“Our functions are more than anything social proximity, it is
to interact with the family and clarify people's doubts.”
Valeria García Valdivia, Hottie Squad, Aguascalientes State Police

I am the resident gringo.  There is no cultural stability in Gringoland, and it is a neurotic, insecure society, so as a gringo, I have a highly-developed lack of faith in everything around me.  The nuclear meltdown in my broken, weeping soul keeps me in a state of radioactive high alert, and the hyper-vigilance necessary for survival in a society of humorless legalists who require constant explanations about everything is extremely difficult to unlearn.

It isn't cool.

The paradox of American culture is that it is by far the coolest culture in history, populated by some of the lamest, most insufferable ideologues to have ever walked the earth.  The same culture that produced Steve McQueen, Miles Davis, Clint Eastwood, and The Ramones has been infested with Karens and unreasonable, rainbow-colored bedbugs.  There is a layer of perma-fury in Gringoland, burning just beneath the surface of everyone you meet.  I told the guy at the tienda that I'm a refugee of sorts, a cultural refugee, and he immediately understood what I was saying.

There are no social grey areas in Mexico.  It is very black and white.  I'm not saying it from observation; it was told to me plainly by a Mexican guy who said that Mexicans are either friendly, or dangerous.  There is no in-between.  The guy on the street is either your brother, or a killer.  It's that simple.

Or so they say.  But whether or not the theory is strictly true, my experience doesn't contradict it.

Or rather, in my experience, when the black and white morality overlap, they don't mix.  Good and evil don't mix to create a rainbow of different shades of grey.  Good and evil actually coexist independently, like opposing magnets orbiting within the souls of Mexicans who haven't made a commitment to one or the other.  There are no social grey areas in Mexico.

When I became fast friends with an obvious cartel guy in Chihuahua, who flashed his stack of American hundred-dollar bills at me in the parking lot full of exotic cars, and offered me cocaine and weed when I was considering renting one of his apartments, it wasn't because he was a dangerous killer.  It was because he was my friend.  He responded to my texts and would have rented the apartment to me if I'd wanted it, but I'm not stupid, and would never knowingly get involved with the cartel even as a tenant in some apartment in Chihuahua.  At some point, your "buddy" would need a favor.  And then it would be all over.

But it would fade to black, like the last scene of a movie.  It wouldn't fade to grey.

I have also been told that the spiritual health of a town in Mexico can be judged by the disposition of the street dogs.  Dogs roam freely throughout the entire country, and I can probably count the times I've seen a dog on a leash on one hand.  Once, while accidentally getting lost in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City, which is supposedly the worst neighborhood in town (I didn't know that at the time, or I would have avoided it)(and because it's centrally-located, it's easy to wander into, and easy to get out of), a pit bull bit through my shoe while I was walking down the street.  He came at me without reason or warning, and bit my moving foot.  The owner froze for a second, knowing it was bad, but since the dog's teeth only penetrated the leather of my shoe and didn't touch my skin, I didn't make a fuss about it.  It ruined the shoe, but I got them at a thrift store anyway.  And anyway, what are you going to do.

Call the police?  Over a shoe?

In Mexico?

Perhaps if they were my government-issued, uniform high heels.  Which a culture of killers and brothers would never issue to a dude.

The "hottie squad" was real.  But they disbanded it in 2016.  Apparently, nobody took them seriously.

Too bad.

In direct contrast to the pit bulls of Tepito, all the street dogs in this little town are very friendly.  In fact I was walking back from the tienda with my neighbor Ángel last night, and a dog was following us all the way home.  When we got back to our houses, he asked me if it was my dog.  I'd thought that it was his.  He had no idea whose dog it was, or if the dog even had a who, anybody he could even call a master.  He was a friendly dog.  I went inside to get my bag of dog treats, which I'd purchased for this express purpose, but when I came back to the outer gate, my nonexistent friend was gone. 

He was a black dog, but I assumed he faded into white, when he disappeared into the streets.