Memories: April 14th, 2012

It is April the 14th, 2012, and I’ve stopped shaking. It is 3:09 AM PST and its 44 F outside, almost 6 Celsius for us living on the metric system, it has been raining odd for the last couple of hours, at some point it looked like a tropical storm with winds and all that but that is not the reason why I’m shaking right now.

April the 13^th, Friday the 13^th which some superstitious people may consider as a bad day to do anything at all which I assume includes breathing, turned out to be an interesting day to say the least.

First our classes were a bit tad boring but nonetheless I found appreciation on the first four hours as we saw an old Mexican movie called El Bulto which is about a man that got hit in the head by a club during a Communist meeting and woke up some twenty odd years later to find the world has changed, the next class was also interesting as I got a call from the Art Man who told me there are some positions available at the Axxa Building in front of Plaza Rio and that I may have a chance of getting a decent job over there for some decent money, finally the last class had us seeing a movie about the fall of the Berlin Wall and due to technical difficulties we could not finish watching Bowling for Columbine, not that it mattered to us. On a side note I could not get to the Axxa building since the rain was a complete pain in the butt and was too late when I got there to fill up an application form.

Some quick food and time for Vampire: The Masquerade with the Tijuana RPG – UABC Chapter, five members total, with four playing and me as a story teller, although there are more but most of them were unable to play since they had classes or were simply out of time due to other more important matters at hand, which turned out to be quite interesting. Turns out the group of players are now considered as the “Red Barons Flying Circus” as per our friendly Tzimisce NPC, Andrei, which is a tad bit crazy but probably not as sadistic or cynical as the rest of the player base. Ironically the setting for the story is January 7^th 1993 in the city of Tijuana, one day after the flooding began, and it goes hand by hand with the fact that during the time we played rain wouldn’t stop and only got worst. Abril actually lost the truck that takes her to Tecate, which is passing La Rumorosa, and got her mom to give her a lift.

Before leaving I noticed two interesting things, first there was this girl upstairs, on the second floor of the Cafeteria which is the place in which we play, that was playing in the X-COM setting I used back at Com Com but I never managed to get her attention to ask her what her name was; second, we also noticed that there is another table playing Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 from what we understand, in a big table almost at the same time that we play and they do not belong to our group which makes us really happy about it, finally they manifest themselves without being scared of reprisals.

After leaving somewhere after 5:30 I took a bus and it took me around an hour or so to get back home which ended up being an ordeal but gave me enough time to enjoy a bit more time with that book I’m researching, All is Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

At Downtown I bought a pack of Delicados 20 with the last 30 pesos I had left on my credit card, no more money there and almost all my resources have been drained from my wallet which leaves me in a seriously dire situation for a job. I then decided to stop by TJ Art & Rock Café to check and see what was the show, never actually got the name or the bands, and to say hi to a couple of people then, for some reason, instinctively moved to El Divan and greeted everyone then had a Victoria before going outside for a smoke where I found Danny, a friend of Ozzy and Caguas who I meet when they invited me a week after the second anniversary of El Divan, who was waiting for Itzel, another mutual friend of Ozzy, Caguas and Danny. Apparently today is Caguas brother, Constantino or Constantine, birthday and he turns 21 so he’ll be celebrating at a small bar just a couple of feet away called Viehos which is spelt incorrectly on purpose. We enjoyed a couple of beers, got a free round from the birthday man, and while chatting and getting up to date on things we meet up with Caguas and Pablo who joined us for a couple more rounds and some more getting up to date and geek stories of pride, like managing to get Arch Linux to compile and run on a computer. While enjoying our time there our friend, El Arpas, dropped by with his Navy Captain hat, a trench coat and his flagrant masquerade mask, he started dancing in some very provocative manner that makes you want to pull your eyes out, since, well, you don’t want to see a man like that pull some Michael Jackson moves on the floor, and eventually got kicked out of the place and in the process, somehow, managed to break a bottle without caring a single bit about it.

An hour or so later I decided to make a quick run to the TJ Art & Rock Café to try and meet up with the moon but she wasn’t there or if she was I couldn’t find her so I went back to Viehos, had another round, went for some food at the 7-11, back to the bar, another round, went to El Divan then back into the other bar since Caguas didn’t want to leave his brother alone, although he had friends that came to have a couple of drinks with him but nonetheless we decided to stay at Viehos. Danny went for some food, came back after a couple of minutes and called the Horde for retreat on his Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

First we dropped Pablo off, while avoiding all the Police checkpoints, and got an interesting conversation going on with him on the road about him not being able to feel any sort of pain, or rather minimal pain, and having a high resistance to alcohol levels, which I’ve seen in the past although I’ve also seen the opposite of that and rightfully earned the title “Puke Buddy”. Which reminds me of that girl we were talking with outside of Viehos, because when you want to have a smoke it has to be outside the bars now since the Federal Law came in full effect, after 3 years, around 2 months ago which is becoming an absolute pain in the ass specially with the cold wind trying to kill you, who’s apparently is a friend of Constantine whom looked a bit drunk.

Then we went to drop Itzel somewhere at la Gloria, which is a bit far away, and while speaking with her she was asking me what exactly my career is about, History, and told her that the field is actually quite big and that I should be able to find something that pays decently once I’m off with my title. She also mentioned that she needed some assistance with a book her Faculty is producing as no one is going up for the challenge and I volunteered for the job as long as I can get paid or credit for making it.

Then we see a pickup truck pulling in fast, bright lights, codigos, the blue and red lights of justice, a police truck had just parked next to us and asked us to get our asses of the car and while doing so Itzel got to her house as fast as possible.

Who am I, what do I do, where are you from, what are you doing here, do you have any drugs with you, are you drunk, is this your car, where is your license… something popped there, Danny doesn’t have a license and neither do I, “Get in the back of the truck” is what I hear one of the officers tell Danny and they let me go, in the middle of La Gloria with no way of getting the hell out of this hole at 2:30 in the morning and they are towing the car away. A mordida was in order and 200 pesos paid his liberty, which included my ride back home, I was shaking, I was shaking badly, I wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold or because I stressed the fuck out after we were free, I managed to keep my cool but once they were gone the façade dropped instantly, I only had two cigarettes, one for each, Danny was fully awake now, I was fully awake now, hell that was really weird and we really dodged a huge bullet since specially since Danny had asked me to call his Dad but he never picked up, which ultimately we were grateful about.

I got home and offered Danny to stay, even if my parents were reluctant, but he said he needed to be at work at 6 so he was going home, se la iba a rifar, he was gonna go for it, I asked him to call me as soon as he was at his place and I went inside, that annoying dog is there barking like a little bitch, picked up something to eat, started to write this and at 3:20 I got a call from Danny saying everything was OK.