Adventure in Medieval Mexico  − 1 February, 1991

I don’t know exactly when the travel bug bit me, but the miserable bastard has cost me a fortune over the years. When I was young –- we’re talking pre-teen years –- I remember the thrill I felt whenever we went somewhere. Road trips were grand adventures and even a day-trip to the mountains filled me with sleepless anticipation the night before.

Although my first real taste of truly epic travel wasn’t until my honeymoon, I did have a small suck on the teat of international travel while in college. That is, if you consider crossing the Texas/Mexico border into Juarez to be international travel. Yeah, most people wouldn’t. But I did, since Juarez was sufficiently different in every way from what I knew: people, language, culture, and the truly mind-boggling number of dentists there appeared to be. There’s just something fundamentally wrong with seeing hundreds of big neon signs flashing “Dentista” at you. Is oral hygiene in Mexico that bad? Or is “dentist” really a code-word used in border towns to identify houses of ill-repute? I wonder if my dental plan would cover that?

As you no doubt have already surmised, my buddies and I headed to Juarez for a drinking weekend (under-age college kids + nearby Mexican border town = sloppy-drunk under-age college kids). Other than marveling at the aesthetics of dentist signs and buying packs of smokes made with horse crap (no, these actually advertised that they were made with horse crap), we didn’t do much during the day. At that stage of my life, I wasn’t too interested in experiencing different cultures, unless that culture wanted to make a beer run for me and not charge me $20.

The one evening we spent carousing the bars in Juarez is one I will never forget... despite being piss-drunk most of the time. We started off in Spanky’s with row after row of tequila shooters. I know they were watering them down because I had several rows of these things and barely got a buzz. Let me tell you, I am a CHEAP date. Two beers and I’m taking off clothes. The place was packed with good ol’ US college students. Not quite a genuine foreign experience, but the slurred speech all around me might as well have been a foreign language.

A bucket of beer finally got me going and a few of us headed to another bar. On the way, we had the displeasure of watching a burly local put the smack-down on his girlfriend. I was drunk, but not drunk enough to let that pass. The problem was, I was also just sober enough to know that this guy would kick the shit out of me and probably cut out my kidneys to sell on the black market. Lo and behold, we spotted a couple of Mexican federales (police) just around the corner. We ran up and tried to explain what was going on:

"Um... habla English?"

Blank stares.

"Um... senor asshole over there... eso? Aqui? He’s whaling on his girlfriend." At this point I wildly gesticulate in a manner that may have been interpreted as a guy beating someone -– or a monkey fucking a football.

Blank stares.

My buddy, in a moment of drunken inspiration, bitch-slapped me (hard) and then pointed around the corner. That seemed to do the trick. The federales ran off around the corner and were on that guy like Jared on a Subway sandwich.

Good deed done. My karma needed another drink. Next stop was the Copa Cabana bar. This was a bit more upscale –- meaning the drinks were more expensive. One beer later and we were ready to leave, especially when we noticed one of our traveling companions getting a hand-job from a local. I always wondered what he ended up paying for something he could have done himself for free?

Two of us ended up roaming the streets in search of the next bar. We were soon accosted by a taxi driver exclaiming, "I take you clean women! Clean women!"

Yeah, right. "No, thanks."

"I take you donkey show! Eight dollar!"

Say what? My buddy and I looked at each other. What the fuck is a donkey show? My buddy shrugged and jumped in the taxi. Curiosity outweighed caution and I jumped in after him.

The taxi driver took us on a wild ride through the back streets of Juarez. We had no idea where we were, though I suspect we were only block away from where we started. The taxi stopped and the driver assured us he would wait for us (probably because we hadn’t paid him yet).

We found ourselves in some sort of back-alley square filled with people. We pushed our way through to where we could see what was going on. What we saw was, well, sick. There were two big Mexicans; one was watching the crowd with his arms crossed while the other was emptying a bottle of tequila down the throat of a 20-something girl. The girl looked to be a local, and was so drunk she was hardly conscious. When the last of the tequila left the bottle, the girl was flung face-down over a bench and her skirt was hiked up. The other guy (the "guard") disappeared around the corner and came back leading a donkey (or a mule or a burro... I don’t know the difference). Realization of what was going on dawned on me only seconds before they moved the donkey over the girl and did nasty things to her. (If the thought of this gives you the willies, see the Post Script below. If it turns you on, seek professional help. Now.)

After this brief "show", the two big Mexicans started grabbing people out of the crowd. My buddy and I freaked. We didn’t wait around to find out what the encore was. As fast as drunkenly possible, we sprinted back to the taxi, leapt in, and screamed, "Drive! Drive!"

Minutes later, the taxi pulled to a stop on the corner where we first left. We got out and the driver came over to us and said, "You pay, twenty dollar."

"Twenty dollars? You told us eight!"

The driver shook his head. "Twenty dollar!"

My buddy, adrenaline still pumping from our flight from the freak show, tapped me on the shoulder, waved to the driver and said, "Adios, senor!" He then turned and ran down the street and around the bend.

I stood with my mouth open. He just took off! Oh, shit, I was supposed to go with him! It was then that I noticed the driver had opened the trunk of the taxi and pulled out a big poleaxe-looking thing.

"Cavron! Puta! You pay twenty dollar!"

"But I don’t have twenty dollars! The guy that ran off is carrying all our money!"

The taxi driver started brandishing the bladed weapon. I panicked. I turned and ran as I’ve never run before (or since). Just over the wind whistling by my ears (yes, I ran so fast wind whistled by), I could hear curse after curse being flung at me in Spanish. At least it wasn’t the poleaxe.

I eventually made my way back to Spanky’s where I met up with a few of our other traveling companions. As I related my harrowing near-death experience, I saw my buddy across the room. I yelled for him and he ran over.

"Man, I thought you were dead! I saw that guy pull out a sword or something!"

"I don’t know how I got away! I thought he was going to gut me right there!"

All was well and we had another beer. It never dawned on me that the conversation should have gone like this:

My buddy: "Man, I thought you were dead! I saw that guy pull out a sword or something!"

Me: "You just fucking turned and ran! What the fuck?! Why didn’t you tell me?!"

My buddy: "But I tapped you on the shoulder..."

Me: "FUCK OFF! I WAS ALMOST EVISCERATED WITH A FUCKING MEDIEVAL WEAPON!!"

Ah, youth. Predictably, the evening ended with having smokes on a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend’s apartment floor back across the border in the good ol’ US of A. Nothing like a smoke to clear your head after a long night of drinking.

It took us half the pack to figure out we were smoking horse crap.

Post Script:
Having related this story to several people over the years, I now have it on good authority that these "donkey shows" are staged and are just ruses to bilk stupid, drunk Americans out of their money. So, really, it should be called an "ass show" –- a place the locals can go see all the American asses give up their money for a fake bestiality performance.