Pierre Sendero: Thoughts in a transit

There are few freeways in Mexico that mirror our Eisenhower Interstate System (under God), but the few they do have are a pleasure to ride.

The few. The 12-hour overnight bus ride to San Cristobal de Las Casas from Oaxaca, on the other hand, is full of speed bumps, cattle and military checkpoints. I can’t even sleep on airplanes, much less buses tearing ass up some of the worst roads in the Western Hemisphere. The sudden stops, the crying children, the asshole who fell asleep and spilled his drink under the seat all over my duffle bag. I was alone. I’m still alone. I’ve been alone for several days, just busing here and there, getting a room by myself and then finding a plazuela in town and a café with a good balcony. I like it because I’ve grown tired of people. People are my job, so knowing them inevitably starts to feel like work.

I get sick of strangers sometimes, even if they’re probably good people, even if they’re attractive women, and especially if they spill water over my only god damn change of clothes! Sometimes it’s always the same conversation: Where you from? Where you going? You a student? Oh, social chameleon? That’s your job? What’s your name? You went to Mazatlan? Did you surf? You didn’t surf?! Maaan…What’s your name again?

Pierre. And yeah, I went to Mazatlan. I had to fight off a god damn boogie board gang by myself while Faulk and the actress Roby Packer were sick and huddled around a toilet for the week living off Saltines and Gatorade. It was at Olas Altas Beach, right in front of Hotel La Siesta, where Jack Kerouac spent happier days stoned off his ass and not once had to deal with mongrels like those guys. The waves are high and strong in this beach alcove, as the name suggests, but they don’t last long and so boogie boarding is the preferred method of attack.

Attack. By that I meant the waves, but it’s the same instrument they used against me. I had fought my way through enough pounding waves to get into the deeper, calmer water where they build up and my enemies in wet suits lay waiting. I was getting looks, but I assumed it was because I was the only gringo out there and I was just body surfing without a board. Those guys were far off, as I had planned, but it seemed they were closer every time I went under water and came back up for air.

Soon these young Mexicans had surrounded me, they refused to say anything to me, but lined up right in front of my waves. I returned the stink-eye and swam farther down shore, but as I looked back I realized they were following parallel to me, like lions stalking prey through the grass. A wave was about to break right in front of me and I had the perfect chance to catch it. I turned towards shore, felt the undertow start to drag me under, and swam up to the crest of the wave just as it tumbled over. For a few seconds everything in front of me I saw through tunnel vision made of white foam, then it overtook me and I was flipping in circles under water trying to find a place to put my feet.

When I stood up another wave knocked me back over. I got up again, and a third wave was coming, only this time the boys in wetsuits had caught it and had me in their sights. One came from the left, the other from the right, boards pointed down, three feet in the air above me, a wall of white foam starting to mount. I had heard about surfer gangs in Hawaii and Costa Rica, even Australia, but I didn’t think boogie boards gave people that same tribal burst of testosterone. The waves had me disoriented but I had to think quick. At the last second I decided to run towards them and then dove under the wave. I heard a loud smack before the roar of the ocean filled my ears and knocked me side to side. I waved my arms but wasn’t going anywhere. I was being pulled out to sea. So ended the life of Pierre Sendero.

So I thought. The current finally let go and I swam up for air, my eyes and nostrils burning with salt water. I had gone a good 20 yards down the beach from the gang. They were searching for the two bastards who tried to take my head off. It seems they collided after I took a dive and the boards were in pieces rolling up towards shore. That was the last time I looked back. I ran up to shore, grabbed my towel and sprinted for the hotel. The clerk was shouting something in Spanish as I slid across the lobby leaving a wet, sandy mess for him. And screw him too. The air conditioner had been broken for days and if he wasn’t going to fix that I figured I should leave him something to do.

But this story started on a bus, on a shitty road, a thousand miles away from Mazatlan. It was 2 a.m. We were seven hours into the ride with five more to go. I had slept 30 minutes when the bus driver pulled over at a late night comedor and said it was his dinner break. I went into the restaurant, surveyed the crusty old empanadas, the salsa bowls with flies hovering over them, and the despondent look on the server’s face as he wiped his nose with an open palm, and decided to just buy a bottle of water. I went for a walk around the bus and leaned up against the back of it and pulled out a cigarette. It was cold out. I shared the spot with a Mexican in his mid-20s named Francisco. I asked for a light and he offered me his cigarette, then I smelled something bitter.

“Te gusta la mota?” he said smiling. “You like weed?”
“No, gracias. Eh, tengo gripe,” I said. “No thanks, I have a cold.”
“Mentira…” he said, handing me his lighter. “Liar.”

Francisco, a teacher from Oaxaca on vacation going to see his family in Tuxtla Gutierrez, sat across the aisle from me, but didn’t rub me as the type you’d find smoking weed behind a bus at 2 a.m. The bus driver started up the engine and Francisco came running up the steps, stumbling down the aisle, shrinking into his seat, reeking of pot.

We slept for another half hour until more speed bumps jolted me out of my trance. Then we stopped. The lights came on. An army officer carrying an assault rifle boarded and was having a heated conversation with the bus driver. Francisco had also woken up and was terrified out of his mind. The window seat next to him was empty and he crawled over trying to find a way to open it and dump his stash. No luck. He started tapping his foot, his face was flushed. Just a matter of time before they brought the dogs on. The officer began walking up the aisle and Francisco looked like he was going to cry. Drug wars are a volatile and unpredictable force. Rarely do they separate good from evil. A drug war separates people who use drugs and sell them from people who don’t, with the belief that you have to crack a few eggs for the greater good. Francisco is a school teacher, he educates the youth, leads an honest life, but at that moment he was starting to feel like an egg in the government’s omelette. Whatever lofty goals drug wars seek are unattainable. Things will go back to the way they used to be, just give it time.

The officer stopped, for some reason I’ll never know, just a few rows away from Francisco, then turned around and got off the bus. Francisco was still breathing the fresh sweet air of freedom very deeply, and glad to have his yolk in one piece. I waited for the lights to go out, the checkpoint to be cleared and then reached across the aisle and slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.

I spent the next few hours staring out at the dark countryside, the silhouette of a nearby hill occasionally coming to me like some ghostly apparition. I thought about home. I thought about a woman. I thought myself to sleep at some point and I awoke on a half empty bus in what I could only assume was the Tuxtla bus stop. Francisco was gone, his scent fleeting. In an hour I would reach my last stop in Mexico, San Cristobal, where I would get some much deserved isolation and rest before boarding another bus on this endless journey.

I don’t even know why I’m here. I haven’t learned anything I didn’t already know, unless you count the boogie boarders, and how ridiculous is that? I don’t expect you even to believe it. But I like Faulk, he asked me to go, and I owed him one. He’s here somewhere in town, but I’ve been ignoring his e-mails. We’ll get back to work adventuring tomorrow. I needed a vacation.