i dont usually drive at night as im nervous about drunks. but it was st. paddys which can be big money and i missed a day of work while recording the podcast, so i needed to make up for it by driving as long as i could.
even in the dark.
i had been doing long drives during the day, ones id normally ignore, but uber and lyft were giving me offers i couldnt refuse.
i got not one, but two trips over $60, each an hour and fifteen minutes long and 54 miles. was it christmas?
but after the second long ride, i experienced the thing i feared.
it was suddenly 8pm, dark, and i was in an unknown part of the world: on the wrong side of the orange curtain.
so when i received a decent offer for a short trip, i accepted it.
naturally, two drunkards. but they were adults. parents, probably. looked like any rich mom and dad youve met. first, they whined about our handsome liberal governor.
but then they complained to me about how they had committed a faux pas at the restaurant with one of the gay waiters, and it escalated into dirty looks and shortness .the couple decided not to leave a tip on a $100 check. they thanked me for allowing them to vent.
you know what you can do, i said to the slurring pair, you can give me his tip and all will be right in the universe.
AND THEY DID.
9 minute trip, $20 tip. $26.85 total?
it’s for the service of being our therapist, the dad said holding the door over for his tipsy wife.
great, but now i was in yorba linda, in the dark. st pukey’s day.
and thats when i got a ping to go from nearby placentia to reseda for $40.
when i accepted, i saw the guy’s name was miguel. which made me nervous because i like to talk about “hear tales” and sometimes my passengers don’t speak english. and believe it or not, but when i DONT talk, and it’s night, i get a little drowsy. sometimes i have to pinch myself or pull nose hairs out to stay awake. its kinda dangerous to be honest.
i thought i should cancel because it might be a long stretch of not talking to each other. but i resisted.
then i turned into a motor home park. i nearly canceled again, but i thought of you. you’d like to hear about trailer park miggy.
then i felt bad when i saw these were actually really beautiful motor homes. double-wides. fucking OC. this was like the best motor park id ever seen. there were flowers in front people’s homes and a covered parking lot. there was a pool for everyone. christmas lights hung between two palm trees, all strung up and cute. it was cool. better than my crib!
out comes a latino guy, middle age, cowboy hat, dress shirt, bolo tie, jeans, and a goatee. a minute later, an even bigger guy wearing all that stuff too. they got in the back and we were off.
by now you know the first thing i do is verify where the hell we’re going.
OK, coco bongo in reseda? is that a restaurant? i asked.
reseda?! we’re going to downey, miguel said, looking panicked and opening his phone in the dark back seat.
i pulled over as he struggled to change the destination in the app. he explained it was a country-and-western dancing place.
then he clarified ranchera, mexican country western music.
he figured out how to change the address. my screen was updated and we headed to downey. miguel sighed and said something in spanish to his pal.
he asked me how much i knew about ranchera music, mexico, and mexicans? i said i had been to baja countless times, even san felipe and cancun, but none of those probably count.
they count, he said. his buddy kept quiet. didn’t even fiddle with his phone.
why did you go to san felipe? miguel asked.
oh, it was a long time ago, maybe 25 years ago. two of my stoner friends and i were at a lame party in san diego on a really warm night and decided to just drive all night into mexico to see how far we could go. this was before gps or smart phones. we ended up in san felipe.
i really want to go to mexico city tho, i said, getting on the pretty empty freeway
miguel said he had lived in mexico city for a month for work and loved it. i’d move there if i could, he said.
whats stopping you? i asked, wondering if i had ever heard of a mexican dude fail at trying to move to mexico.
my family, my friends, he said
and my husband.
he squeezed the knee of the big strong silent guy next to him.
MIGUEL! how long have you two been married?
truthfully, we’re gonna get married in june.
and like you, i suddenly had lots of questions. too many questions!
when did he come out? has he kissed girls? how did they meet? were his parents cool with him being gay? was the husband’s family cool with it?
25, several when he was younger to fool everyone, at a gay country western dance club, yes, no but they’re warming up to it.
did you say a gay ranchera dance club miguel?
si.
was it in DTLA?
no, anaheim.
they have that in OC?
amigo, we’re everywhere.
looks like you are, my man. i love this! i said. so let me ask you this. i am black, and some black men feel they can’t be open about being gay. they have to be on the ‘down low.’ is that how it is in mexico too?
it depends on how catholic the family is and how much machismo the dad has. many mexican dads don’t want to tell their friends the one thing they’ve always feared admitting: my son is gay.
i shook my head and frowned behind my n95 mask
then he asked me, but do you know how important Black people are to gay rights?
that page must of have been torn out of my critical race theory book, i said, educate me!
stonewall. those were Black drag queens who had had enough, he said.
get out!
really! he said and then translated it for his fiancé.
all i could make out was negro.