Mona and José

In September, 2004, I wanted to move to Mexico. It was an impulsive decision on my part and I never regretted it. I flew to Mazatlán and talked to a realtor. I asked him to show me homes for sale in El Centro, the downtown section of Mazatlán. The first place I saw was a huge house, owned by Mona Felton and her husband, José Fuentevilla. The home took up an entire city block.

“Only half the house is for sale,” the realtor explained. “It used to be where the servants lived and worked. Mona and José have run into financial problems and need to sell this part of their home. They are going to continue to live in the main house.”

The realtor opened the door marked 222 Circunvalacion. My eyes popped. The home was at least one hundred years old. The servants left long ago. There were huge mango trees in the courtyard and banana trees it the back. It looked as if the patio hadn’t been swept in months. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to put a fountain in the middle. I wanted to make this big house my own. 

I bought the home eight months later. Jose and Mona became my neighbors in an on-again-off-again friendship. I learned that Mona was from a very old, very influential Mazatlán family. The Feltons were early entrepreneurs from England. They established the water system, the lumberyard and a technical college. They ran for political office and usually won. 

Mona met José on a trip to Spain, when she was a young woman. They fell in love and were married, much to the dismay of her aristocratic family who did not approve of Jose’s dark skin. I found José to be very charming ~ except when he wasn’t. The same was true for Mona.

One of the first weeks after I moved in, Mona invited me to go to dinner with her in the Zona Dorado ~ the Golden Zone. Zona Dorado is the tourist part of town, known for its multi-story condos and fancy restaurants on the beach.

Mona picked me up in her white Chevy Blazer. The car lurched as she sped away down the street. Her eyes were everywhere except on the road. As I reached to put on my seatbelt, Mona grabbed my arm. “Please don’t put that on,” she said. “People will think I’m a bad driver.”

Over the course of the five years I lived in Mazatlán, I had many encounters with José and Mona. One of the first was when Neto and I realized that someone was stealing our water.

ME: “Neto, why is our water bill so high? Does everyone pay this much for water.”

NETO: “This bill can’t be right. We’re paying as much for water as a whole block of people.”

AHA!! Neto search the back patio. He looked behind the banana trees and saw a water pipe going from our hook-up straight into José’s kitchen. He cut the pipe and capped it off.

ME: “Are you going to say anything to José?”

NETO: “No. He’ll figure it out.”

José and Mona kept a pack of fancy dogs on their second floor balcony, overlooking our patio. I never saw the dogs but they barked constantly. There must have been five or six of them. No one ever walked the dogs outside. I assumed they were “rooftop dogs” ~ a common practice in Mexico of keeping dogs on the roof. They are considered guard dogs and are not treated as pets. I asked Mona about them,

“Mona, why do you have so many guard dogs on your balcony?”

“Oh, those aren’t guard dogs. Those are my breeding dogs. They are very expensive. I sell their puppies for extra money.”

I hated those dogs. With their constant barking, they didn’t give me a minute’s worth of peace.

One day I noticed that we had a bunch of mice running around our courtyard. I talked to Neto.

“Neto, is there anything we can do about all these mice? They are all over the courtyard and I really don’t want them in the house.”

“Sure. I can get some mouse poison. If we don’t stop them now, they will be in the kitchen by tomorrow.”

Neto put mouse poison in the courtyard. Before they died, the mice went crazy. They ran up our mango trees and into Jose’s balcony, where the dogs were barking as usual. The dogs chased the mice and ate them.

The next day, I saw Mona at the tortilla shop across the street. She looked terrible.

What´s happened, Mona?”

“All my dogs got sick and died. Now I don’t have any dogs to breed. I don’t have any more puppies to sell.”

“Do you know how they died?”

“No. I came outside when I didn’t hear them barking. That’s when I found them. They were all dead.”

I didn’t say any more. I didn’t expect to kill Mona’s dogs when I poisoned the mice. I felt guilty when I realized that I was happy not to hear their constant barking.

I asked Neto, “Should I tell Mona that we are responsible for her dogs dying?”

“No,” he answered. “She won’t figure it out.”

One of my last conversations with José was in 2008, when I returned to Mazatlán after cancer surgery. 

“Where have you been? Neto has been here without you all summer.”

“Oh, José. I’ve been recovering from cancer surgery. I’ve been really sick.”

Then José told me that he’d been diagnosed with cancer, too. “But my doctor told me about a cure.”

“Really? What?”

“Every morning, I pee in a pitcher. I mix my urine with fresh orange juice and drink it. It doesn’t taste bad. It’s going to save my life.”

Last year I learned that José died of prostate cancer. He and Mona were my friends. He was a good guy. I wish his doctor’s cure had worked for him. I hope he died knowing that I was happy to be his neighbor..