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brus laguna

most every pueblo i arrived at took some getting used to; i was almost always initially depressed and out of place, until i found a home.

in brus laguna, i didn't stay long enough to look.

maybe it was that i listened to fast talking salomon, and stayed at the hospedaje he recommended me,

there were only two in town, and the other was closed

don't get me wrong, juaquin cruz is a nice guy
real friendly like,
but a hospedaje room that's eight feet by eight feet by eight feet
without windows, but one little holy screen over the door to let in mosquitos
the first spring bed i saw in la mosquitia

a poor concave cama
they had running water
they made me pay up front
25 lempiras per night,
the second one i enjoyed with my neighbors on the right,
they were having a coke party
snorting and chortling
guy on my left
loud christian broadcast in spanish from oakland california
outside,
a guy begging me for one lempira through the cracks in the door

henry mclean i did come upon Henry McLean here,
an 82 year old pech/negro
he came and traded tobacco in la mosquitia when people still wore loin clothes,
in the thirties through the fifties.

his son came and found me coming out of the comedor nicole,

having just finished breakfast,
you're a writer, right?
yeah
i have a man with a book you need to meet

so i spent three hours taping him
his stories of miskito adultery laws

fire dances
old friends

i turned out to be the wrong writer,

someone else had promised to return
but i was good enough,
maybe the lord has sent me,
to listen
and correspond,
i told him if he sent me stories in the mail
i would post them on the web.
i think he got it.

touch the monkey one nice thing, i got to touch the monkey
caplan
he was a bit happier than the pet at the santa teresita

they were both fascinating - climbing on me
acting like little people
this guy was a bit happier, but still neurotic

less lonely. and being fed
he liked his plantain.

he reminded me somehow, maybe his expression, of ms. stone

- he was mellower though.

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