From New York to Tierra del Fuego

A fly drones endlessly in the window of the Patagonian bar, I glance across and see it’s a fat hairy bluebottle trapped in a dusty cobweb spun some years before by a spider long since gone. As the fly struggles to free itself from the stickiness it becomes increasingly ensnared. It reminds me of me. I down another slug of the local rum. It’s hot and sweet and prickles my throat. If I have been looking to escape myself, I have come to the wrong town. The long slow death of this fly is the most interesting thing that has happened all week.

The jingling of chainlinks announces Max’s return from what he calls his kitchen. He pushes a plate of congealed ribs towards me. The ubiquitous layer of dust which covers everything else in this two horse town has not yet settled on my meal and for this I am grateful. He takes a toothpick from the jar on his bar and starts cleaning his teeth. It’s a disgusting sight, his mouth is a cavern of black lit by the occasional flash of a gold tooth. The dentist only comes once every three months. If the pain gets too bad the villagers find the easiest solution is to yank the tooth out. It’s easier than attempting the three day drive to civilisation.

I should eat the rib before the dust settles. I pick up the one that has the highest proportion of meat to fat, though even then it is mostly bone. I can’t help remembering my last dinner in Manhattan, a lifetime ago. It was an exquisite meal, every morsel beautifully cooked for me by the best chef in the city. It was a hell of a goodbye. The aromas, the textures were a multi-sensory delight. I bite into the rib and my palate is assaulted by the acrid burntness. I wince. I am tempted to give up and walk out, but I know that this is the only bar in town and I can’t spend another evening alone on my fetid hotel room.

Max is about to say something but the incessant droning of the fly catches his attention. He stops picking his teeth, takes a fly swatter from the hook on the wall and puts an end to its miserable existence. I wonder how big a fly swatter he would need to end mine?

A road trip from New York to Tierra del Fuego, it had seemed the ideal escape route. I would be able to lose myself, and my past, somewhere along the way. In Mexico I did spend a very pleasant decade living right on the beach, Caribbean side of course. There I found the kind of town where no-one asked any difficult questions about what you did and where you came from. You arrived as a blank piece of paper, and if you were lucky you left the same way. Of course in the end my luck ran out. I got lazy, I got complacent, I just wasn’t careful enough. But for ten years, my life was pretty good.