The Orange Blossom Express

by Marlena Evangeline

  The lights cast about the sagebrush. It could have been the sheriff. It could have been anyone. Maggie watched. Then the headlights glared in the window, and she recognized the truck. She paced back and forth.

  Hank came in first, took off his wet jacket and hung it close to the wood stove over the back of an oak chair. Patrick followed him, stood next to the stove and shivered. He left his coat on.

  “We almost lost it. We were close. Way too close,” said Hank. He shivered.

  “What happened?” She sat down on the couch, pulled her flannel nightie around her legs.

  “It was a mess. The storm threw us off. We couldn’t see a damn thing even though we were flying well below the clouds. I would have set her down anywhere except for that fucking load of pot.”

  “We couldn’t see a thing, Maggie. And then the instruments started freaking out,” Patrick said.

  “I didn’t think you were going, Patrick.” Maggie went to the kitchen and put a teapot on the stove.

  “We changed everything at the last minute,” said Hank. “It was a good thing, too. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone except Patrick with me. Anyway, we were fuel critical. It was colder than shit.”

  “Yeah,” said Patrick. “We could barely breathe. The windows were sweating from the inside. My first load and my last. You can fly that shit from now on, Hank.”

  “We were close to the Paso Robles Vortex. I knew that. I could feel it. I thought Patrick was going to lose it when we hit a current. We dropped about eight hundred feet.”

  “I did lose it.” Patrick shook his head. Maggie sat down on the couch and pulled her flannel nightie around her again.

  “Of course, the radios were obsolete. We couldn’t of heard Jerry’s signals if our lives depended on it. That was the real joke. They did. Our lives did depend on it. We were hurting. Suddenly the storm broke. We couldn’t believe it.”

  The teapot whistled and Maggie went to the kitchen. Hank moved to the counter, like he was afraid she’d miss a word of his story. She put some chamomile tea into a ceramic teapot and poured the boiling water over it.

  “And then I saw the beacon at Watsonville. But the airport was swarming with activity. There were people all over the place. Shit, it was 2 o’clock in the morning. I don’t know where those people came from. Our fuel gauge was pegged on empty. I circled the airport three times and blew it off. We headed for Monterey.”

  “Monterey?” She carried the pot into the living room and set it down on the redwood table, then went back for cups.

  “Yeah. I put her down, and we taxi down to Monarch Aviation at the far end of the strip and pull in between two Cessnas. Then we just sat in the fucking rain. We didn’t move. Hell, we had to go somewhere. We were out of fuel.”

  “We couldn’t move,” said Patrick.

  “I was sure the man was just waiting to light the whole fucking airport if we moved—like some bad dream. And we sat.”

  “And sat,” Patrick laughed.

  “Nothing happened.”

  “We were sitting in this drenching storm, the wind was ripping, with six hundred pounds of the best fucking grass we’d ever seen. I’m telling you. It’s great shit. And we started to laugh. We started to realize the Man’s not there. It was okay. We weren’t busted.”

  “Where’s the load now?” She put a teaspoon of honey in all three cups and licked the spoon.

  “We have a few bales in the truck. The rest is with Jerry.”

  “What then?”

  “Patrick tied the plane down, and I walked to the tower. And wouldn’t you know it, I had five dimes. Five fucking dimes. A lifeline. I couldn’t fucking believe it.”

  “Who’d you call?”

  Maggie poured the tea and moved a cup towards Hank, one towards Patrick.

  “Jerry Taramoto. Told him to get his ass down there and help us out. We were sitting ducks. It was about four-thirty by then. Not far from dawn. So those guys say yeah, yeah, we’ll be there. And I go back to the plane. As I go. As I go I see all these buses lined up near the hangar. School buses. Sitting there like Tootsie Rolls, one after another.”

  “I was back in the plane,” said Patrick. “The wind is howling like a banshee. The plane would’ve taken off again if I hadn’t tied her down like a rock.”

  “So I told Patrick about the buses. I mean shit. We have a half an hour at the most, I figure, before someone shows up. Someone was bound to show. We weren’t gonna be that lucky. Lucky, already, mind you. But not that lucky.”

  “So we yanked the costales out of the plane, slung one over each shoulder and carried them, two at time, to the buses. We walked through the main gate, through the parking lot to the back of the buses like we had camping gear of something, sweet Jesus. We were cold. We were wet. We were scared. The rain pounded down like fricking nails. We stashed four costales under the rear wheels of the first bus, went back, grabbed more, and stashed another four under the rear wheels of second bus, next to the back tires, near the rear axels, and then went back for the rest.”

  “We were so fucking lucky we couldn’t even believe it. We were freaking out we were so damned lucky.”

  “Then Hank started to clean up the Fritos,” Patrick laughed. “He’s never cleaned anything in his life, and all of a sudden totally compulsive because these incriminating Fritos are all over the front seat. I told him to leave the Fritos. It was okay in most worlds to eat Fritos. So we swept up some seeds in the cargo area, opened the sleeping bag and left it there, so it looked casual, and split to wait for Jerry.”

  “It was still pouring, and my hands were numb they were so cold,” Hank said.

  “When Jerry finally came, there was still no one around. We couldn’t believe it. So we had him drive to the row of buses, and we stuffed eight costales in his Volvo. But there were four left. As it was, the others were piled in the back seat so he could hardly see anyway. He’d forgotten to empty the trunk he was so freaked out.” Patrick started laughing.

  “So Jerry split in this incredible storm, and we waited. We had to wait for him to drive all the way back to Santa Cruz, dump the costales and drive back for us and the other bags. We were talking another hour and half at least. And I was thinking, we were lucky. Really lucky. I mean this whole trip just fell into our lap and started to snowball. But nobody, nobody on earth was this lucky. I was thinking the shit was gonna hit the fan any minute. But it doesn’t. It just kept raining like shit. And we were leaning against this building under the eaves thinking the Feds were gonna start dropping out of the sky like raindrops. But nothing happened. It just kept raining like shit.”

  “Where was Jerry’s truck?”

  “In the shop. Natch. The truck was in the shop.”

  “So we were a mess,” said Patrick. “We waited. And nothing happened except it just kept raining. An hour passed. And we saw these headlights—two pairs—coming through the rain. And we were thinking, this was it. It was getting close to light. And it was still raining like cats and dogs. Or feds and heads, like Hank was saying. Raining like feds and heads. So we were both thinking now this was really it. We were going down. And Hank said, “Jesus, it’s Jerry. It’s god damn Jerry.’”

  “And I said, you’re shitting me. We aren’t that lucky. Nobody is that lucky. But we were. We were that lucky. It was like we were invisible or something. It was so incredible we don’t even believe it. Like the fucking Keystone cops pulling a scam. And so we threw the other costales in Michael’s van who had followed Jerry back down, and Michael splits and was on his way, and a guy drove in and parked his car. So we we’re walking back to Jerry’s Volvo, trying to be very casual, and this guy was carrying a cup of coffee and he was stuffing this donut in his mouth, and he crawled in the bus. Seconds. Seconds after we threw the costales in the van. And this guy started it up and left. We shit. We totally freak. We crawled in the Volvo and we were like zombies totally, totally blown away. We were totally freaking out.”

  “It was unreal.”

  “T
oo close,” she said. Her eyes started to tear.

  “Hey,” Hank said. “We’re all right. Everything’s okay.”

  “No, Hank. It’s not okay.” She was crying and couldn’t help it.

  “Not now, Maggie. We’ve just been through hell with a happy fucking ending and you’re bummed out. He wished he were really safe—still in the Cessna tucked up against the east face of the craggy ridgeline to the southwest of Mexicali that cradled the Laguna Salada—that small but useful ridgeline that had shielded the Cessna from the Radar at El Centro Naval Air Station.

  “For all I knew you were both dead,” she said.

  “We aren’t,” said Hank. “No way, eh Patrick.” He knew they’d been balls out lucky all the way from Mexico to Monterey. Unbelievably lucky. The ATC radar, as they had anticipated, had probably bounced off them a few times as they skimmed the ridgeline of the Mexicali slot, but not consistently enough to create the tell-tale green fluorescent trail of a contraband-laden aircraft moving across a radar scope.

  “I can tell you one thing though,” Hank said. “I’m drop- dead tired, and I don’t want to listen to this.” The drama of being caught, he’d escaped. But here he was in another line of fire and pissed-off.

  “It doesn’t feel right, Hank. Nothing feels right anymore. Your luck can’t hold. It’s against all the odds. This is crazy. You two need a reality check. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “I’m the guy who just flew my fucking Cessna a few feet over the most inhospitable chunk of earth you’ll ever see. The San Adreas puked up that ridge of mountains thousands of years ago and it looks as welcoming as a chain saw blade. Volcanic. And we skimmed each tooth and nail of black rock on the east side of those boulders to get that pot here. That’s fucking who,” he said. “I’ve been soaked in dust, aviation fuel, thundered on, rain-drenched, and flew that plane like a phantom pilot, miraculously safe and sound. And now I have to listen to this, fuck. Lighten up, Maggie. Just get over it.”

  “It was awesome, Maggie,” said Patrick, ignoring her tantrum. “Hank had that Cessna kissing the rock, then up, over some power transmission lines southwest of Ocotillo, then back, down on the desert floor.”

  “Some of that desert is below sea-level, Maggie,” said Hank, “and we worked that little airplane right up through the Mexacali slot, through that stretch of low desert, up towards Agua Caliente, across the draw of Borrego Springs valley and then to the northern shore of the Salton Sea. Maggie, I could of picked fruit off the cactus, I swear. Or brought you home a yucca bouquet.”

  “Some bouquet.” She put down her cup of tea. “What good is any of this if you two fly yourself into some desert floor.”

  “Maggie, I know you were worried. We know that,” said Patrick.

  “No shit,” she said. “You get in trouble, its trouble for me too, you know.”

  “We were worried too,” said Hank.

  “That’s different Hank,” Maggie said. “The kind of waiting worry is far different. It’s worse.”

  “You’re probably right, Maggie, but we’re the luckiest assholes alive, and the richest.”

  “You’re the dumbest assholes alive. You’re only lucky you’re not dead.”

  “It didn’t take dumb to fly that load, Maggie. It took smarts and balls. Relax, will you?”

  “I can’t relax anymore,” Maggie said. “I feel like a firecracker and someone just lit the fuse.”

  “Easy. I’m going to get one of the costales. You’ll mellow out when you see this pot. Damn seems like I’ve been in that fucking plane for weeks.”

  Patrick put his arm around Maggie as Hank left.

  “We’re okay, Maggie. Mellow out. It’ll be okay. It’s a good load. Wait till you see this stuff.”

  When Hank came back, he threw the sack of marijuana on the floor and took out a Swiss Army Knife, and slit the costal down the center and pulled the bag apart. The stems of marijuana were long and fat and very light green with streaks of reddish haired pollen.

  Maggie didn’t say anything. She didn’t give a fuck about the pot or any fucking Mexicali slot or any of it. She went to the patio and looked out over the desert. She hated the load of pot. She hated it before she had even seen it.

  Patrick came up behind her and rubbed her shoulder, comforting her.

  “Look at this stuff,” said Hank, admiring the long stems of marijuana crusted with resiny buds. He pulled a large hunk of marijuana from the sack and untangled one long fat chunky bud.

  “That’s some way good bud,” said Patrick.

  “Let’s light one up,” said Hank, making a peace offering.

  “I haven’t slept since you guys have been gone,” said Maggie. “I’m going to bed.”

  “This will help,” Hank said.

  “I don’t think so,” she said and went into her room, slipping between the covers—visions of costales, and airplanes, and craggy mountain ranges danced in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to make something else appear, but it seemed useless.

  Hank elaborately crushed the bud, snuck his nose into it to smell the aroma, laughed aloud, then sprinkled it onto the coffee table between his fingers, smiled at Patrick, and opened up a matchbook to scoop the crushed flower into a pile and gather it onto a Zig Zag. “Un-fucking-believable!”

  Tangled up in blue …

  CHAPTER 17

  Las Canas, Costa Rica

  THE GUARD LED LUCY THROUGH a large courtyard where vines of dusty-leafed bougainvillea climbed over the weathered adobe, splashing magenta and leaf against the earthen walls. They followed the trail of clay tiles that led through the open yard, then down a hallway to a sparse room where the springs of a small metal bed sagged beneath a thin mattress. A faded blue cotton spread hung over the bed covering a lumpy pillow, and near the foot of the bed, a dirty child’s rattle balanced in the folds of cloth, almost ready to fall. Lucy appraised the bed with contempt, and her thoughts tumbled to all the beds she had curled in, the soft sunny bed of her childhood, sturdy maple draped in chenille and tucked with white sheets, and the other beds, the dorm bed, the small single bed she finally learned to sleep in uncomfortably, and then the mattress on the floor where she snuggled in the slick sleeping bag against Gary’s warm skin, and the couch that Jackson pushed her into, but that wasn’t a bed she thought, and that, in all respects didn’t count, because that was just a fuck and not a bed for sleeping or anything like it, but that fuck did count in a way, because the sudden shame of it brought her here to this blank bed of metal and broken springs and faded coverlets and sheets that would never be white again. So she could only feel contempt for this bed that seemed if anything it should belong to Jackson, but it didn’t, it belonged to her because it was all her choice, and she had decided to carry the teddy. She was the fuckee that had just been fucked-over and this bed belonged to Lucy, but she wished with a deep anger that Jackson could have this fucked over bed back, the fuckor. And the drabness there was hers now, but was she not the same? Shortly before this, on this very day, only hours before, she had been sophisticated and mysterious and beautifully expectantly pregnant. And now, she was a part of the drabness, like the broken springs on the bed; she seemed to sag. She felt something inside her snap and sink into the sparse room, that plain and foreign jail, because of a mistake she had tried not to make, planned not to make, fought, even, against making.

  The real jail in Rosendo de la Rosa had burned years ago when revolutionaries had made a camp in the nearby hills. The town had been exciting in those days and everyone said so. Many of the townspeople traced their lineage to the outlaws and proudly so. Even the mayor boasted a blood tie to the first sergeant of the revolution and often told the story of how his grandmother’s aunt, less taken with the wild soldiers than his grandmother, locked herself inside the hacienda when the banditos came. A zealous solider had caught a glimpse of her lithe-body and dark-beauty before she locked herself securely inside the house. In quick pursuit he took an axe to the heavy oak door, c
hopping enough of a hole to stick his hand through and undo the latch, but as he did so the defiant young woman wielded an axe of her own, chopping off the man’s hand. When he pulled the bleeding stump back through the hole he tied it in a tourniquet and thrust the flesh into the flame of a burning shed to cauterize the wound. In a flourish of wild pain the solider left the beautiful woman to her solitude and rode through the streets of town with his men, setting fire to the jail and many houses. Many said he did this with his arm still aflame, that the fire of his wound burned the town to ash that night, and that the town-folk could see the flame light the forest as he rode away into the hills. Even now on sultry summer nights the town’s youth whispered under the stars telling their sweethearts of the fire in their flaming arms. The town came to the mayor without the jail, but every year he promised to build a new jail, and even talked robustly about doing so, especially when it came time to renew him as mayor. As he talked of the jail, he reminisced about the town’s glorious past, enchanting the people with the stories of the revolution, and how his grandmother was left with child and soon gave birth to his father, and how his aunt met a gentleman from abroad that filled her with a kind of passion she had never known, a passion that joined her soul and heart and her mind; she married happily and left Rosendo de la Rosa years before. Eventually the townspeople all forgot the mayor’s promises and quit expecting the new jail, but they would go home and remember their own stories and tell them again to their children, who would tell them to their children, and in this way the new jail became part of the town’s history as much as the mayor’s aunt because of something that never happened.