Kapiolani Community College
Diamond Journal 2004

Father Knows Best
Michael Archibald

At the ripe old age of twenty-one, when I thought I was indestructible, my best friends, Mark and Eon, and I each bought motorcycles with the wild dream of riding them all the way from Oregon to Costa Rica. It was going to be the greatest adventure ever!

Tied to each of our bikes were a backpack and a guitar. Clothed in our leather jackets and chaps, we took our time and cruised down the California coastline, camping off the main road in out of the way places to conserve money. However, we each encountered mechanical problems during this leg of the journey. Mark’s brakes went out every hundred miles due to a leaky brake line, Eon’s bike had some mysterious electrical short that would randomly kill his engine, and I got a flat front tire. We were not to be deterred! Every day brought us a little closer to Mexico, and from there, Costa Rica, baby!
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I spent the quiet, solitary hours on my bike dreaming about the beaches and the surf. What was I going to do once I got there, for the long term? To be honest I had never really thought about it. My mind was filled with cold cervesas and pretty little senoritas. At twenty-one, and full of youthful vigor, the only thing that mattered to me was to live life for the moment -- instant gratification.

“ Don’t go into Latin America, Mike,” my father had ominously warned. “They’ll take ya for everything you’ve got. Once you get past civilization, you’re nothing but an opportunity to make a profit to every thief south of the border. You’re fresh meat to some of those people and nothing else. Travel across the States. It’s safer; trust me.” My father’s advice fell on unreceptive ears, and foolishly I rode off with my friends.
We entered Mexico at the border town of Mexicali. The foreign sounds, smells, and sights, let me know immediately that I’d stepped into a different world with different rules of conduct. I was beginning to regret not postponing the trip for another 6 months in order to take some more Spanish classes. Yet patience and planning are not often characteristics of a person driven by impulse.

We traveled south through purple colored hills spotted with sage and mesquite to the town of San Felipe. Blue skies over head, and an open road full of adventure lay before us. Once we were stopped at a military checkpoint in the middle of nowhere. The young pimple-faced soldiers were friendly and only wanted to make sure we didn’t have any guns or drugs. Having neither, we continued on our journey with the wind in our hair and our worries behind us. Little did we know what was to come.

The town of San Felipe is small compared with Mexicali or Tijuana, but it’s still lively. Situated on the Gulf of California, it was a popular spot for American students looking for a good time on spring break. The three of us thundered down the main street, drawing attention from the local street venders who were wanted to make a quick peso. Then four very hot ladies drove past us in a convertible. The driver beeped her horn and they all waved enthusiastically, beckoning us onward. I thought, “Mexico is definitely my kind of country!”

We parked our bikes at the beach, and washed down our fish tacos with cold Tecate brew. Aside from the annoying street vendors who tried to sell us every kind of worthless crap imaginable, the day was perfect. Mark and Eon wanted to buy some hand made cerrachies, a kind of leather sandal that has a piece of old tire tread for a sole. So I stayed and guarded the bikes while they went shopping. “What a perfect day,” I thought as I munched my fourth fish taco and waved off a pesky street vendor.

Returned from their shopping spree and sporting new cerrachies, Mark and Eon unstrapped their guitars and started jamming on the beach. Thus relieved of guard duty, I grabbed a new hundred-dollar bill and went in search of a bank, and the four chicks in the convertible. Instead of a bank, I found a small exchange booth about a block from the beach. “That will do,” I thought to myself.

As I approached the window, I announced “Hola amigo, como estas,” while grinning stupidly. The man behind the wire mesh window raised a sweaty eyebrow and gazed at me without emotion. I handed him my new hundred-dollar bill and asked for 50 dollars in pesos. With skepticism the teller snatched the bill and began to hold it up to a light. Then with a special pen, he made a small mark in the upper right hand corner. As he verified the bill’s authenticity, I noticed several counterfeit 20’s, 50’s, and 100 dollar bills surrounding the perimeter of the window.

I spied a fake three-dollar note in the corner, sporting the face of a smug looking Bill Clinton. I chuckled to myself as I looked at ol’ slick Willy on that three-dollar bill. As I did so, the clerk told me my money was no good. “What!” I exclaimed, and tried to explain in broken Spanish that I had gotten that hundred from a bank in America. In spite of my passionate defense, the man insisted that my money was counterfeit.
After retrieving the bill from him, I returned to my bike to get another hundred, this time an old wrinkled one. “Can you believe it? The guy at the exchange booth said my money was no good!” I was incredulous, but Mark and Eon just laughed and continued to play Neil Young’s “Needle and the Damage Done” under a palm-thatched umbrella.

Like an idiot, I returned to the same exchange booth. However, this time there was a different teller behind the window. This man was thin and rather pious looking. He greeted me with a weak smile, and I impatiently handed him my crumpled hundred, demanding 50 dollars worth of pesos. With a meticulous eye, he scanned the note just as the first teller had, and with a nodd of approval he gave me fifty dollars in pesos and another fifty in U.S. currency.

Genuinely grateful, I thanked him, and was about to walk away when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the teller wore a small gold cross about his neck. Completely out of my normal character, I asked him if he believed in Jesus. Instantly the man’s face lit up and his eyes came alive as he went into a lengthy discourse about his Inglasia (church) that was down the street. Missing the majority of what he said, I thanked him again and walked away, not knowing that in the near future this unobtrusive looking man would deliver me from one of the scariest moments in my life.

Reuniting with Mark and Eon, we jumped back on our bikes in order to acquaint ourselves with San Felipe, and maybe even find those girls in the convertible. Ah, what freedom, what a life, no worries, no bills, no responsibilities! These euphoric thoughts were shattered by the screeching sound of sirens as multiple police trucks surrounded us. From every direction and out of every street they came at us; even police on foot were racing out from behind buildings. We were trapped with nowhere to run.

What did we do? I demanded to know. Had I run a red light or something? The police, offering no explanation, only told us to get off our bikes and lie on the ground.
I was instantly separated from my friends and told to empty the contents of my pockets on the hood of a nearby police truck. On my belt I wore a nice hunting knife that my dad had given me for Christmas. Seeing the sheathed blade, the officer searching me quickly took the knife and said “Muy mal, muy mal” (very bad, very bad).

“It was a gift from my Father!” I exclaimed, but my words went unacknowledged.

Next a huge, hairy, paw-like hand reached across me and took the keys to my motorcycle. The swollen extremity belonged to an equally disproportioned police officer; he was easily the largest man I’d ever stood next to. This gargantuan piece of humanity nimbly jumped onto my motorcycle, flattening the shocks in the process, and, without a word, he drove away. I stood there and watched everything I owned drive away, my bike, guitar, clothes, passport, money, everything. They even took the change from my pockets.

Thus relieved of my worldly possessions, I was loaded into a cage on the back of a flatbed truck. After locking me in, a young officer with a wispy looking mustache grabbed the back of the cage and leveled an AK 47 at my head. As the truck started up, I began to recall all the horror stories I’d ever heard about prisons in Mexico. I broke into a cold sweat as my dad’s admonition came to mind, “Don’t go into Latin America. Travel across the States; it’s safer.” At the end of my rope, with nowhere to turn, I unashamedly began to pray, “Lord Jesus, help!”

Abruptly the truck stopped, and I was hurriedly unloaded from the cage. To my amazement and relief they hadn’t brought me to the jail at all, but instead I was in front of the exchange booth. Surrounded by police, I was brought before the window adorned with counterfeit bills. Bill Clinton still had that same smug look on his face, and with a chill that raised the hair on the back of my neck, I began to understand what had happened. The first teller who had refused to exchange my new hundred-dollar bill, possibly because of the new larger portrait, had gone to the police. Then having my description, the police went hunting for an American biker trying to use fake money. My fears were confirmed, as my pious looking amigo behind the glass retrieved the bill I’d given him and began an extensive examination of it.
“The money’s good; I got it from a bank in America,” I petitioned with desperation in my voice. The police captain whirled on me, saying, “Is this all the money you have?” I could feel the captain’s eyes pressing for more money. He smelled of sweat and cheap tobacco. Suspecting that if he knew the amount of money I was carrying he’d confiscate it, I said, “Yes, that’s all the money I have.” This was technically true because Andre the Giant had ridden off with everything I owned.

Returning to the teller, the captain began to yell in rapid Spanish. In reaction, the teller began a second and then a third examination of the bill. “Es falso, si? Dinero es falso, dinero es falso!” As the captain pressured the teller to say that my money was fake, I began to see myself locked away in some rancid cell with feces on the floor and having to fight with some guy named Juan for food. I envisioned the captain and Andre the Giant extorting thousands of dollars from my parents in order to release me.

Fearing incarceration, I argued, “No, it’s good; it’s not counterfeit.” The captain brushed me aside like a fly, and the wispy mustached boy with the AK 47 took my arm. Then my pious looking friend, whose name I never learned, looked me in the eye, looked at the money before him, looked at the captain, looked back to the money and said, “No, el hombre’s dinero es bien.”

The captain’s shoulders sagged with defeat as he simply shook his head. Turning to me, he extended his hand and said, “Mucho pardon, senor.” Without animosity, I shook hands with him and watched in amazement as he made a circular hand signal in the air. In response, from some hidden recess came my bike, dwarfed by the huge frame of its occupant. With skill he drove up onto the sidewalk and deftly tossed me back my keys. Everything was there! The captain even went over to his truck and retrieved my knife. Oh the joy of being vindicated! Within an hour, I found Mark and Eon, who had been searching in vain for an embassy the whole time, and after a quick beer for my parched throat, we shook the dust off our feet, leaving San Felipe behind forever.