Multiplex Fandango

by Weston Ochse

  "Oh Hello," said Suki

  The woman mistook the salutation as an invitation. She grabbed the empty third chair at Suki's table and sat, her escort taking position behind her, his face set and sad.

  "I knew I recognized you. I told Marvin that you were one of us, but he didn't believe me. Said you didn't have the look"

  "One of us?" asked Bob.

  "You know about the Jesus Pool, right?" asked Maven.

  Before Bob could respond, Suki interjected, "we were late reservations. Our travel agent said the room was the only one available."

  "Oh," said Maven.

  "But we love the view," said Bob. "Really magnificent."

  Maven and Martin gave Bob an odd look. “The Last Supper?” asked Maven.

  “That too,” said Bob. “Odd to have that painted in the pool. Don’t you think?”

  Maven shook her head slowly. “Then you don’t know.” She stood to go. “Just as well, I suppose.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait,” said Suki, holding out her hand. “Don’t go,” she said, struggling to find a reason to keep the woman from leaving. “Let us buy you a drink.”

  Maven stopped and turned. “That’s not necessary.”

  Suki smiled. “Please. We don’t know anyone here. You’re the first people we’ve met. Let us buy you a drink.” Seeing the hesitation in the older woman’s eyes Suki added, “It’s the Christian thing to do.”

  Maven grinned broadly. “Yes it is. Especially since tomorrow’s our Lord’s birthday. Come on Martin, let’s have one more drink.”

  One drink became several. The foursome didn’t separate until eleven thirty. Martin and Maven hurried back to the hotel. Bob picked up the check, then they'd headed back towards the hotel. What Maven had spoken about had troubled Suki. Not just the level of belief, but the possibilities that the belief represented.

  “I can’t believe you,” scoffed Bob once they were on the street. “Suddenly you're like Christian this and Christian that.”

  Suki ignored Bob’s bellicose remarks. He wanted her to defend herself so that he could make fun of her. All she’d really done was open the door to some startling information. Maven had told them about all the places of power in Mexico like the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor which heals the sick.

  "Some say that it was the older Indian influence that makes the Catholic shrines more powerful here, but only Jesus knows," Maven had said. Then she'd gone on to talk about the Basilica of our Lady of Guanajuato, the shrine of Our Lady of St. John of the Lakes in San Juan de Los Lagos, the shrine of our Lady of Zapopan, the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe, situated in Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo just north of Mexico City, and then of course the Jesus Pool.

  “I mean come on,” laughed Bob, throwing his arms into the air. “How can someone believe this shit? Just like when I was going to church. I could never get past talking bushes, walking on water, and the whole transubstantiation thing."

  "You believed once, though," she found herself saying.

  "I did, but I was stupid."

  "If you believed once, then you could believe again," she said. Buddhism had been a way of life for her before she came to America, but was nothing like the way religion was practiced in America. "She said that it would be a guarantee of heaven. Doesn't that excite you? Doesn't that make you wonder just a little?"

  "Not even a little," he said waving his hands. "It's all hoodoo voodoo."

  "But aren't you afraid of Hell?" she asked, stopping so that he'd realize she was serious.

  "No."

  "Not even a little?" she asked. "I mean. What if you were wrong and there really was a Heaven and a Hell. What if just for helping me, you'd go to Hell. Wouldn't you want to make up for that?"

  "You mean kill myself just in case there is a God? How crazy is that?"

  How crazy was that indeed? As a Buddhist, Suki didn't believe in Heaven or Hell. She believed in karma, transmigration of the soul and Nirvana—the end to the suffering of living. She hadn't really thought about it before, but now she remembered the voices that she'd heard in the water—scraps of speech as if there'd been some sort of reverberation upon impact. Or even worse, perhaps their souls had never left and had been trying to communicate to her. Perhaps the whole thing was a lie. Perhaps Heaven was only fiction.

  Several ambulances were parked in front of the hotel. The drivers were huddled by the first one in line, joking and sharing a cigarette. As Suki and Bob passed, the drivers became silent. A policeman stood at the front door. He checked their key, then allowed them to pass. Not until they walked into the lobby, did everything register.

  "Only in the first moments of the day of his birth, do you have a chance," Maven had said. "We came last year, but I was too afraid."

  They stepped into the pool area. All the chairs and tables had been cleared. The pool had been drained. Only the stains and the painting remained.

  Suki looked up and sucked in her breath. From the first to the twenty-second floor, balconies teamed with people. Entire families filled up the small areas, all staring down at the Jesus Pool. The only empty balcony was their own.

  "What the fu..." said Bob, censoring himself as his words carried over the space.

  A movement caught Suki's gaze. A man climbed over the railing on the second floor. He stood in front of the railing, facing outwards, his hands gripping the railing behind him. About sixty years old and balding, his knees visibly shook. His wife put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. She said something, and although Suki couldn't hear it, she read the lips. We love you, Harry. Don't be afraid. We'll meet again in Heaven.

  Suki suddenly looked at her watch. Five minutes to midnight. She grabbed Bob by the elbow and jerked him towards the elevator. "Come on. We need to hurry."

  As soon as they got to the room, she ran to the balcony and opened the sliding glass window. She stepped to the rail and looked beneath her. With two minutes to go, each balcony held a man or woman standing in front of the railing. She looked up and saw the same. Theirs was the only balcony without people eager for redemption.

  Maven stood two floors above her. The woman had confided in them that she had inoperable cancer. This was really her only chance for a sure thing. Maven released a hand from the rail, waved and smiled with nervous anticipation. Suki waved back.

  Someone screamed, "Uno minuta."

  Suki spun. "Bob, we have to do something."

  "Do what?" he said.

  "I don't know. But I can't stand here and have twenty-one people leap to their deaths."

  "I don't know what we can do," he said, frowning.

  "We have to do something," she said, rushing up and grabbing his shirt collar with both hands. "These people aren't going to Heaven. They don't go anywhere."

  "What do you mean?"

  "When I was swimming earlier, I heard them."

  "You heard them?"

  "I heard the souls. They spoke to me. They're trapped in the Jesus Pool, Bob. All of them, trapped forever."

  "Ridiculous," he said. "How could they talk to you?"

  "I don't know but they—"

  Church bells interrupted them as the clock struck midnight, signaling a new day— Christmas Day. A scream was followed quickly by a sickly splat. "Jump for Jesus," shrieked Maven. Suki spun just as Maven passed her balcony. Suki ran towards the railing, Bob right beside her.

  Maven lay sprawled in Jesus' arms. Several others lay beside her, their blood beginning to run together and collect on the bottom of the pool. The man named Harry didn't leap far enough. His head hit the edge of the pool. His body flopped, and then rolled, his smashed head coming to rest near Maven's feet.

  A scream came from above. Suki and Bob barely jerked their heads back inside before two bodies passed them – a man and a woman diving head-first, embracing each other all the way down. When Suki heard their impact, she thought that she was going to be sick. She didn't even want to look anymore.

  She watched as Bob looked up, the
n down as his gaze followed a descending man with a perfect swan dive form. Then Bob did something that absolutely stunned her. He laughed.

  Turning around he pointed back over his shoulder. "Suki, get over here. You're missing it."

  She gaped as he turned around to watch some more suicides. Remembering when she first met him as he ran up and helped her in the alley off Sunset, he'd had that same look on his face. Like a fanatic entertained by the event, he'd been more than a little wild-eyed as he'd tried to calm her down. She'd missed it then, but not now. And the realization sent the contents of her stomach into her throat.

  Her emotions sizzled. Part of her wanted to run. Part of her wanted to scream. Another part wanted to make Bob stop. He'd been an anvil around her neck since she'd decided to drive home drunk that night. She'd never loved him. He'd taken advantage of her and had held her heart hostage.

  And for what? Besides Bob, only she knew about her mistake.

  Her karma was so screwed up that she'd spend several lifetimes making up for it. She ran up to Bob, reached down and gripped his ankles, then simultaneously pushed him forward as his Fubu sneakers lifted off the floor.

  If there was a Heaven this was his only chance.

  If this was his Hell, he deserved it.

  Suki didn't even look as he collided in mid-air with a wheel chair descending from the twenty-second floor. She didn't do Heaven and she didn't do Christmas, but she promised herself that she'd return sometime next year and take a dip in the Jesus Pool, if nothing more than to listen to Maven and maybe chat with Bob.

  She sat down in a chair facing the open balcony window and listened to the screams of the dying and the wails of the witnesses. She didn't move until dawn.

  ***

  Story Notes: I saw a picture once of a swimming pool with a picture of Jesus on the bottom. I wondered to myself who would want to swim in such a thing. Was it disrespectful? But then I saw other pictures of children splashing, a woman lounging, and a man standing on the edge smoking a cigar, ignoring the fact that a 40-foot Jesus was beneath them. I had to wonder what it would be like swimming in such a pool. This was written as much to answer that question as it was for those people who steadfastly believe that if they do enough good at the end of their lives, it makes up for a lifetime of being bad. Suki vaguely resembles my sister. It’s true I was thinking of her when I wrote this, especially her sense of humor, but my sister is a much nicer person than Suki. I love this story. I think it’s one of my most honest.

  NOW SHOWING ON SCREEN 3

  Fugue on the Sea of Cortez

  Starring Tom as the wandering soul,

  June as the woman he shouldn’t have

  and the giant shrimp as the elder god

  “This does for vacationing alone in Mexico what The Hills Have Eyes did for Recreational Vehicle travel.”

  –The Salted Morgue Gazette

  In Smell-O-Vision

  He'd traveled from The Panama Canal to Puerto Peñasco listening to a soundtrack created to drown the memories of his own cowardice. Dangermouse, Van Halen, AC DC and Madonna reinvented themselves in a thunderous Crazy-For-Those-About-To-Rock-Might-As-Well-Jump-Material-Girl-We-Salute-You crucible where he was the strong, confident cavalier that he’d always wanted to be since he’d grown-up reading about the scions of Shannara, improbable hobbits and Stainless Steel Rat space heroes. Really nothing more than vapid electronic musings, fugue voices that carried him along on an expository stretto until his escape chute landed somewhere else where the women were fine, the liquor was cheap, and his conscience had a way to escape.

  “Uno mas, por favor.”

  The bartender wordlessly slid another frozen margarita over from the platoon of drinks he’d prepared for the afternoon rush.

  “Gracias.” Thomas Greely Jones relished the icy tequila, so far the only deterrent against Mexico’s molten heat. He gazed out the window and watched the boats returning from a day of shrimping, the air above them swirling with pelicans and gulls eager to steal the day’s catch. White-skinned tourists lay on the beach in front of their resort hotels, their drinks served by malnourished, brown-skinned locals. Rich white kids skipped along the water’s edge, their boogie boards slipping across the waves in mad gyrations, oblivious to squalor, their only concern the moment and the now. Farther out to sea along the azure waves of the Sea of Cortez, a dozen swimmers treaded water, their gazes locked on the horizon.

  All seemed as it should be except for these twelve swimmers. For the life of him, Thomas couldn’t figure out what they were about. The waves of the Sea of Cortez were the most languid of the sort. The swimmers didn’t have diving apparatus, as one would expect a group such as theirs to have, perhaps waiting for pickup after a long day of coral snooping? What were they doing? Why were they treading water when they could turn, swim and easily make the shore? He was about to ask the bartender, his mind already searching for the words in Spanish, when she walked in.

  Mid-twenties and blonde with an athletic build, she wore flip-flops, black shorts and a black T-shirt with the slogan Army of One emblazoned across the front. Her hair hung halfway down her back. Elfin features surrounded a freckled nose. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t place it. She found a seat by the window, kicked off her flip-flops and drew her feet beneath her. She stared at the sea, the dozen swimmers, and the horizon, her furrowed brow the only expression on a face that could raise a nation.

  Then he had it and his heart sunk with the memory.

  Her expression reminded him of his mother's when he’d told her he was going AWOL. Away Without Leave was the official term, and she hadn't begrudged him his decision, although he could have sworn she could see inside him. Her eyes had never been accusing, but had held him in their inquisitive rays as she tried to plumb the depths of his conscience to determine if it was something she’d done which had caused such a heroic malfunction. He’d told her what he’d told his First Sergeant when he’d called that final time before he turned his back on the red, white and blue. "I’m a conscientious objector. I did my time in hell. I spent one tour in the box. I saw things no kid should ever see. Limbs blown off. Sucking chest wounds. Bodies shattered from IEDs. I shouldn’t be forced to do it again while other kids live safe, happy lives." Thomas was a mechanic and had been promised that if he’d re-enlisted he'd be assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado. But no sooner had he found a place to stay and grabbed a season pass at Breckenridge than his unit had won the Iraq lotto and been awarded an all expense paid ticket back to the sandbox. His unit had left for Ramadi, his friends had gone to Hell, and he'd left for Panama.

  The bar began to fill after she arrived. A few honeymooners, some snowbirds from the RV Park off of Oro Del Mar Beach and some ex-Pats back from a soccer game soon turned the gloomy interior into a den of laughter and light. Everyone seemed to be having a good time except her. She finished one margarita and stirred her empty glass with a straw as she gazed at the ocean.

  Thomas saw his chance. He grabbed two fresh margaritas and sat down beside her.

  “Thought you might be thirsty.”

  She continued to stare at the sea.

  “After all, you are in a bar,” he added undeterred. He’d been in Mexico for nearly two months, and although he’d seen other women, this one intrigued him the most. Perhaps it was her shirt and the possibility of sharing fear that pulled him towards her. Army of One. What a screwed up motto. He didn’t even know what it meant and he’d lived the life for three years.

  Long moments passed before she finally spoke. “I come in here for the view.”

  The Black Dolphin held the high ground on a rocky promontory overlooking Bahia de Sonora on the Sea of Cortez and indeed had a spectacular view. Only the lighthouse above the bar boasted a better one, but it didn’t have a happy hour so it didn’t count. He pushed the sweating margarita glass closer to her, hoping his offer would be the olive branch he needed to get her talking. She took it, drank slowly and resumed her vigil, moisture beads on t
he outside of the glass slipping across her knuckles and onto the table.

  Something about her gaze told a tale of loss in the making compelling him. “Is everything okay?”

  “Sure.” She nodded vaguely in his direction.

  “My name is Tom.”

  “June.” She held out a hand.

  He took it. “I wonder what they’re doing.”

  She glanced at him for the first time and he felt the weight of her gaze.

  “Those twelve in the water, they just seem to be floating out there and I can’t see the reason for it.”

  She frowned. “Perhaps they have their own reasons, something you wouldn’t understand.” Her voice held a trace of Southern accent – Georgia or South Carolina, maybe.

  “They seem to be waiting for something,” he said, trying desperately to keep the conversation going.

  “What do you think that is?”

  Her question hung in the air, until finally he was forced to admit, “I really have no idea.”

  “That should make you happy, then.”

  He cocked his head at her odd response, a ready smile in case she was making fun of him. But she was serious. He polled his conscience to see if this one was really worth it. He’d love to find a way to get into her heart, or into her pants, if nothing else but for the sport of it. But were his efforts worth the trouble? Her responses were odd and disjointed. Either she was crazy as a loon, or there was something more going on than he could see.

  “Listen, I’m hungry. Want to join me for dinner?”

  “I’m not who you think I am,” she said. “You don’t want to be with me.”

  There it was again, such an odd answer to a simple question. Still, he grinned. “I'm just looking for some company. It's been awhile since I had a conversation in American. If you can trust me for an hour or two, I promise to keep my hands and feet outside your safety zone.”

  And then the most glorious thing happened. She smiled briefly transforming her face into the girl she’d most surely been before she'd been beset by whatever events had placed her here. She caught him once again with her gaze. “Just remember that I warned you. I come with lots of baggage.”