Pum tik tak, tik tak tak tik tak tak tik tak tak tik tak tak

 

Que la guitarra me haga un sonido así:

 

Tugi tugi tag tag, tigtagu, tugi tugi tag tag, tigtagu

 

Seguido por el bajo

 

Bum bum, buuuuum………. Ta buum; buuum: buuuuuuuuum

 

De la Laguna yo vengo diciendo asi:

 

“Tuburu, tuburu tab tab, tum- tum”

 

Para asegurarte que todos tenemos bombas para brincar!

 

That is the song that is blasting from the color alternating speakers next to an image of La Virgen de Guadalupe over the rutera driver’s head

 

Yes! The white “school bus” painted with thick olive Green lines running across it

 

Ruta 2B

 

I just turned sixteen and I am sitting on the bus making my way to Papelerama

where it will be my first and last day on the job

 

I will be a clerk today but my people skills are as unpredictable as a frightened cat and my math is bad… really bad

 

I don't know it yet because I just turned sixteen 72 hours ago but I have ADHD and that makes the eye contact thing a little complex

 

Am I ok? Sometimes I can be as extroverted as the hosts of the TV Azteca morning shows but most often than not I feel my soul retrieving into my bones when I have to meet someone for the first time

 

But what do I know, I am only 10 i seis

 

La rutera is turning on that corner where it feels like if we are falling off a cliff on a peak of the Himalayas, and the boy with perfectly greasy hear sitting beside me is about to spill over his papas locas and make the whole bus smell like salsa Valentina

 

“Ten cuidado”, murmurs his mom as if nobody had seen the scene of the salty and oily papas covered in salsa sliding down his yellow SpongeBob shirt

 

That is also the corner where my friend, the one who went with me to Plaza de Las Americas to watch Congo at Multicinemas got killed

 

Pero yo que se, tan solo tengo 10 i seis

 

The lady sitting behind me that smells like she has been cooking chicharrones or buñuelos the entire morning yells out, “¡NO TRAES VACAS CABRON!” as we try to regain control of our necks that are violently contorting from the rumbling of the rutera

 

The high school girls in their brown square-pattern skirts and white uniform shirts giggle playfully with their lips plastered with the shiniest lip-gloss I have ever seen

 

I wonder what it tastes like, does it taste like cherry or like the images of star clusters, galaxies, and constellations captured by the Hubble telescope

 

Of course I want to taste it, it’s my first week being 10 i seis

 

By the time we arrive at el centro, la rutera is so full that los maquileros with their counterfeit shoes and the cholos wearing their size 42 pants have to open the emergency door on the back of the of the bus and run to their jobs as fast and agitated as undocumented immigrants crossing the border

 

One of the cholos works at the carniceria a couple of blocks from where we arrived and his boss is a horrible person that has publically threatened to fire him if he comes late to work one more time

 

But once again, yo que se apenas cumpli 10 i seis

 

The dignified female factory workers with their navy blue coats and their lanyards caring work ID’s with their photos under the letters that spell RCA, continue their trance like conversations among themselves as they walk with a deer-like calm to the front exit of the bus not knowing for sure if they will be making it back home

 

But what do I know about anything, I just turned sixteen and I’m here standing at the front door of my new job at Papelerama