“My God, how much could he owe?”
“In American money, it would be eighty thousand dollars.”
“Christ. A fishing trip, even if these guys catch ten trophy fish apiece, won’t pay for that.”
“But it will keep him at bay. We have managed to pay some of the debt already.”
“He loaned a fishing peasant eighty thousand dollars? He’s an old man. How would he think he’d ever pay that off?”
“The debt is his, then it passes to me. He pays what he can, and I continue to pay throughout my life. With interest, of course.”
“You should have stayed in the U.S.”
“Then they take it out on my father.”
“Then he should have come to stay with you.”
“It is his debt, and he feels obligated to pay it. It is not like for you, Hap. He could not just go to a bank and get a loan.”
“Hon, I couldn’t get a bank to loan me the time of day.”
She studied me carefully, to make sure I was serious. She sighed abruptly and looked off toward the ocean. I had the uncomfortable feeling she might be waiting for me to offer her money.
I said, “Seems to me it would still be worth sharing with Jose and his brothers. That would be the best way, wouldn’t it? Have them help you fish, pay as you go.”
“My father does not want to give away his place to fish. Jose and his brothers, they are good boys, but they would tell others. They work for whoever they have to work for. I do not blame them. But this place, my father needs to keep it secret.”
“If it’s so full of fish, why does he often go without fish? Today he didn’t come back with fish. Except the shark that bit him.”
Beatrice didn’t answer.
“Listen, Beatrice. I’m just an ol’ East Texas boy, but I’m not dumb. And I mean no disrespect, but what you’re telling me, it doesn’t add up. I hate to be one to talk about welshing on a debt, but in this case, where your life is in danger, why don’t you just run for it. Go to the States and forget it. Pay it back later if you feel you owe it. When you can.”
“You cannot run from Juan Miguel. Don’t worry, Hap. I have told you more than I should. Really, this is not your business.”
It never is, I thought.
We walked back into the main part of town and ordered some food for Leonard. They wrapped it in brown paper and put it in a sack. I went back to the doctor’s house. The doctor loaned the old man a pair of crutches, and he used them to go with us back to his boat.
Beatrice and I helped him secure it, then we made our way to their car, and Beatrice drove us to their place.
On the way, the old man talked very pleasantly to me. You would have thought nothing had happened to him. That this injury didn’t matter. He acted like someone eccentric and wealthy who didn’t worry about money.
Beatrice, on the other hand, was quiet. A cloud seemed to have descended over her. Or perhaps I should say a darker cloud. From the moment I met her there hung about her a grimy aura of disappointment, as if all her ambitions were living things that she had seen slaughtered.
At their place I checked on Leonard first thing. He said, “It’s about time you came back. Hell, I’m bored. I read the Vachss book. Great. I got up enough energy to look for more books I wanted to read, but there wasn’t much in English that interested me. Where’s Beatrice? The old man? What’s his name?”
“Ferdinand. By the way. He had an accident.”
“Accident? What kind of accident?”
I told Leonard all about it. Gave him the details of the day.
“I’ll be damned. Where is he?”
“With Beatrice in the kitchen. Fixing some food. I brought you some. I thought we’d be back a lot earlier. Sorry. Hope you weren’t too hungry. I was going to get you some vanilla cremes or wafers, but couldn’t find any. Actually, I didn’t look that hard.”
“Gee, thanks.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and handed Leonard the grease-stained sack. Inside were burritos and tacos.
“Think you got enough?” Leonard said, peeking into the sack.
“I figured you’d be hungry.”
“You’re right. I ate the bread and cheese right away. Got bored. This smells great… What about us going home? You made a call, right?”
“Right. Go ahead, eat.”
“Something’s wrong? It always is, so why wouldn’t it be now.”
“I didn’t say that.”
While he ate, I said, “You know, I heard a joke the other day at the chicken plant.”
“Oh no. I don’t want to hear it. Your jokes suck, Hap. And that means things aren’t going well. You always try and soothe me with a joke. It only makes it worse. So just cut to the chase.”
“I didn’t say I had bad news.”
“But you do. I know you well enough to know something’s come up.”
“All right. I have some bad news.”
“I knew it.”
“Well, considering I have some bad news, you might want to hear my joke.”
“Just skip the joke and go straight to the news.”
“Then you’ll never hear this great cowboy and Indian joke.”
“I can see now you’re going to tell the joke. No matter what I say or do, short of killing you, you’re going to tell me this goddamn joke. Am I right?”
“I heard it from a fella out at the chicken plant.”
“You said that. How bad is the news on the other side of it?”
“Not that bad.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Go ahead… Wait. Why me, man? Can’t you just save these for someone who cares? I hate jokes. You always do this when I’m sick or injured. Which, come to think of it, when I’m around you, is pretty frequent. I got to tell you, Hap. I been thinkin’ I want to put my feet up some. Know what I’m saying?”
“You want to put your feet up.”
“I mean, I love you, brother, but there’s something about us, when we mix together, it makes shit. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“I do.”
“Maybe we could call one another, have lunch, go to a movie. Double-date. Me and John. You and whoever… But man, we plan something big together, I seem to always get shot, knifed, beat, et cetera. And come to think of it, you look pretty good. You aren’t cut up or banged up.”
“I got a few bumps. And hey, I been on the bad end before. Don’t make yourself too special. Now the joke. There’s this cowboy-”
“Shit. Go for it.”
“-and he’s captured by Indians. The chief says, It’s the custom of our tribe to give the condemned man three days of granted wishes. Stuff besides ‘I want to go home.’ That kind of thing.”
“This sucks already. You can’t tell a joke to save your life.”
“So, the chief says, Cowboy, you got three days and a wish a day. Use them wisely. What do you want first? Cowboy says, Let me talk to my horse.
“Cowboy calls his horse over, whispers in the horse’s ear, horse thunders off, and just before sundown the horse shows up with a beautiful redhead on its back.”
“Man or woman?”
“In my story it’s a woman. Has to be for the story to work. You’ll see.”
“All right.”
“Cowboy takes the redhead into the tent and they make love, he puts her on the horse, and the horse thunders off, taking the redhead back to town. Or wherever.
“Next day. Oh yeah. The horse has come back. That’s important.”
Leonard sighed.
“Chief says, This is your second day, your second wish. What’ll it be? Cowboy says, Let me talk to my horse. He whispers in the horse’s ear, and off thunders the horse.
“Near dark, horse shows up with a beautiful blonde on its back. Cowboy and the blonde go into the tent where he’s held captive, and make love. He puts the blonde on the horse, and the horse takes her away.”
“Don’t forget the horse comes back again… Am I right?”
“Yeah. The horse comes
back. So, the horse is back, and it’s the last day, and the chief says, Pick this wish wisely, cowboy, because it’s your last.
“The cowboy sighs, says, Let me talk to my horse. He calls the horse over and grabs it by the ears and puts his face close to the horse’s face. He says to the horse, Listen, stupid. Read my lips.
POSSE. POSSE.”
I paused.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “So.”
“Think about it…”
“Oh, I get it. Now isn’t that funny. The horse thought he was saying pussy. You heteros are just full of fuckin’ fun. Hap, I want to go home. Tell me what happened with the phone call.”
I told him.
“You got us a room in town, though, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So the worst is a little delay?”
“Well, yes. But…”
“Oh, shit. No.”
“Don’t panic.”
“Don’t hesitate.”
“I’m supposed to call Charlie tomorrow. He’s setting things up. But way I see it, Ferdinand saved our lives. You’re out of it anyway. Why don’t I sort of help them out on the boat.”
“You can’t even float a paper boat, Hap, let alone go out on the ocean and fish. Didn’t you learn anything from our short cruise?”
“Yeah, don’t insult the guy at the ship’s restaurant. You’re blaming me, but think about who really got us into this mess.”
“It was your idea to go on a cruise.”
“Actually, it was John’s.”
“You’re right. When we get home we’ll kill him.”
“I bet he’s watching that Kung Fu thing right now.”
“Could be. Or he’s taping it. Him and Charlie probably call each other up and talk about the characters.”
“You see, Leonard, way I see it is, I can at least volunteer to be a deckhand till the old man gets better. It’s a bad wound, worse than yours, but he can probably get around in a few days. Beatrice and I can take care of business till then. And there’s another thing.”
“There always is.”
“Ferdinand owes some money.”
“Define ‘owes some money.’ ”
“I think I should help you to the outdoor convenience.”
“I didn’t ask to go.”
“I think you should go anyway.”
“Well, actually, I do need to go.”
“Good, that way I can tell you in private.”
Leonard rolled to the side of the bed. “Hell, I can walk by myself. I feel a lot better.”
“But you’ll humor me.”
“If I must.”
Leonard put on his shoes. I put my arm around him and helped him outside. It was fairly dark and the moon was up and it was a fragmented moon. Clouds scuttled across the sky and in the distance I saw sheet lightning rage across the horizon. You could smell rain in the air, but it was still some distance away.
As we walked, I told Leonard the story Beatrice told me. He went inside the outhouse, and I stood outside, leaning on it, talking to him, finishing up my story through a split in the walls.
“Let me see,” Leonard said. “She went to the States, and her father provided the money with a bad loan. She got a degree, but then felt sorry for her father. She was being driven by an inner force to return and do traditional Mexican woman things. And now she’s in a tight spot with someone named Juan Miguel who might kill her and sell her bones to research, and she’s going to pay a big chunk of the money by sponsoring a three-day fishing trip to a secret place where fish live, but the old man doesn’t seem to go there on a regular basis even if he is living on crumbs and owes a gangster thousands of dollars. Duh.”
“Maybe it’s just worth more to him to go there when he’s got rich tourists. It could be like that.”
“And when I come out of this outhouse I could be white, bowlegged, and have a vagina, but it isn’t likely. Bottom line is, you’re gonna help her, aren’t you. And, of course, you would like me to help.”
“That sounds about right. Hurry up, man, it stinks.”
“You think it’s rough out there, you ought to be in here.”
“What d’you say, Leonard? Shall we help?”
“I say when it comes to women you are so goddamn dumb as to make a box of tenpenny nails seem high on the IQ scale.”
“You think she trained a shark to attack her father so she could get me on their boat and make a work slave of me?”
“No. It’s broader than that. Damn. This catalogue is not a good idea. Maybe they could at least spring for some toilet paper. I think I ripped myself.”
A moment later Leonard came out of the outhouse. I put my arm around him and started helping him back to the house, even though he didn’t need the help. We went slowly so we could continue talking.
“You will wash your hands at the house, won’t you?” I said.
“Just the one I wipe with. Which, by the way, is the one I have around your shoulder right now.”
There was one little sad tree in the yard, and we went over to that. It was only a little taller than we were. Its limbs were gray and scaly, like a snake shedding its skin; they were spread out wide, like gapped fingers in the moonlight.
Leonard leaned against the tree’s bent trunk. He said, “As your queer friend, I don’t have the same blind side to women you do. A queer can look at things head-on, my honky. Least as far as men and women go.”
“How is Beatrice, a woman I just met, giving me the screw? Outside of the actual screw, I mean.”
“She’s one of life’s victims. Woe is me. Everything happens to her. I think her father, nice man that he is, may not have his head on just right either. Call it a hunch.
“Look. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad she and her father helped us, but I say tomorrow morning we head into town and get that hotel room and plan our way out of here.”
“Well, she hasn’t exactly asked me to help. Maybe she doesn’t even want me to help. She even told me she wants me and you out of here tomorrow. Probably because all of this coming down. But I think with her father on crutches, she might need some help. That’s all I think there is to it.”
“If she doesn’t want you to help, then don’t. Don’t force it.”
“I just hate to see anyone bullied.”
“I promise you, this whole business she’s telling you, it’s got a light coating of slime on it. Maybe she doesn’t intend for you to get involved. Maybe she knows the whole thing sucks the big old donkey dick. I don’t know. But it’s not our business. So let’s just walk away.”
I stood quiet for a moment. I looked at Leonard leaning against the tree. He wouldn’t be much help anyway. Not by tomorrow. Did I really need to run off and help Beatrice and her father pay a debt that wasn’t mine? She wasn’t even my woman. Not really. She had said so herself.
“You know what, Leonard? I’m gonna fool you. I’m gonna do just what you say. For once. You’re right. This isn’t our problem.”
15
Early next morning it was very humid and I awoke sweaty. I had been given a pallet on the floor in the room where Leonard slept in the bed. Beatrice had slept on a pallet in the kitchen, and the old man had slept in her bed.
In the middle of the night I awoke to see her standing at the open doorway of the room where Leonard and I slept. She wore a thin white thigh-high nightgown. Her legs were dark and sexy in the shadows. She smiled when she realized I was looking at her. I could smell her perfume from where I lay. It smelled dry and earthy.
I got up, she took my hand. We went to her pallet in the kitchen. Beatrice was soft and sweet and I only thought of Brett a little.
Before daylight, I returned to the room where Leonard lay wide awake.
“You’re so bad,” he said.
“You said it,” I said, and lay down on my pallet and went to sleep.
It wasn’t a good sleep. When I awoke I was exhausted and my bones felt as if they had been sawed up, put in a blender, then poure
d back into my body. I was sweaty. I rose and wrapped up my blankets and pillow and put them on the bed next to Leonard. Who, of course, was snoring like a man who had just won the lottery.
I slowly moved my body, heard my knees and ankles and hips pop. I got up and limped about. I didn’t find Beatrice.
The old man was in the kitchen. He was on his crutches by the stove. The kitchen smelled of coffee and something baking. The aroma filled my head and made my stomach growl.
“I am baking some bread for breakfast,” Ferdinand said. “I have some butter. We can eat it together. Maybe your friend will be hungry then. Is he doing better?”
“Much better, thanks to you. He ought to be up and around today.”
“It was not too bad a wound. He lost some blood. That was the most of it. The blood. I wish I had a steak to feed him. Steak is good when you lose blood. I know a man down the road who owes me a goat. Perhaps later we can get him to give me the goat and we can butcher it and cook it. It is not a steak, but it is meat.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Where is Beatrice?”
“She has gone into the town,” Ferdinand said. Like Beatrice, I loved hearing him talk. It was musical even when he spoke English. He spoke nearly perfect English. But the way he emphasized or accented certain words made it sound so unique. I liked the way he looked too. The way I would have thought Hemingway’s Santiago must have looked in The Old Man and the Sea.
“She said she will come back for you,” Ferdinand said.
I was thinking about the boat gig she told me about. What had happened to that? I couldn’t help myself, I said, “Not to meddle, but didn’t she tell me she had an important job that the two of you were to do today?”
“You are right. We are supposed to do a job. I have told her I cannot. Even though we must and it is important. We cannot. She has gone to tell the men we cannot and that we must delay the job if they will delay. Otherwise, no job. Did she tell you the job?”
“Very little,” I said.
“I would like to do the job. It pays well, but I cannot. This is the first time in twenty-five years I have been injured that I do not fix it myself. Like I fix your friend.”
“You did a good job.”
“I am too old. I cannot fix myself. I cannot deal with it the way I once did.”
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