Charlie Huston - Six Bad Things

– No problema.

– Everything OK today?

– Si.

He looks at the Willys.

– You dropped off the Russian?

– Yeah. I dropped him off.

IT TOOK over an hour for the Federales to show up.

In the meantime the local police throw a tarp over Mickey and keep me sitting on the steps next to him. They don’t shut down the park, just wave curious tourists away from the body, and share their Boots cigarettes with me because I left mine out in the truck.

Over the years the reputation of the Mexican police force has taken a beating. Everybody has heard stories of Mexican traffic cops scamming tourists for mordida, planting pot on unsuspecting kids on spring break, and the notorious involvement of the military in the international drug trade. And most of it is just plain true.

These guys get paid next to shit to do shit work and are given shitty equipment with which to do it. What’s the worst job in the world? Mexican cop. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the Federales who show up to question me turn me upside down and start shaking to see how much cash falls out of my pockets. Instead, they turn out to be honest, hardworking cops just trying to do the job.

Sergeants Morales and Candito are appallingly young, neither can be more than twenty-two, but they seem quite good at what they do. Which may be unfortunate for me. Their English isn’t good enough to make up for my Spanish, so we conduct our interview through a translator. One of the tour guides from the park.

We sit in a small room in the park’s administration building. Morales and Candito light Marlboros and give me one and the tour guide lights one of his cheap Alitas. The room chokes with smoke and they start asking questions about me and Mickey.

I tell them I just met Mickey a couple days ago and don’t really know much about him. I tell them how I offered him a ride on my way to Merida. They ask me why I was going to Merida and I tell them I was just going up for a couple days to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and do a little shopping. They ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I’m retired. They observe that I seem youthful to be retired and I tell them I made a certain amount of money on the stock market before the American economy folded. All of which is consistent with my FM2 immigration documents, U.S. passport, and the other ID that Leo supplied me with two years ago. Then they ask me what happened.

I tell them how Mickey wanted to climb the pyramid even though it had started raining, how we went around back to look at the view, how he wanted to stand near the edge while I took his picture, how his foot slipped on the rain-slick stone, and how we reached for each other, our hands colliding rather than grasping, sending him tumbling down the steps. And Sergeant Morales rattles something in Spanish to Sergeant Candito, who looks at something in his notebook and rattles something to the translator, who turns to me and asks me if I could please tell them what that was about, the argument?

– Um, argument?

The translator says something in Spanish and Sergeant Candito answers and the translator turns back to me.

– The sergeants have a statement from a witness that you and your friend were arguing and they would like to know if you can tell them.

– That was nothing. I mean, we were arguing, but it was just about me wanting to get going and him wanting to stay longer. That’s all.

The translator translates and Morales looks at Candito and Candito looks at Morales and they both look at the translator, who shrugs his shoulders.

And they let me go.

Of course they let me go. I’m an American citizen of some apparent wealth who has chosen to live and spend that wealth in Mexico.

But they keep my passport.

Which means they don’t buy it.

And they don’t buy me, either.

I SIT at the bar. Pedro pops the top off a seltzer for me and I tell him that Mickey is dead. I don’t tell him the truth. This is not because I don’t trust him. I do. I don’t tell him the truth for the same reason I’ve never told him who I am and what I’m running from: to keep him the hell out of trouble.

Pedro finishes cleaning up, opens a beer for himself, and sits on the swing next to mine.

– Dead.

– As a door nail.

– Como?

– A door nail. It’s a turn of phrase.

– Sure.

He squeezes a wedge of lime into his beer.

– Nails that are special just for doors?

– I don’t know.

– What is so dead about them?

– I don’t know.

– Deader than… a coffin nail?

– I don’t know.

He nods, finishes his beer, crawls up onto the bar, and leans far over so he can pluck another from the nearly empty tub. He wobbles, almost falls, but I grab his belt and pull him back. Pedro slides onto his swing.

– Gracias. So what now?

– Nothing.

– They took your passport.

– It’s no big deal. The guy was clumsy, he fell, the cops will investigate, and it will be over.

I drink my seltzer and Pedro drinks his beer.

– But I’ve been thinking about taking a trip.

– Claro.

– Maybe you could talk to Leo, tell him I might want some help.

– Claro. Cuando?

– Soon.

– American time, si?

– Yeah.

– OK.

I help him dump the water from the ice tub and offer him a ride in the Willys. He declines and pedals off on the tricycle. I drive over to my bungalow. I take my groceries, the tape gun, and the cardboard box inside. Bud is restless and darts around the room when I come in. I can see a little pile of cat poop in the middle of the room. He never does that.

– Not getting enough attention these days, guy?

He looks at me like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, which I suppose is literally true, but he knows, he always fucking knows. I clean up the crap, open a can of cat food, and sit on the floor next to him while he eats.

– Better?

He makes a little rumble in his throat that I interpret as a yes, so I flip on the boom box and put in Wish You Were Here. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” starts playing and I get to work.

Out to the back porch. I open the footlocker and grab the shovel. It’s developed a thin sheen of rust, like many of my tools. I should really keep them oiled, but I like the rust. It reminds me of old farm equipment piled in the yards of houses on the outskirts of my hometown.

Home.

I push that thought back down. Soon, but not yet, I can think about home.

I go back in, drop the shutters, and drag the bed into the middle of the room. I put a candle on the floor and feel around for the crack between the tiles.

WE HAD a great time building The Bucket and my bungalow, me and Pedro and Leo and a couple of their cousins. We hung out on the beach, working hard in the morning, taking a nice long siesta, then more work, then kicking a soccer ball around for an hour or two while the sun went down. Then everyone else would head home and I’d camp out to keep an eye on the tools and materials.

The Bucket was a breeze. We dug the holes for the pilings by hand, sank them, buried them, and built the roof frame. Then we built a box frame for the squared horseshoe of the bar, faced it, and anchored it to some four-by-fours we also sank in the sand. And that’s about all you want to do for a beach bar because the whole thing is gonna blow away every few years when a hurricane blasts through. The bungalow was a bit more involved. We hired a guy with a Cat to come down and drill our piling holes extra deep, framed the roof and floor, nailed plywood over the floor, and planked the walls. Then the pros came in.

The pros were three brothers, their father and grandfather, and about ten of their little kids. These are the guys who do the palm thatching. They came in, took one look at the roofs we’d framed, tore them apart, and put them back together. Then they spent two days walking around up there, bundling and tying palm fronds together in such a way that a trapeze artist could drop on them from five stories and wouldn’t break through. It was cool. The plumbing and sewage guys came during the next week and put in the water tank, toilet, sink, shower, and septic tank. And all that was left was the tiling, which I did myself.