I am riding the red and white National bus one morning a week or so ago, the 6 o’clock to Belize City, and I am looking out the window, soaking up the scenery. The air’s a little crisp so I’ve got my window (I got a window seat this morning) opened just a sliver, just right to keep the exhausting CO2 flushing out, and the energizing O2 coming in all fresh. Pine ridge. Yap, we’re passing through a nice bit of Christmas pine on a crisp morning, and it’s all good and easy on the mind, so I’m all tranquilo when wa, out of the blue a big, dark green bus pulls up beside us.
Just for a moment, da monster hovers there, and then it is gone…but not before shattering my reverie, jolting me, and then leaving me with a funny familiar feeling…that is not love. For that fleeting moment, just when the driver is directly abreast of me, I glanced across at him, and maybe it is for the way he is perched high in the saddle that I got this strange feeling that I am Washington Irving’s Ichabod Crane, and the smug man at the controls is Brom Bones – the Headless Horseman, savoring his dominant moment before smiting me into defeat, disgrace…ignominious oblivion. Yay, the devil Bones hovered there, just that instant, then he squeezed throttle and went by. Gone, gone to snatch up the next rich prize standing at the highway side.
Dios mío (excuse me)… Mister Ber-na-bel? In an enemy bus? Snatching prized travelers from under the noses of his former employer? Hey there, Braa, didn’t you used to be the star…of this line?
Before Novelos (Knowing us is loving us Bus Line) became National Bus Line, before the sons of a hard working father became smitten with Midas’ greed and went for the whole shebang, borrowing countless millions of bucks from the people’s bank, for to control from the Hondo to PG and from Belize City to little old Benque, yep, and sinking it…Mister Bernabel was their star. Yap, long before fresh faced Novelos and a super smooth talker named Jones, and strange men who have no history on the road, and their conductors who forget and want to charge you twice, or extra rate, it was Mister Bernabel…the face and heart and soul of the proud Novelos Line.
Before he got in the front seat of the Novelos Line, I am told he used to be a truck driver moving goods across the country. They say he was a hero from then too. Oh yes, they say a lot of girls and young women had eyes for the dashing young Mr. Bernabel.
Bernabel, he must have signed thousands and thousands of log sheets for the Novelos. I bet those young Novelo boys, the ones who got greedy and wanted the whole damn thing, thought of him as family. I bet he was guest of honor at every Novelo Christmas or birthday party.
Mr. Bernabel…I always thought him surly. You got on his bus, got in your seat, and behaved yourself…or else. I could swear he looked at me with a sneer. Yep, if you ask me, I would say he was very short with people. But I did notice he was very different with the ladies. Oh yap, always, always chatting it up and smiling with the ladies…witty remarks and sly suggestions and so. I notice these things…
Hn, maybe they retired him. Maybe there was a push for young blood, and like poor Boxer they gave him the pink slip…turned him out. Maybe it is that Bernabel got tired of waking up 4 every morning, and getting home late at night. Maybe he retired and went to the States to see the world for a year or two. Could have been any number of things.
Whatever, he was a big, big hero on the Western Road for sure. Guess he was born that way. That’s why he paused just a moment, to sneer at us in our slow poke red and white and black bus, before he released the governor and eased on by. It’s the way stars do it, you know. No, those kinds can’t do things ordinary like, and so. They say Willie Mays wore a cap two sizes too small for his head, so when he had to go giddiyap out in centerfield it got caught up in the wind and flew off his head. We’ve all seen the Michael Jordan attitude. Tilliman? He’s not rich or anything, but the brother’s got the swagger. The stars all got their style.
Ai, qué pasa? Mister Bernabel driving for BBOC, or any line other than Novelos, why, it’s like Philip Goldson going home to PUP. Or George Cadle Price painting his Pickstock Street castle red and white. Or Hurricane Bowser of BEC and D-Line Lino of RAC…suited up in the hated Landivar gold and blue! It’s not…wait…wait…no? Yu sure? Mike Novelo? Gone green wid Bernabel tu? Bwai, befo time gaan fu troo!
At our doorstep, Braa
I was very shocked when I read in last week’s Belize Times that the area where the Ocean Hopper (the ill-fated vessel that carried the seven men who went fishing) was found, at the door mouth of Belize City (Gallows Point), is a known “wet drop alley” (a place where cocaine is found floating in the water). I have no suspicion that the seven guys were into anything out of order. We all love to go fishing at the reef. Terrible accidents happen at sea. Why is it people are speculating that the guys might have bumped into drug runners while they were fishing out there…on our doorsteps?
How is it possible that our Police and Coast Guard can tolerate drug runners operating in their face, among innocent people? And what about this vaunted DEA operating in Belize? This is just like pillow talk…in your face, Belize. Hold this, we got the power.
I have no, zero, zilch problems if the drugs running business is carried out speakeasy, far away from us. American society is so stressful (some facets of Belize life too) that those people need a plentiful supply of drugs for the mind. Just like they are desperate to maintain their supply of oil, by any means necessary, same way Babylon needs a constant supply of cocaine. All their movie people and music people and comedians who have to be repeating the same thing night after night, need something to lean on. All their Wall Street people who are under pressure the moment the bell rings on the floor in the morning, need their fix. All those thousands of people who have to do the naked shows, need their mind benders.
Adult people who want to snort cocaine, it is their free will. I say, you fight all vices the same way God does…with the word. God called Moses behind a bush and explained to him what to say. I say, you fight all vices the same way Jesus did…overturn all operators who do it in sacred places.
When I was a young man working in the fields, during the time when the Americans worried about marijuana, I feared stumbling on a weed field when I forayed into the countryside to work, or to enjoy the ambience. Ignorance is bliss, where it’s folly to be wise. If people come and plant their weed on your doorsteps, you will stumble on it. Bam, people who are minding their own damn business, find themselves in the middle of trouble. Especially for the young people, allow us to enjoy our ignorance, Mr. Coast Guard, allow us to enjoy our ignorance, Mr. Police, advise the drug runners to use the isolated areas of the coastline and clandestine runways in the forest to move their stuff. Let them invent submarines, like those brothers down south, to move what the American elite wants. Please, not on our doorsteps.