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The Better Left Unsaid (from the “Panama.Moto” series of short stories)

Another day at the border. Another god damned day at this son of a hell hole border. If you have read the previous accounts leading up to now, you, oh dear reader of mine, will know that my love for everything Paso Canoas grows with each visit like those little deadly fungi that grow from cow shit. It only takes one time crossing the border to know that Panama restricts entrance to tourists who do not have proof of departure, i.e. a plane ticket out of the country, or a personal vehicle. Although my motorcycle was currently being held in the customs impound yard in Panama City, I figured the paperwork that I held in my hand would exceed the requisites of entry. What I was holding in front of the customs official was a government ordered mandate for my departure held on Thursday at 9am stating the details of a police choffeur escorting me out of the country. This packet of papers, signed, stamped, and authenticated by a hand full of officials In Panama City affirming the scenario would have better served him as a platter of fried chicken and gravy. He astutely pointed out that these documents were not in fact a plane ticket. Surely the third grade was the hardest four years of his life.
What I wasn't so sure about was the exact source of the suffocating humidity. Was it this border town that resembled the images of hell itself or this guys breathing. I could tell he struggled through each wheeze and wheezed through each utterance. His eyeballs quivered upon inhale and I swear I saw his ear lobes sweating.
Yet, as the competent and fully qualified customs official he was, he offered me solace to my dilemma advising me to simply buy a plane ticket, present him with said plane ticket, and then cancel the flight tomorrow after successfully crossing the border.
I showed him the vehicle control stamp found in my passport that proved the existence and thereby legal entrance of my motorcycle into the country. He demanded my plane ticket of departure. I tried to be as nice as possible as I explained that his fellow high school dropout brotherhood of the badge has rules that state I have to leave after 3 months mandated by the National Customs Authority of Panama, and that in fact what I was pointing at was a stamp confirming the execution of said law. I asked him if they give badges for flunking out of grade school or if it was part of some feel good boosting self-esteem scheme to help curb national rates of depression. Cause let’s face it, if it weren’t for that government kick down that your mom made you apply for, you’d probably be stuck to a bed sheet somewhere developing sores on your ass.
I asked politely if there was anyone in the office that could tell their eyeballs from their assholes. No reply. But it seemed that each of my queries resulted in a painstaking maneuver to swivel in his chair and ask assistance from his colleague. It reminded me of kneading dough with my grandmother. The dough oozing through my fingers in the same fashion his rolls attempted an escape through his button up. No such luck. His buttons were laced with titanium. By the third time he had to ask for help his earlobes were definitely sweating. He had to be in his early 20s judging by the peach fuzz on his upper lip and would guess he hasn’t seen the two inches of his dick since birth judging by how tightly he was grasping his authority. He told me to step aside so he could tend to the less rigorous line of travelers that had filed behind me.
Stamp. Click. Reload. Stamp, Click. Reload.
He didn’t say a word to anyone. He was a machine. His aggressive stamping of documents took me away from my internal dialogue to the reality of Christmas decorations still hanging from the ceiling of the passport control office. I’ve got to ask Santa for one of those stamps. My last two months have all come down to acquiring those stamps. Each one, equals one step closer to freedom. And Michelin man with arthritic wrists and sausages for fingers, was just a bump in the road. And I'm not talking about those little smokies you get in the grocery store either. I wanted to reach through the slit into his air conditioned box of dipshits and pull his belly through his nostrils one happy meal at a time, but I decided to reach for the last trick in the bag.
And like a poker player laying down his flush, I slid the impound receipt for the bike to captain dum dum as I simultaneously pointed to my helmet. Nothing was clicking. Except for stamp machines to my left and right. We reviewed. 1.Vehicle control stamp equals legal entrance, 2. Packet of legal documents stating my Thursday departure via police escort, 3. Motorcycle impound receipt confirming that the location of my bike was in fact under National Customs control.
Plane Ticket sir.
I stated that although I think of my moto as a human with authentic emotions that reacts accordingly to my own ups and downs, that we share intimate moments of solitude and long walks on the beaches, that she has been my most faithful and trustworthy companion, that she hates airplane food and gets nauseous while flying, I tried to explain that out of respecting her wishes, we have chosen not to fly anymore. I added in the part of the story when I tried to purchase a seat for her on our last trip; I told him about how shit got awkward at the ticket office and how we’ve decided to just skip the embarrassment and overland it from there on. His sense of humor was as clogged as his arteries. My mind jumped to him in the McDonald’s ball pit eating every single kid who tried to enter his domain, trying to intimidate me as he did them with those sweating eye balls and straining jugular vein.
Thankfully we had a recipient of the fifth grade spelling bee in the office who apparently understood that what he was holding was in fact worth more than a plane ticket to nowhere.
After all, how was I to get to panama city by tomorrow if the border authority wouldn’t let me into the country? And if I didn’t make the deportation appointment in the city who would be fined and or handcuffed for a failure to appear? Definitely not the fat ass sweating bullets with a forged elementary school certification of participation hanging over his watermelon of a brain. I never wanted to be Gallagher more so than in that moment of my life.
I swear we shared a moment as my sweat was now puddling upon the counter. We watched our puddles join. He saw it too. Shivered a bit. I saw fear tremble his triple chin. Suddenly a chunk of his patience dislodged like a mountainside crashing into ocean fjords producing a tsunami vacuum effect where the air in the room slowly got thinner exposing the walls from its paint layers, papers swirled like cyclones, all sound silenced for a long lasting second as if he swallowed the vastness of space and time in the soggy big mac bun of his neck blob, and this wave of seismic catastrophe reverberating through his body flooded every over saturated fat cell with the force of a million undigested 5 year olds. The ripple effect of rage was the 8th 9th and 10th wonder of the world. I was in awe and almost smiling like a young child at the circus witnessing the bearded lady swallow swords. I’m pretty sure this whole event left stretch marks on his fingertips as the lard rippled endlessly throughout his extremities. Luckily the balloon did not burst but the silence did with a click click of the stamp machine. He slipped the passport through our joined reservoir of sweat upon the counter and thanked me for my patience.

The trick to dealing with border officials is to refrain from the overwhelming desire to grab those three prepubescent hairs on his gargantuan triple chill and iron the blubber wrinkles from his face with the glass that separates you. A little charm of good spirits is really what they need while dealing with travelers all day. Be a sip of ice cold water in their daily inferno and crossing borders becomes a breeze.
Unfortunately, the saga continues tomorrow in the vehicle impound yard of Panama City to finally free Leonesa from the shackles of Panamanian customs.
And finally get the F out of Dodge.



written by Troyano Newton.2014
Una Costa Productions

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lo imposible solo tarda de poco mas