Editor’s note: “6 p.m., Cerro Fortin” is one of the two winning stories in the Faulkner Mixtape Writing Contest. The challenge was to write a nonfiction story using two different narrators.

Author’s Note: The scene: 6 p.m., a hiking trail in Mexico. 1st narrator: Mexican police officer. 2nd narrator: Sarah

6 p.m., Cerro Fortin

Estábamos subiendo la colina cuando vi una guërita, bajando lento con un perro, no mames, buey, un perrote, con unos pinches dientotes, jalando por adelante este guërita flacita. Ella lo jaló por atrás y lo intento parar pero parecía que iba el perro ganando.

“No mames, buey,” le digo a mi compañero, “mírale este guërita. Que madres esta haciendo solita por aquí a las 6 de la tarde?”

“Pidiendo desmadre,” dijo este compañero mío, aburrido.

“Verdad?” le digo. “Quieres pararla?”

“Para que?” pregunta. Pretende ser flojo, pero sé que es mas nervioso que yo, que se pone nervioso con estes jueguitos.

“Para que no, cabrón?” le digo.

La guëra para de repente con su perro, parece pastor alemán, bien pinche grande este perro. El perro se siente y sus dientes brillan como lobo hambriento, buey. Es impresionante este perro.

Paro a un lado de la guërita. Me vea. Es un poco rara, ella. Como que tiene una cara de niña, pero hay algo allí que esta muy dura. Sus ojos son azules, azules. Nunca he visto ojos tan azules. La verdad es que me espantan un poco. Puedo ver que tiene miedo, claro – que madres esta haciendo caminando aquí sola a esta hora? – pero también hay cierto desafio como que no se va a dejar tan fácil. El perro me mira fijo.

“Es bravo, tu perro?” Le pregunto en tono muy serio, para intimidarla un poco.

“No!” dice al principio, y luego rápido ajunta, “pero si le digo, si puede ser bravo.”

“Esta entrenado,” le digo.

“Si,” responde, “normalmente es muy tranquila, pero si tengo una problema me proteja.”

No esta como pensaba – su tono de voz tiene algo firme, como si nos están confrontando. No esta como otras mujeres que a veces paramos – las borrachas que intenten coquetearte y luego se ponen bien pinches bravas, gritando, o las niñas de la escuela que tengan miedo y escondan sus caras, a quienes podemos chiflar todo el puto día sin que dicen nada. Este, no, este tiene otra agenda.

Mi compañero no quiere ver la guërita. Ella te vea directo a las ojos, y no baja su mirada hasta que bajas la tuya. Mi compañero esta incomodo con todo eso – el perro, la guërita, el cerro lentamente oscureciendo. A mi me encantaría tomar este guëra por su pelo hasta que grita, dominarla bien cabrón y enseñarla estar tan pinche seguro de si misma, me gustaría cogerla allá mientras que mi compañero vea, pero creo que no podía suportar sus ojos. Y luego hay el perro.

“Bueno,” dice la guërita, mientras que la veo pensando, “buenos tardes.” Y sigue caminando.

“Ni modos,” le digo a mi compañero, y seguimos subiendo la colina.

~

The wind whipped Stella’s hair back so that she looked like a carefree kid beaming in the back of a speeding truck. She had on that big goofy dog grin she gets after we’ve done a good hike on the Cerro and are heading back in the chill of the early evening. The light played on the tall grasses on the hillside and made them look like something from the afterlife, flashes of memory and place.

I bent down to pick up a stick for Stella and when I looked up there was a blue and white patrol car coming up the bottom of the hill. I gasped, then cursed. Shit. They do patrols sometimes at this hour and they always frighten me, those cops jeering with their power and their dumb uniforms and their total lack of responsibility, driving around looking for a kitten to play with.

All you have is instinct in these situations, instinct and the dog, so I riled Stella up. “Go girl c’mon girl GETEM go girl GO!” until she was yanking at the leash and jumping and pulling and heaving from side to side. When the patrol car got closer I suddenly made her sit, calmly, hoping that the show had had an effect and that they’d size her up and keep on going.

They stopped. Fuck. The officer, a young guy with hair gelled into stiff submission and that fleshy, inflated quality of a certain type of dude here, the body of a fit young man plumped out a few inches by too much food and beer, leaned out the side window.

“Is she aggressive?” he asked with the mock casualness I’m so familiar with.

He was really asking,

“What are you doing here, and do you know I can fuck with you?”

All my power goes to my eyes, then; all the energy of my body that’s under their gazes courses up to my eyes, and I widen and narrow them slightly, making them flash.

“No,” I respond at first, to avoid them trying to use that as an excuse to detain me, but I back it up with, “but if I tell her to, she’ll get aggressive.”

“She’s trained,” he said.

I looked at his partner in the car. The guy was staring straight ahead. He wouldn’t look at me. He was obviously nervous, this guy, not comfortable with taking these risks with a guerita. I had that to my advantage. But the other guy seemed almost to feed off of that nervousness, to want to push it further. Fine, fucker, I thought; people are always surprised at how I respond to these situations. I look so much the part of the lost guerita, the doe-eyed, soft-haired, whispery blonde girl, but if he said anything, tried anything I would grab this guy by his cheap rooster do and shake it around until he punched me.

I said, “Normally she’s very calm, but if I have a problem she’ll protect me.”

I stared into their dank little cave of a police car. I directed that searing energy in my eyes towards them– every gota of my presence on top of them, boring into them. You want to do it, do it, but you’re going to have one hell of a fight.

In their moment of hesitation I said,

“Bueno,” and started walking without looking back. “Buenos tardes.” And they drove on.

_________________________

Sarah Menkedick is a writer and editor currently based in Oaxaca, Mexico. She is the senior editor of Glimpse.org and the director of the Glimpse Correspondents Program. She is also a contributing editor at the Matador Network, and she writes weekly articles about women’s rights for Change.org. She will begin The University of Pittsburgh’s Creative Nonfiction MFA Program in the fall of 2010.