Whitfield's Big Mistake

“Where did you go last night? I thought your host family lived near mine.”

We had only been in Mexico for a couple of weeks before Tequila Nights became a midweek staple. I am not sure about the logic of prefunking for $2, face-sized margaritas at Mama Mia but no one ever said that the world of drinking made sense. We would eventually come to be familiar enough with the cobblestone streets of San Miguel de Allende that we would make our separate ways to our host homes, but we started out the tradition with the home-bound mindset of strength in numbers, which was why it was weird when just as we left the bar, Antonio said, “I’m gonna take a short cut this way. See you at school tomorrow.”

It wasn’t until I had walked halfway to La Academia with Antonio the next morning that I thought to question his directional sense, “I wanted to swing by El Lounge,” he replied.

“Is there really a place called ‘El Lounge’ here?” I scoffed.

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s the only bar open till daylight.”

I would later come to find out that this statement was not completely factual. There was another bar that was open nearly every hour of the day called La Cucaracha, which, aside from being named “the Cockroach”, I did not want to drink there because women were not allowed entrance and the patronage of gringos of any kind was strongly discouraged, usually through violence (I have always thought of as the Cantina and since I have neither the Force nor a fully functional light-saber, I wisely stayed away). So, while Antonio’s statement wasn’t technically true in an absolute sense, it was true in enough senses that made El Lounge the only after-hours bar I would enter during my time in Mexico.

“You seem awake enough. How late did you stay there?”

“Uhh, I didn’t actually go in.”

“Why, what did you do?”

“Well, I got to the door and just as I was going in, this chick walks out and asks me if I want to go home with her.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I said to the five foot four, pudgy, sun-burnt, Texan “There is no way that happened.”

“I have been here for four months and I can assure you that that does indeed happen, and quite often I might add.” He continued his story while I made numerous mental notes reminding myself to not shake his hand or share a drink with him for the remainder of our acquaintance. “So, this chick invites me to her place and I think ‘why not?’ so I go to her place. Now later, I’m on her roof and I say to myself ‘Whitfield, you’re gonna need to smash this window’. . .”

“Whoa! Hold on a sec there. It seems to me that a large and possibly important part of your narrative has been misplaced. How did you come to find yourself on this roof and was I correct in hearing that when you speak to yourself you call yourself Whitfield?”

“Well, Whitfield is my actual name. I started going by Antonio because that’s where I’m from and no one here in Mexico can seem to pronounce Whitfield.” This being a suitable explanation I was able to move on and with the aid of the crowd that had now gathered,I was able to urge Whitfield to fill in the gaps of his story. It was revealed that the diminutive Texan had indeed engaged in sexual relations with a stranger who had passed out promptly after their coupling. Whitfield let himself out only to find that he was trapped in the courtyard which was hemmed in by a large wall topped with broken glass and jagged metal. The door to the house was locked and his lover could not be roused by any conventional means, leading him to climb upon the roof so that he could break a window, climb inside, and rouse the stranger long enough to gain access to a key that would allow him to make it beyond the courtyard and into the street.

Though this story was odd and entertaining, it seemed like Whitfield was still keeping something from us and, after further probing, it was discovered that the amorous activity was anal in nature, he had not used a condom, and that Whitfield had been so drunk that he could not recall if he had ever glimpsed the front of the stranger leading him to grudgingly question the sex of his partner. Luckily, one of the twins soon began dating a horse-faced local girl whom even the instructors at La Academia referred to as “Cabesona” who had been outside El Lounge on that fateful night and was able to clear up our mystery.