For some reason, a lot of memories are zooming back in my mind recently. I went looking back to see if I had written about it, but I’m not sure if I did because it would be one of the first entries I wrote on here after migrating from OD.
Plus I’m not sure how good I would have been at writing about it. At the time, I was swirling with a lot of odd things that seemed important to me. I was still sorting through the end of my relationship with Edgar and in touch with all the Paris folk. It was the road trip I took with Bastien and Christophe during the summer.
I thought about it because a mutual friend posted a photo of himself and his friends on a balcony apartment in San Diego, and I immediately recognized that view… and for probably the first time in my life I thought to myself, “I wish I hadn’t done that.”
We’d been on the road for four days at that point and were visiting one of the girls from college in San Diego. I was incredibly unfamiliar with SD because I’d only once made it down there despite living only 2 hours away for years at that point. But we’d started in my hometown, detoured to San Francisco, stopped in LA for two days and met up with the girl here.
We met her in that fancy condo that was a skyscraper overlooking the city. I remember thinking how amazing it was, not even realizing that I’d live in a taller skyscraper with a better view in Bangkok less than 10 years later.
She was a nice girl, but she was always sleeping with rich men in Paris who could get her into nice places. That was fine in Paris, but San Diego seemed a bit different.
We headed out and she told us we were meeting up with some guy, I think it was Miguel, and he knew all the great places and could get us in. Bastien and Christophe were already high and buzzed. They were just excited for VIP treatment. There was some bar in the Gas Lamp District with a giant line, and we went right in.
As we went to meet Miguel, I suddenly became aware of everything. Miguel was by himself, socially, but he wasn’t alone. He had all these men in all black suits surrounding him and a woman dressed similarly behind his left side. She took us to sit with him and I looked around to clock the vibe.
As her voice screamed out, “Yessss, we should to Mexico!” my senses suddenly got a hold of me.
“No,” I replied hastily, “Bastien doesn’t have his passport. He left in NorCal and he’d never be able to get back into the country.”
She seemed really crestfallen, and so did Bastien, whom I wanted to smack. She started whining and complaining…
“It would be no trouble, I know how to, uh, get around things like this.”
With that, I knew my suspicions were correct. I elbowed Bastien hard (Christophe was too busy bouncing to the music), and said very carefully, “This is their first time in North America, and I’m responsible for their safety, so I’d prefer to keep them in California this trip.”
He politely nodded and didn’t say another word. She wouldn’t let it go, however.
Bastien pulled me aside and asked me why he couldn’t do it. I grabbed his wrist very hard and hissed at him, “Are you completely clueless?! Do you have any idea the danger we are in right now? We are surrounded by at least a dozen men armed with guns sitting across from probably one of the most wanted men in the US. Shut up!”
I spent the rest of the night basically doing my stand-up routine, doing everything in my power to keep Miguel happy and laughing. Unlike the girl… she was whining about everything. She threw a shot of very expensive tequila in my face. To his credit, he was especially generous, he bought me a bottle of Crystal Skull vodka (a single shot starts at $75).
I just could not believe that she is sitting here throwing drinks in the face of someone from the Mexican drug cartel and whining about her bullshit.
About 2 hours later, we were at a restaurant. He had finally had enough of her bitching (I didn’t blame him in the least) and decided to part ways with us. He paid the bill of everyone’s dinner (the woman over his left side was basically a walking wallet, she had all of his cash and cards, settled every bill, alerted security to anyone bothering him… and there was violence that night [Bastien though it was “so cool”])
Before he left, he handed me his card and told me to call him if I ever needed anything in California.
He left while she was gone to the bathroom and when she came back to find him gone, she blew a gasket. Bastien and Christophe were wasted, she was out of her mind, and I was stone cold sober because I knew that one false move.
“I can’t believe you tried to get him to take us to Mexico!” I shrieked.
“It’s only a 15 minute drive, we could have had so much fun. I told him not to listen to you because you’re so old and you always worry about police and things…”
I got up, dragged Bastien and Christophe to the car and we drove for 10 hours back to Northern California.
That moment, I vowed never to let anyone talk me into something stupid again.
That’s part of what I regret. I regret that vow because there are plenty of harmless things I could have enjoyed being talked into, but because I was talked into spending the night with a Mexican Drug Lord and watched him pull a gun on someone, I stopped being spontaneous like that.
I guess I’m just vanilla.
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