Mojo - 35. Chapter 32: High-Life on the Public Peso

.

Part Ten – Spanish Fly

Chapter 32: High-Life on the Public Peso

BANG!

A little black powder singed the air, for it was fiesta time in Crotones.

The sounds of the fireworks punctuated the dance music and stomping feet coming from the main stage. The crackle of light in the sky blended with the colorful flashes from the costumes in motion.

Sadeeq, Squiffy and I stood watching from one end of the public plaza in the center of town. It was a good place to observe sights, sounds and smells, for indeed, luscious scents drifted our way from the adjacent food concessions.

“¡Bienvenido amigo!” The nine-hundredth person of the day hailed Sadeeq as wonderful. The poet had been continually glad-handed by hungry-eyed men drifting past us as they got closer to the dancing and festivities.

Sadeeq turned a sly leer on us. “This place is amazing! All the locals are throwing their daughters – and sons – my way with prospects of marriage. Although being married to my Art as I am, I know what a tricky spouse I’m already committed to. Poetasters, who would rather flirt with it than bed down with it for the long haul, jot down a few lines and smugly think they’ve changed the world. Sadly, the urge to poeticize has led many a young man astray.”

I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, you would know all about being a stray.’

I changed the subject. “So, Squiffy, how goes the search for the Spanish fly?”

“It’s proving very elusive, old chap. Everyone keeps harping upon the fact that it can kill, as if that has any bearing on my obtaining it.”

“People are like that,” Sadeeq added, apropos of not very much. He probably wasn’t listening anyway; I hate it when people do that.

The dancing crescendoed. Applause followed, and then the master of ceremonies went to the microphone and raised his hand in our direction. Sadeeq was being called forward to the stage. Several hundred faces from the crowd turned to us, and Amergin copped a ‘humble poet’ attitude, complete with a double-handed clutching at his heart. He savored the moment as he made his way through the adulations being piled on thick. Once on stage, he said “Gracias,” and started to recite in Spanish. It was a companion piece to his Reykjavik Rainbow called the Berlin Wall Across the Mexican Border. I was glad I did not have to hear it again in English.

“Oh, there’s nothing I abide with less leniency,” muttered the has-been TV chef.

“Bad poetry?”

“No, no, dear boy – false modesty.”

He had a point there.

Squiffy continued, “Do pay attention. You see, I’ve gave it some thought and found the perfect analogy.”

I waited for him to address his own rhetorical point. “Dogs.”

“Dogs?” I asked shrewdly. “Like the kind that seem to ‘hound’ you everywhere you go?”

“Precisely. Witness how I lived in a tequila vat because it was cozy to me. As long as I have a wee dram to tipple now and again, and a dry place to bed down eventually, I can eschew the trappings of success – house, car, clothes, family, wealth, fame, fine food – women – you name it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I observed one of the Crotones strays drifting through skirt hems and ankles, slowly making his way to my philosopher-savant companion. “And the dog part of it?“ I inquired mildly.

The hat came off for the briefest of seconds, just long enough for him to slick back his badger hair. “Do try to keep up, young man. The canine contingent of the aphorism is this: Humans overthink all the best gifts of Fortune, Nature, God – you name it. But in contrast, dogs live at ease in the present, without anxiety. Thus, they have no use for money, medicine or ‘psychopathic help,’ bless ‘em. Dogs are a shameless race, not because they know they are superior to all modesty, but because it’s no show with them.” The wandering homeless mongrel arrived as if on cue to sniff at Squiffy’s heels

As I knew he would, this cynic shooed the mutt away with a tidy little kick, muttering, “Be gone, you worthless blighter.”

He rambled on with more of his sophisms, but I tuned him out, just as I had done with Sadeeq’s poetry over the loud speaker. Instead I surveyed the lay of the land. The spring church was on a hill to the right; steps looking suspiciously like the recycled stairway of an Aztec temple led up to a stuccoed edifice surrounded by a wall. All painted in white, with coral accents along the cornices and central dome, it shone in the desert sun.

The plaza where we stood was tidy and roomy enough for the whole community to gather, like now, for the Fiesta del El Azul-Verde.

I considered how well we’ve been treated the week we’ve been here. Gordon and I used Gay soap-opera worthy aliases – my boy becoming the adorable Grayson Hewitt, and me, his husband, Mason Hewitt. Why Sadeeq and Squiffy didn’t cough up fake names the minute we got here, I shall never know, especially seeing how the poet came up with a grift. Our town’s hospitality is based on Amergin conning them into thinking he’s waiting on a huge insurance payoff because of the shipwreck.

If caught, I’m sure the poet will point fingers at us faster than a crow can fly south out of town. And now I thought about it nervously as I spotted Gordon helping out at the grilled corn-on-the-cob stand. ‘When you live outside the law, you’re just waiting for the other flip flop to drop.’ Finally one of Sadeeq’s endless quotables came in handy. Again, this one was from his beloved Burnaby:

‘Heavens! How ill it fares with wicked lives;

They ever expect a fate they despise.’

Squiffy interrupted my musings. He jostled my elbow and gestured out over the sea of people. “They’re all biting their tongues at Sadeeq’s horrible Spanish.” He laughed.

That was the teapot calling the toaster black. However, I was glad I didn’t speak Spanish so I could avoid the mad poet’s ramblings for at least half the time. Among us, Gordon’s language skills are the most natural, because he grew up with it as a necessity for the nursery. Sadeeq’s ability was good enough to make people groan and roll their eyes behind his back, which, let’s admit it, is exactly what people did with his English. To his face, these Crotonesians praised him effusively, or at least enough to make him exclaim: “¡Respetan a los poetas aquí!” Gordon translated it as ‘They really do respect poets here.’ The irony was that Sadeeq – a grifter himself – was oblivious to all of these pretend artsy-fartsy types just grinning and bearing with his babbling because they were counting on a payday.

I glanced back to the failed TV celeb. As for Squiffy Wellington, his was the worst among us, speaking a ghastly Queen’s English type of Spanish that made even me cringe.

I told Squiff, “The con is one thing, but I wish Sadeeq hadn’t told the town to put us up on the public peso, and in exchange, he’d make Crotones famous with his verses on the internet. The people are seeing tourist dollar signs anytime they spot one of us.”

“And, dear boy…?”

“And, attention is not always a good thing.”

He gaped wide-eyed at me like I’d just blasphemed. The truth was, this curse was like an excess of divine attention, and I longed for the day when ‘the gods’ went back to not giving a flying fuck about yours truly; I much prefer the bog-standard godly apathy that we’re so used to.

Such hopeful thinking again brought me back to Gordon. His job was simple: once the corn was grilled, he brushed on white, American mayonnaise from a jar, liberally sprinkled with crumbled dry cheese – rather like a mild Mexican version of Feta – and served the elote to a smiling customer.

It makes my boy happy to be useful, and thereby fills my heart with joy.

For a lark, I quizzed Squiffy. “What do you think of elotes?”

His face contorted into a sour pucker.

That’s what I thought he’d think, but none the less, it’s real and honest Mexican food, which contrasted sharply to the haute monstrosities served at Tre-Princely Knight’s dinner.

Sadeeq on stage came to a particularly dramatic lull in his epic recitation, and paused for the captive audience to gasp/applause/whatever. A few did, and he was satisfied. Squiffy and I scanned the faces of the crowd for sport. Most appeared bored and had plastered-on smiles as they faced the bard on the boards. One exception was a very old woman who leaned on a broom of acacia switches and openly derided Sadeeq’s performance with expressive arm and hand gestures.

“Look at her,” Squiffy said close to my ear. “Bless her, the hoary old harridan. I bet she’s seen the likes of us come and go by the score – i.e., as the Yanks might say – she knows the score.”

While we were thus watching, a pretty girl approached us through the assembly. She came to a rest by my right side, hands immediately going to her hips as she candidly appraised me up and down.

“Why, ¡hola!” Squiffy said, oil dripping from his tone as he reached across my chest to shake her hand.

She did not take the philosopher-savant’s mongrel paw. Instead, she told me flatly: “You look like acheap man-whore.”

“What?!”

“Yes, yes…” Her accent wasn’t Mexican, it was more elaborate and spicy in the vowels. “Look at you: no hair out of eplace; eyebrows epainted on; acruising looks; estudly gait like you got huge cojones. You’re a hustler walking, and I acan espot your kind a mile away.”

Getting hot under the collar, I retorted: “You’re mistaken, sweetheart.”

My non-chivalrous companion simply said, “Squiffy Wellington, at your service, señorita. And what might your name be, most bewitching creature?”

“Cáliza. From Puerto Rico. Don’t aconfuse me for one of these Mexicanas.” She resumed taking my measure with disapproving eyes. “I work for a rich family here, and my ama de casa – my how you esay, mistress-lady-boss – she has a taste for gutter trash.”

“And what’s that got to do with me?” I wanted to know.

Her eyes grew round with mirth. “Oh! El señor e-fiesty. Bueno. She’ll like you. Esee, esome women have the wild extravagancia to be in love with filth. They acan’t help it. For them, when the bullring is full of men on esaturday, they achoose the rough lover of the nose-bleed eseats, with his dirty face and oaken estaff, over all the gentlemen in the boxes with their metro-esexual”—she wiggled the tip of her finger—“tooth-epickers.”[1]

I shrugged. “I don’t think I’m what your lady-boss is looking for. Just tell her I said I’m unworthy.”

“No, no. I am her maid, and know what she likes. You’re eperfect. Acheap and acheerful. You esee, when you will esay ‘I am unworthy,’ you turn my lady on even more. The more a estreet-walking boy, the better. If you are eselling what she wants, we are a buyer. If you are rich and giving it away for free, eshe’s waiting in line already.”

“Um—” I started

“As for me, I epersonally only esleep with wealthy men, esoldiers above the rank of acorporal, and…” She drew out the end seductively, laying big brown eye-flutters on Squiffy for the first time. “Los acelebrities.”

The TV host immediately straightened the lank frame in the slack confines of his linen suit, and twisted his dusty tie a tad.

Warming to the comedy afoot, I grinned and asked Cáliza, “Now tell me the truth, are you the one really so in love with me?”

She doubled over with laughter, leaning across me to get support from Squiffy’s arm.

Our personal noise and commotion was enough to draw the attention of Gordon. Seeing his questioning glance raised a spark of a notion in me.

I gently latched onto Cáliza’s shoulder. “And is she ready, this lady of yours?”

“Sí.”

“Where?”

“Not too far. We acan walk.”

“I’ll want $500, up front.”

The shred maid pulled up a fat roll and peeled off five hundred-dollar bills from the top.

“Dear boy,” Squiffy said, sounding genuinely alarmed. “What about your hus—”

I hushed him silently. When we turned back to Cáliza, she’d taken out her phone and sent a text. "Bueno. You acan follow me.”

“Me as well?” inquired Squiffy with hangdog sincerity.

The woman’s brows flared. “Sí.”

She led us out of the busy plaza, with me giving one final, compassionate look to my boy.

As soon as we left the center of town, the streets were completely abandoned. Everyone was at the fiesta, and the sounds of the renewed dancing hovered in the still air like an ambient haze.

She took us to a bolted door set within a high adobe wall. Knocking three times in a certain way, the iron-strapped portal opened from within, and a security guard let us in.

To my amazement, the wall I’d just passed through surrounded an immense orchard of mature almond trees. Right now, delicate white blossoms filled the blue sky to the horizon, and along with high desert clouds, bees buzzed in the air as if already drunk on pollen.

The maid took us to a patch of grass not too far from the entrance. The older man at the gate had returned to his rickety chair, pulled his hat over his eyes and snoozed again.

Cáliza stopped. “Señor Wellington and me will wait here. You go on.”

“Go on, where?”

She gestured vaguely, towards the deep run of trees. “Just estart out. Estallida, my mistress, will find you.”

I reluctantly left, wondering if this was a set-up of some kind, mystical or otherwise.

Starting to venture beneath the canopy of blossoms, I shed one final look and saw the firecracker maid settling down on the grass with the washed-up TV presenter.

I moved slowly amidst the tree bark, straining my ears for any sound not coming from the sky-echoing festival.

Around the bend of one tree, I spotted a cloud of white fluttering close to the ground, and went towards it.

A woman – and what a woman – was dressed in lace and reclining with legs tucked on a large blanket. Enchanted by her beauty, for such I felt, each step bringing me closer to her filled my head with notions of how the arts would fail. Painting: would fail to capture her animate spirit in oils. Sculpture: would come short in portraying her noble bearing. Poetry: could only mangle her beauty on an unworthy rack of gilded words – and I’m fucking Gay!

Almost as if in a dream, I glided down and sat on the picnic blanket across from her.

“Estallida, what are you?” I asked.

“Just a woman; a woman who fancies a strong young man.” She smiled, and it was like the moon breaking free of clouds in all her beauty.

If I had looked around the groves for statues of men frozen in action, I would now have been surprised. However, my eyes never left Estallida.

A shadow of doubt obscured her face. “But the young man I desire is, alas, already married to another. I would not be homewrecker to the lovely Gordon for all the world, Kohl.”

My mind reeled a second; she’d caught me off-guard. “But,” I said at last, “I imagine you are married as well, and – well, and, what the gander does not know won’t hurt the goose.”

“How exceedingly clever you are.” She moved closer to me, stalking my wilds like a jaguar on her knees.

“I have grapes, and walnuts, and wine too.”

She plucked a sweet yellow grape, the dewy blush still upon it.

Reclining, she drew my head into her lap. The lapis sky above her dark hair was no match for the openness of her downward gazes.

She fed me – motherly, I suppose – and made me imbibe a sweet red wine too, allowing all my mellowness to come to the fore.

Poetry dribbled from her lips like drops of pancake syrup:

“Jove, just a ray of golden light,

Fell upon Danaë’s tender skin;

He, the mightiest bull in sight,

Europa’s resistance wore thin;

While to Leda, a feathered kite,

He sailed a swan to her chagrin.

 

Thus each fell prey to mortal sin,

But sank through heavenly delight.”

“Brava, Estallida. I ask again – which goddess are you…?”

“No god am I.’ She chuckled, slyly hiding her face a moment. “Perhaps you are my”—her fingers walked down my chest, to my waist, and then, to my crotch—“my god of love. My tempting fate….” Her tone tailed off.

Then her palm roughly palpated my soft-as-a-sock trash.

“What is this?!” Her voice was completely different. “I don’t turn you on?”

I sat up. “Um…” I fell back on the hustler’s best friend; the excuse of: “This has never happened to me before. I swear.”

Suddenly she got mad and Latina in one swift kick. Her accent started to come through to my otherwise honey-drenched ears.

She stood. “Is this the way you treat a high-class woman like me?!”

“I—” I got to my feet as well, defensively.

“No, no.” She wagged a scolding finger at me. “No esscuses.’

Estallida pulled out her cellphone, fumbling over a harried-typed text.

I asked sheepishly, “What is it you are doing?”

“E-see for yourself. Sending instructions to my maid. Here, read.”

She held up the screen.

All it said was: “Bring the stuff.”