Stampede Warning

Well, we’re about to get festivalled, and all the indications are that it will be bad.

The Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián (sometimes nicknamed SanSe) as we know them today started out life in 1970 with 30 people in attendance, and it was charming, quaint, picturesque. Now? It’s an impending disaster.

The day-time stuff is not so bad—there are lots of artisans selling their wares, and some of it can be very fine. Puerto Rico has a nice tradition of carving santos de palo—here’s a nice example….

Then there’s the silkscreen art, of which Puerto Rico has a long and proud tradition. There’s music, too, at least in the eyes—or ears—of everybody but me.

So what’s the problem?

Well, the festival that started out so sweetly got highjacked by the beer companies, and the whole affair, at night, becomes extremely crowded, loud, and chaotic.

Emphasis on the chaotic: if you lifted your feet, you’d still be moving. It’s an annual experiment of turning a colonial small town into an anthill.

And last year, how many people crammed into Old San Juan, which is about seven streets by five streets? Half a million. And how many left? 499,999—since one guy got killed for the outrageous crime of bumping into someone. A fight ensued, and honor dictated that the matter be settled thus.

Enter the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, who announced extreme security for this year’s event, at which 600,000 people are expected to attend. And extreme it is—the event will require passing through a checkpoint, presumably with metal detectors. Oh, and backpacks will be checked.

In fact, what the mayor has done is to erect barricades everywhere—as I write, I and every other sanjuanero is in a cage. Nor are the barricades a flimsy affair—suggestions at crowd control. Have a look:

Oh, and to add more insult to the situation, stages have been erected in all parts of the city, so that everyone can be blasted equally.

“Leave town,” said my brother Eric, “that’s what we did for Mardi Gras…”

We did last year, and had planned to do so this year. Then two things happened: Raf’s adored cat requires a special diet, and also requires Raf to be there encouraging him to eat. I know—it’s crazy: we’re animal people.

And now Raf is in bed, suffering from a humongous cold. Or maybe it’s the flu—who knows? And in the meantime?

The refrigerator decided to die….

The festival will last four days, unless of course what I greatly fear happens.

I think we’re gonna have a stampede.

Notes From a Timid Man

There is, apparently, a misconception going on about me, if I read the reviews correctly of the people who have read Iguanas. “Moving and brave,” says one reviewer; “a story of great love and courage,” says another.

Wrong.

That was desperation, those months in spring of 2010, when I / we figured out what we were going to do with “old Mother,” as Franny deprecatingly called herself. And it was easy to be courageous around her—if she could do it, how could I not? And no, writing the book was also not brave—it was just a purging, in a way.

“Courage is knowing what to do in a dangerous situation,” Harry once told me—and he should know. He’s a philosopher; he’s told me a million times what the Platonic forms are (even now, I’ve only a muddled idea); this definition was some Ancient Greek’s, perhaps Plato himself.

OK—so let me tell you how dangerous the situation is.

Three weeks ago, a couple hundred thousand drunks decided to invade my neighborhood in order to progress to greater levels of inebriety, hear noise and make still more, as well as to expel body fluids in forbidden places. They called this Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián.

And one of the body fluids was blood. Yes, a man bumped into another man, an argument ensued, and the bumper ended up shot, with two different guns, and left dead on the pavement. The killer(s) logically left the scene, the mood of the crowd became a bit dampened, people whipped out their cell phones and took pictures to tweet and facebook. What didn’t they do?

Talk to the cops.

Yes, the “festival” was weeks ago, and no—nobody’s been arrested. People are afraid of retaliation.

Not convinced?

OK—there is a lovely town in the southwest of Puerto Rico. It’s historic; both Raf and I think it’s the second oldest town on the island. And the people there are gentle, sweet. Once, when Raf and I were looking at (and exclaiming over) a wonderful old house, the owner hailed us, brought us in, gave us a tour, and then made us coffee.

Welcome to San Germán!

Where there was a little basketball game that turned bad. Very bad. One player fouled another player, a discussion ensued, and the guy who had been fouled walked to his car, opened it, took out his gun, and killed the guy who had fouled.

Guys? A little tip, here. It’s a game, got it? Not something to shed blood for.

But there’s a lot of blood shed around here. Consider this…

About one in thirty murders in the United States occur in Puerto Rico. Compared to California—which has 11% of the population—we have about half as many murders. But our population is 1.19% of the US population.

Or this. New York City has three times the population of Puerto Rico and half the number of murders.

“So I can read those names, right?”

I was busy seeking free legal advice from my brother—hey, didn’t I nurse Franny all those weeks? I think of it often: my finest hour as a nurse, though the patient did die…. 

“Just a sec, I gotta take this call,” he said.

I felt a bit bad for him. He had been on a conference call earlier; he keeps getting interrupted by affairs oddly more important that mine; he has not so much taken a vacation as moved his practice to Mexico, which is where I have tracked him down.

“Everybody thinks I’m crazy, but I’d think strongly about it.”

In legal terms, that means “no.”

I’ve told him the plan. Thirty thousand people die of gun shot wounds every year. I want to wake up every morning, take a público (the minivan that gets the un-carred around the island—eventually) to a different town, set up my video camera on the tripod, sit in the plaza and read 100 names. This I will do for three hundred days. And around about the time Christmas is running in, I’ll be done. Hopefully, people will come by, ask questions, tell their stories. Lots of material for the blog, and I can also stick the footage on YouTube, where it will instantly turn viral—who can resist a mad gringo running around Puerto Rico reading thirty thousand names! Wow!

I was, of course, filled with excitement—as fervid as I was when I announced the plan to the CEO of Wal-Mart Puerto Rico to get the annual bonus. Just build an extra supercenter and Sam’s club, and don’t tell Bentonville. See? Thinking outside and OF the box!

My question to Johnny—who was probably salivating for a golf course—was whether I could use the names of actual victims that I had found on a website. The names had been submitted by the mourning families—to me it was public record, or implied consent, or something, but what do I know? This is why I have a lawyer brother—though he may not see it quite that way….

Well, Johnny had a reaction essentially similar to the CEO’s.

“You know, it’s possible that one member of the family put the name of the victim on the site and it was really another member of the family who shot the victim by accident and that guy is a member of the NRA so he goes running to them and they file a lawsuit and they’ve got bigger pockets than you, pal!”

Right, it’s also possible that the pope is conducting satanic masses in the basement of St. Paul’s Basilica.

Well, we agreed—if I use those names, I’ll first put all my money (about 300 bucks) in a Swiss numbered account.

“You know, I just can’t stand bullies and bastards getting away with it,” I said.

You know of whom I was speaking….

“I have only a voice,” I thought today, on the trot. And then wondered—where’s that from? Feels like a poem or something. Well I googled it, and couldn’t find it. But I did find a little gem, with which I leave you.  
  

Making Amends

By Allison Grayhurst

The night is caught

like a mouse’s tail caught

between a cat’s shining teeth.

  Once I believed in recognition

and the glory of making a name.

Now it’s only time before me,

and the ashes of my loved one.

  The world and its shallow passions

is not a place to put my hopes in,

is only the grand flame of ‘me’

and my short span.

  Loving a child is what matters.

No words, no pat-on-the-back,

no cry out for justice or the soft sniffles

of fickle brilliance.

  Soon I will join a tree or even a flower.

The sloping roof with the snow on top -

that is stillness.

  The wind pushes its way under my door

like a maddened bird.

I have no ambitions. I have only a voice

that must continue its singing.

Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

(Poem reproduced here with written consent from the author.)

Three-Quarters of a Million Minus One

Well, it was a wonderful little festival. Had everything: what most people call music, warm beer, enforced physical proximity to your fellow drunk.

Even had a murder!

Nobody quite knows what happened, and the incident wasn’t filmed. The New Day, reaching into lyricism, announced that the victim, who had no criminal past, had bumped into his executioner (tropezó con su opresor, and thanks, Mr. Fernández for that translation…). Then hundreds of people took photos of the corpse, and stuck them on Facebook and Twitter.

This was the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián in its 2013 reincarnation. And no, the half-million people didn’t show.

It was three-quarters of a million.

At least half of whom were in front of us, after we had coaxed a cab driver to drive us home. Initially, she had refused. How much money could we pay her to drive into that insanity?

Not as much as we had.

Right, we said. So take us to the train station, and we’ll grab a bus home.

The train station occupies a large city block. The crowd had entirely circled the station. Fights were breaking out, the riot police were there, but bottles were still being thrown at the buses.

So the driver had a dilemma. Take us home or abandon us to our fates.

Fortunately, she was a nice—and very funny—woman.

Nor was it bad, until we reached the capitol. We then encountered the half of three-quarters of a million people who were ahead of us in their horn-blaring cars.

We spent over half an hour going one city block.

Until we were met with the cops, who had blocked off the intersecting street, and were telling everyone to turn around and go home again.

And what were people doing?

Getting out of their cars and arguing with the police.

As did our cab driver. She had a little plan to get us into the city, park her taxi at the taxi stand, have a cold beer and a cigarette—richly deserved, both. Instead, she spent fifteen minutes futilely—and erroneously—arguing that she had tourists going to the cruise ship. (There were—the goat that calms the cup or la gota que colmó la copa—two enormous cruise ships in town as well…).

Nor was she alone. EVERYONE was out of their cars, arguing with the police. And we have a facility, down here under the Latin sun, for argument. We do it with passion. And also, of course, with no little amount of body language. Actually, any brisk discussion usually cancels the need to go to the gym that day—you’ve done your aerobics already.

Well, was I going to miss out? Of course not! How often to I get the chance to play the tourist? So I got out of the taxi and looked confused (never difficult for me) and addressed the cop in English.

Me—“Is something the matter, officer?”

Officer looked away!

Well, look, their job is hard enough, sorting through the thousand-plus murders that get committed every year. Speaking English is a trifle….

You’ll have guessed the end of the story. If that taxi driver ever got that cold Heineken and cigarette, it wasn’t at the Sheraton. We walked in, carrying the six bottles of Scotch that one of us had to buy (hey, duty free!), just as did most of the three quarters festivants (well, computer, what do you call people who go to a festival? Bring me the solution, not the problem, dammit!)

It was—predictably—an unqualified mess. Calls are being made to cancel the festival. Other calls are being made to spread it out. This is a map of the old city.

Putting so many people who have drunk so much beer into so small an area is madness. The miracle is that the situation hasn’t turned bad—or much worse—before.

So here’s my idea. Spread the artisans across the city, in every available plaza. But have the music and the other “cultural” events at the Escambrón, in the evening. It’s got a huge open lawn roughly the size of Central Park’s. It’s got a big parking lot for the buses that will be the ONLY way to access the event (residents with stickers excepted).

Get everybody out of the old city and let my people sleep.

Half a Million Minus Two

That’s how many people are going to try to stuff themselves into an eight-block by four-block, fragile, historic, abused-and-still-lovely city.

You can guess who the minus two are….

It might have been the empty rum bottle that got launched at Mr. Fernández, that early morning last year. Granted he was screaming, but so were they. (Now that Franny’s not stirring about, can I get away with saying “well, they started it first?” Or will I get a celestial response on the lines of “well, if everybody jumped out the window….”) Or perhaps it’s the sight of body fluids you really don’t want to see or—especially—smell. And there is something nice about sleep.

The half-million will be celebrating Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, a charming and also terrible festival that occurs every year at the end of January.

How can it be both charming and terrible?

It’s really two festivals. The first takes place during the day; families come out, stroll through the streets, buy artisan pieces, enjoy the weather.

After dark, it gets considerably edgier. To me, over-the-edgier. Imagine a crowd of people in which a new form of involuntary locomotion gets invented. I tried it once—I lifted my feet, and was carried by the crowd.

And no, it was not relaxing.

Add into this mix “music” at very high volumes. Then a collective blood alcohol level of at least .25. Plus, some idiot dreamed up this stupid horn (called something like “zarzuela”, but it’s not) that is way loud, and guess who has one outside of my door?

Very good—everyone.

It was all dreamed up quite recently in 1970 by a charming old lady, doña Rafaela Valladares, who thought it would be nice to help the artisans, get the neighbors together, raise a little money, and extend Christmas (which hardly needs it). Well, it took off, since Puerto Ricans never need to be urged to party harder. Party is something we do in Puerto Rico.

And there are good things about the Fiestas. You can see cabezudos like this:

Or how about the vejigantes?

Remember when the teacher left the room? That’s how the evening starts out. As  the night goes on and the drunkenness goes up, it turns into a stampede just about to happen. You definitely have to be young to endure it.

Oh, and by the way—thanks for asking—the bottle missed.

But why stick around for the next one?