Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [6]
—Yeah!
The backpacker guy nods his head, smiles like he approves of the play, takes a sip of his beer.
—What about baseball? You like baseball?
JUST AFTER sunset I walk back up to the north end of the beach. I pass the group of Spanish girls. They have a little overnight camp set up about a hundred yards from my bungalow. They’ve slipped shorts or baggy cotton pants on over their bikini bottoms in deference to the marginally cooler evening air. Two of them are walking in from the tree line that stretches the length of the beach, their arms full of deadwood for a fire. The girl with the nice smile is sitting cross-legged on one of the blankets they have spread on the sand, braiding the hair of the girl in front of her. There are five of them, none can be more than twenty-three. I try to remember what I was doing when I was twenty-three. I was still in college, studying something I never used. Christ, why wasn’t I camped out on Mexican beaches with girls like these?
I watch her quick hands weaving hair as I walk past. She looks up at me, smiles again.
—Buenas noches.
In that Spanish Spanish accent.
—Buenas noches.
She tilts her head toward my bungalow.
—Su casa?
—Mi casa.
—Bonito
—Gracias.
Tossing the strands of hair between her fingers the whole time, slipping a rubber band from her wrist when she gets to the end of the braid, cleverly twisting it into place. The girls with the wood arrive and dump it in a pile next to the blanket. She hops up, starts digging a hollow in the sand for the fire and gives me a little nod as I continue on to the bungalow. Behind me I hear Spanish chattered far too quickly for me to follow. There’s a great deal of laughter and I get the distinct feeling I’m being talked about. But it’s nice to be talked about by pretty girls, no matter what they might be saying.
THE BUNGALOW really isn’t much, but she’s right, it’s bonito in its way. Wood walls up to about waist level, topped by screen windows that circle the one-room building, with heavy storm shutters. The whole thing is set on pilings that lift it a foot above the sand, and topped with the same palm thatching as The Bucket. I step up on the porch, past the canvas-back chair, small wooden table and hammock, and dig the key from the Velcro side pocket of my shorts. In the normal course of things, if I was just a guy down here living on the beach, I wouldn’t really need to lock my door. But I’m not that guy and I do need to lock my door. I have secrets to hide. I open the door and secret number one says hello.
—Meow.
I GOT into some trouble when I lived up in New York. I did a guy a favor and I got into some trouble for doing it. The favor he asked me to do that led to all the trouble, to me being on the run in Mexico, was he asked me to watch his cat. I said yes. And here I am three years later, still watching his cat.
BUD JUMPS down from the bed and limps over to say hi. One of his front legs was pretty badly broken in all that trouble. And some of the fur on his face grows in a weird little tuft because he has a scar from the same encounter that broke his leg. The guys that did the leg-breaking and the scarring are dead. Someone felt bad about that, not Bud. He rubs his face against my calf and I bend down, scoop him off the floor, and drape him over my shoulders.
—Jesus, cat, you’re getting fat. You are a fat fucking cat and no two ways about it.
I walk to the low shelf that holds my boom box and CD collection. I rummage around until I come up with Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel. Gram and Emmylou’s harmonies twang out of the speakers. I open one of the kitchenette cupboards, grab a can of Bud’s food, scoop it into his bowl, and he leaps off my shoulders and digs in.
—Enjoy it while it lasts, cat. You’re going on a diet.
It’s pretty dark now, so I light a few candles. Like The Bucket, my place has no electricity, just batteries for the boom box, and candles and lanterns for light.
I take off my shirt and sit in my comfy chair. My face, arms, and legs are a deep, reddish brown from my years here,