I'm back -- or forth

I'll explain.

I'm in a hotel on Benito Juárez off the Zócalo in Mexico City. I took a gamble, figured my money would last longer. I paid the ISP up front, hung the bike from a rafter in my dad's garage, and hiked up to catch a train to LAX. I'll wind up on my his door again; he'll wind up supporting this project another way, but six months later, so I won't worry when I write.

The trip -- everything officious at LAX, this plane a snug living room with almonds in the sky, the California grid computer chip grids in someone's rumpled motherboard below; then Tijuana streets some cattywampus termite-lust linguine, here sofas on the boulevard, there a bridge to zilch.

At Mexico City a thousand cabbies flood the airport. Nobody asks; the quickest grabs my bag. I grab it back. I do not own enough to pay someone to carry belongings, and no one carries my computer. The cabbie hollers something through the crowd, some explanation, I suspect, though it sounds like a complaint. He has waited because I'm a tourist, and now I won't produce him any money.

"Perdón."

Lo siento, I have been told, is sorry. But it translates as "I feel it," something I'm trying to not say in this crowd. The next cabbie grabs at my bags; I hoist one on my shoulder, hang the computerbag by a strap from my neck and plunge off towards the metro, at the end of the airport.

The second I hit the platform at the bottom, I find a slim young man beside me. He looks slightly shy behind thick, Ginsberg glasses. I notice he's in uniform.

"This is hard," he said. "You travel very far from home."

"I love to see all this." I adjust the army duffle square between my shoulders, cock my head to nod around its bulk. The boy's too young to be a cop. His friend, another cop, stands at the entrance looking with what seems distaste.

"I think I find it very strange to be far from my father. Somewhere I can't read the signs I don't know what to do."

"One makes mistakes. People usually forgive."

"Sometimes. But I would want someone to help. It must be very hard."

The train came. I waved and smiled patiently, perplexed at his attentions and only as the train pulled out noticed the sign behind him:

BULTAS GRANDES PROHIBIDAS
VIOLADORES SERAN MULTADOS