Today Pez is visiting the local fish market. She is buying tuna and squid for a little Wednesday party with some friends. This is why she is called Pez, she is a master seafood chef. No one, not even Pez, knows why she loves seafood so much. Maria thinks it is because she is from the coast, but Pez knows she is originally from San Jose.

Pez does not remember that her mom used to prepare seafood dishes all the time for her. Her mother was fierce in the kitchen and taught Pez just enough to develop on her own.

Pez makes up a four course meal. Her friends, of various professions bring la cerveza and some rum and Pez keeps up her pace in kitchen with three beers and a pina colada. She has won a drinking contest once and practices drinking small doses of tranquilizers in case she ever needs to use it against a dangerous client. She does not ever cheat a client.

Their meal is seared tuna and fried calamari with salad and rice. Desert is flan that Anton brought over. The conversations flow from sports to the president to the middle east and Europe. They stay up late into the night, hanging out outside watching the stars or watching T.V. inside or just sitting at the dining table. Pez enjoys chatting about film star gossip or international music. She is a fan of Bono and wants to visit Africa someday and support AIDs relief.

Do not ever talk local politics with her. Once she had a client who was an important congressman from Guanacaste. He was married and she almost had to travel to Libreria to testify on in a corruption case. Now she makes sure she is with foreigners only. Anyone she meets at a bachelor party or bar is perfect, but nothing too close to home.

The party dies down and friends depart. Ronron is cooking steaks and tortillas next week. He wants everyone to watch the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie with him. Everyone accepts his invitation and Pez is excited to watch a movie.

Maria helps Pez clean the kitchen and Pez does not wake up tomorrow. She is fortunate to have air conditioning in her house. She won’t go out today. She wants to watch the Matrix today. She has a lot of fun trying to simulate all the moves from the movie, but will never do any real martial arts.

Motorhead works in construction. I see him everyday, riding a bike he fit a lawnmower engine to so he did not need to pedal as often. Usually he goes to town for cigarettes or cash from the bank. Occasionally he allows himself to have fun at a bar on the strip. He always goes into town for big football games, where he meets up with his friends and indulges himself in some hard liquor.

“Motorhead, I need you to go down to Quepos and check on that condo job,” his supervisor said. Motorhead needs to be back in Jaco by 4pm, so he takes the 4:30am bus and is in Quepos by 6am. He walks to the construction site, and sees that the workers are low on cement and bricks. He authorizes an order and tours the site.

“Arriba!” A wooden floor has collapsed and cement blocks are now falling down near Motorhead. He does not change his pace as he walks through the room and the blocks land a meter behind him. He is not wearing his hardhat yet. Motorhead sighs. More orders for supplies are needed. He has lived on this coast long enough to see the beaches develop from bare strips of dead cattle land into tall resorts and shopping centers. He wonders what this beach looked like before a town existed and what it would look like if all the buildings were removed and people stopped living here. He would appreciate the tree cover.

Motorhead is a tall Tico, and very thin. His is still under a half century of age, but has had thinning hair for a decade now. It slowly recedes, as the town expands. He has also had the silly thought that his hair would grow back if Jaco was reduced in size.

It is 2pm. The construction work has gotten back on track. It was discovered that no one was drinking water on their breaks, and when Motorhead instituted mandatory water breaks, the crew became more efficient. Motorhead returns to Jaco. He has been tinkering with a motorcycle for two months now and focuses better in the evenings on it.

“Motorhead, take the day off, you look beat”. It is 4pm and Motorhead would be off work by then anyway, but his supervisor wanted to get ahead of schedule on the new commercial building on Avenida Pastor. “Gracias, Jefe,”

Motorhead lives some ways inland in a typical small house with a large yard. He pulls in and without a drink or a change of clothes, settles into his motorcycle project. Finally. The day is over and he can collect himself. This is what he has longed to do his life. Understand bikes and design new motors and ride through Central America. He has submitted two designs to a shop in San Jose and has maintained a dialogue with them for some time. They have sent back advise and other examples of similar engines. One day Motorhead will finally get to see all of America! All of America in his mind are as far north as New Mexico and as far as Rio de Janeiro south.

Someday he will know…and whether he has been finally satisfied is up to your imagination….

Shit. I’ve downed a third of my rum already. I wanted it to last the week but I may need to buy a new one by Wednesday. Let me tell you how I started on it…

I had a rice and meat dish for seven dollars today, and this is true. The food had pieces of crab, calamari, shrimp and pork and was good and hefty. SEVEN DOLLARS THOMAS SPITZER!!!!! I bought my first Cuban cigar ever and a quart of Panama rum, aged seven years. It burns like a splif at its last embers on your thumb and has a smooth, spicy taste.

I made it to the beach at 5:20pm and am walking along towards some volley ball players at a beach front hotel. It’s high tide and there is plenty of time to get settled and I brought my towel and a notebook to write in. Everyone who is enjoying the beach looks good and happy. I set myself on my towel and get my cigar going. It’s been awhile and I forgot how much you need to suck to get a sucker going. I’m wearing my tan aviators and mi sombero cafe. I took it off of a man I killed in a bar fight some years ago in Arizona(that’s a lie) and I could sell it as a prop in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” if they ever made another one(probably true). I am sitting so that the tide is just tickling my toes and I count 14 surfers enjoying the tide this evening. More than 100 people are out for this sunset today. It is cool out, and is the only time we really get this kind of cool on this beach.

One of the surfers catches my eye. She is really hitting those waves hard! She is wearing a light blue top that looks like a sports bra and black swim bottoms and hits several waves with a trained eye and balance like a cat. I watch and puff on my cigar. This chick must be here often…then it hits me. It’s her! Pez, the working girl, is a guru on a surf board. At one with the waves and no stranger to admiring eyes….

“Shit”! The tide comes in faster than I am able to respond and drowns my sandals, my towel and leaves me scrambling to save my hemp-straw satchel. In the rush I let my cigar fall out of my mouth and gets extinguished in the sand. By the time I recover and move myself away from the encroaching tide Pez has disappeared among the surfers enjoying their last moments of sunlight before night begins.

Pez has been surfing as long as she has been working in Jaco, which means she is damn good on a board and can get a decent day out of any kind of wave. This is how she keeps her physique for her profession and it is a body type that few in the business have; this is a boon for her and she knows it. Out on the waves everyone is your pal. Excited glances are shared as a good wave starts to form, and conservation is inevitable. “Yeah, I got a bonus from Whole Foods this spring, and my grades were good enough that my parents gave me a ticket for the break”. “Oh cool! I’m celebrating the first successful year of my business…So…what do you do”?

Pez always lies about her profession. With gringos she tells them she works a cash register in Quepos, the town outside of Manuel Antonio National Park. An hour’s drive away. When a native is out in the surf with them, she makes up stories about living in San Jose, or Liberia and moves on to different subjects. Most tourists have hit beaches from Spain to Hawaii, but Pez must always tell them, regretfully, that she have never been to another beach. There is only enough money for living expenses in her business, never for travel. She has never tried to tell anyone about her profession. A professional distance must be kept at all times, and anyone who knew her true self may become a potential client, seek her out, and ask for a discount. There is no space for personal involvement, and favors and friendships and lovers do not bring food to her table or clothes to her back. At least, this is what she believes and has seen happen to colleagues in the business.

I am making a point not to mingle with this crowd; I am not going to waste these working girls’ and boys’ time trying to convince me to buy their services.

Pez finishes up at the beach and heads home to bed. It’s Monday, and it is not worth working after a weekend. Besides, she made 1800 USD this weekend. A good haul, even for a holiday like Easter…

I stand barefoot staring at the sun, the source of it all, falling down into the horizon. The cigar is in my right hand and the quart of rum in my left. I am wearing a “Good Times” shirt with a guitar logo and khakis. I drink at the beginning of the sunset and I will drink again at its completion. I stand alone, and I’m sure someone on this beach is wondering why I’m wearing aviators after sunset and guesses that I drank a quart in the period of a sunset. I don’t. I see people having a good time. Their experiences in Jaco can be defined by this section of beach, the hotel pool and bar, and a restaurant or bar in town. They do not seek to know this town and do not want to know this town. They know enough to know they do not care. I do not want to know this town and I will not get to know it in the short span of time I am here. Additionally, I will be omitting some important parts of the culture and economy here in Jaco so there is no chance I will know the real Jaco. I put out my cigar and wrap it up tight. I want to dispose of it properly. No sense in adding anymore trash to the beach. I begin my walk back to my Hostal and organize my thoughts into a workable blog post or two for the evening.

If you walk north on Jaco beach far enough, past the tall luxury hotels, across the river that flows into the bay and especially past the small beach and rocky tide pools, there is a hidden beach that only lovers, beatniks, and tokers frequent. Okay, it is not really a beach. There are stones instead of sand and rocky out crops rather than a smooth decline into the ocean. However, a swimmer could still find a spot to wade in if she really needed to. I had found a nice crevice to stuff myself into from which I could watch the waves crash into the rocks and drank myself into a snooze. It was 9:27 in the morning. A Monday

I was regaining conciousness slowly and became aware that I was not alone on the beach. A towel and some clothes had been placed carefully on a pile of stones but I was not seeing anyone walking on the beach. Scanning the ocean I see a head bobbing in the water. It has black straight hair that looks to be just past shoulder level. The head made its way back to the beach and became a body, absent of any kind of clothing whatsoever. It was a small frame, yet built as if it belonged to a seasoned swimmer. It had dark skin, clearly a native but also tanned by the sun over many years. Surely I am watching a mermaid or at least found an excellent spot to stay out of site.

She is called Pez by her friends and colleagues but not for this reason and anyone else calls her Chica. No one knows that she believes the salt water can wash away a rough night of work. She needs to know the ocean is reaching everywhere a client could have possibly touched and the sand in the current is cleaning its best. She does not always need to perform this ritual after every successful business day. Sometimes she enjoys it too.

She reaches her belongs and finally gives a casual glance around the beach and notices me! She is startled, but this quickly turns to rage and draws a five-inch hunting knife from the pile of clothes and takes a battle position. I did not see her pick up the knife and I think she must be a mutant with retractable claws. She makes no attempt to cover up her body here, plenty of strangers have seen her body and what is one more drunk on a beach. We lock eyes for a moment but I keep glancing at the knife and another moment passes. The next moment I know that this stainless steel beast is her solution to hyper-masculinity, and has touched its share of flesh as well. I was too focused on the beast aimed between my eyes to notice a 4 centimeter scar below her lowest rib, a reminder of the only time masculinity triumphed over speed and desperation. The only time her weapon did not belong to her. Another moment, more tense. Is she going to strike? Like a mountain lion deciding if it needs to waste its energy to ensure safety, or simple forget and move on. Finally, she decides I am not a threat and takes her time putting her clothes on. Her knife disappears into a blue handbag and she slings it over her shoulder. She does not give me another glance as she leaves the beach, satisfied that her ritual has not been disturbed.
This is the only time she ever sees me.

Pez does not know how old she is. She does not know her name. Those are both sort of lies. She has a passport with her real name on and the year she thinks she was born. She used it once when she traveled to Cuba for an abortion, and has been extra careful ever since. She is very likely in her twenties but I know neither her name or her actual age. She is a permanent resident of Jaco Beach, a town of 10,000 on quiet days. She has been working Jaco for 5 years now. She is most busy Thursdays through Sundays and prefers to use the rest of the week to practice surfing and reading. When she got started in this business out of High School she had dreams of staying long enough to make some extra money to support her through the University. Pez does not remember why she wanted to go to the university. She cooks well and has her friends over often. She has few friends outside of the business. No one ever goes to the beach like she does either, and she does not like to be familiar with the permanent residents in town. She already gets looks from the policemen who patrol the main road here in Jaco.

In my skin deep research of this town, I can tell you Jaco can be accurately described as the “sin city” of Costa Rica. Two hours of a good time can be bought for a maximum of 150 USD with every color of skin, height body, and girth of hip or breast. Did I mention it is perfectly legal here? No need to worry about pimping or any kind of shit here. This is bachelor town baby and the drinks keep coming until your prick is satisfied or you’ve been to the hospital for a cocaine overdose you were not aware you’ve been hitting. “No doctor, I must have been slipped some during the night! Yes doctor, I have my passport, wait, where’s my two 20mill colones!(approx. 80$)” Now this place is probably more kind than that, but I’ve finally downed enough rum to start losing control of how my head moves, and that is how I picture a typical bachelor party going down. In truth he probably had a great time, but drank too much to remember it. Poor bastard. The doctors know how get get him out the door quick and he will likely burn another 200 dollars the next evening unless his cards were stolen too.

But I digress. Prostitution is legal in the country that zealously observes the resurrection of Christ with live performances of actors on crosses and sober parades in the streets and no sale of liquor from “Walmart” type stores. Many Latin American countries legalize it, yet all view it as an original sin, and despise all who practice it(expect of course the men who pay for it). Men too are workers in the sex trade, but on a much smaller scale. There are at least three bars that I can see from my balcony here that are regularly stuffed with working girls on weekends, according to trip adviser posts and at least one academic article. Yet Monday, especially after the Sunday of Resurrection, is a quiet day, and even the convenience store across the street has finally stopped blaring tasteless music that is only good after three beers and dark dance floors.