A Survival Guide for Today

Hi. Here alone? Mind if I sit down? I noticed you from over there. You're very pretty. You are. That's a gorgeous necklace. Is it Mexican?

Ah, yes, I thought so. Been awhile since I've been in Mexico. Last time was summer...1979, I guess. Went down there to kill the Shah of Iran. Can I buy you another drink?

So, you live around...hmm? The Shah? Oh, that's a long story. You don't want to hear...yeah? Well, okay, if you insist...

I was still at UCLA then. I heard that the Ayatollah Khomeini was offering $150,000 in gold for the assassination of the exiled Shah, and that sounded pretty good to me, seeing as I didn't have a summer job lined up.

I was all set to go right after finals. The only thing left was to tell my girlfriend. She worked at a shop in Manhattan Beach called Plant Parenthood. She was always bringing things home with her; our apartment looked like a terrarium.

That day she was curled up on the sofa reading the community college course catalog.

"Hi, sweetie," she said as I walked in, "I was just seeing what Botany classes they're offering in summer school."

"That's nice," I smiled, sitting next to her. "Wendi...I've got to go away for a few days."

"Go away? Why?"

"I have a job to do. In Mexico."

"Mexico?" Her face started to brighten. "I could come, couldn't I? I've never been to Mexico. Ooo, they have cactus there!"

"You can't come," I said, putting my hands on her shoulders to keep her from bouncing up and down. "This job. It could be...sort of dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

"It could be."

"What are you going to do?"

"Make a lot of money."

"How?"

"I'd rather not tell you."

"I want to know."

"Wendi..."

"I want to know!"

"All right," I sighed. "I'm going to kill the Shah of Iran."

She frowned.

"Why do you want to do that?" she asked.

"There's a $150,000 reward. I've been preparing this for a week. Look," I said, pulling out my wallet. I showed her the fake driver's license I made in photography class. It identified me as "Gregor Samsa."

"Why that name?"

"Gregor Samsa?"

"Yeah, who's that?"

I looked at her. Her face fell.

"Oh," she said. "I'm supposed to know this, aren't I?"

"Remember that story I gave you to read last month? Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka?"

She strained to remember. It was one of her better efforts.

"Metamorphosis!" she cried happily. "That's the one where the guy wakes up in the morning and he's turned into a giant cockroach!"

I was surprised.

"That's right," I said. "You actually read it?"

Her enthusiasm died down a bit. She smiled and shook her head.

"No," she admitted. "Just the beginning. It sounded yucky."

"Yucky," I nodded. "At any rate," I went on slowly, "Gregor Samsa is the name of the man that turns into a cockroach."

"Uh huh." She thought about that for a moment. "Who do you expect to get it?"

"What do you mean, 'get it?'"

"In Mexico. Who do you expect to know who Gregor Samsa is?"

I shrugged. "No one. It's an inside joke. Just for me."

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Make up jokes that no one gets but you."

"I..."

"If you took all the time and energy you use thinking up stuff that no one ever gets and even if they did it isn't funny and really applied yourself you could get a job and wouldn't have to go to Mexico and kill people and we could go somewhere on vacation together."

Hmm. Given time, I could have come up with a good answer to that. But I had packing to do.

"Well?" she asked.

"I'll bring you a cactus."

Four days later I pulled up in front of the Hotel Cuernavaca.

"Ah, si," smiled the manager, checking the book. "Gregor Samsa, reservation for one. Sign here, por favor, and I will get your bag."

I followed him down a freshly painted hallway.

"Are you here on vacation, senor?"

"Yeah. Just needed to get away for a week or two."

"Ah, si, si. Many people come here just to relax." We climbed a staircase to the second floor. "Did you know the Shah of Iran is staying in Cuernavaca?"

"Oh?"

He laughed as he unlocked the door to room 23. "You are lucky you made a reservation, senor. People have been arriving from all over the world. They want to collect the reward for killing the Shah."

"Ah."

The manager pushed open the door and set my strawberry Samsonite suitcase (it belonged to Wendi) at the foot of the bed.

"But with all of the guards the Shah has, no one can even get close to his hacienda." He laughed again. "So they spend all day drinking over at La Cantina Cojones."

"Mm."

"I hope you have a pleasant stay in Cuernavaca, Senor Samsa."

"Thanks. I'm sure I will."

He started out the door, then paused.

"Your name sounds familiar to me. Have you stayed here before?"

"No, I..."

"Of course!" he suddenly exclaimed with glee, "Gregor Samsa! The giant cockroach!" I started to say something, but he was gone, laughing as he walked down the hallway, talking to himself in Spanish.

It took me an hour to find La Cantina Cojones, and almost that long for my eyes to adjust to the dark. The room was packed with people and smoke and foreign languages, all of which I slowly maneuvered through to arrive at the bar.

"Perrier and lime," I ordered.

The bartender stared at me blankly. Someone started laughing nearby. I turned to see a beautiful woman with black hair and large, brown eyes. She stopped laughing when I looked at her and, smiling, she turned to the bartender and spoke to him in Spanish.

He nodded and poured me a glass of tomato juice.

"Ah," I said. I dug some coins out of my pocket and put them on the bar. He took about half of them.

I sipped the tomato juice. It was warm, but I smiled anyway and turned to my volunteer translator.

"Uh, muchas gracias, senorita," I said slowly.

"I'm not Mexican," she replied. "I'm Iranian."

"Oh."

"And you're welcome. I don't think they have Perrier here, so I just asked him to give you something nonalcoholic. I hope that's all right."

"Oh yes, fine," I said. "This is very good." I gulped some. It was awful. I smiled and put down the glass. "My name's Gregor Samsa."

"Anna Karenina."

"Gregor Samsa..." the bartender mumbled. He thought a moment. "Ah, si! La cucaracha grande!"

"Pleased to meet you, Anna," I said, ignoring him. "Are you here to...ah..."

"Kill the Shah? Of course. So is everyone in this room. A couple tried. They're in the hospital now."

"Um."

"It is an interesting group," she said, turning from the bar. "The Frenchman in the green shirt, David Copperfield, fought in Angola. The man he's talking to, with the beard, is Captain Nemo. He's Croatian. He claims his grandfather was one of the assassins of Archduke Ferdinand."

"Any other Americans here?"

"Yes, back in that corner." She pointed to a balding man wearing a white linen suit. He was sitting alone at a table, banging away at a typewriter. "His name is Jay Gatsby. A reporter."

"So is this what you do all day? Sit around and listen to their stories?"

"That's about it," she nodded, sipping her drink. "We can't go very far. It's too hot out side to walk and the Shah's men have all of Cuernavaca's rental cars. Cab drivers have tripled their rates."

"I have a car," I said. "I drove here."

"Well," she said, setting down her glass, "want to go sight seeing?"

We stepped blinking into the sunlight and I led her to the lime green Gremlin.

"This is your car?" she asked as I unlocked the door for her.

"It's my girlfriend's," I replied as we got in. "I borrowed it since it has air conditioning."

"She must be adorable," said Anna, looking at the tiny stuffed unicorn hanging from the rearview mirror.

"Uh huh. Where to?"

Cuernavaca is the capitol of the state of Morelos; the capitol building is a palace built by Cortes in 1531.

"It's beautiful," whispered Anna as we walked slowly along the floor-to-ceiling murals in the Grand Hall.

"Yes," I nodded. "So, are you some kind of freedom fighter or something?"

"Business major. USC."

"Ah." I pointed to myself. "UCLA. Design school."

Nearby was a group of school children. Their teacher, a tall man in a gray suit, walked over to us.

"Excuse me, senor, senorita," he said. "I could not help but to overhear. You are American?"

"Uh, well, I am..." I said.

"I hate to impose upon you, but my students," with a sweep of his hand he indicated the children, "are studying English and the United States. It would mean very much to them if they could send a postcard to you in America and if you could send one to them."

Anna looked at me. I shrugged. "Sure, I guess so."

"Thank you," smiled the teacher. He found some paper in his pocket and we exchanged addresses. "Please, come meet the children."

We walked over and were introduced.

"That was very nice of you," said Anna as we drove back to the hotel.

"Uh huh."

It was a little after three o'clock. We were going to drive to some ruins outside town and I wanted to stop by my room for my camera.

We climbed the stairs and I unlocked the door.

"Where the hell have you been?" It was Gatsby, the American reporter, sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette. "C'mon, we don't have a moment to waste."

I managed to compose myself enough to say, "Huh?"

"I heard you have a car," he said, standing. "I got a call from my editor. Nixon's on his way."

"Nixon?"

"Yeah. He and the Shah are buddies from way back." Gatsby picked up a canvas bag from off the bed and slung it over his shoulder. "He's dropping in for a visit. Right now, he should be on his way from the airport to the hacienda. This is our chance. While they're guarding against an ambush on Nixon on the front road, we drive up the river bed that runs behind the estate."

"River bed?"

"I've been doing research. The locals tell me we can drive right up to the back of the hacienda. While they're busy with Nixon out front, we scale the wall in back."

He was pushing us out the door. His canvas bag swung around and hit me on the arm.

"Yow! What's in there?" I cried.

"An Uzi submachine gun, a 9mm automatic pistol, and five or six bottles of Dos Equis. C'mon, c'mon."

"I thought you were a reporter," I said.

"I like to get involved in my stories. It adds that certain empathy. Look, $50,000 apiece, okay? LET'S GO!"

NEXT PAGE: OFF WE GO!