Captain Happy in Mexico
“What are you up to, Pops?”
“I’ve been killing kids all morning.”
I’ve had this exact exchange with my father-in-law several times. He plays video games, specifically Call of Duty, and he’s been playing for as long as I’ve known him, a little over 20 years now. When he first started, he wore the headset and talked with other players all over the world, mostly South Korean grade schoolers, hence the reply about “killing kids.”
His video game handle is Captain Happy, which is a rock-solid accurate description of who he is—Captain because he’s the patriarch of our family, and Happy because you’ve never met a guy so effortlessly joyful to be wherever the hell he is.
He’s the guy who buys the round, not because he’s flexing but because he wants to be sure you’re having a good time. He’s the guy who turns the wall flower into the center piece. He’s the guy who’s sat at a wedding reception beside an agent for the IRS whose favorite color is beige, and he gets that guy to open up and tell the whole table about the nipple piercing he got when he had too much to drink after giving his keynote at the Tax Code Conference in Provo, Utah. He’s the guy I would introduce you to if you ever said that Mayberry was a fictional place and characters from The Andy Griffith Show aren’t realistic.
Having said all that, he is a felon. In Mexico, sure, but he’s still a felon.
Though, being a Mexican felon might be more impressive. Given the overwhelming acceptance of political corruption in Mexico, it seems like it would be more difficult to reach felon status south of the border. Yet Pops did it.
I’ve heard this story dozens of times, but I asked Pops to tell it to me again so that I could lock it down for posterity. Here we go.
In 1969, Pops was enrolled as a student at ASU, and he had inherited his family’s 1965 Chevy pickup truck. “It had a camper shell, and I had beefed up the engine, installed dual exhaust, a rifle rack, and a cassette player,” Pops said. “It was a popular date night vehicle.”
My mother-in-law probably doesn’t enjoy this commentary about the truck being a date night vehicle, but it’s a gem. I mean, the camper shell and the cassette player? That checks the romance box for sure. But the rifle rack? Interesting date night accoutrement (unless rifle is a euphemism…?). And the dual exhaust? Nothing says romance like the full-throated growl of Detroit steel.
While at ASU, Pops ran with the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. He and three of his fraternity brothers felt it would be a good idea to drive the truck across the border to Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point if you’re an Arizona white boy. “Back in ‘69,” Pops said, “Rocky Point was just a small fishing town with a few bars, restaurants, and a handful of Federales marching around. We could drink, eat, fish and swim in the ocean. What could go wrong?”
So much. So much could go wrong.
Friday night and most of Saturday went just as planned. But late Saturday, one of Pops’ three fraternity brothers, Jim, came up missing. Pops and the other two launched into Columbo mode. It took some asking around and no doubt some warbled Spanglish, but they eventually learned that Jim had been arrested and thrown in a Mexican clink, charged with public urination.
I love Mexico, and I love most of the Mexicans I’ve met—some of them I count among my dearest and most thoughtful of friends—so this isn’t a knock, but I can confidently say that in my time spent in Mexico, I never had this thought: Wow! It is amazing how much infrastructure and resources this pueblo has put behind public sanitation! Finding out your amigo has been arrested and jailed for public urination in Mexico would be like finding out your grandmother got arrested for jay walking in Times Square. Something ain’t right.
Still, Mexican jail was a problem. It was the first step in being extorted by federales, politicians, and Mexican lawyers, all on the take, not a stinking badge among them. A quick back-alley tinkle could amount to years in jail and tens of thousands of dollars.
Pops and his frat brothers were certainly shitting their pants, but they were also young and feeling invincible, and they had Pops’ popular date night vehicle so they arrived at the only reasonable conclusion—they would stage a Mexican jail break.
The jail was a slapdash adobe deal. Sure, Rocky Point was strict when it came to public urination, but on the subject of building codes, permits, and fundamental architectural integrity… ¡A la chingada!
Pops and his frat brothers gave Rocky Point a quick once-over and determined there were no cars that could outrun his popular date night vehicle. Puffed up with the kind of confidence that comes from dual exhaust, they killed the Chevy’s engine and lights and pushed it toward the back of the jail where Jim was being held.
They tied a rope to the frame of the Chevy and tied the other end to the bars of the jail. “Just like in the movies,” Pops said, “I put the truck in the compound low gear and floored it. The back of the jail started to crumble and out popped Jim. He jumped in the back of the camper and off we went.” As if the popular date night vehicle wasn’t romantic enough, now it possessed the narrative, the history—the mythology!—of being instrumental in a Mexican jail break.
When Pops and his frat brothers were tearing out of Rocky Point, Pops noticed some telephone poles and quickly arrived at his next reasonable conclusion: “I decided we’d better pull one of those down so they couldn’t call the border patrol.” And that’s exactly what they did. Same truck, same rope, same collective set of huevos.
Hearts pounding, adrenaline pumping, balls buzzing, they hauled ass to the Arizona border, and the reality of what they had done—the likely repercussions if they were caught—began to set in. “I told my friends that, no matter what, if we see the Mexican police on this side of the border, I’m running through. I’m smashing through cars, off-roading, whatever it takes to get across the border.”
As they approached the U.S. border patrol hut, they heard nothing and saw nothing. Apparently, Rocky Point’s law enforcement communication system was as sophisticated as their architecture. There was just some sleepy patrol officer who asked if they had brought back any fireworks or alcohol. “No, sir,” Pops said. No fireworks, no alcohol, nothing but four young men who could give the The Hole in the Wall Gang a run for their pesos.
Pops and his frat brothers returned to ASU, and as far as I know, that was the end of Pops’ career in crime, Mexican or otherwise. When he tells this story, he finishes with this pearl: College doesn’t teach you everything. Sometimes you learn more from a John Wayne movie.
It’s a great ending when he tells it, but I’m going to end this version differently: College doesn’t teach you everything. If you’re lucky, like I am, you’ll have a father-in-law who can.
Thanks for reading! If you’re new here and curious about some of my other stories, consider reading this one about my proposal to my wife, which also prominently features Pops and his unrivaled Mayberry charm. Or this one about Pappo, who rivals Pops in shenanigans. Or this one about my mom’s crimes against humanity at a local In-N-Out Burger. Or this one about my mother-in-law’s biological snafu during a film school exercise. Or you might consider reading a novella I’ve written about other criminals on their way to the border.
Norm, this Gringo Bandito is very touched by you telling my story and your ending is very special to me!
My story isn't nearly as good. On a surfing trip in Baja California, we bought a bunch of lobster from a fisherman living on the beach. That night we slept on the sand. We woke up the next morning surrounded by federales, all heavily armed and pointing their guns at us. Scared the shit out of all of us. In the end, they just took the lobster and left us. That was my last surfing trip to Baja.
Your family is just a wealth of great stories.