Working Week

First Mexican fans began chanting at us. Something like, Gringos Go Home, or, Gringos, You Stole Half Our Country.

A lone beer rained down on our heads from the mezzanine above. Then came another.

Before I knew what was happening, the Mexicans were bombarding us with cups and napkins and food and more beer. It was literally raining garbage on our heads as an estimated 110,000 of our neighbors vented 500 years of pent up frustration against us.

I didn’t really start to feel scared until the first bag of urine fell. It hit a U.S. fan on the back, rupturing and soaking him and several others. The crowd roared with malicious delight. Suddenly more bags of urine — and feces — began cascading down on us, exploding like water balloons on the Fourth of July.

I remember thinking at one point, “What an ingenious weapon — so easy to smuggle in past the security guards!” Sure, you have to suffer the embarrassment of going to the bathroom in the bleachers. But the reward — a direct hit on an American below — must have more than made up for it.

The intrepid U.S. fans, many of them laughing, took cover under a giant U.S. flag. A couple of burning phosphorous flairs landed atop it and burned right through, but it held. I was under that flag. I was not smiling.