Mules:: A Novel

by Jarred Martin

  Two men dressed in black suits and sunglasses came down the hill to meet him. Calisto shook his head in disgust when he saw that the big bald one, Primo, was carrying an Uzi.

  The little one, Gusano, took a key out of his pocket and twisted it in the lock, pulled the chain off the gate and held it open. Calisto stepped inside. He wondered, briefly, if they would frisk him and take away the nine millimeter he had stuffed down the back of his pants. They didn’t.

  Calisto watched Gusano smear fat scales of sweat off his forehead with the palm of his hand as they walked up the drive. “You hot?” he asked.

  Gusano pulled at his collar, “These fucking suits. I’m roasting in it.”

  “You wanna take it off?”

  “Yes,” said Gusano.

  Calisto nodded to himself as if something had been explicitly confirmed for him.

  When they got up to the house, Primo held the door open while Calisto walked inside.

  The place had the odor of unwashed laundry. He looked disapprovingly at the sheen of grease covering every surface in the kitchen. It was beginning to collect dust. The walls were plastered with framed photos of an old couple and their grown children: bald white man and his white-haired wife, their kids were beefy and moronic-looking.

  Calisto watched Leon as lay back on the couch watching the soaps, four empty beer bottles on the coffee table in front of him and one newly opened.

  He stood in the doorway until Leon noticed him. When he did, Leon let out a long sigh and pulled himself up to a sitting position. He waved his arm at an empty chair, inviting Calisto to sit. Calisto didn’t move. Leon sighed again and stood up, annoyed. He pulled his silk robe closed, tying it off in the front.

  “I didn’t think you were coming till later.” Leon said, picking up his beer from the coffee table.

  “What time is it?” asked Calisto.

  Leon shrugged, turning the bottle up.

  “Here’s an easier one, what day is it?”

  Leon looked annoyed again. “It’s your birthday, and your mama didn’t send you no card.That why you got that sour look on your face, tough guy? Don’t come into my house and give me this brick wall bullshit, cause I’ll send you back the way you came. You work for Gallo. I don’t work for nobody. I’m a partner. Don’t fucking forget it.”

  Calisto smiled at him. “I forget sometimes that you’re like an old bull. Maybe he don’t charge immediately, but when he does, he’s fast, and his horns are just as sharp as they ever were.”

  “Not a bull,” said Leon, “A lion. I don’t have to charge at nothing, that’s what the rest of the pride is for.” He went to Calisto and threw his arms around him, his hands searched his back until they brushed against the gun tucked down the back of Calisto’s pants. Calisto pushed him away gently.

  “Come,” said Leon, “I’ll show you the rest of the house.”

  Leon led the way through the four bedrooms, a den, two bathrooms, kitchen and dining room. Calisto didn’t know why. Leon hadn’t bothered to get rid of the previous tenants’ things or introduce his own style anywhere in the house. The bathroom medicine cabinet was full of estrogen pills and prescription stool softener, polyester pant suits and ugly Tommy Bahama shirts still hung in the closets. The only thing that didn't match the retired gringo aesthetic was a framed poster of Gloria Estefan. There was a Volvo station wagon in the garage.

  “Someday,” Leon said as he showed Calisto through the sliding glass doors and out back to the pool area, “you’ll have fine things like I do. But if you don’t quit being so severe you’ll never enjoy them.”

  Primo, Gusano, and three other heavies in black suits were standing outside by the pool.

  “Let me show you something else,” said Leon. “You’re going to love this.”

  They walked a short ways through the back yard and came to a row of bushes with a cage in front.

  The cage held a thin, sick-looking lion. It was too small for the big cat sleeping in the hot afternoon sun. He looked miserable. There were great bald spots all over it and the flesh beneath was red and scabby. Its mane was matted with dirt and the lion stank of boredom and shit.

  Leon gave the bars a kick. “Wake up, you majestic motherfucker. My friend wants to see the king of all beasts, not some tired pussy cat.”

  The lion opened one eye and rolled it toward Leon lazily before closing it again.

  “Let him sleep,” said Leon. “The fucking thing sprays piss through he bars when he’s awake anyways.”

  The two men walked back to the pool and stood looking down into the water.

  “So,” said Leon, “I have shown you my home: you’ve seen my car and my men, my lovely pool and exotic beast, and you’ve said nothing. Are you so jealous that you can’t acknowledge my pride and congratulate me on all that I have? Don’t worry, you’ll have all this too. You’re a hard worker. Gallo knows that and he’ll reward you justly. But in the meantime, you should try and be humble and appreciate the achievements of others.”

  “Is that why you think I’m here? To fawn over your closet full of size 40 pleated slacks and your ‘World’s Greatest Grandpa’ coffee mug in your cabinet?”

  Leon looked hurt. “No.”

  “No. That’s right. So you’re not completely fucking brain dead. You know I had to come here because: You. Fucked. Up. You lost a truck with seven pounds of heroin in it to the border cops. You lost two good men that were driving the truck. They’re going to go to prison for a long time.”

  “I didn’t lose it. I’m not the one who fucked things up.”

  “You didn’t lose it? Then where is it? Gallo told me to ask you. Gallo says “where’s his truck?””

  “It’s at the border. The heroin was hidden in a false gas tank. The fucking dogs smelled it. The border cops took it apart to find it.”

  “Gallo says “where’s his dope?””

  “It’s fucking gone. You know it’s gone. I can’t get it back.”

  “That’s right, you can’t get it back. This isn’t a big-time operation here. That $350,000 is nearly going to cripple us. That’s $350,000 that you were responsible for. And you sit around here drinking beer in your fucking bath robe. I told Gallo he was a fool to let you do anything more than punk tourists out of their travelers checks and pimp out a few disrespectful whores. He told me he saw something in you. I told him to get his eyes checked.”

  “I can straighten this out. I’m a partner.”

  “Just cause Gallo takes forty percent of everything you make doesn’t mean you’re a partner,” said Calisto.

  “I could call him. I could talk to him directly. I can make this right. I know I can if you just give me a chance.”

  “Call him then. I don’t think you’re going to like what he has to say.”

  “Gusano,” Leon shouted, “give me a phone.”

  Gusano walked over, produced a cell phone from his pocket and handed it over.

  Leon took it and dialed. He held the phone up to his ear with one hand and pushed the hair back off his forehead,he was sweating now as he nervously paced around the poolside.

  He heard a ringtone coming from inside Calisto’s jacket.

  “No. . .” Said Leon in a crushed whisper.

  “Yes,” said Calisto and he took out the phone and showed Leon his own number.

  “No,” Leon said again and his eyes widened as he realized fully what this meant.

  “Gallo’s gone. I killed him. I’m Gallo now, and I’m here to inform you that your services will no longer be necessary. Consider your contract terminated.” Calisto pulled the nine millimeter out of the back of his pants.

  Leon looked to his men who were standing idle, there was no shame in their faces, no apology for their betrayal. They only looked on with aloof curiosity. And then, inexplicably, Leon found himself smiling.

  “It’s all a fucking joke, Calisto. It’s so fucking funny and you don’t get it. I only wish I could live long enough to see one of these faithless dogs put a bullet in
your head, and they will, too. I’ll bet you thought I would beg, didn’t you? Well I’m not. I’m fucking laughing in your face. I’m-”

  The bullet tore into the side of his skull, just above his ear, and the impact distorted his face for a brief moment. His mouth twisted into a crooked elliptical shape as his jaw swayed in the opposite direction that his head jerked and his eyes rolled back so only the whites showed. He fell to his knees and the dark red mess that used to be the back of his skull leaked out over the collar of his robe. His body slumped forward into the pool, hitting the water with a splash. He bobbed there in the slight waves that his mass created with a visible sanguine trail trickling out from the back of his head.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” said Gusano, loosening the knot on his tie.

  Calisto raised his eyebrows.

  “Now we gotta drain the pool. Nobody’s gonna want to get in there now. There’s gonna be brains clogging up the filter.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” said Calisto. Already two of the black-clad heavies were fishing Leon’s body out of the pool.

  “What do you want to do now?” Asked Gusano.

  “I want you to feed him to the fucking lion.”

  “I meant what do you want us to do about the next shipment. We could try to fix up another truck, but it might not work.”

  “No. About that, I’ve got another idea. I want you to put in a call to the surgeon.”

  “The surgeon? What are you thinking?”

  “Bad thoughts, Gusano. Bad thoughts.”

  SEVEN

  The glaring sunlight reflecting off the line of cars waiting to cross over into Mexico cut into Neesha’s head like a knife. She had awoken with the kind of hangover that could make a twenty-year-old swear off drinking forever. They had driven the four hundred miles along the coast to Brownsville in silence. Neesha couldn’t bear to hear the radio or anything louder than the hum of the tires or the constant roar of wind rushing over the car. She had never made herself so sick from alcohol before. But beyond the physical sickness, there was also the humiliation, resting like a lead weight on top of every thought she had. She had blacked out. Completely. She had no memory of anything she may have said or done in the crowded club; no memory of how she got back to the motel. She had woken up in a T-shirt and underwear that she hadn’t been wearing before. She was too ashamed to ask Els what she had done. That was another thing: Els.

  Along with a headache that felt like someone had taken a large rock and smashed her skull in, Neesha had awoken to find Els not only sleeping in the same bed with her, but spooning her as well. She had been getting a really creepy vibe from Els ever since she had shaken her off of her this morning. All throughout the six hour trip, Els had been just as taciturn as the day before, but today there was something weirder, humming under her breath, staring vacantly out the window, watching the low Texas landscape pass by, her face void of any expression. A couple of times Neesha had caught Els’ arm sneaking across the center console to her side of the car to try and hold her hand.

  Neesha pushed her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. They had been waiting in line to cross the border for over an hour and a half. As it was now, they wouldn’t be getting to the hotel in Blancasinato till nearly nine-thirty or ten that night.

  “It was heroin,” said Els.

  “What?”

  “A lady at the place we stopped for insurance told me that security’s tight because they made some big drug bust yesterday. They found a bunch of heroin in a fake gas tank in an SUV, so today they’ve been stopping like sixty percent of the cars going in and giving them the red light.”

  Neesha groaned. “They think somebody’s trying to sneak drugs into Mexico? That’s retarded.”

  “I don’t know, that’s just what the lady said to me.”

  The line started to creep forward. There was only one car in front of them, a white Dodge SUV. The girls watched as an officer leaned into the driver side window to question the travelers. After a few questions the officer shook his head and pointed the SUV to a red painted path that would take them to a queue where they could await a more thorough inspection.

  As the white Dodge turned off, the officer waved them forward, palm up, curling his fingers to urge them on. Els thought there was something sinister in his dark reflective glasses and his mustache. She felt anxiety begin to gain momentum inside of her.

  As the car crept forward she felt a thousand individual droplets of sweat as they seeped through her pores. She shut her eyes as a swirling gyre of vertigo overtook her and her bowels seized, she felt like her intestines were being twisted around a stick.

  Neesha rolled down her window and the officer asked for their passports.

  Els held hers out blindly, refusing to meet the officer’s eyeline.

  Calm down, she told herself. If you don’t stop acting so suspicious, you’re going to have to pull off into the red lane. Even though she had nothing to hide, she couldn’t shake the mirrored gaze of the officer’s glasses; couldn’t help but feel she had done something wrong. And then she thought of the survival knife in her bag. What if they searched the car and found it? She didn’t know if it was illegal or not. But what if it was? What if they found it in the bottom of her bag and decided to tear the car apart looking for drugs or other illegal weapons? Or, God, what if they were both arrested? What then? She would tell them about the knife, she decided. If he asked if they had anything to declare, she would tell them and it would be better. It would look like she had just made a mistake, been careless and forgotten about it. And then a truly terrifying thought entered her mind: What if they knew about the cowboy? What if the college kids got caught or decided to take him to the police? The boys knew they were going to Mexico, and they’d have guessed where they would be crossing the border, and roughly what time. They knew the kind of car they would arrive in. Els imagined the cop slowly shaking his head, pointing them over to the red lane. “I’m afraid you’ll have to pull your car over, ladies. Just follow the red lane. The red lane is for murderers, just follow it on down to the end, please.”

  Els felt like she was sinking, drowning in her own black thoughts. She was swallowed by them and she couldn’t breathe. Out. She needed out of the car. She reached for the door handle.

  Els stopped as she felt the car pulling away. She opened her eyes and they were moving. Just like that. They didn’t get stopped and searched, they weren’t detained and questioned further. They were just free. Free to go into Mexico. Els exhaled a long breath that felt like it had been inside her for hours.

  Moments later they were over the Gateway International Bridge, heading into Matamoros.

  Both girls were looking out their windows, over the bridge and down to the Rio Grande below.

  “I thought it would be bigger,” Neesha said.

  “You think Jerry would be disappointed?”

  Neesha cut her eyes at Els. “Jerry? As in my father Jerry?”

  “Yeah,” said Els, smiling. “You told me yesterday that he was into like American history and landmarks and stuff. He used to take you to state parks when you were a kid. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember my own childhood, thanks.” The hangover was like a fist both squeezing her brain and pulling her skull apart. She felt anger at Els’ familiarity with her father, whom she had never met, and the rage boiled over.

  “You want to know something? You’re fucking weird. You really creep me out. You can’t talk to someone like that, you know?”

  Els didn’t know how to respond, so she said nothing, just listened.

  “It’s especially creepy to have this information about me when you’re virtually a stranger, do you understand? You know all about me and my family, what I did on vacation when I was a kid, who I lost my virginity to. I didn’t even know your last name till yesterday at the motel, did you know that?”

  “You told me all that stuff. I didn’t ask. You just told me. I’m glad you did. I like hearing about you.”

&nb
sp; “Well, that’s what people do. Human beings, you know? They exchange information. I just feel like things are really one-sided here, I don’t know anything about you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Something, anything. Tell me who you lost your virginity to. Tell me what you got for Christmas when you were eight. Just tell me something. But even if you don’t, if you have nothing to say, don’t talk to me about my family like you know them, okay? It’s really weird.”

  “I didn’t,” said Els. “I mean, I haven't, you know, lost it yet.”

  “Tell me something else, then. Tell me about your father.”

  “I don’t know when he lost his virginity.”

  “No, I mean what was he like? What did you do growing up in Montana?”

  “You want me to tell you about my dad? And then you won’t be mad at me anymore?”

  Neesha took her eyes off the road for a second to look at Els, “I’m not mad. I’m sorry if I seemed that way. I don’t feel very good today. But it’s kinda weird, like I said. I just want to know who I’m driving with. So tell me something.”

  They were in Mexico now. It looked a lot like Texas so far. Els though it would change the further they drove: there would be crude dwellings that people built themselves out of mud bricks, dusty streets. She pictured Mexico a lot like an old western movie.

  She looked out her window at the flat, dry land. “Okay. I’ll tell you about daddy.”

  EIGHT

  “Daddy said he was from all over Montana. From Missoula to Roosevelt and everywhere in between, but we lived in the northwest, in a place called Hungry Horse, near the Flathead river. We were all alone in the forest and the mountains, I never even went to school.” Els closed her eyes and saw the sloping land, ragged peaks of mountains, the endless pines, open blue sky and clouds reflected in lakes.

  “We lived in a cabin that daddy said he built himself. I don’t know if he really did or not. I don’t know how a person can build a whole house by themselves. Or maybe people do it all the time. I don’t know. If anyone could do it, Daddy could, though. Daddy was smart. He taught me how to read and write when I was little. And he said after that, I never needed school, and since I could read, I could learn about anything I wanted from books. Daddy didn’t just teach me how to read, he taught me how to make it on my own so I would never have to depend on another person. Daddy said he wouldn’t always be around, so I should learn how to hunt and fish, to make fire and shelter, how to shoot a gun. A lot of guns. It was important to be self-reliant. More important than anything.” Els saw a vision of herself as a child, both arms buried to the elbow in the belly of a deer carcass, her dad squatting next to her, watching, smoking cigarette after cigarette. It was hard for her to picture him without a burning cigarette in his mouth, dressed in faded army fatigues, coal glowing against his face as the evening dark spread across the sky. ‘It’s not going to last forever, Elizabeth. All the niggers are going to realize they outnumber all the whites. They’re going to decide they don’t like being poor, don’t like being the underclass.They’re going to get guns, get organized. Some of them are doing it already. They’re going to riot nationwide. It’ll be a war. It’s coming soon. And after the war, after the fires and the bombs, napalm, air-strikes, all that will be left of civilization’s metropolises will be charred spires of metal where once stood skyscrapers, rusting in a desolate concrete wasteland. Food supply will be poisoned. People will starve. They won’t know what to do, how to take care of themselves, and they’ll starve, and they’ll turn against each other. And then it will be just you and me, right here like nothing’s changed. We probably won’t even know it. It could be happening right now.’