Mexicali Blues

Randy Crouch had been the star quarterback in high school. That never meant anything to me, but it was huge to Randy. Football was his life, even now, and all those winning games, all the cockiness and smugness, were ingrained in his every movement. People who didn’t know Randy knew he was somebody important. Especially girls. There we were, a thousand-something miles from home, baked from the Mexican sun and American grass, with the sweet sounds of The Dead fading in and out on the 8-track in Randy’s car, and more than a few of the local mamacitas were diggin’ on him. And Randy? He dug them right back. And poor Julian, she just sat and stared into the bonfire, ignoring the giggling and idly thumbing my battered paperback copy of The Sun Also Rises. There were times I swear it didn’t matter he was my cousin ... I just wanted to slug him.

I got up, spilling half my beer into the sand, and stumbled over to Julian. She sat on a smooth piece of driftwood, her long, pale legs crossed at the ankles, cut-offs accentuating the soft arcs of her pale thighs. The wind off the water was cool; as I sat, I blushed at the sight of her small, firm nipples pressed against the thin cotton of her tank top.

“Can I get you anything?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “Outta here. I hate this town.”

“Randy mentioned that tomorrow he was thinking about moving on to Cabo San Lucas.”

“Yeah, great.”

“You need a drink or anything?” I said.

She looked at me with eyes the color of the sea and smiled. “What are we doing, Donnie?”

I forced a smile and said, “Partying.”

“Yeah.” She glanced over at Randy and sighed. She stood, smoothed her hands down her thighs, and said, “I’m gonna go back to the room.”

I rose with her and said, “You want me to walk you?”

She shrugged and then shook her head. “You don’t have to. It’s not far.”

“I know, but still ... ”

She shrugged again and said, “You can do whatever you want, Donnie, I’m not going to stop you.”

I looked to Randy, but he was surrounded by village girls, retelling for the umpteenth time the story of The Big Championship Game and his indispensable role in it. The girls were enraptured. I turned away, back to Julian, and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

It was perhaps a mile from the beach to the casitas. Santa Rosalia was a trip. It reminded me a bit of New Orleans with its French architecture but there was a laid back attitude here that was different. Days and nights could slip away from you here, easy. It beat home, that’s for damn sure. Julian brushed against my arm and said, “I’m glad we came, even if things have been kind of fucked ... I’m proud of you, y’know.”

Earlier in the evening, before the girls and the grass and before everything went to shit, Randy and I had started the bonfire for a reason, the same reason we’d piled into his car and driven eighteen hours to this crazy Baja town: to tell Uncle Sam to kiss our asses. I admit even I fell for Randy’s hero bullshit when he lit our first joint of the evening with a flaming corner of his draft card. He waggled one eyebrow, inhaled deeply, and threw the rest of the burning card into the fire. I had torn mine in half and thrown it in, no style, no panache. That’s Randy for you though; he’d always been one genuinely cool bastard. Hell, until he’d hatched this crazy plan, I just sorta figured that I was headed off to Vietnam. I had just resigned myself to it. I guess I owe him that, at least.

“You’re proud of cowardice?” I said, looking up at the violet sky. Julian stopped and said, “It’s not cowardly to live for yourself, Donnie. It’s cowardly to fall in line and do whatever they tell you. That’s cowardly.”

“Yeah, well ... ” I mumbled.

When we’d reached the casitas, I walked Julian to her door and said goodnight. She started to go in, stopped, and turned back to me. Reaching into her pocket, she extracted a thin joint and said, “You wanna? There’s no way I could sleep yet ... I’d just sit here thinking about ... y’know.”

Randy.

Yeah, I knew.

They’d been together since sophomore year.

Even though I met her first.

Even though I helped her pass her math final.

That Randy, he’s cool, like I said. Used to be that we’d all go to the drive-in on Saturday nights. They’d end up all panting and sweating in the back seat, I’d pretend to watch the movie, and later, at home, I’d end up having to rub one out just to get to sleep, and I’d hate myself for it. After graduation, it only got worse.

“Sure,” I said. She went in, turned on the lights. I followed. She cracked a window, dug some incense from her bag, and lit it. The smell, sweet and musky, coiled through the room in swirling grey spirals, covering the heavy, earthen smell of the pot. Eyes closed, she drew deep and held the smoke as she extended the joint to me. I took it and put it to my lips. The paper was slightly moist from her mouth.

Julian smiled dreamily and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. She patted the mattress at her side and somehow I was there. I passed the joint back and she took it, cool fingers brushing the back of my hand. Julian leaned back, lying flat as she smoked. Her tank top slipped up a few inches, baring her smooth, flat belly. The room began to hum, a low pulsing internal sound, and with a hazy embarrassment I realized that my cock throbbed in time with it.

I leaned over, without considering what I was doing, and kissed the perfect skin between the small dimple of her navel and the waistband of her cut-offs. She giggled, tendrils of green smoke lazily coiling from her nostrils like a dragon. I kissed her again, mouth parting, tasting her. I slipped down to the floor, my hand somehow on her knee, fingers trailing up the side of her thigh. Even through the haze, my heart pounded; this was incredibly bad and wrong. Her throaty murmur strangled my morals and threw them out the window.

I slid lower, my teeth grasping the denim and pulling, working the button free. I kissed the newly exposed flesh before easing the zipper down. Rainbow-striped cotton peeked through the open V and beneath that ... my mind reeled. My hands found the pockets of her shorts and pulled them. She raised her hips – an act of consent that made my groin ache – and allowed the cut-offs to fall down her long legs and onto the wooden floor.

Julian slid her elbows beneath her and leaned up enough to look down at me. Her eyes were heavy but curious, and the corners of her lips curved upward slightly in amusement. Slowly, she brought one leg up, resting her heel against the edge of the bed, and let her knee fall to the side. Her eyes glanced down at her panties and then back up at me. I pressed my mouth against the thin cotton, and felt her shiver, despite the heat of her body beneath me.

My hands found themselves under her tank top, caressing the firm mounds of her breasts, the hard peaks of her nipples.

The wet rainbow-colored cloth slid to the floor.

My mouth hungrily sought the slick cleft of her sex. She reached down, circling her fingertips on her clit before spreading herself for me. I rewarded her with a quick flick of the tongue that sent her arching back into the bed. When she came, she dug her nails into my scalp and grinded against my face.

As I rose and quickly fell onto the bed, she licked her juices from my mouth as I slowly slid inside her. Julian’s twined her legs around me, and the soles of her feet felt cool on my back. With each thrust, her hips rose to meet mine. Our lips parted long enough to gasp for breath, our hands, interlaced, slid along the cool sheets. And when I could hold out no longer, she slid off and accepted me into her mouth. The world exploded, and the weed had nothing to do with it. When I came to, and the lights stopped dancing in front of my eyes, I saw Julian smiling down at me. She reached up, wiping a pearl of semen from her bottom lip, and playfully licked it.

“You made me burn a hole in the sheet,” she said. I turned my head and saw a blackened circle where the roach had fizzled out in the bed.

“S-sorry.” I managed.

She shrugged, her breasts bouncing slightly with the movement. “That was fun, huh?”

I stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah. Fun.”

“I guess Randy’ll be back soon, though.”

“Unh,” I mumbled.

“Sorry.”

I rolled off the bed, slid into my boxers, and finished dressing as quickly as I could. Julian reclined on the bed and lit a cigarette. I wandered over to the door.

“I’ll ... uh ... see you tomorrow,” I said.

“Mm-hm.”

As I opened the door to leave, she said, “Hey, Donnie? Thanks. For everything, I mean.”

“... Sure,” I said, and left.

The next day, around noon, we left for Cabo San Lucas. Randy drove, Julian had shotgun, and I was in the back with the luggage. Everything was copasetic. It had taken four or five shots of tequila for me to fall asleep, worried as I was about the repercussions of my time with Julian. But here we were, three buddies on the road to a Mexican paradise, nothing more. Nothing more.

I wondered if she was sore, as I was.

I wondered if she even remembered it.

The brown blur of the road lulled me into a half sleep filled with incoherent conversations, Julian’s throaty laugh, and The Doors’ Waiting for the Sun on the 8-track. Four hours into the trip, we stopped at a service station and Randy woke me in case I’d needed to take a leak. I didn’t need to, and probably couldn’t have gotten out of the car if I’d wanted to. I could barely feel my legs. “Yeah, well, I gotta piss like a racehorse, bro,” he said, ducking out of the car. I massaged the pins and needles out of my legs and watched Randy run to the tiny, rundown building. Julian turned in her seat and said, “You okay back there?”

“Sure,” I said.

“You’ve gotta be pretty cramped. Want to switch with me for a bit?”

“No. It’s fine.”

She glanced at the service station and then back at me. “Come here,” she said.

“Why?”

“I want you to kiss me, dummy.”

I kissed her. Her raven hair smelled like sunlight, and the wind off the water. Her lips were full and soft and knew just how to work with mine. I leaned back into my seat, breathless and dizzy.

“What was that for?” I said.

She winked and said, “This trip’s supposed to be fun, remember?”

“Oh,” I said, stupidly. I wanted to kiss her again, to feel her body against mine, to slide into her secret places and sate the senseless stiffness that swelled in my jeans, stabbing into my stomach uncomfortably. I opened my mouth to say something that felt important at that moment, but Julian squealed and turned up the radio. “I love this song!” she said. On the radio, Jim Morrison sang Summer’s Almost Gone. I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

The sun was sinking into the ocean, painting everything peach and scarlet, when we arrived. There were a few ritzy resort places, but we found a fairly cheap little mom and pop joint to spend the night. The city lit up nice at night, and the sound of waves splashing around at the marina was perfect. I felt pretty good. We checked in, dropped off our stuff, and headed down to this place right on the water for some seafood.

“Cerveza?” the waiter said. Randy grinned at each of us and said, “Well, we sure as hell ain’t gonna drink the water, Pedro. Tres. Frio. Muy Frio, comprehende?”

“Si,” the waiter said, leaving our table. Julian bobbed her head to the mariachi music and laughed. “I think I love this place,” she said.

The waiter returned with the beers, and Randy drank his in one long swallow. Slamming the bottle down, he called to the waiter, “Una mas.”

Julian giggled and said, “Thirsty?”

Randy belched and nodded. “Fucking A. This is a party town, and I am ready to party, baby. How bout you?”

Julian set her purse on the table and rifled through it for a minute. She took out a small plastic bag and showed it to Randy. He grimaced and shook his head. Turning to me, she smiled and said, “I bet Donnie will.”

I looked down at the tiny gelatin squares and said, “What is it?”

“Windowpane.”

“What’s that?”

She shook the bag and said, “Acid, silly. What, you mean to tell me you never tripped before?”

I shook my head.

“Really? You wanna?”

Nervously, I shook my head again.

She frowned, dabbed a finger to her tongue, and touched one of the tiny squares. It stuck to her damp finger, and she raised it to her lips. A flicker of pink tongue snatched the square away. She put her finger back into the bag and withdrew another square of windowpane. This one she offered to me. Randy was busy drinking, so I took Julian’s finger and sucked the tiny bit of hallucinogen from it. Anything for contact. And besides, how bad could it be, really?

“Aw crap,” Randy said, belching, “you couple of junkies are gonna be absolutely worthless tonight. I wanted to paint the town red, get friggin’ lit, y’know, but I guess I’m gonna be on my own, huh? You two’ll be all starin’ at trees and crap. Dammit.”

But there was nothing behind the words. He wanted to hit the city, alright ... Julian and I both knew what he wanted to do. And that was fine. After dinner, we wandered together through the streets of Cabo until Randy found a night spot he wanted to check out. We bid him a good night and continued on through the city on our own.

We were down on the docks when the night sky became alive, the stars breeding and multiplying, breathing and casting forth rays of violet and silver and gold. We stopped to watch and Julian’s hand found mine. My skin burned and sang where it touched hers, pain and pleasure alternately outweighing each other. She lay down upon the dock, the diaphanous folds of her sundress parting like the wings of a butterfly, and I poured myself into her. I had long ago given up anything resembling faith, but there, inside her, there was god. Whatever warmth and sweetness lacked in the reality, whatever beauty, whatever purpose, it was here. I would’ve gladly given up myself, my part – whatever it was – in that ever-changing, complicated world, just to stay in that moment forever. Sea breezes and lapping waves and warm, pliant, loving flesh ... the revolution would go on without me. It always had.

This, I could understand.

This, I could be a part of.

Feeling the heat of her breath on my neck, I knew I made a difference.

Julian was the perfect world we all sought after in those days.

And she was mine.

We melted together and poured into the sea, sweetness and salt, molten, screaming love. And when we found ourselves on the beach, we dissolved into each other again. In the history of mankind, no humans had ever fucked until we’d fucked, that night. Our sex was the most important development since man’s discovery of fire.

In the small hours of night, she and I wandered the streets, still wet, exhausted, enlightened, until we thought we recognized our hotel. We whispered and tiptoed along, peering at room numbers and in windows, seeking some sign that we were in the right place. Julian shushed me and giggled as she turned to peek in yet another window. When she froze there, staring in the glass, part of me knew what she must’ve found. I leaned in, pressing against her, and, through a wide gap in the harvest gold curtain, saw Randy lying on his back on the bed, with two blonde girls fighting over his engorged prick.

“Even though I knew, I... ” Julian said. Then, with distaste, “They’re ... American.”

She leaned even more forward, legs apart, and her right hand vanished into the folds of her dress. The dock had been one thing, but here, on the sidewalk, where anyone could see ... luckily, I was still heavily tripping. I reached down, grabbed a handful of her ass, and heard her hoarse moan.

“We should go to my room,” I said.

“No,” she murmured, her hand working furiously, “here. I want you here.”

“But ... ”

“Now, godammit.”

Thinking was tough; it was far easier to do what she, and my body, told me to do. So I pushed her forward until her face was almost touching the glass, unbuckled my jeans, and shoved it into her. She was wetter, by far, than ever before.

“Hard,” she said, “harder.”

“Take my hair and pull it,” she said.

“Bite me,” she said.

I did what I was told. I did everything she told me to do, no matter how wrong it seemed or how dirty, how unnatural or painful. Because she wanted it, she pleaded for it. And that made me want it too.

I caught sight of Randy as I came, and his eyes met mine. I don’t know how long he’d been watching, or what he’d seen, but that didn’t matter. It had been enough. In my impaired state, I saw him as both a very old man and a child, and the sight frightened me.

The blondes still worked diligently, but he was done. He just stared. Julian was laughing, a bitter, monstrous sound, and I pulled her away to my room. She kept laughing until I locked myself in the bathroom to keep from being driven insane.

In the morning, the city was quiet. Julian slept like the dead. I left her to find Randy, but he – and his car – was gone. I went in and got Julian up. When I told her, she started to cry and pound her fists on the bed. I dragged her outside, to the parking lot, and we looked out on a town that seemed completely unfamiliar.

“We’re lost,” she cried, “Oh God, we’re lost.”

She fumbled for my hand, but I would not take it.

“Yes,” I said, “we are.”

It took hours, but I was determined to find his name. I felt I owed it to him. He’d enlisted as soon as he got back in the states, I guess, and the story I heard is that he caught sniper fire in the middle of a marketplace in some shit village in Southeast Asia. When I found him there on the wall, I traced the letters of his name, felt them in the stone, and I cried for him and all the others, and for myself for not being among them.

Some went to that stinking pit truly believing they were fighting for our freedom. Some spent their time working for peace. Some struggled for civil rights. Julian and I, we wasted our opportunity for greatness. We drank and smoked and fucked our youth away.

I haven’t seen her in years, not since we came back, though she wrote to me for a little while. She said she wanted to be alone. She said she needed time. She said she felt as lost now as she did all those years ago in Cabo. I wrote her back only once to say that I hoped she found whatever it was that she was looking for.

I, still, have not.