As I stood waiting for the cops and the guards to finish their business, I attended to mine. I needed to focus on how I was going to deal with this place.

I was generating a fair amount of attention with the men inside. They were yelling and joking around at me. From the comments that I could understand it was reasonable to guess that the most obvious thing about me is that I am a “gringo.” First impressions mean a lot and I really needed to think about how to come back to these guys with their stereotype of “gringo” prejudicing the subject so completely.

Among the most common stereotypes of a gringo are that gringos all have an endless supply of easy money, also that they can’t speak español, let alone Tico, and that they smoke pot and frequent brothels. They are known as easy marks for skilled operators of many types of con because they need to be liked and they want to get something for nothing, but it is always better to pay.

My presumed Gringo-ness is a straitjacket and I really hate being tied down by it. I’m not the guy they think they see, and the sooner they get it, the more tranquilo we’ll all be. Having been born a gringo was an accident and I dearly hope some day to be able to say that I am an ex-gringo. Seems likely that in that effort, my arrival for a 6 month immersion course in the underside of Tico social circles should prove to be be of great value. Where else can a gringo go to get this kind of experience? It might just scrape another layer of green off of me. The sooner the better.

It was time to move. The two police ushered me through the door into the office, under the hand painted sign that said “Oficialia” which was tacked above the door. They removed the handcuffs and I looked over at the mildly obese prison guard absent-mindedly reigning over a ledger in his military fatigue pants and beige prison guard polo shirt. To his side behind him in the window hung a rack of hand hewn and individually carved billy clubs.

They were all different and personally decorated as it were, with notches and other marks of who knows what significance. I thought of making a comment about the craftsmanship there exhibited but decided to keep my mouth shut. The police addressed the guard sitting at the desk as “Gato.”

Another guard stood behind the counter, a tall man with a giant belly, his vaguely Edward James Olmos face modified by a heavy walrus-like mustache. He was called, obviously, “Bigote,” or, “Mustache.” Bigote ambled around the counter and towered over me as he began to search my person with great pretense acting like I was in really big trouble now.

I was dressed really simply and there was hardly anything to search. As it happens, I had begun the day visiting my Mom and was dressed a little too nice for jail. I had on my best pair of dress shorts, but that wasn’t saying too much. At the police station back in Santa Theresa, I had left my money, my keys and my car with my long-time cab driver friend Julio.

That turned out to be a whole other headache, but for now the important thing was that I had nearly nothing on me. Just a passport, a virtually empty wallet, an empty asthma inhaler, a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. Old beat up flip flop sandals on my feet. Not a red cent in cash.

Bigote put my stuff up on the counter. I needed to mention that my asthma inhaler was virtually empty. I wanted to make a formal statement to someone on the record that I was requesting medical attention. Gato understood and got up to go find someone else to deal with this.

Going through my mind was an experience I had with an acquaintance in Santa Theresa. His name was Christian and when I met him he just begged in the street like Juan Pablo and the other pintas de la calle. He was an alcoholic with a reputation for liking to fight. But soon he had on the reflective vest of a guarda parqueo. He was at least working. He was cool, we always had a few words and lots of times I continued to give him change.

Came a time when I didn’t see Christian in the street anymore, I asked around. Seems Christian had been killed, or rather, he had died “in police custody.” One night he got drunk and belligerent and when the police locked him in one of their “cells” to beat him up, he got asthma. The cops thought he was faking so they let Christian suffocate to death. He was 26 years old or so. The story has worried me ever since.

We are bedeviled by a diversity of powerful people who combine their simple ignorance with a violent disrespect for those whom they consider to be worthless. With impunity they do mortal harm to others. Their destructive acts are excused by the community at large who shrug and impose a lead blanket of positivist pop-psychology over the gaping wounds to the moral organs of the social body. This is nothing out of the ordinary. The mean and low days just pass as though nothing happened with endless notices of egregious offenses to common decency passing from one ear through to the other.

From within the office another guard emerged, apparently senior for his age and grooming. His eyes projected a resigned air of wisdom. He was called “Oviedo,” a real name not a nickname. He asked me how he could help and I explained that my asthma inhaler was within maybe 8 hours of running out. I told him that I could possibly die without immediate access to Salbutamol in an emergency. I was not bluffing, last September I died temporarily in the Red Cross ambulance on my way to HSJD in San José.

Oviedo was convincing, he told me not to worry, that he would see to it that I was taken to the prison clinic tomorrow morning before 9:00 am. Much later, a few weeks later, I was sitting next to Oviedo on the bench in front of the office waiting to be taken to Puesto Uno. He told me that his sister had died from an asthma attack in the street at the age of 40. People didn’t know what to do to help and she died. So he understood my concern and I appreciated his.

I was still in the first 20 minutes of my 6 month sentence, hadn’t even entered the jail yet. But I was at least feeling comfortable that the guards did not seem to be sadists. Instead, they seemed to be bored stiff. Someone later told me that the guards are paid about $600 a month, which is considered a very good salary. But they work one week shifts in turn and while on the job they live in the jail also. They do 14 hour shifts at least.

The din from the cavernous interior envelops the office space where the guards work. They sleep with Módulo “C” for upstairs neighbors. It seemed as though the guards were practicing a discipline of ignoring everything possible and only responding to clear obligations and those only in measured degrees of attention and import.

I asked Oviedo about the jail, was it dangerous? He told me not to worry because there were only pension prisoners here, no “criminals.” But he was being obtuse actually. I was soon to learn a lot more about how the “Ley de Pensiones Alimentarias” functions in real life. In Oviedo’s Puesto Nueve, La Unidad de Pensiones, the population was easily split 70/30 between street hoods and working men. The majority of 70% are assorted drug addicts and alcoholics and street thugs and assailants. The minority one third of those inside turn out to be out of work, poor, discarded and otherwise unfortunate but peaceful and honest men.

But for now, what concerned me was my passport and wallet. I wanted to know if the Jail would keep them under lock and key for the duration for me so I would not need to worry about them getting stolen inside. Oviedo agreed with me that nothing was safe from theft inside, including the contents of ones pockets. So he took my passport and wallet and got out a receipt book and filled it out giving me a copy of the receipt. He told me that if I lost the receipt that I would not get my things back.

This struck me a strange form of security. Since it was understood that my pockets were insecure, what security was there if all we were doing was trading one valuable for another? If I lost the receipt the effect would be the same as losing the passport. Someone, including me, could make my life miserable just for fun or out of plain stupidity.

Getting wrapped up in this type of annoyance has a nickname en español/tiquismo: “caneando.” Turning your hair white with stress. It’s a behavior disorder caused by severe deprivation of liberty and respect. It just isn’t natural to be locked up with 150 other men like this. It is bound to challenge a person’s ability to manage their emotions. The experience imposes certain irrationalities on the prisoner. I’m trying to say, it tends to drive anyone just a little bit crazy.

I put the receipt for my valuables in the zippered side pocket of my shorts. The best I could do. The induction process was over and we were all ready for me to be escorted to the entrance and sent inside.

The entrance is a cage that opens into the building and in it under a 60 watt bulb sat a guard atop a crudely constructed stool with his billy club dangling at his side. His jaded eyes gazed with much disinterest into the dimness of the lugubrious space in front of him, above the heads of the dozen bare chested men whose hands were grabbing at the chain link as they took turns shouting stupid comments at me. I approached and tried to look at nothing in particular while taking in everything I could.

This building is something like an aircraft hanger, but without the openings. High open ceilings with iron beams support a corrugated tin roof. The walls reflect the forlorn light of the banks of fluorescent lights that hang suspended 8 or 9 meters above the dirty unfinished cement floor. Against the far wall in the distance 15 meters in front of me stand rows of wooden bunk beds, banged together from rough hewn planks and second-hand nails. Graffiti covers the grimy walls. “Pague la cuecha y HALE.” Vulgarities. Lists of Porteños, Limoneses, Desampas, many repeat offenders and frequent guests… drawings of marijuana leaves and body parts scrawled on the walls.

So now at last, the gate opens and I’m in, facing the 20 or so men who surround me as I enter. They were a mixed group of 20 to 30 year olds, most with pudgy bellies hanging over their aged Billabong, Rip Curl, Puma and generic shorts. Some were muscular, some were rib-showing thin. Every one was highly disfigured with the worst tattoos I have ever seen, of the lowest possible craft and concept. All shouting and gesticulating in states of great anxiety.!

My intent in contrast is to keep it simple. I don’t want to get drawn into anything especially with these people right now who are all yelling at me “Hey GRINGO jajajaja!,” “Cuanto debe?,” “Va saliendo ya, si? Va pagar?” “Hey gringo, you want mota?,” “Vvendeme tu short mae, hagame un favor mae…””que canñazo!”

Ironically one of the fist things my “wife” Violeta taught me came to mind as I arranged myself to enter into dialog with my new compañeros. She used to scold me “no habla a todo el mundo!” Don’t talk to whole world! But she didn’t really clear up the why of it.

The point was later further explained to me by my friend Maria who taught me that the only reason a stranger has to talk to me is to use my response as an entrance to take advantage of me. Or if they decide there is nothing of value to grab from me, to use my answers as fuel for their never-ending real-life soap opera. Entertainment as the butt of a room load of jokes. I wasn’t going to fall for it here.

I took a minute to think about the rules of the road, a plan to make the long distance, to be built to last.

Only ask for that to which one is entitled by international human rights standards and Costa Rican law. Only accept that which is free and beneficial. Don’t look for pals, guardian angels or best friends. Don’t try to be anybody’s anything either. Leave it alone. Keep my mouth shut. Don’t get involved in anything that has no direct bearing on achieving something of concrete necessity. Don’t respond to nonsense. Mind your business.

So… I started to answer these guys, slowly, giving as little info as possible about myself and making a clear series of statements about how I do not smoke marijuana, do not have money, can not buy anything at all, am not leaving in the morning when my magic gringo carpet of cash comes flying in to take me home. A whole lot of “no thanks.”

The repeated cajoling and urging to “compra puros… high red, mae…,” mixed with attempts to cozy up to me using a motley assortment of broken English clichés only garnered indifferent responses from me.

I was having an occasionally successful time fending off the totally vacuous species of small talk and gossip. From within the crowd eventually a couple of guys distinguished themselves as having something useful to share. They began to tell me when we ate and how, where my bunk was and where the bathrooms and showers were.

Someone gave me a plastic plate and spoon. Most of these guys are delinquentes but not all the people in there are. No one seemed menacing. The majority of the delinquentes are in jail because they’re crack addicts and totally irresponsible, not because they are especially dangerous. I was soaking up the pachuco and making acquaintance with Ticos from up and down the country. What a ride.

I laid out on my bunk, located at the front of a set of rows that stretched back to the wall. I was grateful that my bunk was not hidden somewhere in the back. The bed consists of an ancient and completely flattened piece of soiled foam laid on top of a bed of planks suspended between the rails of the bunk. A well worn sheet covers the foam and a thick cotton blanket completes the business.

A couple of guys came and sat on my bunk crowding me intentionally so they could properly interview me. I managed to obtain factual material from them pertaining to the jail routine interspersed with vocal hip hop rapping in Puntarenas Chuchequero pachuco.

At some point someone grabbed at the leather coin pouch on my belt and wanted to know how much money I had. I had completely forgotten about the pouch, and the police and guards had both missed it in their searches too. It had about 300 colones in it. The guy was telling me some BS about how I had to pay a weekly cuota for coffee privileges.

I gave him the moneda and thanked God that I was truly without any money at last. No more point in anybody pursuing sales pitches with me nor wasting time trying to steal from me. I just had nothing to steal. So I thought.

The hours passed quickly. I was given a plastic cup and led to the industrial coffee thermos at 8:00 pm. Someone gave me a piece of sweet bread. I got comfortable, more or less. At 10 or so, it was time for lights out. I propped up one end of the doubled foam hoping to achieve a pillow, tucked my sandals under my head and my plastic cup under the foam at my side. The shouting and jeering and howling was replaced by snoring and coughing and farting.

The space became a harsh construct of black shadows and dark architecture streaked by crisp rays of yellow streetlight and rank fluorescent light casting grids on the stained planar surfaces of the floor and walls.

I got to sleep.

In the midnight I woke up staring into the shadows and thinking over my situation. I got up and silently walked across the room to the phones, where a small table offered a place to sit out of sight and think. I sat there for an hour or more, until my intuition told me to get back in my bunk, just before the guards entered and made a round of the beds with their flashlights, looking for anything out of place.

Written by Terrence who is a 53 year old Gringo living in Costa Rica.

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