Six Bad Things (12 page)

—Francés?

—No. American.

—Los Angeles?

I shake my head.

He narrows his eyes.

—San Diego?

I shake my head again, desperate not to be associated with either of these clearly undesirable locales.

—New York.

I move my hand, toward my pocket, offering to get my ID for him. Hoping he won’t want to see it.

He waves his hand at me, shakes his head.

—New York?

—Yeah.

—September eleven.

—Yeah.

He nods slowly, sadly, then smiles slightly and sticks up his thumb.

—Go Yankees.

I stick up my thumb.

—Yeah. Go Yankees.

He gets off the bus, and I make it to the can before I piss my pants.

THE FACTS of Robert Cramer’s book were drawn from public records and exclusive interviews he conducted during the year of “exhaustive research” he spent writing
The Man Who Got Away.
He also refers to an episode of
America’s Most Wanted
that seems to have featured me. The mind boggles.

The list of people he claims to have interviewed includes a couple childhood friends, an old neighbor, my fifth-grade teacher, my high-school counselor, my Little League coach (whose statements about my competitive nature Cramer makes great hay of), one of the surgeons who operated on my leg, two old girlfriends (who don’t seem to have said anything too embarrassing), a few of my college professors, some former “regulars” from Paul’s Bar (whose names I don’t recognize), and the parents of Rich, the boy, my friend, who I killed when I crashed my car into a tree. Cramer quotes them as saying I showed no emotion at their son’s funeral (true), never contacted them after (true), and had dragged him into a ring of juvenile housebreakers before his death (not so much true, as Rich was already a member of said “ring” when I fell in with him and my other delinquent friends, Steve and Wade).

Cramer dwells for some time on the “killer” competitive instinct my parents programmed into me as they sat on the bench at my baseball games with their “impossible to meet expectations arrayed about them.” He consults a psychologist to diagnose the impact of my baseball accident and to attest to how it forced me to channel those instincts into other areas; thus my brief life of petty crime. He exposes my failed attempt to find a healthy outlet as evidenced by my six-year sojourn through college without receiving a degree. He charts my “loner” ways after my college girlfriend “abandoned” me in New York. And finally, he points to the eventual alcoholism that lit the fuse on all my inner rage and stifled need to win, to “beat others.” And I am certain that if I had Robert Cramer in front of me right now, I would teach him all about beating others.

I AM standing at the top of Kukulcan. It is night and I am surrounded by all the people Cramer talked to for his book. They are lined up along the edge, their backs to the drop behind them. I push them one by one into the pitch darkness that surrounds the pyramid until I get to the end of the line, where I find my mom and dad.

I lurch awake with a slight cry. Still on the bus, still night. The book is open in my lap, facedown, the cover exposed. The old woman in the seat next to mine looks from the grainy black-and-white photo of my short-haired, clean-shaven former self and up to my shaggy, sweaty face. She gives me a sweet smile.

—Pesadilla?

Pesadilla. Nightmare. A word I actually know in Spanish. I nod, closing the book, tucking it into the pack beneath my seat.

—Si, pesadilla.

She smiles again, takes hold of my hand and squeezes it. Still holding it, she points into the darkness outside.

—Cataviña.

And out of the black desert around us, I see huge shapes looming in the light thrown by our headlamps. I’ve heard of this place. The Boulder Fields of Cataviña; miles and miles of boulders strewn singly or in mounds or in massive piles the size of small mountains. The boulders themselves range in size from cow to house, all dropped here by glaciers that carved the peninsula however many thousands of thousands of years before any of the people I’ve killed were ever born.

I fall asleep still holding the old woman’s hand.

I WAKE to daylight just south of Ensenada. I look to my left and see the Pacific Ocean, the ocean I grew up with. The old woman is gone. About an hour and a half later we pull into the terminal in Tijuana where the Mexican bus lines end because, NAFTA aside, the teamsters don’t want them in America.

Inside I find the Greyhound counter and buy the ticket that will take me over the border. I pay the bathroom attendant fifty
centavos
to get in the john and clean up a little. Then I go to the lunch counter, where I see the Raiders and Broncos playing on the TV and realize it’s Sunday just before a score scrolls past at the bottom of the screen: DET 21 MIA 0 1Q.

BEFORE I get on the bus I find a trash barrel. I start by dumping Cramer’s book, follow that with torn-up traveler’s checks, the passport and ID I’ve been using for the last two years, and the Carlyle passport. That leaves me with Carlyle’s driver’s license, library card, gym card, and all the stuff you’d expect him to have in a wallet except credit cards.

I get on the bus. We drive a couple miles to the border and find ourselves stuck in a line of buses and cars, all streaming out of Mexico at the end of the weekend. The driver puts the bus in park and stands.

—It looks pretty bad out there today. It’s up to you folks, but if I were you, I’d get out here, walk across the border, and catch one of the buses in the terminal on the U.S. side.

Most of the people on the bus decide this is sound advice. It is soon apparent that if I stay here I will no longer be just one of an anonymous crowd of passengers should an Immigration officer come on board. I grab my pack and walk off the bus. It’s cool and I’m still dressed for the tropics. The sidewalk that leads to the border station is lined with vendor stalls. I see one selling long-sleeved T-shirts. I buy a white shirt with a Mexican flag on the front, Viva Mexico printed on the back. I look at the people around me, the Americans crossing back. Most are empty-handed or carry plastic shopping bags after spending the night getting drunk in TJ. I get a look at myself in a Corona mirror at one of the booths. I look like a vagabond who’s been living here for years, which is only right, I suppose, but not the appearance I want to cultivate.

I kneel by the side of the walk and dig in my pack, making sure there’s nothing in it with any of my names. I take out my Steinbeck and put it in one of the thigh pockets of my pants, then walk to a trash barrel and dump the pack. At another vendor’s stall I buy a serape and an ashtray shaped like a sombrero. There’s also a liquor store, where I get a bottle of mescal. I put on my sunglasses and walk into the border station.

The line is long but moves fast. The American officers thoroughly check the ID on anybody brown, but give just a quick eyeball for most of the white people. My turn at the front of the line comes.

—Nationality?

—U.S.

—ID.

I hand him Carlyle’s driver’s license, not knowing at all what will happen.
The Man Who Got Away
was published about a year after I left New York. Cramer says I disappeared virtually without a trace and that the NYPD and FBI assume I was either killed by rivals or fled the country. But that doesn’t mean he was right about what the authorities really knew, or that they haven’t put together more information since the book came out. For all I know, the name Carlyle being entered into an Immigration computer could open a trapdoor beneath my feet and send me dropping into a hole with Charlie Manson.

The Immigration officer looks at the license.

—Can you take off your sunglasses please, Mr. Carlyle?

—Sure, dude.

I push them up on my head.

—How long you been down?

—Friday.

He looks at the license again.

—From New York?

Fuck me.

—Naw, I lived out there for a while, but I came back after the economy tanked.

—Where’s back?

—Fresno.

—You know this is expired?

—Yeah, dude, but I don’t have a car anyway. I’m living with my folks right now. No work. Took the bus here.

I flash my Greyhound ticket.

—OK, but once it’s expired, a license is no longer valid ID.

—Dude! No! Shit!

—It’s OK, but get it renewed before you come back down.

—Yeah, right. Thanks, man.

He passes it back.

—Anything to declare?

I hold my shopping bag open.

—Some crap for my folks.

—OK. Have a nice day.

—Yeah, you too, dude.

I drop the sunglasses over my eyes, cross over onto American soil for the first time in three years, and see the camoed special forces types with black berets and automatic weapons. Well, that’s new.

ACROSS THE border, I walk past the Greyhound terminal and follow the signs for the trolley to downtown San Diego. It costs two bucks and takes about forty-five minutes. Having just shown that Immigration officer my ticket, I have no intention of getting on another bus. I don’t want to risk flashing the Carlyle ID anymore, so flying is out, and I don’t have any credit cards to rent a car. What I do have is a little over four grand in cash.

As we enter the city we pass through a couple sketchy neighborhoods that look promising. I hop off at 12th and Market and stand on the corner in front of a liquor store. I see a couple coin-operated news racks across the street and step off the curb. I’m in the middle of the crosswalk when I register something I saw back on the corner. I stop, turn, take a step, and almost get sail-frogged by a heavily primered VW Westphalia. The bus swerves around me, missing by inches, and I get to the sidewalk and light up. Three years of Mexico have killed my traffic instincts.

I walk over to the little stucco house behind the liquor store and it’s there in the driveway: a pale yellow 1968 BMW 1600 with a For Sale sign in the window and a sense of desperation in the air. I look back over my shoulder at the newspaper racks. Screw the
Auto Trader.
God knows how long that might take. I walk up to the front door and ring the bell. A little girl, maybe five years old, opens up and stands there behind the screen door. I smile.

—Hey, is your mom or dad home?

She slams the door in my face. I raise my hand to ring again, decide against it, and start for the street. I hear the door open behind me.

—What?

I turn. There’s another girl there, this one about seventeen.

—Yeah, I wanted to know about the car. I asked your sister if your folks were home.

—Daughter.

—Right. She’s a beautiful girl.

—Uh-huh.

—So. The car?

—What about it?

—It’s for sale?

—Yeah.

—Is it yours?

—Yeah.

—How much you want for it?

—Five.

—Does it run?

—Yeah.

—Can we start it up?

She squints at me.

—You a process server?

—Uh, no.

—’Cause if I come out there and you try to stick some fucking piece of paper in my hand, I’m gonna take it and ram it up your ass.

—I am not a process server.

—I’ll get the keys.

The car starts right up. She switches on the radio to show that it works, tells me the brakes need fluid, and asks if I want to take it around the block. I pop the hood, make sure the oil is full and not too black, quickly eyeball the plugs, fiddle with the carburetor for a second to even out the flow, and shake my head.

—No test drive, I’ll take it as is, four hundred.

She turns the key, switching off the engine, and nods.

—OK, but I need a ride before you take it.

Christ.

—Where?

—’Bout a mile. I need to drop my daughter at her dad’s place.

Last thing I need is this girl sitting in the car with me for a mile, and getting a good look at my face.

—Look, I’m sorry, but I really need to get rolling.

—C’mon, give us a ride. Otherwise I got to call the son of a bitch to come get her and he’ll take all day coming over and I’ll never get to work on time ’cause I got to take the bus now ’cause I’m selling you the car and I’m knocking a hundred off it for you anyway.

Oh, man.

—OK. I’ll give you a ride, but let’s get going.

—Thanks. My name’s Leslie. Pink slip’s inside.

The daughter is sitting on the floor in front of the tube watching MTV. A girl her mom’s age is shoving her ass into the camera. Leslie points at a chair.

—Wait here.

She goes into a bedroom and I can see her take a box down off a shelf in the closet. I stand next to the chair and watch the girl watch TV. The video ends and she becomes aware of me.

—You like Britney?

—Not really.

—I used to like her, but now she’s all dirty.

—Looks that way.

—You like Christina?

—Not really.

—My mom likes her.

—Who do you like?

—Eminem. Do you like him?

—Sometimes.

Her eyes are locked on the screen as she flips channels. Leslie walks back into the room, a massive black purse over her shoulder and a pink slip in her hand.

—Got the money?

I slip some bills out of my pocket and count out four hundred. She takes it and looks at the rest of the cash in my hands.

—You a dealer?

—No.

—Hn.

She hands me the pink slip, already signed, and I put it in my back pocket. She puts the cash in her purse and looks at her daughter.

—Cassidy, turn that off, we’re gonna go to daddy’s.

Cassidy switches off the TV, gets up, and walks out the front door without looking at her mom.

—She’s a little pissed at me right now because I told her we had to get rid of the cable.

—Right.

I wait on the porch while she locks the door, twists the BMW key off the ring, and hands it to me. I point at the trunk.

—Anything you need to get out?