Finding myself in... Hurricane Agatha

                 We have hunkered down together in a small room, the eight of us; mattresses on the floor carve a small path to squeeze around each other. The morning started with ease - bottles of wine joined the coffee and chocolate croissants - but now the wind has turned menacing, pushing everyone into the small room and off the porch that was once a safe place to witness nature’s strength. The sound of the wind now carries a bass with it, sending shudders into the earth and vibrations in our bones. If conditions continue, who is to say when our shaking will be from the storm or fear.

                I write by a slice of grey light that stabs through the open door. We take turns gathering around it, searching for the lost sense of safety in the world that so beautifully housed this sunny beach before. Soon the door may have to be closed, and we will sit in this dark room, letting our imagination be the only window of sight. Undoubtedly, ideas will run rampant, but hopefully, the fear will not be contagious in these small quarters.

                I look around at my companions and listen to their fast conversations in Spanish. They seem in another world. Do they see the same when they peer into my solitude and silence? Do they wonder who this odd writer is that has been held up in their space? We have come into this room as strangers, but I wonder what connection will be formed once this storm has passed.

                The hotel owner lies in the corner bed with his lover. They have done what they can to prepare us; scraps of food have been acquired and jugs of water line the floor. Now as they cuddle, they watch a movie with the limited battery on their computer, as the power has since evacuated the storm. Perhaps he has chosen to stay here and go down with the ship, a valiant decision.

                His other workers have filled the beds too. Maybe they have agreed there is safety in numbers, because who wants to be alone in a dangerous situation. Just as quiet as I, the new hire - the one with flaming pink hair – keeps to himself on his own mattress. Then there are the other two who have recently attached themselves at the hips. Are they lovers? I don’t know. So often bonds are created by the tense situations, as seems to be the case with the only other two guests that huddle with us here. At some point in the night they met in the crease of their mattresses. Maybe their hands lightly touched, as do their sheets and pillows. Now they are unabashedly snuggling, kissing every 45 seconds on the clock. The light sounds of their lips touching and separating in that departure of wetness will soon drive me crazy. Yet, I envy them, rejoicing in their story, hoping it’s one that stays with them for some time: the man I met in the hurricane.

~     ~     ~

                There was another man I shared a few starlit moments with on the beach, in the days before. The only one who seemed interested in learning who I am. I gave into my ban on online dating – wanting to use the dense population of gay men in the small town as an opportunity to meet naturally – and met with this beach-side lover. Two lonely travelers looking for connection in a sea of strangers. Perhaps he could have been my man I met in the hurricane, but our encounter seemed to have another story in mind, as we were almost arrested for frolicking naked late on the beach, caught in unflattering positions that made it difficult to prove our innocence. That moment of intensity seemed to be the end of our encounter, but I would be remiss not to mention him and his late attempt to take me along to Oaxaca city, away from the storm. His urgency to escape the hurricane was palpable. I don’t blame him, seeing the shack he was housed in right on the beach. His roof is most certainly gone. I wonder though what this story might have been, had I gone with him. What will happen in these next 12 hours as the storm passes over that I may have missed had I gone, and will I have regretted it?

~     ~     ~

I can’t help but feel like a passenger on a long-ago ship, sailing through a treacherous storm, locked up in a damp, leaking room below deck. The man who no one asked to record the night, but the one that feels the need to do so. I long for a lantern and a caged bird that squawks out foreboding messages. Maybe this journey to Zipolite will not have brought me any romance or sexual adventures, but maybe, just maybe, it will have provided me with a story. Life is full of them, and I feel the need to record it - humanity.

~     ~     ~

                Outside, the storm is gaining strength in its erratic gusts. Many of the trees on the property have already shed branches. They are scattered about, and I have the urge to collect them and bring them to cover. It’s alright I want to assure them, it will be over soon. But I suppose for them it is already over. It could be the animals I’m thinking of. The beach dogs and crows and wild cats and insects and junkies. Where have they sought shelter? Are they alone somewhere, cowering under porches and sheds and buildings? Do they not know that I have space for them here? That I want to make this place like Noah’s Arc and save them all? There is more than enough room for just us gay men.

                Destruction. Chaos.

                The wind is starting to sound like children’s screams. I don’t see how it can get much stronger and things remain standing. We’ve finally closed the door and have begun the long wait. Now comes the scary part. Scary because of what is unknown, scary because we build it up as such in our minds, and scary because anything is possible.

                Our numbers grow as the other men in the complex get nervous in their solitude. We are nearly overflowing with bodies and anxiety. The combination of both is heating up the room. With the water that is seeping through the cracks, we are bound to be in a sauna by night’s end, and it will not be the one we all wish it to be, where we search for each other’s yearning bodies in a thicket of steam and share in each other’s shared release. If there is anything that equalizes us as much as nudity and sex, it is the fear we share in situations where we must seek shelter, huddling in groups and yearning for reassurance in someone else’s eyes. Some may look to the owner, but I can see the fear building on his face. Fear of the imminent and assured destruction that will befall his property. But does it outweigh or simply join his fear of safety?

                Now that we are collecting like mice under shelter, I worry about the others who are separated on the property. How is the lone white man doing on the rooftop? Has he blown away already? How are the three friends next to us, have they taken on more water than we? If they have predicted landfall by 7pm, then what will these next few hours bring for us? It is only 4pm, and as I imagined it would, the sounds outside draw our inner eye to a darker place than the room that confines us.

­­­­~     ~     ~

                My awkward plea to the universe to be less awkward has backfired. As the water floods our abode, my bed is ruined and now I am the 5^th wheel in the middle of a conglomeration of mattresses that two couples rest in. As I join the group, I find that they have abandoned the post and now I sit alone as they gather in the flooding kitchen area. I am the outcast, and probably the first to go if for some reason this turns chaotic and everyone becomes convinced that a human sacrifice must be made. I can only hope their plan is to shun me into the streets where I will be assumed dead but come back in the 11th hour to be the only one who survives; or tossed in the ocean, perhaps, only to be carried out again by Poseidon as he demonstrates compassion for my predicament. I’m almost willing those scenarios to happen, as I sit here, having to use the bathroom, hungover from the pre-hurricane party from the night before, increasingly hot and sweaty, as well as increasingly awkward. I pray that I can escape this room soon.

                Agatha seems to be settling a little. I wonder if we are entering the eye. And after that, how much time will we have to wait for the other half? I pray the storm has subsided, but maybe we are in for another retched treat. We step outside with the owner to eye the damage. Every place I look, there is more to see. Plants have rained from the sky and now flood the hotel grounds. Bits and pieces of broken shingle litter the yard, as do the tears of the owner. He tries to compartmentalize, but the grief is real. The destruction is done.

~     ~     ~

The morning has brought tranquility to the community, a solemn departure from the high spirits that normally flow on the breeze from the ocean. Those of us who are still here may not be novices of the rainy season of Mexico, but there is a difference when it comes to a hurricane ripping through your home. At some point in the night, the storm abated, and a few people reclaimed the drowned porch outside our shared room. They ate what was left of our small rations of food and downed another bottle of wine that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. There was little to do but wait until the morning. Although the wind had left for another town, the rain lagged and still drowned out the town.

When morning came, I was awakened by the owner’s alarm. A brisk 7:30 am to get a lay of the land and take stock. The workers departed quickly and we three guests took our time to drag ourselves out of the grey stormy cloud that was the night’s sleep. The property looked as it had before, with a thick layer of plants covering the ground instead of the carefully planted location they had temporarily lived. With the passing of the storm, they had become shredded confetti of destruction, and that transformation needed to be witnessed and acknowledged.

The rest of the town’s occupants mull about the streets, eyes roving from one downed tree to another; from one despondent set of eyes to another. Although we smile warmly in greeting, happy to see another face made it through the night, our souls bleed cold from the scare and our feigned happiness wears like a mask. The town shares the same fate. Although most of the structures are covered in the once green shrubbery, there is still destruction touching every square inch. Trees snapped in half and barricading passageways, landmines of cacti heads spread across the cement for us to step on, shredded fences snarling with their twisted smile of exposed nails. Although the heaviness of the storm has passed, we are left adrift in its wake, floating about as lost and muddled as the dead logs in the overflowing rivers.  

The real beast of the storm shows its bite on the once pristine beaches. What made the beachside shacks friendly and approachable before, made for shrapnel in the wind. The palapas and dried wood benches and thrown-together walls of jute are now scattered on the beach as thoroughly as the sand. The waves in the night must have washed in through the bars and restaurants, as now their refrigerators and bar stools stand amongst the fray. Places I passed in the days prior, marking in my head as a new spot for coffee or dinner, are completely gone; washed away. The shack where I had my only opportunity to explore another man’s body on this wayward trip is torn open like a shucked clam. I am reminded of Sayulita after the hurricane I withstood in Puerto Vallarta, the waters brown and the beach littered with branches and rocks. What a disappointing playa I thought to myself, not knowing its past. I wonder who will think that about Zipolite as it recovers from this tropical plague.

Our ragtag group has created a caravan and we walk silently along the coast of the beach and up the hillside. My sandals have been rendered useless and I walk barefoot over the treacherous beach. There is so much scattered about I can’t even imagine where it must have come from; the sand is hardly visible beneath the carpet of waste. The ocean is a heaving mass of garbage – mounds of roofing, logs, plants, furniture, and god knows what else – and I can’t stop the horrible images playing through my head of being stuck in the undulating waves, pushed down by the heavy mass floating on the surface. Soon we are hiking up a path that only exists in the memory of the hotel owner, for as of now I see nothing but fallen trees and zigzagging lines of barbed wire. We duck underneath the sharp edges of broken fencing and step gingerly up a disappearing set of stairs.

Our destination is a home at the top of the hill, the owner a friend of our hotel’s captain. The man is kind enough to give an eager crowd one hour on his generator to charge phones and connect to his satellite. Everyone around me reaches out to loved ones, begs airlines to reschedule flights, and pairs off into groups looking to escape as soon as the road clears. With my phone plugged in, I wonder who to call. No one knows I’m here in this aftermath. No one on the outside can see the sweeping mass of destruction that spreads out below us on the once free and beautiful beach, a beach known for its freedom of nudity and open-mindedness. Now we are gathered wearing our relief of a new day in layers heavier than the loose tank tops and swim shorts. I text my family and friends letting them know that the power is out, and I may be out of contact for a while. Don’t worry about me, I write, I’m safe and with friends.

We spend the rest of the day sweeping up the small debris from the pool deck, clearing out the larger branches, and staring into the swamp the pool had become. Restless from waiting and wanting to get out, I itch to get my hands dirty and have something to do. Some of the guests continue to hide in their rooms. Others took to the streets and stocked up on dried fruits and canned vegetables, looking for provisions to last them the rest of their stay in town. Being on day 3 of no shower, I simply try my best to regulate my body heat, so that I don’t create more sweat to layer on top of the bug spray and sunscreen than locks in the scent of my fear-tinged body odor.

~     ~     ~

Today is my last day and it promises to be a challenging trek to extricate myself from the grasp of this coastal town. I yearn, badly, to escape from the destruction that has befallen here, but I know it’s more than that. Although my ego isn’t big enough to think this hurricane and situation was set up just for my expense, I can’t help but notice how well it is representing my want and need to leave all of this behind. Yet I’ve somehow walled myself in. All the chances I had to leave Mexico earlier in the month, yet here I am. Clearly, I needed to have this moment to understand that this part of the world has given me everything I needed from it. Staying any longer would just cause destruction to all the hard work I’ve done on myself. The disastrous beach reminds me of the blown down shack that was the foundation of my mind while I spent my last few years in New York. While piling together the fallen branches and watching the owner saw through a destroyed wooden palapa, I thought about whether I would have stayed longer and helped the town get back on its feet, had I not already had a flight booked; If the act of helping others would fulfill some vacant hole that still occupies the selfish space within my soul.  I would have liked to volunteer my time and help give back to the land that so graciously fed me its healing energy and pieced me back together. I don’t want to be the tourist who cowers in the night and runs from the mess the next day. There is something about weathering the storm together and cleaning up afterward, the camaraderie of it all; I am not just a stranger passing through. This land will always be a home to me, and I want to find a way to take care of it too.

Now, as we trudge out of town in a taxi that scrapes along the mud-layered streets, I see the further extent of the damage. We planned to walk an hour up the winding road to where there may have been more options to escape, but the two guys who have become my survival companions had secured passage with a taxi driver who was also hunkered in town with his family. The three of them fill the front passenger seats while the three of us weigh down the rear of the car with our bags of damp clothes and collective exhaustion. Twice we’ve had to get out of the car, once to manage over a high river of mud and the other to replace a flat tire. With each moment we wonder when the low-riding car will have to be abandoned and we will be forced to walk the last grueling miles, mucking through the ankle-deep washout from the surrounding hills. My heart has not come down from my throat for the last 72 hours and I swallow constantly, hoping to keep it at bay.

                Nearing the neighboring town, Mazunte, we are limited to the sight of destruction that paves the road in a foot of muck. The rain has created a mudslide and stained the town a deep brown of sorrow. Always busier than the smaller coast of Zipolite, Mazunte teams with recovery crews who dig out paths for passing cars. On the sidewalk, people pass by with armfuls of supplies and faces covered in fresh tears. We’ve been in the car for over an hour now - a trip that normally takes not much more than 20 minutes - but the road ahead is clearing, and I can see dry patches of road stretching out further and further. Somewhere on the other side of those downed power lines and snapped tree branches is the world untouched by the destructive winds of Agatha. I will be back in town with power, Wi-Fi, and running water, but no a/c or shower will rid me of this ride through the hurricane. The men who shared that rickety sailboat of a hotel room may never be seen again, but at night I may still see the whites of their eyes, dazzling with the electric fear of the unknown.