Twenty Minutes of Tropical Socialism

I have a theory: Amazon Lockers in Miami are strategically placed in the most inconvenient spots imaginable. Places nobody gets to, in the middle of nowhere, ever. And there I was, with some plastic doodad I bought at 3 a.m. in a fit of insomnia that I now had to return. Walking was a death sentence. An Uber would cost more than the fucking doodad itself. I was trapped in a financial catch-22. And then I saw it, on its own app, shining like a beacon of hope: the trolley route passed three blocks away. Three blocks of suffering in exchange for a free, air-conditioned ride. It was the easiest decision I made all week. Out of sheer necessity, I became a proud user of the ride of the resigned.

The Miami trolley is a weird thing. I swear. It’s like someone had the idea to design a San Francisco cable car, but only after having three mojitos too many. It's blue, has faux-wood details that are actually plastic, and rattles like an old coffee pot. And most importantly, it's free. Free. In the city where they’ll charge you for breathing if you’re not careful.

When the doors make that fsssssh sound and open, you’re not boarding a public bus. You’re entering a sanctuary. The first blast of air conditioning is an epiphany. It’s more effective than any religion.

Inside, it's a different world. It's the only place in Miami where a hungover millionaire (because he blew all his cash at the trendy club and now can't afford parking) might sit next to a woman on her way to clean his house in Key Biscayne.

Today, for instance, the cast was top-notch.

In the front row, a Cuban lady, the kind who has a PhD in life. Her purse on her knees, her gaze fixed straight ahead. She doesn't need to look out the window. She knows exactly which crack in the pavement we're passing. The driver, a short Panamanian guy named Nestor, yells, "¿Cómo anda, Mirta?". And Mirta, without moving a single muscle in her face, replies, "Ahí, mi'jo, in the struggle." That two-second exchange has more history and more truth than any book about Miami. Mirta doesn't use the trolley; the trolley is part of her circulatory system.

A bit further back, the kid in the linen shirt. The typical crypto bro from Brickell who just discovered the life hack of the century: saving on parking. He's got his AirPods Pro blasting, staring at his phone with the concentration of a surgeon performing open-heart surgery. He feels like a genius, a master of the universe, for riding for free. What he doesn't get is that he's not hacking the system. He's the butt of the joke. He thinks he's on a bus, when he's actually in an anthropology exhibit, and he's one of the monkeys.

Suddenly, the trolley grinds to a halt. The driver, with the calm of a Buddhist monk, mutters something about an "obstruction." The obstruction is an iguana the size of a medium-sized dog, planted in the middle of the street, sunbathing as if that’s what life is all about. To my right, a girl who clearly lives for Instagram aims her phone and whispers to her invisible audience: "OMG, guys, the local wildlife is literally so iconic." Right behind her, a tourist couple from somewhere gray and orderly are staring at the iguana as if they've just seen Godzilla. The husband asks his wife, with contained panic, "Is that normal?". And before she can answer, the influencer, without breaking her recording, turns to them with the fakest smile on earth and says, "Oh, totally. It's part of the authentic Miami experience!". I wanted to scream at all three of them. At the influencer, that "iconic" is the smell of piss from the week-old sargassum pile. At the tourists, that "normal" is the fact that the iguana probably has more of a right to be here than we do. And at the iguana, to get its fucking ass out of the way because my frozen pizza is melting in my bag. But, as always, I kept my mouth shut. The trolley is a theater, and I'm just a spectator with a free ticket.

And among them all, the invisible ones. The girl in nursing scrubs, asleep with her mouth open. The construction worker with cement dust even on his eyelashes. The man who got on with nothing and will get off at the last stop only to get back on, because his only destination is to have air conditioning until nightfall.

I got off at my stop, and the wall of heat slapped me back to reality. The trolley pulled away with its coffee-pot rattle, taking Mirta, the financial genius, the influencer, and the tourists with it. And I stood there, walking the last two blocks, thinking that the slow, blue contraption is the closest thing this city has to a soul.

Because in Miami, at the end of the day, we aren't united by language, or the flag, or the American Dream. We are united, for twenty minutes, by air conditioning. And by the fact that it's free. And I can't think of anything more honest than that.