Father and the Fifty-Cents cop
Jan 15, 2023 9:16:35 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Jan 15, 2023 9:16:35 GMT -5
Memory 7: Father and the Fifty-Cents cop
After a long day's work at the factory, my father was always ravenously hungry and in a desperate a hurry to get home to eat dinner. Unfortunately, the route home always forced him into a daily traffic jammed bottleneck which forced him to wait as his stomach growled and he experienced what he usually described as raspaera, a scraping. Tengo raspaera. Literally: "I have a scraping." was a familiar saying of his.
Oh, he did struggle to remain calm despite the urgency of quenching his ravenous hunger, while imagining the mountain of rice and beans with chuletas [pork chops] that my mom was preparing for him back home.
Sometimes, under this relentless prodding, he’d weave around cars and make some progress, but would quickly wind up bottlenecked again. To make matters worse, there was this very tempting side-road, a potential shortcut in plain view. However, it was officially tagged as off limits, and using it involved a traffic violation. So he had sat there miserably weighing the pros and cons. Until finally, egged on by his hunger pangs, one day he decided to risk it.
After cautiously maneuvering himself into position, he suddenly swerved out of the highway traffic jam, ignoring the signs telling him not to. But just as he thought he was home free, a police car appeared in his rearview mirror seemingly out of nowhere with sirens blaring. After pulling my father over to a secluded underpass, the officer got out of his vehicle, approached him, and asked for license registration and insurance.
Well, something about this cop, perhaps a subtle gesture of the eyes, or maybe an outright verbal hint, emboldened my father to offer him money in exchange for not writing him a ticket. The cop accepted several dollars, and my father proceeded home to his cherished dinner.
As it turned out, that the cop had not been at the junction by chance, as my father had imagined. He had been there waiting for traffic-sign violators. Unfortunately, my father got into the habit of going for the shortcut when unable to control his hunger, and having to dish out that same amount of money he had initially offered the officer who seemed to be always waiting. That's when my father's daily after-work complaining began. He'd come home grumbling about this SOB cop who was taking his money every day at the same corner.
"Would you believe," he'd morosely say as he arrived home, "that this hijo de la gran puta, [son of the great harlot] stations himself every single day, at the same corner, just to stop me from using a shortcut home?"
As usual my mother tried to get the bottom of the whole thing by asking my father key questions.
"But you cooperated right?" she said nonchalantly while washing the dishes.
"Bueno, I did give him money the first time. But I didn't expect him continue...."
"You know what you are? You are what is called on the island a mango bajito!" [an easily pickable mango on a low branch] my mother responded in a barely hearable voice.
"I am a what? A mango bajito!?" my father asked incredulously, as if it was beyond his wildest dreams that someone could tag a reasonable person such as himself as an easily-pickable, low-branched mango!
"Si! You are a mango bajito, and he knows it. So since he already tagged you as a mango bajito, you know what you are going to have to do from now on?"
"No, what am I going to have to do?" he asked standing behind her with mouth half open in a show of utter incredulity, as if the answer to that question had not been obvious.
"You are going to have to pay him every single time you use that shortcut. Otherwise he won't let you use it! That's what you are going to have to do.”
"Why? What does it cost him to let me take that short cut?"
"Tell me something!" my mother said, momentarily stopping her dishwashing and turning to face him. Does any other driver in that traffic-jam take that shortcut?"
"No, I can't say that I have seen anybody else using that shortcut!"
"Ah! So the decent drivers obey the law, and don't take that shortcut, do they?"
“Maybe they aren’t as hungry as I am.”
“Or maybe they just respect the law and don't feel like getting in trouble? Ever consider that? Anyway, now that you paid him, you have a big problem, since he has seen your "lau flaco" skinny side!"
"My skinny side?"
"Yeah, tu lau flaco! He knows that you just can't resist taking that shortcut, and he will be there waiting for you at the same hour each day to collect the bribe you offer him!"
"Nahhh! I can't believe that he is that miserable and low-down!"
"Remember what I said to you, you are going to have him waiting for you at that same corner each day because he considers you a guachafita now! [easy target]
Well, exactly as she predicted, the same thing kept happening for about three weeks. My father would make a dash for the shortcut, and out would shoot the cop in his cruiser with the siren blaring. My father would pay him several bucks and go home for dinner. Of course, he'd do so reluctantly feeling himself victimized, and would enter the apartment each day with the same:
“Me puedes creer a mi... ["would you believe"]
To which my mother would invariably respond with:
"No me digas! [Don't tell me!] You took the same shortcut, the same cop was waiting and caught you, and you had to pay him three Dollars! Right?"
To which my father would reply,
"Yes! He did it again! Hijo de la gran puta!" literally "Son of the great harlot!"
Well, as it turned out, one day he didn't have several bucks to offer as a bribe. Hunger kicked in as usual, and he made a dash for the shortcut anyway. As usual out shot the cop from his hiding place with siren screaming. Pulled him over to the relatively secluded underpass where the previous transactions had taken place, and walked over to my father's car window expecting to be bought- off.
"Fifty cents?" my father said. But this time the cop responded by writing him a ticked.
"Would you believe that SOB gave me a ticket!" he announced as soon as he came through the door that day!"
"How much did you offer to pay him, Hipolito?" my mother asked in a tone that indicated she knew what the answer was going to be.
"Fifty cents!" My father responded sheepishly after several seconds of hesitation.
"Ha! ha! ha! You had la cara [the face] to offer that cop fifty cents? Did you really expect that cop to let you get by for fifty cents after you accustomed him to three dollars per violation? Just be glad he didn't brandish his billy-club on you out of frustration. If I were him, I would have hit you with my Billy club for daring to insult me that way. So muchacho! Mira! Get on your knees and thank God that he didn't bludgeon you and then arrest you after that."
“Why doesn't he go to work like me?"
"His job is to make sure that you don't use that shortcut. That's his work! And now that you showed him that it pays, you are going to have him there at that same location for sure."
"Manganzon! What did it cost that carne de puerco [pig meat] to let me get through once for fifty cents?"
"Simple," my mother responded, "because if he lets you get by for fifty cents once, then you are going to try to pay him fifty cents from now on. What does it cost him? You ask me? It costs him the three dollars you have been paying him before. What do you think that he is? A bobo? You are the bobo for giving him three dollars per violation to begin with.
My mother paused for a long while as if meticulously examining all the fine nuances of the phenomenon. Then she said:
"Did you know you didn't have three dollars to give that cop today?"
"Yeah I knew it!"
"And you still tried to take that short cut knowing that he was waiting for you?"
"Bueno si, I knew. But I thought he wasn't that carne de puerco!"[pig-meated]
"As I said, every day a bobo hits the street, and today it was you!"
"Where's my dinner!" he responded in order to terminate the unpleasant conversation.
Eventually, my father found employment at another factory where traveling home didn't pose that ordeal. I imagine that the police officer also found a more lucrative location after my father's departure.