Keegan+Memoir+rough+draft

=MEMIOR ROUGH DRAFT=

__My Nightmare in Paradise__ I heard the two men speaking in Spanish about the “moreno,” which in Spanish means dark-skinned man; also known as, me. The bartender told the security guard to look at my wrist. My heart sank to my stomach, “These drinks are for your parents,” I told Q. That was the only sentence I could squeak out before being stopped by security. That statement I made was going to be the blueprint to getting us out of our mess.  It was my first twenty-four hour day in Cancun during spring break with the Souza family, whom I had been hoping to make good impressions with. Louie had invited me to stay with his family in a resort that many of our friends were also at. We also had two friends staying in different resorts, Rachel and Q. I had just returned from parasailing with Rachel near her resort when I saw Q walking up the staircase to my resort. “ Q,” I shouted, “What are you doing here?”  I walked over towards him and he was covered in sweat. He said he was conditioning for track and he figured he would make the three-mile jog to my resort. “How did you find //my// resort though?” I asked. “I just look up pictures of the resort and started jogging until I found it,” he explained. At this point it seemed like a combination of destiny and dumb luck for us to meet up without having any access to cell phones. Since Q could not call his parents three miles down the beach, he invited me to go to his resort to tell them that he would be hanging out with us for a while. I went back to find Louie, who said it was all right as long as I came right back. I had no shirt, shoes, wallet, or phone, yet without any hesitation, Q and I began jogging back to his all-inclusive resort. When we finally arrived I was overwhelmed with the atmosphere, people were ordering food and drinks free of charge, while sitting along side some of the most exotic pools I had ever seen. I remember thinking I was in paradise as the heavy bass from the DJ’s speakers rattled the rock floor below me. Q and I were both eighteen, which was the legal drinking age in Mexico; so of course, we decided to exercise our new rights. We headed to the bar and sat down to order some drinks to have for our walk back to the Souza’s resort. Q ordered a strawberry daiquiri and a piña colada for the two of us to share. I only tasted the two drinks because I knew I was technically stealing since I did not have a wristband that gave me access to the free drinks. We started walking towards Q’s parents to say good-bye, when I heard the bartender and security guard talking behind me. I was one of the strongest students in Spanish 5 at my high school, so I had developed decent communication skills. The two men were talking about me, the moreno, and about my naked wrists. I told Q the drinks were for his parents, implying that we were about to get caught. Sure enough I felt a hand on my arm, “Hey!” he said. He asked where my wristband was and I explained to him that I was not a resident here. I told him we were visiting Q’s parents to check-in, and we were told to bring them back the two drinks on our way out. The guard clearly did not speak English very well, because he was not able to understand this situation. After explaining it to him several times, he finally realized I was not actually a guest at the resort. “Come,” he said. The guard led us to a lady at the counter who spoke fluent English. I began explaining my story to her when the guard cut me off. He was speaking to her in Spanish and was telling her that I had been coming in here trying to steal drinks for a party. I cut the man off and told the lady at the counter that I had only gone to the bar to take the drinks to Q’s parents. I was certain I was going to need Louie’s parents to bail me out of jail, but after a fifteen-minute talk with the lady at the counter, I was given a slap on the wrist. I explained to her that I was unaware that you could not visit the resort, and I assured her it would not happen again. The lady went over what to do next time with me, and she told me to wait in the lobby on Q as he went upstairs. I don’t know what Q went to do, but whatever it was, he took his sweet time. As I was standing half naked in the sophisticated lobby, a chauffer approached me and said, “Hablas español?”  “Sí,” I said, “I speak a little bit of Spanish.” He made me follow him to go outside at the front entrance. When the man told me he did not speak any English at all, I knew this was going to be my ultimate Spanish exam. The man interrogated me in Spanish about where I came from, whom I was with, why I came, etc. After ten minutes of talking, I told him my friend was most likely looking for me in the main lobby, and would not know to look for me out front. The man told me that I could not go back inside and that I would have to hope he would see me. After twenty minutes, I finally saw Q. I yelled at him through the glass door and he came outside to get me. Q and I began to walk back inside, but the man told us we could not go in. I told him we were just going to walk straight through to get to the beach so we could walk back, but the man said they owned that beach and I was not allowed to go back there. Q and I had to walk barefoot on the black, scorching streets of Mexico in the middle of the day, with nothing but our swim trunks and Q’s banana. The street route took twice as long and there was no way to get directly on the beach without going through another private resort. Q and I finally decided to take a chance and run through a resort to make it back onto the familiar beach. We walked in the largest resort, hoping to blend in with resident. We had no clue where we were going,; we just turned corners until we saw a back door, and if we saw an employee at the resort, we put our heads down and walked the opposite direction. After two minutes of power walking through the labyrinth, we saw the back door. We left the building on a dead sprint onto the large pool deck. We saw the staircase to the beach was on the opposite side, but we were too anxious to be free. We made a complete sprint straight ahead, and jumped off a 6-foot stonewall onto the beach. <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">When we landed on the soft sand, we stood up and sprinted alongside the ocean water. We had finally made it through any dangers of getting caught in trouble. We jogged the rest of the way to the resort, and when I saw Louie I sprinted to him and hugged him. “What was that for!?” he yelled, shoving me off. “Dude,” I said, “I have quite the story to tell you.”

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> I like the way you begin in the middle and then back track. Good use of dialogue in the story. Where would you say is the climax of the story? The confrontation at the bar? There is quite a bit that happens after that, though, and the story seems to lose some intensity through the end. -msh