You see all these gorgeous women in the nooks and crannies of the village, around by the water, laughing at the telephone booths, and then you experience pangs of guilt when you’re sitting in a soda hurting your hungover stomach with coffee, and mass groups of them stride by in the uniform: the blue shirts and tight black pants of a school girl. There are so many of them; I don’t think the boys even go to school, unless I’m just not noticing.

But if you followed one of these blue and black flocks to their destination today, you’d find a big day unfolding at the big, open-air school; that’s what you’d do. I did not follow them. So, I don’t know what they were all cheering about in there. I just happened by on my morning smoke, and heard clapping and other synchronous sounds, and a speaker with a clear, boom of a voice.

I walked past, down to the water. When I’d killed the joint, I turned around, put the roach in my breastpocket, and strolled back past the mangroves, past the soccer field, and back past the block-long front gate of the school. In the front yard between the gate and the front door, sitting under a shaded area, was the prostitute I’d haggled with the other night.

I often see her, tall in the middle of some flock of school children, guiding them. But now she was outside, by herself as the cheering went inside the building behind her. She was on the other side of the bars, looking down, holding a big red marker, making nametags. When I passed, she raised her head and smiled her smile with the missing teeth. She winked and smooched the air in front of her mouth; so, I guess that means we’re friends again. When I first saw her again, after initially opting out, she dissed me; at the rodeo, she wouldn’t even say hi. The day after that, I saw her out on the street and she acknowledged me, but didn’t celebrate. At the school though, I knew, I was back in her good graces. And somehow, this gave me an assured feeling.

Since that night haggling with her, I’ve taken serious this tangent about hookers. I bring it up in conversation more and more, gather information. In the process, three separate people have repeated the exact phrase: "Oh, every girl here is one."

I haven’t dug into the guts of my brain and explored thoroughly the reasons why; but when I think a woman is a prostitute, especially a long, brown gorgeous Latin girl, I am gorged with excitement. Holy shit are you fucking kidding me? Every perfect amazing perfect woman that’s ruled my eyes, and won made-up contests in my brain, is for sale? Nothing is that simple.

I haven’t done it. And I haven’t made doing it a priority. But when I found out that this little perfect sexy girl at the bar last night charges 5,000 ($15), I couldn’t count the whole thing out. Though I didn’t leave the bar with her either.

I left the bar by myself, as some stupid drunk gringo screamed at me that I am a bad person. "It’s 70 FUCKING CENTS!" He yelled, looking down at my money in his hand. The Ticos at the bar were quiet as I backed away, listening to my own flip flops scuffling the slick cement underneath me.

"I’m sorry," I said. "I just paid the remainder of your tab. Should I not have done that for you?"

No. He wanted more actually. He said I owed him, since he’d bought me those beers. With his empty hand, which was wrapped in white medical gauze, he grabbed a chair to steady his drunk. He stared at my money in his other hand, bit his bottom lip and sucked it. "You know what man?! Just…just…don’t ever talk to me again, man."

I imagined I could get used to that, since the first time I’d spoken with him was today, as he began drinking at 3 p.m. at the fish store. He’d just missed a group of his middle aged gringo friends, drinking rum in my ear as I was trying to eat. They screamed bleary at me several times to put down the Kurt Vonnegut book and come join them, and they seemed put out and offended when I declined. But when they slowly came back to obnoxious life, screaming laughing and making no sense, my guilt at dissing them dissipated. And then they left. And then he showed up; the guy I’m now never suppose to talk to again.

He was funny and charming but abrasive. He had an acid gleam in his eye and he liked good books. It was only later that I found out he was one of those boring, mood swing drunks. But until then, it was he and I as the lint brush of night rolled in, collecting our posse in its teeth: there was Ashley, the punk Tico kid I like, a couple of his young Tico friends. But most interesting, was a tall red-headed girl, who introduced herself to me by pointing at the name written on my notebook and saying, "My name is Michelle Welch, and my brother’s name is Michael!!!" I don’t know why, but I reacted as if she were trying to get my autograph; my head went down at it was hard to make eye contact as she questioned me and stared. She had someone take a picture of us together. "We’re probably related!" She announced. "EVERYone in my family has red hair."

I’d never met a redhead who’d ever come from a family of them. They’re usually lone standouts, the red sheep, with a constant though unwritten understanding that we may be adopted. Maybe we’re all part of Michelle Welch’s family…

On paper, this all sounds like a dream for me, but for some reason, as I said, it didn’t work me up. By all accounts, it should have, but it was hard to show enthusiasm around the guy I’m not suppose to talk to anymore; he had enough for us all. Negative enthusiasm. I can appreciate that; the Dennis Leary strain. I laughed when he replied to something Michelle said with, "Don’t flaunt your ignorance." And when he got up from the table to pee out the eight beers he’d had within the hour, Michelle confided in me that she hated him already, and I stuck up for him. Maybe because he was buying us beer.

When we sat down with Ashley and his friends and Michelle, Ashley announced that beers were expensive. We were at this new place I hadn’t been to. It had hot Tica bartendress per usual, but this place wasn’t Tico friendly. Ashley and his friends dealt with it well enough, but I decided not to drink.

"Oh, no man." Said the guy I’m now not suppose to talk to anymore. "I’ll buy you one."

When another of his was drained, he tried to order himself more, but since he refuses to learn any Spanish ("Hey, I’m doing these people a favor by speaking English to them; they can get much better jobs…") he accidentally ordered a whole other round. I said no, I don’t want it, but it didn’t take much to change my mind.

Michelle was irritated and craving female vibes. She was no longer amazed about meeting me. In the meantime, we all talked about books and Michelle mentioned Fear and Loathing in LasVegas, only she said "Leaving LasVegas." His eyes lit up.

"That’s my favorite movie." He said, and before his next words I felt a big yawn forming in the way back of my mouth. "That’s essentially what I’m doing here." He bragged. I held back the yawn, but the eyes rolled at him, of their own recourse. Ashley and his friends had been stone silent, because they were stoned, and they didn’t like English (except Ashley, who likes it because he knows it gets him gringa girls), but one of them asked us, in Spanish, "What are you doing in Costa Rica?" I told them my story, and then, since the guy I’m not suppose to talk to didn’t respond, because he refuses to speak Spanish, I answered for him: "Esta aqui para beber hasta muerta." Which, I think means, ‘He’s here to drink till he dies.’ When I said this, Ashley’s Tico friend turned away from all of us, not wanting to talk more, because that story’s boring in every language.

But the guy I’m not suppose to talk to began to tell his story anyway, about how he came down here to get a job, but had been fucked over, and now he was going to drink and drink and drink, even though he has syrosis of the liver. His liver doesn’t work. But it still bored the shit out of me. Before the Self-Destructive Drunk Guy Cliché could unfold its tired limbs, Ashley kicked into bullshit mode. First he offered, since the rest of us are so old compared to his 17, to embalm our bodies in alcohol for us when we died, which would surely be soon, he said.

"Then, when I have my rave here in a few years – they’re not ready for it yet though; a rave here…not yet – but when I do have my rave, when this town is ready for it, I’m gonna have crazy lights and then you guys’s bodies floating in alcohol." He ran with that thread for a while. I’m a much bigger fan of his sense of humor than I am of Denis Leary.