Jen and I are playing a game of Uno at our hostel against a German girl named Freddie, an American guy named Chris, a Japanese guy named Kaisho, and a Columbian man named Jorge. The Japanese guy can't pronounce the German girl's name and no one can pronounce the Japanese boy's name. The Columbian guy, Jorge, talks all the time.
He is, I think, slightly crazy. Jorge is older, about 45, and all his conversations are loud, energetic and often one sided. He has the tendency to repeat himself three times. He has alluded that he has New York mafia connections, Mexico City TV connections, Alaska fishing connection, and Campeche fish dealer connections. He tells us he worked with Billy Gates in Seattle. He often drops names of cities and states the same way some party people drop names of important people. He cooks shrimp in the kitchen and serves it to anyone who will try it. Jen and I suspect he never leaves the hostel.
About half way through the game, he says loudly, " Do you want to see the coolest card trick in the world?"
"Sure," Chris says.
"It's the coolest card trick, do you want to see it?"
"Okay," somebody else says.
"Do you want to see the coolest trick?" Jorge repeats again as he shuffles the cards. He shows us the trick, which is very cool and involves a complex counting scheme to figure out the value of a card. He shows us how to do it. He can't explain how it works but instead tells us about the man who invented it.
"There was this man in prison in Indiana or somewhere," he says. "All day he do nothing but cards and he invent this trick. He write to all the computer people in the world, Sony in Tokyo." He nods to Kaisho. "He tell them that if they can do the math and tell him why this trick works he will serve a life sentence. If not, he'll be a free man. He send it to all the computer companies. All the computer companies he sends it to and none of them figure it out. Today he is free man in Michigan."
The rest of us all nod. Some of us take sips of our beer. Jorge gets up to talk to some other people at the hostel. Chris confides that last night Jorge took the fan in his dorm room and pointed it just at his bed. Everyone else in the room sweltered.
The next day Chris catches a bus to Palanque, Freddie goes to Merida, and Kaisho goes to Uxmal and more people check in. Jorge approaches me with a big plastic bag and holds it open. "Today I am cooking squid. Here look. I'm cooking squid today, " he tells me. "Today, I eat squid!"
And another day of hostel life continues.
