In your dreams…

I stretch on the brick red tile sidewalk this morning behind my truck where little sand lingers. It is my first time going thru my whole stretching routine since I’ve been on the road. It feels really good!

I run with the sun rise and take the little dirt road in addition to the brick sidewalk, to extend my run to 30 minutes. Then I hit the books and study my Spanish.

After a couple of hours, I decide to try to see if I can walk to La Cruz this morning. I’m told it is too far to walk but I’m a walker – minus those wonder socks tho – and I want some fresh fruit at least. I also want to check out the internet of course.

The road from the beach is lined on one side with fuckin mega-fields, including a mega-greenhouse. I believe the other crop growing is chilies but I’m still not sure.

As I pass, people work at a 45 degree angle to the ground, bent over genetically modified, pesticided and fertilize-ed to death.

The air smells chemical and soon I see men clothed in yellow rain coats and swirling dust move thru fields like an invasion in some sci-fi movie. As I get closer I can see they have some kind of mask on but plenty of skin is showing so it’s not a full-face mask.

I can’t tell if they have goggles on or not but I do see they carry a small pump and most likely fuel tank on their backs beneath two canisters of pesticides. The march swiftly, spaced a few feet from each other, thru the rows spraying and spraying as puffs of chemicals drift along with them.

I am only thankful I am staying on the ocean and the breeze is coming off the ocean and not from these fields.

A young man, maybe a teenager although he looks older, on a bike rides up next to me. He says something I don’t understand and we begin to talk. He has a long machete hanging off his belt that looks like part of him and not a threat, as it would in the states.

I ask him what the crop is that I can’t identify. He says something that I try to look up on my dictionary but can’t find. He thinks it’s funny that I have a dictionary.

He tells me La Cruz is far but I can walk there. I tell him he is smart to ride a bike, if he’s going there. He points to the fields and tells me he works there.

Then he points to a dirt road and asks me if I want to go fuck there. How I know he’s asking this is because he has put his thumb and third finger together on one hand making an O, and with the middle finger of his other hand, he jabs in and out of the O.

Laughing, I ask him if he is crazy. Then I tell him he is crazy, loco. He just smiles, resting on his bike, pointing again down the dirt road.

In english I say ‘in your dreams son’ and in Spanish I tell him I have grandchildren older then he is. I keep walking and don’t look back.

I should have said "Didn't I meet you 30 years ago in Baja? You haven't aged - or matured - a bit!"

I remember that little circle and third finger action from the boys and men in Baja California from many years ago. It’s as funny now as it was then.