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Chapter I of “DIABLITO: On a Mission from Gods”
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Description:
Diablito puts you in the driver’s seat for a spur of the moment, nail biting year-long road trip across Mexico.
More than a travel odyssey, you’ll spend months in a hidden ghost town, almost lose it all, find love and melt down on the beach, experience unprecedented kindness and meet a shaman.
Ride along with the trials and tribulations of two young friends engulfed in the unknown—intentionally wasting time on a haphazard hunt for high adventure and a meaningful existence.
A great weekend read with a heavy dose of cultural significance, this novelette clocks in at around 14,000 words but you’ll definitely get some mileage out of Diablito. Hopefully it’ll be shared and inspire you to take your own trip—an escape—and discover more of life’s simple pleasures.
This is a story that must be told and the first of three parts.
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We were invincible.
I lived in a tiny bedroom in an upstairs duplex apartment on 51st and Airport in Austin. Sitting at a roll top desk I was behind on rent and trying to make money with t-shirt designs—typical. We parked in the front yard and collected concert flyers.
My roommate was a long-haired California transplant who spent his nights talking to his plants on Rohypnols, mostly hanging ferns. On some days he rode his vintage bicycle to work at the Texas School for the Deaf with the trademarked slackers and musicians and I had no purpose. Read the rest of this entry »
He would pop some pills and lay on his Futon, talk on the phone, talk to his ferns, drink wine, stand up, fall down, smash his face on the Futon, black out, wake up, pop some pills, go to work and do it all over again.
This world wasn’t for me. I’d lie sweating in bed under a rickety ceiling fan anticipating adventure, staring at posters of Mayan temples and Costa Rican tree frogs. Days were spent in a tropical rainforest or an art scene in my mind—in reality freelancing business card designs.
Down the street was Charlie’s Attic, a rowdy upstairs tavern next to a used car lot notorious for bar fights. Bikers, jocks, hippies, mounds of shucked peanut shells piled and pushed up under the bar and tables, people playing pool in a cramped back room. It was the place to be some nights and the last resort others. I’d never been to Charlie’s attic.
The Carousel Lounge was a favorite among the Deaf School workers, featuring a blind organ player and a small room filled with pilled-up rockabilly swing dancers. This was a pleasant, goofy bar with a circus feel and a wonderful place to sit in the dark and be left alone.
Closing time—somewhere between A and B my roommate mumbles and points to the left.
“Go to Charlie’s Attic!”
I park my 2-door, ‘81 Datsun 210 dangerously named Diablito (little devil) without rolling up the windows. I never roll up my windows. We run up the outside staircase in a great mood happy to beat last call. It’s late and we’re drunk.
This is your average drinkin’ bar, mostly guys. The owner is a rough old biker with a long red beard. People come here to punch somebody. My rubbery roommate had already lost me. I make my way across the ol’ saloon and brush one of the few girls.
“What’s up bitch can I bum a smoke?”
“Did you just call me a bitch?”
“Well yeah but it was like whazzuuup biiitch?? You know, like Snoop Dogg. How ya’ doin’?”
“Oh okay I get it ha-ha.”
“I’m drunk. I was just trying to be funny. Thanks for the cigarette.”
“Oh that’s okay! I’m good. Have fun.”
Forgetting why we came here I make my way over to my roommate at the pool table. I don’t like the novelty of a crowded pool table. Within seconds an off balance frat guy is in my face.
“Did you just call her a bitch?”
“Well yeah but it was like whazzuuup biiitch?? You know, like Snoop Dogg. She thought it was funny and everything’s fine.” At the f in fine he slaps my face—hard.
I grab the corner pocket and pull myself toward the bar, fleeing the scene fast. I’m a lover not a fighter and half his size. I jump up on a stool.
“Gimme a Guinness! Who knows Taekwondo?”
Three guys leap up eager to get involved in this skinny dilemma.
“A guy just slapped me! You got my back?”
“Hell yeah buddy!”
The pool room becomes a football huddle. These guys are huge. They don’t see me.
When I’m spotted he’s frothing at the mouth—held back with minimal effort and grasping at me through the air. It’s past last call and time to go. He’s being pulled by his shirt collar to the door and down the stairs as I explain what’s happening to my roommate. We wait for the room to clear—last ones out.
Descending the outside staircase slowly, we watch three or four gigantic football players manhandling their irate friend into an oversized Texas pickup truck. My roommate is in a pill-daze swagger and I’d like to call it a night.
We’re parked across the street and back a few cars. These guys are so crazed and cowboyed up they don’t even notice us. It’s a Chinese fire drill just getting the slapper into the truck and assigning a driver.
I figure I have a few moments to witness the spectacle as I roll by and drive the short distance back home across the street. My roommate decides to lean out and throw a beer bottle at the back window—smash!—bad idea, funny at the time. They weren’t even in the truck yet.
I casually take a right and proceed around the block giggling in disbelief.
In his usual stupor my roommate begins to feel around under the seats for more objects to throw. “Go back again!” We circle the block for another shot.
On this night there happens to be a floorboard full of glass hotel ashtrays we just bought at a garage sale, a popular Austin pastime. I more than willingly drive back around past this disturbed hillbilly bee hive, both of us hurling glass ashtrays out the window and stepping on the gas, faster this time. “Again!” We go again.
“One more time!” Around we go in a fuzzy, hilarious, consequence-free glass ashtray toss.
I circle into position one last time and the truck is gone—empty, quiet streets, deep sigh of relief.
Then, like Bo and Luke Duke rounding the bend in Hazzard County they appear in my rear view mirror, sideways, tires squealing, arms flailing. Here we go. My second car chase!
A large fast truck full of drunk screaming kickers. A small four-cylinder Datsun with a driver in shock and a blacked out copilot.
I bury the pedal. Up Airport Blvd. we go, heein’ and a hawin’, they’re tapping my bumper. I can only imagine they wanted to kill us. They could have killed us. I make a u-turn and get on the highway.
We’ve already traveled for about five minutes.
They’re on my ass but I’m agile and moving fast. It seems we go around in circles for half an hour. My roommate is giving directions—head down and blindly pointing out the windows.
We take a right into a neighborhood at his command. “Shortcut!”
“Take a left!”
“Take a right!”
“Make a left.”
“Make a right.” I’m a pretty good driver.
“Your other right.”
“Cul-de-saaaac!!”
Holy shit. A cul-de-sac—dead end lined with cars, no time to think. I step on the gas and do my best 180°. “Hold on!” They pour into the entrance head on—doors open and screeching to a stop. They sprawl out onto the ground for a running start in a fumbling sprint right at me. I can see the whites of their eyes and their slobbering mouths.
I floor it. Full speed ahead as I drive right through them. Bam! Two roll over my windshield and off to the side. I plow through another, take the passenger door off the hinges and speed away.
I drive as fast as I possibly can back home, run inside, roommate laughing and stare out of the kitchen window praying for a solid hour. “We made it!” Sigh of relief. We get up in the morning and wipe the blood off my windshield wipers.
Who knows what happened to them. All I know is I wanna travel—find monkeys, catch snakes, live in a poster and have stories to tell. Before now I barely knew the things I was about to see and do even existed.
©2012 Cosmic Saké