Back to School

Bullet-proof bookbags; what a fucked-up time to be alive. The six o’clock news tells me they are resistant enough to stop a barrage of bullets from an AK-47, and are now available at Walmart for just ninety-nine-ninety-nine; pink or black, in a variety of little sizes.

I think to myself, the kids do start school next week. It’s not entirely unreasonable to think this product may find itself useful. I love my kids, just like everybody else. What’s a few hundred dollars for a potential lifesaver?

I drive my American automobile down to the only superstore in town. The radio DJ coming from my speaker makes ten-cent social commentary about concentration camps and unisex bathrooms in between “Let it Be” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. I drive the speed limit, and I use my blinker like a responsible motorist.

In the parking lot a sunburned tweeker in his late teens offers to wash my windows for a quarter. His washcloth is dirty, and his shoes are ripped. I hand him four bucks and tell him my windows are fine, but he looks dehydrated and should get inside for at least little while.

A discount rack in the men’s clothing aisle contains red hats with the president’s name on them. The florescent lighting leads to screeching migraines and plus-sized women walk kids on leashes.

Before I can obtain any of those coveted bulletproof backpacks for my children to wear to school, a white man, wearing black boots, a camouflage shirt, and one of those red hats on his bald head walks through the front door and shoots the elderly greeter in his wrinkled face.

That proud American makes his way through that capitalist’s wet dream of an establishment shooting everybody moving. He shoots me right in the dick and he laughs about it. Nihilistic millennials live stream the massacre on Facebook; #massmurder #howoriginal. A fifty-two-year-old democrat hides in the dairy cooler and tweets about how if this coward wanted a machinegun, he should have joined the police force, or the military. I agree.

If he wanted to kill people with an assault rifle, he should have done what every other white-trash-nationalist with a micropenis does, and became a cop, or enlisted in the army. What a fucked-up time to be alive, when the murdering of innocent people just going about their business is no longer restricted to the cops shooting an unarmed black teenager in the back fifty-five times for pulling a cell phone out of his pocket; or to an American soldier invading a country on the other side of the planet and mowing down brown folks for their oil.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a perfect person. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life; but I tried my best, and I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve to get shot in the dick at a Walmart.

A Hard Case (Part 5)

Someone scratched a match and lit a cigarette.

“May I help you, sir?” The big man didn’t seem helpful.

“My cat ran away,” I said.

“That’s too bad. But there aren’t any cats around here.”

Another gooey moan slid out of the lit window above.

“Funny,” I said. “Sounds just like her.”

“You said cat. That’s pussy.”

“Never heard of Women’s Lib around here, huh.”

“That’s the professional term for female performers, in our business. Like they say ‘talent’ in the other, fabulous Hollywood. Now kindly get lost, before I call security.”

“Just a moment. Is this Project X?”

“Ex-actly.”

“You produce adult entertainment.”

“We do.”

“Is it true your main client is the United States’ government?”

“That, I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Wait, did I say I was looking for a cat? I meant, I’m looking for a job.”

He puffed deeply. “Let’s see what you got.”

He shook his head when I pulled my jacket aside to show the butt of my .38. “We already have a night watchman, somewhere. But we’re always interested in new, uh, talent.”

“Oh,” I said. “You mean, right out here in the alley?”

“You wanna turn pro? Then you’d better be ready to go at the drop of a hat.”

He wasn’t wearing a hat, even though the North Hollywood night was unseasonably cool.

“Tell me what honesty means, to you,” he said.

“An honest person, like a heartfelt statement, is open and unadorned.”

“All right. Come on in for a screen test.”

He ground out his cigarette in the beaten earth of the alley.

Stage jitters set in, then faded. The set-up at Project X was Spartan, but in an unexpected way. We went down a neon-lit hallway lined on one side with shelves of books and LP records. The walls on the other side were covered with black-and-white photographs of writers, painters, composers. Thomas Mann was prominent, in a gold frame. He looked delighted.

The producer, if that’s who the man was, opened a door and we entered a spacious, dimly lit room.

Doris Frawley was in there. She was nude, sprawled on a battered leather armchair under a brass lamp, immersed in reading The Magic Mountain.

“A far more violent novel than most people imagine,” the producer said. “And more erotic than most readers care to remember.”

A Hard Case (Part 1)

A Hard Case (Part 2)

A Hard Case (Part 3)

A Hard Case (Part 4)

Luck of the I Wish

Our small plane is being tossed around by the wind’s unforgiving fury, hard rains viciously pummeling the old Beechcraft Bonanza. We’re like a wet paper bag in a tornado, completely at the mercy of the chaotic, raging force all around us.

Our pilot, Salinas, also known as Demonio Mosca (demon fly), appears wholly unaffected by  the storm. The deluge pelts the windshield while its single wiper sways lazily from left to right, doing nothing to improve visibility. Guess it really doesn’t matter, as there is nothing to see besides darkness (plus the occasional flash of lightning) anyway. Salinas can only see half of what’s going on to be begin with, being blind in one eye as he is.

Meanwhile, Johnny Rico is screaming from in back, cursing the incessant violent rocking of the plane. Apparently, it’s causing him to spill his can of beer. We’re on course to imminent disaster, a flight plan straight to Hell, and he’s worried about a fucking beer… incredible.

“Drink the damn beer and grab me one too!” I yell back at him. “Break open one of those kilos and give me a blast. I’m not going to Hell sober!”

***

The weather had been gorgeous before we’d left La Hormiga in Putumayo Province earlier that morning. There wasn’t a cloud in the deep blue Colombian sky.

Before that, we’d spent two days trudging through the jungle to purchase 60 kilos of pure, uncut cocaine, straight from the processing plant. We got it at a discounted price, buying  direct from the producers, cutting out various middle men in the process. The cost was $900 a kilo ($55,000 total), which would gross us around $1,350,000 in the States. It was agreed that this would be split between us and our investors, the cut depending on the percentage of cash invested and consideration for risks involved. As for myself, I’d be expecting extra compensation for my role in the operation.

Of course, none of this was taking into account the various expenses we’d had to pay in order to finance this expedition. For example, plane fare, lodging, meals, etc. Then, the lackeys to mule the cocaine out of the jungle and onto the plane. A plane costing us $1,500 plus tip for a one-eyed pilot in a V-Tailed Beechcraft Bonanza with barely an upload of 1,200 lbs. The boat to Mexico and payments to sapos (snitches) to keep their mouths shut, paying others to give out misinformation to the authorities as well. Plus, there’d been bribes and payoffs and other costs on top of everything else, all of this adding up to one costly venture.

With any luck, it would all pay off, and we’d return to the States as rich men.

Of course, this is all depended on whether we weren’t killed in a plane crash or shot down by the FARC guerrillas we’d neglected to pay for safe travel. There was also the Colombian military that hopefully hadn’t been tipped off by some informant. And let us not forget the possibility of the cartels discovering we’d cut them out of the deal, buying directly from the source instead, as this would surely prove deadly for all involved.

Everything would be fine if we were fortunate enough to make it out of Colombian airspace alive. The possibility of peril began anew once we hit the ground in Panama.

***

Lightning flashes and thunder booms all around us while the engine on this deathtrap wails in desperation, fighting against the storm’s persistent gales. Meanwhile, Salinas goes on singing along with Los Tigres Del Norte with hardly a care in the world, oblivious to the obvious danger.

It is then that Johnny lurches up behind me and drops a golfball-sized rock of cocaine into my hand, popping open a bottle of beer for me as well.

“Is there anything else I can get for you, El Rey (King)?” he asks. “Maybe a cigarette or parachute?”

“You think this is hilarious, don’t you?” I yell over the distressed engine and crashing thunder. “You never take anything seriously!”

“You are serious enough for both of us,” Johnny says. “Always worrying for problems that have not yet even happened. You make these bad ideas in your own head!”

“Listen hermano,” he continues, “we have been carnales for many years. Together we have been robbed, beaten, shot, stabbed, arrested, put in prison and left without a single peso to our names. We survived two whole days in the ocean when our boat sank. You remember that? You know why the sharks no chew you up? Because you are a sour taste, more bitter than limones. Always looking at the bad side of life.”

I shoot him a warning glare, but he just keeps on preaching on.

“Besides,” he says, “you are too mean to die! And I am not quite ready yet myself. You cannot die, Santi. Porque El Dios (God) think maybe you no can be trusted, and El Diablo (the Devil) tiene miedo (is afraid) you take over. You have nowhere to run hermano! So tranquillo, forget all your worries for now. The sun, it shines somewhere.”

Before I can offer my rebuttal to his little pep talk, we are swallowed up in an abyss of darkness even blacker than the one we’d just been flying through. The Beechcraft Bonanza groans with the sounds of our imminent death. In its seemingly final act of resistance, the plane exerts its last ounce of strength against the storm.

***

It is then that we burst through a thick wall of clouds and into the brightest, bluest sky we have ever seen.

At the sight of this, Johnny just shrugs his shoulders, smiles and begins to laugh, applauding the miraculous event.

“Que Rico!” I scream.

“Time is our friend and we have more money than God, carnale,” Johnny says. “Call it luck of the I wish.”

“Irish,” I attempt to correct him. “It’s luck of the Irish.”

“I thought you were Italian-Mexican. You are Irish too?”

“Ya Johnny, I’m a little bit of everything.”

“That’s true,” he agrees. “Some pinche grunon pendejo (fucking grumpy asshole) I think you have in you as well.”

Acting as if we hadn’t almost just been killed, Salinas casually announces that we still have close to an hour or so until we land at Isla del Rey (King’s Island), off the Pacific coast of Panama.

“That’s your island, si?” Johnny says, pointing at me.

“Okay, just stop with it already.”

***

There should be a truck waiting for us to unload the cache and transport us to the boat we are taking to Mexico. It’s close to two days there but better than flying because we aren’t on anyone’s radar. Just a fishing boat drifting on the waves, in search of its next big catch.

I hand over the rock of cocaine to Salinas and he immediately crushes it in his hand. Then, with one quick motion, he lifts his palm to his nose and inhales with the force of a Hoover vacuum. I give him the beer as well, seeing as how he deserved a small reward for getting us safely through the storm. Even Dorothy herself would’ve pissed her drawers making it through that one.

With the coast all but clear, I resort back to my usual rule of no drugs, alcohol, or shenanigans while on the job. Johnny is familiar with my modus operandi, chugging his beer behind me in an act of defiance.

He gives me a relaxed salute and a thumbs up. I can only offer a weak smile in return, lacking the enthusiasm to debate his earlier remarks at this moment. Best to just let him  believe his comments were a valid description of my character. I’ve gotta let him win every once in a while.

There are times when I want to terminate our friendship, end things and go it all alone. Although, I’d most likely wind up missing his dumb ass, along with his hysterical laughter. I’d probably worry about his welfare constantly, wondering who was looking out for him. There always seems to be some type of imminent catastrophe hanging over our heads whenever we undertake an operation like this as partners. Events of cataclysmic proportion materialize from somewhere beyond my ability to offer a rationial explanation.

In most cases it happens by no fault of our own actions, but either way, somehow we always manage to make it through in the end.

There is one thing that I’m absolutely convinced of concerning Johnny Rico: he would defend me to his death if the situation called for it. He would take a bullet for me, and I would do the same for him. Trust is a rare commodity in this business. There’d been times in my past I was the only friend I had, and I wasn’t so sure he was one I could trust. But, somehow I’d come to trust Johnny of all people with my very own life.

Perhaps he really was my good-luck charm after all.

Talk about smooth sailing from here on out. Long, thin wisps of cirrus scratch the sky like angels keying the paint job on God’s celestial Buick.

Meanwhile, Salinas has begun to sweat profusely, his eyes owl-sized, his mouth bone dry from all the coke he’d just inhaled.

“Dame un otra cerveca patron!” (Give me another beer boss) he demands.

Johnny responds immediately, grabbing two from the cooler and popping off the caps with his teeth. I’m uncomfortable with them both slamming beers in cockpit, but it was my fuck up giving Salinas the coke and a beer in the first place.

Johnny just stares at me, contemplating my reaction to their antics. He’s expecting me to voice my objections, but I remain quiet without expressing these concerns.

At long last, I am finally able to relax. A couple of hours to go before we reach Panama.

Incidentally, there’s a new President who has seized power in Panama recently, Manuel Noriega. It’s rumored that he’s partial to those of us who dabble in the import/export game. We’ll soon find out for ourselves.