And a witness.
As this became clearer to me, I started to tremble a little. I was hoping José didn’t notice.
“But, you know,” I said, “ninety percent of all crimes in Mexico go unsolved. So it’s not like we’ve got that much to worry about.”
José laughed. “We just tell that to the gringas so they feel like they need our protection.”
And then he high-fived Chuy in a way that made me jealous and a little pissed off.
“Although that’s just a statistic,” I said.
I looked at Winsor and then back to José. He was smiling at me.
“Let’s adios this guy,” Chuy said.
José and Chuy wrapped Winsor in the rusted chain. I secured him to the anchor.
And we rolled his body overboard.
18
The tropical storm never quite got to tormenta status. It never made it to the big leagues. Nobody down here was going to be calling it an huracán.
Except me.
I was rocked by what happened with Winsor.
I was in the plaza, sitting on the concrete steps of the gazebo. Must have been about four in the morning—that no-man’s-land between the heart of darkness and dawn. Everyone who’d been out looking for trouble or a buzz had either found it or packed it in, but none of the señoras was up and sweeping the streets yet.
I had been sitting there for a couple of hours.
Everything was very still—like the way it used to be when I was little and I looked out the window late at night at the intersection on my corner, when the stoplight changed from green to yellow to red and then back again, without any cars passing through.
José had gotten us all back to shore—without Winsor and without too much drama. We had to power over some really big waves, and he set a new boat beaching record. We must’ve been going about twenty miles per hour when we hit the sand, and we nearly slid into a palm tree.
We hopped out of the panga, and Chuy hugged me.
“Thanks for the board bag,” Chuy said, and slung it over his shoulder.
“You’re an asshole,” I said.
“Would you chill? The fucking guy deserved it.”
“There’s a difference between a crime of passion and an execution,” I said.
“Not when you’re the one that’s dead,” José said, like an executioner might say it.
“You have to trust us, Pirata. We know more about these things,” Chuy said, taking his cousin’s side.
I looked at José and then finally offered him a nod of thanks, but he didn’t nod back.
“So, okay, amigo—later, huh?” Chuy winked and gave me a thumbs-up.
I watched them walk off, jabbing at each other and then fútbol-ing an empty plastic bottle back and forth. Chuy wore the board bag like a cape. They were calm and collected, compared to me.
I started to think that maybe it was some kind of holiday, because I hadn’t seen any trabajadores—the guys who get up super early to harvest the mango groves before sunrise, before it gets ungodly hot.
If I had seen any, I might have asked to borrow a machete—to slit my throat.
I had become a murderer.
It didn’t feel great.
Though technically, I was just an accomplice.
It was going to take some serious mental maneuvering for me to get myself through this. It felt like a turning point, just as getting shot in the head had been a turning point. I mean, if killing someone isn’t a turning point, you’re probably a lost cause.
I’m not one of those guys who believe that good deeds can make up for bad behavior, but piling up some kindness right now might not hurt. I was very likely way overdrawn at the karma bank. I should probably make a deposit.
“What are you doing up so early?” Sarah said.
I turned. Sarah was standing at the edge of the plaza, under a streetlight. She had a small dog on a leash. It looked like a pit bull puppy—with mange and a bandaged rear leg. Since I had known Sarah, she’d gone through about thirty dogs. She was a dog foster mom.
“I can’t sleep,” I said. “I’m unloved.”
“Rescue a dog,” she said. “It’ll love you.”
Sarah sat down next to me on the gazebo steps.
“How did it go up at the sacred grounds?” I asked, a little like a smart-ass.
“There’s been some progress,” Sarah said, with an edge. “But it’s a process, Nick.”
Then she nuzzled her new dog and kissed it on the mouth.
“This is Captain,” Sarah said. “He was poisoned.”
“He looks like he’s doing better, then,” I said.
“There’s a man who comes to Sabanita every year to poison the dogs.”
“I’ve heard that,” I said.
But I never believed it. Every few years, this rumor returns—the man is here to poison the dogs.
“He comes from Mexico City,” Sarah said. “The government sends him. To poison the strays.”
“He’s doing a shitty job,” I said. “We have more stray dogs than hungry kids.”
“The kids are next,” Sarah said.
It was the kind of wild rumor that could race through rural Mexico and get toy salesmen lynched. I was mystified about why so many gringos believed them.
“I wouldn’t repeat that,” I said.
“It’s true,” she said.
It was still pretty dark, but Sarah was sitting close enough to me that I could see her face. She was stroking the puppy, holding it as if she were breastfeeding. Sarah was wearing a little makeup, and her hair had been brushed. She wore a flower behind one ear.
I smiled at her.
She smiled back, and I could see that her missing front tooth had been replaced.
“Nice tooth,” I said.
“Thanks. In Arkansas, that’s a compliment.”
“Here, too.”
“I bought myself a birthday present for my sixtieth. I didn’t want to be a toothless old crone. Just a regular old one.” A great thing about Mexico is that the dental work is so cheap. I once got a root canal for fifty bucks.
“It’s your birthday?”
“Yeah. Today.”
“Feliz cumpleaños.”
“Thanks,” Sarah said. “But you know what that means?”
“You’re halfway to one hundred and twenty?”
Sarah tried to smile like she didn’t care. “That I haven’t been laid in a decade,” she said. “Which would be funny if it wasn’t so humiliating.”
And then I remembered Sarah’s over-sharing that sad fact when I bought the bindle last week.
“It’s not humiliating,” I said. “Celibacy is even, like, a thing now. A fad, sort of.”
“Rubik’s Cubes were a fad,” Sarah said. “Never getting laid is just lonely.”
It was probably pretty awful.
I felt sorry for the dog. Sarah was squishing it up against her chest.
“Go easy on that dog,” I said.
“Fuck this dog,” Sarah said, and let go of the orphaned pit bull. I had to grab the leash.
“What time of day were you born?” I asked.
“Why?”
“I’m an astrologist. I want to see if your seventh house is in escrow.”
“Eleven seventeen in the morning.”
“So you’re not sixty years old for another four or five hours.”
“What difference does that make?” Sarah fired back.
“It could make some.”
“How?”
“Can I walk you home?”
Sarah looked at me. “What are you up to, Nick?”
“It’s your birthday.” I smiled and reached for her hand.
“Spare me the mercy hump, please,” she said. “No charity.”
“I wish it were that simple,” I said.
I tugged on the leash and picked up the puppy. I offered a hand to help Sarah to her feet, but she didn’t take it. Then she stood up and took my arm and we slowly circled the plaza, preten
ding we had nowhere to go.
A señora began to sweep out the gazebo. A trabajador with a machete dangling from a rope belt crossed the street. Sarah squeezed my hand.
“Walk me home,” she said.
19
I was the only person to have sex with Sarah during her fifties and the very first person to have sex with her in her sixties. If I said I hadn’t enjoyed it and that I was just jamming guilt coins into the good-karma slots, I’d be lying. Using sex as a distraction isn’t exactly a new idea, but it sure helped me get over my initial anguish about Winsor.
Although it’s not like my hands were any cleaner now. I was still just as culpable as I’d been when we wrapped Winsor up in that rusty chain—and when José blew a spearhead into Winsor’s chest with the bang stick. My trying to guilt fuck my way out of that with Sarah was creepy.
And I was ashamed of myself for not feeling as bad as I thought I should. Maybe I had a little murderer in me. Maybe we all do—the coward who doesn’t want to get caught. Or maybe it gnaws at you over time.
Or maybe you just end up forgetting about it.
Sarah and I did the elusive feat eight times over two days, and for a couple of people who could probably count on our hands how many times we’ve had sober sex, we were pretty good at it. We didn’t have to worry about anybody getting pregnant, and Sarah had already assured me that she was a bad viral host.
I finally got back to my casa Wednesday afternoon. I hadn’t been home since Sunday night. Someone had raked up the dirt, and there was a neat pile of leaves under the higuera. A small garden had been planted. I could see that those little seed envelopes were being used as signs. It was a spice garden. I hoped.
Meagan was standing on the front steps.
“I heard the car,” she said.
I felt as if we had been married for ten years and I was coming home late from the bowling banquet.
“I was starting to think that maybe you got caught. Or that you ran away.”
“The second one crossed my mind,” I said.
“Where were you?”
“Where do you think?”
I climbed my front steps and stood close to Meagan.
“I’m not particularly good at getting rid of bodies,” I whispered. “It’s not as easy as you think.”
“You should have called. It freaked out the boys.”
“I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“Where would we be?”
“Home.”
“At Winsor’s?”
“Well, that’s where you live, isn’t it?”
Meagan laughed. “Not anymore. The place is going to be haunted.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“That’s what Jade thinks.”
“Then tell him it’s not true—that such a thing has never happened. You’ll be doing him a huge favor.”
I looked into the casa, and I could see both boys. They were sitting at the counter in the kitchen and maneuvering the mouse of my ancient iMac. There was a spreadsheet up on the screen.
“What are they doing?” I asked Meagan. “I have some personal stuff on that.”
“Homeschooling,” she said. “Jade’s really good at math.”
I could also see that Meagan had arranged some fresh flowers.
“Whose are these?” I asked.
“Yours. They grow all over the back of the house.”
She held one to my nose and made me sniff it. But all I could smell was Sarah and me.
“I need to take a shower.”
“There’s no hot water.”
“How is that possible?”
“You’re out of propano.”
“There was money in my drawer.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
“Nine thousand pesos?” I said. “That’s like five hundred dollars.”
“But I had to use it to pay the rent.”
“There’s no rent. I own this place.”
“On the Wave of the Day,” Meagan said, and then whispered, “It’s got to look like we think he’s coming back.”
Jesus.
“And, you know,” she said, “stranger things have happened.”
“No, they haven’t.”
I walked into the bathroom. Meagan followed me.
“Mi baño, amiga,” I said and smiled as I tried to close the door.
“There’s only one,” she said and stuck her foot in the bathroom.
I pulled off my shirt and balled it up. Meagan gasped. She was pointing to the welts and bruises on my back.
“What happened to your back?”
I tried to calculate how much I should tell Meagan about my humiliating roadside encounter—but then I decided to take El Jefe’s advice and simply tell the truth. “I was stopped at a checkpoint and lied about having drugs.”
“You had drugs?”
“Yes,” I said, without spin or varnish.
“What kind?”
“The wrong kind, apparently.” I didn’t feel like explaining my seizures to Meagan and going into my self-medicating defense. “So they beat me.”
“You couldn’t bribe them?”
“I brought it up—”
But Meagan cut me off with a glare. “What the fuck is that?”
She was pointing to a spot on my neck. I looked in the mirror. Sure as shit, I had a hickey.
“I was also choked?” I said, hiding a lie inside a question. “Choked and beaten.”
“It’s a hickey,” Meagan said.
“I think so, yes,” I said.
“And it’s fresh.”
“It is.”
“You were just with somebody.”
“I was,” I nodded.
“Are you a fucking vampire?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
El Jefe’s theory about truth appeared to be falling apart.
“How the fuck can you kill someone and then fucking fuck?”
“That’s a lot of fucks,” I said.
“I’m just warming up.”
“But I didn’t kill him, sweetheart.” And neither did you, now that I think about it.
“So what, he deserved it.”
“Probably,” I said.
Meagan leaned in, but it didn’t look like she was going to kiss me—she just sniffed.
“You need a shower,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
20
I took a cold shower. It felt great, if a little late. But the water really wasn’t that cold. Every kind of liquid in Mexico ends up around room temperature, in the same way that all the dogs end up flop-eared and grayish brown.
I have this theory that eventually all the mongrel strays and neurotic cocker spaniels that have run away from their gringa nannies will breed into one genetically streamlined Mexican purebred. That’s all you’ll see down here—gangly gray mutts with long, droopy ears.
I hadn’t had a shave or brushed my teeth for a few days, so I was taking my time with some serious primping. After all, it was my bathroom. I also wasn’t crazy about having another face-to-face with Mother Meagan.
I took a closer look at the hickey on my neck, and I had to say, it was a thing of beauty. It looked like the state of Texas, but with too much blue inside the red. I don’t remember Sarah sucking that hard, to be honest, but I’ll never forget the gibberish she thought was sexy talk. It sounded like she was speaking in tongues, at least when she wasn’t tonguing me in places that many people would find offensive and perverse—like I used to.
All I will say is, don’t knock what you haven’t tried.
I put on a clean T-shirt and alternated into my other pair of board shorts. I owned two pairs, one of which was always clean. In a perfect world, anyway. The pair I had just put on had a half-eaten candy bar and about a thousand ants in the pocket. I slipped off the shorts and snapped them hard against the shower tile, and most of the ants flew off. I took a bite of the candy bar but then dropped it in the toilet. I didn’t want to spo
il my dinner.
The front of my T-shirt said Don’t Ask. The back said Don’t Tell. I don’t remember buying it. It just appeared one day. After a binge.
Don’t ask.
I also put on a fresh eye patch. I keep a handful of them in the sink drawer next to my Good News razors. This one was white with a sequined peace sign. I also have a red one with a hammer and sickle, and then a few basic blacks and grays for formals.
“Too many fucks,” Meagan said. “I’m sorry.”
She was leaning against the bathroom door. I didn’t know how long she’d been there, but it startled me a little. I wasn’t used to the company.
“Mine or yours?”
“Just yours if you’re going to be an asshole,” she said, stepping a little too close. “But I do appreciate the help.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
Meagan took the Good News razor from my hand, expertly flicking off the excess lather and then drawing a smooth, clean line down from my sideburn to my chin. She quickly pushed up my nose and shaved above my lip.
“You’re very good at this.”
“It’s not hard.”
I began to wonder just what Meagan couldn’t do—or maybe wouldn’t do. But before I could give it much thought, she toweled me off and kissed me on the nose.
“How old are you, Meagan?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Jade’s thirteen?”
“Fourteen in February,” she said. “I was knocked up my first year in college.”
“So that explains the ‘freshman fifteen’—it turns out to be a six-pound baby boy.”
“You might be surprised just how unfunny being a young single mom is,” Meagan said.
I realized I was being scolded a little.
“I was stupid enough to think it was an act of independence. I was in my feminist phase. Jade’s dad was a senior.”
“Where is he now?”
“Danny went back to Hanoi. But he promised to send for us.”
“Danny?”
“Like Dan—with an h,” she said. “But I Americanized him.”
Pirata Page 7