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Chapter 1. Only
Five Daughters.
Doll, my plan is this: Get what I need and get
the hell out of town. It's not
a great plan, I know. It's even, I guess, an old-fashioned plan. But
my head feels
a thousand years old and it's the only plan I can think of. This is
a two-fold plan,
Doll. It also involves you. Get what I need. Get the hell out of town.
And then get
my ass over to your bedroom. That can even be the new address for
my ass: Flan's
Ass, c/o the Doll's bedroom, NYC. It's got a ring to it, you have
to admit. New York
City. Molly's bedroom. Be still my sour old heart. You said in your
last letter that
you missed me upside down and backwards, wanted me there. You also
said I was not
to take your letter as bait for consoling words. So, Doll, I hope
these words don't
console you. Or something. Please pick up my trunk -big black leather
sucker - at Kennedy
Airport around 3:30pm, Thursday, the 20th, and I'll meet you at Fee's
that night.
Love, Flan.
I wrote that exactly two weeks before my probation
was up. I rolled it out of the
typewriter, folded it into an envelope addressed to Molly and slipped
the whole thing
into the back pocket of my jeans. It was broiling in Mapache. The
driest Fall New
Mexico'd ever seen and even so I had to wipe the sweat off my chest
with a clean
towel before putting my shirt back on.
I opened the door to my shack. The endless rows
of ugly cotton shimmered wetly in
the huge sun and the Organ Mountains made a bruised green shadow across
the farm,
a rising shelf of darkness against the glare. The Organ Mountains
are really just
the foothills of the Rockies. They do look like pipe organs, though.
Great purple
cylinders as if the whole farming community in this God-forsaken southern
tip of
New Mexico was one huge Catholic church. Fucking poets these Mexicans
are.
Nary Totonac, old and bent, deep red lines etched into his face, was
struggling with
his pecan trees, of course, and I started across the field to give
him notice. Nary'd
been good to me. He'd given me the job and the brown adobe shack to
live in when
I got out of prison, claiming that my grandmother, the madam, had
done as much and
then some for him.
I hated to let Nary down. He'd kept me on even after the pecan weevil
and the drought
had come up from Juarez, destroying half his winter crop. I felt terrible
about leaving
him in the lurch, especially after the fine meals I'd shared with
his family, but
the truth was, there wasn't much I could do to help him save his farm.
It was out
of our hands.
If I stuck around, it'd just be me salivating after his beautiful
sixteen-hand gray
appaloosa, and shooting longing glances at his youngest daughter,
Sonia. She was
fucking gorgeous. Nary himself called her his red hot tamale. She
had those eyes
you read about in crummy pulp books, Spanish Eyes, flashing black
eyes, and bleached
white hair down to her ass.
I'd been trying to get her into the sack for close to three years
now and every time
she'd bat those glittering eyes at me and giggle prettily, "mañana,
maËana."
Of course maËana never came which was the thing I hated most about
the Southwest.
It's always maËana with Mexicans and they almost never come across.
Thinking about it, I felt the bile rise in my throat. My black boots
were cracked
with three years of hard farm labor. They were just about ruined.
All the cracks
were a dusty tan brown from the bone-dry dirt. I felt the sun on the
back of my neck
and I knew I looked almost as red as a Mexican myself.
Yeah, I had to get out of Mapache, away from this
burnt-up culture. I figured a few
years in clammy, brutal New York were just what I needed. The whole
time I worked
at Nary's, and even more when I was in the slam, I'd hallucinated
about going back
East. In fact, my whole damn life has been one long struggle to get
to a place like
New York and stay there; but somehow or other I always find myself
back in the Southwest,
sweating and choking, my mouth full of gritty dry dirt.
New York made me think of Molly and I took the letter out of my pocket
and reread
it as I made my way toward old Nary, who was throwing dead pecans
for his german
shepherd, Vulf. I knew Vulf was going to eat about a thousand pecan
weevils and then
get sick and shit green all over the farm; and Nary's wife would beat
him with a
beaded belt. But I'd had that fight with them hundreds of times and
my face hurt
from the glare, so I kept my eyes on the letter.
It was pretty good. Picturing Molly reading it, her long black hair
falling into
her eyes, I got hard. I had a much better plan than the one I'd described
to her,
of course. One that involved a load of peyote and season tickets to
the Mets; but
I was afraid Molly wouldn't help me unless she thought I was finally
gonna settle
down and become some kind of fat, pipe-smoking philosopher.
See, Molly's a strange girl. If you saw her walking
down some street in New York,
struggling under a ton of books and papers, patiently addressing invisible
demons,
hair in her face, tight black jeans, blue sweater over perfect breasts,
you'd never
think she could know someone like me. And God knows no one I come
across would ever
dream there was a person like Molly. An Easterner? A Hungarian? A
professor plagued
by an entourage of ghosts? It's like we pull a fast one on God every
time we kiss.
But I met her in a bar. And, well, bars are like that. Everybody's
got to drink.
And two very different people can end up with the exact same thirst
for the slick
burn of tequila. Molly's eyes are gray-blue, huge, the color of an
old black-and-white
TV purring all night in the corner of darkened trailer. She's tall,
taller than me,
about 5'10" or 11", taller in the black boots she wears.
Black hair. Blue eyes. Black jeans. Blue sweater. Black boots. Blue
smoke curling
around her fingers. Black and blue and black again. A guy could look
at her and get
the idea that bruising's gonna enter into this soon, and in a big
way. But it isn't
like that. At the college where Molly teaches, they call her Doctor
Silence.
When I stepped up close to Nary he was bent over Vulf, showing him
a handful of rotten
pecans. Black weevils squirmed in his palm.
"You see this, Vulfito? Is terrible. Just terrible."
He stood up, shaking his head and closing his hand around the infested
pecans, crushing
them. I hoped he would say "terrible" again. I liked the
way he said it. He rolled
the R's out into a low long growl. He sounded just like Vulf, in fact.
He dropped
the nut fragments into the dust and wiped his hands on the sides of
jeans. I saw
a couple of half-dead weevils clinging to the seams. He clapped a
great red hand
on my shoulder and I set my face hard so I wouldn't grimace. I felt
sorry for Nary
about the weevils but I didn't want the bugs on my shirt. I was going
into town.
"Nary," I said.
"Flanagan. You see these wee-bowls? It is terrible."
Vulf barked and I grinned. Of course Nary didn't know that was the
name of a kid's
toy and I didn't want to tell him. It would be embarrassing. Nary
was sensitive about
his accent, a crazy mixture of Mexican, German, and Vera Cruz Indian.
I knew the
suits at Molly's office would probably eat him up; but he didn't like
to talk about
it, and that was okay with me.
I picked up a pecan and threw it for Vulf. It was a good throw. He
leapt up and caught
it right at the peak of the arc, his tan legs at least three feet
off the ground,
then trotted back to us, dropping the nut between Nary's legs.
"You going into town, Flanagan?"
"Yeah, Nary, I..."
"Af, you leave us soon, Flanagan. So, don' look surprised. I
know you. Your probation
almost up. Now you move on. This is good. Now you been with Nary.
Now you stay out
of trouble. For your beautiful grandmother, God rest her soul, I never
do less. Tonight
you eat with us, hokay? We drink the tequila we brought up from Juarez.
Very good.
Sauza Blanco. Special. Special night. Vulf he 'ave some too. Dogs
love the tequila."
He squatted down on his dead farm land and scratched his ratty dog
behind the ears.
Vulf thumped his tail, his mouth hanging half open in a big stupid
grin. Nary looked
up at me, squinting in the sun.
"You take Arturo into town, Flanagan?"
"I was thinkin' about it."
"Af." He spit and stretched. "I don't know which you
love more, SeËor Flanagan,
my horse, or my daughter."
I wasn't sure what to say. He'd never talked like this before and
I didn't really
want to get into it. I was anxious to get to town. It was true I loved
them both,
but probably not as much as Nary would've liked to think.
"They're much the same, you know?"
I laughed.
"Sonia and Arturo?"
"You laugh, Flanagan, but it is true. Arturo,
he is very pretty, is he no, with his
spots?"
"He is, Nary. The best Appi in the county."
"Yet I ride him into town, sitting up there sixteen one, maybe
two high, and what
do the ranchers say as I pass? Go on, you tell Nary. I heard before."
"They say he's an idiot horse, brains in his spots."
"But you know Arturo is very smart, gentle, one in a thousand,
a million."
"Sure, but what's the point?"
"Sonia, she is a very pretty girl, so people think she is not
so bright, hah? Her
brains in her," he carved the figure of a woman in the hot dusty
air.
"Okay, Nary, I get the point."
He sighed, picking weevils off of Vulf's coat, then shook his head,
swivelling to
take in the entire sight of his ravaged farm.
"Af. I'm not sure you do, Flanagan. But anyway it don't matter.
Not you I worry about,
truly. This land, my family. I worry what will 'appen. I wish I could
sell this land,
take Mrs. Totonac to Atlantic City. Always she wanted to live classy
like that, back
East. You think I care who I sell to? Another farmer? The Church?
The Army? Af. They
talk in town about these greedy developers but I don't care. I would
sell to anyone.
No one want this terrible land. Not in five acre lots like it must
be. And little
Sonia, she need her mother. Sixteen and still with no real prospects?
Af."
At the sound of Nary saying "terrible," Vulf started barking.
Nary shook his head,
unscrambling his tired old brains, and smiled.
"Never mind this, Flanagan. You go to town, never mind the crazy
talk of a crazy
old man."
I stood from my crouch, waiting for the old farmer to spill it, watching
him trace
patterns in Vulf's mangy ruff. He was quiet a few minutes and when
he finally spoke
his voice was hushed and level.
"You do something for me, Flanagan, now you are leaving?"
"Yeah, Nary, anything. Shoot." Extending
his thumb and forefinger, he pulled a silent
trigger at me.
"You must stop to tease my Sonia, hah? She like you but no can
ëave. Hay un chingo
piche de putas hembras en este puta mundo, pero solo hay cinco hijas,
many girls,
you understand, but only five daughters. I rest easier on this terrible
farm knowing
that my Sonia, she 'ave nothing to fear from you."
His face was all smile but I knew he was dead serious. Anyway, it
was no problem.
Sonia was a pretty little girl but I was thinking about Molly again.
I'd need that
tequila. Even though Sauza Blanco is just about the worst shit ever
squeezed out
of a cactus. It tastes like liquid candy corn.
"Sure, Nary, no problem."
"Good," he said, and smiled at me, full of teeth and mirth
this time. "Stop by hacienda
on the way to town, Flanagan. Ask Mrs. Totonac if she need anything."
Nary always called his wife Mrs. Totonac. I didn't bother to stop
by the hacienda,
though. I knew his asking was just a formality, a way of including
me in the family,
and I figured I'd already done my part with the oath of chastity to
their young daughter.
After all, what could Mrs. Totonac possibly want from a tiny town
like Mapache? Chintzy
turquoise earrings, a boilermaker from El Cabra, the bar, or maybe
I could pick her
up a nice cold six of absolution from the church. That's all they
have in Mapache.
I suppose I could have borrowed the truck, or even Arturo, Nary's
genius horse, and
gone into Las Cruces where they have a Skagg's Alpha-Beta, the giant
Mormon supermarket
chain, but I was itchy to get to town. I was working on a big deal,
something that
could easily keep me out of the Southwest, and away from the questionable
charms
of the Totonac girl, forever. I didn't want to take any chances.
Chapter 2 ->.
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