Dear Friends,
The great thing about going to Rocky Point in those days was how you could end up hanging out with all kids of interesting people. In the late 1980s, our peer group was all on the cusp of turning 21, so if you wanted to drink at a bar, you had to go to Mexico. On big holiday weekends, you ran into a lot of people you knew.
A month or so, maybe six weeks, after Michael, Brian, and I went to Disneyland, we decided to go to Rocky Point for Easter weekend (1989). For some reason, Michael did not go, so it was just Brian and I who made the trip. In those days, as you have probably gleaned if you’ve been keeping up, I wasn’t opposed to having a good time, so made sure and were ready for whatever.
We loaded up the 280Z, which by then had a working spare time, and headed towards the border. On the trip down, we had a case of Mickey’s Big Mouths (yes, a headache in a glass barrel) and were draining those suckers as quickly as we could. When they were empty, I would just roll down the passenger side window and toss them out.
We were about 40 miles south of Ajo when we got pulled over. The officer came up to the window and asked for Brian’s license and registration, which we didn’t have. The car was still in Norah’s name, but the officer did not seem too bothered when we said it was a car we borrowed. What he was bothered about was the dozen or so empty Mickey’s he had in his car. We got a ticket for littering and had to dump out the remaining bottles we had because we were under 21.
I suppose it could have been a lot worse. Had he decided to give Brian a DUI or searched the car, we’d have been in much bigger trouble. He told us to get our asses across the border, have a good time, and have a Happy Easter. Once again, I can count my lucky stars that I did not spend time in jail.
Our good fortune with the police officer made us decide to turn up the Jimi Hendrix in the cassette player and drop a little acid to calm down. Ha! By the time we got through the border, we were feeling the initial effects of the blotter and the early twilight hours south of the border made everything look magical. We were excited for a great weekend of celebrating the resurrection of our Lord.
Until…
Brian took a turn a little too fast and we ended up hitting some small, white cement pylons on the side of the road to help guide whacked out gringos like us around a somewhat sharp turn. We were going way too fast, and somebody up there must have really liked us because we should have probably been wrapped around one of the huge power lines that were just beyond the pylons.
Luckily, we had that spare tire now because one of the front tires was pretty much destroyed. Some local people started to come out and see if we were okay. Brian kind of lost his mind so I started to put the new tire on with the help of the townspeople. Somehow my state of mind allowed me to become magically fluent in Spanish (Digo la verdad!) and we were having a good time fixing the tire. Just as I tightened the last bolt, the Federales showed up.
They were not as nice as the townspeople. I swear I even saw one of the older ladies cross herself. One of the Federales had a machine gun, for effect, and in pretty decent English, they asked me what happened. I explained that my friend had misjudged the curve and we had taken out a couple pylons. It was three pylons and they said we needed to follow them to their station to pay for the damage.
Quickly, we stashed a bunch of the cash we had on us and the illegal things in a space we thought was safe. We decided to take $100 with us into the station and say that was all we had. We had a fair amount more than that but figured they would take it all if they knew we had more. I was still feeling pretty calm, but it was on the cusp of getting dark, and my eyes were betraying me a bit.
It is safe to say the acid was really kicking in at this point, as well as some adrenalin, and we followed them to an area of Mexico I had never been to before. They had us come into the station and explained to us that we were responsible for paying for replacing the pylons and the charge would be $20 for each one. I was doing the talking, still, and said that would hurt our ability to have fun in Rocky Point, but it was fair. They asked us when we were heading back home, and we said we were planning on enjoying the holiday at the Beach and heading home on Monday.
That’s when things got odd. I could tell the officer was getting a little interested in my eyes and I was probably sweating a bit. He said, “You two need to stop back in here on Monday in case the judge wants to see you. Enjoy your weekend. You may go.”
What the hell?
We got back into the car and headed on down the road to the beach. When we got there, we decided to try and catch the end of the sunset from the Reef and hustled our way to the bar. We ordered beers as quickly as we could and ran into some friends. We could finally start to breathe a little bit and figured, “What the heck?” and dropped a couple more tabs of blotter.
The night was just beginning. Little did we know how much fire we were playing with that night.
See you tomorrow.
Probably around the time of this Easter trip to Mexico. Maybe a tad before.... Photo probably by Teresa Robb (now Barry)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3GAiTOfoFRDxDpgQGbQeCQ?si=f0ae5696957c484d
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