Avoiding Prison & Other Noble Vacation Goals (23 page)

Nevertheless, I was determined to get Francisco out on bail. His ex-wife, Laura, had made him out to be some stranger who had stolen her car, but I wanted to show that they lived together for two years, that Francisco was a responsible, well-off family man who had no need to go around stealing automobiles.

Francisco did not make the job easier. I would pry him for information at every visit and he would give me vague leads, often remembering someone's first name or the neighborhood where the person lived, but he couldn't recall last names or addresses.

At least he could recall his previous address—I figured his former neighbors would provide good references. Better yet, I learned that one of them had notarized the bill of sale when Francisco originally purchased the car. Her testimony alone would be an incredible plus. She was an attorney, she had firsthand knowledge of the fact that Francisco and Laura were not mere acquaintances (as a neighbor, she watched them walk out of the same apartment building every morning), and she would remember that Francisco, not Laura, had been the one to purchase the car in the first place. There was just one problem—for the life of him, Francisco could not remember her name. But he gave me the address: “From the gas station in Rohrmoser, take a right, go three blocks, make another right, and it's the last building at the end of the street, a white gated complex with a guard standing outside.”

With the help of several friendly strangers and two cooperative bus drivers, I finally found the gas station. Wandering through the streets of what had once been Francisco's neighborhood, I couldn't help but get some sense of the frustration he must be feeling at all that he had lost. He had had a job, a nice apartment in a good part of town. Eventually he had even owned his own business transporting tourists to the beach. They'd had two cars, a daughter, a life together. Four years later, this was what it had degenerated into: his ex pressing charges against him. Out of bitterness, vengeance, or greed, she claimed they had never had any relationship—“an acquaintance” was the way she referred to him. “I am not married to him or anything of that nature.” And her declaration had landed Francisco into prison. This was what love had turned into, I thought, suddenly getting cheered up tremendously—after all, up until that point I thought
I
had ended my past relationships badly.

I found the building where Francisco used to live and did my best to explain to the guard the purpose of my visit: I was there to see a guest whose name I did not know. No, I did not have the number of her apartment, but I was sure she lived in one of the eighteen units.

This was good enough for him. His advice was to go door to door until I found the person I needed, which seemed like a reasonable enough plan.

As I entered the complex, I thought it was pretty ironic that all of the units were numbered. After all, the building didn't have an address and the street didn't have a name. I imagined the complications of living there, trying to write out your address on any official form: “From the gas station in Rohrmoser, it's five blocks, a white gated complex with a guard standing outside.” And then you'd add: “Apartment 5.”

The apartments were pretty much identical. I walked through the gate and knocked on the first door.

“Hi, is your mom home?” I asked the little girl who opened the door.

“No, she's working today. Do you want to talk to Jimena?”

“Jimena? I don't know. Is Jimena a lawyer?”

“No.”

“Is your mom a lawyer?”

“No. She's a seamstress.”

Okay, so it wasn't the most complex detective work, but at least kids could always be counted on to tell you the truth. I thanked the little girl and kept up my search.

At the next three apartments, there wasn't much to do—no one seemed to be home. Finally, at Door Number 5, a woman in curlers greeted me.

“I'm trying to find a lawyer . . .” I began.

“I'm a lawyer.”

“Oh, do you know a man named Francisco? He lived here with his wife, Laura. They had a little girl.”

“I've only been here for a year and a half.”

The only other person in the unit to open the door was an elderly man in his seventies who had no information.

“Come back after six,” the guard helpfully advised me as I glumly walked through the gate. “Everyone should be home by then.”

Living with the territorial rules that governed prison life, conveniently enough Francisco and I had become friends with an alpha male. Daniel was a Cali cartel drug smuggler who had taken to us, and he and his wife always insisted we share their seating area and their lunch. Not ones to refuse the hospitality of anyone in regular contact with drug kingpins and hit men, Francisco and I would gingerly take their food, feeling much like the insecure kids in high school intimidated into inhaling as the bong got passed around.

“Come on, everyone is taking some,” the large Colombian would insist, brandishing a huge piece of chicken. “Just try it. You'll like it.”

Sure enough, we did. But chicken was just the beginning. Nancy Reagan was right (or was it Frito-Lay?):You couldn't take just one. Next came the thighs and legs and drumsticks. Then it was on to potatoes, rice, and cake. Nibbling on a cookie, I suddenly understood what parents needed to do to get their scrawny kids to eat—forget telling them about poor starving African children. Tell them about the poor Americans forced to eat under the pressure of the Cali drug cartel. (“There are people in Central American prisons who don't get to choose what to eat. They have to eat whatever the drug kingpins offer them—or else! Now be a good girl and just take a few more bites.”)

In spite of this new strain on my gallbladder-deprived gastrointestinal channels, this new friendship ensured us a spot by the wall, the most coveted area on prison visiting days. Daniel and his wife would always call out to us, “Over here, guys! Come on, take a seat,” and Francisco and I would obediently march over and squeeze onto the twin mattress they had laid down on the concrete floor.

Because Colombians were both feared and hated, their tight-knit group sheltered Francisco as a result of his nationality. And the fact that I was an American protected him as well.

We had become a celebrity couple of sorts at La Reforma. It was a mystery to everyone how a tall, blue-eyed
gringa
with the world at her feet who lived at Disneyland in a golden house ten miles away from the Statue of Liberty (this was how most Latinos I came across viewed Americans) would choose to spend her time in a prison, in love with a poor Latino. After all, these were Colombians—the only Americans they'd ever met in the flesh had been DEA agents.

At every visit, at least one starstruck prisoner would gingerly trek over to us to find out if I really was from the United States, and with great ceremony he'd extend his hand for me to shake. My role had grown bigger than me—I was like a young Evita Perón suddenly forced out unprepared onto the balcony.

“Uniting the north with the south,” Francisco would dramatically add, as if our lust were doing two whole continents a favor. “She is from the United States. I am from Colombia. As nations, we are politically at odds with each other. As individuals, we are in love.”

We were friendly with everyone but the Costa Rican
basuqueros,
the drug addicts who smoked an unrefined version of cocaine, supposedly worse for you than crack.

“Stay away from him,” Daniel cautioned me one day, pointing to a scruffy-looking guy with long hair and a beard who stumbled erratically across the room. Daniel paused for emphasis, making sure I understood the gravity of what he was about to say. “He does drugs!”

I couldn't help but note the irony of the situation. “Francisco,” I whispered, “isn't Daniel the one who got caught with five hundred kilos of cocaine?”

“Yeah.”

“So, why is he warning me against guys who do drugs?”

“Wendy, Daniel
sells
drugs. He doesn't
take
them.”

Francisco didn't find this at all odd and apparently neither did any of the other Colombians. Selling drugs to them was no big deal, just an astute business investment. But taking drugs—you might as well admit to stealing small babies and chopping them up in a blender.

In between prison visits, nothing was going right. As part of my ongoing private detective campaign, I'd made two more trips to Francisco's old apartment building and had finally tracked down the attorney I'd been seeking, but she had been cold and irritated, explaining that she just didn't have time to get involved.

I'd also had a considerable number of meetings with a lawyer at the Colombian embassy who was constantly friendly and willing to see me, but who'd merely look at me with a considerable amount of amusement, as if I were going to tell him at any minute that I was just kidding. “Gotcha! I'm not really going out with a man at a prison.” He also didn't offer much help—he expected me to update him on the progress of Francisco's case, not the other way around.

Another strategy I was pursuing was trying to get my journalist's credentials, figuring I could always use the press to sway Francisco's cause. I had been undergoing a significant amount of paperwork at the Colegio de Periodistas, but each time I went in to check on the progress of my file, the staff members requested one more new document, and it didn't seem like they'd ever get around to issuing me a press pass.

Even worse was the deterioration of my friendship with Jessica. Months earlier back in Los Angeles, Francisco had needed five hundred dollars to switch attorneys, so I had sent a money order to Jessica, figuring she would make the necessary arrangements. After all, sending funds directly to prison wasn't the wisest or most practical idea. (I could just imagine the DHL guy arriving at the prison gate: “Delivery for Mr. Sánchez. I'll need a signature please.”)

What I had recently learned from Francisco's lawyer was that Jessica had given him only half of the money and kept $250 for herself.

When I questioned her about it, she had a reasonable explanation: “You can't give the lawyer his fee all at once. If you do, he won't do anything.” I couldn't imagine our attorney doing anything less, but I heard her out anyway. “You give him the other half at the end when the case is over.”

This made sense. “Well, would you mind giving me the rest of the money? Now that I'm here, I might as well keep the funds in my own account.”

She stalled for a minute. “Sure, I'll get it to you on Friday.”

Friday came and Jessica provided some excuse. Then next Friday came and then the next. Three weeks later, furious and frustrated, I finally marched up to her office and confronted her. “You spent it, didn't you?”

She didn't answer—but she didn't have to. I was so full of rage by this point that I no longer even knew who was to blame. I was sick of lawyers. I was sick of the legal system. I was sick of bullshit. I was sick of lies. But most of all, I was sick of this country that was so full of crap.

“Fuck Costa Rica!” I said and gave her door one final slam behind me.

Chapter Seven

Love in the Time of Papalomoyo

Luck chooses strange moments. It can strike quite innocently one day when you're sitting on the couch eating a Zero bar while watching a rerun of Charlie's Angels. It can happen walking through the forest, skipping down the street, or even on those days when you're stuck at home amusing yourself by staring at the wall (a good thing for us writers who put great stock in wall watching). Luck's arrival is unpredictable, arbitrary—just because good fortune decides to show up one time is no guarantee that it will choose that same set of circumstances again—which is a good thing. Because luck decided to step in one day while my boyfriend was imprisoned in top security, accused of a crime he didn't commit, and I really had no desire to repeat that particular experience.

Had I known where I was going to run into good fortune when I woke up that morning, I'm not sure I would have bothered. I had an address, but it was, after all, a Costa Rican address.

This time, based on Heather's information (my sister was spending her summer as an intern at the Organization of American States), I was led to CODEHUCA, a human rights organization in San José. The guard outside opened the gate and I made my way to reception, where I was informed by a polite secretary that I had arrived at the
institute
for human rights and not the
commission.
Where was the commission located? From the restaurant Spoon, one hundred meters west, then twenty-five meters east. I asked why not go just seventy-five meters west, but she just shrugged her shoulders and told me that was the address she had.

I managed to arrive with the help of a taxi, a compass, and a lot of luck. I got out of the cab and stared at the human rights organization in front of me and realized with some dismay that I was staring at the
court,
not the
commission.

A guard instructed me to “go up the hill, make a right, go straight fifty meters, and it's the third door on the right.”

By the time I arrived, I had forgotten all about my boyfriend in jail and pleaded with the receptionist to do something about all the suffering brought about in trying to find obscure addresses in Costa Rica.

Luckily, she had a sense of humor, and after explaining my rather sticky problem to her, she informed me that the attorney I needed to speak to was in Nicaragua at a conference but if it would make me feel better, I could talk to the legal assistant. I told her what would really make me feel better would be two Valiums and a shot of whiskey, but as it appeared she was freshly out of both, I would settle for whatever it was she was offering.

The legal assistant, Saúl, was not what I expected—which is to say, I was not expecting Saúl. This was not some Costa Rican lawyer who would look me up and down, meet my gaze with a cold grimace, and tell me there was nothing he could do—this was Saúl, someone I had gone to UCLA with.

I was nearly three-thousand miles from home in a small Central American country where I had walked into an obscure office—yet the door I knocked on happened to be opened by a person I knew. The coincidence was mind-blowing.

“What the hell are you doing in Costa Rica?” I asked, still reeling at my good fortune.

After a lot of oh-my-Gods and I-can't-believe-its, he caught me up on what I had missed of his life in the past six years. While I had been busy collecting boyfriends from prisons in Costa Rica, Saúl had been busy collecting degrees, the latest from UCLA's School of Law. Not really that into collecting paychecks, Saúl was now working virtually free for CODEHUCA, trying to do something to change the plight of unfortunates in Third World Central American countries.

We reminisced for a while about old times, gossiping about the friends we had in common, who was sleeping with whom (and who wasn't getting anything whatsoever), and then we got down to business.

“Drinks tonight?”

“You bet. I'll meet you here at five.”

Bonded by liquor, nationality, and a mutual desire to see Francisco get out of prison, Saúl and I quickly became good friends. We had known each other only briefly in college but our bouts of drinking were having the effect of bringing us close fast.

As I ran between embassies, lawyers' offices, and government buildings, I'd look forward to our Fridays out, when we'd go to the university village, huddle together around a small table in one of the student bars, share secrets, and make each other laugh. He was the bright point in my otherwise lonely existence. Now that I was no longer on speaking terms with Jessica, it was such a relief to hang out with someone who knew the whole story of what I was going through, though ironically enough we didn't discuss Francisco all that much. For me, these nights were a time to escape—for a few hours over beer and Costa Rican appetizers, I was just a normal twenty-six year old again.

Our sober hours were spent together at the outdoor produce market eating El Salvadorian
pupusas
and browsing around as I explained to him the names of the strange Costa Rican fruits. This particular habit confused the Costa Ricans terribly because with Saúl being Latino, they figured he was
from
Costa Rica and they wondered why a
gringa
was telling a Costa Rican the names of foods he'd been eating all his life.

However, my platonic affection for Saúl was showing and was making Francisco a bit jealous. After learning that Saúl and I had a standing date for drinks every Friday night, Francisco complained, “Wendy, a man doesn't ask a woman out for drinks because he wants good conversation.”

“Francisco,” I explained patiently, patting him on the hand, “I was the one who asked
him
out for drinks.”

Seeing that Francisco wasn't particularly pleased with this response I added, “Besides, he's not just my drinking buddy; he's your human rights representative.”

There were two possible ways to have sex with someone who was at La Reforma. The first was to pay two dollars to a prisoner to stand on the lookout for any guards while you and your companion went to a secret enclosed area and did the deed hidden behind a sheet. Not wanting to shell out the cash, Francisco and I chose the second option.

To get conjugal visit rights, Francisco had to submit himself to a host of HIV and STD tests while I had to undergo an interrogation by the social worker.

“Name?” the dour-faced woman behind the desk asked me.

“Wendy Dale.”

“Nationality?”

“American.”

“Occupation?”

“Writer. Journalist.”

The woman looked up at me for the first time.

“Journalist?”

“Uh-huh,” I said with a smile, conveniently neglecting to mention that I had been a
celebrity
journalist and that the weightiest news I had ever tackled was an interview for a gay magazine with (straight) actor John Lithgow.

“Do you know why your companion is in prison?” the woman asked me, no emotion registering on her face.

“He was transferred to top security for a prison escape for which there is no proof.”

“I see. And why is it that you are requesting your conjugal visit privileges?”

To have sex, you dummy, I wanted to say. “I would like to be a support to my companion in this difficult time,” I managed to get out with a straight face.

Apparently pleased with my answers, the social worker scheduled our conjugal visit for the following week. There was just one small, insect-sized problem. Its name was
papalomoyo.
As of my first visit to Central America, I had lived in dread of this parasite, which has the nasty habit of imbedding itself in the skin of its host and living there contentedly for an indefinite period of time. It wouldn't have been so bad if the insect had chosen my leg, my arm, or my foot as its new abode, but one week before my scheduled conjugal visit, I began to fear that every time I took a seat, my butt wasn't the only thing I was sitting on. There was a dime-sized swelling on my left cheek that had begun to make sitting and sleeping nearly impossible.

“Looks like
papalomoyo
to me,” Doña Cloti said to me after I had immodestly removed my underwear and allowed her to take a look.

“Lucky insect,” her husband declared, after learning where it had chosen to make its new home.

Not thrilled with the idea of sharing my hindquarters with any creature not of my own species, I decided to take matters into my own hands: I was going to scratch.

“Well, whatever was there isn't there anymore,” the doctor said to me several days later, looking at the quarter-sized hole that remained in my left cheek. “But you have a terrible infection.”

He brought out a mirror and showed me the purple circle I had on my rear, the source of the incredible pain I was feeling. “Give it a couple of weeks. The antibiotics should clear it up by then.”

But I didn't have a couple of weeks. I only had two days to have an insect-free, infection-free bottom.

As it turned out, it was nothing like your typical Hollywood movie love scene. There was no champagne or soft lighting. No orchestra played in the background. The scene was a musty-smelling room containing a stained twin-sized mattress, cockroaches scampering about on the floor. The main characters were one limping American writer and one imprisoned Colombian. The script read: “They embrace.” But in the end, not even a Hollywood film director could have imagined it any better.

Minutes passed. Days passed. Months passed. Francisco had spent eight months in prison, nearly two of them in top security. I had been part of his life for five of those months.

I had used my time to study his case, to learn the legal code, to gather evidence if and when he was going to have a trial. The lawyer had used the time to steadily increase his fee and to constantly remind me that we hadn't any proof.

I spent my Sundays with Francisco, arriving at the prison at six in the morning, waiting in the interminable line of women for the eight o'clock bell that would signal the beginning of entering the gates: prison guards requesting passports, checking lists, inspecting groceries, and performing body searches.

Francisco spent his time reading about famous criminals who had successfully escaped from some of the world's harshest prisons.

And finally, the letter came. Francisco showed it to me at our next Sunday visit.

“They know you're here,” Francisco said to me.

“What do you mean?”

“They know that my girlfriend is an American journalist.”

“And?”

“And so they cleared me of the prison escape charges.”

The letter explained that there was “no irrefutable proof” implicating Francisco in the breakout and that he was to be transferred to minimum security immediately. Francisco was to be given more liberty, including library privileges and an hour outdoors each day.

We celebrated with Coke and potato chips, realizing the long way we had come to end up exactly where we had started from. Francisco was now in the same position as when we had first met: two cases facing him, two trial dates that had yet to be set.

By now, I had gotten used to the bustling scene outside the prison gates. Twice a week, on visiting days, enterprising housewives converted the whole area into an open-air market, hawking tamales, fruit drinks, and sundries such as toilet paper, vegetables, bread, cigarettes, and soda that shoppers could pick up at the last minute to take in to their incarcerated loved ones. However, the heart of all activity had nothing to do with the business transactions going on all around. Rather, it was the lines, the four roped-off rows filled with visitors (nearly always women) that set the stage for what occurred here.

I had learned the hierarchy early on. It wasn't based on power or beauty—it was a happiness hierarchy. Those in the first line,
indiciados,
were there to see men whose fate was still up for grabs, men who hadn't yet been given trials, who still had hope of being declared innocent and set free. Women in this line laughed, complimented each other's clothes, chatted away about their children and their homes, even spread out blankets and had picnics on the dirt.

The next two lines were quieter, filled with women whose husbands had been convicted, lesser offenders in either low or moderate security who were biding their time, waiting day by day for their debt to society to be paid. But the last line,
mediana cerrada,
was unmistakable. No one put on the finishing touches to her makeup or dished out cookies to her friends. This was the smoking line, the line of silent exchanged glances of commiseration, where the only question to be overheard was “How long does he have left?”

It had been my line for the past two months, the place I had waited hours at a time, counting the minutes until I would be allowed in. But today, as I climbed out of my cab and walked toward the handful of women who had already gathered at the roped off area near the entrance, it suddenly hit me how much Francisco's situation had improved. I had gone straight from the misery line to the line of hope.

After my two-hour wait had passed and the women began slowly filing into the prison, I realized that entering La Reforma from now on was going to be significantly less painful. Before, I'd had to go through a passport check, a body frisking, and then a detailed inspection of the bags filled with food I was carrying in with me. After this, I'd cross the prison courtyard, attempting to fend off the inmates who would tail me begging for money, and I'd head over to maximum security to begin the search process again. There they'd keep my passport, take away my keys, and rip apart all of the food I was carrying—squeezing my bread, opening my milk, and invariably confiscating one or two forbidden items such as fruit that fermented too easily or bug spray that was too flammable.

But today as I walked out of the first examination area into the courtyard, Francisco was there waiting for me. I wasn't going to have to go through a second intensive inspection, nor would we spend the next few hours in the dark fetid area of maximum security. We got to roam about outside in an area bigger than a football field, sit in the sunshine, and have a picnic on the grass. What a difference a prison escape charge makes!