CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
2001 – Give It To Me
There were a few days left until I was set to head back to New York. Mundo was off the clock again, and we were making plans for a few final excursions. Doe really wanted to get us out to el monte.
“Your birthday’s in, like, two weeks,” he reminded me. “Let’s do an early celebration with a day at Rio Pacora.”
Rio Pacora was about an hour and a half away from Mundo’s apartment- a big part of that time spent on muddy roads no bigger than a donkey cart track. The weather was perfect the Saturday before my departure, so we grabbed a bunch of cousins, a few girls, a caravan of Jeeps, and headed out to the countryside with a portable CD player boombox and a huge picnic that Tío Bolo’s housekeeper had made up for us. We picked up a couple of bottles of rum, a case of Coca-Cola and planned to score some chirrisco once we got deeper into the bush.
By the time we got to the river bank, with bags and bottles and boombox and basket, there were a few other parties going on, but ours was the biggest.
The cousins set themselves to blowing up inflatable rafts and assembling a portable badminton set.
I grabbed the boombox from Doe, popped in a Jay Z CD and cranked up “I Just Wanna Love U.”
It’s about to go down.
The girls started dancing.
Doe, busy pouring rum and cokes into plastic cups, looked over at me and gave me two thumbs up.
Brooklyn’s in the house.
One of the girls broke off from the dance party and started unpacking the picnic basket. It was almost lunchtime and people were starting to feel it.
As if on cue, a posse of locals appeared from nowhere, offering their services. The women could cook up fried chicken and gravy, made to order, served with big bowls of white rice and pitchers of fresh squeezed chicha de maracuyá. The men had long stalks of red sugar cane, sticky buds of weed, and more chirrisco. Kids volunteered to hunt for mangos and ginepas. Mundo said yes to all of it. He stepped away with them to handle the financial aspects of the transaction.
I smiled to myself. I was about to turn twenty-seven, with one foot in America and one foot in the Caribbean. Half in the game and heading to grad school. Almost like a civilian.
Life was good.
Mundo rejoined the party fairly quickly. He came over to me, grabbed me in a headlock and said, “Happy birthday, bro! Let’s go swimming!” He and I changed into board shorts. The girls were already wearing bikinis under their sundresses. The cousins all stripped down to their boxers.
I tossed my t-shirt and sweatpants onto the ground without a second thought, ran towards the river and jumped in. We all played around in the water for about an hour, while the ladies cooked and the men and kids all straggled back with their various goods and services.
I was starting to get really hungry so I decided to go see what we had in the picnic basket. I got out of the water, toweled off and grabbed my sweat pants.
And then.
I realized.
Oh HELLLLLLLLLL no.
My fucking wallet was missing.
Why I’d brought my wallet with me was a mystery. I knew better that to pull a rookie move like that. But Panama had me slipping- I was too relaxed. Completely off my game.
“Yo, Mundo!” I called to Doe, who was still chilling in the river. He had one of the girls on his shoulders, about to toss her into the water. He looked towards me and I waved at him to come over.
He got out and ran towards me.
“What’s up?” He could see the look on my face. I was heated.
“Yo. I am a fucking moron,” I said. “I fucking brought my wallet with me and someone took it from my sweats while we were swimming. It had fifty bucks US, a handful of balboa and my driver’s license.”
“Fuuuuuuck,” Doe said softly.
“The fuck is my problem? I need to get my shit together,” I berated myself.
“’Brón, you’re on vacation. It’s your birthday. Don’t sweat it. We’ll get it back. Just stay here for a minute.”
Doe walked in the direction of where the Jeeps were parked and returned a few minutes later. A shiny, new machete was gripped in his right fist, blade pointed down and held close to his leg.
It’s about to go down.
I stood watching as he walked over to a group of guys in their late teens, early twenties, positioned slightly outside of the rest of the activity. His back was towards me, so I couldn’t really tell what he said to them.
Give it to me. But don’t bullshit me.
Within seconds, one of the guys took off running, came back exactly 2 minutes later and handed my wallet over. Doe took it from the kid, lightly brandished the machete and sent the group scattering.
He walked back to me, shaking his head. When I checked my wallet, all of my money was there, and so was my driver’s license.
I guess Mundo still had a little bit of Brooklyn left inside of him.
My brother.
