Jon Bilbao - Still the Same Man

Realizing this, her mother huffed and turned, and that’s when she noticed her husband.

“Back already? Did the sauna help you unwind a little?”

“Not exactly.”

“Dad, you’re soaked,” said the girl, with a look of repulsion. “Don’t you wanna, like, take a shower or something?”

“Sure do,” he said, and went into the bathroom. He emerged a few minutes later, patting himself dry with a towel he then flung into a corner. He put on the first polo shirt he came across in his heap of clothes and grabbed his wallet, his satellite cell phone, and the car keys.

“Where are you going?” asked his wife. “The busses are coming to pick us up in a couple of hours.”

“I need to get some air. Throw the rest of my things together, will you please?”

And before leaving, he added, “I’ll be back in time.”

A minute later, he was on the road.

He was driving along a monotonous, straight stretch of road when his phone rang. Before answering he made a mental calculation of the time in Spain. Just after eleven at night.

“We have to talk,” said a deep, male voice.

It was the same voice that, over the last several months, had become as familiar to him as his wife and daughter’s. The voice seemed astonishingly close. He noted the graveness in it, which unnerved him. This wasn’t the time for graveness. Each and every point in the agreement had been clearly laid out, had been revised, reconsidered, re-written, and revised again.

He felt his back tense up. He drove with one hand on the wheel and his eyes fixed on the horizon where all the highway lanes converged in a single vanishing point.

“All right, let’s talk. Is there a problem?”

The second the question slipped out, he regretted it, as if the mere mention of a problem were enough to invoke one.

“There is, in fact,” said the voice. “Something’s come up.”

“I thought everything had been agreed on.”

“I mean someone has come up.”

A long pause.

“His price and conditions are pretty interesting. I’ve just received an offer.”

Another pause.

“You see, kid, I like your numbers, but I’d be lying if I said that these guys haven’t impressed me.”

“Who’s the offer from?”

“You know it would be wrong to tell you.”

“And you know that I can find out without your help.”

“So find out.”

Another pause. Joanes took a deep breath.

“What are they offering?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you that, either.”

“Oh, come on. .”

“More or less the same as you, but for a better price.”

Joanes swore under his breath. He didn’t have any margin left for further discounts. If he lowered the price, he’d lose money.

“Well then?” he said, gathering all the strength he could. “What happens now?”

“You seem trustworthy, kid, you really do,” came the voice at the other end of the line, “but we’re going to have to review your offer.”

“What do you want to review? There’s nothing to review. And anyhow, I’m in Mexico. They’re evacuating us because of the hurricane. You must have heard about it on the news.”

The voice spoke again, and this time the graveness had an added dose of testiness to it — the last thing the man wanted to hear about were other people’s problems; he had more than enough of his own.

“Listen up, our decision is now between your offer and the one I’ve just received. And, to be honest, the balance is tipping toward the latter. We want to settle the matter as soon as possible. We’re meeting tomorrow to make a decision.”

“Who are you meeting with? I thought it was up to you.”

“It’s never up to one person alone. Less still when there’s so much money in the mix.”

“Well that’s the impression you’ve always given me.”

“Wait for our call tomorrow,” said the voice, now curt. “We’ll let you know what we decide.”

“Call me before the meeting,” Joanes said. “I’ll review my offer tonight. Improve it.”

“In all honesty, I don’t think it’ll make any difference.”

“You owe it to me.”

“I don’t owe you a thing. Don’t be under any false illusions.”

“You’ll call?”

“I’m not promising.”

“So then I’ll call you. I’ll find a way to drop the price.”

“No. I’ll call you,” said the voice before hanging up.

He switched on his emergency blinkers and pulled over to the shoulder, a ramshackle strip of road full of rubble and trash and barely a foot and a half wide, which was all the distance that existed between the road and the nearby undergrowth. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. He thought about what would happen if his offer was rejected. It wasn’t just months of negotiations at stake but the entire future of his company.

He stayed there for a long time, not caring that his family was waiting for him to go to the shelter. Double-trailer trucks and pickups filled with laborers drove past, just inches from the car. Not even their honking made him open his eyes.

“Don’t panic,” he said out loud. “You’re going to work it out. Go back to the hotel.”

And he repeated, “Don’t panic.”

And again, “Don’t panic.”

He checked to make sure there weren’t any vehicles approaching and made a U-turn, driving right over the median, when a figure appeared from the undergrowth and hurled itself onto the highway in front of the car. For a second he thought it was a kid, a black kid. It appeared at the edge his field of vision then stumbled onto the highway, walking strangely, swaying with its arms up in the air, as if trying to catch someone’s attention to get them to stop. But Joanes was too close, and the car was going too fast. The bumper hit the figure hard, slamming it forward and sending it rolling several yards over the asphalt.

Joanes slammed on the brakes and looked in shock at the sorry figure. The fact that it was covered in hair did little to calm him down. It wasn’t a kid but a monkey.

He got out of the car and walked toward it cautiously. It was a chimpanzee. He asked himself what in God’s name a chimpanzee was doing there. He thought they only existed in equatorial Africa. It began to sidle off, and Joanes stopped in his tracks.

The monkey got to its feet slowly, threw a pained look at Joanes, and hobbled off the highway. It disappeared back into the thicket from which it had emerged.

He had no idea what to do. A few vehicles drove by, but they didn’t pay him any attention. Nobody had witnessed the accident.

He decided to go after the chimpanzee.

He imagined it would leave some sort of trail — footprints, a path crushed through the vegetation or something — but as soon as he entered the undergrowth, it was impossible to make out anything. He went on anyhow, battling his way through the low branches and vines, changing tack every now and then and retracing his steps various times. He shooed away some iguanas resting among the roots of the trees; they moved off, making a crunching sound in the leaves. He only found the monkey because it hadn’t had the strength to get far. Joanes pushed aside a curtain of hanging vines and was suddenly face to face with it.

It was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree and cradling the arm the car had hit. It was a female, and she was wearing a collar with a metal jump ring hanging off it. When she saw Joanes, she held out her other hand to him pitifully, opening and closing her fingers, entreating him to come closer. Her chest rose and fell in a painful motion. Joanes hesitated. He knew chimpanzees to be capable of a degree of ferocity totally at odds with their cuddly image. But this one didn’t seem to be in a state to hurt anyone, and the collar suggested that she was used to human company.