The Crustiest Old Men in Puerto Rico

They were, with only one exception, the crustiest old men in Puerto Rico.

And believe me—I can tell you. I’ve spent twenty years with these men, these irascible, taciturn (except when provoked, which is almost constantly), grumpy relics of a tradition gone by.

Los choferes de carros públicos they’re called. But don’t imagine that a chofer has anything to do with its cognate, a chauffeur.

OK—the driver (chofer) will be at least 70. He will remember days gone by, when he made three, four, five trips to from Ponce to San Juan (65 miles each way…). His car—most often a minivan—would have had eighteen people maximum.

Oh, and also minimum. Because he didn’t leave until the van was full.

Not a problem if you don’t have a boss with a stopwatch waiting for you.

And if you did?

Well, then you had to get up early, didn’t you?

Well, the people up in the mountains do. Four in the morning. That’s when the chickens start clucking and making sleep impossible. Also when the first públicos leave.

Sensible, really. Why should you be sleeping if the chickens aren’t? And besides, it’s cooler at 4AM. Which is nice, because none of the públicos has air conditioning.

What, air conditioning? When the price of gasoline is near a dollar a liter? (About 4 dollars a gallon….)

But if you are late for work—say, 6AM and expected by 8AM—well, you may have a problem. There are 17 of you in a minivan. It is six-thirty, then seven.

And no one is coming.

Or has come for the last twenty minutes. 

So you wait.

The driver, in the meantime, is enjoying cooling breezes and hot coffee. Also busily pretending that the van of which he is the owner / driver…

…doesn’t exist.

Not bad. But imagine August, or July—which it currently is. Also imagine the humidity—it has rained enough to humidify, but not to cool.

Instantly, on seeing the first drop of rain, everybody will close the windows. 

Why? The windows open out an inch at the bottom—it’s virtually impossible for anything but hurricane band torrents to enter.

But there’s this thing. In Puerto Rican eyes, rain means cold.

Oh, also monga.

OK, not bad, for the first twenty minutes or so. And very fortunately, the 15 co-passengers have practiced excellent hygiene. Only the 16^th has not….

…and he’s sitting next to you!

Tempers fray. People get restless. At last someone calls out—“¡Que nos vayamos! ¡Estamos asfixia’os!” Literally, we're asphyxiating.

The chofer turns the page—he’s on Sports now…. He lights a cigarette. Or goes to get more coffee.

At last, the miracle arrives: the last passenger that can be stuffed into the van. A cheerful guy!

All three-hundred pounds of him.

Oh, and there’s a hitch.

He has a twenty.

Instantly, the chofer who is absolutely not a chauffeur flies off the handle. What? A twenty? Impossible, he can’t change a twenty.

They have this rule, you see.

Nor does the three-hundred-pounder do the sensible thing—go to the same coffee shop and change the bill. Arguing with a chofer is like arguing with a cat.

What, and miss an argument?

The hands are raised, the voices are raised. The chofer walks away in disgust, only to come back and resume the diatribe.

Spectator sports! For the van has now erupted into commentary, laughter, catcalls, encouragement, and fierce partisan side taking.

Invariably, it will be witty. Always, someone will have a mordent sense of humor, dissect the situation, provide the comedy and the backstory.

It’s now 7:30. Remember that boss?

At last, the argument will be resolved. The chofer will agree—¡esta vez solamente!!—to change the bill. Or a passenger will change it for him. The three-hundred-pounder will attempt—catch that verb?—to enter the van.

The vans—as you may know—have two doors, each opening the opposite direction.

But the chofer NEVER opens the other door.

Another little rule….

Which means the three-hundred-pounder is coming in…

…sideways.

Oh, and the empty “seat?” It’s in the very back of the van, an area very justly called la cocina.

The kitchen….

There’s no way the guy is gonna make it.

So he does the sensible thing. He waits for someone to move.

And nobody wants to go there.

Resolution?

Well, there’s a crazy gringo who has decided to sit in the front row of seats.

And who needs to get to work….

And of course, the gringo has a problem. No, not three-hundred pounds, but…

A height of 6’3”.

Which means that he looks like a string bean imitating a football player in a tackle.

Well, it’s an experience. And it taught me a lot.

Spanish, for one thing.

It taught me how amazingly resilient and patient Puerto Ricans can be.

Also how funny….

And it gave me time to reflect, as I did this morning, on days gone by, and how so much has changed.

I had gotten up, taken my walk, and then left to take the público down to Ponce. And why wake up at 4 to do that? So I sat for an hour in the plaza talking to Tico. We had the driver (that’s Tico). We had the van.

We didn’t have the 17 others.

And Tico had made no trips yesterday.

Also none as of today.

So I waited an hour, and talked to Tico, and learned that his father had been a chofer for fifty years. The fare was 3 dollars then. Times had changed. Everybody has a car now.

Then Tico moved off. I sat and waited.

And into my mind popped…

…JackDelano!

I met him only once—but he was our own Eisenstaedt / Dorothea Lange / Ansel Adams. Came to Puerto Rico in the 40’s, under the same project as Eisenstaedt. Went everywhere, just as the others did, and took amazing photos.

I could have waited, but both Tico and I were tired. And hot. So he went home, I went home, and, still curious, looked up Delano. Knew he was good, but didn’t know how good.

He’s major league.

Malaria poster in small hotel, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Jack Delano, December, 1941. Image courtesy of  Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Delano)

Jack Delano in his studio. Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, 1990. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Delano)