On our vámonos down the coast, Dad advises me, “Whatever you do, don’t have kids.” After some miles, I reply, “Once I leave for Cal Poly, I won’t be back.”
We are kicked to the curb this week. Mom is hosting three Phoenix girls, here to attend the Spring Break Cheer Jamboree with my little sister. Lucy is all about cheerleading, hopes to make the varsity squad. Thus, our dispatch to the Baja.
Dad drives me from LA through San Diego, crossing at San Ysidro, past Tijuana then Ensenada. The resort has a dozen courts and beach access. We get a couple of sets in before dinner y cerveza. We hear mariachi cry out in love and despair. We hit the rack soon after sunset.
I think Lucy’s sport-with-a-smile is bona fide. How is tennis better than cheer? Jocks say tennis is pussy. But Dad claims cheer is banal and salacious. He threatens to stop funding the rah-rah-sis-boom-bah. Mom offers that there are college scholarships in cheer. Dad holds that Lucy needs better grades, not a better Herkie. Mom offers a divorce. Dad goes silent. He spends most evenings alone with a book, often sleeps on the couch.
The next morning, Dad gets up at dawn for surf fishing. He barters his catch for our breakfast. We play tennis the rest of the morning. He breaks out laughing in the middle of a good point. Dad runs down my drop shot in full har-de-har.
After lunch, he takes siesta while I go body surfing. Mid-afternoon sees us back on the court. Dad scouts up a doubles match against a couple from Philadelphia. The husband is a pharmacist. The wife is a realtor. They seem happy.
On our fourth night at la cantina, Dad is under a brain cloud. He takes tequila shots with his Tecate. Out of nowhere, I break into parable, “Back in the day, Trino Avila’s’s dad was an engineer at Aerojet. They built the Gatling gun under Apache helicopters. The gun kept jamming. Debris kicked up during take-off would clog the gear-drive system. No amount of shielding fixed it. Another engineer swiped the chain and sprockets off a motorcycle to replace the fancy gears. That whirling chain shook like a nudist in Nome. But the gun delivered. Mr. Avila said, “Sometimes you’ve got to increase the tolerance.”
Dad sleeps in the next morning, probably nursing a hangover. I go early to the ocean. The beach at Bahia da Todos Santos is righteous, except for a seal carcass. There are no bite marks on the deceased, but I’m reminded that wave riders are shark biscuits.
When I get back to the room, Dad is packing to leave. He says, “I called your Mom to hash things through.” We check out an hour later and he drives us up across the border. In San Diego, he detours into downtown. Dad is tight-lipped and I’m no mind-reader, “Where we headed?”
“You seen The War Lover?”
“Steve McQueen and Robert Wagner.”
“Pilot and co-pilot of a shattered B-17. They’re losing altitude but McQueen is hell-bent to fly back to base. The crew toss out everything not bolted down. Then he has the crew bail out, leaving him and Wagner in a bomber that won’t climb.”
Dad steers us into LOADING at the train station. He pulls my suitcase and tennis bag from the trunk. “Wagner sees the futility, pleads with McQueen to give it up. McQueen says, ‘If the meek inherit the Earth, count me out.’ Wagner bails, then plane and pilot slam the White Cliffs of Dover.”
“So, you’re bailing out.”
“My company offers incentives to transfer, so I’m splitting for Tucson. There’s Amtrak up to LA every couple of hours. Call your Mom when you get in.” He stuffs some cash in my hand. “Safe landings, mijo.”
I get home to the cheerleaders. I sleep on the couch.
