Adrian McKinty - Fifty Grand

“ Sí, señor, it’s in the usual place. Downstairs bathroom cabinet.”

Paul grinned. “Great, and listen, speaking of Vancouver, I’m going to need some of that quality hemp Esteban gets.”

“Sí, señor.”

“You know what I’m talking about?”

“ Sí, it is fresh in today.”

“Great,” Paul said, and with a big show he reached into his sweats, produced his wallet, and gave me a twenty-dollar bill. I put it my pocket and as I turned he patted me on the ass.

I turned again, furious. “Señor!”

Paul grinned. He looked like a Yankee in a Cuban newspaper cartoon.

“Hey, don’t señor me. Come on, you’re not bad-looking, María, I won’t take it for free. You wanna drop by this afternoon?” Paul asked.

“I don’t understand.”

“Sure you do. Esteban says we can get anything we want.”

“Ah, no. You are mistaken. I am not one of those girls, señor, ” I replied.

He frowned and then nodded slowly. “Ahh, I see what you’re saying. Look, it doesn’t have to be anything formal. Just come by, you don’t even have to tell Esteban, this could be just between you and me. Ever tried that fucking Jap ice? Blow your mind.”

“No, señor .”

I could tell that Paul wasn’t used to getting no for an answer. All residue of his smile faded like the last ration of condensed milk in the coffee cup.

He leaned close, put his hand behind my neck, squeezed slightly. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he whispered in my ear.

“ Señor, I have to-”

Paul tightened his grip. “More than worth your while.”

The curve of the staircase. Jack’s voice. Paul’s breath. The hold music coming from the phone.

Lightness.

Nausea.

The lipstick I’d put on for Jack, not you.

His fingertips greasy like yucca plant, his breath closer.

And I didn’t want to hit him, I just wanted to dissolve, to slide out of his grip, down through the carpet, down through the floor…

“Seriously, you and me and that Ice Nine, greatest fuck you’ll ever have-”

“Hi, sorry about that, Paul. Paul, are you there?” the voice on the phone said.

Paul let me go. When I got outside I crumpled the twenty and threw it away.

“Cabrón,” I said, and barring some surprising development with Mrs. Cooper either Esteban or Mr. Paul fucking Youkilis was going to be giving me a lot more than twenty fucking dollars.

A bus stop. Mountains to the west and east. A spear of cloud in a cobalt sky. The road a straight line running through woods on either side of a broad valley. The outskirts of Fairview to the south, nothing but forest to the north. Forest all the way to Canada.

The sound of a chain saw.

I have changed again. This time black jeans, a white blouse, and a blazer that Angela left behind. I have combed my hair and taken the slump from my body language.

Like Jack, I too will be performing.

From the direction of Fairview the bus comes.

It stops but the driver doesn’t open the door. He points at his watch and mouths the word early .

Sí, amigo, and if I were one of those tall trophy wives on Pearl Street-

Not that they’d ever ride the bus.

A sound behind me. A Mexican laborer carrying sticks. He puts them down, walks a little into the forest, and relieves himself against a fir tree.

“Come on,” I mouth to the driver but he shakes his head.

Oh, America, you’re making it too easy for me.

Seconds go by. The cool sun. The idling bus. The sound of streaming piss.

When it’s exactly five minutes past, the driver pushes a button and a compressor releases its hold on the door.

A hiss of air. The smell of AC, coffee, people.

The laborer catches my eye. An older man. Not his first time over the border. I suddenly see his whole trajectory: a crossing in Juárez, a night journey through west Texas; a lecture in vulgar street Spanish from Esteban or a punk overseer just in from East L.A.; and then work all day until the sun goes down. Sleep in the Wetback Motel or some dive in Denver, up and work again.

A look passes between us.

A look of recognition.

Life is hard.

No fucking kidding.

The man nods. I nod back.

“Gittin’ in, miss?” the driver asks impatiently. I step onto the bus and leave five quarters. Exact change. I don’t wait for the ticket. I walk to the last row and take a seat. Six or seven passengers. I see them but I don’t see them. They don’t see me, either. Who does ride the bus in this town? Kids, DUI repeat offenders, foreigners. The door closes, the clutch slips, we shudder forward.

Ten minutes pass. Houses appearing through gaps in the trees.

I look for numbers on mailboxes. I spot 229 almost immediately and hunt for a way to stop the vehicle. I see a cable that runs along the window. I pull it and a bell rings and the bus comes to a halt at the next stop, a full kilometer up the road.

I stand, walk to the front.

“Thank you,” I say to the driver.

“Uh-huh,” he replies.

I exit. The bus moves away.

Back to 229. A two-story with four or five bedrooms, set off the road. Wooden deck running all the way around it, rusting iron sculptures littering a small garden. The trees big and oppressively close.

The path. The porch. Neat piles of raked golden leaves. A knocker shaped like a border collie’s head. I rap it. Clunk of boots. Door opens. Young man, twenty-five, jeans, black sweater, pale Asiatic features, a suspicious look. Huge. What do they put in the water out here?

“We never contribute to solicitors,” he says.

“I’m from Great Northern Insurance, I’m here to talk to Mrs. Cooper, if I may,” I state quickly.

The man frowns, hesitates, opens the door wider. “Is this about the accident?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“You better come in.”

The house is dark, cool, and smells of vinegar. Mahogany paneling, stone tiled floors, a few more of the ugly metal sculptures. I follow the man into a small cluttered living room. Hummel figurines, crystal animals, Indian tapestries, a beautiful worn rug hanging over the brickwork at the chimney, Chinese-style screen prints on the other walls. An oval ball in the middle of the mantel.

“My mother,” the man whispers, obviously referring to a white-haired woman sitting in front of a very large TV. A quiz show is on, people jumping up and down.

“I’m Jimmy,” he says.

“Inez Martinez,” I say, offering him my hand.

He shakes it firmly and quickly lets go.

“Mom, there’s a lady here to see you about the accident,” the son says. He repeats the statement but the woman is rapt in the show. This happens two more times and finally Jimmy resorts to turning off the set with a remote control.

Mrs. Cooper looks in my direction. She’s a seventy-year-old Chinese woman in a beautiful blue floral dress. Trim, neat, tiny. She has an ethereal quality about her that sometimes you find in the dying or in junkies.

“Mom, there’s a lady here to see you,” Jimmy says.

“I was watching that,” Mrs. Cooper protests.

Jimmy shrugs and rolls his eyes at me.

Over to you, Mercado.

Gentle voice. Fake smile. “Mrs. Cooper, I’m Inez Martinez from Great Northern Insurance,” I say, enunciating the words the way they taught us in English elocution class-our goal seemingly to sound like American actresses from the 1930s.

“Yes?” Mrs. Cooper says, looking at Jimmy as if she’s being sold down the river or carted off to that nursing home her son is always going on about.

“I’m eighty-one and I’ve never had an accident,” Mrs. Cooper says.