Incipient Vagabond--Verily

I was scared to enter it, and thus I told myself I wasn´t going to go there until I had a fixed-blade knife.  So I bought myself a $40 throwing knife... god I miss that thing.  Yeah, it´s of the past now.  That´s because I was out walking, waiting for my bus to leave, when I was about to climb the ramp to a bridge and saw a couple of cops.  They were just finishing frisking and ¨ticketing¨a chico and saw me.  I felt innocent enough and decided to play that full ante and figured they´d let me pass.  But my dumb ass fooled itself.  I was so confident that I said ¨No, no tengo no drogas, puedes buscar¨ That is, I said I didn´t have anything, they could even check--so they did.  And they confiscated my knife.  And while they had taken note of how much money I had, I hadn´t.  I thought I saw only a one-dollar bill and a coupon for two tacos at Jack in the Back.  They started to bolster their case, telling me it was pretty illegal to have a knife there, and I said yeah I was from the US and it was illegal there, but I´d seen the news and wasn´t taking any chances.  They asked if I had a passport--no.  That´s all, no excuses.  I panicked, and all I could think of was that all I had was my four 500 peso bills in reserve in my shoe... and no fucking change.  So when they said I´d have to pay a ticket or go to jail, and inferred that it was in my hands to decide and tell them if and how I could pay, I knew what they were doing... and I hadn´t felt that way since I sat in my room waiting for my stepdad to choose what he was going to whip me with.  My stomach churned; I took out the nasty ziploc with my money and they took it, and almost took 1000 pesos--then thought better of it and gave me back 500.  My mind and heart were racing.  It felt like a bad broma.  I kept thinking--this can´t happen.  Where´s the US cops to help me out?  I obviously couldn´t shout for a US cop to help me out.  I thought about how they might kinda be looking out for their cartel cronies--that´s a shudder and a half.  Well, I made it anyway, cursing in english the whole way back, kicking walls and shouting and convulsing with anger.  What a welcome, huh? 

In hindsight, they probably weren´t looking out for them, as the news reported that the murders there had occurred to mexican citizens, directly related to the drug  business.   Other people have shared the sentiment with me that the government here is corrupt, that the police are highly politicized, and there are protests that some of the murders were political, and it certainly is easy to imagine that with how large the pandillas and drug business are here.

Since then, I spent 25 hours on a bus recording my memories from the past few months, and in agony for the lack of exercise--going from hitchhiking and bicycling and working hard labor 8 hours a day and exploring Santa Barbara each day with friends and playing with fire and bikes and food and alcohol, to not even being able to stretch my legs, was not fun. 

It´s really tremendous what a border does.  I´ve been very much against the idea of borders for a long time, because it really limits our freedom--but it does so much to make America the bubble that it is.  Mexico... really, it´s such a juxtaposition.  Not against America--that bit was predictable; but more surprisingly, it contradicts itself. In the same country, the same towns even, there are Walmarts but few streetlights, donkeys tied to trees and dogs walking the streets but a personal presentation ethic that makes it practically taboo to have hair longer than an inch; really, I´ve only seen maybe one other person since entering the country with long hair.