I have ridden all the P and each one has its style, its fragrance, its violence. I have seen fights, crazy people doing a striptease in the middle of the accordion, mothers or fathers standing up with their children because nobody gives them a seat, people who help each other, drunks, religious fanatics who give sermons, screaming teenagers, fake physically handicapped people, pickpockets, squeezers and all kinds of characters.
With the big P I have mixed feelings. When they get closer they are both salvation and torment. “Danger zone”, as my aunt says; “plaster zone”, says my neighbor. I don’t know if it’s worse going up or down. As for the schedules, in the mornings people are affable. But after 4 in the afternoon, getting on a P2 is like joining a sea of souls in pain.
The feeling of love-hate that I now profess towards the Ps is similar to the one I experienced in the past for the Ms. That spirit of contradiction approached me in my childhood when I saw the Metrobús approaching —called a camel, due to its particular physiognomy.
My aunt la China would pick me up near the Ciudad Deportiva, where I was on a scholarship at a gymnastics school. She was going to look for me with my cousins to take me the day of the pass to La Coronela, where she lived. The poor thing, she went out with three children under the midday sun to the Cerro y Boyeros stop to wait patiently for the M4.
That camel was for me hope turned into junk, a rolling beast, a war tank, a transistorized steamroller, a Potemkin battleship, a Bramontono 45-A. That rickety green camel was a symbol of freedom and joy; the realized dream of getting out of gymnastics school for a day and a half.
However, when he was close, I was terrified. Boarding the camel seemed almost suicidal. For my cousins and I each trip was a life or death adventure.
When you are a child, everything is perceived differently; urban legends become real and emotions surface in the most unbridled way. We believed that the crowd of people could crush us and we would suffocate to death in the middle door, as they told us happened to a little boy who got on the M5 “and never revived.” We could be victims of a tumultuous fight and end up in pieces. It could even happen that my aunt was picked up and stolen the only 4 pesos we had for the trip —yes, at that time in 1998 you could travel from one municipality to another with only 4 pesos.
We very seriously believed that we could lose an arm at the door, as they say happened to a man in Carlos III, who yelled and yelled and no one paid attention to him and when they went to see, “the guy almost bled to death.” We could fall wildly down a cliff, as happened to the child who was in the back in the arms of his mother, who when the camel hit a bump flew out the window and fell in the middle of the street.
We were also afraid of being abused by a pajuso who walked around with “that” outside and would stick out your tongue and if he touched your hand you had to cut it off because you would get a madness and if that disease reached your head, you would become a pajuso also. It was almost preferable to lose your arm at the door.
All that for us, children of 9 and 7 years, was true; though the adults didn’t seem to care too much. They kept riding camels of all colors.
It would be necessary to see what the children of today think of our articulated P. Every time I ride with my children, it fills me with courage to remember my aunt with the three children who, to top it off, were visually impaired. She entered the camel shouting: “Excuse me, I’m going with three children! Guys, be careful with your glasses!”
When we were at the top and the murderous horde had spared our lives, my aunt began to yell like crazy: “Pa’ la barbacoa, pa’ la barbacoa!”. While the inspector, from below, said: “Come on, gentleman, going up on both sides.” And we would climb the three little steps and get to the top, where there was more air and fewer people, and we would be more or less safe.
My Chinese aunt always laughed and said that we were very lucky to be able to ride the camel. She was so cautious that she had us trained in case a fatality occurred and one of the three myopic children remained on the camel after the exterminator doors had closed. Whoever stayed on top had to get off at the next stop and stay calm there. She and the other two children would run to find the unfortunate one. That is still the indication, a bunch of years later, when we got on the current P.
M and P is not the same, but it is the same. They are salvation and condemnation; joy and sadness. I grew up and at almost 35 years old, I no longer believe in urban legends. I know that no man lost his arm at the camel’s gate; but many of us lose decorum and tenderness trying to hold on to the tube of a P5. Today I don’t pay attention to the tragicomic stories of buses; I am interested in hearing the drivers talk about their efforts —one in P4 said the other day: “What if the bus is mine? Of course it’s mine, if I spent 27 thousand toletes on the piece that was needed to get it going!”. I no longer wonder, like when I was a child, if I will have to cut my hand when a straw touches me. I wonder if behind the economic deficiencies, there will not be mismanagement by those responsible.
When you get off a P, you are not the same. You smell a little like Baby, another little like Siete Potencias, a tint of talc for the plague of paw, another tint of Butterfly. You smell of jackdaw and rust, of withered flowers, of freshly cut parsley, of a cold salad bowl, of mango out of season, of light blue, of resistance.
If I arrive at my destination in one piece, with my glasses on, a full backpack, and children alive, I am relieved to have won the fight against the bus once again. I keep smiling and thanking the drivers who believe they are the owners of the buses; but I remember my adventures on the camel and feel nostalgic. Worse times when we were happier.
