Tequila Sunset (7 page)

Emilio pointed. “José,” he said.

“I get out here?”

“You get out here.”

“How do I get back home?”

“I’ll wait for you. Just see José.”

Flip got out and crossed the gravel parking lot. The wind whipped at the fringe of the taquería’s awning and Flip saw a man in a green uniform grab his basket of food before it blew away.

José Martinez smiled. “Flip! Come over and sit down!”

José sat alone. Flip took the other side of the picnic table. Up close he could see that José was a young-looking thirties with just the merest touches of smile lines at the corners of his eyes. His goatee was closely barbered and his shirt pressed. He had chicken tacos in his basket.

“It’s nice to meet you finally,” José said and he offered his hand. Flip shook it. “I heard good things. Do you want something to eat? Lunch is on me.”

Flip took the offered ten-dollar bill and got up from the table.
When he came back he had a basket of barbacoa tacos that oozed grease onto the wax paper. The man behind the counter drowned the tacos in cheese, diced tomatoes and shredded lettuce. The wind whipped the smell of them away, but the taste remained.

José nodded his head as Flip ate. “Good? I love this place.”

“It’s good,” Flip said around a mouthful.

“Better than prison food for sure.”

The two of them ate quietly. José licked his fingers when he was done and took a drink from a cup of soda. He waited for Flip to finish. “Get more if you want,” he said at last. “I don’t mind.”

“That’s okay.”

José nodded again. “All right, then. We can talk now.”

Flip looked at José and waited. The wind gusted again and disturbed José’s hair. The man wore it a little long. Flip’s head was almost shaved.

“I got the call on you,” José said. “They say you’re down for the cause. Is that so?”

“I earned my
huaraches
.”

“That’s what I heard. Stabbed a white boy?”

Flip shrugged a little. “No one could say I did.”

“I like that,” José said and showed his teeth. They were white and even. “You know how to keep your mouth shut. I know some guys, they’d be all about talking it up. ‘Yeah, I stuck him.’ You know what I’m saying?”

“That’s a good way to go into the hole,” Flip said.

“It’s fucking stupid is what it is,” José returned. “But you’re not stupid. You seen your PO yet?”

“Not yet. I got a week before I have to report in.”

“They’re gonna try to bust your balls.”

“I can deal with it.”

“You got a job lined up?”

“Yeah. A guy my mother knows, he offered me work at a warehouse.”

“What kind of warehouse?”

“Place that ships groceries, I guess. I don’t know much about it.”

José considered. “Good job?”

“Part time. Pays something. That’s all my PO wants.”

“Can’t live on your own on what a part-time job pays,” José said.

“I got my mother’s place. My old room.”

“That’ll do for now, but you got to have some spending money,” José said. “You come in under me, you’ll get some. Maybe enough to move you out of there, into your own apartment. I can’t make any guarantees, but you’ll do all right.”

“What do I have to do for it?”

José spread his hands just as another gust of wind hit the patio. The wax paper in his basket was whisked away, but he caught the basket before it could slip off the table. “
Mierda
,” he said. “I don’t like littering. Why don’t you take this back up to the guy, okay? And throw your stuff out. We don’t need paper flying all over the place.”

Flip collected José’s basket and took both to the counter. He emptied his basket into the trash, then passed them to the man at the register. His tacos made him thirsty. He bought a Coke with the leftover money from the ten.

When he sat down again, José was staring off at traffic going by. The man came back to him slowly, as if he were caught thinking. “That’s better,” he said. “Got to keep our city clean.”

“I was asking you what I got to do for you,” Flip said.

“Huh? Whatever needs doing,
mi hermano
. You’re down, right?”

“I’m down.”

“Then you got nothing to worry about. I got little pots all over the place and I got to keep my fingers in them. Whatever I can’t take care of myself, I get other people to do. Like Emilio. I need you picked up, he makes sure you’re picked up. He don’t ask no questions and when it comes time to spread the wealth around he
gets something for his trouble.”

Flip didn’t look at his watch, but he knew it was coming around to noon. New people were coming up to the counter to order and a small line formed. Cars started to slip into the parking lot. He glanced over and saw Emilio waiting behind the wheel, going nowhere. “I don’t got a driver’s license,” he said.

“That’s okay. I can find something you can do.”

“When do you want me to get started?”

“Not so fast, okay. Let’s take our time. I want you to get to know my crew, introduce you around. I had a party at my place last night, we’re going clubbing tonight. You want to come?”

“To a club?”

“Sure. Do some dancing, have some drinks, meet some people. How’s that sound?”

“Parole says I can’t.”

“You always do what you’re told?”

“All right.”

José smiled and offered his knuckles for a bump. “Yeah, now we’re talking. It’s your welcome back party! Everybody will know you after tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Listen, it’s getting crowded here now. Why don’t you have Emilio take you back to your place? He’ll come back to get you around nine. You got clothes to dress up?”

“Yeah, I got some.”

“Look sharp. There’ll be ladies.”

José stood up and Flip knew the interview was over. They shook hands again and José turned away without saying good-bye. He walked to a Lexus parked at the edge of the lot. Flip went back to Emilio.

“Good?” Emilio asked when Flip got in.

“Good.”

“All right.”

FOURTEEN

C
RISTINA MADE
F
REDDIE WEAR A HAT BECAUSE
of the wind, but he took it off before they got to the park. The day was a little cool, and at least he didn’t take off his jacket, she reasoned, and that was a win. Freddie liked to run around in the dead of winter without gloves or even zipping up his coat. He would be frozen by the time he came inside and no matter how many times Cristina told him otherwise, he would do it again.

They parked near the playground. Freddie got out before Cristina set the brake and dashed off toward the monkey bars. He had a strange, stiff-armed way of running, like a high-speed waddle, that set him apart from other kids even at a distance. There were a few already playing and she saw him approach them right away.

It was good that he wasn’t afraid, but Cristina knew the way it would go. He would ask them to play and then he would insist they play the only game he knew: tag. The first time someone told him he was It, he would give up in frustration. If he was well-behaved, he would just retreat into himself. If not, he would lash out.

Sometimes he would pretend to be inside an elevator and insist the other children stand with him, motionless, inside the invisible car as it went from floor to floor. That never lasted long. He did all the noises, the pings and chimes, and it was clear that the image was crystalline in his mind, but what he saw he could not communicate and even the most tolerant children got bored of it easily.

Cristina found a bench and sat down. There were other mothers here with their kids, some making idle chatter with each other, but Cristina could not be one of them; she had to watch Freddie every minute in case he had a fit of rage, or if he fell and hurt himself. She couldn’t do that and hold a conversation at the same time.

She first knew there was something wrong when Freddie was three years old. He could not speak, or at least he could only say a few words. Evaluation cost a lot of money, but she had a temporary diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder. That was good enough to get him into a county-provided early-childhood intervention program that expanded his vocabulary, though he was still slow at other things.

They said he was smart and he played imaginatively. He communicated better after two years of intensive work and transitioned into special kindergarten. No one said he had autism, but the older he got, the more Cristina knew.

It was the obsession with elevators and escalators first. Freddie would draw pictures of them and talk about them and that was all he wanted to do. Cristina searched online and saw that children with autism sometimes had very narrow interests and would perseverate on whatever that interest was. In the back of her mind, the evidence file filled up.

After kindergarten he was still affected and the county paid for him to be transferred to a private school specializing in special needs education. When she first visited Cristina was put off by children in wheelchairs who could not sit up or children so severely autistic they barely moved under their own power. This was not her child, this was not where he belonged.

The school worked with him for three years before the diagnosis changed. He had Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of autism, and though the news was bad Cristina felt vindicated because all the research she’d done was right; she knew her own child best.

They wanted to know the medical history of the parents, but
Cristina could only give her side. Freddie’s father did not answer letters or emails and eventually Cristina stopped trying. She suspected he didn’t want to be held responsible for this, the way he hadn’t wanted to be responsible for a child in the first place.

Her attention drifted and she didn’t even realize she was daydreaming until one of the other mothers approached her. “Excuse me,” the woman said. “Excuse me, miss?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I wouldn’t bother you, but your son just hit my son twice.”

Cristina stood up sharply. “I’m sorry. My son has autism. I’ll get him right now.”

She saw the expression change on the woman’s face, from concern to repulsion.
Autism
. As if it were catching. As if it were deadly. “It’s all right. I didn’t know—”

“No, I’ll get him. He needs to say he’s sorry.”

Cristina strode out to the monkey bars. Freddie was at the very top, hugging himself and rocking back and forth. His eyes were puffy with tears that hadn’t yet come.

“Freddie?”

“I don’t
like
those boys!”

“Freddie, come down here, okay? Mom needs to talk to you.”

Now he cried and Cristina felt herself crumble a little. “I
don’t like those boys!
”

“Come down from there. Come on, baby.”

Freddie climbed down reluctantly until Cristina was on her knees, holding him. His shoulders hitched and he breathed hot in her ear. “They’re mean to me.”

“I know, but you can’t hit. Now you have to say you’re sorry.”

It took time to cajole him and eventually he took her hand and let her lead him to the bench where the mother sat. She had a boy near her eating cheese crackers from a plastic bag. Again the look.

“Say you’re sorry, Freddie,” Cristina prompted.

Freddie did not look the boy in the eye. “Sorry,” he said.

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for
hitting
.”

“I’m really sorry,” Cristina told the mother.

“It’s all right, really. I didn’t know.”

I didn’t know your son has autism
.

“Come on, Freddie, let’s go play somewhere else, just you and me.”

Cristina guided him away and across the spotty grass to a toddler’s playground with swings that had rubber seats with leg holes, a sandbox and a climber that was low to the ground. There was no one around.

“I want to play with my friends,” Freddie said.

“I know, but let’s play over here for a while. Let’s make tunnels in the sand, okay? Or we can play spaceship. See, there’s a steering wheel on the climber.”

Freddie pulled away from her without speaking and mounted the climber. He put his hands on the spinning wheel and spun it, making a machine noise. “It’s like an elevator motor,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Cristina said.

FIFTEEN

F
LIP DRESSED IN A PAIR OF DARK JEANS
and a white shirt from his closet. The shirt needed to be ironed and though his mother offered, he did it himself. He wished he had better shoes than the same sneakers he’d been wearing since Coffield, but he did not have the money or the time to shop.

His mother insisted he sit down for a proper dinner. They ate and sat in front of the television for a while. When nine o’clock came around, Flip heard a car horn sound twice in the street. “Got to go,” he said.

“Don’t stay out too late!”

Emilio was in the same car as before, only this time the stereo was pumping Lil Rob. He’d changed from his t-shirt into something more respectable and put gel in his hair. He pushed open the passenger side door and beckoned to Flip. “Hey, man, get in!” he said.

Flip put on his seatbelt as Emilio cruised away from the curb. He saw the porch light in front of his mother’s house go on. It was possible she would be up when he came home, just waiting.

“Right on time, huh?” Emilio said.

“What?”

“I said we’re right on time!”

“Yeah,” Flip said. The music was punishingly loud inside the car, especially with the windows up, trapping the sound. His first instinct was to crank the volume down, but then Emilio would be
offended and that would be a problem. He suffered instead.

Emilio bobbed his head to the rap and when they stopped at lights he tapped the steering wheel in time. Flip wondered if maybe he was on something. He did not want to be caught in the same car with someone who was high. They drove west, parallel to the river, and passed near the airport. Incoming planes blinked in the sky.

“Where are we going?” Flip asked.