Saying grace

And what's with the Catholicism?

Apparently sociopaths can have a religion. It helps compartmentalize, equalize, sentimentalize. There's the need to posture to the outside world.  Or posing to themselves, asking forgiveness on a regular basis for their past, present and future sins.  Perhaps simply a remembrance of childhood when things were simple and...sweet.

Tommy insisted on saying grace before a mea.  He made a big show of reaching for hands to grasp.  Bowing his head, he raced through a canned grace, "Oh Heavenly Father we thank Thee for the gifts we are about to receive..." blah blah blah.  Maybe he truly was thankful, since he never knew where the next meal might come from.  After everyone said "Amen,"  he shouted,  "And God Bless The Chef!"  The first time he did this, I laughed.  After that, it was embarrassing.  It spoke volumes about his low class background.

"Investment banker, no way!" Eva says about Tommy now.  "Look at his build.  Nothing but a low class Italian construction worker."

And then there were his trips to Mass, as if grace and Mass would undo all the scamming, as if, I am trying Lord, forgive me because I know not what I do, I have this problem.  Or was that show too?  Catholicism was a sacred subject with him.  Apparently, God help you if you ever said anything against the Pope. On the few occasions I verged on Pope politics Bob warned me in his stupid hushed voice, "Don't let Tommy hear you say that," or "Don't ever criticize the Catholic church in front of Tommy."  His voice was so menacing I shrank.

Thing is, both Bob and Tommy really believed they had a moral compass and all the correct morality.  Bob was scandalized when a known, openly accepted by the gringo community, pedophile collected our tickets as we drove into the Polo Club for a benefit. Bob was always criticizing the uncouth behavior of the gringos who had the misfortune of crossing his path.

"How can you know someone like that?" he said scathingly because I was so c'est la vie about it.  I'd say, "That's why gringos come to Mexico, to do whatever they damn please and not get thrown into the slammer."

How can I know someone like you, I now ask myself.  How is it I let you trample my delicate, refined and generous soul, take you into my house, feed you, help you, and let you in contact with my children?   Ah...you were their first scammers....thanks to me, their mother.    

A stupid old telephone

Bob spoke in an impossibly soft voice, barely just barely above a whisper.  It was obnoxious.  Where did he pick up this affectation?  Did he think it meant well bred?  He must have read about it in the few books he had read in his life.  He spoke so softly that I had to lean in when speaking to him in order to hear.  It was an intimate tone, as if he were imparting gems not for general ears, or telling me secrets in a conspiratorial hush, confiding great and interesting information.  Over the phone he spoke even softer, so much that I grew to dislike speaking on the telephone with him.  He made me feel like I had bad hearing, that I needed a new telephone and finally, that he needed a new telephone.

"There's something wrong with your phone," I said in a crabby tone.  I knew I could hear and converse normally with other friends on my phone.  With him, I was always saying, "What?"  and "Can you repeat that?"  and "Say it again?"  and "Bob, I can't hear you."  Aggravation set in.  I began to feel crabby every time it was him on the phone.

"Oh, it's this phone," he said, louder.  But then soft again, "We brought it with us and we need new batteries for it and can't find them here so we're having them sent from the States."

"Why don't you just buy a new one for God's sake," I said.  "Telmex sells Siemens and Panasonic.  They're cheap and they're good." I had no patience for a gringo who wouldn't spring $30 for a local phone, and worse, for gringos who sent to the U.S. for batteries.  Those batteries could be found here, everything could be found here, but I didn't want to offer to go on the hunt. 

"No, we like our phone," he said and I just shrugged, getting more aggravated every time he phoned.  At first I was polite and then I would growl, "You have to speak up."  He phoned at least four times a day, sometimes as early as 8:00.  The next call was around 11:00 when he was pouring his first drink of the day.  He was lonely, shut up in the house whilst Tommy roamed the streets of Merida, looking for deals, scams and adventure.  I was Bob's only friend, his only link to the outside world. 

I looked at their phone when I was over there for one of our gatherings.  It was an old, beat up thing, nothing special, bigger than it should be because it was so old.  Ridiculous.  Why the heck were they obsessed about finding batteries for it.  People and their quirks.  

It was when they skipped town that I understood they took the phone with them.  They traveled with nothing but their few Hawaiian shirts and bermudas each, the two dogs, Uncle John and this phone.  The phone was a diary of their past wrongdoings.  It had caller ID, hence the number of every person they had ever spoken to on a regular basis.  This was the way they screened calls from family, hurt parties, victims, enemies, the police.  If I ever did find their new telephone number in Belize and tried calling them, they would see my name come up and not answer.  That's why the phone was so valuable.  It insured their privacy.   It was how they left people behind, weeding them out of their life, staying forever out of touch, unfindable.

Now I have come to understand that that Bob's soft voice was a control thing.  It made you Pay Attention. To Him.  He craved attention since he was the housewife, home scrubbing floors.  He spoke extra softly on the phone so as not to be heard by Tommy or Uncle John.  Clearly they each had their secrets from each other.  Everyone was suspecting the other of selling out, giving way, giving up.  Bob also spoke softly because had no voice in the goings on, he was a captive of Tommy's schemes in order that they eat and live.  

Bob's soft demeanor was in exact opposite to Tommy who couldn't manage anything other than a shout at all times for all occasions.  He literally could not speak in a normal, civilized tone of voice.  So, one whispered, the other shouted, each in response to the other.  A dance of odds in a minor key.

So much fun

Two nights later, around six, the phone rings.   

"Hi Elizabeth!" Such a happy voice and so happy to hear mine.  "It's Tom.  Can I ask you a favor?"  He laughs, his voice turns sheepish for sympathy.  "Can you order us a pizza?  We tried...but they didn't understand my English.  Jeez."  He can't believe the whole world doesn't speak English.

I am silent.  This is how it begins.  I refuse to become their fixer.  Been there, done that with way too many gringos.  A fucking waste of energy.

Brightly in a singsong: "I know a good language school for you."  Still lighthearted:  "You guys have got to learn Spanish." 

"Definitely.  Give Bob the number tomorrow."

"I'll give it to you now."  I gave them the number for the Spanish school many times, but in the nine months they lived in Merida, Bob never learned anything other than hola, por favor, gracias.  Tommy used one word all the time for everything, perfecto.  He loved saying it.  Everything, no matter what, was always perfecto. He said it with authoritative gusto.  When the waiter brought the bill, it was perfecto, when he brought back the change, perfecto.  Tlapaleria, Bancomer, the garbage man:  perfecto.  With one word he made everyone feel good.

Suddenly I found myself saying, "OK.  What kind of pizza do you want?"  I couldn't believe it. Why would I do something for them that I would have never done for anyone else?  

With this gesture, I entered into their "learning to be expats journey."  They were so loopy, so out of it, I felt sorry for them   Never occurred to me, not being able to order a pizza.  I would do this one little thing, but nothing more.  I would not stand on line with them at the electric company.  I would not go to the doctor with them.  

"Vegetarian with sausage, meatballs and bacon."

These guys are a riot.   I call Messina's Pizza.  Because it is so much fun.

Gut feelings

The day after my cocktail evening, I called my friend Denise who lived in a restored colonial down the street and told her about The Boys, as we would affectionately come to call them.  

"There's something that's not quite right about them," I said.  "Fishy."   

I told Denise everything back then, before the boys put an end to that friendship with some clever stirring of the pot.  Their modus operandi was to divide and conquer, isolate their prey, make a gal devoted and dependent solely on them.  

I was musing outloud.  "Someone who arrives like this, out of nowhere....will leave the same way."  Then, "I wouldn't be surprised if one day...they disappear just as quickly as they arrived."    

  

My gringo radar was spot on but it is only now I see how so many things didn't add up. Of course I metaphorically slap my head.  They were sending me signals all the time, but each time the curious sentence, act or omission happened, I just brushed it off.

Why?

Because that's the power of the sociopath. Bob and Tommy were so charming, so intimate, so warm, so generous, that I got seduced, just as they knew I would. This was not their first time, after all.  They knew I was lonely.  They believed I had means. ("She's rich," Tommy said to Eva.  "She has a black credit card.")  I knew everything there was to know about expat life in Merida.  How incredibly lucky they were to have met me at the salon.  I was perfect and they cultivated me.  I couldn't believe my luck at having met two such devoted friends.

When Eva called me early one morning to say, "They're gone" I said, "No way."

"Oh yes, my dear.  The scum left in the middle of the night. I know they did.  Ask around.  You'll see."

An instant later, my heart thud shrieked.  Of course.  They slipped away as I had predicted. Quickly.  Effortlessly.  From nowhere to nowhere.

This is how its done

Bob and Tom showed up at my front door, awkwardly holding a typical tropical bouquet,  i.e. on the wilted side.

It seemed over the top to bring a bouquet for cocktails at American five.  But I thought, how sweet, they are either gallant or insecure about etiquette in Mexico.  Although they claimed to have traveled extensively, first class, throughout Europe and taken cruises on major rivers, this was their first trip anywhere and they were scared shitless, especially given that they didn't speak any Spanish and had an unusual terror of the Mexican police.

"Come on in.  Welcome to my world.  It's for sale, by the way."  It's what I tell everyone when they walk into my amazing, yes it is amazing, tropical townhouse.

A few steps in and they stop and look at my soaring ceilings, skylights, inner garden.  "Wow.  We should have bought your house," Bob says.   "Yeah," says Tom.  "We like your house so much better."

What were they thinking?  This is how sociopaths work.  They create a fiction from the word go.  By the time they're through with you, you don't know what's up or down anymore.  They had never bought any house.  It seems they cut a deal with the owners of that house they claimed to have bought:  to live in the house and renovate it, financed by the two gay owners who were not in the best of health.  When Bob told me they had paid $450,000 for it, "furnished," he added proudly,  I said, "Oh my God" and not in a good way.

"Why? A house like this would cost a million in the U.S." he said.  I thought, oh man, have you been taken to the cleaners.  The fiction had begun.  They owned nothing, they had nothing, and they had never planned on making Merida their new home. It was a desperate act they had pulled off, throwing Uncle Ron, their two huge dogs in their Mercedes SUV and fleeing the U.S. just ahead of the Feds.

For two such picky gay guys who had owned four houses at one time, decorated to the max, with four sets of sheets for each bedroom (for the change of seasons, Bob said) I often wondered, how could they live in someone else's not so nice stuff?  During the time they were here they never bought so much as a place mat, a pool towel, a spatula.  Not even new sheets.

We're all on our best behavior.  The gracious grand dame of gringas, the humble clueless newcomers.  I made margaritas and served melty quesadillas cut into Martha Stewart triangles.  Homemade meant everything to them, margaritas from fresh, hand squeezed lemons, rosemary toasted almonds hot out of the pan.  They lived entirely on Costco frozen food.

After two hours of I knew nothing about them.  I was amused, I was confused.  I ask the usual getting to know you cocktail party questions.  I don't know how they dissembled, but they did it skillfully.  Real estate and banking was all I could get.  They were vague about where they lived, where they were from, and there seemed to be so many places.  References to Chicago, Atlanta, Savannah, Florida, Arizona.  When I asked Bob, what bank did you work for, he said in an condescending tone, "A major one," and nodded, like, there are only three of any importance, so, one of those.  I took it to mean he was a super high executive who had made his millions, signed a confidentiality agreement and didn't want people bothering him for investment advice.

I set Bob into the routine that would become his whenever he came over.  After I served their first drinks I said, "Now, you make your own."  Bob loved that.  He started drinking at ten in the morning, although I never saw him drunk.  He liked coming over and feeling free to pull the vodka from my freezer and mix it with cranberry juice.

As we settled on the cushions and enjoyed the sweet breezy dusk, I said, "Listen.  You guys are new in town.  I'm going to tell you something.  Be very careful of what you say and who you get involved with.  There are lots of crazy gringos out there.  Don't trust anyone."

I didn't follow my own advice.

"What's in your bag?"

Four simple words entangled me.

In other words, it began as innocently as most human encounters do.

I was sitting on a chic bench in Merida's poshest salon, if only because of location location location, a Manhattan Soho decor and the highest prices in town. The gringos swarmed in, not knowing the owner had a copy of  "Haircutting for Dummies" stashed in the color drawer and had no diploma or license from anywhere.  Oh and did I mention he can't cut hair?

But at the time, he hadn't been found out yet.  So, I'm sitting on the bench, waiting for my DD (that's darling daughter for you non internet people) when in walk Bob and Tom (if you can't distinguish their names, no matter, because their slime is interchangeable). Tom has an appointment for cut and color.  Sociopaths have to look just so.

Bob sits down next to me.  "What's in the bag?" I say, queen of chit chat, pointing to his Walmart plastic bag.

"Oh," he laughed.  "Diapers and vodka."

My antenna perks.  I like a good answer.  I sit up and laugh.  Could he be...an interesting person?

"Diapers for my 91-year-old uncle, and...vodka for myself."

"That sounds about right," I say.  I chit the chat learning that they just arrived in Merida a week ago having purchased a house off the internet.

"But you saw the house, of course, before you bought it?  And you visited Merida, right?"

"Nope.  We researched everything thoroughly on the internet and it all looked good.  Houses sure are cheap here and we're sure we're going to like Merida."  He had no questions in his mind.

Who does that? 

I didn't even bother saying, you're in for a rude awakening. I had sworn off befriending the new breed of gringos swarming to Merida. No more orientation, help, contacts would I share. Whereas in the past, expats were interesting and quirky, worth getting to know, the new ones tended to be largely losers, liars, clueless, petty, cheap, alcoholic gossips.

I'm still waiting for DD when Tom and Bob leave the salon. Bob comes running back in with his email on the grocery slip.  It was striking in its anonymity:  2catscooking@gmail.  I drop it into my purse and thank him ever so much.  I'm so fucking polite.  As if.  I do not give him mine.

A few days later, so intrigued am I by the idea of two guys buying a house they had never seen in a city they had never visited, I paw through the garbage for the email and invite them over for drinks.

A year ago tonight...

Dinner and the Symphony

A year ago tonight, I was sitting at the Peon Contreras theatre in downtown Merida, Mexico with you.  You being Bob, Tom and Ron.  I never realized your names sound alike, the same "o" and all one syllable.

Now I am home alone, in my bedroom, the fan whirring overhead, thinking of that lovely evening, incredulous that you disappeared out of my life, in the middle of the night, a mere nine months later.  Even though I have since learned you are sick and evil, I feel bereft.  I miss you.  That's what good con artists you are.  That's what con artists do.  You fooled me.  You fooled everybody.

It was the opening night of the Fall 2012 season of the Yucatan Symphony.  Tom had bought seasons' tickets for the four of us. I thought, okay, these guys have style.  They have class and money.  Seasons tickets and I was included.  You made me feel beloved.   Suddenly I had a posse.  Whilst the orchestra (staffed with imported Russians, hence, good musicians) was tuning up, you noticed men in the balcony looking at us, or rather, you.  You were being cruised big time.  Fresh meat.  You were indignant to be so observed.  

Now I know you just never wanted to be noticed or looked it.  Someone might have recognized you.  Or, would remember you in the future.

We had just come from dinner at Malarky's Pub.  Martinis and burgers. Bob, you were so happy to have me as your martini buddy since Tom never drank.  We tossed them back and ordered two more.  It was a festive night, this social debut of yours.  You had just arrived out of nowhere and you were starting the fall with a cultural splurge.  

"Do we have to wear long pants?" Bob had asked me over the phone earlier. That would be the question every time we went out, either to a nice restaurant, to the polo club, to a party.  "Do we have to wear long pants?" as if you were 10 years old.    Since you arrived in paradise, you only wore bermudas.  "It's because we wore Armani suits all the time, back in our life in the States.  We have a closet full of Armani suits in storage.  And two custom made Armani tuxes."

"I never want to wear a suit again," Tom added, shaking his head at the thought of it. 

But it was a dumb question, because you didn't even own long pants here.  You three arrived with two huge dogs in cages packed into a stolen Mercedes, with three pairs of bermudas each.  You must have been in some hurry to leave the U.S. You bought a few hawaiian shirts at Costco when you arrived and wore them in rotation.  The Armani suits were fiction.  The Armani tuxes were wistful thinking.  You groomed us so well.

You looked harmless.  A gay couple with their 91-year-old gay "uncle" and two enormous dogs.  You looked honorable, taking care of your uncle.  Little did anyone know Uncle Ron was the mastermind of your scams.

No Ritz Carlton in Vienna.  No country club memberships.  No cruises at "platinum level."  You never had Blackberrys that you threw in the trash because you were burned out from successful executive life.   How skillfully you played us.  All of us, not just me, thought you were fully funded boomers who came to Mexico to live the good life, leaving your stressful, empty, American lives behind.

I wonder where you are tonight.  Fiona thinks you are in Belize.  "They speak English in Belize and they never learned Spanish."   Eva said, "They're in Belize because Belize is the place for criminals.  They can hide in Belize, it's full of scammers, just like them."  Eva is the one you hurt the most, turning her life inside out.

I have no idea where you are.   I wonder if you are drinking martinis.  I wonder who you're scamming now.  I wonder if you are happy.  I wonder if you miss me.  

Of course you don't.