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J U S T I N P E T E R S

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No Sin in Ecuador

Not all curves are what you might think.

Tania walked up the steep dirt road, past playing children and barking dogs, toward the workshop. I felt light-headed and convinced myself it was the elevation. Below us sat downtown Cuenca, Ecuador, and above lay the ghosts of teenage insecurity and lust. Tania opened the workshop door. A smarter man would have turned and ran. But I floated inside, pulled by a temptation older and stronger than I would ever be.

Boys of a certain age (fourteen) and complexion (pimply) are generally not babe magnets. Girls look at them like stains soiling their prom dresses. So these boys form relationships with guitars. The Les Paul electric is the girl in the short, black skirt with that “when I‟m eighteen, I‟m so outta here” scowl. The Martin acoustic is the girl with glasses and braids who never knew anyone noticed her.

A boy of a more advanced age (thirty-two) and complexion (less pimply), has discarded most of his teenage insecurities, is married, and has a credit limit his ancestors could only dream of. No longer confined to a single guitar, over the years he‟s picked up several, which

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mostly stay in the closet. Les Pauls sit comfortably next to Martins and no one ever gets jealous.

Sandwiched in between his quarter-life crisis and upcoming mid-life crisis, the boy has begun his thirty-second year crisis. The solution is to take a few months off work to volunteer and study Spanish in Cuenca, Ecuador. He goes with his wife‟s blessing and one condition.

“Since we‟ll be living off only one salary, please try not to buy any guitars,” the wife asks.

“Don‟t worry. I don‟t need another one,” he tells her. “But you need the six you already have, dear?” she

asks. “Um. Yes,” he replies. Then there is silence because he always forgets to back

up his statements with actual evidence or facts. “Because...” he says. “Because?” she asks. “Because every guitar has a unique tone and is best

suited to a certain style of music,” he finally says. “To play it right you need the right guitar.”

He scans her face for telltale signs of skepticism, then adds, “And my friend Ethan has at least seven, if not eight.”

“Yes and your friend Ethan is a professional musician,” she says. “You play with yourself in your room.”

The boy believes he has outgrown temptation. Once in Ecuador he will not be seduced by a finely lacquered hourglass curve resting on his lap—until his Spanish teacher, Tania, mentions her father makes guitars. Then temptation strokes him under the chin and whispers, “C‟mere, big boy. I‟ve got something to show you.”

On the front wall of the workshop hung a couple dozen guitar molds—flat pieces of cardboard used to trace the S-curve of the soundboard. In the corner sat an electric saw, dusty and unplugged. Mr. Uyaguari works by hand, at the same long, narrow workbench he‟s used for forty years.

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He squinted over a thin piece of pine, working on the inlay around the sound hole. Mass-produced classical guitars usually have a decal. But Mr. Uyaguari made the multi-colored pattern by hand, carefully cutting off tiny pieces of dyed wood and placing them in a carved groove, then sanding them even. Completing the inlay on a single guitar would take at least three or four days.

“Everyone wants a $40 guitar from Taiwan,” he said. “But they‟re not built well and they don‟t sound very good. They don‟t last.” He has repaired many.

“A lot of people ask why they should pay $500 for these guitars when they can get a Yamaha for $40,” Tania added. “And it‟s a Yamaha, a brand name. Uyaguari is not.”

Mr. Uyaguari handed me a guitar neck. “That wood is over two hundred years old, capulí

salvaged from an abandoned house,” he said. “It‟s had plenty of time to dry.”

Cheap guitars are made from young wood. As the wood dries it warps, distorting the guitar.

I asked if there were any finished guitars I could see. “He usually doesn‟t have completed guitars around the

house,” Tania said. “Every once in a while he‟ll build one for himself, but eventually someone asks about it and then buys it.”

“Whenever the family gets together and someone suggests we play some music, Dad—the great guitar maker—just shakes his head because there isn‟t a single guitar in the house. And so someone has to run home to get one.”

But temptation hadn‟t pulled me into his workshop just to turn me away. Today Mr. Uyaguari had a few.

We walked into the living room. Tania set three guitar cases on the couch. She opened the first case and pulled out a classical nylon-string guitar. This one was hers.

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“You know how to play?” I ask. “You never mentioned...”

She shook her head and quickly handed it to me. “Someday,” she said. I strummed a few chords, played a minor scale, but got

self-conscious and put the guitar back in the case. I pulled out the second, also played it briefly, and put it back in the case.

The third was smaller than the rest, like a guitar carelessly shrunk in the wash.

“It‟s a requinto,” Mr. Uyaguari said. A requinto? I‟d promised not to buy a guitar, but never

said anything about requintos. I sensed a loophole. Requintos are pitched higher than normal guitars and

play the melody in many styles of Latin music. But really it‟s just a small guitar, tuned to A instead of E. Claiming this as a loophole would be like cheating, getting caught, and then complaining “that our vows never said anything about sleeping with Canadians.”

I started playing the requinto. Despite its size, each note had a presence that demanded it be heard, that laughed at the mere suggestion it could use an “amplifier” or “effects pedal.” I sounded confident and there was no hiding. If you heard a mistake, well it was because I meant to play that. Strumming “Puff the Magic Dragon” was out of the question. This was an instrument to turn boys into men.

“It was a commission,” Mr. Uyaguari said. “A difficult commission. First this guy wanted to add an electric pickup so I cut a hole in back for the plug. Then he decided he didn‟t want the pickup, so I had to fill it up again. In the end he didn‟t buy it because he didn‟t like the shape of the markers on the fret board. They‟re diamond-shaped and he preferred round.”

Mr. Uyaguari had carefully selected the wood for the requinto: ebony for the fretboard, pine for the soundboard,

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and Indian rosewood for the back and sides. The sound came from the right combination of woods.

I turned it over in my hands and then gently put it back in the case. The first date always ends too soon.

“I, um, will need to talk to my wife.” The thirty-two-year-old boy isn‟t sure exactly how to

tell his wife he‟s changed his mind. The call will probably go something like this:

“Hi dear, it‟s nice to hear your voice.” “Hi, sweetie,” she says. “What did you do this week?

How are classes with Tania going?” “It‟s been fun,” the boy replies. “Did you know that

here they have thirteen words for being drunk but only one for being sober? And yesterday we visited Tania‟s father to see his workshop.”

“That sounds fun. What does he do?” “He makes guitars.” “But you‟re not planning on buying any more, right?” Silence. The phone line crackles. “Did I tell you you look very nice today?” he asks. “Did you buy one?” “Of course not. That‟s not in my travel budget. And I

said I wouldn‟t.” “And are you thinking of buying one?” Silence. “And will this one go in the closet with the others you

never play?” The boy reminds himself that having lots of guitars

doesn‟t make him more of a man. (John Wayne didn‟t have any, he tells himself.) But it‟s hard to shake the insecure fourteen-year-old, tempted and alone in Ecuador.

A month later, Tania and I returned to Mr. Uyaguari‟s

workshop. The newest batch of guitars was just about

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complete. Freshly lacquered, they hung drying on a clothesline in the backyard.

“Don‟t they get dusty drying outside like this?” I asked.

“Yes, we have to sand them down a bit,” Tania said. “And sometimes flies stick to them.”

“Oh, but flies are O.K.,” I said. “They help the sound.” Tania gave me a puzzled look. “Yes,” Mr. Uyaguari said. “Especially when they get

inside. They give the notes a nice „zzzzz.‟” Mr. Uyaguari asked why I was spending months away

from my wife, studying Spanish and volunteering. Tania explained that many foreigners came to study while their partners stayed at home. For us it wasn‟t so strange.

He was skeptical. A while back a lonely, married cousin had shacked up with a co-worker.

“The problem is mixed workplaces,” Mr. Uyaguari said. “That‟s were the trouble starts. When people get tempted at work.”

“And what workplaces aren‟t mixed?” Tania asked. “Your one-man guitar shop?”

Mr. Uyaguari didn‟t respond. “What does your wife do?”

“She‟s a university professor. That‟s definitely a mixed work environment.”

“She could be cheating on you right now,” he joked. “Well, in that case I won‟t need permission to buy the

requinto,” I said. “And I‟ll have to buy a few more guitars to console myself.”

Mr. Uyaguari smiled. “Well, then lets hope she‟s enjoying herself.”

Sanka was Argentinian, handsome, and completely

unaware he‟d been named after decaffeinated coffee. He was also the only person in the salsa club tall enough to see over the dense crowd. He chatted with Gaby, Amaia, and

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Miriam—my fellow volunteer co-workers. Gaby spoke the musical Spanish of Guanajuato, Mexico. Miriam‟s Spanish was slightly inflected with the language of her native Austria. Amaia spoke the staccato Spanish of a Basque.

Sanka turned toward me. “Dude, this music is pretty cool,” he said in perfect California surfer English, picked up from his American missionary parents. “But it would be even cooler if they played some Doors.”

I nodded. “The girls just told me you‟re married. Are you wearing

your ring?” I showed him my left hand. “Ah, man. This is Ecuador,” he said. “You gotta take it

off. Enjoy yourself. Just look at all the hot women in here. There‟s no sin in Ecuador.”

Sanka‟s ambition was to sail a boat from Argentina to New Zealand, cutting across Antarctica. I mentioned that Antarctica was a continent and doing this would be like trying to sail from Las Vegas to Denver. But he seemed undeterred. When you are tall and gorgeous you can walk on water and sail on land.

Sanka had been here four months, entertaining at children‟s parties. A tall, blond Swede walked past and he caught her attention for a moment. She‟d been teaching in Cuenca for eleven months and was ready to go home soon.

“I‟ve been here too long,” he said after she wandered off. “The women in Ecuador aren‟t like Argentine women. They‟re too conservative, too uptight. This country is too Catholic, man.”

A moment later Sanka asked, “Do you want another beer? Let me go buy you a beer.”

I nodded. Salsa music was invented by people who are not

Swedes. There is no place for accordions, oompa-oompa rhythms, or floor-length skirts. But the thirty-second-year-

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old boy, after several drinks and no dinner, forgets he is descended from Swedes. He hears the music and he finds a beat—any beat—and he‟s off. When the dance floor is stuffed with people he can‟t make a wrong move. Everyone is moving together.

For a moment the insecure fourteen-year-old boy is long gone and maybe never even existed. But really he stowed away in the luggage, crossing time zones and continents, waiting for his moment. And he wonders if everyone here knows something he doesn‟t. Maybe there is no sin in Ecuador.

At 2:30 A.M., La Mesa was closing, and we decided to

go to a bar. Most people had the good sense to hail cabs, but Gaby, me, and two Spaniards named José decided to walk. We locked arms. Individually, we were little more than human Jell-O. Together we were invincible. Marching through the deserted cobblestone streets, José Two loudly quizzed me on my knowledge of Spanish profanity.

“¡Culo!” José Two shouted. “¿Sabes que quiere decir ‘culo’? ¡Culo! ¡Culo!” The word giggled from facade to facade.

“Ass!” I shouted back. If the salsa club had been young and sweaty, the bar

was middle-aged and needed moisturizing. Lonely men sat scanning the room for one last prospect before calling it a night.

The Josés stayed for a couple drinks, but absence of culo had deflated their enthusiasm and they soon said their good nights. I sat at the table next to Amaia, embracing a large glass of water. Miriam and Sanka kissed in a corner. Gaby danced with a young Ecuadorian while his twin brother stared at them from an adjacent table. He looked absolutely miserable. Amaia told me the twin had a crush on Gaby. I couldn‟t tell them apart.

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A series of middle-aged men approached Amaia, asking for a dance. Their clothes were off by twenty years and forty pounds. If they had hair, gel plastered it into helmets protecting them from shame. I missed my wife.

I wandered home and went to bed. Two hours later I oozed out of the covers and swayed toward the bathroom to get ready for work.

“I am a stupid, stupid man,” I told the door jamb blocking my face.

On my final visit to the workshop, Mr. Uyaguari had

just finished repairing a smashed guitar. “It wasn‟t braced properly,” he told the young owner

and his father. “But now it‟s better than new.” He picked up the original, now shattered top piece and handed it to the son.

“You can keep it if you want.” The son shook his head. “No, I don‟t want to remember

that evening.” I told everyone about the destruction of my first guitar.

Moving it to another room in our apartment, I dropped the case on the hardwood floor. This made a loud bang that startled my wife, who then yelped. Her noise surprised me and I jumped, unfortunately with my hand still on the case. The guitar flew out of the case and the neck snapped on the floor. This guitar had survived high school and to destroy it with a flick of the wrist was an insult. It deserved better.

Mr. Uyaguari looked pained. “You probably could have repaired it...”

I shook my head. Sometimes the break creates too many splinters. And

even if you can put it back together again, you‟ll always remember where it broke, never completely trusting that it won‟t break again.

The son asked to see the requinto and Mr Uyaguari handed it to him. “It has a nice tone, it‟s different,” he said,

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playing an upbeat melody. “Maybe I‟ll get one of these someday.”

His father gave him a look that said, “first stop breaking your own guitars, and maybe we‟ll consider it.”

After the father and son leave, the thirty-two-year-old-

boy picks up his requinto. He starts playing, and the fourteen-year-old-boy is impressed with how good he sounds, much more confident than he actually is. They are giddy. This is so much more than lust. They swear it will be the last time.

Justin Peters grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico and now lives in Seattle, Washington with Becca the Wife and Selkie the Dog. He uses his English degree and extensive knowledge of arcane music trivia to build web sites that require neither. His personal web site can be found at vatoweb.com. He is no longer thirty-two.