Down South of North

By James Lannan

Discharged from the US Army with a head injury sustained in Vietnam during the war era, Edmond Larson takes to wandering in Mexico. One night at a cantina in Veracruz, a pistolero falls dead at Larson’s feet, and he is arrested for murder. After escaping jail, he reluctantly joins up with a local girl who has ties to a madman bent on provoking revolution.

Ellie’s friend Jerry complains that she thinks she’s always right. Ellie admits she has a smart mouth and that even at the age of twenty-nine, she often comes off as a cantankerous old biddy. In Ellie’s view, people take advantage at the slightest display of weakness. This is the story of how Ellie loses her virginity.

Octavio is a street brawler and a thief, though also capable of painful sacrifice for the benefit of a chance acquaintance.

An insurance salesman wakes up on a Saturday morning unable to set work aside. His wife objects to his attitude. His son accuses him of going back on his word.

Pancho takes a beating every time he enters the boxing ring, but his sister’s husband, a former national champion, won’t let him quit the fight game.

A man lies on a mountainside in the rain. A woman he can’t get enough of has just struck him in the head with a rock.

Another man bleeds to death on a bridge, with intestines spilling out his abdomen. His killer admonishes him for seducing their patron’s young wife.

Down South of North comprises ten stories in all. A suicidal roofer, a painter dedicated to her clients in social services while enduring unrequited love, and a taxidermist who discovers a magic pendant in the belly of a forty-pound catfish round out the collection’s central characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796011210

James Lannan

This book is James Lannan’s third published novel. Although he maintains an address in Wyoming, for much of the year, he roams about unfamiliar territory and listens often to strangers’ tales.

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Copyright © 2019 by James Lannan.

Author Photo by Mary Lannan

Library of Congress Control Number:     2019900615

ISBN:                     Hardcover                         978-1-7960-1119-7

                              Softcover                           978-1-7960-1120-3

                             eBook                                978-1-7960-1121-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/21/2019

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Contents

Lalo

Migrant

Murder

Joyride

Squalid Digs

Transfer

Disrepute

Getaway

Shelter

Rough Start

Tough Night

Butterflies

Bloodsuckers

Wero

Strawberries

No Deal

Rope Dance

Reunion

Caper

Back to School

Game On

A Hero’s Fate

Phase 6

Small Change

San Octavio

Nothing Happened

Palooka

Your Play

Sentenced

Roofer

Untitled Art

Mary Ann Drudon

To Uncle Ho

LALO

Migrant

Phase 1

W hen he arrived in Vietnam as an infantryman after a preemptive departure from university and being drafted into military service, US troops were pulling out of Cambodia, their supreme commander having failed in his attempt to disrupt the flow of enemy personnel and war material along the Ho Chi Minh trail, which might have caused momentary disruption in the proper administration of the war and thus explained why orders were cut that assigned PFC Edmond Larson to guard duty on the Long Binh perimeter rather than immediately deployed to a combat unit, or it might have been the hand of fate that distanced him from direct involvement in the fight—or some other hand, for instance, similar to the invisible one that Adam Smith adduced as the guide of the free market. Who knows? There could be countless invisible hands constantly arranging innumerable events in human affairs as though setting up a bazillion object balls for incredible trick shots on a galactic billiard table. In any case, whatever the basis for his orders, PFC Edmond Larson was pleased to comply with them; he wasn’t the sort of person to dispute the wisdom of his overseers.

Phase 2

He pulled guard duty in Long Binh until other arrangements could be made, in this instance, by a drinking buddy who worked in personnel at battalion headquarters who contrived to have Larson assigned to a transport unit in need of a company clerk. For eight months, Edmond answered the phone; typed orders, notices, and correspondence for his company commander; and generally made a good showing of himself. Though not an ambitious soldier, he did as he was told and—without much effort—rose in rank. All proceeded splendidly for the draftee until, with less than a month remaining on his tour of duty in the war zone and transfer orders cut for him to an army base in West Germany, he was on his way across the Tan Son Nhut Airfield in a jeep when his driver made a sudden left turn. SPC-4 Larson pitched out of the passenger seat, landed on the tarmac headfirst, and cracked his skull. But even this mishap turned out okay, for after spending two weeks in a coma in a Saigon hospital, Larson parted ways with the US Army on full disability, also having been awarded a Vietnam Service ribbon, a Purple Heart, a Good Conduct Medal, and an honorable discharge.

Phase 3

Upon his return to civilian life, Edmond spent a comfortable recovery period at his parents’ home. His slurred speech improved, and his bouts with double vision became less frequent; he regained ambulatory balance and the ability to follow normal conversation. Back in college for a semester on the GI Bill, he received passing grades in all his classes (a marked improvement in performance compared with his prior experience in higher education); but as before, scholarship failed to inspire him. Actually, nothing much inspired him at this pass, and his lack of enthusiasm for all and sundry began to preoccupy him.

Phase 4

Perhaps it was the army that had afforded him an appreciation for foreign environs, an appreciation recalled when he cast about for a worthwhile endeavor. Edmond began to consider another trip abroad. Europe was a possibility, Australia a lure, and India an exotic enticement, but he finally settled on nearby Mexico as a sojourn abroad free of government agenda.

The first trip lasted a month, the second one three months, and the third journey exhausted the entire time span allotted him on his visa. After that, a pattern developed: six months south, six months north to keep faith with the homeland, back and forth over the next couple of years. Though often lonely and periodically despondent, more times than not, he experienced moderate consolation among a people who didn’t know that he’d become an unmotivated lamebrain.

In Mexico, he traveled wherever whim steered him. After wandering through nearly two-thirds of the states in the republic, he happened to be chatting with a bootblack at the Plaza de Armas in Veracruz who recommended that he visit the rain forest father south. Larson could think of no reason why he shouldn’t do so. So he headed south by bus, and on a layover one night in a fair-sized city, he wandered into a cantina where he was given a new name and accidentally rediscovered purpose.

Phase 5

Murder

W hat came about started with Larson seated at a tile-topped counter in a narrow room whose block and stucco walls and ceilings were painted bright yellow initially but had gone chalky ocher since then. Despite the ruckus raised by twenty or so other patrons in the bar, he felt oddly insulated from their shouts and gestures. He rather liked residing for a moment in dim and undemanding separateness and marveled at the luck of it.

Behind the counter hung a two-tier wooden shelf on which rested a few brandy and tequila bottles. The fox-faced bartender had beer to sell as well, which he dispensed from an ice-filled plastic tub set on the floor at his feet. While he sipped his beer, Larson traded glances with the barman, who seemed disquieted by the foreigner’s presence. The only woman in the cantina, between trips to tables to deliver drinks, also caught his eyes now and again. She had full cheeks, smooth morena skin and wore a knee-length brown shift that clung to her ample hips.

At one point, for no reason Larson could detect, the white-haired cantinero reached beneath his counter and drew out a chrome-plated revolver. Larson’s first impulse was to dive for cover. But since the bartender kept his gun pointed at the ceiling, he glanced toward the woman instead, thinking she might confide to him the significance of the barkeep’s display. But she gave no sign that she knew any more about what was going on than he did.

Concluding that he was expected to admire the weapon, Larson reached out to take the gun in hand. When he did, the cantinero pulled the pistol back and wagged a finger at him. Nobody touches this gun but me was the message. I keep it loaded, ves. The woman broke up then, and with a smirk, the barkeep put his gun away.

Larson swiveled toward the fellow seated next to him. No entiendo, he said, shaking his head, suspecting that he had been made the butt of an inside joke.

He’s proud of his gun, Mister, came his answer in English, which surprised Larson. He hadn’t expected to hear English spoken on the premises.

Nice gun, I guess.

He wants you to know that he’s a pistolero.

A pistolero, huh?

Like Clint Eastwood.

Well, someone ought to remind the fellow that Clint Eastwood’s a movie actor. There aren’t any pistoleros left where I come from.

Are you sure? Black-plastic-framed glasses, similar in style to Larson’s reading spectacles, rested on the English speaker’s nose. His head was shaped like an inverted triangle with its top edge broadened by wings of wavy black hair. He had on a long-sleeved white shirt, frayed at the collar and cuff, with all its buttons fastened.

Could be there are a few left in Texas, Larson added on second thought. I can’t say for certain, though, since I’m not from Texas.

Where are you from?

North of Texas.

Not many gringos take the road to Las Miserias.

Maybe I made a wrong turn.

No, I think fate brought you here.

Larson chuckled. You’re kidding, right? The English speaker regarded him evenly. Larson then felt obliged to justify his flippant query. No offense, but fate applies to important people—historical figures and suchlike. I’ve never done anything important my whole life. Trust me, I’m an utterly inconsequential member of the human race.

But Larson’s counter mate persisted in his conjecture. I believe fate brought you to Las Miserias, and if I am right, you’ll soon have to agree.

Before Larson could think any more about fate, the cantinero reached across the tiles that separated them and poked him on the shoulder. ¿Cómo te llamas? he queried.

Edmond adjudged the gesture rude but didn’t let it bother him. Larson. Edmond Larson a sus ordenes.

Lalo, the cantinero asserted.

Larson turned to the English speaker. "What’s a lalo?"

"Just a name. Like Ed in English."

Lalo, the woman repeated from down the counter, trying out the foreigner’s newly acquired moniker.

Bueno, he answered the chava. Me llamo Lalo. Pues, ¿cómo te voy a llamar?

Amparo, she responded evenly.

"Her name means shelter," put in the English speaker.

Amparo, Lalo repeated, meeting the woman’s look. She smiled at him. The smile fit her features like lime in a rum and Coke.

What’s your name? Lalo asked his informant.

Federico.

"Does Federico mean anything?"

Means how about another beer?

Lalo hesitated. His recent bus trip had exhausted him. He considered hanging around the cantina in the hope of falling into conversation with Amparo. Then he reckoned that going back to his hotel room would be less bother.

What the hell, one more beer, Federico urged and signaled the girl. She made for the plastic tub.

Okay, I’ll have a nightcap before I leave.

They clinked fresh, wet bottle necks and drank in unison. Lalo wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision. He had a sense that something was about to happen that he wasn’t ready for. Possibly, the earlier mention of fate was to blame. But there was no threat to his person in the cantina that he could detect. He’d drunk beer in rowdy bars before, to no ill effect.

Lalo, he heard again.

Te habla, Federico said, glancing over Lalo’s shoulder.

¿Quién me habla?

El señor atras.

Lalo shifted round on his stool and met the glower of a stout fulano wearing a black leather jacket. Even in the heat of the season, the so-and-so wore a shiny leather jacket. He parted minutely the right-hand flap of his coat to expose the butt end of an automatic whose barrel was jammed into the waistband of tight-fitting trousers. Lalo recognized the make—US Army issue .45.

Another pistolero? he asked Federico.

He wants you to know that he too is a man who merits your respect.

As if on cue, the second pistolero expanded his chest and drew his lips tightly across his teeth. He had a splayed nose and thick, bushy eyebrows.

So to get respect around here, a man needs a pistol, Lalo commented.

Something like that, Federico answered.

Lalo suspected that another inside joke was being played on him. He reckoned a joke of his own was in order at this juncture. What he was about to do tickled him, and that was why he did it. He should have given the impulse due consideration before submitting to it, but the beer he’d drunk on an empty stomach had made him giddy and thrust him beyond diligence. Tengo yo una pistola también, he informed the man in black.

The other tilted his head to one side and squinted at him. The expression on the lout’s face should have given Lalo pause, but he was too far along with his joke to leave off. ¿Quieres ver mi pistola? he questioned the fellow before him.

As the second gunman’s hand inched toward the gun wedged under his protruding gut, the room fell silent. Undaunted, Lalo slid off his stool, unzipped his pants, and fumbled out his dick. As soon as he moved, the pistolero drew his .45.

Perfect timing, Lalo reckoned.

Bang, bang, he said, delivering the punch line to his joke.

The man in black stared at him dumbfounded. But the sports at the tables threw back their heads and roared with laughter. Their eyes brightened with hilarity. Bang, bang, some repeated and pointed at each other with index fingers held at crotch level.

While they laughed and pointed, Federico traded wisecracks with the bartender in Spanish too rapid for Lalo to follow. Amparo leaned out over the counter to check out the foreigner’s equipment. Lalo spread his palms to demonstrate harmless intent. Disgustedly, the pistolero jammed his gun back into the waistband of his trousers.

End of confrontation, Lalo thought. Zip up your pants, slug back your beer, and make an exit. But patrons rose from their tables and pressed forward, yammering; their clutch forced Lalo’s buttocks against his stool, tipping it rearward. The small of his back fell against the edge of the bar counter.

Advancing, the patrons slapped the pistolero on the shoulders and taunted him from behind. Throwing up his elbows to fend them off, the man in black inadvertently caught one of his tormentors on the chin. The fulano who’d been struck swung back at him, landing a fist on his ear. Another fulano punched the man in black in the back of the head.

The mob’s increasingly forceful and agitated press wedged Lalo between bar counter and pistolero. His stool cracked onto the floor behind him. The man in black shot him a roundhouse that smacked against his temple. He countered automatically with a shot to the man’s nose. The pistolero reached again for his gun.

On account of the press, the man in black couldn’t get past his belly to clasp the .45. The two of them exchanged tacit threats while pinned against each other. Then Lalo noted interference in the intimacy created; the cantinero’s shiny revolver inched past his left ear.

God Almighty! he hollered and grabbed the gun barrel as the bartender squeezed off a round. The bullet struck the ceiling and set loose a rain of plaster. Then a grunt issued from the man in black, and in the hush that followed, the mob gave way. The pistolero collapsed on the floor at Lalo’s feet and commenced to shake as if he were in the throes of a seizure. Lalo stared at him speechless, and none of the other men standing by made the slightest move to assist the one fallen.

Directly, a pair of khaki-clad policemen armed with rifles came through the entrance to the bar, spotted the foreigner with his verga hanging out of his pants, and exchanged puzzled looks. Lalo let go of the revolver he was holding by the barrel, and the gun landed with a clunk on the countertop. As he fumbled with his zipper, the policemen aimed their rifles at his chest. The man on the floor quit trembling.

Joyride

L ight from streetlamps rushing by flashed into the van’s locked cargo bay first through the wire-mesh window behind the driver and then through the windows in the rear double doors of the vehicle. An earsplitting engine clatter reverberated off the vehicle’s inner walls and roof, presaging the pain and humiliation Lalo was headed for. Get a grip, he admonished himself as visions of beatings and buggery hovered before his mind’s eye.

He sat on an iron bench bolted to the floor of the paddy wagon, next to Federico and across from three other men. Two of these had been drinking in the cantina at the time of the killing; the third was a guard who huddled near a rear door, gripping a rifle between his knees. Lalo couldn’t tell whether he or the guard was more disconcerted.

"Why are you here?" he yelled at Federico above engine rattle.

I am here because I speak English, his acquaintance answered calmly. He sat with feet planted on the floor and arms folded across his chest.

They think you’re an accomplice?

Something like that.

Mala suerte ¿no?

Not so bad. I have a friend who is a lawyer.

Would your lawyer friend consider taking on another client?

I will ask when I see her.

The wagon smelled of old miseries. Others with bad luck had taken the ride before, leaving behind mingled traces of sweat, piss, and vomit.

¿Por qué lo mataste a Juan Vasquéz?

The question came from one of the men on the bench across the van who leaned forward with forearms propped on his thighs and hands clasped between his knees. He wore a silky polyester shirt that stretched across his shoulders and pulled at his paunch. His eyes were hard to make out in the gloom.

Yo no maté a nadie.

Given this answer, the man slapped the bald-headed fellow propped up next to him on the chest with the back of his hand. The two of them guffawed.

I did not kill anybody, Lalo repeated.

Eres inocente entonces.

Yes, certainly."

Pues, cuando llegas a la cárcel, diles, ‘Soy inocente. No me chinguen.’" The two of them went off again.

"Why are they here?" Lalo asked Federico in English. There was no profit in arguing with the two clowns across from him.

Why do you think?

They’re suspects.

Is everyone from north of Texas as clever as you?

My point being why not the bartender? And why not others who took part in the brawl? Why not every tipo in the cantina?

The bartender kept to his place behind the counter. Ademas, the dead man, was his nephew.

His nephew? But I ended up with the bartender’s pistol in my hand.

He meant to save his nephew’s life.

Lalo digested the information. So I interfered. Federico declined to endorse the obvious. He must have seen who killed his nephew.

Todo el mundo knows who killed Juan Vasquéz.

"Then why am I here?"

Because you are a pendejo.

The man in the silky shirt spoke again. Lalo failed to follow.

He says he saw you stab Juan Vasquéz with a knife. He says he saw you hide the knife in your pocket.

His accuser pointed at the lower right-hand pocket of Lalo’s cargo pants. Lalo shook his head. The man gestured insistently while making the face of an idiot. Lalo reached into his pocket. His fingers touched something that shouldn’t have been there.

Those across from him fell into hysterics. The bald-headed one mimicked Lalo’s reach to his pocket, froze as the gringo had frozen when his hand closed on the murder weapon. Baldy pulled a startled face, and more mockery erupted between him and his partner.

There’s a knife in my pocket, Lalo whispered into Federico’s ear.

What did you expect? Federico answered in a normal tone of voice.

It’s not my knife. I expected not to find a knife that isn’t mine in my pocket.

If it’s not your knife, get rid of it.

How? The guard will see.

Pendejo. The guard is watching Ramón and Chuy. They’re laughing too hard to notice. Take the knife out of your pocket and drop it on the floor. Stomp your foot when you do it. Push the knife with your boot under the bench.

Well, excuse my ineptitude. I’ve never been framed before.

That much is certain.

As Lalo let loose of the knife, he realized something he should have understood all along. One of those clowns is the murderer.

A la mejor you are not entirely a pendejo.

I do not comprehend what is happening to me.

Of course not.

Do you know what’s going on?

We will speak later, Federico said as the van pulled to a stop.

When the doors swung open, they found six more guards waiting for them to climb down from the wagon. They were ushered into a large hall with a concrete floor and pillars that supported a ceiling two stories high. In the center of the room was positioned a single counter, behind which stood a gray-haired man with glasses resting slightly cockeyed on his nose. Lalo judged him an underpaid bureaucrat hardly inspired by his work. He also reckoned the old man was somebody’s grandfather.

A low-wattage bulb suspended on braided wires above the grandfather’s head lit the countertop and the area immediately surrounding it. Beside the counter stood a man in uniform, tall and rotund, wearing a billed cap beneath whose band jutted lank black hair. He ordered the guards to form the prisoners into a line before the administrator. In a whisper, Federico instructed Lalo to speak only English.

When it was his turn to step before the counter, Lalo demanded, Why am I being detained?

After listening to Federico’s translation, the captain of the guards ordered the foreigner to surrender his passport and the contents of his pockets. Lalo demanded legal counsel.

Remind the yanqui faggot he’s not in the United States anymore, the captain told Federico. If he’s upset, he can write Gerald Ford a letter.

Tell that fat fuck I’m an American war veteran, Lalo shot back in English.

The captain moved forward, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around. What the hell? Lalo protested as the cop went through his pockets.

Calm down, said Federico. Don’t make him angry.

Calm down? I’m being made the patsy for a murder rap.

Shouting will not help you.

What am I supposed to do? Lalo voiced with heavy sarcasm. Roll over and quietly take it in the ass?

We will speak later.

When the iron bars of the holding tank slammed shut, truth struck Lalo like a blast of toxic air. No longer was he a free man. He was not at liberty to walk away from the jam befallen him. He was at the mercy of violent criminals and their apathetic keepers.

Squalid Digs

T he drunk tank was the size of a chicken barn, slime green in color with a fifteen-foot-high ceiling. Several detainees shuffled about the concrete floor in varying degrees of intoxication. Sewer water spilling over the edge of a crate-shaped tank situated next to a half partition swamped a third of the cell’s floor area. A young man with long auburn hair doubled over the tile-surfaced catch basin and heaved his guts. There were men sprawled against one wall where the flood had not yet reached; others, among them the two clowns from the van, thrust their arms through the iron bars of the entrance gate and shouted obscenities into the courtyard beyond.

Lalo followed Federico to a dry space along the wall where the wary and weary among the incarcerated had settled. He leaned against pitted stucco and prepared to meet any assault mounted against him. Standing at the edge of the sewage puddle, a drunk—eyes glazed and out of focus—called to him, but Federico informed the man that the gringo didn’t understand Spanish.

Then there came an announcement from the gate giving the gathering of miscreants in the vicinity to know that the gabacho had a pistol in his pants, which he would soon draw out and use to shoot the lock off the door. Sí, el tiene una pistola, insisted the speaker when the target of his derision feigned incomprehension.

In the manic light of the holding tank, Ramón appeared edgy. His polyester shirt was stained with sweat, his black slacks stretched at the seams, and his sharp-toed boots scuffed and scratched. He was a darkly handsome man in a seedy kind of way, fleshy features grimed and hair slicked back. Suppressed ire gave his visage a mean cast.

Saca la pistola, Ramón’s partner chorused. Chuy stood three inches shorter than Ramón but outweighed him by thirty pounds. Unlike Ramón, he delivered ridicule with a lightness of spirit.

Others among the damned regarded Lalo intently. Muéstranos la pistola, one of them urged.

Take out your gun and shoot the guards, another suggested.

Mi pistola no tiene balas [bullets], Lalo answered to put them off.

Es una pistola de carne [flesh], no de hierro [iron], Ramón called from the gate.

Es flojo [lazy] también, Chuy added, and the pair of clowns wheezed and barked as if they told the world’s first knee-slapper.

Mi pistola no tiene fuego [fire], Lalo countered. Pero, hace chispas [sparks].

While the pun went round, Lalo and Federico sank to their haunches. The merriment persisted long past the worth of its wit. Finally, the prisoners tired of the gringo’s rueful nods and Federico’s wagging finger and turned their attention to more engaging pursuits. Lalo measured with his eye limited, dry reclining space available in the cell and concluded that many of the revelers, later in the night, would find rest only by leaning against the weak prop of their chagrin.

Can we talk now? he asked Federico when they were no longer the center of attention.

What do you want me to say?

Tell me all you know about the murder of Juan Vasquéz.

You were nearest him.

In fact, mine was the last face he saw before he died.

If the dead remember—

If the dead remember, I am truly screwed.

You’ve killed men before?

Never.

Then what are you worried about?

In better circumstances, he might have laughed at Federico’s question, but the last glimmer of life he’d caught in the dead man’s eyes squelched his sense of humor. Makes my skin crawl, he murmured.

Crawl where?

I mean a dead man’s ghost flew inside my head.

Then you must hire a bruja to drive it away.

You see a witch in this cell?

If we wait long enough, a witch will come—or a priest. Both show up when times are bad.

Are times bad enough to summon witches and priests?

Not yet, maybe later.

I want to forget Juan Vasquéz.

Go ahead. He was nothing to you.

That’s right. I had no dealings with the man and therefore no reason to kill him. So why am I in jail?

Federico exhaled lengthily, tired of hearing Lalo’s persistent lament. Because the mayor of Las Miserias is a Morello. He is Ramón’s uncle by a brother, also Chuy’s uncle by a sister.

That’s not good news, Lalo muttered.

You understand now, Mr. Lalo?

Those morons have me by the short hairs.

Así que, the politics of Miserias.

Lalo hesitated. It seemed that conversation with Federico had finally taken a useful turn. He waited anxiously for the man to continue. But his companion only closed his eyes and scooted down lower against the wall. Don’t ignore me, he ordered Federico.

Lalo’s cellmate sighed without opening his eyes. The family Morello and the family Vasquéz are engaged in a long-standing feud.

The murder was the result of a vendetta?

An old story, amigo, too old and too complicated to recount.

That doesn’t help me.

You’re right, the old story doesn’t help you.

Tell me what will help me.

I already have. Forget Juan Vasquéz.

If I forget Juan Vasquéz, will I be let out of jail?

You will be released when your luck improves.

How long will that take?

Who can say?

Can anyone in here help me?

No one will help you in here.

Can’t I count on you, at least?

Go to sleep. A la mejor in sleep you’ll forget.

Maybe in sleep I’ll quit breathing.

All the better.

I can’t trust anyone in here, can I?

No, nadie.

But this pendejo wants to continue breathing.

Then maybe this pendejo will. With that, Federico dropped his head on folded arms and turned his back on Lalo.

Shortly thereafter, Ramón pushed off the gate and ambled in his direction. Lalo steeled for confrontation, but Ramón pulled up in front of a man reclined two bodies over on the far side of Federico. Get up, he ordered and kicked the man’s boots. I want to lie down.

The one accosted lifted his head groggily and stared at him, oblivious. Ramón repeated the command and kicked him harder. His victim cried out and made to rise.

Without a forethought and for the sake of fairness, Lalo intervened. Go away, he told Ramón. He was here first.

Others along the wall woke with the commotion and reckoned quickly on their stake in the affair. Several determined it was in their interest to oppose the interloper. If the unfortunate man singled out could be forced to surrender his spot against the wall, might not they be forced to move as well? Ocupado, one of them said.

Ocupado, another repeated.

Considerate of the numbers set against him, Ramón chose a discretionary course. But he didn’t leave without shooting Lalo a withering scowl.

Will you sleep now? Federico asked, eyes yet closed, following the incident.

I think I’d better keep watch, Lalo said.

Suit yourself. I will sleep.

While the rest of the prisoners quieted for the night, Lalo kept an eye on Ramón. He worried the thug only waited for him to drop his guard. Chuy fell asleep against the bars, bald pate sagged forward like an inert knob. After a time, Ramón sank down next to his cousin, closed his eyes, and was soon snoring. Still, Lalo remained vigilant.

Transfer

L alo must have fallen asleep sometime during the night because, when morning came, he felt as if he had. An urge to rise, wash his face, brush his teeth, and pull on a change of underwear infested him. For a protracted moment, even as he watched grubby strangers mill about in front of him, he assumed his usual new-day routine applied. Then as if an electric switch were thrown in his head, he came to know where he was and in the knowing glimpsed despair.

A guard brought a gunnysack half-filled with hard rolls into the cell and dropped it on the floor. Another guard brought a five-gallon rectangular tin of black bean soup and ladled the muddy liquid onto plastic plates. Lalo took a bit of bread. Among the prisoners, the only one who seemed to savor the government fare was the boy who had spent the previous night retching at the toilet.

Finished with breakfast, Lalo sloshed through the ever-widening sewer puddle to make his contribution at its source. The reek of the tank nearly gagged him; its stagnant mix of viscous fluid and floating shit turned his stomach. He reckoned that as the heat of the day mounted, the sewage miasma would become unbearable.

A knot of men standing at the gate watched a company of soldiers form up in the courtyard and set to drilling. Their hard-soled boots clomped on the cobblestones; the officer in charge barked commands. Lalo walked up to the gathering at the gate and looked on in silence as military maneuvers progressed. The day being Sunday, he likened the performance of the army men to a religious service.

Bienvenido a tu casa nueva, said a voice next to him.

He swiveled his head toward the speaker. Ramón stood at his side, shoulder pressed against his deltoid, looking as if he’d swallowed a bag of nails. On the opposite side, he met Chuy’s bloated stare. Es tu casa, no de mia, Lalo responded.

Mi casa es tu casa, Ramón quipped, and his partner chuckled weakly.

Eres muy amagle. Muchísimas gracias, señor.

A tus ordenes.

He made to leave, but Ramón clutched his arm. Did the policemen find your knife?

Their eyes met. Ramón meant to needle him, but apprehension peeked out from behind his cocksure mask. No, they didn’t find the knife. You want it back?

If you wish me to have it.

I keep it in my boot now. Why don’t you bend down and retrieve it?

Ramón’s eyes fell briefly to Lalo’s feet and then rose to his face. They were bitterly angry eyes but hesitant, not as self-assured as they had been the night before. You should keep the cuchillo a while longer, Ramón decided.

I will give it to you some other time.

When?

When you do not expect me to. He could feel Chuy’s breath on his neck. Time to rock and sock, he thought.

But then Ramón pulled back and announced to other men standing round, The gabacho is innocent. And he addressed Lalo. Tell them, gabo, those outside, tell them, ‘I’m innocent. Don’t fuck me over.’

Lalo had heard the joke already, but the other prisoners hadn’t. To them, Ramón was a stitch. He walked away before Ramón could tell other jokes he’d heard before.

Federico sat with his back to the wall in the same spot where he’d slept. Creases had formed on his forehead; his pointed chin appeared less pronounced than it had in the harsh light of the cell at night. Lalo dropped down next to him. Water leaking from the toilet now covered more than half the floor. They will move you to another jail today, Federico mentioned.

How do you know?

His informant