Angels in Heaven

fool things
ever made a nickel, God only knows. They bought the string and the polyester
end bits from Jorge to begin with, then sold the finished products back to
him—after, you will recall, some nineteen hours’ labor on each—and guys like
Benny bought the hammocks off Jorge for ridiculously low prices, say from $5.50
U.S. for a single up to maybe $9.50 for a family size. After Jorge took his
profit out of both ends of the transaction, that left, say, on the average five
bucks for the weaver, for all those hours, which works out to such a pathetic
hourly wage I won’t even bother to work it out even if I could. Benjamin later
told me he had a deal with a hardware chain operating out of San Diego that
took roughly five thousand a year, depending on availability, but Benny had to
prepack them and put into each a copy of his literature and pay for the air
freight and insurance and broker’s commission—so all he made out of the whole
deal was a goodly number of thousands of dollars, for which he had to visit
Mérida once in a while (expenses deductible) and spend a half-hour up a ladder.
Who wouldn’t do likewise, I’m sure? Of course, Benny did have that dreadful
struggle with his larcenous conscience all the while.
    After settling accounts with Jorge,
arranging for the packaging and the transportation of two hundred of the
hammocks to the air freight office in Jorge’s old truck, we shook hands all
round, departed, went back to our hotel, deposited our five sample hammocks,
changed clothes, then made our way around to the back of the hotel, where
Benny’s car was parked. Suitably attired and even more suitably credentialed,
off we went to jail.
    We had just passed the airport
turnoff west of Mérida and were continuing on westward when I asked Benny how
in the world he’d ever stumbled on the lowly hammock as a way to make a buck.
    “Carlos, who you met, has an older
brother,” he said. “Paco. He’s not in the store much anymore. He was into
pearls when I met him—what?—six, seven years ago, on the Isla Mujeres. I
probably met him through Big Jeff, who knew everyone in town, especially
everyone who was into things like pearls or silver or coral or running booze
or, I blush to say, D-O-P-E. So I put up the capital, and what Paco did was buy
ten thousand dollars’ worth of pearls from one of his connections, then we
walked them across the Tex-Mex border to Brownsville, well strapped up, and a
few days later sold them to another of his connections for twenty-two five.
Next time down I met Paco’s pop, Jorge, and the rest is history.”
    “So is that,” I remarked, pointing to
the remains of what once must have been a fabulous mansion set back off the
main road but was now a total ruin. “Jesus, there’s another one,” I said a few
minutes later. “What were they doing out here anyway, shooting a remake of Gone
With the Wind? ”
    “Sisal,” said Benny. “All those
things that are cactuses to you, they used to make rope from. As in hemp. There
were fortunes being made around here, and then guess what?”
    “The dreaded sisal weevil?” I
guessed.
    “Nylon rope,” he said, “got invented,
putting most of those guys out of work.” He waved at two peons who were
standing patiently at a crossroads waiting for their lift. They were dressed in
the typical laborer’s get-up of loose white pants, white shirt, straw hat,
sandals made from old rubber tires, with machetes strung by a cord around their
necks. One of them waved back without putting too much energy into it.
    “I once ran across a guy,” I said,
“you know the kind of guy I mean, the kind that never takes baths but instead
rubs himself all over with a special dry mud from Nepal. Well, this guy
invented and sold a machine that extracted the juice from things like welcome
mats and bits of traditional, non-nylon rope, which as you just mentioned are
made of hemp, which as you didn’t mention is a close relative of the pot plant.
So what the guy was saying was you could get high from drinking your old
welcome mat. I never tried it myself, although it is true to say I have downed
many an exotic tipple in my travels.”
    “Me neither,” said Benny, who was
beginning to perspire slightly because it was hot and he was attired, as I was,
in a lightweight conservative suit, white shirt, and tie. “I once chewed up and
swallowed 120 morning glory seeds, Celestial Pink, I believe they were. Boy,
did I get high. Boy, did I get sick