Sir
Real: Police Chiefs, Parades, Personal Space
A Gonzo Travelogue
by John Torrente
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| 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. 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. 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. |
 John
Torrente comes at us again with another travelogue of adventure from
south of the border, down Mexico way. In 2001, he became inspired by Kerouac
and shocked by Elvis, and he took to the road, living and traveling in
Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, where the Alianza
Frances saved him with a course in B/W photography. Earlier this year,
he returned to the USA to recuperate and test the water. The road beckons,
but so does a woman in DC. The question ...
..
| In a recent
Letter to the Editor, John Torrente writes:
"the d.c.
woman is great. a survivor. a fighter. beautiful. and dedicated to seeing
this through. i'm working hard to be better with it all, always battling
my inner need to go and experience more...i need to do the camino de santiago.
from sevilla on up. "the silver route." vamos a ver."
Other Gonzo
Travelogues:
April
2002 
May 2002
June 2002
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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.
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. |
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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. 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. 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 |
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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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Contact
author John Torrente |
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