Fine Fast Food

“I think he wants you to stop around the corner,” Layne said as the police officer mimed at us through the window. When we got it open his words confirmed the gesture. 

“You were blocking the crosswalk,” he said as he took my Florida driver’s license. 

“I was waiting for the red light to change,” I replied but my words were incinerated in the bright white sunshine outside the confines of our air conditioned Promaster, the big golden blob that might have blocked pedestrians crossing the street had there been any. “Follow me” he added, ignoring my protestations  as he climbed on his motorcycle with my driver’s license in his pocket. I had a momentary urge to peel off and head for Navojoa on highway 15 and forget Huatabampo ever existed, but that would have been silly, as I don’t at all resemble any kind of desperado I’ve ever heard of, and the Promaster has to be the world’s worst and most conspicuous getaway car. Besides this traffic stop was a new one on me. I’ve been pulled over in so many different countries, never previously in Mexico, usually for speeding which is my vice, or was before I got a van, but suddenly being deemed a crosswalk scofflaw of all things in a country where do-it-yourself is the best rule for pedestrians was a whole new experience, and I was curious where this bizarre turn of events would take us. I hoped there was a story in it. 

“I wonder if he’s taking us out of Huatabampo to ask us to pay the fines in the riverside shrubbery,” I said rather dubiously as the motorcycle cop led us west to the distant edge of town. I had visions of the two of us doing disreputable things hidden from view on the dusty river levee and I wondered what sleight of hand would see him satisfied.

But then the giant white palazzo of the police department came into view: we seemed to be doing things properly. I parked in front of the police station on the red line on his orders (!) and followed him inside.

We walked inside followed by the stares of the front desk mob. I got special treatment  by being led back through the rear courtyard past the vehicle impound lot into a rear office. I was introduced to the boss, a blank faced bureaucrat in a teal polo shirt. He did the “shuffle the papers in silence” number to try to make the suspect  nervous and not eventually looked up. “You were blocking the crosswalk,” he said. 

“Apparently so,”  I  replied. 

“It’s an offense in the municipal code,” he said. 

“I’m sure it is,” I said. 

“Where did you come from?” They always ask that question whose purpose baffles me. 

“Álamos,” I said 

“Where are you going?” I wanted to say it feels like the direct path to hell but instead I told the truth. 

 “Playa Huatabampito.” 

“You are a tourist,” he made it sound like something unpleasant under his shoe. “Have you been here before?” 

“Yes in January.” 

“So you like Huatabampo,” he said 

“Well,” I replied, “I liked it more 15 minutes ago,” the boss looked through me as the motorcycle cop at my side smothered a giggle. 

“You have to pay a fine” he said shaking his head when I asked if I could get a warning. It didn’t look good and I was wondering how much he could skin me for. I imagine he was thinking similar thoughts. 

“Are you on vacation?” 

“Retired,” I said, ”after 17 years with the police in Florida,” I played my ace. I hate doing it but it got me out of a fine in Croatia when I got zapped going too fast and my wife told the radar cop I worked with the police. I was too embarrassed to bring it up myself. Actually I retired from being a civilian dispatcher and 911 operator  but this didn’t seem the time to quibble about badges of rank. “You were police?” The motorcycle cop said and I nodded. I actually think he was regretting this whole caper. 

It didn’t matter, the pound of flesh was the only way to satisfy the boss that much was obvious. I got the strong impression the motorcycle cop had been under orders to pull someone in and it seems I was it. Job done.  

“One thousand pesos,” he said. 

“We’ll, that’s that then “ I said. 

“Yes,” he said. I told him I’d better go and get the money. He nodded, my license sat on his desk, discarded but out of my reach.  

My wife looked distraught in the corridor. 

“They wouldn’t let me in.  They said you were with the judge.” She used to be a public defender and she was looking like she was suffering from ineffective assistance of counsel syndrome. I reassured her it was not so far a hanging offense but they were waiting for me. 

“Weirdest judge I ever met,” I said and went out to the van to get the money for his honor. Layne very sensibly hadn’t brought her purse on the grounds our fine might  be tailored to match our available  funds. Fifty bucks seemed quite enough for blocking an empty crosswalk. I walked back through the police station waving two brown Diego Riveras so everyone knew how much I got zapped. 

“I hope you lot get to share a nice dinner on me,” I said to the gathering crowd of officers in the back hallway, lounging next to the armed sentry, all there to see the gabacho getting fleeced. It turns out two Diego Riveras are worth one Florida driver’s license and I made the exchange on his desk. I asked if I could go and we said no more about a receipt. 

On my way out I noticed the mural on the wall where arrest photos are taken. I handed my phone to one of the cops and asked him to do the honors. Much laughter as I swiveled like Al Capone in his famous booking pictures. Come to think I never did do that at Key West PD though I did try being properly handcuffed once by one of my sworn colleagues and let me tell you that is a very disturbing sensation. Much worse than this.  

I shook hands cheerfully with the motorcycle cop in some sort of grotesque professional courtesy and got in the van and sighed.

 “Well that sucked,” Layne said with full judicial understatement and then quickly added: “turn left here otherwise we’ll go back past the same spot and now they’ve had time to dream up some other crap charge.” So I turned left and we went and had the best grilled beef sope we’ve had anywhere in Mexico even after meandering all over the country for the past six months.

It was the main reason we came back to Huatabampo, a pleasant provincial town near the coast in southern Sonora.

Then there was  the superb flour tortilla lady who unfortunately was closed which was a shame,

but the guy at the agua purificada store remembered us and we chatted about our travels over the winter while I siphoned water into our tank. 

The vet up the street still carried the most effective  fly killer powder, Totenfli, I’ve ever seen:

so we got some more of that and  with a quick stop at an actual self service car wash, the only one I’ve seen in Mexico,

We were done with Huatabampo and retreated to lick our wounds with some lovely wild camping at the beach. 

It’s a pity really but I don’t think we will go back. I mean, I don’t want to be a bad sport but even for the best sopes in the world fifty bucks seems a high price to pay.