Oligarch Gets In My Way

He wants to hide and I want Viagra

This Ukrainian war rage thing was about to get me killed. I was visiting Cabo San Jose, thinking about lunch and getting a cold beer, then off to get my years supply of Viagra.

My beer was cold enough to drink without freezing my throat, and Jenny’s Mai Tai left her with a glow only the afternoon sun would match.

“Okay, no more than an hour. I don’t trust you not to find trouble,” Jenny said. I made a promise I would not find trouble. A promise easily made when considering we are in Mexico, and every black suburban is accompanied by a black humvee. Not a pairing with which to show off your road rage.

For the uninitiated, a Mexican humvee is a monster assault vehicle, generally filled with eight or ten hooded men sitting on benches in the open back, wearing dark uniforms, and carrying an array of visually daunting weaponry. Extremely intimidating to a wandering tourist.

(For those living in California, a humvee is that big truck rich people use to drive on pea gravel.)

I kissed Jenny’s cheek, and set off toward San Jose downtown square, seeing the flag of Mexico swirling proudly in the breeze, a flag bigger than my first home. I never saw a flag that big before.

I started out to cross the street, stepped off the curb, took about two steps, looked up, and noticed the light wasn’t green. It wasn’t yellow. It wasn’t red. It wasn’t working.

I’m not sure where the heat of the sun went as darkness suddenly descended. You know, kind of like when a city bus passes you on the sunny side of the street.

There was very little good news for me in the next minute or two. I saw myself in a lead column of the Cabo Gazette!

It was difficult to come up with a comment about my current situation. It’s like doing it again with an ex girlfriend and you know you need to pull your dick out before you get into a whole lot of big trouble.

Automatic weapons are pointed directly at me. I choose to say nothing, nothing cannot be quoted should I plead guilty in a Mexican court before being buried without my head in the badlands.

Really? I’m thinking. This much trouble trying to buy Viagra?

Seconds are slamming past, people stopped and stared. Am I wanted in Mexico? It occurs to me I could commit suicide right this second, just turn my back and run. I’ll be dead before I reached the curb.

The thing is, I’d recently become a grandfather. Not that the hooded men would care, but It might be worth a try.

Then one of the hooded man, perhaps the executioner, stepped down from the truck. I don’t know why my brain does this, but I was looking at the size of his boots. Last time I saw a boot so heavy, the man in them was a deep sea diver, heading down to weld a fracture on the foot of an oil rig in the North Sea.

“Doc u mentos.” He spat out.

Now, listen, I was a little rattled.

“No, sir, no need doctor. I no see light,” I said in my best Spanish. “Sorry, me no loco!” I argued.

“Doc u mentos, inmediatamente!”

Okay, okay, now he sounds pissed. My head will be found in a month’s time by a couple of nomads on a Harley and sent home to Jenny. Unpickled.

I figure he isn’t asking if I need a doctor this time, only because he is holding out his hand.

“ Documents, why didn’t you say,” I replied. Then dug around in my shorts for a passport and came up with a vaccination card. Do you notice when someone is unimpressed, their facial responses cross over the language barrier.

“I give it to him.” The vaccination card, I mean.

“No good!” And I think he’s about to rifle butt me in the head when a voice calls out.

“Harry, what the hell! What is going on?”

The line of men in the truck bring their weapons to bare on my wife.

“Wait a fucking minute, bozos. This is my wife, look, marriage ring,” I said holding up my finger and pointing it out just as a procession of black Suburban's pass by, lights flashing, soldiers front and rear.

The hooded man handed back my vaccination certificate and got aboard the truck, which spun around, tires screeching and chased after the procession, hooded men leaning one way, then the other.

My heart began to slow down. My breathing flattened out to something close to normal.

“Ten minutes, ten minutes and you’re held at gunpoint! What in the hell is wrong with you, Harry?”

Isn’t it odd how you find yourself in certain situations and there is no way to explain a way out of it.

“I was crossing the road to get a years supply of Viagra,” I said, hoping she would be lenient, having her satisfaction in mind.

“And before I knew it, the police were on me. I think I stepped out when I shouldn’t, but the lights aren’t working,” I said, looking up and seeing a light glowing green! My luck!

“They weren’t police, Harry. They were security. It’s in all the papers.”

“I can’t read Spanish!”

“I read it to you over breakfast, ‘that’s interesting,’ you said. Do you never remember anything I tell you?”

“I remembered the year’s supply of Viagra!”

“Of which I made no mention, Harry”

“Good heavens, I’m obviously reading minds.”

“If you were good at that, you’d be really afraid right now,” she said. Historically, I have reason to believe her.

I figure this is a good time to be reminded about what I’d forgotten.

“That super yacht, the La Datcha, the one you pointed out to me last evening, you remember that, right? The one coming into Cabo San Lucas?”

“Yes.”

“Well it belongs to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Tinkov. That was his motor procession. The one I told you was coming to Cabo San Jose around noon, and to expect road blocks, like the one you just attempted to cross!”

“I needed my Viagra, honey.”

“Harry, you need your bloody head tested!”

“Maybe. But here’s the good news, I’ll be keeping hold of the Jenny Wren! How cool is that?”

Jenny turns away, forgetting to grab my hand.

“What about my Viagra?”

Hmmm, she’s not turning around. I think she must prefer my softer side.