HANGING WITH DP-M: He's Back At Work, On Novel "Made In Mexico"...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

MONTERREY, Mexico - When he travelled the roads and airports of this country for The Houston Post, DP-M liked to tell people he was moving in love - with its traditions, its food, its music, its women. On a variety of occasions, he tasted a little bit of everything in places such as Puerto Vallarta, Los Mochis, Taxco, San Miguel De Allende and here, the city that welcomed him more than once.

DP-M is back in Monterrey. This time, however, he is not working Journalism, but working on his next novel, Made in Mexico.

It is, he tells this reporter during a recent visit, the layered story of a proud Mexican family rooted here in its violent history, but spread across its neighboring country to the north. He agreed to meet with me after I promised to deliver a case of his favorite wine, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. And so, we met at a downtown restaurant where the aroma was absolutely captivating, so much so that only those who favor excellent Guacamole know the runaway sensory acrobatics great, fresh avocado brings to the palate. He was sitting with a woman he later said was the owner of the place, a second-floor walkup not far from the Hotel Ancira.

"I got the idea from a Mexican prostitute who told me she had relatives in Chicago," he began. "The more she talked about her extended famly, the more I grew interested in telling it. She has a cousin in New Jersey, a guy who works groundskeeping for the New York Mets and a brother who owns a convenience bodega in East Los Angeles. Her mother, still alive, lives with her here in Monterrey. The old man was killed by a rogue cop in Dallas, where he had lived an undocumented status while working a Deep Ellum cafe. The threads that bind these people are wild, absolutely riveting."

He plans to stay in Monterrey for the remainder of the year, occasionally making trips to the USA to see his two daughters. And while working on this new book, he awaits the release next month of his latest Border novel, The Scorpion's Son - an epic reflective tale of love and regret.

"See those guys over there?" he asks, pointing toward a strolling mariachi arriving to play for the evening crowd. "I know them. Two of those boys worked in the states. One was working for a meat packing company in Nebraska, where he was abused all to Hell, and the other worked as a drug-pushing, go-between guy in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Yet, here they are, in another frickin' world altogether. I find that malarious..."

It is this strange, but obvious "layering" of lifestyles he says will be the mark of Made In Mexico.

We ask him: "And the girlfriend?"

"I never like to have her around when I am writing," he notes. "For that I need a different kind of woman, one without strings. Not prostitutes, but not a clinger. I may indulge from time to time, although my baby will fly-in when needed. Every man needs that emotional anchor, as much as we like to think we don't. Well, we absolutely do..."

He waves the well-attired mariachi over and asks them too play a favorite song.

"In New York, I like Phil Collins," he adds, smiling like a boy. "Here, in my Mexico, I go for the best of Jose Alfredo Jimenez."

The boys played on...

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