by Wendy Dale
“The police can do whatever they want to you,” my father had explained to me in Honduras. “In fact, if you get robbed, think twice about going to them. They won’t do anything unless you bribe them and they’ve even been known to plant drugs on unsuspecting Americans.”
Given this information, I was just glad that my admission to the prison the next day was scheduled to take place through the visitors’ entrance.
“Jail is no picnic,” my mother used to warn me on the especially mischievous days of my childhood. Being just nine years old, it was hard for me to imagine what prison could possibly be like: nothing to do all day, living without my siblings, no mother or father to eat breakfast with. Of course, I was sure there must be a downside too. Jail couldn’t possibly be a fun place to be.
But walking up the steps to San Sebastian prison with Jessica on my second day in Costa Rica, I began to suspect that my mother had been wrong. The scent of hot dogs was wafting through the air, men were busy grilling pork over a barbecue, and families were relaxing on blankets spread out over the ground. It seemed like—well, prison sure looked like a picnic to me. It reminded me of the huge company outings my dad felt obligated to attend and would routinely drag us to as kids, except that here everyone seemed to be having a good time—which I attributed to the fact that on prison visiting days half of the people came here willingly.
Jessica and I were in a long line filled mostly with women, all of whom carried plastic containers filled with steaming meat, gravy, rice, and potatoes. In order to be allowed into the outdoor courtyard on the other side of the chain-link fence, we had to sign in with our passports and subsequently get patted down by a female guard. Once we finally made it inside, Jessica and I seated ourselves on a bench and watched the prisoners filing out of the cellblock and into the arms of their families.
While waiting for Olman to appear Jessica had the chance to tell me the story. Three days earlier he had been arrested in a mix-up, in which he was mistakenly accused of selling drugs. The OIJ had recordings of Olman’s phone calls that went something like this:
“Meet me at the gas station in fifteen minutes. I think I’m going to sell at least five thousand colones worth today.”
“Well, I have a contact at the Pepsi plant. He has plans to help me distribute.”
It would have been very incriminating if Olman had been discussing cocaine or heroin instead of the raffle tickets that he was selling for the Costa Rican Foundation for the Blind. But the OIJ had shown up at his house one morning and led him out in handcuffs, along with his uncle and brother who were with him at the time.
Olman entered the courtyard just as Jessica was nearing the end of the story. She spotted him in the distance, raced over, put her arms around his neck, and asked how he was doing. I walked over, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and asked him what it was like being a drug dealer.
I would have continued the conversation further, but I realized that Olman’s tongue was tied up with other things (namely Jessica’s)—which was my distressing first clue that I was going to have to find a way to kill the next four hours on my own. For a brief moment, I thought that I would just mingle, but then I remembered that the attendees at this picnic were not my dad’s innocuous mining engineering colleagues—these were convicts.
And even assuming I would be brave enough to strike up a conversation with one of them, what would we possibly talk about? Of course the nagging question would be what the guy was in for but asking that was sure to be a breach of prison etiquette. “Hi, I’m Wendy. What crime did you commit?” didn’t seem the best way to start a friendly chat. And even if I did manage to get the question out, what would I say to his response? “Oh, you killed your wife and three children. So, tell me, what was that like?”
The fact that I was visiting yet another Costa Rican prison was just beginning to sink in. Did these things happen to other people on their vacations?
I figured the best course of action would be to keep a low profile and take advantage of this unique sociological setting by merely observing. Sitting at an outdoor picnic table under a covered awning surrounded by Olman’s family members, I timidly nibbled at the food Jessica had brought and spent the next hour as follows: for twenty minutes I watched Jessica and Olman’s near-pornographic display, for twenty-five minutes I came up with possible escape plans in case I ever arrived at this jail by the back door instead of the visitors’ entrance, and for fifteen minutes I stared dumbly at Olman’s brother Jorge, wishing to God I had something to say other than, “So, what’s it like being in jail?”
Luckily, Jorge finally broke the silence by piping up, “Do you want to know everyone here who’s gay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Him, over there, with the red half shirt. Gay. And the one with the long hair and bad skin. That’s his boyfriend.”
That topic of conversation having worn thin, there followed a long uncomfortable silence. Finally, I had to ask, “So, what do you do all day?”
“Mostly just drink.”
“Really?” I asked, relieved to have finally found some common ground. “I thought it wasn’t allowed.”
“It’s not. We make it ourselves. That’s why the guards won’t let anyone bring in fruit, juice, or tortillas. We ferment them in a plastic Coke bottle and hide it under our mattresses.”
“And makeup? Why couldn’t I bring in makeup?”
“Some prisoners have tried dressing up as women to escape.”
“Say, would you do me a favor?” Olman’s uncle chimed in.
“Sure,” I said, hoping he wasn’t going to ask to borrow my lipstick.
“A friend of ours couldn’t come out into the courtyard because no one is here to visit him. Would you tell the guard you’re here to see him?”
The first thing Francisco Sánchez did after thanking me for having called him out was plop himself down at my side and ask what a nice girl like me was doing in a place like this.
“Just visiting,” I answered with a nervous laugh. “But the more important question—”
“What’s a nice guy like me doing here?” He pulled out a picture of a smiling, doe-eyed little girl. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Pedophilia?” I wagered.
“She’s my daughter. I’m in jail because I came here to see her. I’m from Colombia. But it’s no big deal. It’s just a mix-up. I should be out of here in a week or so. Do you want to hear the story?”
Had this been a U.S. prison, I would have shrugged him off and found a plausible way to slip away, uttering some excuse like “Sorry, but I have to go sneak someone a file,” but he seemed so nonthreatening. In fact, looking around me, everyone at the prison did. Men were cuddling their babies, kids were tossing balls on the lawn, husbands were snuggling up with their wives. This was not the way prisoners were supposed to be. Where were the knife fights and swearing matches? Someone had to have a swastika tattooed on his forehead.
The man sitting next to me had to be the least threatening one of the bunch. He didn’t look anything like a typical Colombian—he had pale skin, light blue eyes, and was exceptionally tall for a Latino. And he was so gentle and boyish that I quit worrying about my safety and began to wonder about his—how could a man like him have wound up here?
“Everyone here has a story,” he said with a sad, knowing look.
“I’ll hear yours on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“No lies. My last boyfriend only told me lies.”
“Is that why you broke up with him?”
“No. The OIJ took him away. He’s in prison in Limón.”
“Sounds like you have a story too.”
“Yeah, maybe I do.”
Francisco’s account of his situation had something to do with his ex-wife and a car that she accused him of stealing. According to Francisco, he was completely innocent—he had bought her the car in the first place and had sold it because she had bailed on him and left the country. I highly doubted h
is story (based on a healthy suspicion of all men in prison), but innocent or not the whole encounter had been harmless enough and Francisco’s stories about Colombia with its warring guerrillas and drug cartels had turned out to be an entertaining way to spend the afternoon. I had survived my second trip to a Central American prison.
“I guess I’d better go,” I said after the prison bell rang, signaling the end of visiting hours. “I’m supposed to meet my friend Jessica outside.”
“Let me walk you to the exit,” Francisco said, as casual and well mannered as if we had just gotten together for an afternoon chat in the park.
We strolled to the gated door, a walk of less than a minute, but within that time the atmosphere at San Sebastian completely changed. For the first time that day, I actually felt like I was at a prison. The music stopped, the chatter ceased, and an ominous silence filled the courtyard, in spite of the fact that it was still filled with people. Earlier that morning, the hellos had been boisterous and cheery, but the good-byes were silent—by now, all the trite encouraging words had already been said.
At the exit, I couldn’t help but glance at the woman next to me who clung to her husband and quietly shook with sobs. It was such a private moment but there was no privacy to be had here. My problems were so insignificant compared to hers, I thought, suddenly feeling guilty and out of place. I was like the uninvited guest at a funeral, the one who gets trapped listening to the reminiscences of the widow, who doesn’t have the guts to admit she never even knew the deceased.
“Take care of yourself,” I said to Francisco, truly meaning it. “I hope you get your case settled.”
“Thanks,” he said, holding out his hand. “And if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”
I smiled and turned to go, acutely aware of the significance of the next four steps I would take. I was casually strolling out of a prison. How easy it was for me and how impossible for the blue-eyed man left waving at me through the fence.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” I said to Jessica, once we were both speeding away from the prison in the safety of a cab.
“What do you mean?”
“I survived visiting day at a prison. Now I can say I did it.”
“Does that mean you don’t plan on going again?”
“Jessica, this may seem strange to you, but I am twenty-six years old and I have already been to two prisons more than I had counted on by this age. What reason would I possibly have for going again?”
Looking at Jessica’s distraught face, I realized that in a moment of utter selfishness, I had completely forgotten my friend’s perspective on the whole afternoon. What for me was an exceptional event, an adventure most people would never experience, for her was a painful reality. Her boyfriend was actually in prison.
“I was hoping you’d come with me again on Thursday,” Jessica said.
I wanted to be a supportive friend, but I had come a long way for this vacation. I had counted on lighthearted fun with Jessica, but now that this didn’t seem possible, I hoped to at least visit volcanoes and beaches, to have a well-deserved good time after my troublesome experience with Michel on my last trip. Besides, I was an American. Going to prisons wasn’t a normal vacation activity where I came from. We went to Disneyland and SeaWorld and Alcatraz Island—we didn’t go around visiting jail cells.
I told her I’d wait and see, guiltily knowing I had no intention of actually following through, figuring the next day I’d look into buses headed to Manzanillo.
I had an itty bitty problem with money the next day which was that I had only an itty bitty bit of money—itty bitty being defined as absolutely zero. At least, that’s what the words on the ATM screen informed me.
This presented a problem for several reasons. First of all, I was fond of eating. And besides, I really liked the little blue Costa Rican bills with the picture of the toucan on the front. After all, we didn’t yet have watermarks in my own country.
“Don’t worry!” was Jessica’s predictable response upon hearing the news. In fact, it was her standard phrase upon hearing any form of bad news. Assuming I were to tell her that I hadn’t yet paid for my past few days’ hotel stay, my Visa card was being mysteriously denied, the only possible friend I could borrow money from was in some unknown country in Europe, one of my new writing clients was late paying me the ten thousand dollars I was owed, my permission to remain in the country would expire shortly, and I hadn’t yet gotten around to purchasing a return ticket to the States, what would she have told me? That it was really nothing to get concerned about.
“Everything will be fine,” she insisted, sitting on the double bed in my hotel room. “Just relax.” If her idea of relaxing was trembling my way to the store on the corner, barking for a pack of cigarettes, smoking half the box on my way back to the hotel, running to the bathroom, placing my head under a faucet of cold water, and returning to kick the wall a dozen times, then relax is exactly what I did. “I am relaxed,” I said, crumbling an empty cigarette box in my hand.
“Let’s examine my options,” I said, thinking this sounded like a rational, composed thing to say. Unfortunately, she couldn’t hear me over the sound of my foot shaking against the floor. I repeated myself.
“That’s right. Let’s examine your options.”
“We just did, Jessica. There is nothing to examine!” I said, holding down my knee with the palm of my hand. “I have two thousand dollars in that account. And the ATM machine won’t let me get to any of it.”
“Don’t worry,” she said calmly. “There is nothing to worry about.”
Luckily, all heavy blunt objects were well beyond my reach.
“It’ll all turn out okay,” she consoled me.
What did she know about these things? She was a nice enough girl and she’d been kind enough to show the visiting gringa around the city, but she was just a child. She was nineteen years old, she lived with her parents—she was a virgin for God’s sake! Short of coming up with cash or getting me an airplane ticket, what could she possibly do?
“I’ll talk to the hotel manager about your bill. In the meantime, you can stay with me,” she cheerily informed me.
“What will your parents say?”
“They won’t mind. It’ll be great.”
Jessica was offering me an easy way out of all my problems. All I had to do was stay with her for a few days until I figured out what was going on with the bank. Of course, there had to be a catch.
“And we can go to the prison together on Thursday,” she added cheerfully.
That was the rub. I either got tossed out of my hotel penniless and pesoless onto the streets of San José or I crashed at Jessica’s, obligating me to go with her to San Sebastian. Homeless in a foreign country wasn’t a particularly appealing option. But then again, neither was hanging out at a prison. On my last visit to Costa Rica, I had vowed never to set foot on the grounds of a prison again.
“I’ll pull a cot out of the closet and sleep on the floor,” Jessica added. “You can have my bed.”
Never, I repeated to myself. Unless you counted next Thursday.
Jessica lived forty-five minutes away from San José in the rural community of Santa Ana, which was like a halfway village for wannabe farmers. The town was filled with midsized homes on large plots of land, which offered enough room for most people to accommodate several trophy animals but not enough space to actually earn any money from them. When a farmer referred to his “cattle,” he was speaking about his one dairy cow. When he mentioned his farm animals, he meant his dogs and roaming stray cats. And when he talked about his orchard, he was alluding to the three mango trees in the front yard. These were well-off poseur farmers, the kind that owned businesses in San José during the week and spent their weekends gathering their farm animals around, calling each by name.
Jessica’s family had a horse, a dairy cow, a pack of dogs, and a family of roaming chickens. They also had a barn, several cars, and a three-bedroom home, making
them comfortable by Costa Rican standards.
“Are you sure your parents won’t mind that I’m here?” I asked Jessica as she flung a pack of stuffed animals off the bottom bunk in her bedroom and onto the floor.
“No, they’re dying to meet you. I’ve told them all about you.”
Sure enough, Jessica’s parents were completely nonplussed when she strolled into the living room and informed them of the circumstances and her intention to have me stay for the next week. Hugs and kisses and friendly words were immediately showered upon me; however, this attention ended as abruptly as a beauty queen’s plans to attend medical school.
“We’re so happy to . . .” Jessica’s mother’s voice trailed off as she turned her attention away from me and joined her husband on the couch.
“Shhhh!” Jessica’s eight-year-old sister pleaded and everyone complied, turning to face the television set in unison.
“It’s telenovela time,” Jessica explained.
Over the next week, the Arguedes family members would go out of their way to explain the plotlines of the soap opera they watched every night. During lunch, Jessica’s sister would express her conviction that the relationship between Tomás and Flora definitely wasn’t going to work out. Over coffee in the living room, Jessica’s mother would insist that Teresa was a bad person and a liar and that you couldn’t believe anything she said, especially when it had anything to do with Jorge who was actually a saint in spite of that whole unfortunate incident with the loaded gun. The only person who didn’t discuss the series at length was Jessica’s father. After all, he had more important things on his mind.
“Mangas,” he’d correct me, every time I called my favorite Costa Rican fruit a mango. “The big ones are mangas; the small ones are mangos.”
Apparently, there was some confusion on this important matter. A Costa Rican fruit vendor had explained to me that the distinction had to do with the degree of ripeness. The young green ones were mangos; the ripe yellowish-orange fruits were referred to as mangas. But Jessica’s father was sure it was a size issue. He’d lay them out on the table, quizzing me, convinced that he would not let this particular American return to her own country before she had learned the difference.