Alvaro

In the summer of 2004 two friends, Rick and Eric, and I stayed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for a month in a rented apartment (it was an academic trip, which i won’t get into). That month is describable by many adjectives: hot, intoxicated, sleepless, adventurous, mischievous, beachy, taco-filled, and…well now I’m just making up words. The apartment complex had a guard on duty at night, named Alvaro. Like most Mexicans I have met, Alvaro was an outgoing and congenial person. He was enthusiastic about our love of drink and, likely out of boredom, joined us at the apartment more than a working security guard should.

Over the summer we got to know Alvaro very well. He spent time with us day and night, off-duty or on-duty. The most memorable of his stories was how he was a former police man, betrayed by his colleagues who were tainted with drug money. Apparently, he was shot in the head in an empty field and left for dead. After his recovery, he understandably relocated. However, Alvaro was kind of a bullshitter, so I was skeptical, but he did have a huge scar on the side of his head and a slightly ‘off’ edge to him that made you believe it.

His presence was quite a bit of work for me, however, since neither Rick nor Eric spoke much Spanish, nor Alvaro much English. A few times I came home to a backlog of conversation waiting to be translated, “Charlie! Thank God your here! What the hell is Alvaro saying?,” my comrades would exclaim. Our relationship had its downsides however, for example; a security guard who was never at the front gate. One evening, a visiting friend, Graham, and I returned to the apartment complex after a night out to find the gate locked with no guard to open it (I didn’t have a key). We had no phones to call our friends inside. I was sure Alvaro was in our apartment with Eric and Rick. Where else could he be?, it was 4am. So we started yelling for him, no luck. After waiting about an hour we finally found a way to climb into the apartment complex with a tree over a 10-ft high wall onto a palm-thatched poolside awning (precarious) to get into the complex. “What the fuck Alvaro???” was my question to him upon getting into the apartment. However, I couldn’t stay mad for long, our mutually drunkenness and natural good cheer won out and we laughed about it over a beer.

At the end of the month Alvaro invited us to watch a Copa de las Americas match between Brazil and Mexico (if I remember correctly) at his house in the outskirts of Puerto Vallarta. His house was a mere cinderblock hut with a corrugated iron roof and dirt floors. We watched the game in the ‘yard’ on a TV without the best reception (which Alvaro constantly tinkered with). Now we had known Alvaro all summer, but I realized that we had only known him at the apartment complex. Consequently, I hadn’t had the chance to subconsciously pigeon-hole him into a socio-economic class based on his dress and social interactions with other Mexicans. Note: This isn’t something I’m necessarily proud of, but something we unfortunately all do. Thusly, I hadn’t thought of him as being poor, so it was a little shocking to see how poor he was (really, his place ranked up there on the non-luxury scale); it made me think of all the times we had to fight him to let us pay for the beer, food, or whatever, as he insisted we were guests in his country. It reminded me how so often in my life the most generous people I have met have also been the people with so little to give. It was humbling. The afternoon was great, Alvaro and his girlfriend, Eric, Rick, and I enjoyed the afternoon with beer, meat, and soccer.

Great summer, I hope to see Alvaro, and Puerto Vallarta, again.

-Charles P. Pearson