I woke up from a cold, deadless dream at about 10:30am. My alarm was set at exactly 12pm, carefully taking my precautions for the tentative date of departure of 1pm. The bags were all set, and since my sudden awake from slumber left me with two and half hours to waste my time, I grabbed my Hell’s Angels book by Hunter S. Thompson and kicked back to relax for the time being.

The next two hours left me in a state of inertia, enjoying my present situation, but aching for what was ahead. Being surrounded in a place that breeds commotion, dissipation, and unraveling noises didn’t help that much either. A useless attempt to control the events led me to lose my concentration, and made me enjoy the activities I was partaking on less. I decided, based on the way things were going, to instead spent the rest of the time thinking about solace, where the air was simple and the acts were vain.

It was unnecessary to control myself much more, for when the time came to be called upon, everything ran smoothly. I had two sets of clothes with me, my trademark Patriots jacket, a pillow, two books, a notebook, , and two towels for precautions, all to go along a cleansing kit. There was no need to pack too much, but it wouldn’t kill to just bring a little extra.

My friend arrived at precise timing. I loaded all my stuff in his Jeep Liberty, and got in the front passenger seat. The only thing left to do was to pick up another friend who lived very close to where I lived, and soon embark upon our journey into a small, desolate town in the western part of the island of Puerto Rico.

For over six months, the friend who picked me up has been studying in a town called Aguadilla. It has its perks, but it was mostly known for being a quiet town with little to nothing to do. His professors decided to blatantly take away a mere day of his week-long vacation to give classes, and he was obligated to drive 100 miles across the small island we inhabited to take a five hour class and leave the next day. It was a waste of time and energies, but a necessary one. Feeling pitiful, I and another friend decided to help him out. When he’d finish taking his classes, the plan was to drink, eat, and use our own comradery to have a good time in a desolate land that did not fit our own terms of the definition of having a good time.

******

The big wheels kept on turning for well over two hours. Everyone coped with it to their best of knowledge. Spending the time admiring the view, playing a game were the purpose was to spot specific kinds of cars and the one with the most point wins, or losing one’s self in the slumbers of a good song whilst thinking of a time to be free, where clouds are the ones that spark the imagination. I decided to spend most of my time doing the later endeavor.

You can see the change of culture within the passing of towns. The eastern part of the island has a propensity for riches and benefactors of all kinds. It’s the center for the average tourist to spend most of his time in. Rarely do you see them go to the western part of the island. Things are much different and less melodramatic there. The highway thickens, and the people get smaller in both size and money. You sense the uncertainty in the air, the desire to live upstate where all the fun is. Mountains grow steeper and the area behaves as its economic state shows.

Certain sectors give away the impression of glamour, and some do in fact have it, but they’re so exclusive and full of shit they don’t fit anywhere with the rest of this recluse subculture. Where I’m from, it is of requirement to be full of shit, for if you don’t it’s this member who faces the persecution and resentment of the masses. Being the type of breed I was would not result in a friendly disposition. We needed to camouflage our identity with the locals, but nevertheless still carry this seal with pride, waiting for the culture to change through the use of a nameless company hoping to make its mark into the small town.

Twenty songs later, we reached our destination in tranquility and in our own terms. The ride wasn’t as dreading as I thought it would be, mainly because I got accustomed to making this trip at least four times already. Good music and scenery can heal even the longest of trips. My friend still had two hours to kill before his class starts, and during that period we indulged on the pleasures of video games with no booze, which really isn’t much pleasure if you ask me. I did little of that activity, preferring instead to let myself become consumed over the state of affairs my surroundings permeated.

Twin Peaks is nothing compared to this place. The tavern, gasoline stations, restaurants… they’re all separated by a couple of kilometers each, and rarely do you find all of them at once. It is the makings of a drama unfolding behind closed doors. Everywhere you go you get a feeling that there’s more than meets the eye, as if there’s a ring of crime going around the town and everyone somehow someway is connected to all of it. It’s only a matter of time before I make my way to a secret meeting where cheeky motherfuckers are preaching about “the greater good” like in the movie Hot Fuzz. When the time comes, I’ll be ready for that day of retribution.

Around 4:30pm, my friend left for class, leaving me and my trusted companion in charge of his small apartment. The apartment had the underlying tones of a Narnia book; very small but spacious and big (at least that was the original impression I got). Adjusted the right way, you could fit more than 10 individuals in a comfortable position at any given time.

We spent the next three hours alone, sometimes with moments of raw endearing boredom. By the time my friend got back, the two of us were both descending into the madness of the whole place. Later, we found out that he had internet when we had thought otherwise, as he told us he figured out the password of a nearby neighbor because it was the exact same digits as those of his username; we were both pissed that he kept this to himself the entire three hours we were alone. The only thing left to do to finish this day was to go out for a couple of drinks.

Across the funnel darkness of a long slathering road, we made our way to a tavern my friend frequented in. The place resembled a ghost tavern, with little girls, shitty television sets, and empty pool tables and chairs all around. Keeping up with the tradition of being in the middle of nowhere, it was occupied with a set of dreamers who grew tired of waiting for a change, leaving them consumed by the irrelevant culture that shinned their souls with aggression. They seem like nice people, but ones where half of the time their lives were dull and boring, and that’s the last kind of people I wish to interact with.

Two hours were spent doing our due service to society by indulging in the sins the Bible finds endearing of sorts. I paid for one round of beers, and the rest of my friends bought the other seven. I wanted to pay for more, but I only had $5 in cash with me, and the place had no ATM, so we diverge a plan where I would buy them breakfast the next day.

By 11pm, I was morbidly drunk. I have this drinking technique where I drink the beer at a rapid pace to get the alcohol streaming down my veins faster, leaving me in the state of mind where all happens in the eyes of peasants. Today was the perfect day to implement the technique. Normally I don’t get too carried away with the alcohol due to my uncontrollable bursts, but one thing I’ve noticed about myself is that I behave according to my surroundings when I am drunk, and since my surroundings are calm and quiet, my energy levels react the same way, leaving me un-bothersome to my friends and perforated within my own thoughts.

Pool was a distraction for me. I played like shit and I could care less about playing at all. I was too busy hearing the bar’s music, which was playing 80s’ rock along with some 60s’ experimental tracks. My type of music. Guns N’ Roses, Scorpion, Steppenwolf, Megadeth, Metallica. You name it, they played it. The only thing they didn’t play was Led Zeppelin, the biggest sin they could’ve committed, but only being there for one day, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. If this is what people around this place normally hear at this hour of the night, then I can get used to this atmosphere pretty quickly. Come to think of it, this IS the type of atmosphere I have secretly always wanted to be a part of. Quiet, with something hidden inside. I do enjoy loud crowds and commotions from time to time, so little more than a happy medium would be fine by me.

The bar closed at around 12am, which is a pretty early hour for the type of people the nature of this setting attracts. But again, this isn’t your average bar, and this isn’t your average town. Everything here closes early, no questions asked. We got out of there as fast as we could and made our way to the apartment, where we spent three hours minding our business while the alcohol wore off, waiting on the dawn of another day to make its way to our doorsteps, hoping to catch a drift into the weirdness of the town.

******

The environment quickly made an impression on us, going as far as to make us mimic its various states in the arts of tranquility. Anywhere else we would be helpless drunks for about 4am. There would’ve been beer bottles everywhere, trashed rooms, and applicable loud noises coming from inside the place or of the activities we did partook on. If one of us had brought a pack of explosives, don’t kid yourself that by the end of the night there would be none left. The group itself wasn’t really all that aggressive or crazy, but from time to time the effects around us gave a much needed kick to do whatever the fuck we wanted to do. This, however, wasn’t the time for such kick.

“I wish things were different around here, but they’re not”, said a fellow townsman. “The sense outside this place seems like the findings of a good time, but here everyone prefers to spend their time alone.”

The entire left hemisphere of the island is like this. Even its most socially developed cities fall victim to it. Trying to change a culture that has been established for centuries is a hard task for anyone, but knowing how fucked up things are around here in terms of economic propensity, I for once feel compelled to distill this narrative of change down the throats of this convoluted community.

The island has been on an economic recession for well close to a decade now, and it’s in an $80 billion debt with a wide variety of people and even countries. It needs all the help it can get to somehow in miraculous fashion come even at border’s reach of closing the gap on that debt. Giving the small left side of the island something to do in terms of production in the meantime can and should strengthen the entire economic base as a whole (in a long period of time of course, no way in fucking hell is this mess going to get fix in three years). They do have some prosperous sectors, but they never show enough results, as most of them are private, or are in direct relation to the second most prestigious university in all of the island being located around this place, up in another intricate town called Mayagüez.

The arrival of industrial companies will in result begin to attract other industries from outside the borders of the island. This pattern needs occur on even larger scales, and spread out through the rest of the entire western hemisphere, which will in turn attract more money coming from slithering slobbering assholes.

My friend, coincidently, is going to be a part of the upcoming changes around the community. The company that is funding his classes is going to implement a large base of operations for mechanical aviators. It’s going to bring people from all over the globe into this desolate place, and it’s only a matter of time before others follow through.

Soon the banks will begin to take interest in the outpour of profits going around, and the construction of rich properties to go along golf courses design for the 1% will heightened the change. They have already established a small little compound to do their deeds, but with more time at their disposal, it is boundless what they can convert this place into. My friend gives the town about two to three years to culturally change; become more fun and interesting as the collection of scumbags turn it into an island’s version of Las Vegas.

No one likes change in the first instance. It requires people to get out of a comfort zone they got used to for well over time. It should be expected that the old preachers of the culture the town has had for such a long time to not be in full support of this movement. They’re taking away the identity they so eloquently want to keep, and if there’s something that bugs people even more than change, it’s an unnecessary change for the betterment of an agenda they do not agree with.

Their attempts to let the old ways remain the same will most likely prove to be futile. The big bucks are coming in, the people are starting to hope, and the place is beginning to come alive in the few places these conglomerates are found. It’s too big of an army that’s barreling down on them, and with the passing of time their voices will be silenced, maybe faster than some might expect. The new order has spoken, and they in turn will lead the small town to prosperity.

******

All three of us woke up around the same time as the other, probably 15 minutes apart each. I went straight to my reading routine, and the rest of them either played games on their phones or consoles. Our day started off around the same time everyone else’s was veering for lunch. Given the freedom of a good night sleep can lead to hours of slumber, and advantage of this freedom we took.

By 2pm we were a little hungry, so we hit the road to appease our appetites in the place of our choosing. The plan was to eat and immediately head out to a warm relaxing beach. We passed the industrial wave of the future expansion of the town, starting with an HP factory, and then the gushing validity of the aircraft industry, all passing along a withering golf course no one has any interested in playing on, even myself who is an avid golfer.

The rest of the town was a group of incoherent sights. Rich properties on one block, poor houses in deteriorating conditions on another. At the heart of tourism was the beaches; nothing else can attract the attention of incoming visitors hoping to have a good time, save for abandoned castles 500 years old, which coincidently are found near beaches. My gut tells me that most of these places are going to be converted into five star hotels with resorts and casinos of all kinds by the time the incoming boom of cash flows is at its peak. Anything to keep more money on the bank rolling.

We ate an exquisite lunch at Wendy’s, and made heads’ way on to the beach, which was already full of people. The free parking was full, and we needed to wait for at least 15 minutes to get a parking. All was set for the makings of a good time, until everything collapsed in high fashion. Rain, pouring from all corners, soaking everything and bothering spectators. Ten minutes passed and it wouldn’t stop. It was giving signs that it wasn’t going to stop for another ten more. Belittled, aggravated, and disappointed, we left the beach without even coming close to setting foot on the sand. Any other day we would’ve waited it out, but today we had the misfortune of being impatient and too caught up in other endeavors to not give a fuck about the beach. I was looking forward to opening up a book or writing something whilst enjoying the cool tides and refreshments that were to come my way, but you learn quickly in life that getting angry on these misgivings isn’t worth it.

A last ditch attempt was made for a relaxing time. A couple of months earlier, the same group of people along with another member who couldn’t be made available to come for this expedition discovered a desolated arena with no compact roads and little human intervention that made its way toward a beach if you kept pushing your luck further down the road, which we of course always do. More than 6 miles of unknown regions waiting to be claimed. It is the type of place this soon-to-be culture of greed is capable of destroying in order to create expensive hotels and casinos. In the right hands it can become a gold mine, but the price to pay is huge, for the scenery and secrecy would all be consumed by agents of power.

We made the downward decline in rapid fashion, and with only a few meters left to reach the spot where you could park a car, sit on a bench, and drink beers all day long, discovered another road block that made its way into our path. The road was completely flooded. My friend had a 4×4, but it was too much. The car may have passed, but too much effort was needed; effort that was not worth it for such a short time. The same predicaments that made us leave in the first beach led us to leave the second one. Both so close to reaching maximum peak of relaxation, both unable to be reached due to our impatience with the forces of nature. The biggest of tragedies struck upon us in moments need. There was nothing to do but consolidate this fact, prepare to leave this place, and move on with our lives.

******

We left the town around 5:30pm and arrived home at around 8pm, thus ending one of weirdest experiences of my life (can’t speak for the rest of them, but I strongly believe they’ll probably agree). It was all so swollen and irrelevant. Nothing happened save for some discussions amongst ourselves and pandering around. We drank very little compared to our normal bursts, and left feeling a little empty than we originally came. The slow pace of the town was too enthralling for our DNA.

Out of the three of us it was clear I was the one who enjoyed it the most. Always curious to learn about my surroundings, the town contained a distinct culture I loved to pick on for as long as I could. Knowing to accommodate specific human behaviors being exhibited by a large group is my specialty. You learn more about yourself than you do about them. That’s all the human experience amounts to, a series of cultures trying to cope with their environment. Studying them is always a rewarding opportunity.

I found a little bit in Aguadilla in me. The calm, peaceful, but hidden and interesting part of me that always has something to see and tell. Next time I’ll probably spend some of my time in the middle of the island. Rent a cottage up on the mountains, play a little guitar, and sleep with a blanket under the stars. It’s also way more interesting and dangerous, my type of environment. Only problem is that it’s poor as fuck, but I’ll abide.