You have to understand, back then, Tijuana was our goddamn backyard. A beautiful, dirty, and completely honest shithole where a young man with a pocketful of Navy cash could buy himself a little piece of heaven, or hell, or just a good, cheap case of the clap.
The Navy, in its infinite, puritanical wisdom, had a rule: all military personnel had to be back across the border by 6 PM. Six o’clock. Christ. That’s like telling a pack of starving wolves they can look at the sheep, but they can’t eat one. So, naturally, we’d go down there, and we’d just… stay. A few Tijuana hot dogs, a few buckets of Pacifico, maybe a couple dozen tequila shots, and we’d just wait for the sun to come up. Then we’d crawl back across the border, a beautiful, broke, and completely dehydrated army of the damned, just in time for muster.
On this one, beautiful, fucked-up night, I met her. A San Diego State girl. A real one. Not one of the usual, sad, and completely predictable bar girls, but a goddamn college student. And she was a masterpiece.
We were at some dive, and the connection was… immediate. We were dirty dancing in a back alley, George Michael blaring from a shitty speaker, people watching. It wasn’t just dancing; it was a beautiful, ugly, and completely public simulation of a good, hard fuck. We finished the job in the bathroom, a quick, desperate, and completely honest transaction.
And I wanted more.
I was a goner. A quiet, stupid, and completely smitten hummingbird. I didn’t want this one to get away. “Tomorrow?” she said. “Let’s meet again.” A date. Holy shit.
But there was a problem. A big, ugly, and completely unavoidable one. The next night, I had duty. The real kind. The kind where if you don’t show, they call it AWOL, they put you in the goddamn brig, and your life, as you know it, is over. I had to be at the hangar, in uniform, to relieve the poor bastard on watch.
But I’m 18. I’m bulletproof. And I’m in “love,” or at least, in “lust,” which is a hell of a lot more powerful.
So I went.
I met her. We drank, we danced, we played in the alleyway. One more Pacifico. One more shot. One more “just one more.” And then, in a moment of pure, cold, and completely sober terror, I looked at a clock.
FUCK.
I was dead. I was going to be AWOL. I was going to be in the goddamn brig.
“I gotta go.”
A quick, sloppy kiss, and I ran. A dead sprint through the shitty, dark streets of Tijuana. Dogs barking, bums staring. I get to the border crossing. The San Ysidro trolley, the last one, that beautiful, ugly, red dragon, is hissing at the station on the other side.
And between me and that trolley is a 20-foot, chain-link, barbed-wire, “fuck-you-very-much” international border fence.
The Mexicans standing around, they just… stared. “What the hell is this gringo doing?”
I didn’t have time to think. I took off my shirt, a nice one, a “surfer” shirt, and I threw it over the barbed wire, a pathetic, beautiful, and completely useless sacrifice. I backed up twenty paces. And I ran.
I hit that fence like a goddamn spider monkey. Scrambled up. Got to the top. And then, I performed a move that would have made an Olympic gymnast weep. A twist, a spin, a “throw stick” maneuver. My legs went over, the barbed wire sagged and groaned under my weight, and my whole body just… spun.
I landed on my feet.
A perfect 10. A beautiful, gold-medal, and completely triumphant landing.
Except the barbed wire had ripped my goddamn chest to shit.
Just beautiful, deep, and completely glorious gashes. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig, but I don’t care. I grab my shirt, I sprint for the trolley, and I just make it. I get back to the base, and my pants, my beautiful, white, Miami-Vice-looking pants, they’re soaked in blood. Like I just had a goddamn period.
A quick shower in the barracks. The water in the drain is a beautiful, pink, and completely honest shade of red. No time for Band-Aids. I slap on my uniform, the dungarees, the boondockers, and I run. I catch the red-line bus. I get to the hangar.
I relieve the guy on watch. Ten. Fucking. Minutes. To spare.
I got away with murder.
I’m standing there for two hours, a beautiful, bleeding, and completely sober-looking American hero. And then the Commander on Watch comes down. He’s an old, salty sonofabitch. He says hello. He looks at me. He looks at my clean, white, Navy-issue shirt… which is now sporting a beautiful, blossoming, and completely suspicious red stain that’s growing by the goddamn second.
“What the hell is that, sailor?” he asks.
He gets closer. He sniffs.
“And… do I smell alcohol on your breath, sailor?”
Busted. Nailed to the goddamn wall. Not for the illegal border crossing. Not for the beautiful, gymnastic feat of pure desperation. No. For drinking on duty.
I got restriction. I had to go to their stupid, sad, and completely useless AA meetings.
And the girl? The beautiful San Diego State girl I’d crossed a goddamn international border for? Never saw her again, of course. We didn’t have cell phones. She just… disappeared. A beautiful, tragic, and completely honest ghost.
But I got the scars. The beautiful, ugly, and completely honest “cat scratches” on my chest.
And I got the goddamn story.
A good, clean, beautiful, all-American Navy day.
