by Chris Stuck
The last year had been nothing but loss, though, first his pops and then her mom. Chuck and Tina were parentless now. All they had was each other. His head ached. His eyeballs wanted to explode. Bringing any of this up with a calamitous hangover would’ve been bad. They were supposed to be forgetting things, not remembering them.
“C’mon, let’s rally,” he said.
They got ready and humped it over to a nearby expat coffee shop. They scrolled their phone screens looking for things to do, realizing they didn’t have even one idea. Chuck said he’d gotten so busy with work that he didn’t do any research.
Tina stared off and bit her fingernail. “Neither did I.” They’d meant to get a guidebook from the library, but they both kept putting it off. This is what their life had become. They used to be prepared and thorough. Now, maybe because they went out too much and occasionally drank too much, they were losing the details of their life. They forgot to pay bills. They spent money just to have something to do. Somehow, the excitement of life had vanished, and they were standing there patting their pockets like it was a set of keys they’d lost.
Chuck found a list of local museums. They were always good vacation fodder, nice, sober experiences that made eating and drinking copiously after seem earned and necessary. “I mean, isn’t that what vacationing is about?”
“What?” Tina said. “Going to museums so we have an excuse to drink?”
“No.” Chuck shrugged. “I just mean living and being together.” He snapped a pic of her and then opened one of his apps and posted it. “See?”
* * *
Chuck and Tina rallied hard and spent the next day or so posting everything: their lunch (a Mexican po’boy with fried oysters), them wearing big straw hats, them wearing little straw hats, their dinner (a table of local dishes, full of beans and beans and more beans). They went on a posting terror, riddling all the apps everyone used.
“It’s like a blanket media campaign. Chuck and Tina Go on Vacation.”
“We’re doing a posting drive-by,” Chuck said. “We’re dumping on these fools.”
As they barhopped the next afternoon, they were startled to see that their social media history mirrored the spiritual ditch they’d been stuck in. Some of their posts had just been sad, pictures of graves and flowers and funeral programs. Why had they posted that?
Chuck took a picture of a fly on the rim of his beer bottle and immediately posted it. “But not anymore. We’re correcting our lives. Am I right?”
“We’re killing them, baby,” Tina said.
They sent off posts like bullets at a gun range. Each time they clicked Share, they felt a jolt of electricity, like the few times they’d done coke or ecstasy. They shared everything, even a really cool slow-motion video of them jumping into the pool, holding hands.
* * *
They rode that feeling into their third night. They ate at an expensive Italian place, posted each dish online with a funny caption. They drank bottled water with no ice, which they also posted. They had two bottles of wine with dinner; a white and a red. It was their perfect amount of alcohol. Yet another post.
As they strolled back to the Centro, Chuck said something about Jabari’s apartment, and Tina corrected him. “Our apartment, good sir.” They were a little tipsy but definitely not drunk. He forgot what he was saying because she was happy now, walking elegantly in her espadrilles like when they started dating. She looked down, a content shine to her face. Chuck pulled out one of his secret packs of cigarettes, and she didn’t even scold him for it. They shared an American Spirit as they tried not to roll their ankles on the bumpy cobblestones. They held hands. At the apartment, they started to change into their swimsuits for one last dip, but once they were naked, they went to each other and then the bed.
“Finally.” He moved on top of her.
She sighed. “Why do you always have to say odd things right before you put it in?”
“Do I?” He stopped and thought about it.
She reached down in between their legs and just said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
* * *
The vacation was going well enough, but they were shocked to find their thirty-post sharing spree had garnered very little interest. Someone had liked and commented on something, but it was just his aunt Vernell. And the picture wasn’t even of Chuck. It was one of the churches in town. All she said was, “Don’t eat anything that ain’t cooked down there, you hear? You’ll get the shits.”
Her comment had already gotten ten likes, with a bunch of laughing emojis. Chuck immediately sniffed out the setting to delete the comment and the one to block Aunt Vernell.
“Why can’t I get rid of her this easily in real life?”
“Your aunt’s been cray-cray. She’s probably never even been to Mexico. Has she ever left Yonkers?”
Chuck was pretty sure she hadn’t. “Why are my relatives so tiring?”
“You haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“I know. Now she’s popping up, talking shit.” They were at a different expat coffee shop, a shabbier one around the corner from the apartment. A knot of flies fought in the middle of the dining room. Chuck and Tina were drinking macchiato and crunching on stale biscotti. They’d already had goat cheese omelets that weren’t that good. Tina told him not to eat the parsley and slice of shriveled tomato that still garnished their plates. He asked why, and she said, “That’s just what the internet told me.” They both looked at their apps and were now realizing their social media lives were complete duds. Tina had a like here or there from distant friends, ones without discerning tastes.
“It’s sad,” Chuck said. “I was expecting an avalanche of love.”
“Maybe we should make our profiles public. Then strangers will like them and boost our numbers.” Without telling him, she found her app’s privacy setting and undid it.
“You mean be public like Marla?”
“No, not like Marla. She’s a social media hoe. We can be subtle.”
Chuck’s mind wandered back to Aunt Vernell. It brought up that old generational conflict that he’d talked to Bob about. Along with his father, Vernell had raised him. They went to church a lot, yet they cursed and drank a lot. They didn’t think much of gays or Asians or Jews or pretty much anybody, even most Black folks. Now she was his last relative. He closed his phone and looked out the window at a gaggle of Mexican women in traditional Guanajuato dress.
“Don’t worry,” Tina said. “Your aunt’s tripping. She should keep the negativity to herself.”
“Yeah.” Chuck shook his head. “But it’s the only thing she’s good at.” He gazed out the front window again. He looked at Tina and realized she was the only thing he had going for him. Without thinking, he ate the slice of shriveled tomato that garnished his plate.
“Uh-oh,” Chuck said.
“You didn’t just eat that, did you? I told you not to.”
“I know. Shit.” He darted his eyes around. He touched his throat. “It didn’t taste bad, though.”
“Oh.” Tina’s face loosened, and she looked back at her phone. “I’m sure it’ll probably be fine, then.”
* * *
Within fifteen minutes, he bloated up and exploded from both ends in Jabari’s master bathroom. After his fourth dash to the toilet, he decided to just stay in there for good. He cursed Mexico. He cursed the trip. Why did they come? Aunt Vernell was right, that old prejudiced biddy.
“No, she wasn’t right,” Tina said. “It’s just bacteria. Mexico isn’t any filthier than America. We just have different bacteria. It’s racism that fuels that narrative. It’s like people thinking Chinese food gets them sick because of MSG. MSG is in everything.” She looked up “food poisoning and Mexico” and was now reading from her phone. “See? I told you. When people from Mexico go to America, they have the same problem. It’s bacteria. I mean, you got sick at a Denny’s, remember?”
“We were in Arkansas,” Chuck said.
“My point e
xactly.”
“Fuck that. Fuck this place. I’m dying.” He puked uncontrollably while she watched from the doorway. He jerked and heaved. His body expanded and contracted. He looked like he’d give birth to a demon.
“When we get back home, I’m getting you on my probiotics,” Tina said. “You’ve always had a bad digestive system.”
“Please just leave me. Let me die.” He actually began to weep. “When will this end? Oh, God.”
As she eased out of the room, she watched him ball up on the tile floor in his underwear like someone in detox. “I’ll bring you something to eat, okay? I promise.”
“I’ll never eat again, you hear me? I think I just cracked a rib.” He let loose on the toilet, dry heaving, groaning in agony.
Softly, Tina said, “I love you?”
* * *
She was out on the street, in the sun, by herself. She didn’t know what to do, but then she stopped and had a coffee and looked at a map on her phone. She was suddenly determined to have a good time. She hated that he was sick, but now she was relieved to be out of that apartment and away from him. She realized she didn’t just want to go on vacation with him. She wanted to go with herself. He could be such a weenie sometimes anyway. He acted like he was the only person to ever get the flu or a sore throat. But she still loved him. It was luck that they were still together. Neither of them had wandering eyes. They were committed without really trying. However, that didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally dislike or resent him. As her therapist, Erica, had said, it didn’t mean she didn’t want to be with him.
“Right?”
Tina’s exact response was “Sure, I guess.” She stopped seeing Erica right after that. She had a vague sense that the woman just wasn’t on her side.
Now that Tina thought about it, her stomach wasn’t feeling the best either. As she wandered the streets, she slipped down an alley to spit up a morsel, which she deposited into a hole in the sidewalk that had rebar and wires sticking out of it. When she emerged and was back in the sun, she was fine. She was hopped up on caffeine. She was speed-walking around the square. He could never walk as fast as her, and now she didn’t feel that pull to slow down. She happened upon a huge food and craft market and felt like a young traveler again. She tried fresh juices and a lamb soup. She discovered a stand that sold deep-fried grasshoppers in different flavors.
She saw Mexican people and white people and Black people and Asian people. She struck up a conversation with an older Mexican man about bread and how Americans don’t think bread exists in Mexico. “We make better bread than the French,” he said. Tina told him the bodega under their apartment back home baked fresh bread and always made their building smell sweet and yeasty. But that was more when she and Chuck were first married. Their building didn’t quite smell like that anymore.
She sucked down another coffee and called Marla. “Hey, girl. I’m so glad I’m not in New York right now.”
“Well, good for you. I gotta go feed that damn cat, don’t I?”
“Yes, you have to feed him. If that cat dies, I will kill everyone. He’s all I have.”
“Well,” Marla said. “There’s Chuck, too.”
“Of course. Girl, what’re you doing?”
“It’s one o’clock. I’m working.”
Tina hadn’t heard her. She’d just sat down at a bar and was telling the bartender she wanted a Corona.
“You’re bored, aren’t you?” Marla said. “You always want to go on vacation but don’t want to be away from your life.”
“Bitch, I just got rid of one therapist. Don’t make me get rid of you, too.”
Marla laughed. “You convince yourself that you don’t like the place you’re in, even though it’s just fine.”
Tina fluttered her eyes. “Girl, whatever. Chuck’s sick. He ate a bad tomato. He’s puking all over everything.”
“He’s probably being a real crybaby about it, isn’t he?”
“Kind of, but it’s pretty bad. I’ve never seen him this sick.”
Marla wasn’t listening. She was yelling at someone about deliveries coming through the back. She called them “fucko.”
“Hey, have you ever had grasshoppers? They’re really good.”
“Chapulines? Did you have the mango ones with the spicy seasoning?”
“Girl, I’m eating them right now.” The bartender brought her beer, and Tina gulped from it. “Hey, no one likes our posts anymore. What’s up?”
“Oh, we muted you guys a long time ago. I thought you knew.”
“How would we know?”
Marla sucked her teeth as if she were about to break some bad news. “You never post. And with everything that was going on with you two, if you did post, it was some depressing shit. People have to consolidate their contacts once in a while, you feel me?”
“Okay, but we’re in Mexico.”
“You are.”
“We’re on vacation for the first time in years.”
“Yeah.”
“Can’t y’all just be happy for us?”
Marla laughed inconsiderately, as she often did. “Girl, everyone’s been to Mexico. You’re not special.”
* * *
This was how the vacation would go, Tina realized. While Chuck writhed on the cold bathroom tile, she was out and about, vacationing by herself. She took a tour of historic homes in the area. She went wine-tasting. She stumbled onto a Segway tour. Purely by chance, she was offered a little bit of weed by a bartender, too, which she saved. She’d have five to six hours of fun with complete strangers and then cobble together some food and snacks to take back to Chuck, who she was always afraid would be dead on her return.
He’d be on the couch or in bed, watching Forrest Gump or some other Tom Hanks movie dubbed into Spanish. This time, she’d found Twinkies and Squirt and a few cans of chicken broth and some crackers. “I still haven’t seen a real grocery store. It’s all quick marts.”
“Just like home,” Chuck said. “I’m on bread and water anyway. I’ve been imprisoned in a beautiful apartment. What a great vacation.”
“Are you sorry we came?”
“I’m sorry I got sick.” He was in bed, with the covers up to his chin, a washcloth on his forehead. He said, “Baby, I’m so hot.” Then a minute later, he said, “Baby, I’m so cold.” Then he just moaned.
Tina waited for the right moment to say she wanted to leave New York. Now seemed like it.
“What? And go where?”
“I don’t know. Here?”
He shook his head. “You do this every time we travel. You dream of living in the place we’re visiting.”
“So what?”
“I get this sick, and you want to move to the place that did it? Do you just like having me on the verge of death?”
“You had bad luck. People get sick here once in a while. I talked to a white lady from Chicago who lives here. She said everything will be fine for months, but then you eat a piece of jicama that hasn’t been washed, and you’re shitting your face off. You get used to it. People take their stool to get tested here a lot, too, to check for parasites.”
“Baby, you’re not making this place seem very appealing. I gotta carry my own shit around with me? Are you listening to yourself?”
* * *
The next day, Tina strolled around, went in shops, had a drink or two and ended up smoking some of Chuck’s cigarettes. Each time she opened them, the joint she’d gotten from the bartender stood like a devil in a corner of the pack. She sat down on a bench and wondered if they should leave early. She looked on her phone to see if they could rebook, but it would be an extra three hundred per ticket. She knew Mr. Fiscal Austerity wouldn’t approve. She put her phone away. She went walking, working up a blister on her pinky toe with each step. She was looking for a place to get a massage when she got a call from Marla.
“Hey, girl.”
“Now don’t flip, but your apartment was broken into.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” Marla said. “When have I ever played a practical joke?”
“Was anything stolen?”
“Hard to tell. Y’all don’t really have anything.”
“What about Kunta? Is he okay?”
“Your door was open when I got here. He set up house in the hallway. It looks like he peed all over.”
“Shit, did you clean it up?”
“Oh, no, no, no, honey. I don’t do pee.”
Tina looked around, feeling helpless. “How could this happen?”
“You’ve been posting on your vacation. When did you go public?”
“Fuck.” She’d forgotten to take her last name off her profile. Shit, she even had something about her neighborhood in her bio, something goofy like “Flatbush 4 Life.”
“Yeah,” Marla said. “Easy to put two and two together online. Why were you posting on your vacation anyway? Everyone knows you post vacation pics after you’re back.”
“Well, you didn’t.”
“Oh, no, baby girl. Check the dates. I post as soon as the plane lands.”
Tina suddenly started to cry and then stopped, a survival skill she taught herself growing up. “Well, fuck, I guess I’m not a pro like you.” She could hear Kunta meowing in the background. “Please tell me my kitty’s okay.”
“This fat dumb cat is fine.”
“Jesus.” Hearing the cat made Tina break down one more time. “What is happening to my life?”
Marla just started laughing, inconsiderately again. “Girl, this is New York. Either move or stop crying.”
* * *
Tina still got a massage and a mani-pedi that she would never tell Chuck about since it was hella expensive. She put it on her card, not their joint one. As she left she felt like she was out of things to do. It was Saturday. The town had been overrun by a million twenty-year-olds from Mexico City. They all seemed to be wealthy expats, which wasn’t hard to figure out since they were so loud and drunk. Walking among them, Tina realized she still felt like a twenty-year-old a lot of the time until she was around actual twenty-year-olds. Then she was envious and repulsed. Now that she was bored and the trip was turning out to be a bust, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to move here after all. She’d rather be on a coast. She wanted water and a beach. It was too rugged here.