Mexico - 11. Chapter 11 of 16

Still, I didn’t sleep well. The first time I woke might have been an hour after I dozed off. Mark was sleeping silently. At least, he seemed to be. I lay back, listened to noises from outside, thought about Chris, then fell back to sleep.
The second time I woke, I was too warm. I really wanted to slip out of my jeans but knew I couldn’t manage that without waking Mark. And I really didn’t want to be in shorts that close to him. So I conjugated Spanish verbs -- the regular ones, the easy ones -- and went back to sleep.
The third time I woke, there was a hand coming in the window. I must have heard a noise. I’m sure that’s what got me up. Then a faint flashlight beam lit the arm, which was stretching through the driver’s side window. We’d left that open a bit, for air.
I tried to move quietly to the front seat, not wanting to wake Mark. I was used to night visitors.
“¿Está usted la policía?” I whispered.
That had to be who it was. The local police, checking -- like all others -- to make sure we weren’t a couple of dead bodies. But I must have spoken too softly.
“¿Está usted la policía?” I said again, a bit louder, and I heard Mark shift behind me. Outside, I could only see the flashlight beam. The arm had quickly retracted.
“¿Está usted la policía?” I tried once more. I almost got out but figured opening the door, then closing it afterward, would make too much noise. And I’d have to start the engine to lower the window further. I whispered through he two-inch gap, “We’re Americans. Americanos. Tourists. Turistas.”
At that point, Mark asked, “Is something wrong?” He sounded mostly out of it, and I said, “No.” But almost at the same moment, the hand started snaking back through the window.
I grabbed my car keys and started the engine. I knew something was wrong; I wasn’t sure what. But it seemed best to get out of there. Since we were parked in a slight gully, just off the shoulder, I had to crank the steering wheel sharply to pull onto the road.
The flashlight beam, much brighter now, went straight into my eyes. I couldn’t see anything else.
“Shit!”
I blocked the light with my arm. The hand coming through the window grabbed my wrist. On the passenger side, another arm started through that window, reaching for the lock. I didn’t think it could make it, and the guy probably couldn’t open it if he did. So I was more concerned about the light.
I pushed the first arm back, struggling to steer. The car had started rolling, and I thought I was clear, when suddenly the driver’s side window smashed in. And I was grabbed.
The passenger door opened. I was rushed. Then a third hand reached in and opened the rear door on that side.
Mark must have jumped the guy, ‘cause he yelped. Maybe he didn’t realize there were two of us in the car. But there must have been at least three of them because, by that time, the driver’s door was open, and I was fighting two guys. At some point the engine stalled, and I stopped worrying about the car.
But it was no use. The guys seemed to be only armed with flashlights, but they used them as clubs, swinging steadily. I caught a couple of hits on my arms, a couple across my face, and most of them on my head, which I kept ducking. And there were four guys. I could hear two voices behind me, plus Mark’s. Before I knew it, I was jammed on the divider between the front seats. My wrists were tied together, and they were also tied to my knees.
The cord was rough twine. It cut and almost hurt more than being hit with the flashlights, which seemed to be rubber. Let’s hear it for army surplus. There was a guy sitting in the driver’s seat and another guy in the passenger seat. By the overhead light, I could see that they weren’t more than kids.
I was sure two other guys had Mark. As I turned toward the back, the doors slammed shut, and it was suddenly dark except for the dashboard lights. Then they snapped out, and even though I was staring into the rear view mirror, I couldn’t see Mark.
The first thing I really understood was when one of the kids hit me again with a flashlight and said, “Americano Motherfuck!” He was sitting behind me, to my right. He hit me again, this time catching my neck.
“Hey!” I shouted, trying to duck. I thought I heard Mark struggling with the guy but couldn’t be sure.
“Motherfuck!” the driver said, then clunked me.
“Motherfuck!” laughed the kid in the passenger seat. Who also swiped at me.
“Motherfuck!” yelled the fourth voice, behind, to my left. But before he could try and hit me, ducking as best I could and furious, I howled:
“It’s motherfucker, you shitheads!”
That stopped everything.
“Fuck-uh?” said the first boy, sounding surprised.
I stared toward him though I couldn’t see his face.
“Fuck-uh!” he repeated, laughing. “Motherfuck-uh!”
And he went to hit me, but I swerved.
“Fuck-a!” screeched the boy in the passenger seat, who probably went to swing but was stopped by the first boy correcting him: “Fuck-uh.”
“Fuck-uh?”
“Sí!”
“Motherfuck-uh!”
They both laughed, and both went to hit me, and this time there was no dodging them. Still, if I had to be clomped by a rubber flashlight, or knifed by even a cheap knife, it was an easy choice. In the dark, they were missing me half the time anyway, and I hoped Mark was as lucky.
But things were quiet in the back, and when the kids in the front went to raise their flashlights again, I stopped them.
“Alto! Alto!” I shouted. ¿Hable Inglés?”
“No!” said one. Who hit me.
“No, motherfuck-uh!” said his friend. Who swung and missed.
“Stop it! Damn it! Jesus!” I yelled. “Jesus!”
That stopped ‘em. I guess you don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
“Miran!” I struggled in their inflexible language. “Tengo poco dinero! Pero toman todo mis dinero! Por Favor! Toman mi dinero! Pero...” Shit! How do you say leave?”
“What are you telling them?” Mark said from what seemed right behind me. He must have been sitting between the boys. I was glad to hear he was okay.
“Tengo poco dinero,” I lumbered on. “Toman todo dinero pero... Shit!”
“What are you trying to say?” Mark asked quietly.
“I told then to take all my money. I’m trying to say Leave us alone.”
“Wish I could help.”
At that point, the kid in the passenger seat shouted “Americano Motherfuck!” and went to raise his flashlight.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “You stupid little assholes.” And he did.
They were polite little fuckers.
“Toman mi dinero!” I ordered. Take the goddamn money!”
“¿Donde? ¿Donde está el dinero?” the driver asked.
I sped through my entire Spanish. Nowhere was there a word for glove compartment. Or even gloves. Or compartment. “How do you say glove compartment?” I called to Mark, half-hoping the kids understood.
They didn’t. And all Mark could say was, “Maybe they don’t call it that.”
“¿Compartmente?” I tried. “Compartmente para los…”
Gloves. Shit. What could possibly be the word for gloves? Maybe it was too warm for gloves in Mexico.
“Manos,” I tried. Hands. “Compartmente para los manos.”
¿De los manos? ¿Del manos? Of the gloves? For the gloves?
I could hear Mark laugh. At least, he knew what I was saying. Or trying to say. And how wrong it was. But the kids were silent, maybe thinking Stupid Americano motherfuck.
I didn’t even know how to say fuck in Spanish
Then I said, “Luz.” Light. “Dame luz. Dame luz, y yo... give... usted dinero.”
I thought dar meant "to give." But I couldn’t remember how to say I give. I will give. Doy? It sounded dorky.
The boys discussed this among themselves. The money, I figured. The light. Then the kid in the driver’s seat turned on his flashlight, blocking most of the beam with his fingers. I wasn’t sure if they were worried about me seeing them or being seen from outside the car. It was still black outside.
The light was right in my eyes again. With my hands still tied at knee level, I couldn’t block it, so I pointed, as best I could, toward the glove compartment. “Mi wallet está en el compartmente del manos. Gloves. Gluves.”
I wondered if gluves meant anything in any language. I hoped it didn’t mean fuck you.
The kids didn’t move. I tried again.
“Wallet! Dinero! Compartmente! Gloves!”
The guy in the passenger seat got it first. I could hear him trying to open the glove compartment. Unfortunately, it was locked.
He hit me with his flashlight. In the little light, I could see if coming. “Mother...” he began as I ducked.
“Llaves!” I shouted, trying to stem further oncoming flashlight. “Llaves!” I repeated, trying to point to my keys. “Llaves en el…!”
El what? El ignition? I tried it with a soft C.
“Ig-ni-thi-on?”
I’m not sure they got that, but they clearly got llaves. Because I heard them jingle.
“Take the llaves from the ig-ni-thi-on. Open the compartmente de gloves,” I shouted. “And you’ll have my goddamned wallet.”
Mark laughed. “I can’t help it,” he quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. “
”Llaves!” I repeated. Llaves del ig-ni-thi-on! Llaves para dinero!”
Silence.
Mark asked. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know. It got me a B in high school.”
The boy in the passenger seat suddenly raised his flashlight.
“No!” I shouted at him. “Llaves!” I insisted to the kid in the driver’s seat. And suddenly he took the keys from the ignition, leaned over me, and opened the glove compartment.
“Sí!” I encouraged. “Sí! Sí! Sí!”
“What’s happening?’ Mark asked.
“The monkey saw the box and the stick and the bananas at the same time.”
Mark barely hesitated. “I wouldn’t go calling them monkeys. They might understand.”
“They’re only kids. They don’t understand gestalt. At least, mine are just kids.”
“Mine, too.”
The boy at the glove compartment was so busy flipping through everything in there, he had everyone’s attention. He’d turned on his own flashlight, which gave me a little more light to look around. But first, I checked what he was sorting. Maps. The car manuals. Aspirin packs. Sunglasses. Eye drops. Spare fuses. Spare batteries. A tiny screwdriver.
“Sí! Sí!” I told him. “Mi wallet’s in there somewhere. Mucho dinero.”
Actually, there wasn’t much left in American cash, if that’s what they were after. But there were assorted pesos and my Traveler’s Cheques. Which the boy finally found.
“Dinero!” he shouted.
“Not a lot,” I said, honestly. “Poco.”
He was counting and quickly disagreed. “Mucho!”
All in the eye of the thief.
“How much?” Mark asked.
“Under a hundred, cash. The rest’s in Traveler’s Cheques.”
“Will they know they have to be signed?”
“I don’t know. I’ll sign ‘em if it makes them leave. I’ll cancel them later.”
By this point, the kid in the driver’s seat had grabbed my wallet from one in the passenger seat. That kid was back to rifling the maps. He quickly found the Traveler’s Cheques.
“Mas dinero!” he squealed. “Mucho mas!”
The driver snatched them, too. Then he grunted.
“Mal dinero!” he shouted. “Mucho mal!”
He tossed them on the floor. He evidently knew about Traveler’s Cheques.
“¿Mal? asked his friend.
“Si, estupidio!”
“Motherfuck-uh!” shouted the second boy, raising his flashlight.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Alto!”
Again, he did.
“Toman el dinero y vamos!” I told them. “Vamos ahora!”
The boys just laughed. Including the ones in the back.
“Not a good sign,” I told Mark.
“What?”
“I told them to take the money and go.”
“And…”
“Fuck-uh,” said one of the boys behind me.
“There’s your answer.”
Though I wondered if the kids with Mark were as small as the ones with me. And I wondered if it was worth trying to get free.
“Tomamos el automóvil!” said the kid next to me, laughing. “Tomamos el automóvil del Americanos!”
And they all laughed.
“Tomamos el automóvil!” said the kid in the passenger seat.
“Tomamos el automóvil!” shouted the boys behind me.
“Tomamos el automóvil del Americanos ahora!” they almost chanted.
They were having a good time.
Then the kid in the driver’s seat grabbed the keys that were still hanging from the glove compartment lock. After a couple tries, he got the right one in the ignition. He turned it, and the dashboard lit up.
And the turn signal blinked. And my headlights came on -- which he quickly killed, I guessed trying to make us invisible. But the seat belt chime kept sounding ‘cause none of us were strapped in.
And the engine wouldn’t start.
“What the fuck?” said the driver.
It seems he spoke some English.
“What’s the matter?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know,” I almost whispered.
The boy tried again.
The lights blinked.
The bells chimed.
But no ignition.
He looked at me.
He shined his flashlight right in my eyes.
I could see how young he was. Probably twelve.
“Mal automóvil,” I tried. Trying calmly to add, “Mucho mal.”
He hit me right across the face with his flashlight. “Motherfuck!” he shouted, meanly.
“Stop it!”
It didn’t work this time. The kid on the other side hit me. And I could tell the kids in the back were beating Mark.
“Stop it!” I yelled again. “Alto! Alto! Alto!” It did nothing, and -- with my hands tied -- all I could do was duck. Finally, the boys got bored.
The one in the driver’s seat tried to start the car again.
Nothing.
“Mal!” I said, quietly. “Mal! Crappy! Shitty! Estupido automóvil!” I whacked the dashboard with my head, the main part of my body that was free. “Estupido automóvil Americano!” I went on, headbutting the dash again.
They thought it was very funny.
The kid in the passenger seat whacked the dashboard with his flashlight. “Automóvil motherfuck!” he shouted.
The kid in the driver’s seat whacked the steering wheel with his fist. “Motherfuck-uh!” he corrected.
Behind me, the two boys echoed, “Motherfuck-uh!”
Still, the first boy seemed to believe -- maybe from years of watching cars not start -- that if he just kept turning the key, the engine would eventually give. He tried. He turned. I could hear him pumping the pedals. There were the usual noises. But nothing else.
He pounded the steering wheel with both his fists. “Shit!”
I laughed. “I wonder who taught him English?” I asked Mark.
“Probably TV.” After a moment, he added, “Are you all right?”
“Mostly.”
The boy in the passenger seat took my wallet again. It had been lying in the driver kid’s lap.
“Sí!” I told him. Toman el dinero! Take mi money!”
“Pero don’t take the car!” Mark seconded. “No toman automóvil!”
“Mal automóvil,” I said. “Bueno dinero.”
“Dinero, sí!” Mark encouraged. “Automóvil, no!”
The boys liked that. I tried more.
“Dinero, sí! Automóvil, no! Motherfuck-uh automóvil!!”
They laughed again.
“Tomamos el dinero,” the boy in the passenger seat told the others..
He took all my cash, then dropped my wallet to the floor.
“No tomamos el automóvil!” he said, smacking the dashboard with his open hand. That made his other friends laugh. All except the kid in the driver’s seat, who had other ideas. He’d been searching the dashboard and found the lever that popped open the hood. He said something quickly to the kid in the passenger seat, and that boy grabbed my arm, as if I was going somewhere. Then the driver kid jumped out of the car, fully opened the hood, and started doing something with the engine.
I could hear him but couldn’t see. Partly, because the hood was up. Mostly, because it was dark.
The kid in the passenger seat still had his flashlight on. He was holding it in his mouth, while keeping one hand around me. His other hand was still rifling the glove compartment again.
While he did this, I tried to see Mark. I could kind of get a silhouette in the mirror, but I was mostly in front of him. And the headrests blocked the other boys.
“Are you tied up?” I asked Mark.
“Yeah,” he said. “You?”
“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “And I don’t think I can get free. And I don’t think we should try anything.”
“No,” he said, agreeing
“I don’t think they’re going to hurt us,” I went on. “And this rope’s bad. It’s really twisted into my wrists. Every time I move, it cuts.”
“Mine, too. I’ve been trying to pull it apart.”
The boys in the car let us talk. They seemed more focused on what their friend was doing with the engine. After a couple of minutes, he came back, slid into the driver’s seat, and tried the ignition again.
Nada.
This time, he was really pissed off. Instead of whacking the steering wheel, he turned and punched me in the arm.
It didn’t really hurt. The flashlights were worse. They had some weight behind them, and this was only a kid.
We might have been in worse shape if the kids had been older. Or if they’d been able to start the car. Then they might have taken it someplace where there were adults. And they might have decided to kill us.
“Kill people?” I’d asked a friend of mine. “For a car? Especially one like mine?”
It was dependable, but cheap.
“It’s better than what they have,” she’d warned. Telling me that Americans on the main roads south to Mexico City were constantly being carjacked. “Especially in the mountains,” she’d said. “And some of the drivers are killed.”
“It seems too much.”
“Sometimes, people are stupid and resist.”
Mark and I had stopped resisting. We’d stopped early on, not that we’d been given much choice. But the kids seemed to be having too much fun to be murderers. Or maybe I was fooling myself.
The boys were now talking among themselves. They spoke quickly, so beyond my understanding. I could get an occasional word, like usted and no. But no direction. Finally, the kid in the passenger seat opened his door. The boy in the driver’s seat pushed me toward the door. In the back, I could see the same thing was happening to Mark.
I could slip through the open door, even with my hands tied to my knees. Outside, I could almost stand up, because the twine had loosened. In the back, with the seat down, Mark had to roll out the half-blocked door, and he wound up on the ground. It took two kids to get him out, and three to help him stand.
Next, two of the kids wrapped twine around Mark’s arms, fastening them to his body. Unlike mine, his wrists weren’t tied to his knees. The third kid pointed his light at Mark’s chest, so the others could see what they were doing. Then they tied our feet.
After that, the four of them systematically looted the car. They got the keys and opened the rear hatch. They pulled everything onto the ground. My knapsacks. My sleeping bag. My CDS. Mark hadn’t bought a suitcase. The new clothes he’d bought were still in plastic bags. The kids took them, too.
They took everything that wasn’t part of the car. At one point, the driver kid looked under the hood again, and I wondered if he was going to try for the battery. But he didn’t have the right tools.
They took the few I had. A jack. A wrench. A couple of small screwdrivers. They took my jumper cables and spare tire. My ice scraper. That was after they’d pulled out the mattress.
They also found my good clothes -- my jacket, shirt, and pants -- which were flat in a bag on top of the spare tire. They dragged everything into the darkness, and I could hear a couple of car doors open. But there wasn’t enough light to see. Not even interior lights. They must have blacked them out.
When they were finished, the kid who’d been in the driver’s seat came over to me. Holding his flashlight on them, he dangled my car keys in front of m y eyes.
“Pero tomamos los llaves,” he said. “¿Ve los llaves? ¿Ve los llaves?”
I could see the keys, and I had some idea what he was saying..
He shook the keys again. “¿Ve los llaves?” he repeated.
“Sí,” I said. “I see the keys.”
That seemed to be what he wanted.
Then he pulled his arm back and threw the keys as far as he could, away from the car, into the empty field.
His friends laughed when he did that. Though they still seemed to be packing their car
“No ve los llaves!” the driver boy shouted. And everyone laughed again.
Then the boys came back to us, checking our ropes. They pushed us both to the ground, as if we were about to chase after them. Then they disappeared.
“Adios!” he driver kid called. I recognized his voice.
“Adios!” they all called. “Adios, motherfuck-uh!”
I heard two car doors slam, though there may have been more. And I heard the engine start -- easily. Then the car headed slowly down the road. I think it was going towards town, but I couldn’t be sure. I only knew it was moving away.
I suspected that the boys lived in town. I guessed they’d seen us earlier. Maybe we’d even knocked on one of their doors. But driving with its lights all off, the car could have been invisible. I wondered how the driver knew where he was going. He must have known the road very well. The one thing I was absolutely sure of was the sound of familiar laughter, trailing from the car windows.