It was only June, but Mike was already melting in the cruel Cornudo sun. It definitely wasn't the same sun he had grown up with in San Diego. That sun had taken breaks. That sun sometimes disappeared to take a nooner behind a thick layer of stratus clouds. That sun was an easy-going beach bum that allowed a cool ocean breeze to tickle its feet. It had no real work ethic. But now, here in the Gadsden Purchase, it was like the planet had two stars. There was the laid back beatnik west coast hipster sun of the beach regions, and over here dwelled his evil Nazi twin brother, governing his fiefdom like a concentration camp, coursing over the desert pissing fire on the tired, the poor, the huddled masses.
The Arizona Public Schools had officially released their hostages for the summer, so everyday Mike would stand in the parking lot and watch in scorn and disapproval as thousands of Zonies fled westward toward the ocean, where they would raise the temperature of the beaches by sheer friction. Sometimes, due to one part boredom and three parts delirium, Mike would flip them the bird, but people rarely looked at him askance in their haste to flee the furnace. If a passing motorist did deign to glance his way, their reaction was something along the lines of look at that delirious loser probing the weather with his finger, as if today could be any cooler than yesterday. What a deluded jerk.
Mike called his Dad to wish him a happy father's day. His Dad smugly asked Mike how the weather was, as he complained about the heat wave in Chula Vista, where it was 85 degrees. He inquired if Mike had seen they were predicting 120 for Yuma by Tuesday. The subtle message behind Mike's Dad's persistent meteorological theme was when would Mike seek professional help for his mental illness?
At night Mike's dick would also give him grief. "We were doing really good there for a while boss, what happened? Couldn't you at least indulge me a little with a little fapping?"
"Shut up and go to sleep. Don't you ever think about anything except sex?"
"Sometimes, when I have to pee really bad."
"Is that all women are to you, sex objects?"
"Hey, if the hole is big enough and wet enough, I'm good. Listen to you, Mr. Sanctimonious. Sometimes I have to ask myself if you really are gay, like everybody says."
Mike sat up in bed and looked straight down at his pecker, which was illuminated in the glow of the motel sign outside. It's single eye popped out of Mike's shorts and looked at him accusingly. "Really?" Mike said. "This is coming from you? Wouldn't you be the first one to know? Tell me, have I ever dipped you in the fudge fondue?"
Mike's dick had to think about this for a minute but, as usual, it came up with a stinging rebuttal. "True, but that doesn't mean anything. You could be one of those celibate queers, like Morrissey. Instead of going through the emotional and sociological trauma of being openly gay you just renounce sex altogether."
Mike slapped his dick hard with his pillow. "Shut up! I'm not gay. But maybe I will go celibate, just to piss you off! Maybe I'll join the priesthood! How would you like that! You're an animal! Keep your mouth shut. I can't sleep with all that chatter."
So it was that Mike mostly went sleepless through his endless round of days, coursing through the meaningless orbit of his life like that callous Cornudo sun that never seemed to set. The heat weighed on him heavily, but his real burden was the realization that he was a complete and utter failure with women. His only solace was watching Little Fucker get bigger, but the boy's growth was like that of the baby Springbok - the baby beast who knows it must get on its legs and start springing fast, or be eaten. In other words, Mike went through the dreary motions of his life with the sad realization that he and the kid´s days of being together were numbered.
"Cut und run. Cut und run," the Herr kept saying in his head, but Mike was too stubborn to listen.
Perhaps it was a mirage, perhaps it was but a dream, but one day there she was. As was his habit, Mike had risen out of bed early to enjoy the few cool moments allotted to Cornudo before the sun delivered its blazing vengeance. It was then that he saw Marisol, his own personal sun, rising above the southern horizon.
She came forward on foot, lugging a stuffed backpack. Her olive-green T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and her hair was piled atop her hair like the nest of some desert rodent. She looked like she had slept beneath a tree, but her dulled eyes showed no sign of the divine revelation these nocturnal interludes in the wastelands typically inspire. When she spotted Mike watching her from the parking lot she made a visible effort to skirt around him, but Mike rushed over to her side of the pavement.
"Marisol, what are you doing?" he beseeched.
"Backpacking, Mike. What does it look like?"
He crept up to her like a whipped pup, blocking her way. Still being cognizant of her right hook, however, he kept a safe distance. ¨Marisol I´m sorry. I swear to God I never looked at anything related to you on the Internet. Why don´t you come back? I love you.¨
A brief expression of tenderness flashed across her face, like a solar flare that soon sputters out. ¨I believe you Mike. But that incident served to point out the futility of our relationship. I´m no good for you. I´m damaged goods. You deserve a good woman.¨ Three goods in a row and none of them good, thought Mike.
She pushed past him, brushing him with a sweaty arm that felt as sweet and tender as ambrosia.¨
¨Why don´t you come over later?¨ he pleaded. ¨We can talk this over.¨
Marisol picked up her pace toward the gas station. "Forget about me Mike, for your own good.¨ A bad good again. I'm toxic. I’m man poison. I’m a used up sperm rag. Grow some dignity. You’re weirding me out, Mike.”
Mike thought about chasing her, but then he would have to deal with Danny over there at the gas station, into said sanctuary she had disappeared with her cargo. With helpless longing Mike kept his eyes focused that direction, until he watched her emerge from the gas station sans backpack, then walk home. Not once did she turn back and look his way. His jaw went stupidly slack, then he scurried into his own hole, to take refuge from the cruelty that was not limited to the sun, in this hell of a landscape he had exiled himself to, as if for penance.
Turned out he wasn´t going to get around dealing with Danny anyway. That same day, as it cooled down to a chilly 105, Mike was sitting in the office scrolling through his emails, dusting off the little cyber folders, trying not to think about anything. Because it was too early to drink, this was the only other way to numb his mind. Coincidentally or not, here came Danny Valero, walking proprietarily across his parking lot, holding his jacket collar shut as against an arctic wind. In his free hand he carried another list. "Hide, Fucker!" Mike commanded, and Little F hid.
Well, at least this will ease my misery for a while, Mike thought.
Danny walked back into the office and sat down without being invited. On each visit he acted more like he owned the place. Mike didn't like it.
Without even so much as a good morning or good afternoon, like there was any difference when it had already broken 100 by breakfast, Danny pushed the paper across Mike's desk. "Get on it," he said.
Mike breathed in slowly through his nostrils, like an irritated rhinoceros.
"Excuse me?"
Danny laughed. "What? Am I supposed to say please?"
"It's a good place to start." Mike picked up the paper. "These are banks," he said. "Sonoyta Savings and Loan. Gila Valley Farmer's Trust. Pima Consolidated Money Management. One is an insurance company. What the hell is this?"
Danny leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "These creeps have to keep their money somewhere. We need to go straight for the source."
"I'm not hacking any banks. I'm not going to skim off innocent people's accounts. Besides that, I don't like your attitude."
Danny pursed his lips and clenched his fists. He became a different animal. Mike saw him as he really was, a coiled ball of violence that could easily wreck this room and then wreck Mike's face. Cut und run. He had been warned.
"I'm not going to work for you anymore," Mike announced.
Danny rocked on his heels. "You're in way too deep for that. You're the computer guy who hacked those accounts. I'm an old man who can barely operate email. Everything leads to you."
Danny's reptilian eyes never shifted from Mike's face. His pupils were the empty vacuum of space. There was no starlight there. "So now you're going to turn me in if I don't do what you want? Go ahead, I can buy some pretty good lawyers. As it is, my lawyers already have documentation of everything that has taken place between you and me." That was a lie. Mike's lawyer had nothing, but it sounded plausible.
Danny leaned back in his seat. "I think you´re an ungrateful punk, after everything I've done for you. I keep those Frontier assholes away from here. Now you got the Feds sniffing around here too. Who do you think is throwing them cold trails?" He pointed a finger at his own chest. "They want to indict you. If I didn´t have your back, they would have done it already. You better be ready to run, when you don't have any more friends in the desert. It can be a very cruel place, and you're going to find out."
"Nice speech," answered Mike. It took a lot to piss him off, but once it happened he often did things that spat in the face of self-preservation. "Personally, I think we are square for your so-called favors. I'm not getting in any deeper with you. Take your list and leave. I'm done."
"You are dead and buried," Danny said as he rose slowly from his chair. "And not by me. Smith's Sonoran Safaris. Think about it. Hunting humans in the desert, for real? We are savages out here, but only Hollywood could think of something like that. You hacked a dummy Fed account. You are big time in trouble now. Only I can hide you."
Mike put a shaking hand on his desk to steady himself. Danny pulled back the list and put it inside his thick jacket. "You set me up, you asshole. You let me do that on purpose."
Danny smiled. His teeth were very clean, Mike noted, too clean to be real. "Watch your language. I don't like cursing. Cursing makes me lose my patience. My mother never allowed foul language in her presence. Can you imagine my brother Tony, the most foul-mouthed knuckle-dragger in history, was as pure as an altar boy in her presence. You better think hard, young man. I'll be around."
"Oh, I've thought hard," Mike answered. "I'm out. Goodbye."
Danny gave a little wave with his right hand and walked out with deliberation, like he held all the cards. He shut the door coolly behind, but inside he was boiling. He found it necessary to take off his jacket, for a change, but he did so casually, not exhibiting worry. In the process, the hand-written note fell out and blew over toward the motel office. Danny did not see Mike scoop it up and stash it.
Danny needed to hit something, and hit something fast.
The cartel was hounding him about a shipment intercepted at Lukeville. They blamed Danny, claiming he had been sloppy, that he had not vetted his people properly. Ever since Trump, everyone was using that word vetted. Danny hated it. His driver had gotten nervous and the customs inspectors had found the drugs in his truck, but he had not talked. To Danny, that was good vetting. The cartel disagreed. They wanted two million dollars from Danny to allow him to keep his exclusive franchise as a sub-contractor for Yuma and Pima counties. Danny explained the bank hacking scheme to them, giving his guarantee that in time they would get their their two million, plus interest. Then there were the unauthorized activities of the Frontiersmen. How was he going to pay for all these screw ups? Well, if he couldn't get it skimming off the banks he would get it from the kid himself. The kid was loaded. Danny would find a way to milk it out of him. He certainly wouldn´t get all that cash from Marisol´s milk runs.
He had to hurry. When you pissed off the cartel, you just didn't quietly go out of business, you didn't just lower your shingle from the front door. You got waxed. Damn, Danny needed to hit something.
The first something Danny saw was Marisol, laying on the couch in a skimpy pair of shorts. The heat was oppressive in Danny's house because he never ran the air conditioner, saying it could give you throat cancer. The only way to halfway tolerate the ponderous, soupy, sluggish air was to lie still and do nothing until nightfall. Like other desert critters Marisol was in a state of torpor, reducing superfluous bodily functions to survive. She had her eyes shut, little beads of moisture were dewing up on her brown skin.
Danny yanked Marisol off the couch by the hair with one hand, then flung her against the wall that had the fewest pictures of his mother. A painting of a sailboat crashed to the floor. A glass figurine fell from a side table and shattered. Marisol squealed, but in the din of humming air conditioners everywhere, who would hear? Going straight from feverish sleep to projectile hit her like a tsunami.
"Didn't I tell you to clean the house!" Danny roared. "Look at this mess! You're laying around here half naked and look at this pigsty!"
Marisol was huddled on her knees amid shattered glass, dizzy and nauseous from the blow she had taken against the wall. Danny went in again, pulling her up by the neck like a mother cat and backhanding her hard in the cheek, in a way that wouldn't leave a mark. She flew into the wall a second time with a dull thud, produced where wall met skull, then cut her bare feet on the shards on the floor. Before she should get her balance, Danny struck her in the other cheek. But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other Marisol thought, as if she was a disconnected observer watching her body, right before she collapsed in semi-consciousness to the jagged floor.
"Get up, you filthy whore! Get up, we ain't done talking!"
Danny raised Marisol by the hair again, but she was too limp to bring to her feet. All she could manage was a kneeling position, which could only be maintained by Danny pulling sharply on her lovely hair, which was thick and smooth and strong as a rope. From her exalted place on the wall, Danny's sainted mother looked down, but did not intercede for the sinners.
"Tell me something," Danny snarled in Marisol's ear as he lowered himself to one knee. "All that time you were whoring around with that kid next door you must have learned something, right? You must have sucked some kind of information out of him with your filthy little lips, something I can use against him. Otherwise, why did I waste my time sending you over there to spread your legs, which is all you are good at?"
Marisol's head was as light as the superheated thermals radiating up from the scorched earth of Cornudo. "I...don't...know...anything," she moaned. "I...swear."
Marisol had been on a few porno shoots where the dudes put their hands around her throat while fucking, as if they got their rocks off by pretending to strangle her. She had always thought that whoever enjoyed watching this sort of thing must be a sick fuck, and she had always thought the guys doing this to her in the scenes were also sick fucks, capable of strangling a girl for real. All the same she wasn´t overly concerned, because she knew they weren't going to snuff her right there on film. Yet what her Uncle Danny Valero did next did freaked her out intensely, because she couldn´t be sure if he would kill her or not.
Danny yanked up on Marisol's hair so hard she let out a loud, lonely wail of pain. Danny´s own anxiety merged with that scream and melted off into the amoeba heat bubble surrounding them. That feels good. That's just what I needed, he thought. Then, using the crook of his elbow to clasp Marisol's neck between forearm and bicep, he began a boa constrictor squeeze.
"Tell me," he growled into her ear. "You've been spending all that time over there, letting him have his way with you like the little harlot you are. I can tell you know something, don't you?"
Danny released his chokehold just enough to allow Marisol to speak. "No Uncle no!" she coughed and gasped.
"Liar! Lying little slut!" He applied pressure again. He seemed to know exactly how much pressure would make her fade out without losing consciousness. He had actually studied the art, reading a book by a former Russian agent who tortured people in the infamous Lubyanka prison. Afterward, he practiced the techniques on people, because he didn´t believed in theoretical knowledge without practical application. "You know something, don't you!"
Marisol emerged from a black pit, over which she teetered on the brink. The hole was a cavern that went into the bowels of a place that had no bottom. It expanded and contracted like a living thing, and it smelled like her Uncle's breath.
"Yes Uncle," she wheezed.
"Yes Uncle what?"
"Yes, Uncle dear."
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Photo by NASA/SDO (AIA) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, altered by blog author
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