I stick out my hand and he takes it.
– Si, si, but you have to watch that shit. I never talk about you.
– Claro.
Shaking his head, he starts scraping the grill. He never scrapes the grill. I light a smoke. The only way I can make up for insulting him will be to stay up late into the night while he gets drunk and we sing songs together and repledge our friendship. No relationship, no number of psycho girlfriends, can prepare you for how easy it is to hurt the feelings of a Mexican man.
I’m worrying about how to make it up to him, along with the prospect of playing “Am I really a Russian gangster?” with Mickey on a three-hundred-mile drive, when the boat pops up on the horizon and Leo drives it right up on the beach so it will be easier to lift out the Cuban with the huge machete gash in his thigh.
IT’S NOT like Mexican immigration has to fight a pitched battle to keep illegals from flooding the country, but what Leo and Rolf are up to is against the law and it would be best to keep a low profile. Mickey is dozing on the sand down by his tent; other than that, no one is on the beach yet. Pedro drove the dune buggy home last night and brought it back this morning, but it’s a rocky mile to his place and the Cuban has been bounced around plenty in the boat.
We have him on the bar. The other Cuban is holding tight to the tourniquet they made out of a belt and put at the top of his friend’s thigh. The Cuban’s foot is ice cold from lack of circulation. Fuck, his whole body is cold and clammy from shock.
– My place.
Pedro stays to get the bar ready for business, and Rolf takes care of the boat while I help Leo and the other Cuban carry the injured guy to my bungalow. Leo was one of the guys that I hired to build the place, but he hasn’t been inside since. No one but Pedro has been inside.
Bud runs for cover when we bang through the door.
– The table.
We set him on the table.
– Leo, there’s a first aid kit under the bed.
He goes for it. The other Cuban is still clutching the tourniquet, staring at his friend’s face. I take hold of his fingers and pry them free. He looks at me. I nod my head.
– Tranquilo, tranquilo.
His eyes are bugging from his head.
– Toallas.
He shakes his head.
– Toallas. Bano.
I tilt my head toward the bathroom.
– Ahi. Muchas toallas. Si?
– Toallas, si.
He goes to the bathroom for the towels. Leo puts the big, green first aid kit on the table.
– How long you been in Mexico?
– Awhile.
– Your Spanish sucks.
– Fuck off, Leo. Hold this.
He takes the tourniquet from me while I open the kit, find some latex gloves and slip them on.
– OK.
I take the tourniquet back and start to loosen it.
– You might want to put on a pair of these. Last time I checked, AIDS was epidemic in the Caribbean.
– Puta madre.
He puts on the gloves. The other Cuban comes back with a stack of towels. I’m prying my fingers under the tourniquet where it’s dug into the guy’s skin. I pull it loose. Blood gushes onto my table. It’s not spraying, so the artery’s not severed. Then again, I’m working with a few classes I took about fifteen years ago for an EMT certificate I never got so what do I know? I cram a couple towels against the wound, take the other Cuban’s hand, put it on the towels, and press down. He gets the idea and holds the towels in place. I pull off my blood-slicked gloves, roll on a clean pair. Leo is just standing there.
– Massage the guy’s foot.
– Say what?
– Massage his foot.
– Por fucking que?
– I don’t know, maybe to get the circulation going so it doesn’t die and have to be cut off.
He starts a stream of curses under his breath and rubs the foot. I find the suture set. With my free hand I get the bottle of antiseptic, bite the cap off, pour some on the needle, then hold the bottle over the wound. The other Cuban guy pulls the towel away and I pour antiseptic into the wound. The guy on the table moans a little and his leg jerks. I empty about half the bottle, then use one of the towels to wipe some of the blood away. The gash is long, shallow at the top, cutting deeper as it gets closer to the knee. The blood is just oozing now; that first flood, a reservoir that had been held back by the tourniquet.
– OK, Leo, kind of hold the flesh together here.
His curses pick up in volume, but he puts his fingers on either side of the wound and pinches the edges together. Is this right? There are probably capillaries and shit in there that need to be put back together. Should I leave the wound open for a real doctor?
– So are you going to sew this shit up or what, man?
I sew the shit up.
– Who did it?
– He did.
Leo has his head inclined toward the other Cuban, who is sitting next to the table now, looking pale and ill.
– Why?
– We got out there, man, and find these two cabrones in a leaky raft with a couple bottles of rum, a sack of coconuts, and a machete. Fucking peons are hacking the tops off the coconuts and pouring in the rum. Drunk like American kids on spring break. Wild On Cuba in a sinking raft.
– That satellite TV is gonna ruin you.
– What the fuck, where do you think I learn the English? Maybe you should have watched MTV Latin before you came down here. Learn how to speak the language, man.
– So what happened, they get in a fight?
– We pull alongside and culo there stands up with a coconut and the machete so he can make us a cocktail.
– No.
– He swings at the coconut, misses and hits his buddy in the leg instead. Puta fucking madre. Blood everywhere. Screaming.
– Why didn’t you leave them?
Leo looks at me, looks at my hands sewing the leg back together.
– Why are we in your house, man? Su casa is not mi casa, you know. So why are we here?
I tie off another little knot.
– We didn’t leave them because the fucker’s leg was almost cut off, they were drunk in a leaky raft, blood everywhere, and sharks in the water.
– Got it.
It takes awhile to stitch him up. Rolf shows up when we’re about halfway done and comes in. My sanctum sanctorum: Grand fucking Central. I tell him where the plastic garbage bags are and he starts mopping up blood and bagging ruined towels. When I’m done I pour more antiseptic over the wound, gently wipe the leg clean, and feel the foot. It’s warm. We pick him up and start to carry him to the bed.
– Do you need help?
I twist my head and see Mickey standing in the doorway that Rolf left wide open when he came in. Bud meows.
– A cat. I did not know you have a cat.
HE SHOWS up early the next morning. I’m already outside getting the Willys ready. Mickey pitches his pack in the back and we’re ready to go. I roll us slowly down the beach, stop at The Bucket and tell Mickey to wait for me in the truck. Pedro has a sack for me with a couple water bottles and some tortas his wife made.
– You are taking him to the ruins?
– Yeah.
Pedro shakes his head.
– What?
– You have your secrets. I do not know nothing about them.
– So?
– So I do not know how is the best way to keep them.
– I’m just giving the guy a ride so he doesn’t have to take the bus.
– The man who asks the questions, you are giving him a ride.
– Pedro.
– Not my business. I do not know shit.
And he’s scraping the grill again.
– Pedro.
– Si.
Great, now I’m getting the Spanish treatment.
– I’ll see you tonight.
– Si.
– Maybe we can sing some songs when I
get back.
– Si, jefe.
I’m walking away when he shouts.
– The bar needs limes.
– Sure thing.
I get in the truck and pull onto the trail that cuts to the highway. I need to get Mickey out to the jungle. Bodies rot quickly in the jungle.
I TOLD Mickey we didn’t need help and Rolf walked him back onto the porch and closed the door. We got the Cuban onto the bed. Leo and me cleaned up while the other Cuban sat with his friend. I lit a smoke.
– Now what?
– I’ll go get the buggy and we’ll get him the hell out of here.
I pop one of the shutters open. Rolf and Mickey are standing next to the porch, chatting. Ten or fifteen people are dotted over the beach now.
– He can stay till evening.
– Claro?
– Yeah, he needs to stay in one place for at least a couple hours anyway.
– Thanks, man.
– Where you gonna take him?
– Mi casa.
Leo lives in town, about an hour’s drive.
– Their cousins are probably there waiting for us. I should drive up and chill them out.
– Call Doc Sanchez while you’re there, get him to meet you when you bring this guy back. Fix that mess I made.
Leo points out the window at Mickey.
– Him?
– What about him?
– Is he cool?
– Good fucking question.
Leo grabs Rolf and they take the buggy. I sit on the porch steps with Mickey.
– These guys had some trouble and I’m trying to help them out. You understand?
– Of course.
– It’s not the kind of thing that it would be good to talk about. Even when you get back home.
– Yes, I understand. With my father’s “business,” there were things I could not talk about.
– Right. Good.
I get up and walk to the door and peek back inside.
– But, sometimes, people would, you know, talk anyway. And I would hear things.
– Uh-huh.
Both Cubans are squeezed onto the bed, asleep.
– Stories.
– Yeah.
I should have told Leo to hit a pharmacia in town for some antibiotics.
– When we go to Chichen Itza tomorrow?
– Yeah?
We should be getting them into him now.
– You should bring a million dollars with you.
I turn from the window.
– Otherwise, I will tell my father’s “business” partners where you are with their money and your cat.
I look down. There are droplets of blood on my feet, sand stuck to them. I rub my feet together to grind them off.
– We’ll have to go to Merida, to the bank. My safety deposit boxes are there.
HE STILL wants to stop at Chichen Itza to see the Mayan ruins. Guy’s banking on a million at the end of the road and he wants to get some snapshots from the top of Kukulkan. Whatever.
I turn north onto Mexico 307 heading for 180 West, the toll road outside of Cancun. I stop at one of the Pemex stations on the highway and gas up. Mickey’s not talking, still waking up. It’ll take about an hour to get to Cancun, another two or three to Chichen Itza.
We swoop onto the 180. There’s hardly any traffic. I put the pedal down and open the Willys up a little to clean it out. It’s a 1960 Utility Wagon. A previous owner chopped the roof off and installed a ragtop. I bought it when I moved to the beach; had Baja tires put on because the trail floods out at least a couple times every month. I don’t really drive it much. I used to not drive, period. Not since the time in high school when I rammed my Mustang into a tree and killed my best friend. Rich. I used to have nightmares about Rich. But that was a long time ago. And I’ve killed more people since then.
Mickey’s waking up and becoming his chatty self.
– This place, I love it, you know.
– Huh.
– The whole peninsula, jungle, all the way to the beaches. It is beautiful. I started in Mexico City, you know, and that was wonderful, but very much like Manhattan, but if it were always hot. And then, I went to Guadalajara and to Puerto Vallarta and around the coast to Acapulco and east to Oaxaca and then into Guatemala and Belize and then up to Quintana Roo and the jungle and the beaches and the Caribbean and it is the most beautiful thing that I have ever found, and also very lucky for me, I think, because that is where I found you.
He wants me to know it’s nothing personal.
– And I did not come down here to look for you, you know. I wanted to see Mexico and get drunk on beaches and fuck women, but I had heard the stories.
– Tell me about the stories.
– Oh.
He starts to laugh.
– Oh, are they pissed at you. My father, when he was still alive and in “business,” I can remember I was at school and came home to their house for a visit to see my mother. And my father, he was very angry. Stomping, slamming, cursing. And he said your name! And, you know, I had heard your name because this had just happened with all the people being killed and your picture was in the newspapers and on the TV and I was living in Manhattan for school and I was very scared of you. Really. Everyone I knew was scared. And then I go home, out of the city until the killing stops, and I go to my parents and my father is cursing your name. And many people were cursing you, but this was, he was cursing you like he would curse me when he got angry, like you did something to hurt him.
Great.
– But then, I did not know anything until later. When he was sick and his friends would come over to talk “business” at the house where my mother had put in the hospital bed and hired the nurse, and I would come home sometimes on the weekend to visit. But they were not really talking, you know, “business” with him. They drank vodka and told stories and tried to make him laugh, but all of them always ended up crying. But in a way that was good, you know?
The jungle presses right up against the two-lane blacktop. We’ve passed a tour bus and a couple trucks and an abandoned VW Bug. There will be two toll stops and one gas station between here and Chichen Itza. After that, nothing until we join the regular road at Kantunil.
– Sometimes I would listen to the stories and always there was the one that they would tell. The story about you and how you killed so many of their men and stole their money and they would curse you and drink to your death and curse you some more. And they would then talk about where you had run to and what they would do when they found you. And, but, you know, they would almost always say something about you in Russian that would mean you were a sly, crafty, tough bastard and that they would have done what you had done if they could have, but that they would kill you anyway.
Every so often there are little dirt trails cutting off the main road and into the jungle. These lead to small rancheros that are, almost without exception, abandoned. People buy these little plots of land hoping to have a place in driving distance to the beach, but the jungle always kicks their ass. Turn your back on it and the jungle is at your back door. Any one of these little roads would do. I could say I needed to pull off and take a leak.
– So of course, you know, when I came to Mexico I knew your story and I had many times heard my father’s friends talk about you and that they thought Mexico was a place you could be, and I had seen your picture and a picture of your cat from the TV. But I did not come here to look for you, but I also remembered to look a little, because it would be stupid not to. But not for them. I don’t look for them, for my father’s friends and their “business.” I would not do that to you, tell them where you are so they can kill you, but I am not so stupid that I do not want something, you know, to not tell them. So the million dollars is a good deal for both of us because you will still have so much and it will be so much more than they would give me.
I spot one of the trails up ahead, slow the Willys, and start to pull off.
– What?
>
– I have to go.
– Me too.
I drive a hundred yards to a partial clearing. Sure enough, there’s a cinderblock house, abandoned and being disassembled by the jungle. I shut off the engine, climb out, and undo my fly. But I don’t have to go. I hear Mickey get out the other side. A groan as he stretches, a zip and then splashing. I button up, turn, and there’s Mickey, his back to me, watering a tree. There’s a piece of broken cinderblock right at my feet.
I get back behind the wheel. Mickey gets in next to me. I start the engine.
– Hang on.
I get back out, turn my back, and undo my fly again. Because now that I know I’m not gonna kill this guy, that I can’t kill him, I can pee. I get back in the truck. Mickey smiles.
– Missed some?
– It crawled back up.
– I hate that.
– Yep.
I steer the truck back onto the highway, going west. I’ll take Mickey to Chichen Itza. I’ll climb the temple steps with him and walk around the ruins. And when it’s time to go I’ll tell him the truth, that the money’s not in Merida, it’s back at my place. I’ll take him home, give him the million, and send him on his way. Then I’ll start looking for a new place to hide, a new country. I’ll do it that way, take the chance, because I don’t want to be a murderer again. I don’t want to be a maddog.
A COUPLE hours later we pull off at the exit for Piste, drive a couple miles of open road and then through the town itself. Every time we have to slow for a speed bump, kids mob the car with mass-produced Mayan souvenirs. I ease the truck through them while Mickey laughs. On the other side of town it’s another mile or so to the National Park where the ruins are. I take a ticket from the parking guy, find a spot, and turn off the engine, killing a mariachi-rock version of “Twist and Shout.”
The rain is coming down hard and people are coming out of the park, climbing into their cars and refilling the tour buses. I look at the sky, look at Mickey.
– Might not stop for awhile.
– I like it, let’s go.
He reaches in his pack and pulls out his poncho and rain hat. I do not have a poncho or a rain hat. We get out of the truck and I am soaked through before we get halfway to the main building. Once we are safely under cover the rain slackens to a gentle drizzle. Fucking Caribbean. I have to buy Mickey his ticket. He tells me he owes me. We go through the turnstile, past the gift shop, the bookshop, the coffee shop, through another turnstile where they snap on our wristbands, and then into the park itself. You walk through a little tunnel of trees. Into a clearing, and there’s Kukulkan. And you know, it is pretty cool.
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