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In Belize, Zeke delivered a box of something to a guy who lived in a big house behind a high stone wall on the edge of the jungle. He didn’t know what was in the box. He had gotten it in Mexico, near the U.S. border. Maybe it was guns, cash…Zeke didn’t really give a shit. He needed the money. It seemed like old times except it wasn’t.
The guy was like a bandito out of Central Casting, right down to the cheesy moustache. He took a liking to Zeke, wanted to take him out. Zeke figured what the hell. The bandito drove him to town in his Land Rover, over a rutted road with the jungle pressing in on both sides, huge bugs splashing against the windshield, lured by the headlights. The gearshift was a crystal knob with a picture of Jesus imbedded in it. Rosaries dangled from the rear view mirror.
The bandito brought Zeke to a noisy bar where Zeke proceeded to get very drunk. He went in the back and did a line of something. The bandito introduced him to a whore who looked about fourteen. Zeke declined. The bandito nodded sagely and disappeared, coming back with another one who looked like she had a few more birthdays to her name. Zeke felt weightless by that point, nonexistent. The preferred state to be. He let the woman take him up to a filthy, airless room, where he had a vague understanding that she was taking her clothes off. Fine. He took his clothes off, too. Then he did her up against the wall while mosquitoes ate his back, his legs, his arms.
He dreamed of snow and empty plains, and a star-filled prairie sky. He felt Casey’s fingers woven between his own, slicked with blood.
Zeke woke up in a bed that sagged in the middle, with a patched mosquito netting drawn around it. The sun was already hot and yellow at the window.
“Usted habla en su sueño,” the woman said.
“Oh,” Zeke said blearily.
“Usted tiene que ahora irse,” she said.
She showed him a bathroom that was crawling with roaches. The shower didn’t work, so Zeke splashed water on his face while the walls moved around him. He got dressed.
“Espera,” she said when he was about to leave. She pressed something into his hand. Zeke looked down and saw a laminated card with a religious picture on it. The Virgin Mary, with beams of light radiating from her halo. “Nuestra Señora le protegerá. ”
Too late, Zeke thought, but the woman looked so earnest, with her big eyes staring up at him. He suddenly felt like apologizing to her. Apologizing to her and sitting her down on the floor and telling her everything, while she looked at him with those big eyes.
Instead he said, “Gracias,” and stuck the card in his back pocket.
He went downstairs and ordered a beer. The bandito had vanished and Zeke seemed to have less money than he thought he should have had, so he ordered another. The bartender brought a plate of dry biscuits, which Zeke ignored. Around noon, he staggered out into the burning sunlight, his remaining earnings considerably depleted.
There was some sort of market going on outside. Open stalls, a crowd of people. Zeke wove amongst the crowd, standing a foot above most of them, swimming in a drunken haze. He shut his eyes and saw snow and empty plains, and a star-filled prairie sky. His fingers closed on air, opened again.
He found a guy with a truck to take him over the border, back into Mexico. At dusk, the guy let him out into another village that squatted in the jungle, another bar. Zeke was almost sober by that point, so the bar was welcome. He ate half a plate of chicken in yellow sauce, drank, smoked, fell asleep at the bar with his head on his arm.
He dreamed—had he ever dreamed like this before? He didn’t think so. Now he dreamt all the time, vividly. Maybe it was all the substances in his brain. Maybe not.
Casey, his fingers twined through Zeke’s. Those three fingers on Casey’s right hand, always weak from having been broken years before, from not healing quite right.
It was worth it, Casey said, smiling, and Zeke felt himself in tears, unable to answer.
I’m cold, Zeke, Casey said, and closed his eyes.
Casey, Zeke said, Casey, don’t…no… But there was blood between their hands and in Casey’s hair; he was lit by flashing taillights and fire, and it was too late.
“Casey?” Zeke woke up shouting. “Casey!”
“Le beben, hombre,” the bartender said. “Usted necesita dormir.”
“Yeah,” Zeke said, “Sí.”
He was brought to another stifling room, another sagging bed. No mosquito netting this time, and no woman. Well, not quite. The Virgin Mary was still in his pocket.
Our Lady will protect you.
Zeke didn’t believe that, but it was better than nothing. Collapsed on the bed, he groped in his back pocket and pulled out the card. He propped it up on the pillow next to him, laid his hand over it.
“Do your stuff,” Zeke muttered, and passed out.
He dreamed of snow and empty plains, and a star-filled prairie sky, and Casey fast asleep beside him, breathing softly; and he slept until the tropical sun rose high enough to bake the window, rousing him to another day.