Pirata

by Patrick Hasburgh

  Or I could paddle hard as hell up the face of the wave and try to smash over the lip and through the curling white water. This is known as the stupid strategy, and—not surprising, given the genius of my previous choices—was the one I went with. I wanted to keep my eye on where I’d last seen Jade.

  It was a bad choice.

  I never quite made it all the way over the lip of the wave, and instead I was hurled backward and down to the reef, collecting sea urchins with my ass as the shore break tumbled me back to the beach.

  I ended up just a few feet from the sand. I grabbed my board and stood up. The water was barely knee-deep. I was standing on dozens of sea urchins—but I was so desperate to see Jade that I didn’t feel a thing.

  I scanned the horizon. There was a lull between sets. And then way out, maybe a half mile offshore, I saw a huge wave train—and then a tiny dot paddling down the face of the set wave.

  It was Jade—absolutely killing triple-overhead Alacráns.

  33

  “Dude, why didn’t you come out?” Jade screamed as he rode the beach break onto the sand. “It was freaking epic!”

  I was steadying myself on a palm tree with one hand and pulling sea urchin spines out of my left foot with the other. I had already finished with my right foot. But there was no way I could start on my ass without a mirror.

  “I made one good wave and then got caught inside,” I said, lying like hell. “But I saw you crushing it out there.”

  “I was okay?”

  “Are you kidding? You killed it,” I said. “But don’t bend so much, and follow your hands through the turn.”

  As if I could see anything a quarter mile offshore. My critique was bullshit.

  “You always tell me the same thing,” Jade said. “You should have just come out.”

  Jade looked at my feet and then at the back of my blood-soaked board shorts.

  “What happened?” Jade asked.

  “I had an accident,” I said. “I sat on some sea urchins.”

  “Why would you do that?” He was trying not to laugh.

  “It was shallower than I thought.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s high tide. That’s why the waves were so huge.”

  I shrugged. Jade could see that I had maybe been a little frightened.

  “Were you worried about me?” he asked.

  “Well, yeah. A little.”

  “Then why did you let me go out without you?”

  “I figured it was time for you to challenge some big surf on your own,” I said, lying like a phony. “I knew you could handle it. I was right here, though.”

  I wondered what the El Jefe rule was when it came to duplicity’s first cousin—the little white lie, dishonesty’s venial sin. The kind you use to not look like a coward to your kids, or when your wife asks you if her ass looks big.

  “Thanks for believing in me,” Jade said. He high-fived me and then hugged my neck.

  “It was hard, but that’s part of it, right? Part of you growing up.” I felt like shit for not being up front with him, especially considering how brave he had been out there. “But I was scared, too,” I said, in a blip of honesty. “I freak out surfing backside this big.”

  “Oh, yeah, right,” Jade said, and laughed. “Like you’re afraid of anything.”

  Jade picked up his board and wrapped his leash around the fins. “I’m starving.”

  “We can stop for tacos on the way home,” I said. “Do you know how to drive?”

  Jade went perfectly still. “Uh, no.”

  “Would you like to learn?”

  “I’m not old enough.”

  “In Mexico everyone is old enough,” I said. “And there’s no way I can sit on this ass and drive.”

  I strapped my Red Fin to the Suburban’s surf rack and put Jade’s board behind the seats.

  “Get in,” I said. “On the driver’s side.”

  Jade could barely contain himself. “I’m really driving?”

  “Move the seat forward before I change my mind.”

  I knew this was just standard dad stuff—but it felt as pure and as wonderful as anything I have ever known.

  “Have you ever taught anyone to drive before?” Jade asked.

  He was nervous.

  “I was a professional car salesman and auto demonstrator. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “Don’t let me hit anything,” Jade said.

  I let that one slide.

  34

  The Suburban’s starter motor sounded like it was blending a batch of margaritas.

  “Don’t keep grinding it,” I said.

  Jade was holding the key fully forward as he floored the gas.

  “Once the motor starts, back off on the ignition key.” I reached over and loosened his death grip on the key.

  “Sorry,” Jade said.

  “No worries. Everybody does it at first. And I’ll bet your mom still does it.”

  I pointed to his bare foot, which was crushing the gas pedal against the floor. I slashed a couple of fingers across my throat.

  “And cut the gas,” I said. And he did. “Good driving has a lot of nuance, Jade. Subtle does it. Especially in a big tank like a Suburban.”

  I had put a piece of driftwood on the driver’s seat to give Jade a boost.

  “Can you reach both pedals?”

  “Easy,” Jade said. He pushed on the brake pedal with his left foot and nudged the gas with his right.

  “Except that you use only one foot for both pedals.”

  “Why?” Jake asked.

  “Nobody is sure,” I said. “But just use your right foot.”

  “What should I do with the left one?”

  “Tap it in frustration at the guy who’s driving too slowly in front of you.”

  “Is that road rage?”

  “In Canada, maybe,” I said, and laughed.

  Jade put on his seat belt.

  “Okay, now, step on the brake pedal and move that shifter down into D for Drive,” I said. Jade put his left foot on the brake, and I helped him with the shifter. “And don’t forget, it’s the right foot for both pedals.”

  “I’m an idiot,” Jade said.

  “Nah, it’s normal.” I was teetering on one knee to keep my ass off the passenger seat. “Ready?”

  Jade nodded.

  “Take your foot off the brake, and let the motor’s idling start to move us.”

  The Suburban started creeping ahead at about two miles per hour.

  “You’re driving. See? No big deal.”

  Jade was mesmerized as he felt the Suburban rolling forward.

  “This is fantastic,” he said.

  “Now add a little more gas with that same foot. The brake foot. Your right foot.”

  The accelerator pedal was a bit sticky, so Jade ended up stepping on it way too hard. The engine revved, and the Suburban lurched forward.

  “Brake. Brake! Brake!” I called out, as calmly as possible.

  And Jade pushed hard on the brake pedal with both feet. The Suburban jerked to a stop, and my head hit the windshield with a thud.

  “I suck at driving.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I once drove my grandmother’s Rambler through her garage door. You’re doing great.”

  After navigating five miles of jungle on the narrow dirt path, Jade had driving the Suburban down. He even wanted to turn the radio on, but I decided against it.

  I had him stop just before we got to the paved highway.

  “Look left and right and left again,” I said, “and then turn north.”

  “How do you know what’s north?” Jade asked.

  “The ocean is on your left,” I said. “If you’re on the east coast, it’s on the right.”

  Jade eased the Suburban into a big left turn onto Mexico 200.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “That’s up to you, boss,” I said.

  “Okay.” He was beaming. “Are you hungry?”
/>   “Starving.”

  “Tacos?” Jade asked.

  “You’re driving,” I said, and held on for the ride.

  35

  We ate standing up at a taco stand on the shoulder of the highway, about ten miles below Malaki. I had a tongue taco for the first time—by mistake—because I was showing off my mad Spanish skills to Jade.

  It wasn’t really the taste that was weird. It was the texture. When I chewed it, it felt just like tongue, and all I could think of was Bonnie Gordon teaching me how to French-kiss back in seventh grade.

  I was glad we were going to get home before dark, because we were in an area just on the edge of where things are still a little sketchy. The drug wars had gone from boil to simmer with the Peña Nieto presidency, but south of Guadalajara and along the Michoacán frontera, drug turf was being contested by a new-generation drug cartel called the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación. The name had a bilingual kind of terror, despite its lack of originality. Murder was down, but kidnapping was up, and I still hadn’t forgotten my lesson in linguistics with El Jefe. So the farther north we got, the better I’d feel.

  Jade had been rock solid behind the wheel, and even though I was kneeling on my seat and looking backward, I was very tranquilo. But the sea-urchin needles in my ass were entering the insanely itchy stage. I needed some serious tweezer work.

  “Don’t let me fall asleep,” I said, thinking wishfully. “I’m the designated dad on this road trip.”

  “Who can sleep kneeling?”

  “Married guys and holy men,” I said.

  Jade laughed, but I knew he was just being polite. He adjusted his hands on the steering wheel. “How am I doing?”

  “You could drive for Uber.”

  “Really?” He was thrilled. “My mom drove for Uber.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah, but she got fired for not having a car,” Jade said. “And they wouldn’t let her keep using rentals.”

  “The bastards,” I said.

  Jade laughed. I think he knew his mom was a little nuts.

  “How did you think you did out there today?” I asked.

  “That’s not up to me to say, is it?”

  “Probably not. Were you scared?”

  “Heck, yeah. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I was. And I was only watching you.”

  “Was it that big?”

  “As big as I’ve ever seen Alacráns. Triple overhead. Easy.”

  “No way.”

  “It had to be close.”

  “But I’m short.”

  “Not that short. It was big. You could tell anyone that, and it would be true.”

  He smiled.

  It looked like he was proud of himself. It wasn’t something I was used to seeing.

  “I wish someone had seen it,” he said.

  Ouch.

  “Well, I saw it,” I said.

  Jade could see that what he’d just said zinged me a little.

  “Oh, you know,” he said. “But not a surfer. Somebody more real.”

  “Like who?”

  “I don’t know. Like a real dad, maybe.”

  At this rate, I was going to ask Jade to pull over so I could find a roof to jump off.

  “What makes the difference between a real dad and a regular dad—or like a stepdad?”

  Jade looked at me. “No offense, but I’ve had a lot of stepdads—buddy dads and uncles. I love my mom, and nobody’s perfect. But it can suck.”

  Having such a resourceful mom probably wasn’t much fun for a thirteen-year-old. I didn’t want to think about how many men had shared a toothbrush with Meagan.

  “Do you ever think about your real dad?” I asked.

  “Yeah, all the time. But Mom won’t tell me too much, and when I creeped him on Facebook there were, like, a million guys with Vietnamese names.”

  “What would you have done if you found him?”

  “Who knows? I mean, like, I don’t really even know him.”

  “But what would you like to ask him?”

  I was trying not to lead the witness, but his dad and I probably shared a similar despicability, and I’d often wondered what my son thought about me.

  Jade was stressing a little bit. “I don’t know. What would you ask him?”

  And now I was stressing—more than a little.

  “I’d probably ask him why he left.”

  “Yeah,” Jade said. “That’s a good question.”

  “I’d say,” I said.

  36

  I must have dozed off somewhere before the village of Agua Caliente, because I remember passing through Malaki. But at the moment, I was being banged awake by someone pounding on the Suburban’s hood. I had been sleeping in a kneeling position, with my ass up toward the dash and my chin hanging over the headrest.

  I opened my eyes and looked over at Jade.

  “I fell asleep?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jade said, with a face stiff with fear and taking way too much blame.

  The driver’s-side window was down, and there were two men with machine guns and wearing black ski masks. The masks’ mouth openings had been ripped wider than designed, and I could see that the men were grinning at Jade. It was ghoulish. I didn’t blame him for being scared—it was fucking scary.

  The guy on my side was also grinning through the hole in his mask. He didn’t have a machine gun and his ski mask was green, and through the left eyehole I could see a tattoo of a hangman’s noose.

  Oh, shit.

  A roadblock had been set up for northbound traffic, and Jade had been pulled over onto an unpaved roadside spur. There were maybe a dozen masked men and a couple of pickup trucks with roll bars and roof-mounted machine guns.

  Jade reached for my hand. I opened my palm.

  “Don’t touch that boy,” said the man on my side.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Do you recognize me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I must make a good impression,” he said.

  “You do,” I said.

  It was El Jefe, the sadist who had beaten me bloody with a bamboo reed. He yanked off his ski mask and smiled.

  I looked over at Jade. “No matter what this guy asks you, Jade, tell him the truth.”

  Jade nodded slowly. But he was mostly gawking through the windshield at two poor bastards who were blindfolded and on their knees maybe only fifty feet in front of us. They were handcuffed with plastic cable ties and surrounded by a circle of armed men wearing black masks and camouflage pants. One of the handcuffed men was slowly shaking his head no as the other one quickly nodded up and down.

  “What did those men do?” Jade asked.

  “Do you want to make that your business, mimado?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

  El Jefe glared.

  “Why the roadblock?”

  “Cartel activity in the area,” he said, coplike and official.

  “Which cartel?” I asked, pretending that this was a normal conversation.

  “The wrong one,” El Jefe laughed. “Why the fuck are you sitting like that?”

  “It’s the only way I can sleep without getting carsick,” I said.

  “You want to start with the lying already?”

  Jesus. What a wiseass thing to say. But maybe I was showing off a little to take away some of Jade’s fear. I turned around and sat on the seat.

  “I’m just still having problems with my back,” I said. “It still hurts.”

  “So you remember the rule?”

  I nodded. “In fact, I was just thinking about it.”

  El Jefe nodded back. “So?”

  “Truth matters.”

  He grinned. I was a good student. Then El Jefe reached through my open window, turned my chin, and looked at me.

  “You got your eye fixed.”

  “I did.”

  “Do you see better?”

  “No,” I said. “But I look better.”

&
nbsp; Jade stifled a laugh, and I motioned for him to shut up.

  El Jefe pointed at Jade. “Who is this funny boy?”

  But before I could get a word out, Jade answered.

  “I’m his son,” Jade said.

  “He looks just like you, amigo.”

  Which wasn’t true, of course. Jade was a brown-eyed Asian teenager with bleached blond dreadlocks, and I was a slightly graying white guy with blue eyes.

  “He’s going to be my stepson,” I said. “I’m going to marry his mom. His real dad is Vietnamese. It was an honest mistake.”

  I could taste the bile backing up in my throat. I was terrified—but it was imperative not to panic.

  “Okay. Next question.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have any drugs?”

  I pointed toward the glove compartment. “May I open this?”

  “Slowly,” El Jefe said.

  I unlatched the glove compartment and took out the plastic bottle of Epilim. “I’m an epileptic—I mean, in a way, I am.” I didn’t want to come close to lying to this prick. “And I have to take these to prevent seizures.”

  “Does it work better than the coke?” El Jefe asked.

  “I’m hoping it does.”

  El Jefe took the bottle and regarded the label. He shook out a pill and popped it into his mouth, and handed back the bottle. Then he whistled. The two men in cable ties were dragged closer to a pickup and then pushed down flat on their faces as a half dozen soldiers stepped into a semicircle behind them. It was clear that the routine had been practiced—the soldiers knew exactly where to stand.

  “Watch closely,” El Jefe said. Then he raised his right hand, and the soldier in the middle of the half circle leveled his gun. “¡Hacer la primera de ellas ahora!”

  And the soldier shot the man farthest from us in the head.

  “That’s one,” El Jefe said.

  Jade started to vomit. He tried to push the half-digested taco back into his mouth with both hands, but most of it was spilling through his fingers.