“Who’s that?” I asked him, faking a grin at the dog.
“He’s our drug-sniffing dog,” he said. “We got him from our friends at the border. But every time he sniffed somebody out up there, a customs agent got beheaded, so they said we could have him.”
He opened the door, and I stepped out. The dog sniffed over every inch of the Suburban. El Jefe even had the dog sniff through it twice. But the Suburban was clean.
“It’s not the drugs, you know,” he said. “The drugs don’t matter. The problem is the lying.”
“It is?” I asked.
“Countries whose people no longer know that the truth matters can’t survive. It’s very simple.”
They must not watch much cable news down here, I thought.
“Lies are the bricks of corruption,” he said. “We have to teach la paisa that truth is power.”
“La who?”
“Los mexicanos.”
“But I’m an American,” I said, bobbing to take myself out of a fight that wasn’t mine.
“So you should understand this more than anyone.”
“It does makes sense,” I said as I crossed the finish line.
And then, like one of the biggest idiots in the history of mankind, I reached down to pet the dog.
“I love dogs,” I said.
The German shepherd began wagging its tail like crazy.
“And he must love you, too,” El Jefe said.
I tried to snuggle this beauty, but the dog started barking at me.
El Jefe smiled. Then he reached to the side pocket of my surf shorts, unzipped its zipper, and removed the bindle.
“You lied.”
I could barely nod. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Lying matters,” he said.
He snapped open the bindle of coke and deftly tapped a small pile onto a knuckle. He snorted it.
“Is this stuff any good?” he asked.
“I thought so.”
“But all good things come to an end, don’t they?”
El Jefe tapped out another tiny dune of cocaine and held his knuckle under my nose. He smiled—and I snorted.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t confuse generosity with weakness,” he said.
If it weren’t for the coke, I probably would have fainted.
“I don’t have any money left.” I was begging. “I gave it to a friend who was having a medical emergency.”
“You’re a saint. Every gringo is.”
“I’m not—but it was a good deed.”
“And one that won’t go unpunished.”
This guy must have memorized the Big Book of American Clichés.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We’re going to send a message to your friends,” he said.
I imagined my body hanging from a bridge. I gulped for air. There is a big debate going on in Mexico over which side is committing more atrocities in the drug wars—the military or the cartels. But it didn’t matter, because it appeared that I had both covered. Unless this guy was policia secreta and then it mattered even less because I would probably be disappeared.
“Then don’t shoot the messenger,” I said, flashing my cliché-club membership. I forced a smile.
“Good one,” he said.
El Jefe nodded to two of his soldiers, and they instantly pinned me over the hood of the Suburban and ripped the back of my shirt wide open.
“In Singapore, this is known as a caning,” he said. “But down here in México, we just call it el vapuleo.”
“I don’t speak much Spanish,” I said.
“You won’t need to.”
Another soldier handed El Jefe a four-foot switch of bamboo about half an inch in diameter.
“Are you kidding?” I said.
“You’ll see,” he said.
El Jefe flicked his wrist, and the bamboo whistled. He spread his feet and whipped the thin reed behind him as if it were a fly rod, slowly winding up—and finally releasing its vicious hollowness expertly between my shoulder blades. I screamed.
“¡Primero de veinte!” El Jefe counted out.
He wound up again, and then deliberately crisscrossed his first wicked slash. I saw a flash of light. My ears rang, and I could feel a warm stream of blood begin to trickle down my spine. Seven casts later, I blacked out—until a bucket of stagnant water choked me awake for the back nine.
I looked back at El Jefe. He was smiling, and pressed the bamboo reed against his lips.
At that moment, I was certain I would never lie to him again—and El Jefe was certain, too.
9
Mi casa was a tiny ejido design—a casita, really—barely a thousand square feet. Two small bedrooms and a baño separated by ten feet of open porch. A cocinita was at one end, and at the other, two steps led down to three banana trees. An higuera overshadowed everything. I parked my Suburban on a dirt driveway out front.
The casita sat on a little hill two hundred yards up from the beach and surrounded by what’s left of the jungle. When I stood on my porch, I could see whether the waves were good. It was the kind of place that surfers dream about when they’re working nine-to-five el norte. I’d bought it six years ago for 58,000 US dollars—furnished. I hadn’t changed a thing except for adding Internet and replacing the fridge.
I don’t usually get attached to things. I’ve never had a favorite watch, or a car that I loved to polish. I might fetishize my Red Fin in the way surfers do, and I’ll admit I’m enamored with the board’s sweet pickup and steady flow—but I love my casita. When I had to heal, this was where I hid out. I have paced its floors and wept in its bedrooms and felt whole and content just sitting on the front steps. Which is why when I finally pulled into my driveway, I felt safe.
It had taken me five hours to drive the last sixty miles back to Sabanita. Whenever I leaned against the driver’s seat, it felt as if it was stuffed with hot coals. My hands were spastic, and I kept losing my grip on the steering wheel. Every mile or two, I had to stop to vomit. I’d already pissed my shorts. I hadn’t felt this bad since I was shot in the head.
I didn’t leave the casa for five days. I couldn’t dress myself for the first three. I was also humiliated. I kept flashing on the sadistic tempo of El Jefe’s whipping—those psychotically long moments between the bamboo’s attack, and my babbling and begging.
When I finally found the courage to bend around and look at my back in the mirror, the bruising was the color of a baboon’s ass—neon purple and leaking into various shades of red and blue that the jungle hadn’t even invented yet.
I had e-mailed Winsor a couple of times since making it back from Tepic and El Jefe’s roadside torture. I wanted to fill him in on the adventure, and, despite my shame, he’d get a kick out of the brutal details—Winsor was like that. But I hadn’t heard back from him.
Maybe he had hopped a bus up to the States, which he often did unannounced. That would explain Winsor’s e-mail unavailability. Mexican buses didn’t have Wi-Fi, but you can pretty much count on overflowing toilets and busted air conditioners.
There was some mystery in Winsor’s life that I just couldn’t put my finger on. For one thing, he owned this joint that he wanted to be the hot hangout, but it was never open during off-season and only rarely in high season. And every year, he got the bright idea to change the name—so it would be Sabanita’s “next big thing.”
For the season coming up, he was calling his joint the Wave of the Day, and he went a little agro when I told him the name sounded like kook bait. Last year it was the Closeout, which was also pretty cringeworthy, and, even worse, it confused everybody about when the place was supposed to be open.
Winsor always seemed to have a little bit of money—not a lot, but enough. Who knew where it came from. He was too young for Social Security and too uncouth to be a trustafarian.
I’d never seen him work, except for tending bar at his own joint, and he never talked about what he’d done for a livin
g before he came down to Mexico. I asked him one time, and all he told me was that he produced some kind of mixed media.
“It’s sorta freelance,” Winsor had said over tacos and shots one night. “I produce bits and pieces of shit you never heard of.”
I hadn’t seen the boys, either. They usually came around to borrow something or other every few days—or at least ransack my fridge and con me out of some pesos. But they were MIA.
So I started to wonder if maybe Meagan and the kids had split town—which would have bummed me out more than I wanted to admit. Especially if they’d left with Winsor. The guy was a good surfer, for sure—but he was a kook when it came to being a dad. Which was something I knew a little bit about.
10
When I first slipped into the saltwater, I screamed. The stinging was unbearable, but I knew I had to get back in the ocean. The contusions on my back had bled out and scabbed over, but I hadn’t taken a shower in a week.
I also needed to get over feeling like a coward. It’s not like I could’ve taken on El Jefe, or whoever the fuck he works for. Everyone has a breaking point—even if everything inside has already been broken. After you run away from your kid, what’s left is a footnote.
I paddled toward the point on Sabanita’s right. It was still pretty dark. I could barely see. But as I got farther out, I realized that someone had beaten me into the water this morning, which was unusual.
“Winsor?” I called out.
Whoever it was didn’t answer. As I paddled closer, I could see that it was Obsidian.
“Hey, dude,” I said. “You’re up early.”
Predictably, Obsidian looked away, faking that he didn’t know I was talking to him, even though Jade was nowhere around.
“Where’s your brother?” I asked.
“Jade’s not really my brother,” Obsidian said, which was true, but I’d never heard him say it out loud before.
“Being a family takes a lot more than some biological coincidence,” I said, as if I had a real clue about families.
I always tried to come off as wise and measured when I talked to Obsidian and Jade. I never raised my voice. I always explained things in a calm and logical way—and it always felt like a pose, as if I was auditioning to get my old job back.
But maybe this whole idea about truth really mattering was something I could impress on the kids—although it’d be a career ender in car sales. Keeping it real could prevent those unforced errors caused by trying to dupe people into believing you’re somebody different than who you are. Like, when I was a salesman I was mostly just a professional bullshitter—but maybe that’s not who I am. Not anymore, at least. And maybe it takes life kicking the shit out of you a couple of times to see it that way—so maybe there was a shit-kicking or two I could help the boys avoid.
The dark lines of a set were coming in, so I spun my board around to get ready.
“Do you want the first one?”
Obsidian didn’t respond. So I turned and paddled and dropped into a sweet little wave. I trimmed the Red Fin and cross-stepped to the nose. Then I paddled back out, and Obsidian was still sitting there—staring at the horizon. I started to think that things might not be so good at home.
“Is everything okay?” I asked him. “I tried getting hold of Winsor, but I don’t think he’s around. Has your mom been working in the plaza?”
Obsidian furiously slapped the water and then paddled away from me.
“Talk to me, Obsidian,” I said.
I tried to catch his eye, but he charged off on a wave—and crushed it.
This kid was pro material, no doubt. And whatever was making him miserable this morning, he was channeling it into some insane surfing.
I sat out there and watched him make five or six more waves. But whenever I tried for one, he paddled to my inside and snaked me. That’s not a cool thing for a surfer to do to a buddy in the lineup.
“Dude, are you pissed at me?” I asked. “Did I do something?”
Or maybe the problem was that I didn’t do something? Maybe the boys thought I was going to take them surfing or somewhere and I’d stood them up. I can do that, with this memory thing I struggle with.
“Winsor,” Obsidian finally said, and covered his face with both hands.
“What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
Obsidian nodded.
“Jesus,” I said.
And then he started to sob.
I have to admit, I was a little surprised. I didn’t think the boys liked Winsor all that much. But this kid was really broken up.
“He fucked Jade,” Obsidian said. “So Mom killed him.”
11
Obsidian and I paddled in, but I couldn’t get him to give me any details. He was a wreck. Every time he went to wipe his eyes, his hand was shaking so much that he had to clench it into a fist. When I moved closer to him, he tried to hit me with it.
“It’s okay, Obsidian,” I said. “This is the kind of awfulness you’re supposed to cry about.”
We left our boards on the beach. I followed him up a path that paralleled the north side of the river that runs through the heart of Sabanita. It’s a seasonal Pacific tributary that stays dry most of the year and sometimes even works as an extra road into town—but in tormenta it becomes a torrent of trash and human turds.
The Wave of the Day was in a cinder-block building that had been Sabanita’s original policía headquarters. It was kitty-corner to the sewage treatment plant and behind the baseball field, which worked as a kind of open range for grazing horses. It was in a part of town that didn’t smell so great.
The building was windowless and covered with graffiti. Its black steel door was hung with a flip sign that currently read cerrado.
Whenever I saw that word, it reminded me of my first day in Sabanita, back when I was looking for a place to land, back when my future felt like it was leaking out from that still-new hole in my head. I needed simple, and what could be simpler than a small town where virtually every business and restaurant was apparently owned by one of only two families—the Abierto family and the Cerrado family.
Or so said the signs on the front door of nearly every establishment.
Obsidian knocked on the black steel door.
“It’s me,” he said.
The door opened, and he stepped into the darkness. I was right behind him.
It was hard to see and hot as hell. I knew there was air-conditioning in here because I had helped Winsor bash a hole through the brick wall and install it. But obviously the power had been shut off. Obsidian closed the door, and I could hear him slide the bolt. It was pitch-black. I was sweating.
Obsidian lit a candle. And then two more. I could see Meagan and Jade sitting at a two-top near the bar. A bottle of tequila was open. Most of the chairs were upside down on the tables.
There were maybe five barstools tipped against a small concrete bar. Behind it hung the big-wave gun Winsor claimed he surfed in the Pipeline Masters.
Meagan looked freaked out but somehow still beautiful. She was wearing a tank top, and I could see dried blood on the backs of both hands and all the way up one arm. Jade was snuggled up next to her as if he were cold.
Obsidian had gotten hold of himself a little. He was breathing deep and slow, and I could see that he was trying to stand tall and look tough.
“Obsidian told me you’ve got some bad news,” I said.
“He shouldn’t have,” she said. “It’s nobody’s business.”
“Mom,” Obsidian protested, “how else do you think—”
“You should shut up, is what I think,” Meagan said.
Meagan glared at Obsidian and poured three fingers of tequila into a dirty glass. She took a gulp and then handed what was left of the tequila to Jade.
“You think that’s a good idea?” I asked.
“If you got a better cure for child rape, I’d love to hear it.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“When did it happen?”
“Last night,” Meagan said. “Obsidian and I took the bus into Vallarta because I promised him a 3-D movie for his birthday.”
“I’ve never seen one,” Obsidian said. “And I’m, like, almost fourteen.”
“They’re overrated,” I said. “The glasses are dumb.”
Jade tried to drink the tequila and gagged.
“But the power went out at the Liverpool mall,” Meagan continued, “so we came home. Winsor was supposed to be keeping an eye on Jade and helping with his homeschooling. When they weren’t at our place, we came here. The front door was locked, but I have a key. They were in the cooler.”
“I would have just let him kill me,” Obsidian said. “I’d rather be dead than gay.”
“He wasn’t going to kill me, jerkface,” Jade hissed. “He was going to kill Mom.”
“He just told you that,” Obsidian said. “It’s what they always say.”
Jade lunged at Obsidian, but I was able to grab him. I held him as tightly as I could without hurting him. I held him for a couple of minutes. Everyone was quiet, and Jade just shook.
“Dude, okay, listen,” I said. “First, there is some good news here.”
The three of them looked at me as if I was out of my mind.
“There is,” I said.
“Like what?” Obsidian finally said.
“Well, first,” I said, “Winsor didn’t kill Mom. Meagan’s okay.”
“If it woulda kept him from doing what he did,” she said, “I wish he would’ve.”
“No, you don’t,” I said.
And I thought about how it’s easy to be glib about death until you’ve brushed up against it. It’s like a hero is someone who’s never been hit by a car.
“Only one person deserves to die over this,” I said. “And I think you already killed him.”
Pirata Page 4