There was a point in the evening where we were at an intersection and I broke out of character to take a quick break from walking like an undead retard when I looked to my right to see a 3 - 4 cop barricade, completely stunned, their jaws to the floor as they saw the spectacle going on to my left… I looked to that direction then, to see what had their jaws to the floor and there it was: the zombie horde, holding traffic because not only were half of them trying to reach out at the unsuspecting clients of a restaurant I had behind me, but the other half went to lurch over a car. A good 8 of them, moaning and grunting, undead and full of blood and guts where pushing and pulling the car, who was in transit and holding up the long line of vehicles trying to get into Calle Uruguay, famous for its busy night life. One of them even crawled up to the hood of the car, if memory serves correctly. That was the moment in my mind where it all came together like clockwork; I called for the zombie horde to continue walking to our final destination (”Unplugged,” a bar nearing the end of the busy blocks) and slowly they walked away from the attacked vehicle, one whose passengers where sure to be either thrilled or fearing for their lives… we walked towards the barricade and I was thinking I would have to bribe these cops into leaving us alone with chicken burgers as I did with the first barricade we encountered but they were too shocked to even approach us; we dragged our feet and walked past them as if they didn’t exist. In fact, the disregard for incoming traffic was such that some would even crawl on the concrete instead of walk, rendering the moving vehicles trying to go down the road obsolete. The cops didn’t know what to do with us. Nobody knew what to do with us.

I sent out the final newsletter asking people to meet with me at 11PM at a nearby park close to Calle Uruguay (Parque Urraca, for those in the know) worried about who would actually show up. There are 36 people signed up to the newsletter but a lot of them where sites who would post my zombie rants to the public at large (Net-Distortion.com, JSpotPanama.com) and that automatically threw my somewhat attempt at a member control out the window. A lot of people seemed interested, and there was a point where around 50 people confirmed assistance in the walk. To me, that was beyond insane: I would’ve felt blessed if 10 people showed up. It would’ve been the case too, since we Panamanians have a tendency of backing out at the last minute. I assembled a motley crüe of people that would help me and all of them came except one, which was across the board my only disappointment of the night. The only one, but quite considerable. Yamile would cover picture duties while the Bastardizer, Bounceddog and a couple of other friends would fill up the spaces at the other end of the walk at Unplugged, where I wanted some people there to A) tell the bar we were coming and B) shoot some video footage of the thing… which leads me to my disappointment; the whole plan was to have Marco on that end with his video camera taking the footage so that we could have it ready for YouTube by Monday but, in typical fashion, he said he’d make it but when I asked everyone that crucial to this to meet me prior to the whole thing, he stopped answering his phone. Of course, he never showed up to help out for the thing. Anyway, the reason why you won’t be seeing any official video from Porto Diao about the walk is because of Marco. Blame it on him. I won’t even get into the reasons why, I can only speculate but it’ll only make me even more disillusioned and disappointed the more I think about it (even though there was a car doing several rounds around the block with a video camera… sir, if you’re out there please post them online and send me the link!). Anyway, Lucho would be doing the rounds with us dressed up as Superman (cape and all) and that would be my crew for the night. Since my MExican hat didn’t fit my bloated, huge head anymore though then my idea to dress us as a zombie Pancho Villa was pretty much scratched to I had to improvise… the first thing that came to mind? Dress up in a suit. And dress up in a suit was exactly what I did. To inadvertently bring even more attention to myself I was the only green zombie out of the whole crowd… I suppose I was the only zombie from outer space then. Whatever: to top it off then, my trusty afro wig. Don’t ask me what kind of zombie I was because I wouldn’t be able to answer, but I did wear a suit and tie so I suppose I was the Master of Ceremonies zombie or whatever ridiculous shit you want me to come up with. My body’s thermometer is out of whack so I tend to sweat easily with abrupt changes in temperature… a real treat with the makeup, yessir!

Everything was ready; sadly we couldn’t get any special deals with the bars because of a logistics problem which pretty much meant that the people I asked to call and do the inquiry never really did it and I found out that same Saturday about it. Well, at least they showed up and did their part in the end! Most of them, anyway. Damn, I’m being resentful.

I got to the site at around 10:30 PM and everyone was there; we had the funky tags and everything, courtesy of Mr. Butter. They made great souvenirs.

11PM, and no one else was there… I wasn’t freaking out, yet. We were still in great spirits but the prospect of being in green makeup and a suit and tie in a park was beginning to feel ridiculous of me. 5 minutes past though the first 2 members showed up, in full zombie get-up… let it be noted that one of these two had an arrow over his head and would stick his number tag on the arrow head; I thought that was brilliant. A good 15 minutes pass by and I’m beginning to wonder where did all of the people that told me they would come where; nevertheless I tried to keep myself entertained by wiping off the bucket loads of sweat running on the sides of my face without tampering much with the makeup, which already felt rather smudged and undone at this point… by 11:30 though the crowd quickly got bigger, and bigger, and bigger; I like to say that we were a good 25 people, but the actual number will be forever clouded in mystery. Realistically though, we must’ve been around 18 or 20 which was in fact the best approximation of people that I thought were going to come, given that the newsletter had 36 subscribers… when in Panama, always cut the number of confirmed people attending in half and you’ll have a pretty good approximation of the amount of people who will actually show up. Anyway, when the rowdy crowd gathered up to a decent number I proceeded to explain the thing about the numbers; I wanted to keep it as group-oriented as possible and the only way I was going to know who were my people and who were people just hanging with the zombie horde was to tag them with the marathon number. The date, I concluded, would be the date of birth (for example, I would be 04-08-83) and then told them to be creative with their writing since I forgot to take a marker and we only had blood and some pens that the people in attendance had. We had all sorts of zombies, all of them of the George Romero strand (pale white and bloody) with lacerations, cuts and all sorts of wild shit that made me feel that this crowd would really be into their zombie personas. In the end, I approached the crowd and told them more or less what we would be doing and I gave them a choice of either going thru Avenida Balboa (the main road) or the the back road in order to avoid the cop barricade that was in the entrance to Liverpool. I did this because I know I didn’t give a shit, but there might be people in the group tat might so I thought it was the most fair thing to do… besides, I was going to hold myself responsible for these people, and if they were going to be crazy and go all I out (which is what I wanted) then I wanted to know about it. Thankfully, they were hardcore and chose to pursue the original plan of hitting Calle Uruguay through Avenida Balboa. After going to the edge of the park to start the route, everyone broke out in their best zombie pose and with that, we started walking… the first victim would be a security guard that was right in the corner where the stoplight in front of the Miramar Intercontinental hotel is; a poor old sir from the Kuna Yala islands pulling a security gig watched as the zombie horde was coming at him and I knew that the horde’s behavior to this guy would dictate what the rest of the walk would bring and deep in my undead heart I wished they went all out, I wanted someone to throw himself at the guy and grunt in his face… not just one did it. Three did.

Right then and there, I knew it would be awesome.

Our first intersection came and the zombies reacted like any normal zombie who’s just aware of their undead existence would and be totally indifferent… they didn’t care if they held up traffic… excellent. The horde crossed without consequence and we kept going until we hit the treasury office (government building), which was in the route; the zombie horde was in character 100%, tripping over chains and walls, reacting 3 seconds late to everything in slow motion, and a few even crawled… the security guards at the entrance to the treasury stood outside to see us and in typical zombie fashion man, God love ‘em, at least one or two of them crawled their way up the steps of the building and threw themselves at the guards; I was later told that one of said toy cops shoved the zombies away from them but the undead didn’t flinch! Still, they followed the horde… by the way, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended for being such great sports about the whole thing and being borderline crazy, which is just the way I like it. They knew when it was a good moment to stop but they pushed the envelope as far as they possibly could and I think that’s beautiful, exactly what I wanted the walk to be. The first (and only, miraculously) bump in the road was when we got to the police barricade; we were about to turn when I saw some commotion ahead of me with one of the cops holding the barricade and at this point there were several things going on at once… now, imagine the zombie horde showing their ID’s to the cop from the sidewalk while a few jumped into the street to harass a 4×4 that was trying to get into the street… the two guys who first came to meet us back at the park were being barked at by the cop so I go up to the guy to assess the situation… suit, tie and afro in place.

In Spanish:

Rob: Good evening, officer.

5-0: good evening.

Rob: What’s the problem here?

5-0 (points at guy with arrow on his head): that guy doesn’t have proper identification.

At this point I notice the zombie sticking his hands inside the 4×4 to my left and while the cop keeps checking the ID’s of the rest of the crowd to my right, I approach the dudes to get their side of the story.

In English:

Rob: O.K guys, let’s talk in English so the cop can’t undesrtand what we’re talking about. What’s going on?

Tall Zombie (pointing at Arrowhead): the cop doesn’t want to let him through because he doesn’t have an I.D with him.

Rob (to Arrowhead): you don’t have an ID with you?

Arrowhead (shrugs shoulders): No…

Rob: Shit.

Arrowhead and Tall Zombie: …

Rob: Are you brothers?

Tall Zombie: No, but he’s with me.

Rob: And you have an ID, right?

Tall Zombie: Yeah.

Rob: Fuck, alright. Worse case scenario, you’d have to go back and meet us on the other side where there’s no barricade and just join us from the other end.

Tall Zombie and Arrowhead: alright……

Rob: I know, it sucks. But it’s just in case the cop doesn’t wanna budge. Let me talk to him.

The cop turns back to us and the conversation saps back to Spanish once more because I didn’t want him to suspect we were conspiring against him. We were, though… and I wasn’t going to leave anyone behind so I had to work out a deal with the guy; he looked like the type who just wanted a free meal. Watch my awesome people skills at work here:

5-0: So, what’s the deal?

Rob: You’re saying this guy doesn’t have an ID?

5-0: That’s what it looks like, yes.

Rob: Look, come on. We’re 30 people here and all of us have I.Ds except 1. No one’s going to notice.

5-0 (looking to his sides, concentrating his chakras with his fingers): I don’t know. Who are you supposed to be? Wanna Yuca Fruit?

Rob: Heh, funny. I’m the zombie leader. Can’t you see the suit?

5-0: You’ve got the afro though. It’s funny.

Rob: Thanks.

5-0: I don’t know what to do, man. I can’t let him pass, he has no identification.

Arrowhead: The worst thing is that I turn 18 in 3 weeks…

Everyone: Ayala verga…

Rob: Come on, officer. Give the kid a break. We’re just trying to have a good time here. he’s practically 18 anyway! He’s the only one out of 30 people here. No one will notice.

5-0 (trying to look like he’s thinking): Where are you headed?

Rob: Unplugged, at the end of the street.

5-0: Are you going to drink?

Rob (pointing at Arrowhead): he sure as hell isn’t! (I was lying)

5-0: …

Rob: They’re waiting for us, officer. Come on. Let him through.

5-0: Alright. I will let him through, but bring me a chicken sandwich, a hot dog, some fries, a soda-

Rob: Wait a minute there officer, don’t go overboard! He’s 17 and a week! I’ll trade you only one chicken burger for that.

5-0 (pissed off): Fine. Go.

That took care of that, so I go back into the group to see if everyone was accounted for and that’s where I met a second problem: It seems that Jenny, in full on zombie mode, managed to step right into an open sewer hole and got her entire right leg scraped and her hippie skirt stuck to one of the highly dangerous metal rods sticking out of the unkept sewage hole. When I got there I saw the scene but couldn’t help but chuckle at how random the event was; any which case some of the people in the group that knew her were tending to her while I was working the cop to let the unidentified zombie pass and when I got to the scene they had already pulled her out, practically. She handled it like a trooper and in no-time we were back in the saddle; it was funny seeing how the zombies respected the sidewalk rule even though I think I said that once we were at Calle Uruguay we could walk on the street just fine, but nevertheless they soon realized that the sidewalk wasn’t going to cut it so they took it to the streets, grabbing people that passed by and going by the open air locales and reaching out to grab people like the hungry zombie horde they were.

We eventually get to the last intersection where we were supposed to turn right and head over to Unplugged but the horde was hungry and saw the live flesh of many people eating spicy Mediterranean food so instead they began to branch out and go for the people seating at the tables next to the little wall thingy the open-air restaurant had. This was the point where I took my break and saw what, to me, was the perfect moment of the entire zombie walk; more so than hanging out outside of Unplugged, more so than seeing how much people showed up and everything else… seeing the zombie horde “attack” random people without reservation and holding up traffic because they were attacking a car. The barricade up ahead of us was something someone must’ve taken photographic evidence of because there hadn’t been a moment in my life where I saw policemen dumbfounded and helpless like the the ones holding the barricade that night. I called for the horde to follow me back to Unplugged and, fearing that the 5-0 would stop us, I decided to walk first so I could divert them while the rest of the horde trailed on but they were too shocked to do anything… they couldn’t do anything. What could they do? It was Halloween, we were a mob and we were doing anything we wanted all over the street and the cops didn’t do a damn thing. We couldn’t be touched… the element of surprise and shock did its work for us exactly as I had planned. Everyone had something to do with the walk as we passed by them and I could hear the horde hissing, moaning and grunting, reacting to the people who would frighteningly try to walk past us without receiving any kind of scare; it was beautiful, causing those very uncomfortable silences where the crowd didn’t know whether to laugh, be scared for their personal safety or what! We eventually get to Unplugged, some zombies crawling, others going for people in costume and that was that… or was it?

Zombie (to Rob, after 10 minutes or so of hanging outside of the bar): So, is that it?

Rob: What do you mean?

Zombie: is that the whole walk?

Rob: What? do you want to walk more?

Zombie: YEAH!

Rob (to the zombie horde): Do you guys want to walk some more?

Zombie Horde: FUCK YEAH!

It was perfect… when I planned out the route I was thinking that maybe walking 30 minutes like a retard would wear out the horde and maybe they wouldn’t be that into it once we got to the home stretch but the group wanted more. It was amazing, this was the perfect crowd for an event like this… I’ll keep saying it as many times as I have to for you to understand how awesome Saturday night was. I had to get the cop his chicken burger though so that he could leave my zombie horde alone (I eventually did… if he didn’t have the uniform I think I’d hang out with him every now and then) so while I got my act together the horde trailed back to the park… I later ran into Mopx, who told me they made it out alright and without problems so that was a huge weight off my shoulders because I was worried about them; I suppose the shock took a while to shake off and gave them the chance to trail outta there without consequence. The whole walk, adding the time it took us to get to Unplugged plus the time it took the horde to go back, was that of an hour. We left at midnight, so when it started to rain at around 1:20 AM the horde was already (hopefully) under some roof getting hammered… it all came about like clockwork; I can safely say that it was one of my proudest moments this year. It all came out exactly as I had planned… the night didn’t end for me with the Zombie Walk though, but that’s another post I’ll get to later today. I just wanted to thank every member of this year’s walk for participating and I’ll make it a mission to make of this a yearly thing. Look out for the final newsletter where I kiss ass and thank you all for supporting this crazy idea, but in the meantime you might want to check out the various galleries here. Also, Mopx has commentary (both on his blog and at Butterfest), as does Jenny, Net Distortion, and to some extent even Yamile. If you have written something about the walk, or taken pics or footage then PLEASE put your link on the comments section. Once again, the whole PortoDiao.com crew thanks you for supporting the 2006 Zombie Walk and we hope you join us again in 2007!

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