I used to live in a motel. 8 years. Stories used to keep me alive. That and music. And the prospect of having someone I can love, who can travel with me to Paris and eat a croissant with me under the stars.
My family. They’re all black sheep. People think I’m the “white sheep,” but I’m not. I really am not.
A summer when things I worry about now, was not present in my mind. I was anxious and worried because I wasn’t sure about where I was going to live the next month. What school I was going to. What food I was going to eat. What clothes I was going to wear. Who I was going to hang out with. These seems monumental to a kid not used to really having any sense of permanence. This is why I really felt a bond with my cousins back then. They were my escape and our adventures would stay with me in those dark nights at the motel on Rosemead Blvd., the motel on Telegraph Rd., and sometimes the motel on Rosecrans Blvd.
My aunt Gloria, my cousin Chubba (Tony) and I left to Oceanside that summer. A military base named “Camp Pendleton” was our destination, and in my mind I imagined a fort with guards carrying bazookas and machine guns. I was kind of right. We drove on a beautiful stretch of highway that unbeknownst to me would become familiar about 6 years later when my long distance relationship would require a weekend drive to San Diego on that same 5 freeway. It’s still like I remember it. The halfway point where the two giant “boobs” with the red flashing nipples. I never found out what they were because I prefer a mystery.
During the drive, the day was hot, and we listened to “The Cure” and other 80’s bands that we all agreed on listening. Too much of the Beatles played in that car. As we drove, I had a sudden urge to hawk this loogie out of the car as we speed close to 80mph. I lunged forward and the spit flew a few inches before splattering on the rear door window. My cousin and I laughed while the look of disapproval from my aunt lessened my life just enough to glance at my cousin and continue laughing again. “You know you’re going to clean that up right?” said my aunt. “Yes Tia, of course!” I said with a menacing voice that echoed my immaturity and insincerity that lacked justification. We drove.
Getting there is a blur. Immediately we separated, the younger cousins apart from the aunts. We met with our cousin Ricardo, and Mike and Anthony who were both visiting from Arizona. The plans were formulated and getting high became a formality. Sneaking over to a well-known deserted area, we smoked and our clear eyes became crimson, and our appetites screamed for nourishment although I had not eaten too long ago. My cousin wasn’t new at hiding the truth though. We were prepared with “clear-eyes,” body spray, and tic-tacs. We were set.
After that first day, came the day I would retell to many people, hoping to share a bit of lovely words to brighten up a dim corner of the world in Montebello.
My cousins and I used to hot box the garage. Hotboxing is a technical term used to describe when you or you and others smoke in an area small enough to encase the smoke, where it becomes either hard to breathe or hard to see. Ususally this is characterized extreme laughing because you’re so high you cant believe how much smoke you were able to release in the air to make it that fucking thick. Before we went to the beach, we hot boxed the shit out of Ricardo’s garage.
This was on a military base also, so I was pretty surprised that they were able to get away with so much. My cousin’s stepfather, Patrick, was a Filipino dude that was in Afghanistan fighting the unjust war. What I really loved about that military base though, was that it was so close to the beach. Risk your life so your nephews can get high on a beach.
I remember the blue-green waves crash against the beach that night. I thought it was because I was still stoned, that maybe I was hallucinating just a little bit. I wasn’t. The waves…
The anti-night. 5 cousins, two aunts, one fat joint. We boogie boarded the waves. I felt the sand-paper like surface of the board and of the beach. My skin, still young and elastic, welcomed the UVB rays from the sun and increased production of the melanin in my epidermis. I body boarded, let the waves crash into me as I let go of all volitions and thoughts while the day turned to night under my eyelids. It was time to leave.
Calling from the childlike voice that I used to recognize, my cousin Ricardo called everyone to eat the barbecued hot dogs. I ate mine plain, yet it was still succulent enough for me to grab a second and third. After finishing eating, a quick huddle from us resulted in a deicison to head out to some rocks that stretched out from the beach to the sea. People seemed to climb them without problem and we were young and capable so we were allowed to go. In our minds, we were thinking “fuck yeah, let’s go get high!” But we knew to keep our smiles down; we couldn’t let them catch onto us.
We traversed the rocks while thoughts in my mind about broken teeth and snagged limbs and drowned pervaded my mind as I stared into the clouds that sheltered me from the sun. It was a magical day. My lungs were clear, my mind was empty or adult worries, and my expectations were high with a chance that I might actually live up to them.
We stopped about three-quarters of the way there. We looked around us and waited for the couple returning from the end to be out of the smelling distance. After they left, we all looked at one another impatiently, and looked for the elder Ricardo to guide us. The joint.
It might have been big, it might have been small, but to me, it was the perfect size. I wasn’t used to smoking and the way weed looked still begged my curiousity about where it came from, who made, how you got it, and how it tasted. Could you eat a salad and get high? Well the active substance in marijuana is THC, or Tetrahydrocannabinol, and in order to be released must be heated in order to release the substances that give you that lovely head change.
It was on that rock that I saw my life through the eyes of a child playing his or her Gameboy, controlling a character that turned out to be me. With the joint being passed around, the smoke entering my lungs gave me the immediate satisfaction on knowing I can still think when I’m high. Hitting it and holding it in. Coughing vigorously, my mouth began to dry and that’s when it started. I began to laugh, as was customary those days when I first began smoking. I laughed and my cousins laughed at me because I was laughing and they laughed harder. That’s when it became clear to me.
“I feel like I’m in a movie. I can seriously see us sitting down right here, like in 3rd person. The two little black slits are on the top and bottom of the screen like in a widescreen movie.”
“Wha? Hahahaha… This fool over here,” was all my cousin Ricardo could think of to say as I went on my little rant about the metaphysical world.
“I feel like I’m in a Gameboy and some little kid up there is controlling me. He’s telling me where to move, where to go. I turn left because he’s pushing the button. See, (I point south) that’s where the start and select button are and there (I point west and east) is the A button, the B button, and the D pad. The screen is directly on top of me and the sun is the red light that tells the kid how much battery life he has.”
Everyone was just laughing, probably at how idiotic I sounded, but I didn’t care. I really felt like I had figured everything out. God was a child, playing a video game, controlling little stoners on some rocks on a beach.
We spent a few hours there, just being faded. We saw boats go by; we saw some dolphins, the first I ever witnessed in person. Loving the scenery, I was sad when the sun starting to set and we had to get back before it got dangerous being on the rock. As we were all getting our fadedness out so that we could keep our composure around my aunts, I looked up wondering if the kid was looking down on me.
Ricardo was a little behind again while me and my three other cousins were up ahead. As we walked, we saw a huge wave come and crash on the rocks. The wave was so high that it reached my cousin Ricardo and soaked him. We watched in horror as the paranoia from the weed told us our cousin was about to be washed out to sea. Just faded thinking. He was fine and laughing at how that wave so cleanly hit him while we were all warm and dry.
As we got to the beach, we all tried to keep our composure. It worked because our red eyes could be taken as being because of swimming. We being so quiet could be because we were tried from being in the sun all day. We didn’t smell because the water and sand was able to cover that up. So we all chilled, ate some s’mores and enjoyed the rest of our time there, laying down on our large blanket, covering ourselves with individual towels, neither cold nor hot. Just perfect.
Still feeling the high from earlier, I looked up at the night sky as it began to stretch across the once brightly lit day and began to show me the universe I once longed to visit as a child.
There was a light shining from under the waves. I knew it was because there was no other explanation I could think of for why the dark water would have light shining from the waves as they crashed along the beach. But wait… I hear my cousin Ricardo yell, “Hey Tia, something’s up with the water. Is it supposed to glow like that?” The waves were glowing? Was I too high? Did I really hear this? But as it got darker, you were able to see the glow from a distance.
We all followed Ricardo to the beach and saw for ourselves and our admonitions were put to sleep like a child that read a Dr. Seus book. It was…
I had never seen it before. Anything like this. Was this real? Was I dreaming this beautiful day? I didn’t pinch myself. I just took it in and walked closer. I could hear my aunt, “I think it’s the toxic waste they toss in the water near the military base…” Either way, I drew closer to the water and took steps until I felt the moisture under my feet. My steps were glowing.. I picked up the sand beneath me and threw it my cousins and tiny sparks emitted from the crash. My aunt was seeing it too. We were all seeing it.
The waves would crash and we could see this bright neon blue-green. I didn’t look it up until my long distance relationship with a girl revitalized my need to tell this story 6 years later.I was reluctant to because I thought I was playing in toxic waste and didn’t want to think of the implications it would have on my long term health. She didn’t believe me at first until she looked it up and told me what it actually was.
Tiny little microorganisms that have bioluminescent properties, light producing effects like fireflies, were in large bloom on that beach and when the waves crashed, the species Noctiluca scintillans, flickered on those blue-green lights in water. I was watching little microorganisms body surf as their bodies showed me something natural that I would remember years after witnessing it. I fell in love with the light that served those in the night. The Blue-Green waves spoke to me in crashes and erosions, and told me that I was going to be okay, that in darkness, there is always some light, no matter how small, there is always a tiny light to share some beauty with you.
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