I’m not big on sightseeing, but I’ve been out here a couple times in the last few years, enough to pick up some details, and now I play tour guide for Mickey. He wants to save the climb up the temple steps for last, so we start with the Ball Court. We stand at one end and look down the length of the stone stadium. Mickey nods his head.
– Big.
– Two hundred and seventy-two feet by one hundred and ninety-nine.
– Big.
We walk down the court and stand under one of the stone hoops mounted at midpoint on either side of the Court. Mickey leaps and tries to touch the bottom of the rim, but can’t get close.
– That is where they put the heads through to score?
– Nah, they used a rubber ball.
– I thought heads?
– No. The Toltecs, when they took over, there’s some evidence that they might have sacrificed the losing team.
– And they played like soccer.
– Any part of your body but your hands.
– See, soccer rules. Much better than American football.
I can say it now.
– I don’t like football. I like baseball.
– See, you know, I know this about you also. But still, soccer is also better than baseball.
I turn my back and walk toward the rest of the ruins.
WE DO the Temple of Warriors and the Thousand Columns and the smaller features of the main clearing, and then Mickey is ready for the climb. Kukulcan, aka The Temple, aka The Castle, aka The Pyramid, aka El Castillo: it’s why people come here. The seventy-nine-foot ziggurat built over a smaller pyramid that is still housed inside. There’s debate over whether it was built by the Mayans or the Toltecs, but they both seem to have used it as a place of worship and sacrifice, and also as a calendar of some kind. There are ninety-one steps on each of the four sides and a small temple on top representing a single giant step. Do the math: three hundred sixty-five steps altogether. Neat. There’s more! Kukulcan was a golden serpent god, and on both the spring and autumnal equinoxes, shadows that look like writhing snake bodies play on two of the staircases. No shit. But mostly, mostly, it’s a long fucking climb up a stone staircase on something around a forty-degree incline. A climb that will be made in the rain today. Rain that is getting harder.
Mickey trots up, of course. I keep a pretty brisk pace, but, having a stronger sense of my own mortality, I take time to plant each foot firmly on the rain-slick steps, gravity tugging at my back the whole way up. We’re climbing the west stairs, which have been restored and even have a handrail running up the center. The north stairs have also been restored, but only have a rope strung from top to bottom. The east and south faces have been allowed to erode so tourists can get a sense of the condition the place was in when it was found. I pass a couple people crawling down backward on all fours, but nobody going up.
Mickey is waiting for me at the top, arms thrust up in a V. He wants me to take a picture of him like that with the jungle in the background. I do. A few people are up here, hiding just inside the temple, waiting for the rain to ease off before they go down. Mickey wants to go inside the temple and see the Jaguar Throne.
– You go ahead.
– No, but you must go with me.
– I’ve seen it.
– You can show me then.
– Look, it’s tiny in there and I don’t really like tiny places. Besides, it’s smelly.
He steps a little closer to me, still smiling.
– No, but, you know, you really must go with me because I do not want you to be alone.
Jesus H.
– Mickey, can I have a word with you?
We edge around the outside of the temple, away from most of the people, to the east face of the pyramid. Looking out over the endless jungle.
– What is it?
– I’m not going anywhere. What I am going to do is keep our bargain. I’m gonna give you a million dollars to keep your mouth shut because I don’t want to die. I’m not looking to ditch you, so just go poke around inside and then we can look at the Observatory if you want and then we’ll drive back to the beach and I’ll give you your money.
He squints at me.
– We will go to Merida and you will get me the money.
Sigh.
– The money’s not in Merida, it’s at my place.
– You said Merida.
– I lied.
– Why?
– Because.
His mouth tightening into a straight line.
– You wanted to take me to Merida, for what? To do something. To do something to me.
– Look.
– No! You cannot fuck with me. I know what this is, what you were trying. My father was in “business,” I know about “business.” You were thinking to kill me.
And funny as it may be, him saying it fills me with shame.
– Yeah. Yeah, I was.
– Fucking, fuck. I cannot trust you.
– Let’s just.
– I will tell you what we will just do. You, you will take me to the money and you will give me two million. No, you will give me three million.
He’s getting loud and spittle is flying from his lips. I look around to see if we’ve drawn an audience, but the rain is letting off and the other people are moving to the north and west sides to climb down.
– Mickey.
– Do not call me Mickey. That is for my friends. You now call me Mikhail, like my father named me.
– You need to settle down, and we’ll work this out.
– It is worked out, you will give me three million or I will tell where you are.
I can keep my cool here. I know I can.
– You’re going to get a lot of money, but I will not give you three million. I can’t.
He throws up his arms in disgust.
– You are wanting, you know, to bargain with me? You are selfish. Yes, because this is not just about you.
– What do you mean?
– A selfish shit dog of a man.
– What do you mean, not just about me?
– My father’s friends, they are not stupid, they know where your family lives. And you, selfish man, want to bargain with your family’s life?
– No, I don’t.
And I push Mickey down the rubbled east staircase of the Temple of Kukulcan. The first human sacrifice here in nearly a thousand years.
ON THE way home I stop in town to pick up a few things at the store. I go to the Chedraui, Mexico’s version of Costco. I find the tape gun and reinforced packing tape I want, but none of the cardboard boxes they have for sale are big enough. I grab some cat food and a few other things, then go outside and pull around to the loading dock. They have a big pile of discarded boxes and the guys let me take my pick.
It’s after ten when I get to The Bucket. There must have been a couple folks hanging out late because Pedro’s just locking up the booze. I turn off the Willys and walk over with a huge sack of limes from the Chedraui.
– Sorry I’m late.
He takes the limes and stuffs them into one of the cabinets.
– No problema.
– Everything OK today?
– Si.
He looks at the Willys.
– You dropped off the Russian?
– Yeah. I dropped him off.
IT TOOK over an hour for the Federales to show up.
In the meantime the local police throw a tarp over Mickey and keep me sitting on the steps next to him. They don’t shut down the park, just wave curious tourists away from the body, and share their Boots cigarettes with me because I left mine out in the truck.
Over the years the reputation of the Mexican police force has taken a beating. Everybody has heard stories of Mexican traffic cops scamming tourists for mordida, planting pot on unsuspecting kids on spring break, and the notorious involvement of the military in the international drug trade. And most of it is just plain true.
These guys get paid next to shit
to do shit work and are given shitty equipment with which to do it. What’s the worst job in the world? Mexican cop. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the Federales who show up to question me turn me upside down and start shaking to see how much cash falls out of my pockets. Instead, they turn out to be honest, hardworking cops just trying to do the job.
Sergeants Morales and Candito are appallingly young, neither can be more than twenty-two, but they seem quite good at what they do. Which may be unfortunate for me. Their English isn’t good enough to make up for my Spanish, so we conduct our interview through a translator. One of the tour guides from the park.
We sit in a small room in the park’s administration building. Morales and Candito light Marlboros and give me one and the tour guide lights one of his cheap Alitas. The room chokes with smoke and they start asking questions about me and Mickey.
I tell them I just met Mickey a couple days ago and don’t really know much about him. I tell them how I offered him a ride on my way to Merida. They ask me why I was going to Merida and I tell them I was just going up for a couple days to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and do a little shopping. They ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I’m retired. They observe that I seem youthful to be retired and I tell them I made a certain amount of money on the stock market before the American economy folded. All of which is consistent with my FM2 immigration documents, U.S. passport, and the other ID that Leo supplied me with two years ago. Then they ask me what happened.
I tell them how Mickey wanted to climb the pyramid even though it had started raining, how we went around back to look at the view, how he wanted to stand near the edge while I took his picture, how his foot slipped on the rain-slick stone, and how we reached for each other, our hands colliding rather than grasping, sending him tumbling down the steps. And Sergeant Morales rattles something in Spanish to Sergeant Candito, who looks at something in his notebook and rattles something to the translator, who turns to me and asks me if I could please tell them what that was about, the argument?
– Um, argument?
The translator says something in Spanish and Sergeant Candito answers and the translator turns back to me.
– The sergeants have a statement from a witness that you and your friend were arguing and they would like to know if you can tell them.
– That was nothing. I mean, we were arguing, but it was just about me wanting to get going and him wanting to stay longer. That’s all.
The translator translates and Morales looks at Candito and Candito looks at Morales and they both look at the translator, who shrugs his shoulders.
And they let me go.
Of course they let me go. I’m an American citizen of some apparent wealth who has chosen to live and spend that wealth in Mexico.
But they keep my passport.
Which means they don’t buy it.
And they don’t buy me, either.
I SIT at the bar. Pedro pops the top off a seltzer for me and I tell him that Mickey is dead. I don’t tell him the truth. This is not because I don’t trust him. I do. I don’t tell him the truth for the same reason I’ve never told him who I am and what I’m running from: to keep him the hell out of trouble.
Pedro finishes cleaning up, opens a beer for himself, and sits on the swing next to mine.
– Dead.
– As a door nail.
– Como?
– A door nail. It’s a turn of phrase.
– Sure.
He squeezes a wedge of lime into his beer.
– Nails that are special just for doors?
– I don’t know.
– What is so dead about them?
– I don’t know.
– Deader than… a coffin nail?
– I don’t know.
He nods, finishes his beer, crawls up onto the bar, and leans far over so he can pluck another from the nearly empty tub. He wobbles, almost falls, but I grab his belt and pull him back. Pedro slides onto his swing.
– Gracias. So what now?
– Nothing.
– They took your passport.
– It’s no big deal. The guy was clumsy, he fell, the cops will investigate, and it will be over.
I drink my seltzer and Pedro drinks his beer.
– But I’ve been thinking about taking a trip.
– Claro.
– Maybe you could talk to Leo, tell him I might want some help.
– Claro. Cuando?
– Soon.
– American time, si?
– Yeah.
– OK.
I help him dump the water from the ice tub and offer him a ride in the Willys. He declines and pedals off on the tricycle. I drive over to my bungalow. I take my groceries, the tape gun, and the cardboard box inside. Bud is restless and darts around the room when I come in. I can see a little pile of cat poop in the middle of the room. He never does that.
– Not getting enough attention these days, guy?
He looks at me like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, which I suppose is literally true, but he knows, he always fucking knows. I clean up the crap, open a can of cat food, and sit on the floor next to him while he eats.
– Better?
He makes a little rumble in his throat that I interpret as a yes, so I flip on the boom box and put in Wish You Were Here. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” starts playing and I get to work.
Out to the back porch. I open the footlocker and grab the shovel. It’s developed a thin sheen of rust, like many of my tools. I should really keep them oiled, but I like the rust. It reminds me of old farm equipment piled in the yards of houses on the outskirts of my hometown.
Home.
I push that thought back down. Soon, but not yet, I can think about home.
I go back in, drop the shutters, and drag the bed into the middle of the room. I put a candle on the floor and feel around for the crack between the tiles.
WE HAD a great time building The Bucket and my bungalow, me and Pedro and Leo and a couple of their cousins. We hung out on the beach, working hard in the morning, taking a nice long siesta, then more work, then kicking a soccer ball around for an hour or two while the sun went down. Then everyone else would head home and I’d camp out to keep an eye on the tools and materials.
The Bucket was a breeze. We dug the holes for the pilings by hand, sank them, buried them, and built the roof frame. Then we built a box frame for the squared horseshoe of the bar, faced it, and anchored it to some four-by-fours we also sank in the sand. And that’s about all you want to do for a beach bar because the whole thing is gonna blow away every few years when a hurricane blasts through. The bungalow was a bit more involved. We hired a guy with a Cat to come down and drill our piling holes extra deep, framed the roof and floor, nailed plywood over the floor, and planked the walls. Then the pros came in.
The pros were three brothers, their father and grandfather, and about ten of their little kids. These are the guys who do the palm thatching. They came in, took one look at the roofs we’d framed, tore them apart, and put them back together. Then they spent two days walking around up there, bundling and tying palm fronds together in such a way that a trapeze artist could drop on them from five stories and wouldn’t break through. It was cool. The plumbing and sewage guys came during the next week and put in the water tank, toilet, sink, shower, and septic tank. And all that was left was the tiling, which I did myself.
I FIND the crack.
I keep a flat, stainless steel bottle opener on my keychain, but I don’t use it for opening bottles. It’s there for one purpose only, and this is its first time doing the job. I slip it into the crack, flex it, and pull slowly upward. The edge of a square of tile and plywood lifts away. I wedge my toe against it before it can fall back. I drop the bottle opener, get a fingertip grip on the panel, lift it up, and set it off to the side. Now comes the fun part: standing in a space not quite a yard square and shoveling sand in the dark.
I first dug this hole on on
e of the nights I spent alone on the beach. We’d staked out the frame for the bungalow, but hadn’t started building it yet. I picked the spot where I planned to put the bed, dug a hole, and got a big box from the bed of the Willys. Then I lowered it into the hole and filled it in. After the bungalow was done, I built the secret panel into the floor. Of course, I didn’t realize then that when the time came to dig out the box I’d be doubled over with my back in knots, rapping my knuckles on the edge of the hole in the floor with every stroke of the shovel. It takes awhile.
The shovel clunks into the top of the box. It’s one of those indestructible packing cases rock bands use to haul their equipment in. I get down on my knees to clear the sand away from the lid and twist and flip the clasps. The top pops off and there’s a Hefty bag inside. I squat, grab the top of the bag, heave it out of the box, up through the hole, and into the bungalow. I put the top back on the box and jerk the handle side to side, wiggle it free of the sand, and into the bungalow. Then I push the sand back into the hole, which leaves me with an only slightly smaller hole because the box is no longer in it. I end up slithering around under the bungalow, scooping sand to the hole to fill it in. Once again, it takes awhile.
When I’m done with the sand I put the plug back in the hole in the floor, push the bed into place, and open the Hefty bag. The money belt is on top, prepacked with a hundred grand American. I put that to the side. Underneath is a Ziploc bag. I put that to the side. I’m not ready yet. Beneath that is a huge block of plastic-wrapped money. And seeing it for the first time in around two years, I remember just how confusing dollars can be when there are over four million of them together in one place.
You really do get more for your dollar in Mexico. After I leased my beach property, built my bungalow and The Bucket, and put a nice chunk in a bank up in town, I still have just about four million right here.
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