by Mark Reps
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Ádios Ángel – Chapter One
Ángel Gómez’s mouth tasted like cotton. His tongue clung unnaturally to the roof of his mouth. The stabbing pain in his stomach radiated straight through to his back. His bowels rumbled, begging to be emptied. Ángel held back for fear he would once again leave the toilet bowl bloody red. Pain zinged through his throbbing head. The rank breath passing through his lips rebounded off the linoleum floor where he had fallen down drunk. His boozy dream state evoked a childhood memory of his sick, dying dog crawling into bed with him and licking his face with its final breath.
“Here, have a shot of mouthwash. It’ll wake your sorry ass up.” Jimmie Joe’s voice boomed from every corner of the small trailer, echoing off the walls into Ángel’s pain-filled ears.
Ángel slowly raised his arm toward the tequila bottle dangling in the air just beyond his outstretched fingers.
“A little hair of the dog will cure more than the memory of a bad hangover. Here, take a great big shot of this. Brand new bottle. Freshly opened. It’ll calm you. I promise. Here, take it.”
Jimmie Joe was insistent, demanding. As Ángel felt the coolness of the bottle in his hand, he wished he had never met, never heard of the big White man, the one called Diablo Blanco by the Mexican brothers and tribal Apaches in the Florence State Prison. Ángel downed a swig of the cold tequila. It was cold in his hand, warm in his mouth, hot as it wormed its way down the back of his throat, burning as it splashed against the walls of his empty stomach.”
“A little fire to crank your engine, eh, Ángel?”
He hated the burn of tequila but could not escape its demonic talons. Tequila was the scavenging hawk. Ángel was a helpless rabbit.
Ángel was the name his mother called him. He was her ‘Angel’. He also knew that his real name, Cadete, came from his great-great grandfather, Chief Cadete Gómez. The Chief had been a Mescalero warrior who was hostile toward Americans, Mexicans and other Native American tribes. It was said Chief Cadete Gómez paid a bounty of one thousand pesos for the scalps of any enemy that crossed his path. With that heritage Ángel should have been a strong man, not weak like a child. Ironically, the name Cadete meant volunteer, a fact that was likely lost on the young, undereducated Cadete Ángel Gómez.
The Mescalero tribal band of native people had survived for centuries with the mescal agave as its main food staple. The White man had turned that food into booze, tequila. Tequila now ruled Ángel’s life. Not that he believed it at the time, but the Native American Alcoholics Anonymous program at the state prison had taught him about how alcohol can control every aspect of a person’s life. In his most sober moments he wished to regain the power over his own life. Sobriety was, however, always very short-lived for Ángel Gómez.
“Have one more, little muchacha. We have a few weeks before we have to be anywhere. We just have to sit tight and wait. We might as well have a big booze party. What do you say, little one?”
Ángel knew he had no choice. Jimmie Joe controlled him as much as the tequila did. Why not party? What the hell difference did it make?
“Does that bother you, my little muchacha? Maybe you would rather just sit here and think real hard about what it was like for the last two years, cooped up courtesy of the State of Arizona, without the comforts a man needs.”
Jimmie Joe swayed the bottle hypnotically back and forth in front of the young man.
Ángel envisioned his time in prison as he downed a large swig of the toxic alcohol. The cheap tequila smelled like cat piss. It bit like a venomous snake. The damned Diablo Blanco probably cut this cheap booze with turpentine. Ángel remembered his grandfather’s words. “Don’t ever let the devil’s drink pass your lips.” He had tried to listen. But today the tequila charged his anger, twisted his mind. Ángel could hardly believe the thoughts racing through his mind once the tequila grabbed him. Screw his grandfather and his damned advice. His grandfather didn’t understand. He never needed liquor, but Ángel did.
One deep, hard swig and the demons returned, this time as a group. They howled to him that his mother was burning in hell. Then they whispered a secret. Not even the Blessed Virgin would forgive him for breaking his mother’s heart by running with the evil man, el hombre malo, as Ángel’s fellow Mescalero Apache called Jimmie Joe.
The prison psychiatrist with his fancy suit and shiny shoes had dared to tell Ángel he must quit drinking to be a whole person, to be his true self, and most importantly to know God. Ángel wasn’t even sure anymore if there was a God, except maybe the god he felt like when he drank enough alcohol. The doctor had said, “Drinking makes you paranoid, Ángel. It makes you lose control of your thinking. Alcohol makes you do crazy things.” Crazy, paranoid, what was the difference? Ángel knew his grandfather had been talking to the shrink behind his back. They conspired against him. The whole world conspired against him, everyone except his lovely Juanita. Juanita and a bottle of tequila were the only two things in the world he could really count on.
His blurry eyes caught sight of the many guns Jimmie Joe had brought back to their hideout after his trip to Safford. A third, then a fourth long drink from the bottle roiled his broken, damaged spirit. Tequila made him forget about his family and the demons that roared inside his head. Newfound courage rose up inside Ángel.
“Jimmie Joe, you never said anything about guns. What do we need all these weapons for? We ain’t going to shoot nobody. That’s not part of the deal. You said no one would get hurt.” It was false courage fueled by alcohol that propelled his words.
“Stow it,” growled Jimmie Joe. “For the last time, learn to keep your mouth shut. When this thing is over, you are going to have to learn how to stay quiet and hidden or both of us are going back to jail. One of us might even end up dead.”
“I’d rather be dead than back in prison.”
“Careful what you wish for mi florita. Wishes have a way of coming true.”
Bile raced from Ángel’s stomach to his mouth as Jimmie Joe’s laughter reminded him of how he managed to crawl under this rock to begin with. His first time behind bars had been the county jail. It was easy time, six months for public drunkenness and burglary. The second judge had not been so easy on Ángel when he was busted for forgery and car theft. The checks were easy to explain. They were written for cheap bottles of tequila and pills for him and his partying friends.
The nice lady social worker had written in her report that Ángel was an alcoholic and very likely cross addicted to narcotic drugs. She said in her report that he needed treatment. When the judge asked him if that was true, Ángel lied. Ángel denied having had a drink in months. He swore he never did any drugs. Drugs were for stupid people. His problems were from a head injury, a concussion he suffered as a child. Ángel claimed it was the concussion that confused his thinking and made him unclear. It was even the reason other children had picked on him. Life had not been fair to him. He pleaded for the judge to give him a break. His mother swore that every word her son spoke was the God’s whole truth.
The truth was quite something else. There never had been a head injury, and Ángel was popular with almost all of the other kids his age. The car theft came after a night of revelry and boozing. He did not remember a thing about that night. He had blacked out from the booze and drugs. Ángel did not even remember being arrested after he fell asleep behind the wheel and crashed into a gas station pump.
Three years in the state prison at Florence Junction, with time off for good behavior, was something Ángel thought he could handle. He had heard the state prison had better beds and better food than the county jail. He had even h
eard the prisoners were better people in there. However, with his slight frame and soft features he was vulnerable. Quickly he became a target for the rapists. They called him la niña, the little girl. Ángel hated it even more than when Jimmie Joe called him mi florita, my little flower. But Jimmie Joe protected him and maybe even saved his life. It was true that Jimmie Joe beat him, berated him in front of many, but he never asked for sexual favors.
“I ain’t never setting foot inside of no damn jail ever again,” cried Ángel.
“That’s right, hombre. Prison is a place for suckers and losers. We did our time. Now it’s time we got some real money…big money.”
“Tell me again how much, Jimmie Joe?”
“A million dollars, maybe even two million. More if we’re lucky. And I’m feelin’ mighty lucky. How about you, my little Ángel? Do you feel lucky?”
Ángel took a deep swig of tequila and grinned with happiness. Luck was running through his veins.
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