SUNDAY AFTERNOON

We drove towards grandma house. The 3 of us sat silently in the car; I was thinking how much I enjoyed the liturgy that had concluded a few moments ago. A good liturgy has the following elements: passion, drama, and a heavy dose of art.
The children perhaps were thinking of a theme park, or about the toys they would like to play with. Traffic began to slow down and soon we could see a checkpoint ahead.
“What happened dad?”
“It’s the Federales”
“What are they doing?”
“They making sure everything is alright”
“Look at their machine guns dad”
“Yes, machines guns” Now I knew what their precious minds were focusing on.
When our car approached the officer, he looked us, he scrutinized us, he studied us and he said:
“Pull over the side of the road” He had a chilango accent.
This was a first, since the Federal Police was restructured by the Calderon administration, that we were stop by them, the last time a federal pulled me over he had to as asked for a cigarette and then he let us go. I remember at that time my boys were two beautiful babies sound a sleep on their car seats. This time there would be no cigarettes since I don’t smoke anymore.
“Registration please” He asked as we looked at him silently.
“Here you are” I gave him a folded registration card that I took out from a coin pouch.
“Your driver license please”
“There you go” I took the card from my wallet and handed to him.
“What do you do?”
“I sell radios”
“Can you open the trunk?”
“Yes, I can” I got out of the car, walked towards the back of my car, inserted the key, and twist first to the right, and then to the left. The trunk opened. My briefcase was in plain view.
“Open the briefcase”
I opened the briefcase and step away from it. He inspected the overall contents except for the inner compartment.
“What in there?” He asked with a trembling voice refereeing to the unopened section.
“A computer”
“How long have you been in the radio business?” The pitch in his voice was shaking.
“I have been an operator for a very long time”
“You can go sir, sorry for the inconvenience”
“Have a nice day” I said.
The other policemen stop all oncoming traffic; I accelerated and began to drive on the road again.
“What do you learned today kids?”
“That persuasion is better than guns” My boys answered in unison and with boredom in their voices.
“That’s right children, never forget that”