DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little

Acapulco spreads out in a pattern just like Martirio: saggy, colored underwear districts on the outskirts, sharpening through Y-front and sensible-shoe zones to the center, where silk speed shines tight. The edges show up as we climb the last hill before the coast. Pelayo has to leave his load in Acapulco before heading to his village, farther north. Smells tag our progress into town. We should soon reach the Medicated Pet Soap district, then travel through the Old Spice, and Herbal Essence zones, if it's anything like home. Right now we pass a zone where you just jam a finger up your ass and sniff it.

The road winds out of the hills until blue ocean unfolds in the distance. Acapulco is this huge round bay, with hotels and hotels and hotels. I have to find the biggest one, and call Taylor. I realize the risk of being recognized will grow, because I've heard about this place before, which means tourists will be here from home. Acapulco I've heard of, and Coon-Can, or wherever fucken Leona went one time. I start to feel the shiver breathing down on me. I scan the distance for the correct-looking hotel to call from, but deep in my soul I'm hoping I don't see it. That's how your mind operates, to avoid the shiver, fucken look at it. My face even acts like I'm scanning the bay, my eyes squint, and my lips push out with the concentration of looking for the correct hotel. I even play games with myself, like: if I see a blue sign on the street, I'll get Pelayo to stop. But I know if I see one, my brain will find some excuse why I can't stop. Then the game'll go: if I see a sign with the color green on it, I'll double-definitely stop. I just take the fucken cake, boy, fuck.

Pelayo solves it by pulling over at a little roadside bar, behind the main boulevard. We haven't eaten since our death-dog, and now Saturday is well underway. Pelayo stops on the sidewalk by the bar, and just looks at me. He senses I have to melt back into my dry-cleaned world awhile. He makes me understand that if I want a ride to his town, I should meet him here in two hours, after he's unloaded the truck. An awkward membrane grows between us as he says it. As if he knows my natural habitat is in one of these towers full of wealthy people. He knows he'd be like a fucken gardener in one of these places, if so much. His eyes grow shy from the truth of things, and for the moments past of our unusual friendship. He slaps my back, and turns to the bar with his invisible guns. Lucas turns too, with confused eyes. So much for Vernon Gonzalez Little.

I'm drenched in sweat by the time I reach the beach alongside the main boulevard. It's fancy. It doesn't cost anything to walk on the sand, so I take off my shirt, and my flappy ole Firestone sandals, and start to look American again. Two security guards watch me head for this massive hotel. They wave when I look at them, just another American dweebo, they must say. I spit back my hair and eyebrows, and strut into the hotel like I'm wearing guns, just like Pelayo learned me. The lobby is about the size of fucken Dallas – Fort Worth airport, marble floored, with beautiful lobster-people gliding around. Awesome place. A bellhop holds the elevator doors open for me, and I ain't even near them.

'Going up, sir?' he asks.

I try not to drop a load, but it's fucken hard. I see myself at that place last night, with the flies, and the nightclub pianist's rotting corpse, and today it's like I'm waiting for hula-girls to suck my boy, I swear. Leona Dunt could only dream of coming to this fucken place. An American family sweeps past me into the elevator, dressed like Tommy Hilfiger on a golfing convention; it's a mama with a tense ole man, and the traditional two kids – a good one and a bad one. Type of folk who get lighthearted over dinner-music, and start talking about their feelings, to show how liberated they are. Your fucken cutlery drawer on parade.

'Now, Bobby, remember what we said – you know the deal,' says the mom.

' Yeah , Bobby,' says the dad in back, like a fucken sock puppet. The girl hoists her eyebrows.

'But I don't feel so great,' says Bobby.

'We planned the bay cruise days ago, and it's already paid for,' says the mom.

' Days ago,' says Dad.

The kid just sulks. The ole lady tightens her lips. 'Forget it, Trey, you know what he's like. Let's just hope it doesn't turn out like the other time , after we spent all that money on scuba lessons …'

World-class knifing, I have to say. And just one smug face left, on the girl.

I saunter toward smells of sausage and coffee, looking for a public phone. Outside, I see a huge patio laid out with a buffet. I stupidly pick up a menu. The cheapest thing on it costs more than a fucken helicopter joyride. Then a waiter starts to hover, so I keep walking towards some bathrooms that are in a service area by the pool. I pass a real-life psycho on the way, too; an up-and-coming one. This fat little dork is standing next to another kid in the pool, being a real pal, while his little sister dive-bombs the water around them. Then, out of earshot of his buddy, the fat kid snarls at his sister: 'I told you to jump on him, not near him…' A future senator, guaranteed.

I pass some lounge chairs facing the bay, with boats and parachutes gliding past them, and the squeak of bitty children in the surf nearby. I start fantasizing that some kid starts drowning right in front of me, and I jump in and save him. In my mind, I rehearse what I'd tell the reporters, and I even see the newspaper headlines spinning up. 'Juvenile Hero Pardoned,' and shit. After a minute, it's the fucken president's kid I'm saving. The president weeps with gratitude, and I just shuffle away. See me? All this drags through my head like a fucken rusty chain.

To snap myself out of it, I go find a phone on the street outside the hotel. I punch in Taylor 's number.

'Glassbadanbow?' says a kid. He's handing out flyers by the road.

'Say what ?'

'Jew like croose in Glass badan boat?'

'Tayla,' the phone answers. I wave the kid away.

' Mexico calling,' I say.

'Hi, killer.'

Something's wrong, I can tell. I get a pang to curl her up around me, her and her safe, deodorized world, where her biggest problem in life is getting bored, or smelling Glade around the house. Probably her biggest personal secret is eating boogers. She's been bawling just now, you can tell.

'Everything okay?' I ask.

Taylor gives a sniffly laugh. 'I'm just like, what the fuck, you know? This damn guy I was dating…'

The doctor?'

'The so-called doctor, yeah. I just want to run away, God. ..'

'Know how you feel.'

'Anyway, where are you?' she asks, blowing her nose.

' Acapulco.'

'Dirty dog. Lemme see the map – are you, like, by the beach?'

'Yeah, on the main boulevard.'

'That must be the Costera Miguel Aleman – there's a Western Union agent at a place called Comercial Mexicana .'

'I'll make it up to you, Tay.'

'But listen – it's Sunday tomorrow, and I can't get the cash till Monday. The agent's open till seven Monday night, so if you go at six…'

'No sweat,' I lie, watching the last credits drip off the screen.

'And babe,' she says. Beep. The line goes dead.

The fucken Love Boat is here. I swear to God, from those ole shows my mom watches, with the horny cruise director, and Captain Stupid and all. It has the Wella Balsam kind of logo on the funnel. Star-studded Acapulco, boy.

I pull my head into the cab as the bay falls away behind us. Pelayo's truck bangs over some hills, then heads north along this TV-movie coastline, with coconut trees, whole fields of them. The beach ain't as white as Against All Odds , and the water ain't as blue, but hey. A lagoon runs alongside us for part of the drive, right out of Tarzan or something. We even pass through a military roadblock, with a fucken machine-gun nest, no bullshit. My intestines pump, but they end up just being kids, these soldiers, like cartoon ants, in oversized helmets.