The Delivery (11 page)

Chapter 17

A
t the restaurant I order soup and coffee—the lunch special is over. The stoic waiter brings me greasy, thick tortilla chips with three different bowls of colorful salsa. As soon as I dip, the exciting flavors wake me up: there’s a green one, a spicy brown-red one and fresh pico de gallo, which I’m already familiar with. I can’t stop eating them, and it’s not long before my mouth is on fire. I have to order a beer to cool down because there’s only a ceiling fan and I’m sweating like a fat man in a Russian bathhouse sauna.

So far not one single customer has entered the Western Union. I take out my phone and save the fifty odd addresses’ of the various Tijuana locations. What’s my plan? To stake-out every money pick-up point possible in this money pick-up city? It just doesn’t seem possible. The beer is working to cool me down, and it’s making me feel all melty. I order another one and squeeze a wedge of fresh lime into it. With the beer they’ve brought me more chips and now a cobalt blue dish of peanuts covered in a fine red powder. I gobble those up too, and now even my teeth are on fire. I snap a picture of myself, with red on my teeth, and Instagram it for Lex even though I know he’s at work.

It’s not too much longer before I finally put two and two together and realize the more beer I order the more snacks they bring me. What a beautiful invention! Why not advertise it openly? Apparently it’s a secret only the brilliantly minded like me can figure out. Since it hit five o’clock, they’ve been bringing me miniature coronas in a cute little tin bucket. I’m dipping some white, crunchy, fruit-vegetable into an orange mayonnaise sauce when Lex hits me back on Instagram with a picture of his mop splayed out over public school tiles.

“Looks great, Lana. What ya doing? Chewing betal nuts again?”

I pick up my phone and text him back instead.

“Oh, God, Lex! Free food with beer!!!!! They don’t put their peanuts in honey—they roll them in satanic baby powder with enough citric acid to burn holes through flesh. I think I’m in love. I’m going to move here. Don’t know. I just like how they think.”

“Sounds good, sis. Maybe you should go home? Are you drunk? Any word from Mo yet?”

“No and Yes!!! He still didn’t pick up. I mean, yes to drunk.”

“Be careful down there. At least spring for a nice place to sleep. From the news and movies it seems like they chop off heads and carve up bodies for foreplay.”

“I’ve got a Marriot rewards card from Dale’s production company that guarantees me a soft bed with clean sheets. Don’t worry about me. This is like vacation, but without Dad wearing socks on the beach and mortifying us to death.”

“Oh god! Do you remember the year he shaved his beard halfway through vacation and walked around with a two toned face?”

“How could I forget? Those were his tan lines. Beard, Speedo and calf socks. I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Be careful. I hope you find him. “

“I hope you find him” echoes relentlessly through my head, like a sad mantra your batty aunt gives you at your junior high graduation, as if finding a man were your one and only ticket to salvation. I don’t want to put that much pressure on a man or a relationship. If I don’t find Mo, then it wasn’t meant to be. Speaking of pressure, my belly feels like a dragon’s lair filled with fire-breathing demons. I just ate so much weird shit. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I pay my bill, which is surprisingly cheap. I could live off of those chips and peanuts easily for at least a week. The cool part is you don’t get too drunk when you’re constantly snacking. Just a warm body buzz and a swollen face from the salty stuff.

I stop in to see Reme just as they’re closing up shop. She’s changed out of her blue polo shirt with the insignia and is wearing tight jeans and a mid-rift bearing t-shirt. She flings a tiny purse on a chain over her shoulder, hands me a stick of gum and says, “Come-on, I’ll walk you out.”

She lights up a cigarette as we walk to my car. “I ran his name through the database to see if he’s picked up before. A lot of people just go back to the same store. Stick with the same one, since they already know the location,” she says as she waves her match to extinguish it.

“Wow, Reme, you’re a genius. I never would have thought of that.”

She smiles at me and laughs. Her pink tongue darts out, and she pulls a stray bit of tobacco off the tip with her thumb and middle finger.

“No filter, huh? That’s hardcore. Or old-school depending how you look at it.”

“Cheap is what it is.
Delicados
. Only one peso, want one?” she says, adjusting her weight. She looks at my car and then back at my face. “Do you think you could give me a lift? I’m not too far from here, and it can be dangerous walking.”

“I. Uh. I…” Stop stalling you fool, she’s been so nice and helpful to you. “Sure,” I manage, sounding only a little bit strained.
I’m scared, Reme. Of Tijuana, of Mexico, I’m even a little scared of Mexicans.

“Buenas,” her co-workers call as they lock up the door. The sound of padlocks banging against metal, roll-up doors being yanked back down signals the end of the day: the end of the business day that is. I’m sure for other creatures of the dark, their day is just beginning. The doors slamming down are an alarm clock to wake up those night crawlers.

“Yeah, of course I can! I just might need directions.”

I drive Reme home, and she lives pretty out of the way. Turns out, Tijuana has a huge residential sprawl that climbs up into the hills and eats up the entire countryside. At some point the pavement ends, and we’re driving on a dirt road. My car is pretending it has no springs and kicking up a dust storm to add to the already surreal ambiance.

“It’s just up here,” Reme says, pointing to distant light. “You can let me off at the corner, and I’ll walk up the driveway.”

“If you’re sure it’s safe,” I say, dying to turn the car around and scurry back to civilization. “Looks like a hike.”

“I’d have walked the whole way if you didn’t offer to drive me.”

Reme has me pull over, and I don’t know how she can call it a corner. I can’t even see the driveway she’s talking about, but I do see a patch of clustered lights in the distance. To the left of it the purple aura of Tijuana beckons.

“Think you can figure your way back?” Reme asks as she slides off the seat. Three mangy, shorthaired dogs greet her and jump and whine at her feet.

“I’m just going to plug the Marriot into my GPS,” I say with conviction. If I catch a flat or get pulled over it will probably be the end of me. I’ll become one of those girls who went missing at the border, and Reme has just become the very last person to see me.

But for all my fear and dramatics, it takes me an hour to get back and find the Marriot. The front desk clerk, Mario according to his nametag, is adamant about adhering to the gold card policies. Apparently I can’t check in without Dale’s ID and the hotel could give two fucks if I’m Dale Foster’s long lost lover or just the jerk who stole his wallet. Mario offers to call Dale and verify with verbal permission over the phone. My enthusiastic
no
earns a smug look as I confirm all of his suspicions.

I take out my phone and stare at it dejectedly and consider calling Dale. I shove it back into my pocket but not before I snap a pic of a gloating Mario. I Instagram it for Lex and caption it “No clean sheets for this Russian princess. What a cocksucker.”

In the lobby, the automatic doors open when you step on the reproduction oriental carpet. The hot, corrupt air swirls in from outside, trying to lap up Mario’s expensive air-conditioning. Since I won’t be able to partake of this luxurious comfort, I’ll stand still on this trigger point and hold the door open just to piss off Mario. Within arms reach is a welcome table covered with brochures. It boasts an obnoxious fake floral arrangement and a white ceramic bowl holding a pyramid of green apples. I pluck the one from the top and take a loud crunchy bite without moving my feet so the doors remain open.

“Fuera!” Mario yelps, and I quickly pocket another apple. I wink at him over my shoulder as I skip out of the Marriot into the hot, sweaty Tijuana night.

Three blocks away I see a decent enough place. The awning has a hole in it but the flower boxes are real and overflowing with a cascade of pink flowers. The hotel looks like someone keeps it up carefully, the shutters are also pink and have been recently painted. It’s a local place, definitely not a chain. It’s called, Paraíso, which I’m guessing probably means paradise. The clerk inside is a pleasant, middle-aged woman who appears to also be the owner. Her front desk is adorned with a giant rainbow sarape and mini potted cactuses all looking spiky and phallic. She sets me up with a room for two nights resulting in a credit card charge of fifty bucks. For a price like that, I’m already imagining shared bathrooms. She hands me a key but comes around the desk, flips the lock on the front door and offers to walk me to my room. The center area of the hotel opens up to the night sky, and it’s full of tropical plants, real dirt and ivy vines crawling up the balconies of the three floors. There’s a bubbling fountain in the middle where a beautiful white parrot is perched.

“He doesn’t fly away?” I ask as we walk around the secret, lush garden that’s invisible from the outside of the hotel.

“He like paradise too much,” the woman says, smiling as we approach my door. “Call a desk for more towels. Coke machine and ice first floor only.”

“This is great! What did you say your name was?”

“Claudia, but lot’s of the boys call me Coco.”

I’m wondering who the boys are when a hand in hand couple brush past us on the balcony. One man is shaved bald and wearing sunglasses despite the darkness, and his boyfriend is clad in skintight white jeans and shimmering butterfly collared blouse. I peer through the paradise jungle to the second story balcony across the way at the only other people still left at the hotel. A couple making out. Two men. Hmmm. There is a theme to this paradise.

“Oh, so this is a
gay
hotel? Is it okay if I stay?” I ask, suddenly nervous about being turned away once again.

“Haha!” Coco says and slaps me on the shoulders. “You are welcome here, love. Paradise is for everyone!”

“Thanks!” I say, taking Coco in again through the dull cast purple shadow. I don’t think Coco
is
a lady now that I look a little closer and maybe peep stubble through her thick coat of tan foundation.

“Tommy and Rocco are next to you in case you run into trouble. They come every weekend. They from San Diego.”

“Thanks again, Coco. Tommy and Rocco next door. Soda on the first floor. I think I’m good. I’m so tired. Thank you, really, really. Thank you.”

I’m talking fast and trying to get her to back off because my stomach is staging the first signs of a revolt.
Down dragons, down devil peanuts and so, so much salsa.
I’m not sure if I need a toilet or an Alka Seltzer or another beer to tame the roar. Welcome to Mexico where they serve up free hellfire with chips and a beer.

Coco flicks on the light, revealing a tidy room with a traditionally Mexican, woven bedspread. Not what I expected. Much, much better than I could have imagined.

“Careful if you go out. Stick to the main clubs. Don’t take a street taxi.”

“I think I’m just going to sleep,” I say as I put my backpack on the foot of the bed. “Anyway, I left my car in the Marriot parking lot.”

“That’s what they all say, mi vida, but Tijuana turns us into night creatures.” With that she closes the door, and I lie back on the bed.

Chapter 18

I
awake to the rioting club beat of “Rhythm is a Dancer” thumping my wall. I groan, roll over and pull the pillow over my head. There is giggling, the shifting of furniture and the hotel door opening and closing. I sit up, rub my eyes and stretch my arms over my head.

I turn on the lamp by the bed, unpack my toiletries and head to the bathroom for a hot shower. The water pressure is amazing, and I use the hotel provided bar soap to scrub away the drive, the dust and the afternoon happy hour.

After I’ve effectively turned the bathroom into a steam room, I come out of the shower. Wrapping a towel around my head I pull on sweats and a well-worn t-shirt circa high school that reads “Let’s GO Giants.” I grab a comb and pull it through my freshly conditioned, wet hair and step out on the balcony to get a view of Paradise at night. My neighbors must be listening to Hot Nightclub Mix 1992 because “Ace of Base” is currently shaking their whole room. I knock on their door with the back of my hand, not yet knowing if I’m knocking to ask them to turn down the music or to let me join their fun.

The door opens without an answer, and a shirtless hunk stands and takes me in with a dusting of coke on the tip of his nose.

“You are the new neighbor?” he asks, grabbing my arm and pulling me in. “Look, Rocco, she woke up,” he says, pushing me over to the petit blond man folded up onto the bed, propped up an elbow and engrossed in a Reader’s Digest.

“Oh hi Cher, we thought you’d never wake up. She looks like brunette Betty Davis, Tommy. CoCo was right, something in her eyes, don’t you think.”

“I was hoping you could turn the music down,” I say to Rocco and then turn back to Tommy for emphasis. I want to turn their names around in my head because Rocco is blond and Tommy is brunet.

“You’re not going out? You plan to just stay in all night? Fancy some blow?” Tommy says as he turns down the music. Their room doesn’t look like a hotel room. It looks like they live in it. They’ve got lace and tapestries covering the walls and what looks to be a hand painted portrait of the two of them over the bed. It’s not very well done—the whole thing looks one-dimensional and actually kind of scary.

“Do you live here?” I ask, confused by their permanency.

“On the weekends,” Rocco says, looking me over. “Sometimes for short vacations.”

“For long ones we head overseas. France or Greece, sometimes Italy,” Tommy says as he feels my hair between his thumb and forefinger. “Want me to blow it out? If you sleep like this, it’s going to look horrible.”

“Wha?” I say, feeling like I’ve disconnected from reality. The birds of paradise are squawking and something—human or not—is most definitely screeching down below.

“He’s talking about a blow-dryer. Tommy is a stylist. Are you sure you don’t want some coke? How about a joint? I’ve got some Acapulco Gold around here somewhere,” Rocco offers, lifting up the duvet and searching under the covers.

“Oh, I don’t really do drugs. Just booze it up sometimes,” I say, shrugging and feeling somehow inadequate. “My hair is fine, really. I usually let it air dry.”

“In that case… Tommy says as he opens a dresser drawer pulling out multiple bottles of product. Let’s make it wavy-messy, like you just don’t have time to care because you’re so busy and your talents are so sought after. Like “I don’t care about my hair, but even better!”

“Whoah. I didn’t know that was a look.”

Rocco rolls off the bed and gracefully glides over. He’s shorter than me despite the slight heel on his suede shoes.

“Just ignore him, he likes to make up stories as he goes,” he explains, handing me a snifter of brandy.

I nod and bring it to my lips. Rocco dings his snifter to mine and says, “Coat the sides, Cher, don’t swivel.”

The next time I wake up, the air is tinged with the direct sunlight heat of well-past noon. It’s too bright to be early morning. I’m guessing it’s past lunch. I roll over on thick carpet and hit my head on a trunk. It hurts to open my eyes, and hot rods are drag racing fiery circles inside my brain.

“Help!” I squeak out and try to pull myself up.

The hotel room door bursts open and in waltz’s Rocco with an elaborate breakfast on a tray. Slowly the layers of my brain fog peel away, and I remember a discotheque, dirty dancing, grinding with Tommy on the dance floor and doing coke in the bathroom off of my compact purse mirror. Then tacos, then some kind of barbiturate downer, then shakes and vomiting followed by squishing into bed between my two new best friends who are lovers.

Tommy’s head makes a smiley appearance over the side of the bed, looking down at me, his brunette locks falling gracefully along the cusp of his face.

“Naughty girl who pretends not to like to party. But who likes to p-a-r-t-y, indeed!” Then he whoops like it’s a war cry and jumps on the bed.

“Oh fuck,” I say, covering my face with my hands. “I’ve got to get to the Western Union. Please tell me it’s not past noon.”

“To watch for Mozey, your true love. The artist. You told us the whole story. Of course you’re on time, you only said a million times that you had to wake up early.”

Tommy is jubilant and maybe has already had some coke with his OJ from the looks of how his eyes are dancing and he’s working his jaw.

“Sorry, Charlie,” Rocco says without affect. It’s quarter past three.”

“Fuck!” I say, standing up and then grabbing my head as I reel. “Oh, I’m gonna be sick. Why am I covered in glitter?”

“No, you’re not!” Tommy says as he holds a line of coke neatly centered in the middle of the Reader’s Digest. I close my eyes and weakly inhale. I swear I can feel it hit my brain. The racecars screech to a stop and then zoom away smoothly through my blood veins.

“Better, huh?” Tommy says, nodding like a wide-eyed baby deer. Then he tips his head back and laughs, and I look to Rocco for confirmation I’m not going insane.

“To stop the nausea. Just a bump. Want some orange juice? It’s fresh squeezed.”

I stagger to the door. “I’m gonna shower. I’ll see you guys later. Um, thanks for the company.”

I shower again under the forceful stream and try to recall the steps that lead me to last night. Fall off course just a tiny bit and then completely do a one-eighty with your life. I’ve seen this happen time and time again with so many delinquent kids. Since when do I do drugs or go dancing at gay clubs with strangers? I purse my lips, trying to make sure that no water slips past, even though I’m more thirsty than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m not drinking my shower. I don’t want to end up with dysentery in a Tijuana hospital.

A half an hour later, I’m back at my restaurant, this time with only coffee and some chocolate milk to try to settle the black hole also known as my stomach. After a quick chat with Reme, it would seem that the money is still there. I contact Lex, and of course, he’s heard nothing on his end. I ask Lex to send a picture of Mozey if he has any. A few minutes later, Lex texts me a photo of Mozey with his baby. It must have been taken just after he was born because Mozey is wearing scrubs. He looks so happy as he holds the bundle to his strong chest. Even in the profile he’s dashing, his wolfish jaw and straight nose, the curve of his lower full lip. I want to slip into the photo and touch his cheek.

But I burst that bubble pretty quickly when I realize he would probably think I was some kind of deranged drug addicted stalker if he could see me right now.

“Am I crazy?” I text to my brother.

“I’m not qualified to answer that question,” he texts back. Good answer. He doesn’t even know about last night.

“Do you remember Mo had a sister that they lost when they crossed the border? I bet you he’s looking for her. That always weighed on him heavily.”

I stare at my phone and scroll down through all of my Instagram photos. I have the account just for Lex. We both follow one person and have just one follower.

I call over the waiter who is thankfully, a different guy. I think it would scare the staff from yesterday to see me lurking here again. I settle my tab and go talk to Reme and tell her my plan. I’ll go location to location and show them the picture. It’s better than just sitting. I can’t take the waiting. I ask her about missing persons from as far back as the early nineties. She makes a pained expression that tells me it’s a lost cause without her even bothering to open her mouth.

“I don’t know. I hate to tell you but there are so many. And a baby? Your best chance is hiring someone private. I’d steer clear of the police. They’d just take your money without doing anything.”

After consulting with some co-workers, she produces a card for a private investigator. She also hands me a print out listing the addresses of every Western Union in Tijuana.

“Am I crazy?” I ask her. I don’t know what I’m expecting to get out of asking this question. Reme just shrugs her shoulders at me and grins. I notice she has a tiny chip out of one of her front teeth. She reminds me of a bunny rabbit, but maybe I’m just high on coke. Or maybe its just Tijuana and every thing here has got some hyper-real cartoonish quality to it. Including me. Lana in Mexico is not the Lana I know.

“Everybody has a weakness,” Reme states with candor.

“Oh, yeah? What’s yours?” I challenge her, maybe just wanting her to confirm that I’m nuts.

“Rice pudding.” She looks at me in all seriousness.

“Doesn’t seem like a bad hang-up. Just saying. I’m not judging.”

“Coming back tonight?” she asks as she’s shuffling papers. I like that I have more friends in Tijuana after twenty-four hours than I ever had in seventeen years in Michigan.

“Need me to?” I ask, but Reme just shrugs. I scratch my number out on a piece of paper and pass it through the slot that divides us. “Call me if he comes?” She nods and goes back to her work.

A day spent driving around with no leads is a bitch. It’s even worse if you get pulled over by a Mexican traffic cop and get forced to show all of your border crossing documents and the contents of your trunk. It’s even worse when you don’t speak Spanish and he addresses you the entire time as ‘lady.’ And even worse when you both reek of booze and for all you know he could have been your dance partner at the club this past evening.

The whole encounter results in a fifty dollar fine that appears to be arbitrary and made up on the spot. But who am I to argue with a tiny drunk man with bloodshot eyes and a gun. I pay him in all the cash I have left while he helps himself to a bottle of water and granola bar from my stash in the trunk.

The heat haze is still warping the horizon when I have to call it quits from exhaustion and dehydration. I think of all the people trying to cross this impermeable border, and I shiver when I realize how many of them are unsuccessful and how many of them must be relegated to live in Tijuana, not by choice, but by exception. That’s one choice—the other outcome being death. I’ll have to ask Reme her story and see what path led her to work at a dusty Western Union at the end of the trail.

I’m driving back toward Paradise, or at least if the GPS isn’t lying then I should be heading in the general direction. I’m stopped at a red light and distracted by a young mother with three children begging. She’s dressed in rags, and she herself looks like a child. I rummage through my purse and pass them a handful of granola bars and a pack of gum and some candy. It’s not much at all, but I’m running on empty myself. I figure at least I can find work, but it’s harder for a mother with those three lives depending on her. I’m trying to zip up my purse when the line of cars behind me starts honking. Impatient assholes, the light must have turned. I look up and squint into the oncoming sunlight.

“Mother Fuck!” I say out loud as I take in the scene in front of me.

Twenty yards from my car on a high cement retaining wall is a brilliant mural. An ode if ever there was one to the evils of oligarchy, capitalism and crossing the border. The president of Mexico, Peña Nieto looms large, but he’s depicted as a smirking dinosaur with blood pouring from his jaws. Grasped in his talons are not only migrant workers, but hundreds of border crossers who are tumbling from his dinosaur-ed fingers. Under his long-clawed toe is a smashed train, the entire top of the boxcar covered in transient refugees. Then there’s the border, even taller than the dinosaur, dark and impenetrable, a fortress. On the other side of the wall is President Obama, except he’s a bullfrog with a long sticky tongue, and on that tongue curled up asleep are children without parents all huddling together for comfort. The tongue threatens to snap back and swallow the lot of them, while some tumble off only to be met by a deadly and violent encounter with the wall.