Paul Wilson - BAD KARMA: The True Story of a Mexico Trip from Hell

Copyright 2019 by Paul Wilson

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ISBN: 978-0-578-57910-8 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-0-578-57906-1 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-578-57908-5 (ebook)

Edited by Barbara Noe Kennedy

Cover design by Derek Murphy

Interior design by Jake Muelle

BadKarmaBook.com

Contents

Dedication

For my grandchildren:

Emily, Clark, Grant, Ford, and Madilynn.

(Read it when youre old enough ... and then do everything the opposite.)

Authors Note

This is a true story. All events are as they happened, and the characters are real. I recognized it at the time something incredible was taking placeand this something presaged a supernatural purpose. In the space of five and a half weeks, just wanting to fit in evolved into having beers with El Chapo. I kept records, notes, and photographs, but was afraid to share much until the various statutes of limitations had expired. A wife and two impressionable children came along in the interimand this story remained hidden away, lest they discover what a shit Id been in my twenties. Meanwhile, the legacy of our misdeeds overtook us each in turn, and one by one, those scores were settled.

Buckle up and hang on. Youll be riding shotgun.

Nineteen surfers. Fourteen apartments. One old building at the beach

It sucks being a wannabe. Forever on the outside, looking in. I grew up an introverted nerd (even my teachers called me Poindexter) and was desperate to escape the cruelty of my self-imposed exile. No amount of alcohol, drugs, or profanity seemed to crack the mystery of the cool quotient. Even now, despite being a fixture in The Manor the last two years and investing endless hours in the surf every day, I still was considered more of a hanger-on than a resident. Truly earning your bona fidesand being accepted as belonging in the buildingwas reserved for those who had surfed Mexico . Baja didnt qualify. Im talking Mainland, the farther south the better . There were two classes of residents: Those who had surfed mainland Mexico, and those who wanted to. It was the surf cultures version of sporting a lettermans jacket on campus. People looked up to them. Paddling out with one was akin to an apprentice shadowing a journeyman. In the surfers pecking order, known as the line up, the rest of us deferred prime position to them. They got all the best wavesand all the cutest girls. Man , they were cool. I wanted to be in in the worst way, and I figured this was my ticket.

Over the past few days, a tangible buzz had energized the building. Moose and Jelly were preparing for a trip to the mainland. Yeah, we all had nicknames. Not like Moon Doggie or Gidget. Those are lame. Our names were cool ... except maybe for mine. Early on, I was tagged with Paul E. Opters, and it stuck. I suspect it was because I was seen as helicoptering around the upper-tier residents too often to be cool. Still, it was better than my neighbors moniker. The morning he was christened Stinky Feet, his given name, John, was retired forever.

Moose had been to the mainland. Hell, hed been everywhere. He was so cool, hed even been in jail a few times; mostly drug stuff, as far as I knew. Jelly hadnt been. To the mainland, I mean; not jail. Even so, he must have earned his credentials some other way. Perhaps it was the overly confident faade, or the string of beautiful girls broken hearts he trailed. Either way, he qualified as a big man on campus, too.

They were each a few years older than my twenty-one. Moose was a master manipulator; Im guessing it was his idea, and I was roped in from the beginning. They let me overhear them planning their trip, knowing Id do just about anything to be included. Turns out, neither of them had a vehicle that would make the trip. (I learned later, theyd tried the same ruse on everyone else in The Manor who owned a vehicle that would suffice, and I literally was the last viable option in the building.) They played me like pros. I assured them my 1966 VW Bus was perfect for the trip. It had a killer stereo with six speakers, twin amplifiers, and a subwoofer powerful enough to make silverware dance on the flip-up table that held my stove. Id harvested the chilly-bin portion of an old mini-fridge and modified it as a hidden icebox under the custom-made full-size bed. My Bus was so cool, it even had a name and custom license plate: 1DRBUS, aka The Wonderbus. Too naive to realize I was being used as a convenient tool, I laid it on thicka car salesman, hungry to make quota, couldnt have been more persuasive, nor been more stoked when the sale was closed. Not only was I being included on the trip, it was my Bus that was making it possible! If this didnt garner me top-tier status, it was beyond my reach.

A few not-so-minor details of the trip began to filter out. It was to be a two-month surfin safari, plunging nearly two thousand miles into the rugged, coastal jungles of southern Mexico. I had a full-time job (and nowhere near the cash to cover such a trek), but backing out now would be coolicide. And thats what gave rise to a Saturday night just like every other Saturday night.

Only completely fucking different.

Id convinced my best friend, Perro, to be an accomplice. (Spanish for dog, his nickname had morphed over the years from Horn-dog. How hed earned it, Ill leave to your imagination.) He and I had been sworn enemies in middle school, where I was a year ahead of him by virtue of skipping the third grade. We met in first-period Woodshop. I was an eighth grader and the shop aide (read: insufferable teachers pet), and Perro was the consummate class clown. It was my job to make sure all of the hand tools were put away, machines cleaned of sawdust, and floors swept at the end of classand it was left to me to assign those chores to the seventh graders. I took woodshop so seriously, I was an aide for first-period Beginning Shop, had Intermediate Woodshop for second period, and Advanced Woodshop for sixth period.

Up until that point, Id little to no experience being in charge of anything, and Perroboasting a lifelong track record of being a little shitmade my life miserable. Id assign cleanup of the table saw to him and return to find its cutting surface newly elbow deep in sawdust, scrap, and cuttings, Perro sitting on top, cocking his index finger behind his thumb and placekicking one nugget at a time through some makeshift goalposts. Nothing could get him to take things seriously. That all changed one day in 1969, though, when he overheard me griping to another classmate that we were too poor to own a television, and I was going to have to watch the moon landing at a neighbors. Perro got up in my face and let me have it. Hey! What do you know about being poor? Your family lives in those apartments with the pool, and youre complaining about not having a TV? The whole time I was growing up, we lived in tents and moved all the time. My family went out and picked fruit every day. I thought we were camping! It wasnt until last year my mom told me we were transient farmworkers when I was a kid. So shut the hell up! You have it made!