Dead Head

by C. J. Skuse

  I closed the laptop and went outside. Right about now, having hit such a peak of frustration, I’d have gone out and catfished some pervert or stabbed Tenoch’s punch bag or something. But, for once, rage wasn’t the feeling that crackled through me. I was just sad.

  I went to my plants. I sat on the edge of a raised bed, between two poinsettias, resting my face on the cool petals.

  ‘Calm minds make better decisions,’ I said, getting myself into a cross-legged position. ‘Focus on the breaths… focus on what matters. Deep in… deep out. Focus on what matters. I am here. I am breathing. I am loved… deep in… deep out… she’s safe now. She’s safe.’

  Monday, 3 June (early) – Hacienda Santuaria

  People who use the phrase ‘a hundred years young’

  People who bang on about hot box yoga

  People who don’t let you know when you have something in your teeth

  Paco

  Paco

  Paco

  I lay there, in between sleeping and waking, searching for an explanation for the noise. Sometimes a caracara would be chirping in a cactus somewhere and that would wake me up. Or a brush rabbit would trip the security lights. Other times, like that night, a noise couldn’t be explained. Hearing voices, I crept downstairs. In the living room was your average midnight vision – my 60-something Mexican renegade roommate Tenoch, wearing a Kevlar vest and brandishing an assault rifle.

  ‘Get back upstairs,’ he whispered. ‘Lock yourself in the bathroom. I will whistle when it’s safe.’

  ‘What is it?’ I whispered back, pulling my dressing gown tight.

  ‘Uninvited company.’

  ‘Who?’

  His phone app security system had nudged him in the early hours to let him know someone had been captured on video climbing over the front gates. ‘Paco said we would get a warning this week. He couldn’t be sure when.’

  ‘The cartel? They’re here?’

  He didn’t answer. ‘Take the Glock from my desk and get back upstairs, go now!’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Enough. Now go!’

  I caught a movement on the pool terrace and hunkered down. A figure had crept out of the bushes and hid behind the stone temazcal. I caught the flash of a white skull bandana in the glint of the security light and I saw he had a gun as well, and not a little one either – an AR-15, like Tenoch.

  ‘I can help you,’ I whispered. ‘I can reload or something. You can’t fight them with only one good arm.’

  ‘I’ve done it before, now get out of here. I can’t protect us if I’m worrying about you. For the last fucking time, gatita, GO. NOW!’

  So that was frustrating. I had to grab the Glock as directed and scurry back upstairs like a good girl, waiting for Papi to rescue me from the toilet.

  It was pathetic. I was pathetic.

  And I sat on said toilet, like a pathetic girl would. I waited an age, freezing my feet off on the cold tiles.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I huffed, crossing my legs. Nothing happened for a long time. Until it did.

  Even from upstairs, through two closed doors, the gunfire was deafening – glass breaking, men shouting, guns rat-atat-atat-atat-atat rattling off rounds like a fucking Clint Eastwood movie. I flicked off the light and jumped in the bath, crouching low, holding my Glock close like a teddy bear.

  And I admit it – I was terrified. In my head I was sent right back there – to Priory Gardens, when the mad man smashed his way in. When I was helpless and small and all the babies were screaming. I was more scared than I had ever been in any situation I had put myself in. Before I’d had the upper hand – speed, surprise, a knife, scissors. But with guns, it was no contest. The odds were stacked, threatening to tumble down and crush me completely.

  The worst part was when all the noise stopped and it was still dark in the bathroom and all I could hear were my own quickening breaths. Not knowing who was still alive. Not knowing if Tenoch would come up and get me. It felt like hours. I listened out, trying to calm my breathing. And there came the distant but definite sound of a whistle.

  I ventured out of the bath, unlocking the door and manoeuvring down the stairs, one at a time, the Glock held out shakily before me. I tried to remember every film I’d ever seen with the same scenario – tried to keep my back to the wall, gun pointed, watchful for movement, making swift transfers from corner to corner. There came a noise from the kitchen – deep breathing.

  The room was a fucking mess – windows smashed, furniture upended, two large lumps motionless on the floor. And Tenoch stood there, his back to the refrigerators, sweating profusely, clutching his side.

  I flicked on the light. ‘Shit, are you OK?’

  ‘We’re gonna need new windows,’ he wheezed.

  I looked out across to the living room to a sea of broken glass and smashed wood. The bodies of two men, all in black, skull bandanas wrapped around their faces. The security light on the pool terrace illuminated another. They’d shot up my flower beds too. Again.

  ‘Bastards.’

  But I couldn’t dwell on that – Tenoch’s grey T-shirt was half red with blood from his pecs down. He’d been shot in the belly and again at the top of his leg. His good leg. The blood was spurting.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, placing the Glock down on the island and taking his weight. I manoeuvred him over to a stool to locate the first aid kit. ‘This is not good, this is not fucking good.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he panted. ‘I sorta guessed. Look at my back… is it clean?’

  ‘No, it’s pretty fucking messy from where I’m standing,’ I said, opening and closing cupboard doors.

  ‘Exit wound, gatita. Did the bullet come through?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t see a thing, it’s all so fucked up. I don’t think so. What do I do?’

  ‘Ahhh,’ he winced, delving into his pocket. ‘Paco… will send a car.’

  ‘I’ll call 911, give me the phone.’

  ‘No, you not call anyone, I call.’ He put in his number achingly slowly and scrolled his contacts with a shaking thumb. ‘I call Paco.’

  His face was losing colour by the second – all his life was seeping out of him. He made the call to Paco, spoke a garbled mess of pain-edged Spanish which I half-translated as ‘send the helicopter’ – envía el helicóptero – then he ended the call and sank down against the cabinets. ‘He’ll… be here soon.’

  ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea? Hot towels?’

  ‘That’s childbirth.’ He took my hand with his free one – the other holding his stomach in. ‘I am glad you are here.’

  It was only when I helped settle him against the cupboard and stood that I saw the man, standing by the windows. A fourth man.

  ‘Oh, shit.’ I ducked behind the island as shots rang out above my head.

  ‘Shoot!’ Tenoch wheezed, scrabbling for the Glock on the countertop.

  I waited for the next round of bullets and when it had stopped I reached up for it and wrapped my hand around it.

  ‘HE’S RELOADING. DO IT NOW!’

  He was right there, feet away, creeping towards us when I pointed the gun and aimed and fired and WHAM – half his fucking head exploded – half against me, half against the cabinets. His body crumpled and I staggered backwards. It wasn’t a delicious kill, like some of the others had been. I was removed from it, using the gun, and I saw death for what it was for once – messy and bloody and final. And not in the least bit sexy.

  Tenoch struggled back to his feet. ‘I must… get to Paco.’

  I was still standing there with the gun shaking in my grip, mouth open, wiping blood and skull fragments from my face. A horn sounded outside. As I helped Tenoch outside and along Spiky Plant Alley towards the front gates, he stumbled to the ground and I fell with him.

  ‘What do I do with the bodies?’ I asked.

  ‘Bury them like the others,’ he wheezed. ‘Burn everything broken. I will send Paco and his boys to fix the windows.’
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br />   The black BMW waited – headlights on, engine rumbling. I got him through the gates before we both stumbled to the ground. Two men got out of the car and ran to help – Ming and Arturo.

  ‘How did you get here so quickly?’ I said but neither of them answered and Tenoch yelled out in pain as they bore his weight and lifted him back onto his feet. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

  ‘You need to look after the place, gatita,’ Tenoch wheezed as they eased him into the back seat.

  ‘I will, I promise, I’m not going anywhere,’ I told him.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, stroking my cheek with his whole hand, like my dad would. ‘Keep yourself safe… you know how everything works.’

  Tenoch took one last look at me as Ming closed the back door on him and ran round to the driver’s side as Arturo got in the front. There was this look in his eyes as the door closed: the same one Sandra Huggins had before I brought down the axe. The same look Derek Scudd had before I mounted him with that pillow – fear he was about to die.

  The car sped off down the dirt track, disappearing into the dust on the dark road until all was silent.

  And I was left there, alone, in the middle of the night, with a man’s liquefied head contents still running down my face.

  Thursday, 6 June – Hacienda Santuaria

  People on TV shows who order drinks then leave them, mid-conversation

  Soap operas or TV dramas with domestic violence storylines that imprison the woman the moment she fights back

  People who slurp their drinks, on TV or in the same room as me

  Everybody Loves Raymond – I don’t

  Size Zero models who claim to eat like pigs. Fuck off.

  Three days I spent at the Hacienda alone. After Ming and Arturo came to replace the smashed windows the following morning, there were no other visitors. There was no news on Tenoch’s condition either. I missed people. I missed David and his drawings. I missed Saúl’s fat little belly jiggling whenever he laughed and the way Mátilda always held my hand when we were looking for insects in the borders. I missed Raf so much I could barely think about his face without bursting into tears.

  I buried the dead men in the back field, like I’d done before, taking my radio out for company, and doing little else but dig and ache for the full three days. Except this time, the hole took less time and was almost big enough at the end of the second day. Maybe I was stronger or maybe it was the old school Madonna marathon one radio station was playing that put fire into my arms one afternoon, I don’t know, but it was a lot less arduous than before. It was even kind of enjoyable.

  I’d almost reached the bottom of my trough when my shovel clanked against something hard – another stone, I figured at first, scraping around it to reveal and dislodge it. But the more I scraped, the bigger the stone got.

  Turned out – not a stone, but a skull.

  Fuck knows how many people were buried in that field. But here’s a weird thing – the sight made me puke. Made me scramble out of the hole and leap over the side and barf right up. Like, for once, the sight of death was abhorrent to me. It was a normal person’s reaction.

  And I got to think that perhaps there was such a thing as a normal existence for me. That the Hacienda wasn’t where I belonged at all.

  Early on the morning of the third day, I was awoken by the sound of a key in the front door. It was Ming, closely followed by Stuzzy and Arturo, and all of them were carrying in a piece of medical equipment – a trolley stuffed with new packets of syringes, bundles of clean bandages, IV bags and a defibrillator and a cool box labelled ‘SANGRE HUMANA’ and plastered in a load of warning labels – taking it all upstairs to Tenoch’s bedroom

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said as they all walked past me. ‘Where’s Tenoch?’

  ‘I’m here, gatita,’ said a voice at the door. And there he was, uneasy on his feet and leaning heavily on Paco who was helping him from the back seat of the BMW, looking much paler. ‘I’m here. I’m home.’ He reached out and cupped my face as I went to greet him.

  ‘What’s going on? How come they let you out?’

  ‘I wanted to come home,’ he panted, obviously in some pain.

  ‘This is his house, remember?’ said Paco, with his doggiest glare, practically carrying Tenoch straight past me.

  The last man in was one I instantly recognised – my surgeon, Dr Gonzales from the medical centre.

  ‘Rhiannon, it’s so nice to see you again!’ he beamed, shaking my hand with both of his. ‘I only wish it could have been in better circumstances.’

  ‘What’s happening? He doesn’t look well enough to be home so soon.’ Paco helped Tenoch up each individual stair in turn.

  ‘He insisted,’ said the doc in hushed tones. ‘Said if he was going to die, he wanted to be here.’

  ‘He’s going to die?’

  ‘It’s early days. He needs complete rest and some new blood in his system. We did a midline operation to clamp a slow leak in his abdomen and we have stitched him up but we have to keep a close eye on him. Regular scans and monitoring so he doesn’t develop an infection. Two of the boys are matches for his type – they will donate what he needs.’

  ‘But he’s going to die?’ I said again.

  ‘Don’t worry about him, Rhiannon – this isn’t his first rodeo. These were the twelfth and thirteenth bullets I’ve taken out of him. He’s a fighter. There’s no doubt about that.’

  They were all fussing and flapping about Tenoch in his bedroom all day and I couldn’t get close to him until about seven o’clock that night. Only then did Paco and his Chipmunks exit stage left – another ‘little job’ they had to do for Tenoch – but which I wasn’t told anything about.

  When the doctor was happy Tenoch was bedded down for the night, he announced he was going to get some shut-eye himself.

  ‘I will be next door, Tenoch. If you need me, press your button.’

  Tenoch lifted his wired button and pressed it, causing a small device in the doctor’s hand to vibrate and flash a red light.

  ‘Great, it works. I will see you later.’

  Tenoch patted a vacant spot on the bed beside him. ‘Come.’

  ‘You should have stayed at the hospital,’ I told him as he held my hand. ‘What’s wrong?’ He had that pained look again – the fear face.

  ‘I thought you would have gone.’

  ‘You asked me to look after the place. I’ve cleaned, I mowed the lawn. The Chipmunks put new windows in…’

  ‘What about the men? What did you do with them?’

  ‘I buried them. They’re in the back field with the others.’

  ‘You bury them straight away? No dressing them up or reading them bedtime stories this time?’

  ‘As soon as it got light. My back didn’t hurt as much this time. Think I got into my groove a bit more.’

  Tenoch smiled. ‘Good girl.’

  ‘I missed you.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. I didn’t know what was happening.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ he said. ‘Your soldier boy been visiting, has he?’

  ‘What? How did you—’

  He chuckled. ‘You still have much to learn about me, gatita. Remember what I said – as far as you’re concerned, I have eyes everywhere.’

  ‘I knew it. That why Paco’s been following me to the hotel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not always Paco. They take it in turns. I told them to be discreet.’

  ‘Have you been bugging me too? How did you know he was a soldier?’

  ‘It was easy. Facial recognition app, cross-checked his army records. But I want you to know – I did it to protect you. I wanted to know he was a good influence.’

  ‘And is he?’

  ‘From what I know about him, yes he is.’

  ‘Good. Because I think I might… love him.’

  He patted my hand and his face brightened. ‘Good. And you happy?’

  ‘More than I thought I could be.’

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nbsp; ‘I am glad. I wanted this for you.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t work out though? I haven’t seen him in almost a month and he’s supposed to be coming down here next week and maybe he won’t still feel the same about me.’ His TV was warbling on in the background – Blanche was being necked by some octogenarian lothario on the lanai.

  ‘Have faith,’ he wheezed, reaching for his pill bottle and twisting off the cap. He tossed back a few of the pills, forcing them down his throat with a swig of a smoothie. ‘It will work out because you will make sure it does.’

  ‘What about if Rhiannon, you know… comes back?’

  ‘She’s your dark side. Everyone has one. You cannot be whole without her. But I think maybe you have tamed her now. She will not come out unless you open the door to her cage.’

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  ‘Thank you…’

  ‘Don’t you dare say “for being a friend”.’

  He laughed and the laugh turned into a painful cringe that he blew out, clutching his stomach. ‘I could not be prouder of you than if you were my own Marisol.’

  A shot of adrenaline went straight to my heart and bloomed in my body – from my heart and outwards. ‘Whoa. That means a lot.’

  ‘You must travel. Go places, do things. Be happy. You are like your flowers – you will only last so long in this world so you need to make the most of your life. I wish I had a second chance to be better.’

  ‘Why are you saying this? Is this like a deathbed thing?’

  He squeezed my hand and looked at the little yarn kitten with button eyes I had bought him from the market. He put it on his chest and stroked it. ‘My gatita. You have been good to me.’ He noticed I was wearing the necklace I’d taken from Marisol’s jewellery box, lifting it away from my chest and studying it in the dying light. ‘This is a fire opal,’ he said. ‘It was mined in the hills near here. It’s beautiful, yes?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I saw it in her jewellery box and I was drawn to it.’

  I followed his gaze out to the corridor where the gold leaf painting of Marisol shimmered in the dying light of day. ‘She was beautiful too.’ He’d never stop missing her.