by Oscar Plazola
On Wednesday the 10th of December I spent the night at my girlfriend's house. On Thursday the 11th, I went home at noon. When I arrived, I realized that my house had been emptied the night before, according to the security camera videos, at 9:30. They took musical instruments, the TV, all my clothes and some of my daughter's. They took even the trash can from my son's bathroom and his shampoo. I called 911 and a patrol arrived, took a look, asked me for information and, after recommending that I file a complaint, left.
In the seventies and eighties, reporting a crime like this was worse than staying with the anger and without your things, because in addition to not doing anything, the police could rip you off. It was scary going to a police station. However, among the things that were stolen was my computer with the work of many months and three guitars that have a sentimental value that only a musician can understand. Also, of course, my son's shampoo. So I decided to go file the complaint.
The first things that surprised me was that the offices were very clean and tidy, almost half of the staff that I could see were women and everyone attended me with kindness. I was surprised! I was attended by a professional, all of them are graduates in the social sciences, who wrote the complaint. When he finished he told me that an official would come to my house. I asked him when and he replied: right now!, let's go. I was surprised again.
At my house, while my woman and I were doing a review of what the thieves had taken, the expert did his work, identifying fingerprints, taking photos, etc. He finished his work and left. In less than an hour the robbery investigation officers arrived. They asked me many other questions and reconstructed the events. They asked for the videos from the security cameras. They told me: We have to catch them in less than five days or it was a lost cause.
My girlfriend and I took on the task of notifying all friends and acquaintances, giving the characteristics of some of the things stolen. There were two things that would be easily recognizable: an old Cort guitar and my computer, which had a cigarette burn on the keyboard.
On Friday at noon a friend called and told me that she has seen my computer on the internet for sale. She showed me the image and indeed, it was my computer! My friend tried to trick the person who listed it, but the girl who posted it grew suspicious. So my friend came right out and told her: That computer is stolen! If you don't want to have problems, contact my friend, who is its owner. She gave her my number and the girl contacted me the next day After a lot of back and forth we agreed to meet so she could return my computer.
I called the investigating officer and he told me what to do. In short, don't scare her. My woman posed as a tourist and photographed the transaction, as she is Canadian, the girl would not suspect. A girl less than 20 years old came and gave me the computer, all my work was there! She told me that she was sorry, blah blah blah. I informed her that the police had been informed and that they would come looking for her. She gave me her address and I passed it on to the police. I told them that she had returned the computer.
On Monday morning the chief officer called me to tell me that they had already recovered two guitars and that I had to go to the offices to see if they were mine. When I arrived, my surprise was huge, there were two of my guitars! Orale!, I exclaimed. We saw the videos, the officer told me, the girl was also involved, she is the one who appears in the video carrying a guitar!
From there everything flowed, by Thursday they had recovered a keyboard and the other guitar, in addition to having arrested the other two accomplices.
On Friday, as I recognized the third guitar and keyboard, they arrived with the tennis rackets. I thanked everyone, as well as confessing that I was pleasantly surprised. It's our job, the official who attended me told me. I still don't have my things, an expert has to do his job and then they will return them to me, but in just over a week they had recovered my most beloved things. So felicidades to the investigative police! What a good job!
I did not recover my son's clothes or shampoo, but I confirmed two things: that there are people in the police who do things well and that the magic of San Miguel is its people.
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Oscar Plazola, a Mexican, poet and writer who has gone to seed, the Mexican poet Benjamin Valdivia baptized him, as a dictator of urban histories and his work as urbanizations. It is relatively easy to find in his work the influence of authors such as Chava Flores, Jaime López, or Joaquín Sabina, even of poets like Ricardo Castillo, Efraín Huerta or Nicanor Parra. However, he is an author with a voice of his own that does not deny the tradition of nonconformists and anti-silence. We are the news, we are the statistics, a grain in the governor's ass, the stain in history that is not talked about, a disposition that God forgets. (Universal Disinherited) The city and its letters go together with a casual and provocative voice, based on one's own experience and in the very perception of a paradoxical World. Nomad among urban conglomerates that he loves and hates at the same time. The critical charge of his work is, however, lightened by the action of the acids of irony, humor and mockery that he sometimes exerts against himself. And already at the gates of heaven, Saint Peter did not behave, "Here you cannot go in, go to hell. Mammon, here you have no place, you're a fucking pedestrian." (The soul of a pedestrian) In short, risky and carefree author who has mixed his experiences and his vision of the world to create simply a different style.
