Mule

by Tony D'Souza

"You drove this across the country, didn't you?" Eric said to me.

  I said, "I took some to a friend in Texas."

  "Did you make any money off that?"

  "Of course I did."

  He took a step closer to me. He said, "You know people out there?"

  "My wife grew up with a grower."

  Eric laughed. "A guy like you has a source in Cali? You've got to be fucking kidding me."

  The hairy guy had papers and he broke off a piece, quickly rolled a spliff. Soon after they started to smoke it, he was giggling. He said, "Am I drooling? Am I drooling? I can't feel my fucking jaw."

  Eric said to him, "Go inside, Reggie."

  Reggie said, "Are you crazy? I can't go inside there like this."

  Reggie looked at Eric to see if he was serious. Eric stared hard at him. Then Reggie shrugged and was gone. Eric touched his finger to my chest. He said, "What kind of sign are we standing under tonight? Let me tell you something. I'm the man in Tallahassee people would kill to meet. I flip ten pounds a week, bring it straight up from Miami. Half the campus is high on my shit."

  He said, "Want to make some money? I'll hand you five grand a bag for ten pounds of this. You won't even have to wait. All you'd have to do is mule it and I'd have the cash ready. Nobody else in town can put up cash like that. How do you like it, that our paths crossed like this?"

  I said to him, "You know what it's like to drive it?"

  "Twice a month, heavy weight."

  "How do you manage your speed?"

  "Always with traffic."

  "You like doing it?"

  "No."

  "It's pretty goddamned stressful."

  "That's what it's like."

  I considered him now. He was handsome, fit, his teeth gleamed white like they were capped. His linen shirt was new; he looked like he had money. I said, "What are you doing at Roger's party?"

  He said, "I was in Iraq. Marines. Then I came here and earned my degree. I thought I'd stay and do the grad program, write a book about what I saw."

  "What'd you see?"

  "Invasion force. Combat. What the fuck do you think I saw?"

  Eric said, "What about your quality? Can you always come through with this? How about your people? Do they have the production?

  "This is for real," he said softly. "Ten pounds, fifty Gs."

  We looked through the window at the party. Everything I'd been feeling about it fell away. Eric wanted the rest of the bud in my pocket, and I gave it to him. When he asked what the name of it was, I told him, "I didn't even ask."

  "Let's call it Voodoo Kush," he told me. "If you bring me the weight, I'll give you the money."

  When the graduate students went home, the big brunette was still on the couch, her long legs folded beneath her, leafing through one of Roger's books. When Roger walked me down the stairs to the basement's spare bed, his mouth was wet with drunken happiness. "You should have got that grad degree." He patted my shoulder. "She's twenty-three or twenty-four. Hopefully, she's not crazy.

  "Life has turned out good, hasn't it?" Roger said as he pulled back the bedcovers for me. There was another painting of a voodoo goddess on the wall down here.

  I asked him, "What's with the paintings?"

  "They're Haitian goddesses of love. Of protection, luck, and money. I got them for next to nothing down there. This one I got in exchange for a meal."

  I looked at the goddess before I slept; she was holding an infant child. Around her in the night sky were blood-red hearts; her white eyes seemed to bear down on me. Upstairs, the sound of the girl's laughter rang long into the night. At dawn, I was on the road.

  Kate looked for work, and her résumé was soon on file all over town. When she'd come home at noon and it was my turn to go out, I'd drive to the beach and go swimming. I'd dive to the bottom of the clear, warm water, sit on the sand, think. How was I going to tell Kate about this?

  I called Darren Rudd from Siesta Beach.

  "How was your trip, James?"

  "Piece of cake."

  "Did you drive fast and swerve a lot?"

  "That's exactly what I did."

  "How are Kate and the baby?"

  "Everybody here is fine."

  "How did you like making that money?"

  "You know how I liked it, Darren."

  A line of pelicans coasted past, the beach was otherwise empty. I said to him, "My friend in Texas was happy. People I stopped and saw in Sacramento were happy, too. I had no idea how excited people would get. Now there's a guy here who wants to do it."

  "That's how these things get started," Darren said. "Then they just get crazy."

  Darren asked me, "Who's this guy?"

  "A friend of a good friend."

  "How much does he want to do?"

  "Ten pounds."

  Darren whistled. "How are the numbers?"

  "The numbers are great."

  "I told you about those Florida numbers, didn't I?" Darren said. "Nobody here would have any problem doing ten times what we already did, as many times as you'd need. That's what we do. We're good at it."

  "Would the price be the same?"

  "It would be for now."

  "I'd have to convince Kate."

  "Just tell her about the money."

  My mother had women friends who came over to the house, all of them retired. They sat in the living room and played mahjong. "Have they found any work yet, Lynne?" we'd hear them whisper. "Are they still sleeping in all day? What are they doing in that room? They're depressed about the economy, you know."

  When we'd come out at last and make an appearance with Romana, they'd assault Kate with advice. Why wasn't the baby wearing a hat? She could freeze in the air conditioning. Why did she never have on mittens? She could scratch out her eyes, the poor little dear.

  Lying in bed at night, Kate would say to me, "I can't take this anymore."

  I knew about mothers and daughters-in-law, hoped it wouldn't happen to us. I loved my mother and I loved Kate—couldn't they get along?

  They didn't. My mother felt that the baby should begin eating rice porridge, that solid food would help her sleep, but Kate read that Romana should have only formula until she was six months old. "It's not the right thing for her, Lynne," Kate would say as the discussion ground on. My mother would say back, "Well, that's not how we did it."

  "Well, this is my baby and this is how I'm doing it."

  "Well, I'm sorry I give any advice at all."

  The slamming doors, the mediations. God, what a wretched time.

  We should go out for a meal, I told Kate, spend some of the money we'd made. We'd taken a big chance—why not enjoy it a little?

  We dressed up the way we used to when we first met, left the baby with my mother. We ate tapas at Sangria on Main Street, danced at the Gator Club, and at the end of the night we went to Siesta Beach. The stars shone above the dark expanse of the Gulf. No one else was there. I put my arm around my wife as we sat by the surf, held her against the wind.

  "Do you love me?" I asked.

  "Of course I do," she said.

  "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about."

  "There's something I have to tell you, too."

  "A guy at Roger's place offered me fifty thousand dollars to bring him ten pounds of Darren's weed."

  "Fifty thousand dollars?"

  "Yes."

  Kate looked at the stars. She shook her head and finally said, "You've known about this all of this time?"

  "I have."

  "And you've already decided to do it, haven't you?"

  "Yeah."

  Kate looked at the dark water. "How much would we make out of that?"

  "Twenty-five thousand dollars."

  "Do you really think you could do it?"

  "It would be the same drive as before."

  Kate asked, "Couldn't we buckle down even more?"

  I didn't say anything.

  Then she said, "Did you talk to Darren? What did Darre
n say?"

  "Darren wants to do it."

  "How do you know you can trust this guy?"

  "He's one of Roger's students."

  Kate made a face. "What's a student going to do with ten pounds of weed?"

  "He's a graduate student. He's been there for years. He says he moves it through the frats."

  "It sounds too good to be true."

  "Let's find out if it is."

  She whispered, "Twenty-five thousand dollars."

  "We could start our lives again."

  For a long time, Kate didn't speak. Then she told me, "You have to be careful and check this guy out. If anything feels strange, don't do it. You listen to Darren and make a good plan and then you stick to it. No more showing it off to people, no more telling anybody about it. You talk to Mason and see what he wants, too. Then you come home to us."

  Kate said, "We're going to be careful with the money. We're going to make it last. We'll get our own place as soon as you get back and we won't ever do it again."

  "Yes, Kate."

  "James," she said, "do you remember those two times in the cabin at the end when we didn't have a condom and we did it anyway?"

  "I remember."

  "We're having another baby."

  Three weeks after I'd met him at Roger's, I finally called Eric. I was excited, nervous. I was worried I'd waited too long, that the opportunity had passed. The call went to his voice mail. "You've reached the Superstar. Yeah, you know it. Leave me a message." Beep.

  "It's James, who you met at Roger's. Sorry I haven't been in touch. I talked to my friends, everything's a go. Call me when you get a chance."

  I walked along the beach, drove around town. By the evening, Eric hadn't called, and there was nothing I could do but go home. In our room, the baby was sleeping, and Kate was reading the local community college catalogue in bed. If I really did manage to get that twenty-five grand, she wanted to go to school, something she'd never been able to afford. She'd study business, maybe get an MBA. "I want to be the one in control this time," she told me. She was wearing her reading glasses, looking studious already. She said, "Did you get a hold of him?"

  "Voice mail."

  "What time was that at?"

  "Noon."

  She was quiet, her face flat. She let the catalogue fall to her lap. Then she said, "At least we won't get in any trouble now, I guess."

  We went outside on the patio. The moon was a scimitar in the sky. Kate crossed her arms as I smoked and said, "Why didn't you tell me about him right away?"

  "I was afraid of what you would say."

  "What is it with you being afraid of me?"

  "What can I do if you say no?"

  When we went inside, my phone was vibrating.

  "James, my man, I'm glad to connect with you." From the sound of it, he was at a party. I pointed at the phone to let Kate know. She watched me from the bed.

  "The Superstar," I said.

  "You know it," Eric said.

  "Sorry I couldn't call sooner."

  "No worries, my man. I've been busy, too. God, it would be nice to deal with someone besides the motherfuckers in Miami. It would be really, really nice to get my hands on that voodoo you had."

  "Everything's good with the people on my end."

  "So when are you coming through?"

  "We have to figure out the money."

  "We can't do that on the phone, my man."

  "Can you swing by here on your way to Miami?"

  "I have a guy doing that for me right now."

  "Then how about you pay us a visit down here and we'll talk?"

  "No way. You're the one who has to come up here."

  My hand on the phone was cold and wet. I said to him, "It's hard for me to get away, with my kid."

  "No worries, my man. Another time. Call me when you come through."

  "Wait," I said. "When do you want to meet?"

  "Tomorrow. Outside the theater at the Governor's Square Mall at three."

  When I was done on the phone, I looked at Kate. Her face was as white as I knew mine was.

  "You're going up there?"

  "Tomorrow. I have to."

  "You'd better be careful."

  "I will."

  We didn't know Eric, didn't know a thing about him. Could I check up on him with Roger? I knew it wouldn't make any sense to Roger if I did. I sat beside my wife, set my hands in my lap. Kate said, "You're going to have to get that money."

  "That's what I'm going up there to do." I looked at her; from the way she sat there I knew she was thinking about the new baby.

  After our talk at the beach, we'd driven to Wal-Mart and bought a pregnancy kit. When we did the test at home, the two pink lines appeared in the window right away, just like they had for Kate when she'd tested herself a couple of days before. Then we'd talked about it all through the night.

  Were we happy about it? we'd asked each other. The room had been dark and quiet. The baby we already had was sleeping in her crib. It would be nice to have the children be close in age, we'd agreed; they were going to be Irish twins. Wouldn't that be a funny thing to try to explain?

  Now I put my hand on Kate's belly. "Can you feel anything in there yet?"

  Kate put her hand on top of mine. "Not yet. But my body feels the way it did when I was first pregnant with Romana."

  "You're going to start getting sick again."

  "Then you'll have to bring me some more weed."

  "My beard isn't ever going to grow back, is it?"

  "You look fine without it, Captain Patchy."

  I told my mother I had an interview, turned down her offer of gas money at the door. I knew she was underwater on her house, as worried about things as anyone, even if she wouldn't admit it. "Thanks for letting us stay here," I said to her. She said, "Don't ever thank me for things like that."

  The drive to Tallahassee was long and dull, five hours in the car. I was nervous the whole way. What if it was a sting? What would my story be? I was wearing the same flannel jacket and beat-up Levi's I had on my drive from California. They'd gotten me across the country safely and I thought of them as lucky now.

  In the lot outside the movie theater at the Governor's Square Mall, I was talking to Kate on the phone when Eric coasted past in his car. I sat up in my seat with a start. In the middle of our conversation I whispered to her, "He's here."

  "You know we love you."

  "You know I love you, too."

  His car was a black Mercedes, long and sleek. He looked as clean-cut in it as he had at Roger's. He cruised by again, circled, came back. When I winked my headlights at him, he grinned at me. I started the old Forester, followed him. There was a Marine Corps sticker on the bumper of his car. At the stoplight when I caught up to him, I could see that under the Marine Corps insignia the sticker read, "Iraq War Vet." Downtown Tallahassee was busy with traffic, congested around the capitol. Eric switched lanes at every opportunity as though trying to shake me. Why was he doing that?

  We entered a residential neighborhood; the people here had real money. He pulled into a long and curving cobbled driveway. The large house at the end of it was Bavarian, all dark beams and eaves—foreboding. When he stepped out of his car, he was dressed in white, even his shoes. I took slow, deep breaths as he came striding across his long lawn to meet me. He held out his hand, pulled me in close, then yanked up my shirt. He ran his hand around my waist, cocked his chin at my car, and said, "How many miles you got on that piece of shit?"

  As we walked up the flagstone pathway, Eric said, "James, I'm really glad you made it. I've been thinking a hell of a lot about you. The Cubans have been killing me, you have no idea the shit they make me eat. We can't do too much because we can't have them notice, but we can still do plenty. Ten pounds here, ten pounds there, everybody stays safe and happy. I mean, their stuff's indo, it's good haze, but it's nothing like your kush. And with the kind of margins you're giving me, there's no way we both won't get rich."

  "What
kind of margins do you get from the Cubans?"

  "Six. Six point two. Five and a half when they're really glutted. Come inside," Eric said, unlocking the heavy front door. "My humble abode is yours. Want a smoke? Want a snort? Want a drink? Want a bitch? Let's see who's freeloading on my couch today."

  "I should have told you six," I said as I followed him in.

  "Then we wouldn't be talking."

  The carpeted front rooms we passed through were dark and empty. It felt like nobody lived there. Then we entered a bright modern kitchen. Lying on the center island was an assault rifle, ventilated barrel, compact stock. Eric opened the tall steel fridge. He said, "I got Stella, I got Beck's."

  I shook my head and said, "Got to drive home after this." I should have turned around as soon as I saw that gun.

  Eric leaned his hip against the island like the weapon wasn't there. He was excited, started talking with his hands. He said, "God, how I've wanted to hook up with Cali. But how are you supposed to do it? Fly out to Humboldt? Hold up a sign? Do you have any idea how happy I was when you showed up?"

  He beckoned me down a long white hallway. He said, "The landlady came snooping around here once. Nearly got herself capped—she didn't know that. You'd think three and half Gs a month would get you some privacy, but I guess not."

  We went into a dark, wood-paneled den. There were two guys sitting on a leather couch, shooting up Liberty City on a projection TV. The room was furnished like an MTV set: a tank full of tropical fish built into a long brass bar, neon beer signs, posters of Phish and the Dead. On the coffee table were half a dozen bongs, so much ash that the table seemed covered in snow. There were loose buds on the shag carpet, loose buds on the table, the air smelled like they'd all just smoked. Eric said, "The fat one is my crazy brother, Eddie. He got the defective genes in our family. The Mexican one is Manuel. He was my gunner in Iraq. Now he's my adopted orphan."

  They were greasy and bloated, Eddie pasty-skinned and bearded in a food-stained white T-shirt, Manuel's face pockmarked with acne scars. Neither of them looked at me.

  Eric took me across the room to a framed picture on the wall. In it, a dozen heavily armed soldiers stood before a tank, making gang signs with their free hands. Beside the picture was a diploma: Florida State University, Political Science, Eric L. Deveny.