ISSUE 270 : Wednesday, November 4, 2009

No destination hits you in the face like the tropics.

Puerto Rico, my heart's devotion,
I wish you'd sink into the ocean.
Always the hurricanes blowing.
Always the population growing.
And the jungles teeming.
And the natives scheming.

You can't help but hum the West Side Story soundtrack as you taxi to a stop at San Juan's Marin International. The roar of the reverse thrust. The instant heatwave searing your face and neck as the pressurized, air-conditioned cabin smacks you in the face with "jungles teeming." I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "Isla Mi Encanto," the Enchanted Island. Walking down the gangway, you always forget how hard the tiny island was willing to work to live up to its marketing. The problem was, I wasn't there on vacation. I was there on exile.

This was not my first trip to Boriqua. I had been there many, many times to shoot ads and commercials for Eastern Airlines. We would shoot Santurce for Rio. Old San Juan for Buenos Aires, Santurce for Mexico City. Because of its commonwealth status, shooting in Puerto Rico is like shooting in The Bronx. Your crew always had familia there. The food would always be plentiful and homemade to perfection, and every production trip there would always present another cousin or sister-in-law who was jus' dyin' ta meetcha. That was the "Expense Account" Puerto Rico.

The "Down and Out in Bayamon" Puerto Rico that exile had me injected into was significantly different. For one thing, the word was out on me. I was persona non grata to every production company that I had ever worked for. No "for old time sake" and "hundreds of thousands spent" luncheons in this Puerto Rico. And for sure, the cousins and sister-in-laws that were "dyin' ta meetcha" at one point, never seemed to be home when I stopped by, this time around.

All of this, I would later deduce, based upon the reality of my significant cut in salary, as the result of my exile status. Everybody knew I was a fugitive from the wrath of an advertising big shot, including the local Y&R expat Steve Wachtel who had come up through the same Assistant Art Director program I did and knew the entire story. No, I knew going in that Puerto Rico would be slightly shy of enchanting this time around.

Ever the Boy Scout, I landed in Puerto Rico fully prepared. My utility kit came in the well-turned form of a former Y&R traffic girl who saw me as a kind of beige Jerry McGuire who was being persecuted by the man for fighting the power. Lillian Ayala was the original Puerto Rican bombshell. She had taken a job downtown so that she could trade up. Which meant she lived a double life. Her Bronx boyfriend during the week and her "Motown Macho" on the weekends at Fire Island, The Hamptons and Sag Harbor.

It worked well until I got greedy and wanted to see her after work during the week. That's what found me out on the fire escape, seven floors off the deck with "Danny," an enraged bull of a boyfriend blowing through her apartment hungry for blood. After that, she got serious and put her money on one horse.

Two years later, we were living in Old San Juan having sex on the balcony every time the Governor's motorcade would pass by on their way to La Fortaleza just a few cobble-stoned blocks away. Lily made Puerto Rico an adventure. It only took two months of dealing with the heat and my lowered income and she was replaced by a note misted with Arpege.

But by that time I was hooked. I had island fever. The fear of being surrounded on all sides by water. And the comfort of being protected on all sides by water, all at the same time. The result is a euphoria that lulls you into a trance-like state that transforms each day into a seamless continuum punctuated by rum, sex and insane salsa parties that last for days at a time. And brujas. Witches. Always there were the witches.

When I would fly into San Juan from New York, the spectacle of older Puerto Rican ladies crossing themselves, kissing rosary beads, or literally falling to their knees on approach to Aero Puerto Luis Marin was always in marked contrast to the sedate and almost joyous cheers from the passengers who would fly into Miami. I could not understand why, until Lillian took me out to visit the Ayala clan in a little oceanside pueblo just north of San Juan directly under the northern approach path to the airport. Loiza Aldea.

Loíza's first years in the early 1700's saw it populated by freed or escaped African slaves. Some say it was the true birthplace of the practice of Santeria. Brujaria. Witchcraft as practiced in an intricate theology of African spirits and Roman Catholic saints. Hence the pious moments in the flights from New York that flew right down Calle San Patricio.

As I passed by the streets named for infamous brujas from years and years gone by, they brought to mind the power of the chants and spells of this religion of the ones who would not be slaves. The ones wo would not be chained. The vanishing ones. Now I was a vanishing one. Being brought before Lord Chango by one of his own.

I was told many years later the in-flight ritual was an act of contrition for the noise of the jets disturbing the "Tranquillo" of Lord Chango, the most powerful of the deities of Santeria. And here I was, the pendejo whose "Wings of Man" advertising had been filling thousands of Eastern Airlines flights over Lord Chango's domain, being returned by fate and the fair Lily to the scene of my crime. I did not have a good feeling about this. And with very good reason. (More next week)