I wake up earlier than I meant to. I don’t sleep well these days; I haven’t had a satisfying night in weeks. Enrico, my travel buddy, is out cold, smacking his lips—probably dreaming about last evening’s extra-large plate of ceviche. The walls at Hotel Caesar’s, the alleged birthplace of the Caesar salad, are paper-thin. I swear I can hear someone snoring in the adjoining room. My mouth tastes like lime and regret. I’m slightly hungover. What does one do in Tijuana at this hour? Coffee seems like a good place to start.
I search on my phone. No cafés are open within half a mile. But fifteen minutes away, there’s a third-wave coffee shop, something straight out of a West Village corner.
Outside, the avenida already feels too familiar. It’s 6:30 a.m., the street is still throbbing with club music. Which one were we at last night — this one, or that one, or both? In one corner, a couple of mariachi bands serenade two clusters of girls. I walk straight to the shop, thinking how much it feels like Kathmandu. The place is exactly what I pictured: glass front, matte signage, the faint promise of a chai latte. A man wiping tables says something fast and incomprehensible.
“¿Cerrado?” I manage.
“Opens in twenty minutes,” he says, only now clocking me as foreign.
I return to Hotel Caesar’s (did I mention the alleged birthplace of the Caesar salad?), where two black coffee urns have materialized in the lobby. I pour myself a cup.
“Está muy caliente, señor,” the receptionist yells—only after I burn my tongue.
What now? I go back outside, cup in hand, and wander another block or two until I’m leaning against a place called Border Psycho, the bass from upstairs still working the street like a second heartbeat. Beside me, a man sips the last dregs of his Tecate.
“Morras aquí… bien malas, ¿eh?” he says.
I can only make out the last word, and I assume he’s talking about my Styrofoam coffee.
“Muy malas, muy malas,” I reply.
And we quietly finish our drinks—two men mourning the end of another weekend night.
New Year’s resolutions? Not quite a resolution, more of a wish. I’d like to live with less doubt and less second-guessing. I’d like to spend less time agonizing about things I can’t see, can’t touch — things I can’t influence, can’t control. I’d like to be better at telling people where I stand, and asking them where they stand. Life’s difficult enough without making things more ambiguous than they have to be.
For your listening pleasure Ben Lerner’s second novel 10:04, Colson Whitehead’s first novel The Intuitionist.