Mules:: A Novel

by Jarred Martin

  Els took a shooting stance with her feet even and apart. Neesha took notice and copied her. She raised the rifle to her shoulder, looked down the sight and squeezed the trigger, firing several short bursts into the crumbling structure.

  The three of them took turns emptying countless magazines into the house until its sides were splintered and chewed up, looking only marginally worse than before the onslaught.

  And as midday approached, with the ground covered with scattered shell casings, their bodies baked under the sun, sweat-stained and covered in a light layer of dust, their ears ringing, they found their assault had come to an end.

  “That’s it.” Said Seve. “No more bullets.”

  “Damn,” said Neesha, disappointed. “I was just ready to kick down the door and do some SEAL Team 6 type of shit.” She raised the rifle, pointed it at imaginary adversaries. “Where is Bin Laden? If one of you Hezbollah camel fuckers doest say something, you’re getting a tabbouleh hole full of hot American lead. This one’s for Uncle Sam, bitches.” She mimed firing the gun. “Bang! Bang! Bang!”

  “It’s incredibly sexy seeing a woman with a gun pretend to kill terrorists,” said Seve.

  Neesha posed with the barrel of the gun pointing up, the stock on her hip. “I know. That’s why they won’t let women on the front lines. Too many boners. Of course, chicks are too hardcore for that shit. Shoot first, ask questions later. Don’t leave anyone alive type of shit. It threatens a man’s ego to see a woman become more brutal than he is.”

  “Probably true,” said Seve.

  “If we had any more bullets I would prove it to you.”

  “As much as I would enjoy the conflict of ego versus dick, we really are spent. But I have something for your friend to try if she wants to.”

  “You have something for me?” Els asked.

  Seve nodded slyly and went to the truck. He came back holding a rocket launcher in both hands. He gave it to Els.

  “Shit. Is that a fucking bazooka?” asked Neesha.

  “Oh wow. I thought you were kidding earlier,” said Els.

  “As you can see, I was very serious. Do you want to try shooting the house? I only have the one rocket, it’s unguided, so you have to be on target.”

  “Is it M72? Cause it’s just going to go through the house. Those are anti-tank.”

  “No, it’s HEAT. It’ll explode on impact. You know it really is kind of alarming that you have all this military knowledge.”

  “Farm girl,” Neesha laughed.

  “I think it’s more alarming what Neesha thinks happens on farms,” Els joked. She took the rocket launcher from Seve. “You armed it already?”

  “Sure, all you gotta do is fire when ready.”

  Els hoisted the cumbersome cylinder onto her shoulder and took aim. The house was less than a hundred yards away, and she had it sighted dead center.

  “Wait.” Said Neesha. “Are you sure she’s got that pointed the right way?”

  “She knows what she’s doing,” said Seve. “This isn’t a Police Academy movie.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” said Neesha.

  Els squeezed the trigger, and for a brief second they could actually see the rocket flying toward the house. And then, after the explosion, there was no house: just an orange haze of fire reaching upward from the desert floor and above it a towering pall of black smoke, billowing and churning into the azure sky.

  They watched the rubble burn in silence, the crackle of flames speaking for all of them. They were satisfied in destruction, the force and power they exerted had bonded them like electrons. And for better or worse, they were bonded, they were inseparable.

  TWENTY TWO

  They drove back in a relaxed silence with the windows down, letting the hot air wash over them. Els watched the Mexican landscape roll by. A far-off mesa gone deep blue in the light of dusk disappeared as they drove away. They returned the truck to its empty-can-strewn yard. The truck’s owner declined to meet them and Seve pushed in the trailer door without knocking and came back out with his keys dangling from his hand. Before he shut the door the girls could see the fat man passed out on a busted couch that would look more appropriate lying on the side of the road somewhere, but then again, so would the man. There was no sign of his lady-friend.

  Back in the Lexus the girls silently thanked God for every blessed second under the air conditioning.

  Hot showers at the hacienda recharged them and when they were done they convened in a drawing room, dressed to go out. They sat on soft leather couches and chairs, Karlstad climbed up to let Els stroke him while he laid his head on her lap.

  “So, where do you plan on taking our sexy asses tonight?” Neesha asked.

  “That depends,” said Seve as his fingers moved deftly to roll a tobacco leaf around a thick line of weed,“on what you want to do.”

  “I wanna get turned up, make some bad decisions. I wanna do like Union Pacific rails of coke and get drunk. I want to wake up knowing I’ve brought shame to my family. Shit, I want to wake up knowing I’ve brought shame to Robert Downey JR. Is there a place for that?”

  “Yeah, Mexican prison,” said Seve.

  “I feel like dancing,” said Els.

  Neesha gave her a sideways look and arched her eyebrows, but said nothing.

  Seve lit the blunt and sucked at it until the coal at the end was glowing red-hot. “I know a place,” he said trying to hold the smoke in. He passed it to Neesha.

  “We can get tequila there?” She watched him blow out a cloud and then hit the blunt herself.

  “Yeah, sure. Mezcal comes out the tap in Mexico.”

  Neesha passed the cigar to Els who sniffed it and took a shallow puff. Burning smoke instantly flooded her lungs and she coughed it back out.

  “Good shit, huh?” asked Neesha.

  Els, whose head immediately began swimming and producing a strange high-pitched internal whine, could only nod. Their bleary, red-eyed stares were making her suddenly uncomfortable. “What kind of music?” she asked, feeling compelled to say something. Neesha tried to pass the blunt to her again but she waved it off.

  “I don’t know,” said Seve. “There’s like DJs, so, DJ shit, I guess.”

  “We should get something to eat,” Neesha suggested.

  “Yeah, we’ll do all that,” Seve assured her. “My treat, of course.”

  Neesha and Seve finished the weed and Els hit it once more to be polite, feeling like she had already smoked too much. They stood there in the foggy parlor for a moment, each smothered in their own misty thoughts.

  In the car later, Els in the back seat. She didn’t smoke often and sometimes wondered if she was high afterward. She bobbed her head to the music, the same Mexican rap CD playing. She found herself absorbed in the beat to the point where she didn’t have to wonder if she was high this time.

  Sometime between thirty seconds and ten hours later, Els discovered that Seve was piloting them through a wondrous cityscape, tall buildings shimmering in the night reflecting headlights and street lamps.

  A little later after the car was parked, the three of them walked to the club. Els felt like she was floating, stuck halfway between this world and someplace secret where she was made of night and shadows and no one could see her.

  The feeling was suddenly and fiercely ejected from her mind when they entered the club. The place was packed and the sheer levee of humanity made her want to take Neesha’s hand like a frightened child.

  I feel like dancing. Had she really said that? Had the thought actually formed in her brain and been articulated? Perhaps earlier, with the memory of the smell of gunpowder and the exhilaration at the solidity of their little clique coming together she had, but now she wished she had suggested being buried alive instead.

  They walked around the dance floor and took a flight of stairs up to a second floor. Upstairs was a smaller room crammed with just as many people.

  The smell of a thousand different perfumes and colognes mixed w
ith the sour smell of spilled alcohol. There was no air. Els looked around and saw that there was no place to sit. Maybe there was downstairs, but she didn’t want to leave Neesha and Seve. She watched the two of them begin to dance. The music here was more threatening than intriguing, some sort of weird polka-sounding stuff, and Els stood still on the dance floor while bodies moved around her. She felt ridiculous, but somehow less ridiculous than if she were dancing.

  “I’m thirsty,” she called at Neesha and Seve, who were paying no attention to her, arms on each other’s hips, grinding to the beat. She wandered off to find the bar.

  When she found it, she got the bartender’s attention and ordered a margarita. She gave the man an unknown amount of money that seemed to satisfy him. She turned and watched strangers moving their bodies and raised the glass to her lips. She stopped herself. The ice. She should have ordered something else, she couldn’t drink this. She sat it on the bar and turned back around, internally cursing herself. She really was thirsty, the weed had dried out her mouth, and her tongue felt like a old rag.

  “Hey.” A voice behind her. Els turned to see a middle-aged man dressed, inexplicably, in an elaborate Popeye shirt. “You want to drink?” he asked.

  “No,” said Els, as politely as she could, having to raise her voice over the music. “That’s very nice, but I just remembered I’m not thirsty.” She turned around to face the jostling crowd, wondering which way she had come. She was struck by the oddness of her phrase ‘I just remembered I’m not thirsty.’ What a strange thing to say out loud. How could someone forget whether they were thirsty or not? She started to walk around the perimeter of the crowd, not wanting to wade into the surf of perspiring bodies until she knew where she was going. She felt a hand latch onto her shoulder and she turned to see the man again, he smiled and held a glass of something out to her. “I said no,” she reiterated, and began to walk away from him. She picked up her pace, not daring to turn and see if he was following her. She walked aimlessly, one foot in front of the other, following her steps and found herself in a dim sort of corridor that led to the restrooms. She leaned with her back against the wall, eyes closed, trying to get her head straight. The place seemed to be getting smaller with every shallow breath and she was very aware of her own heart beating heavily in her chest. Dimmer and dimmer.

  And suddenly the man was there in the corridor with her, his clumsy hands groping and squeezing at her her breasts. She could smell hot gusts of sour alcohol on his breath as he leaned against her. There was a twinge of pain as he pulled at the raw line of stitches she had sewn a few nights ago. She reacted instinctively, pushing him back and bringing the heel of one foot to his shin with enough force to cause a hairline fracture. He let go of her, and when he did, he dropped his head down. Els slammed her forehead into the man’s nose and his hands went to cover the bottom of his face. In the flashing strobe lights she could see the black shining blood beginning to spray from between his hands. She had felt his nose break. Above his cupped hands she could see his eyes widen in surprise. One final hard punch to the liver was enough to drop him, and Els left him twisting on the floor.

  She pushed into the crowd, noticing glowing white spatters of blood on her blouse light up in the black light. Eventually she found Neesha and Seve and wriggled through the throng to get to them. If they missed her or were even aware of her absence, they didn’t show it. They danced, looking into each other’s eyes, weaving their bodies together as if they were the only two people on the dance floor and the music was playing only for them.

  And so they danced and got drunk. Seve took turns dancing with both of them, and Neesha indulged to the point where she could only communicate in a garbled, wet slurry of nonsense and her body swayed under rubber legs. They left the club sometime later and sat down to eat at an outdoor restaurant. Neesha passed out before the food came and they laughed when a heavy string of drool dribbled from the corner of her mouth. Els wiped at Neesha’s face with a napkin, and when it was time to leave, Seve hoisted her over his shoulder like she didn’t weigh anything and they went back to the car.

  On the way they came across a sort of memorial on the sidewalk. Candles flickered near wreaths of flowers and a framed photograph of a young woman.

  “What is all this?” Els asked.

  Seve hefted Neesha’s weight on his shoulder, repositioned her like he was carrying a bulky sack of flour, and looked down at the memorial. “Oh, that’s very sad. This woman was killed here not so long ago.”

  “Killed? Like she was in an accident?”

  “No. She was coming back from a club or someplace, probably drunk. Her boyfriend. They had an argument, I guess, and he beat her up. Pretty bad. Cracked her head open on the curb. She died before an ambulance could get here. Very sad,” Seve shook his head and jostled Neesha’s unconscious body once again.

  “He beat her to death right on the street and nobody stopped him?”

  “He beat her to death right on the street and nobody stopped him,” Seve agreed.

  Els winced like she was witnessing the girl’s death firsthand. “That’s horrible. What was her name?”

  “I don’t know,” said Seve.

  They walked on.

  Home, and Els got Neesha ready for bed. She pulled the covers up to Neesha’s chin, crept away and turned the lights out. As she left the room Els heard a low murmur from the dark. To her it sounded like Neesha saying thank you.

  Outside Neesha’s room, at the end of the hall was a chaise lounge beneath an oil painting of a beautiful Mexican woman with flowers in her hair and cherry red lips, who had a single black eyebrow so thick and out of place that it looked like it had been drawn on with a magic marker. Across from the painting was a large window, and Els stared into it, the darkness outside turned the pane into a dim mirror. She saw herself in it, and Seve standing just behind her. She turned around.

  “You’re not in bed yet,” said Seve.

  “I was just going. I had to make sure Neesha was alright.”

  “You really care about her. You two must have known each other for a long time.”

  “Yes,” said Els, “almost four days. She’s my best friend.”

  Seve laughed as if she had made a joke. “I think you two are sweet.”

  “I think you are too,” said Els. “But sometimes, lately, I think about when this is all over. When we have to go. When we leave you, and Neesha goes back to her life and I go back to mine. It makes me so sad. I don’t know what I’m going to do when you leave me.”

  Seve sat down beside her on the chaise lounge and took her hand. “Nobody’s going anywhere. We’re here now, then we’ll always be here in some way.”

  Els snorted. “That sounds like a line.”

  “You have blood on your shirt.”

  “I know,” said Els, “it’s not mine.”

  Seve smiled to himself.

  They sat there together letting the moments pass quietly. Seve leaned in to kiss her and she let him. His lips were soft and he smelled like cigarettes and cologne, but beneath it was a scent virile and masculine like hard hot stones on a desert plane. She opened her eyes to see him, seeing her.

  “Please, don’t,” she whispered.

  Seve said nothing. He just stood up slowly, almost like he had to force himself against a gravity of his own impulse.

  “Goodnight, Els.”

  “Goodnight, Seve.”

  He walked down the hall, turned a corner without looking back at her, and then he was gone.

  TWENTY THREE

  The next day birdsong and the morning sun came in through the windows and projected yellow rectangles across the carpet. Els sat in a deep recliner in her soft robe with her hair wet, clutching a coffee cup in both hands. Seve was on the floor in front of the T.V., like a kid. He was fully dressed with his hair gelled and combed. Els couldn’t really picture him in a robe or pajamas, he looked like he would even be comfortable wearing socks and a watch while he slept.He was watching highlights from
a soccer game with the the volume low. He explained the game to Els, it seemed inordinately simple to her,(kick the ball into the net, basically) but she rattled off the odd question to feign interest.

  On screen, one of the players in a green shirt kicked the ball to his team mate and he knocked it into the goal with his head. Seve cheered out loud and Els spilled hot coffee down the front of her robe.

  “Did you just see that? It was amazing!” Seve pushed his hairline back with the flat of his hand.

  “Yeah. It looked like it hurt. That’s not illegal or anything? Using your face like that?”

  Seve gave her a look, shook his head and turned back to focus on the recap.

  “What?” Said Els “That was a good question.”

  “Never watch sports with women.” He turned the volume up.

  Els rolled her eyes.

  Neesha came in wearing cotton shorts and a T-shirt. “So this is where you are. I almost got lost trying to find you.”

  “Good morning, Neesha.” Said Els.

  “Mornin, lover.”

  “Sleep good?” Seve asked.

  “Like a lead brick, honey.”

  Seve made a grunting sound, still captivated by the television.

  “What is that you’re watching? I never took you for a jock. That’s such a cliche for a man, you know?”

  “It’s very popular here.”

  “A lot of third world countries, probably. I mean, all you really need is a ball and some poor people to chase it.”

  “Well you’re in a fine mood this morning,” said Els.

  “It’s your fault. You guys shouldn’t have let me drink so much last night.”

  “I tried to stop you,” said Seve, “but you told me if you couldn’t drink it there, then you would sneak off to the toilet and soak your tampon in vodka and shove it up your cooch.”

  “Oh shit. I don’t remember that, but it really sounds like something I would say.”