COOL HEAT

I don’t care what anybody says, I think Mexican police are great. Speaking strictly from personal experience; they have always been very nice to me. My first encounter with the municipales was my second week in town. It was well after midnight, I was stumbling from bar to bar with a new found friend, chasing after some stewardesses (or must I say “flight attendants”?) we’d met on the plane down. We were balancing ten gallon sombreros and carrying cheap guitars. Having had a few margaritas, and not knowing the lay of the land, we were walking along the malecón south of Valentino’s heading toward El Centro, wondering where we were, when a white pick-up with four uniformed machine gunners in the bed pulled up alongside us. The passenger waved and barked a few words in Spanish, I know not what, and we froze. Petrified. The driver, an imposing figure who seemed to relish our nervousness, got out and rattled off some more Spanish, the only word of which I caught was “Beatles.” They wanted to hear a Beatles song! Well, we probably sounded more ridiculous than we looked in our beach garb, surrounded by Mexican cops, butchering a Lennon/McCartney classic, but we really put our hearts into it, and everybody was smiling when we finished. The driver, who seemed to be in charge, made a gesture and for one terrifying second I thought he was going to order us to dance, but fortunately he just wanted to play my guitar. He played so well it was humiliating. I jokingly asked him, during a pause, if he knew the Malaguena, and sure enough he tore off a quick version before handing me back my axe. We all shook hands, they all piled back in the patrulla, and that was my first meeting with the dreaded Mexican police. The next time I found myself chatting with the hombres in blue, years later, it was coincidentally also well after midnight. I was heading home in a taxi when we were flagged down by checkpoint officers for a frisky “revision.” For a while, as a security measure on behalf of taxistas, all passengers leaving the

respectable parts of town late at night were subject to a pat down search. I was caught red-handed in a moving car with beer breath and an open container of brew, which back home would probably mean thousands of dollars, plus a year or two of alcohol classes and UAs. Maybe even get me blacklisted from Canada. All four of the officers who were sitting around looking bored got up out of their lawn chairs with looks of eager expectation on their sinister faces. The cinema in the back of my mind was flashing back back, can’t be all bad. to scenes of the Turkish prison in Midnight Express. They told me to put the bottle on the roof of the cab, I assumed the position and they found my wallet and keys. After checking my expired US driver’s license, they gave me back my wallet, but threw my keys and small Swiss Army knife keychain into a large bucket, then told me I could go. “Que? Como?” Without my keys? I didn’t get it. They showed me the contents of the bucket. It was full of confiscated knives, slingshots, screwdrivers, a can opener, an ice pick, some numchuks and nail clippers. Where I’m from it’s perfectly alright to drive around with a Bowie knife strapped to your boot and a couple of shotguns in the gun rack, and they’re worried about a penknife? “But I bought this little tool at the Casa de Campesinos”, I protested, which they seemed to find amusing. My taxi driver, shaking his head at my foolishness, said to me, “Offer to buy them some refrescos.” A little light went on in my head. I opened my wallet, and pulled out the first bill I grabbed. It was a fifty. Their treasurer accepted it happily and with the courtesy of a shopkeeper handed me my merchandise. “Que le vaya bien.” I got back into the taxi and was heaving a sigh of relief when there came a knocking at the window. “Wait, you forgot your cerveza!” I love this country. I know that corruption is a huge problem all over the world, but anything that lets me beat a bum concealed weapons rap for five bucks, and still get my beer eg@pacificpearl.com