DRIFTING

Awake before the dawn, we stripped underneath the cold sheath of gray.
Sleep still held us in its swinging arms as we swayed slowly, trying to wake, trudging along the dirt floor in our perennial daze.
Hands gripped the cold stone. No roof to separate stars from staring. The sound of sirens flooding in from past the Amarilla hills that were now buried somewhere in the deep blue-dark.
“I can see my breath,” Pruntz said. “Jesus.”
The others sniffed and smiled underneath the slow film of sleep, all of us feeling like we were for the first time being born from the empty shapelessness, finally formed from some shifting smoke cloud.
“There es no hot water,” one of the Bolivians said. His name was Manolo. “No en here, no this base.”
“Surprise surprise,” someone muttered.
Already outside there was the heavy west-end traffic, the headlights like a thousand pairs of eyes, like a long winding snake through the plaything of the city.
“How long does it take to get there,” I said.
“Oh, Chay,” said Manolo. “It .. uh… It gun take, vay long time, man.”
We smoked cigarettes huddled around a map littered with the red arrows of war, the sun now out and frightening, the sky a dead starch curtain hanging on a line. Already the sweat and the tingling fear, the mosquitos chattering around our heads, the toucans strutting around the cement corridors bawling out to each other every now and then.
From somewhere there came the faint crying thud of a grenade, the distant popping conversation of machine gun fire.
I sighed.
They fed us Coca Cola and chocolate cake and wrapped cold strips of salted ham in tablecloth napkins for us to keep in our packs, practically pushing us out the door, the machine-gun sounds much closer now. With every callous heave of a muffled gunshot we could hear the shattering glass, the screaming chaos, and Maykin said he thought they would burn the whole town.
“No,” said one of the Bolivians. “Es good, es good,”
“It’s definitely not good,” I said. “They’re blowing things up.”
“Es tu Americanos,” said the Bolivian. “Es why. Es you no Americanos? Then no problem. You see? Yes? You country, it … uh … monopoly. It play us, like a game.”
It started to rain; the sky was a soft green.
We pulled the hoods of our plastic ponchos deep and low over our faces to hide our foreignness and moved as a single unit through the bulge of the city center, weaving through the chanting crowds of rioters.
“Es the gas tax,” said Manolo, his hand around my shoulder as we went through the thick crowds, sliding through throngs of screaming citizens soaked by rain and burdened by international taxes they were no longer willing to pay. I kept my head very low.
“Es too high,” he said. “President Mesa is puppet to USA Corporate Interest, people do no longer desire his office. Entiende?”
“Yea.” I had to shout just to hear myself. Someone in the crowd hurled a Molotov cocktail.
Past the bus station on Northside and through the Avinos market place we continued on in silence, all of us, thirteen foreigners and a handful of Bolivian Missionaries who had volunteered to take us out of Santa Cruz all the way north past Trinidad City, to a tiny grid-road town made of dust and clay called San Ignacio.
When the rain stopped we had reached the wet rim of the central circle, through the worst of it, although Manolo and the other Bolivians said that the protestors were burning roadblocks and throwing hand grenades at international businesses.
Into the rusted beds of two old blue pick-up trucks we went, sitting on our rucks, the Bolivians fit with shotguns.
“Keep.. uh… keep eh the hoods on you, et least tel we arrive La Santísima Trinidad. The riot es no so bad en La Trinidad City.”
I fell asleep somehow in that tunnel of highway wind, half collapsed against the cab of the truck, my knees against my chest, in between a girl from Germany who spoke six languages and a 17 year old illiterate Bolivian boy who cradled his shotgun like a newborn.
It was called Trinidad City but it was hardly even a town – more just a mess of roads and heaps of three story buildings crammed together for about a few square miles before opening back up to the emptiness.
We drove slowly past the shacks that leaned like books in shelves, past the church towers made of broken brick. We peered out at the wild dogs who roamed through the crooked gutters, the buildings of white washed stone, the peasants who went barefoot with their carts of cabbages and onions. Everything the faded like ancient westerns.
We drove into a huge empty hangar made from sheet metal, the air a cool moist breeze, hopping from the trucks to stretch our legs before we continued on the rest of the way.
“Es you hungry? Es you hungry chyou can come with me to market.”
“I’ll go,” I said, leaving my rucksack in the truck.
The German girl and a boy named Baiden who came from Baton Rouge followed after us, the four of us stepping out into the heat wave, feeling the hot-wet water balloon air that encompassed us and seemed ready to pop.
Monolo led us through the heaving horde of street vendors and customers, zigzagging along streets and alleyes made of mud-caked dust, banging our steel-toed boot-heels against the cracked cobblestone.
We ordered Rice with chicken and bell peppers, drenching our plates in b-grade ketchup so we could taste something. Cups of black coffee so strong the grounds got stuck in your teeth with every swig. Cans of pineapple juice and a patient stray dog sitting at my feet waiting for scraps.
It was 8 o’clock in the morning.
A man with a mighty beard made from poverty hobbled over to our table, taking the one free seat without asking and smiling as he jutted his hand out like a fishhook.
“Hola,”
Manolo sniffed and stood up coldly. Manolo the Bolivian who hated Bolivians. The German girl and Baiden obliged him, and very soon I found myself alone with this poor Bolivian beggar, who instead of cologne or soap smelled like old tarps drenched in ether, like a washcloth found at the bottom of a trash bag filled with old clothes. He smiled at me.
“Le gusta aqui,” he asked.
I nodded and fed a small piece of chicken to the stray dog at my feet. I said,
“Este es un país hermoso.”
“Ah,” he said, leaning back and smiling, slapping his leg with his palm. His fingernails were long and gray. He seemed very pleased. “Es bonita."
“Si,” I said. “Mi país favorito hasta el momento.”
“De donde es usted?"
“Los Estados Unidos."
“Ah,” he exclaimed, slapping his knee again. He leaned in spoke in an excitable whisper. “Los Estados Unidos!?”
“Yes.”
“Y Donde has estado?”
“No muchos lugares.” I said.
I took my entire plate and placed it carefully on the ground for the stray dog. I took out two cigarettes and held one out to him. He shrugged and took it, leaning in to share the match with me.
“Donde has estado,” he said again, settling into the cigarette.
I shrugged.
“Como ya he dicho … no muchos lugares. Inglaterra. Panamá. Suiza.”
“Suiza!!”
“Si.”
At that moment a long line of townspeople came through the marketplace square, all connected by a thick farm chain that they had tied around their waists. They were chanting anti-US slogans about the gas prices, clapping their hands like seals in unison.
The old man nodded at them.
“Pertenecen al ejercito. Hay un gran movimiento, ahora.”
The man nodded, agreeing with himself, and we watched as the line of protestors snaked through the market, rearranging the crowds, diving everything. He chuckled softly and then suddenly extended his hand.
“Bueno,” he said, standing. “Gracias para el cigarillo.”
“De nada.”
“Que son muy inteligentes,” he said, nodding again towards the protestors.
“Si," I said.
“Pero … usted sobrevivirá.”
He winked and then dissolved back into the crowded market.
I sat there for a while petting the stray dog before getting up and going back to the hangar.