a night in tijuana jail

While stationed in San Diego between 1991-3, I spent a fair amount of time hanging with underaged shipmates from my ship, some of who I got into riding skateboards, so we spent a lot of time in Tijuana, a short trolley ride from the chula vista station, where the drinking age is negotiable, and the skate park is a short, life changing ride from the border to the jai lai court adjacent to the premises. We used to go there on Saturdays, early, and the corner shop would have beer for sale, cheap, before sunrise, and the Jai Lai owners, after collecting their $5 to skate (christ, it might have been $3 or less) would bring us the remnants of the kegs they catered the night before. We’d skate the snake runs, and bowls, until the cheap, free, available beer might affect the unsafe ride back to Revoluccion Blvd.

Revoluccion Blvd. is the New Orleans of Mexico, minus the recent hurricane. One night, before a deployment, a group of us headed to TJ for one last night of chaos before sailing to the Persian Gulf. We hit a few bars, met some girls, and saw “Slater” from “Saved By The Bell” sneaking an underaged girl (16 from what I eavesdropped..), into one of the more popular bars. We got in, a Wednesday, and seemingly dead, as no on was antwhere, but then again, it was a Wednesday…

Our new friends were anxious to get back stateside so we left the bar. Walking out, thinking not,. two TJ federales snagged me for “drinking in public” as I left the bar with my cup and a swallow of beer. It was quick. I was in the back of the car and streaking down the back roads of Mexico in what seemed seconds.

They booked me quick and walked me back to a holding cell. I expected to be fighting for my life for what was the remainder of my life.I went into a filthy cell, other inmates yelling in Spanish, and the door locked…slam.

There were two racks.Concrete. Fitted to the wall. Two bodies occupied the racks. Voices yelled from other cells, the occasional word translated, not for better, in my limited knowledge of Spanish obscenities. The two stirred. I made ready to kill…they rolled out of their bunks, lazy, tired, two young kids, who after a difficult conversation in Spanish with me, disclosed that they had been in jail for the past few weeks for breaking windows in a building. I was doomed…

I fell asleep on the bottom rack. My hat gone…stolen…when I woke the next morning, shore patrol asking, “are you in the navy?” during thei8r daily sweep of the Tijuana jails.

“Yes,” I said.

“Got any money?” they asked.

I checked. $34.

“$34...”

“That’ll work.”

Twenty minutes later, they had me out, in a van, speeding across the border and back to the Navy Station at 32nd Street in San Diego. My ship was leaving for the Persian Gulf via Hawaii that morning. They got me to the brow (the ladder) minutes before the ship would be underway. I got onboard, a few people noticed, and I never got in trouble, and I didn’t get killed in Tijuana jail.