El Gringo del Pantano
There is nothing like a far-death experience to remind you of what truly matters.
I am sitting in the American Express lounge indulging in the cliche lifestyle of a remote worker living in Mexico City: eating a sun-baked salmon atop a parfait of frijoles, sipping on cold champagne, and typing away on my computer so as to build value for a company built, primarily, across a tapestry of radio waves. My flight boards at 3PM, closes at 3:45PM, and departs at 4:00PM. Naturally, I decide to stay in the lounge until 3:30PM, precisely close enough to the departure so as to avoid idle loitering in the crowded chairs by the gate.
At 3:35PM, I arrive at the gate, scan my boarding pass, and prepare to walk through.
The woman mutters something to me which takes me approximately four seconds to translate. In those four seconds, I wonder if I am being upgraded from Volaris Basic to Premium, considering I have flown the purple plane near eight million times, before realizing that Volaris is not an airline that gives out free upgrades, less free water, free pretzels, or free magazines. By the fourth second, I realize that the woman is telling me I cannot board: I need a sticker. I am a resident, so I need a sticker. For what? I ask. She doesn’t answer. Instead she tells me that I need to go to Gate 10, which is—stored in my memory of this airport—more of a hike than a walk, which means that if I am to hike to Gate 10, I will miss the flight. It is already 3:40PM. The gate closes in five minutes.
Por que? Tengo mi tarjeta de residencia aquí. She repeats herself with the emotion of a glacier. Then again, then again, then again, as if to ward my gringo ignorance back into the abyss of the Benito Juarez International Airport. At this point, I realize that she will not change her mind. No matter if I get on my knees, shake my little ass, or make up a story about being the godson of Claudia Sheinbaum, Glacier Face will not let me through the sacred black lace of the boarding line. So I start walking to Gate 10, thinking: Puta madre, if she thinks I am going to run and make a fool of myself, she’s delusional—she probably wants to laugh at me with all her Volaris friends. So I waltz with the posture of an elegant deer past Gate 16, then 15, then 14, and then quickly abandon my ego once I am out of sight. I graduate to a jog, then a run, then a sprint. I arrive at Gate 10 with no justice in sight: no window, no office, no sign reading IMMIGRACIÒN. I pace around like a manic turkey until I spot someone wearing a uniform that looks like it belongs to the airport. My beak flops open and I plead in a pant: PERDON, SABES DONDE ESTA LA IMMIGRACIÒN!?
We exchange a string of Spanish until the man decodes my exhausted accent. Necesitas un sticker? SI. Eres un residente? SI. Necesitas ir a Gate 25. NO MAMES GUEY, LA MUJER DICE QUE NECESITE FUI A GATE 10. No mames. SI NO MAMES. Quieres que me ayudarte? SI, POR FAVOR. Pero necesitas dígame un gran tip. OK OK.
When the man offered to help, I thought he would pull out a sticker from his pocket and slap it onto my passport. Instead, he swings out a wheelchair and commands me to sit down. So I sit. He sprints me through the terminal at a speed that teeters between turtle and lambourghini, catching his breath at an attempt of more of the latter, weaving between crowds of people who could not care less to move out of the way, which I do not blame them for. Mira! Otra mas gringo que pasó demasiado tiempo en el lounge!!!!
I clutch my oversized backpack—savior of many luggage fees—and brace my core so as not to plummet into the cold, hard floor. I imagine myself as my grandmother Jeanette, who, on many occasions, took the liberty of being wheeled around many airports, cruises, and hotels, the staff at any institution drawn to help her like iron sand pulled to a magnet (or attendees to a demanding elder). A part of me wants to laugh, except nothing is funny about the gate closing at 3:45PM and the time reading 3:43PM, only just as we pass Gate 15, then 16, then 17—which is now completely empty. Everyone has boarded but me.
The man asks me why I waited so long. I say NO SE, pero se, porque la champagna fue muy rico.
He tells me that every time I leave Mexico, I need a sticker. Why a sticker? He has no explanation. Every time I leave? I ask. Yes, he says, because I am a resident. At which point I wonder several things: a) Why was I never told this when I got my residency, or at any point of the ticket purchase, flight check-in, security checkpoint (when I presented my residency card), when I signed into the lounge (and presented my residency card yet again), b) why a sticker, of all things, c) why for residents—shouldn’t tourists have to go through more than residents, and d) will Volaris rebook me at no cost if I miss the flight? Isn’t this partially the woman’s fault for telling me Gate 10? My inner voice erupts with side-eye. It’s your fault, hoe.
I dig into my backpack for a 300 peso bill and clutch it in my palm as we whiz, then roll, then whiz to Gate 25. Miraculously, somehow, we make it, even though a part of me thought that Gate 25 might not exist, that we were going to collide into some wormhole and arrive into a new world, a Gen Z Narnia where none of the current world events are real, where the climate is changing in a different way (cleaner air, more resources), and I am not the lead in Fast & Furious: Wheelchair Drift. Where everyone is swimming in the lounge champagne with nowhere to go, nothing to do.
I catapult out of the chair as the man points me towards a small desk. My watch reads 3:50PM. In a polite scream, I ask the lady at the desk for a sticker. She assesses my boarding pass and ID for a microsecond, puts a little sticker inside of my passport, and then hands them both back to me. Es todo? I ask. Si, she says. I turn to the man who wheeled me here and hand him the bill. Estas seguro, es todo? Si, he says. I tell him I’ll run back—it’ll be faster.
So I run. Without exaggeration, I run like I never have before. I run, run, run, run and ignore the volcanic lungs, tendons, and muscles inside of me that scream for a pause, a breath. I tell myself that I have trained for this: Every morning spent in the gym was not to make my body tea or chisel my waist into something immune to dysmorphia. No, every morning spent in the gym was for this. To get back to Gate 17 before the plane goes into the sky. I sprint like a lion with a lame leg, the backpack consistently throwing me off balance,as numerous Mexican families, couples, and groups of friends gaze at me with amusement: MIRA A ESTE GRINGO! JAJAJAJAJAJ!
SI, ES MI! EL GRINGO MÁS RÁPIDO DEL MUNDO! Why the f*ck is the stretch from Gate 22 to 21 so long? Who asked for a Cinnabon, a jewelry store, and a magazine kiosk all in one stretch? WE’RE AT 20. TWENTY IS ONLY THREE AWAY FROM SEVENTEEN. ANDALE. I sprint with the force of a cheetah on cocaine, leaping towards visions of me and my parents, me and my friends: a sleepover with Shauna, Maia, and Raquel, sitting on the couch with my Dad and Mom, opening the fridge five million times because it is stuffed with random things that I would never buy myself, many of them likely long past expired.
Faster. FASTER! 17. I leap to the desk panting, near tears, as the staff assess me with the same glacier expressions I withstood thirty minutes prior.
NECESITO ABORDAR, I say. ESTE ES MIS VUELO.
No es posible, the first man says.
POR FAVOR.
No, the woman next to him says. The third woman next to her just smiles.
I am begging now, but by the fourth no—and smile—I lose it. So I summon the power of my grandmother Jeanette.
NECESITO ABORDAR AHORA. NO MAMES, TUS COMPAÑERA ME DIJO QUE TENÍA QUE IR A LA PUERTA 10, PERO NO, ERA LA PUERTA 25, ASÍ QUE FUI A LA 10 Y LUEGO A LA 25 Y CORRÍ AQUÍ. TENGO EL STAMP.
They laugh and say no again, but Grandma Jeanette is with me now.
NO MAMES. PUTA MADRE. MIS FAMILIA ESTÁ ESPERANDO PARA MI. NECESITO ABORDAR AHORA. LLAMAR AL VUELO. AHORA. EL AVIÓN ESTÁ AHÍ MISMO Y LA PASARELA SIGUE EN PIE. ANDALE. DEJAMÉ ENTRAR.
They laugh again, but this time one of them pulls out a walkie talkie and mutters something. The walkie talkie mutters back. They tell me to run onto the plane, so I run.
GRACIAS, I pant. Kind of, I think.
I run onto a flight that is half-full and nowhere near leaving, home to a few people putting their suitcases into the overhead compartments. I find my seat—panting, coughing, about to keel over—and toss my backpack onto the floor. A white woman at the window with oversized headphones wrapped around her ears like Hawaiian sweet buns ignores my presence altogether, which offers a glint of relief, considering I am sweating from all pores: around my temples, through my shirt, and off the sides of my waist. I feel like a swamp monster sitting amongst a row of swans.
Now that I am finally able to take a breath, I cannot stop coughing. I cough, cough, and cough, and even though I am holding my arm to my mouth, I can see the older Mexican couple in front of me attempting to inch away, leaning into the seats in front of them, so as to avoid any potential contamination from El Gringo del Pantano.
I know how they feel, because I have felt it, too: the germaphobic desire to teleport the coughing presence a galaxy away, out of sight. Every time someone coughs near me—sneezes or does anything that signals being sick—I wince. My face curls up and the stink eye takes over without my conscious command. It takes me at least fifteen minutes before I can bring myself to think: I hope they are okay. In those first fifteen minutes, all I can think is: Ew, get the fuck away from me.
Perhaps this is my retribution: Doesn’t every person who sits inside of a lounge being served champagne by workers who subsist off of tips, despite being employed by a 218 billion dollar company, deserve to become a swamp monster? To melt in shame in public?
I am coughing to an extent that eventually triggers worry. It feels difficult to breathe. Every time I breathe in, I cough. I can’t manage to breathe in deep enough to feel satisfied. To feel like I do not need to breathe again. And then I wonder: Is this asthma? Am I having an asthma attack? In my second year living in Mexico City, I researched the air quality: several studies have linked the development of asthma and breathing problems to the city’s pollution. Perhaps I have become a statistic. I breathe through the little straw of my water bottle as a makeshift inhaler, hoping that it helps, yet the coughing persists.
What if we get in the air and this gets worse? What if I die because I ran so hard to make this flight? A part of me is worried, but a part of me also wants to laugh: El Gringo del Pantano is fighting for his life in Economy. The entire reason I almost missed my flight was because I wanted to stay in the lounge. I wanted to sip the champagne, sink into the soft chair, and pretend that I was not someone accustomed to fighting for their life in Economy. It makes sense that this is how I die.
Let’s restructure this moment, I think. On the bright side: I want to live. Although that basic sentiment is, more or less, a foundation, thinking “I want to live in this world” has felt questionable over the past year, given everything we have witnessed, and been unable to change, as a species: genocide, disaster politics, doubling down on our damage to the planet we call home. At what point do we burn everything to the ground, and at what point do we accept our fate of extinction? If all of the good people in this world gathered together and decided it was time to hit the “END” button, I’d throw in my hand with the team. And yet, these are just words, just ideas. Perhaps the truth is better reflected by the moment: I am suffocating in a seat that does not recline, and yet the desire to live burns bright: I want to be here for as long as I can be. I want to fight the bad. I want to share the good.
When I left for this flight, I journaled for around five minutes about the things that I am grateful for. I rambled on about feeling like I have become comfortable with myself—with my relationship, with my life, with my friends, with living in Mexico City, with belonging being a multi-faceted, non-exclusive thing—in a way that I haven’t felt before. I spent a lot of my twenties searching for some brilliant becoming in the form of a career, a love, a personal evolution, and although I am still excited about the process of discovery and the delight of becoming, I feel like I know—beyond the conceptual form of knowing (so as to feel it in my body, in the daily process of living, as opposed to coming upon a realization that is then forgotten again and again)—that this is my life, that there is no searching, for it always is.
And so here I am, fighting for my breath, because now that I know this, why would I want to leave? I try to cough quieter and quieter, but the air escapes me like a whoopie cushion. I see myself being seen by the white lady with huge earphones and the couple in front of us, by the man next to me, by the people behind me, and it all feels a little bit absurd: none of us know each other, and most likely, none of us will know each other. For the rest of their lives, this is the only role I will play: El Gringo del Pantano.
We rise into the sky and encounter a level of turbulence that makes my stomach do a backwards flip, miss the land, and fall on its side. I lean back into my seat and rehearse the mental therapy I developed for turbulence on a plane, imagining legendary Pokémon supporting the wings, the belly of the vehicle, and the sides. I envision Moltres, Articuno, Zapdos, Latios, Latias, Rayquza, and Mewtew flying alongside us, ensuring our safety, a million Dragonairs and Dragonites and Gardevoirs and Alakazams using their magic, might, and moves to keep us afloat. Pikachu on the helm directing the team, Charizard at the back running quality control. And then a thought creeps in: What if I was supposed to miss this flight?
No mames. What if this was the universe attempting to save me…What if my turkey ass running through the terminal and transforming into El Gringo del Pantano was my fatal decision. What if I was supposed to miss the flight! The turbulence gets worse.
At my funeral they’ll say that, at the very end—at the very least—I flew. It was what I always longed for as an air sign, the ultimate Aquarius. Asian-American Oedipus. I always dreamt beyond the ordinary: being a world-famous author, making house music with Ariana Grande, owning a cafe somewhere green in Brooklyn. Harliv would reference how many times I joked about dying, suggest that this was my ultimate manifestation, and note how I would have hated that the word “manifest” was used in my eulogy. Claudia would reminisce on the day we laughed about plane anxiety, sitting in the little bedroom with twinkle lights draped over us. Mijael would cry a lake around Mexico City, its dense force paving streams and rivers, giving life to fauna and flora the way the indigenous designed it to be before the Spanish invaded and whited the color out with concrete. An initial flood would wipe out the fresas, leaving only fertile land for the rest.
At this point, an ethereal calm flows over me: If it ends, at least I got to be here. At least I got to be who I was, who I am. At least I got to fall in love with the best person in the entire world, at least I got to know what it means to believe that statement, to feel it, to know: There is no one better than you, even if that is not true, even if that is irrational, that is how much I love you, that is how much love we’ve built together, that is how fickle objectivity seems in the light of everything you mean to me, beyond time, beyond space, beyond words. At least I got to fall in love with a fleet of incredible people from all over the world. At least I got to be a son to a mother and father whose love fueled every moment of joy I have had the privilege of tasting. At least I got to be best friends with my grandmother. At least I got to be a brother, a cousin, a nephew, a friend, a bestie, a soul sister, a passing warmth in the story of so many lives in so many places. At least I got to be El Gringo del Pantano. ☷
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With love,
Your favorite capybara ☼ AKA Travis Zane
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