She had a start on a song but that was all-two verses and a chorus and a tenuous melody to hold them. What if the trails have grown over? But she was already two long verses into the song and Armenta was still only a boy. How long was this corrido going to be? What if he isn’t there? Where should I go? One of her favorite gangster songs was Dylan’s “Joey,” and that went, what, eleven minutes? Thirteen? What if they follow me, what if Saturnino is feeling strong again? Worse, she had no bridge in sight and every tempo she tried was wrong. She kept trying to get the odd syncopation that the corridos often had, that hurried, sooner-than-expected downbeat that foiled your expectations and made your breath catch and drove the narrative forward musically. Like you’re tripping but you never quite fall, she thought. Without it the song was sounding like a narcocorrido written by a gringa. I have to do better than that. The greatest narcocorrido of all time. Jesus please help me. What if Atlas wants to talk and I’ve vanished? Will he sound the alarm? What if Ciel tells Armenta his key has been stolen? What if the key doesn’t work?
The notebook was open on the board beside her and she read through what she had written.
City of Gold
VERSE
He was born in Veracruz
Son of a man he never knew
His mama did what she had to do
Lo que tenia que hacer!
Skinny boy long hair bare feet
Hermanos flacos-nothing to eat (Hey, Flaco!)
You gotta hustle to get the food
(Your) blood runs hot in Veracruz…
CHORUS (X2)
(Benji--)
Ah…you do what you have to do
(Benji--)
Lo que tenia que hacer!
VERSE
They beat him bad on his way to school
(La partieron la madre!)
He stole a truck ran down those fools
Took their dinero and left them dead
So the blood was turned to bread
CHORUS (X2)
(Benji--)
Did what nobody else would do
(Benji--)
Lo que tenia que hacer!
RAP
Chased through the streets of the City of Gold
Hearts beat strong in the City of Gold
You can feel the Ghost of Cortez in the City of Gold
Lookin’ for that pagan treasure in the City of Gold
Better go quick boy you better run
Little Benji hidin’ from the things he done
Get a reputation and the money will come
Where the blood runs hot in the jungle sun…
The clock on the wood-paneled mixing room wall said 8:25. She took the pen and notebook into the tracking room and moved Armenta’s accordion into one of the instrument booths so she could sit down at the Yamaha. Even the sound of her boot on the floor and the piano cover being slid open resonated in this room like a perfect musical chord. She ran through Joni Mitchell’s “River” to get her heart and her fingers working together and when she got to the ending quote from “Jingle Bells” it reminded her of Christmas and her home so strongly that tears welled in her eyes and she understood very clearly now how terribly Benjamin Armenta must have missed his home when he’d been exiled in Salvador, so she took up the pen and she listened to the wonderful melody and she tried to keep up with the lines coming into her head:
VERSE
So he hides in a secret place
Eleven months and thirteen days
He grew strong but he had the blues
He longed for a girl in Veracruz
CHORUS
(Benji--)
Sweet Anya in Veracruz
(Benji--)
He did what nobody else would do
(Benji--)
Lo que tenia que hacer!
(Benji--)
He did what nobody else would do
And then she imagined what it would be like to be kept from your home for not just a few days, as she had been, but for months on end, and to never know if you’d be able to go back there. What passion you would feel, to finally return! She tapped the melody on the piano and heard the instruments join in, the accordion and the bajo sexto and the guitars. Yes, it was starting to take on the sound of a corrido. Danger. Doing things you never thought you could do:
RAP
Steal back quiet to the City of Gold
Where the blood runs hot on the jungle stones
Get a reputation in the City of Gold
Better than money in the City of Gold
Trade it in for your empty soul
Well, no, thought Erin. Not empty soul. If I write that he’ll skin me for sure.
So she scratched through “empty,” then the rest of the line, but she couldn’t find the right words to replace it. It was a terrible feeling and one that she knew well-the fine and incandescent thing that brought the music to her mind was gone again, vanishing like a far-off filament of lightning.
She took the pen and notebook then walked around the tracking room, past the vocal and instrument booths. She imagined them staffed by professionals who could bring her song to life. Narcorridos were almost always sung by men, so who would have the best possible voice for it? Luis Miguel? Jorge Hernandez of Los Tigres? Flaco on accordion, for sure! And Ry Cooder on acoustic and maybe Mike Campbell would play electric, and her all-time rhythm section Sly and Robbie would show up with Sam Clayton for percussion and man, what if we could get Linda and Lila for harmonies, yeah, that’ll be the day Linda Ronstadt and Lila Downs sing backup on one of my songs. But now she could hear them playing and singing anyway. She stood still for a long moment, hearing fully detailed passages of the song, all of the instruments and vocals working perfectly. She closed her eyes and walked to the rhythm tapping the pen and notebook against her legs. Eyes still closed, she listened and tried not to interrupt in any way, scribbling across the pages and turning them as fast as she could:
Hunger grew in his belly like fire
He used his cenote like a telephone wire
To the Gods that he fed that he hoped to inspire
On the City of Gold they would build his empire
CHORUS (X2)
(Benji--)
Did what nobody else would do
(Benji--)
Lo que tenia que hacer!
LAST VERSE (TO BE SUNG SOFTLY, ACCOMPANIED BY ACOUSTIC GUITAR…)
But the Gods are a fickle crew
And Benji’s time had come overdue
A gun in the hand of someone new
Who simply did what he had to do
CHORUS REPEAT FADE OUT
(Benji--)
Ah…you do what you have to do
(Benji--)
Lo que tenia que hacer!
This corrido is going on forever, she thought. Maybe not the greatest narcorrido ever written, just the longest!
Then the music stopped. Erin was left standing in silence before the wall clock.
Ten-forty.
“You are hearing music,” said Father Ciel.
He was so close behind her, she felt his breath on her neck and she wheeled and stepped away from him, her heart racing.
“I was trying to. Why are you here?”
“My key to your room is missing. I have not told Benjamin. Did you take it?”
“How could I take it? I can’t leave my room. Now it’s gone? Who else might be sneaking up on me in my own room?”
He looked down on her. The cold blue light was gone from his eyes and in its place was a moist pity. She smelled his vanilla smell and she thought of what he was doing to the novitiates and she felt revulsion.
“I suspect Saturnino took the key. He is becoming increasingly active. I have come to warn you. You are perspiring and you look alarmed.”
“You scare me.”
He smiled and nodded as if her confession permitted him something. Then he unbuttoned his coat and let it fall open and reached out with his thin pale hands as if to accept her in an embrac
e. Erin’s eyes were drawn to the revolver in the waistband of his trousers and his bulge. She saw the lights reflected off his glasses and the air-conditioning moved his wisps of thin tan hair.
“Come, my child.”
“Do not touch me.”
His smile was dry and dreamy. “Who told you that you were naked? The serpent?”
“Don’t use those words on me.”
“Have you spoken to Owens?”
“She told me everything about you.”
“She can so easily beguile. An actor’s art. But she did not tell you the truth.”
“You should be ashamed.”
“You have listened to the serpent. Take my hands and let us pray.”
“Never.”
“Great men can be brought down by the lies of small people. Owens imagines that her sins are mine. She cannot comprehend that a man may devote himself to the Lord. This is common among the unfaithful. Here-take my hands.”
“Go to hell.”
“I know that Benjamin has given your husband one more day to deliver the money.”
“Why are you here?”
“To give you another day beyond that. And another and another. I can save you if you love me as I love you. In Christ. A holy secret between us. We will celebrate the Lord’s love and the flesh that he has given us to celebrate Him. Take my hands.”
“I’m not thirteen years old. I’m not overwhelmed by you or what you pretend to stand for. Get out of this room before I scream.”
“These rooms are soundproof. Who would hear you?”
“You’re worse than the devil. The devil is honest compared to you.”
He stared down on her for a long moment. She could not quite see his eyes, only the reflection of the lights off his glasses. A drop of sweat ran from his temple to his chin then hit the floor with a tap.
“Because you have listened to the serpent your child shall be born misshapen and an abomination.”
“And you’ll burn in the hell you frighten children with.”
“I can do no more for you.”
“You haven’t done one thing for me, ever.”
Ciel patiently buttoned his coat while he stared down at her. He was sweating hard now. She saw the waver of his chin and the tremble of his hands on the buttons. When she finally got a look at his eyes he seemed to be focused on something beyond her. Then he turned and walked quietly across the tracking room past the booths and the Yamaha and pushed his way through the door.
She watched him cross the mixing room and vanish into the lobby. She waited a few moments, then sunk to her knees and put her forehead to the carpet and hugged her middle and told the little life inside her to hold on. Hold on, she thought. We’re almost free. Please hold on, Baby McKenna.
She knelt there for some time, rocking side to side, listening to the whoosh of blood in her ears and the thump of her heart and the strange infinite silence of the studio, which was not silence at all. It was the sound of nothing. What a beautiful sound, she thought. What could be more pure?
Help us.
Help us.
Help us.
She rose and composed. First at the piano. Then with the Hummingbird in one of the instrument rooms. Finally just sprawled on a couch in the mixing room with the notepad and pen and the air-conditioner breeze drying the sweat on her face and neck.
And after what seemed like hours she finally took a deep breath and copied the song out in its entirety, neatly and clearly, in her best cursive handwriting. She set the time signature and wrote in the chords and the notes of some of the fills and tried to make some help suggestions as to tone and phrasing. She knew that corridos rarely began with guitar intros but she was a gringa rocker so she wrote out the notes to one anyway, figuring that Armenta’s guitarist would likely ignore it. “City of Gold.” It was different from the Jaguars’ corridos, not so much accordion, less of a polka, more stately and restrained. It had a little Carribean in it, too, a little ska. It sounded more like biography than legend, which is what she wanted. There was something almost mournful about it, up-tempo though it was. The melody built slowly and the narrative built slowly too but when she ran through it on the guitar, Erin thought she heard something big and compelling and lushly unpredictable in it. Something aimed at the heart. Something about a man alone. Something about the way things used to be in this world, and still are, and always will be. It took up twelve of the notebook pages, double-spaced, and she estimated it would run about seven minutes if you kept it up-tempo and nixed all solos, the guitar intro and the end fade. Or you could relax it, let the artists strut their stuff, and you’d have nine or ten minutes. She liked that idea. Why did a corrido have to sound like a polka on meth? And also: what did it matter? Who was going to hear it? Who was going to play it? In a moment of desperate optimism she wrote out her wish-list of musicians to perform the song.
It was two o’clock when she set the notebook square in the middle of the Yamaha keyboard, the pen inserted at the song so Armenta couldn’t miss it.
Siesta.
A few minutes later Owens came from the lobby into the mixing room and they looked at each other through the soundproof glass.
30
She showered and put on a pair of lightweight hiking shorts and athletic shoes and an oversized tee with sequined butterflies on it. Again she had the feeling that someone had been in her room but there was no evidence of this. She pulled the Cowboy Defender from inside the toilet tank and dried it over the sink with a hand towel and she hefted it and wondered exactly why she had been unable to use it. She had clearly seen her reasons and opportunities, but she had not been able to even draw the weapon. She dropped it into one of the flapped front pockets and slid the folded fifty-dollar bills into another. Then on hands and knees she reached her hand far under the mattress and came up with the silk swatch containing the map and her instructions. She looked at them one more time to be sure, then she folded and stuffed it into still another pocket of the shorts.
Next she slipped into the loose white leper’s dress that Owens had brought her. In front of the mirror she lifted the white rebozo and settled it over her head and shoulders. She arranged the garments to best hide her hair and face.
At the door she stopped and straightened and took three deep breaths. She remembered her father’s wry cool and tried to harness the grogginess of her fear, to turn it into calm and clarity.
Come to me by moonlight, sugar, she thought. No, come to me by sunshine. Come to me any way you can get here. Any way you can.
She pushed the card into the lock and heard the deadbolt disengage. Buzz, hum, clunk. Music to her ears now. She held the door open with her toe while she reached up under the dress and slid the card key into a pocket of the shorts.
The door shut behind her and made its final sounds. She walked down the hallway purposefully but not quickly. She pushed the button for the elevator and waited, praying that no one would be moving about in the heat of afternoon siesta. Four floors, she thought-just a straight shot for four floors and I can get outside, where the lepers come and go without drawing much attention.
The elevator door opened on two of the black housekeepers, who stopped talking to stare at her wide-eyed. Erin saw the worry in their faces and she saw that they wanted to get away from her, but didn’t know how, so she bowed her head humbly and stepped aside. The two women bustled past her into the vestibule, then the hallway, hurrying down it, then turning for a quick look back at her before turning the first corner.
Once inside the car she considered the maddeningly unlabeled buttons. Six of them, for either four or five stories-no one would clarify which, not even Owens, who had pushed the wrong ones more than once. Erin was fairly sure that the third highest button was for the first floor, not the second highest button, which would logically service the ground floor, allowing for the basement. Owens’s rooms were on the first floor. She went with her memory.
The car was slow as always but it didn’t stop at the second
floor and the next thing Erin knew the door had slid open to frame the entryway of the Castle, its grand foyer and majestic iron doors. Sunshine fell from the skylights in the ceiling and dappled the floor around the swordlike shadows of the palms. A small monkey sat on the curtain rod above a casement window, eating sunflower seeds and looking down at her with a frankly doubtful expression.
She strode down the hallway, away from the foyer, and when she came to Owens’s suite she fished the card key from her shorts, looked up and down the hall, then slid it under the door.
Back in the entryway she walked across the tile and pushed against the massive right-side door. The birds shuffled from on high and a monkey screeched softly. The door was heavier than she had imagined and at first she thought it might be locked. But it finally gave, as if in surrender, and she put her shoulder to it and pushed harder. The door swung and gained momentum, towing Erin into the withering Yucatecan heat.
She stopped in the shade of the loggia, stunned by the brightness that lay beyond. She had never felt so conspicuous in her life, even on a stage with a spotlight blinding her. She pulled the rebozo forward over her head. There was an expanse of gravel between the Castle and the jungle and this gravel was raked several times daily by the groundskeepers and as Erin stepped onto it she saw no footprints coming or going, not even the neat tracks of the crabs or lizards that left their trails everywhere, but were almost never seen.
She came to the jungle and stepped right in. Once inside the shade of the trees she stopped and glanced back at the Castle looming in the midday heat. She saw two lepers, women, coming slowly down the outdoor stairway from the third story. A good thing, she thought. She felt like a character in the Old Testament fleeing some cursed place, surrounded by enemies and observed by a jealous and hot-tempered God. A pillar of salt, she thought. Demoniacs. Bloody altars. Dear Lord, get me out of here. Dear duplicitous Bradley, please be waiting.
She turned and ran. She’d forgotten what a pleasure it could be, heat or not, pregnant or not. But what a wild, dislocated feeling it was to be embarking on the most important journey of her life with nothing but the clothes on her back, a leper’s shawl, five-hundred dollars and a gun. Save some energy, she thought. She slowed to a trot, then a fast stride.
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