You never know where a conversation will lead. Having
said that, conversations with Peruvian taxi drivers are usually quite
predictable. “You aren´t Peruvian are you?” “So where are you from? Brazil?” “Oh
the Caribbean?” (blank look) “So how long have you been in Peru?” “¿Y que tal la comida?” And I sigh.
Earlier this year I flagged down a taxi to take me to work. I had been driving in Lima for a while but had left the car in the tailler for servicing so was experiencing anew the delights of Peruvian driving and conversation. Having reached the usual conversational watershed of revealing that I was here because I had married a Peruvian, the taxi driver said, “Oh, so you like Peruvian men?” So far, so predictable. But it was International Women´s Day and I was feeling mischievous. “They´re OK, but they need a bit of training” I said idly.
He peered at me in the rear-view mirror while negotiating a dangerous bend on the Costa Verde. “¿Que significa esto?”
“Well they tend to be a bit machista” I explained. “Ah” he intoned wisely, “yes, I understand. I am all for women´s rights. Violence against women is bad, you can´t allow it. Just the other day I picked up a couple. They asked me to take them from Miraflores to Monterrico. They seemed quiet enough in the backseat, until I heard un par de lisuras (curse words). Next thing, he hit her. She swung her handbag at him and then golpes (blows)! cachetazos (slaps)! I looked back and he had his elbow across her throat, pressing her against the door.”
He had my attention now. Peru has been virtuous and vocal in its adoption of the rights of women and other minorities. I was interested to see how this translated in practice.
“Well”, said the middle-aged taxista, ruthlessly cutting off a fellow road user, “I asked them ‘¿que pasa? Why are you fighting?’ and I leaned back and blocked the guy´s hand as he was swinging again. ´You don´t hit women’ I said”.
Earlier this year I flagged down a taxi to take me to work. I had been driving in Lima for a while but had left the car in the tailler for servicing so was experiencing anew the delights of Peruvian driving and conversation. Having reached the usual conversational watershed of revealing that I was here because I had married a Peruvian, the taxi driver said, “Oh, so you like Peruvian men?” So far, so predictable. But it was International Women´s Day and I was feeling mischievous. “They´re OK, but they need a bit of training” I said idly.
He peered at me in the rear-view mirror while negotiating a dangerous bend on the Costa Verde. “¿Que significa esto?”
“Well they tend to be a bit machista” I explained. “Ah” he intoned wisely, “yes, I understand. I am all for women´s rights. Violence against women is bad, you can´t allow it. Just the other day I picked up a couple. They asked me to take them from Miraflores to Monterrico. They seemed quiet enough in the backseat, until I heard un par de lisuras (curse words). Next thing, he hit her. She swung her handbag at him and then golpes (blows)! cachetazos (slaps)! I looked back and he had his elbow across her throat, pressing her against the door.”
He had my attention now. Peru has been virtuous and vocal in its adoption of the rights of women and other minorities. I was interested to see how this translated in practice.
“Well”, said the middle-aged taxista, ruthlessly cutting off a fellow road user, “I asked them ‘¿que pasa? Why are you fighting?’ and I leaned back and blocked the guy´s hand as he was swinging again. ´You don´t hit women’ I said”.
“No te metas!” came the reply.
“Then I swung back and hit him and his mouth started to bleed”, continued my new best friend. He said he then stopped the car and they both got out and started to fight.
I was fascinated. He was a good raconteur and I could vividly imagine the en-route tussle; the car swerving through rush-hour traffic (it is almost always rush-hour traffic between Miraflores and Monterrico); the dramatic screech to a halt and the middle-aged Good Samaritan scrambling out and facing off against his younger and more aggressive opponent. A crowd formed and the serenazgo (municipal citizen´s watch) and the police arrive “in a big pickup truck”. The serenazgo calmed things down within their jurisdictional powers (which presumable do not include the power to arrest) and one policia started taking names with a view, no doubt, to kicking ass – entirely within their jurisdiction. When asked for his documentos the male passenger accused the taxi driver of trying to rob him. At which point the taxista leapt forward and punched him indignantly on the nose. “Mariconazo!” he exclaimed. And that´s where he lost me.
“Derogatory term; crude word for a gay man used by
straight men and women to insult gay men or to question the masculinity of
straight men. Comparable to faggot.
So, according to my enlightened superhero, anybody who would sink so low as to hit a woman or lie to the police is gay. Not only gay, but super, extra gay: “mariconazo!” “azo” serving to enlarge and magnify the original word to which it is attached.
The taxista said proudly that he had punched the mariconazo right in front of the policeman. He then told the policia to ask the chica (not mujer) in the back of the car what really happened.
When asked by the cop, the woman – mouth and nose bloodied – said that her husband had beaten her. The policeman then asked, reasonably enough, “Which one is your husband?” She pointed to the non-taxista. The taxista said “you see, and he lied and said I was trying to rob him!” and punched the dude on nose again in front of the police. The antagonist, being, according to the taxista, a pituco (Peruvian slang for an upper-class, self-entitled asshole), started threatening the taxista “(mariconazo!) “I will find you, you will see. You don´t know who you are dealing with! I will find you, I have contacts, etc. etc.” Replied the taxista: “well wait until your face is all healed up so I can smash it in again!”
“Right” said the policeman, “you will all have to come to the station to make a report and lay charges.” “Oh no” said the woman. “I´m not going to any station. And I am not going to Monterrico either. Take me to Camacho”. “But señora” said the cop, sitting in the front seat of the taxi while the pituco was being restrained in the pick-up behind by the serenazgo and other policemen, “you have to make a report”. No said the chica. (“She was media-china” confided the taxi driver to me) “No report. My husband´s brother is a coronel in the army. No report, just take me to Camacho. I am the victim and I hired this taxi and I want him to take me to Camacho.”
The taxista said to the policeman, “and what about my documents? You have my documents and you see that the other guy was the aggressor (mariconazo!) so what about giving me my documents?”
The policia, still sitting in the front seat of the car, considered the situation. “You know that the pituco will get the coronel to find you don´t you?” he said to the taxista. “And I am obliged to take you in to make a report. So here is what we´ll do. I will stay in this car, the pick–up will follow. You take the chica to Camacho and then we go to the station. When we get there I will give you your documents and then you high-tail it out of there before we can do anything.”
So off to Camacho went the motorcade. They arrived at a house and the taxista knocked on the door. Out came “un chino enorme, cabezon, pelado”. (A Chinese man with a huge bald head) “Look” said the taxista, “your daughter is in the car and her husband has mashed up her nose and mouth”. “What??” exclaimed the chino enorme, turning back into the house and bellowing for all his male relatives.
They continued to the station. “Right” said the policeman to the taxista, slipping him his documents, “go park over there”. “Si señor” said the taxista loudly, and promptly gunned his car towards Av. Javier Prado without a backward glance. “Ha!” he told me. “If the pituco was smart enough to remember my licence plate so be it. If not…ha!”
I was so fascinated by his narrative that I almost missed the turning to my office. Where to start? What to say? Applaud the staunch defence of the rights of women (or chicas) by the intrepid, middle-aged taxi driver? Admire the resourcefulness of the policeman who clearly believed the innocence of the taxi driver but recognized the inevitableness of retribution from the pituco and his coronel uncle? Accept his obvious powerlessness to apply the law as written? Should I express my indignation about the common reference to “chicas” rather than “mujeres”?
The story drew to a close just as we drew up outside my office and I all but ran inside, anxious to make notes. At first blush there were a number of unlikely heroes. The indignant taxi driver who could have kept his eye firmly on the road and driven the feuding couple from Miraflores to Monterrico wthout intervention. The resourceful policemen who did his best within his means – in the face of pituco power – to see justice done.
But all day and every day since one word keeps ringing in my head “mariconazo!, mariconazo!”
The fact that it was used so easily and unconsciously by all of the protagonists in this fascinating drama bothered me immeasurably. I started the original conversation and my taxista was clearly proud that he had demonstrated his enlightenment by beating up the pituco but at what price was my admiration won?
Months later I read a facebook post by a good friend of mine decrying bullfighting. She was absolutely disgusted by it and cried the whole time. She ended the post by saying something to the effect that the matadors claim to be brave by fighting the bulls but “I do not find those cowardly maricones in the least bit sexy”.
Soooo: Maricon equals woman beater. Maricon equals liar. Maricon equals coward.
And this from people who are doing the right thing.
We haven´t come that far baby.
