CABO SAN LUCAS, Baja California Sur, Oct. 21 — I board the Ruta del Desierto bus at 7:30 p.m. en route to the Autónoma stop. I’m not flush enough to stay anywhere closer to the city center. There’s a woman in an orange blouse singing cumbia, banda and boleros with her own microphone and personal boombox that has pre-recorded songs, though I stopped paying attention after her rendition of “La Llorona,” a traditional Mexican folk song perhaps best known for the Chavela Vargas version. I must not make eye contact with her. I’ll have to tip her later if I do.

That’s how it is with street performers and baristas who give you puppy dog eyes when they tell you, “It’s going to ask if you want to leave a tip.” Plausible deniability is key.

The other passengers …

… know the drill. Their expressions generally betray no emotional investment in her performance, though a select few smirk when her voice crescendoes as she talks about love and martyrdom.

Fluorescent light in the bus flickers, though not in time with anything the woman is singing. Even the bus is opposed to this dog-and-pony show, but what does it know? It’s old and senile, rocking, lurching and creaking. It inches along like an iron worm, or the Magic School Bus’s arthritic grandmother.

Outside, it’s dark, and the bus windows are tinted, so I can’t appreciate the passing landscapes. Understimulation forces me to bring my attention back to the characters on the bus. The middle-aged man with a chinstrap beard lugging a propane tank the size of his lower body. I hope it’s empty. The man sitting beside him with rings on all fingers but one, who grazes on chile-dusted peanuts. If he collects the final ring, he’ll be able to snap his fingers and make all the interloping gringo gentrifiers vanish so he can finally rest in peace. The girl with her back turned to him, watching TikToks at full volume with no headphones — no Latin American public transport experience would be complete without it.

Does she take requests?

As we get closer to Cabo San Lucas, there’s a sporadic ringing like a landline hooked up inside the bus. Doubt creeps in, and for a moment, I wonder if this isn’t actually a mobile radio station with listeners calling in to request their favorite songs as performed by the lady in the orange blouse. In reality, it’s just one stop request after another from passengers wanting to be let off. Maybe they can’t take this woman’s wailing anymore.

Mercifully, she caps her performance at three songs, after which she makes her rounds, lingering by each passenger expectantly like the collection-plate-bearing ushers at the churches my mom used to drag me to when I was a kid. The spirit of San Vicente de Paúl overcomes me, and by some strange sorcery, my fingers slide into my pocket to retrieve pesos that find their way into her outstretched hands. Before I come to my senses, she’s gone.

Ethan Jacobs is a freelance writer and writing coach based in Playa del Carmen. He has written extensively in narrative and short fiction formats, and his work has received recognition both domestically and internationally in microfiction, short fiction and narrative essay formats.