Mules:: A Novel

by Jarred Martin

  Els dropped the cup of wine she had been holding and it fell to the floor, spilling out on the carpet like dark blood from an arterial wound.

  “Elton,” she said, burying her face in her hands, on the verge of tears, “take it out, please. I don’t want to see any more.”

  He took it out immediately and put in Shrek again.

  “Thank you,” Els said. She moved across the futon to sit closer to Elton and she lay against him, hands clasped around his knee and her head resting in the crook of her arm.

  This was more affection than she had ever shown, and Elton put an arm around her. They finished the movie in silence.

  Later that night Elton slept in the living room, on the futon. He dreamed, peaceful and content. But in his bedroom, Els was restless.

  She rolled over to one side and lay staring at the bedside table with the package on it.There were flies lighting on the top, and at the bottom something was leaking out onto the tabletop, moisture was spreading, darkening the corners of the box.

  A muffled sound, a moaning, came from within the box and Els turned away from it, pulling the covers over her head, but she could still hear it.

  The moaning formed words in her father’s voice.

  Elizabeth, it’s time. You’ve delayed things long enough.

  “No,” she replied, “I’m not ready yet. I just need to stay here a little longer.”

  You don’t, said the voice. Your body has healed. If you stay any longer you’ll grow soft, a dull blade covered in rust. The time has come to leave this place.

  “But I could stay, daddy. I could stay here with Elton. He’s so nice to me and likes me staying here. I think I love him as much as I loved Neesha or Seve.”

  And if you love him, you must leave. They will find you. They will take everything that you love away from you and they will never stop until you are completely drained. And then they’ll kill you. You know this is true.

  She fought back tears. “I know, daddy. I know what I have to do.”

  Then do it.

  Els got up and dressed. She made the bed.

  Elton woke early the next morning.

  He felt an indefinable sense of incompleteness, like something was missing. He walked the few short steps to his room and opened the door. He found the room as he knew it would be. Empty. She was gone. Els had left sometime during the night. He stood in the silent room for a long time before laying down on the bed. He lay face down on the spot where she had slept and imagined being next to her. He thought of her, what she might be doing, where she might be going, and he knew he would never see her again.

  FIFTY

  Night had fallen in Nuevo Laredo. Less than a hundred yards from the border, three men sat crouched in the low scrub. They had arrived earlier in the evening to wait for the cover of darkness. The moon was new and the sky was an endless patch of black spread above them.

  The dirt around them was littered with cigarette butts. They had not spoken since they watched the sun set. The border fence, thirty feet high, lay before them, cutting the land in two.

  Cleto looked up into the night sky as if searching for some sign. He saw nothing and placed a cigarette between his lips. He took a match from a book and struck it. As he lifted the burning match to the end of his cigarette he felt a hand on his arm. It was Miguel.

  “What the fuck are you doing, man?”

  Cleto shook out the match. “What does it look like? I’m smoking a cigarette.”

  “I don’t think you should.”

  “You worried about my lungs, friend?”

  “No, I’m worried about your ass, and mine, too. Think. They could see the light from your cherry and then they’ll know we’re here.”

  “Who?” Cleto asked.

  “You fucking know who.”

  Cleto gave him a look that he wasn’t quite sure could be discerned in the dark.

  “I’m serious. World War One. German snipers used to blast motherfuckers at night in their foxholes. You know how they could do it? They could see the cigarettes.”

  Cleto shook his head and lit the cigarette. He inhaled flamboyantly and blew a cloud of smoke out into the air.

  “Idiot.” Said Miguel.

  “Look,” said Cleto. “If there’s anyone out there to see a burning cherry, then they’re also about to see three wetbacks climb that fence. If there’s anyone there at all, we’re fucked.”

  Miguel glared at him sullenly.

  “He’s right,” said Horatio. “If there’s somebody to see, then we’re gonna be looked at. Right enough.” He looked at Cleto. “Give me one of those.”

  Cleto passed over the matches and a cigarette.

  “Okay,” said Miguel. “If you’re going to sit here and smoke, then you must think there’s nobody to see you. So why are you hiding? You can either hide, or you can draw attention, you can’t do both. And since you’re not climbing the fence, then you must think there’s somebody to hide from.”

  The other two men only sat and smoked.

  “This is fucking ridiculous. I’m going over. Look me up in the States if you have the balls to get there.”

  They watched him stand, wipe the dust from his jeans, and run for the fence. An amused smirk appeared on Cleto’s face and he tossed his butt in the dirt.

  Miguel cleared the distance quickly in a sprint. When he got to the fence he didn’t stop running, but heaved himself forward, leaping up and gripping the footholds with his hands and the toes of his sneakers.

  He climbed, pulling himself up. He fought the urge to look back at those other two assholes. He knew what they were doing, waiting for him to go across first to see if the heat was on the other side. Fuck them. Let them cower behind the brush, he thought. Fortune favors the bold.

  He climbed and thought about America. It was the land of opportunity, they said. But opportunity wouldn’t be enough for dipshits like Cleto and Horatio. Maybe he would hire them as gardeners or something after he made it in the movie business. He was a good actor, and had been working on his English. Opportunity. Thats all he needed was an opportunity. And after some casting directors saw his chops, he would be in those badass gangster films like Tarantino and Scorcesie made. All he needed was the opportunity.

  He dug in, almost at the top now.

  And then he paused.

  He heard something on the other side.

  He froze, twenty feet from the ground, listening to what appeared to be someone scaling the fence from the opposite end.

  But that was crazy. Nobody crossed the border going this way. It made no sense. Who the fuck would sneak into Mexico?

  Nobody, that’s who. Nobody was sneaking in. It was the border patrol. They were climbing the wall to meet him at the top.

  He looked down. He was to high up to jump. He felt his grip loosen. He couldn’t climb back down. His hands and feet felt like they were made of wood. If he didn’t finish climbing the few feet to the top, he was going to fall.

  Fuck it. I’m going to America. They can take me on the other side, but I’m not going to drop off this fence and bust my ass in front of Cleto and that other idiot. Fuck the border patrol. I’m going over.

  He started to climb again, listening to the scrambling from the other side.

  A few feet from the top now. He could touch the edge with his hand. He pulled himself up.

  Miguel balanced, straddling the fence. He looked down at the other side, at America. He expected to see headlights. Border patrol Jeeps and trucks. There was nothing but the same darkness on this side of the fence.

  And then he saw someone hanging onto the other side.

  It was a girl.

  A really small white girl.

  She looked up at him, maybe five or six feet down, and he held out his hand to her. She took it and allowed herself to be pulled up.

  They faced each other, legs hanging over each side of the fence. She lingered only long enough to catch her breath before lowering herself down to the Mexico side.

 
; Good idea, thought Miguel. He disappeared over his edge of the fence.

  From the bushes, Cleto and Horatio had been watching Miguel climb. For a moment it looked like he stopped near the top. He was over now and there was someone else lowering herself down the fence.

  The two men looked at each other and then back at the white girl as she dropped the last few feet and came down on Mexican soil.

  As she took her first steps toward them they both took off in opposite directions at full speed.

  They would try the fence at another time, they told themselves. There would be other opportunities.

  FIFTY ONE

  He moved in darkness, not knowing whether it was day or night. Heavy curtains kept the light out. He could no longer stand it. Not since the surgery, the screws and the metal plate that replaced a good portion of his skull. He was never far away from the dull throb, that air conditioner hum somewhere in his head. The dark kept it at bay, but when he saw light, no matter how dim, it turned the dull roar into a piercing wail that seemed never-ending.

  He moved around his enormous house and into the kitchen where he had once sat with two young girls he tried to help out of a dangerous situation.

  He opened the refrigerator, the light bulb long since removed. He felt around for a carton of eggs, found them and shut the door.

  He cracked the eggs into a pan, thinking of his skull. How blood and brain had leaked from his head like yolk. He was a broken man.

  At his feet, a dog. Equally broken. Scarred and blind in one eye. He used to admire the animal. He used to believe there was something noble in the savagery it was capable of. That was before he met his own savagery. Felt what it was like to hurt. To die. To be near the edge of mortality and fall back.

  He thought he understood something about the simplicity of life once. Now all he knew was that bones were brittle and pain can linger forever.

  He was sorry.

  He cooked four eggs and put two of them on a plate which he placed on the floor in front of the one-eyed dog. There was a loyalty in the dog. The man knew he would never have to ask for forgiveness for what he had done, instead he only pitied his own ignorance. That was all he could do. He couldn’t change what had been done. Things he had done.

  He sat down in the dark at his table and ate slowly.

  The doorbell sounded and he dropped his fork. He had not had a visitor for several weeks.

  He rubbed his hand over the newly healed scars on his head, the plate underneath his skin. Sometimes he thought he heard echos in it. Sound bouncing around his skull looking for a way out.

  There were black and white monitors all throughout the house. He looked at the screen in the kitchen. It showed an image from a camera pointed at his front door.

  There was a young girl standing outside it. She waited patiently. He had seen that patience before. He knew her.

  It was impossible, of course. The girl he knew would have been dead for weeks.

  He looked again, knowing exactly what he was seeing, but still not entirely believing it.

  The girl outside his door stood, not ringing the bell. She only stood. She held a package under one arm.

  He went to the front door.

  He hesitated before opening it, touching the scars on his head again. A hallucination perhaps. He would open the door and find nothing there. Maybe a few dry leaves blowing in the wind and nothing more.

  He opened the door and she was standing before him in flesh and blood. She looked weary, dusty in a sweat-stained t-shirt and sweatpants. She wore men’s shoes that did not fit her. But she was real. She was here.

  “Hello Seve,” she said.

  “Elizabeth.” It was all he could say. His voice sounded unfamiliar to him. He not spoken in a long time.

  He moved aside and let her come in. She did not ask for the light.

  He shut the door and followed her in.

  “How did you know I was here?” he asked her.

  She shrugged, “You live here. I figured it would be worth a shot.”

  “I meant how did you know I was here, like here on Earth. Here on this plane of existence. Didn’t you know I was dead?”

  “We’re all dead, Seve. The world is haunted by us, but we’ll rest soon.”

  “And Neesha. . .?” he trailed off.

  “She’s here with us. Slightly more dead than we are, though. The quiet ghost.” She put the box down on the counter and started to pull at the tape holding the top flaps together. “Do you want to see her?” Asked Els.

  “No,” said Seve quietly. “No, I don’t think I do. It’s good to see you, though. I never thought I would, you know.”

  “Yet here we are, two shadows in a dark room.”

  “I have to keep it dark. My head. It’s hard for me to see the light. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’ve never minded the dark.”

  At the far end of the room Els saw the little reflective dot of Karlstad’s single eye.

  Els knelt down and called the dog to her. “Hey Karlstad. Hey buddy.”

  The dog came to her, nub of tail twitching back and forth. She hugged him and stroked his fur.

  “Oh, I missed you boy.”

  “He seems to cheer you up,” said Seve. “You were sounding a little morbid before.” He glanced at the box sitting on his countertop.

  Els looked up at him. “Does he still fight?”

  “No. He’s still got a good fight left in him, but I can’ force it on him anymore. Your friend Neesha said something to me the last night I saw her. She told me we shouldn’t foster cruelty. She was right. I should have never taken you there.”

  “You didn’t know, Seve.” She stood up. “But if you mean it, if you think there could be any justice for Neesha, or millions of women just like her, then I need you to do something for me.”

  “Anything,” said Seve.

  She spoke in the darkness and Seve listened.

  When she was done Seve thought for a long time. He ran his hand along the scars on his head. And finally he spoke. “I can help you get what you need. I can even help you find the doctor. But what you have in mind is madness. You can go back to America. You don’t have to do this. I would never refuse anything you asked of me, but I don’t want to see you die. To see you kill yourself. You’re young. You have your whole life in front of you. Please reconsider.”

  “My life was stolen a long time ago. There isn’t much more left of me than an echo, but I’m going to make sure that those that have robbed me of life hear it before they die. I’ll drag them down to Hell with me, and they will die screaming.”

  Seve sighed. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” said Els.

  “Then let’s go.”

  FIFTY TWO

  They were in the quonset hut with the good smell of grease in the air. Els wandered the rows of weaponry, stopping intermittently to examine the firearms and grenades before collecting the arms she selected and placing them in her green duffel. It was growing heavy and she savored the weight, the strap pulling against her shoulder.

  She came to a rack of M16s and pulled one down. She studied it, admiring its uniform perfection. It was not unique, cold and black like all the others. But she would make it unique. Without her it was only a useless composite of metal pieces, but in her hands she would transform it into a tool of glory to sling fiery vengeance into the figures that had wronged her.

  She added it to the bag and continued.

  She was trying on a Kevlar vest when Seve approached her. He wore dark glasses against the light, but it was not enough. Els could see pain shape his face into something ugly.

  “If the light in here is too much for you, you can wait outside for me. It’s dark tonight and I don’t want to see you in pain.”

  The hurt left his expression and was replaced by something more stubborn. “I’ll manage. You don’t need to worry about me. I only wondered if we could speak.”

  Els put the vest in her bag and zipped it up. �
�Yes, we can speak. We both can. You can ask me not to do this, and I can tell you that it’s as good as done. Nothing left but the bullets and the blood.”

  Seve shook his head and winced. “Are you so eager to die? Do you think it will change anything? Will it bring her back?”

  Now it was Els’ turn to wince. “Of course not. But I can stop it from happening again. I can save others the pain that I’ve felt. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that enough of a reason to continue?”

  “Frankly, no, it isn’t. If you lose something, something is taken from you, isn’t it better to keep what you have and consider it a blessing? If a man takes your arm in battle, what good does it do to chew off your remaining arm and throw it at him as he walks away?”

  “How would I throw it if I didn't have any arms left? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Nether does what you’re doing. Stay with me and live. Or let me take you back home.”

  “Maybe it sounds better in Spanish.”

  Seve rubbed the scar tissue along his head.

  “We were here before, do you remember?” Said Els.

  “Yes, I remember. It was not so long ago.”

  Els began to walk away and Seve followed her. She came to the door and switched the lights off.

  “Better?” She asked.

  Seve did not respond.

  “We talked about my father the last time we were here, do you remember that? You called him wise, I think your word was. I agreed to be polite, but you were wrong. He kept me from the world my whole life. He said it was dying, and that soon it would collapse into chaos. He told me there would be nothing left of the planet but a charred sphere hanging in space, and all that would be left of humanity would be the two of us. He believed that. He believed the world was a cruel and ugly place. I disagreed. I only knew what I had seen in movies, pretty much, but it was enough to convince me that there was something beautiful worth saving. I still think that. My few years in the real world have turned out ugly, but I still think there is so much to keep. My father would use everything that has happened to me to prove his point. He would tell me to go home, go back to Montana and wait for it all to end. I won’t do that. Why would I want to be alone in a dead world? I chose to be a part of it while I can, and no matter how cruel and bitter it was, I would never trade a second of it for the safety of isolation. I would try and make it a little better rather than hide and wait for it all to fall away to claim my Eden. That paradise is a lie.”