<\/p>\n
The poolwater dripped from Luke\u2019s hair and chest and legs, dotting the concrete and vanishing seconds later under the Mexican summer sun. He reached behind himself, grabbed the white towel draped over the lawn chair, and wrapped it high around his midsection, covering his growing belly and the surgical scars on his lower back. He still had the arms of a pro ballplayer and looked good in a T-shirt, but when he took his shirt off he couldn\u2019t stand the sight of himself, even peripherally. He reached down by his feet to grab his cigarettes, lighter, and a glass of white tequila with ice.<\/p>\n
The patio roof of Casa Isabela overlooked two blocks of Old Town neighborhood, and beyond it, down the steep hill, the churches, bars, and ocean waters of Puerto Vallarta. For the past three days Luke had sat here, watching the horizon but also watching the neighbors in the foreground. Smiling men with machetes acting out swordfights with one another. Children in school uniforms playing f\u00fatbol in the street. Women raising their nightshirts over rooftop toilets. Above them all, clay roof tiles slid earthward like old-age skin.<\/p>\n
He sipped the drink, set it down, and lit a cigarette. The downstairs stone carving studio was quiet. Esteban and Omar had set their tools down hours ago. The noise now came from the drug dealers on the corner. Stereos played American hip-hop while crewmembers took turns on motorcycles, roaring up and down the brick hill. Last night, Luke had borrowed some of the orange foam earplugs from down in the studio to sleep.<\/p>\n
A hummingbird appeared among the red potted azaleas beside him. It levitated, moved backward, and then darted forward again, its beak and tongue shooting from the sweetness of one bloom to another. In the brief moments of hovering, its dark green feathers gave off a dull sheen and looked like the scales of a fish. Seconds later the bird and the rhythm of its wings evaporated, like everything else in this heat.<\/p>\n
Footsteps rose from the stairs. Omar smiled broadly, a highball glass in each hand. \u201cIt\u2019s happy hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
It happened every evening at this time\u2014Omar emerging with a vodka cocktail mixed with whatever fresh juice Lalo, the cook, had made earlier that day. The first night it was kiwi green. Last night, a muddy tamarind. Tonight\u2019s drink looked like the evening horizon.<\/p>\n
\u201cMango,\u201d said Omar.<\/p>\n
He handed one of the glasses to Luke, who now sat with a drink in each hand and the cigarette hanging low off the corner of his lips. \u201cGood thing my wife\u2019s not here to see this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke set the new drink down by his feet, saving it for the ritual. It was one Omar claimed to perform every nightfall, watching the sun set over the darkening ocean and holding off on the first sip until the top edge of the sun\u2014the final, slim arc\u2014disappeared completely. Then they would drink. Right now, the very bottom was just starting to slip away.<\/p>\n
And when, these past nights, it had disappeared entirely, the club down the hill seemed to sense it. The place was called El Party and emitted black light in dusktime, glowing there across from Parque Hidalgo and the twin steeples of Our Lady of the Refuge. Luke had passed it yesterday. A gleaming spiral staircase led to the second-story dance floor, beneath a thatched roof, among tiki torches.<\/p>\n
He finished the tequila\u2014ice hitting his teeth\u2014while Omar paced back and forth behind him, looking down at the street and a motorcycle rumbling past. Luke waved him over with his free hand. \u201cI got a question for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar pulled a matching white lawn chair over and sat beside him.<\/p>\n
Luke nodded at the pot of red flowers. \u201cLots of hummingbirds around here, s\u00ed?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cS\u00ed,\u201d said Omar, wiping condensation from his cocktail and then drawing his dampened fingers over his mustache. \u201cEspecially early in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
All three levels of the open-air casa were filled with sculptures, many of them by Esteban but most by Omar, who was the place\u2019s caretaker and artist-in-residence. Sandstone. White and red limestone. Alabaster, volcanic basalt, and assorted varieties of marble. Luke found the works throughout the house\u2014in the kitchen, the dining area, and several sculptures here, along the pool and beside the red Mayan hammock. Many were nudes or abstracts, but Luke had noticed at least three hummingbirds done in bas-relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know what kind? The species?\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar reclined in the chair with one hand scratching the back of his head. Luke figured he was in his late-forties, maybe fifty, but he was lithe and trim and ran three miles every afternoon in the heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife loves the things,\u201d said Luke. \u201cShe has feeders on our patio back in the States. I just want to know the name because she\u2019s going to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar nodded. \u201cBerylline? I think?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBerylline?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cS\u00ed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke shrugged. \u201cI don\u2019t know shit about birds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar glanced at his watch and checked the horizon. \u201cI love them.\u201d He darted his hand forward and backward and smiled. \u201cDrink nectar all day to get that quick. Always close to starving.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s rough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar\u2019s brow creased. \u201cThey\u2014how you say it?\u2014hibernate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cS\u00ed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh,\u201d said Luke. He wanted to say something else but failed. Instead, he braced himself on the arms of the flimsy chair and limped to the iron rail overlooking the street, where he tapped his ashes over the edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want a cigar?\u201d asked Omar. \u201cNo Cubans where you live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke stepped gingerly back to his chair, his left hand half-covering his belly. \u201cCigars are for celebrating.\u201d He shook his head. \u201cNo. I\u2019m good.\u201d Then he sat, nodded toward the horizon, and picked his mango cocktail up off the floor. \u201cHere we go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar smiled and held his glass so that it almost touched his lips. Seconds later the last of the sun slipped beneath the sea. They drank.<\/p>\n
After a few moments of silence Omar rose and walked across the patio to his two-room living quarters. He returned with an olivewood recorder and stood in back by the hammock, playing a sweet, high-pitched tune. A few minutes later came the dance-beat throb of El Party down the hill, faster than the beat of Omar\u2019s song. Faster than a grown man\u2019s pulse.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stonedust poured into Luke\u2019s bedroom, through the wooden slats of the balcony door. It mixed with blades of sunlight and in the dimness became a glowing smoke. The casa\u2019s windows were without glass or screens. Huge cockroaches and tiny lizards sometimes scurried up the cool brick walls.<\/p>\n
Luke lay in bed with two pillows propped under his head and another smaller one tucked beneath his lower back. An open book rested on his chest. Esteban and Omar were working in the outdoor studio, two floors beneath the balcony. The sky filled with the buzz, whir, and metallic shriek of their tools: pneumatic hammers, diamond saws, disc sanders, masonry drills, and old-fashioned hammer and chisel. Luke had arrived only four days ago, but already the din had blended into something resembling white noise, which actually made it easier to read. They would break at noon, but the light gray dust would continue falling. It settled over his bedroom every morning, and every afternoon while they ate lunch the housekeeper, America, made it all go away with Pine Sol and a mop.<\/p>\n
A ceiling fan twirled overhead, and a small box fan stood on the bedside table blowing directly onto his face. This wasn\u2019t merely to fight the heat; Luke used fans year-round, even in Michigan. In the winter he\u2019d sleep with the blankets tucked under his chin and a fan on the floor, tilted upward so that it would send cool air rushing over him without chilling Shannon. He needed the fans not so much for coolness but simply for the touch of the air itself. He could never explain it to Shannon, how it soothed him. He\u2019d grown up in Virginia with a creek running through his back yard, and when the windows were open the water\u2019s soft gurgling would lull him to sleep. It was like this but different, like the creek but with air instead of water and touch instead of sound. The comparison never quite worked when he explained it aloud.<\/p>\n
Beside the box fan were a half-filled bottle of orange Gatorade and the near-empty bottle of white tequila he\u2019d drunk from last night. Luke took a quick sip from the tequila and several swallows of the Gatorade, some of it trickling down his chin and making a small orange stain on the chest of his white T-shirt. He\u2019d felt dehydrated every day since his arrival. His urine had turned the color of rust.<\/p>\n
Luke returned to the book, a history of the British Army during the Battle of the Somme. Over a million casualties. Two men killed for every centimeter of ground gained. He usually preferred mysteries, but these statistics and the graphic descriptions of wounds made Luke feel oddly relaxed. He liked reading about soldiers. In the U.S., football players were the athletes with warrior status, but he\u2019d felt hints of it as a starting pitcher, standing on the mound with two outs, a runner in scoring position, and forty-thousand fans either on his side or at his throat. His career in the majors may have been cut short, but it had been long enough for this kind of understanding. It made his back pain and lifeless foot\u2014at least once in awhile\u2014seem worth it.<\/p>\n
Like all power pitchers, the incredible torque from his legs and midsection had been far more important than the actual strength of his arm. During thirteen professional seasons of throwing low-nineties fastballs\u2014thousands upon thousands of them\u2014the contortions had slowly ground down the cushions of his spine. The slow burning pain of degenerated discs turned sharp and debilitating one night in Kansas City, culminating with the trainer escorting him off the mound, back to the locker room, and sending him to the hospital for tests. The results showed hernias of the L4 and L5 discs, and though he didn\u2019t know it or believe it at the time, an eclipse had occurred, a sudden darkening of the atmosphere when things should have otherwise been light.<\/p>\n
The initial surgery was an apparent success, but two months later came a recurrent herniation which damaged the peroneal nerve running down his right leg, leading to a chronic foot drop. In addition to the renewed spine pain, he was suddenly unable to flex his right ankle and toes. He walked with a limp\u2014a fresh affliction.<\/p>\n
What followed was a life beneath the umbra. Chronic pain. Unpaid bills. Depression and rage and fists sent through kitchen drywall. Crying daughters.<\/p>\n
Luke was thirty-one then. He\u2019d spent ten years in the minors and just three in the bigs, and he passed those early retirement days on the couch watching cartoons or reality shows or old movies\u2014anything but sports. His short stint in the majors had still qualified him for lifetime health insurance and a pension of over thirty-thousand a year. So they could live, he and Shannon. But it was a type of life.<\/p>\n
And even cheap booze got expensive after awhile. Luke drank to blunt the pain and he drank to sleep. He\u2019d drink to work up the nerve to make phone calls to old teammates or his brother or even his parents. He\u2019d drink to brace himself for Julia\u2019s T-ball games or to slow his heart when it raced at random times. And he drank to create that gentle, temporary bubble of happiness that he sometimes needed, to prove to Shannon and the girls that he could be happy, and to prove that\u2014should they ever have any ideas about leaving\u2014there existed still some residue of a normal husband and father.<\/p>\n
Two years of that and now four days of this: drinking in Mexico, where he\u2019d come at the invitation of Esteban, an old friend. A baseball friend, with all the old baseball memories to rehash. Luke was thirty-three now, walking with a cane like an old man and drinking out of mourning. With orange Gatorade on his shirt and the grit of stonedust in his teeth.<\/p>\n
His phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Shannon. They hadn\u2019t talked since she\u2019d dropped him off at the airport in Detroit. He\u2019d only sent her a quick e-mail that night telling her he\u2019d arrived safely.<\/p>\n
He sat up a bit, wincing at the sharp sting in his back, and answered. \u201cHow\u2019s my favorite gringa?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God, I can barely hear you. What\u2019s that noise?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys working in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you stand it?\u201d<\/p>\n
He eased his legs over the edge of the bed, braced his free hand on the headboard, and stood to walk out of the room and into the hall. His brain trilled from the tequila, the roaring tools, and the images of soldiers\u2019 mangled bodies lingering like a broken-off dream. \u201cThat better?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMuch.\u201d She asked about the weather and the house and how Esteban was these days. \u201cProbably not worth asking how your back feels?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably not,\u201d said Luke. \u201cHow are the girls?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom just took Julia to swimming lessons, and Brie is sitting here at the table with a coloring book. Summer break\u2019s so far, so good.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded and took a few steps down the open-air hallway, then approached the railing and peered down at the street. Omar\u2019s beat-up blue pickup was parked below, the bed weighed down with a pile of huge jagged rocks that would someday be smoothed and shaped and displayed.<\/p>\n
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sun. A murky orange like an egg yolk flowed beneath his lids. A disc sander screeched in the distance. \u201cHave you talked to Jimmy or Tom or anyone?\u201d asked Shannon.<\/p>\n
Luke opened his eyes. \u201cNot worth talking about that either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jimmy and Tom were neighbor friends trying to help get him work. Jimmy taught civics at a high school that needed a JV coach. Tom had a Suzuki dealership and thought people would love the idea of buying a car from a former Tiger.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll figure that out when I get back,\u201d said Luke. \u201cI need to think some more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour birthday\u2019s in five days. I take it you won\u2019t be back by then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cA little after that. Just a little.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you safe there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I safe?\u201d He glanced down the road, to the lonely phone booth and empty benches where it was too early in the day for motorcycles and loud music.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the drug wars,\u201d said Shannon. \u201cAnd the travel warning. They just said a big cruise line is cancelling calls in Puerto Vallarta.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all bogus. At least around here.\u201d And it was true, according to Omar, who said even the dealers on the corner were just teenage delinquents. Harmless if you stayed out of their way. \u201cPeople here are pissed about the American media coverage,\u201d said Luke. \u201cThere was one murder a few months back and I guess it had nothing to do with drugs. The locals are terrified that travelers are going to overreact and stay home. Esteban says the only unsafe thing here is the tourist industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brie was saying something in the background. Apparently she wanted to say hi to him but then she didn\u2019t. He heard her grab the phone and then set it down on the table in a loud clatter. Shannon picked it back up. \u201cShe wants lunch now so I have to go. What time is it there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost noon. Just an hour difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not drinking too much are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not drinking as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke said he\u2019d call her in a day or two and then slipped the phone back into his pocket. A few beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. He retreated to the dark bedroom, closed the door, and then lay down, wincing as he shoved the extra pillow beneath his back. The box fan chilled the sweat on his brow and he closed his eyes for a few moments, taking deep breaths through his nose as someone outside switched to the pneumatic hammer.<\/p>\n
A few minutes passed. Luke turned to his side and reached for the tequila. On the brick wall just above where the bottle stood was a brown-green lizard. It was only about two inches long and it remained frozen on the wall for several minutes, its right eye staring at him. Luke slowly reached his hand up so that it lay flush against the brick, beside the lizard, and he waited. After maybe five or six or seven minutes, the lizard began to walk across the wall and then over the top of Luke\u2019s hand, its tiny claws leaving indentations smaller than freckles on his skin. Even minutes later, with the lizard now at the far end of the room, Luke could feel the miniscule pressure points on his palm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Even cheap booze got expensive after awhile. Luke drank to blunt the pain and he drank to sleep. He\u2019d drink to work up the nerve to make phone calls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-adam-schuitema"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17626,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions\/17626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}