The late Caribbean sun was incinerating my naked carcass. I tried to open my eyes but they felt like they were sealed shut with sand and grit. If I kept laying here there was a damn good chance that I would die of dehydration and heat stroke or get a hell of a case of sunburn on my johnson. The only reason I had awoken from my marijuana and booze induced narcotic-like feeling sleep was the gentle touch of the ocean on the bottoms of my feet as the tide came in. I moaned and forced myself up into a sitting position. If there was a chart to rate hangovers by, say on a scale of one to five, five being the kind that would knock a gorilla on his ass, and one being the kind that a strong cup of coffee would take care of, the hangover I have right now is off the charts at a seven. I threw up some Blackjack gum earlier this morning and I don't think they even make that crap anymore. To make matters worse, I could take a shit through a screen door, if you know what I mean.
I'm normally a six pack a day kind of guy. Two beers with my breakfast, two with supper, and two in the evening as the day winds down. That may have the folks at AA classifying me as a lush but I beg to differ. I very rarely tie one on and I function in my day to day activities just fine, thank you, and I even get a kickass workout in every morning. I run two miles down the beach, swim a mile, and run the two miles back. Seven days a week. Just give a skid row rummy five bucks and a short dog of MD 20-20 for incentive to even attempt that workout and watch the results. But man, did I tie one on last night. I hooked up with these two tourist chicks down here on spring break who thought I was some fuckin' Jimmy Buffett throwback - even though with my out of control hair and beard I more than resembled a member of a ZZ Top tribute band - because I live in an old Airstream trailer on the beach. They must have bought me close to a half a case of Corona and I don't know how many shots of that tequila that the old lead singer from Van Halen - the shitty one - is always pimping. I threw in a half ounce of weed and a little blow for the party and we wound up having a threesome right there on the beach. As I looked over my shoulder I could see them still passed out together on a beach blanket about twenty yards away. I don't think either of those girls couldn't even buy liquor legally if they were back in the states.
The sudden thought of that forced me to my feet which almost made me pass out. I was just a couple years short of fifty with a very questionable history and background so I definitely didn't want the local law to discover me laying naked on the beach much less in the vicinity of two possibly underage naked girls. I slipped on my shorts and hurriedly walked the quarter mile to my old battered GEO Metro. Over three hundred thousand miles and still running like a top. There was still a few cold beers floating around in my cooler in the backseat. I popped the cap off of one and drained it in one long gulp. Yes! Hair of the dog. Breakfast of champions. I turned the key and listened as the engine sputtered, caught, and then purred just like a kitten. I opened up the last beer and took another refreshing pull.
Life was going to be OK.
I put her in gear and took off for home.
Passing by a burned down cantina I gave it a quick eyeballing. The only thing left standing after the blaze were the cinderblock walls. The owner had nodded off after shooting up a spoon of brown heroin, failing to extinguish the candle used to heat his spoon, and that wound up torching both himself and his place of business. Against the north wall, buried four feet down in a airtight, watertight, plastic Pelican case normally used by rock and roll roadies to keep electronic gear in, was a thick file in a briefcase that I had placed there years ago. Day by day it's contents increased in value. When I finally realized just how valuable it was and how dangerous it was becoming to own is when I had hired Javier to place a little safeguard surprise above it. It had been expensive but worth it in the long run. Really cut down on the worry and stress factor.
When I turned into the grove of palm trees that partially obscured the view of my trailer from the road I felt something in me stir. And not just my ravaged guts. The door of my trailer was wide open and I could hear my stereo - a Bose, which was the most valuable item in the trailer - blasting. Good old Mr. Earle, the Texas troubadour, was busy cursing out the government:
"So fuck the FCC
Fuck the FBI
Fuck the CIA
Livin' in the motherfuckin' USA"
What the fuck is going on here? If I was being robbed they were sure going about it in a dumbass fashion. My rifle was inside the trailer so I reached under the front seat of the Metro and picked up the German switchblade I had traded even up for a bag of quality Mexican weed with a European tourist steroid freak who had sported an eye patch and some unusual gang-like tattoos on his biceps.
I snapped the blade open and held it close to my side as I walked up to the trailer.