BAJA, PUSSY, DRUGS AND A FIGHT

by
Joel Van Noord

I got a job in a state park and worked 40 hours in a drab brown uniform with a patch and lapels. At night I served coffee at Starbucks. This was for heath insurance. I'd abandoned the ideas of succeeding; and for the first time, in a very long time, I was happy. I was abandoned and happy. I tromped through the back-country in this desert park and talked to campers. I did sit-ups and push-ups and when it was too dark to surf, I ran. I was becoming my body instead of my mind.

At the park I dispensed information and even once got drunk with this travelling 30-something, all packed in her tuck like a hermit � spent the night with her in that pungent womb of hers. After she drove north along the coast it was a comfort I missed terribly.

These two jobs kept me plenty busy and during my free time I went surfing. I had little time to think. This is a blessing.

One morning I walked into the office and Frank said, "Baastian, I need you to head up today, check the facilities at access 12."

I rounded my gear and took the Ford up the spine of the mountain. I was young and new at the job, compared to these old timers with thick moustaches and forearms, and I enjoyed heading far back into the wilderness. This was a portion of the park the state checked on rarely. It was a place people rarely ventured.

So I drove up and stocked some toilet paper, cleaned out the trash and dropped a few bars of chemicals in the toilets. I got back in my rig and popped a beer, looking west form the boundary summit. On the way down I saw an Expedition and decided to stop. Replacing toilet rolls was my only task for the day and the only thing left on the agenda was lunch and watching these old moustaches yawn and lean back in old metal chairs.

I got out and walked across the gravel. Soon enough it was obvious what I was walking into. It was a porn shoot and I laughed to myself. There was a female, nude, well tan with a dark mess of hair on her head and below her belly. Then there was a photographer with a huge camera and a side-kick standing by several overflowing bags and holding a huge silver disc.

"You guys got a permit?" I said as I approached. The female looked over and I smiled at her. She was smooth and tanned and nearly hairless and curvy. I was dirty and my uniform was lame and I had on these silly shorts with huge boots � I was utilitarian and she was the personification of pleasure, or luxury, I suppose that best describes it.

She turned down and sighed as the photographer and the other man looked. The photographer was clich�, but I probably appeared that way too. He had a thin moustache and sparse chin hair, a soul patch and tiny circles for sunglasses. He was wearing black there in the desert.

"Sure we got a permit, back there in the truck somewhere, we're almost done, though, we'll be out in a few minutes."

"I'm just shitin� you." I smiled amongst the three. "You don't need a permit, this is your park." I said and walked closer. Then took off my sunglasses and squinted. I recognized the woman. She was a constant feature on my favourite porn site. I tried to think of her name. The side-kick was applying some make-up as I stood there.

"I like the uniform, it's very authentic," the photographer said and I looked to him. "We can use you," he said and walked to me, reached out and held me gently by the arm; he led me over to the girl and posed me next to her.

"Now go like this." He said and he shook his hands and his torso, then his legs and said, "ahhhhhh. Shake it out, get loose, get lose," as he shook from top to bottom.

I smiled and did what he was. I tossed my head back and forth and kicked my heavy boots one at a time. My chest was sore form an extra hard session the day before and this felt good. He then un-did the first few buttons on my uniform and pulled the shirt apart, then reached his hand to my chest and ruffled my dark chest hair. I laughed as I let him do this. The side-kick dabbed my face with some powder and I blinked.

"You're in good shape." He looked at my eyes as he stepped back. "This is Mitya." The photographer said and Mitya extended a fragile hand.

"Baastian." I said and took her hand. It was the first time I'd ever shaken the hand of a naked woman. It seemed strange, awesome, but strange. Shaking hands was something people in business suits did. The least I could do was hug her, when she was in that condition, I thought.

The photographer positioned us and she curled around my body and looked serious and dejected, determined and playful; while I stood there and looked goofy.

"Baastian." The photographer said. "I want your uniform, I'll say that first, you, yourself, you�re somewhat handsome, in this rugged, uniform way, but� you'd never make it beyond that. Ok? So I can't have you looking like a 12 year gawking at his dad's porn. Ok? All you have to do is keep a straight face� ok? Mitya, get him used to you."

He turned around, bent to the ground and rose with a cup of coffee. He drank from it and he and his side-kick turned their backs to us and put their heads together. Mitya sighed audibly and I looked to her. She was scanning my body and looked up.

"I think I've seen you online, before." I said and I shouldn't have.

"I am honoured," she said and began to rub her hands along my chest. She felt my chest and rose one hand to my face. She felt the stubble and then reached a hand to my ass and pulled it hard. She then took my hand and put it on her ass and I tentatively pulled her into me. She responded and draped her body on me once again, breathing on my neck. She rubbed herself up and down and I grew. She let me feel her and I reached around to her chest and her nipples were rigid in the alpine air.

"Okay! Let's go." The photographer said quickly and turned as I dropped my hands like he was a grade school teacher. He started taking pictures as I acted surprised, ashamed, then stoic.

"I like the look Mitya," he said and couched her as she posed about my body. "Ok, let's use the truck," he said and we all walked over to my rig and she got on the hood and spread her legs wide as we all stood in front and watched.

They finished and packed up. Then the side-kick walked over and said, "what's you address, we'll give you a subscription. Here's last month�s copy." He gave me a copy as I told him my address and paged through the high-quality glossy magazine.

*

It was a Friday night at eleven and I was leaving Starbucks after working 12 hours between both jobs. I had a pocketful of singles and called my buddy and met him and another friend at a bar. "Mr. Travis Smith-Hogan." I said as we shook hands.

"Bro! You coming to Baja with us? Monday's a holiday."

"When'd you decide you were going to Baja?" I asked.

"A couple days ago. You in? We'll take my jeep and camp out, surf and smoke and drink. Good shit."

"Who's all going?"

"Me, James," he pointed with his thumb, "and Whitney." I think he winked at me. Whitney was a good friend of his and he might have laid her, long ago, before he was dating Angela. But Whitney was a girl I'd recently met and she's since shown me a minor degree of attention. Which is the sole reason I feel attracted to her.

"I gotta work at Starbucks." I said limply.

"Fuck Starfucks." James said.

"Come back Monday?"

"Yep."

"Alright." I said and called in sick the next day.

I drank a beer and went home to pack that night: a 2 mill vest, board shorts, lightweight pants, sleeping bag, the rest of the food in my kitchen, a few shirts, fleece, my tent, and board. The four of us then packed in the jeep and stopped at the same Starbucks I was supposed to be working in and I had Whitney buy me a drink as they laughed. They all either came from money or had extremely good jobs. Whitney and James had both. James was a PhD physicist and modelled complex movements of electrons or something� I really only remember this computer program he once showed me where thousands of 'electrons' flew about the screen and all I said was, 'wow, that's sweet� It's trippy'. He laughed and I felt small. Whitney worked for Merrill Lynch, or some approximate. And Travis was from money. He was the best surfer of us and briefly toured in southern California and Hawaii.

I spoke the best Spanish, however, and whenever I tried to rub this in, they belittled it. Who cares, they'd say and I could say the same about electrons or anything that Travis happened to care about at the moment. But I didn't. I was too nice and I was, actually, interested in a great many things.

But we drove south past the usual spots we'd hit, south of Ensenada and Travis drove fast. He missed a stop sign as we were re-connecting to the highway through a village and we heard the 'bleep bleep' of sirens.

"Fuck." Travis said and we all looked down and quietly waited.

One officer approached as the other stayed back in the car. Travis said a few words in Spanish before I leaned forward and took the conversation. We missed a light, that was illegal, we had to go to the station and pay a 300 dollar fine, it'd take a few hours. They'd follow us to the station.

"How are we supposed to know where the fucking station is?" Travis raised his voice as the officer went back to his car and sat patiently.

"I don't fucking know, he knows that, that's just what he said, I don't know what to do either," I said as we waited several minutes. I heard a door shut and turned my head to see the other officer walking slowly toward the car. He tapped on my window and I rolled it down. He asked to see me outside and I opened the door and looked at him. The three of them waited in the car and I felt proud. We spoke and I was nervous of legal troubles and I said my longest foreign sentence that trip and he answered with a word and I wanted to smirk but I didn't. I opened my wallet and gave him a twenty dollar bill, U.S. I shut the car door and said, "Well, let's go." And smiled to Whitney as she acted astonished.

"What happened?" James asked.

"He came up and started saying the same things as the first officer and he kept pausing and looking at me, and I finally said, 'how much to take care of this here?' and he said 200 and I showed him a twenty and he took it and nodded to me."

"Amazing."

"Baastian, my hero!" Whitney said and leaned over to hug my arm.

"Nice." Travis said as he peeled away.

We took a right and the road stopped at a beach and we got out. There was no village and we left our bags in the jeep and changed there, Whitney was the only one who used a towel and we were out. The surf was big and James brought his underwater camera and took videos. I'd find later that'd he'd posted them on YouTube and the best ride was by me, as the Strokes wailed in the background, and I took a bottom turn and flew off the top of the wave, stretching my legs wide and grabbing my board and disappearing behind the wave with a splash as the scene cut to bikini � Whitney laying on her board.

As dusk came the tide was going out and the waves were growing smaller. A group of 40 odd pelicans congregated just inside the break and bombed the water with an intensity, ten at a time, over and over, like bullets. We sat on our boards and watched them dive. This clip, too, made it into video and I was surprised to hear James say a few hundred odd people had watched it. It didn't hurt that the first scene was Whitney with a bikini, holding a 6'7'' shortboard.

Whitney paddled in and I followed her in shortly. Travis and James stayed longer and she was reading when I got back in.

"This is great." I said as I was dripping, I took off my rash-guard and wanted to catch a few rays before the sun dunked itself in the ocean.

"It is, I love Baja, this is ideal." She said laying out on her towel. I thought about making love to her. She smiled to me and I wondered if she knew what I was thinking.

"You bring a tent?" I asked her.

"No, I didn't. Did you?"

"Yeah." I said and we looked at each other, "you wanna share?"

"Yeah, I think those guys only have one for them."

"Well, I heard you're a monster snorer," I said and took a step and looked at her from the corner of my eye.

"What! Who'd you hear that from." She flirted.

"Oh you know, the internet."

"The internet?"

"Yeah, it's all over it. 'Whitney's louder than a train in bed'." I said as she gave me a look that said she was privy to the double entendre.

"Well� I'm gonna set up camp." I said and she rose to help with a laugh. We touched elbows and joked as we prolonged the act.

Travis and James came back and they spoke in heavy slang of their session. I cooked quesadillas on my gas stove and we ate beans. James gathered driftwood and we were sitting around a fire. It'd been some time since the shoot and I'd been surprised when an issue came and I was in it.

This seemed like the opportunity for it and I packed it, and now I'd taken it out and tossed it to Travis.

"Nice, you brought a porn." He said and undid the page I'd turned and looked at the cover. "Oh, rich people's porn. Really moving up in the world."

"You can tell a lot about a man by the type of porn he has." Travis showed James the magazine cover and James looked to me and raised his beer, I did likewise, "you, my friend, are a classy man."

I turned to Whitney and she seemed to be waiting to understand why I'd bring porn on a surf trip with a girl I had intentions of being with. We sat in silence, waiting for the joke, as Travis comfortably looked through the mag, page by page. It was several minutes before he said, "Holy Shit!" and laughed, he showed me the page instead of saying anything further.

"Yeah, you like that? Isn't that hilarious? They shot that up in the park when I was working. I just randomly happened upon them."

"Let me see." Whitney begged and Travis tossed her the mag as he said, "Damn, man, shit like that always happens to you."

She gasped in surprise when she saw me in print. I laughed and James asked, "So what was it like meeting a porn star?"

"Very professional." I said and didn't give any more details.

Whitney turned through the magazine and, I think, all three of us couldn't help being turned on watching her study the pictures.

"Who the hell are these girls? They could all be movie stars, they're so perfect." She exclaimed.

"That's a classy man's porn. The artistic nudes." James informed her. "It's by far the most superior."

"Yeah, but sometimes you want some raunchy shit, some nasty whore with a smile on her face as she's got a dick in his ass, pussy, and mouth." Travis smiled wide.

"Travis." Whitney said, disgusted as she shut the mag and handed it back to me.

We stared into the fire and Travis rolled a joint and I took a few hits as Travis and James smoked most of it. I drank three beers and we stared into the stars. James got high and started babbling about the stars and galaxies and we all listened with nothing to add. Whitney rose and put on her pyjamas and came back. I brushed my teeth and waited for Travis and James to go to bed. But Travis was drunk and James was high. I, on the other hand, had stopped drinking so much and no longer enjoyed smoking, only when I'd had more beer.

Eventually they passed out, not even bothering to set up a tent. And I made my way in. Whitney was inside and she stirred as I entered and made myself comfortable. We turned about and talked and I eventually kissed her and she reached her toes to mine and grabbed my hands. We held hands romantically like that until I reached around her and pulled her body into me. We made out and searched each other quietly as I thought about Mitya on that hill in the state park.

The nylon kept the sun at bay a touch longer but soon we roasted inside and I reluctantly opened my eyes. Whitney was in her underwear and it was tight and there was a Hello Kitty on her groin. I had to try hard not to reach out for her. I left her sleeping and emerged. Travis had out my gear and he'd boiled tea. James had moved away and was seeking shade against a cliff that was still blocking the sun. He looked like he was sleeping. I drank some of the tea and it tasted like shit. I rinsed it in my mouth trying to figure out what it tasted like. Then Travis came walking in high steps, looking at the ground like a paranoid Hunter S. Thompson and I shook my head.

"Baast!" he said and changed his pattern and walked rigidly over. "Did you drink the tea?"

"A touch." I said to him and quickly put the scene together. "How much you put in there?"

"A quarter, for four, wont be bad. Mild. Good body to surf on. And look." He whipped around to the ocean. "She's gentle for us today. Look at it curl and gently� crash and sink." He said slowly, turned to the ocean, moving his hands.

I shook my head and resigned to the situation. This is what I did. I adapted and resigned to where I was. So I drank my quota as everyone else did too. Travis later told me that he'd eaten some before anyone was awake and he played H.S.T. all morning long. Raving, madly, the lyrics he'd memorized from the movie and adding his own approximates. James was quiet and dignified, only speaking to debunk our would-be myth with scientific facts. Then he'd drop some intense theoretical speculation and stupefy us until someone did something stupid and we all laughed.

We were all in board shorts and Whitney a bikini. At noon I was burned and had Whitney apply lotion. I turned around and asked as boyishly as I could, "can you put it on my chest too," as it was too nice to have a beautiful girl in a bikini do it while you tripped.

"You can do it," she said.

"I know I can, but I want you to do it."

She burst out laughing, as I guessed I enunciated it strangely and she repeated to me how I'd said it and I disagreed but said nothing. She'd do this throughout that day and for a week or two afterward.

Like a line of penguins, Travis madly led us, single-file, into the waters as we each had our board and launched, after allowing the first wave to crest against our knees. We paddled out and I was in my own world. My heart started beating fast as the waves moved over me and I caught a vague glimpse at the entirety of the ocean. I was overwhelmed as I pushed my board under and let the surf crash and rush over me. I held the side and opened my eyes. My body was super sensitive and the feel of the water was foreign.

The separateness of the ocean and my body confused me terribly and I was in trouble until I fought and paddled past the break and found them there, sitting, smiling, without a care in the world and I smiled too. Of course, we were alright. I had a great expanding feeling of love for my friends there and I yelped something to them to show it. James was his usual stoic and rational self and he held the camera and filmed. I looked to the horizon and a pelican was soaring along a curling wave, its feathers inches from skimming the water. I watched it in utter amazement, then turned to the north and watched this beautiful burgundy mountain rise through grey mist on the horizon. Baja was incredible and it probably wouldn't be for too much longer. It was a strip of land the US, for some reason, didn't want, and told Mexico was theirs. And they shrugged and said, whatever. As is, Tijuana is a nice buffer that stops many fat Americans in Disney t-shirts from venturing south. Then, Cabo is a magnet to the south that collects the drift and allows the filth like us to have our desolate stretch. But, as is the trend of everything, this place will be ruined with civilization and they'll soon be service out here and the chaotic freedom of Baja will be gone.

Travis caught the first wave and he disappeared. I saw him again when he stood up. He surfed to the beach and stood up and collapsed there. James soon did the same thing and the next thing I knew he was fishing, knee-deep, in the surf. Whitney shrugged to me and I dove off my board and swam to her through the water, dragging the board after me. I saw her foot and went to grab it, pulling it as I rose.

She was off-balance and compensated and I watched her ass flex. It was beauty itself.

"We should do this every weekend," she said.

"We should move down here." I replied and pulled harder. She dropped down in a small splash and I put my arm around her smooth skin. The contrasts between everything: ocean, Whitney's lower back, and my own enhanced sense of touch, was too much and soon she noticed my shorts and she looked coyly and embraced me. I was pressed against her and she wrapped her legs around my waist and now, she was the only one to blame.

"Are you tripping?" she asked me.

"Not really anymore. Just a gentle body. You?"

"Same. Calm. This was the perfect amount."

"Yeah, Travis took more. He's out of his head."

"Did he? He is. He's funny."

"Yeah."

"Why didn't Angela come?"

"She doesn't surf."

"Yeah, I know. But she could have still come."

"That's not a thing� that's compatible, you know? She'd just be sitting there on the beach and you know Travis wouldn't make an attempt to end his session early."

"I guess you're right."

"Last time she came along they almost broke up."

"Good thing we both surf." Whitney said this and it made me smile.

*

Back in LA and I finished at Starbucks after I was lectured about skipping work. Things were slow between Whitney and I but they were obvious, so I rode along with them in this new comfort and security I had in the world. Travis was a hit on YouTube with his mushroom raving in beautiful Baja. I myself watched it a dozen times and shared the link with Frank at work and he shook his head and said, "I don't get it." I laughed.

Travis shrugged it off after pretending to be mad at James, who'd titled the clip, 'Baja Mushroom binge', it was sort of a low thing to do. If Travis had done it to James, it'd be much different. James would have screamed his head off about how he could get fired and how he had a prestigious job and a prestigious reputation. But, he should expect it, if he continues hanging out with social drift like Travis and I.

But we were in this pretentious LA club and, with Travis leading, four of us, Whitney, Angela, and myself, walked past the holding pen as the bouncer undid the pretentious velvet, fence-thing, and clicked it shut after we passed.

Travis was friends with the singer from this loud, fast paced, rock band lost in the muddle of bands that sound like The Strokes. Angela had driven and Whitney and I were getting drunk and dancing to the opening act. Travis and Angela had disappeared back stage.

"You want another, babe?" I asked and she bit her lip and nodded. She was adorable and I left and went to the bar and leaned over it with a ten in my fingers and waited.

"I know you." I heard a voice with a familiar accent. It was Mitya.

"Mitya." I said stupidly with a dumb smile on my face. She was even hotter in clothes and I looked down into her cleavage. We didn't shake hands and she was saying something, softly, it was lost in the music and she had her hand on my chest.

"How have you been?" I asked like she was a normal person. She answered and again I didn't know what she'd said. The bartender caught my eye and I got two beers. Mitya assumed one was hers and I didn't refuse her. I stood waiting to get another but the bartender wouldn't look back.

Mitya was talking and I was responding, I told a lame story about Starbucks and she laughed at me, then put her leg behind me and rubbed my calf with her stocking foot. She must do this to feel a power over people.

Nervously, I drank my beer fast and ordered two more. They came and I'd dropped nearly half a days work on drinks alone that night. I took the bottles and had the bright idea of leaning into her and kissing her on the cheek. I told her, "I'll be back."

I saw Whitney and she had her back against a wall and there was this man with his arm out and talking to her. I stood next to her and handed her a drink and the guy didn't take the hint. He kept talking and she looked over at me and continued to be nice. It was one of her character flaws. I butted in a few times and when I reached my hand to her elbow the guy said, "hey buddy, you got a problem?"

He turned and pushed me hard, I stumbled back a few steps and Whitney stood back with hand on her mouth. "I'm in the middle of something," the asshole said.

"Fuck you man, that's my girlfriend." It was the first time we'd acknowledged anything.

"Bullshit, faggot," he said aggressively, but I held my own.

I saw Travis in the crowd and he smiled as I made eye contact and he began walking quickly. He looked high. Whitney tried to quell the disagreement about her and the guy moved her away as he put his hands on me. I said something mildly insulting and he pulled his hand back and punched at me as I ducked away. He skimmed my ear and as I turned back the asshole was already on the ground and Travis was in the process of breaking his arm. Travis was a judo champion as well as a local surfing legend and I felt like putting a foot to the asshole's face. But instead I turned to Whitney as she draped herself against my body, her chest was hidden in my arm as we watched, I could feel her heart racing.

I turned to Whitney and it was much more intense, now that we had that history and had established the groundwork for a cerebral love, than what I'd experienced with Mitya, in near the same pose. The asshole screamed in agony and I barely heard it over Whitney's body.

Travis might have broke his arm and I sort of wish he did. The bouncers were in the process of removing everyone around when the crowd cheered for Travis and they settled on tossing the asshole out alone. He swore at me and called Whitney a whore and for the rest of the night the two of us stayed in physical contact.

Angela drove us all home and she helped out a touch by saying, "Baastian, your house is on the other side of town. Are you going to Whitney's?" and I hesitated and Whitney said, obviously tired, "yeah, he's coming with me."

� Joel Van Noord
Reproduced with permission

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