Truth & Consequences

[Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and are based on her experiences in a specific small town in Mexico. They are not representative of the author’s feelings towards all of Mexico, or all Mexicans. They are not even representative of her feelings towards all people in the particular town in Mexico where she resides. Also, the author is not legally married to Luis, but as far as the town is concerned, she is his wife.]

It seems to me that there is a large lack of honesty in Tuxpan. When we first arrived, we had five waiters at the bar. They all seemed decent, although not all hard-workers. We eventually fired them due to bad attitudes and a lack of desire to do all the work we asked of them (cleaning the bar at the end of a shift or the beginning of one was apparently too much for them). Then the bar was robbed. And we found out at least one of them had assisted the perpetrator, although they had not actually broken in and stolen things with him. (We got our stolen property back, btw.) [Thieves.]

As time went by, Luis gave more and more responsibility for the bar over to Felipe. This was fine as he was family and therefore trusted. But when we returned from a month-long trip back to the states, we found out bills hadn’t been paid, we were low on liquor and we had no money at the bar. Felipe made himself scarce. It seemed we had been duped by our own nephew. [Scam artist.]

We took back control of the bar and I started to run numbers. Yes, this is something we should have been doing since day one. And to my credit, I had suggested this to Luis a few times. But the response was always, “we can do that later”. Unfortunately we didn’t have all the paperwork we needed – whole nights worth of tabs were missing, bills we had paid had no receipts. But the overall picture was pretty clear. Even with estimates of income and pay-outs we were running a losing business. Every other month we lost money. And the “good” months didn’t cover the bad. Maybe Felipe wasn’t to blame. [I take that “scam artist” comment back.]

Luis took a boy’s weekend to the coast with his friends, leaving me to run the bar. I started to ask questions. Marco, our bartender, who had worked at the bar previous to our administration, told me that rent in the past had been about $5000 ($500 USD), never more than $8000. We were paying $10,000. Felipe told me that the Corona distributor we bought beer from charged us higher prices because Juan-Carlos (the bar owner) had bought some equipment from them on credit. Part of our beer payment each month covered this expense for him. Now, not that it would have served Juan-Carlos to tell us either of these facts, but I certainly feel that he was on the far side of honest with us. In theory we are to get the difference in the beer tab back one way or another. But the rent is gone forever. [Rip off.]

Right before we returned from the states, the local police started to come by the bar around midnight (our official closing time) to make sure people left in a timely fashion. In the past we legally had to close our outside doors at midnight, but anyone who was in the bar at that time was free to stay until either they decided to leave or we decided to kick them out. And we tended to make a lot of money in the hours after midnight. So to have the cops showing up at closing time was a big dent in our money. [Shake down.]

Luis has a friend who is in charge of all the business permits for the town. The first time the cops came by when we were in town, he called this friend and asked for his help. The friend came by and said there was nothing he could do. The local PAN party (a political party) had come down on him and was asking him to shut everyone down earlier than normal. His hands were tied. So the cops continued to come by and shut us down around midnight. [Political games.]

One night Luis ended up talking with a few of them only to find out that the permit guy was actually the one who was making the call to shut everyone down. The political position he held was coming to an end soon and apparently he wanted to show his power somehow. But one of our nephews told me a week later that this rule wasn’t being enforced equally. One night he had come to our bar and then happened to drive by another bar around 1:30 in the morning. The other bar was still going strong, while we had been shut down an hour and a half earlier. [Unfair treatment.]

On one of our recent weekends we had a live band in from Guadalajara. One of our waitresses had arranged their visit, and part of the deal was that she was to get a cut of the cover charge. I’m not sure who made the deal (certainly not me), but somehow she was to get 80% of the door, the bar was to receive 20%. My niece Ana Laura had a friend who was to collect the cover charge at the door. I would have preferred a relative, but he was already set up at the door. I asked Ana Laura if he was an honest guy and she said she trusted him. At the end of the night, the total taken in at the door was $1600, about 110 people. That didn’t add up because the house was packed. But I had no proof that he had stolen money or had let people in for free. And he wasn’t family, so there was no pressure to put on him there. [Cashing in.]

Also that night we had a fresh stash of beer. At the end of the night we had 20 cases of empty beer bottles, roughly $6000 worth of beer. Great! But the tabs at the register only added up to $5500, and we had sold more than just beer. I ran the numbers and it seemed that we had some 90 bottles of beer unaccounted for. Either our waiters had given them away or had pocketed the money for them. [Thieves again.]

By this time I had lost all faith in the bar and our ability to make a profit. Partially this was due to our bad timing and Luis’ lack of desire to take full control. He felt that he was offering the bar to Felipe as a great opportunity to learn the business of running a business. I wonder if Felipe ever really wanted that much responsibility. The other part of our lack of success seemed to be those people around us. Juan-Carlos and the permit guy were making things difficult for us. Our waitstaff stole from us. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone we dealt with was trying to screw us over one way or another.

And I started to look around me at the other people I interacted with. Luis had told me stories of his sisters taking advantage of each other. Sometimes it was business related, other times it was on a personal level. His three brothers have all taken advantage of their siblings. One sister, Felipe’s mom, also has a bad reputation in the family. So much for family values.

Mexican politics are notoriously corrupt. Luis suggested he run for mayor of Tuxpan just so he could get the large monthly salary. As his wife I would also get paid. Not that I would have to work for it. The fact that I was married to the mayor would be reason enough to pay me. Or Luis could become the head of the police, just for the asking. Why? Because he knows the right people. You scratch my back and I’ll fill your pockets with money. Right now a number of political positions are set to have elections and change hands. Lots of people in those positions are grabbing what they can while they can. Need a permit to set up your business on a busy main street? Pay the right amount and you can have it. Want to burn toxic chemicals next to the high school? For the right price, you can burn them in the high school. Tammany Hall has nothing on Mexican politics.

I considered how Luis and I must look to people from this small town. Rich, American people come to town to take advantage of the locals. I started to wonder if people were intentionally trying to fuck us up. Or was I just being paranoid? Luis told me that the people in Tuxpan will see someone rising up financially and will do their best to pull those people back down, even if they are a good friend or maybe even a relative. “How dare they try to better themselves?! Who do they think they are? Do they think they are better than us? Well, we’ll show them!”

What a fucked up attitude. But I didn’t put it beyond those around me.

So who do I trust? I trust Luis. I don’t trust anyone I do business with. Family members are also suspect. I mostly trust Cynthia and Sergio. I’m pretty sure Pati is on our side. Laura is highly questionable. Everyone else is the family is untrustworthy. Friends in town are probably looking out for themselves and won’t lose sleep if they fuck us over in the process.

I look around and wonder where this attitude comes from. Are we the same in the States? I’m sure there are bartenders and waiters who steal from their employers. But 90 bottles of beer in one night? I can’t imagine that happening. Or if it does, the bartender disappears and certainly won’t expect to have his job the next day. As far as politics - I trust our politicians about as much as I trust… well, politicians. But in general I think people in the States are more honest. There are more checks and balances in the system there. Sure, you can steal from your employer, but steal too much or too often and you will be penalized. Systems are in place to catch you.

Here in Mexico we don’t have the fancy registers that note every item sold. We don’t have security cameras that watch your every move. It’s so much easier to steal. And when your employer is a rich white American woman and her rich Mexican husband, what will they care, how much will they notice, how much does it really hurt them? You are poor, they are rich. You play Robin Hood. They won’t feel a thing.

Plus there is a built-in reason to steal – poverty. I don’t know how much the average Mexican wage makes, but it’s a lot less than the average American. Laura (Luis’ sister), for example, makes about $3000 pesos every two weeks. That’s $300 USD, or $600 USD per month. Just imagine trying to live on that in the States. Granted, there are things here that are just cheaper than they are in the states (our rent is $60 USD per month, and food is much cheaper), but most people here in Tuxpan are solidly on the poor end of the spectrum.

So in waltzes an American couple driving an expensive car, wearing nice clothes, spending money as if they have it to burn. And in a way they do. You get a job with them. You give away a few drinks here and there, you skim money off your tabs. They don’t notice (why would they?). You move into larger scams with them. What do they know? They won’t feel a thing.

I’ve become very bitter and untrusting of people here.

And the consequences of this is that we are giving up the bar. Mostly because we can’t make a profit. The people in this town are used to their lives as they’ve been led for years and years. They aren’t ready or willing or interested in trying new things. The bar is only 3 or 4 years old. It’s too new. And right now it’s being run by two Americans.

But we are partially giving up the bar because we are tired of trying to keep people honest, to deal with us fairly. We are easy marks, and I don’t think we were prepared for that.