When I woke up in the hospital, I was surprised to see my mother next to me.


From all appearances and smells, it seemed that she had just given birth...

to me.

I am afraid, after a perusal of my physical state, that I screamed.

Then something large and rubbery was shoved in my mouth.


I don't know why that memory was reappearing in the theatre of my mind

just as I was lighting a large Nicaraguan cigar. My memory is a strange thing.

I can remember things from the very earliest moments of my life, and yet,

I can hardly recall what I had for lunch yesterday without consulting

the stains on my vest.


Hortencia had always been amused by my fascination with Freudian humor.

It was intensified by the fact that I had never read him. She enjoyed a good cigar,

and she enjoyed a good cigar joke, but she never countenanced phallic humor.

She said,"Like water and ice, an organ that can be either a noodle or a rock drill

is not to be taken lightly. Entire kingdoms have been brought about or banished

into oblivion because of those tubes of flesh."