South Texas Tangle. T.K. O'Neill
told himself that white slavery, if that was to be his fate, was at least an alternative to his current situation. Looking into the back of the van he saw two grinning Mexican dudes in mesh lawn chairs surrounded by fishing gear and coolers. Dudes in front had their heads turned toward him, both of them grinning the grin of the high.
One of the dudes in the lawn chairs said, “If you’re headed for Port A, man, drag your ass in, we got plenty of room.”
Jimmy nodded and stepped up onto the stained green carpeting, sat down cross-legged next to a red-and-white plastic Igloo cooler. He grinned, felt sheepish. “Sure smells good in here,” he said, and looking around saw enough fishing gear on the floor to outfit a basketball team.
“Slide that door shut, dude,” one of the lawn chair sitters said.
Jimmy turned and slid it shut and came back around to a fat joint pinched between the brown fingers of the dude in the front passenger seat. “Have a hit, man, this is good bud.”
Jimmy said, “Don’t mind if I do,” took the joint and inhaled deeply, thinking things were finally turning around for him. Wasn’t hot chicks in bikinis, but it was tasty smoke. You get what you need. He passed the stick to the dude on his left, saying to no one in particular “You guys going fishing?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said the one in the front passenger seat as the driver flipped on the left blinker and re-entered the highway. “Mostly just hanging on the beach. There’s a place in Port A rents out our gear to the tourists. We get paid to play, you know?” Talker was a handsome dude with close-cropped black hair and muscular arms, wearing a pastel-yellow three-quarter-sleeve sport shirt, tattoos peeking out the bottom of the sleeves. Jimmy was careful not to stare, having seen enough gang movies to know better. “Wanna beer, dude?” the guy said. “Cooler’s full. Have at it. Cuts the cottonmouth, yo.”
“Sounds good,” Jimmy said, lifting the lid on the cooler. He stuck his hand in the icy water and brought out a dripping can of Budweiser. Popping the top, he watched for overflow, got none. “Everyone down here as generous as you guys?” Jimmy said, looking at the one up front.
The dude said, “Nah, man, just the wets.” Then he laughed and turned to face the road.
And then the joint was coming around again, tiny now. Jimmy hit it and passed it before it burned his fingers. He pulled on the beer and smiled at the guys in the lawn chairs, their slit eyes gazing down at him, one on the left with a craggy face and slicked-back hair like a younger version of the dude in the movie Machete. Trejo. Manny. Or Danny. Danny Trejo. Fucking Machete. And the other one, dude in the lawn chair to his right, was starting to look like Cheech from Cheech and Chong. Definitely the Up in Smoke era.
Cheech but no Chong or no bong.
Jesus.
Really good weed.
Now they all seemed to resemble Hollywood actors. Jimmy could spend a week in Mex Town in Minneapolis and not see anyone didn’t look like a tweaker or the Frito Bandito. No, that wasn’t fair. Maybe a few Panchos and the occasional Cisco thrown in if you’ve ever seen The Cisco Kid, Jimmy having watched some of the classic old TV series at least ten years ago on his big brother’s pirated cable.
“Where you from, man?” the Cheech look-a-like said in a remarkably deep, mellow voice totally unlike that of Cheech Marin.
“Minnesota,” Jimmy said, looking up and feeling his lips going into a smile.
“On vacation?”
“Yeah. Spring vacation. But my car broke down on the way and now I’m nearly tapped out, trying to stretch my resources until my buddies show up.” Wanting them to know he didn’t have much money.
“You know what they say, dude,” Cheech said, “If it’s got tits or wheels, some day it’s gonna give you trouble.”
Jimmy said, “I hear that,” and drank some beer.
Then the one in the front turned and said to Cheech, “Grab me another, Hector,” before crumpling his empty and dropping it in a plastic garbage bag spread open on the floor behind the seat, bag a third-full at four in the afternoon. Hector/Cheech lifted a dripping Bud from the cooler and passed it up front.
Starting to feel claustrophobic, Jimmy said, “What kinda fish you catch around here?”
“Tiburones. Sharks,” the lawn-chair sitters said in unison, grinning at each other.
“Lots of good fish around here,” the driver said. He was a thin and wiry guy in a white, strap undershirt, sleeves of tattoos covering both arms. Close-cropped black hair and a thick half moon of beard at the bottom of his sharp chin. His wraparound shades looked a lot more expensive than Jimmy’s. And this dude absolutely did sound like Cheech Marin, leading Jimmy to conclude there was a Cheech-sounding dude in every Latino crowd. Jimmy saw the other three men exchanging questioning glances as the driver continued talking: “Red fish, specks, flounder, grouper, Cobia… we got’em all, dude. Never know watch you’re gonna catch out here.”
“Maybe even some hot tuna, you get lucky, eh?” the one in the passenger seat said. Jimmy thinking the dude resembled a much-younger version of George Lopez.
The other three laughed.
His sense of confinement rising now Jimmy slid himself around until he could see out the side windows. He saw an unusually designed stone house going by. Place was set back fifty yards from the road and was surrounded by a foot of water, looking understandably empty, For Sale sign sticking out of the submerged lawn.
Then Young George Lopez said to Jimmy, George sporting a crooked grin, “You looking for some hot tuna on the beach, man? Or you prefer the sausage? I hear Minnesota is the land of ten thousand homos.”
The two in the lawn chairs snickered. Jimmy felt their eyes on him.
“I suspect it’s more like ten million,” Jimmy said, turning his head to face the George Lopez dude. “But the state slogan is Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.”
“And each one got its own private maricon,” Young Lopez said, inspiring more laughter.
Jimmy’s gut squirmed.
“Ease off pendejo,” the driver said, “You want to scare away tourist dollars? Vengase, Albert, apologize to my invited guest for your rude behavior.” Dude with quiet authority in his voice
Albert/George Lopez looked at Jimmy. “Just jerking yer chain, brah,” he said, his voice sounding flat.
Jimmy nodded, smiling, and felt his urge to urinate becoming much stronger. Seeing through the side windows they were at the edge of a small town, he relaxed a little, storefronts and houses beginning to fill the roadside. “You can drop me off anywhere around here,” he said.
“I apologize for these pendejos,” the driver said, turning his head slightly toward the back, humor in his voice. “They think baiting tourists is good sport. Me, I don’t like to scare away a buck if I can help it.” He chuckled.
“Yeah sure, no problem,” Jimmy said. “Unfortunately I don’t have many bucks to scare away at the moment. Actually I was hoping you guys could recommend a cheap place to spend the night.”
“Them dunes are dirt cheap,” Albert/George Lopez said, looking at Jimmy and swigging beer, a few drops dripping down the sides of his grinning lips.
And the driver said, “Don’t listen to these assholes, dude. What’s your name?”
“Jim.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jim. I’m Henry. Tell you what, my friend. Why don’t you come down the beach later and find us. We’ll be set up out front of Billy’s Bar, old dump on the beach got some cheap rental cabins out back might solve your problem. Come and see us, dude—I’ll buy you a libation.”
“How’ll I find you?”
“Walk south on the beach. You can’t miss Billy’s, old