Empathizing with T-Pain

Maybe it was for my newly purchased, much haggled over black-on-black Puma Fuegos. Maybe for the sleek suave Gap khakis Jackson had gifted me from his overstuffed travelsack that afternoon. Or maybe it's just because we're talking about Colombian and Panamanian putas, who thought they'd found my transmission, the lever to throw me into a crazy, wallet-emptying spasm. Either way, distracted by the browned bosoms swelling near eye level, one pair at each peripheral, I didn't notice the hands gravitating toward my crotch, nor did I visibly react when the strippers' each took their tug at my inseam. I smiled goofily and apologized for not being a walking stiffy of a 15-year-old. "Son increibles bonitas," I assured them again. "Es porque he tomado demasiado," I offered, hoping to convince them I wasn't a fluttering mariposa.

They shook their heads and walked off, joining their already sidelined, grumbling vagina-vending friends across the bar, disgusted that the gringos (who actually comprised the entire crowd in the club this lively Monday evening) were actually thrifty backpackers content to simply take in the scenery -- bouncing boobs and superior ass-jiggling -- with their cold Balboas. Shit, whether it's mountains or putas, Central America provides me plenty of landscapes rife with mountains and valleys.

I think it's a sign that some decency survives behind my eyes -- performing Superman see-through inspections on every passing female -- that I, initially, took to averting my gaze whenever one of these stripping beauties of indeterminate age would take to humping the floor or acquainting tongue with tit while staring me down, wielding the force of nudity to try to pry into my wallet. Or maybe it's just that I don't want to encourage additional harrasment for pricier private-room attention to my privates, well aware that cheapskate me rolled into this stripclub with just enough crumpled Washingtons to snag a cab back to the hostel.

Actually, that's about all that restrained me from breaking a once long ago -- and certainly not at that moment sex-deprived -- promise to myself: that I'd never patronize a puta. The pancake browned Panamanian goddess whose gyrations left us gapmouthed and drooling is still, days later, jabbing at my mind with those six-inch glass heels of regret.

La ciudad de Panamà, otherwise, is this. (Drug funded?) Highrises cut an impressive skyline along the water, but corrugated rust-stained roofing and color splashed brick and block edifices, or dreary monolithic projects festooned with colorful lines of clothing strung up to dry above the floor-cluttering garbage on every balcony, are the real city. Miles away, the canal slices through, an engineering marvel that underwhelmed because my imagination feasted upon an utter lack of nautical knowledge. Around every first world corner thrives the world I've come to love: streetfood; nameless cafeterias that serve plate-bending portions for less than $2; shifty eyes searching tourists too casual with their camera or purse; stale urine the streetlong incense; loud, loud, constantly DJ-interrupted music booming from every car and household and grocery store; people dodging through traffic; the cacophony of compulsive honking, so common throughout Central America that the sound of a horn literally signifies nothing.