ENSENADA II
DATELINE: SOUTH OF THE BORDER
What day is it? What time is it? What year is it? Who knows? We’ve been in Mexico for a few sunrises and sunsets, and the moments are all melting together like candlewax dripping down the wick.
Surprisingly, my car is still where I parked it. That’s a pleasant surprise in Mexico. Normally your car is on milk crates, the tires gone, or it’s been towed to some God forsaken place where they make you give blood and then River Dance to get your ride back.
But on this day, Lady Luck is smiling as I open the doors and take in the aroma of Z.
The 240-Z is a sporty two seater with a six cylinder engine. The Datsun product is a classic, and mine is tricked out with racing suspension and dual webber carbs. It’s a poor man’s race car. I’m poor so it’s perfect.
I’m not sure why I was picked to drive 3 people in a 2 seat car to Mexico? I’m not sure what brain trust decided 100 miles south of the Border in a 240 Z was a good idea? And really it was like four people in a 2-seat car if you count Joe twice.
Joe is a big man. He is easily six feet tall and weighs 225 pounds. Schultz is also a tall man. He’s 6′ 2″, the kind of tall that is all arms and legs flying around like a daddy long legs spider.
So who was going to climb back in the hatch? A difficult question, only settled after an angry game of rock paper scissors that Big Joe loses. I watch as he reluctantly crams his massive hulk into the rear hatch. It’s like trying to wedge a refrigerator under your airplane seat.
“Watch your head,” I say as I slam the hatch on his shoulders and neck.
Schultz gets in the passenger seat and reclines slightly. He is smiling the kind of smile only a rock paper scissors victor can sport.
“Where to?”
“Rosa Rita Beach,” Schultz declares. “I got some buddies there.
Only Schultz would suggest another adventure at some random Mexican beer joint in another Mexican town before we actually leave this lawless foreign country.
I’m too tired to disagree. It’s North of Ensenada, at least that’s the right direction. Besides, trying to debate this mentally challenged imbecile would only compound the problem.
Finding your way out of Ensenada is like finding the beginning of a ball of yarn. Road signs don’t exist. signs with big arrows display: USA this way. Border that way!
It’s all a lie.
I’ve played follow the arrow game to the border signs before. It’s a dead end. It’s a tourist trap. Those signs are hand painted by sinister merchants whose only goal is to suck you back into the center of town. The center of town is where the labyrynth of commerce can beat you down under the watchful eye of the Federales. The center fo town is where there’s an array of cockroach like merchants wait for unsuspecting tourists so they can sell their stockpiles of chicklets gum and popsicle stick wind chimes.
“MEEESTOR. BUY THIS STYROFOAM COO-COO-CLOCK”
I can’t stand these vendors and I’ve almost gone to Mexican jail in the past for letting them know this. I am determined to find the highway.
The signs indicate I should go left, but I go straight. Arrows say take a right, I go left. With the adroit skills of an ice road trucker, I navigate the secret passage out of this city of thieves and harlots. Within minutes we are cruising Mexico 1, AKA the Coast Highway.
Rosa Rita Beach is not so hard to find. It’s KM marker 69. It’s famous for cheap lobsters and sun dress wearing San Diego girls who lose their inhibitions the minute they step across the border. It seems like whatever their mommas told them back home doesn’t necessarily apply here. What happens in Rosa Rita Beach stays in Rosa Rita Beach, if you know what I mean.
The ride from Ensenada is about 45 minutes. It begins with laughter and story telling that revolves around a craggy faced grandmother and her one armed daughter. We’ve been up for days now and we have visited so many cantinas, nobody is quite certain. A Ted Nugent mix tape is droning on. Combine that with the constant whine of the wheels on the asphalt, and before I know it, everyone is asleep. Meanwhile, I am staring at one white line after the next disappearing under the hood of the Z. The road is smooth and black as the night that surrounds us.
Schultz is slumped against the door, his chin tucked into his chest. I feel like punching him in his jaw just for the hell of it. I look in the rear view mirror and all i see is Joe’s hulking frame. It looks like Godzilla squeezed into a shoe box. He is just enormous. He is snoring and I have zero visibility.
Suddenly, I am angry. I wish I could sleep. I try to remember the last time I did that. Maybe Thursday.
After an hour I see the Rosa Rita beach turn off. If you blink, you’ll miss this ocean side stop. It’s a couple of restaurants and beach bars. I pull into a partially built business complex that is located on a dirt lot. The only asphalt in site is the highway. As the Z comes to a stop, a dust cloud envelopes the car.
Schultz uncoils out of the vehicle like an alien stretching his long arms and legs. He stands in the dust cloud, like a giant shadow of death. Schultz is rejuvenated by a quick cat nap and the mysterious adventure that lies ahead.
“Hey Joe we’re here,” I say.
The lump in the back is more silent than a toxic waste dump.
“Joe Wake Up!”
Joe doesn’t move. He is all arms and legs, folding into his own skin like an accordion.
I get out of the car and slam the door. “He’s out cold.”
Schultz doesn’t care. He is a mechanism, like a shark that only knows forward to survive.
I look at the front of the tavern and there is a kaleidoscope of humanity waiting to get in. There are college co eds in mini skirts and halter tops. There are sailors wearing crew cuts from camp Pendleton. There are frat boys from Sigma Chi. The are Mexican nationals who look like they might start mowing the grass at any moment. This bar has all the identity of a long island ice tea with so many liquors they all taste the same.
“That lines gonna take an hour,” I say to Schultz. “And it costs 5 bucks to get in. How much money you have? I’m tapped out.”
Schultz smiles a devious smile that lets me know to prepare myself for something unexpected.
We walk away from the line, away from the cantina, circling the building. The bar is part of a larger office complex that is like a strip mall. In Mexico, it is not uncommon to find structures that are partially built and then abandoned. You see half built homes along the coast all the time. It makes you wonder what happened? How can so many builders start a project and simply leave it to be ingested by termites and salt air.
Behind the building, we find an office under construction. It is a store front that is wide open, little more than wood frames, a roof and some particle board. As we enter the structure I feel the ocean breeze come in with me.
“What are you thinking?” I ask Schultz. I chuckle to myself before he can respond. Schultz thinking! There’s an oxymoron, like asking a rock to figure out the bar tab.
The singularly minded Schultz simply responds, “A way in.”
We move to a rear wall and we stop. The thumping sound of the cantina is only slightly muted by this particle board partition.
“This is it,” Schultz says picking up a sledge hammer that is leaning against the door frame.
“This is what?,” I say incredulously.
“Go time,” he says raising the sledge hammer and launching it forward with the torque of a boxer.
The sledge hammer rips into the chalk board, blowing a hole through it. The sound is tremendous, but with so much eighties dance music pouring through the wall, it’s barely noticeable.
Schultz rears back and delivers another forceful blow.
BLAM
The hole gets larger and deeper. Though dark, I can tell that white chalky dust is floating all around us.
BLAM
Blow after blow, Schultz is a man possessed as he literally tunnels his way through the office wall.
Suddenly there is a crack of light and music pouring through. Schultz has knocked a hole through the wall of the office to reveal the cantina just a few feet away.
“Oh my God Schultz.”
Before I can say another word, he raises the sledge hammer a final time and knocks completely through the wall. He tosses the sledge hammer to the floor and says proudly, “WE’RE IN!”
With a smile of a burglar, the gangly Schultz lies on the ground where the hole is largest. I watch as he slowly, snakes his way into the next room. Suddenly his long legs disappear and he turns to look at me. All I see are the whites of his teeth and eyes. His face is covered with white powder as if he is a jester in a 17th Century French Court. Schultz is smiling with an energy so brilliant, it’s as if he has been irradiated.
As if we are taking a dip in a cold swimming pool, he shouts. “It’s beautiful, baby. It’s beautiful.”
His face disappears and the hole is clear.
I get on my stomach in the dust and dirt and begin crawling like a soldier through the particle board. I feel the chalk on my face and grime on my chest as I slither through the hole. It feels like birth as board and wall gouge my back and top of my head. I feel like I’m through and I pull myself to my knees. I look up to see that we have entered the cantina under a table that is not presently occupied. I see legs and dancing and the sound of the music is intoxicating.
I stand up beside Schultz and we stare at each other. It is surreal. His face is pasty white covered with particle board. There is a dust cloud around us. Bits of wall are everywhere. Somehow, nobody notices we have just tunneled our way through a wall into the most popular beach night spot at Rosa Rita Beach at KiloMeter 69.
Suddenly a waiter approaches us with a tray of Margaritas. He stares at us, not blinking.
I feel fear. We look like we’ve bathed in talcum powder and he’s going to call the federales.
I freeze, and slowly nod to the waiter who puts his tray on the table and begins unloading Margaritas.
That’s when I notice that there are coats and belongings and food on the table we burrowed under.
The people at this booth are obviously on the dance floor.
The waiter leaves.
Schultz gets that gleam in his eye as he grabs a nearby tray and loads six freshly made margaritas.
Like a mime faced waiter he walks the drinks around the outside of the dance floor till he spots his buddies from Orange County.
Schultz arrives and puts the tray on their table.
“Anyone order a round?,” He says insanity oozing from his pores.
The group screams in unison: SCHULTZY!!
Covered with white powder, in the midst of a dust storm, Schultz chuckles that maniacal, guttural chuckle that comes from the soul of a clueless maniac.
“Drinks are on me!” the craziest man in the world declares.
Tomorrow in Part III, the ride of death. I wonder why God spared us.