THE SAGA OF MAXIMON

I arrived on Lake Atitlan in early August during a lull in the rainy season. The lake is a mysterious and beautiful place about four hours from Guatemala City, surrounded by verdant volcanoes and Mayan villages where people dress in the traditional style and speak the ancient language.


I was looking for the origins of the Maximon cult. Also known as San Simon, Maximon is a bizarre deity widely revered and worshipped among Central Americans, and is said to be the patron saint of dope dealers, pimps, gamblers, money launderers and slick players of all kinds. Women also dig him because he’s a stud. His image may be found in botanicas and hoodoo shops around LA. Here’s mine.
















If you have Maximon in your house, you are obligated to keep him supplied with his favorite things: booze, food, cigarettes, and money… as you can see. This is all according to Pelon, Cuban Eddie, Carlos, and Victor, my Latino friends who hang out at Howard's liquor store next door to my building in LA, as well as certain Guatemalan neighbors of mine who profess to know about such things.

Once Maximon moved into my penthouse, weird stuff began to happen. Not bad stuff. Just… well, let's just say weird. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that a big-time Guatemalan dope dealer used to live in my place, and his girlfriend was a Maximon devotee. In fact, as I learned from one my neighbors, she used to keep his image in the exact same spot – before the cops raided the place and her boyfriend went down in a huge bust. Some people say Maximon had fallen in love with the girl, and grew jealous. Now the boyfriend is doing nineteen years to life and Max has the girl all to himself. Think you want, but that’s what my neighbors say.

So, weird things were happening, and I was about to toss Maximon out the window, but one of my neighbors told me no no -- by no means should I EVER do anything stupid like that. In fact, said my neighbor, it was pretty clear that Maximon had a message for me. If I wanted to get the message, it was necessary to go to the place where he lives and meet him in person. The idea seemed compelling, and I'd had enough of the all the weird shit. Plus, it was going to be my birthday, so what the hell. I bought a ticket to Guatemala.

First stop was Antigua, the old capital. It’s a 16th Century colonial town, preserved as a World Heritage site, with cobbled streets and ruins from a long time ago when an earthquake knocked the whole place down.






The fountain in the central plaza is a little odd.


At night the town is alive with crazy bars, marimba music bouncing out of every window, beautiful Mayan women, all under five feet tall, and lots of tourists from all over the world in sandals and newly purchased Mayan huipils. The food is great and the shops are selling crafts, locally woven textiles, ropa tipica, and all sorts of junk.




At one of the cheap hotels where you can stay for less than $15 a night, I ran into my old buddy Shay D. Addams. He lives on the lake but he was in town to pick up the latest edition of his magazine from the printer. Shay and I have been collaborators on all kinds of crazy projects since our radical politico days of early 70’s. We worked on a few publishing ventures together: High Times Magazine, Swank, Stag, instigated a few riots and caused our share of trouble over the years.

Now Shay is the editor and publisher of The Atitlan Sol [http://www.atitlansol.com/], an english language monthly for locals and tourists which is pretty successful after the first five issues. At least it keeps him in drinking money, he says. Our meeting was fortuitous for a numbers of reasons: For one thing, he knows all about Maximon and promised to set up an intro for me. For another, he needed help hauling 1000 copies of the magazine back to San Pedro and immediately appointed me Publishing Consultant in Charge of Distribution. I've had better jobs and I've had worse jobs, but after a couple of drinks at the No Se' Cafe, one of the best local watering holes, I accepted the position.

From Antigua we took a shuttle in the rainn. For three-and-a-half hours it wound over high roads, careening around hairpin turns. This video shows you how it looks in bright sunlight on the way back. On the way in, the road shrouded in fog under a tropical downpour with big trucks and buses hurtling by, I refused to look...


We finally arrived at San Pedro, one of the towns
on the lake. It sits on the slopes of a hill next to one of the volcanoes.
. Shay got me a deal at Hotel Sak’ Cari (House of the Rising Sun, in Mayan lingo), right on the lake.


Manuel the manager gave me a room with a view. Of course, all the rooms have a view. But mine was the best!








I went to the market where everyone wears traditional garb.

I found my own traditional garb – a straw fedora which...
together with a bottle of Havana Club Anejo rum, enhanced my enjoyment of the late afternoon lake view from the terrace at the House of the Rising Sun.

Next day we boarded a lancha and motored across the lake to Santiago, center of the Maximon cult.
Santiago was the scene of a massacre in 1990 when the townspeople rose up against the brutal police. A priest was assassinated by a death squad. Finally, after an international outcry, the government pulled the police out of the town.

There is still tension in the area (www.guatemalasolidarityproject.org ), and the US government has a history of contributing to the violence. But things seem to be getting better, for now. The towns are booming with restaurants, internet cafes and eco-tour groups trooping through. The local fisherman in their dugout canoes on the water call home on cell phones. The lake has always been a big destination for Israelis, for some reason, and the streets and bars are filled with young backpackers chattering in Hebrew. Market day sees the streets thick with locals and tourists from everywhere.

Maximon lives in a house just beyond the marketplace. Each year he visits with a different family belonging to the cofradia, a community organization. Peeking in the window, you could see Maximon seated in a room thick with incense. I told the cofradia guys at the door I’d brought gifts for Maximon...

Ushered inside, I was taken before Maximon.

My offerings -- a pack of Marlboro Red and a bottle of Venado Rum -- were accepted.








One of cofradia guys opened the bottle of rum and gave Max a drink. He looked thirsty.











In the lush, syncretist style of local worship, an altar in one corner of the room held a conclave of Catholic images, including St. James with his sword and Jesus in a glass coffin. But there were also these fruits called melocton hanging from the ceiling in full phallic pagan splendor.

And in this place, Maximon ruled.

So we hung out, smoked cigarettes and drank rum with Max and the cofradia guys.

Though impressed by the experience, I left Santiago somewhat disappointed. I couldn’t say I’d had any revelations or messages from Maximon. Maybe because there were too many tourists coming in and out of his house. Kids in town tug at your hand and ask, ”Hey, want to see Maximon?” Taxi drivers meet you at the dock whispering “Cuban cigars, Maya textiles, Maximon?” Max was very much in demand. Maybe he was tired, worn out, bored. Anyway, I heard there was another place in San Juan del Lago, a town near San Pedro, where Max lived. I resolved to find him there.

Meanwhile, I was having a pretty good time in San Pedro. A laid-back little town, still rough around the edges and intensely Mayan, it's definitely the coolest place on the lake. From the Zona Viva, the honky tonk section where the boats come in, you can sit all day at a bar drinking Cuba Libres looking out at El Nariz Indio (the Indian's Nose -- see it?)...

watching the tourists get hustled by the Mayan wiseguys.

On the Otro Lado, which is kind of the Lower East Side of town where the hipsters hang out, the recently paved trail called 7th Avenue winds along the hillside lined with bars, restaurants and small hotels. Shay describes 7th Avenue as an “alcoholic’s vacation.” From the Bistro Nuevo Sol, to the La Niez Bar, to El Barrio, to the Buddha Bar, all the way to the Jarachik Restaurant, Bar and Hostel, from just before sundown onward it’s a strolling Happy Hour, and then some.

In my incapacity as Publishing Consultant, I accompanied Shay on his peregrinations from one establishment to the next on the excuse of distributing the latest edition of The Atitlan Sol. Of course, no excuse was really needed. Luckily, the House of the Rising Sun was right in the middle of it all, so after leading the conga line at the Buddha Bar and a few nightcaps at El Barrio (where there was a lot of talk about a BBQ next day where all the cute babes from these joints would be hanging out), I managed to stumble back to my room and pass out.

There are no images of 7th Avenue here because I could never remember to bring my camera and I was either too drunk, stoned or hungover to work it properly when I did. Like I say, I was having a pretty good time.

Next day, sure enough -- there was a BBQ at Nuevo Sol. And there were indeed some cuties dining on the pork tenderloin, ribs and cole slaw. Some of them wanted their pictures taken with a couple of older dudes.

Ah, but danger lurked!
See that bottle of sauce on the right, the one that had been sitting in the hot sun a little too long…?

A couple of hours after the BBQ, the cell phone I’d bought in Antigua for $15 chimed. It was my buddy Shay calling me from his place up the hill. He said he was really sick and needed help quickly. I climbed the hill to his place beyond the turkey farm.
I found him in his hammock, pale as death, doubled up in pain, alternately sweating and shaking with chills. Something he’d eaten had attacked his gut. He desperately needed to puke and expel the poison, but just couldn’t bring it up. I dug into my bag and came up with Alka Seltzer and some special stomach tea that I’d brought along just in case this happened to me. For the past twenty-five years I’ve owned a house in a small town in Mexico, so I know what it’s like. Now it was happening to Shay, and it was pretty bad. There was no hospital nearby, no doctors, and no medevac. He downed the Alka Seltzer (I mixed him a doble) and after a while, he leaned over and retched into the garden, vomiting up all the toxins. After a few more moments, his fever subsided. I boiled some water and gave him the tea. It seemed to help, but he was still awfully sick. “I’m sorry, man,” he said, his last utterance before passing out. “I guess I’m not gonna make it to your birthday party.”

That’s when I remembered: tomorrow was my birthday. Of course, Shay had invited the whole fucking town to a bash at El Barrio, and now he was out of commission. It was too late to cancel now. I let my poor, sick friend sleep, and went down to El Barrio for a few drinks before tottering across 7th Avenue to the Buddha Bar, then El Niez, then back to El Barrio, and finally, the House of the Rising Sun.

A fine crowd showed up the next night at El Barrio for my birthday celebration. Ben the Bartender presided over the proceedings, involving many rounds of tequila, countless liters of Brahva Extra beer, and a swarm of toasts in several languages, few of them intelligible, and all well received. A chocolate cake topped with white and blue icing appeared, baked by Clarissa from the Jarachik, and happily consumed. From his hilltop sickbed, Shay phoned in his greetings. I'd checked on him earlier: the old bastard was in bad shape, but through the worst of it. He reported steady improvement but was still too weak to walk. We all wished him well, and carried on in his absence. It was an excellent birthday bash.

There are no photos of my visit to Maximon the next day in San Juan. Nor am I permitted to relate exactly what happened there. The Shaman of San Juan del Lago swore me to secrecy. You’ll have to wait for me to write it all down -- the whole crazy adventure -- in a way that makes sense. For now, rest assured that after performing certain tasks prescribed by the shaman, the weird shit has ceased, pretty much. And my old comrade Shay swears Maximon saved his life by luring me down there, so that I could be on hand to bring him back from the edge with that Alka Seltzer.

I left San Pedro and Lake Atitlan and headed back to LA where my play, Be Bop A Lula is about ready to hit the stage at the Cat Club on the Sunset Strip. I also brought the real Maximon back for a drink with my pals Carlos, Cuban Eddie and Pelon ((L to R) at Howard's liquor store next door...

So I invoke the spirit of Maximon and hope for the best… for all of us!