Kilometer 99 (34 page)

A rhythmic squeaking sounds from the street. I stand and run over to the front gate. An old man rolls a cart toward me. It's the modified bicycle from the other day. The produce it carried and the loudspeaker are both missing. The vendor stands upon the pedals to make the dry wheels turn; they ache for grease with each rotation. I shout for him to stop. He parks in front of the gate.

I ask to borrow his cart, but he wisely refuses. After some haggling, he trades it for Ben's hiking boots and all the American money that the woman gave us yesterday—the money that led to Ben's death. The old man studies the bills for a while, not certain that they'll again have value. I'm more than happy to be rid of them.

On the roof of La Posada, I find the empty rum bottle from the night before. Kristy lends me a section of plastic tubing, and I siphon gasoline from the Jeep's tank into the glass bottle. I pile the body, the raft, and the bottle of gas onto my new cart, along with more of the twine from Kristy's roll. In the kitchen, I find a tin of cooking lard and use it to lubricate the chain and gears.

*   *   *

The back half of the bicycle cart has one wheel and a seat. The front has two larger wheels and the cargo area. At first, I'm able to pedal my load. I head around behind the restaurants of the point, past the graveyard, and come to the end of the road. A dirt path runs alongside the last few structures. There, I dismount and push it from the side. Once the path runs out, I struggle to move the cart over the big round rocks that give Punta Roca its name. The swell has dropped considerably. We would've been bored had we surfed today. It's just past noon. The sun is high and strong in the sky. I sweat through my clothes.

Finally, I make it out to the very tip of the point. Ben was right about the tide. It recently turned, and now it sucks out hard. The black stones along the waterline grind together with each surge like a giant mouthful of teeth.

I place my matches and the bottle of gas on a dry stone above the waterline. With our two surfboard leashes, I lash Ben's bundled body down to the raft's crosspieces. After minutes of pushing and dragging, I manage to move the cart far enough into the sea that the raft floats when the surf comes in. My boots fill with water and sand. My jeans cling to me, soaked.

I fetch my bottle and dump the gas over the whole works. With three matches all struck at once, I set fire to the bundle. Wading out into the water and avoiding the rising flames, I give the raft a final push.

The retreating tide carries it quickly to sea. I climb out and watch from the shore. I watch as the wobbling flotilla grows smaller and the flames fade farther on out toward the horizon, my lover's body burning away just above the surface of the salt water. Soon, the fiberglass decks of the surfboards blister and become engulfed in the blaze. Toxic flames of blue and green sizzle alongside Ben and the smoke around him grows blacker still. A rogue gust of wind pushes him westward, toward Kilometer 99: the closest thing to the Elysian fields that Ben will ever know.

But it's not until he's even farther out to sea, farther out than even the biggest of channel boomers that ever broke upon his beloved point, that the crosspieces burn through beneath him, and Ben's body slips into the Pacific Ocean at last.

I watch a while longer as the rest of the raft burns out and then sinks. I stand there staring for a few more moments at the water's edge, amid the ruins of a city called freedom.

I pick up a single stone and throw it out into the sea after him. My cart still parked at the tide line, I turn and walk back to La Posada.

*   *   *

Kristy moves the tire fire over near the gate. She prepares a meal of rice and catsup for the two of us. We eat in silence. Once we're done, I go to my tent and find the rest of the Valium. Though the sun has not even set, I take three of them and drift toward a deep drug-induced sleep inside Ben's hammock. I think I'm halfway hoping—or perhaps only waiting—for somebody to come in and stab me then, or for the walls of the stubborn air-conditioned wing to crumble, and get it all over with already.

As the effects of the pills take hold, I wonder with closed eyes if I've been wrong about Alex and my father all along. Maybe it isn't so much that they see life as a long-suffering contest. Perhaps, rather than seeking out the greatest possible pleasures—the way surfers do—they spend their lives guarding against the worst of all pains. At this moment, I would trade all the waves in the world to somehow get Ben back. The times I spent with him are the silver and shining memories scattered along the banks of my life. Someday, I hope to have the strength to pick them up and make something useful from them.

 

33

I wake up late. Kristy boils water on Ben's camp stove.

“Good morning,” I say.

“There are rumors.” She looks up. “They say the roads have been opened. Everybody's heading down there to meet the relief trucks.”

“That's good,” I say. “Let's hope it's true.”

I open the gate and walk toward the waterfront, as if to check the surf. Whether or not the roads have opened, people believe they have. In the street, everyone hurries about. Many carry bags. The people I pass are all on their way to the east end of town, where the trucks from San Salvador are meant to arrive.

On the beach, just beyond the stairs, two dogs have gotten stuck together while fucking. They stand ass-to-ass, stumbling in clumsy circles and trying to see each other's eyes. Down the leg of one, a spray of blood is matted into the fur. The looks on their faces are confused more than anything—as if wondering whether it's their own appetites or only nature that led to this predicament.

The swell is way down, barely rideable, even if I did still have a board. Farther out, to this side of the horizon, an iron ship heads right toward me. I watch as it rounds the pier and makes its way into the cove, closer than I've ever seen any vessel come to the point. Its hull is black and full of rust. A red-and-white flag flies from its bow, with the word
Rescate
written there under a cross.

A couple of Zodiacs embark from it, weighted down with about a dozen people, heading to the beach. Once they get to the shore, they all shout and point and then split up into three groups. One runs in the direction of the pier, another straight inland, and the last group comes toward my spot on the steps. I light one of the dead man's last menthol cigarettes. The first two people to approach me are Salvadorans. Wearing orange life vests with the Red Cross logo, they ask in Spanish if I need medical attention. I tell them no.

The last person from their group, panting from the walk through the sand and pulling wet khakis away from his legs, is Alex.

“Malia! Oh my God!”

We embrace, our forearms pressing hard into each other's backs. Then it suddenly becomes awkward and we let go.

He wears a baseball cap that reads
EL SALVADOR, EARTHQUAKES, 2001.

“I was hoping to find you. I'm so glad that you're all right.”

He's the last person I expect to see today. “I'm glad that you're all right, too.” It doesn't sound stupid until the moment I say it.

“Listen. I've talked to my director. There's a lot of money coming in for La Libertad right now. It's become our number-one priority. I told him about your Peace Corps experience, your engineering background, your knowledge of the area. Anyways, he's keen on hiring you. We'll be working together!”

“I'm not interested, Alex.” I let out a mouthful of flavored smoke.

“What?”

“I think it's time for me to leave this place. It's well past time for me to go.”

“Malia, think about this. Think about your life for a second.”

“Chuck Norris is dead,” I tell him.

“The movie star?”

“No.” I have a hard time saying it out loud. “Ben. He was stabbed the night before last. And you know what? My life is, unfortunately, all I ever think about.” I take the hat off Alex and put it on my own head.

He doesn't know what to say.

I kiss him on the lips, tell him good-bye, and return to La Posada.

*   *   *

As I'm about to enter the hotel, the sandal that Ben repaired finally breaks; its rubber sole dangles limp from the severed strap about my toes. I step out of both flip-flops, leave them there before the gate, and cross the courtyard in bare feet. I set about gathering spare clothes and other necessities from the back of the Jeep and the ruins of our room.

“Chinita?” The voice that calls my nickname is so sheepish and hesitant, I don't recognize it as Kristy's. “I have to speak to you.” She limps over from the kitchen area.

“Speak to me?” I'm so focused on getting out of here—finding a way to the embassy and persuading them to get me out of this country—that I don't have the patience for a sentimental good-bye, even from her.

“Chinita, listen.” For some reason, she's not wearing the heavy eye makeup that I've never seen her without. “I have something to tell you—something to give you, I suppose.” She looks down at the dirt of the courtyard.

My first thought is to try to say politely that I'm too busy. But when Kristy takes from behind her back a clear plastic bag with that tiny blue booklet inside, she has my full attention.

“My passport,” I say.

“I'm very sorry.” Her gaze goes back to the ground. “I thought you'd be able to get another one straight away. It wasn't supposed to create a big problem.” She meets my eyes for a moment. Tears start down her cheeks. “I thought that we looked enough alike, I might not need a smuggler. I'm so sorry.”

I open up the bag. Along with my passport, there's the woven wallet, the card for the bank account I'd assumed was emptied, and that Red Cross business card that Alex handed me at the Peace Corps office less than two weeks prior, when things were so different.

“What about the envelope of money? Do you have that as well?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “The real
mañoso
took that. I heard him leave, chased him away, really. But I saw your passport left inside the wallet. I thought it was an opportunity, especially with Pelochucho back in my life.”

I open up the cover and have a look at my smiling image from a few years back. It was a decent plan Kristy had. We do look alike, especially without the eye makeup. She probably would've passed through immigration.

A part of me wants to scream, to tell her that she should've come clean days ago. It might've saved me a world of trouble. But instead, I say, “I forgive you.”

She doesn't look satisfied, expects more anger, perhaps. “But I must also apologize about all of this, about Chuck Norris as well.”

“How do you mean?”

“Had I not taken the passport”—she uses her lips to point at it—“you two might have been gone before the earthquake.”

A dozen thoughts tumble through my mind. Where might I be if my passport had never gone missing? Ben and I could've made it to Nicaragua or Panama by the time the quake hit. Maybe to the South American continent by now. Ben might still be alive. But what am I supposed to do? Blame her?

“It's okay,” I say. “You had no way of guessing what might happen. I forgive you for all that as well.”

“Thank you.” She nods, then walks away.

“Kristy!” I say. “Wait a second.”

She turns and steps back toward me.

“Do you want it?” I hold the passport out toward her. “I can get an emergency version from the embassy; it would allow me to travel home. You might make it to the north, without a smuggler.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “That's generous of you. But I'm not interested. This is my home. I've never truly wanted to live in your country. It was only for him.” She gestures in the direction of Pelochucho's former room. “I didn't care about where so much. I simply wanted the two of us to be together.”

“I see.” I nod, then look down at the passport inside my hand. It suddenly seems a silly offer. Why would anyone pretend to be me?

I lace up my boots and dust off my backpack. I dig out Ben's passport from the Jeep's glove compartment. I fix Alex's Red Cross cap atop my hair. With an old rag, I force the sharp blade of Ben's multitool to stay partly open—for quick access in case of trouble—and put it into the front pocket of my baggy jeans.

“Kristy,” I say, handing her the key that she insisted I hold on to the other day, “I don't need this anymore. I'm leaving El Salvador.”

“Of course,” she says. “Your family must be worried about you.”

“Will you be all right, by yourself?”

“Things should improve now that the aid workers are here. I'll go stay with relatives in San Salvador once I get a chance.”

“Thanks for everything,” I tell her.

“Thanks to you,” she says. “Take care of yourself.” Though I know it's only an expression, it sounds more like a good piece of advice that I'll have a hard time following.

*   *   *

Once, only a few days ago, it was still possible to tell the crackheads from the rest of La Libertad's population. Now, all the young males wear the crackheads' look: gaunt and dirty, dressed in rags, desperate for and yet disinterested in things like food and sleep. As I walk around the streets for the last time, we all scramble like ants from a busted-open colony. I come across an empty lot where the Red Cross has set up a station. The workers offer rehydration fluid and medicine. There is no rhyme or reason to how they distribute. Soon, fights break out over unidentified bottles of pills. A glass jar full of
suero
shatters upon the ground.

The young relief workers look a little terrified, and I can't help but hold their hubris against them—their self-righteous notion that they're somehow capable of answering to or undoing the very motions of the earth.