Luis Alberto Urrea - The Water Museum

* * *

After a month of this, after dealing the goods out to fences and setting up a tent at the flea market, Chango and Junior were rolling in it. They paid their associates a fair salary, but their folding money was in fat rolls held together by rubber bands. Chango had the old repair bay in his house converted to a gym. NordicTrack, an elliptical, a Total Gym As Seen on TV, three sets of weights, and a Shake Weight that nobody wanted to touch because it looked like they were wanking when they were ripping their biceps.

“You don’t make this kind of money selling dope to college girls,” Chango said.

“No,” Junior confessed. “Not lately.”

He hadn’t planned on selling pot to anyone. He had hoped to teach a good Acting 101 class. Maybe write a script or some poems. And there was a gal…well. Enough of that. He wasn’t going there. Then he chided himself for thinking a cliché like “going there.” No wonder he drank — it was the only way to shut his brain down. Fortunately, Chango had collected seven kinds of rum. Junior doctored his Coke Zero and lounged.

He had a cot in the corner of Chango’s gas station. It was a little too close to Chango for comfort, and he had to put in his iPod buds to cancel out the old crow’s snoring. But it was free, and the snacks and booze were good.

The Mustang sat out on the street. Junior kept telling Chango it would get him busted, that it was too visible. But Chango was invincible. Chango told him, “Live, peewee. Ya gotta live!” There was a tin shower rigged up in one of the restrooms. Junior’s stolen iPod port was blasting “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”

“Stones suck,” said Chango, swallowing tequila. “Except for Keith. Keith’s ba-a-ad.”

Junior was thinking about the old times, how, when they’d gather at the bowling alley to play pinball, Chango would smoke those pestilential Dominos and force Junior to lose by putting the burning cherry on his knuckle every time he had to hit the bumpers.

“Fucker,” he said.

“You got that right, homes.”

“So, Chango — what’s next?”

“We, um, steal a lot more shit.”

“Shouldn’t we cool it for a while? Let the heat die down?”

“Heat,” Chango shrieked. “Did you actually say ‘heat’? Haw! ‘Heat,’ he says. God DAMN.” And then: “What heat?” He laughed out loud. “You seen cop one? We is invisible, homie. We just the trashman.”

“I’m just being cautious,” Junior said.

“I got it covered, peewee,” Chango boasted. “Chango’s got it all covered.”

“Covered how?”

“Next stop,” Chango announced, “Arizona! Don’t nobody know us over there in ’Zoney!”

* * *

They should have never crossed the border. That’s what Junior thought as he escaped. They didn’t know anything about Arizona. Someone had seen them, he was pretty sure. It was probably at the motel outside of Phoenix. They’d probably been made there.

Whatever. It went bad right away. They drove around looking for abandoned houses, but in Arizona, how could you tell? All the yards were dirt, and the nice yards looked to them exactly like the bad yards. What was a weed and what was that xeriscaping desert shit?

In Casa Grande they felt like they were getting to it. A whole cul-de-sac had collected trash and a few tumbleweeds. Junior couldn’t believe there were actual tumbleweeds out there. John Wayne — type stuff. They pulled in and actually rang the doorbells and got nothing. So Chango did his thing and went in the back and they were disappointed to find the first house completely vacant except for an abandoned Power Ranger action figure in the back bedroom and a melted bar of Dial in the bathroom.

The second house was full of fleas and sad, broken-ass welfare crap. Chango found a bag of lime and chili tortilla chips, and he munched these as he made his way to the third, and last, house. He went in. Score!

“I love the recession!” he shouted.

They drained the waterbed with a hose through the bathroom window. Hey — a TV. These debt monsters really liked their giant screens. Massaging recliners. Mahogany tables and a big fiberglass saguaro cactus. “Arty,” Chango said. Mirrors, clothes, a desktop computer and printer, a new microwave, two nice Dyson floor fans, a sectional couch in cowhide with brown and white color splotches. They even found a sewing machine.

It had taken too long, what with the long search and the three penetrations. After they loaded, pouring sweat except for “Mr. Petrucci,” who sat in his a.c. so he’d look good in case any rubberneckers came along, it was four in the afternoon, and they were hitting rush hour on I-10.

The truck was a mile ahead. Junior liked to hang back and make believe he was driving on holiday. No crime. He was heading cross-country, doing a Kerouac. He was going back down to National City to find La Minnie, his sweet li’l ruca from the Bay Theater days. He should have never let her go. He hadn’t gone to a single high school reunion, but his homeboy El Rubio told him La Minnie had asked about him. Divorced, of course. Who in America was not divorced? But still slim and cute and fine as hell. Junior knew his life would have been different if he’d done the right thing and stayed on W. 20th and courted that gal like she deserved, but he was hungry. Trapped like a wildcat in somebody’s garage, and when the door cracked the slightest bit, he was gone.

These things were on his mind when the police lights and sirens went off behind him.

* * *

He had to give it to Chango — he played his string out right to the end.

The cops blasted past Junior’s Buick and dogged the white U-Haul. Two cars. Llaves knew better than to try to run — the truck had a governor on the engine that kept it to a maximum speed of fifty-five. He puttered along, Junior back there shouting, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Then he hit his blinker and slowly pulled over to the shoulder, the police cars insanely flashing and yowling. The associates were climbing out when Junior went by. He could see Chango’s mouth already working.

He didn’t know what to do. Should he keep going? Book and not look back?

He hit the next overpass and crossed over the freeway and sped back and crossed over again and rolled up behind the cop cars. He set his tie and pulled on his jacket with its name tag and even picked up his clipboard.

There were two cops — one Anglo and one Hispanic.

The associates stood in a loose group against the side of the truck. The cops turned and stared at Junior.

“Officers,” he called. “I am Mr. Petrucci, from Bowden Federal in Detroit. Is there a problem?”

“Petrucci,” said the Hispanic. “Is that Italian?”

“It is,” said Junior.

“This dude,” Chango announced, pointing at the cop, “is some kinda Tío Taco!”

“Shut it,” the cop replied.

A Border Patrol truck pulled up behind the Buick.

“Sir?” said the cop. “I need to ask you to leave. You need to call your bank and have another team sent out to deliver these goods.”

“Fuck!” shouted Chango.

“Is there a problem with…the load?” Junior asked.

“No, sir. This is strictly a ten-seventy stop.”

“Ten-seventy?”

“SB ten-seventy. Immigration. We have reason to believe these gennermen are illegals.”

The BP agent was eyeballing Chango.

Junior almost laughed.

“Why, I never!” he said.

Chango called, “He don’t know shit. Fuckin’ Petrucci. He’s just a bean counter. Never did a good day’s work in his life! That asshole don’t even know us.” He was playing to the crowd. “I worked every day! I paid my taxes! I–I-I served in Iraq!” he lied.

The cop held up two licenses in his fingers, as if he were making a tight peace sign or was about to smoke a cigarette. Llaves and Chango — Hugo didn’t have a license.