It was the halcyon days of 1988. Julio and I were sitting outside of a rustic watering hole just south of downtown Tijuana, off the tourst trail and away from the stalls selling wooden chess sets, sombreros and woolen blankets. We were sipping Pacificos and guzzling home made tequila, celebrating, as it were, our successful and lucrative foray into the field of cornering the refreshment vendor business for the Baja 500.

The sun was stealing a few last glances to the west before sliding below the dusty hills when two doors down, the only gringo I had seen in weeks walked brazenly out of the business next door, cinching up his brass "NRA" belt buckle. He glanced up and down the quiet street and walked over to us, introducing himself as "Lee." As he reached uninvited into the tin pail next to us for a beer, a very lithe and beautiful Mexican woman came out of the house, flushed, and said, "Senor Lee, he is a Titan."

With a sly smile, he snapped open the bottle on the heal of his boot, and drank the drink of a man who left all in his wake satisfied.

Two hours later, Julio, drunk and possibly realing from an ether binge, had the three of us at 12,000 feet in his Twin-Otter, the war horse of illegal and dangerous flying, on our way to celebrate his induction into the Latin American Mason's Lodge Hall of Heroes.

The ceremony would end in a bitter dispute as Titan Lee insisted on giving the induction speach, at one point shouting "Julio is the new Che!" As attempts were made by the sergeant at arms to mace Titan, Julio bolted for the plane to jettison ballast in the form of contraband Chicklets we boosted from an international shipper who foolishly left the cargo door of his ship unlocked and had docked it next to Julio's 3rd cousin's booze cruise boat in Cozumel. I first grabbed the plaque honoring Julio from the dais, wielded it over my head as if to strike someone, when Titan burst into verse spoken in the lost language of the Inca's. Stunned silece befell the crowd and we took off via a 1976 Chevy pick-up that we later abandoned with a note that read "Lee is dead, Long Live Titan Lee!"