The Score

Boston Eddie and I wind our way through the streets of Tepic, Nayarit, following the directions given us by a fellow hip from the beach where we were all staying. “Go to the plaza. Take a left. Take a right. Go straight. You know. The name of the shop is Objetos Tipicos de los Huichol y Cora Indios.” Besides native art objects, the store owner also sells keys of marijuana.

It is midday and the sun is overhead making us sweat even more, as if we didn’t have enough reason already. The year is 1969 and we both know how tenuous our stay in Mexico could be. Eddie drove his Ford van from Lowell, Massachusetts, and I drove my VW bus from Idaho, both ending up at a little beach called Playa de los Cocos several kilometers south of Mazatlan with half a dozen other hippies from other states.

But we all remembered Mazatlan:

The cab of the dump truck was a bright white and inside were two grinning, green-uniformed officers from the Mazatlan police. In back standing in the rusting bed with its rusting sidewalls were about two dozen young Americans. Their ages probably varied three or four years either side of 21, both males and females. They had one thing in common though: their heads were shaved. And, as I stood there gassing up at the station across the street, I noticed they were wearing just T-shirts with Levis or cutoffs. No backpacks, no suitcases, no duffel bags. Their eyes carried a stunned look, like a puppy beaten too many times or a hollow-eyed kid too long without food. There was no laughter, no smiles, damn little conversation. They were defeated.

The gas station attendant standing beside me was taking in the spectacle as well and I asked him, “Que pasa? What’s going on?”

He squinted his eyes and said one word in a deep guttural tone, “Hippies!”, as though he had some phlegm caught in his throat. He spit on the ground in front of him. And then he eyed me. I must have passed inspection—my hair just flipped up in a small curl at the base of my neck, just a non-drooping moustache for facial hair—because he opened up telling me how they are driven to the border and once there they just walk across into the U.S. Both countries custom officials don’t even give them a second glance, as though they were lepers. Why should they? All they have are shaved heads, the clothes they are wearing and, if they are lucky, their wallets (with no money, of course) carrying a basic identification, maybe a driver’s license.

“What happens to their cars, their clothes, you know, their belongings?” I asked.

“They are taken. They are distributed.” he replied.

“By whom?”

“La policia,” he said, again looking at me.

“Oh.”

He looked back at the disappearing dump truck. “Sometimes the representative from your government comes down here and watches as they are loaded up and hauled away north,” he said pointing in that direction for emphasis. “It must be policy.”

“It must be,” I agreed.


We found the store and its owner. He took us to his house and I know everyone was watching us and everyone knew what we were doing. We would pay for the weed and then two blocks later Eddie and I would be busted; the weed returned to the seller, the money kept and we would soon be heading to the border just like those in Mazatlan.

But nothing happened. We bought our brick—all brightly wrapped in red Christmas gift paper with bright silver bells, 2.2 pounds for $32 American. By the camp fire that night while I was doing up one last number before crashing, the thought that started gnawing on me that morning, the vague thought that was bothering me all day and that I had put on the shelf came down off the shelf and stood in front of me.

I would leave Mexico. I would not travel to Merida on the Yucatan peninsula as planned. I would not travel for a year in Mexico as planned. Oh, I would not leave tomorrow or next week; in fact it would be two months before I would cross the border. But I would be ever observant of who was camped around me, who belonged to that flashlight beam there in the distance. And I would be ever diligent at night when I would baggy-up my weed one lid at a time from my stash hidden inside my VW. This morning I was a tourist. This evening I am a foreigner.