The BOYS

Episode FIFTY one

The fat Chileans were cheap muddy, and unpleasant... they knew only enough English to decline any offer of a lift to San Clemente, even for twenty dollars, each, so he abandoned them at the terminal in San Diego, the Mexican bus terminal swarming with predators... lawful and unlawful... all around. Good, fuckin' riddance! It was getting near midnight - Walt was bushed and dirty, but it was a good tired, he'd even dared a "Como se llama?" to his passengers on the American side of Jamul... the gordos sat, stonily, messing up the Explorer's upholstery with mud Walt would have to wipe before he left the vehicle to be "discovered". The girl with the load... she was maybe two, three years older than Elle... replied "Dorotea".

"Hey," he said in the Town Car when the cheap, muddy Chileans were gone and the Explorer wiped down, "I'll take you up to San Clemente, but not tonight. Manaña! Got a place you can stay, I ain't gonna put any moves on you..." and he looked down at her belly. "Habla Ingles?'

"Poquito. Habla español?"

"Taquito. You hungry?"

He didn't exactly feel like returning to the DP... even if they'd stayed open late due to the criminality ghouls, free dogs or not. He bought a couple of burgers and cokes, parked in front of the stairs at AES, and helped Dorotea up. She looked from the one bed to the television, to Walt... back to the bed.

"Not that way," he said, "I'll take the sofa. La mesa," he pointed, confounding her further. "You... bed. Me... sofa." They ate their burgers and Walt kept the TV off, suspecting that some late-nite news program would be running pictures of Joe Sybco, shaven and shorn, and, though it would make no difference now, it was a luck-thing. Dorotea had only a small mesh bag and no change of clothes... he pointed to the shower and, after she'd washed both herself, her jeans and blouse and stepped out of the steam wrapped in thin panties and a fresh Alford's towel around her shoulders, Walt stripped down, let the intermingled dirt of Mexico and California lide off his body and down the drain, pulled on a pair of idiot boxers that Missy had packed for him... an old gift, with Disney portraits that caused his guest to laugh, in spite of herself. And Walt chuckled, too... "there's Donald," he said, "Pluto... Bambi... Mickey..."

It was plain old Mickey Mouse, no fangs, no cape, no sinister smirk... just a happy rodent in red pants and white gloves over his hipbone, arms wide to embrace the future.

He pointed to himself, to the sofa, to the bed. "Buenas noches," he said...

While Walt was out, the Alford's housekeeper had come in and changed the sheets, as well as the towels. Dorotea crawled under the fresh white linen as Walt padded, barefoot, towards the light...

"Es frio," she said, slapping the pillows.

"Yeah, cold... it is." He looked at the sofa, the housekeeper had taken away the blanket he'd removed under his arrangement with Kline... only a churl would ask for it back. An... Indian giver, to be politically incorrect. "You cold?"

"You cold," she said, and slapped the bed again.

"Oh," he said, "...yeah, cold. Both of us." He pointed, Dorotea nodded. "No sex, though, unless you, like, and it's alright, with..." and he patted his belly.

"No socks," she agreed, and he turned out the light, lifting the sheets and blankets on the other side of the single bed. She was warm, and he hoped he was, too...

"No socks," Dorotea repeated blinking... in the dark, he thought he could see her smile. "But I sock you cock, you want... I want sock you cock..."

And her hand brushed Mickey...

"I could, uh... maybe you could just hold the little fellow," he said. (Thinking "Free clinic, somewhere. Free willie, free clinic. Penicillin. Free clinic." Thinking about Kline, then not thinking about Kline.) "...I'd be alright with that..."

And she did... and he was.

And, then, they slept.

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Dorotea had risen and dressed by the time Walter woke at half past seven. Her white blouse and skirt were still a little grayish, and damp, but passable, as were his own clothes. "We wet!" she said and held him, they kissed for a long time, and her hair smelled like the earth.

He went to the Gas n'Go across the street, shivering and shadowboxing in the damp jeans and shirt, bought a large coffee and two maple bars and returned to divvy up breakfast while Regis and that new girl nattered and chattered on with some actor whose film would be opening at the end of the week. Then he turned down the sound and looked at the room telephone... Gandhi had said that he'd be allowed up to twenty incoming calls per week. Outgoing local calls were a buck each, long distance proportionately more. The number that Dorotea had for her cousin was in the metro LA area code... he didn't begrudge her the expense, he was just being careful with money.

While she dialed, he took stock of what he had... there was the coyote's hundred, and a bunch still left over from the title place, two-sixty something, all told. Manageable... for the time being. And, Joe’s Explorer to sleep in or sell, if he had a notion! Downright prosperity, actually! He watched her listen to the ringing out of the corner of his eye, wondering what might happen if there was nobody on the other end... the number might be no good, immigrants moved around, a lot. If... he thought, and then reordered his priorities... clinic, gas, State Office. But, if Mr. Z could cut him a check early, well... number one, a phone call, then clinic.

Somebody picked up on the other end, and Dorotea began speaking in soft, hurried Spanish, punctuated by a few gleeful squeals, so, Walt guessed, everything was kosher at that end, and, though they'd exchange numbers, it was just another case of two ships in the night, as it were. He made an addition to his list... after looking for a job that paid, at least, ten bucks an hour, but before he got a place of his own, an apartment, maybe like Louie's... go out to a couple of bars, talk to people. Nothing fancy, no expectations... just ease back into the game so that when a real job and a real life came along, he'd be ready. Sort of like spring training...

"Norma want talk jou," she was holding the phone out.

"Yeah," he said, "is this the cousin?" Norma was in Whittier and, after thanking him for looking out for her relative... and, significantly, refraining from asking any tricky questions, asked about what ought to happen next. "There's a bus that runs from San Clemente out to Long Beach, I know," he said, "I could give her a ride up to San Clemente. At Long Beach, they got buses into downtown LA, and, I guess, you can get anywhere from there..."

"There is an easier way, from Long Beach," said Norma, who spoke excellent English and sounded like Dorotea wasn't the first migrant she'd had to show the ropes. Dorotea took the phone back and wrote down some numbers and directions on the large, white empty space on an ad for a bank in one of the old papers on the bed.

"So, is you driving me to San Clemente?" she asked, and Walt nodded.

"That's the deal. If you get confused in Long Beach, or lost... perdido, comprende?... ask a driver," and he made motions of steering a wheel until she nodded, "or call your sister back She seems to know what to do... I'll get you some phone change, you'll need it for the bus, anyway. Just, you know, around the terminal... cuidado?"

"Polices around the autobuses?" she recoiled.

"Nah... the law don't give a shit about you, now that you're on the right side of the border. Sometimes they do a sweep, make a few arrests and deports, but it's political. No, you gotta watch out for guys that pick girls up at bus stations, streetcorners... you know, malos hombres, snap up a pretty young thing like wolves... rapists, criminales..."

"Si!" and Dorotea patted her belly. "Padre... vatter..."

"Yeah," Walt said, beginning to feel a little sick, unsure of himself and angry. Decent luck, and the kid would be born a citizen. Welcome to America, bastard! It wasn't her fault, it was just... but, of course, things were fucked up in Mexico, like here, or people wouldn't wriggle through mud to have a crack at working for some fine establishment like the Dog Pound...

Speaking of which...

He picked up the phone. Another dialtone, another dollar. It would suck if he got Z's answering machine... or, worse, the loopy, loony Martian lawyer... he'd have to work something out with the Hindoos about busted calls, if he couldn't find a better place to stay.

"Zweiss Interplanetary," said the man, himself. Walt's fortunes had turned, again.

"This is Walt Fales, Mr. Z," he introduced himself.

"Walter... Walter... my namesake prodigal, Louis informs me that you've been a bad boy. A very, very bad boy. You don't want to work anymore?"

"Not where they chop people's heads off. I knew goin' in that there'd be crime, holdups sometimes, angry customers... even a nut in Confederate uniforms, exposin' himself... but I can't work in a place where I got to keep watchin' my back. I mean... there was backstabbin' in places I used to work, but that was figurative... undermining accounts, creamin' commissions, favorite sons, but nobody ever tried to cut my head off. Not at five thirty-eight an hour..."

"Don't forget your raise in..." Walt heard little clicks; the Z-Man had undoubtedly called up a computer file, full of figures, and all sorts of dirt... "...in thirty-two business days."

"Yeah, well I think I can take a pass on that. Thing is, I could use a little money, and I wondered if you could, sort of... help me out, cut me my check today. Not that I'm one of those guys that get all stupid, trying to make a legal case about crap that ain't got nothin' to do with me, but, you know... just gettin' what's coming to me? What's mine?"

"Uh, certainly... what's yours should be yours. Why don't you come in..." and he heard the tapping again, the chief executive consulting his calendar, clearing his schedule... and he wondered what had become of the comely Ms Pauline, maybe she was needed elsewhere, back at Fathom. "I can make time to see you... let's say three. Fifteen hundred hours, as our boys in Afghanistan would say."

"You'll have my check... for Friday and Saturday?" Walt threw Mister Z a hint.

"Three o'clock, Mr. Fales," Zweiss said, leaving nothing but dialtone.

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At a quarter to noon, he bundled Dorotea, her mesh bag and putative American citizen into the Town Car, invested in seven more dollars' worth of cheap gas and... taking his change from a Hamilton in dimes and quarters... emptied the coins her outstretched hands. "Bus fare. Know what I'm going to do?" he said, cheerfully, as they negotiated the twists and turns of the intramontane Highway 78...

"Jou do?" she said, puzzled.

"Yeah... if you can't keep up, that's alright... I'm used to talkin' to myself. Actually better this way..." but he decided not to mention the reason, nor the probable involvement of the police. "My wife served papers to take back this car but, legally speaking, there wasn't a single word in the order about the title. Meanwhile, I got Joe's Explorer in my name... my name alone, yeah, in a couple of days. When that comes through... yeah, the cops will be pissed, just like the G-men that been on my case, but fuck 'em, too... I get ahold of the Explorer, then I take this car right up through the gate with the papers... they won't be able to stop me with court papers, I'm just complying with the law. I leave the car and the title contract right on the dashboard, go up and ring the doorbell, then split. Or I get the guy at the gate... one of your guys, I could introduce you... to sign a paper that says I come in with the Lincoln, and I go out without it, so my wife can't pull anything over on me. Though I'm not worried so much about her as about Scottie, my boy..."

"Jou fight with wife and son? Polices lookin' for jou?" Dorotea squirmed, restlessly, grasping the mesh bag tighter. "Jou are bad mans?"

"Naw..." Walt almost laughed, "just an average American. A guy with a bad streak of luck, but that's changing, knock on wood." The dashboard was a sort of hard foam, and when he made a fist and struck it, Dorotea cringed, again, and a sharp pain seared through his knuckles.

"Nothing to worry about," he tried to assure his passenger, but she remained back against the door like a cat, cornered... fur bristling. "We're just going to San Clemente, to catch you a bus. Look," he pointed over the hill as 78 crested, "that's the Marine base there, all that land on the right, and there's the ocean."

Dorotea nodded, but still kept the mesh-bag in a death-embrace.

Instead of taking Highway Five north, Walt drove on for a few blocks, then detoured through Oceanside, looking for an address he'd heard about, but never seen. There was plenty of time, and it was one nice, fuckin' day. He turned up one street, down another and then saw what he'd been afraid he'd see... a vacant lot with a big "For Sale" sign, bearing the number of a well-known commercial brokerage. Well, Judge Evans probably hadn't wasted plenty of time after Halloween evening, Mr. Z wasn't the sort to waste time, either.

"Son... of... a... bitch," he whistled softly.

"What this place?" Dorotea said, abjectly. He looked at her, she was terrified... almost ready to jump out the door terrified, pregnant or not

"Nothing," he said, giving the Lincoln gas, turning the wheel into a wide, sploshing arc through the mud to regain the road. "Someone else's dream, busted. Nada!"

The girl never came out of her shell, even on the half-hour trip up the freeway with Pendleton to their right and, to their left, the broad Pacific. The waves were up, surfers out... it was a sort of Beach Boys California afternoon... spoiled only by the faint, umber glow ahead that was the inevitable, polluted metropolis.

"Want to cruise Nixon’s museum before we hit the station?" he asked, for perhaps the third time, and Dorotea shook her head. She probably knew a lot more English than she let on... there probably wasn't a single, miserable village in Mexico... and Central America, too... that didn't have at least one emigre home from the hunt, street-rich with money from picking grapes, mowing lawns or serving up burgers. They all knew more than they'd ever let on... and Walt was puzzled and a little pissed off, he couldn't remember anything he'd done, or even said, beyond that mindless crack about his ex-wife and the police. Did these people really think crossing the border meant all of the little crap in life went away? That the divorce lawyers and bad dogs, the obnoxious bosses and the bills and the crass, commercial culture enveloping everything in a diseased blanket of bullshit and deceit hadn't made all Americans a little crazy? God have mercy on the naive, if this was so!

"Dick Nixon was the first President I voted for... the second, too. He turned out to be a crook," Walt admitted, as much to himself as Dorotea who stared ahead, stonily, refusing to face either the surfers or Marines. So he drove through, to the bus terminal, even took the initiative to go to the window, pay for her ticket, get the number of the route, the time of departure (which would be in sixteen minutes) and write down the location of the street where she would get off and transfer to the San Gabriel Express.

She did give him a kiss on the cheek... chaste and fleeting, a hurried peck before stepping back the way the DP's feral cats hid in bushes and under parked cars, watching. They'd been watching, of course, when Mister C had stomped the white kitten to death and, unfortunately, the world was still full of day managers. So he called out her name...

"What jou want me now?" she replied, angrily perhaps, now that she was out of the car and around other people..."

"Your kid, niño... don't... no se llama Barry..."

"Loco? Se llamen Barry?"

"No," he began waving, agitated... every fuckin' thing he did turned out wrong. "No! No se llamen Barry!"

"Hokay," Dorotea said, giving her hair a toss and walking, faster than necessary, towards the idling bus.

He got back into the Lincoln, started it up and drove off before the bus began its own journey north. They hadn't exchanged numbers... he hadn't remembered, or even bothered to write down anything of Norma's number other than the 310 area code.

It was another blown opportunity, but it was just a part of the past, now. He could dream of getting back with Elle, or Fran... telling elle he'd be her father in law, stepfather, whatever... he could, even, probably go back to Alta Vista. Missy had to have come back to her senses, by now. He could go back and plow over a lot of old ground but what, really, was the point? He was free, white, an American and over twenty-one... he was also unemployed, a virtual bankrupt and still, tenuously, at the mercy of the law, a man driving a car that belonged to either his wife or the title company. Then again, he had cash money in his pocket, a room and the likelihood of Joe's Explorer for his own and, back down the road, more money due and owed to him by Walter fuckin' Zweiss.

He steered the Town Car towards the southbound I-5 entrance where, of course, there was a backup, but it was OK, now, it didn't mess with his mind. He punched the scan button on the radio until it crossed an oldies station which was playing... what else?... the Beach Boys.

He had a date with Mr. Z. and, after that, all the time in the world.

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