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Robert James Waller – Puerto Vallarta Squeeze


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"Happy birthday! You have half your life left."

I flashed an enigmatic smile at my then-husband, Guy, across the feathery shade of the palapa that sheltered us from the Mexican sun. Did I really want to be reminded that I’d reached a milestone on my journey through life?

I had hoped to celebrate my birthday on a riverboat in Papua New Guinea, but somehow we ended up in Puerto Vallarta. After recent trips to Sri Lanka and Vietnam, a budget squeeze had prevailed.

Beyond our chichi hotel, The Careyes, the Pacific Ocean’s azure tongue lapped in tempo over seashells scattered across the brown sand like tiny ears. The serrated pompadour of coconut palms swayed in the breeze. Steps away, the sea whispered, but it would keep my secret, the exact number of decades that are now both my memories and my past.

Sounds drifted in from the hotel bar. I heard something familiar: "People would be riding on the music, drinking and clapping in flamenco time…. In Puerto Vallarta. In a place called Mama Mia’s." I knew those words by heart, and it was an odd coincidence that I should be hearing them at that particular moment. They’re from the title track of Willy and Lobo’s recording Puerto Vallarta Squeeze.

We had come to The Careyes to soak up the sun and sea after a few frenetic nights in Puerto Vallarta. The resort town is associated with a long-ago birthday of the actress Elizabeth Taylor. She and actor Richard Burton played out their tempestuous love affair here and made the town famous.

Burton discovered the then simple fishing village in 1963 when filming John Huston’s Night of the Iguana with screen siren Ava Gardner and nymphet Sue Lyon. The handsome and hard-drinking Burton purchased a love nest for Taylor’s 32nd birthday in what is now Old Vallarta. But I had wallowed in the Taylor mystique on previous visits and, like the entire world, have watched the once-exquisite beauty grow fat, unhealthy, and old on the front pages of the tabloids read in the checkout lines at supermarkets. I’d already seen the bigger-than-life statue of Taylor and Burton on a street close by Isla Rio Cuale, the little island that basks like a lazy green lizard in the narrow river of the same name. I had no intention of visiting Taylor’s former villa, the oddly named Casa Kimberley again, either, although it’s a museum now. I wanted to race as fast as I could to Mama Mia’s bar, made legendary by Robert James Waller’s adventure novel Puerto Vallarta Squeeze.

After we landed at Puerto Vallarta’s airport, we strode through the mob of high-season holiday-makers to the car-rental counters. "Buenos tardes," said Maria of Best Car Rental as Guy handed her the confirmation number for the prearranged, four-door, new-model, nonsmoking, American-made vehicle requested. Maria gave Guy the contract for an old-model, two-door, manual-drive, hecho-en-Mexico Volkswagen whose drivers had been a fast-fuming line of smokers. "Eet is high season," the woman said, smiling happily as she slapped the keys on the counter. She didn’t have to say, "Take it or leave it." Her body language told us that. To be fair, it wasn’t just high season; it was also New Year’s Eve.

Our VW jounced like a jumping bean down the double-lane cobblestone road past a top-heavy parade of condominiums, luxury hotels, and shopping malls to the Sheraton Hotel, where Guy had booked an ocean-view room on the concierge floor. The clattering of the low chassis and the thin wheels rolling and smacking against the cobbles echoed loudly. When we tried to talk, it was as if we were having a conversation under a volcano.

At the Sheraton I retreated to my room with reasonable expectations. My simple desire was to wake to the sound of the sea. But the concrete box faced another building, and the rush of waves from the curvaceous and blue Bahía de Banderas, Bay of Flags, didn’t exist. The constant noise of cars pulling in and out of the parking lot was all we heard. I experienced a niggle of disappointment. The words high season and Puerto Vallarta Squeeze typed themselves with a clack-clack-clack on the screen of the laptop partition located in the right side of my brain.

After my polite request, Guy returned to reception. With a voice that sounded in his own ears as piercing as the one he’d used to be heard above the din produced by the jumping and hiccuping vw, he secured, with difficulty, another "ocean-view" room.

I was anxious to get to Mama Mia’s before it was stuffed tighter than a can of flaked Pacific tuna. While I awaited Guy’s imminent return from the reception desk, I eagerly pictured the night ahead. Guy and I would perch like coastal birds on the scarred leather barstools at Mama Mia’s. We’d sit knee to knee like the fictional down-and-out Danny Pastor, Waller’s antihero, and his sensual Mexican girl, Luz Maria. Novelist Waller was inspired by his discovery of Willy and Lobo’s fabulous Gypsy flamenco music at Mama Mia’s.

A recipe from Willie Royal:

 

Willie’s Italiano Chicken
Makes four servings.

Ingredients
1 whole free-range skinned chicken
4 baking potatoes
12 garlic cloves
6 small onions
2 bell peppers
¼ lb (125 g) string beans
3 stalks of celery
1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes (28 fluid oz/795 mL)
8 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
3 or 4 pinches of oregano
sprinkling of capers


Method

Cut up and skin chicken and put into four-quart-deep (4.5-liter-deep) casserole dish with cover. Cut each potato into three pieces and put them in with chicken. Cut onions in half and spread throughout. Cut garlic cloves in half and spread throughout. Slice up celery and bell peppers and add along with string beans throughout. Then add salt, pepper, and oregano. Add capers if desired. It’s important to add all the ingredients so that they’re evenly distributed in the casserole dish. Add the can of tomatoes with juice over the whole dish, cover, and bake at 375° F (190° C) for one hour and 15 minutes.

After we landed at Puerto Vallarta’s airport, we strode through the mob of high-season holiday-makers to the car-rental counters. "Buenos tardes," said Maria of Best Car Rental as Guy handed her the confirmation number for the prearranged, four-door, new-model, nonsmoking, American-made vehicle requested. Maria gave Guy the contract for an old-model, two-door, manual-drive, hecho-en-Mexico Volkswagen whose drivers had been a fast-fuming line of smokers. "Eet is high season," the woman said, smiling happily as she slapped the keys on the counter. She didn’t have to say, "Take it or leave it." Her body language told us that. To be fair, it wasn’t just high season; it was also New Year’s Eve.

Our VW jounced like a jumping bean down the double-lane cobblestone road past a top-heavy parade of condominiums, luxury hotels, and shopping malls to the Sheraton Hotel, where Guy had booked an ocean-view room on the concierge floor. The clattering of the low chassis and the thin wheels rolling and smacking against the cobbles echoed loudly. When we tried to talk, it was as if we were having a conversation under a volcano.

At the Sheraton I retreated to my room with reasonable expectations. My simple desire was to wake to the sound of the sea. But the concrete box faced another building, and the rush of waves from the curvaceous and blue Bahía de Banderas, Bay of Flags, didn’t exist. The constant noise of cars pulling in and out of the parking lot was all we heard. I experienced a niggle of disappointment. The words high season and Puerto Vallarta Squeeze typed themselves with a clack-clack-clack on the screen of the laptop partition located in the right side of my brain.

After my polite request, Guy returned to reception. With a voice that sounded in his own ears as piercing as the one he’d used to be heard above the din produced by the jumping and hiccuping vw, he secured, with difficulty, another "ocean-view" room.

I was anxious to get to Mama Mia’s before it was stuffed tighter than a can of flaked Pacific tuna. While I awaited Guy’s imminent return from the reception desk, I eagerly pictured the night ahead. Guy and I would perch like coastal birds on the scarred leather barstools at Mama Mia’s. We’d sit knee to knee like the fictional down-and-out Danny Pastor, Waller’s antihero, and his sensual Mexican girl, Luz Maria. Novelist Waller was inspired by his discovery of Willy and Lobo’s fabulous Gypsy flamenco music at Mama Mia’s.

A recipe from Willie Royal:

Willie’s Italiano Chicken
Makes four servings.

Ingredients
1 whole free-range skinned chicken
4 baking potatoes
12 garlic cloves
6 small onions
2 bell peppers
¼ lb (125 g) string beans
3 stalks of celery
1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes (28 fluid oz/795 mL)
8 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
3 or 4 pinches of oregano
sprinkling of capers


Method

Cut up and skin chicken and put into four-quart-deep (4.5-liter-deep) casserole dish with cover. Cut each potato into three pieces and put them in with chicken. Cut onions in half and spread throughout. Cut garlic cloves in half and spread throughout. Slice up celery and bell peppers and add along with string beans throughout. Then add salt, pepper, and oregano. Add capers if desired. It’s important to add all the ingredients so that they’re evenly distributed in the casserole dish. Add the can of tomatoes with juice over the whole dish, cover, and bake at 375° F (190° C) for one hour and 15 minutes.