Car-otica: the triste final
Back by popular demand (ha ha). To read part 1 first, click here.
En una noche bien obscura
sabrás que te va ir mal, mal, mal
si una voz te hace parar
Ya no hay ciudad segura
decía nuestro regente
y menos si te dejas guiar por esa gente
...
Pole, pole, pole, pole, policía
en paz déjenos
si hacemos mal hemos de pagar
pero dejen de extorsionarnos
---Policía, Los Yerberos
In a flash, I am back on my side of the car, his mouth shut in a tight grimace, my nipples neatly allocated to their appropriate compartment. I smooth the silk, back over my seat. I brace myself for an embarrassing explanation, my face burning. Instead as Roberto rolls down the window, there are four men leering, two brandishing clubs in the backlight of the patrol car’s high beams, two leaning in to the driver’s side window.
“Dónde radicas?” (I learn a new word, gleaning from context that it means to reside).
“Right there,” we gesture to the FOVISSTE high-rises just inside of the chain-link fence.
“Aja…” he hems, and haws for a few moments, letting us squirm in our seats.
“¿De dónde son?” and before we can answer, the other officer steps in from behind, “Saquen sus identificaciones”
Roberto fumbles for his IFE card, and I miraculously have my passport on me which I mistakenly hand over, assuming that these are normal police officers, and that they are going to process our minimal transgressions duly.
They don’t ask us if we know why we are being approached. They don’t explain what part of the civil code our “antisocial” behavior has broken. They just look us up and down.
“Linda la güerita… sería una lástima que le pasara algo…” He drums his fingers on his hip holster. “Where did you say she was from?”
Roberto’s face grows steadily paler. He clears his throat several times. The two officers that were standing behind the car seem to multiply, and there are suddenly more circling, sneering men, approaching my door.
“You wouldn’t want us to have to take you down to the Delegación…”
“¡Sí!” I interject, “Llévenos a la delegación… are you going to be so kind as to tell us what it is that you are charging us with?”
”Indecencia en la vía pública,” he responds, casually, fanning the pages of my passport between his fingers. Roberto shoots me a look of pure panic, and I say, sharpening my withering stare “Ok, and what exactly is it that we were doing?”
The officer clears his throat, he draws in his gut that is hanging over the edges of his dark pants, his gold-crowned tooth flashes as he smirks at us, he rests a meaty hand inside the window frame of the beat-up Volkswagen bug. His stocky frame blocks out the stars and the view of the Popocatépetl that looms in the distance. “No nos gustaría tener que expulsarla del país,” he smiles slyly, knowingly at Roberto, as he waves the other officers away with his unoccupied hand. “How can we fix this?” he asks and then steps a few feet away from the car, the bait cast, waiting to reel us in.
I am about to open my mouth in indignation, to clamor for my right to speak to a representative from my embassy, anything, furiously, I laugh in derision, “You want to deport me for this? Go ahead, it’ll make a great story” I hiss through clenched teeth, Roberto, rests a hand on my knee, “calma, tranquilízate…” He searches his wallet for cash, I offer him all that I have, $50 pesos, he pulls out another $200, all that is left after our visit to the theater. He hopes it is enough. Enough for what, I wonder. He draws himself up, trembling slightly, he signals to the lead officer, while another comes to my door and yanks it open, “vámonos linda.”
“Momento, momento,” Roberto’s voice is controlled, commanding, secure, “podemos arreglarlo.” I glare at the man who is about to put his grubby hands on my arms. The other officer waves his cronies off, “déjenla. Let’s step inside my office.” I slam my door shut again, seething as the officers try to flirt in their pea-brained way. “¿Qué hace una chica tan bonita aquí solita por la noche? Didn’t anyone tell you it’s dangerous on the street at night here?” There is no irony in their voices and I am filled with rage. I could jump up, and run, I could take two of these fofos on myself, but Roberto? I look over at him conferring, his head bent in concentration, his shoulders slightly curved, his fingers running nervously through his hair, which is growing wilder with each pass of his hand.
He walks back to the car, with our identifcations in hand, looking defeated. The other perros leave me and join their partners in crime, they get into the two patrol cars –when did the second one arrive? I ask myself – and drive off into the night to extort their salary from other unsuspecting trasnochadores.
We park the car, walk towards my house, sit on the bench in front. He rests his head on my shoulder, tries kissing me, but I shy away; and it is not that I am not grateful, but it feels like something has broken inside of me. I don’t notice, at the time, that the watch that his father had given him when he was ten is no longer on his wrist. He looks up at me with his mournful lachrymose eyes, the darkness and masculinity mixed with the neediness of a little boy. “Quiero que seas mi novia.”
And I answer, “I’m not sure.”
En una noche bien obscura
sabrás que te va ir mal, mal, mal
si una voz te hace parar
Ya no hay ciudad segura
decía nuestro regente
y menos si te dejas guiar por esa gente
...
Pole, pole, pole, pole, policía
en paz déjenos
si hacemos mal hemos de pagar
pero dejen de extorsionarnos
---Policía, Los Yerberos
In a flash, I am back on my side of the car, his mouth shut in a tight grimace, my nipples neatly allocated to their appropriate compartment. I smooth the silk, back over my seat. I brace myself for an embarrassing explanation, my face burning. Instead as Roberto rolls down the window, there are four men leering, two brandishing clubs in the backlight of the patrol car’s high beams, two leaning in to the driver’s side window.
“Dónde radicas?” (I learn a new word, gleaning from context that it means to reside).
“Right there,” we gesture to the FOVISSTE high-rises just inside of the chain-link fence.
“Aja…” he hems, and haws for a few moments, letting us squirm in our seats.
“¿De dónde son?” and before we can answer, the other officer steps in from behind, “Saquen sus identificaciones”
Roberto fumbles for his IFE card, and I miraculously have my passport on me which I mistakenly hand over, assuming that these are normal police officers, and that they are going to process our minimal transgressions duly.
They don’t ask us if we know why we are being approached. They don’t explain what part of the civil code our “antisocial” behavior has broken. They just look us up and down.
“Linda la güerita… sería una lástima que le pasara algo…” He drums his fingers on his hip holster. “Where did you say she was from?”
Roberto’s face grows steadily paler. He clears his throat several times. The two officers that were standing behind the car seem to multiply, and there are suddenly more circling, sneering men, approaching my door.
“You wouldn’t want us to have to take you down to the Delegación…”
“¡Sí!” I interject, “Llévenos a la delegación… are you going to be so kind as to tell us what it is that you are charging us with?”
”Indecencia en la vía pública,” he responds, casually, fanning the pages of my passport between his fingers. Roberto shoots me a look of pure panic, and I say, sharpening my withering stare “Ok, and what exactly is it that we were doing?”
The officer clears his throat, he draws in his gut that is hanging over the edges of his dark pants, his gold-crowned tooth flashes as he smirks at us, he rests a meaty hand inside the window frame of the beat-up Volkswagen bug. His stocky frame blocks out the stars and the view of the Popocatépetl that looms in the distance. “No nos gustaría tener que expulsarla del país,” he smiles slyly, knowingly at Roberto, as he waves the other officers away with his unoccupied hand. “How can we fix this?” he asks and then steps a few feet away from the car, the bait cast, waiting to reel us in.
I am about to open my mouth in indignation, to clamor for my right to speak to a representative from my embassy, anything, furiously, I laugh in derision, “You want to deport me for this? Go ahead, it’ll make a great story” I hiss through clenched teeth, Roberto, rests a hand on my knee, “calma, tranquilízate…” He searches his wallet for cash, I offer him all that I have, $50 pesos, he pulls out another $200, all that is left after our visit to the theater. He hopes it is enough. Enough for what, I wonder. He draws himself up, trembling slightly, he signals to the lead officer, while another comes to my door and yanks it open, “vámonos linda.”
“Momento, momento,” Roberto’s voice is controlled, commanding, secure, “podemos arreglarlo.” I glare at the man who is about to put his grubby hands on my arms. The other officer waves his cronies off, “déjenla. Let’s step inside my office.” I slam my door shut again, seething as the officers try to flirt in their pea-brained way. “¿Qué hace una chica tan bonita aquí solita por la noche? Didn’t anyone tell you it’s dangerous on the street at night here?” There is no irony in their voices and I am filled with rage. I could jump up, and run, I could take two of these fofos on myself, but Roberto? I look over at him conferring, his head bent in concentration, his shoulders slightly curved, his fingers running nervously through his hair, which is growing wilder with each pass of his hand.
He walks back to the car, with our identifcations in hand, looking defeated. The other perros leave me and join their partners in crime, they get into the two patrol cars –when did the second one arrive? I ask myself – and drive off into the night to extort their salary from other unsuspecting trasnochadores.
We park the car, walk towards my house, sit on the bench in front. He rests his head on my shoulder, tries kissing me, but I shy away; and it is not that I am not grateful, but it feels like something has broken inside of me. I don’t notice, at the time, that the watch that his father had given him when he was ten is no longer on his wrist. He looks up at me with his mournful lachrymose eyes, the darkness and masculinity mixed with the neediness of a little boy. “Quiero que seas mi novia.”
And I answer, “I’m not sure.”
posted by ilana at 12:05 p.m.
5 Comments:
COMO QUE NO ESTAS SEGURA?? Ese pobre flaco te defiende de los perros, te escribe poemas de amor que tiran chispas y pierde el legado de su papito por vos, Y NO ESTAS SEGURA? ;)
This happened to me once. In Venezuela. My most embarassing moment. The guns and flashlights at the car window, all of it. Only I was completely naked, and fell to hiding in the little space between seats in the fetal position, desperately trying to pull on at least a t-shirt. My fellow, also naked, jumped outside and began yelling about how he was press. The officers begged him to put some clothes on. A few minutes later, standing in the ring of police officers in nothing but a t-shirt, I began giggling. And the head officer turned angry and wanted to know why I was laughing, and I told him because of the ridiculousness of the situation. And he didn't like that answer so I turned somber and said, "por verguenza." And the cops let us go without a bribe, and in the end, like in your story, I had to bid the fellow farewell. The romance was gone.
Sole, vieras que poco tiempo después, conocí a un patán y como ya sabemos... gluttons for punishment. Después del patán conocí a mi presente cónyuge (eran amigos), así el pobre "Roberto" quedó en el olvido.
Jenny,
Ha! How did I never hear this story? (fellow kissing slut, you) It seems like the kind of thing we would have talked about while perched on the toilet ;-p
Si no me creyese liberado de los formalistas rusos interpretaría la pérdida del reloj como un símbolo de la escasez de tiempo entre los personajes. Yendo más allá diría que lo que irrita al personaje femenino es el sacrificio de la identidad, pues el chico frente a las autoridades corruptas decide darles su pasado... Bueno, demasiado brandy por hoy. Me voy a dormir que hoy toca LaMaze... cierro mi bocota.
Pienso que los formalistas aportaron mucho a la "ciencia" de interpretar el arte (la literatura) - no hay que despreciar, sino como hacés, ir más allá... Pues qué te diré... ¿la hermeneútica será lo tuyo? Creo que tu interpretación es más que válida - sos borracho funcional; -)
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