It all started in Puerto Nuevo, a small town on the Baja coast line north of the asshole that is Rosarito and south of the armpit that is Tijuana. I've only had a first-hand experience with the armpit. I was well prepared for it, having been born in the armpit of California, but the cops were a little too zealous for my taste. Corruption and extreme poverty make for a nasty combination, especially in a police force. Of course, I should never have been pissing in the street either, but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?
Back to Puerto Nuevo where a large group of my friends, consisting of girls and guys, had taken over an entire resort. If you ever need a large amount of beer in Mexico, just contact the local brewery and they will cart out a couple dozen kegs at very little charge. I can sum up the scene by saying that a sun-drenched resort within view of waves crashing and half-naked people cavorting around a dozen kegs makes for a good party. Having a lobster-village within walking distance was just frosting on the cake.
You'll excuse me if I didn't notice her until late at night in the middle of the DJ's set. I felt her eyes as a slight burning tingle on the back of my head and it took me not long to locate the source. Dancing late into the night, the fatigue lessened considerably by copious amounts of Tecaté, to this day I have just one clear memory of her. She smelled, tasted and looked like lavender. The weekend ended, the revelry died down for another year, and we made our way back to Los Angeles in the buses that we arrived in. After that weekend, the group on the bus was considerably more subdued.
She seemed nice enough back in the real world, but these were my asshole-extraordinaire days where my relationships with girls were largely touch and go. Relationships. What a laugh. I was a boy playing at being a man; a fool playing at being a drunk. Still, I feel bad for those girls that were looking for a man in a boy. I never practiced to deceive.
The hickey on my neck was obscene. Generally I find them tacky at best and self-deprecating at worst. This one was obscene. What are you supposed to do when the girl that you are in love with is sucking on your neck? Of course, she was only trying to worsen the bruise from the girl that had actually put it there. I never wanted to hurt the lavender girl by having her see it. Wait a minute, back up. This bears explaining.
At the time she was a friend of a friend, and my girlfriend-to-be though I did not know it. A fiery little blond with an undeniable spirit. The force of her was intoxicating. She had been in Puerto along with me and the lavender girl, but I would not know her until a couple of days later. After slowly depleting a 12-pack of Bud we meandered back to my room. I only noticed what was happening when the wind was knocked out of me from being thrown up against the wall and an ice-cold tongue dallied at my neck. 'So that's what she had grabbed the ice-cubes for,' I thought to myself. 'How long had she been planning this little coup?' I have to note that at this point lavender girl still hoped that our fantasy in Mexico somehow bled onto the page back in the real world. Do I look like an asshole yet? That's probably an accurate assessment.
Ahh, my future girlfriend. That night spun my head like a top and brought all my attention to bear directly on this tiny blonde with a personality like a football offensive-line. Unfortunately I was still in love with my best-friend at the time and this had the effect of screwing up my programming like a division by zero. 'Surely these women will be the death of me,' I thought. 'Yeah, it's either that or growing up,' another voice said. Clearly neither were an option.
The sharpness of the memory is still there. It's funny how you can tell when your going to have a love-bruise from someone kissing/sucking on you. You can actually feel that sharp tinge when the blood-vessels break, though arguably this can be hard to pay attention to when you're in the situation that allows for it to happen. She thought it was so goddamned funny, my best-friend, my true love - the bane of all my existence. I was trapped between my girlfriend-to-be, my lavender one-night-stand, and the woman I loved. These thoughts jarringly exited my head as my bane lunged at me, knocking me to the bed, quickly followed by one of her girlfriends. She succinctly Hoover'ed my neck beyond all measures of taste, and then her girlfriend took her turn. At least I never have to wonder what my neck would look like if a major-league slugger beaned it with a line-drive.
Sheepishly, I recounted my dispicable past couple of days to lavender, hoping (like I was in some sort of cockamamie scheme cooked up by George Costanza) that this would be the end of the line for me and her. "So, this isn't over?" I asked. I responded to the shake of her head with a resigned and drawn out, "Awright."
Fast-forward to nightfall. Guys can be stupid when they are all hopped-up on testosterone. Add a deluge of cheap beer to that volatile mix and they are downright mindblowing in their stupidity. Unbeknownst to me, a friend of mine had been in an altercation with a fellow from another group of friends, and rather than end then and there the kettle was continuing to boil down on the street in front of my place while I imbibed the aformentioned swill up on the second floor. My self-destruction was halted by another friend of mine peeking his head into the doorway long enough to utter the rallying cry of "Fight!"
"Hmmm, a fight. That sounds like fun."
'What!? What the fuck are you thinking! That's the most imbecile thing I have ever conceived of...'
A few swigs was all it took to silence my sober voice into oblivion. Extremely drunk, I found myself out in the middle of the fucking street where I happened to be swaying on my feet in the midst of a brawl. I didn't have much experience with this sort of thing and I didn't really want to just attack a guy without provocation - even if it was a free-for-all. I saw one of my friends on the ground with a guy hovering over and kicking the shit out of him. Good target. Taking a running start I brought my right-knee sharply up into his ribcage like a character from Double-Dragon and sent him rolling onto the sidewalk. I've always heard that time slows down in a situation such as this, but I have no memory of him hitting me. Damn, that fucker was big and damn, could he move fast. I only knew he had socked me across the jaw spinning me fast enough to cut my hand on a car-runner, because it adorned the car that had previously been behind me.
Chicks dig battle scars, and supreme stupidity apparently. I didn't feel a thing as I was still supremely drunk and I now had two women doting on me, while cursing my macho facade. Poor lavender. She never had a chance really. My girlfriend-to-be was maternal, biting, sexy, arrogant, and dominating all at once. I didn't flinch under her reprimands or her rough first-aid. In fact, I found it hard to hide my pleased smile. I'm sorry lavendar, wherever you are. You skulked off that night and I never saw you again.
That's how I met her. Little Tex we would call her, a fitting name as she was from Texas, but only from my lips was she called Babydoll. The only girl I have ever settled down enough to commit to. You still bring a smile to my lips occasionally, you know that? It's a tragedy sometimes how misplaced our affections and notions of love can be.