco. I realized what a well endowed woman feels as everybody blatantly stared at my leg. The head of immigration walked over and said “Jim have you been bitten by something?” My right calf was swollen and discolored.

I rescheduled by morning ticket for a reschedule fee and headed out to Panama City on a fifty minute flight. This was the first time I had arrived and night and was awed by the beauty of the city from the air.

A forty minute $15 cab ride found me at San Fernando Hospital. I was admitted in about five minutes, triaged in 10 and assigned to a doctor who examined my ribs, bruised back and leg. The ribs were obviously caused by blunt force and she diagnosed me with an infection in the leg.

A few minutes later blood was drawn and urine sample delivered all sent to the lab. I was asked to wait in the waiting area for the lab results. About three hours later the doctor told me the results were back and my blood definitely reflected an infection by the high white blood counts. Urine in my blood proved some kidney damage had been inflicted.

She wrote up references to a urologist and some speciality doctor that probably doesn’t translate well that is associated with infections. Prescriptions for two types of antibiotics and a pain killer were written. I was advised to obtain and start on the antibiotics immediately.

I went to pay the bill, the emergency room services came to $60 and the lab services $28.

Securing a cab, I headed off to Rey an all night supermarket with a pharmacy. The drug order was filled in 10 minutes.

15 Keradol 10 mg $13.95 Pain Reliever
21 Clindamicina $16.59
14 Ciprofloxina $8.26

I thought I would been spending the night in the hospital so I had not arranged lodging. The mayhem in front of the store continued on into the late of the night with taxis coming and going and competing with passenger vehicles for traffic space. Not having access to the internet at the time I just grabbed a taxi and told him a hotel I wanted to go to it was full. We spent the next hour with him driving around from place to place. He ran up and inquired if there were rooms available. I think he was just enjoying driving me around running the meter although I did hear most of the people say they had no room.

Finally he found ??? Americana. I just wanted to go to bed. I walked into the small lobby and secured a room for the night from a most strikingly beautiful young woman while the taxi driver grinned at his success. I trod up a flight of stairs to encounter a very heavy stainless steel door followed by a well built door built of drilled and welded heavy stainless steel. What is this place? Struggling up the next to flights of stairs I admired the doors on the rooms large woodgrained but obviously very heavy steel doors. I found my room managed to get the key line with the cylinder through the drill plate and turned the key with a heavy thunk, retracting eight deadbolts.

This awesome security apparatus had a major flaw. There was no way to lock the door from the inside. Oh well, I just need to lie down, I’m not going down those stairs and back up again.

Looking around the room I saw a bed with a flimsy mattress, a window mounted air conditioner through the brick wall with no remote control and the front controls missing and a small shelf bolted to the wall. The bed had sheets so threadbare you see the mattress through it. Screw it, I just need to pass out. But sleep did not come easily as the pain reliever wasn’t up to the task.

I was ambushed and beaten without provocation or notice.

I wonder how many ribs are broken. Nasty blow to my shin.

Now what could have motivated that guy? Hmmm. It’s not hard for me to come up with a guess.

After being asked to leave for a huge number of incivilities Becca told me she had no place to go. I offered to buy her an airplane ticket to anywhere but despite the fact the she claimed that all sorts of men everywhere wanted her, she had no place to go.

Not a single day could go by without her yelling at me for such infractions as bringing home chicken legs on my fourth trip out for the day doing her bidding while she sat on Facebook on the back porch. “What the fuck is this? Don’t you ever bring meat into my kitchen that I didn’t ask for.” Umm, it’s my house.

Two days later she was waving a butcher knife at me in front of a friend for failing to give her a kiss when I walked in the front door.

Needless to say things were not going well and I told her she had to go. She had friends pleading on her behalf but I couldn’t live with this. She was going to contribute to the household. Her suggestion? I give her $1,000 and she would gamble on line. Ummm, no.

She was outraged that I didn’t want her companionship and yelled at me “You are an idiot, any man would want me.” Ok, then go to one.

One day she asked me for her passport, I told her I didnt’ have it, did you check the safe next to your bed?

She lived in my house for a week or so thereafter, receiving a stipend while I tried to avoid the place. When she finally secured a position, I secured some boxes for her, packed up her kitchen supplies and mailed gentle suggestions as to how she could pack her toiletries in another box, her loose clothes in the other boxes and that I would help her carry out the boxes and the clothes on hangers and take her to her hotel. I also told her to leave my MacIntosh computer, but that she could have the ipad she gave me after she broke my kindle by sitting on my backpack.

I exited my room to see she had departed in great haste, leaving many of her items behind, it turns out, her passport included, but my brand new MacBook pro was missing. She subsequently admitted to being in possession of same but had decided that the replacement for my Sony Viao was hers if she so desired in contradiction to contemporaneous documentation.

Oh shit! What time is it? I grabbed the remote control for my air conditioner. 6:47, cool. Shower, dress, grab a cup of java and head down to Stephen’s. An unknown worker killed time on a handheld game device. Pablo showed up right on time, 7:30. WTF?

We boarded the pirate boat and headed out to salvage the hull we saw three weeks ago. The hull probably originally sold for $40k, the owner was asking $2k. Stephen offered $600, take it or leave it. The glass was all in very good shape, the hatches and hinges were worthless. The glascine needed to be replaced, but it was a fine hull, A 26 foot ??? center console, walk around with a cuddy cabin. I told Stephen yesterday that there was no way in hell two people were going to unstick that boat even at high tide. The boat must weigh at least 3,000 pounds.

Twenty minutes later, or so we arrived at the boat, situated at the opening of a teak farm atop a trailer not so slowly yielding its oxidizing frame to the sea. The stern was at least a foot above the water and the boat was bow down.

I suggested we elevate the tongue of the trailer on which the boat was resting using the long planks of teak as fulcrums and moment arms of a lever. The idea was nixed and various approaches applied for an hour using such things as ropes and trying to lift the boat. Finally the man who ran the property came over. He had a proven technique that he had used.

He supervised the creation of a lever to lift the tongue of the trailer.

Huh. In any event Stephen got a hell of a hull for $600.

All the smooothie shops were closed, it is the slow season so we settled for bagels.

As we walked in Casa Verde it look like a battalion of blondes had come to storm the town.

Internet research for a friend.

Three musketeers go to Shelley and crack each other up for an hour. Various citizens are hailed as they walk or drive buy. “Don’t call Rambo! He’ll come over here.” The funky little red van with the windscreen now made of that plastic material used to make clear flexible boat screens swerves and proceeds to backup, near hitting a couple of people in the process. No wonder a bicyclist went through the front.

You know where I can find a tailor. I need some pants mended. “Yes, you need to call… there he is.” The tailor is called over, we exchange phone numbers, he lives behind my neighbor the bicycle repair person. He’ll call me at 9 tomorrow morning. Sure, we’ll see.

I’ll give it shot. But I think I’m going to need a five point harness and a sturdy helmet.

God save the Queen.