“We should have ridden our bikes,” he told Mario. “I don’t like it that he didn’t remove the butterfly. These people make a habit of death. I don’t like it.” On that morning death had ceased to be cute.
The cavern of the cenote was still in the shadow and its water looked cold. They sat down at a table in the sun to have some coffee.
“Something wrong?” Ryan asked Mario, who seemed unusually sombre.
“The butterfly. I could tell you were mad at the driver over the butterfly. It’s weird though, because he seemed nice.”
“Yes, he seemed nice. Mario, what are you really thinking?”
“Okay, you’re going to hate me for going on about my dad for the second day in a row.”
“Spit it out. Looks like you need to.”
“The butterfly, the spider. I was thinking that no living thing was designed to be hit at that speed. I was thinking about my dad and his last moments, what they could have been like. I can only guess, from an accident that happened to me. I lost control on a slippery highway, slid across the oncoming lane and plowed through the ditch with a wall of rock to my left and inches away; I still don’t understand how I didn’t crash right into it. Do you know what I felt? I felt pretty much diddly-squat. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, because that’s complete and total bullshit. Do you realize how much time it would take for even the most boring life to flash before someone’s eyes? Here’s what did happen. The picture of the world ahead of me, the small piece of it I needed to see, became blurred. It was as if I’d zoomed in on it very quickly, and there was no time to get a sharp focus. Through that slight haze I saw the wall of rock coming at me, and I expected to hit it. There was no fear; I guess there was no time for that, and no room. I had one thought, but it wasn’t in words; there wasn’t time to put it into words. It was just a shape of a thought. And it went like this: Everything Has Changed. I was equally ready to live or to die or to get crushed and remain alive; I deserved either of these in equal measure, and nothing depended on me any more. And when I found myself not only alive but completely unharmed inside a dead and mutilated car that had rolled out of the ditch back onto the highway and had come to a stop at a perfect ninety-degree angle to traffic, I wasn’t surprised, because nothing was surprising, and anything was fair game. I remember the smell and spatter of coffee on everything, and I remember feeling embarrassed that people would find me in this pathetic mess. Before anyone arrived, I already felt squeamish on their behalf. Ashamed of being their fellow human, of letting them down by fucking up this badly.
“Days later, when I crept in my new car past that damn turn and studied it, I was surprised to see a signpost only two or three metres across the ditch from the rock; I don’t remember seeing it as I hurtled through that ditch and I have no idea how I avoided crashing into it as I was trying to avoid the rock. I say ‘trying’ because I’m guessing that my body was taking measures: my hands must have been steering the wheel, my right foot must have been braking, or staying the hell away from the brake—I’ll never know which one. Maybe my eyes did see the signpost and told my hands and feet to avoid it. My left hand was holding a cup of coffee as I went into that turn and lost control, and the hand must have thrown the cup away from me to grab the wheel because that cup ended up on a soaked jumble of papers and a sweater at the foot of the passenger seat. I don’t remember doing any of this, and never will. It’s none of the mind’s business what the body does in such moments. Presence of mind, my ass! If my meddlesome little mind were allowed to be present, I’d be dead for sure.” He smiled at Ryan. “What saved me was the same orchestrated work of the senses that’s been saving animals for millions of years.”
“Wow. I know people who’ve been in accidents, but I’ve never heard it described this way before. You had a near-death experience and it sounds almost like a letdown, by Hollywood standards.”
“What can I do? Life doesn’t always imitate art.” Mario shrugged in mock-helplessness. “Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about my father and trying to guess what he went through in his final moments. I desperately hope that he felt what I did, because it would be the most merciful thing to feel such resignation while your reflexes go on autopilot, even if they can’t save you because it’s impossible to save you. I desperately hope for this, but I don’t believe it. I believe—I’m very afraid—that my father knew there was some horrible injustice done to him. My accident was entirely my fault; maybe that was why I felt such acceptance. His, and I truly believe this, was none of his fault, and as an experienced driver he would’ve known this. Can you imagine feeling helpless and horribly, fatally wronged—can you imagine this being your very last impression of life? Some people say how you die doesn’t define you, it’s how you live that matters. I say that’s sour grapes. It matters immensely what you feel in your last moments. And it wasn’t even his car. It was a borrowed car!”
Before Ryan could ask him the significance of this, Mario went on. “When you asked me the other day why I became a defence attorney, I didn’t have the real answer. I gave you a truthful one, but not the important one.”
“I wasn’t exactly polite about it,” Ryan said with a guilty little smile. “I’d had quite a bit to drink.”
“I’m glad you pushed me, because it got me thinking. It came to me last night, and I sort of owe it to you, so here you go: I became a criminal defence attorney to vindicate my dad in the only way I know how. You see, my dad’s driving record wasn’t exactly clean, he had a few speeding tickets. Even one crash in which he totalled his car but no one was hurt. So whenthis accident happened, the cops just assumed that he’d been speeding. It was so convenient to pin that on him,” Mario said with scorn.
There was no way to politely and kindly question Mario’s own assumption that the car had malfunctioned, so Ryan said nothing. Mario responded to the silence. “Yes, I know, it’s logical to think he was speeding. Except I don’t believe it, because I know my dad. He would never take risks with someone else’s car. Never.”
Ryan wanted to ask Mario what he thought had been wrong with the car, but Mario quite abruptly got up from the table and announced in a cheerful voice that it was time for a nice refreshing dip. Ryan thought that even on holiday Mario couldn’t shake his professional habits. He sure loved making speeches, but when he was done, by god he was done.
The sun had climbed down the walls of the cenote and the water was alive with quivering turquoise light. They swam in this liquid jewel. Rather, Mario swam while Ryan waded neck-deep, taking muffled moon-steps through the chilly water. Several times he stepped into a depression in the bedrock and took in a mouthful of water with the sudden dip. Now he knew why they called it sweet water: it really was. Clear, sweet water that lived in the heart of the earth, rendered pure and sterile by eternal darkness. Cold, fresh scent of oxygen was coming from the fresh sweet water flowing below the open sky like blood through a transparent vein. Although he usually avoided closed places, Ryan waded into the caves to explore the beginning and the end of the stream until the water became too deep on each end. Inside the caves the water was lit from below by electric lights, and the effect was magical and soothing, banishing the spectre of darkness at the heart of Ryan’s claustrophobia. But in some corners the darkness lingered, giving him a glimpse into the core of the earth, a frightening invitation to disappear into a myriad caverns without hope of finding his way back to the light. The blue translucent water lit by the sun was only a brief glimpse of underground rivers that flowed in pitch blackness. And why would this send a shiver to the pit of his belly? He was a scientist, after all. He knew that any life is only a brief glimpse of sweet water flowing from one endless cavern of darkness into the next.
By noon the cenote became crowded and noisy and it was time to leave. They had no choice but to take a taxi back to town and destroy more unsuspecting insects along the way. Before leaving they had more instant coffee whitened with powder, and Ryan went to find a bathroom while Mario waited.
On the stone patio of the cafe Mario saw a small rectangle of white paper too neat and symmetrical to be a piece of garbage. He picked it up and turned it over to see a photograph of a woman in a summer dress. She was smiling in joyful oblivion. He couldn’t tell how old she was because he didn’t try to, didn’t care to: his own cares had melted in her smile. She looked young, that was all he could tell. He was aware that something was unusual about the picture. He turned it over again. The photograph was printed on Kodak paper, and the date was July 2010, only two years ago. But it wasn’t a standard photo. It had been cropped from a larger print to fit the size of a wallet. It didn’t even occur to Mario to leave the photo on a table, to think that its owner might come back to look for it. It was his now. He didn’t share his discovery with Ryan.
Back in his hotel room he propped the photo on the dresser against the wall. Suddenly he understood what was strange about it: it was black and white. He marvelled that these non-colours were so natural in their primal elemental honesty that they’d lulled his eyes and mind into full acceptance. Maybe it was the genetic memory of millions, billions of years we’d spent as animals with black-and-white vision before our eyes evolved to see colour? Mario was lost in these pleasant thoughts; the woman’s smile approved of them. He was drawn to her by a powerful yet gentle force.Dude, don’t go there. That’s messed up. It’s only a photo. You have no idea who she is, where she lives, if she’s married or has a boyfriend. And remember, you’re an idiot when it comes to love. A pretty face is all it takes. But she wasn’t just another pretty face. She wasn’t even particularly pretty, not in a country-cute way. It didn’t simply feel good to look at her; it felt necessary, imperative that he meet her! This was crazy, and yet it was the simple truth. For all his bravado about never learning his lesson, Mario was running out of time, and out of strikes (three strikes, you’re out). So was she. At first she’d looked generically young because of her warm and carefree smile, but as he studied her face close up, he decided she must be in her late twenties or early thirties. There was a patient gravity behind the smile, the beginnings of reproach from one who has waited long enough. Of course all this was make-believe, nonsense, insanity. How could he track down and meet a woman who, for all he knew, lived on the other side of the globe and was married with children? The picture must have fallen out of the wallet of one of a crowd of tourists who’d visited the cenote that morning. He put it in the drawer, told himself to let it go, and went for a stroll on the beach.
As he lay waiting for sleep that night, Mario reflected that the picture had been taken recently. Everything about it was modern: the date, the crisp resolution, the woman’s dress and her haircut. So why was it black and white? Some people liked to throw a veil of nostalgia over the pictures of their lives. How strange, thought Mario. This jaded life of ours has learned to imitate artifacts because otherwise it’s too boring. But life used to be good enough, important enough to serve as a model for art. Daguerrotypes used to be touched up with coloured pencils to give people rosy cheeks.
Over his morning coffee Ryan studied a commune of dogs resting in the shade of a large tree across the street. A few of them looked so alike that they had to be related, but the rest were a motley crew. The related dogs didn’t show each other anything that looked like preferential treatment. Did they know they were kin, and did they care? Who were the parents and who were the children among them, the brothers and sisters? If a dog was separated from its pack, would it miss its relatives more than its other mates? Young animals didn’t miss their parents once they’d learned everything they needed, and older animals didn’t miss the offspring they’d trained and sent off on lives of their own. What a noble and brave life it must be, to leave behind no legacy other than a new generation. What made humans so different? How did it happen that the highest purpose of a human life is to make ourselves missed when we’re gone, to make people long for the lessons we teach? Look how much Mario missed his father because he’d never finished learning what a father was supposed to teach him. He was like an orphaned puppy or kitten with a stray soul, and his childhood would be forever uncompleted.
Ryan opened his wallet to pay for his breakfast and noticed the absence of Sam’s picture. When had he last seen it for sure? He didn’t remember. Maybe yesterday, maybe last week. When you’ve carried something with you for a long time, its loss or absence may go unnoticed at first. Maybe he’d taken it out of the wallet and left it in the camper, together with the phone and the laptop. Yes, that’s what he must have done. It was the logical thing to do after they parted ways. He must have been too upset to commit the act to memory. But now he missed looking at the picture and wished he’d taken it with him. Sam’s picture was far less complicated than Sam herself, far easier to get along with, and it had been that way even when they were together.
That evening over drinks Mario asked him, “What’s the wildest thing you’ve done?”
“The wildest thing I’ve done?”
“Yes, you. I’ve talked about myself for two days in a row. Now it’s your turn.”
Make that three days in a row, thought Ryan; not that he minded. He was more comfortable letting others speak. Should he tell Mario? Sure, why the heck not. Mario thought he was a sissy because he’d never learned to swim. Here was something that might change his mind.
“The wildest thing I’ve done was punish a mafia kingpin.”
“What, seriously? When? How? Why?”
“I was sixteen. He palmed off a shitbanger car on me. It was to be my first car and I didn’t know any better. On the outside it didn’t look too bad, but just about everything inside needed replacing, as it turned out. I worked in his restaurant as a busboy, saved up money for a car that he promised me would be a nice used one. Of course I was too stupid to realize that a busboy’s wages don’t buy a ‘nice’ car of any kind. I guess I was expecting special treatment because he knew me, and because he had this slick way about him: he made you feel like he was your best friend. He was a car dealer and he also owned the restaurant. He owned a lot of other businesses, and a lot of people. Still, I expected him to treat me right. To make an exception for me. I could see him sneering at me as he handed me the keys to that shitbanger, only at the time I persuaded myself that he was smiling in a friendly sort of way. That’s what got me, that smile. I was a pile of nothing to him, to brush off and forget. That’s why he never suspected me afterwards. That, plus the fact that I never said anything about the car, never complained. I guess it was because it didn’t take me long to decide what I was going to do about it. What I did was I messed up his car, whichwas a nice car. A really nice one.”
Mario nodded but didn’t look convinced. “Help me under-stand something: how did you end up with a piece of shit for your first car? Didn’t your dad see what you were getting yourself into?”
“I only showed it to him after I drove it home. He looked at it, and he said it served me right. Let this be a lesson to me, he said. I should have never bought a used car without someone checking it out, someone who knows cars. Meaning him.”
“Of course! Whydidn’t you involve him? If my dad was around when I was buying my first car, he’d be the first person I’d ask for advice.”
“I really don’t know why I didn’t involve him. I think I wanted to surprise him, show him what a nice man I worked for and how well he treated me. Show him how well I’d done for myself all around. All I showed him was how gracefully I could step in a pile of shit. I learned a lesson all right, except it wasn’t the one he wanted me to learn. Instead of relying on others, I learned to rely only on myself. After that day I learned all about cars so I wouldn’t have to ask dad or anyone.”
“But why not? Why didn’t you want to rely on him?”
“Because I was a proud little shit! And because I felt betrayed when he didn’t stick up for me. He never offered to go talk to my boss about the car. I think he was scared to do that because of the guy’s reputation.”
“You left him out of
the decision, but you expected him to go and sort things out for you?”
“I know how it sounds. But I wasn’t a spoiled brat, I worked hard for that car. I really wanted to surprise my dad. Call it showing off if you want. And I could tell he was scared of saying anything to my boss. I needed to learn my lesson, case closed.”
“So, life dealt you an imperfect dad. Tough luck.”
Ryan said nothing, but he was furious with Mario for trying to take him on this guilt trip. At sixteen, how was he supposed to know that a guy he’d meet one day had lost his own dad and envied everyone who hadn’t?
But Mario seemed to have let it go. “What was your boss’s name?” he asked.
Ryan gave him the name. Mario became sombre. “I know about the guy. I know who he was. My friend’s dad was a cop, and not one of the cops in this guy’s pocket. A straight and good cop. So what did you do to his car—scratch it up?”
“No, that’s something a girl could do. I poured sugar in its gas tank. So the engine would seize up. He had this asshole habit of idling for a good twenty minutes before driving off. Winter or summer, it didn’t matter. He’d turn on the engine and go fart around and then come back and drive off. I figured twenty minutes would be just enough time for the sugar to reach the engine and become like molten glass. The pistons stop and nothing can restart them; the engine’s fried. The beautiful Ferrari is fried.”
Killer of a Mind Page 6