The general

I'd need a radio in order to dispatch what I'm about to say:

My driver today was from Haiti (as an inordinate amount of my drivers from Newark driving into Manhattan at 5:30pm typically are). I asked him if he spoke Creole and in a somewhat accented English he replied with "Of course I speak Creole, I speak French, a lot of English, and some of other stuff" in the way that only speaking something oddly francophonic for the majority of your life can do.

You somehow ignore the hard sound of an h and emphasize that "oo" sounds like "uhhhhh"

I told him I was from Mexico and after the perfunctory (<-- is this the right word?) about "futbol" and "quotations" the truth came to be. Being from the little island of Haiti the man had little aspirations for his nation's soccer team. To him, like apparently to many of the Caribbean islands, Mexico is the tallest little person in the room. The only one in the scrappy, upstart geographic coalition that includes everything south of the Rio Grande that can dream of greatness and the world cup.

Mexico is the only one that can do it. Short but you jump (in reference to a legendary goalie in Mexico affectionately known as "the rabbit" and reminiscent of the French goalie of world cups past.

Mexico is the only country to have qualified for every World Cup and never won. That is, we've played at every single one but never made it to the finals.

He suggested we could make a real run for the Cup this year on the back of a new generation of Mexican footballers that defeated Brazil at the Olympics and the previous generation that won the sub-17 world cup. But they've never spoken of my people like they have of the current generation of Spanish balonpie.

Nor will they ever. We stand in the shadow of their turbulence. Still.

Pause as he wrestles with the Holland Tunnel traffic

And the conversation naturally veers to Mexico boom industry. Tech. Ha!

He probes here and there with a couple well placed questions that suggests he's far more studied than his faded Jets jersey and porcelain cat on his dashboard suggest.

Last Saturday my mother texted me a simple "Honey, your father and I are ok but just wanted to let you know they did it again but we are safe and at home! Love you" which prompted me to call (i dont do well under vague allusions to threat). The drug lords at home had taken to some of the key avenues and as they've done before in protest for this or that, boarded public transportation buses, politely asked the populace to get the f*** out, please. With an automatic gun in hand. The buses, once commandeered, were parked crosswise and torched.

You know, the casual things that happen in the "Second world" that are more reminiscent of war lords than of a country only a 3.5 hour flight and a free trade agreement away.

Casual.

I told him we were a democracy. He said that is good, that Haiti had a democracy but that the problem was that the definition of democracy at home for him was different than what a political science professor might use to describe it. An obvious stalwart supporter of democracy he admitted the weaknesses of the system in an uneducated nation more distressed about the day to day survival than the circus held at the nice government buildings far, far away.

I asked him about dictatorship.

Too much power in one family. it goes straigggggt to their heads (in obvious reference to Duvalier)

And then he surprised me - who is your general?

Frankly I don't know. I've met generals in the Mexican military. Battle scarred men who have never seen a war, faces pockmarked by the skin breakouts created by years of greasy beans and rice and though with less pomp and circumstance than some of their compatriots up north - they can still gut someone bare handed without taking a second breath.

Who is your general? 

Frankly I have no idea, but it occurred to me that I come from a country that is fighting a war on drugs. We call it that, and it's fast and it's furious (cough cough) and that maybe its time we start figuring out who really runs these efforts. And the claims that some may make of the endangerment of those in the middle of the war - it's moot, masked the judges like they do in colombian but let the people shooting know their committing acts of civil war. That the children they recruit can also do the fighting. 

We need a decorated general with a heart of gold - maybe with a beard to cover his scars on his face.