Big Maria (11 page)

“Your leg.” Ricky tasted last night’s tacos in the back of his throat but kept them down.

“Frank broke it.”

“Old man don’t mess around, does he?” Ricky said.

“Help me get my pants on.”

As Ricky got closer, he caught a hard whiff of the earthy rank of Harry’s leg and his hundred-proof sweat. It was a nauseating combo pack.

Ricky did his best to get Harry dressed. But he only had one good arm and Harry couldn’t sit upright. It made for a lot of clumsy fumbling. Finally, frustrated and impatient, Ricky disregarded Harry’s whimpering and jammed his legs into the pant legs.

Frank could hear Harry’s screams from inside the car.

After Ricky helped Harry down the trailer steps and into the front seat, he slid in the back himself. The three men sat in silence in the small car. Harry and Frank turned slowly to face each other. Harry took a long pull from a fresh whiskey bottle and belched.

Frank spoke first. “You asked me to. I hadn’t wanted to. I tried to talk you out of it. I let you have your one-time fit, because you were drunk and hurt. But try something again, you’ll be plenty goddamn sorry.”

“If I weren’t still drunk, maybe I’d be mad. Screw it, I’ll let it go. Be the bigger man. You don’t even have to apologize.”

“Good, ’cause I don’t make a habit of apologizing for things I ain’t done wrong. Way I see it, I was helping a friend.”

“Hurt like hell.”

Frank nodded and shrugged. “Bet it did at that. I might have come down on the leg a little hard. I got anxious.”

“The way luck works. It’ll all balance out down the line.”

“Everything happens for a reason?” Ricky asked.

Harry took another drink. “Yeah. Something like that, but not.”

“Don’t Indians call it karma?” Ricky asked.

Harry laughed, liquor running down his chin. “That’s the other Indians. From India. Like here’s a for example, used to see it down the prison all the time. Guy’s doing ten years ’cause he robbed a place and shot a guy or something else stupid. He’s in prison. But because he’s in this bad place, a good thing happens. He finds God or Allah or himself. If the guy wouldn’t’ve been sent down, he’d never got saved.”

“But what about the guy who got shot?”

“Exactly. Because he got shot, he probably ended up getting a handie from a hot nurse or something. Don’t know exactly, but there is a balance. A natural order.”

“What if the guy that got shot died?”

“Not in my scenario. That’s a different thing,” Harry said, battling to keep his eyes open. “Chuckawalla is medium security. Nobody that killed nobody is in there, ’cept drunk drivers or manslaughterers.”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t know much, but you don’t have a damn clue what karma means.”

Harry shushed Frank loudly. “It’s like this. Bad things been happening to me a lot and all my life, even worser than usual lately, but there’s always something comes out of it. And to get where we’re going—heck, we’re looking for hidden gold—more bad’s going to happen. That’s a good thing. ’Cause the way it’s tracking, we need to go through the bad and tons of it, if the good is going to be the kind of good that’s really good. Ricky knows what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t. Far as I can see, bad leads to more bad.”

Harry shook his head. “But it don’t. You’ll see. My whole life, all the horriblest stuff, it’s been leading to now. Or else, it wouldn’t be fair. I’m due. It’s all leading to something good. Something great. All the truly awful pain I’ve had to take, that’s the balance on the one end of the scale. The good’s got to be equally big. It’s got to be as big as a gold mine.”

Harry smiled, his two front teeth still missing. Frank smiled, too. It was possible. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

“W
here are we going?” Ricky asked.

Frank had dropped Harry off at the Imperial Valley Regional Medical Center, and now they were driving through El Centro. The impractical, tall palms that lined the dusty streets offered little shade and no beauty. The emptiness of the downtown felt unnatural, like a movie set in decay.

After Frank parked, he turned to Ricky and head-nodded for him to take a look across the street. Kids were at recess in a playground. Girls and boys in white shirts and black pants or skirts ran and laughed. High-pitched Spanish and English filled the air.

Through some instinctual imperative, Ricky’s eyes found Rosie immediately.

Ricky ducked in his seat. “No. Let’s go.”

Frank didn’t say anything.

“Come on, Mr. Pacheco. Frank. Don’t do this.”

Frank kept his eyes forward.

“She’ll see me.”

Frank grabbed Ricky by the back of the neck. He leaned in close, their noses almost touching.

“Do you see now? What it’s about? It’s about that little girl. You don’t get your past back, but you got a shot at a future. Not yours. Her future. That’s still out there. You got to let that bus crash, the drinking, the self-pity, let it go and start doing right by the people you owe, living people. Debts to the dead don’t mean a tinker’s damn.”

Ricky tried to look away, but Frank held him tight.

“You brought that girl into the world. Now you’ve abandoned her. Because you’re sad? Guilty? Sack up and stop acting the bitch. That’s a worse crime than any old bastards that might got killed. Don’t matter what you’ve done to now. You leave that little girl behind, you’ll burn in every kind of hell anyone’s ever imagined.”

“I was trying to protect her,” Ricky said, “from the cops and the lawyers and everything they would take.”

“You protect someone by fighting. No one ever protected anything or anyone by giving up.”

Tears streamed down Ricky’s face. He nodded his head. No words came. Frank started the car and drove away. Ricky took one last glance at his little girl.

Frank gripped Ricky’s shoulder firmly, fatherly. “We go through our lives, we do good things, bad things. Can’t take either back. But we can draw a line. We can say from now on, from this point, I ain’t ever going to be a son of a bitch again. She ain’t lost yet. You fight, you can have her, your wife, your family back. You going to be a son of a bitch anymore?”

Ricky shook his head.

“You going to draw a line?”

Ricky nodded.

“That’s right. Because, kid, there’s only one real son of a bitch in this car.”

H
arry never realized how exhausting sitting in a waiting room could be. He dug through the magazines, but the only function they appeared to serve was as a place to put one’s used chewing gum. The kid across from him picked his nose knuckle-deep and stared at him. The guy next to him coughed with abandon, spray going in every direction. It felt like a light rain on the back of Harry’s hand, only infectious.

He had been on time, but an hour later the lady nurse at the counter still hadn’t called on him. He didn’t know he had fallen asleep until he was jerked awake by the sound of his name.

The effort to reach a standing position made him light-headed and nauseous. Half hangover plus half broken leg equaled all awful. Even with the aid of the crutch, every small movement shot electric jolts of pain through his entire body.

After what felt like an epic journey, he leaned heavily against the counter. The lady nurse smiled a well-rehearsed fake smile. It was almost believable.

“Ready for my exam. Leg really needs looking at,” Harry said.

“Oh, your examination isn’t today.”

“Excuse me?”

“Due to a short staff and overscheduling, we cannot perform your examination at this time. The soonest that we can schedule you is—” She typed rapidly into her computer and squinted at the screen. “Three months from now.”

“They sent me here. The prison. They scheduled an appointment. The lady on the phone said I needed to come here today.”

“Yes. We need a signature from you to defer the examination until we can reschedule. Once we have the signed form and the doctor cosigns, we’ll send the completed medical leave paperwork on. After that, there should be no further disruption of your payments.”

“You couldn’t mail a letter? I had to come in?”

“We require proof of ID, and most patients prefer not to pay for a notary. We’ve found it easier to have you drop by.”

“Easier?”

The throbbing in Harry’s leg doubled and made its way into his head. His vision blurred and tilted for a moment, but came back as quickly.

“So you’re saying—let me get this exactly right—there is no exam and all I need to do is sign a piece of paper and my money
will keep coming until my actual appointment—three months from now.”

“That is correct.”

“But I—” Harry closed his eyes and bit down on the inside of his cheek. He took a deep breath that didn’t help.

“Do you have a question?”

Harry shook his head. “Where do I sign?”

The nurse found a clipboard in a stack and attached a form. She handed it to Harry over the counter. He glanced at the form, and then signed it without reading. The nurse’s eyes caught sight of Harry’s leg.

“Holy sweet Jesus, your leg.”

Harry looked down. His pant leg was stained dark red with blood. The darkness of the blood was surrounded by a halo of some kind of fatty discharge. The sight of it didn’t do Harry any favors. He simultaneously vomited and passed out.

F
rank chewed on an unlit cigar and Ricky silently scratched at the bandage on his arm. They had been at the hospital so long that it had only made sense to have someone take a look at Ricky’s dog bites.

They stood over Harry’s hospital bed. Harry’s leg was wrapped tight and elevated. His red eyes flitted at half-mast.

“Told you it was a dumb plan,” Frank said.

“What’re you talking about?” Harry slurred. “The money flow is back on track. Like a charm. Like a lucky charm.”

Harry wasn’t about to tell them the truth. Nobody had to know the embarrassing fact that his fractured leg had been entirely unnecessary. A minor error in judgment that resulted in two hours of emergency surgery. And a lot of pain. On the plus side, the painkillers they gave him made him feel cozy and warm inside.

“You fixed up now? No worse the wear? Everything back where it should be?” Frank asked.

“Said the break was clean. They reset it, stapled the wound. Should be out in a day or two. Have to change the dressing on my leg regular. Take infection pills. When the gash heals, I turn in the temporary for a plaster cast. I’ll let you sign it.”

“When do you get money? When can we start?” Ricky cut in.

“That’s what I like to hear. Listen to that enthusiasm,” Harry said.

Ricky reached into his pocket and pulled out the small swath of cloth that he always carried with him. “I’m ready to find our gold.”

T
he small boat drifted along the surface of the water. Scrub and low hills failed as scenery around the dam lake. But the men weren’t there for sightseeing. Or fishing, though that hadn’t stopped them from bringing fishing gear. There was no restriction against scuba diving. Everything they were planning was perfectly legal. But to Harry, this was his, and he didn’t want to advertise. He insisted they appear to be any other fishing boat.

Harry had used his newfound library skills to learn about diving, recreational boating, and other elements of their excursion. He had driven to San Diego for equipment and rented the boat in advance from Bo’s Boats, one of two rental places along that stretch of the Colorado River. It hadn’t been much different than planning a family vacation or fishing junket. Not that Harry knew anything about either.

The boat was abuzz with activity. Bernardo and Ramón hauled the gear from one end to the other. Ricky organized the equipment as they brought it over. Harry futzed with the GPS unit. Frank worked the rudder, following Harry’s shouted commands.

“This is it. Drop anchor,” Harry said. “We’re right on top of downtown Picacho.”

Ricky dropped the small anchor into the water.

“How we going to do this?” Frank asked.

“Figured one of your boys would suit up, hit the water. The suits are weighted. Sink to the bottom, then I can guide them with this GPS thingy as I track against the maps. I paid a premium
for them high-tech, full-face masks that you can talk into, like walkies.”

Bernardo and Ramón looked at each other, then at Harry. Bernardo spoke for them. “We do not go in the water.”

“What?” Harry smiled, but only because he had forgotten to remove the smile from his face.

“I have not scuba dived. Ramón has not scuba dived.”

“An excellent opportunity to learn. Who did you think was going to dive? Your million-year-old grandfather with cancer? Me? With a giant cast on my leg? Or was it going to be the shriveled-arm dude? No offense, Ricky. Who, if not one of you two?”

“I did not think of any of that,” Bernardo said. “I did not think of any of that, because that was not my job to think of. We are here to lift. Only to lift.”

“You’re right.” Harry felt his rising panic. “We should have discussed it before. Why don’t you suit up and we’ll forget about it?”

Bernardo shook his head. Ramón mimicked his brother a second later. “I have told you,” Bernardo said. “We do not go in the water.”

“Frank? Can you talk to them?” Harry’s body shook.

But before Frank could answer, Ramón spoke for the first time. He looked down at his feet and spoke softly, but loud enough to hear. “I cannot swim. We cannot swim.”

Harry closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He couldn’t believe it. They had come all the way out there and nobody could do the dive. How could it not have come up? Did they want money? Was this a tactic? They couldn’t want a cut, because they didn’t know about the gold. Unless Frank told them.

“What are we supposed to do? You know how much money I spent? We’re supposed to take the boat back? Call it a day?”

“You know what they say about when you assume,” Ramón said, still staring at his feet.

“I ask for help and I get the Go Go Gophers. High was bad enough, but stupid and high. I’m surprised you retarded redskins have enough brains between…”