my buddy roberto the coyote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_9--RsaNmc  (red hot chili peppers - true men don't kill coyotes)

did we mention this episode already in this blog? benji's time in florida, winter haven polk county, two weeks... a chinese restaurant, two chinese guys, two white american girls called amanda (plural form 'amandas' sounds like 'a man does' - interesting linguistic note) and two hispanics, me and roberto the mexican coyote...

what follows is a portrait of roberto the mexican coyote:

arriving at the little chinese restuarant, the kitchen was somewhat big - maybe 7 or 8 metres by 4... there was plenty of room apart from the large industrial cooking apparati... the floor was extremely slippery and greasy and i cannot understand how anyone could even walk on it -- i was always sliding on it and never had a good trip as a i never fell over (tripped)......... outside it was summer and the geography in florida is flat and the energy in the ground and around is the same as up around virginia and new york - flat, green, occasional trees -- (conditions are not like this in arizona and california)

roberto stood over a massive wok cooking rice - that steamed and clearly was a cook -- however another of the chinese guys, the non-boss guy, also cooked a great deal.... roberto explained that the two had clashed on something and that he had forced the guy outside threatening to beat him,

'do you think that's a man?' roberto asked in spanish? referring to the chinese cook... 'that's not a man'... clearly he thought the chinese guy was wussie

the reality of the american economy is that coyotes are needed... nowadays, with all the militia and civil guard and cops, and mexican coyotes, you wouldn't want to take that trip alone (although if i did it one day, i would go for the rio grande in texas, or else just snorkel over from tijuana up the coast)

roberto wasn't just a cook or a coyote, he was also a drug dealer and a pimp... he had been apprehended by the fbi once he said and just stayed mum,

'don't play dumb with us,' he reported them as saying, 'you think we don't know who you are? you're on our most wanted list!'

roberto viewed his time as a cook as downtime from crime and a chance to get away from all the madness and danger, even a way to escape women, like a mother and daughter he said he was maintaining a realationship with, in some white trailer trash park....... he spoke with particular passion about his work as a coyote...

'that feeling man, you'll never know what it feels like to be hiding behind rocks in the desert under the moon with a u.s. helicopter overhead searching me out, i have like 50 border-crossers with me, it's freezing, i have three mobile phones with me: one to communicate with the scout driver on the american side, plus another to communicate with the truck on the american side,'.... maybe he said he only had two phones..... 'when you're in that situation, helicopter(s) buzzing over, all those people's lives in your hands, hiding behind rocks,  that's living! i never felt more alive!'

and in case you were wondering, no i never took roberto up on his offer to pimp whores and weigh and package drugs for $10k a month (and no i wouldn't have had to deal with buyers, just weigh and package)

'anything's possible in america!' said roberto with great enthusiasm