Multiplex Fandango (8 page)

Eventually they left the restaurant and walked the beach ending up at Fisherman's Square where the locals gathered to pray for divine intervention.
The statue rising from the middle of the expanse was so impressive it was out of place in the dusty Mexican port town.
One hundred feet tall, it seemed more permanent than the stone upon which it had been built, as if it’d risen through the earth’s crust rather than been built upon it.
Cut from a great block of metal, a ten-story fisherman sat upon the back of a giant shrimp, the legs and antenna of the crustacean wrapping about the man’s limbs like tentacles.
The detail of the figures was such that they appeared ready to resume life, the monster shrimp returning to the waves to be hunted by the Poseidon-like Mexican fisherman.
But it was more than that.
Their combative embrace held a sort of serene camaraderie, as if each depended upon the other to survive; more partners than adversaries.

Thomas and June stopped before the statue, looking up and up until they spied the man's Don Quixote head framed by a Milky Way halo in the wide night sky.
Several fishermen had gathered nearby.
Some prayed silently.
Others left fruit at the base of the statue.
Still others drank quietly with an eye towards the shrimp.
An ancient woman wrapped in layers of a red and orange shawl stood lonely vigil, her weathered face upturned, as if the man would come alive and speak with her if she only waited long enough.

Traveling up the coast from the
Chiapas
States, he’d been in Puerto Peñasco for a little more than a day before he’d met June.
One unifying theme in all the places he'd visited seemed to be the Cult of Catholicism.
He'd grown up around churches in
America
, but Mexicans took it to another level, one that would put even Southern Baptists to shame.
They worshiped Mary as if she were a goddess herself.
Jesus reigned on every corner.
Whitewashed walls, mud-daubed hovels and Spanish mission-style buildings were adorned with evidence of Catholic worship, as if each architectural creation rising above the earth was its own monolithic prayer to Jesus, Mary and Jehovah.

Most of the places along the coast were little more than replicas of themselves, but this town had a different feel.
The same Catholic cultism was everywhere, but added to that was an older feel, as if it had been rooted in the earth since creation.
He hadn't been able to put his finger on it until just now, but looking at the statue made him realize that the people in this town were older, much older.
The old woman in the shawl marked her age with a deeply creviced face and eyes like sunken marbles.
He'd read that the town had been a fishing village even before the Spanish came to the land.
Somehow that age translated to reality.
The age of the place, the way the sun fell into the sea every night, and this monolithic statue, separated this town from all the rest.

"I wonder how long that's been there," he said.

June squeezed his hand.
"You'll be moving on soon.
When's the last time you saw your mother?
She sounds like a wonderful woman."

"Hold on.
No need to rush me out of here.
I thought I'd stay awhile."

"There's a hard line between living here and visiting.
If you're visiting, then there's a time to leave.
Maybe now is that time."

"What's the hurry?” He grinned, hoping it would be contagious.
“Besides, I kind of like it here."

"You're staying because of me, aren't you?"

He hesitated but a moment.
"Of course I am.
You're the best thing to happen to me in months.
Years,” he hurriedly added.
“I thought I'd hang out, but if you don't want me, hell."

She stared at him, her eyes wide pools of fear, but then something happened and she looked away.
The soft liquid pools hardened to stone.
Her lips made a thin line.
"Then leave.
I don't want you here."

He'd only been testing her, but her response cut him.
It cut him deep.
His face began to burn.
"I can leave tomorrow," he said.

***

The tepid temperature of the water surprised him.
South towards the entrance of the
Bay
of
California
where the
Sea
of
Cortez
and the
Pacific Ocean
meet, the water was cool and refreshing.
He'd surfed there six weeks ago and would go back in a heartbeat.
Yet here, only a few hundred miles north, the water here was almost bathtub warm, and not at all comfortable.

But then the water was the least of his worries.
The rope attached from his ankle to the statue far beneath the waves was what had spooked him the most.
He hadn’t seen the statue, but when one of the others had asked what they were to be tethered to, the quick Spanish answer of the old man who drove the truck said something about it being like the statue in the town only larger.
Looking around at the eleven other swimmers, he wondered which one would die this day.
He knew it could be him, but the whole thing didn't seem real.

What had she said?

"I did it three times.
I wanted to die the first two and was pissed when the boat came to take me away.
After all, why was I still alive?
Why was I the one to carry on the memory of the living?
I didn't want it.
I didn't deserve it."

"But you went back?
Why'd you do that?"

"The third time was soothing.
I didn't care at that point.
I'd met twenty men and been fucked eleven times.
I'd written letters to my mother that I'd never mail.
I'd even made a video on my cell phone that was my last will, testament and fuck you to the world.
I think I survived because I wanted to die."

She'd seen his face which had puckered in surprise and had caressed it as she straddled him once more.
She took him in and moved, her eyes seeking a land between reminiscence and heaven.
"No.
That's not really true.
I think I survived because I finally understood that I didn't have to pay for it."

"Pay for what?"

"Living," she sighed as yet another orgasm shook her. “Living other people’s lives.”

After a time when she'd cleaned up and they lay together in the bed, he'd thought about what she’d said and about what she'd gone through and what he hadn't and couldn't help but voice the words on his mind.
"It’s easy to forget the living have their own weight to carry.”

She nodded in a way that reminded him of John Wayne in
They Were Expendable
, as if the knowledge had its own weight and brought his head low so he couldn’t look someone directly in the eye.
The image was helped by her imitation of the actor as he said in his patented slow drawl, "Don't discount dumb luck.
We've all seen assholes walking around that should have been killed at birth."

He tried to smile at the r
emark, but found it difficult,
wary that she might have been talking about him.

Seeing her mistake she smiled sheepishly and retracted some of what she'd said.
"I mean that those who should have died are alive and vice versa.
Not everyone is meant to live."

"So you don't believe in a higher power?"

"When it comes to living, maybe, but not when it comes to dying.
I saw too many friends die."
Then she'd told him the story of Jill and her other friends and the IED and how her best friend's foot had landed in her lap.

Looking towards the shore, he tried to spot the Black Dolphin where he'd sat just three days ago when he'd first seen the swimmers.
He polled his thoughts.
Was it all because of her?
He'd been drifting in
Mexico
for months, looking for what he did not know.
Yet look he did, moving and flitting like an ash caught on the winds.
Was it she he'd been looking for?
Or perhaps was it a reason for it all to be.

The shirt she'd worn that first day had drawn him to her more than her looks.
He'd come to find out that she'd spent the previous two years off and on in various suburbs of Baghdad, trying to quell dissident factions and stay alive as a sergeant in the U.S. Army.
On her last trip home to
Spartanburg
, she'd decided she wasn't going back to the war and had fled to
Mexico
.
That had been nine months ago, six of which she'd spent in Puerto Peñasco.

After they'd seen the statue in the square, they'd found a coffee shop.
She’d apologized for saying what she’d said, then had grabbed his hand and held it.
Neither of them wanted to end the evening, so the warmth of the strong Mexican coffee was the perfect defense against the cold onshore breeze and the sleep that waited to ensnare them.

"Why is it you didn't go back?" he’d asked after she'd told him the story.

June shrugged, pausing only to blow on the surface of her coffee and push a few strands of her straw-colored hair behind her ear.

The next question was a minefield, so instead of asking, he spun it into a truism.
"I know I'd be scared if I went back.
There's so much death.
So much random death.
I don't know if I could take not being able to see it coming."

"Some people like that about death.
They like it to be a surprise.
They say the waiting and the knowing is worse than the actual event itself."

He looked at her and blinked.
"Would you rather it was a surprise?"

"I'd rather not die at all."
She smiled briefly.
"But that's not your question, is it?
There are those who are so worried that they want to control everything around them.
You know the types.
They even want to control death, as if such a force could be controlled.
Me?
I like to know what I'm getting into.
Once I understand things, I can accept what fate deals me. Bottom line: do I care if I die?
Yes.
Am I going to spend all day thinking about it? No.”"

"So you believe in fate?"

“The word is too inadequate.”
She shook he
r
head.
"It's not that simple.
I believe in signs.
I
don't know if that's fate, or G
od, or what.
You wanted to know why I didn't go back?
I'll tell you.
We were driving through
Haditha
District in our HUMMER, coming back from delivering medicine to a family who'd lost their father to a police station bombing when it happened.
You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"Uh... I'm not sure."

"Signs.
Like when you want to place a bet and you look up and see a number you've never noticed before.
Or like when a deer zips across the road making you slow down, only to discover that had you taken the next curve at your original speed, you would have plowed into the car that had already overturned.
Signs."

"Yeah.
I get it.
Signs."

"So we were coming back when I just happened to look over and watch as a man leaned back and fired his RPG directly at us.
I was close enough to see the fervor in his eyes.
I was close enough to see the grin of satisfaction as our gazes met across the trail of the rocket heading right for me.
I was close enough to see a birthmark near his temple.”
She closed her eyes as if reliving the moment.
“I was close enough to know that I'd been murdered," she whispered.

He stared at her for a time, then shook his head.
"Jesus.
What happened?"

"Nothing," she shrugged and opened her eyes.
"The rocket-propelled grenade bounced off the Hummer.
It never exploded.
I don't know who was more surprised, me or the guy who tried to kill me."

"And you took this as a sign?"

"Most definitely.
This was a warning shot across my bow.
It told me to get the hell out.
A week later I came home on mid-tour leave, and well, I'm here, instead of there."

Now that her tale was done, she fixed him with a steady gaze, her blue eyes daring recrimination.
But he had none.
His tale was worse than hers.
At least she'd left for a reason.
Thomas was a deserter too, and he realized that he had no reason other than his own fear.