She was a car.
Every car has a life of its own, but this one was exceptional.
Black Betty lived in Mexico, in the Riviera Maya. I don’t know where her humble beginnings started, but her late life was spent with me rambling down dirt roads and roads with holes the size of small Mayan pyramids.
She was a Vocho (pronounced bocho), a VW bug turned convertible with a make-shift pleather (plastic leather) top folded down and ready to go up and snap on the moment it rained. Lee and I never actually snapped it on because the snaps were too rusty and, if you drove really fast in the rain, the water shot over the windshield and you didn’t get wet anyway.
We found Black Betty sitting outside a small catholic church in the town square in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, Mexico, just south of Cancun. She was sad, neglected, and needed a new home.
So we brought her home.
And we loved her.
One day we decided to buy five loaves of bread and turn them into yummy, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. We wrapped them in little tinfoil packages, packed them in a cooler, and packed the cooler and our dog, Babygirl, into the squishy backseat of Black Betty. We packed lots of homemade oatmeal cookies in there too.
We crossed town to La Colonia, the traditional Mexican village on the wrong side of the tracks—the local people's town that supported the gringo tourism in the area. Kids rode bicycles down the broken streets. Lines and lines of ticky-tacky houses rubbed shoulders, many wearing clothes-lines parading freshly washed underwear. A grocery store sat on a corner and kids bought little packages of chicken flavor so their mothers could make rice and beans for dinner. A barber shop had young men parading in and out getting fancy swirling designs shaved into their short dark hair. A tiny restaurant boasted white plastic chairs, red plastic tables, and plastic flowered table-cloths. A concrete closet stood on one street corner, the words Estation Policia painted in peeling black paint on its side. A young man dressed in an official looking uniform stood outside watching the world go by.
We gave him a ham and cheese sandwich and an oatmeal cookie.
He smiled.
It’s a great way to make friends—handing out cookies and melty-hot sandwiches.
We gave them to men digging the foundation of a new house. We gave them to school girls wearing starched white shirts and dark blue skirts and walking hand-in-hand. We gave them to teenage boys ferociously playing games at the video arcade.
Everybody smiled.
They smiled at the cookies and the sandwiches. And they smiled at Black Betty and her chop-top. And they smiled at Babygirl. Every once-in-a-while, I held up Babygirl’s paw and helped her wave.
One night, late, when the stars were gone and thunder rumbled overhead, Lee put Babygirl with him in the front seat of Black Betty and drove down a muddy backstreet—deeply muddy and slippery and full of rolling hills. The rain began to pour down from heaven and lightning struck nearby. Lee smashed on the breaks and Black Betty went sliding through the mud and into a tree. Babygirl bolted into the dark. Lee, forgetting Black Betty’s wounded condition, bolted after the frightened dog. But Babygirl was nowhere to be found.
Lee came home. Black Betty’s passenger-side headlight was cracked and Lee's heart was broken.
Babygirl was gone.
We slept through the night and early the next morning, just as the sun was rising, Lee started Black Betty’s engine and returned to the scene of the accident. There was Babygirl, hiding behind a garbage can beside the muddy tracks of Black Betty’s slippery slide. She was so excited when she saw Lee, she jumped into our Vocho’s very damp front seat and licked him all over. Babygirl was safe. And Black Betty would be fine. She only needed a fresh piece of headlight glass.
When finally, we made plans to leave lovely Mexico for mountains further south, we had to bid Black Betty goodbye. We considered selling her to another owner, but thought better of it and gave her to my daughter who eventually followed me to Mexico. Black Betty had many new adventures, and to this day is still living comfortably in the Riviera Maya where panthers prowl and crocodiles lurk and back roads have potholes the size of small Mayan pyramids.