It has come to my attention that, as much as I’d like to discredit and discard the notion… most girls here worth giving a second look (or third or 27th) are under-aged. This puts me in a rather weird place; I’m not old (22, reckless and swinging, bitches) but to think that the girl whose big, juicy ass I’m staring at doesn’t know who The ThunderCats are is a little preoccupying. And of course, that’s jailbait ass. Jailbait as in “you take the bait and you go to jail. Do not collect money, do not pass ‘Go.’” Last night I went out with Magnus and El Bear practically outta the blue, and since I’ve taken somewhat of a sabatical these past couple of weeks I thought I’d treat myself to a gazillion gallons of brew… and even though I didn’t hit that million-gallon mark it’s always good times with these guys.

One of the things I love about Panama is how there’s a little something for everyone. Whoever doesn’t find anything to do is just either not willing or not trying hard enough (I’ve been guilty of this as well… but still, just like you, you march on until you force yourself to find something to do… almost always, something stupid); there’s a bar over by the Canal Zone called Lum’s, which we have become somewhat regulars there. The bartenders know who we are and we’ve gone enough to recognize familiar faces and vice versa. The beer’s great and cheap (last night, for example, they had a promotion of all national beers at $1… and even though we usually have Warsteiners at $1.50 a pop this offer was too good to refuse) and the ambience is right along my alley in the sense that there’s usually great music (and by great music I really mean weird un-bar-like music such as 80’s tunes, Metallica, Nirvana… one night I heard some Hendrix and almost hit the floor) and great, approachable people. Since the Canal Zone is mostly composed of Americans and people from abroad for various reasons, some academical, laborial, vacational, retirement, all of the above, you name it and this bar is one of the few who has a rather American feel to it then I see why I run into so many people who can speak English, have clear eyes and blonde hair, as well as clinically-wrong pale skin. And here we come, 3 sexy Latino English speakers (I seriously have to find a term for this hybrid of cultural and sociological traits) being loud, cursing like sailors and downing beers. But this is where the Jailbait Bonanza begun…

There were 2 girls and one Emo kid hanging out with them at the bar section of the place (Lum’s is quite literally split in two: you enter through a nice restaurant side until you go past the flipping door, I shit you not, into the bar which looks like a modern-times saloon) and as soon as we stepped in they were the first thing I spotted. You do it, too: you go into a place and quickly count heads, figure out escape routes and see if anybybody you know is there like you’re some kind of Jason Bourne or the like… it’s inbred of the Panamanian to see who he knows when he first steps into a public venure because, as I’ve said before, Panama is so small that it’s practically expected that you do in fact run into someone. This happened last night as well, of course, but that’s beside the point to which I will get to in a moment. At first glance, one of them looked like a kid and even though she was the redhead of the group both the commitee with me as well as the commitee in my head plotting the conquering of the world had to politely pass on that piece of ass. Her friend, though… this was promising: clear eyes, fair skin, skinny and aside from the landing strip forehead (hasn’t stopped me before… in fact, come to think of it, A LOT of my past romps have big or protuding foreheads. Go figure. I guess I take that “mind over body” thing more seriously than I thought) she looked rather cute.

Panamanian men are a very funny bunch. 2SXC has given me devastating proof on the frailty of a Panamanian male’s ego when confronted with a girl that can stand her ground and even play the game better than they can. He will look at your curves without respect or remorse and even lay a few lines your way no matter if you’re standing next to him or across the room… and of course, if you’re a foreigner and you look the part then the bluntness is even more… umm, blunt. You see, thing is that in this particular equation, whereas the man has done his part by complementing the girl it is expected that the girl either gross out, like it so much as to stick around to hear some more or play hard to get. They do not expect the tables to turn, and once they are they’re at a loss because since all they deal with in Panama are frail girls who want men to do everything for them and more than half the time don’t have a brain of their own, they see bagging a naive girl who doesn’t know any better as the norm. No sir, you’re wrong. So, they don’t know how to deal with a girl with half a brain. They get intimidated and run. Run as far away as possible. It’s understandable: people don’t like to handle situations they feel are out of their control… but personally, I think that’s lazy. Then again, Panamanians are all about that lazyness! *Zing!*

Anyway, as we hung out at the bar and looked on at the girls playing by the pool table like vultures hung up on the tree staring at their unsuspecting prey Magnus pointed our attention to another table, not far from the game: There were easily 4 girls or so with 3 guys and the ladies were visibly perturbed and bored out of their frickin’ minds. As it turns out some or all of them used to go to the same school Magnus and El Bear went to so one of them (who looked so Hawaiian all she needed was a tiki hat) even came over and made some small talk. This sparked a discussion as to why we don’t take more risks when it comes to these things… Magnus was conviced that if we went over to that table and whipped our dicks around a little these girls would move parties and have some real fun with us. And of course, he’s right: it’s really simple to do so, but in retrospect it’s the socially retarded culture taking its toll in interpersonal relations. If this was Bocas del Toro or any other place on Earth, for that matter, there wouldn’t be any problems swooping down from the tree and taking them away from the talking heads they were with but sadly, we’re in Panama. Revolution comes from within, my friends.

Anyway, the cute girl at the pool table came over to the bar for a Corona and that’s where I saw it… or rather, there was nothing to see: sitting beside me was a still-developing body buying alcohol with the nervous uncertainty of something like going to a dentist for the first time. This girl must’ve been 16, tops. Don’t get the wrong idea, here; we do have laws prohibiting minors from drinking but, as with everything law-related in Panama, rules here are so malleable they might as well be made out of Play-Doh. So, of she went, this lanky, tall and gracious girl walking proud with her Corona and lime while I sat at the bar, jaw on the floor, ashamed at myself for having dirty thoughts about a girl 7 years younger than me. This happened again a couple of hours later as we were at a Niko’s Cafe (article about this place forthcoming) getting some late dinner/very early breakfast. After a very welcome encountrer with a very polite, cute and friendly ass from the past we sat down and I saw the sexiest looking girl I’ve seen in weeks… short white skirt, skin-tight black top and flops, looking like a star. Does it ever happen to you that you see something and the first thing you register is what’s most important to you, and after you do you zoom back out and start seeing the other things, the stuff you should’ve been seeing to begin with? That’s right. Turns out she was with, from my assessment, her mother, aunt, younger and older sisters… and of course, this girls whose legs I just licked whipped cream off of in my mind was easily 16 as well. 16, the lucky number. Once you realize that, everything comes crumbling down… you see the fine print, the little things that tell her away. Naturally, I felt bad. I don’t even know why I feel bad about it, though… I guess it’s because I think I’m a corruptor and since I rattle cages and the like the thought of polluting a sweet, innocent mind with sex, drugs and rock n’ roll is not something I want hanging on my head……… unless there’s a good excuse for it.

Along with the recent shopping mall boom that’s been going on these past few years there have been people coming out of the woodwork that, quite frankly, I hadn’t seen anywhere before. This concept was foreign to me, that of seeing people I hadn’t seen anywhere else before, specially when we’re talking about the matchbox that is Panama where everybody knows everybody. Along with that came many benefits; I make it a habit now to go to put on my mallrat badge and peruse these places in search of adventure and excitement. Most of the time, I find it. Also, I find it very easy to go to these malls (specially Multiplaza) for the people who go to them. I’m a people-watcher. Always have been. I guess it’s a minimum requirement for writers to be able to study people and figure them out, and when you’re somewhere so crowded such as a mall it’s quite frankly a festival of information ready for me to gobble up. That said, I do it all the time… It’s great fun, and one of the reasons I tell myself whenever I feel like I’m selling out by going to these malls so much: fuck you, I like watching people. And in this people watching I see all types of individuals… many of these being girls who look way older than they really are. It only takess a like over 15 seconds to figure it out if you concentrate but at first glance there are some girls that you’d swear look 24 yet in reality can’t even take out a license to drive because they haven’t met the required age yet (in Panama it’s 16 years old, I believe). Back when the first of these big malls opened a little over 3 years ago or so (Multicentro in Avenida Balboa) there was this one girl who I always saw wandering the halls and I suppose she was doing the same mallratting I was but she always caught my eye:she was quite easily 14 because all she had in her brain was Hello Kitty, Pucca, Bratz and everything else you want to associate with pre-adolescent girls but she had the body of a 21-year old and she knew it. I could see her pink thong peeking out of her ridiculously short orange miniskirt as her massive, juggling breasts would try to pop out of her skin-tight tank top. Once she even went to the mall without a bra. I didn’t know whether to look or to beat myself for wanting to play with them jugs.

Ass and titties. Underaged ass and titties. The way I justify myself is that when I realize they don’t have a mind adult enough to know what they want, I automatically stop… yet, some don’t. A couple of years back there was a case of a fitness instructor who worked at a very famous gym here in Panama (Roberto Kelly’s gym. If you know who Roberto Kelly is then brownie points for you) and was caught having sex with one of the regulars in the spinning room early one morning. Turns out she was from a wealthy jewish family and bought him stuff, took him out for lunches and the like… and in return he’d fuck her brains out regularly. They were caught on tape by the security cameras and when the wealthy dad found out that her underaged daughter was having sex with her over-25 fitness instructor then all hell broke loose; he made patrol cars and hordes of cops blitz the gym at 1PM on a weekday and brought him out handcuffed, a spectacle everyone both in and out of the gym had the pleasure of seeing. Since she’s a little girl she has no say in anything, and her dad wanted him nailed to the wall by the balls so he got it pretty rough. Eventually the charges were dropped but, according to reports, they never saw each other again (restraining order) and since apparently she ratted him out claiming rape, he had it pretty tough cleaning up his name for a while. My mom used to go to that gym religiously so she knew who it was and she’d tell me that he’s a nice, wholesome fellow… he just got involved with the wrong girl. Amen to that, mom. It’s funny: the things Panama gets right from other countries and what they have similarities from is always the bad shit. So, the next time you’re having sex with a girl, gentlemen…. please make sure she’s overaged. Either that or making sure she won’t rat you out afterwards when you dump her and she’s heartbroken because you realize what a mistake you made by getting mixed up with her, jackass. And ladies… umm, why would you go out with a guy 7 years younger than you? Hell, I’ll put on a bib and go “goo-goo gah-gah” all you want, you kinky lady.

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