Mexican Carpool and Miscellaneous Happenings

I wish people would quit sucking me into things. OK, I don't. But I keep ending up in places at 4 or 5 or 6 in the morning. This past week I had four nights that ended past 4:30. And I had class at 9 or I had English lessons to give. The following stories are true. Some of the names have been changed to protect people with girlfriends/boyfriends/wives/husbands.

Mexican Car Pool

Ahhh Mexico, you are always surprising me with new adventures. You know what a California carpool is? It's when several people get in their own cars (usually solo) and follow a bunch of other cars to the same place or places. This is the Mexico version. I was sitting in my local hangout minding my own business when the bartenders told me that I should really go out with them after they closed. I told them that I wasn't sure that I felt like it. Veronica said she was going and could give me a ride which instantly changed my mind. Vero would also change your mind if she offered you a ride. We went to some club where, as usual, I was the only gringo. The Mexicans sure like to dance. And, importantly, CAN dance. After downing two bottles of Johnny Walker Red between eight people, it was time to take some people home. Vero had left so I was getting a ride from Kenny. I told Kenny I could walk but he says "no, it's raining and we will drop you off in like 20 minutes." First of all, I've learned what "20 minutes" means in Mexico. 20 minutes usually means somewhere between 30 minutes and two hours. My walk home was about 15-20 minutes but we only had to "drop a couple of people off at their cars." Right. We drive for about 15 minutes, go down some dark alley on a dirt road and drop off two people at a car. We follow them to a house and pick up one person. We take him to his car and pick up three people from the house. We drive another 15 minutes (running all of the stop lights of course) and drop off two people. We follow two cars to a house and drop off one person but add a person from one of the cars. We drive somewhere else and two people get out and get in two cars (there are three of us left in the car at this point). We then follow two cars (with girls in them - we have to make sure they get home). We follow one car to a house and wait for them to get behind the gate, since everyone lives behind a steel gate. We follow the last car home and wait for them to get behind the gate. We drive 20 minutes back to town and they drop me off almost two hours after they told me they would drop me off in "about 20 minutes", at 5:30 AM. Classic.

Strip Joint

No time in Mexico is complete until you visit a strip joint. I hadn't been to a strip joint in maybe ten years. My friends who work at the bar (the ones who took me for a ride in the Mexican carpool) told me that I had to go with them at least once. It was a pretty unremarkable place except for the extremely high security. There were guys with big guns and a chamber with double steel doors where they thoroughly search you before you enter. When we passed through the doors, my first thought was "most of these girls have no business working in a strip joint." Not a pretty sight. Of course some of the "girls" were not actually girls. The beers were expensive for here but cheap by any American standard and a bucket included an up close and personal dance with one of the fine ladies. Knowing these guys, I should have known they were setting me up. I won't go into details but I will say that I could probably go the rest of my life without being that close to a she-male and be pretty happy about it. The fun ended when a drunk and shirtless Mexican truck driver pulled out his hunting knife and cleared the room. It seems impossible to have gotten that thing in there - who knows how he got it past security. Apparently he didn't get the memo that these girls only like you when your wallet has money in it and they don't like you for your winning personality (or in his case, his man boobs).

Fight at Santo Domingo

I was walking up a street called Alcala last Friday on my way home when this very loaded guy of about 21 years old stumbles into me asks me where I was from. I tell him California and he offers me a beer which I was reluctant to take because it's illegal to drink on the street here (and there are cops all around). He insists that they don't care today because there is a calindo (a street party) going on in front of Santo Domingo church. He takes me up to Santo Domingo and introduces me to his friends (who turn out to be great people and not nearly as hammered). He keeps trying to grab my hand and saying "sigame" (follow me) but I really don't want to because I can tell the guy is trouble in his current condition and he is going to get me and himself punched. And I definitley don't want to hold his hand. So everything is "tranquilo" and everyone is having a good time when all hell breaks loose. Out of nowhere guys start throwing haymakers - fight here, fight there, dude face down in a puddle across the street. I saw the guy get knocked silly and land face-first in a puddle. I had to weave my way through a couple of fights to get to him. His friends were standing there or I would have rolled him over myself. I didn't want to get kicked in the face for grabbing him. So I tell his loaded friends that they need to pull him out of the puddle. One of them tells me he's fine and I explain that he is going to drown. Luckily the women had some sense (as usual here) and understood the guy was going to die and they helped me roll him over. Meanwhile, the cops are telling people to carry their passed out and/or knocked out and bleeding friends out of the area or they will do it for them. I return to the group I was talking to and everything seems to be settling down. We're all talking and the original guy that had drunkenly approached me offers this very mellow (to this point) guy, Felipe, a cigarette. Felipe tells him that he doesn't smoke and the guy throws the cigarrete at him and slaps him while he's sitting down. They go at it a little bit and I tell the drunken fool he is going to get his ass kicked if he doesn't walk away. Dumb ass doesn't listen to me and before you know it, Felipe is on top of him beating the living shit out of him. Two cops roll up as this is taking place and they pull Felipe off and put the cuffs on him. Six more cops show up and Felipe's friends are trying to talk them out of taking him to jail but they aren't listening. I pull one of the cops aside and explain what I saw - namely that Felipe was sitting on the ground minding his own business and got cold cocked. They only saw the end of it. He grabs the cop in charge who also listens to my story. It appears the gringo has some pull and they soon release Felipe. Of course he invites me to his house where his mother feeds me and his father won't let me sit with an empty beer for more than ten seconds. Felipe won't stop calling me "the coolest gringo he has ever met."