Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [4]
Pedro is about my age, thirty-five. He looks a little older because he’s spent his whole life on the Yucatán. His face is a dark, sun-wrinkled plate. He’s short and round, has a little pencil moustache, and wears heavy black plastic glasses like the ones American soldiers get for free.
He tops off my coffee.
—Go fish today?
I look out at the flat, crystal blue water. Up in town the tourists will be loading into the boats, heading for the reef to go diving or to the deep water to fish. The local fishermen here have already gone out and Pedro’s boat is the only one still in, anchored to the shore by long yellow ropes tied to lengths of rebar driven into the sand. I could fish, take the boat out by myself or wait for Pedro’s brother to show up and go out with him for an evening fish. If he doesn’t have a job tonight.
—Not today.
—Nice day for fishing.
—Too nice. I might catch a fish. And then what? Have to bring it in, clean it, cook it.
No, no fishing today.
—Game on later?
—Every Sunday, Pedro. There’s a game every Sunday except for the bye week.
—Who today?
—The Patriots.
—New England.
—Right.
—Fucking Pats.
—You’re learning.
I MET Pedro up in town a few years back when I first came to Mexico. I came to Mexico hot. Running. I walked out of the Cancún airport, got into a cab, and told the guy I wanted to get out of Cancún, down the coast somewhere. Someplace smaller. He took me about an hour down the road to a little vacation town. Small hotels along a nice strip of beach. It was OK for awhile. The tourists were mostly mainland Mexicans, South Americans, or Europeans. Not many North Americans at all. Then they started building this giant resort community on the south end of town and that was it for me.
I found this spot: driving distance to town, a handful of locals with vacation palapas, some expatriates living in bungalows, some backpackers and day-trippers looking for a secluded beach. But no bar. Pedro was working in the place I spent most of my time in. I knew he wanted his own business and he knew I wanted a place to hang out. We made a deal.
I’m a silent partner. I pay my tab like any customer and nobody knows I backed Pedro to open the place. I gave him half the bar for moving here to run it; he’s working off the other half. Shit, I could have given him the whole thing outright. I got the money. God knows I got the fucking money.
THE DAY-TRIPPERS are starting to drift onto the beach. They hear about it in town or read about it in Lonely Planet and come looking for unspoiled Mexico, but they’re usually pretty damn happy they can get a cold beer and a cheeseburger. The expats will come around in the evening when they get back from fishing trips or working in town. The locals mostly show up on Friday and Saturday evening to drink. Me, I drink soda water all day, haven’t had a real drink in over two years. It’s the healthy life for me now. I take another sip of coffee, light the first cigarette of the day, and get back to the sports page.
The Dolphins have a problem. Their problem is a head coach who happens to be an idiot. I have a problem. My problem is the Miami fucking Dolphins of the National fucking Football League. When I got down here, I found out I couldn’t give up sports. I tried to get into fútbol, but it just didn’t click. A basketball season is like a basketball game, only the last two minutes count. And, unless I was ready to watch bullfights, that left football. Baseball? Yeah, I like baseball. I would have liked to have spent the last three years watching, listening to, and reading about baseball just like I did the thirty-two years before them, but that’s one of the things I had to give up. I got into football because I always hated football and nobody looking for me is gonna look for a guy who likes football. It makes it harder for people to find me and kill me.
And you know what? After three years of watching football, I hate it more than ever. But I hate the Dolphins’ idiot head coach more than anything else, because