The phone was for me. They were yelling my name down there. I made my way down the stairs and across Módulos B and D to the far corner of the building where the phones were.

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It was Gregory. It was so great to finally be in touch with a friend. I asked him if Julio had called him to give him this number and he said no. He told me that after he had not heard from me for a few days, he had called the taxi base and spoken with Jonathan, the man who was renting my car from Julio. Jonathan explained that I was in jail. Gregory then searched around and found the number for the jail somehow and called.

After hearing that news and assimilating what it all meant, what I need is a little discipline as my father used to say. Just keep it together. Forget about emotions and just follow the dots. Do what needs to be done, forget the rest. Keep your eye on the ball.

But my father also used to get so frustrated with me too. He would have to continually tell me to “quit feelin’ sorry for yourself, kid. Things is tough all over!” I kind of have a tendency to get overwhelmed and lose it when things aren’t going well. Being ripped off and in jail, then being ripped off because I was in jail just seemed a little too much of things not going well.

My car was in the street, being rented to a guy whose own car got stolen a few days before I got arrested. Rented to him by another guy who has been telling me that my car is parked in his backyard while he is actually collecting $14.00 a day off of it. What a bunch of wise guys.

The car is in the street with its technical revision (RTV) expired. The new Transit Law has been all over the news with warnings of the new fines going into effect on Monday the first of March. A $300 fine for no RTV, plus a very good chance of having the plates removed and the car impounded. But what do these guys care? It isn’t their car, and the guy whose car it is is in jail so what’s he gonna do? Might as well make a few bucks on the deal anyway.

I tried to put aside the emotional stuff all this was doing to me, but it was just too hard. I just don’t understand why people keep lying to me and trashing me. I mean I do get it, I’m “too nice,” “too trusting” and need to defend myself better etc. I still don’t see how that explains what people like my “wife” and now my “friend” Julio are doing, not to mention a whole other cast of characters who I am happily forgetting here.

Lying, stealing, manipulating and/or merely rank irresponsibility are the active parts of the equations… my part is passive. I’m not hurting anyone else by trusting them out of their property or endangering their livelihood by being too nice to them.

I hit the wall talking to my compañero Arcilla, went off about how in my time in Costa Rica all I have met are people who I cannot trust, even the ones I do trust, have trusted, none of them can resist taking some kind of swipe at me. No transaction goes down without me getting whacked. Smile in your face and stab you in the back everywhere you go in this pathetic little toy country.

As I was ranting that, my conscience was trying to be heard and minded, but the rage was too strong. I slowed down when I saw that for the millionth time my ugliness had caused a friend to feel terrible. I attempted to apologize my way out of the awkwardness but it was too late. Arcilla wanted me to shut up and go away, and I did.

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Arcilla made a point of getting around to sort of get a feel for everybody in the jail. At the entrance to Módulo C he would sit at the top of the stairs, watching the scene down in Módulos A, B and D from above like a hunter. He kind of was a hunter, a Christian hunter. At any given moment during the day he could be found quietly passing out crackers of helping someone recuperate from having their clothes robbed, he had some kind of connection with just about everyone and everyone showed him respect.

He wanted to help give someone a hand up if they were honestly ready to take it. He could help with material things and also provide mentoring to help change some drug addict’s wasted life toward a Christian, productive one. He was sincere and really kind. He had taken me under his wing before I had noticed who he was, and made the suggestion to the authorities that I be brought upstairs to Módulo C.

Arcilla had a locker with a great supply of things like lemons, cookies, sewing needle and thread, an improvised blade for cutting the fresh onions, tomatoes and cilantro that his sisters brought him regularly. His family lived nearby. They supported him 100% but it hurt them to see Arcilla in jail. He was quiet but social, and had a clean routine. He had standards. In that regard, he was not alone in Módulo C, our module was expected to be cleaner, more organized, more genteel. No games or BS for the guards to worry about.

He came from a good family. He had lived for a couple of years when he was a teenager under the care of an uncle in Yunai, the United States, in New Jersey and upstate New York. It had left him kind of wishing for something that got lost, he wished he could have stayed in the US longer.

Arcilla was curious about everything, he liked to ask a leading question to get things started. “Terry! Es verdad de que en los estados unidos ellos botan cualquier tipo de electrodomestico en la calle como basura? Por que ellos lo hacen así?” I don’t really have the “answer” to that but I was always glad to go on about whatever he was asking me, they were interesting questions. He would ask me about stuff and I would end up talking about Einstein and Heisenberg and Buddy Holly and Zen Buddhism and Beat Poets and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He was sentimental for a Canadian girl named Angela who played tennis.

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Arcilla was the guy who gave me soap, toilet paper, a phone card. Arcilla had given me food. He was a Christian who sometimes led the nightly evangelical meeting that was held in the “church” area of the common baths next to Módulo D.

The church is directly across the space from the sinks, with the showers on one end and the door to the yard on the other. There are three rows of heavy iron benches and a painting of a cross shining in the sky on the wall with a scroll containing Christian Wisdom blazing in the rays of the cross and a dove flying away.

I was cleaning my bowl one evening at sundown when I heard Arcilla preach. I took a seat and listened, grateful for someone to make a reasoned argument for something, cite sources, draw conclusions and exhort us to action. Verbal communication, refreshing.

The verbal communication channel was being nearly completely jammed by the street jive everywhere going on. Hustling and jacking people up over cigarettes and macho teasing mixed with the television babble. Not much to say the least in anything dedicated to legitimate intellectual and/or spiritual stimulus. God bless these guys then.

There are two or three people, Hermano or Daniel or Arcilla, who take turns preaching and leading the singing and chanting of Christian songs and then deliver an hour long Bible-based chautauqua. Reasoning towards points of salvation, arguing for self-initiative and discipline to get to the work of making a life that would be saved.

This night it was Hermano, not Arcilla, preaching. He was exploring the one that says damned are those who trust in Man, blessed are those who put their trust in God. That hit pretty close to home, which I took as a sign. Here I was falling directly into that trap, and then like a 5 year old going off complaining and blaming everyone and their sister for my troubles and insulting and disappointing the good people in my world along the way. What a jerk, as I like to say. I heard the word. Later, Arcilla accepted my apologies.

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

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