CHAPTER TWO
RATATATA-tatatata
It kept on going.
Nothing ever prepares you for this. I was having a crash course.
I thought at first fireworks but soon dismissed the thought. When fear really grabs you the adrenaline pumps through the body to a level where all your senses are awakened. You hear more clearly than you ever heard before and survival instincts kick right in.
Why was I here?
Three hundred and sixty-five days in a year and I show up here on the roof of a cantina in Mexico with a tent minding my own business.
Free camping…
I was there talking with these guys in the bar. We were drinking and working between our two languages. Looking back, I saw nothing abnormal. Being in my low twenties, maybe I was naïve and not aware of the things to follow. I had no choice as it played out. It was about one in the morning when I heard the gunfire - that is nothing you want to wake up to, believe me. Crawling out of the tent and seeing the dead bodies on the beach doesn’t make you want to go back to sleep. They laid there, just these people, with these red spots. I’ve seen movies but nothing prepares you for a real life incident like this. I went back into the tent, laying low, not knowing who would come and rifle the tent.
The whole episode was strange. Why this night? A Mexican massacre.
I was beginning to feel like a shit magnet. Clarence was confused but worried all the same. “Devin, what do you think that was all about?”
“Clarence, I don’t have a clue! Gang members or drug dealers, hard to say, but I would lay low and leave when we think it is safe.”
We crept out at 4am and split. You know? I didn’t think about the dead bodies. I just wanted to get out of there; a fight- or-flight scenario. I was paranoid that somebody was following me. As they say, “Plug the witness.” I got away and headed for a hotel with Clarence. He talk