Six Bad Things

I FILL out the International Airway Bill, stopping for a moment when I get to the boxes where I’m supposed to write in the total value for carriage and customs. If I value this thing at less then two hundred bucks, it may very well zip past customs with nary a look. Then again, in the U.S.A.’s current state of heightened security, some clever boy could notice that a guy in Mexico has paid more to ship this box than the stated value of the contents. And that is an invitation to have this thing ripped open by people wearing yellow biohazard suits. Option two: value it at a couple grand, fill out all the supporting documentation, have it go through customs the old-fashioned way. Of course, this involves someone picking it up at a post office in the destination city to pay the duty fees. A great way to get ambushed by Feds. Tricky. This is why I’m at the Pakmail in Cancun, talking to Mercedes. She is going to help me ship four million dollars to America via FedEx.

I finish the Airway Bill, putting the value at two thousand and listing the contents as books. I take a piece of paper from my wallet. It lists the titles of a number of difficult-to-find to semi-rare Mexican art and history books I’ve been collecting. The titles, that is, not the books. I write those titles on the Pro Forma Invoice. To make things extra special tidy, I also have a Certificate of Origin that I had notarized earlier when I stopped by my bank to pick up a few things.

I lift the box onto the scale and Mercedes makes a little woof sound when it tips in at over sixty kilos. She makes the sound again when I hand her the Airway Bill and she sees the destination. Like most service workers in Cancun, her English is good. She says everything with a little song. I like it.

– Lotta money.

I sing back at her.

– Lotta money. You got that right.

She giggles, smoothes the various shipping labels onto the box, hands me my copies, and rings me up for something more than two thousand pesos. I pay in dollars. No big deal in Cancun. She takes another look at the invoice.

– Your friend likes to read.

– I don’t know, he just bought ’em from me.

– eBay?

– Yeah.

– I love eBay. Bought these on eBay.

She’s pointing at her earrings. I bend down to get a closer look. They’re little Miami Dolphins dolphins, leaping through the air, wearing tiny football helmets.

– Fins. Alright. Hell of a year, huh?

– Oh sure, but now…

– Yeah, I know, late season, but they look good with Taylor.

– Oh!

She jumps up and down a little.

– Miles! I love him! He’s so cute.

She stops jumping.

– But his ankle now.

– What?

– His ankle.

Oh no.

– Please don’t tell me.

– On the TV last night. Sportscenter. Very bad.

The Pakmail is right in the middle of a giant strip mall, so it only takes a minute or two for me to find a news kiosk with a copy of today’s Miami Herald. It’s on the front page: “Taylor’s Ankle Fractured, Docs Say Four Weeks Minimum.”

THE FOOTBALL season is a long season. It’s not as long as the baseball season and they only play a tenth as many games, but the abuse your average starting football player absorbs in one game is at least equivalent to what a baseball player suffers in ten or twenty. Thus, one of the keynotes of prevailing wisdom among NFL coaches: as the season waxes, the practices wane.

– So this moron, this spastic that they actually pay to coach the team, decides the guys weren’t hitting hard enough on Sunday when the Pats were making their run. So what’s he do? He calls contact drills. Contact drills in fucking December! So the starting defense is out there, running around, knocking the shit out of the scout squad. And you know those poor chumps are hating it. I mean, these guys get paid about minimum wage and now they have to run around and get the crap pounded out of them by a bunch of psychos who’re pissed at the feeb who’s running the show. Meanwhile, the starting offense is down on the other end of the field, shooting the shit, and running pass drills in their shorts, right where the defensive guys can see them. Now tell me, you ever heard of a guy named Dillon Walker? No, you haven’t. The reason is that Walker was a hundredth-round pick defensive back who, until last Sunday, was a scout scrub himself. However, due to a series of injuries that have ravaged the secondary, he has been elevated to backup and even has a slim shot at starting free safety this Sunday should the gods not smile on Terrence Lincoln’s severe turf toe. Needless to say, this is a man with something to prove. And he’s proving it, flying around the field, hitting anything that moves, trying to show Coach his heart. For example, the scrubs run a little out, and they complete it. This is an out mind you, a play within ten yards of the line of scrimmage, a play the free safety should not be anywhere near. And he’s not, he’s ten yards away when the receiver steps out of bounds. Ten yards away, running full out, helmet down so he can launch himself at the poor scrub five yards out of bounds. And standing right on the other side of this scrub, who is standing there? Standing there and, I don’t know, talking on his cell to his agent about how he’s gonna spend all his bonuses or maybe chatting up a cheerleader, setting up a threeway with her and her fifteen- year-old sister or whatever the fuck twenty-two-year-old millionaires do on the sideline at practice, standing there is Miles Taylor, who is promptly crushed beneath the scrub and Dillon fuckstick Walker.

I pause long enough to light a smoke and inhale half of it.

– Walker bounces right back up and heads for the field, shit-eating grin on his face, ready to huddle up with the D and brag about the massive knock he just put on that pussy scrub. Dumb shit can’t figure out why everyone is standing around on the field, their faces white, staring at something behind him. So he turns to take a look and gets steamrolled by the entire starting offensive line, who have just watched him take out their bread and butter, the guy who has been helping them to earn their bonuses. And all those D boys, the ones who have been running around hitting in full pads while the offense took it easy, they take serious fucking umbrage. Riot. The O and D go at it; starters, backups, everyone except the scrubs, who wisely clear the field. And in the midst of this melee, as the coaches are screaming and trying to pull everyone apart, Miles Taylor stands up to announce that, hey, he’s fine, right before a huge mass of three-hundred-pounders lurches onto him and crushes his ankle.

I inhale the second half of my cigarette.

– I swear to God, I swear to fucking God, if I ever see that fucking retard coach walking down the street, I’m gonna stab him in the neck with a fucking fork. I hate football, I hate it.

– So is that what you called to talk about?

I breath deep and get my shit back together.

– No, Timmy, it’s not.

– Oh. So what’s up then?

– What’s up is I’m sending you a package.

– You’re sending me what?

– I’m sending you a package.

– What package?

I’m standing at the pay phone in a Pemex near the Cancun airport. From here I can see the billboards for T.G.I. Fridays, Senior Frogs, the Bulldog Cafe, etc., that line the road to downtown. My pulse is still racing from my rant about Miles Taylor’s ankle, so I light another cigarette. ’Cause, hey, that’ll calm me down.

– Timmy, I’m sending you the money.

Silence.

– Timmy?