We're heading south on Circuito de Playas on La Costa Verde. Traffic's lively and the sun blesses us as I stare through the window at the waves gently lolling in. I roll down my window to catch the sea breeze, turn to Auntie M and smile. "Perfect weather. I can only imagine what it's like in summer."
Auntie M never takes her eyes off the road. "It es eh-summer, Doug."
Never one to let my ignorance get the best of me, I point with the enthusiastic curiosity of a five-year-old freshly released from an underground nuclear bunker.
"What's that blueberry Whoville thing jutting out into the ocean next to all the surfers?"
"La Rosa Nautica. Best pisco sours in all of Lima."
She honks and abruptly shifts gears, jamming up a winding road along the seventy-meter cliffs of the Costa Verde.
With my stomach shoved up into my throat and a death grip on the dash, we pass high-end apartments on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a park with a statue of some buff dude in a public grope with what looks like a young Oprah.
Auntie M preempts me. "Es El Parque del Amor. Young people keep making suicides by jumping off this overpass here, eh-so they fenced it off."
"How romantic."
We pass a small Paddington Bear statue before burrowing into an underground parking garage at Mach 10, my head whips back as the Toyota slams to a stop with cacophony of grinding metal.
After we get out, Auntie M looks down and pinches her lips. The Toyota's back right quarter panel clipped a column, causing a big, ugly white scar on black paint. She shrugs. "One more stripe to the tiger." Then, she looks over at me and winks. "Hungry?"
The restaurant's expansive back patio is perched on the cliff with a stunning vista of the surrounding coastline festooned with color, as paragliders soar through the skies above Miraflores.
Auntie M's friend, Lara, a heavier set woman in her forties with dark eyes and an infectious smile, sits at a cozy table with an impressive spread of exotic food plates all around her. She speaks no English, so the sharp cadences of Spanish fill my ears as I sip my chilcano and scan the paragliders for any signs of distress. Good God, what if one of them fell? Maybe a rogue gust of wind or a badly buckled harness
I'm frozen, shuddering at the thought of an aerial funride gone awry, body crashing down on the table of the family of five next to me like a gravity-fed flesh bomb, internal organs bursting like a blood-soaked piñata.
Bummer for the clean up crew. Having to deal with the father, bathed in blood, waving his drink glass sporting a floating eyeball like a cocktail garnish. "Uh, excuse me, señor. . ." He twirls a long piece of intestine with his fork like some spaghetti noodles. "I found this in my ceviche. At first I thought we had ordered the octopus. . ."
Auntie M's voice. "Dougito. Fuckus!"
Lara smiles and smacks the table with her fist. "Si. Fuckus, Doog."
Fuckus? I look blankly at Lara and Auntie M. "What?"
Auntie M laughs. "I was telling Lara on how much you love nature parks." She examines the food spread, conflicted. "I eh-should eh-start my ultra-low fat, low-carb chocolate cake, baby food and chemical laxative diet today, but. . ."
The expression of longing says it all. She scoops her fork into a huge helping of potatoes. "I just try a little taste. For eh-sure I start my diet mañana."
As Auntie M carb loads her plate with more tasty morsels, Lara's smile flips to a frown when she scans the untouched beef hearts, stuffed potatoes, and sushi on my plate. "Me muero!"
"I'm sure it's just travel nerves," I say as I slam down another chilcano, hoping to oil over my social anxiety gland.
Auntie M tries to explain how, even though I'm big on Lima's food, my stomach's been a little off.
Lara's shocked, explaining emphatically to Auntie M the unlimited numbers of maladies I probably have: traveler's diarrhea, Giardia, maybe even an ancient alien fetus chewing through my stomach, ready to pop its head out and projectile vomit pre-digested sushi rolls all over our adjoining tables.
A bit tipsy, I vaguely understand a couple of cognates as Auntie M mentions something about Lara being a hypochondriac.
While Auntie M talks her down, I pull out my pocket notebook and turn towards her. "Boy, if Gus could see us now."
Auntie M twists and tilts her face at me. "¿Quién?"
I smile. "Gus."
Auntie M gives me a blank look.
"The guy from Argentina?" Still nothing. "Late fifties-ish, drinks like a fish, half his teeth are rotting out?" Nada.
Auntie M finishes chewing a papa rellena. "What es you talked about?"
My English must be rusty. "The Argentinian in Oregon. He knows someone that knows someone that's related to someone that knows somebody that knows a person that you're an auntie of? Remember?"
Auntie M and Lara both look at me like I've decided to go out into the jungle and join an Ayahuasca cult.
I gesture with both hands for emphasis. "Gus. From Argentina. In Oregon. Uh?"
As Lara follows with her eyes, Auntie M dabs some food off her chin with a napkin, then mimics my hand gestures. "Dougito. I no know Gus. In Ore-gone. I only know a Gustavo y he has his teeth and es an architect. . . of sorts." She raises her head, thinking. "Or was that Marcello?" A confident nod. "Sí. Eh-something that ends with an O." She pauses, then shakes her head dismissively. "That's eh-strange."
I listen to them talk in Spanish as I sip a glass of water and wipe the sweat off my brow. My brain's on fire. I've known Gus for, what, like forever? He can't even play Beer Jenga without cheating, and now he's an architect? What the hell is going on?
I'm still dumbfounded as Auntie M excuses herself for the bathroom, leaving Lara and I to awkwardly stare at each other while she gnaws on some beef hearts.
Tearing off the sheet of paper in my notebook with what I hope is Gus' real phone number, I get up, smile at Lara and mouth "I've gotta make a call" while making the international thumb and pinkie to my ear phone gesture. Lara gives a hearty wave and smiles in return.
I head across the patio away from all the tables for some privacy. Leaning against the guardrail, I admire the spectacular view of the snot-green sea while struggling to fish the phone out of my pocket.
After what seems like an eternity of ringing a familiar voice answers. "¿Hola?"
It's the man who might be formerly known as Gus and I know exactly where he's at. The sounds of video poker and '80s rock music are a dead give away.
"Hola, Duck!"
"Don't you Duck me, Gus. Or is it, Marcello?"
A pause. I can hear him rattle the ice around his drink.
The Gus/Marcello voice is pure confidence. "Aye, Duck. I see you talk-ed with Auntie M's brother. No is importante, Mister Wizard." He pulls the phone away from his mouth. More ice clinking from his glass.
He's putting on a show. Stay firm. "So, what the hell do you call yourself, anyways?"
"Calls me Gus for old time's sakes."
"Why didn-"
"Aye, good news, Duck. I made the first chapter done. How thats for speed writing? A news record. Just listen."
I hear the sound of paper rustling and Gus rips out a tremendous belch as he clears his throat. "Oofah: "The Gus' Peruvian Guidebook. Chapter One: 'Peru: It was the bested of times. It was the worsted of times. It was--'"
"--it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."
"You read it already? Imposible?"
"Yes, 'Tale of Two Cities'. Charles Dickens. Gus, that's already been done."
Gus bursts out a sloppy raspberry. "Ah, naleche. Its soundeds original when I wrotes it. I just scratch that part out."
"Gus, I'm not sure you--"
"Aye, OK. And how makes this one? Uh. Nude Chaptered One: Ahem. 'Muchos años lately-er, as he makes faces with the firing squad, Colonel Duck was rememberings that distant afternoon when his father took-ed him to discovering the lice.'
"Gabriel García Márquez. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.'"
"Mierda y concha su madre! This writing shit's hard!"
"Maybe Gus, but I don't--"
I hear Gus pull his phone away. "Gracias darlin'."
"I re-worked that on the final draft." The clink of fresh ice as what's-his-face gulps down more gin. "And Duck, puts on more notes into the historia of these Sendero Luminoso."
"Sendero What-o?"
"Aye. And watch outs for them Pishtacos down there. They is a killer."
He's wasted. "Pishtacos?"
"Just keeped making your e-scribblings in that notebook of yours and sexts me what you got."
Sexts him? What I've got? I think we've hit a fork in the road. I turn from the handrail and see Auntie M entering the patio area fresh from her bathroom break.
A big wave and a gesture at her to come over. "Hey Gus, I see Auntie M."
"Aye. Ain't she's a sweetie?"
"She's wonderful. Maybe you could talk to her and straighten this--"
Gus/Marcello's voice quavers. "Oh Díos Mio! No. Shit no! You're doings a goods job, Duck. Now, I gots a big conference call comings in. Is Bill Gates and his leper colony."
A HUUUGE Raspberry!
"Gus? Gus, what's that Pishtaco, thingee?"
CLICK.
What the fuck?