Pollo

I spent the sum­mers of my 11^th and 12^th years in La Romana, Domini­can Repub­lic as the guest of my neigh­bor­hood friend Danny’s abuelo and abeulita. I learned how to dance the merengue in open air squares with his cousins. It was 1976, and I was 12. I took a pair of plat­form heels for the danc­ing nights. Of course I did. We ate street food, arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), paper dunce cap cups of shaved ice with treacle-sweet ”fla­vors”, man­gos. We swam in the ocean. We chased chick­ens around the streets. We went to mati­nees and watched crazy Can­ti­flas movies (the Mex­i­can Jerry Lewis) and I howled even though I spoke almost no Span­ish. I met amaz­ing friendly peo­ple who kissed me and hugged me a lot. His grand­par­ents were well off rel­a­tively, which meant that we stayed in a 1200 square foot house and slept in tiny rooms with fans blow­ing all night.

My friend Danny brought over his two best of Bea­t­les albums: The Bea­t­les 1962 – 1966 (red album jacket) and The Bea­t­les 1967 – 1970 (blue jacket) with the four look­ing over a bal­cony at the cam­era. I lis­tened to those records until I could sing every word. One of my first mem­o­ries of rock and roll is the tiny record player in La Romana and ”You’e Got to Hide Your Love Away” teach­ing me that it was not ok for a man to show the pain of los­ing. ”While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps”– I look at the world and I notice it’s turning…so beau­ti­ful. I felt all the songs like they were poignant trea­sures and I was an expa­triot (didn’t know that word, but it is the feel­ing, you know?) pre­serv­ing an Amer­i­can (British, but who is going to rob a 12 year old of hero­ism?) trea­sure while over­seas. I was melan­choly, and I knew this music would be the sound­track for love in my life, but I didn’t know any girls yet. Some­thing was wak­ing in me – ”All My Lov­ing” had a mean­ing I was started to get a han­dle on, for instance.

Today I bought some Bea­t­les music on iTunes (finally avail­able there this week), and hit play and let it run all day. I wrote to a friend that the Bea­t­les are the alpha­bet that makes up the lan­guage of pop music. Every­thing ref­er­ences them. This is not news. For me, the lis­ten­ing took me all through my grow­ing up years, but espe­cially those two great sum­mers in the Domini­can Repub­lic, eat­ing chicken and rice, danc­ing the merengue, and falling in love with a girl who did not yet exist.