by Johnny Shaw
“Sorry, Russ,” Buck Buck said, “that doohickey ain’t right. It’s short.”
“This is one of the best range finders on the market.”
“How many feet did you say a half mile was?”
“Exactly 2,640 feet,” Russell answered.
“It’s wrong. I got one not quite as good as that one, and on hot days and far distances, the laser goes wonky. From the heat waves. There ain’t nothing between us and that building there, but I trust my eye.”
Russell nodded. “I haven’t used this much, but it would make sense that the heat from the ground might refract the light. We have to be right, though. How far would you say it is?”
“Under a half mile, but not by much. Closer to 2,400 feet. Snout?” Buck Buck said.
“Definitely not over a half. Yeah, looks about right. Jimmy?” Snout said.
“I would’ve said somewhere between 2,400 and 2,500. It sounds crazy, but I got to go with Buck Buck over science on this one rare occasion,” I said.
“I trust the consensus,” Russell said. “I’ve got two identical rockets. If I don’t get the first one right, I should be able to make the adjustment on the second one, so long as it gets close.”
We let Russell do his thing and set up the rocket. So simple, he didn’t even need our help. A stand and the propulsion mechanism—that was it. According to Russell, it was all about getting the angle and the engine load right. Which came down to his calculations. I would’ve helped, but math.
Snout, Buck Buck, and I sat in the shade of the van, giving Russell space to work. He paced a rut and made notes with the nub of a pencil on a scrap of paper. He talked to himself about Newtons and thrust and pounds, constantly looking back to Plaster City and his target. He even licked his finger and felt the air, but I’m pretty sure he did that for show since the air was as dead as Paul Lynde, peace be upon him.
The rocket was a thing of beauty. Three feet tall and bright orange with long fins. You could see the separate stages and where they would break apart. The tip of its nose looked sharp enough to draw blood. It was sleek and if you told me that it could make it to the moon, I wouldn’t’ve called you a liar.
“The idea,” Russell said, “is that it hits altitude above the target area, the nose opens, and it drifts down on its chute inside the fence, onto a roof or something. There’s no wind, so we’re lucky there. Let’s try it and see what happens.”
“Can I press the launch button?” Snout asked, forehead knotted with worry that he might be refused.
When Russell said, “Yes,” I thought Snout was going to shit from happiness. It had happened before when Buck Buck got him a bouncy castle for his thirtieth birthday. Snout did another little dance, this time singing “Major Tom” at full volume.
Snout demanded a countdown. No one argued. A rocket launch without a countdown was sacrilege, bad luck. And there was no reason to spit in Fate’s face.
At “Blastoff,” Snout triggered the rocket. The engines burned, shooting fire and smoke, the rocket motionless for a moment. Then, strangely slow, the rocket rose above the smoke. But it didn’t go slow for long, something clicked and that mother shrunk into the distance at superspeed. We whooped and hollered and high-fived. Except Russell, who had his scope on the rocket, watching its ascent.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Russell repeated like a mantra.
Remembering why we were there, we stopped our antics and watched Russell expectantly.
“Second stage. Come on.”
I squinted into the distance. I could see the trail of smoke, but I couldn’t make out the rocket as it got near the sun.
“Third stage. We’ve got the distance. Open, open, open.”
Snout grabbed my arm and squeezed like my date at a horror movie.
“Chute’s away. Appears to be over target. Falling, falling.”
Russell dropped the scope, letting it hang from his chest. He turned to us.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“It’s inside the compound. It worked. Looks like maybe on top of a structure. Hard to tell, but definitely within the perimeter.”
“Great job, Russell.” I shook his hand. Buck Buck and Snout gave him hearty backslaps that pushed him forward into me.
“I’ll admit,” Russell said. “Most of my earlier confidence was bravado. I’m a little shocked that it worked on the first attempt.”
There had been so many defeats over the last few days, this small victory was unbelievably important. I wanted to celebrate, but I would have to wait. The rocket was just the beginning of the plan.
Buck Buck and I had drawn the short straws by the process of elimination. Bobby was hurt. Julie would recognize Russell right away and infiltrating a biker gang compound wasn’t his charge. Snout was out, mostly because Snout was Snout. I knew it was risky to go myself, as both Chucho and Julie had seen my face, but it hadn’t been for very long and I was the only one in the group who knew what Chucho looked like.
Buck Buck studied the photo of Julie as we walked.
“She might look different, so really look at the eyes,” I said.
Buck Buck hadn’t been joking about the disguises. When he pulled out his duffel bag of white button-up shirts, pocket protectors, and tape-repaired glasses, I laughed hard enough to choke on spit.
Buck Buck looked hurt, but stuck by his guns. “Look, Jimmy. When you got a bad lie to tell, you’re best to keep it strange. I might not be the smartest guy, but to me, this is what a grown man who plays with toy rockets looks like. In my brain, this is what I see. My guess is them bikers ain’t no smarter than me. Means this is what they think a rocket nerd looks like, too. To you, we look ridiculous. But to them, we look how we’re supposed to.”
I felt bad for laughing. The ironclad logic of his argument threw me. I started to think that Buck Buck played dumber than he was. And the disguise, especially the thick-framed glasses, would go a long way to hiding my appearance. In costume, people saw the costume first and had to work their way to the person underneath.
Armed with nothing but a row of ballpoints in our front pockets and high-water pants, Buck Buck and I hiked the half mile over the flat desert wash to Plaster City. Buck Buck kicked at the dirt, watching the clouds of dust fall straight to the ground, nowhere to go in the windless air.
“Look,” Buck Buck said, “I know you’re used to sidekicking for Bobby and not me. And I’m used to Snout being my sidekick. But I’m sure we can work it out. Batman usually’s got Robin, but I’m sure he teamed up with Aqualad or Speedy and they still beat the bad guy.”
“Am I Aqualad in that scenario? I don’t sidekick for Bobby,” I said. “I can’t believe people can’t see this. He’s my sidekick. Which means you’re Aqualad. I’m Batman.”
“I’m really more of a leading man.”
“Okay, how ’bout this? You’re still Batman. I’ll be Superman. They teamed up all the time. Snout and Bobby are the sidekicks.”
“I can work with that. But I want to be Green Arrow instead.” Buck Buck scooped up some dirt without losing a step. “It’s kind of crazy this was all underwater once.” He let the dirt sift through his fingers and held up his hand, showing me a few tiny seashells.
“When I was a kid, we’d dig up all kinds of shells. There’s like oyster-sized ones around here somewhere. Pop knew the good spots. I really need to take Juan out here.”
“Shells are like bones, right? Which makes this like a graveyard kind of.”
“Considering how old everything is, no matter where you step on the planet, you’re probably walking on something’s remains.”
“Creepy.”
He rubbed his hands together, letting the shells and dirt fall to the stark white ground. The sign that we had reached our destination. We were at the edge of Plaster City.
Where we had entered, a half dozen double-wides sat out in the open. With no outside additions like a deck or porch, they looked like they had been used as office structures, part of the factory ground
s. Some of the windows were boarded. The ones that weren’t were broken.
I poked my head in the open window of the first building. It smelled like a dog’s breath. The inside was gutted, no interior walls, like an empty truck trailer. Birdshit, animal bones, and thick dust lined the ground. Cobwebs fell like hammocks from the ceiling. I could only imagine the size of the spiders that made them. The desert doesn’t fuck around when it comes to spiders.
Buck Buck peeked over my shoulder. “Why would you make a dumbass tent town when all these need is a good hosing off?”
“Putting up a fence like that’s harder than getting a bunch of shitty campers. And if you’re up to no good, you want a good fence.”
“Suppose,” Buck Buck said. “I’ve been thinking about our plan.”
“Yeah?”
“Were we drunk when we came up with it?”
“No. I wasn’t, at least.”
“It’s just that it’s one of the weirder, dumber things we’ve tried. It’s weird that this is the best we could come up with sober.”
“You’re bringing it up now?”
“I’m not saying it’s not a good idea. Or it won’t work. I’m saying it’s dumb. That’s all. Constructive criticism.”
Looking toward the fence, I wondered if there were eyes on us. From where we stood, the van was in full view. I could vaguely make out Russell and Snout setting up another rocket. A good lie is in the details. Anyone paying attention could have watched us shoot off the rocket, walk the distance, and stand where we were. We weren’t hiding. But would they even bother with a lookout way out here?
The white hardpack turned into white pavement, transitioning from desert to civilization. Still no activity or movement from the fenced-in area. Buck Buck and I stopped next to an empty propane tank across the street from the gate. I heard music and men’s voices. I didn’t know there was such a thing as Mexican Death Metal, but if I could give the music a genre, that’s what it was. Death Mexal. Growling Spanish lyrics accompanied by grinding guitar, rapid-fire drums, and—I swear—a hint of tuba.
“We knock?” Buck Buck asked.
I shrugged. “How else?”
“Screw it. Do it.”
I held up a palm. I wanted to rehearse. I added a spitty lisp to really sell the sitcom-nerd stereotype. “Hello, there. I apologize profusely for the inconvenience, but my scale-model rocket landed inside of your vicinity somewhere. I would request you retrieve it yourself, but I fear that one of the engines did not ignite. It might explode and I’d hate to put a noncombatant, as it were, at risk.”
“Is that really what you’re going to say?”
But I never got my chance to deliver what I’m sure would have been a Razzie-worthy performance.
We took one step onto the road when the sound of squealing tires sent us ducking back behind the propane tank. Buck Buck and I watched a sun-faded burgundy Chrysler LeBaron with a primer door and its hood held down with bungee cord race down the road, skid to face the gate, and crash right through it, sending the big square of chain link straight up into the air.
“That’s one way to do it,” Buck Buck said.
“I know that car. That’s Gabe, Julie’s old boyfriend. I talked to him this morning and—Oh, shit. I might have told him I thought Julie and Chucho were out here. He’s either coming to fuck Chucho up, save Julie, or both.”
“He’s pissed, that’s for sure. What do we do? Scrap the plan?”
“The kid’s a better distraction than our dumbass plan. Let’s take a closer look. See if we can spot Julie.”
Buck Buck and I ran across the street and peeked through an area of the fence near the gate that had been damaged by Gabe’s battering-ramming. It gave a decent view of the grounds and the various structures through a pair of Dumpsters that smelled like cabbage farts. For some idiotic reason, they had created a picnic area with a few rusted and battered patio sets with torn umbrellas right near the Dumpsters.
There were ten trailers or motor homes parked in a haphazard fashion within the lot, as well as a couple of big tents. Nearer the loading dock were some storage containers and a truck trailer. It looked like someone had planned a little community, abandoned it, and the current residents were squatting. Either that or someone had watched The Road Warrior one too many times. Motorcycles sat parked in front of most of the structures. I counted sixteen.
Mexican bikers appeared from all different directions, surrounding the LeBaron as Gabe got out. Only four of the bikers were armed. Two pistols and two shotguns. The rest of the men stood around, curious, more startled than ready to fight. The only one I recognized was Cold Sore. That thing still hadn’t healed.
Gabe had skidded to a halt in the center of the lot. He left the engine running and got out of the car. He didn’t look intimidated or scared by the leatherclad army around him. He examined everyone’s face, and then shouted, “Julie!”
The bikers looked at each other but didn’t make a move on Gabe. A couple of them made jokes in Spanish that I couldn’t make out, forcing a smile or a laugh.
“That’s got to be most of them. Least the ones at home,” I whispered to Buck Buck. “A car crashing onto your land brings everyone out.”
“I count nineteen. Only a couple pieces, but that don’t mean they ain’t packing deeper.”
Gabe continued shouting. “Julie. I know you’re here. I just want to talk.”
“You see any girls?” I asked Buck Buck.
“No chicks at all. Just the dudes. But look at that guy by that mobile home near the loading docks. It’s the only one with no bike out front. Does it look like he’s guarding it?”
“He’s definitely standing like he’s at attention. And he didn’t make a move to—”
The last words caught in my mouth as Chucho stepped out of the mobile home we were referring to. He yelled behind him at someone. I had a good guess who, even if I couldn’t see her. He shut the door. Not enough to call Gris, but enough to feel like my hunch was right. Either way, we had eyes on Chucho. If he was there, Julie was too.
“That Chucho?” Buck Buck asked.
Gabe answered for me. “Where’s Julie, you fucking pendejo?”
“You fucked up our gate,” Chucho said, as he approached.
“Were you with Julie while me and her were going out?”
“You ain’t going out no more, so who gives a shit?”
“Not what I asked. Means she wasn’t with that rich dude in La Quinta. She was with you.”
Chucho shrugged, smirked. “I take what I want.”
“You’re about to take an ass-kicking. Unless you need your boys to do your fighting for you.” Gabe waved his hands at the men around him.
“Let’s go,” Chucho said. Although the words were unnecessary, as his arms were already held out wide in the universal gesture for “let’s go.” He picked up his step and ran toward Gabe, a couple of bikers parting to let him into the circle. He made a leap toward Gabe, attempting to tackle him around the waist.
But Gabe (and everyone else) saw it coming. He side-stepped Chucho just enough to throw him over his thigh as he brought an elbow down on the back of his neck. Chucho ate shit on the hard ground, sliding a little on his face.
If I were Gabe, I would’ve jumped on Chucho’s back, held him down with my knees, and whaled on him. But Gabe was more honorable than I’ll ever be. He got in a boxing stance and waited for Chucho to stand. He wanted to humiliate Chucho properly. He didn’t want an asterisk on the victory.
The problem was that when someone with honor fights someone dishonorable, the latter will always pull a dick move. More damage has been done by that bullshit Vince Lombardi quote about winning than can be imagined. Because dumbshits use it as license to cheat. If you believe winning is the only thing, you’re an idiot.
Chucho got up on an elbow, his face scraped and dirty, and pulled a pistol from his jacket. It was hard to tell from that distance, but there was a good chance it was Bobby’s gun.
Gabe
was too angry to be scared. He screamed, spit flying in Chucho’s direction. “Do it, you bitch.” He turned to the crowd. “You going to let him pull a puss move like that? Not man enough to fight straight up.”
One of the bikers stepped forward. He wasn’t the biggest guy there, but he looked a little older than the others. He had that relaxed gait that told you he wasn’t about to take any shit. “Put it away, Chucho.”
Chucho hesitated for a moment, but only that. He had no interest in testing the seriousness of the request. He put the pistol away and got to his feet. “He attacked us, Goyo. Can’t let that go.”
Goyo took a step toward Chucho, which made him flinch. “You brought this here, so it’s on you, too. You’re the one going to be fixing the busted gate.”
Buck Buck and I both ducked down when everyone turned to look at the damaged gate.
“But I was—”
“Cállate,” Goyo shouted. He walked to Gabe, stopping a few feet in front of him. “You might want to fight Chucho, you might even got good reasons. That’s between you two. But you broke our property, killed my buzz, and messed up my day.”
Before Gabe could do anything, Goyo cleared the distance and dropped him with an explosive haymaker. I swear I felt the air buckle when it landed.
He turned to one of the other bikers. “Put him somewhere. Anywhere but with the girls. I want to talk to him. Flaco, Rubio, ditch the car. Strip it, dump it, let the desert bury it, just get rid of it.”
Chucho did his best to blend in with the rest of the men, but Goyo wasn’t having any.
Goyo grabbed Chucho’s jacket. “We’re Los Hermanos. Someone challenged you straight up, let you take the first shot, and you pulled a gun? I should fucking beat your ass out of principle.”