Nice, huh? This collection is edited by Ã�lvaroRodrÃguez (Machete), published by VAOPublishing, and due in bookstores and digital downloads by theend of July. I know fellow bloguero Ernest Hogan is in the collectionbut that's all I know. Well, I'm in it, too. My short story is entitledWhen the Air Conditioner Quit. I can tell you that what happens ain'tpretty when it's too hot, too dangerous, and there's no relief in sight.
Sorry, but at this point Idon't know the name of the cover artist. The cover actually could be the imagefor my story, but I have a feeling that a pensive guy drinking in a bar mightappear more than once in a collection of bleak stories from the heart ofAztlan.
In honor of the upcomingcollection, I thought I would reintroduce a story I published back in 2006 in acollection called, coincidentally, BorderlandNoir. This collection was edited by Craig MacDonald andappeared in the infamous but long gone e-zine, HardluckStories. The story begins in a bar ...
No hablo inglés
Manuel Ramos
The lone rayof sunshine streaming through a crease in the dirt-stained window caught thecorner of my eye and my head throbbed. A splinter of pain lodged itself in myeyeball. I sucked on a Tecate and a slice of lime whose rind had brown spots. Icouldn’t remember the name of the joint in Juárez that had produced thehangover.
“So, what’sthe deal, Manolo? Can you do any kind of lawyerin’, or is it like, you know,over for good?”
Nick knew Ididn’t talk about my disbarment, but he asked crap all the time.
“Nick,” Ianswered, looking him straight in his blood-shot eyes, “can you still say Mass?Give communion with the watered-down tequila you serve?”
He saidsomething like “fuck you” and turned his attention to wiping the far side ofthe bar with a gray, stiff rag.
I dropped twobucks and eased out of the clammy, musty-smelling air of Nick’s Cave and intothe white glare and oven heat of another El Paso morning.
I hated thetown, but that wasn’t El Paso’sfault. I hated myself and that meant I hated wherever I woke up. That summer itwas El Paso.
I waited inthe congestion and noise that led to the Santa Fe International Bridge, sweating throughmy shirt, as lost as if I had been abandoned naked in the desert. I lit up mylast American Spirit and crossed the street when the traffic slowed for aminute.
The diner wasbusy and I hesitated at the door until a fat old Mexican wearing apacking-house hardhat pushed himself from his table, stuck a few dollars underhis fork, and walked out with a toothpick hanging from his lip. I took hisplace before it had been cleared by the fat young Mexican busboy. He grimacedat me when he came to pick up the greasy plate and stained coffee cup but hedidn’t say anything. He also didn’t wipe the crumbs off the tabletop.
I opened mynotebook and stared at the pages of the great Chicano novel that I had decidedI would write that summer, seeing as how I didn’t have much else to do. Mywords didn’t make sense. Some of the sentences trailed off the edge of thepage. I must have been drunk when I wrote most of them.
The waitresscleared her throat and I realized that she stood next to me.
“What youwant, Manolo?” she asked in Spanish.
I answered,in English, “Eggs and chorizo, coffee. One of those grilled jalapeños.”
She said,“Whatever,” in English, and appeared to run away from me. What thehell, I thought. We used to be friends. At least one night not that long ago wewere really good friends. Why she act like that?
The dooropened and hot air rushed in. I smelled sweat and grease.
“You thelawyer?” The accent was thick but the words were clear.
She wassmall, pretty, dark, and afraid.
“No, I’m nota lawyer.”
“The man atthe bar across the street.” Her eyes were wide and her lips trembled. “He saidthe lawyer came in here and that he would be wearing a white shirt. You’re theonly man in here with a white shirt.”
I looked atthe diner’s other customers and she was right.
“But thatdoesn’t make me a lawyer.”
Tears welledup in her eyes but nothing rolled down her cheeks. She backed out of the diner,looked up and down the street, then raced in the direction of Mexico.
The frayedcuffs of my shirt had a thin border of dirt. I fingered the empty space where amissing button belonged.
The waitressappeared with my coffee. I stubbed out what was left of my smoke and carefullyplaced it in my shirt pocket. I said, “This used to be a very good shirt. Iwore it in court. I used to kick butt in this shirt.”
She rolledher eyes and shook her head.
“You are sofull of shit, Manolo.” She hurried away again.
I pulled outmy wallet and was relieved to see the twenty. For an instant I thought I mighthave left it all in Juárez. I had more back in my room, in the so-called safe,but I understood that it was running out. The dregs of what I had managed tosalvage from the Colorado Supreme Court’s order to reimburse my former clientscouldn’t last more than a few weeks.
I finishedthe breakfast, except for the chile, and drank several cups of coffee andfinally left when the waitress stopped coming by. I crossed the street againand forced myself into Nick’s.
Two men satat the bar, dressed in cowboy hats and shirts, jeans and boots. They talkedloudly with the speeded-up rhythm of Mexicans who have been too long on the Americanside of the border. I sat in one of the booths, almost in darkness. My eyestook their time adjusting to the change in light and when Nick asked me what Iwanted, I could barely make out his silhouette.
“Just a beer.Tecate.”
Nick had a CDplayer behind the bar and I thought I heard Chalino Sánchez. The slightlyoff-key, high-pitched voice of the martyred wannabe filled the bar with alament about bad luck with young women. An accordion, a tinny cymbal, brasshorns and drums emphasized the singer’s misery.
When Nickcame back and set down the beer can, I grabbed his wrist.
“What didthat woman want, Nick? Why did you send her to me?”
“The fuck Iknow? She said she was lookin’ for the Chicano lawyer. There’s only one assholeI know that fits that description. I told her you was across the street.” Hejerked his arm free of my grip.
“There areplenty of Chicano lawyers in this town. Too many. What made you think shewanted me?”
He had turnedaway. He stopped, looked down at me. “She didn’t have any money.”
I rubbed mytemples, took my time with the beer.
The two menat the bar stood up, arguing and shoving each other. Nick shouted at them toget the hell out but they ignored him. I squeezed myself into the corner of thebooth and watched as one of the men pulled a knife from somewhere and slashedat the other man. Drops of blood appeared on the slashed man’s shirt. Heslapped his chest with his left hand. Nick grabbed the man with the knife,knocked the weapon free, and wrestled him to the door. Curses and shouts filledthe bar and whoever had followed Chalino Sánchez on Nick’s CD player wasdrowned out by the familiar sound of men fighting in a bar. The wounded manstumbled to the doorway just as Nick tossed out the knife-wielder.
The formerfriends stood about two feet apart, in the middle of the sidewalk. The cutman’s fingers gripped his chest and were covered with blood. The other mangrinned. He finally laughed and walked away. His bloody companion slowlyfollowed.
“Look at thisfloor,” Nick shouted. “Goddam blood spots. Now I got to get the bleach.” Hisface was red and a thin line of blood traced his jawline.
I stood upfrom the booth and walked to where Nick examined the floor.
“That woman,Nick? What was her problem?”“You fuckin’kiddin’ me? Why didn’t you ask her yourself? She said somethin’ about hersister. Usual shit. Christ.” He shook his head and disappeared into a closet. Iheard him banging a bucket and shaking out a mop.
I made itback to my room and laid down on the bed. I sweated for an hour, listening tothe traffic in the street below, smelling the traffic. I blotted out everythingelse about the room, the town, the day. When I decided to leave, I took off thewhite shirt and replaced it with a blue shirt that I had never worn in court.
I walkedtoward the border, to the bridge where anyone with a quarter can cross into Mexicounless the bridge is closed because of a bomb threat. There had been such athreat the day before and that had been my excuse to stay in Juárez longer thanI had planned. That’s what I had told myself at dawn when I tripped on theAmerican side of the bridge and had trouble getting up.
I finishedthe butt saved from breakfast and scanned the line of people walking into Mexico.I looked over the vendors with their trinkets and gewgaws, tried to recognizethe face of the small, dark, pretty, and frightened woman who had wanted totalk to a North American lawyer about her sister.
“You everbeen to the shrine of Santa Muerte?” The boy asking the question had straight,thick hair, like some kind of Indian, and the darkest eyes I had ever seen on ahuman being. One of the eyes was crooked and it distracted me so that when hespoke I thought he was talking to someone behind and to the left of me.
“Saint Death?I don’t think so. I don’t have time, and I don’t have any money.”
“Hey, pocho,I don’t want your money. I’m talking about La Santisima Muerte, the only realsaint, the only one worth praying to anyway.” His English was good, better thanmy Spanish, so we talked in English. “She only promises what she will actuallydeliver, and she treats everyone the same — rich, poor, Mexican, gringo.”
The boywasn’t going anywhere so I asked a question. “What kind of shrine is this?”
“A specialplace. A girl got killed there and when her mother found the body it wascovered in roses that bloomed for weeks after. Now people go there to ask forhelp.”
“Why would Iwant to see this shrine?”
“You’relooking for something. Ain’t nothing she can’t help find, because everythingand everyone all end up with her anyway.”
I used myhandkerchief to wipe the sweat from the back of my neck. The monogrammed MT hadfaded from it’s original deep royal blue to a pallid gray. I stuffed thehandkerchief back in my pocket.“Tell me,boy. You think someone who is looking for a lost sister might go to theshrine?”
He smiled andexposed gaps in his teeth.
“She alreadyhas, pocho. About an hour ago. I took her myself.”
“Show me.”
“Two Americandollars.”
“You said youdidn’t want money.”
“That wasbefore you wanted something.”
I gave himthe two bills and I thought how that could buy me a cold beer at Nick’s. The boyveered from the bridge and we dashed across the street. He scrambled into analley, then another, turned back and headed to the outskirts of the town. Isweated like I had a fever, and my breath came hard and fast before we ended upin the basement of a broken-down apartment building.
We walkedalong a narrow concrete hallway that smelled of copal and marigolds. Candleslit the way into a dark, damp corner of the basement. Hundreds of candles. Theboy kept walking, didn’t look at me, didn’t say a word.
The statuteof the saint of death standing on a makeshift altar looked like the grim reaperto me. Various offerings surrounded it — food, money, photographs, pieces ofclothing. There were about a dozen people standing or kneeling around the altarand they mumbled prayers that I couldn’t understand. I walked around the smallroom and looked for the woman who had confronted me in the diner but the onlylight came from candles and the people kept their faces down and hidden behindmantillas and dusty hats. I didn’t see the woman.
I wanted toask the boy to take me back but he was gone. Some in the crowd started to leaveand I followed them down what I thought was the same candled hallway. Theymurmured to each other, stayed close and kept looking over their shoulders atme. They moved faster and I had to exert myself to keep up with them. Theyturned a corner but when I followed, they were gone. I was in another smallroom without candles, without any light. I heard Spanish words and phrases andthe brassy, loud grating music of a Mexican band. Then I heard words in alanguage I did not recognize and music that I had never heard before.
I waited. Afew minutes passed, then another group of people from the shrine entered theroom and shifted sharply to my left, toward an opening that I had not seen.
I said,“Wait, show me the way. I’m lost.”An old womanwearing a black shawl over her waist-long gray hair stopped. She looked at meand said, “No hablo inglés.”
I repeated myrequest in Spanish but she shrugged and trudged into the darkness. I followedthe sounds of her footsteps. After a few minutes I heard nothing but I keptwalking in the dark, sometimes feeling my way around corners, until I foundmyself in the stench and heat of adeserted El Pasoalley.
An hour laterI was back in Nick’s, drinking a beer.
“They’re ontheir way to lose their cherries, across the bridge.” Nick smirked at the boysat the end of the bar. I assumed he talked to me because the underage boys werethe only other people in the bar and he must have figured that he would be lesssusceptible to being shut down if he avoided them, even though he served themshots of tequila.I didn’t havea response.
“They foundanother one,” Nick said.
“Anotherwhat,” I asked, but I knew what he was talking about.
“A deadwoman, out in the desert by the wire. Cut up like the others. Been missin’ forweeks.”
“How many’sthat?”
“There’s noofficial count. Hundreds, thousands. Like that girl the woman was lookin’ for.Missin’ for weeks.”
“How do youknow that?”
He frowned.“She told me, what do you think? Anyway, she’s lookin’ for her missin’ sister,in Juárez and El Paso.What the hell you think that means?”
I got up toleave. “Why would she want to talk to me about that? I can’t do anything abouther missing sister.”
“Come on,Manolo. You can’t do anything about anybody’s problems. Remember? You screwed thatup, as I heard you explain one night.”
“Yeah, yeah.I screwed it up. So why would she want to talk to me?”
He shrugged,twisted his bar rag. “She heard about the American lawyer. That means somethin’to some people. She heard that the lawyer hung out in the bars. She tried totrack you down. She thought you might be able to help, maybe you knew somebody,maybe you heard somethin’. She had nowhere else to go, no one else to talk to.”He tossed his rag under the bar. “Dammit, Manolo, I don’t know.” He walkedover to the boys and said, “How about another one for the road?” They laugheduneasily and moved away when he tried to put his arm around the shoulders ofthe shortest kid.
I left Nickand his dingy bar and his ugly reputation and swore that I was done with all ofit. I had walked about two blocks when I saw her. She leaned against a brickwall, the side of a building that housed a mercado where every week touristsspent thousands of dollars on useless souvenirs and phony mementos.
She cringedwhen she saw me.
“I can’thelp. I don’t know anything, anyone.” I used my hands to help my explanation.
She cockedher head. Her face was smudged with the tracks of the tears that had finallyflowed.
She reachedinto her thin jacket and waved a small gun. I shook my head and put my hands infront of me but she pulled the trigger. The shot made me jump, then I fell tothe ground. The pain in my shoulder wrenched my torso. I twisted on the grimysidewalk.
I gurgled oneword: “What?”
“No habloinglés,” she said. She dropped the gun and walked away.
I sat up butdizziness bent me forward and I slumped to the sidewalk.
The hospitalreleased me two days later. I left El Paso andreturned to Denver.
When it snowsmy shoulder aches and I smell copal and marigolds.
END
Later.
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