The Bangover Diaries: Shaking hands with Mr. Bobo in Tijuana

My first trip out of the country coincided with my first true whoring experience, just over the border from San Diego in Tijuana, Mexico. Let’s just say it was a mixed blessing.

It happened in the Olympic year of 1984 during a two-week annual training CAX (Combined Arms Exercise) at a place called the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center outside Twenty Nine Palms, California, as desolate a desert town as any that has ever existed, and known affectionately as 29 stumps, or simply, the stumps.

Our entire detachment had flown into Palm Springs on a chartered jet, and after a harrowing landing between the mountains, went by bus across the desert to the Stumps. We went thru the town and then to the base, which didn’t look bad at all, but the desert was just like in the movies: Sand dunes, scrub, tumbleweeds and more sand, the whole nine yards.

But then we continued thru the base to a place smack-dab in the middle of the desert, easily 10 miles from Main-side, as we called it, to a desert purgatory named Camp Wilson, where a portable airfield and a double-wide trailer sat apart from a small city of tents. It was cool at night but heated up to 120 or so during the day, starting soon after sunrise. To this day it’s the worst, most un-redeeming place I’ve ever been for any length of time. We had to carry 2 canteens and drink water constantly to avoid dehydration.

Did I mention the scorpions? It got so dark at night that we had to tie white streamers to the tent ropes lest we get clotheslined, and streamers to the barrels of our M-16’s so we could avoid hitting each other.

After a week or so of hell at Camp Wilson, we were given a 48 hour pass, and our Sergeant (aka the grand old man of the Marine Corps) rented a car. We piled about 6 Marines with the Sarge driving, into a station wagon and drove to San Diego, got a hotel and hung out that evening near the San Diego Pier. As we rested for a trip to TJ the next morning, The GOMOTMC regaled us with stories of TJ in the sixties, where donkey-girl shows and other forbidden spectacles were once common. “They used to have 2 girls, one fat Mexican girl and one tiny blonde girl, and let the crowd choose which one would be with the donkey” He laughed as he said, “They always chose the tiny blonde girl!”

Not for me, thinks I, but my chum McGwiggen had more conventional perversions in mind, and that morning after arriving on the main drag, Revolution Avenue, we agreed to meet the rest back at the same spot later, and McG and I went looking for action.

Soon we found a 2 level open air bar where immediately upon walking up, we had 2 girls come approach us from opposite sides, getting right to the point, and giving the hard sell.

One in a scanty nighty came on my side, putting one arm around me and grabbed by arm with the other, holding it tightly against her breast, saying “You wanna fuck, baby? Let’s go upstairs and fuck! “My chum McG was obviously a veteran, and told his girl he wanted a blow job and to come in her mouth. She said ok, and mine beckoned me upstairs as well. Soon we dispensed with formalities ($20.00) and about the time we found a place to sit in a dark corner and the girls got to work with our pants down, the bartender walked up with a tray and 2 drinks for us, demanding another $20 each. “Hey man, get lost, can’t you see we’re busy here” I said, to no response from him, but my girl saying, “Baby, give him the money or he’ll call la Policia and have you arrested”

So, up went the pants, and out came another $20.00 each, and the knowledge that we’d been taken. McG at least got his blowjob, and give his girl a mouthful, (I remember hearing her gag) but my girl was only willing to give me a hand job, or shake hands with Mr. Bobo, as my brother would say it. It was a disappointing first experience, and one which deterred me from whoring for many years, and might well have done so permanently but for a period of loneliness and heartbreak 10 or so years later. But, that’s another story.

At least I brought home a stiletto and some nice leather goods for the family, which is my only other memory of TJ worth mentioning, other than the strange sights and smells of some type of meat that I couldn’t identify, and wouldn’t ever want a taste of.

A couple of days later back at Camp Wilson, after a long line at the Beer Garden, we were all together in the tent and McG told the story of the encounter, and of how she was stroking my sausage as I was telling her “I can do this at home, SUCK IT BABY!” and how a minute later he heard me grunt, and he looked over and saw that I had a big smile on my face, which brought a howl of laughter from the crowd.

A few of the bruthas chimed in with similar mis-adventures during their weekend in LA, in Watts. A guy named Pasco told about how two of our colleagues, the Jackson Brothers, (identical twins they were) had been chatting with a street walker who was giving them the run-around, when Pasco came out and said, ” Just tell us how much you want for it, BITCH! ”

We all got a good laugh, but then I had to put them on the spot, and asked Pasco, “ Seriously, though, why y’all wanna come all the way across the country just to go to a GHETTO to hang out?” They all looked at me in dead silence for a moment, before my friend Vern spoke up, showing no mercy.

“WHAT, You wanna talk about somebody there, TIJUANA JACK-OFF?” ……

Well, that one brought the tent down, there’s no other way to say it. And for the rest of the trip, the name stuck. No doubt the story made the rounds with the other units as well……And probably still gets a laugh today, certainly with me, humbling though it was at the time.

I learned another important lesson on that trip: Never try to out trash-talk a brutha….they give it to their friends worst of all, and Vern got me good.