by Joe Meno
“You grab the gas can from the back. We’ll have to walk that way and see if it’s where you remember it.”
“No,” the boy said, feeling brave suddenly, hoping this show of courage would somehow make up for his mistake. “I’ll go. You wait here. Just in case.”
“In case of what?” the old man said with a short smile.
“In case someone tries to take the truck. In case someone tries to tow it or something.”
The grandfather nodded, proud of the boy, of the shape he was trying to make of himself at that very moment. “You got money?”
The boy said he did, then turned to meet his grandfather’s eyes once more, and hurried off. He snatched the metal gas can from the bed of the pickup and ran as fast as he could in the direction of where he thought he had seen a gas station a half-mile back.
* * *
Rick felt faint, his head swooping down, heavy lids folding over his eyes; he pulled to the side of the road, feeling sick to his stomach, the hood of the pickup before him seeming soft and fluttery. Good God, that girl had done a number on him. He looked up from his tingling hands, out the passenger-side window, to where a couple of black kids were playing cops and robbers. As the pickup slowly trailed past, they all froze, watching it go, suspicious of the man with the bleeding eye, a red oil rag held up against the left side of his face. A boy, no older than five or six, braver than the rest, raised a cap gun—a chrome-painted, six-chambered Colt—aimed at Rick, and fired three times, each shot echoing with a sharp, burnt-smelling explosion. Rick took it as a verdict that the boy—like all children and some keen, undomesticated animals—had an innate sense about these kinds of things: life and death, morality and immorality.
The boy had seen something in Rick West’s face and had fired three times to try to ward off the sudden appearance of evil. But it could not be forestalled, not like that, not ever maybe. The pickup coasted on, Rick turning away from the children, feeling unmoored, feeling as he did when he was a young man in the navy, as he did the day he awoke to find himself in the brig with the dried flakes of some dumb Filipino’s blood in the webbed crevices of his hands. He decided in that moment, clutching the steering wheel firmly in his hands, that if he found the horse, he would take it and run. He would find it, get his eye fixed, see if he couldn’t chase the girl down, drop her into a ditch somewhere, and sell the horse for whatever he could get.
* * *
Among the Mexicans awaiting work that Saturday in the Home Depot’s parking lot was Reynaldo, who tried to look unconcerned. He leaned up against a parked car and ate a green apple, the last remains of his lunch. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the borders of the parking lot for the white man from the suburbs—a kind, older stranger who had hired him three times this week already—but it was now past four o’clock.
“A donde su güero?” his compatriot Luis asked.
Reynaldo shrugged his shoulders and glanced around, still hoping to see the silver station wagon once again loaded up with landscaping supplies—shovels, dirt, black plastic trays overburdened with mums, sweet potato vine filling the backseat. The white man told Reynaldo he was selling his house—the man was a professor and was getting a divorce; he had been cheating on his wife with a student and his wife had found out—and so he was now trying to clean the place up before he put it on the market. The white man talked all day, incessantly, some of which Reynaldo understood, most of which he did not. But he paid Rey incredibly well and even fed him, pork one day, flank steak another. He had even given Reynaldo a book, a cloth-bound hardcover edition of Don Juan, the book written entirely in English. Though the words themselves were mostly indecipherable, Reynaldo still found the gesture profound. In the little room he kept in his sister-in-law’s house, the book had been prominently placed beside a photo of his wife Luisa and their two children.
“A donde su güero?” Luis asked again, this time elbowing Reynaldo roughly in his ribs.
“No se,” Reynaldo whispered, holding the side of his hand up against his eyes. “Es tarde.” Just then he saw something silver cross his line of sight. His mood lightened, thinking it was the white man’s car, the small globes of sunlight obscuring the actual shape of the thing, before Luis and some of the others began to whistle, “Caballo! Caballo!”
It was a horse.
The others started to clap their hands and stomp their feet, the horse speeding past them in a quick, wide circle, then starting back again, its hooves hitting the pavement with an irregular metal clang. It passed in front of him once and looped around, Reynaldo making himself very still, shushing the others around him, the horse sniffing the air with its great pink nostrils. A shiny, silver-embellished bridle was set upon its long snout. Rey blinked and slowly held out the half-eaten apple. The horse paused, turning its head wide, then circled back, sniffing at the air once more. Rey took a cautious step forward, the horse snorting a little, the apple still held aloft, Rey pausing to take in the animal’s smell, its nervous, spasmodic quickness. The horse moved forward cautiously, snuffling the stranger’s palm, taking the apple into its jaws with its yellowed teeth. Reynaldo slowly extended his other hand, placing it along the side of the horse’s head.
The rest of them waited in the parking lot, watching. Reynaldo kept his hand placed against the animal’s throat, gently stroking it, whispering what sounded like a song. Soon he was walking slowly, step by step at first, the animal following him, snuffling his hand again. Then he took hold of the bridle. He was now leading the horse from the parking lot, thinking if he could only keep it from getting excited and walk it the five or six blocks to his sister-in-law’s yard, then all of the waiting, all of the fear—the long walk into San Diego, lying there on the beach, robbed by a group of fellow illegals he had traveled with, leaving his mother and wife, his children, his town, all of it—all of it would have been worth something.
* * *
On the other side of an abandoned lot was the gas station, bordered by the shadow of the highway. The boy saw there was no way to reach it except by climbing over a wire fence which was ringed at odd, haphazard intervals with heavily banded barbed wire. The street he had been walking along had become a dead end, an empty block of rectangular, tomblike warehouses and deserted factories, windows punched out. Posted along the wire fence were three different signs that warned against trespassing. The boy studied them, looked around, saw he was alone, then tossed the empty metal gas can over the ridge of the fence. It landed on the other side with a pitiful clang. He unbuttoned his jacket, struggled to the top of the fence, placed his jacket over the rusty-looking barbs, and heaved himself over, already sweaty, already out of breath. He fell on his knees in the dust on the other side and wheezed a little, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He stood upright and noticed a strange-looking shack pieced together by slats of discarded boards, unwanted scraps of wood paneling, drywall, and warped two-by-fours. He waited a moment to be sure no one was around and then leaned over, grabbing the gas can, and unhooked his jacket from the fence. He walked quickly, scraping his shoes in the dirt, feeling proud, lips pursed, loudly whistling the theme from Donkey Kong to himself.
All of this before the appearance of the dog.
The dog was no breed the boy could recognize, just a grimy mongrel. Beyond that, it appeared to be only teeth and jaws, with a patch of ruddy brown fur along its abdomen, more hyena than dog. The animal did not bark at first, poking its nose out of the tiny shack, sniffing the dry air. It took a few paces and grew tense, lowering its head, a line of drool springing from its pink lips. Upon seeing it, the boy froze, capsized by fear, at once realizing the shack was its house and this patch of fenced-off dirt its yard. The dog was more rangy-looking than any animal the boy had seen, lean though heavy-shouldered. Glancing to his left, Quentin saw that the opposite end of the fence was too far to try to run to. He realized that he was going to die. He was going to die, he was going to die, he was certain of it. All he could do was try to hit the dog in
the head with the gas can. But it was light metal and wouldn’t do much. Squinting over his glasses, seeing the dog’s broad flat skull, almost like a copperhead in its wide appearance, the boy did not think any number of blows would stop the animal from ripping out his throat.
The dog began to growl, baring its fangs, squatting low to the ground, preparing to lunge. Quentin braced himself, covering his genitals with the gas can, his bowels ready to loosen themselves. He then realized he ought to try to talk to it, to explain his situation, and so he began to whisper, lowering himself as well, “I come in peace,” extending his left hand cautiously. The dog snarled, treading backward.
“I know that I am in your yard. This is your yard and I know that I am in it.”
The dog snapped its jaws, reeling to the left, circling now, its paws padding along the dirt.
“I am in your yard. It is your yard. I am just walking through. I am walking through to the other side. It is your yard. I am only walking through.”
The boy stood up slowly, his left hand still out in front of him, the gas can above his privates. He took one decisive step forward, placing his foot down slowly. The dog barked but did not move, its ears perking up.
“I am only walking through.” He took another step, the dog going quiet now, watching him. “I am walking. I am walking. I am going to walk over to the fence and climb it.”
He heaved the gas can over the top of the fence, wincing as it hit the pavement and rattled dumbly. Hearing the ruckus, the dog began to bark again. Quentin raised his hand to calm it, speaking in a low, soft voice, “I am climbing the fence now. Now I am climbing the fence and then you will have your yard to yourself.”
He hefted himself up the fence, fingers gripping the wire braids, slipping his jacket over the top once more, getting one leg over, then the other, sliding down, catching his right foot on a crooked wire, swearing a little, the dog watching him the whole time, no longer barking but with a look of interest, regarding the stranger with an affectionate concern, eyes bright, tongue loose, tail wagging.
“I’m okay,” the boy whispered to the dog, examining his ankle. His sock had been caught on the fence somewhere and had ripped a little. “Thank you for allowing me passage through your yard. You are a benevolent creature and I salute you.” The boy bowed now, grabbed the can, and hurried off down the street, the enormous electric sign in front of the gas station coming on with a dull blue light.
* * *
Rick sat in the cab of the pickup, his left eye swollen shut, his forehead and cheek dusty with flakes of dried blood, tendrils of gray fog rising above his head like various succubae, angrily exhaling cigarette smoke through his nose. Only halfway through the square, he flicked the remainder of the cigarette out the window, the sun now setting, its rays cutting across the dirty parking lot; a faded black tattoo of a spider on the back of his hand momentarily regained its former shape.
It was not the bloodied eye that caused him so much anger now. It was the girl. It was the thought of that stupid rich-bitch princess tricking someone into giving her a ride all the way back to Plano, to her father—or worse, her grandfather—and all the lies and bullshit she would spout. No, that would not do, not one bit. He shuddered a little, imagining what the crazy old coot would do, knowing how brutal, how relentless he could be—certainly the law would be involved, and if not, then so much the worse for Rick.
He circled past a fried-chicken stand, past a dilapidated hardware store, past a jewelry store that looked like it had folded decades before, riding up and down, back and forth across the twilit streets. He touched the back of his hand to the ridge above his left eye and saw it was still bleeding. It needed stitches probably, which would be more fucking time he did not have. It was going on six thirty p.m. and the fucking horse was nowhere in sight. The sun had nearly set and the arrival of night for Rick meant that he was coming to an end—not just with his search for the horse, but his job, his association with the rich old man, whatever meager sense of direction his life had previously had.
He began to daydream about running off to Cancún—or Costa Rica, where he had heard there was no law. He could get a job at a fruit plant and marry a brown-skinned girl who would want a half-dozen babies. As his mind reeled through these pleasant, far-flung thoughts, he remembered old man Bolan, the sight of him in bed—sickly though indomitable—weak hands curled around the telephone, speaking his awful half-Spanish. It made Rick seize a little, thinking of his employer. If the girl got back to Plano before him, if he did not find the horse and figure out a way to keep her quiet, there would be no end to his troubles.
So on he drove, the dusk appearing like a curtain, which the hood of the pickup slowly parted.
About a half mile or so down the road, two kids darted out in front of the truck; Rick slammed on the brakes, his head jerking forward. He was too startled to even bother swearing at them. He gripped the steering wheel, watching the two kids—brothers maybe, dark-haired, brown-skinned Mexicans—running down the street, the older boy tugging the younger by his sleeve. There was a look in the older boy’s eyes, one of fierce excitement, of some sort of unforeseeable exhilaration, the older one forcing his brother to accompany him on some adventure, the two of them fleeing down the block. Rick watched their shapes for a moment and then softly swiped at the left turn signal, creeping along the curb, trailing beside the brothers for another block or so. Glancing out the passenger-side window, he saw a group of them, maybe seven or eight kids—all Mexicans—gathered in the side yard of a grubby white house that looked like it had been built with matchsticks. It was a party of some kind, the kids standing around, clapping. They even had a pony in the backyard. A man was leading it in a short circle. There were children piled up on the animal’s back, two and three at a time, the man smiling in a straw cowboy hat, the horse bobbing its head up and down, its elegant-looking neck stretched out sinuously as it moved. The horse was a muscular-looking one, wide-shouldered, stark white.
“Fuck,” Rick said, his bruised face erupting in a wide smile. “Fuck.”
He threw the pickup in park, left the driver’s-side door open, checked to be sure his pistol was beneath the flap of his jacket, then pulled it wildly from its holster. He slipped a little as he tried to remember how to walk, head still foggy, knees weak, gravity reeling all about him like the ground had gone soft. The kids who had gathered there did not notice him at first, and then panic starting on their faces, the boys glancing at the gun, going quiet, stepping in front of their younger sisters, the girls seeing the bloody, cauliflowered eye, turning to each other and gasping, the man in the straw hat with the horse, still unaware, leading the animal into a turn, two tiny girls, no older than four or five, perched like exotic birds on the creature’s back. Rick did not need to speak, seeing the whiteness of the animal, its formidable shoulders, its haunches, the unashamed, untroubled glare in its eyes, recognizing it as the one he had been sent to retrieve only yesterday, placing the gun calmly at the back of the fellow’s head, some of the kids yelling something in Spanish, other kids running off, the two girls atop the horse still smiling, then looking as passive as saints, the horse no longer stalking, the man turning, eyes wide with hope, Rick no longer in favor of thinking, only action, only momentum, only motion now, pulling the trigger, hearing the shot, the noise rippling through the air, straw hat drifting like a slow, wide leaf, the horse rearing up a little, Rick grabbing the reins with his free hand, calming it down, whispering softly, his palm against its muzzle, the man on the ground, eyes staring up with a questioning look, as if there were answers scrawled somewhere up in the darkening clouds, the rest of the kids disappearing now, Rick slipping the gun back into its holster, turning, seeing the two girls still sitting there on the horse’s back, carefully, as if they were made of the finest porcelain, lifting them off, and placing them back on the ground.
* * *
The girl found that there were only thirteen cents in the wallet she had stolen. She knew the number was ba
d luck but decided to pocket the money anyway. She slipped the empty wallet inside a mailbox, hoping it would get sent back to its rightful owner, and struggled on, bare feet grayed with grit. She was still more than twenty-nine dollars short and had no idea where she was going to get the rest of it. So she wandered around for a while, wondering if she ought to try to call her geegaw directly.
A few blocks on, the girl turned down an alley, picking her way among a few garbage cans, hoping to find a place to pee. She glanced over the back fence of a small white house and saw a yard that was filled with worn-looking toys—nude dolls with faces that been rubbed off, a castaway pogo stick, a rocking horse that had faded—before spotting, there, on the back porch, a half-dozen pairs of shoes piled near the kitchen door, most of them kid-size. She ended up stealing some pink cowboy boots that must have belonged to a child but still fit her small feet, and then ran off back down the alley, smiling a little, proud of herself, all out of breath. A few blocks on, she hunched over, gasping at the air. She had never walked around this much in her life. She had never been on her own for this long before.
By and by, she was ambling along the street in the direction where she hoped the bus station lay, south by southwest, when she realized she had not eaten. She stopped walking and saw a rundown grocery store up ahead on the left and then strode listlessly inside, the electric eye reading her with condemnation. She snuck an orange and apple inside her purse and was hidden behind an ice-cold door in the frozen-food aisle—biting the orange, drinking greedily from a glass bottle of milk. A moment later, a towering, slope-shouldered security guard, face dark as night, appeared. Before she could begin to explain, he pulled open the door and placed a large hand upon her wrist.
_________________
Already the boy had filled the gas can, some of it sloshing at his feet. He hunched over, replaced the cap, and dragged the heavy can inside the fatal-looking gas station. The shelves had not been stocked in some time—there were two aisles with nothing for sale, the freezers also strangely absent of merchandise. A black girl with a blue baseball cap, her black, straightened hair pulled through the back in a ponytail, looked up from a glossy hair magazine. She frowned at the boy instead of smiling.
