PNC

I didn't even want the ounce, I was heading back to Mexico in three days time. What the hell was I going to do with it. I am only an occasional smoker, there was no hope of me getting through it in that amount of time. If there is a number going around I sometimes enjoy it very much, but really, other than that, alcohol is my drug of choice. It was the gesture though. I was really just getting to know the guy and we were doing a bit of male bonding, which at its worst can be pathetic but at its best can be so enriching to the soul. So I made polite noises, said there really wasn't any need and accepted it with good grace.

So what the hell to do with the stuff. Brainwave……the next afternoon, friday, I was going to visit some friends for the weekend, they were in the country and I knew some folks there who were more than partial to the occasional smoke. I would take it up into the mountains with me and give it to them. Just one catch, I wasn't actually all that comfortable about traveling with the stuff. I would only be about an hour from the northern border and the federales around there are inclined to get a bit scitty when it comes to illegal immigrants, super strength talcum powder and fresh herb. They are inclined to do all that officious, vigilant cop stuff and even some of the billboards on the highway are devoted to warnings about the consequences. The down side, if you are unlucky enough to get unloaded, is a Guatemalan prison for as long as it takes you to bribe your way out. A most unattractive proposition. I mean, the prospect of being gang raped in a north American prison must be horrific, but for some, probably completely prejudiced reason, I just reckon it would be worse in a Guatemalan prison. Maybe it's the thought of living on tortillas and beans.

Whatever, the decision was made, I would take it up country with me on the weekend. It would be chicken bus for the whole two hour journey and in three years I had never seen a search on one. And if for some untoward reason a check started, then I would just slip it out of my bag onto the floor and give it a discreet…..kick.

I caught a taxi up to the main market in Quetzaltenango -the city where I work-which as in every city in Guatemala doubles as the bus terminal. I was familiar with the bus line that did this run and where they parked, one leaves every half hour. For the first time in my experience there wasn't one waiting. I wondered about the possibility of this being a trip of firsts. There was a pretty straight looking rooster waiting in the appropriate spot so I asked him what the story was. He assured me with some confidence that a bus would be arriving shortly. In a land of notoriously unreliable information, this bloke seemed like a reasonable source and I took him at his word.

This market-come-bus-terminal is a big one and pretty full on. By way of description……in my three years in a region notorious for its thieves, it's the only place I have been robbed. I was passing through there one saturday, loaded to the gunwales with over weight back pack and day pack, looking for all the world like a tourist who should be robbed at the earliest opportunity. If for nothing else, then just for being in the wrong place, with the wrong amount of stuff, at the wrong time.

As I pushed into the crush of the market crowd I saw the kid pull in behind me. The little bastard had me pegged. When we got into the worst of the crush I couldn't even move my arms to drop a hand on the pocket where I had my money. I was only stuck for ten feet and as I came out of it I looked over my shoulder and sure enough he was gone. I was able to drop my hand so I checked my pocket. The money was gone too. I have to admit, I do admire professionalism, I didn't feel him take it despite the fact I knew he was on me. It was bearable, ten bucks and a silver money clip, after three years. An average of less than ten dollars a year. In fact, I thought that for a country which supposedly has some of the most vigilant thieves in latin America, that their batting average was a bit on the low side. That doesn't mean I wasn't shitty. I had known I was going to be in a dodgy spot so I only had my bus fares for the day with me. I got out the other side of the market and had to take a (rip-off price) taxi back into the centre of town to an ATM, get a bit more cash and try again.

But I digress, that had been on a previous occasion.

I already had a bottle of rum in my bag so I wandered off and bought a bit of fresh veg´ to take to my friends (one must maintain a balanced diet) and by time I returned the bus had arrived and in fact was fairly full. I pushed towards the back as the majority of deaths are from head-on's. A seat was not looking good until I got right to the back and there was my provider of good information, with a spare seat beside him. He beckoned to me and I experienced the warm flush that comes with unasked for goodwill. I didn't enquire too closely but I got the impression he had been holding it for me. I had reckoned he looked like a decent sort of bloke.

It may not seem like such a big deal, but Guatemalan's are not exactly generous when it comes to bus seats. If you had your first baby three weeks ago, you are working sixteen hours a day, you got on too late for a seat, the road is unbearably rough and windy, the baby is screaming and you have to breast feed it and the trip is four hours……bad luck. You stand, because no bastard is going to stand up for you. Yours truly included. One of the reasons I love Guatemala is because I find mongrel habits contagious.

While shopping for veg´ for my friends, I had bought a bag of peanuts and they were beautifully fresh. The least I could do was offer him some, the seat was a good one. There were, as normal, three people in the two spots on the bench seat and he had saved me the window. The window and the centre are the best because you are braced on the curves. The aisle is literally, a pain in the arse. So the third guy in our seat got peanuts too, by way of a sympathy vote. We were getting along famously.

An ice-cream vendor clambered down the now non existent aisle. My mate bought three. Despite his generosity and the risk of seeming rude, I politely declined, on the grounds that it wouldn't mix with the peanuts. In truth, they are one of the few things I won't eat. A friend describes the Icy-pole version as "amoebas on a stick" and I reckon that's pretty accurate. I suggested he give mine to the very poor looking kids in the seat in front of us. They shared it gratefully. We all felt good about ourselves. Well, maybe the kids didn't.

We'd hung around for about ten minutes before the driver finally decided the bus was sufficiently over crowded. After waiting so long, he had a rush of blood and tramped it. Straight out in front of another bus trying to leave at the same time. This place really is full on, there are chicken buses and people everywhere. Plenty of noise, plenty of action. The drivers gesticulated at each other, they abused each other, the other guy got out and came up to our guys window. I thought, "oh shit, don't get out, please!" If this trip went smoothly I was going to arrive just before dark. I didn't have a torch and there was a ten minute walk into my friends place on a bad track with the odd territorial dog. I did not have time for these guys to get it on. And to make it worse, it was the last bus of the day for this particular destination and my friends were going to be away the next day. I did not have the usual latin American day or two's latitude to arrive.

He got out. Bastard! They hopped into it. I was up the back and couldn't see but I knew they had because all the old women jumped to their feet and the bus tilted to the left as they all rushed to that side to see the action. I sat there hoping, for all the wrong reasons, that neither of them had a machete and that our guy would win. I actually thought the stupid prick deserved to have the crap kicked out of him, I just didn't want to miss dinner with my friends.

The bus and crowd lurched from left to right as they followed the fight. A huge crowd had immediately rushed to watch the action. Eventually our driver threw himself back into the driver seat and tramped it, again. Terrific! We were headed into a two hour trip on an old heap of a bus on a steep downhill out of the mountains, tight bends all the way with a driver who had just had an adrenalin rush. It's not as if the sods aren't normally aggressive drivers. Mercifully it proved not to be the case, once we were out of the market and crowd he settled down. Maybe he'd copped a couple of solid ones, though he wasn't bleeding. We were all checking him out in the truck size rear view mirror.

It is common, if not normal, at the start of a trip for drivers and passengers to cross themselves and beseech a little blessing for the journey. Given the behavior of the drivers and my lack of inclination to believe in the power of deities I have always found it a little unsettling. Nonetheless I am inclined to think, what the hell (so to speak) put in a good word for me while you're at it will you. Agnostic as I may be, I am able to appreciate support wherever it may come from in a crisis. And crises, Guatemala and bus, are three words with a common bond.

So I can cope with the piety, a discreet crossing, a muttered supplication, but my mate clasped his hands, bowed his head and was obviously involved in a profound interchange. We pulled out of the market and he was still going, mercifully silently, but I mean, jesus! Three minutes up the road he still had his head bowed and I was starting to shift in my seat. To pray for that long he had to be some awful sort of a sinner. How long was he going to keep this up? Five minutes up the track he snapped out of it and I didn't know whether to be grateful or shit scared. Was this trip going to be the one?

I overcame my nervousness. I was after all excited about the forthcoming friday night on the sauce with friends, and it had actually been an extremely successful week, I was in a very upbeat mood. I thought I should start to exchange pleasantries. I had a couple of hours to kill and my mate was going to the end of the line four hours away. Why not chat a bit.

We involved the bloke beside us as well and were generally having a fat time. Not being the most original of conversationalists, I trotted out the good old …..whadayadoforaquid? He bowed his head. I thought, oh fuck here we go again, but he can't be a sky-pilot, they are generally proud, if not self righteous about what they do! He looked up rather shyly, a bit like a kid with his hand caught in the biscuit barrel I thought, and said, "you won't believe me if I tell you." Jesus, spare me the melodrama Juan. Really, I was just being polite and I know I'm no great shakes with the interesting questions, but you don't have to get coquettish with me! Talk about the weather if you like. At the risk of sounding callous, I really don't give a shit.

I didn't say it though, I had the good grace to do what was obviously required……I gently probed. Eventually he did what he was wanting to do, lifted his head and said, in a low tone, "I am a member of the PNC." Oh fuck! I mean….Ooooh FUCK!!! For the only time in three years I have dope on me on a bus and for one of the very few times in three years I make polite conversation with a fellow seat filler and the bastard is PNC. Policía Nacional Civil. Bent, these bastards are seriously BENT. FUCK!!

I have never been a good liar. Well, maybe that is not entirely true. Put it this way, I have never been good at hiding my emotions and it has often brought me unstuck in social situations. But if I held it in, this wollaper was close enough to see the small beads of sweat on my brow (in the cold mountain air) as the truth tried to force its way to the surface. Not to mention smell the sudden excretion of defensive/fear pheromones. I know these bastards can smell fear.

"Get away with you?" I said. Or at least the Spanish equivalent of it. With what felt for all the world like a very obviously forced smile.
"How about that. Very fine profession the forces."
"Are you serious?" He says. The coppers, it would be fair to say, are not generally well regarded.
"Absolutely!" I says.

He raised his head again and gave a shy smile. My sphincter muscle relaxed, minutely.
I proceeded to engage him in conversation about his work as a flat footed, bribe taking, wolloper ... in the nicest possible terms. And for the sake of his personal comfort, I made a point of keeping it sotto voce. The locals are inclined to be greatly entertained by listening to the conversation of a dickhead gringo with a limited grasp of the idiom, who inevitably speaks loudly and clearly in an attempt to be understood. Who knows, as well as the laughs at his Spanish he might drop a gem.

He seemed greatly relieved that not only was I not put out by his revelation, but was actually interested in his work and I had a glimpse of what every woman has known since puberty. Always make a bloke think you are fascinated by what he does to fill in the day. We followed the curves of the mountain road pressed into each others shoulders, he told me about his pleasure in returning to his village for the weekend and getting away from the hustle and bustle of city copper life. And as I relaxed into the pleasant understanding that I was being overly paranoid to think I was on the verge of passing the next ten years in a Guatemalan prison, I came to the conclusion that he was just trying to graft (probably a poor choice of word) a quid like the rest of us. It was just a job. I was chatting with a genuinely nice bloke.

I arrived at my friends house just on dark. After dinner we rolled up a huuuuge one and jeez it felt good.