A L S O__T O D A Y tk By tk tk T A B L E_T A L K Passenger goes nuts on airplane: Have you seen it happen? Join the discussion of "air rage" in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Herbal ecstasy By Mark Jenkins By the spoonful, a restaurant in Singapore supposedly cures everything from sexual ennui to diabetes (10/15/98) A two-wheel tour of Holland By Cynthia Gorney A vacationing family finds pleasure and peril among a nation of bicyclers (10/14/98) Waiting for Hurricane Georges By Jennifer Moses Preparing for disaster in Baton Rouge (10/13/98) Under the moon at Angkor Thom By Karin Muller An idyllic picnic is interrupted by soldiers (10/11/98) Seduced by Kenya By Don George An interview with author Francesca Marciano about Africa's attractions and contradictions (10/09/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		SEÑOR GRINGO | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - "You Americans?" "Sure," Stephen said. "Where are you from?" "Louisiana." "What are you doing here? Going on to the Yucatan?" The man drank the beer long and deep from his glass, then chuckled. "No. I live here. Lived here for 20 years." He paused. "I'm the deputy sheriff." "Wow!" we both said. Then, as if to impress us even more, the man added, "Well, actually, 'cause the sheriff 's off in Campeche right now, I'm the sheriff." "I didn't know a gringo could be sheriff in Mexico," I said. "Hey!" he laughed, "I didn't either!" He hit the table with his fist for punctuation and we laughed together, then agreed how good it was to be talking to someone in this boondocks place who was from the States. For the next 40 minutes or so while the blind woman continued to sing, we listened to this man tell his story. It turned out that he had come to Mexico in the '50s to evade the draft for the Korean War. "But why here?" Stephen asked. "Shrimp. My family were all shrimp fishermen in Louisiana and it's something I knew real good. I came down here, bought a few boats and set up a shrimp-fishing fleet. My brother came down for a while to help me." "Did he stay too?" "No, didn't have to. My brother could go back. That son of a bitch! He wasn't a draft dodger!" The deputy sheriff laughed loudly. We laughed too and hit the table too. We were feeling pretty good and we laughed as if being barred forever from your own country was the funniest thing. Then the man told us how he'd gotten pretty rich from shrimp fishing down here and his wealth had made him a power in the town. He had married a Mexican woman about 20 years ago and they had a son. The townspeople liked him and called him "Señor Gringo," and eventually he became deputy sheriff. I was enjoying the whole story, though I couldn't talk much because I was feeling pretty sleepy. So I just listened to his smooth, Southern accent and let the blind woman's songs waft gently over me. We were all feeling really good. Señor Gringo ordered us three more beers and kept on talking. I don't remember all he said, but I do remember that after a while he remarked, casually as can be, just merging it in with the rest of his banter, that last month his only son, 21 years old, had been shot at a party in town by God knows who. Killed. "Why?" Stephen asked. "Some stupid argument about girls. Hey, you guys got any kids?" "No way. We just got married! This is our honeymoon." "Congratulations!" the deputy sheriff crowed. "You're a cute couple. Let's get some beer to celebrate!" We drank yet more beer and talked about nothing in particular but laughed a lot. How amusing it all seemed, stoned as I was on Dramamine and beer and the lazy heat. Growing drowsier by the minute, I no longer picked up whole sentences, just individual words that my brain couldn't quite connect. As I fought to stay awake, it seemed everything was slowly evolving into a dream. The deputy sheriff's voice seemed to have gotten quiet as a mourner's. The glossy turquoise paint of the cantina walls appeared to sweat. The dog looked dead. And when I glanced over at the blind woman, her eyes had become doll's eyes, opening and shutting in that either/or way. "I sure am feeling weird," I said and the deputy sheriff pulled out his gun and aimed it point-blank at my face. "You know," he said quietly, "I could kill both of you real easy." I was staring up the nostrils of a .38-caliber handgun. Yet it seemed distant and kind of like a slow-motion scene in a Peckinpah movie. Then I heard Stephen say carefully, "I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that." "I'm the law here," he answered in a low voice full of rage. "Nobody in this goddamn place could do anything about it and you know what?" "No, what?" "I could kill you both right now real easy." There must have been truth in that for not a soul in the cantina made a sound. Well, he was the deputy sheriff and we were still talking softly, so maybe from across the room it looked like he was just joking. I don't think people were paying us any attention, but I didn't dare look. A gun is great for focusing attention and I kept my eyes on it as if it were a wild animal about to pounce. Stephen was sitting right next to me and I didn't dare look at him, either, but I could tell he was agitated because he got real cheery. "Well, you wouldn't want to do that! Of course you wouldn't! No, not a nice guy like you! Not a respected deputy sheriff! Killing fellow Americans! Ho ho! Now, why don't you just put the gun away? Yeah, that's right, put it away and then we'll have some more beers. Our treat!" In my stupor I sensed that the deputy sheriff didn't care what Stephen was saying or about anything else. But I couldn't figure it out. Why was he suddenly so angry? Weren't we all having a good time? Had we said something to offend him? Slowly the deputy sheriff looked at us, then he sighed and put the gun back in his holster. He looked really sad then like he was going to cry. And pathetic, too, like a kid who has to put his toys away because he's been naughty. "Yeah, let's have some beer," the deputy sheriff said to no one in particular. We never ordered the beers. As he started to mutter about how fucked up everything was, we heard the ferry arriving. The people in the cantina began moving out to the dock. Baskets of fruit, ragged string-tied boxes and plastic suitcases were plucked off the cement floor. The dog jumped to his feet, and the teenage girl held the elbow of the blind woman as she guided her toward the boat. Stephen and I hastily stood up as Señor Gringo kept talking -- talking -- talking -- as if he were trying to hold on to something. Then I figured it out -- he was trying to hold on to us. We were leaving him. We were going on to anywhere we pleased, leaving him in some bad dream. We boarded the ferry; the ride was smooth as glass. For 25 years I've told the story about how this sheriff pulled a gun on us. It's a great anecdote at parties and over the years it got better as I emphasized how drugged I was, and how scared I was, and how scared Stephen was, and how much danger we were in -- how we were almost killed! In a Mexican bar! Ha ha! Each time I told it, the story grew scarier and funnier, yet I never understood what it was about. Not until this year did I finally understand. The story was about grief -- how grief could be a bad drug, turning hopes to dust and hearts to steel. And it was about love. A parent's love. How a parent's love is both tender and terrible. Fierce. Fragile. Cruelly private. Crazy. It seems so obvious now, yet for more than two decades I never fully understood. Not until this year, when my son turned 21. SALON | Oct. 16, 1998 Maxine Schur has written for Wanderlust about Paris and Petra.