The Thong Also Rises (15 page)

Eventually both made it to their vacation home, and were they ever happy then. “Home” was a Quonset hut on the side of what we in Mississippi would call a mountain or an Alp; the indigenous folk of Alaska liked to think of it as a “Hill.” Meals would be taken “down the hill.”And down the hill it was, too—300 feet straight down the hill. You practically had to rappel down three times a day. Meals were then followed by the inevitable climb back up the hill. Now, our boys were both in what I would call really good shape, but
nothing they had done here in the relative flatlands had prepared them for this “hill.” For the first two days, they threw up whatever meal they had just eaten, getting back up the hill to the Quonset hut.

Remember, they came on this fire drill to hunt, specifically moose and grizzly bear. A fool's errand, if you ask me, but, of course, nobody did.They hired “major-league hunting guides,” who sound an awful lot like garden-variety igmos to me. (But again, that is strictly my totally unsolicited opinion.) In the whole two or three weeks they were stuck off up there in the exact center of nowhere, how many moose and/or grizzly bears do you think they saw? Well, let me put it this way: I saw just as many in my very own backyard. “Hunting” with these wily woodsmen—these very expensive wily woodsmen—consisted of either (1) crashing through the brush, making enough noise to alert every bear and moose within a 200-mile radius, or (2) sitting by themselves on a stump, personally selected for them by their wily woodsmen, for ten to twelve hours at a time. Sure makes me want to take up huntin'. Boy hidee, it just sounds like a bucket o' fun. I envision Bill and Ron off warming stumps, while all the bears and moose were in the Quonset hut playing cards with the wily woodsmen….

But, as luck would have it, the pilot did, in fact, return for Bill and he did, in fact, make it to the actual airport where they have big airplanes.This brought up another issue. Out in the wilderness, it was either unnoticeable or irrelevant, but in the relative confines of the big airport, Bill could not help but notice that he smelled like a goat, although perhaps that reference is slanderous only to the goat and flattering to Bill. Bottom line: he had not had a shower in a long time and it showed—so much so that he himself could not bear it. And so, as if it made perfect sense, he goes into the men's
room handicapped stall and strips. The man is completely naked in the men's room at the big airport, trying to de-funk himself with lavatory soap and wet paper towels. Quite a picture, no?

Several days late and somewhat scruffy, Bill did make good his return, amid great rejoicing by friends and family, who had no idea whether he would make it back alive or they would be claiming a box containing his stinky remains. All's well that ends well. Alaska is safe once more for the grizzlies and the moose.

If we were going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a vacation, there would be things called “Sea Goddess” and “Ritz-Carlton” figuring prominently. Hell, we could have plastic surgery and recuperate in a fancy hotel for that kind of money. All we can think of is how very glad we are men don't try to make us go with them and how hilarious it is that they seem to think they are pulling something over on us by slipping off on these expeditions without us. We are laughing ourselves sick all the way home from dropping them off at the airport, are we not?

Here is the Queens' ideal vacation: Delbert McClinton's Blues Cruise. Delbert, as you may recall, is one of our very most favoritest musicians in the entire world, living or dead, and he sponsors a cruise every January and books all the rest of our very most favoritest musicians in the entire world, living or dead, to go on this cruise with him.They all perform just night and day the whole time, so you can be on a cruise, getting waited on hand and foot, basking in the sun, even seeing exotic ports of call if you're so inclined. (But I warn you, the lackeys do not follow you ashore to wait on you hand and foot there.) You can have all this
plus
you get to dance with Delbert and his buddies all night every night. I
cannot imagine a circumstance under which you could possibly have more fun unless you happen to own a monkey that I don't know anything about.

For all you Wannabe Wannabes out there who have been clamoring for a Sweet Potato Queen Convention, here's the deal: We're all going on Delbert's Blues Cruise! All you have to do—I'm completely serious—is call this number: 1-800-DELBERT and tell them you want to book yourself and your cohorts for a week of Sweet Potato Queens and Delbert. Don't bother paying your bills before you leave— you won't be wanting to go home, anyway.

Jill Conner Browne, royal boss of Jackson, Mississippi's own glorious Sweet Potato Queens, introduced them to the world in the bestseller
The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love.
She is also the author of the bestselling
The Sweet Potato Queens' Financial Planner
and
God Save the Sweet Potato Queens,
from which piece was excerpted.

I'll have what she's having, bartender.

P
AINTED WITH WHAT LOOKED MORE LIKE BROWN
sludge than paint, the sign stated proudly:

Don Chongs Camping
Camp by River
$3 US a night

Dust flew up around me as I made my way under the fronds of towering date trees, ripe with clusters of their sweet oblong fruit. Eagles circled above, serenading me with the rustling of their wings. Nestled amongst the palms, I found a spot near a sandy beach to unpack my things and establish my new home. Little did I know that near this oasis town of San Ignacio on the Baja peninsula, I was about to find an elixir that would change my life. Well, at least alter my way of thinking for a few hours.

In town, an immense eighteenth-century Catholic Church loomed above me. Locals loitered in the small plaza.Trailers selling fish tacos littered the streets. A liquor
store occupied the corner, and when I entered all talking stopped. The weathered Mexican men turned to stare. They whispered. They laughed. I went about my business, wishing I had learned more Spanish before embarking on my journey.

“You just
have
to try the yellow lady liqueur, Kate,” some friends suggested before I left home.

“Yellow lady?” I asked.

Even though they could not remember the exact name of it, they assured me that I had to try it. I searched the dusty, whitewashed shelves. No yellow lady was to be found. As I turned to walk out of the store, I spotted a bottle shaped like a thick-bodied woman, hands resting on her swollen belly. Filled with a gleaming yellow liquid, she shimmered as the sun from the windows hit her full breasts.

The bottle was high on a shelf. I couldn't reach her. I took a deep breath, tried the little Spanish I knew, and asked the old man behind the counter for help. He sighed and meandered towards me.

I pointed at the bottle.

He smiled.Then he breathed, “Damiana.”

“Damiana?” I asked.

He smiled and winked at me as we walked to the register.

“Ooohhhhh, Damiana!” cried his friends when they spotted my bottle. Each one slapped me on my back, chuckling, as I left the store.

I arrived back at camp and slowly poured some of the glimmering, flaxen liqueur in a shot glass, a little leery after the men's reaction. The liquid was sweet, smooth, and went down easy. Don Chong, in work boots and faded blue jeans, sauntered through the palms. His graying sideburns and mustache stood out against his olive skin. He flashed a sweet smile as he eyed my bottle. We chatted, and soon he put his
arm around me and sat close. His friendly advances worried me, so I told him that I was turning in and bid him
adios.

The next day I drove south to a fishing village called Mulege. A dusty dirt road led me down to a small beach with cappuccino-colored sand, a dollop of froth on its rim from the spray of the turquoise sea. I rented a
palapa
for $3 a night. Made from dried palm leaves stretched across frail poles, this three-sided shack was a perfect shelter from the hot afternoon sun.

On a
palapa
near mine a dozen small paintings were hung. Underneath them, a young blonde woman sat at a table painting another work of art. I looked over her shoulder and watched as the image of a worn collapsing building began to appear, revealing the decay and disintegration of an otherwise solid structure. She had frozen the moment in time, and her out-of-slant perspective made the scene look somewhat psychedelic. She kept looking up to study her subject when I realized she was painting the outhouse.

“
¿El cuarto de baño?
” I asked.

She smiled and nodded. “Hi, I'm Lorna.”

“Nice to meet you, can I offer you a drink?”

“What, is it?” she asked as she eyed my bottle.

“I'm not sure, but it's real good,” I confessed.

“You've had some?”

“Oh, yeah!”

After a little coaxing, she said she would try it.

I poured us both a drink, and went to use
el baño.
As I walked back to our makeshift cantina in the sand, I saw Lorna trying to generate enough courage to take a drink. She picked up and looked at the bottle, sniffed the glass, and finally took a feeble, tiny taste. She smiled, and then took one long, slow swallow and it was gone. Suddenly, the manager of the
palapas
was at her side. Pablo, with a white
cowboy hat covering his eyes, and short-sleeved plaid shirt, buttons bursting at his paunch, kept smiling his lusty smile at her. Although the language barrier made it hard for them to have a conversation, he was persistent.

She glanced at me, her eyes pleading, “Help me.” I asked if she wanted to walk to town. With an enthusiastic “Yes!” she followed me, thanking me profusely.

“What got into him all of a sudden?” Lorna wondered out loud.

“I don't know, but there seems to be a lot of it going around lately!”

Arriving in town, we pulled the yellow lady out of my daypack, and took a couple of big swigs. We walked into the small, dingy corner store, the top of the bottle sticking out of my bag. A short, dark-skinned, wrinkled man walked up to us and smiled.

“Pedro, Kissy Pedro,” he said, jutting his weathered hand out for us to shake. He might have been eighty or maybe just sixty and had led a hard life. We smiled back, it was hard not to, looking at his infectious, toothless grin. His hands had a permanent shake to them, but the gleam in his eye when he smiled at us was that of a twenty-year-old man.

Lorna rolled her eyes and groaned, “Oh brother, not another one!”

When we left the store, Kissy Pedro was right behind us with bloodshot eyes, quivering voice, and big black holes in place of bicuspids. We came to an intersection. Pedro insisted on helping us. He held out two boney elbows and we grabbed on. Behind us, Kissy Pedro's friends watched as he took two American women across the street. Lorna winked at me, and gave him a kiss on the cheek for all his friends to see. I followed suit. Cries and catcalls came from the men on the corner. Pedro smiled, then pulled me down to his level
and tried to stick his tongue down my throat. I leaped away, grabbed Lorna's arm, and we ran, laughing all the way back to our
palapas.

In the morning, I stood on the beach in the magenta hue of dawn. A ruby brilliance shone over the horizon and reflected onto the water. The uppermost reaches of the sky were crimson and cobalt, the shoreline dark. A lone boat was out at sea; the silhouette of a single fisherman added a feeling of tranquility to the scene. Suddenly, the warmth of two muscular arms wrapped around me. I spun around.There was Jonathan, a man I had longed for since I first laid eyes on him years earlier.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

He pressed his finger to my lips to silence me. He carried me into the water where we met the colors of the sunrise. Our wet bodies trembled as one in the sea. He kissed me gently, working his way down the nape of my neck. As he reached the silky fabric of my blouse, I awoke to the most God-awful, slobbering, mangy dog in my hammock, smelling like he had rolled in something that crawled out from the bottom of the sea and died. You could see his green breath with every forceful pant.

After a night of fitful sleep, filled with more wild erotic dreams, I just had to find out what was in the yellow lady. As I explored the town that day, I asked shopkeepers, bartenders, everyone. All they would say was “Damiana,” and then they would smile, nod, and wink. Finally a waiter added to the mystery. “Ahhhh, the Love Liqueur” was all he said.