Not 'whether' but 'when' is it extortion...?

They blew the doors off of Pollos Roky ('Roky Chicken,' just in case). I don't mean that Roky's had a bang-up night at the cash register. Actually, the problem was that the cash register was too tight, stayed closed, didn't open up when it shoulda.

See, I was having an afternoon rest in my hotel room when a BOOM so loud almost shook me off the bed. I'm used to BOOMs and BANGs all the time in Casma. They're shooting off fireworks (cuetes 'full golpe') all the time here. They wake you up in the morning and they keep you up at night. Sometimes it's clear why they're blowing off the fireworks. For example, at 12:01AM on the feast of the Virgin del Carmen, you blow off some fireworks to let people know it's time to celebrate, venerate, and party.

But that one boom. That really was odd. And the next day I found out why. They blew the doors off Pollos Roky. That's to say, they threw dynamite at the doors and blew them right off. It was after hours and, by morning, the scene didn't look so bad. There just weren't any doors anymore. Roky's was a big gaping garage of a chicken shack.

Pollos Roky, ex post facto

Roky's is one of the lesser chicken chains here in Peru; but even so, I was surprised to see one in Casma. Casma is a provincial city known for it's continual sunshine, it's many schools, and its 'authenticity' as an agricultural province. It's not backwards by any means, if that's what you're thinking. It's just that country kitchens, where they stew poultry over the candela (a wood and cane-fueled open fire), are local favorites. Chains from Lima don't seem like they'd get much business.

Apparently, the local extortionists aren't getting much business either. Roky's refused to pay up on their protection money, and so they found out what they woulda been protected from.

Extortion is an interesting thing. On the surface, it's wrong. On the books, it's illegal. But as a close and brilliant friend once told me, the question isn't whether it's illegal, it's when is it illegal? In other words, there are no hard and fast lines of legality/illegality or right/wrong. These values get adjusted locally and regularly. For example, on the highway between district towns.

The highway police here are colloquially called tragamonedas. Literally, that means 'coin swallower.' Technically, tragamonedas means 'slot machine.' The highway police are always stationed somewhere or other on the roads into or out of Casma. While I have been stopped several times without incident, the same isn't so for the colectivo drivers who provide intra-district transportation up and down the coastal river valleys. Colectivo drivers regularly have their licenses, insurance, and identity cards checked. It's customary to put a 2 or 5 nuevo sol (PEN) coin under the documents when handing them to the police. 

And why not? Usually the colectivos carry more people than they're supposed to. Standard passage is 6 soles. If you fit four passengers in the vehicle, like you're supposed to, that's 24 soles in gross income. If you fit five passengers in the vehicle, then the fare is only 5 soles, but the gross is 25 soles. Everyone wins. They're just not supposed to.

Occasionally, the highway police will run a multi-day operativo, where they really crack down on transport informalities (and profit). By the time you show up to ride the colectivo, though, everyone already knows about the operativo. So the colectivos go the dusty, garbage-piled back roads that parallel the highway to avoid the police. But since everybody knows, the police are already there collecting documents and coins. Like many processes in Peru, it's a low-stakes cat and mouse game that ends up benefiting everyone a little bit in an informal economy where even the unbridled profiteering is pretty small-scale.

A similar sort of 'coin swallowing' takes on quasi-formal appearances at the entrances to several districts. Neighborhood associations and 'rondas campesinas' often set up light barricades in front of some of the rural valleys. Upon entry, vehicles pay a toll of one or two soles. In some cases you get a receipt. You might argue that you're always supposed to get a receipt. But no one always gets a receipt for anything. Anywhere. Sometimes the peajes (or tolls) are staffed by people wearing uniform vests, which are the universal sign of authority in provincial Peru.

Ostensibly tolls support the rondas, which are basically neighborhood watch 'rounds.' Alternatively, some people believe that the tolls might be used to maintain country roads beyond state support (which is extremely limited). However, you only hear that the peaje might go to road maintenance in the context of complaints that they are not at all being used for road maintenance.

Peajes are an archetypal phenomenon of Peruvian informalism. I knew one such peaje well, as I paid it every day while conducting archaeological fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation. I paid one sol each day as I entered the middle Casma Valley on the dirt road that crosses Pampa Allegre. I got a little 3cm x 3cm receipt each time. On the way out, no toll. The explanation was that there had been livestock russlin' in the area and that the toll helped monitor who went into and out of the valley.

However, what was really going - as far as I could tell - was that a fella decided to put a little shack and a gate on the entrance to the valley. He made himself a home and a job, all at the same time. The service appeared necessary enough, the rate seemed reasonable enough, and there were occasional public discussions about his work, so as to keep up appearances. All told, an informal consensus was met to let the guy live there and charge the toll. And you had to hand it to him; he rigged up the gate so he could operate it without getting out of bed.

Four years later his shack is bigger. He has some animal pens, and the toll has doubled. But he can still operate it from bed.

Extortion for protection money is a crime under the conditions that some alternative has been proposed and that people believe the alternative is superior. The alternative might be seen as more effective, more ethical, or morally proper. In a civil society, they say, the police should protect businesses. But in reality, a guy who can blow the doors off of your chicken shack is also someone who might legitimately be able to protect you against other kinds of dangers (and extortionists). Similarly, a phalanx of cops who can beat the teeth out of your head with their nightsticks during a protest are also exceptionally capable of parting the crowd when your ambulance needs to get to the ER.

It sucks that Roky's had its doors blown off. It's sort of annoying to pay peajes when you're not at all sure why you're paying. It's maddening when the police commit violence against the very people they're sworn to protect.

But in all these cases, there's some kind of tacit agreement being made somewhere. And that's the common thread that runs from mafia extortion to involuntary 'donations' for rondas campesinas to giving police officers the authority to plug you full of bullets under certain conditions. They're all interactions that have been subject to interpersonal agreements, though of varying natures and inclusivity. They all follow certain logics, even though some of those logics are believed to be valid and others are labeled as chaos. But the mafiosos will always point out that there is a logic behind organized crime, even when it's only loosely organized. On the other hand, 'legitimate' politicians across the globe will argue that - outside of civil society - there are no rules and that irrationality reigns. I'm not saying that I do or would prefer uncivil society. Not at all. Nor am I suggesting that blowing doors up is OK. I fear violence. But I also recognize that most societies are composed of multiple forms of logic and negotiation that are vying for recognition. Maybe I'm suggesting it would be better if we acknowledged those competing logics and handled them accordingly. 

In any case, for Pollos Roky (which, I might add, is located directly across from a cockfight pit), one wonders if the extortion and retribution wasn't also part of an inverted cargo system. In cargo systems, when you start getting real rich, it becomes your turn to be mayordomo of the village feast. That's your big chance to build social capital by diminishing your financial capital; it's the potlatch. Maybe Roky's was in bringing britches from Lima that were just too big for Casma. So they got blown right off.

However, in an ironic twist perfectly representative of Peruvian informality, the local Pollos Roky's is a fraud. It's not a real franchise of Roky's. They've just stolen the image, name, and theme in order to draw people away from the other myriad broasters in town. Apparently they also drew dynamite to their door.

Receipt for peaje to enter Comandante Noel district, Casma

"Noelino neighbor, friendly visitor help out with your donation for better security from the District Neighborhood Associations and national Police working together against insecurity [sic]."