Big Maria

by Johnny Shaw

  Frank walked toward the giant sawgrass that lined the edge of the yard. Out of sight, Frank dug a joint from under his hatband and lit it. He took a deep drag, held it in, and coughed a little on the exhale.

  He was proud of his grandsons. They grew good shit.

  Half was enough. He wet his fingers and put out the end before he shoved the roach in his hatband. He had bought the hat when his hair had fallen out. He had always worn ball caps, but they didn’t feel right on his bald head. The cowboy hat made him look a little like Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven. A badass with a big nose.

  Walking out from behind the sawgrass, he ran straight into Mercedes. She looked like she had just eaten a raw onion. Frank’s knees shook a little. She sniffed the air.

  “I’m going to talk to Bernardo and Ramón,” she said.

  “They’re helping how they can.”

  “They’re drug dealers. Their no-good father’s fault. I forbid you to see them.”

  “You forbid me?” But Frank was talking to her back.

  She walked back to the house. He had never been forbidden to do something before. He smiled at how ridiculous it sounded, but wondered how idle her threat was. There was one good thing about the cancer. Dying was going to be easier than living with his daughter.

  Over her shoulder, Mercedes said, “You have a phone call. Some guy named Harry Shit-something.”

  TEN

  Harry had missed his calling. Even the thought of having a calling had never occurred to him. Turns out he should have been a researcher of some kind. A historian or maybe an archaeologist. Who knew that he had any hidden talents beyond bilking the state out of disability checks and spitting for distance? Even if his newfound aptitude for digging up information was driven purely by greed, it still affected a positive change.

  The first time he stepped into the library, he got lost. Too shy or proud or dumb to ask for assistance, he fumbled his way through the small building. It took him an hour to find the right section. And even longer to find any helpful texts.

  It wasn’t that Harry was illiterate. He read. Working at the prison, he’d often knocked out a Lawrence Block or an Elmore Leonard during a hard day of pretending to work. But those books didn’t count. They passed the time. They were fun. They weren’t book books. Anyone could write them. This research stuff—real books—was more like homework. Or a puzzle. After the first day, he almost said to hell with it. All that reading was dangerously close to having a job.

  But he stuck with it, and in a couple months, Harry and the Dewey Decimal System became simpatico. He learned the value of a good bibliography, interlibrary lending, and private collections. One day, he had been so engaged in the history of the All-American Canal that he had failed to take a single drink from the flask he had sneaked into the building. His thirst for knowledge had temporarily replaced his thirst for alcohol.

  The work had become important enough to establish new personal rules. No drinking until after six. No women at all. A card-carrying member of the He-Man Woman Haters Club. He even accidentally got in better shape, as the only place to eat near the library was The Juice Shack, a vegetarian meth front. He hated the things they called sandwiches with alfalfa sprouts and tofu “cheese” between two slices of damp cardboard, but the Jack in the Crack was ten blocks away.

  After three months of research and careful comparison of modern and hundred-year-old maps from eight different area libraries, Harry determined that Frank’s gold mine story, while mostly fabrication, had enough merit for further inquiry. The big news was that he was ninety percent sure he had located the exact coordinates of the town of Picacho. Latitude and longitude to the minute and second.

  He found old photos and etchings of the town. Town registries. Censuses. He drew maps and floor plans of buildings from interior photos and descriptions. Oral histories. Written histories. If he closed his eyes he could walk down the dusty main drag of 1901 Picacho, California. He could see the businesses, the wagons, and the people. He could smell the horses and the dust. And the gold.

  He knew gold had no odor, but in his mind it smelled the way honey tasted.

  The town was well documented, but Abraham Constance was another story. That took some creativity and real digging. First, Harry had to establish that the man had actually existed. A quick scan of birth records verified the fact. Then he had to establish that he had run the Big Maria Mine. Since the claim was under a different name, he had to scour old newspapers. He eventually found three separate articles, including a second-place win in a watermelon seed spitting contest, that listed Constance as a mining foreman.

  Finally, Harry narrowed down the home and final resting place of Abraham Constance to four possible structures in Picacho. It was extremely doubtful that the buildings still stood under the water of the Imperial Reservoir, but anything buried underground might still be under the soil, provided it was deep enough. No reason to believe different. Even if he enjoyed the puzzle, it didn’t mean he was doing it for fun. He still needed faith.

  He closed the giant, bound volume of Imperial Valley Press newspapers from the early part of the twentieth century. Aside from a few obscure scholarly journals he had on back order, there was nowhere else to look. No more research to do. All the books and maps could be returned to their shelves. The next step would be to take the information and actually do something.

  Do something? What did that mean? Scuba diving into the Imperial Reservoir and searching the underwater ghost town of Picacho? He wasn’t exactly Clive Cussler. What would he need? A boat? Scuba gear? A shovel. A flashlight, definitely. Was waterproof or water resistant the better one?

  The sunlight blinded him the moment he walked out of the relative darkness of the library. Realization hit him simultaneously. He didn’t know what he was doing. He had never even been on a boat. And scuba diving—that sounded not only hard, but dangerous. He would have to rope in someone to do that part for him.

  He hated to share, but he needed other people. It couldn’t be done alone. The research, that was a solo deal, but the actual operation was going to be a team effort.

  He hit the Horseshoe to think. It was after six, so he allowed himself some celebratory drinks. After a rack of beers and shots, he knew who he had to talk to.

  First, Frank. Top of the list. He was an old man, sure. But he was tough as nails and Harry liked him. He liked Frank’s grit and no-bull attitude. He would always know where he stood with Frank, and there was something lucky about having an Indian sidekick. Besides, Frank was the one who told him about the gold. He deserved a finder’s fee. Ten percent, maybe.

  He went back and forth on that big kid, Ricky. He had introduced Harry to Frank. But since that bus accident, the kid had taken a dive into a bucket of awful. Just the other day, he had watched from a distance as the kid’s girlfriend and kid drove off.

  Harry had seen him a couple of times since the hospital. The kid’s arm had healed squirrelly, making him physically lopsided and awkward. He could tell Ricky was drinking every day, the lumpy softening of alcoholism visible in his physique. He looked like a bodybuilder gone doughy.

  For the longest time, process servers and guys in suits swarmed Desert Vista. They wandered around the trailer park, always ending up at Ricky’s door. A couple of them had gotten rolled and robbed, but that’s the risk you take for doing an evil job. The cops were still giving the kid hassle, too.

  Even with all that, Harry wanted Ricky to be in on this score.

  He had never believed in signs or horoscopes or any of that New Age garbage. But the more he drank and thought on it, the more he knew that the three of them were meant to be together on this. Circumstances hadn’t thrown them together in that hospital room on accident. It was destiny.

  He’d figure out the next steps when he met Frank. Old men were supposed to be wise, so maybe he’d know the best way to proceed. It was like any big job. It broke down to a bunch of smaller tasks. Every day, every step in the plan, and every task crosse
d off the list would bring Harry closer to his gold.

  Speak of the devil, Harry thought, spotting Ricky in the wine aisle at Blythe Liquor & Bait. Buzzed but not drunk, Harry wanted to pick up a twelve-pack to help him sleep. The world felt out of whack without beer in the fridge.

  The kid looked worse than the last time Harry had seen him. Ricky wore a tank top that accentuated his shrunken, burn-scarred left arm. The mottled skin at his shoulder was mostly shiny red tissue and yellow scars. The flesh reminded Harry of the night crawlers in Styrofoam cups on the counter.

  Harry wasn’t what anyone would describe as a caring person. But looking at Ricky, he felt bad for the way things had rolled for the kid. Only a couple months before, he had sat next to him on the computer, and now he looked broken. Not just the injuries. People got hurt all the time. It was the look in his eyes. The same look he had seen on the faces of prisoners serving long sentences. Like they knew their lives had no purpose.

  “Hey, Ricky,” Harry said, sidling next to him.

  Ricky jumped a little when he turned, almost losing his balance. Ricky had trouble focusing on Harry’s face. The kid was drunker than Harry and considerably less experienced at it.

  Harry noticed a small swatch of cloth clutched in Ricky’s dead, crippled hand. Ricky caught his eyes and moved the hand behind his back.

  “What do you want?” Ricky said, returning his attention to the selection of cheap fortified wine.

  “Saw you in here, said hello. You doing okay?”

  “I look okay, Shitburger?”

  Nobody had called him that for weeks. Even more than that, he didn’t feel like a Shitburger anymore. Ricky using the nickname bothered him. It wasn’t just the word, it was the way he had said it. Like it was supposed to have some hurt on it.

  “Heard your lady and kid left. Sorry, man.”

  Ricky turned to him. “Don’t you talk about them.”

  Harry took a couple of steps back. “I’m not going to lecture you, kid. I like a drink now and again myself. Hell, I’m a little toasted right now. But that’s me. It ain’t you.”

  Ricky shook his head and laughed. His laugh was the most humorless thing Harry had ever heard.

  Harry continued. “I’m going to see Frank tomorrow. You know, the old Indian. You want to come with me?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Don’t want nothing. I don’t know. We’re almost friends, kind of, I thought.”

  “Fuck you, Shitburger.”

  Harry gave Ricky a hard stare and then a shrug. He walked to the coolers in the back to get his beer. Turning back down the aisle, he saw Ricky stuff a bottle of Cisco Red down his pants. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, it would have been funny. The bottle-shaped bulge in his crotch telegraphed “shoplifter.”

  Ricky walked quickly toward the door. As he passed the cashier, the guy shouted, “Hey!”

  But Ricky was already out the door and down the street.

  The cashier reached under the counter and pulled out a baseball bat. He skidded around the counter and headed for the door.

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  The cashier stopped and turned toward Harry. He was breathing hard, mentally prepared to give a beat-down. “Motherfucker stole from my store.”

  “If I pay, it ain’t stealing. His wife and kid left him. He’s having a bad time of it.”

  The cashier stared out the open door. His breathing slowed, his anger flattened.

  “It was a bottle of Cisco,” Harry said.

  “Dollar ninety-nine plus tax.”

  “You were going to take a bat to a guy for two bucks and change?”

  “Motherfucker stole.”

  Harry paid for his beer and Ricky’s wine.

  The kid had sunk so low that not only was he stealing his drunk, but he was stealing the cheapest booze known to man. If he was going to steal, why hadn’t he stolen some of the top shelf, instead of headache in a bottle? Harry remembered the one and only time he drank Cisco. It tasted like a Tootsie Pop dipped in antifreeze. It killed the necessary brain cells but made his fingers go numb.

  “Poor kid,” Harry said to himself as he walked his beer home.

  ELEVEN

  They had given Frank a fishing magazine. Probably thought all Indians liked fishing. The last fish Frank had caught was in the frozen section at Albertsons.

  He couldn’t get past the first sentence. Some article titled “The One That Didn’t Get Away.” He read the sentence a dozen times. His eyes saw the words, but their meaning never stuck, sliding along the surface of his comprehension. Like he was trying to translate a language he didn’t know.

  Whether you prefer a baited hook or dry fly, the Desert Southwest offers plenty of wonderful opportunities for catching a boatload of tilapia, also known as “St. Peter’s Fish.”

  Frank read to relax while he received his chemo treatment, but relaxation was near impossible. The thin fabric of the once-plush Barcalounger chafed where his shirt had lifted up. The cold bags on his hands and feet made him shiver uncontrollably. They said they’d keep his nails from falling out, but that didn’t make it more pleasant. On top of all that, the treatment gave him the shits, so he was forced to clench his ass muscles for the length of the therapy.

  Whether you prefer a baited hook or dry fly, the Desert Southwest offers plenty of wonderful opportunities for catching a boatload of tilapia, also known as “St. Peter’s Fish.”

  He wasn’t completely convinced that the old woman in the chair across from him was alive until she threw up on herself.

  Whether you prefer a baited hook or dry fly, the Desert Southwest offers plenty of wonderful opportunities for catching a boatload of tilapia, also known as “St. Peter’s Fish.”

  The nurses were pleasant but impersonal. It reminded Frank of when he had worked at the dairy, the same indifferent attitude as putting the milking machines onto the cows. You didn’t hate the cows, but you didn’t really care about them either.

  Whether you prefer a baited hook or dry fly, the Desert Southwest offers plenty of wonderful opportunities for catching a boatload of tilapia, also known as “St. Peter’s Fish.”

  He strained his eyes and brain in an attempt to focus, but that second sentence was as far away as his youth.

  Whether you prefer a baited hook or a dry fly…

  “Isn’t there a cigar store you should be standing in front of?”

  Frank looked up to see Harry standing over him. He closed the fishing magazine, its spell broken.

  “Find a seat,” Frank said, nodding toward a few folding chairs against the wall. After Harry pulled the chair next to him, he handed Frank a brown paper bag.

  “Didn’t know what to get you, but thought it was right ’cause you’re sick, you know, to get a present.”

  “What is it?” Frank asked, feeling the bag’s weight.

  “Couple of Playboys, a joke book, a flask of mezcal. And a box of Swishers.”

  Frank glanced inside the bag. “My daughter finds me with any of this, except maybe the joke book, I’m going to catch hell.”

  “What’re you, a teenager? You’re scared of your own daughter?”

  “Damn right. Built like an angry bowling pin.”

  “You’re old. That gives you—what do they call it—‘cart blanch’? You can walk down the street with your johnson in your hands whizzing all over the place. Cops catch you, they’ll drive you home. Me, I ain’t old enough yet. I’d get arrested after they gave me a blanket party.”

  “Maybe I’ll try that.” Frank laughed. “Thanks for the stuff. It’s the thought, yeah?”

  “What I would’ve wanted.”

  “You put some thought into it. That means something. Could’ve just grabbed some shit at the gift shop.”

  “There’s a gift shop?”

  Frank laughed, sneaking a peek at one of the Playboys. The girl was completely shaved down there. He didn’t like that. Why would anyone want to see a woman’s cooch? Those things were scary. He
needed a thatch to keep the lady stuff from scaring his willy.

  “How’s it going?” Harry asked. “I mean all this cancer stuff. You dying or what?”

  Frank slid the magazine back into the bag. “Still wake up in the morning. And until the day I don’t, I ain’t going to complain.”

  “Need anything?”

  Frank shook his head and then gave Harry’s face a long read. “You’re talking around something. What’s on your mind?”

  “Straight to it. Okay. I have a question for you. An opportunity. A question and an opportunity.”

  Frank smirked. “I don’t get many of those no more. Opportunities, that is. I get plenty of questions. Most of them from some nurse asking if the medical doohickey that’s up my ass is uncomfortable. I am yet to answer no.”

  “Who knows? Maybe you’ll get to like it.” Harry smiled. “I’m getting a boat and I’m going to dive down into Picacho. I’m going to dig up that map, those papers your grandfather buried. I’m going to find the Big Maria Mine.”

  Frank had never laughed harder in his life. Not even when he had been a kid and that mean nun had slipped in cowshit and landed ass-down on a cactus bed. Harder than the time Stink Gillies found out his date to the Harvest Dance had a lady chassis and male plumbing. Frank laughed so hard that he choked on his own spit, bringing a nurse over to him. He dug in the bag and held up the joke book, waving her away. Catching his breath, he looked back at Harry’s hurt face and erupted in laughter all over again.

  “It’s not that funny,” Harry said.

  After a couple false starts, Frank got it under control. He took a deep breath and wiped the tears from his eyes. He was pretty sure he had shit himself a little. Completely worth it. Harry started to talk, but Frank held out his hand.

  “Give me a minute. A full minute. If not, first word you say, I’m going to get going again.”

  Harry listened to the hospital sounds while Frank took a drink of water. Beeps and typing and gurgling and groans.