Standards and Grudges

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My environment has drastically changed in the past week. Summer, the dry season, is over. The rain came sudden and heavy. It started as a smoky specter on the horizon and quickly became a menacing poltergeist. The soil here has no memory—unable and unwilling to address this biblical increase in moisture. Small puddles formed into ponds. As the rain continued the land separating ponds submitted to watery depths. By storms end the desert became a sea freckled with small islands. It was no flood. It was a redefinition of geography.

Only the first foot of soil, which is now a wet clay substance that will bear no burden, accepted any moisture. Vehicle travel is treacherous at best. Off road travel is nothing short of a catastrophe. The roads are not much better. Most roads in my area are nothing more than gravel carelessly laid in meandering lines. In some areas underground flows washed away loose sand creating small caverns which collapse under any significant weight. Above ground there is no warning. The only hope is to stay in 4-wheel drive and at the first sign of trouble, jam on the accelerator before forward momentum is lost. It’s not a perfect method, but perfection has no place in an environment so savage.

Paved roads are a mild degree safer. Most paved roads are no longer below sea level. Some puddles remain, but they hide deep craters. To call them potholes is an insult to their majesty. A tire on any normal vehicle will easily be swallowed. The end result of a hit at 35 mph is an ass raping jolt, causing all internal organs to compress against your lungs and then recoil sharp against the pelvis. A demonstration of the effects can easily be duplicated by taking your neighbors cat and throwing it violently against a brick wall at a distance of three paces.

It’s one hassle after another. The phone in my work area went dead due to a short somewhere on the buried line. To use a phone we had to cross fifty feet of open water to our office area. Early during the storm we had laid down wooden pallets as a bridge to the office. That washed away quickly. I have since rebuilt the bridge with some modifications and anchored it as best I could with materials on hand. Thankfully there’s a junkyard next to our tent. Most of the troubles are due to inadequate equipment and preparation. Remaining clean and dry is hopeless. At some point the mission will require crossing a distance of mud or wading through a pond. With sufficient warning we could have moved vehicles to high ground, acquired rubber boots and moved assets to more convenient locations. Last week we thought the rain would be weeks away. We’ve now had two days of rain and an even larger storm expected later this week. I fully expect my work area to be at least a couple inches below water by Saturday.

The obnoxious heat and dust of summer is much more tolerable. I never imagined I would favor those conditions. Heat you can adjust to and a mild covering of dust is much easier to clean than clay caked into every crease and fold of flesh and clothing.

My short term fate and date of return remain in limbo. I am hoping for an extension to my orders that will keep me in place until some time in February. Odd that I am trying to stay in this unreasonable desert. The simple fact is that I have little reason to return. True enough that I dearly miss the simple pleasures of the real world, such as single malt whisky, but nothing begs my presence. Whisky will be drunk without me, sadly. The real world marches on, but I find I don’t care. Fuck the real world. It’s boring and stagnant. I can carve out my own reality that is much more interesting.

If I were to judge myself harshly, I would have to say that my greatest fault is this strict moral code I seemed to have developed—others would likely say otherwise, but they lack either the capacity or perspective to properly judge me. I’ve always believed that it’s completely unnecessary to stab a person in the femoral artery with a salad fork for no reason whatsoever. I assume most people would agree, otherwise restaurants would require patrons to sign an insurance waiver. My moral code is much more strict and I can’t find a reason why. I haven’t always been like this. Some of the greatest adventures in life involved acts no moral person would ever conceive. Come to think of it, I don’t think it’s possible to have serious fun without committing or being party to a felony or taboo act. Sodomy laws are a perfect example.

It was somewhere around 2003 that I began my slip towards this awful code. That timing makes no sense. Fear of repercussions is the typical motivator for moral behavior. While I was on active duty in the Marine Corps I had much to fear from getting caught, but that is when I really let loose. Of course living equidistant between the abhorrent decay commonly known as Los Angles and the excess and splendor of Las Vegas may have contributed. On its worst day, Vegas is a more honest and respectable city than LA has ever been. Sin City exists to take your money. They’re quite direct about that fact. The City of Angels is no such thing. It’s a queer experiment of hate, brutality, fraud and a testing ground for all the worst traffic engineering ideas ever imagined. I’m honestly shocked that The Big Dig wasn’t first attempted between LAX and Century City. I obviously prefer Vegas, but if you want to test yourself and get stupid, visit LA. I came home from California and brought back some deviant conduct, but that sadly faded within a couple years. I went from hell bent and all out to quiet and reserved, most of the time.

There was one notable exception to my new found moral behavior. That was a period not so long ago. My mind was shredded from insomnia and anxiety. Most days I didn’t sleep. When I did it was for a few deficient hours. When I was awake there were moments I was certain I was dreaming. During dreams I believed I was awake. The inability to separate reality and the wild wanderings of the subconscious is a terrible fate. My senses were so twisted and judgment so taxed that I wasn’t so much hallucinating, but simply unable to properly perceive even the simple surroundings of my apartment. Once you start factoring in unpredictable variables, like people, things quickly descend towards insanity. I came out of that, but not easily. One doctor had me convinced that I was terribly afflicted, but the reality is the human mind is incredibly fragile when sleep deprived. During the grips of that episode I considered several intense actions, none of which would lead to serious fun, long life or freedom. On one occasion I went beyond the planning stage and was preparing to stab a Kabar knife through my left wrist. Not exactly a proud moment.

That wasn’t the last time I dealt with insomnia. Right now for instance I’ve been unable to sleep well for a few days. Desert Madness may finally be catching up to me. It happens to the best and worst of us. I haven’t decided which camp to raise my flag over. I believe it’s possible to be a bad person by the standards of society, but still be virtuous and true. Regardless, I’ll never slip back into that destructive cycle again. I’ve learned to manage the symptoms and use them to an extent. It’s actually amazing what you can discover when parts of your brain misfire every now and then. It’s like seeing the familiar for the first time and having the gift of hindsight. That’s the best, albeit clumsy, description I can put into words.

I’ve decided this moral code must be modified or possibly scrapped entirely. I’m more interested in serious fun than being moral. Can you imagine that I rejected the advances of a fiery redhead that was literally throwing herself at me? I worked with her, and her boyfriend. She would spend a lot of time at my house. She’d often come over late and let herself into my bedroom by the back porch which entered directly into my room. There I was, with her laying on top of me, pressing her breasts against my chest and my erection against her groin. What more does a girl have to do? I took some liberty, but I stopped short. If that occurred a couple years earlier or now my bedroom would be a display of torn clothing, bodily fluids and a pair of freckled legs high in the air. That’s not the only time I dropped the ball in the women department. Despite my awkwardness and often poor choice of words, several women have made advances that I either failed to recognize or failed to act upon for moral reasons. That is nothing short of stupidity.

When I get home I plan on creating a series spectacles. On the basis of avoiding annoying legal fees, I will impose some rules. I’ve had plenty of fun enjoying a drink while driving, but that should be avoid when possible. If there’s a cab, I’ll use that option. If you killed someone, I might help dispose of the body. If you’re planning on killing someone, I won’t help create the body. If you want to start a fight, point out your target and I’ll apply some softening techniques. I’ve found the best softening techniques involve the application of hard objects, like chairs, billiard balls or a Miller Lite thrown from a 1999 Chevy S-10 driving 60 mph. Every effort must be made to not commit any felony in the presence of the police or a recording device. I can’t think of any other restrictions to put upon my behavior. I’ve tried moral. It’s boring. I’d prefer living a life drastically different than a Utarded Mormon or hypocritical Southern Baptist. In that spirit I intend to make things much more interesting when I return. Consider yourself warned.

I’m gonna take a trip around the world

I’m gonna kiss all the pretty girls

I’ll do everything silver and gold

And I got to hurry up before I grow too old

-Joe Stummer, “Silver and Gold”

I’ve been reading articles written during past Presidential elections and I’ve come to a depressing conclusion. I do seriously hope that my supposition is flawed. It seems that each election in the past 50 years has been a variation of a few scripts. The cast of characters change to a limited degree. The political parties are the same, but they take turns playing underdog, obvious successor or nail bitters. The only deviation are subplots, which provide some much needed departure.

It’s terrible to be politically aware in this century. It’s a curse really, a plague, and the lucky moronic majority live in ignorant bliss. The organizers behind voter registration and awareness efforts like ‘Rock the Vote’ should be castrated, wrapped in burlap sacks and thrown into the nearest river. Why burden the population with politics when their choice essentially means nothing and will only cause mental anguish?

It was 1999 when I first recall paying attention to the Presidential election. I will never forgive Bill Clinton for that. I’d seen first hand what the Clinton years had done to the military. A restructuring of the military for a post-Cold War era was obviously necessary. To Clinton’s fumbling fixers that apparently meant keeping pet projects of key members of Congress, but slashing necessities like replacement parts for basic equipment. I was assigned one of the Hummers in my unit. As the operator it was my duty to perform basic maintenance and up-channel more serious repairs. The budget for parts was so non-existent that several vehicles were assigned as salvage and torn apart to keep the rest of the fleet operating. When that failed we sometimes resorted to buying parts in town. We used to joke that before the Soviet Union collapsed their army had to use the same battery to start various trucks. We weren’t far from that.

Twentynine Palms is a high-tempo base. We were the pointy end of the spear for the 1st Marine Division and our area of responsibility was the Middle East. Every few months it seemed like we’d be headed back, but Billy would instead launch some cruise missiles or air strike. It was made clear however that it would be inevitable that we’d be going back to Iraq, so we trained accordingly. Long training exercises were carried out. We’d spend weeks in the field, go back to Mainside for some rest and repairs and then start the next exercise. It wasn’t uncommon to spend more time in the field than home during a six month period.

It became an obsession for us to stay informed about the upcoming primaries and that took some doing out in the field. The training area is a rocky, hellish terrain out in the Mojave Desert, Death Valley. Using the high tech ground-to-ground radio equipment to communicate more than a few miles was difficult enough, let alone trying to listen to local radio news broadcasts. Not that there were many options for local radio. Other than military families, the local population consisted of meth heads, outcasts or outsiders that had no interest in happenings outside their scorched scab of land. Our only source of news were AM radio broadcasts bouncing off the atmosphere.

With a hand held AM radio, some limited supplies, a field radio manual and a lot of trial and error we constructed our connection to the outside world. It was ugly, but effective. We stripped and wrapped a long length of copper wire used for the field telephone around a fiberglass post used to support camouflage netting to forge the antenna. We mostly picked up west coast broadcasts, but every now and then we’d be surprised by obscure broadcasts for regions unknown. I’m certain to a measure of 3 degrees Celsius that one day we listened to the end of day stock market report in Sanskritic. Until then I had no idea that the distant past had an interest in the stock market. It would seem more rational to be the other way around. Perhaps not.

The most memorable night was the general election. The signal was jumping back and forth between a news broadcast about the results and an interview with Ozzy Osborne on a San Fransisco station. It was surreal. An emotionless NPR broadcaster reciting exit poll data, popular vote estimates and the electoral college totals, was intermittently interrupted by classic Osborne insanity. Ozsanity. If you’ve ever heard that man tell stories you know he is incredibly random and difficult to understand. Catching him in the middle of a sentence, partway through a story is obnoxious. Keep in mind that we were still conducting business.

The we I speak of would be the Fire Direction Center of Lima Battery, 12th Marines. It was our job to communicate with forward observers, aircraft and other units to bring the hellstorm of Marine artillery down upon an unsuspecting and empty grid coordinate. You don’t know chaos until you’ve seen a battalion of artillery fire a Hi-Lo Shake and Bake. In a highly coordinated effort the 18 big guns come to bear on a single point. The quiet, lifeless desert suddenly erupts as 36 shells—a mix of white phosphorus and high explosive projectiles weighing 100 pounds a piece—fiercely explode in the same second. More explosions follow as quickly as the gun crews can reload and fire. In less than two minutes, 144 artillery shells rain fire and destruction. Only the lucky protected by several inches of armor can hope to survive that level of violence. Even then, they’d be blinded by the smoke and fire. That maneuver is one of the reasons why artillery is called the King of Battle. Not even the Air Force with its billion dollar aircraft and 2000 pound bombs can match that kind of sustained fury. Aside from the obvious risk of blast, fragmentation and fire, a accurate and sustained barrage will push even the most steady to the point of madness. No one is psychologically prepared to suddenly find they’ve been transported to the deepest and most heinous layer of Hell reserved for Popes and District Attorneys.

All night and into the morning calls for artillery fire come across the radio and data link. We plotted targets, calculated ballistic solutions and relayed commands to the gun crews. All the while we had one ear on our AM radio suite pumping out Ozsanity and election results. We were air traffic controllers directing bullets in a crowded room. It was mentally exhausting, but there are few moments I’ve been more challenged or more proud of. When the broadcaster announced that Bush won Florida and subsequently the White House, I called it a night. I needed to rest and I gave up my seat at the computer, the focal point of Fire Direction Center. I slept in a cargo trailer a distance from the command post and the next morning I was lucky enough to have my coffee before learning the election wasn’t actually decided.

Since then I’ve unfortunately paid close attention to politics. No one wants to be around a political junkie, not even the junkie. I annoy friends and strangers alike with tirades about, what is to them, meaningless and stupid issues. I dig through the state and federal legislative websites for information about proposed bills. I read political commentaries in magazines, blogs, books and newspapers. This illness will waste years of my life compelling me to school myself about issues I cannot change. In the end the truth will elude me because I am not meant to know. I am outside the system and only those vetted, trusted and part of the sick, twisted plan to control the population will ever step inside to learn only a fraction of the truth.

Would it be completely unreasonable to compare this election to ‘72? It’s not quite there yet, but this is beginning to look like a remake. There’s obviously some differences. The characters have switched sides. Obama is in Richard Milhous Nixon’s role and McCain as George McGovern. Now settle down. I’m not suggesting that Obama is the new Nixon. There is no similarity in the personality or politics of the characters cast in this production of The Presidential Election. Comparing Nixon to anyone is completely unfair to Nixon. No one can measure up to that son of a bitch. Most people don’t have a clue why they should hate Nixon, they just know they do. Anyways, I believe this is 1972 again. I wasn’t alive then and I may be wrong, stupid or succumbing to desert madness. A combination platter is definitely possible. I’ve also been a lot drinking more coffee lately and it may be affecting my blood chemistry.

If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. I think I believe that. But I also believe that statement is a marketing scheme by history book publishers. What lesson could be learned from ‘72? Don’t trust Dick? As a society we’ll continue to repeat the past because we lack imagination and find comfort in the familiar. We’re a vile and stagnant lot. I expect a return of feudal lords at any moment. Is this a usual line of thought for a political junkie? Do we all spend hours weighing the possibilities of a dramatic reversal of democracy? Or have I stepped so far out that I’ve assumed the role of Conspiracy Nut? I refuse to believe that I’m actually crazy. I would more readily believe that everyone else is insane. However, a conspiracy isn’t necessarily false. If that were true, we’d have no need for conspiracy laws. What a awful proof. We have countless unnecessary laws.

I’m exhausted of this election. It needs to end. I’m going to sleep like a baby on November 8th. At least for one night. Then I’ll start worrying about what the next four years will bring. Sadly, the 8th of November marks the start of the six month countdown until Congressional campaigns.

As a side note, I have to express an extreme disappointment in the Trader Joe Irish Breakfast tea. Who would sell torn, cut, peal tea bags that are not individually sealed? It’s just the tea bags in a box. I suppose if I were home it wouldn’t be such a disappointment. I’d simply seal the bags in a ceramic jar. In order to have my morning tea I need to hand carry the tea bag to the chow hall, being careful not to perspire on the bag. Even then, I believe the tea has degraded due to overexposure to oxygen. So that may be a pathetic complaint, but the product is obviously not suited for my current situation. Such is life. Adapt and overcome they say.

I despise Mexico. Perhaps I should take more care when expressing that around strangers. I know most will presume I’m prejudice or some kind of racist. It’s not Mexicans as a whole that I hate, it’s the nation. I will never go there again, for a variety of reasons. The good people in Mexico are irrelevant. The evil and corrupt minority hold sway over the majority that are too cowardly or weak to organize, fight back and hold to that struggle. Mexico is a beautiful woman, gang raped in the street and beaten to a pulp while the people of the village idly watch from a distance. Beneath the blood and bruises, a once soft and lovely face drapes over a shattered pile of bones. Vultures pick at her flesh as she struggles for the next breath. In the United States we fight daily to protect our rights against the police, the courts and the ever intrusive local and Federal government. That battle was long lost in Mexico. The corruption there broke down even further and police chiefs, military officers and local governors fight amongst themselves like feudal warlords. The national government is little more than an actors, playing the role, but lacking actual power to enforce even simple order in most regions.

I mourn for Mexico. I have a picture in my mind of a lone old man, sitting on his porch. A guitar in his lap and head hung low. Thick, black smoke from garbage and homes set ablaze hangs over the city behind him. Women and children dressed in rags pass by pushing carts filled with the few belongings and supplies they could gather. A man in a paramilitary uniform and pistol on his hip stands in the street, rummaging through the carts looking for valuables. Anything that catches his eye he throws to three men smoking cigarettes next to a rusted flatbed truck on the side of the road. They’re wearing dirty blue jeans and faded military shirts—his militia formed from local thugs. The old man is only scenery, not a participant. He’s an echo of another age. He strums his guitar. The strings cry sad melodies, in the spirit of Francesco Tarrega and Fernando Sor. Songs that weep heartbreak, loss, complete and total abandonment. He was the husband of the beautiful Senorita Mexico. He waits for his time to die, expressing his sorrow, missing his beloved.

When you’re under twenty one and living in Southern California there’s a few options if you want to get twisted with drink. You can acquire alcohol through any means necessary and get groovy in private, hide from the fascists at the beach or drink openly somewhere the police won’t happen along. Another option is to go to the kind of bars that let the underage in with a wink and a nod. These places of full of idiots and having a good time can be difficult, unless your idea of fun is rearranging the facial features of idiots. Your final option is south of the border. Tijuana, Rosarito, Encenada or other Baja cities with bar districts that cater on the hoards of underage Americans. The most popular and simple option is Tijuana. You can park on the US side, walk across the border and catch a cab waiting to ferry gringos to the bar district. No one should at any time go to Tijuana for business, pleasure or any other purpose. I know that now. It’s the most ugly and desperate city I’ve ever seen. The only possible way to walk those streets is under the influence of serious drink to deaden the senses. But be quick about it and find yourself back in a bar before you notice the ugly reality. Of course with weakened senses, you’re more susceptible to robbery or worse. Every choice has its risks.

I visited Mexico many times. It went from fun to seriously depraved in a short time, just over a year. It may not have been the region that changed, but changes in our behavior that led to the events leading up to my last night in Mexico. With each trip we became more bold, more adventurous and ventured further out of safety. We mingled with the locals. Flirted with the Mexican girls. Went into bars with no gringos.

It was a Wednesday when William, Forrest and me headed to Tijuana. We served in the same battalion, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines at Twentynine Palms—out in the desert between the windmills of Palm Springs and Las Vegas. Why we were going to Mexico on a Wednesday I can’t recall. We didn’t have to work the next day, so it must have been one of those holidays that only Federal employees observe. We made our usual ingress; parked at the Denny’s at the border, hit up the ATM, walked across the border and jumped into the first cab. The smiling cabbie sped us along, ignoring all traffic signs and we were at the main drag within minutes. The A Club, People’s and Buckets were the hot destinations for the barely legal San Diego sluts looking to get sloppy drunk and used by legions of drunk Marines and Sailors. We intended to partake, but our plan failed to factor in that most of the girls that pack these sleazy bars on the weekend have class Thursday morning. It was a pitiful showing. A text book example of a sausage party. The only course of action was to accept the situation and get so completely drunk it wouldn’t matter that there are no girls, because we’d be too inebriated to get an erection.

The new plan was working well. We were ejected from one bar due to a casual misunderstanding between my fist and a bartenders face. We stumbled across the street to another establishment and they were eager to exchange our American dollars for a steel pail full of ice and bottles of warm beer. Forrest apparently hadn’t completely accepted defeat and was soon chasing a young Mexican girl around the dance floor. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t beautiful either. If you closed one eye, squinted and looked at her though a bottle of Tecate, she looked like Selma Hayek. I know this to be true, because that is exactly what I was doing while I watched Forrest trying to feel up her breasts. He eventually talked her into sitting down with us and she sat quietly, nursing a beer that Forrest gave her. She whispered something in his ear. They both got up and walked out of sight to the far side of the bar. He came back after a few minutes and had that I’m going to abuse our friendship look in his eyes.

“OK, she’s got a friend and they want to go somewhere else, but she’s kinda big.”

I was most decidedly drunk, but even scum like me have standards. William doesn’t, and after a short internal debate he screamed out, “Hell, I’ll jump and the fat grenade”.

In war you get the Medal of Honor if you jump on a live grenade to save your friends. There’s only shame and ridicule for jumping on the fat grenade, but there’s always a taker.

Forrest ran out of sight and brought them both over. Her friend wasn’t fat. She was grotesquely obese. Fat flaps that hung off her triceps provided built-in elbow pads. Even if she lost a 150 lbs, she’d still be horribly ugly. Next to this beast, Forrest’s catch WAS Selma Hayek. William is true to his word though. He went right into flirting with this monster now sitting at our table. It was nauseating.

I have difficultly clearly recalling what transgressed from this point on. I was the third wheel and I’m convinced that one of the two women drinking our beer and seducing my friends had slipped something into my drink. I remember sitting at the table. Then I was sitting on a bench swing like you’d see on a porch in the suburbs. This was between the mens and womens bathrooms. Vomit was down the front of my shirt and pants. The bathroom attendant was yelling at me in Spanish. This was a classy joint. They had bathroom attendants to restock toilet paper, wipe down the counters and eject vomiting gringos. William rescued me, handed the attendant a ten dollar bill and led me down the stairs out onto the sidewalk. Forrest and the girls followed behind.

Complete darkness. And then I was in the back seat of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, William on my left, the beast to my right. William explained to me that we were headed to the monsters car and he was going to her place. I was going with Forrest and Selma and I could sleep there.

“Sure. Good luck with that” I said and I pointed at the beast with my thumb. Darkness came back.

When I drifted back into my body I was crawling across a floor next to a bed. The lights weren’t on, but it wasn’t completely dark. The shades were open and moonlight lit the room. I found a reasonable area to rest between the dresser and the foot of the bed. A plaster Marvin The Martian about two feet tall mocked me from the corner of the room. I couldn’t take any more. I’d had enough and retired on the berber carpet.

I was woken by a unneighborly kick to the gut. It was delivered by the girl Forrest had chased all night and I assume fornicated with. My now sober condition was not kind to her appearance, she was no longer Selma Hayek. She was screaming in some sort of Spanish dialect or slang and I couldn’t understand a single word. I knew it wasn’t good and I was relieved when Forrest ran into the room a few seconds later.

“We need to get the fuck out. I don’t know what happened, but she’s crazy.”

That much was obvious and we bolted to the street. It was daylight, probably around 8 or 9 am. I had no idea where we were. We recognized none of the hills or tall buildings. We choose the sensible option and picked a direction for no reason whatsoever and started walking. No matter what direction you travel, you’re bound to get somewhere. We eventually found a cab and before I even closed to door I screamed the one word every cabbie in Tijuana understands. “Border!”

It was at least fifteen minutes before I recognized any surroundings. The border was a few minutes away. I reached into my pocket for money to pay the cabbie. My pocket was empty. I tried the other. I had nothing. I whispered in Forrest’s ear, telling him I had no money and asked if he had any. He felt up his pockets and shook his head. No. We may have spent all of that on alcohol, but it’s most likely that his date robbed us. That was probably her plan all along. She could’ve just asked and Forrest would have probably paid her. He probably would have found an ATM to get more than she had stolen from us. There was no need for treachery.

We knew exactly what to do and said nothing. We launched as soon as the cab pulled up to the border station, setting a new land speed record. The US officer at the border didn’t stop us. If the high-and-tight haircut didn’t give us away as American military, the panicked look of gringos that got more than they asked for certainly did. He just stepped aside with a smile and we didn’t stop running until we were at the Denny’s.

William wasn’t at the car and he had the keys. I’d forgotten about about him up until that point. That beast was ugly when I was fall down, vomiting drunk. What kind of twisted reality is he waking up to now? Dear God! What if she’s crazy too? Where the hell did she take him? He’s probably dead or at least penniless, alone and lost on the wrong side of the border. We never should have allowed this to happen, but it’s done. Nothing can change that. Forrest and I decided to give him some time before we hit the panic button. Luckily Forrest kept his credit card under the insole of his shoe. Some coffee and greasy breakfast food is exactly what we needed to develop a rescue plan.

No plan emerged from the breakfast brain storming session, so we fell back on the wait-and-see approach. We walked back to the car and found William asleep in the front seat. He was a mess. His shirt was torn, one eye was swollen and he had small cuts on his face and arms. He was in no condition to drive, but we needed to head north before some sort of trouble found a way across the border to our position. Everything was going wrong. I forced William into the backseat and Forrest rode shotgun.

I wasn’t paying attention to road signs and we rode in silence for an hour. I knew I was completely lost, but I kept the hood ornament pointing north. We were going to Canada, or as far as that tank of gas would allow. When we started passing orange groves Forrest broke the silence.

“I don’t remember seeing those before. Where are we?”

“Orange County, I don’t fucking know. Mexico is south, we’re going north.”

They accepted that answer apparently. In the absence of a plan, a direction will suffice. With the silence finally broken, William filled us in on what happened since we last saw him.

“We got into her car and we headed south out of town, down the coast. I decided to fool around while she was driving and I reached over between her legs. It wasn’t what I was expecting. She had a hard on. I don’t know if she was a guy or something else, but I freaked out. I opened the door, jumped out and barrel rolled into the ditch. I started running and kept going until some cops picked me up.”

The Police are the last thing you want near Tijuana or most of Mexico. You don’t go near the police. If they look at you, get out of sight and do it fast. They carry submachine guns and they make good money by shaking down Americans or holding them for ransom.

I adjusted the rear-view mirror so I could see his face. I needed to see if he was lying about this whole thing. “Are you serious? You fucking around?”

“No man, they asked me a few questions and ordered me into the car. I didn’t have a lot of choice and I figure I could always jump out of another moving vehicle. They drove me to the border and let me go. I went back to my car and waited for you fuckers.”

He was never a good liar, at least not to us. He couldn’t help but smile a little every time he tried. I was pretty sure he was giving us the no-shit truth.

“We were at Denny’s. His bitch robbed us and Pele kicked me in the gut this morning.”

I truly wish that Forrest stayed silent or that William and me went temporarily deaf for the remainder of the day. There are things that you can’t help but visualize when said.

Forrest had been looking out the window for the past hour, but he turned forward, looked down and said, “She stuck a dildo in my ass. It was pink, six inches long and vibrated when she squeezed the base.”

“What the fuck are you telling us for you sick fuck!”, I immediately screamed. Which is of course being the only appropriate response.

“You were there watching.”

“The hell I was. I don’t remember shit from last night and now I don’t feel the least bit sorry about that. Now shut the fuck up and never tell me that again.”

He did shut up, but we didn’t hang out much after that. He got into a different scene and failed a drug test. The Marines are serious about the zero tolerance drug policy. That’s the rules in the contract. He tried to fight it. He demand a trial instead of an automatic other-than-honorable discharge. He waited around in custody for three months until his Summary Court Martial, which resulted in an other-than-honorable discharge, a short sentence at the Camp Pendleton stockade and loss of all pay and benefits.

William overcame his brush with the wild side. He’s a resilient bastard, at least he was until he settled down with a wife. I was the Best Man at his wedding. Before the wedding I teased him that I would tell his fiancée about our last trip to Mexico. Looking back I should have. William and me don’t speak anymore. I saw less and less of him after he was married, until he finally disappeared. His wife considered me a bad influence. It was apparently my fault that the morning of their wedding he was still drunk from the night before. His wedding was at Big Bear Mountain and his parents and sister wanted to take him out on the town. Who am I to disagree? There are some other details I’m leaving out, but that’s another story altogether.

There’s no moral to this story. Not anything poetic or meaningful like Aesop. It’s more of a cautionary tale. Three Marines went to Mexico. One went home covered in his own vomit. He had the best night of the three, only because they had it much worse.

Viva La Mexico, you dirty whore!

[I assure you, this story is regrettably true. I am not nearly creative enough to imagine a situation like this. Rarely is truth so tragically or stunningly stranger than fiction. Pay attention when it happens. File it away and save it for an appropriate time. These events occurred approximately ten years ago. It was either 98 or 99. It was before I went to Japan, that much I know. I did use first names only, which is strange. We always called each other by our last names or a nickname. But I felt it was necessary to protect the depraved.]

There is not enough time available in one lifetime to read all the books, articles and poems necessary to reasonably contend with the tragedy, carnage and savage corruption we inflict upon each other. Sometimes the reading comes too late to be much help. Bukowski’s tales of hard living, hard loving and hard drinking came to my conscientiousness well after I found the bottle and began my deviant journey. Alcohol was more readily available than Bukowski during my developing years. I’m not sure if my school even allowed a Bukowski book in the library, but we had beer in the bathrooms and flasks of alcohol at the football games. Welcome to the Heartland! But reading doesn’t necessarily lead to understanding, the ability to apply the knowledge or properly recognizing danger.

I was in Chino, west of Los Angeles in the early part of 2000. My friend Jason and I were taking refuge in a dull bar a chip shot away from the freeway. It was tucked into one end of an average Southern California strip mall. It was not a very memorable place. I remember that night only due to the manic poet that approached us and the inevitable result of our meeting. He was a reject with a fashion and personality featuring the deplorable mix of a beatnik, goth loser and aimless SoCal pothead. He was dressed in black, with dark mascara and a heavy trench coat. His dark hair was tossed about wildly, fixed in odd directions, like he’d been wearing a knit cap all day. Drool was leaking out one corner of his mouth and dripped from his chin. He spoke wild and fast, trying to rhyme the words at the end of each sentence. He sat down without asking and set a notepad on the table. As he spoke he flipped through the pages of the notebook, scribbling periodically. Old and still wet drool stains dotted the pages.

He came to this bar to be inspired. He was under the belief that his hero, Bukowski, was once a regular at this establishment. He told us stories about Bukowski doing back flips off the pool table, bar fights and former traditions of the bar. He rattled off a list of other famous regulars, but none of the names meant anything to me. Back then I knew very little about Bukowski other than the fact that he was a writer and a weird dude. I know this kid was bullshit, putting me on or possibly an idiot that just discovered meth, riding that uncontrolled surge of energy. It’d be a good month before he transformed into just another San Bernardino zombie, if he was lucky. His claim just didn’t add up for me. The strip mall was no more than five years old and the bar was boring without a shred of identity or individuality. Remove the pool table, darts boards and increase the lighting and you’d mistake the remaining space for a cafeteria in a corporate office. I still don’t know what bar if any that Bukowski frequented, but it would have to be a place with more character. Regardless, Jason and I had been seriously drunk for past 48 hours and our tempers were short, his especially.

My friend Jason is a Chicago boy with Italian heritage. He had the classic story of an abusive, alcoholic father and subdued mother. He didn’t speak much about it, he didn’t have to. We’ve all seen the after school special, but his parents didn’t define him. He was a street kid and there weren’t many opportunities for him. He joined the military to get away and naturally he chose the Marine Corps. When you grow up hard, you stick with it. Jason knew the works of Bukowski. I can’t imagine a street kid reading Bukowski between battles with other neighborhoods, but I’m from a different world. At any rate he knew more than me and this batshit poet combined.

It happened fast. My only warning was a violent, furious flash in Jason’s eyes. I’d seen it several times before. It’d actually been only a few hours since I’d last seen that flash, which resulted in our need to be in that bar hiding from the police. In an instant Jason was standing, fist clenched and extended out before him. The poet was sprawled out on the floor, mouth wide open, eyes rolled back and an horrifying amount of blood was streaming out his nose. He looked dead. Jason said nothing and calmly walked out the front door. I dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table to cover our tab and caught up to Jason. I remember hoping someone we knew would be along soon or we could find another place to hide before the police arrived. There were specific establishments that the police allowed fighting. We’d broken that rule twice in one night and only a block apart. Jason never told me why he hit him. It hardly mattered. The kid was annoying and that is all we needed in those days. We were invincible. I still am for the most part, but every man has his kryptonite. In a weird, twisted sense, Jason did that kid a favor. There’s only so much you can understand about the writings of Bukowski if you’ve never been beaten and left bloody on a bar floor. Or at a a minimum, delivered that treatment.

The years have changed me. I find myself enraged by the drunk college students downtown doing nothing nearly as violent or frequent as I had. It may have been that time and place in Southern California. It was fight or flee when the sun went down. We never fled. We were outsiders, not California punks. Skaters, skinheads, beaners, preps, white-boy pretend thugs, gangsta thugs, gooks—there was always someone to fight. It was fist first into the fray. Back your friends, no questions asked. It was never a debate of right or wrong. Might made right. We had our share of losses, but no one walked away from those brawls unscathed.

Other than the skinheads, I probably could have been friends or at least friendly with most of the guys we fought. We all needed the fight though. It filled a need and oddly enough it didn’t interfere too often with chasing girls. The girls would feign attempts to keep us out of the fight, but at the end they would drag our bloody stumps back to the car and care for our wounds. The fighting may have been their idea all along. I’ve hadn’t made that connection until now. Were they mothering us? Attempting to make us feel dependent upon their caring touch? Never underestimate the twisted and cunning abilities of women. They ruin us all eventually.