Mules:: A Novel

by Jarred Martin

  Primo sprang to attention. “That’s the girl. That’s the fucking girl we’re supposed to get. Drive!”

  Eliana Leon stepped out on the street carrying a folder full of sheet music in the crook of her arm. She had been practicing the Moonlight Sonata on an ancient upright piano that, for some reason she could never explain, made the baby grand she had at home sound like a twenty dollar Casio keyboard. She had to stop when she realized it was as good as her fat sausage fingers would ever allow her to play it. She would never be a professional, she had the ungraceful hands of her father. There was little about her that was graceful. She weighed enough to cause the withered and severe woman she took lessons from to look concern every time the piano bench creaked. She was comfortable with her body, but it was hard to maintain your dignity when furniture threatened to break beneath you like a character in a bad comic strip.

  She went North, up the street, she wanted to get some carnitas and have a few beers at a cantina nearby. Some of the old timers still shook their heads to see a woman in a place like that, but she was used to going to the bars by her school across the border in Texas, so fuck them. She didn’t notice her father’s blue Volvo creeping along behind her as she made her way up the street.

  “Here is good,” said Primo from inside the car.

  “Okay.” Gusano stopped the car. “You sure you can handle her? She’s built like a fucking bank vault. Don’t forget to leave the door open.”

  Primo left the car and shut the door behind him.

  Gusano watched the scene outside the windshield. Instead of grabbing her straight off, Primo put a hand on her shoulder and let her turn around to face him. Big mistake. She immediately realized something was up. She dropped the sheet music and swung her knee up into Primo’s groin. He doubled over and fell down in the street, clutching at his bruised testicles. Then she was off running.

  Look at her go, thought Gusano, watching her heavy steps pound against the street as she ran at a full sprint. Not going to keep that up for very long, honey.

  He put the car into drive and followed alongside her.

  After a couple dozen yards she ducked into an alley. Gusano had anticipated this and was ready to turn sharp. He stayed on her.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He said to himself.

  He let her get far enough down the alley to where he was sure she wouldn’t double back and then he drove the car around her, sped past and executed a sudden turn, steering the front of the car at an angle beside the wall, blocking her in.

  She came to the car, threw herself over the hood and tried to scramble over it. The thin metal bend inward and popped under her weight.

  Gusano was out of the car waiting for her. He grabbed her by the hair as she crawled over and flung her to the ground. She came down hard, tearing the skin of her palms open, and she lay on the ground, wheezing with her heart thumping inside her chest so loud she could hear it in her ear canals.

  When she tried to pick herself up Gusano drove a soccer kick into her ribs, and she went down again. Another kick to her solar-plexus forced out what precious wind remained in her lungs. She rolled over, moaning with her hands up defensively.

  Gusano looked up and saw Primo staggering down the alley, taking wide steps and cradling his balls in one protective hand.

  “Don’t hit her no more. You’re not supposed to fuck her up, man. Remember? He said that. Don’t fuck her up.”

  Gusano felt like jamming his heel down on the bitches face just to spite Primo. He was right though, they weren’t supposed to leave any marks on the girl, and he was probably going to catch hell already for her hands and the bruises forming around her ribs and fat gut.

  “You’re the fucking professional all of the sudden?” Gusano shouted at him. “Telling me what I should do. I wouldn’t have done it if you had grabbed her like you were supposed to. What was that tapping her on the shoulder shit, huh? ‘Excuse me, miss. Do you mind if I kidnap you?’ What were you thinking?”

  “I didn’t think she was going to do that. She surprised me.”

  “Well, life’s full of surprises isn’t it?”

  Eliana had caught her breath and had begun to crawl away as the two thugs argued with each other.

  “Goddammit,” Gusano muttered as he walked over to her and grabbed her around the ankle. She kicked at him with her free foot and dug her nails into the floor of the alley, trying to pull away from him.

  She screamed as Primo came around and put a hand over her mouth and together the two men dragged her into the car.

  When they were inside, Primo beside her in the back seat and Gusano at the wheel, Gusano spoke to her, looking back in the rear view mirror.

  “Alright. You probably have a lot of questions. I don’t know how much you feel like talking, but I can tell you right now, you’ve caused me enough grief today, and I’m already pissed off, so the correct amount would be not at all, just so you know. I’m not a bad guy so I’ll clue you in on what’s happening. Your daddy’s dead, I’m not too sorry to say. He fucked up some stuff and cost some people a lot of money. You’re going to help us make this money back, there’ll be more on this later. You probably want to know where you’re going. All I can tell you is, you’re going to see the doctor.”

  Primo took her wrists gingerly and turned her palms up. “Jesus, man. Look at her hands. She’s a musician.”

  Play me something sad, baby, Gusano thought as they drove away.

  THIRTEEN

  The moon was a bright sickle slicing blue and white into the dark sky above the desert road. They had been following the road for over two hours and no cars had passed. Their only companions were tufts of desert weed, cacti, and the occasional glint from the eyes of coyotes and foxes that lived in the flat empty expanse of dust and rocks beyond the road. The terrain was almost hateful in its indifference. They could fall dead and their corpses, carrion briefly and then bones, would be buried under the sweeping sands as carelessly as a drunkard’s stream of piss floods an anthill. In the desert they were either dead or dying.

  Neesha, one arm around Els’ shoulder, trying to keep weight off her injured knee, swiped her thumb across the touchscreen of her phone as she hobbled along. It lit up to reveal the little triangular icon indicating reception was still empty.

  Neesha shoved the phone back into her pocked indignant, tired, worn down from the pain. “We have to stop again and let me rest for a second.”

  “Okay.” Said Els.

  They stopped near the edge of the road, Els helped Neesha down carefully. She put her hand over her knee and it filled her palm like a softball. She winced.

  Neesha didn’t know how much longer she could go on. The pain in her knee was pulsing and throbbing and it spread out through her entire leg, the core of her bones ached. She couldn’t walk more than a couple hundred yards at a time. Els would let her rest for a while before making her get up again, but she wouldn’t accept Neesha’s refusal to go ahead without her and get help. Even with the weight of both their bags and Neesha leaning on her, it was always Neesha who had to stop. It seemed Els could go on forever, urging her injured friend along the way the entire time.

  Els looked through her duffel bag sitting at the side of the road.

  “Are you thirsty?” she asked, pulling out something in a white can and handing it to Neesha.

  “What is this, beer?”

  “Water.”

  “I won’t even ask why you have cans of water in your bag. I’ll just say thanks.” She popped the top and drank. The water was hot and it tasted of aluminum. It seemed to splash down into the hollow of her empty stomach and lay there like a sodden weight.

  Els pulled a small bottle of aspirin out of her bag and shook out a few into Neesha’s open hand.

  Neesha swallowed them, wondering what else was in her bag.

  “Ready to go again?”

  Neesha sighed. No. No, I’m not. She stuck out her hand and Els pulled her up. She winced again as she too
k her first few steps. Don’t complain, she told herself. There’s going to be a lot more steps on this road. And you’ll feel every one. Don’t complain. It won’t help. Even if you feel like you’re only walking on a dirty treadmill, complaining is only going to make Els feel worse.

  The gravity of this situation was unavoidable and it scared Neesha. She realized that she could very easily die out here. They both could. She saw very little keeping them from dropping off, from ending up just like the family at the gas station. They weren’t anything anymore; just meat and blood sprayed all over the walls and seeping down into the cracks of the floor. It was odd to Neesha. The thought of dying in Mexico hadn’t even been a flitter in her conscious mind before she left, and now it was impossible to think of anything else and for the first time ever, she was afraid for her life.

  She glanced at Els, trudging along at a pace, bags over one shoulder, supporting her with the other. Neesha felt Els’ hot sweat in the crook of her arm.

  Maybe it wasn’t so easy for them both to die. Maybe it was only easy for Neesha. Els seemed to have a determination, some grit that kept her moving against all odds. Death would not find Els an easy victim, she thought. She was made of stronger stuff than Neesha.

  “Do you want to stop again?” Els asked.

  “No, lets keep going a little while longer. I can stand a few more steps. I think the aspirin’s working.” Neesha’s knee was screaming, but she wouldn’t let Els hear it. This road was made of a lot of painful steps, and she would have to walk them all. But she wouldn’t have to walk them alone.

  It was 90 minutes later when they saw it: a squat, square little construction rendered the same complexion as the surrounding desert. The only thing to differentiate from the dirt and rocks were its angles and the little hint of light shining through a window.

  They had to stop twice before they were close enough to see the few pickups and a couple of dirt bikes parked outside. Neesha didn’t want to stop, but she collapsed the second time, falling to the ground cursing frustrated under her breath.

  “Take it easy,” Els told her, “it’s not going anywhere.”

  “Don’t say that,” Neesha said through clenched teeth. “Our luck, as soon as we get a little closer, a hole will open In the ground and swallow it up.”

  “I’m ready now.” Neesha held out her hand. Els didn’t take it.

  “Help me up.”

  “No. Just rest for a minute.”

  “Fuck that. I’m okay. Help me up.”

  Els turned her back to her, staring out over the desert at the little building.

  “Let me guess. You got a bad feeling about that place, right? You don’t even have to tell me. Christ, do you ever have any good feelings? I’m just curious.”

  Els remained silent for a minute, still not turning around. “We’re going home aren’t we?”

  “No. We’re going to that place up the road and using the phone.”

  “I mean after. You want to go home.”

  “Yeah,” said Neesha. “Yeah, I want to go home. Don’t you?”

  She watched Els shrug her shoulders. “I don’t know. We had a bad day, I guess.”

  “A pretty fucking bad day. That’s putting it mildly.”

  “I just want to look at the desert for a minute. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”

  Neesha though she’d never seen anything so ugly in her life. “It scares me.”

  After a minute she helped Neesha to her feet and they walked to the little building, which turned out to be a bar.

  Broken glass from beer bottles was strewn all over the parking lot, shimmering in the moonlight. It crunched under their feet as they walked up to the place. A bar in the middle of nowhere. There was no town, no houses or anything more than the narrow dirt road that curved around it.

  They approached the door. There was a light bulb shining outside and they saw how filthy they were, clothes and hair covered in dust. Long dark streaks of grime striped their skin.

  There was a man sitting on the ground just outside the door. He was drunk and babbling to himself. He looked up at the girls as they staggered by, and the light caught his yellowed eyes. He said something at them in a guttural slur in a language that neither of them understood. A warning perhaps. They stopped to watch him as he scooped up a handful of sand and glass shards and held it out to them, letting the grains fall through his fingers. Then he laughed hard and it ended in a hacking, wet cough that suggested beer foam and stomach acid creeping up his esophagus.”

  They went inside.

  It was dark. What little light there was struggled to shine through a thick fog of cigarette and cigar smoke. It was like walking into a burning building.

  They stood in the doorway, straining their eyes against the dim light and carcinogenic fog to make out maybe a dozen rough-looking men in plaid shirts and dirty jeans sitting in small groups around tables and clusters along the bar.

  They sensed every eye in the room narrowing at them, curious, unaccustomed to unknown visitors. The burning gazes all around told them they were intruding.

  With Els’ help the two girls hobbled across the uncovered concrete floor to the bar. Neesha took her arm from around Els’ shoulder and steadied herself on the counter top.

  They didn’t need to signal the bartender, they had his attention the moment they stepped through the door.

  He spoke to them in an unbroken stream of verbiage, lost among the blaring tejano music, that two years and a C-minus average of high school Spanish had left Neesha woefully unprepared for.

  She couldn’t make out a single word. He could have been telling them that they were welcome and the first round was on him, or telling them to get the fuck out before he gouges their throats with a rusty corkscrew.

  Neesha took a breath. “Hablar Englis?” she asked hopefully.

  The bartender shook his head slowly.

  “Okay then. Um. . . Tiene telephone? Telefono?”

  The bartender stared at them. Neesha was about to repeat herself, try harder with her accent in case he didn’t understand, but the bartender reached for something beneath the bar and set it down in front of her. An old white rotary phone.

  Neesha lit up with relief. “Gracias. Thank you.”

  She stared at the phone for a second, realizing she didn’t know what number to dial. She looked up at the bartender and turned the phone to face him.

  “We’re in trouble. Um.. Mucho. . .” She searched for the word, “Trabajo. Yo quiero policia. Tu comprender? Policia, Por favor.”

  The bartender put his hand over the phone. “No policia.” He put it away back under the bar.

  “Si policia. Si! We’re in a lot of trouble, don’t you understand? We're in serious fucking trabajo. A family is dead. You understand? Tu comprender? Un muerta familia. Dead bodies. A family has been murdered. Tu muerta familia.”

  The bartender narrowed his eyes at them. This black cunt and her big-titted midget friend wanted him to bring the police here. They must be crazy. The police wouldn’t come even if he called them. This place was off-limits to law enforcement, how stupid were these entitled American bitches?

  The bartender folded his arms across his chest in a gesture of firm defiance. He shook his head and said “No” again and walked away to serve beers and pour out shots of mescal to the locals.

  “He’s not going to help,” she said, turning to Els, feeling hope wither inside of her. “I can’t fucking believe it.”

  “We’ll ask someone else. There’s gotta be someone in here that will help us.” offered Els.

  Neesha looked around at the bar’s patrons. Working class men with rough hands and dirty hair, half-drunk at best and likely looking to try and outdo one another seeing how little compassion they could display. “Doubtful.”

  They asked a table of three older men. Two of the men wouldn’t even make eye contact, and Neesha didn’t need another year of high school Spanish to know when she was being told to fuck off.

  They
got the same treatment from the next table of two younger men playing dominoes. Fuck off.

  There were three at the next table they came to. A big man sat joking with his two buddies. He was in a denim shirt and they all wore cowboy hats. He was missing his top front teeth and looked like he had two blunt vampire fangs when he laughed.

  “At least he seems like he’s in a good mood,” said Els.

  There was little else blunt about him, though. He had a thick black beard and mean, slender eyes. His company didn’t seem so friendly either.

  Neesha came next to the big man and he looked up at her, curious, then he looked over at Els, his eye line was parallel with her chest, and he stared unapologetically. Els crossed her arms in front of her like she was cold.

  Neesha pretended not to notice his vulgar gaze, and smiled at him. “We need help. Ayudarme, por favor. Yo quiero policia.”

  “Policia?” The man turned his attention to her, then turned to his friends. He said something to them in a blur of Spanish. The only word Neesha understood was policia. She though if she even got back to the States, she would call her old Spanish teacher and tell her she was wasting her life.

  The table erupted into laughter. The big man picked up his half-empty glass of beer and drained it, set the glass back down and wiped his mouth. He seemed to think for a second before bursting into laughter again. He said something else Neesha didn’t understand.”

  “No comprender,” Neesha muttered. “No hablar.”

  The big man said something else to his friends. No one laughed this time.

  Neesha felt like crying. “C’mon, they aren’t going to help us, Els. Let’s ask someone else.”

  They turned to walk away and the big man reached out and clamped his hand around Neesha’s wrist.

  “We help,” he said. “Policia. I help,” he repeated.

  “Si? You’ll help us? Gracias. Thank you.”

  He pointed to a pay phone hanging in the back by the bathroom door. “Si. Policia.” He said something else to the table and the men got up.

  His two friends led the way to the phone and the big guy walked behind Neesha and Els.