Navigation by Burger Kings

Nobody who knows him would ever employ the word “conventional” in describing Mr. Fernández. We could start with the mustache, of which only Salvador Dalí’s was more extreme. Then there are the muttonchops, which make him look like a great-uncle out of Galsworthy. He also, once a decade, does something completely crazy—the most notable of which, in the nineties, was to join Amway.

“Get ready,” he informed me solemnly, “in just a few months, we're gonna have masses of merchandise in this place.” This was right after he had listened to a motivational tape—the message of which was believe, visualize, SEE the success and...bam! You’re rich.

Well, he has just embarked on a course of a zillion chiropractic treatments—the purpose of which is unknown to anyone but Mr. Fernández and (one hopes) the chiropractor. There are now little blue foam devices all over the house. There are special vitamins in large containers marked “Maximized Living,” as well as Daily Detox pills that apparently need to live in the refrigerator.

Even more extreme is the diet. No alcohol, no gluten, no pork, no rice, no…it goes on endlessly and gets added to daily. Of course he cannot have lactose—what, MILK!—horrors! So yesterday I was busy tracking down almond milk, unsweetened, because sugar, or god forbid high-fructose syrup, is absolutely, completely, totally and thoroughly bad and banned.

And guess what?

His health has absolutely dive-bombed!

I am writing this after eating pizza and drinking generous amounts of wine last night. I visit the doctor, nowadays, only when the blood pressure pills run out and CVS declines to give me a refill. Mr. Fernández, however, has been sicker than a wet kitten for the last several days—the ENT guy told him yesterday that his sinuses were completely filled with…right, you don’t want to know. As proof of this, every five minutes or so, Mr. Fernández issues a foundation-shaking sneeze, almost but not quite blowing his mustache off….

I know about this because in the days when I was waiting for the axe at Wal-Mart I practically lived in my doctor’s waiting room. I was there so often that, in the last year, I helped put up the Christmas tree (at 6-foot three, I always have to put up the angel….) AND take it down three months later. That’s what stress does to you.

So I wasn’t surprised when Mr. Fernández told me, yesterday, that there was a problem. Actually, I wasn’t surprised because there is ALWAYS a problem, and guess who gets to fix it?

“So where is it?”

I needed to know where the doctor’s office was because I had to go and pick up another prescription because the prescription the doctor had written did not please the exacting eye of CVS. The doctor had prescribed just a touch of codeine, and that requires a physical address, not the post office box that the doctor had supplied.

“It’s on this little street behind Pavía Hospital that everyone calls Calle Asia but now it’s named after somebody or other….”

This did not sound promising.

“OK, so how do I get there?”

This is, in fact, the operative question in Puerto Rico. Let me explain—absolutely nobody operates on the address system. That, of course, seriously challenged me when I first arrived on the island. I remember it vividly—calling a government agency.

“Do you speak English,” I began. I was a monoglot (well, computer, polyglot exists!) at the time.

“MIRTA! MIRTA! UN GRINGO!!!!” She had not bothered to move the phone from her face.

Right—so it took 10 minutes to find someone who spoke English. Not well, but enough, and hey—how much Spanish could I speak at the time?

“Where are you located,” I asked.

“Stop 17 and a half.”

There was, it seems, a trolley thirty or forty years ago that went down the main drag of town. It had stops, or paradas, which absolutely everybody knew about and by which everybody navigated (though the trolley was long gone) so the world was perfect, see? Oh, and no—they had no idea about what street number they were at.

So we went around and around, and finally Mirta went off to get directions on how to orient a clueless gringo to the parada system.

Fortunately, she had the answer!

“Just go to stop 18 and walk half a stop down!”

There was a particular and minor torture about those days when the linear and logical gringo mind was exploring the depths of Latin exuberance and zest. I give you an example I am living right now: a group of schoolchildren are screaming under my balcony. In fact, they have been directed to scream by their teacher, who is beaming happily at them and smoking a cigarette.

“Aren’t teachers supposed to shut kids up?” I would ask Mr. Fernández at the end of the day.

You may ask—what about the rest of the island? Are they navigating under the parada system too?

Nope—Burger Kings.

Look, there are no street signs because we all—except you—know where exactly everything is and anyway if we had them the hurricane would just blow them away and anyway you shouldn’t rely on signs because the point is to go and talk to people and get the straight story and pass the time of day and have Fulana de Tal call you mi amor and kiss you after a pleasant 15 minutes of chatting about health problems and crooked politicians. That’s how you get to places!

So here’s how it plays: “Ay m’ijo, you go down three streets and turn left at the Burger King and then go for a little while to the Church’s Chicken and then you’ll see a big blue store—The Gatsby—and then turn right at the McDonalds.”

At this point they will note your glazed eyes, so what will the do?

Hop in their car and take you there!

Well, by a miracle I found the place, this morning. The first secretary didn’t know what I was talking about but the second did. I prepared to wait but unbelievably the doctor was there, a patient was just leaving, the secretary snagged him. Five minutes later, the prescription was filled out and in my pocket and CVS has grudgingly and administratively-correctly given me Mr. Fernández’s narcotics.

Thanks for asking—he’s already sounding better.