After we had dinner and a drink I considered Jingler’s remarks about old habits and changed my mind about having a meaningless liaison with a woman who hated me, thanked her kindly, and dropped her off somewhat puzzled back in front of the Miramar. Feeling better than I had in years, I found a puesto that sold Kentucky Fried Buches, or chicken neck tacos served with grilled radish greens and pico de gallo, then shopped for records and found a promo seven-inch copy of “Timothy” by the Buoys on Scepter, 1971, with sleeve, the song about three guys trapped in a mine with no food to eat so two of them cannibalize the third, Timothy, a miner with good taste apparently.
I stayed again in Tijuana that night, moving to a hotel not far from the Estadia Caliente, and the following morning I ran into Xena, an eighteen-year-old streetwalker (named after the Warrior Princess on television) I’d known a time or two before. Xena had lustrous plump orange lips and short hair that curled behind her prominent ears. She was thick legged with a big rump and wore white preposterously tall high-heeled shoes. I was so happy to see her I gave her twenty dollars, kissed both of her big ears, and wished her Feliz Navidad, even if it was September. She was nonplussed.
Later that day in the Zona Rio I found Tamarinda, a tall gaunt woman who specialized in spanking and school uniforms, which normally excited me, but now I was only terribly glad to see her. We went up to her cuartito and I just sat with her on the bed. She seemed to be content with this. I read a newspaper for half an hour, the scent of the mattress like Arabian camels and the smoke from train-station cigars. She did not remember me and asked if I was rich. I said no, (¿de donde?) fuera bueno, so she decided, as she had the time before, that I must be a student. We talked about the narcos coming in and buying up all the brothels. She said her family back in Michoacán thought she was working here in a maquiladora, but she could make three times more in one trick than a whole day of labor in a maquiladora. I gave her enough money for twelve days in a maquiladora and vigorously shook her hand. Tamarinda was one of the tallest Mexican women I have ever known.
I spent a third day in Tijuana holding on to the good feeling, a pretty nice hotel room (sixteen bucks a night!), and my newfound appreciation for the working class. I fiddled around in the patio shade of a Foreign Book with a couple of peach margaritas and played a card from Churchill Downs without any luck, the way it always was when I played on TV. There was none of the usual excitement and I quit after the fifth race, bought two bottles of Presidente brandy, and headed back to the border.
The sun was going down as I drove up the road to the Island. Halfway up the hill I could see several police cars, two green Border Patrol units, and a horde of uniformed officers swarming the grounds. Beatriz, in her bathrobe, was speaking to them animatedly. Sweets was barking and snarling furiously. Beatriz had him by the collar. I hoped they would not shoot him. I turned my truck around reluctantly and drove as calmly as possible out of there and back down the interstate to Shelly’s house.
Shelly was out, no truck in the driveway. I looked for a note and called out his name. Figment and fancy, I told myself as I toured the rooms enduring the usual oppression of anxiety and gloom.
Finally, I called Beatriz. She said my father had been heavily fined for hiring illegal help. The police and migración were there “cleaning it up.” One tenant had been arrested, another evicted. My father was a terror and was talking about selling the land. No matter what happened it was clear that my days were done there, and Beatriz was worried that she would have to move, too. I asked her where she would go and she said likely with her daughter in Temple City. I asked her how Carlito was. She said he seemed depressed and that I should take him if I wanted. I asked her if the police were still there. She said they weren’t but thought they would return. I told her I would come pick him up in half an hour, damn the torpedoes. I will take good care of him, I said. I know you will, she said.
35.The Giant Clam Eats Children
SOMEONE IS KNOCKING ON MY WINDOW, THREE A.M. THE CORRIDORS are long with darkly stained wooden floors and silver lines on both sides of the name Decca. The woman in the beehive hairdo is standing a few feet back from the door, the orange tree behind her twinkling, the exhaust spilling like yellow pollen over the sides of the freeway. Like a banshee, she moans his name, “Donny, Donny,” and I know she will take him whether or not I open that door.
Before it’s too late I must tell Renee that Donny is alive. Obviously, they can’t date, or make weak disfigured love, or have children, or plan a stock portfolio, but certain closing words can be pronounced, haunts can be dispelled, horrors and blames laid to rest. I want to tell her also that it was not Shelly’s fault. No one
