Memories of Baja Part 3

…continued

For some reason when we went to Baja our capacity to drink would seem to double or triple. Even those of our friends who weren’t heavy drinkers would indulge themselves. I guess it was due to the low price of alcohol. We were able to buy so much and we could only take limited amounts back with us over the border so basically whatever we bought we had to drink before going back. Yeah we could have just left stuff for the next visit but that would be going against our live for the moment attitude. Any trip down could be the last. We always drank at the beach house because it was stockpiled with booze and we didn’t have to worry about driving back to the house obliterated. Back in the States at parties there would always be drinking games like Tops, Quarters, or Up and Down the River. We weren’t into that, we just drank although we did have a few simple rules. In the evening after dinner those who were going to drink would gather at the kitchen table and those who weren’t would sit on the couch in the adjacent living room and spectate and serve as the peanut gallery. On the table would sit a bottle of tequila, some sliced limes, and a shot glass. We didn’t bother with salt, that was too touristy for us. To stay at the table you had to drink a shot when your turn came up. The glass went around clockwise and you had about 5 minutes to down your shot. The longer you took to drink your shot the more razzing you got from the audience which included the non drinkers on the couch. Everybody had a bottle, glass, or can of beer to sip on while waiting their turn. It always started out casual. Wes always played the MC since it was his beach house and he loved getting people drunk. Wes would pour the shot and set it down right in front of you. It was not too much unlike King Arthur’s Roundtable. We sat around and celebrated our lives telling embellished stories of our youthful conquests and gossiping about recent events and people we knew. As the night wore on the booze would take effect adding even more embellishment and color to our stories. Usually around round 5 people would start dropping off. If you couldn’t drink your shot you had to leave the table and join the peanut gallery which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Once you were off the table you had license to ill and you could really get into razzing the people who were still at the table drinking. It was all in fun so it never got too personal or vindictive.

Like I said before, Wes loved to get people drunk, especially the lite drinkers. He would start working on people early in the day and by the time evening rolled around he would have a few recruits at the table who probably shouldn’t be there. At the time Wes was dating a nice young woman who lived up the block named Debbie Shair. Debbie was away attending college at UC Davis so she was only able to attend Baja trips on her breaks from school. She had an older brother named Pete who used hang out with us. Pete was a super nice guy who was a rocker. He was a bass player who had classic rock long hair and wore Iggy Pop tight Levi jeans, tight t-shirts, and Chuck Taylor’s which was the standard uniform for rockers. Pete wasn’t a drinker or a toker. Every now and then he would partake but most of the time he was the only sober one amongst us. Wes had been giving Pete the business all day and when evening came Pete joined us at the table. He did ok for about the first 5 rounds but somewhere around round 8 or 9 his eyes became glazed over and his speech started to slur. His body language signaled to us that Pete was about to let go with a major geyser so we ushered him to the couch. We grabbed a white Hefty trash bag and stuck it under Pete’s chin just in time to catch the first wave of barf. He expelled quite a bit and then fell back on the couch and passed out. We callously returned to the table to continue our drinking. About 10 minutes later we could hear Pete moaning and gurgling. He was still a wreck. He put his hand up motioning to us. It took a while but we realized he needed the Hefty bag again so we rushed it over and he stuck his head in the bag and let loose. We couldn’t see the stuff but we could hear it hitting the bottom of the bag. We could emphasize because we had all been in this situation at one time or another. I remember one incident that I had where I was running down the hallway to the bathroom with my hand over my mouth with barf spewing through the cracks of my fingers splattering the walls like a Jackson Pollack painting. We went back to the table to continue our drinking and kept an eye on Pete. Speech was beyond his capabilities so we had to rely on his hand motions and body language. Whenever he started gurgling and his shoulders started heaving we would run over and put the Hefty bag under his chin. As we became more drunk we became less aware of Pete’s needs. We could hear him mumbling trying to tell us something. The mumbling became louder and louder and finally Pete yelled out “Baaaaaaaag!”. We started laughing our heads off because of the way he yelled “Baaaaaag”. We felt bad for Pete but we couldn’t stop ourselves from laughing. Even Pete started to chuckle. For the next hour or so, about every 10 minutes Pete would yell out “Baaaaaag!” and we would frantically rush over to him and stick the bag under his face, laughing the whole time. For some reason we had a roll of yellow CAUTION tape, the kind of tape that is put up at crime scenes. In our delirious state we roped off the living room from the kitchen with the tape and started calling the living room area the “Splatter Zone”. For those of us still drinking we began boasting about who was going to be sent to the Splatter Zone next. At one point our friend Jon Alcorn reached his tequila saturation point and went outside. He came back about an hour later. We were so far gone we didn’t even know he had left so we were surprised when he came walking in the door. He had scrapes on his arms and his shorts were scraped and torn with green grass stains. “Dude what happened?” With a big grin on his face Jon said, “I think I fell down the cliff.” We all started howling and laughing. Jon couldn’t remember exactly what had happened and to us that was funny because how could you not remember falling down a cliff? Jon was slightly bloodied but he was intact so we were able to laugh about it. At this point anything that didn’t kill us only made us laugh harder. Pete was still yelling for the bag but the yellow CAUTION tape made it difficult to get to him in the living room so we got a roll of duct tape and taped the bag to his chest. It was a genius move and we wondered why we hadn’t thought of it earlier. Pete was happy because he didn’t have to yell “Baaaaaaag!” anymore. He was actually smiling now and laughing at everything going on like the rest of us. We survived the night and the next day we were at it again. We kept the CAUTION tape up. From here on anyone who could not hold their liquor was banished to the Splatter Zone with a Hefty bag duct taped to the chest. So now you had double incentive to stay at the drinking table as nobody wanted to be the first person sent to the Splatter Zone. This is how traditions are born.

In our Last Man Standing drinking bouts I was usually the winner. I had a pretty good constitution and was able to do 20 or more rounds of tequila shots in a night of drinking. Usually by round 10 it would just be Wes and me and maybe one other brave soul who was on a roll still at the table. We would continue until we were all sloshed to the point of no return or the booze ran out. When the tequila ran out we’d start taking straight shots of Kahlua and after that we’d start on the fire water which we kept hidden in a cabinet above the refrigerator. Fire water was for emergencies only and we had to be really really drunk just to even talk about it let alone drink it. Looking back now I can’t believe I didn’t kill myself. With tequila you might win a few rounds but eventually it was going to get you. After one night of epic tequila drinking where I did 25 shots and even drank some fire water I woke up in the Lazy Boy chair. I got up and gingerly stepped over the passed out bodies on the living room floor to go to the bathroom. When I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror I let out a blood curdling scream. I didn’t recognize the face in the mirror. The face in the mirror had a massively fat upper lip that was split in half but what really alarmed me was that I was missing my upper front tooth. I have upper front teeth like Bugs Bunny so the gap where my tooth used to be looked big enough to drive a truck through it. On closer examination I could see that the tooth had broke off right at the gum line. I began to panic because I had no memory of what had happened. My scream woke some people up and they explained to me what happened. Apparently I left the table to go to the bathroom, or so I said, and instead went out the back door. They didn’t know I went outside but heard a loud “thud”. When they went to investigate the cause of the thud sound they found me lying down face first on the cobblestone driveway in a pool of blood. They took me outside to show the spot where I crashed landed and I could see the dried up pool of blood. It was disturbing to me that I could not remember this happening. Miraculously I was feeling no pain as I was still numb from the previous night of drinking. We didn’t know what to do. We still had a few days left in Baja so going back to the States was out of the question, plus I was broke at the time and had no dental insurance so I just had to man up and deal with it. I swore over and over to anyone that would listen I would never drink tequila again but after a few hours my upper lip and gums began to throb with pain. The booze was wearing off. Wes offered to drive me to Tijuana to see a dentist but I refused. That was my mentality at the time as someone without medical insurance. If I had to suffer then I would suffer. A few years earlier all four of my wisdom teeth simultaneously decided it was time to join the mouth party. Over the course of a month the teeth split through my gums like plant life springing from a seed and breaking the soil. For a month my gums were swollen and tender and I was constantly spitting out mouths full of blood. Eating solid food was so painful I had to go on a liquid diet. I lost 20 pounds during that episode. Everybody was feeling bad about my tooth and it brought a downer feeling to the group. They were sympathetic but nobody was trying to talk me into going back. By midday I was completely sober and could feel every iota of pain emanating from my mouth. I needed some relief so after swearing off tequila for good I found myself drinking some of the hair of the dog that took a chunk out of me. I couldn’t believe I was actually drinking tequila again but it actually helped. A tiny sip here and a tiny sip there made the pain bearable and I was able to soldier on for the few remaining days of the trip. Drinking tequila lightened the mood of the group considerably, enough to enable the group to start making jokes about my condition. Like I said before, that which does not kill you only makes you laugh harder.

On visits to Baja it was impossible not to notice the poverty. Even though we were good friends with One Legged Joe we didn’t interact much with the locals. We tried our best not to notice how poor people were. We didn’t want to feel guilty while acting like lunatics with our tequila binges. Many well to do Americans made trips to Rosarito on the weekends to go shopping or eat lobsters and many young college students from San Diego came down to hit the 18 and over bars. Out of respect to the poor locals we kept our shenanigans confined to the beach house. We never walked around Rosarito drunk or out of control.

Some days instead of going to the beach we would set our table up in front of the beach house and watch people pull up in their expensive BMW’s and Mercedes Benz’s to have a bite to eat at Francisco’s. Even though it was right there in our lap we rarely went to Francisco’s as it was out of our price range but it was fun to people watch and that’s what we would do. One day a young Mexican kid came wandering in to the parking lot area. He saw us and headed over to our table. I guess we looked approachable because he just started hanging out with us. Out of our group of 5 there were two girls and they took a liking to the kid. We found out his name was Jose and he was 12 years old. He didn’t speak English very well but he could understand it no problem so we were able to carry on a conversation with him. He was a funny kid and after awhile he had us all laughing. He started waiting on us, voluntarily fetching beers or food from the kitchen and pouring our tequila shots. At one point he motioned to the tequila, he wanted to take a shot. We all hesitated and looked at each other not sure what to do. He gave us a pleading look and Wes handed him the bottle. Wes didn’t think he was going to do it but Jose calmly poured himself a shot and downed it like a seasoned vet. We were all amazed and gave him a big cheer which brought a big smile to Jose’s face. Before Jose wandered over to our table we had been smoking a joint but we hadn’t lit it up since Jose joined us for obvious reasons. Jose eyed the joint then made a smoking gesture to Wes, he wanted to take a toke. Since he handled the tequila shot so smoothly we let him take a hit off the joint. He took a deep drag, held it in, and exhaled like a pro. Again we cheered him on which prompted him to give us all high fives as he was feeling very proud of himself. It never crossed our minds that we were being irresponsible adults by allowing this 12 year old kid to party with us. At the time I was working at the YMCA with kids of the same age and I would never allow this to happen in the States but in Baja it was a different world with a different set of rules. The kid was happy and that’s all that mattered to us because we had seen so many scrappy, malnutritioned, long faced kids that it felt good to have this local kid enjoying himself with us. He was having a great time, who were we to rain on his parade? When sundown came we thought Jose would leave but as we brought everything back into the house he made no motions that he was leaving. He helped us clean everything up and came inside and made himself at home taking a seat on the couch. The girls thought he was cute and adorable so he really played up to them. When it came time to make dinner he offered to help out in any way he could. He was very grateful to sit down and eat with us and afterwards without prompting started clean up and doing the dishes. We all chipped in and had the place squared away in a jiffy so we could get on to our nightly ritual of tequila drinking. We didn’t let Jose come to the table so he watched from the couch and joined in with us when the razzing started. Every now and then he would help himself to a beer or a shot of tequila. We didn’t try to stop him, we figured he knew his limits. At about 10pm when we were well into our drinking session Jose had fallen asleep on the couch so we carried him to one of the bedrooms and tucked him in for the night.

Morning came and Jose was up in the kitchen making breakfast for everybody of bacon and eggs. He even hand squeezed some oranges to make fresh juice for us. The little guy was making quite an impression on us, especially the girls. He had awoken their maternal instincts and he was playing it for all it was worth. They washed his clothes and encouraged him to take a shower like any good mother would. It became clear that Jose was going to stay with us as long as we let him so we just went with it. We had two more days before we had to get back to the States and we were out of weed which for us was always a bummer. Jose caught wind of our situation and made it known he could knew where to get some mota. He said he could get some from his brother who grew it up in the hills east of Rosarito. We thought about it awhile and decided we could go without. It was one thing to let a 12 year old have a few shots of tequila and a few tokes off a joint but to have him get weed for us was going to far, even for us. He wanted to please us so he kept offering but we stuck to our guns. This prompted us to start asking about his family because we were wondering if he was going to be in trouble for being away from home for so long. He said his parents didn’t care too much about him. He told us his father beat him and he was treated badly at home. This almost brought the girls to tears because Jose was such a likeable kid. It was hard to imagine him being the victim of abuse. After that he was in like Flint. I don’t think the girls would have let him go home even if he wanted to. They wanted to protect him. Jose stayed with us for the next two days like he was one of the family. He was enjoying himself immensely and we enjoyed having him around. We toned down the drinking for the remainder of the trip since now we felt like we were actually looking after him.

On departure day we packed up all of our gear for the ride home. Jose knew we were leaving so he was overcome by sadness as were the girls. We were all feeling a little down because we didn’t want to say goodbye to Jose. Finally one of the girls said, “Let’s take him with us.” Jose perked up when he heard this. I think all along he had been waiting for this moment. It was a crazy idea but the girls insisted and we all wanted to do good by the little fella. Our emotions got the better of us and we all decided to take Jose back with us to the States. We had no plan whatsoever. We just knew we wanted to take him back the decision was made and everybody was temporarily happy. We jumped in the van and started heading for the border. Everybody was quiet. We were all independently trying to digest and justify the magnitude of what we were attempting to do. We passed through Rosarito and we all looked at each other in silence. Wes pulled the van over to the side of the road and vocalized what most of us were thinking. As much as we wanted to we couldn’t take Jose back with us. How would we get him past the border agents? How would we explain our actions to the border agents? Would we be charged with smuggling if we were caught? What would we do with Jose if we did manage to sneak him across the border? We argued and debated these questions for about 10 minutes with Jose begging us to take him along. In the end reason and common sense won out. We told Jose we thought he was a great kid but we couldn’t take him with us. We all started crying. Jose wouldn’t budge but when he realized we were not going to change our minds he slowly got out of the van. We all took turns hugging him and the girls kissed his cheeks and wiped away his tears vowing they were going to come back for him. We drove off and looking back we could see Jose standing there watching us with his hand in the air waving goodbye to us. We watched him until he was just a speck on the horizon. When we could no longer see him we sat face forward in our seats. Nobody spoke. We were all thinking about Jose.

About a month later on our next trip to the beach house as we drove through Rosarito we kept an eye out for Jose but we didn’t see him. Dismayed we headed for the beach house. Just before we arrived at Calafia we saw a kid riding his bike on the dirt road next to the highway. We passed by him and to our delight we saw it was Jose. He saw us too and frantically started waving to us. We stopped the van and he rode his bike to us as fast as he could. We greeted Jose with big hugs. We were happy to find our little amigo. He met up with us at the beach house and we picked up right where we left off although we weren’t offering Jose any booze or smoke and he wasn’t asking. Jose confessed to us that he had lied about his parents. They were good people who took good care him and didn’t beat him. He only told us that because he wanted so very badly to see the United States because he had never been there before and he also said we were the nicest people he ever met and being with us was some of the best times he ever had. He didn’t want it to end. Jose stayed with us like before but he went home instead of spending the night with us and he didn’t drink or smoke anything. We all stayed sober for Jose, we just felt like it was the right thing to do. We had as much fun with him as before because it was never about the booze and the partying, it was more about connecting with a child from another culture and enjoying the unconditional love that he gave to us which in turn gave us the opportunity to step up and be better human beings.

Baja is a different place now. Even in the last few years I was hanging out there Rosarito was transforming itself. The two lane main drag with no sidewalks had been expanded to a four lane road with sidewalks. New construction was happening everywhere. One Legged Joe finally made enough money to open up a restaurant on the main drag and he moved back to Sonora Mexico. His family took over the business and ran the restaurant. We were happy for Joe because we really liked him but we felt some sadness because the new restaurant didn’t offer the unique experience that Joe’s taco shack did. We didn’t know it at the time but for all of us life was about to change. We were getting older, into our latter 20’s and one by one we started to become more focused on our individual lives and one by one we took off to new places like San Francisco and New York to continue our discovery of life. As friends we looked out for each other and we never left anyone behind. We pooled our money and shared everything. It was a lifestyle of necessity and survival. We were young with an abundance of energy and imagination, lacking resources and learning about life through trial and error. It was all to prepare us for going out into the world to face it on our own terms. You only get to be young once in your life. I struggled and had some hard times but I have no regrets about my life as a young man coming of age. I look back on the last 10 years of my life when I am supposedly more mature and wiser and I have plenty of regrets. Go figure.