Savior

by Caplan, Anthony

  Hold it, cowboy. Let’s put a bag on that.

  What? You believe all that stuff?

  You never know. When in doubt, go with the prudent thing. Let’s not take any chances. When we get to the hotel we can figure out a place to put it.

  Um, like my suitcase?

  Maybe caution would dictate otherwise.

  We’ll talk about it later, Dad. Let’s finish the shopping and fix something to eat.

  Coconut Juan gave them a striped plastic bag and wrapped the tablet in newspaper and taped the wrapping. Ricky put the whole thing in the bag as if he were handling a fish, insisting with his body language that he was above all the subterfuge and paranoia.

  Cuidelo con su vida, muchacho.

  What’d he say?

  Take care of it.

  Mom would love this.

  A gaggle of dirt bikes came down the rutted road, careening around the corner in a high frequency whine of redlining engines. The men sitting on them wore black pants and were shirtless, with heavily tattooed torsos and arms and scarves wrapped around their heads and faces. They slowed down enough to not run anyone over. They gave Ricky and Al quick, nonchalant glances as if they did not belong.

  That’s them, said Ricky

  Who?

  The Santos Muertos.

  How do you know?

  I don’t know how I know. Just. . .heard a voice.

  A voice, huh?

  Yeah, Dad. It sounds crazy. But. . .

  Well, son. We need to get some food.

  The tablet gave the trip a new sense of urgency, as if the sky had opened up and a wind had swept away the dull, humid air of every day. Al thought of the way time passed and left you with only a residue of memory, and how this new possession, like a slap in the face or a cold-water bath, invigorated their steps. They walked shoulder to shoulder and crossed the road as buses and trucks made their way up and down what was, after all, the highway to Escuintla and from there points north to Tapachula and eventually la frontera and south to El Salvador and Colombia and all along the road in both directions the chain of the mountains that rose out of the jungle. He’d read once in a newspaper, one of those human-interest features from Reuters about a man who’d walked the whole length of the Pan-American highway, north to south, and was headed back the other way, expecting to complete his journey in the farthest northern town of Alaska, was it Barrow? Now with the tablet, he and Ricky seemed like they were somehow linked in a similar life-and-death exploration. What had Coconut Juan meant by a cifra? Was that a secret code, a number containing the answer they all were looking for? What would that be?

  By the time they finished the food shopping. Ricky was carrying three plastic bags in each hand, plus the bag with the tablet and Al had the bag of oranges, the two cases of beer and a box of Ramen noodle packs that were on sale at the last bodega. They took a different, less-trafficked route back to the apartment, passing the cemetery at the north end of the beach. Around the corner of the cemetery, the road ran onto a path that cut parallel with the beach through the dune scrub. They came out of the shade of the ceiba and flamboyant trees that lined the road. The sun was beating down on them. Coming toward them along the trail strode the American man from the morning’s encounter on the beach. Al looked up and saw him and kept his gaze steady as they approached. The man looked up and smiled when he saw them. What was his name? Robert Newman, namesake of the famous actor but without the baby blues.

  Surfer father. And surfer son.

  How ya doin', Robert?

  I’m fine. I expect you’ll be pros by the time your time is up.

  Well, the waves here are a little over our heads. Otherwise the place is perfect.

  Yeah, but its overrun.

  Hey, what more can you tell us about the criminal threat in the area? You look like someone in the know.

  Robert scratched his head and looked up and down the beach.

  It's not good. Look, if I were you, honestly? I'd get on a bus out of here as fast as I could. This place is about to pop.

  Pop? What do you mean?

  These boys been running meth, cocaine, guns through San Jose for about a year. You wouldn't believe it. Nobody does. They're planning to take over, and when they do, it won't be pretty. It's going to go down any day now.

  The American pulled some sunglasses out of his bathing suit pocket. He polished the lenses with the fabric of his oversized bathing suit, put them on, and then produced a pair of binoculars out of the other pocket. There was something seedy about him, as if he'd been too long away from the company of normal people, thought Al.

  Good view from here of the water and if you look way out on the horizon you can see subs.

  Subs. As in submarines.

  That's right. Built in the jungle.

  Al put down the box of noodles and the bag of oranges and the cases of beer. Ricky refused to do the same with his load, looking on with exasperation as his father took a turn with the binoculars.

  Can you see them?

  Yeah.

  They looked like little pill bugs poking up above the water on the horizon.

  What are they?

  I told you. They're submarines. I've even seen choppers lifting stuff and guys hanging from ropes.

  Al pulled the binoculars away from his face.

  How do you know all this?

  Let's just say I'm in on the play.

  Okay. So you're some kind of government spook.

  Like I said, I'm only telling you 'cause you asked and you seem like a nice guy. This place is about to pop.

  Robert scratched his head one more time. His eyes glazed and once again there was something forlorn and threadbare about him.

  Only thing is, nobody seems to be doing anything about it. I'm sending word up the line and I have yet to see any reaction. Task Force South is asleep at the switch. That scares me more than the subs.

  Ricky. Let me have the tablet.

  Daaad.

  Come on.

  Al gave the binoculars back to Newman, who put them away awkwardly in his bathing suit pocket. Ricky put his bags on the sand and Al took the bag with the tablet. He ripped the tape off the tablet and unwrapped it.

  What do you think of this?

  What is it?

  A Mayan artifact, apparently. Ricky bought it off Coconut Juan at the surf shop. Juan was very worked up about it.

  Didn't want to sell it to me at first, but I convinced him, Ricky added.

  Newman took the tablet from Al and turned it over, studying it.

  How did you convince him?

  I explained to him how the Mayans had the first fully written system and told him I'd read the Popol Vuh in fifth grade, which wasn't really true since Mom read it to me, but how they had the concept of zero before anyone else, and. . .

  This is very interesting. So Coconut Juan was the receptor.

  He’s a collector, I guess. I thought it was a fake.

  No, it's not. There's been all kinds of chatter about something like this. The Chocomal. There could be some people very interested in this.

  That's what he was all worried about. Said they'd kill him for it. Why?

  I don't exactly know. I do know some Iranian, Chinese and Russian scientists have been looking for some time, almost twenty years, for some archaeological clue. Their experts claim they know about a code underlying the frequency of sound waves, based on ancient secrets of Mayan astronomers, that they've been trying to use to build what you might call the ultimate weapon. There have been some disappearances. Researchers, anthropologists. Blamed on the drug cartels. Some say Samael Chagnon has an interest in it.

  Who's he?

  Very strange, secretive guy. Leader of the Santos Muertos gang.

  Well, what do you think we ought to do with this? asked Al.

  Keep it out of their hands. If I were you, like I said, I'd get out of town. It's been nice chatting.

  Okay. Let's go Ricky.

  Al wrapped the tablet and carefully put i
t back in its bag. Newman had disappeared down the trail and out of sight at a velocity that was surprising for someone as large and decrepit as he apparently was.

  Looks like the tide's going out, Ricky. Look at the surfers.

  There was a knot of them beginning to form again out beyond the breakers. It would have been nice to have binoculars to watch them from up in the dunes, but then again, it wasn't strictly necessary. The senses were our windows on the world and exercising them every day helped to keep them clean. Al was dismayed by people working on computers such as his half-blind brother Tony. Tony might be a genius but he had all but destroyed his senses not to mention his mind in the pursuit of his arcane academic interests. That's why he had wanted Ricky to play football, for the extra-alive richness of it, the mud and proximity to danger, the heightened sense of being connected to the source of all creation.

  All that talk about the drug cartels and the submarines out on the horizon seemed very far away, not real at all. Al wondered if it was some kind of phenomenon like deer being caught in headlights, the calm that had come over the two of them, Ricky and him, as they walked back to the apartment. The sun high overhead beat down on them, and in combination with the hunger and the strange sense of displacement caused by Newman's appearance on the trail, made it hard to think.

  They surfed for three days straight while the tides came in and out and the rain clouds swept in. It was the heaviest deluge in years. The low-lying beach town did not suffer badly; but on the television at the restaurant bar, the newscasts ran stories of floods and drowned bodies washing up on the beaches of the Caribbean coast and crocodiles gorging themselves on dogs and cats caught in the sweep of the flood water.

  Ricky got very good. Even in the low tides, he could manage the ladder, the erratic pattern of telescoped waves breaking far offshore in the early evenings. Al struggled getting to his knees on the board. His face took on a swollen look with the battering he was receiving. He had not shaved in days. He would go home while the sun was hanging above the horizon in a melting after-image and cook dinner and drink a couple of bottles of beer to get over the pain in his joints. Then Ricky would come in and shower. They ate silently, both of them awkward without the intervening voice of Mary to save them from their self-pity. They would run down the day's surfing and that would be it. Al tried starting a conversation, but it was never on something that Ricky would respond to. Then Al hit on the idea of talking about the future, conjecturing about the state of the world. Ricky had many ideas on this, gleaned from the pages of Popular Science and the like, and Al liked to hear the wild and, in his opinion, absurd theories that had sprouted forth. Men would live in bubbles on distant planets or in domes under the ocean.

  On the fifth day, Ricky had a hard time getting out of bed at dawn as they had been doing. He struggled to the kitchen and had his coffee with lots of milk and sugar. Al sipped on his and had a thought, observing Ricky's sluggish progress.

  Hey. Maybe it's time to head up country to see Evelio.

  Okay. When do we go?

  Well, we have five more days before we're due to fly home. We could go for a couple of days up to San Juan Grande and see if we could find him. Remember the cafe there with the hummingbirds?

  Yeah.

  If you've had enough surfing.

  I don't know. I'm kind of exhausted.

  Me too.

  I mean it's been fun. But I might need a break.

  We've been going all out for three days. At least you have. You managed the ladder, didn't you?

  You too. Lets go up to the mountains.

  Yeah, okay. We'll give Coconut Juan the boards and go rent a car.

  After a breakfast of noodles and tuna fish salad with toast, they packed their belongings into the two duffel bags and laid them by the door. Al finished off the coffee in the pot and hurried Ricky along. He was stuffing the tablet down inside his duffel bag, taking out clothes and sneakers to make room. Al didn't know why he was suddenly in a hurry. It was one of those inexplicable mood changes. Now that it was time to go, he just wanted to get on the road and out of there.

  Come on, you can finish later. Let's get the boards back and get the car.

  All right.

  I'm sorry. I don't mean to nag.

  No, you're right. There's only so much time. Although I'm sure you could have done it, Dad.

  Maybe. Next time I'll get a better board. That'll make all the difference.

  There was a crowd outside the surf shop. It was as if the entire town had congregated on the corner. A clutch of jeeps with the sunshield insignia of the Policia Nacional Civil was parked at odd angles in the road. Most of the people were silent. Ricky and Al cautiously approached the crowd outside the door. A policeman saw them and motioned for them to leave the boards against the wall. Through the crowd, Al saw Coconut Juan's American girlfriend inside crying as a policewoman hugged her around the shoulders. He turned around, and there was Newman still in his bathing suit, his wizened, brown, shirtless, sagging chest heaving as he stood on his toes in his flip flops to get a view inside. A wailing ambulance came around the corner and screeched to a stop behind the police jeeps. There was mud spattered on the windshield. The back door came open, and the paramedics hopped down and stretched their legs.

  ¿Que pasó? Al asked a stoutish gentleman in a button-down, short-sleeved shirt and a Suchitepequez FC baseball cap.

  Parece que un hombre fue asesinado por arma blanca.

  ¿Quien?

  Parece que el dueño. El Juan este del Coco.

  Ah. Gracias.

  Pobre señor. Que nos cuide Dios.

  Hey, Ricky.

  What?

  Let's go.

  What happened?

  Coconut Juan's dead.

  Ricky didn't say anything, clearly thinking, trying out this new idea. Newman looked at them both from a distance with a strange, expressionless face that Al interpreted as fear. It was already starting. He took Newman's fear to possibly be a reflection of his own. You could create your own reality if you put your mind to it. But the reverse could also be true, that your fear could transmute into a collective nightmare of the highest order, even though the individual's soul could never be extinguished or even altered, for that matter. That fact calmed him again. Or maybe it was Ricky. He was a pretty cool customer. His legs churned up the road and he darted to avoid the motorcycles that zoomed by.

  That's them again, Dad.

  Who?

  The Santos.

  Why do they all ride motorcycles all day?

  It's the best way to get around here.

  The car rental business was an air-conditioned island of calm. The man behind the desk got off his cell phone and smiled.

  We need a car.

  For how many, eh days?

  I don't know. Probably three, said Al.

  The man took out a form and started to fill in the boxes. Ricky was starting to wander around. Al thought of Mary and had a sudden feeling of being out of time, floating in an endless vacuum. He could almost swear she was right behind him and he turned, half hopeful that she would be, that her presence would wipe away the nervous tension he felt. There was nothing there, yet the feeling of her presence was still almost tangible. He spoke to her, echoing the words in his mind, the last words he had said to her at the hospital.

  You'll be here in my heart and watching over Ricky through my eyes. Don't you worry, Mary.

  We have the Suzuki or the Hyundai.

  The Hyundai is fine.

  And, Ricky? His body was tugging him in all sorts of different directions. This might be the last time they would spend together before he was off on his own life to somewhere different.

  Four—The Klondike

  They were married in Castle Rock, New Jersey across the road from the house Mary had grown up in. There was a cupola in a neighbor's field that in the late 19th century had been intended as a setting for amateur theatrical productions and the like. In the distance, beyond the field, were t
he Cumberland County Fairgrounds and Union Lake. The neighbor had leased the field to Mary's parents for the day. They had set up a large tent beside the cupola for the food. Mary's college roommates were dressed in green and yellow dresses and Al had his attendants in tuxedos, his best friend Joe Limosa up from Florida from Aviatrix and his brother Tony from Burlington, where he still worked in those days. Mary's father, who worked as an accountant for a Philadelphia media company that published magazines for equestrians, water skiers, and other specialized outdoor enthusiasts, walked her down the path in the field to where they waited. The guests sat in the cupola and cheered her in her white dress that had taken her months to make. Her mother, a woman who was in disgrace in her family because she had forced a divorce so that she could go overseas and teach English, whispered behind Al's ear.

  She looks so much older in that dress.

  The Reverend Pamela Grayson, the minister from the Methodist church, was a large, jolly woman in robes, who registered official mirth on her face as she lifted up Al and Mary’s conjoined hands like boxing champs when she pronounced them man and wife and somebody, nobody knew who, some middle-aged meathead, gave a big Bronx cheer when they kissed.

  They flew to Seattle for the Carnival Line cruise of Alaska's inner passage, and a limousine picked them up at the airport. During the drive in the limo, Mary felt sick and Al told her to lie down and put her head in his lap. He stroked her forehead and hoped she would be all right. They were supposed to stop at the Pike Place Market, but Al told the driver to go straight to the hotel. Mary sat up groggily.

  It's just bloat, she said.

  We'll get plenty of rest on the cruise, Mary. No worries.

  In the hotel room that night, they had steak and champagne with the room service. Mary ate the asparagus tips and barely touched her food. Then they watched the lights of the harbor out the large window, pulling the curtains back all the way. The television stayed off at Mary's insistence. Al thought she looked beautiful in her nightgown after she had showered and put her wet hair in a bun.

  Are you feeling better?

  Yes. Being with you always makes me feel better.

  She snuggled next to him in bed and they just lay like that in each other's arms in the half-lit room listening to the muffled sounds of the western city on the edge of the continent.