The Federales pulled my brother and me over on Mexican Highway 1, just south of Tijuana, in a rented truck packed with insects, arachnids, and a violent toucan. We were accused of illegal wildlife trafficking. The insects were stacked in the back of the truck in clear plastic containers and the bird was in a rusty cage. We had just left Dr. Raoul Sirentas’s research facility after responding to his advertisement in the Los Angeles Times. He’d sold us his insects.
Dr. Sirentas was an entomologist who had developed a tragic case of melissophobia after accidentally drinking a bee that had drowned in his sugared coffee. The bee’s corpse, upon coming into contact with his throat, stung his tonsil. Sadly, in the following weeks his melissophobia snowballed into entomophobia, and soon Dr. Sirentas couldn’t get within a football field of his insect-filled laboratory without convulsing with fear. Eventually, he stopped going altogether and the Mexican government was forced to abrogate his research grant. In order to feed his wife and kids, Dr. Sirentas decided to sell his beloved, but feared, insect collection.
Around the same time five-hundred miles away, my brother’s bookie, Chuck, called my brother and offered him a tip on the fifth race at Santa Anita in exchange for a payout he owed him, quid pro quo. My brother accepted and Chuck told him about Yo-Yo Dude, a filly from Belize.
“She’s a surefire winner,” Chuck said. “I also like Rice Crispies and Prozac in that race.”
“Those are horses?” My brother asked.
“Yup,” Chuck said. “For all intents and purposes, racehorses are warm-blooded brand names.”
Twenty minutes later, my brother won $5,962 on a trifecta.
The next morning, as we ate a perfunctory breakfast in the apartment we shared, I read an article in Time about insect breeders who supply wealthy European socialites with exotic insects. Apparently, rare insects are a sign of prestige in certain social circles, and rich Europeans like to show-off their collections to other rich Europeans.
Shortly after reading the article in Time, we stumbled across Dr. Sirentas’s advertisement in the newspaper, offering his entire inventory of insects and arachnids for $4,000. It included tarantulas, African honey bees, brown recluse spiders, Mojave beetles, fire ants, and more. We viewed this - the article, the advertisement, and my brother’s recent windfall - as a can't miss money-making opportunity. So we rented a truck and on a quixotic whim headed south toward Dr. Sirentas's home in Corvalis, Mexico.
When we arrived, the transaction was quick. We forked over the money and loaded the insects into the truck. In no time, we were careening back toward the United States with our cargo and a toucan my brother purchased from a roadside vendor. As we were leaving the vendor's stand, the man said, "be careful, it's dangerous." We thought he was talking about the road.
At 2 A.M., just when we could see the glow of Tijuana through the desert’s ubiquitous quarter-moon darkness, I noticed flashing lights coming up from behind us. Soon they were directly on our bumper, and an amplified voice ordered us to pull over. I cautiously applied the breaks and we rolled to a stop.
Two uniformed men exited their car and approached our truck; they had pistols in their holsters. One asked in Spanish if we were Americans. I tried to answer the question in his native tongue, but instead of saying “Si, Es verdad…Yes, that's true,” I said “Si, Es verde…Yes, it's green.”
“You’re an idiot,” my brother said.
The Federales ordered us out of the truck and onto the ground. They opened up the back and inspected our haul. I could hear them talking to each other, amazed as they shined their flashlights into each container. When they came upon the toucan, one of the officers unlocked the cage; immediately, the toucan attacked him, stabbing him in the eye with his banana-sized beak.
Cursing us, the Federales sped off for medical help, kicking up a plume of dust. The injured officer screamed as their car disappeared into the night. My brother and I got up and quickly shut the truck’s back door. The toucan was still loose inside.
Two hours later we were in a hotel parking lot in San Ysidro. When we opened the back of the truck, we discovered that the toucan had smashed each plastic container and eaten every last insect.
One-hundred miles to the south, Dr. Sirentas laid in his bed, sobbing.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
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