Читать книгу South Texas Tangle - T.K. O'Neill - Страница 13

After hanging up on Sam, Jimmy had considered walking the beach all the way to Port Aransas, morning sun heating his back and warm sand crunching beneath his toes getting him in the mood. But he soon discovered the folly in his thinking: distances always look shorter on travel brochures. So now here he was, sleep deprived, hungover and hitchhiking on an asphalt-two-lane, Highway 358 on the signs, hoping for his second ride of the day, the first one dropping him off at an intersection a mile or so back.

When Jimmy was short on sleep, he got horny. Been that way as long as he could remember. But he never figured out if losing sleep made him horny or being horny made him lose sleep. Nevertheless, now he was fantasizing about a carload of drunken college girls picking him up, believing there was nothing like beautiful drunken women to ease your pain, especially when you were horny and running from guys wanted to cut your nuts off. He could go the boy-toy route if he had to, no problemo, senor.

Yep, he could see it all, knew it would make a great porno:

Four gorgeous chicks in bikinis approaching in a convertible with the top down—had to be a big old American sled, Chevy or Pontiac—slowing to have a look at him on the side of the road with his thumb out. He saw his clothes as a little nicer than the pair of black-and-white-floral-pattern beach shorts he’d bought at the discount beach ware store—cloth so thin he doubted they’d last two months—and the pale blue t-shirt with Corpus Christi Beach scrolled across it beneath a setting sun. Better sunglasses, too, Oakley or Ray-Bans—and a new pair of kicks. And he wouldn’t be carrying his old clothes in a cheesy, sky-blue vinyl drawstring bag with South Padre Island scrolled on it in bold lettering.

Picture it: he’s hitchhiking in the nice clothes and expensive shades and the convertible pulls alongside and the hot chicks in skimpy bikinis are smiling up at him, drinks in their hands, joint smoldering in the ashtray, music blaring from the radio—Zeppelin or Stones—and the ladies invite him in. And without hesitation, Jimmy jumps over the side into the backseat and one of the girls picks up the joint and they all get high. And pretty soon the girls are all over him, touching, getting him going, and the camera follows the convertible to a secluded spot where the four lovelies have their way with him for the rest of the film.

Lord have mercy.

It could happen—you never know—but it needed to happen soon, because he only had sixty dollars and thirty-seven cents left in his pocket. About enough to get through one, maybe two days, depending on where he slept, how much he ate and drank and other mundane shit he could barely stand to think about. And, ridiculous as it seemed, he still held a flicker of hope that old Sam would come around and bail him out of this, dude could be a forgiving old duck sometimes. But the more thought he gave to it, the more doubts he had, because Sam didn’t seem like a duck paid much attention to loyalty. And, y’know, why in hell should Sam be loyal to the guy who let a million greenback dollars get away and then hung up on him?

One thing Jimmy did know was he needed money. As well as some sort of back-up plan should the baying hounds at his heels, be seeking his blood as an interest payment. If he made himself difficult to find, maybe Ryan would only kill Sam and forget about him.

Here’s hoping.

Standing there on the hot pavement Jimmy could feel his skin tightening, was glad he’d used the knock-off Hawaiian tanning oil. Seeing a group of vehicles approaching he stuck out his thumb, adjusted the four-dollar wraparound sunglasses and sucked air into his chest, holding it in as the line of cars came on. Trying to project a clean-cut wholesome image, he sent out friendly vibes and braced himself for the rush of wind, dust and heat.

Nobody slowed down. Actually seemed like they sped up when they saw him. Glistening luxury cars and sparkling SUVs and shiny RVs blowing by and ballooning his t-shirt with the backwash.

Discouraged, with no cars in sight, Jimmy turned and began to walk, wondering what Texas law said about hitchhiking. He walked for a while then turned his head to look behind him, saw a beige car approaching and stuck his thumb out. Staring at the oncoming windshield, he saw a gold T-shirt and perky blond hair behind the wheel. He got a rush.

Gopher Girl.

Jesus, another omen.

He saw the beige Toyota’s front-end dip like Gopher Girl had taken her foot off the gas. But as soon as his hopes rose, the Camry’s front end bucked up and Gopher Girl kept mashing on down the road, Jimmy thinking, Maybe these big shades kept her from recognizing me. For sure she would’ve stopped if she’d known who it was. After all we shared together….

Then another herd of cars was approaching and Jimmy put out his thumb again, standing straight and closing his mouth to keep the sand from blowing in. He saw a faded white Chevy van at the rear of the pack slowing and edging toward the shoulder, rust bucket reminding him of the license-plate-spitting-piece-of-shit cash-laundering van that caused him all this trouble in the first place. Jimmy kept his eye on the white van as it swung onto the extra-wide shoulder, people always driving on the shoulders in Texas. It was coming on slowly. And headed right at him. Wasn’t a convertible of nubile blonds—damn—and he had to step quickly out of the van’s path before it hit him, but it was stopping. With a Mexican dude in the front seat laughing and pointing at him. Jimmy smiled up at the dude and heard a click and a scrape as the side door slid open. Catching a whiff of reefer smoke, Jimmy told himself that white slavery, if that was to be his fate, was at least an alternative to his current situation. Looking into the back of the van he saw two grinning Mexican dudes in mesh lawn chairs surrounded by fishing gear and coolers. Dudes in front had their heads turned toward him, both of them grinning the grin of the high.

One of the dudes in the lawn chairs said, “If you’re headed for Port A, man, drag your ass in, we got plenty of room.”

Jimmy nodded and stepped up onto the stained green carpeting, sat down cross-legged next to a red-and-white plastic Igloo cooler. He grinned, felt sheepish. “Sure smells good in here,” he said, and looking around saw enough fishing gear on the floor to outfit a basketball team.

“Slide that door shut, dude,” one of the lawn chair sitters said.

Jimmy turned and slid it shut and came back around to a fat joint pinched between the brown fingers of the dude in the front passenger seat. “Have a hit, man, this is good bud.”

Jimmy said, “Don’t mind if I do,” took the joint and inhaled deeply, thinking things were finally turning around for him. Wasn’t hot chicks in bikinis, but it was tasty smoke. You get what you need. He passed the stick to the dude on his left, saying to no one in particular “You guys going fishing?”

“Yeah, maybe,” said the one in the front passenger seat as the driver flipped on the left blinker and re-entered the highway. “Mostly just hanging on the beach. There’s a place in Port A rents out our gear to the tourists. We get paid to play, you know?” Talker was a handsome dude with close-cropped black hair and muscular arms, wearing a pastel-yellow three-quarter-sleeve sport shirt, tattoos peeking out the bottom of the sleeves. Jimmy was careful not to stare, having seen enough gang movies to know better. “Wanna beer, dude?” the guy said. “Cooler’s full. Have at it. Cuts the cottonmouth, yo.”

“Sounds good,” Jimmy said, lifting the lid on the cooler. He stuck his hand in the icy water and brought out a dripping can of Budweiser. Popping the top, he watched for overflow, got none. “Everyone down here as generous as you guys?” Jimmy said, looking at the one up front.

The dude said, “Nah, man, just the wets.” Then he laughed and turned to face the road.

And then the joint was coming around again, tiny now. Jimmy hit it and passed it before it burned his fingers. He pulled on the beer and smiled at the guys in the lawn chairs, their slit eyes gazing down at him, one on the left with a craggy face and slicked-back hair like a younger version of the dude in the movie Machete. Trejo. Manny. Or Danny. Danny Trejo. Fucking Machete. And the other one, dude in the lawn chair to his right, was starting to look like Cheech from Cheech and Chong. Definitely the Up in Smoke era.

Cheech but no Chong or no bong.

Jesus.

Really good weed.

Now they all seemed to resemble Hollywood actors. Jimmy could spend a week in Mex Town in Minneapolis and not see anyone didn’t look like a tweaker or the Frito Bandito. No, that wasn’t fair. Maybe a few Panchos and the occasional Cisco thrown in if you’ve ever seen The Cisco Kid, Jimmy having watched some of the classic old TV series at least ten years ago on his big brother’s pirated cable.

“Where you from, man?” the Cheech look-a-like said in a remarkably deep, mellow voice totally unlike that of Cheech Marin.

“Minnesota,” Jimmy said, looking up and feeling his lips going into a smile.

“On vacation?”

“Yeah. Spring vacation. But my car broke down on the way and now I’m nearly tapped out, trying to stretch my resources until my buddies show up.” Wanting them to know he didn’t have much money.

“You know what they say, dude,” Cheech said, “If it’s got tits or wheels, some day it’s gonna give you trouble.”

Jimmy said, “I hear that,” and drank some beer.

Then the one in the front turned and said to Cheech, “Grab me another, Hector,” before crumpling his empty and dropping it in a plastic garbage bag spread open on the floor behind the seat, bag a third-full at four in the afternoon. Hector/Cheech lifted a dripping Bud from the cooler and passed it up front.

Starting to feel claustrophobic, Jimmy said, “What kinda fish you catch around here?”

“Tiburones. Sharks,” the lawn-chair sitters said in unison, grinning at each other.

“Lots of good fish around here,” the driver said. He was a thin and wiry guy in a white, strap undershirt, sleeves of tattoos covering both arms. Close-cropped black hair and a thick half moon of beard at the bottom of his sharp chin. His wraparound shades looked a lot more expensive than Jimmy’s. And this dude absolutely did sound like Cheech Marin, leading Jimmy to conclude there was a Cheech-sounding dude in every Latino crowd. Jimmy saw the other three men exchanging questioning glances as the driver continued talking: “Red fish, specks, flounder, grouper, Cobia… we got’em all, dude. Never know watch you’re gonna catch out here.”

“Maybe even some hot tuna, you get lucky, eh?” the one in the passenger seat said. Jimmy thinking the dude resembled a much-younger version of George Lopez.

The other three laughed.

His sense of confinement rising now Jimmy slid himself around until he could see out the side windows. He saw an unusually designed stone house going by. Place was set back fifty yards from the road and was surrounded by a foot of water, looking understandably empty, For Sale sign sticking out of the submerged lawn.

Then Young George Lopez said to Jimmy, George sporting a crooked grin, “You looking for some hot tuna on the beach, man? Or you prefer the sausage? I hear Minnesota is the land of ten thousand homos.”

The two in the lawn chairs snickered. Jimmy felt their eyes on him.

“I suspect it’s more like ten million,” Jimmy said, turning his head to face the George Lopez dude. “But the state slogan is Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.”

“And each one got its own private maricon,” Young Lopez said, inspiring more laughter.

Jimmy’s gut squirmed.

“Ease off pendejo,” the driver said, “You want to scare away tourist dollars? Vengase, Albert, apologize to my invited guest for your rude behavior.” Dude with quiet authority in his voice

Albert/George Lopez looked at Jimmy. “Just jerking yer chain, brah,” he said, his voice sounding flat.

Jimmy nodded, smiling, and felt his urge to urinate becoming much stronger. Seeing through the side windows they were at the edge of a small town, he relaxed a little, storefronts and houses beginning to fill the roadside. “You can drop me off anywhere around here,” he said.

“I apologize for these pendejos,” the driver said, turning his head slightly toward the back, humor in his voice. “They think baiting tourists is good sport. Me, I don’t like to scare away a buck if I can help it.” He chuckled.

“Yeah sure, no problem,” Jimmy said. “Unfortunately I don’t have many bucks to scare away at the moment. Actually I was hoping you guys could recommend a cheap place to spend the night.”

“Them dunes are dirt cheap,” Albert/George Lopez said, looking at Jimmy and swigging beer, a few drops dripping down the sides of his grinning lips.

And the driver said, “Don’t listen to these assholes, dude. What’s your name?”

“Jim.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jim. I’m Henry. Tell you what, my friend. Why don’t you come down the beach later and find us. We’ll be set up out front of Billy’s Bar, old dump on the beach got some cheap rental cabins out back might solve your problem. Come and see us, dude—I’ll buy you a libation.”

“How’ll I find you?”

“Walk south on the beach. You can’t miss Billy’s, old shack in the dunes—big party spot. We’ll have the van there, a fire going, and Albert will have his cock hanging out trolling for what he calls ‘hot tuna’.”

Albert smiled weakly and went stiff before turning around and facing front. The lawn-chair duo kept the laughing jag going. Jimmy stretched his neck and looked out the windshield, saw a small super market ahead on the left side of the road. “Hey, ah,” he said, “can you drop me off by that grocery store up there, (pointing) I need some supplies for the day.”

“The man wants to be dropped off at the g-r-o-c-e-r-y store,” Albert said, pursing his lips and enunciating every letter, doing his take on Minnesota speak.

Henry pulled the van to the curb. Jimmy, squatting, slid open the side door. Sunlight poured in. People were going by on the sidewalk with smiles on their faces. The darkness in Jimmy’s head vanished as his feet hit the pavement and the sea breeze brushed his hair. “Thanks for the ride, man,” he said, turning to look at the driver.

Henry said, “My pleasure, Jim. Tourist bureau is up ahead a couple blocks. Beach ain’t far from there. Come to Billy’s at dusk, that’s when the fish start biting. Party will be on, dude.”

One of the guys in back slid the door shut and Jimmy stood there watching Albert leer out at him from the front window, the man’s George Lopez eyes unnaturally wide. When the van rolled away Jimmy felt like laughing. Recalling his meager fold of bills, best he could do was a thin smile. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his fingertips and walked across the street toward the market.