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Thursday, January 2, 2020
Epilogue
Table of Contents
Author's Note: The Prologue has been rewritten. To understand this Epilogue, you must go back and reread the Prologue. The change does not affect the rest of the narrative. I apologize for the inconvenience. REREAD PROLOGUE>>
"That's it," said the Father, when he got to the part where Tony Varg - Von Mueller, died and the familial trio – bound together by the doctrines of escapology, not biology, were lugging the Gasden Motel caretaker’s body back across the river. He had hoped to let his saga vaporize slowly, gracefully, into the imagination of his listener, where it could provide fodder for future contemplation, but the passenger was still raptly tuned in, obviously expecting more and forcing this crude, clumsy punctuation on the tail end of a beautiful tale. The Father was disappointed.
The Father had perfectly synchronized the speed of the car with the speed of the narrative. They were just a few miles from Nogales now, climbing into the Patagonia foothills here in the western Chihuahuan desert. In the fading light the surrounding scrub was colorless and skeletal, its bare fingers like the ghostless bones of invaders northern and southern, past and present. It was the fitting setting for the end of the story, a nexus of colliding worlds and cultures, but either the passenger had been an unworthy audience, or the Father had failed as a storyteller. The mighty itinerant bard Homer looked down from Olympus with a scowl of disapproval.
“That’s it?” said the passenger, surprised. He seemed equally disappointed by the performance.
The Father curled up into a protective cocoon behind the wheel, bracing himself for the critique to come. Perhaps this young man was an even less appreciative audience than his eternally unsatisfied daughters.
“You were expecting more? The rest is up to your imagination. All I know for sure is that they are still hiding down in Mexico.”
The passenger had to admit to himself that this man spun a damn good yarn, but he had come to the conclusion that that was all it was – a fable, a folk tale conveying a cautionary message. Yes, it had elements of the truth - if he was to do a Google search he would most certainly find many hits about a Roll Bridge massacre, but he found it really hard to believe that this prototypical suburban WASP behind the wheel of this automobile would have access to the details the news media could not provide. Who were his clandestine sources?
“Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the story. But what was that mysterious object the government was after Mike Gasden for?”
The Father looked over with lowered eyebrows, as if to say really?
“I will leave that one for you to contemplate, my young friend. Your company has been a pleasure through this interminable desert, but Nogales is up ahead, and I’m afraid we must part ways soon. Where would you like me to let you off?”
The passenger wasn’t quite ready to make the hyperspace leap into Mexico. He wanted to think about a couple of things first, and he preferred to do it a safe distance from the prying eyes of border security. “Right here is perfect,” he said.
“Here? Seriously?”
“Yes please.”
The Father became a bit circumspect. Up until now the passenger had behaved like a perfect gentleman. Was this the part where he pulls over in the darkness and the hitchhiker turns into a fiendish, soul-sucking ghoul, like Dan Akroyd in that Twilight Zone movie, where they were rolling down a dark road, merrily singing along to The Midnight Special, when Akroyd transformed into a murderous, bone-crunching beast?
But he still did not detect any bad vibes percolating off this young man. His companion for the last 450 miles was a wayward soul but a good one, an inquisitive spirit searching for answers, much like he had been in his youth.
He found a safe shoulder on the curving highway and stopped the car.
“Thank you,” said the young man as he got out of the Auto without growing fangs and feasting on the Father’s flesh. “I’m pretty sure I took you out of your way a little.” The passenger was confident that this man was not a resident of Nogales. He just didn’t look the part. He was guessing Southern California.
“The pleasure has been all mine,” said the Father. “Good luck to you.”
The traveler moved down a sandy wash meandering between steep hills, where he took refuge beneath the boughs of a hackberry. He was not a stranger to such sanctuaries and immediately dozed off, to dream the dreams of the prophets that had preceded him there.
When rosy-fingered dawn was kissing the horizon he arose and tread down the slot canyon some more. Although he had know way of knowing it, it was the same ravine combed by Dustin Diesel’s deputies in the story he had been recently regaled with. As he slogged along ambivalently, the youth remained uncertain of his future path. He was familiar with this canyon, knowing that it lay in an almost perfect north-south line, as if laid out on paper with a compass, but which way should he go? Though he was a Dreamer – having been brought into this country as a boy before being deported with his family, he still considered Mexico home. Yet his was a soul in limbo, he was a man without a country. Mexico rejected his gringo-accented Spanish, and the US rejected his dark-haired ethnicity. What would be his choice? Should he flip a coin? He didn’t have one.
So the traveler continued tentatively northbound, making meager, reluctant progress as the sun peered over the top of the canyon walls. He decided to take refuge in the heat that would soon become stifling, and in the bend of the wash he found a thorny thicket that looked like just the ticket. Approaching with the caution of the seasoned desert dweller before the unforgiving spines of mesquite and its spindly relatives, the young man perceived a peculiarly colored clump clinging to the end of one of the thorny branches.
He crept in to investigate this uncharacteristic, unidentified lump of fuzz. For a time he had actually studied botany at Unison in Hermosillo, before the economic circumstances of time and place succeeded in forcing him and his college education to the desperate extreme of an illegal border crossing. Still being a scientific soul, however, he was interested in finding out what species of mold or fungus might be growing on that tree.
The young man approached for a closer look. From about three feet out he could see that the shaggy ball was colored in a curious shade that was not quite orange, not quite red, but more like the nauseous tone of vomited spaghetti sauce. In the rapidly increasing illumination of the sun the clump gave off the appearance of hair - human air. He yearned to examine this curiosity more closely, but dare he touch it?
After stroking his unshaven stubble for a moment he decided he had hit rock bottom and had nothing left to lose. The situation called for boldness. He raised himself up on outstretched toes and pulled down the hairy blob.
It turned out to be not exactly hair but a wig, a very well-made wig, you could say the biggest, best wig in American history. He was no expert on faux follicles, but he could tell. He just knew. What a score. It was just the thing for his prematurely receding hairline.
Feeling emboldened, the traveler shook out the debris that had accumulated in the hairpiece, then slapped the wig on his head. Immediately he felt transformed. He felt like a different being. "They're going to love me here now," he said, "they're really really going to love me."
With lightened steps the emigrant now made his choice. He went back into the wash, adjusted the hairpiece tighter around his skull, then worked his way further North, toward unclaimed opportunities beyond the Gadsden Purchase.
THE END
Photo by Robert Bushell, Public Domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons:https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbpphotos/46293165494/
Chapter 40
Table of Contents
Little Fucker wrapped his arms madly about Tony's legs, like the giant squid embracing the Nautilus in its tenacious tentacles. As Tony picked up the boy and kissed him on the cheek, a little tear flowed down his own. Marisol walked over to Tony, wiped the tear off with a delicate finger, then kissed her Uncle.
"You came back. You saved us."
Mike got in on the act, enveloping Tony in an embrace that exceeded the usual bro hug specifications. "Hey, no groping!" Tony warned. "Don't try none of that faggy shit on me!" Then he cuffed Mike affectionately on the back.
When the four finally disentangled themselves, Tony looked down upon the inert lump of his brother. "Hey bro," he said. "I guess this is how you wind up when you get too full of yourself." These words would be Danny Valero's eulogy.
"You crossed the river," Mike said. "How does it feel?"
"You call that a fucking river? It felt great. I never felt so good in my whole fucking life. Now you three need to get the hell out of here. I drew you a map to one of Danny's tunnels. You can use it to cross the border and lay low for a while, until they sort things out over here."
As Tony pulled the map from his pocket, a crumpled envelope followed. Mike recognized it as the letter the Herr had given him. "I forgot about that," Tony said. "What does that old asshole want?"
"How are we going to hide in Mexico if they took my cash?" Mike asked, ignoring the Herr’s letter.
"Your money is back at the garage," said Marisol. "My uncle, my other uncle, gave it to me. He trusted me to the end. Surprisingly, this doesn't make me feel guilty right now. Is that bad? He exploited me. He ruined me!"
Marisol made a move like she intended to kick Danny's corpse but Tony held her back. "Let it go. He's gone. You're not ruined. You're starting over with this buttwipe here, if that makes you feel any better."
"Wait a minute," said Mike. "You're talking like we're running off to Mexico without you. You're not leaving us again, you're coming too. You cross rivers now. There's no excuse."
"Okay, okay," answered Tony. "Just let me sit down a minute. I'm a little tired. I got a little worked up back there."
Tony lumbered down toward the river, where he sat down in the shade of a stubborn, tenacious cottonwood that refused to be choked out by the tamarisk. Here he took the Herr's letter out of the envelope. "What does that shriveled up old fart want?" he said, and started to read. His eyes opened wide like Venus flytraps as soon as he beheld the opening line. The Herr’s English frequently mixed with his Teutonic tongue, but although Tony didn’t know German the translation was pretty clear.
My dearest Sohn,
Yes, that ist right und it is time you knew the truth. All diesem years we have kept this ein secret von dir but I don't know how much time I have left, so I need to tell you.
Tony laughed - his pop even wrote with an accent. Wait, his pop?
I love you mein Sohn and I always wanted to be your Vater but could not. For a while your Muter und Ich had a love affair, but she would not marry me because of some ridiculous vow she made to her Vater on his death bed that she would never marry ein pinche gabacho like me.
Instead, she married that no gut Vargas man whose name you unfortunately carry. You no longer have to wear that name, you may now anoint yourself with the proud Prussian Junker title of Von Müeller, whose proud Familie blood flows through your veins!
I always tried to do right by you, mein Sohn. That is why when the cruel world rejected you, I always let you stay with me at the motel. If I was ein bisschen grouchy mit you it was because I was worried about you. In my will, I have left everything I have to you.
I love you mein Sohn. I will see you in heaven, that is if Gott will allow an old Stuka pilot like me to go. If not, I will fight my way in.
Love,
Your Vater, Josef Von Müeller
Tony stared blank faced at the letter, unaware that Mike was looking over his shoulder.
"We should get out of here," Mike said.
With a flimsy smile, Tony said "I don't care where you bury me, because I don't belong to no place. Just make sure they put the right fucking name on my grave." Then Tony Vargas handed the letter over his shoulder to Mike, lay down in the shade of the Cottonwood, and died.
Mike knew right away that Tony had not closed his eyes to take a nap. All carbon-based organisms understand the finality of death without having to take a pulse or check for breath on a mirror. Tony had crossed the river and the river had collected his soul, as promised.
There is also a certain sense of fatality among living organisms when they realize that the dead have fulfilled their duties in the world of the living. The greatest intensity of wailing, weeping, and garment rending is generally reserved for fallen children, or for mothers or fathers who leave behind unattended children. Perhaps it is callous to say, but the death of Tony Vargas, though a sad affair, was met with respectful resignation, rather than deep grief. The man had no attachments, absolutely nothing anchoring him to the Earth. He had done what he had been ordained to do, to put this little cut and paste family on the road to its destiny.
Marisol and Little F had now gathered alongside Mike over the body of their fallen hero. They all realized what had happened, and understood that it was meant to be. No attempts at resuscitation were necessary. Tony Vargas had shot his Earthly load and then, like with those Striggy’s girls he had often entertained, moved on.
Little Fucker rubbed his first tears from his eyes, then as he lifted his fingers from his face beheld a sparkling stream where none had been before, flowing in at right angles to the Gila. Over on yonder bank of this flow stood his mother, dressed in a spotless, shimmering robe of rich material. She waved to him with a gleaming smile, the type he had never seen upon her face while she was on this side of the river. She stood in the shade of a broad-branched tree, beneath which was a well. Little F knew this was the Terebinth of which she so often spoke.
"Fakhir," she said to him over and over. It was the boy’s name, rendered with its true pronunciation.
Because he had his eyes fixed across the stream at his mother, Little Fakhir failed to notice that Tony had risen from his body and was walking toward his mother. He moved across the river without seeming to sink in, or even wet his feet. When he had crossed over, Fakhir’s mother stretched out her robe for him in the shade. Tony nodded his head gravely. Nobody had ever done such a thing for him, before.
"Fakhir," she said to Tony, gesturing toward her son on the other side.
Tony looked over to the point indicated. "Fakhir? Fucker? Oh that's too good! I can't stand it! No wonder!" That ridiculous Daffy Duck laugh lit up his face again.
Fakhir walked to the edge of the river, wanting to join them over there, but his mother held up a hand to stop the boy.
“Not yet kid," Tony said. "Not yet, but soon enough. Believe me, soon enough."
The woman motioned Tony to recline in the shade of the Terebinth. "Hey, if this is Muslim heaven where are all the virgins?" he laughed. "Aren't there supposed to be 40 fucking virgins or something, or did I go to hell?"
As Tony joked and carried on, the woman drew water and washed his weary feet. The scene gradually began to fade, the veil between the two sides of the river lowering back into place. Fakhir held up his tiny fingers and waved goodbye.
"Soon enough kid, soon enough,” Tony said again.
"Who's he waving to?" asked Mike. He thought he knew the answer but it was ridiculous to give voice to it.
"I don't know, but he definitely sees something we don't," said Marisol. She looked down at her Uncle. "He looks so peaceful. I wish we could bury him right at this spot. What do you think he died from?"
"There's no name for it," said Mike. Then he gathered up his little family, carried Tony Vargas’s vacated earthly vessel with them into one of the gangster trucks, and they got the hell out of the Gadsden Purchase, for good.
NEXT>>
Image: By Giacomo del Po - http://www.artnet.de/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=176C54067DAB185B, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6797515
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Welcome to Gasden Purchase!
Table of Contents: The title is not a typo you read it right. Although this is marginally a tale of The Gadsden Purchase it is mostly ...
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Table of Contents Author's Note: The Prologue has been rewritten. To understand this Epilogue, you must go back and reread the ...
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Table of Contents The assemblage gathered in the clearing of the Tamarisk grove gave the impression of a hastily convened wedding part...
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Table of Contents Little Fucker wrapped his arms madly about Tony's legs, like the giant squid embracing the Nautilus in its tenac...