by Jack Lopez
Of course it didn’t. The guard gate where you check in was unoccupied, which I’d planned on, but I hadn’t figured that someone would be in my aunt’s trailer. Someone else staying there.
We idled by, dumbstruck that a car was in front, music playing, people walking around inside. Not my aunt and uncle.
“What the?” I said.
“The best laid plans … ,” Amber said.
Jamie just laughed. “No problem.”
I parked the car, and we sat there maybe fifteen minutes, flummoxed and tired, not knowing what the next move should be.
Amber solved the problem by saying, “I need some things from a store.”
CHAPTER 7
The road to Ensenada curves back into a valley and then heads toward the coast once again, opening on a broad horizon that shows all of Bahia de Todos Santos. You get a similar vista when you come upon San Rafael, though that view gives you the entire picture, while the view right before the city of Ensenada shows you a microcosm of the same bay. Ensenada is a fishing town, formerly a village. I like to think of it as a century behind Los Angeles in terms of population, and geographically it’s a mirror image of Los Angeles, though much smaller. On land it’s surrounded by mountains, and one of its borders is the sea, as in Los Angeles.
The first thing you notice when the vista opens over the city is the harbor. It’s not huge, though there are plenty of fishing boats in dry-dock in various stages of construction, and there are sometimes a few ships — party boats that ply the Pacific coastline between Los Angeles and Acapulco.
Jamie drove us into the small city, our thoughts focused on getting a good meal; we were hungry after surfing, and sort of befuddled because of the presence of people at my aunt’s trailer. My plan hadn’t counted on that. And I was trying to hide my nervousness, my anxiety about what we were doing; Jamie and Amber were just in the moment, I guess, because they hadn’t stolen their mother’s car. Though technically Jamie had stolen Claire Watkins’s car hundreds of times, had “stolen” F’s car two mornings ago, getting us to this point.
After parking right on the main drag in front of a restaurant called Bahia de Ensenada (we just had to eat!), we entered the place where they had the best seafood. I ordered pescado ranchero, which is a dish consisting of chunks of fresh fish in a ranchera sauce — chile, onions, tomatoes, and cilantro. Jamie ordered a taco platter, and Amber had chicken mole, a dark brown sauce made from chile, chocolate, nuts, and spices. My favorite aspect of the Bahia de Ensenada restaurant was the glass-enclosed cooking area next to the cash register where women hand-made tortillas. They were thick and fresh and retained the smoky flavor of the wood fire they were cooked over. Jamie and I sipped our cold sodas as we waited for the food. Amber went to use the restroom.
As Jamie hunkered over the small table, he said, “Nestor likes this place, right?”
“Yeah, he does.” He’d brought us here when Jamie stayed with my family on our vacation. Jamie’s face was getting red from the sun and wind. His nose was still pretty swollen, and he kept his sunglasses on to help hide the marks on his cheek and under his eye.
Amber made her way back to the table, holding a wad in her hand.
“What do you have?” I said, pointing to the paper towel.
“I just washed some stuff.”
When she sat in her chair, her leg touched mine. I didn’t move my leg, and she didn’t either. “We should have just gone to the police.” A little late for rational action, I thought.
“Are you kidding?” Amber said.
“And get arrested?” Jamie said.
“Assault, it’s called.” I took a crispy tortilla chip and dipped it in the salsa fresca.
“I won. He said he’d charge me with battery.”
“You guys are witnesses, right? Your mother saw it.”
“She won’t go against him,” Amber said.
“Why not?”
“It’s like he has some power over her or something. That, and the fact she’s embarrassed she married the jerk slob.”
“No shit. That’s why I’m not going back,” Jamie said. “Ever.”
“We’ll set you up here. We’ll come back when things are cool.”
“No, it’s over for me there. I’m going to kill F next time I’m around him. I wanted to kill him when I was bashing his head on the floor. If I get the chance, I’ll just kill him. I’m not angry or upset or anything. That’s just a statement of fact. The next step in our relationship. I’m going to kill him. I’ve decided. If I go back it’s gonna be to off him.”
“Dude, going postal?”
A waiter appeared with an oversized tray that had all our food on it. My appetite had sort of dimmed by what Jamie was saying, but I did my best to eat the good food that was placed before me.
“You’re not killing anybody, Jamie,” Amber said.
“I will. The world will be a better place without him.” Jamie took a big bite from his taco.
“Look, player, I didn’t go through all this shit so you’d be locked.”
Jamie calmly folded his hands and placed them on the edge of the table. “You don’t know F.” He gave Amber a stare of shared knowledge. Her lips parted ever so slightly as she gazed upon him.
“I’m in deep shit, Scarface. Because of you. You have to stay out of trouble. You owe me.”
“It’s really been tough on you, hasn’t it, Juan?” Jamie put the taco back on the plate. “Those waves have been nasty to you.”
Amber couldn’t keep a straight face and began laughing. So did Jamie. Me too.
On the outskirts of town we found Gigante. While Amber and I went in, Jamie waited in the car. I could translate if Amber couldn’t understand something.
But on the way in I noticed there was a bank of pay phones to the right of the main entrance. As we neared them I hesitated.
“What’s up?” Amber said.
“I’ll be there in a minute, okay?”
She looked at me, then past me, seeing the phones. “Yeah, no problem.”
I turned and faced my fate. I had heard all kinds of crap about how bad the phones are in Mexico but I got an operator right away. It did take some time for the line to get through, though. And when it did and our phone machine answered, I told the operator my parents were screening, someone would accept the call after the beep sounded. When the beep did go off, I shouted “I’m okay!” before the operator cut the line since I was calling collect. Of course the operator did hang up on me. But my parents would have heard me, known my voice, I was sure of that. The phone machine had picked up.
Inside I caught up with Amber, who was strolling along, looking at all the odd Mexican items. Still not acknowledging our actions of the previous night, we walked through the market, where we saw nopalitos, rows of canned jalapeños, sweet bread — pan dulce — and candles in large glass jars with the pictures of saints on them. Not to mention just the regular items such as napkins and tissues and cereals, which had their packaging in Spanish, of course. We hustled right through the meat section, which had the tangy smell of blood about it. After wandering through the aisles, Amber finally found some tanning lotion, which she wasn’t all that keen on, cotton balls, and clear nail polish.
Once back in the car, Amber drove into the tourist section of Ensenada, passing Hussong’s, where you could hear the loud yells from the drunks in the famous cantina. I didn’t want any part of a bar, and I guess they didn’t either, for they didn’t say anything as we got back on the highway heading north, toward my aunt’s trailer.
“On a strong swell and a high tide Pescados breaks good,” I said. “Let’s hit it on the way back to San Rafael.” My theory was that the people staying at my aunt’s trailer would be gone by the time we returned. At least that was what I hoped. And there was no reason why we couldn’t keep surfing
“Excellent! The coastline curves right before it, so it’s protected from the wind,” Jamie said.
Pescados was named for the fish cannery at Pu
nta Morro, just north of Ensenada and south of Puntas. As you drive the highway there’s a church on the left, before the cannery, in the village. The cannery employs most of the inhabitants, and when the shift changes, the settlement’s streets on both sides of the town come alive. A few yards beyond the church is some sort of veterans’ hall or something, a big rectangular building that always seems to have music blaring out of its dark innards, and drunks sometimes piss behind the building, which you can see from the water. Just beyond this building, and before the houses, is an alley.
Remembering a joke my uncle told one time when he, Nestor, and I passed the cannery after having gone out on a half-day fishing boat, I said, “Hey, what did the blind man say when he passed the fish market?”
“I give up, what?” Jamie said.
“Hello, girls.”
“You’re not funny, Juan. In fact you’re an ass,” Amber said.
Jamie laughed his high hiccup laugh, and I knew that dog had fooled around with that woman.
Before I had a chance to call him on it, Amber turned off the highway into the alley where I’d told her to go, immediately bottoming out the car’s undercarriage on the exceedingly rutted roadway. Potholes is an understatement. She inched forward in the shadowed alleyway, almost in the front doors of houses. Most residents didn’t have cars, it was obvious, since there were no cars parked back here. Once at the end of the alley, we veered to the right, and we could actually see the waves breaking.
Regular, solid lines moved onto the reef. Pescados is a right-breaking wave, the left simply a walled explosion terminating at the cannery’s short pier. Deeper water to the right of the wave lets it hold up longer, thus the right. The sun was low in the sky, and a diamond brightness glinted off the ocean, making the waves invisible at a certain angle. The wind had dropped dramatically, and the small bay was somewhat sheltered, the conditions in the water near perfect. The waves were big and thick and slow, since it was high tide. The only unfavorable aspect about Pescados is that the cannery throws all the unusable fish remains into the water, and there are times when the sea is dappled with sharks. This afternoon was not one of those times — there were no fins visible. I said nothing of this to Amber.
She parked the car, careful not to block entirely the view of the man who sat in the house’s doorway, drinking from a quart bottle of beer. Upon leaving the car, we were hit with a barrage of “ocean.” Salt-smell infused the air. Gulls landed on large, wet rocks, and then took off again. The sound of the sea hitting the reef and then collapsing forward onto the breakwater-like rocks that protected the houses on this little mesa was overpowering. A noisy constant rush of air and energy, the net result of charged water particles permeating the landscape. And the sweet smell of rotting garbage here and there from the sun-cooked entrails of fish littering the pier just to the north.
I opened the back of the 4Runner to get out our boards. Jamie took his first and walked over the rocks on his way to the sea. Then Amber took hers. As I pulled my board out, I noticed the guy in the doorway attempt to stand. He sat back down. On his next try he remained standing, and then he weaved his way to us.
“Why do you come here?” he asked in Spanish.
“For the waves,” I answered.
“This is my home. You come and drink and make fun of us. You smoke the marijuana. You will be arrested if you cause trouble.”
“My friends and I do none of these things,” I said.
The man tried to focus on Amber, and had trouble. He probably hadn’t seen a girl surfer here.
“All of you Americans are the same,” he said, but with less conviction.
“We mean no disrespect.”
“You have to pay to park here.”
“Fine.”
“Ten dollars.”
“That is a lot of money.”
“The ocean is good here, true?”
“Yes, it is very good. I will pay to park here. And we will do none of the things that you mention.”
“What is he saying?” Amber said.
“If we park in front of his house, he wants money. He’s messed up.”
“Let’s move the car,” Amber said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Besides, he’ll watch it.”
Jamie was over the rocks, in the water. After paying the borracho, Amber and I made our way into the ocean.
By the time we came in from surfing, a mist-filtered dusk had overtaken the entire landscape. The alley in which we’d driven to the oceanfront was obscured, shadow forms moving about. In some of the houses a stark white lightbulb hanging from a ceiling lighted the room, while other houses remained dark inside, ethereal shapes moving to and fro. Far off you could hear faint radio music. From the opposite direction you could hear the canned laughter of a television show. Evening in a working-class neighborhood. Gulls squawked, heading to wherever it is they go at dusk. A dog barked. The surf crashed on the rocks below us.
For some reason the thought of home overtook me. A melancholy sense that when I returned it wouldn’t be the same. And it wouldn’t. My brother was married, moved out. I had taken my family’s car. Jamie had fought with and beat up F. Amber had run away with us, and was hanging with me instead of being faithful to Robert Bonham. Who knew what would happen to me for taking the car? I guess it was the darkness approaching, the families gathering to eat their dinners that made me sad. I knew my mother would be making dinner for Nestor and my brother and sister; I hoped they weren’t too worried about me. I began feeling guilty for not leaving a real message on the phone machine. Maybe I should buy a phone card or something, try to call again. They had heard my voice, though.
After drying off I put on my sweatshirt. Amber wore her new Indian cotton pullover as she dried her hair with a towel. Jamie peered out at the building waves, still in his wetsuit.
The man who’d extorted our money to park sat in his doorway eating. After he finished his plate he stood up, this time with ease, and made his way to me. His hair was wet and he had clean clothes on. He smelled of aftershave.
“Your money,” he said, offering the ten dollars I had given him.
“No, it is fine, I said.
“I insist,” the man said. “I am not right these days.”
“If you want to charge, that is fine.”
“You make no trouble. Others are not so welcome. They have been like pigs when here. We live here, and those who visit should respect our houses,” the man said. He still held out the two five dollar bills.
“I agree.”
“Take your money.”
I remembered attending S.C. football games at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Nestor would park our car right on the lawn of some family that was making extra money by letting people cover their property with cars. My father paid twenty-five dollars and sometimes more for the luxury of parking very close to the stadium. We were right on top of the waves.
“I will pay five dollars to park. That is fair.”
“Fine,” the man said. He pocketed one five, giving the other one to me.
“You like the big waves?” he said. His voice, for some reason, reminded me of my grandfather’s.
“Oh, yes!” I said.
“I know a very good place,” he said.
“Where?” I said.
“In the ocean,” he said.
“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t.
“An island,” he said.
“What’s he saying?” Jamie grunted from his perch on the rocks.
I could barely see him, what with the blackening sky and the swirling thick mist covering everything. The sea was now slick-black, oily almost, and the waves hitting the rocks exploded with a white, rhythmic frequency, the tide all the way in.
“He says he knows an island where the waves are really good.”
“Excellent!” Jamie said.
“That’s nice,” Amber said, “but last time I checked we didn’t have a boat.”
Good, Amber, I thought.
&
nbsp; “You wish to go?” the man said.
“Yes,” I said. “But we have no way of getting there.”
“I am a fisherman,” the man said. “But recently I have not been fishing. I have been only drinking.” He paused and looked out over the now black sea. “I have a dory and will take you tomorrow, if you wish.”
“What’s he saying?” Jamie asked.
“He says he has a boat and will take us tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” Jamie said. “Hell, yes!”
I looked at Amber. She shivered. The man’s confession worked like a truth serum for me. I wanted to confess to him as well. I’ve stolen my mother’s car! We’re on the run! Jamie beat up his stepfather! I love Amber!
I said, “What is your name?”
“Jésus,” the man said.
CHAPTER 8
We sat before a small fire, right on the point overlooking Puntas, banda music blaring on the only radio station we could get. The fire burned bright and flamed out, and then one of us would feed it some brush and driftwood until the process would repeat itself. It was a dark clear night, and out of the fire’s light all you could see was black, except for the sky, which was filled with cosmic treats: the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Mars low on the horizon, and billions of other stars and planets and galaxies, even, whose names I didn’t know and whose light was reaching this point on Earth after traveling for a longer time than the Earth had even existed, for all I knew.
Jamie had a pint of sloe gin. I hated the shit; it tasted like medicine. We sat on top of sleeping bags, sophisticated drinkers, but, still, sand covered our existence, and that was okay by me.
Amber stretched on a blanket in various yoga poses as Jamie and I watched. Right now she was in a cross-legged forward fold, her head slightly above the sand.
“That’s cheap about my aunt’s trailer,” I said. “Maybe they’ll be gone tomorrow. Maybe whoever it is just took a long weekend.” I didn’t know what the deal was, but those people were still there when we drove back to San Rafael. I might have had a chance had they not been there. I might have been able to set up Jamie at the trailer and then return home with Amber.
