Jim’s call came right after lunch. I was settling down into an afternoon of bills and Tom Leykis on the radio. I was barely human compared to Jim’s mad voice.

“I got us a couple of chicks down in San Diego man. College hotties, whaddya say?”

“When?”

“As soon as we can. I got Mitch to cover me at the restaurant and I told the girls we’d be down there by seven.”

“Seven?” I squealed into the phone. “Dude, I don’t get off until six.”

“So?”

“Call them and tell them eight. And how do you know these chicks?” “One of them came into the restaurant the other night with her parents. She slipped me her fucking number while her pops was paying the bill,” he said hungrily.

“Have you seen my girl?” I looked around the corner of my cavernous brick office and missed what Jim said.

“Yeah, her friend said she’s a lot of fun.”

“Great,” I said dryly, “a fun chick.”

“Be at my house right after you get off work and we’ll be fashionably late.”

I told him all right and then waited until six like a Christmas-hungered child at dawn.

The sun was warm and great golden a little after six when I got to Jim’s house.

“Dude, can you drive?” was his first question.

I didn’t have a good reason why I couldn’t and a half-hour later we had gotten through San Clemente and veered parallel to the Pacific to begin the thirty-minute desolate stretch of wild beaches over the green hills to our right. There was a marine base to our left.

“Man oh man,” Jim was saying, rubbing his hands as if to keep warm.

“And where are we taking this chicks?”

“Who cares? Come on, take it easy, it’s gonna be a blast.” Jim rolled down the window and howled into the green hills. His blue shirt collar ruffled with the wind and he let his hair be driven by the speed. “We’ll take’em to TJ,” I think he said.

We found Samantha’s apartment a little after seven thirty after going the wrong on Genosee. We took stock of ourselves and our wallets before going to the door.

Samantha answered it against a background of the Beastie Boys and candles. She was hot, with a cute little girl nose and tanned tight skin contained in black Capri pants and a turquoise top. If my chick was only half as hot as she was…Samantha’s eyes were blue and her blonde hair twinkled as if she were a star herself. Mischief could have been her middle name.

“Hey babe,” Jim said and walked. The guy had only met her while he was working and here he was in her apartment as if he owned the place, going into the kitchen and grabbing beers for us. I walked in with less panache. “Hi,” she said to me, closing the door and then hopping past me barefoot to the bathroom. “Frita should be here any minute,” she yelled over the hairdryer.

“Frita?” “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said, turning off the hairdryer momentarily. Her golden smile was the world’s most famous beach at candlelight. She went into the kitchen and brought out some grapes and stood next to Jim. It was obvious these two were already hooked up.

I took the beer from Jim and sat on the couch, looking at the posters. Madonna’s Truth or Dare and one of those French photographs from the black’n’white fifties with the people walking by and kissing were the two I recognized.

“Ooh, I love this song,” Jim’s girl said and dashed past me, bending over for both of us as she turned it up. She turned around, smiling, bopping, eating grapes and basically mesmerizing us both.

Frita came ten minutes later and it was like the cops had come to the party.

“Sam,” she said as soon as she had walked in, “you know have a poly sci test tomorrow.”

Samantha didn’t hear; she had the hairdryer on and the music was loud. She came out when Jim showed her a plate of tequila shots he had found. He placed them on the low wooden table and then introduced Jim and I to Frita.

Frita was curly, her hair, and the frayed edges of her blue jeans. Her freckled nose was scrunched up by the display. It was obvious that she had been talked into this at the last moment. I had begun my second beer and was indifferent to Frita’s attitude. I asked her to drive.

“Drive where?” Most of the traffic had died down as we passed and winded through downtown San Diego towards the border. Neither girl had been to Tiajuana before. Frita was from Rapid City, South Dakota and had always wanted to see Mexico so she had lightened up a little. I told her I had been there one summer when I was a kid to see Mount Rushmore. The validation of her state seemed good for her because she was probably always acting ashamed or defending it. Jim and Samantha passed beers up to both of but Frita didn’t drink hers.

“I’ll have one in Mexico,” she said and looked pleased at the sound of it.

“Jim, remember those spring breaks in San Felipe?” I yelled to the back seat.

“Oh yeah, baby!” He then turned and explained to Samantha who was hanging on his every word. “Up at sunrise sleeping on the beach, drinking beer and getting high, dancing at night and firepits until we passed out.” He reached forward and we banged bottles.

Samantha just said, “Wow,” and then nudged Frita saying, “See, I told you these guys were cool.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Frita replied, paying attention to the road.

Driving to Tiajuana always takes longer than you think it will. We made it a little after nine o’clock and we told Frita where to park the car. We convinced her to do a shot of tequila with us and pound a beer in the car. We left the rest under the seat and walked towards the border of a third world country.

The scene immediately awed the girls. There were old women and young children selling souvenirs and unnecessary devices of life.

“Come on girls, there’s plenty of time for that. Let’s get a drink,” Jim said and we shoved off through Mexicans who said, “Teksi, teksi.” The girls were white chocolate chips in a sea of warm dank country, dancing in the streets. Jim howled into the sky and some of the Mexicans along the bridge past the town square laughed at us. They were jealous of our lives but in a good-natured way; they knew they would never have our chicks but they were glad that somebody did.

On the second story of a flat building painted with one light bulb, we ate dinner. The ceiling was low and we ate at a corner booth overlooking the dark intersection. The bar was empty but the bartender was a short and funny dark man and kept repeating a few words over and over so we wouldn’t leave when we were done eating. “Good deal, cheap drinks for you, good deal for beauties.” He made the girls laugh and so after our tacos and burritos and we moved up to the bar. We were the only customers in the place and we ended up getting drunk there. Shot glasses, Corona bottles, and ashtrays remained on the bar and the short Mexican with the dark shiny smiley face spread out the bottled so “it be busy,” he said.

We all laughed and Jim bought the bartender, whose name was Manuel, a beer. He poured us a round of shots. Frita declined hers and I swooped it up and barely felt its poison on the way down.

At Manuel’s suggestion after he was convinced we were leaving, we went to a lounge at the base of a three-story hotel that looked like it was on the border. The piano was missing keys and the lighting was dismal. Jim and Samantha were trashed in an atmosphere built for two. They laughed and giggled and made obnoxious noises as sad brown Mexicans turned from their dirty stools at the bar to look at us. Frita had withdrawn and then mumbled something about her test. I ordered another drink up at the bar and with the best carefree smile I could muster against her meager energy sat down. At the table, the couple were kissing drunkenly and Frita looked annoyed. I let my drink become my new companion but still I tried to bedazzle my freckled date.

“Watch this,” I said and tried balancing the saltshaker on the table.

“Yeah, that’s great,” my audience replied and she became more sullen and sucked in.

The girls then went to the bathroom and I scooted over to Jim’s side of the booth. “Come on dude, let’s cruise. Are you ready?” Suddenly work the next day was looming.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” he said exasperatedly. “I’m gonna get laid tonight bro, we can’t leave these chicks. Frita’s pretty cute, don’t’ you dig her?”

“Dude, she’s become a schoolgirl in the last twenty minutes, haven’t you seen?” I pleaded with Jim but it was lost.

The girls came back and Samantha announced coyly to our table that they were ready to go. “Back to the apartment,” she added as a special show for Jim.

Through the forlorn and dirty streets of the world’s largest border town, we stumbled and joked, and yee-hawed at the cheap souvenirs that lined the dark alley near the bridge. It was almost midnight. Frita bought a bracelet and it seemed to lift her a bit as we neared the crossing.

“Remember,” Jim was saying, walking backwards towards American, facing us and looking at fat crumpled Mexicans on the sidewalks. “Remember, just say you’re American when we get to the guards, ok?"

I didn’t picture Jim being the nervous type but I think he just sensed the graveness of not being let back across to the freedom of our births had given us.

Inside was a long corridor and lined like a hospital, drab and bright. It was as if we had to leave our drunkenness at the border too. WE all walked stiffly towards the guard, and Jim and Samantha held hands, waiting in line with what seemed like a family of thirty Mexicans.

“What’s your country of origin?”

“American,” we answered one by bone and then Jim and I high-fived once w ehad passed, hooting and hollering. “The US of A!” Jim yelled and the guard turned and he must have been in a good mood; he just smiled.

I don’t remember the drive except for the sounds that came from the backseat. I wanted to make a joke to Frita; I think it might have bonded us as we drove through the city but it was a blur only, and slurred by the moon. It was a Tim Burton city, I thought but never actually said anything. Frita tried to leave right away once back at the apartment but I begged she stay. When I told her it was only so I could have someone to talk to while I passed out, she softened and came back.

We laughed awkwardly as Frita ate peppermint patties and Samantha and Jim put on a sound show for us. Maxwell was blasting from the room and it was all the music the whole apartment needed.

I woke up and it was early. Frita was gone except for her remnants in the form of silver peppermint patty wrappers peppering where she had sat. There was a wrapper next to my head and I wished that maybe she had left me a peppermint kiss but then I felt some stray chocolate in my goatee. I wrinkled it out.

Jim wasn’t difficult to wake up. Samantha was already up and getting dressed. She allowed me in the morning light to watch her put her bra on as I was waking Jim. “Dude, I gotta be at work in two hours,” I told him. The drive had traffic and even without a shower, I was fifteen minutes late to work. I explained that I had had to drop my dad off to pick up his car from the shop. They seemed to accept that and a new day started.