Vinnie and Jack, two hospital buddies reunited in Quadalajara enjoying the warmth and sunshine in front of their $40/month 3 bedroom house on a typical day in paradise --- seventeen days after arriving in Quadalajara. (Vinnie's attendant, Salvador, in the middle.)
October 14, 1972. I met Earl at Boston's Logan Airport for our flight to Guadalajara. In addition to the nervousness, there was a definite excitement because I'd been waiting to check out Mexico for over a year and a half.
Earl was a mountain of a man, 6'5” and now close to 300 pounds. It was a wonder his wheelchair didn't collapse beneath him. We made quite a pair as I only tipped the scales at about 125. Earl's little brother, Chris, would accompany us as our attendant for the flight. Like Earl, Chris was close to 6'5”, but he was a slender high school basketball player.
After changing planes in New York, we were finally on our way. The Air France flight from New York to Guadalajara would take about five and a half hours. I thought a lot about what Vinnie Nash had told me about Mexico: how a quad could get a full-time attendant for $50 a month, how accessible the city of Guadalajara was, and how one could live like a king on $500 a month.
Our destination in Guadalajara was a place called Casa de Vida Nueva, or House of New Life. We had selected this particular “gimp-camp” (as the guys so affectionately referred to them) at random from The Paraplegia News (PN), the official publication of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. There were half a dozen places in Guadalajara that regularly ran classified ads in the PN. They all tended to sound alike: 365 days of sunshine, skilled personal care attendants, American-style food, beautiful gardens, etc. Earl had made the reservations reluctantly, since he had wanted to go to Hawaii. We had taken two previous trips together, both times to Las Vegas, but somehow I convinced Earl we should try Mexico. I just had to see for myself what Vinnie and some of the other guys from the West Roxbury VA Hospital were so excited about. Little did I realize that I was about to enter into a special place in time.
* * *
At some point in the history of this intriguing Mexican city, someone cutely gave it a nickname which—at the time—seemed quite appropriate. By replacing the letter “G” with the letter “Q,” Guadalajara became Quadalajara. Advertisements that appeared in the Paraplegia News and elsewhere made Quadalajara seem like an attractive alternative to U.S. institutional living or living as a virtual shut-un with ones' own family for newly injured quadriplegics and paraplegics—victims of auto mishaps, swimming and diving accidents, and those whose lives were permanent reminders of the horrors of war.
* * *
The sun had already begun to disappear beyond the horizon as the plane touched down at the airport. To my horror, I discovered we would have to be carried—wheelchairs and all—down a deep flight of some twenty stairs to get to Customs and Immigration on the ground floor. Three or four uniformed men came to help us. I took a deep breath; if they could get Big Earl down those stairs, they would not have a problem with me.
After clearing customs, and getting our tourist visas, we were greeted by our driver from Casa de Vida Nueva. The man spoke English and, as we piled into his red station wagon, he and Earl began to talk about Pele, the famous Brazilian soccer player. This guy was a real soccer fan. (We soon found out that in Latin America it was “futbol,” not soccer—soccer is what Gringos called it.)
The drive to Quadalajara from the airport took longer than I expected. As Earl and the driver talked about futbol, I stared out the window at the darkening landscape. We passed cornfield after cornfield where adobe houses were spread out here and there, all the way into the city. My expectations began to drop as the reality was sinking in—we were in a poor, third world country.
We arrived at our vacation destination, and after that my enthusiasm was dampened even more: this place was depressing. The October night air had turned cooler as Gabino greeted us while we unloaded the station wagon. Like the driver, Gabino also spoke English; he was the head honcho in charge of directing the other attendants and running the place.
Casa de Vida Nueva was like some strange ghost town. There were a series of individual bungalows arranged in a houseshoe shape. At one end of the property there stood a building in the shape of a boat. Rumor had it that Casa de Vida Nueva, or “the Boat” as most Gringos referred to it, was a former dance hall/bordello. That might explain the group of bungalows located on the property.
The silence that hung in the air added to the eerie feeling that was eating at me inside. Gabino tilted my chair back and pushed me across the grass to my quarters as Chris helped his brother. Once inside, the slender Mexican disappeared into the night, leaving us alone inside my bungalow. It was the first time Big Earl and I had had a chance to talk and compare notes. I had a feeling he wasn't very impressed either.
The wall in the living room was covered with mosquitoes and a variety of other insects. Earl just shook his head, “This place is depressing.” Where had I heardthose words before?
Gabino suddenly reappeared with a short young man. “Jose Luis is going to be your attendant,” he informed me, as he began to blast the walls with some concoction of insect spray. It was the first positive thing that had happened since we safely made it down the stairs at the airport. Maybe I was judging this place a bit too prematurely.
After getting some fresh air and gazing at the stars on this cool Mexican night, it was time to turn in. There were a few voices in the darkness, and some of the bungalows' lights were still on. It had been a very long day; I had already been up for fifteen hours. I said good night to Earl and Chris as they made their way to Earl's bungalow. Chris still had to help his brother unpack and be back to the airport by midnight for his return trip to Boston.
Little did I know I was about to be hit with another series of unwanted surprises. As Gabino helped Jose Luis unpack my stuff and put me to bed, I found out that the stockyyoung man who was to be my attendant didn't speak a word of English, as advertised, and didn't have any experience.
I lay in bed watching the two Mexicans unpack my things and felt a cold draft pass over my left shoulder. The window was broken; jagged-edged glass protruded all the way around the cement wall, which served as its frame. As I turned my head to examine further, I noticed what looked like blood smeared on the flimsy, flowered curtains. I didn't want to speculate on how it got there.
Gabino listened to my complaints. How was I going to communicate with Jose Luis? What about the broken window? And this certainly wasn't a hospital bed; wasn't I paying an extra $44 a month for that?
“I'll talk to Sergio in the morning,” Gabino replied. I asked, “Who is Sergio?” “Sergio is the lawyer who owns Casa de Vida Nueva,” I was informed. Figures, I thought to myself. I'm getting ripped off by a Mexican lawyer.
My roller-coaster day was headed back down again. What else could go wrong? As Jose Luis and I tried to communicate with the few words I remembered from high school Spanish, Gabino reappeared with a list of commonly used expressions with their English translations. “Ah, quiero un vaso de agua.” I remembered that one.
As my attendant left the room, fulfilling my first request of him, Big Earl came rolling in with Chris and another man behind him, carrying bags. “I'm getting out of here,” Earl stated. “This place is a dump. I've got a taxi waiting; we still have time to make it to the airport by midnight.”
“Damn it, Earl! There's no way I could possibly get dressed and packed in time,” I said in frustration. Besides, I had waited a year and a half to come to Mexico. I was at least going to stay until the sun came up.......
