by Rosa Foxxe
“For real? How is this a real thing?”
“I'm not really sure myself. And I wish it wasn't. I wish the God damn turtles could hold their mother fucking piss for their entire lives. I wish they didn't die when they fainted. It wouldn't even matter if they were like fainting goats. If they were they'd be preserved forever in petting zoos around the nation.”
“So you think we'll see some?” Tyra asked.
“Maybe,” Vinnie said. “What I'm most worried about is that the government might already be out there. They do that. Yeah, bet you didn't know that. They'll go out there before and look for the little guys. And that's cool, don't get me wrong. That's fucking great. Go save the little turtles. Go out there and gather them all up in your arms and run them to the nearest water source so they can rehydrate and not fucking die. But do it a week or so before my crew goes out there to dig!”
“You mean the government waited until the day before to go out there and look for them?”
“I mean they waited until the day of, baby! That's why I was in such a rush this morning. I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything and I hope I didn't come across that way. We just have to get out there now. What especially sucks is that you never really know what government agency is going to be out there. Could be cops, could be feds. Could be fucking PETA. Hell, PETA is fucking worse than the God damn government! They'll fun around and throw fake blood on everything and it takes forever to get it off and you have to get it off the trucks because flies will lay eggs. And PETA will also try to break the vehicles. But you can't touch PETA, and you sure as shit can't shoot at them or even around them just to scare them. They'll sue to high heaven if you do.”
Tyra held her hand outside of the car and cupped the wind in her hand like she had when she was a kid and her dad would take her to the lake. Something about Vinnie's long talk about the turtles reminded her of her father. They used to go fishing together when she was a kid, mostly because it wasn't expensive and if they got something it meant they didn't have to buy food that night, or could save the food they had.
She hadn't seen her father in a long time and really missed him. Things hadn't always been the best when she was a kid growing up, but her dad and her mom and always done their best. It was just hard for a poor black family who wanted to raise a daughter even somewhat proper. It wasn't like you see in the movies where the dad could just get more money by working longer hours at some made up factory where everyone made a living wage and people don't treat the poor black guy like garbage.
Growing up where she had, there hadn't been many jobs, so her dad had had to take on as many odd jobs as he could while her mom the same. There just wasn't enough work to go around.
So her mother ended up mending the dresses of the rich white women that lived in the nearby city. Her father ended up mending fences and digging ditches. There wasn't cotton around or they would have ended up picking it and that would have been a pill so bitter for her father that it probably would have killed him. But he would have taken the pill and washed it down with images of his baby girl growing up to be somebody and do something besides try to make ends meet. But that was just the kind of man he was, he'd have done anything for her and her mother. And her mother was made of the same mettle, she'd have done whatever it took to survive just like her dad would have, and her mother would have done anything for her little girl.
What was funny to Tyra was that it wasn't just her father that Vinnie reminded her of, it was also her mother. It was both of them, because they had the same spark of fight that wouldn't let them quit until there was simply nothing left in them at all.
Maybe that was what had attracted her to Vinnie in the first place, all of the fight in his voice as he talked about his troubles. How he wasn't going to let anyone or anything stop him. How there would never be an end to his efforts, and how the people in this town would do well to simply accept the change that he was bringing to them because it was never going to end. He was never going to give up or fuck off or turn yellow and run. He was never going to hide and let law men march all over his job site like they owned the entire world. It just wasn't going to happen.
What was going to happen instead was that Vinnie did just what he'd done this morning; woken her up and gotten them both out of the door by the time the sun was coming up so the drive wouldn't be hot but they could see, and so they would make it out there just at the same time the digging teams would.
“What are you thinking about?” Vinnie asked her. “Anything good?”
“My parents and how you remind me of them,” she said.
Vinnie looked straight ahead to survey the approaching foothills of far off mountains. Where they were going wouldn't get too mountainous, but they would certainly need to watch their step.
“How do I remind you of your parents?” Vinnie asked.
There was hesitation in his voice. Tyra got the feeling that Vinnie might have grown up hard despite having money and was thinking of his own father and all the ways he would never want anyone he was pursuing romantically to think he reminded them of his old man.
“Nothing bad at all,” Tyra said. “You only remind me of the good things about my parents. Their will to fight the world, basically.”
Vinnie nodded at this and smiled.
“Well there has been plenty of that in my life recently. Like I was saying when you first came to this town in the middle of nowhere, there is some very real resistance to things. But this digging operation is supposed to change all of that.”
“Really?” Tyra said. “How so?”
The sun was rising higher in the sky, and as it rose the heat rose with it. She was starting to sweat even though the wind cooled her skin considerably. She couldn't imagine how it was going to be when they got out of the car and had nothing to do but stand in the desert. Hopefully there was fun stuff to do, like exploring the landscape.
“You know, and I'm a little embarrassed to say this,” Vinnie said. “But I actually am not really sure what we're going to be digging up. That's something that has been kept from me. So we'll see if there wasn't some kind of plot behind my back. You know how people can be. I'm not sure what to expect. For all I know we'll be out there digging up someone's old septic tank so they can have a laugh that we smell like their shit or something. But what I'm hoping for is that this goes smoothly and then things s in Vegas start to become a little more calm, and then eventually everyone just chills the fuck out and we can all do business together.”
It sounded like he was hiding something from her.
“What do you think we'll be digging up?” she said.
“We?” Vinnie laughed. “We will not be digging anything up. My men will be doing that. And honestly, I'm not sure but I do get the feeling that it will be fairly illegal in nature at some point. But not at the start or anything. Or so I hope.”
“Vinnie,” Tyra said. “What aren't you telling me?”
“This could be a set up,” he said. “More or less. And not the bank robbery kind but the really shitty kind. Or it could be nothing. I don't know because I've not been told not only by the assholes in this town, but also my family. There is something going on a more macro level that I don't know about, but I think I'm about to find out.”
“Are we going to be safe out there?” she said.
“Oh we'll be fine,” Vinnie said. “The amount of fire power we'll have around us will make sure of that. And the law will be sniffing around. Absolutely fucking no one is going to be looking for a fight. It just won't be a good idea with the authorities looking to arrest everyone just so they can blackmail them.”
Tyra took a deep breath.
“So it'll be a fun trip?” she said.
Vinnie looked at her with a smile that looked shone so bright she wondered if he had veneers.
“Baby, anywhere with you is going to be a fun time. And we'll have ways to be able to have fun together, I promise.”
Vinnie took her hand and Tyra couldn't believe how good it fel
t. He was such a great guy. They had so much in common. She felt like they should have met so many years ago, but had somehow missed each other. Like if they had, they would have hit it off and been high school sweethearts. Tyra closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. Vinnie stepped on the gas and she felt like she was floating through the air. They'd be there before she knew it.
Chapter7
When they got there Vinnie's men were already waiting. So were the authorities.
“What is the meaning of this?” Vinnie said indignantly as he hopped out of the car. “You mean to come here and harass my men while they dig, is that it? It's all you clowns know how to do.”
“No sir,” a government man wearing black aviators said. “There is no need for this hostility. We are just here to make sure everything happening is above board.”
“Oh, is that so?” Vinnie said. “Above board? What board are we talking about because we got all the licenses and agreements way before you assholes showed up to slow my workers down.”
“Sir,” the man said. “We'll need to do a quick sweep of the surrounding area to make sure that the endangered desert tortoise isn't present. I'm sure you are familiar with the dangers the little creature faces. It isn't easy being that creature out here in this harsh climate.”
The sun baked them, and the earth around them. Tyra had never felt such an oppressive heat before in her life. She looked around for the mobile home Vinnie had mentioned the day before but didn't find it. She hoped that she could stand being out in the sun for so long without any water—neither of them brought water.
But then she surveyed the digging teams and saw that they had plenty of provisions, and a giant fan that she assumed was for her and Vinnie. It would be weird to watch a bunch of other people work from a chair like she was a queen and Vinnie was a king, but she didn't know what else to do. She was completely and totally along for the ride at this point. It wasn't like being back at the casino where she could call a cab for a ride back to the airport.
“Yes, yes,” Vinnie said. “I'm very aware of the turtle. Aware enough to know that the range it can crawl a day is so limited that you could have come out yesterday to sweep the area.”
“But we didn't,” the man said. “and are here now.”
“Well that's great for you,” Vinnie said. “I'm happy for you that you can be here with me, now, out in the desert. But if you want to sweep the area I guess you'd better it do it quick because my men aren't going to wait for you. They'll move slowly and quietly to the sites of excavation not far from here. If your men are seriously here to save the God damn turtles then make haste out there and make sure there are none of the little buggers wandering around.”
“Sir, I don't think you understand who I am,” the government man started.
“I don't give a fuck who you are,” Vinnie said. “You're just another government stooge to me. Everything we are saying now, and everything you've done and said since you've arrived, to include the actions of your men, has been recorded in high definition. So if you want to fuck around and be an idiot that's great. Arrest me and we'll go to court and play this tape to the judge, and then it'll play all over the news. Hell, maybe it'll make national headlines. I can read it now, 'Racist stooge tries to bully Italian man, but it doesn't work and now he looks like an idiot.' How does that sound to you? We should work on it together.”
“Sir, you are the only one who has brought up race,” the man said.
“And you're the only one who came out to harass me,” Vinnie said. “So the burden of proof isn't on me to prove you are racist. Not really. The burden of proof is that you are out here in good faith. Because if you aren't, and if you are out here on some tip from one of my rivals, you are in huge violation of some very serious laws and I'll be suing you and whoever the fuck you think you work for. And I'll find out because all the emails, texts, and phone calls you make are routed through the same satellite that my family happens to own. It floats right about there in the sky.”
Vinnie leaned back to jab a finger up at the powder blue vastness above him.
“And I happen to know that my family keeps a record of years of all the information that goes through the thing because it's used by the government and other agencies that require both high security and a bunch of transparency. I can read the headlines now. 'WOP family bests the government stooges at their own game.' But that doesn't have to be a headline. It could be nothing,” Vinnie said.
The man he was dealing with seemed to deflate a little bit.
“Listen,” the man said. “I'm just doing my job. I was told by my boss to come out here and shake you down a little bit. So that's what I'm doing. Now that we've for sure gotten off on the wrong foot, please give my men the locations you plan to dig and we'll sweep the area post haste. You'll be able to start digging within the hour.”
Vinnie started to walk toward his men and their waiting trucks, taking Tyra by the hand.
“Hurry!” Vinnie shouted over his shoulder. “I didn't come out here to wait around in the sun with this beautiful women on your account. But please be thorough! I'd hate to do harm to any of the little buggers that wander the desert here like they are lost.”
With that Vinnie and Tyra jumped on a four wheeler. Vinnie drove, and pointed the nose of it toward the nearby foothills. He didn't gun this vehicle like he had his car all the way here. He seemed much more cautious. It made sense that he would be, the four wheeler didn't have any air bags or a roll bar or seat belts. It was just a small machine meant to help people travel rough terrain for short distances. Usually it was used as a farm tool, hauling equipment around.
“What was that all about,” Tyra asked. “You made it seem like the guy was out here to fuck with you, but the guy made it seem like he was just doing his job.”
“It's like I said on the way out here. They could have come yesterday, but they chose today. That's not my malfunction. I don't make their schedules and I don't do their jobs.”
They road in silence for a while, and eventually got to the foothills after about ten minutes of driving. Vinnie hopped off and helped Tyra down.
“Look at the land out here. It's like being on the moon! But there are still things that are pretty. Look at this desert floor, for instance,” Vinnie said.
He bent down and lightly cupped a small thistle in his hand.
“Aren't those weeds?” Tyra asked.
“Maybe so,” Vinnie said. “But is it not still wonderful to look at? And so what if it prickles the hand. Does every plant have to be made so that humans can touch it and animals can eat it? I admire the thistle because it's as beautiful as it is simple. The purple lights up in the ultra violet spectrum and attracts bees, while at the same time being a pretty good warning for the rest of the animal kingdom. And feel it? I think it feels good. Not in the way that pain feels good, but the way that all of those little needles balanced against your skin without penetrating feels good.”
Tyra felt the thistle. It did feel good to the touch, she just had to be careful not to squeeze it too hard or it would hurt her. But squeezing it would also hurt the plant, so wasn't it fair that she not feel pain as well. Vinnie was there watching her reaction to the plant.
“It just takes some respect,” he said. “Like the guy from the government needed to know that I would not deal with disrespect lightly. I'm sorry to have lost my temper, but I've dealt with this before. First they say they are just looking for something, this time a turtle, and it will only take a moment. Then the next thing that happens is that you're under arrest and they'll tell you why when they get you down to the station. Then you make it down to the station and all of a sudden it wasn't that you were under arrest they just wanted to talk to you about something minor. Something that didn't even really matter, so it's no big deal and you don't need a lawyer.”
Tyra felt the tines on the thistle start to dig into her skin and she let it go.
“Have they done this to you before?” she asked.
“A few times,” Vinnie said. “But let's not speak of it anymore. I'm already sick of it. Let's explore!”
The small foothills were mostly just rock and dirt and dust. She and Vinnie crawled over them, looking for anything to investigate. They couldn't find much that was interesting on the side of the small hills that faced his crew of men, so they crossed over the spine of the small ridge of hills and started to explore the other side.
That's when Vinnie found a cave and they both made their way inside. It was dark, but Vinnie had brought a flashlight. Tyra thought that it was a great surprise that he was so into exploring and nature. It certainly wasn't something that she was expecting from a man as powerful and rich as him. For some reason, she always thought people like that only had fun on big, powerful sports boats, or skiing in private resorts.
But Vinnie seemed to be just a regular person who enjoyed getting dirty and sweaty. His light played on the walls and the ceiling of the small cave. High above them, bats rustled. Vinnie was careful to keep the lights off of them so as not to disturb them. Bats,” he said. “Are funny creatures. I don't want to startle them and have to deal with them swirling down on us.”
