Charlie Huston: Six Bad Things

– Stories.

– Yeah.

I should have told Leo to hit a pharmacia in town for some antibiotics.

– When we go to Chichen Itza tomorrow?

– Yeah?

We should be getting them into him now.

– You should bring a million dollars with you.

I turn from the window.

– Otherwise, I will tell my father’s “business” partners where you are with their money and your cat.

I look down. There are droplets of blood on my feet, sand stuck to them. I rub my feet together to grind them off.

– We’ll have to go to Merida, to the bank. My safety deposit boxes are there.

HE STILL wants to stop at Chichen Itza to see the Mayan ruins. Guy’s banking on a million at the end of the road and he wants to get some snapshots from the top of Kukulkan. Whatever.

I turn north onto Mexico 307 heading for 180 West, the toll road outside of Cancun. I stop at one of the Pemex stations on the highway and gas up. Mickey’s not talking, still waking up. It’ll take about an hour to get to Cancun, another two or three to Chichen Itza.

We swoop onto the 180. There’s hardly any traffic. I put the pedal down and open the Willys up a little to clean it out. It’s a 1960 Utility Wagon. A previous owner chopped the roof off and installed a ragtop. I bought it when I moved to the beach; had Baja tires put on because the trail floods out at least a couple times every month. I don’t really drive it much. I used to not drive, period. Not since the time in high school when I rammed my Mustang into a tree and killed my best friend. Rich. I used to have nightmares about Rich. But that was a long time ago. And I’ve killed more people since then.

Mickey’s waking up and becoming his chatty self.

– This place, I love it, you know.

– Huh.

– The whole peninsula, jungle, all the way to the beaches. It is beautiful. I started in Mexico City, you know, and that was wonderful, but very much like Manhattan, but if it were always hot. And then, I went to Guadalajara and to Puerto Vallarta and around the coast to Acapulco and east to Oaxaca and then into Guatemala and Belize and then up to Quintana Roo and the jungle and the beaches and the Caribbean and it is the most beautiful thing that I have ever found, and also very lucky for me, I think, because that is where I found you.

He wants me to know it’s nothing personal.

– And I did not come down here to look for you, you know. I wanted to see Mexico and get drunk on beaches and fuck women, but I had heard the stories.

– Tell me about the stories.

– Oh.

He starts to laugh.

– Oh, are they pissed at you. My father, when he was still alive and in “business,” I can remember I was at school and came home to their house for a visit to see my mother. And my father, he was very angry. Stomping, slamming, cursing. And he said your name! And, you know, I had heard your name because this had just happened with all the people being killed and your picture was in the newspapers and on the TV and I was living in Manhattan for school and I was very scared of you. Really. Everyone I knew was scared. And then I go home, out of the city until the killing stops, and I go to my parents and my father is cursing your name. And many people were cursing you, but this was, he was cursing you like he would curse me when he got angry, like you did something to hurt him.

Great.

– But then, I did not know anything until later. When he was sick and his friends would come over to talk “business” at the house where my mother had put in the hospital bed and hired the nurse, and I would come home sometimes on the weekend to visit. But they were not really talking, you know, “business” with him. They drank vodka and told stories and tried to make him laugh, but all of them always ended up crying. But in a way that was good, you know?

The jungle presses right up against the two-lane blacktop. We’ve passed a tour bus and a couple trucks and an abandoned VW Bug. There will be two toll stops and one gas station between here and Chichen Itza. After that, nothing until we join the regular road at Kantunil.

– Sometimes I would listen to the stories and always there was the one that they would tell. The story about you and how you killed so many of their men and stole their money and they would curse you and drink to your death and curse you some more. And they would then talk about where you had run to and what they would do when they found you. And, but, you know, they would almost always say something about you in Russian that would mean you were a sly, crafty, tough bastard and that they would have done what you had done if they could have, but that they would kill you anyway.

Every so often there are little dirt trails cutting off the main road and into the jungle. These lead to small rancheros that are, almost without exception, abandoned. People buy these little plots of land hoping to have a place in driving distance to the beach, but the jungle always kicks their ass. Turn your back on it and the jungle is at your back door. Any one of these little roads would do. I could say I needed to pull off and take a leak.

– So of course, you know, when I came to Mexico I knew your story and I had many times heard my father’s friends talk about you and that they thought Mexico was a place you could be, and I had seen your picture and a picture of your cat from the TV. But I did not come here to look for you, but I also remembered to look a little, because it would be stupid not to. But not for them. I don’t look for them, for my father’s friends and their “business.” I would not do that to you, tell them where you are so they can kill you, but I am not so stupid that I do not want something, you know, to not tell them. So the million dollars is a good deal for both of us because you will still have so much and it will be so much more than they would give me.

I spot one of the trails up ahead, slow the Willys, and start to pull off.

– What?

– I have to go.

– Me too.

I drive a hundred yards to a partial clearing. Sure enough, there’s a cinderblock house, abandoned and being disassembled by the jungle. I shut off the engine, climb out, and undo my fly. But I don’t have to go. I hear Mickey get out the other side. A groan as he stretches, a zip and then splashing. I button up, turn, and there’s Mickey, his back to me, watering a tree. There’s a piece of broken cinderblock right at my feet.

I get back behind the wheel. Mickey gets in next to me. I start the engine.

– Hang on.

I get back out, turn my back, and undo my fly again. Because now that I know I’m not gonna kill this guy, that I can’t kill him, I can pee. I get back in the truck. Mickey smiles.

– Missed some?

– It crawled back up.

– I hate that.

– Yep.

I steer the truck back onto the highway, going west. I’ll take Mickey to Chichen Itza. I’ll climb the temple steps with him and walk around the ruins. And when it’s time to go I’ll tell him the truth, that the money’s not in Merida, it’s back at my place. I’ll take him home, give him the million, and send him on his way. Then I’ll start looking for a new place to hide, a new country. I’ll do it that way, take the chance, because I don’t want to be a murderer again. I don’t want to be a maddog.

A COUPLE hours later we pull off at the exit for Piste, drive a couple miles of open road and then through the town itself. Every time we have to slow for a speed bump, kids mob the car with mass-produced Mayan souvenirs. I ease the truck through them while Mickey laughs. On the other side of town it’s another mile or so to the National Park where the ruins are. I take a ticket from the parking guy, find a spot, and turn off the engine, killing a mariachi-rock version of “Twist and Shout.”