Savior (4 page)

Have a nice day, said Al
, starting towards Ricky.

Hey, you too. Take care of yourself.

Al walked down to where Ricky was standing. For a fifteen year old he was tall, almost as tall as Al; but inside, where it counted, he was still a little boy.

Looking good, kid.

That was my best one.

I almost stood up. I feel like I'm almost there.

Yeah. Just got to keep working at it, Dad.

Ready for breakfast?

Yeah.

They walked back down the beach to the road. The tide was starting to go out. Al thought that a few more days and they would forget they'd ever been anywhere else. Hunger was making him almost delirious, though. He thought of Mary and said a prayer to himself for her.

Your Mom would be proud of you, Ricky.

I know, Dad. She didn't care that I wasn't playing football. She was proud of me for standing up to you on that.

You're right. She was. And you were right not to play. Although I think you would have found it a worthwhile and rewarding challenge.

Dad. Don't start.

Well, you brought it up.

They were silent. The ugly subject of football had reared again. Now it would take
a while. Al thought he should have just let it go. Next time Ricky brought it up, just not say a thing. First he'd been angry with Ricky for not going out for the high school team in ninth grade. As an eighth grader he'd been the leading rusher for the program, primed for high school success. Mary, of course, had backed her son up in his decision to take a couple of years and find out what he really loved to do. The day in ninth grade he'd said football was boring, Al had exploded on him and accused him of being a quitter. The worst thing he'd ever called his son and the worst insult he could think of. Al's passions sometimes got the best of him. Why did he care so much? Had he no life? Probably because his son's triumphs in his former arenas lit some vicarious flame in the hippocampus region, the circuitry charred out in the extended adolescence of American males, stuck in some Johnny Unitas loop of positive stimuli. Self-doubt settled like a filter in the air, a momentary pall on the day. How absurd could he be, a middle-aged man pretending to master a sport for boys half his age so that he could
relate
to his son? It was preposterous and made him into a half-pretentious nitwit. But then, he thought, it was fun. F. . .U. . .N, the three letters that justified any pursuit. This was the de facto philosophy of the street he argued against sometimes with Ricky. How fun was not enough. But as a defining concept, a rule of thumb. . . , it was good, as long as you didn't hurt anybody. As long as basic needs had been met, so you were basically talking about a higher pursuit. Interchangeable concepts. Fun. Good. The smiling grace of the Puritan heartland. Fun. The someday over the rainbow, the prettiest girl you ever saw, the Higgs inside the Higgs Boson.

A
hot shower calmed him down. Afterwards he sat in a chair and saw himself wasting the rest of the day in a lazy funk. The sound of the water running as Ricky took his turn reminded him that Ricky was still brooding, sunk in his own thoughts.

The thing about Ricky was his soul was better, more refined by the waves of time. That was the way with sons. They were generally improved versions of their fathers, and it was what eventually made everything all right. As a father, he could officially just relax and spend some time in a chair, half-dressed, because Ricky would take care of business, kick his ass into shape
, and get them up to the corner to do the shopping they needed to do.

Dad, come on. I'm hungry.

The town was within walking distance. It consisted of a crossroads deli market run by German hippies, the Yoga Institute further up in the hills, various bodegas along the road in both directions, north and south, the Computer Center where you apparently could connect with your social media, and various tourist restaurants and hangouts such as the Gilded Iguana, which advertised Live Music Tonite in neon-colored, non-erasable chalk on the board outside the palm-lined entrance. Al and Ricky walked into a bodega and bought provisions: eggs, cans of black beans, some root vegetables, a bag of oranges, two loaves of Pan Bimbo, and two cases of Dos Equis. There was a bank down the road that ran towards the northern end of the beach past the surfer camps. This was the next stop. Ricky wanted to stop in and see Coconut Juan, so Al went to the bank on his own, and afterwards he checked out a map of the area on a bulletin board just outside Coconut Juan's, provided by the Monterico Chamber of Business. He could hear Ricky chatting with Coconut Juan. The American girlfriend was in there also, along with a young boy who was the helper.

Mr. Lyons, come inside.

The American girl was calling to him. Al walked inside and over to the counter. Coconut Juan was sitting on a stool looking at him. The girl was arranging some of the trinkets under the glass counter. Ricky stood next to Coconut Juan, apparently also waiting for Al. When Al reached them, he waited for some clarification of the grave looks both their faces held. Coconut Juan raised up the tablet, the Mayan reproduction Ricky had spotted and liked the day before. In the light from the street, it had the air of a holy relic, something eerie and power-ridden, as Juan held it up.

Dees ees
ahora de su hijo
. You must to know because ees
un peligro para mi y para ustedes tambien. Peligro.
You know?

Yeah
.
Corrientes peligrosas
, said Al. What's up? Why is it dangerous?

There ees men looking for thees. You eh, keep, eh, hide.

What men?

Los Santos Muertos.

Look. I've been hearing about them. What is going on? How could this, this fake. . .be dangerous?

Ees no
un
fake, Señor Lyons. Ees
el Chocomal
. The eh, key to the
universo Maya.
Ees. . .
una cifra importantisima!

So now it's Ricky's?

Yeah, I knew it was good.

Ricky picked it up and was setting to walk out of the store with it when Coconut Juan stood, leaned over the counter
, and grabbed him forcefully by the shoulder.

How much? asked Al. How much did you pay for it, Ricky?

Fifty dollars.

Look, no way. Give it back.

Daaad.

Coconut Juan let him go. He had a frenzied look on his face, still standing.

Es que no entienden
, he wailed in a bitter tone. The American girl, with a worried look on her face, looked up.

Mr. Lyons, Juan believes his life is in danger because of that thing. All he's asking is
that you take it and get it away from here. Please. Take it away.

Why doesn't he just bury it? Hide it or something?

He's scared they'll find it and kill him.

I see. So if they find us
, they'll kill us.

There's that possibility.

What is it?

The girl threw up her hands in a gesture of futility.

I don't know. A national treasure, I guess. Juan's very patriotic. He wants to give it to the National Museum in Guatemala City, but he's scared. He thinks everybody is working for the LSM up there in the capital. They have a lot of money, you see.

So why don't you just dump it in the ocean?

I've been trying to get him to do that. He just refuses. Won't go there.

No, no dump
, said Coconut Juan, waving his hands in front of him back and forth frenetically.

Ricky was walking fast with the tablet
, out the door.

Hold it, cowboy. Let’s put a bag on that.

What? You believe all that stuff?

You never know. When in doubt, go with the prudent thing. Let’s not take any chances. When we get to the hotel we can figure out a place to put it.

Um, like my suitcase?

Maybe caution would dictate otherwise.

We’ll talk about it later, Dad. Let’s finish the shopping and fix something to eat.

Coconut Juan gave them a striped plastic bag and wrapped the tablet in newspaper and taped the wrapping. Ricky put the whole thing in the bag as if he were handling a fish, insisting with his body language that he was above all the subterfuge and paranoia.

Cuidelo con su vida, muchacho.

What’d he say?

Take care of it.

Mom would love this.

A gaggle of dirt bikes came down the rutted road, careening around the corner in a high frequency whine of redlining engines. The men sitting on them wore black pants and were shirtless, with heavily tattooed torsos and arms and scarves wrapped around their heads and faces. They slowed down enough to not run anyone over. They gave Ricky and Al quick, nonchalant glances as if they did not belong.

That’s them, said Ricky

Who?

T
he
Santos Muertos
.

How do you know?

I don’t know how I know. Just. . .heard a voice.

A voice, huh?

Yeah, Dad. It sounds crazy. But. . .

Well, son. We need to get some food.

The tablet gave the trip a new sense of urgency, as if the sky had opened up and a wind had swept away the dull, humid air of every day. Al thought of the way time passed and left you with only a residue of memory, and how this new possession, like a slap in the face or a cold-water bath, invigorated their steps. They walked shoulder to shoulder and crossed the road as buses and trucks made their way up and down what was, after all, the highway to Escuintla and from there points north to Tapachula and eventually
la frontera
and south to El Salvador and Colombia and all along the road in both directions the chain of the mountains that rose out of the jungle. He’d read once in a newspaper, one of those human-interest features from Reuters about a man who’d walked the whole length of the Pan-American highway, north to south, and was headed back the other way, expecting to complete his journey in the farthest northern town of Alaska, was it Barrow? Now with the tablet, he and Ricky seemed like they were somehow linked in a similar life-and-death exploration. What had Coconut Juan meant by a
cifra
? Was that a secret code, a number containing the answer they all were looking for? What would that be?

By the time t
hey finished the food shopping. Ricky was carrying three plastic bags in each hand, plus the bag with the tablet and Al had the bag of oranges, the two cases of beer and a box of Ramen noodle packs that were on sale at the last bodega. They took a different, less-trafficked route back to the apartment, passing the cemetery at the north end of the beach. Around the corner of the cemetery, the road ran onto a path that cut parallel with the beach through the dune scrub. They came out of the shade of the ceiba and flamboyant trees that lined the road. The sun was beating down on them. Coming toward them along the trail strode the American man from the morning’s encounter on the beach. Al looked up and saw him and kept his gaze steady as they approached. The man looked up and smiled when he saw them. What was his name? Robert Newman, namesake of the famous actor but without the baby blues.

Surfer father. And surfer son.

How ya doin', Robert?

I’m fine. I expect you’ll be pros by the time your time is up.

Well, the waves here are a little over our heads. Otherwise the place is perfect.

Yeah, but its overrun.

Hey, what more can you tell us about the criminal threat in the area? You look like someone in the know.

Robert scratched his head and looked up and down the beach.

It's not good. Look, if I were you, honestly? I'd get on a bus out of here as fast as I could. This place is about to pop.

Pop? What do you mean?

These boys been running meth, cocaine, guns through San Jose for about a year. You wouldn't believe it. Nobody does. They're planning to take over, and when they do, it won't be pretty. It's going to go down any day now.

The American pulled some sunglasses out of his bathing suit pocket. He polished the lenses with the fabric of his oversized bathing suit, put them on, and then produced a pair of binoculars out of the other pocket. There was something seedy about him, as if he'd been too long away from the company of normal people, thought Al.

Good view from here of the water and if you look way out on the horizon you can see subs.

Subs. As in submarines
.

Th
at's right. Built in the jungle.

Al put down the box of noodles and the bag of oranges and
the cases of beer. Ricky refused to do the same with his load, looking on with exasperation as his father took a turn with the binoculars.

Can you see them?

Yeah.

They looked like little pill bugs poking up above the water on the horizon.

What are they?