Mexico
Going to Mexico
For about two years I’d wanted to go on this Mexicali/San Felipe trip.
Last year Vasili came home with an exotic
Mexican bowel curse
the witchdoctors at Kaiser Permanente
couldn’t diagnose,
only to say that in addition
to his condition
he was extremely dehydrated
and his blood alcohol level was off the charts.
They kept him under observation to quarantine
whatever it was,
an intestinal infection they never saw before.
The hospital was in Harbor City,
not that far away from me,
so I visited him almost everyday
until he recovered.
Johnnie’s a great guy.
I hung out a couple times with him and Vasili,
and that was about it.
He lives in Palm Desert now
putting himself in the middle of LA
and Mexico for his beautiful wife Maria to see her family,
who he met when he had a job that took him across the border
into Mexicali,
“She cooked for me the first night I went out with her!” He said.
Johnnie’s happy,
smiling most of the time.
He and his wife have a two year old boy named Joseph.
He’s a happy little boy like his dad,
with dark tan skin from the desert.
Vasili drove us to Palm Desert in his car,
me in the passenger seat,
Anthony in the backseat,
listening to cd mixes of hip-hop that Vasili put together.
We got to Palm Desert at about one thirty am.
Maria let us in.
Johnnie was sleeping when we got there
until she went upstairs and woke him up
and he came downstairs in his wife-beater squinting and smiling,
wearing wire glasses above a black Mexican mustache.
“Hey!”
He gave me a handshake and a hug.
“It’s been a while, how’ve you been?” I asked.
“Everything’s good man.” He said smiling and greeted Anthony and Vasili.
“Go ahead and have a seat guys, I have to throw everything in the car.”
We sat in the living room watching Sportscenter until he was ready.
“You guys are going to be staying at Chicuate’s place.”
“Chicuate. Vasili told me about him.” I said.
“Oh yeah? I think we’re taking his bus to San Felipe.”
“I told these guys we might be taking the bus, but I wasn’t sure if it would happen, so it’s for sure for sure?” Vasili asked.
“I think so.” Said Johnnie. “You guys ready? I’m ready.”
“Let’s smoke a bowl before we go.” Vasili said.
So we peaced it and took off at about two am.
It was a long day.
I’d been up since eleven am,
and Vasili and Anthony
who both worked before we left
had been up since six.
Anthony was crashing out in back
and Vasili was tired too,
veering onto the reflectors.
“Johnnie’s taillights are getting blurry dogg. You think you’d be down to drive when we get to Westmoreland?”
“Yeah, I’m alert, I’m good to drive dude.”
So we pulled over in Westmoreland and I took over until Calexico.
Dark desert
one lane highway
cool air
blowing through
rolled down windows.
I veered slightly to the right whenever an oncoming vehicle passed,
moving in the dark toward a foreign land,
‘Late, first world country,
later to all this.’
Put my country to my back
and leave.
Don’t you know
these days inspire
expatriation
like my great grandfather Ben
who fled to Switzerland
to write plays I’ll never get to see.
We made it to Calexico and pulled over.
“Do you want me to drive across too?”
“No, I want drive my car across.”
So we switched it up at the money changer.
I turned a hundred dollars into 1200 pesos,
and jumped in the passenger seat,
then started hiding pesos all over my person,
a little bit in every pocket,
and since I was wearing sandals
I gave the rest of my dinero to Vasili
to hide under the sole of his shoe.
“Left shoe’s my money, the right ones yours buddy.” He said.
Then we followed Johnnie’s white Explorer
to the border entrance.
“It’s like a lottery.” Vasili told me. “Sometimes you get popped, sometimes you make it through.”
Johnnie’s car made it through, and instead of following Johnnie through the same entrance,
Vasili cut over to the next open green light lane,
and we made it through,
then a bell rung
and the car behind us that followed Johnnie through the entrance had to pull over.
“Yeah!” We cheered.
“That fool followed Johnnie through, see, we would’ve got popped if we did that.” Vasili said.
“Viva Meh-he-cali!” I yelled
“Viva Meh-he-cali!” We all yelled.
Enter Mexicali
We raced down the street.
“Fools drive gangster out here.” He said as a car in front of us
pulled off the dirt on the side of the road
and cut across all lanes
and oncoming cars
to make a last second left.
We went over the new bridges from El Centro into Mexicali.
They looked like something you’d see at six flags,
made out of the same kind of giant steel tubing they use on rides,
and it was painted purple,
so it looked like we were
on a rollercoaster called
The Mexicali Expressway
in a surreal third world fantasy land
where the roads resembled roller coasters
and everything
was Mexican themed.
Johnnie pulled over at a twenty-four hour taco stand.
“We always stop here. Maria used to come here all the time.” He said to me when we got out.
It was a little after four am.
A couple girls sat at a table in their bare feet,
eyeing us as they ate.
I told Vasili, “Those chicks keep looking at us.”
“They’re whores.” He said.
“That sucks they’re in their bare feet man.”
On the sidewalk
there was a legless bum.
Maria told Vasili that
he lost his legs because
he was drunk
and laid down across some train tracks
and was too drunk to move
and a train came by
and cut them off.
Now he spends the rest of his life
on a board with wheels
using his knuckles to move around,
singing and playing guitar
on the sidewalk
outside this little
taqueria.
I got two asada tacos
and put some guacamole, onions, cilantro, and hot sauce on them,
scarfed them,
and spoke my first Spanish of the trip,
telling the cook,
“Asada es bien.”
And he said, “Gracias.”
Meet Chicuate
We pulled into a Mexicali neighborhood
and parked in front of Chicuate’s house.
“There’s his bus.” Vasili said.
Parked across the street, blue and yellow
with “Chicuates” painted on the back
in white handwriting.
We waited outside for Johnnie to get him.
It was four thirty in the morning.
Then they came out.
“Let’s get on the bus, he’s going to take us around the neighborhood.”
We climbed inside the giant converted school bus
and I met Chicuate,
shook his hand and said, “Hola”,
and he said “Hola”
and jumped into the driver’s seat in nothing but his boxers
and hairless beer gut
hanging out
like a Tecate cocaina buddha
at 4:30 am.
He turned the engine on to warm it up.
Johnnie and Chicuate talked to each other in Spanish
then Johnnie laughed and said,
“I told Chicuate you guys might fall asleep,
and he said he’ll fuck you in the ass if you do.”
I laughed.
“Tell him he’s a sick fucker man.”
Johnnie translated it to,
“Tu eres enfermo chingoso.”
Chicuate started laughing and put the bus in gear
and we rumbled down the little Mexicali ghetto road.
The roads around here were all dirt up until a few years ago
is what I was told.
We’d just arrived and
the adventure had already begun,
and I was riding around 4am Mexicali streets in
Chicuate’s giant bus,
impressed by his ability to maneuver the massive thing down the narrow roads.
He stopped at a friend’s house
and honked the loud horn in the quiet neighborhood
and yelled out, “Odelay!”
“This is crazy, what’s he doing?” I asked.
“He wants to get some ‘soda’ for the trip.” Johnnie said, then sniffed, and wiped at his nose,
meaning coke.
He never came out
so we rumbled back to Chicuate’s.
“Chicuate’s going to clean the bus, then we’re on our way to San Felipe.
We’re going to park your car at Marcie’s, it’ll be safe there.” Johnnie assured us.
So we got out of the bus and got back in the Car
and followed Johnnie to Maria’s sister Marcie’s house.
Her house was attached to a gated auto shop/junkyard.
Johnnie had to jump the gate to knock on their house door
and see if it was cool to park.
Vasili parked his car and we rode with Johnnie back to Chicuate’s house
and met his family who just woke up:
Maria’s sister Annie (Chicuate’s wife),
his sixteen year old daughter Cindy,
his ornery ten year old daughter Donna,
and his little four year old daughter Sara;
then boarded the bus
and drove around town picking up all the family members
that were going on the trip;
daylight filling the sky,
the humid desert heat coming on strong.
Our last pick up was Patricia.
She lives on this crazy street I called “Calle de Perros,”
because of all the wild dogs roaming around,
living in front yards, and abandoned houses, and junked cars;
every dog was barking at our bus,
I never saw anything like it,
there were dogs barking from the rooftops.
We pulled into a Pemex gas station
and Johnnie got a hundred and fifty pesos from each of us
to cover gas and the fee Chicuate had to pay
his bus driving union for taking it offline
for the day, and then we were set to go,
Chicuate, Mama, Annie, Nazelli, Cindy, Donna, little Sara,
Patricia and her children, 12 year old twins David and Vincent,
and her nine year old Jesse.
And of course, Johnnie, Maria, Joseph, Vasili, Anthony, and I.
Highway Five to San Felipe Blues
I was wide awake
in the back of the bus
rumbling down the single lane highway
to San Felipe.
Tombstones
altars
and
miniature mausoleums
for dead drivers
passed us
on the side of the highway.
Drunk drivers
killing and dying…
All it takes
is a borracho veer,
and bam,
you take out an entire family…
I think our odds of survival actually increased
being in a bus on the highway,
because we could take a hit
like a tank.
This things a former 1973 Laidlaw.
A hideous yellow and blue steel monster.
Chicuate’s even got these long rusted bolts coming off the side of the front tires,
so if you make the mistake of veering into him,
or piss him off and he veers into you,
he’s got these long rusted bolts that will tear the shit out of your car
like fucking spyhunter.
I looked out the window most of the time
but I’d look around the bus sometimes
and see the kids playing,
and I’d catch Cindy (gazing?) at me,
and we’d make quick eye contact,
then both look away.
Outside the bus
white clouds passed
desert mountaintops
across a blue sky
more beautiful
than anyone
could paint
or write about.
I put my head down on the seat in front of me
and tried to take a siesta.
We hit a bump and
my head flew back.
I stood up in my seat
and looked out the front of the bus approaching a winding
downhill pass through the desert mountains.
Chicuate accelerated
and I fell back in my seat.
He took the winding pass
like a professional
bus racer.
The RPMs rattled the floor.
“Yeah Chicuate!” I yelled, and made the heavy metal devil horns.
The kids laughed.
With no oncoming traffic
he
flowed across both lanes
and flew
down the winding mountain pass
like a champ,
taking the snaking road
with a straighter path.
“Fucking Mr. Toad’s man!”
“What?” Johnnie said.
“Fucking Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride man! This shit is insane!” I said.
He laughed.
Eventually the highway leveled off
and we were on a straight drive the rest of the way
to San Felipe.
We had to stop at a military checkpoint
manned by soldiers armed with M-16′s.
Unarmed soldiers boarded the bus
to check us out and
make sure we weren’t smuggling anything.
The family was real friendly with them
and cracked jokes
and everyone was laughing,
which was good
because heavily armed
foreign soldiers
surrounding our bus outside and
searching for contraband
makes me a little nervous.
Luckily Vasili keistered the weed
so we didn’t have to worry about it.
Just kidding, he actually hid it
somewhere under his seat,
and the soldiers checking the bus
were already disarmed by the joking
and laughter so that
by the time they got to the back of the bus
they were all smiles
and not really searching too hard.
I smiled back
and showed them my plastic grocery bag
that had an extra shirt and underwear
and a stick of deodorant.
The soldier said something to me
and Vasili told me,
“He asked you if you speak Spanish.”
“No habla espanol.” I said.
Then he said something else to me,
“He said, ‘Not even a little?’”
“No, sorry.” I said to the soldier.
And he nodded and smiled.
They seemed satisfied
with their inspection
and let us rumble off.
We stopped at a fireworks stand.
Johnnie, Anthony, Vasili, and I got out
and checked it out
but no one was there;
a sign said be back in ten minutes.
We pissed in the outhouses
out front—
empty oil barrels inside holes in the ground,
a wood out house on top of them.
Should have had a crescent moon in the door.
Luckily it hadn’t been “all shitted up” yet.
We were about to board the bus
when the fireworks guy showed up.
We jumped on the back of his little pickup truck
and he drove us back down the driveway
and let us inside his little mobile home/fireworks stand.
Anthony got some roman candles and M1000s.
“How about a megaton. It’s about the size of a baseball and it’s got the power
of half a stick of dynamite.” The dude said in perfect English.
Johnnie got some roman candles and a megaton bomb.
And me, I got some roman candles so we’d have more than enough
for our roman candle fight
and an extra megaton
for fun.
We got back on the bus
and about twenty minutes later
we were in San Felipe.
San Felipe
We pulled onto a dirt road
and the bus rumbled into a neighborhood
of little houses and shacks.
We were bouncing up and down like crazy in our seats
from the dips and bumps and rocks in the road.
I told Vasili and Anthony,
“Put a chick on your lap, let the bus do the work.”
They laughed,
and we bounced
all the way down the street,
turning down little roads,
deeper into the most authentic neighborhood I had ever been in.
“Damn, this place is like La Bamba.” I said.
“Haha, I knew you’d trip out on it.” Vasili said.
“I know, I’m gonna fucking wake up tomorrow
in some old medicine man’s shack.”
Vasili laughed. “Yeah with a flying guitar tattoo.”
“Ha! Nah it’d be a flying book. Haha, how fucking lame would that be?”
We laughed.
Chicuate parked the bus in front of his sister’s house,
leaving barely enough room for cars to pass,
and cars were passing in both directions
causing a traffic jam
on this little dirt road
in the middle of a San Felipe ghetto.
A young guy with a real Aztec look to him,
head shaved with grown out bangs
miffed it on his bmx hitting the corner by the back of the bus,
where we were sitting.
“Hahaha! Did you see that?” Anthony said.
He picked himself up.
“What the fuck?” I said. “He wasn’t even going fast or anything.”
“What happened?” Vasili asked.
“He just fell.” Anthony said.
He walked his bike around the bus.
“Damn… He looks like he’s been huffing paint thinner or something.”
“You’re right B, he does.” Vasili said.
“Look at him, he’s a zombie.” I said.
He got back on his bmx and rode away.
The bus was a sweat lodge.
We got out and
went to the grocery store around the corner
and bought Tecate and Dos Equis beer
and asada for the whole family to barbecue on the beach,
and went back over to the house and cracked our first beers of the trip.
It was 9am and about 95 degrees out.
Vasili and Anthony were already past 24 hours, and I was at 22,
but I was wide awake, and so were they,
and I took down that ice cold Dos Equis in less than a minute
and cracked another one, and maybe took 3 minutes on that one.
And cracked another one, drank it,
then everyone boarded the bus again,
and I climbed in through the emergency door in back,
and we rumbled off.
Sea of Cortez
Chicuate parked the bus on the street
in front of a restaurant
and got the ok from the people there to leave it.
The sky was perfect blue
and the tide was low;
the water murky like back home.
We got setup under a canopy
that we rented from the restaurant across the street.
They own the bit of beach in front of their restaurant,
and they even let us order food from there.
But I didn’t eat. I just drank beer.
And you had to drink fast, because if you didn’t
you’d be holding a hot beer.
So we drank a lot of beer.
(notice i’m holding two beers)
It was 11am and we were fucking drunk.
The zombie that ate shit on his bike earlier
was on the beach talking to Johnnie.
He seemed like he was getting aggressive with him,
and I yelled,
“Ask him if he knows what a Mata Leao is!”
Vasili laughed.
And then the zombie came over to me
and started rambling off in broken English
trying to sell me whatever he could,
even saying something like,
“Angels, Angels.”
“Yeah, Vladimir Guerrero.” Is all I said.
Then he reached out
and put his hand on my shoulder
and I
pulled it off all perfect,
so that if he had reacted violently
in that moment,
I would have broke his arm,
but he didn’t so I just let go
real quick
and told him,
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“Damn, a hundred dollars on B!” Vasili said.
And the paint-thinner zombie walked off down the beach.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Johnnie kept mentioning how he’d never been up to the little church on top of the cliff.
“Let’s go man, I love stuff like that.” I told him.
“You want to? Cool.” He said.
And we got Vasili and Anthony and
walked down the beach,
then found our way to a staircase
to the top of the cliff
that led to a shrine
for the Virgin Mary.
When I made it to the top
there was a picture of her
surrounded by fresh flowers
and candles.
The catholic in me
took over
and I knelt
and made a sign of the cross,
closed my eyes,
and prayed for safety on the trip,
then stood up
and walked around to
the cliff’s edge.
“Hey Johnnie, can you take my picture man?”
“Sure.” And he took my camera.
But then
everyone convinced my drunk ass
to take a picture
next to a tombstone
on the edge of the cliff,
probably marking where someone
once fell to their death
taking a picture while they were drunk.
“Dude, I’m fucking drunk. Let me just be super careful.”
At one point I had about six inches of footing to work with
so I pressed my body against the cliff and worked my way over to the edge
by the tombstone.
“That’s an awesome picture!” Johnnie said
and waited for Vasili to take a spot in the picture,
then said,
“One, two.” And snapped it.
I stayed a while
enjoying the panorama view
of
Earth
and sky;
then
leaning my weight against the cliff,
I climbed back to safety
and made another sign of the cross
to our Lady of Guadalupe,
over looking San Felipe,
like a holy beacon,
alongside
the old lighthouse.
Afternoon
I swam around in the hot Sea of Cortez.
I’d never been in the Gulf of California before.
Great White water.
Slightly cooler
than the hundred degrees out.
Vasili took a siesta.
Anthony and I cruised around the shops
checking out all the usual stuff you find in Mexican beach towns:
shirts, shorts, sandals, and cheap sunglasses.
We ducked into one place
called the Rockodile
that had air conditioning.
It was about 2pm.
I stopped drinking beer and switched to water.
I got back to the beach
and Johnnie gave me a beach towel
and I went to sleep for an hour under the canopy.
I ignored the heat
and my sweating
and enjoyed everything else.
I walked to the other end of the beach with Anthony
to a hotel swimming pool
packed with families.
We walked back down the beach
past people fishing,
and families swimming with their shirts on,
and joined Vasili on the bus
and tried to sleep
though none of us could really sleep in the heat.
We rested,
thinking we were going to be staying overnight in San Felipe
and tried to get some energy to party with later.
La Policia
I paid ten pesos at the public shower
to wash off the saltwater and sweat.
I kept drinking bottles of water
and kept sweating it out.
The sun was finally setting.
Anthony and I carried the barbecue out of the bus
and put it on the beach.
Patricia dumped wood chips inside
and Johnnie started the fire,
fanning the flames with a paper plate.
Vasili was asleep on the bus,
the rest of us were on the beach.
Chicuate was about to barbecue the asada
when la policia pulled up next to the bus
and got out and started looking for Chicuate.
Chicuate went over to talk to them.
“We’re towing the bus if you don’t have it moved in ten minutes.”
“Ha! I’d like to see a tow truck get my bus out of here with all these cars boxing me in.”
“Just get it moved.”
Chicuate returned,
“Putos.”
And resumed cooking the asada.
It was dark now,
and the tide was extremely low,
so me and Anthony walked deep out into the low tide
and smoked a bowl.
When we came back
la policia was back,
and they were looking for Chicuate again.
They had the owner of one of the cars boxing him in,
so when that guy moved his car,
we gathered up all our shit off the beach
and left;
and that sucked because
I was so fucking hungry,
and hadn’t eaten since the 4am taco stand,
been up for thirty-two hours,
and damn
I was so close to getting to eat;
fucking putos.
They dumped water on the wood chips
and dumped it,
and me and Anthony carried the hot barbecue back to the bus.
We rumbled off again,
and headed towards the baseball park
where there was a festival
and where the fireworks guy said
he was putting on a show that night.
Chicuate was in a bad mood
and wanted to go home,
and by now, it was about 9pm.
I didn’t care, I just wanted to eat.
“The asada has sand in it.” Johnnie told me. “So we’re going to take you guys somewhere to get some food, then I think we’re going back to Mexicali.”
La policia drove by.
“Tu madre chingada.” Chicuate said to them.
We went to this little restaurant,
and there was a family inside
dressed nice for the new years;
a celebration in Mexico City
on the TV hanging on the wall
in the corner
of this little restaurant with cracks running across its old white walls.
I ordered a carne asada burrito for a buck, and I thought I was getting a deal
because she told Vasili that they were big.
So me and Vasili only ordered one a piece
and Anthony ordered fish tacos.
We had bottles of coke
While we waited for our food.
When our comida was finally ready, I was like,
“Wait a minute, is this everything?”
Anthony asked the girl working there and she said, “Si.”
“Fuck it, let’s go.” Vasili said.
We got back on the bus
and rumbled out of San Felipe
in the dark
and headed back towards Mexicali
on the five.
We dug into our food…
There were two burritos alright,
the size of taquitos.
Me and Vasili each ate our miniature little tiny carne asada “burrito”
and Anthony grubbed his fish tacos.
He offered us one, and I took him up on it,
’cause if I knew how big my “burrito” was going to be,
I would have bought fucking ten of them.
La Llorona
Johnnie mentioned her a few times
and now
here we were
travelling in pitch black night
on a one lane highway to Mexicali,
in the middle of the Baja Desert.
Johnnie said,
“People’ve died from La Llorona appearing on the highway at night.”
“How?”
“Drivers swerve or slam on their brakes, hit cars and fly off the side of the road.”
“She’s a ghost?”
“Yeah, La Llorona is a type of ghost, a female ghost searching for her dead children.”
“So people get all zoned out on the highway then BOO!..? Wow, crazy shit. Make sure nothing spooks Chicuate.”
“I will.”
Every time a car approached
they seemed headed directly for us
until at the last second
they passed our bus.
I laid back in the seat,
closed my eyes,
and prayed for safety and protection
around the whole bus,
and visualized a force field of light surrounding us
as I went to sleep.
I felt the bus slow down
and woke up.
Chicuate pulled off the highway
and put it in reverse.
A car was broke down.
I saw Vincent stick his head out the window
in front of me
so I did the same
and stuck my head out the window
and checked out what was going on.
I saw their car with the emergency lights blinking
and a Mexican couple with a small child walking toward the front of the bus.
I turned my head the other way and saw Vincent smiling at me.
He said, “Senor,” and giggled.
And I laughed
and so did some of the other kids
and they said something in Spanish and laughed some more.
Chicuate accelerated and we were back on the highway at full speed.
He was gunning it,
and sometimes I could feel the bus accelerating so fast,
I’d wake up to make sure we weren’t about to fly off a cliff,
then I’d pray again,
and go back to sleep…
“Viva Meh-he-co! Viva Meh-he-co!” Patricia screamed.
I popped up in my seat.
She scared the shit out of me,
and I was looking around all confused,
and she laughed at me,
and kept yelling,
“Viva Meh-he-co! Viva Meh-he-co!”
It was midnight and officially
Mexican Independence Day.
I said another prayer
and went back to sleep.
Mexicali
The bus slowed down
and I woke up
as we rumbled into town.
It was about 1am.
Chicuate dropped off the family we picked up.
“It makes me happy that our bus trip could help that family out.”
“They were stranded since seven o’clock. They said God sent us to pick them up.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and Patricia said ‘Then that means God kicked us off the beach.’ She was just joking, you know.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You know she saved us?”
“Really? What do you mean?”
“Chicuate fell asleep and she freaked out and screamed at him. Do you remember her screaming?”
“Yeah but I thought it was for independence day.”
“No she was screaming at Chicuate to wake the fuck up.”
“Damn, thank God she was sitting next to him… Seven o’clock… That’s right about when the policia kicked us out… Trip out… See what happens when you visit the Virgin Mary shrine?”
“Haha, that’s right!”
“Dude, I’m glad we made it home alive.”
We dropped the rest of the families off
and went back to Chicuate’s.
We slept in Cindy’s room
and she slept in her sister’s room while
Anthony and Vasili shotgun called the sides of the bed on me,
so I slept in the middle.
The bed was pretty big and comfortable,
and we went to sleep with
plenty of room between each other.
And I figured I’d be sleeping on a floor or something.
There was an air conditioner in the room too,
another unexpected amenity;
I expected hot sweaty bad sleep,
but with the AC going
and us going 48 hours straight,
we were knocked out,
and got about five hours of real sleep.
The Next Day
We took it slow and woke up around noon
and when we awoke,
everyone was in the kitchen.
Maria was rolling tortillas
and Annie was cooking them
and making the asada from the beach.
“They said they washed the sand off it.” Vasili told me.
“Awesome.” I said.
We sat down and ate.
We had homemade tortillas,
and jack cheese quesadillas,
and like a gringo
I put the meat on top of the quesadilla and ate it.
Then I watched everyone else open theirs and put the meat in with the cheese.
Chicuate looked up at me with a smirk
then said something to Johnnie.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Chicuate said, ‘I guess that works.’”
“Oh, about the quesadilla? You’re supposed to put it inside huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do it for the next one.”
I took a fat fresh roasted jalapeno and ate it.
Chicuate smiled and said something else to Johnnie.
Johnnie translated, “Chicuate said, ‘Well at least he ate a pepper.’”
Earning his respect.
I chugged on a blue PowerAde.
“Hell yeah. I like hot stuff.”
Johnnie told me, “I’ve brought other people to Mexico, but none of them ever ate a pepper.”
“It was fresh. I’m used to the pickled ones. It was pretty hot.”
We chilled
and drank Tecate
and played dominos.
One of Maria’s sisters
Lisa hung out with us.
I think she’s like twenty or twenty-one.
Vasili said, “She’s a partier. That’s why she didn’t come to San Felipe with us. She was out partying for independence day, ”
She looked at me and smiled and said something to Vasili.
He told me, “She said you have pretty eyes.”
“Gracias, y tu.” I said and smiled a little bashfully.
Birthday for an Old Mexican Man
That evening we went to Marcie’s house
and hung out on the junkyard side
for a birthday
of an old uncle of Maria’s.
Waiters served cans of bud light
and plates of food to guests.
I took a plate and tipped the waitress five pesos
and she got real appreciative and thanked me
because I don’t think anyone else was tipping,
and then I dug right into the mystery meat.
I said to Anthony, “Wow, that’s really good. What is it?”
“It’s goat.”
“It’s fucking awesome.”
And I ate the rest of the tender, well seasoned meat,
and perfect homemade beans and rice on the plate.
I dug the mariachi band playing for the party.
They had a guy on a drum kit backing them up with rock beats.
A real Mexicali party band.
We left the party and went to Maria’s mom’s house.
Johnnie set a megaton in the open field across the street
and put his beer down and tried to light the bomb.
“His beer’s done.” I said.
He lit the bomb and ran.
“I forgot my beer!”
I laughed, “Watch his beer!”
“BOOOOM!”
It shot up in the air like a missile.
Then we geared up in our shoes and hoodies
and had a roman candle skirmish in the field.
Vasili got his lit first
and aimed at me point blank
as I tried to light it in the wind.
Then got mine lit
and strafed away and jumped
just missing getting shot,
then fired back as he ran towards Anthony
and then I took aim at Anthony,
led him
and shot him.
Then tried to shoot Vasili again,
then our candles were empty and we figured we’d play again later
(we never did).
We chilled in front of Maria’s mom’s
drinking beer
and listening to mariachi
and an old tape of Bob Marley
while we drank more beer.
Cindy and Patricia
conspired to try to communicate with me,
and moved their chairs next to me
and started asking me things in Spanish,
or asking Anthony, since he’s Latino and knows Spanish,
and I tried to answer back in my broken Spanish
and had a hard time looking at them
because Cindy’s so beautiful,
and Patricia,
because she keeps looking at me
like a bitch in heat
from Calle de Perros.
I don’t mean to call her a bitch,
she’s a nice person,
but damn, I can tell she’s in heat
the way she looks at me,
and says, “Bran-don”
with sex in her voice
and I know
I’m not messing with the mother of three
or jailbait.
They kept up their questions
and teasing me for my
broken Spanish answers.
They asked me how much Spanish I knew, and I said,
“Poquito.”
“Poquito!” They said and giggled at the way I said it.
Cindy knew some English too,
probably about as much Spanish as I know.
I don’t even remember the things we tried to talk about
because I was drunk.
I remember Cindy asking me if I could drive the bus
and I said,
“Not like Chicuate.”
And she laughed and said, “Not like Chee-cuate.”
“He’s crazy, loco.” I said.
“Haha, he say crasy.” She said.
And I remember struggling to say,
“Mi abuela grande viene de Sonora.”
But it came out like,
“Mi abuela grande… Hey Anthony, how the fuck do you say my great grandmother came from Sonora Mexico?”
“Viene means come.”
“Viene?”
“Viene de.”
“Viene de?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok… (To the girls) Mi abuela grande viene de Sonora, Mexico… Way over there.” And I pointed to the east.
They smiled and said something to each other then Patricia told me,
“Mana estos es Meh-he-cali!” And they laughed.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Well this is Mexicali.’”
America should have kept Baja California,
it’s an amazing place filled with real human beings
living real lives
that I think
are more beautiful than a millionaire actor’s life of wealth and decadence.
Monday
We woke up
and Annie made us breakfast:
beer battered fried fish tacos
with corn tortillas,
cabbage, lime, crema, and habanero hot sauce.
We went to the little market around the corner and bought some groceries for the house.
I bought up all the 100% orange, apple, and guava Jumex juice boxes in the cooler.
I drank one with my tacos and left the rest for the kids and family to drink.
After we were done eating, us and Chicuate,
the rest of the family ate;
there just wasn’t enough room at the table
in the kitchen
for all of us.
Little Sara drank one of the juice boxes,
and I felt like buying more,
and I did Tuesday morning,
bought up all the minute maid juice boxes in the market,
and drank one,
and left the rest for Chicuate’s kids.
We got to drinking beer right after our fish taco breakfast,
hot boxed Vasili’s car,
and hung out in the dirt back yard
by the old clothesline.
Then we drove to downtown Mexicali
where all the horrible little shops were
filled with knickknacks and knockoffs.
I got cell phone reception for the first time
and received a text message
of a beautiful description
of the weather in Orlando, Florida.
On the way back to the neighborhood
I spotted Chicuate’s bus.
“Look, it’s Chicuate!”
And we zoomed up next to him and yelled,
“Viva Chicuate!”
He had a whole bus load of commuters,
and he laughed and waved at us
and flashed his headlights.
We found out later he wanted us to pull over so we could shoot the shit,
even with a bus full of passengers,
crazy fuck.
We had dinner at Chicuate’s
while he worked.
Ground beef and potatoes
with onions and peppers
on fresh homemade tortillas,
with Coca-Cola.
“The Coke tastes better here.”
“You think so?” Vasili asked.
“Yeah, either they make it better, or it just tastes better drinking it here… Presidente Fox used to be CEO for Coca-Cola, maybe that has something to do with it.” I said and took another drink.
After dinner we went outside.
Cindy was home hanging out with a girl and a guy from school,
still in their school uniforms.
Cindy felt like being mischievous
probably to show off in front of us,
and got the guy from school
to let her drive his car
and she took off in it by herself
and blew through a stop sign
and kept on driving down the street.
Maybe ten seconds after she went through the stop
three cars zoomed past the intersection she flew across.
“Damn, I hope she doesn’t get hit.” I said.
And then she swerved
and turned right and disappeared into the neighborhood.
Vasili and Johnnie got in Vasili’s car and tried to find her,
and they eventually did,
and came back.
Johnnie got Uncle status on the guy who let her drive,
telling me he told him,
“Don’t be a stupid cabron, at least sit in the car with her next time.”
She gave me a devilish smile when she walked by
and I told her
“Bad girl Cindy.”
And she laughed and said, “Me not bad girl.”
Meow Meow
Johnnie insisted on taking us to a club called Meow Meow.
We were lucky everything was cool
and all the chicks didn’t turn into vampires
like from Dusk ’til Dawn,
and
we spent the rest of our last night drinking buckets of Corona.
At one point a stripper asked for a cigarette from the pack on my table.
Anthony got up from his seat down by the stage
and grabbed a smoke from my pack
and lit it.
She took it
and placed it in her chocha
and took serious drags…
Then she spread her legs and moved around puffing on it,
her thighs nearly getting burned by the cherry.
Enough about that place.
I was muy borracho when we left,
and so were we all
and Vasili drove off
and burned through a stop sign,
and hit a corner
and there was la policia.
“You’re cool bro, he’s not worried about you.” I said.
“Yeah he is man!”
“I know he is but I’m trying to keep you calm. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
And Vasili cut through the side streets of downtown Mexicali
and made it out
to a main street
and back to the barrio
where we smoked a bowl with Johnnie
outside Maria’s mom’s house,
then went back to
Chicuate’s and smoked again
in the car
still drunk,
in party mode
at 4:45am,
Lil’ Wayne on the stereo.
“Annie said she was going to wake us up at 5am.” Vasili said.
“No way.” I laughed.
We tried to sneak back inside.
First the iron gate to the house made a hell of a lot of noise,
like opening a castle gate,
then the front door went creeeeeeaking open.
We were almost tip toed into our room when Annie yelled from her room in Spanish,
“I’m still going to wake you at 5am!”
Vasili told me what she said and I laughed and said,
“Fuck that,” and flopped on the bed.
Anthony was out immediately.
Me and Vasili kept talking about everything that happened on the trip,
like little kids,
until we both fell asleep.
Lolita
We hung out at Chicuate’s for one more afternoon.
I sat in the living room by myself
reading a book.
Cindy came in
dressed for school.
She looked at me and gave me another devilish smile,
and I smiled back
and went back to reading my book.
She stood across from me
and lifted her leg,
putting her foot on the coffee table in front of me,
and slowly pushed her long white sock down
and rubbed lotion on her leg.
I probably could have saw her panties
if I actually looked up
as she lotioned her inner thigh,
like an eye magnet,
pulled the sock back up
and then moved to the next leg,
and somehow I managed to resist her Lolita act
and kept my nose in the book.
She pulled her sock up
and gave me a quick look
as she adjusted her plaid skirt
then went in the kitchen and said bye to her parents,
then came back and smiled and said “bye” to me and took off for school.
Mexicali Blues Pt. 2
We left that evening and followed Johnnie’s car to the border.
Vasili brought a big bag of change
to give to the right bum on the way out.
“Hey dogg, can you reach inside the side of the door and get the bag of change for me?” Vasili asked.
And I gave it to him
and he threw it out the window to a legless bum sitting in the middle of all the cars
waiting to cross the border.
Our windows were down
as we neared the border—
Vasili afraid his limo tint would attract suspicion.
A dog started barking.
Johnnie pulled up to the window,
and Vasili started following him through,
“Are we supposed to stop?”
“Yeah.” I said as he hit the brakes past the limit line.
The dog came sniffing around our car.
The agent holding him stared at us.
Vasili asked the agent holding him, “You want our ID’s?”
and he said, “Yeah.”
And took our id’s.
“That’s a nice lab, I have one like that at home. They’re good dogs.” Vasili told him.
The agent glared, trying to read him.
Then we pulled up to the booth
and the agent at the booth gave us the once over.
“Where you from? What were you doing in Mexico?”
and we told him,
“Long Beach, celebrating Mexican Independence day.”
The agent at the booth started filling out a form.
“Follow this lane into secondary check.” The booth agent said,
and we pulled in.
Vasili confided later,
“When I saw the guy filling out the pink paper, I knew we were going to secondary
and then I didn’t give a fuck anymore. Before that, I’ll be honest with you dogg, I was really nervous.”
Don’t Fuck With Big Brother
“Step out of the vehicle.”
We got out.
“Stand over there.”
And we stood in front of his car,
a jiu-jitsu decal on the back window.
I think the decal made us more of a threat
to the border patrol agents;
made them more scared of us
thus
making them
more dangerous for us.
The decal
plays with their fear and imagination.
Imagine
us trying to chop socky our way
back to Mexicali to freedom
disarming the officers
and turning their weapons on them
or whatever outlandish crazy scenarios
were running through those big geeks
in uniforms minds—
there were a lot of them
surrounding us,
probably every agent on duty,
on edge,
while the dog sniffed around inside the car…
The dog didn’t come up with anything,
so the agents started
combing through the front and back seat,
literally fucking combing the carpet
with a comb
and then sprinkled the little bits of weed
they scraped up
on the hood of the car.
“What’s this huh?” Demanded a fat Latino agent putting on the tough guy act.
“We were smoking down in San Felipe.” Vasili said.
“Bullshit. You guys are hiding it. Where is it??”
Vasili kind of laughed, acting a bit cocky,
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We were smoking it down there, that’s it.”
“No, I don’t believe you. Empty your pockets.”
And Vasili emptied his pockets
and they patted him down.
Then they searched Anthony.
I stuck my hand in my pocket
feeling a little glass toker.
“Take your hand out of your pocket.” An agent ordered me, hand on his gun.
I took my hand out very slowly.
Then it was my turn to be searched.
“Do you have anything on you I should know about?”
“Yeah.”
And I pulled out the pipe and gave it up.
The agent put it on the hood with the weed crumbs
and patted me down,
while all the agents
went into a feeding frenzy re-searching the vehicle
because of the pipe.
The agents near Vasili surrounded
and bombarded him,
“Where’s it at?”
“We know you’re hiding it.”
“Tell us where it is.”
“We’re going to find it.” All the agents were saying.
“You’re not gonna find nothing.” Vasili said defiantly.
Then boom…
“Ha! What’s this? You didn’t think we’d find it?”
“Ah… fuck…” I said.
“Hands behind your backs!”
The agents had their hands on their guns,
some had them drawn and pointed down
and they cuffed Vasili and Anthony.
I had my hands behind my back
and a big goofy Latino agent
grabbed my wrists and fingers
in some kind of hold
that would take a simple squeeze
to break my fingers and asked,
“Anyone have any cuffs?”
No one did,
so he tightened his grip and walked me to the station.
I kept my muscles relaxed so he wouldn’t freak out and break my fingers.
The station was small
with about six little jail cells
that looked like I was in a doctor’s office.
“Are any of you military?” The Captain asked.
“No.” We said.
“Haha, you’re lucky. What about students?”
“No.”
“Well if you were, you could kiss your financial aid goodbye.” He laughed.
I watched them pat down Vasili.
Then as I was being brought into the room to be searched,
another agent came in with our fireworks stash.
Holding my megaton
he said to the other agents,
“I think this thing’s considered a bomb in the state of California. If so it falls under anti-terrorism laws.”
“Hey now, it’s nothing like that.” I said as I was put into the room.
“Hands against the wall.”
The agent let go of the finger lock
and I put my hands on the wall.
I looked down,
then to the side.
“Keep your head up, eyes on the wall.”
“Yes sir.”
He patted me down thoroughly
and I inhaled the times he checked and re-checked my balls.
“Anything in your pockets? Any needles?” He asked.
“No sir.”
He checked my pockets.
“Go sit on the long bench outside.”
I sat down next to Vasili,
and we looked at each other like “fuck…”
and we sat there.
“Spread out on the bench… You guys cause any trouble and we’ll stick you in the cells.” The big black Captain said
then started looking at all our stuff.
He picked up a fat nug and examined it.
Probably the nice one I was saving.
“Oooweee, this is some expensive weed. No way you got this in Mexico.” He said admiring it.
“We took it with us. That’s the Trainwreck and the Purple Urkels.” Vasili said.
“Say what?” The big black Captain asked.
“The Purple Urkels.”
“Man, for how much this shit cost, and’s going to cost you; you could have bought all the cases of beer you want. But no, you guys gotta be messing around with this stuff.”
The agents had what was left of our three herb sacks dumped on the counter
and tried to weigh it out on their old-school science class scale.
They were having a hard time trying to figure out how to use the thing;
apparently none of them passed physical science in high school.
So they got frustrated and went somewhere to find a digital scale.
“What’s these things?” The Captain asked
“Roman candles.” We said.
“How do they work?”
“You light the end and it shoots out little fireballs.” Vasili told him.
“What are you guys doing with them?”
“We were shooting them at each other.” We said.
“That’s smart… What about this thing? What is it, a cherry bomb?”
“We tried it, it’s real weak.” Anthony said.
“So it’s a smoke ball right?”
He was leading our questioning.
“Yeah, it’s a smoke ball.” We all said.
“Alright, so we got some candles and a smoke ball…” He gave the fireworks to an agent.
“Take them to the locker and have them destroyed.”
The agents with the herb came back.
This time they had a geeky white guy with them
who probably passed his high school science class.
“How much do you think you guys have?” The Captain asked.
“Probably like four grams.” Vasili said.
“Eight grams.” The agent weighing it said.
“Alright guys, here’s what’s going to happen:
We’re charging the driver with possession of the marijuana. You didn’t have any fireworks did you?”
“No sir.” We said.
“Ok. Since you guys were cool and cooperative, we’re going to cut you a deal.
If you want to go home tonight, it usually costs $5,000 to get your car back.
But since you guys were cool, we’re going to let you have it back for $500.
If you pay right now, then you guys are free to go.
But if you ever get caught again, it’s $5,000, then $10,000 every time after that.
And we’re going to link the two of you to his profile, so if you ever get stopped again,
any of you,
it won’t be $500,
it’ll be $5,000.
Ok?”
We nodded and Vasili gave the Captain his credit card and paid the fine.
Then the Captain gave us boys a lecture:
“You boys learned the hard way.
Don’t fuck with big brother.
You just can’t, we have our ways of knowing.
Let all your friends know.
It’s not worth it.
Do whatever you want in Mexico,
just don’t bring that shit over here.”
He let us go and we packed up all the stuff they tore out of the car,
and drove into Calexico.
Home
The whole thing at the border only lasted about an hour and a half.
We saw Johnnie’s SUV parked waiting for us as we drove down Imperial Ave,
Highway 111.
“Wow you guys made it across!”
And we told him the story
and
I walked across the street
and bought chili dogs from Weinerschnitzel
for us.
Welcome back to the US.
Vasili drank some beers
as he followed Johnnie back to Palm Desert.
And in the dark
we drove north
back through the California desert.
A couple times while we were cruising along,
I stuck my head out the window,
like I did with the kids on the bus,
and looked up at the milky way
burst across the sky.
We made it to Palm Desert
and
smoked another bowl
with Johnnie
in his living room,
then headed home.
Vasili was pretty tired.
The winding turns,
exhaustion,
and the beers
were causing him to veer over the line.
We pulled over at the first exit out of the badlands,
and I took over driving
the rest of the way home.
Epilogue
Mexico’s beautiful.
And so are the people
living
in poverty
with beautiful souls.
Patricia and her three children
living on calle de perros,
Maria’s mom and her
patchwork house
that was
burned down
by crackheads
and rebuilt by the community,
and
Chicuate
and his beautiful family
who welcomed us
into their home
and cooked so much good food for us
and
treated me,
a gringo,
a weto,
like family.
I went to Mexico
with nothing in mind
not knowing what I’d find
and that I found
openhearted strangers
with nothing more
than love to give,
has given me
a better perspective
on
the way i should live.
Here’s a couple poems I wrote in Mexicali
straight from my notebook:
Mexicali Blues
9/17/2007
“This place really touches my heart man.”
I say, looking around
at all the houses,
some actually made of adobe,
and others put together like a birds nest
like all the souls
wandering around
through
this stripped down
reality.
There’s still
the chance
that I could
disappear
from here
or there
and find
my way through
a new
way to live
and love
free of
the illusions
of wealth
and dominance
that dominate
and perpetuate
the American mind.
The United States
is losing its soul
is in the
hands
of the
darkest hearts
and is losing control
in its struggle to maintain it.
Open the border,
it would be a beautiful thing
if the U.S.
which trusts in God
could learn to
love thy neighbor.
Little Sara
9/18/2007
Chicuate’s
four year old daughter
playing with her dolls
in front of us
changing her voice
to give them different voices.
It’s all in Spanish and I don’t know what she’s saying
but I get a kick out of it.
Her dolls,
dirty from being played with
and loved,
all of them cheap
McDonald’s toys,
except for her one Barbie doll,
with dirty blonde matted hair.
She rules over the rest of her dolls
like the princess,
and little Sara’s happy
playing in her own world
and pays no attention to me
leaning against Chicuate’s car
writing a poem about her
in my notebook.
Then she runs off
to play with the kids
banging pots and pans
and she starts singing
in sour little
kid notes in espanol
like rock n’ roll,
little kids
in ghetto streets
down
Mexicali way.
I’m going to send her
a new black haired Barbie for Christmas.
