By Tommy Villalobos
Un Pobre y un Poco Tomado sat in La Prieta Bar conversing over beer. Arthur Dichón strolled in, waving to Connie Ferno, the battle-scarred bartender, who was absorbed in a fat novel. She reluctantly set aside the volume, MujerFrom Eagle Pass by Esmeralda Rematezo, an author known for her scorching novels of adventure and romance with a soupçon of lust.
Connie mechanically brought Arthur his draft beer. She remembered what Arthur drank. She remembered what everyone drank.
“What’re you reading now?” said Arthur to Connie.
“The latest by Esmeralda Rematezo. She really has Carmen Cortaz in deep mud. She’s surrounded by five gorillas who are protecting a real bad guy who took money from someone she knows. The poor fella was left with a crooked face, loose ribs and low self-esteem by the bad guy. She also thinks she almost loves him. The beat-up guy, I mean, not the bad guy.”
“She’s not sure?”
“Not up to this point and I’m on the top of page three.”
Connie bolted back to her novel.
“I would like to invent something that everyone wants to buy,” said El Poco Tomado with an energetic burp.
“Heck, I want to invent something everyone has to use at one time or another,” said El Pobre with a conservative burp. “Someone, somewhere, sometime invented the first backscratcher.”
Arthur Dichón drew in the stale beer air, which a close observer would recognize as the deep breath a politician takes before delivering a speech before his supporters, believers and non-believers, and moved closer to the conversation.
“You want to know about inventions?” said Arthur as he slid onto his new barstool. “I’ll tell you about this bato who invented stuff because he couldn’t help it.”
“¿Como?” said El Pobre.
“He invented things without even having to think, like you and I sneeze. And do you know what he is famous for?”
Their blank stares declared they did not.
“I’ll tell you that, too,” continued Arthur. “He is always working on something no one else has ever thought of.”
“What did he invent?” said El Poco Tomado.
“A Flexible Inflatable Garden.”
“You’re right. I never thought of that.”
“What’s his name?” said El Pobre.”
“Edison Geemez.”
El Pobre scratched his head as if resetting his brain. “What was it he invented, again?”
“An inflatable garden that folds like a tent.”
“Why?” said El Poco Tomado.
“To grow verduras anywhere. Even on a roof. Great for those surviving in cramped quarters. He wanted to corner the New York, Tokyo and Al Qaeda markets.”
“Inflatable, eh? Couldn’t you just use a child’s inflatable pool?”
“This came with a pump and a cosa that injected nutrients into the soil. Low maintenance for active folks. When you wanted to store it, you merely let the air out, folded it, and tucked in neatly in your closet or under your bed. Neat, wouldn’t you say?”
“Just the opposite, I’d say,” said El Pobre. “You’d have zoquete everywhere. And how can carrots survive in a closet?”
“Well, that was no problem since it was like those artificial Christmas trees. Sober, efficient. When summer ends, you fold up the garden and off you go to the next season.”
“Man, that couldn’t have gone over.”
“It didn’t. In fact, a lot of people are looking for him.”
“Sour customers?”
“No, soured investors, including his biggest investor, El Killer Butch. He tagged him for five hundred.”
“El Killer Butch, the Lucha Libre retiree?”
“Yeah, the same android. After he retired, he only had five hundred. He had quickly eaten through all his earnings like a gusano in your ensalada. Edison convinced him that he, Edison, had invented an invention for the ages—his portable garden. After waiting months, El Killer saw no returns on his investment but he did see red—blood red. Then, to top it all, he, El Killer Butch, fell into hard times and into commercial burglary. He’s been looking for Edison ever since in order to twist his nose north and south then clean off; for Edison also enticed Butch’s girlfriend, Dora Norra, to leave Butch and Gangnam Style with him.”
“What?”
“And El Killer Butch claims he’s torn more limbs from more bodies than any butcher this side of Chicago.”
El Poco Tomado looked at El Pobre then took a swallow of his beer, hoping this particular swallow would straighten all this out.
“Do you know what he tried before the Flexible Inflatable Garden?”
“An inflatable Chicano Punk Band?” guessed El Poco Tomado.
“No. Neon furniture. He told people that they had the opportunity to invest in something hip for young people. And that there were young people all over the place, wherever you looked. ‘Can’t get away from them,’ he said. ‘Let them serve a purpose like the rest of us. Soak them.’”
El Poco Tomado and El Pobre paused, as if mentally digesting the logic of the quoted remarks.
He asked (Arthur Dichón continued) for investment donations, whatever the person could afford, as long as it was over fifty dollars. One old bato told him, “I just live off of Social Security and m’ija.”
“What if Warren Buffet just sat on his Social Security check and what he could mooch off his hija?” retorted Edison. “Where would he be? Right here in this bar looking all sustado like you.”
In the end, that invention received only shaking heads and firm guffaws. Edison, being a determined soul, called Dora Norra.
“Hey, Norra,” he cooed into his cell phone, “how much you got in your cookie jar?”
“Nothing,” she said. “You dropped and broke it last time you were here, remember? You should re-evaluate your station in life.”
Dora Norra had toiled for a dozen years as a government secretary, never married, and used all her budgetary cunning to save from her modest emolument. Her robust bank account held the key to Edison’s future. However, Dora Norra and he had recently engaged in lover’s ping-pong, unsure whether their amorous magnetism had evolved into curious repulsion.
“Oh, yeah?” was Edison’s comeback. “Well, you’ll be tossing all your credit cards at me when you hear my latest invention.”
“A way to make common sense disappear permanently?”
“Neon furniture.”
“To go with your neon brain.”
“We’ll be ricos, me and you.”
“Won’t it take less energy just to get a job, Edison?” she said then hung up.
Edison was now experiencing what a passing pessimist would call a major calamity, all earth’s sorrows y bien fregado.
Edison, however, habitually looked on the sunny side of la vida. He was on the one invention he knew was unlike any other. This was what the world needed; they just needed to be convinced that they needed it.
Taking a shortcut through a dark alley, he ran into the barrio’s most distinguished person for him to dodge in a dark alley or a well-lit one—El Killer Butch. The man, legend has it, could take a man over his knee and snap his spine. Edison’s spine tingled.
“Órale,” said El Killer Butch.
“Mr. Killer Butch,” Edison said quickly, in a bold move to distract Butch, “do you happen to have ten thousand you wish someone would take off your hands? It’s to finance an outstanding invention.”
“Let me think. No. But I have been looking for you to get the five hundred I gave you for your last invention. ¿Te acuerdas? And to talk to you about the girl you stole from me. ¿Te acuerdas?”
“You know, me and what’s her name, didn’t really hit it off.”
“The young lady’s name is Dora Norra,” said Butch politely.
“I didn’t mean to take her away,” Edison said with a gulp heard around the world. “It was like when you cuss in front of a monja.”
“And it hurt me.”
The thought of El Killer Butch being hurt by anything was like hearing that the NRA had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Not to change the subject, but do you still enter establishments in the dark of night to gather nickels?”
“No, I’ve become a little religioso. Last time I broke into a lugar, some dress shop, twenty guys jumped me outside and took my money. It was only forty dollars.”
“I heard it was only two guys and four bucks.”
Butch snorted.
“So,” continued Edison, “you got on your knees and said ‘Gracias a Dios?’”
“No, not right away. I walked around the streets in a daze.”
“But you do that now.”
“Huh?”
“Why do you say you are religious now?”
“I know this will sound weird.”
“No, it sounds sweet. Religious types don’t dissect people. Normally.”
“Check it out. I was passing this house and the streetlight was hitting a bathroom window. You know, frosted so you can’t see in because you might see some vieja that you don’t want to see anyway.”
“Riveting. Go on.”
“Well, with my head hurting a la fregada, that window caught my attention. The light from the street was hitting it so that I saw a bright light like in the movie The Ten Commandments where that bush is on fire but not really on fire. It looked like the house was on fire, but on the inside. You know what?”
“Dígame.”
“I was all spiritual, ese. Heaven, the Angels, La Virgen and Dios were calling me.”
“My revelation usually happens after a night out. My head is throbbing and I make promises to the various Santos that if I make it pass noon, I’ll become as innocent as a newborn.”
“No, this is different.”
“Really? Okay, moving on, why don’t you join me in a venture?”
“What? I should be stomping on your cuerpo until no one would recognize that you were ever human.”
“We’ll get to that. But I just invented something that will make you bunny hop around the block three times. You never have to rob or break apart anyone again. You can now sit around all day. Like you do now but with thousands of honest dollar bills for company.”
“Forget it, ese. Everything’s already been invented. I just found a Smartphone.”
“Great! Now I need you to find about several thousand dollars so I can launch my new invention.”
“I’m retired from taking what ain’t mine. I found a new business, the business of being saved. I joined a new church, Iglesia Baptismo De Los Bien Salvados, Inc.”
“They don’t let you steal on the side?”
“Chale, homes. In fact, we have to give stuff away.”
“A complete role reversal, eh?”
“Símón. Now I couldn’t steal anything and feel right. I should be bouncing you all over the street, but that might bother me. At least for a minute. No, that life is behind me. Get behind me Satan and stuff.”
“Would one third of my riches get your old life in front of you again?”
“No, I told our preacher Lucia Carlillo that I was done taking what ain’t mine.”
“Just get me five thousand and I’ll give you half of my riches. Wadda you say, my saintly ladrón.”
El Killer Butch thought again.
“I know you mean well in a sort of messed up way, but my soul is at stake here.”
“But your body will shrivel from a caloric shortage while you wait for The Rapture.”
“Little bodies have great souls. Reverend Lucia said so at the last meeting.”
“Is she skinny?”
“Chale. She’s wider than a bus.”
“And you know why?”
“No.”
“Because she makes sure her intake exceeds her outtake.”
El Killer Butch’s face became a blank monitor.
“Let me explain,” continued Edison. “She knows the way to heaven. She is guiding you there, right?”
“More like kicking. She pounds on la biblia, screaming in your face while hers is all red like a monster pepper.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t want me to spend the hereafter with my body burning.”
“Your body temperature in the beyond is irrelevant to her. She doesn’t want to work.”
“Don’t say nothing bad about Reverend Carlillo, okay?”
El Killer Butch, a larger barrio specimen than normal, enlarged himself even more, resembling a colossal slighted bullfrog.
“What I meant was that she wants to devote all her time to her flock, you being one of the flockees.”
In his continuing war on reality, Edison then offered El Killer Butch a partnership in his venture. He told Butch that he, Edison, was going to be very rich and did he, Butch, want half-sies.
El Killer Butch shook his head and walked away, back in a daze.
Butch soon became aware of what a famous man once said, “Flee ever so fast, you cannot flee your fortune.” For Butch soon ran into a little woman by the name of Gladys Mintaras. She is a woman who commands every muscle y a veces catches mosquitoes between her toes. To Butch, she was the eighth wonder of the barrio. She proceeded to step on his heart as if the pulsating protoplasm was the dance floor of the Flamingo Room where she was noted for stepping solidly to Salsa.
El Killer Butch now had only one purpose—to win Gladys and Salsa with her until dislocated hips do them part.
Edison got home to a screaming telephone.
“Hello,” he said feebly.
“Hey, you still want to make me rich?”
The deep voice-of-death reverberated around Edison’s head. El Killer Butch.
“You don’t believe it’s me, do you?” Butch’s voice rose, as much as a deep voice-of-death can rise.
“No, I don’t.”
“I want in.”
“In what?”
“You promised to make me rich.”
“Did the Reverend run away with Saturday’s take?”
“No, but my heart is in flames. I met a cutie and I want to buy her everything. Even stuff not on sale.”
“Moving. What’s her name?”
“Gladys. Gladys Mintaras.”
“Why her?”
“Don’t know. Sometimes I feel like a big, juicy hamburger. Other times, just a little burrito. I saw her and this time I felt like having her instead of a hamburger or burrito.”
“A firm display of male sensibility.”
“Yeah, she causes that. So when do we get started.”
“As soon as we break into a carrucha.”?
“¿Qué?”
“I have it on good word that a Ford Falcon sitting in a junkyard is loaded with pearls.”
“Pearls in a junkyard?”
“I see the old fires stirring the dormant sticky fingers. The old you is coming back, slowly shedding the cloak of evangelism while sniffing $500,000 worth of pearls.”
“¿De veras? How come you know about it?”
“It’s complicated but I’ll tell you anyway. You’re not the only person I know who has walked chueco down the boulevard of life. There is a Victor Portuz. He trades in illegally imported pearls. He then sells them on the black market. Well, yesterday he was driving his Ford Falcon with expired tags, a detail he never worried about because he is not a detail-oriented bato. He was transporting his latest haul of pearls to a shady jeweler. Well, the pickle parks it in front of the store, in a No Parking Zone, right in front of a police car whose occupants were patronizing the donut shop next door.”
“He was asking for it, I can tell you that,” said El Killer Butch.
“He was asking for it, I can tell you that back. And I can also tell you he got it back. They towed his Falcon while he cowered behind that jeweler’s worktable. In fact, both he and the jeweler cowered behind the jeweler’s worktable.”
“Where do I come in?”
“You’ve made a habit of taking what isn’t yours. I want you to go to the junkyard and do that.”
“How come he don’t do it?”
“He is sitting in jail.”
“Jay walking in front of a cop?”
“Trying to snatch a purse from an old lady in front of two cops and a cub scout who was in the process of helping her cross the street.”
“That’s dumb, ese.”
“But good. Anyway, he says if we get his pearls back, he’ll share the proceeds.”
“Can we trust him?”
“If he changes his mind, we’ll rat on him.”
“You’d squeal on him?”
“Like a 500-pound Iowa porker.”
El Killer Butch, halfheartedly, agreed to meet and scheme.
Edison had only one goal in mind—to get his invention to market in order to win Dora Norra. Dora had closely examined his bolsas and shrewdly observed that money cannot exist in a vacuum. She had coolly turned up her nose as only the female species are designed to do.
Edison, however, was now so confident of his prospects that he proposed to Dora Norra again. He told her about his financing with a $500,000 windfall, leaving out the source, while she listened patiently. He mistook her attention for jolly acquiescence and shook like a dropped olla of frozen menudo when she refused again.
With enduring hope, Edison travelled to Butch’s apartment that evening. His hope and all its attached endurance was flung wildly in all directions. He found a remorseful Butch. As soon as Edison entered, Butch went to a chair and sat, head in hands. Edison witnessed a true display of head in hands, for Butch’s head appeared to have become detached from his body and resting peacefully in his hands.
“I can’t let Reverend Carlillo down. I’m part of her flock. She calls us her children.”
“That sounds childish,” said Edison.
“Well, I’m going to follow her like a saved niño all the way to the golden frontera to heaven to meet St. Peter.”
“What about Gladys? What if she doesn’t make the cut and is left wailing and gnashing her teeth at the crossing while you tippy-toe into the clouds?”
“I thought of that, too. Remember the bible saying, ‘What profit a bato to get the whole world and all kinds of feria yet lose his soul?’ So, I asked her to our church meeting tonight and she’s coming.”
You could have knocked Edison over with a canary feather. He could not believe a Gladys Mintaras type would forgo a Saturday night of Salsa hip swiveling to go to a church meeting.
“You mean you’re going to let a few proverbs shouted out and tambourines rattled in the night air take you away from a plan to live a life stacked with money?”
“There is no rich life like what is promised if you follow the true path. Reverend Carlillo says that, too.”
“I’ll bet she does.”
“Huh?”
“Listen, Butch. You have a chance to start a string of your own iglesiasitas from here to Nueva York.”
“Go not where money lies, but let money lie so a true golden way is followed.”
“Reverend Lucy again?”
“No.”
“Bible?”
“No. A fortune cookie. Took Gladys to the Happy Song Chinese restaurant. I read that strip of paper and knew I had almost fallen away from the true way.”
Dejected, Edison shuffled out of Butch’s apartment. If there were a more dejected soul, he would lead that soul to a high promontory and give him or her a complimentary push. For Edison was born with an emotional attachment to capital. He knew when he was eight and a tío gave him a shiny dime that he wanted to let fly with a brick to the back of that tío’s skull and take his wallet, instead.
He also recalled hearing somewhere that hope is grief’s best music. Late that night, the First Movement began with strident knocking on Edison’s door. Edison opened the door and Butch immediately found a chair and sat as if hammered into it. He wore a distraught face punctuated with tear-filled eyes.
This heartrending display was not due to continuing remorse, but to having your gal fling mud in said eyes.
“I need to talk with you,” said Butch, looking around the room as if looking for somewhere to wail and gnash his teeth himself.
“I’m not as easy as Gladys. Invite me to a revival and I’ll revile you about your revival until your head spins. I remember the time my sister—”
“Forget what you remember. I got problems, ese.”
Butch was frustrated. Edison was encouraged.
“I think I love her,” continued Butch.
“Parson Lucy?”
“Chale. How could you think that, ese? Lucia is a holy woman. I meant Gladys.”
“I’m one who looks at all options. So you love Gladys. What’re you going to do about it?”
“Rip his head off and kick it around.”
“I’m not one for minor details, but whose head are you going to rip off and where are you going to kick it around?”
“Leo. Belvedere Park.”
“Leo?”
“The dirty rata Gladys is with. They hugged like two octopuses in a fish bowl.”
“Hmm,” said Edison showing outwardly concern but inside ready to twirl around the room like an Olympic figure skater. One obstacle had been removed, Gladys Mintaras, and now only one remained—the whole bible.
“So now that Gladys has skated, I mean danced away, maybe now we can get back to getting independently loaded.”
“I can’t do anything without her.”
“You’ve made it this far.”
“You know where she met the perro?”
“At a Salsa dance-off where he was whirling like a dervish on several buckets of Jolt?”
“At la Iglesia De La Gente Bien Salvada, Inc. I invited her, to our meeting tonight, remember? Can you believe that?”
“No and I don’t think Ripley would either.”
“The snake saw her sitting next to me as we listened to Reverend Lucia give the night’s lesson. It was one of those chapters from the Old Testament talking about some dude having patience no matter how hard God trashed him.”
“Job?”
“No, not Joe. I forget the bato’s name. It was unbelievable. He had granos all over his body and slept on a pile of poop. I was all sorry for the dude while this Leo with his tambourine snaked his way to my Gladys. Before I knew it, he sat his wrinkled suit right next to Gladys and whispered in her ear just like The Serpent Reverend Lucia is always warning us about. But did I take her warning?”
“Gee, I can’t—”
“Well I can and I’ll tell you. The answer is No. And I’ll tell you more. You’ll probably get madder than me.”
“I’m ready to blow a microchip.”
“While I was listening to Reverend Lucia, this Leo started to hit on Gladys. When Reverend Lucia finished the lesson and broke into ‘Amazing Grace’ in Spanish, this rata broke into cheap talk with my sweetheart in English. Then they floated out the front door like two mariposas in the park and left me stoned like Lot’s wife who wanted to see something she wasn’t supposed to see so God turned her to piedra. Reverend Lucia told us about that last week.”
“See, you were meant to come back to me. In a romantically business sort of way.”
“No, you’re missing the point of my story, ese.”
“What is that?”
“I’m going to pull all of Leo’s tripas out of his cuerpo and make him eat them in front of the Iglesia De La Gente Bien Salvada, Inc.”
“But Gladys wouldn’t like that.”
“And she won’t like him neither when she sees him eating his tripas. But you know what hurts more?”
“A root canal by an inebriated dentist?”
“When I realized what had happened, I jumped out of my seat and went after that sin vergüenza. But you know what I saw?”
“The Light.”
“I saw them arm in arm walking who knows where into the dark?”
“To a state of obvious and final spiritual ruin.”
“What?”
“She’s lost. So, let’s get back to our venture, Butch.”
El Killer Butch left with a slam of the door.
Edison now figured he had to work the Gladys angle in order to pry Butch loose from Reverend Lucy. Edison Geemez came from a long line of opportunists going back to a great great to the nth degree abuelo who reportedly opened up the first post-Aztec employment agency in Méjico. He provided an abundance of workers for the Spanish who were known as slave drivers. He always found the right man—and sometimes his whole family—for the job. A few recalcitrant, unionized indios were not going to dodge the gold mines while this long-ago abuelo was on watch. Edison came from such stuff.
He could bring a tire iron down on Butch’s chaveta and transport him to the junkyard then threaten to whack him some more if he didn’t break into the Ford. But an unconscious Butch would weigh in the neighborhood of a baby hippo.
There was no way getting around it; he must convince the tomate that his best interest lay in helping Edison retrieve the pearls from that Falcon. So to get to Butch’s heart, he went next day to the source of its throbbing—Gladys Mintaras. He caught her going into a prayer meeting at the church.
“Excuse me!” said Edison.
Gladys stopped to look at Edison as if to say, “I don’t want any.”
“I’ve come on a mission of mercy.”
Gladys looked at him as if to say, “And?”
Edison, responding to her facial communiqués, continued.
“My aim is to save Butch’s soul.”
She turned to the door with a look as if to say, “Go ahead, your funeral.”
“You don’t understand. You’re part of the saving process.”
She turned back.
“Butch doesn’t need me,” she said, finding voice to supplement her facial tics.
“You’re bringing him to ruin.”
“Who me?”
“Eve said that very same thing to The Almighty after He had pointed out to her that she had messed up Adam’s debut. Open that bible you’re carrying and you’ll see.”
“It’s not a bible. It’s my vanity case.”
“My point.”
“What?”
“You’re letting your vanity ruin a man who worships the ground you worship on.”
“No kidding?”
“The poor lechuga is at the point of ending it all. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is tossing himself under a beer truck right now.”
“That would be a sin.”
“Per Reverend Lucy?”
“No, per Father Liksen. He was my catechism teacher.”
“What would Father say to your sending Butch round the bend and into the mortal sin of pulling his own plug?”
“Well, I have found the true way with another.”
“Jesus?”
“Leo Sinfalta. He’s Reverend Lucia’s right hand man.”
“Sounds like it.”
Gladys turned again to enter.
“Do you know that Butch is going to be rich?”
Gladys spun back violently.
“No, I don’t. And if I did, I wouldn’t believe it. He has no job, no ambition and can’t dance.”
“Can Leo?”
“Man, you should see him wiggle. Plus he’s loaded,” added Gladys enthusiastically then caught her tongue and reeled it in.
She entered the church and Edison dashed to Butch’s place. He was not home. He then dashed to the junkyard where the proprietor informed him that the Falcon was gone.
“You mean that car just disappeared?”
“Well, one day it was here, next day, gone.”
“Don’t you have guard dogs, electronic surveillance, barbed wire?”
“Dog died last week. Electronics cost too much and…what was the third thing?”
Edison dashed a third time, this time to County jail to visit Victor Portuz.
“Edison!” said Victor.
“¡Víbora!” said Edison.
“Your thanks for me making you rich?”
“Where’s your car?”
“Towed.”
“Yeah, but you towed it again.”
“I’ve been locked up.”
“Sure, but one of your cohorts took it from the tow yard.”
“One of my what?”
“Your camaradas. The Falcon no longer sits in the tow yard.”
“Well, I don’t know where the car is and right now I couldn’t give a flying snail where it is.”
“What happened to your warped sense of enterprise?”
“You’re rude, man. Always have been.”
Edison, who had no time for forgiving sobs and bear hugs, engaged in Dash #4 that took him to La Iglesia De La Gente Bien Salvada, Inc. in search of Butch.
When he arrived, the doors were locked. He sat on the porch to consider. Before long, a man appeared who looked so much like a turtle that he wore a turtleneck sweater to stress the point.
“Are you Reverend Carlillo?” said the emydida.
“Do I look like I would be revered by anyone?” said Edison.
“No.”
“Why are you asking for a preacher? Getting married? Don’t. Nothing but kids come out of marriages, their mouths open wider with each passing year.”
“How long you been married?”
“Never. And I just told you why.”
“The reason I’m looking for Reverend Carlillo is that we have a slew of complaints regarding conduct of this church.”
“Complaints?”
“Big time quejas. I’m from the Consumer Bureau, Questionable Churches Division.”
The man then paused to scratch his back, looking like a turtle that somehow found a way to scratch its back.
“Can you tell me where I can find Reverend Carlillo?”
“An unsolvable mystery to me.”
“What is your relationship with these folks?” said the man, now pointing to the church as if pointing to a Taliban hideout.
“I’ve debated a few members on the in’s and out’s of getting to heaven while still getting yours.”
“I need to talk to the Reverend.”
The man then left. The rapid pace of one so nearly resembling a turtle impressed Edison. After a spell, Reverend Lucia herself came rambling up. She was as wide as previously described by Butch along with a face that would make an English Bulldog wag its tail in admiration. All was highlighted by a deep, red tone to her face that gave her the appearance of a setting sun.
“Are you an apostle?” she said with a voice—a cross between a growl and a bark—that matched her pug face. She was beyond self-importance and onto a level where she considered herself sole source of importance.
“Only of clear profit.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Not a prophet’s answer, I admit. But one worthy of any profiteer.”
“Are you committing blasphemy in front of my church?”
“You must be Reverend Lucy.”
“Lucia. Reverend Lucia Carlillo. Lucy is for Philistines and meseras.”
“Can I interest you in a venture? I hear you might be sitting on several hefty mounds of cash.”
“You must be crazy.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never seen you and out of the clear heavens you ask for money.”
“You do that every Saturday night.”
“I knew I didn’t like you when I saw you. What do you want?”
“Why is a man who looks like he should be sunbathing with the turtles in the Galapagos want to talk to you?”
“Probably needs saving.”
“Are you in trouble with the authorities, Reverend?”
Gladys Mintaras and Leo Sinfalta now stepped up behind Reverend Lucia. Leo possessed the eyes of a departed soul. The four self-absorbed individuals engaged in a fair amount of sizing up before someone could calculate a response.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Edison, to no one in particular.
“Why are you here?” said Gladys.
“A solid philosophical question I’ve been pondering for years.”
“He talks like that,” said Reverend Lucia. “You can’t get a straight answer out of him even if you yanked his lengua straight out. It’s like asking a politician for directions to la esquina. You’ll never find it.”
“Like la biblia, eh?” said Edison.
“And he talks like that too,” added Reverend Lucia, “all sarcastic and blasphemous.”
“What’re you after, man?” said Leo, in a high raspy voice as if gargling a cupful of sand while he spoke.
“What is anyone after?” said Edison.
“See!” said Reverend Lucia, proudly pointing at Edison as if he were the paramount Illustration of the Immorality of Man.
Reverend Lupe had a hefty bible and she threatened to bring it down on his cork if he did not leave, adding that the wrath of God would smite him into multiple pieces that would smoke like sulfur.
Once more, Edison retreated to his apartment and reflected on fate.
Then fate, via a portly messenger, knocked on the door.
“Who is it and why?”
“It’s me, Butch, I found the pearls,” yelled Butch.
The loud report caused Edison to have grave doubts as to the location of Butch’s marbles. One does not go around apartment buildings yelling at the top of one’s lungs that one has pearls to share with whomever, does one? Edison asked himself.
Edison opened the door. Butch had no pearls and no pants.
“What’re you doing without pants?”
“The price of getting those pearls. A junkyard dog is chewing my pants at this very moment all happy, thinking he got me. But as you can see, he didn’t.”
“I can also see you got no pearls.”
“Early this morning I got to the salvage yard in time to see that they was towing the Falcon to another yard. They do that to make it more expensive for the owner to get his car. I followed the tow truck to some yard in the Valley. I went back tonight and pried the trunk open to get the ice chest with the pearls. The junkyard dog heard me. I ran with the chest threw it over the fence and jumped while the dog grabbed my pants with his nasty hocico.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘And?’”
“Where are the pearls type of ‘And.’”
“After I had the ice chest and saw all the pearls, I knew it was manna from heaven. My thoughts and heart went out to Reverend Lucia. I thought I could make it up with the Lord if I donated my ill-begotten gain to her church.”
“All $500,000 worth?”
El Killer Butch nodded solemnly as if he were an Old Testament prophet before a disbelieving disciple.
“Butch, I could chop you into fat quarters and actually feel good.”
“Why?”
“Closure. You gave my pearls to a cheat.”
“What cheat?”
“Reverend Lucy.”
“Don’t talk about The Reverend Lucia that way.”
He was certain El Killer Butch could disassemble him while peacefully chewing on a churro.
“It is with all due respect which ain’t much.”
Butch charged. Edison parlayed.
“I went to the church today looking for salvation. I ran into some guy who was asking for Reverend Lucy.”
The words settled in Butch’s brain just as one of his hands, a fair-sized ham, reached Edison’s neck.
“That was my cousin Jubal. I sent him to find out when the Reverend would be available. I knew I couldn’t bear to see Gladys with that rata. If I did, I think I would have lost it, torn one of his legs off, and would have beat him with it. So, instead, I sent Jubal to set up a time when I could see her alone and give her the pearls. You know, that ice chest was full of vinegar. I guess that keeps them shiny.”
“How come Jubal said he was from a consumer agency.”
“That’s because some consumer agency is always after him. He sells used tires, cars and umbrellas. The used umbrellas have caused the most complaints.”
“Then what if Jubal takes off with the pearls?”
“He won’t.”
“How can you be so sure? If he takes the pearls, we’re out of riches, me, you and Reverend Lucy.”
“Jubal wouldn’t do that. We’re cousins.”
“Abel was Cain’s cousin and that didn’t stop him from slicing off Cain’s head.”
“Man, Cain killed Abel, and they were bro’s, not cousins. And it don’t say in the bible that he cut off his head. Besides, Jubal ain’t no Cain.”
El Killer Butch left, slamming the door. Edison felt a creative urge to invent a device to charge door slammers a door slammer’s fee.
Three days later, Edison still bemoaned the loss of $500,000 worth of pearls.
His phone rang.
“‘Lo,” he said.
“Is this Edison?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I have an ice chest,” said the voice, slowly and deliberately. It was the voice of a turtle, if turtles could talk.
“Jubal?”
“Cousin Butch told me to call you.”
“¿Por qué?”
“Cousin Butch told me you want something from an ice chest.”
Edison’s mouth watered. His eyes watered. His toes wiggled.
Barely able to contain his excitement, Edison said, “I thought he was going to give them to the Reverend?”
“He changed his mind.”
“Why?”
“Continuous and varied knocks to the head while wrestling can do creepy and baffling things to a man’s bean.”
Edison thought. No, calculated.
“How come you don’t keep them?”
“I like pearls, just not illegal pearls that could get me hard time.”
“Why doesn’t Butch want to keep them? He lost his pants over them.”
“He’s being born again yet again. It’s now a confirmed habit of his. He doesn’t want riches. He wants to fit through an eye of a needle.”
“So you’re going to give me the pearls?”
“For two thousand dollars.”
“What?”
“By tomorrow at noon.”
“What?”
“Think of what’s in the ice chest.”
“What?”
“Are you hard of hearing?”
“No, I’m hard up for cash.”
“You want what’s in the ice chest, right?”
“How am I going to get two thousand unless I have access to the ice chest?”
“That’s like asking how you got here from where you were.”
“You do dangle from the same family tree as Butch.”
“Call me when you can dangle two thousand in my face,” said Jubal, hanging up.
Edison looked around for a dog to kick but noted his apartment lacked a hound. He would have to invent an artificial kickable one that would yelp when punted.
“Why didn’t he just get a job?” said El Poco Tomado, echoing Dora Norra’s sentiments.
“Yeah,” said El Pobre. “At least until he invented a way to do without eating.”
“Edison was no quitter,” said Arthur Dichón. “Everyone in his family told him he was named Edison but he was no Edison. One little niece added that he also was no Einstein. He vowed then that he was going to invent until the world, or at least his little sobrina, recognized him as an inventor.”
In true American resolve (continued Arthur Dichón) Edison asked Dora Norra for the two thousand. He blinked a Southern California record twenty-two times after she wrote and tossed him a check for two thousand. After his blinking died away, she added that he was to cease further contact. He agreed, snatched the check, and then planned to hit on her when he was a card-carrying member of the leisure class.
Early next morning, ten solid, sluggish knocks rattled Edison awake. It was a turtle’s knock if a turtle chose to knock. He ran to the door and flung it open to a grinning Jubal holding an ice chest.
“Did you want to talk to me?”
“Till your shell falls off,” said Edison, leading him into his house. “I have the money. My family sold everything short of their souls. You don’t want those, too, do you?”
“I’ll take two thousand, keep the souls.”
Edison handed over the two thousand. Jubal handed over the ice chest. They both flashed the snarl of timber wolves that have missed a meal or two. Jubal left. Edison opened the chest. The stench of vinegar hit him. He buckled like an MMA boxer teetering from a kick to the estómago. Edison’s heart shot to the roof of his head then bounced back to the sole of his left foot. Instead of pearls, he saw vinegar, smelled vinegar and detested vinegar. He wanted to heave the chest at Jubal with the aim to cripple for life. He again flung the door open just soon enough to catch Jubal jumping into a car driven by El Killer Butch.
Edison dashed to Victor Portuz, who still reposed in el carcel. Victor swore on a stack of murder confessions that the jewels were in the ice chest covered with rags and filled with vinegar. This was to keep people from looking beyond the stench after seeing only rags. Edison went home and scratched his head until it hurt. Why would El Killer Butch, via Jubal, go out of his way to collect two thousand from him if he, Butch, had the pearls worth $500,000?
After he returned home, he was set to dump the vinegar from the ice chest when he noticed a small, whitish layer of film floating on top. Tiny, free-floating, balls danced around the film. Edison grabbed a few and they became pasty in his hand.
This was a puzzle. He thought of Professor Juan Orotez who had helped with puzzles engendered by Edison’s inventions. Orotez was a retired prof of Chemistry who had haggled with dozens of chemists and five wives. Puzzles were a happy escape.
Edison brought the prof up to date with an opening remark that he had an ice chest filled with vinegar when it was supposed to be overflowing with pearls.
Prof. Orotez took one look at the film coupled with the smell, then somberly declared that pearls dissolve in vinegar. It takes three to five days, he said, but it’ll happen every time. Edison now appeared to have swallowed an ice chest full of vinegar himself. That explained why Butch saw pearls and Reverend Lucy did not.
Eventually, he discovered that when Reverend Lucy had seen the ice chest full of vinegar—when it was promised that it would be loaded with pearls—her face jumped from red to magenta. One who is accustomed to fool, and, instead, is fooled, then looks to make a holy fool—she excommunicated El Killer Butch on the spot.
Butch then plotted to extract what he could from Edison, since he was, in his estimation, the cause of Butch’s expulsion from eternal salvation. Jubal and he had seen pearls in the ice chest. Now they didn’t. Butch’s recourse was to sell the ice chest to Edison, getting what he could from him, knowing how much he wanted them—unless he had already taken them just as he had taken $500 and Dora Norra. If this were the case, Edison would show no interest in the ice chest. Butch could then dismember him one bone at a time.
Edison had shown interest in the ice chest, two thousand dollars’ worth, and, thus, had kept his standard-issue frame.
However, he was left to agonize over Dora Norra and her two thousand. It would verify her doubts regarding his station in life. He had none. Showing the Geemez tenacity, however, he began work on a new invention—a neck tie that doubled as a napkin, glove and cologne dispenser. He would run to Dora Norra and tell her that her two thousand was hard at work and she would see a quick return soon, so it was just fine to marry him now.
He stood before a mirror practicing his presentation to her while, at the same time, accepting the scientific observations that oil and water don’t mix; pearls and vinegar do. Extremely.
Arthur Dichón raised his amber brew over his head in recognition of Edison Geemez, persevering inventor. El Pobre confusedly raised his beer an inch. El Poco Tomado struggled to picture the necktie.
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| Tommy Villalobos |
Tommy Villalobos lives in Northern California, far removed from his native haunts in southern California. He’s published before in our magazine, including a couple other short stories, but most notably, a novel titled, Lipstick con Chorizo, in 22 installments, the first-ever novel in serial form (think Carlos Dickens without the pence per word) in an online Latino literary magazine. Tommy is working on getting the book into print.
