Pulp Ink Part 21

Jungle Boogie.

By Kate Horsley.

Raoul stood on the corner, leaning against the plaster wall of Bar El Diablo, telling himself to walk away. It was seven in the evening and the sky was a ripening bruise behind the cathedral. The August heat licked his face and a knot of girls skipped arm in arm across the zocalo. One burst into song. He told himself to go back to the museum, to lock the statue in its gla.s.s case, and if his boss asked any questions to make up some amusing story. But he'd crossed an unseen line on Barrio El Cerrillo and now he couldn't move. So he dragged on the stub of his cigarette and stared at the blonde woman on the cathedral steps.

She was wearing her new green dress with the red cherries pouting from it. It flared at the waist, making it look as if she had hips. He thought about grabbing her a.s.s last night because he wanted something heavy to hang on to, to tether him when he came and about how, at the crucial moment, his thumbs dug into her hip bones. She was thin and pale and tall and not his type. She wore orange cowboy boots in summer and people walking by them said that she was loco. He was addicted to f.u.c.king her maybe, or in love, or just pathetic and obsessed. He didn't know which one and he didn't care.

He dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his heel, picked up the briefcase. Walking across the zocalo toward her was like crossing the border into a better place. Her hair was gold from Fort Knox. Her teeth were silver dollars. Together they would f.u.c.k and make babies and be rich. She saw him coming and smiled a little and started walking to him, swinging her boy hips like she was doing the jungle boogie. It made him laugh. Maybe jungle boogie was the first symptom of jungle fever. Man, he had it bad.

Raoul wiped the sweat off his forehead and walked to the blonde, to the church. They met on the bottom step and kissed and he dropped the briefcase so he could hold her round the waist. She tasted of beer and cigarettes just like he did. Blue doves called from the rain trees behind the cathedral. He was half hard already. "You check out of your hotel?"

"Hours ago." Darla laughed and bit his throat. "You bring it with you?"

"You wanted it, I got it."

She pushed him away, her blue eyes narrowing. "No one suspects?"

"Not yet, but when I don't show up tomorrow "

"Let's not get our panties in a bunch about tomorrow." She pulled a pack of Bohemios from her purse and tapped one out, pinching it in her mouth so that her lips thinned to an angry coral line.

He flicked open his zippo and lit it for her. "Talking of panties "

"One thing at a time. The car's nearby?" She took his zippo and tucked it into her cigarette pack, as if it had been hers all along.

"Parked on Cinco de Mayo just like we said. Don't you trust me?"

She picked up the briefcase. "Can I see?"

"In the middle of the zocalo with the whole town looking?"

"The square's empty. Not a soul."

He looked behind him. It was true. "It just doesn't seem like the place to break out something so sacred."

She laughed. "You worried about angering the Mayan G.o.ds?"

He said nothing. He'd grown up with so many stories about the ancient ruins, the jungle full of spirits and bad blood.

She dropped her cigarette and dragged her arm across her forehead. "Oh my G.o.d, you are worried. You people..."

"You people? You mean Mexicans?"

"No, I mean museum curators. You've got too much knowledge, not enough nerve." She pulled something out of her purse.

He thought it was the cigarettes again, but it looked too dark, too long. He didn't really see, just heard the m.u.f.fled shot and felt the burst of pain. He fell on his knees. "But I love you."

"I know. That's why I asked you to do this for me." She bent down, pressed her lips on his forehead. "I'm sorry, but it's just too valuable."

He clutched his gut and watched her walk across the zocalo, briefcase in hand, boy hips doing the jungle boogie under her new green dress.

Sighing with relief, Darla slid into the front seat of Raoul's small red coupe. She turned the key in the ignition, heard one of the wretched local channels crackle into life, pressed down the lighter, took out a smoke. She'd pulled it off, dared to do what a lot of guys wouldn't have had the b.a.l.l.s to. She lit up and swung out into Cinco de Mayo without looking behind her. And even though her heart chirred like a cicada, her hands were steady on the wheel.

Five miles from San Cristobal, she thought someone was following her, a black car in her rear view mirror, almost b.u.mper to b.u.mper with her. On impulse, she turned off the main road, watched him sail by behind. Now if he wanted to find her, he'd have to make a U-turn and come back. She laughed. Why was she being so paranoid? Sure, the museum police would be tailing her now, like Raoul would ever have the guts to turn her in. That's how she'd picked him out, how she knew she'd get away with it.

The coupe rolled down a dirt track with weeds sprouting in the middle and fallen branches squealing on the belly of the car, began to speed up, the c.r.a.ppy little path thinning as the trees on each side thickened. Who'd have thought a little road like this would go down at such a steep pitch? It was getting dark, too. She stepped on the brake. The car slowed some, but didn't screech to a halt like she thought it would.

Instead, it kept on rasping over the tall gra.s.s, headlights cutting a yellow groove into the jungle's darkness. She jammed her foot down hard. The coupe twisted sideways on a root, throwing her into the wheel. She hit her head on the top of it. The bottom dug into her ribs. The car lurched to a stop in some spiky Mexican bush or other, flinging her back against the seat, breathless and bleeding. A parrot flew up squawking through the leaves. The engine made a coughing sound, a sort of deathbed rattle before cutting out in a bleakly predictable way.

"f.u.c.k it," she pulled the mangled cigarette out of her mouth, lighting the next from the glowing cherry, "f.u.c.k it all to h.e.l.l."

It was his Abuela, his tiny grandmother, muttering the rosary to herself as she stirred bread soup, who'd made him the lace handkerchief. He stuffed it into the s.p.a.ce between his belt and the wound in his gut. As he staggered along he could feel it getting wetter and in his mind's eye he saw the silk curlicues growing brittle and black. What would Abuela say if she saw her handiwork jammed between his watch pocket and the nugget of lead? Nothing probably. She would simply take it and wash it for him, crossing herself and whispering about la agonia en el huerto. Then it would appear, clean and pressed, in the breast pocket of his linen jacket. He told himself that it was there now, crisply folded.

The blonde would be behind the wheel of his coupe by now, headed for Mexico City. Meanwhile, he was almost at a bar not the Bar El Diablo, full of tourists and sugary, cold beer, panpipes blaring over the PA. No, his hand was propping up the yellow-painted wall of La Cantina del Corazon where the men sipped cane hooch in dark corners and chewed the fat. He could rest there for a little while, maybe.

He stumbled through the swinging doors, trying to hold his head high long enough to get to a table. A few people stared then turned back to their talk, probably thinking he was drunk or stoned. The bar was hot and it was hard to walk like there was no hole in his gut just next to the fake-silver belt buckle, no dark wad of silk sticking to his black cotton s.h.i.+rt. He slumped at an empty table and a woman with hard black eyes, long hair and a proud, straight throat came to wipe the crumbs and peanut sh.e.l.ls into his lap. "Drinking? Eating?" She said it in English, like he was just another tourist.

"Long time since I've been in here, I guess." Speaking tore him up. He winced. It felt like that blonde had hammered nails through him, tacking his flesh into his bones. Maybe voodoo was her thing. Maybe that was why she'd wanted the statue of Xbalanque, Jaguar G.o.d of the Underworld, shadow of the shaman. Xbalanque would bring her all the darkness she could wish for if she let him.

The waitress stopped wiping. Her eyes softened. "Una cerveza grande?"

He nodded and smiled, relieved that she could read his mind, and watched her walk away, her a.s.s subtly swaying under her uniform.

If she drove through the night, she'd be in Mexico City in time for her plane, back over the border before you could say "four hundred grand." That was the plan, and for weeks, she'd stuck to it faithfully, f.u.c.king him when he asked for it, telling him she loved him when that was what he needed to hear. And truthfully, the f.u.c.king and the candlelight and all the sweet nothings hadn't been so hard. Some mornings, when she woke up in his arms and heard him breathing steady and slow behind her and the street vendors setting up their wares outside the window... Well, she didn't mind it so much. But the trouble with accomplices was G.o.dd.a.m.n guilty consciences and the trouble with splitting the money was loose ends. Darla didn't like loose ends.

Her arm ached from holding up her keychain torch and her eyes were gritty from staring down at the torn map with its stupid Mexican names. There was San Cristobal de las Casas and there was Ciudad de Mexico, but nowhere was Stupido de Los Dirt Tracko and Automovil Repair. She threw down the map and opened the car door, half-expecting a snake. But there was just dirt and c.r.a.ppy gra.s.s and her boot with some blood on it. The crushed hood belched up smoke in a pathetic plume. There was no choice but to hike back up the track and thumb for a ride on the main road.

She slammed the door and it opened right back up again, reminding her that she'd almost left something behind. She pulled out the black suitcase and hugged it to her chest like a child. "You're worth all this and more."

For the first time, he heard the guitar playing behind him, saw the old men in corners swigging out of plastic mugs and letting their ash drop on the floor. Up above, the paper lamps hung from strings tacked to the ceiling and neon signs for Bud Light and Clamato flickered on the wall. The waitress came back with his beer. He thanked her and lifted it to his lips, relis.h.i.+ng the cool gold liquid trickling down his throat. Maybe it would run right through the hole in his belly. He almost laughed at that, but stopped when he felt another nail go through him.

The doors swung open and a little old woman in a black mantilla came in, clutching a basket under her arm. She went to a few of the tables, but people shook their heads or just ignored her. Maybe she was selling moons.h.i.+ne or telling fortunes. She made him think of his Abuela, so tiny, scrubbing the steps on Sat.u.r.day, melting chocolate for mole, slapping his face for cursing that one time. He never swore in front of her again.

When she finally hobbled over to his table, she opened her basket wordlessly, and he saw that it was full of knitted dolls. Each one wore a balaclava and clutched a machine gun, just like the drug runners in the jungle. He felt sad then. He wanted to ask her, When did it come down to this, the knitted dolls, the local crafts? So far from the men in masks sacrificing blood to the Jaguar, the shaman chanting his mantra, bringing the spirits with his sacred drum.

But then, he'd drifted pretty far. He'd been about to leave this life behind for good, betray the people who'd raised him. Grimacing, he dug sixty pesos from his pocket and dropped them in her outstretched palm. In return, she handed him three dolls, st.i.tched mouths grinning through their balaclavas, guns poised to fire woolen bullets at anyone who crossed their path.

The shapes of trees grew blacker against the lilac sky. Beyond, between, inside, night creatures chattered and rustled. Sometimes they even shrieked. A twig cracked. Darla spun around. The torch's thin beam bounced off glossy leaves that sprung back into place behind some mottled thing vanis.h.i.+ng into the jungle's green void, slinking stealthy and feral as a jaguar. There wasn't anything as big as that in this rat hole, though, she was sure. She turned back, one hand trembling a little on the handle of the briefcase, the other clenching the torch. She stepped forward and its light faltered. She shook it hard. "Mother of s.h.i.+t, don't die now, battery."

When the car crashed, it had only gone a short way into the trees. She'd seen that with her own eyes, and she'd been cool and collected, tracing the tire marks back towards the track. But the further she followed them, the denser the foliage grew. She'd been going maybe a quarter of an hour and now it was night. Her torch was failing. The place was crawling with f.u.c.k knew what tropical s.h.i.+t.

Back in San Cristobal, if you mentioned the jungle, everyone was totally weird about it, even Raoul. They were superst.i.tious, crossing themselves and talking about ancient G.o.ds, lost tribesmen, human sacrifice. It seemed to Darla there were more tangible things to worry about the Guatemalan drug runners toting Mac-10s for one thing, the bird-eating spiders and the giant f.u.c.king snakes.

As soon as she thought the thought, something bright wriggled in the undergrowth. She shone the torch on it and it slunk away. A pinkish tinge. Probably a coral snake. She imagined it striking, all bared fangs and venom, and her going all Bear Grylls and sucking the poison out, maybe snacking on the thing when it was dead. She had to laugh at that. A loud sound interrupted her. A person laughing, an echo. But it went on too long for that, the sound stretching out into something like a howl. Underneath it a rhythmic sound boomed. Drums. The torch c.r.a.pped out.

When he'd finished the first beer, the waitress brought him another, then another after that. He finished the last drop of the last beer and thought about the alcohol dribbling, spouting, gouting from the wound under his belt, except that he couldn't really feel it any more. The cantina looked softer now and the air felt cooler, clearer. A woman came out wearing a red dress and stood with her arms raised above her head. The guitar music stopped. A red light came on. The guitar began again, slow and rhythmic and the woman began to dance.

She wore gold hoop earrings and her gleaming hair was adorned with a white paper camellia. She danced with the heels of her shoes and her hips, holding one arm out, then the other, turning around to show the roses st.i.tched onto her scarf. Her brows were thick and her mouth was fierce as a shaman's. A jaguar's. When she bent her arm and pressed her hand to her waist, the guitarist slapped the strings, loud and staccato, the music burning into Raoul's ears, calling the spirits forth. When she raised her arms above her head, he stroked them so gently, picking out each note like he had all the time in the world to play the song.

Raoul closed his eyes and thought of the blonde, the jungle boogie in her skinny hips, the statue hidden in her stolen suitcase. The Jaguar G.o.d was in that lump of gold, and spirits always took back what was theirs. They called the dark magic. They demanded blood.

He slumped further back in the chair, listening to the dying chords of the guitar, thinking of Abuela's handkerchief folded so neat and clean in his pocket, of Darla sitting beside him in the pa.s.senger seat of the coupe, the statue in her lap, her hand on his arm, a look on her face like she was remembering the night before. When he opened his eyes, the dancer was gone and the waitress was putting another beer in front of him.

"Will she come back and dance again?"

"Will who come back?" asked the waitress. Her fingers, slipping from the sweating gla.s.s, brushed his hand. They were cool and smooth as gold. He closed his eyes again, feeling that he loved the waitress and the old woman and the dancer, and even the blonde, because the same blood ran in all their veins.

She was alone in the dark, her heart going like the Kentucky Derby, the laughter echoing around her. She put down the briefcase. "Keep it together, Darla. Don't lose your s.h.i.+t now, girl." Fumbling in her dress, she found her cigarettes, slid her fingers in the crumpled pack. Three left. Three cigarettes, like three wishes. She tapped Raoul's zippo out, feeling a certain rea.s.surance in its familiar shape. Flicking it open, she strummed the wheel. No flame, just a sad blue spark or two. Made her think of a shy c.o.c.k you had to coax and coax before it was ready for use. Raoul's had been like that a couple of times toward the end, as if he knew their game was played out. Not that Darla believed in gut feelings. She turned up the gas.

On about the twentieth tw.a.n.g of the flint, a tall white flame leapt up, singeing her eyelashes. She sucked on her cheap, Mexican cigarette, pretending she wasn't even going to look around. She didn't know what she'd been expecting to see hundreds of s.h.i.+ning eyes watching her, or just one pair, red-rimmed and hungry. But there was nothing.

She dragged and exhaled a plume of smoke. The zippo was still burning away, eating up its little tank of gas. It would be dead soon, like the torch, and she would be here in the dark until the dawn broke. A wave of tiredness. .h.i.t her. Her feet ached. She'd have to sit down for a while, wait for the light. Not on the ground though.

Kicking the briefcase over with her toe, she was about to sit down on it when she had an urge to know what was inside. Zippo in one hand, she flipped up the catches with the other. Inside was an old bit of lace, the kind Raoul was always mopping his forehead with. She sucked on her cigarette, "Better not be all there is."

The handkerchief was loosely wrapped around something solid and heavy. She pulled it away. Out rolled a gold figurine, smaller than she thought it would be. She picked it up, turned it in the light. From what she could tell, it was some kind of big cat, a jaguar maybe. Beneath him, back arched, legs spread, little gold mouth open and gasping, was a woman. She and the jaguar were f.u.c.king away. Not just f.u.c.king, but really staring into each other's eyes, like they loved each other.

She sat down, a strange feeling in her belly, as if all her life she'd been missing some crucial piece of the puzzle. All those long cons and short cons, boring affairs and quick, hot lays, and here was this ancient relic and just looking at it filled her with a raw desire for something. A connection. Love.

The zippo light dipped a little, its brightness fading. All around her the jungle chirred and screeched. And there was the laughter again, the wild thump and smack of a drum. She dropped the lighter and clamped her hands over her ears. Her belly told her that she'd been a bad girl, that she'd never leave this place. But that was just stupid. Gut feelings didn't exist.

Kate Horsley writes short stories, poetry and novels and is represented by Allan Guthrie at Jenny Brown a.s.sociates. Her first novel, Secrets of the Skin, has just gone out on submission and she recently finished her second novel, a gothic mystery called The Monster's Wife. She teaches creative writing at Lancaster University.

This Little Piggy.

By Hilary Davidson.

Lysandra hated her clients, and she didn't try to hide it. Freakshows, she called them, though she had special nicknames for the real weirdos. There was her regular four o'clock Tuesday appointment, who liked her to wear pink marabou stilettos. Such a stereotype, that guy, so she called him Frederick's of Hollywood. Her Wednesday nooner had a thing for thigh-high black boots, and Lysandra called him Pretty Woman not to his face since she suspected he'd never gotten over Julia Roberts as a hooker. Pretty Woman's Thursday counterpart craved pointy-toed Jimmy Choo kitten heels in beige, of all colors; Lysandra suspected that one was a politician and dubbed him El Presidente. But her ongoing Friday five o'clock date was the worst: Stanky Mr. Keds had an unhealthy fixation on sweaty sneakers. Lysandra barely managed to suppress her gag reflex in their sessions. She charged him three times her usual fee before decamping to the shower and scrubbing every inch of herself not only her feet with a scented scrub that reminded her of sugar cookies in her grandmother's kitchen.

So when the old lady who booked appointments hunted her down on Friday evening, Lysandra was in no mood for it. "No more freakshows today! Honest, I can't take any more."

"You're burning out on Stanky Mr. Keds," the receptionist sympathized. "But this guy seems kind of sweet. Shy, you know."

"He's a foot-fetish freak. If he wasn't, what the h.e.l.l would he be here for?"

"I don't think he's like the others, Lysandra. The biggest weirdos come in here and check out my buniony old feet, you know." They both looked down at her feet, which were encased in suntan-colored hose and Dr. Scholl's clogs. "This guy says he just wants to give a girl a foot ma.s.sage."

"What?"

"Yeah, I know. Can you take him? Sabrina flaked out and Calypso had to go home 'cause her kid's sick."

"If it's anything other than a foot ma.s.sage, I'm kicking his a.s.s to the curb," Lysandra mumbled. She stepped into her standby shoes black patent with a four-inch heel and marched into her appointment room. The Tootsie Palace's date rooms all looked alike: pale pink walls, rosy lighting, cheap plastic chairs that were easy to clean. Lysandra sat, crossed her legs, and waited.

The guy who came in wasn't what she expected. "Thank you, ma'am," he said to the receptionist, who closed the door behind him. He was tall and broad-shouldered and surprisingly young, maybe all of twenty-five. His skin was glossy as copper and his mouth was full, curving into a slow, s.e.xy smile. "h.e.l.lo, miss. I'm the crazy dude they warned you about."

All the freakshows are crazy, Lysandra thought, but she said, "Crazy?" like it was a question she hadn't already answered for herself.

"Just kidding. I'm kinda nervous doing this, you know?"

"Oh, a virgin."

"Aw, h.e.l.l. You made me blush."

"So, is it true you want to give me a foot ma.s.sage?" Lysandra asked. Normally, when a new freakshow turned up, she asked him what he was into, but she didn't have the patience for that now, not with the memory of the Keds stinking up the room.

"Yeah. Is that okay?"

"It's fine. Go ahead, sit down."

He did, checking out her feet. "You wear shoes like that all day?"

"Sure. Why?"

"That must hurt like h.e.l.l."

Lysandra shrugged. "They look good."

"They're nice, but I'd rather a lady be comfortable, you know? I mean, she ain't gonna be in a mood for, well, anything if her feet hurt. if her 8 "Shall I kick them off?"

"Um, sure."

She made one fly to one side of him, then the other, as if she were aiming projectiles. Then she tucked her feet onto his lap. "Go for it. Make my day."

"Heh. Um, okay."