| Sir Real:
Police Chiefs, Parades, Personal Space |
| A Gonzo
Travelogue |
| by John Torrente |
| One benefit
of being part of The 4th Grade Enrichment Program was gym class with Mr.
Hoffman. But it wasn't because EVERY time we entered the gym he just
happened to be in the middle of another one of his fifteen-minute "Gather
‘Round Girls" handstands. And it wasn't because of the time he explained
mucous was BAD and if any of us (including Stephen "It's A Fine Day To
Throw A Chair At The Teacher" Kryswiki) ever had the need, it was perfectly
acceptable to take a Time Out, walk to the garbage pail, and spit, ridding
our body of what Mr. Hoffman described as the world's most vile substance.
No, The Really Smart Kids of The 4th Grade Enrichment Program loved Mr.
Hoffman because he taught us about Personal Space. |
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| To do this,
he had us line up against the wall. Then, on the count of three, he had
us walk around the gym, freestyle. For forty-five minutes. If we bumped
into another classmate (or into a teacher who happened to be in the middle
of yet ANOTHER handstand), we invaded their Personal Space.
Although Police
Chief Manuel Gutierrez De La Flor was not in my 4th Grade Enrichment Program
gym class and never saw Mr. Hoffman do a handstand, he seemed to know a
thing or two about Personal Space – or at least, about mine.
My original
question was simple.
Where's
the bus stop?
The Chief’s
response was a four-part theatrical masterpiece, choreographed and orchestrated
dead center of my Personal Space. Standing at my toes, breathing inches
from my face and swaying his four-ton belly DANGEROUSLY close to my privates,
the Chief whooped and hollered and chanted and barked about every existing
bus route from El Paso to the Yucatan Peninsula. |
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| During his
monologue, the Chief’s twenty pound hands flung through the air, moving
this way and that, pointing, twisting and swooping until one came to rest
on my shoulder and the other on the cold steel of his .44 magnum.
It was at that
very moment I decided to find Ixtlan's one and only bus stop ON MY OWN.
But just as I gathered my legs and grabbed my backpack, the Chief removed
his hand from his firearm and told me he was about to lead a parade – and
wanted me to come along for the ride.
Sometimes
you just can't say no.
The Chief’s
girlfriend rode shotgun. My 'seat' was the open air in the BACK BED. And
after nearly doing a double-gainer-into-dirt on the first curve, I quickly
learned the proper position for how to be safe AND look really cool while
riding in the back of the Chief’s Pickup. |
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Offshore
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| Unfortunately,
my exaggerated sense of accomplishment was choked by the sudden arrival
of the Chief's Special Friends. I knew they were special because as we
came across them on the side of the road, they effortlessly ran up to the
back of the moving truck and hopped in. Each one immediately assumed the
“how to be safe AND look really cool while riding in the back of the Chief’s
Pickup” position. They had done it before. But I also knew they were the
Chief's Special Friends because of their surreptitious black jump suits.
Their thick black combat boots. And their battered and scarred machine
guns. The Special Friend to my immediate right had a thick rope coiled
over his shoulder. His eyes were red. The Special Friend to my immediate
left clenched a four-foot machete. His knuckles were white.
When I found
my body was again producing saliva, I fished for small talk. But being
my first intimate experience with a Mexican death squad, I was at a genuine
loss for words. Still, just moments before I was going to ask my new superhero
friends to exchange email addresses, the Chief’s Pickup screeched to a
halt. My Special Friends dropped their heads. I dropped my head. |
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| My Special
Friends scanned the periphery. I scanned the periphery. My Special Friends
disembarked, slithered into the woods and prepared to defeat the army of
little invisible monsters who were apparently interested in taking over
a dirt road on the barren mountaintop of Nada, Mexico.
I saluted my
departing Friends, sunk to the floor of the Chief’s Pickup and enjoyed
the emotional catharsis of incontinence. Moments later we arrived at the
parade. Twenty-six meticulously cleaned and cheerfully adorned taxis waited
to celebrate. Colorful streamers flew from windows.
Mexican
flags flapped on radio antennas. Loving family members wore their special
party outfits.
But this year’s
parade was different. A new element had been added. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| And as the
Chief blasted his sirens and crept the horn-honking entourage through the
winding dirt roads of innocuous pueblos, the hundreds of locals who had
come out to wait by the side of the road and celebrate fixed their eyes
not on the proud hardworking men in the parade, but on the weary and windblown
Unidentified Freaky Jesus Looking Gringo Guy, standing unsteady and scattered
in the back of the Chief’s Pickup, with his fingers jammed in his ears
to dull the pain of the deafening sirens and his knees quivering from a
brush with death and his eyes tearing from the swirling dust and his pallor
yellowed from the cunning evils of the previous night’s Mezcal Madness
and his mind wondering how a goofy kid from New Jersey would ever find
his way home…Taxi!. |
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Index ~ Mexico
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