After years of feeling trapped in England, a redheaded musician jumps at the chance to play a show in Mexico City, where he performs for his long-distance pen pal, the beguiling Carmencita, and attempts to win over ten thousand other Mexican fans.
The flight from Heathrow Airport to Atlanta Airport had taken over ten hours; I, fortified by a few Bloody Marys, had spent most of the journey scribbling in my battered journal and listening to Jamiroquai. I found myself plagued by the allure of Morpheus, though I endeavoured to ward off the temptation to capitulate to a tantalising slumber. This was the first time in over three years that I’d been given the opportunity to escape from my stifled, sequestered existence in England, and I didn’t want to miss out on a single second of it.
I’d been yearning desperately for the chance to play a concert abroad again–now, I was on my way to Mexico City to do just that. The other musicians travelling with me were all dozing as I sat, hunched over, in my comfortable Virgin Atlantic seat and wrote feverishly as if possessed by some literary demon. The removal of the smoking area at Heathrow Airport had deprived me of the nicotine rush I so sorely craved; I silently prayed that I would find one in Atlanta Airport, where my bandmates and I would have to spend a few hours while waiting to board the connecting flight that would take us to Mexico City.
After arriving in Atlanta feeling suitably sluggish, my irritation had been exacerbated by the overly officious staff who manned the passport control; me and the lead singer, Sully, chowed down on some hearty American burgers in the airport TGI FRIDAY’S, also providing us with the illusion that time was passing by quicker. The flight from Atlanta Airport to Mexico City was comparatively shorter (under four hours); the loud, raucous, expressive chatter of the Mexican passengers warmed my heart–I’d always loved the Latins, they reminded me of my native Irish brethren.
Standing at six-foot-one-inches tall, my deathly-pale, freckled Celtic skin glowing like the moonlight and my thick head of curled red hair burning like a beacon, I was quite aware of how much I stood out among the handsome, dark-haired Mexicans… though I relished it. I was quietly confident that Carmencita would like my hair, assuming that she didn’t see many redheads in her day-to-day life in Mexico City. The other guys in the band didn’t know that Carmencita would be coming to our show at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez; I hadn’t told anyone about her.
This would be our first proper meeting in the flesh. Carmencita and I had been pen pals for over a year after meeting online; we’d made a pact that she would teach me Spanish if I would teach her French. Our letters were peppered with tender, mildly flirtatious passages in English, Spanish, and French; this assortment of languages developed into our own unique form of communication. I felt Morpheus’ soothing hands gently massaging my aching shoulders as we landed in Mexico City after seven o’clock in the evening; thankfully, the band’s tour manager–a chirpy Scot named Jenny with hair as red as my own–had arranged for a car to pick us up from the airport, which would take us to the four-bedroom townhouse we were staying in called Casa Lotería.
Upon arrival, the band and I were greeted by a warm, convivial Mexican family of three who ran the place: Pablo, a short, stocky, well-groomed man with a jet-black pencil moustache that Errol Flynn would have been proud of; Marta, Pablo’s voluptuous, raven-haired wife who possessed the most disarming smile that I had ever seen; and Sofia, Pablo and Marta’s eighteen-year-old daughter who was studying to be a nurse. As the only member of the band proficient in other languages, I greeted them in my rudimentary Spanish and chatted politely for nearly ten minutes before finally retreating to the sanctuary of my bedroom and falling into a sound, untroubled sleep.
The next morning, after a revitalising shower, Sully and I left the townhouse and ventured down the street; the buildings were adorned with Catholic murals: The Virgin Mary, The Sacred Heart, Saint Francis of Assisi. Sully and I stumbled across a tiny restaurant with crumbling brickwork where we breakfasted on delicious smoked pork, guacamole, chilies, tortillas, and washed it all down with a few Carta Blanca beers.
After filling our bellies and chatting amiably with the friendly, olive-skinned septuagenarian owner, the two of us leisurely strolled back to Casa Lotería; we then changed into our all-black stage attire, woke up the sleeping drummer and keyboard player, and waited for the same car from the previous day to pick us up and take us to the stadium nearby. The roads were busy and the drivers impulsive and erratic–far more dangerous a journey than any of the band were used to; though both Sully and I secretly liked the danger of it all: a white-knuckle ride to get our Celtic blood pumping before our show in front of ten thousand screaming people.
After a bumpy eight-minute drive, our band arrived outside Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and was greeted by the tour manager, who proceeded to lead us backstage to our private dressing tent. Sully and I imbibed a few more Carta Blanca beers to calm our nerves–I still couldn’t believe that I was about to go on stage in Mexico City after being sequestered in dreary England for the last three years. It was all so overwhelming in the most beautiful way. Finally, the tour manager led our band towards the gigantic stage with an enormous LED screen behind us; I was finally back where I belonged, on stage, in front of appreciative audiences.
With my Fender bass guitar strapped around my shoulder, my aviator sunglasses shielding my eyes from the scorching Mexican sun, and an inextinguishable fire burning in my Celtic heart, I stepped onto the stage. The Mexican crowd cheered as each band member shuffled onto the stage, which caused me to smile with infinite gratitude; these people had paid to see us, and we were going to play like our lives depended on it. After plugging my bass guitar into the bulky amplifier on the right side of the stage, I walked forwards towards the screaming crowd; my stomach fluttered with delight as I saw my dark-haired pen pal standing behind the metal crowd barrier.
Her beguiling brown eyes glistened in the noonday sun; Carmencita smiled sweetly as she blew me a kiss. She didn’t take her eyes off of me for our entire show; I saw her snapping pictures on her phone–this went to my head a little. The outpouring of love and appreciation from the Mexican crowd was almost too much to deal with; I truly loved these people; I felt a genuine rapport with them. True, I’d read all about the Irish involvement in the Mexican-American war–but it was more than a sense of solidarity from the past.
The crowd demanded that we do several encores before they would let us out of their sight; after three encores, we finally called it a day. Sully and I wasted no time in mingling with the crowd–I’d never seen so many attractive, unrelentingly-friendly, dark-haired men and women surrounding me all at once. Carmencita pushed her way through the crowd and embraced me; she went on to tell me that she had organised a party in our band’s honour at her father’s restaurant–only a fifteen-minute drive from the stadium.
I wrapped my arm around her as the crowd took pictures of us on their phones. Being in Mexico City, I once again felt truly alive after years of feeling like a perpetual sleepwalker. I was not only a Celt among the Aztecs… I was accepted.
