Violet crossed her legs and leaned back, watching the men on the boat moving about and eyeing her. She sipped her drink, pretending not to notice their constant glances. At her legs. At her breasts. Her hair, a shaggy sun-bleached unbrushed mop. Her skin the color of wet sand. Her lips a parched reddish brown. She was skinny almost to an anorexic fault. She gazed out at the sea in a dreamy way, but all the while knowing they all wanted to fuck her. She was in the company of dangerous men. But she had a good grip on it. Men and their dicks are no match here.
In her hand bag were the essentials. Lipstick, a couple of condoms, a passport, a chrome-plated revolver with a pearl handle, and an envelope full of money. She was ready to pull from her purse, whatever the situation required. Balthazaar had thought of everything. Still her pulse was rapid. The adrenaline of knowing this is the real deal.
He sat down next to her. "A sweet air mixed with salt, eh?" he said, inhaling the sea air. Violet turned to look at his pretentious face. "Do you have something for me, or not?" she said, in a seductive voice. He placed a hand lightly on her knee and began to slide it up under her dress. She brushed it aside. "I am talking about business here, not pleasure." "You drive a hard bargain, Miss....?" "Miss Nobody to you." she said boldly, her hand already dipping into her purse for better or worse. "Yes, of course, I am a man of my word." he said, fumbling in his pocket. Violet's fingers curled around the gun in her purse as she watched him. He produced a small cloth bag and emptied it into his palm. "Is this what you are looking for, perhaps?" The snarl on his lips as he said it, made her want to kill him on the spot. Instead, she just nodded. She let go of the gun and fumbled for the envelope. He poured the stones into her palm. She closed her fingers around them. She handed him the envelope. Now, it was just a matter of getting home alive.
She sat on her berth below deck with the door locked, and patiently sewed the stones into the hem of her dress, then laid back with an exhausted sense of accomplishment.
These stones, if moved as planned, would create a small fortune. She and Balthazaar could live care free. Her mother too. In her sleep she felt as though a cold hand was moving over her body. It felt pleasant at first, but then more insistent. Squeezing. tugging at her. She awoke abruptly to find a man on top of her, between her legs. Pulling down his pants. She screamed and yanked his head, both hands full of thick and greasy hair. His fist came up, it was the last thing she remembered.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
The letter...
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Evidence of Violet
The letter....
I suppose the story might just as well begin with the letter from Balthazaar. It was confusing, and shed little light on what had happened before. But, the envelope and contents, written undoubtedly in his own hand, established that he was alive.
The date on the letter is some 10 days old. He was alive then. Perhaps he is still alive. Perhaps she is alive as well.
My friend, 08, July
I squat somewhere in the clutter of crumpled papers on the floor in this room somewhere in the back of my mind. There are so many rooms now. I get lost wandering around day after day. I stumble for hours along the dimly lit corridors. Opening and closing doors of chequered history. There is evidence of Violet. I haven't found her yet, but there are signs that she has been here. In this room of her notes. I can't make sense of them. But she wrote them for some reason.
It is a day in July. I am somewhere near the coast. The dirtiness of the window through which I stare deepens the dreariness of the street below. It is dark and empty like me. Down by the corner market, a pink neon angel flickers and falters as though threatening to die. It was there, beneath that sign, I saw a vision of her so real as to cause me to run frantically down the stairs. The street was empty. She must have been a ghost. A disappearing shadow formed only by my longing to find her. I think I am getting close.
I leave it to you to speculate as to my whereabouts and the direction of my search. Such things I must not mention here, for fear of this letter's possible interception. But we have known each other since childhood. Long enough for each to understand what the other might be thinking. Remember the many games we played? Do you?
- Balthazaar
This letter bore no address. No indication of origin or destination. Nor was the envelope postmarked. It was marked only with the letter S in its center. My first initial. It was folded twice and smudged by dirty hands. Held perhaps by many. Passed from pocket to pocket. Delivered anonymously in the night with a quick knocking on the door. The sound of the brass plate on the mail slot swinging open and snapping to a close. The distant crowing of a rooster tells me the day is on its way. The house is cold. I drew my robe tighter around me as I sat down at my desk and stared at the letter lying there. Balthazaar is alive. Perhaps Violet, too. There has been no word of her since her disappearance. Her family, having lost hope, buried a coffin full of flowers on a hillside and set a stone in her memory. It is chiseled crudely and says only, "Violet?" But now, this letter. I know Balthazaar well, and if he thinks he is onto something, he is probably right. I took the map from the drawer and unfolded it once again. How many times have my fingers traced his possible route trying to second-guess the choices he might have made at each turning point?
Ten days travel in any direction from where I sat describes a very big circle on the map. Non-stop by auto would take you to distant places. But I think Balthazaar is likely closer than that. Knowing him, and the way we have operated in the past, the letter made its way here along some circuitous route, passed off to a friend and passed off again, and maybe again, in order to arrive here. There may have been a stop or two. A day or two. Two people holed up in a hotel and fucking in the middle of the deal. And the letter changes hands. Someone stops to visit a friend and stays for dinner. And the letter changes hands. And then, it finally gets here in the middle of the night as though carried by a ghost. it would have gone something like that. That is Balthazaar's way of doing things. This draws a smaller circle. If I took him at his word, he is somewhere along the coast. My eyes kept leading my mind along a curving line that extends from Laguna Madera south to the Gulf of Compeche. Something vague told me he was down along in there somewhere. And, if so, he had reason to believe Violet is also there. I found myself pacing. The very notion they are still alive. The idea of going south to find them. I picked the letter up and continued the restless walk between the wall and the window and back again. "Remember the games we played?" he said. "Which games, Balthazaar? I must pack a bag. And I must talk to Josephina. I walked slowly down the alley and thought about the games I used to play with my little cousin. Balthazaar was much younger than I. He always saw me as some kind of hero. Still does, I suppose. It is clear he wants me to find him. I kicked open the gate to Josephina's back door. I need her now more than anything. She always knows what I want, be it breakfast, or relief from late night obsessions. Should I tell her about the letter? Why bother to wonder? She will look at my face and say, "What's going on?" in a flash. There have been times she's even guessed my story long before I could muster to tell it. Violet was...or maybe still is...her daughter. And I am Josephina's lover. I will tell her after breakfast.
We embraced in the doorway. She was in a long and well-wrinkled white cotton nightgown and she smelled like a woman just waking up. Any smell of Josephina never failed to arouse me. But even as my hands slid down her back and fanned out over her hips she was onto me. "What is it now?" she asked, her face nuzzling sleepy beneath my chin. I lost my face in her thick dark hair wishing things could just be simple for awhile. And in my long sigh, I whispered out these words. "Balthazaar is alive. And maybe Violet too." I tightened my grip around her, expecting her to faint. She didn't. Just some several abrupt sobs making her face wet against my neck and her fingernails digging into my shoulders. And then she pulled away.
The table was more full of burnt out puddles of past candles than anything else. I sat and looked at her. She had her back to me, cracking eggs into a bowl. Whipping them. Pouring them into a black iron skillet. I took her robe off, in my mind. Funny how such thoughts can erupt like that. "How can you think such a thing?" she said, turning to look at me. I pulled the papers from my pocket. "I got a letter. It is from Balthazaar." And this is where she fainted. By the stove. She was only out a few seconds. By the time I jumped to grab her there on the floor, she was coming around. I helped her up and to a chair. "Its true Josephina." I said, kneeling in front of her and trying to heal her pain -filled face somehow with my hands. "Don't leave me now." she said. "Read the letter, Josephina. Pack your bags. I will finish the souffle. "
We were on the road by noon. We would make the coast by nightfall. We would spend the night there. Get some food. Fuck. Sleep. Get up in the morning and mark our course out on the map. Move efficiently south through each little town and harbor. It is an art to pull into a town and gather information without arousing suspicion. One cannot go about holding up photos. Have you seen this man? This woman? You are seen as a hunter of people. And there are many in the south who are in hiding. The news of your investigation will precede you into the next town and the next. You will get nowhere. Josephina and I will be as tourists. Lovers on a holiday who have stolen away from some impossible reality in the north. In essence, just two more people on the lam and hiding. Seen as such, we can perhaps find people here and there who take us into their confidence. Over tequila perhaps a story slips out. Josephina is adept at this. Loosening the tongues of men so as to find out what she wants to know without asking the question.
It was unusual. The way Josephina and I hooked up. Balthazaar and I had been like brothers since childhood. We were born the same month of the same year. I was 17 days his elder. And now here we are as young men. I am with a woman some 10 years older than me, and he is with her daughter. Or at least he was, until something went wrong and they are lost now from one another. It was to have been a simple deal. I made the arrangements. Balthazaar and Violet would make the exchange. A few precious stones I was middling out of Africa to a collector whose name I dare not say. Enough American dollars for all of us to live quite easily for some time. The deal was to go down on a charter boat amidst partying and pleasure fishing. Violet, while young, was as alluring as her mother. And she is a seamstress, as well. It would be relatively easy for her to conceal the stones in the hems of her clothing. And Balthazaar was renown for his calm collectedness. He was at his best when backed against the wall. So what went wrong? Its all I think about as I drive. The sun is a big red bobber slowly rising from the sea. Josephina is curled up asleep on the back seat.
By early afternoon it will be too hot to be on the road. We should make La Coma by then. Spend a day or two poking about. I headed the car up into the mountains.
Why La Coma, Santos?" Josephina said, looking down at the map as we wound our way up into the Sierra Madre just West of the Gulf of Compeche. "It is the middle of nowhere." she added, turning to look at me. "That is why we are going there." I replied. "It is the kind of place Balthazaar would think to go. A place where Violet might have tried to hide. At least, he had some reason to think so." "Be careful, Santos" she said, as I geared down for a steep and winding portion of the road.
By the time we pulled into La Coma the air had changed from the grueling hot temperature as we had made our way up, and now, into a much colder, thinner air. "Why would anyone want to live here?" Josephina mused, looking out the window at the shacks and shanties that lined the dirt road. "It is not a question to be asked, my love." I said, glancing over at her. "Yes, yes...I know." she replied. "It was once a mining town,"I said, in answer to her question.
Many came here in search of riches. And a few did get rich. But, it was a short lived vein of gold, and it all ended abruptly. All that's left is what we are looking at now." "Squalor" she muttered. "Yes, squalor." I replied, as I pulled over in front of a two story structure with a painted cafe sign on its window.
I inquired as to where we could get a room for the night. The woman replied that there were three rooms on the floor above. She was quite accommodating, and offered to help with our bags and show us a room. And she asked the expected questions as we made our way up the dusty wooden staircase. Where did we come from? Where were we going? And what did I do for a living? I explained that we were escaping the congestion of the North, and that we would go down tomorrow to the seaside. I was a writer, and needed a place to quietly do my work. She said that this was a quiet place, and that perhaps, we should stay here. I thanked her for her kindness, as we approached the room. I hugged Josephina, as I told the woman how much my wife wanted to be by the sea. She smiled and nodded, and handed us the key. "I will make breakfast for you in the morning, then. Yes?" "Yes." I said nodding.
The room was as dingy as one might imagine in such a town. Josephina turned the blankets down and sniffed the sheets. I walked over to the window and looked down on my car, hoping I had locked it. A man was walking by pulling an unwilling pack-mule along and yelling at the beast. He stopped by my car and then looked up toward me. It was clear there were strangers in town. I followed him with my eyes as he pulled his mule on by. That's when I saw it, as I watched him cursing his mule down the road. On the other side of the road, some kind of market. And above it hung a pink neon angel.
Evidence of Violet
The letter....
I suppose the story might just as well begin with the letter from Balthazaar. It was confusing, and shed little light on what had happened before. But, the envelope and contents, written undoubtedly in his own hand, established that he was alive.
The date on the letter is some 10 days old. He was alive then. Perhaps he is still alive. Perhaps she is alive as well.
My friend, 08, July
I squat somewhere in the clutter of crumpled papers on the floor in this room somewhere in the back of my mind. There are so many rooms now. I get lost wandering around day after day. I stumble for hours along the dimly lit corridors. Opening and closing doors of chequered history. There is evidence of Violet. I haven't found her yet, but there are signs that she has been here. In this room of her notes. I can't make sense of them. But she wrote them for some reason.
It is a day in July. I am somewhere near the coast. The dirtiness of the window through which I stare deepens the dreariness of the street below. It is dark and empty like me. Down by the corner market, a pink neon angel flickers and falters as though threatening to die. It was there, beneath that sign, I saw a vision of her so real as to cause me to run frantically down the stairs. The street was empty. She must have been a ghost. A disappearing shadow formed only by my longing to find her. I think I am getting close.
I leave it to you to speculate as to my whereabouts and the direction of my search. Such things I must not mention here, for fear of this letter's possible interception. But we have known each other since childhood. Long enough for each to understand what the other might be thinking. Remember the many games we played? Do you?
- Balthazaar
This letter bore no address. No indication of origin or destination. Nor was the envelope postmarked. It was marked only with the letter S in its center. My first initial. It was folded twice and smudged by dirty hands. Held perhaps by many. Passed from pocket to pocket. Delivered anonymously in the night with a quick knocking on the door. The sound of the brass plate on the mail slot swinging open and snapping to a close. The distant crowing of a rooster tells me the day is on its way. The house is cold. I drew my robe tighter around me as I sat down at my desk and stared at the letter lying there. Balthazaar is alive. Perhaps Violet, too. There has been no word of her since her disappearance. Her family, having lost hope, buried a coffin full of flowers on a hillside and set a stone in her memory. It is chiseled crudely and says only, "Violet?" But now, this letter. I know Balthazaar well, and if he thinks he is onto something, he is probably right. I took the map from the drawer and unfolded it once again. How many times have my fingers traced his possible route trying to second-guess the choices he might have made at each turning point?
Ten days travel in any direction from where I sat describes a very big circle on the map. Non-stop by auto would take you to distant places. But I think Balthazaar is likely closer than that. Knowing him, and the way we have operated in the past, the letter made its way here along some circuitous route, passed off to a friend and passed off again, and maybe again, in order to arrive here. There may have been a stop or two. A day or two. Two people holed up in a hotel and fucking in the middle of the deal. And the letter changes hands. Someone stops to visit a friend and stays for dinner. And the letter changes hands. And then, it finally gets here in the middle of the night as though carried by a ghost. it would have gone something like that. That is Balthazaar's way of doing things. This draws a smaller circle. If I took him at his word, he is somewhere along the coast. My eyes kept leading my mind along a curving line that extends from Laguna Madera south to the Gulf of Compeche. Something vague told me he was down along in there somewhere. And, if so, he had reason to believe Violet is also there. I found myself pacing. The very notion they are still alive. The idea of going south to find them. I picked the letter up and continued the restless walk between the wall and the window and back again. "Remember the games we played?" he said. "Which games, Balthazaar? I must pack a bag. And I must talk to Josephina. I walked slowly down the alley and thought about the games I used to play with my little cousin. Balthazaar was much younger than I. He always saw me as some kind of hero. Still does, I suppose. It is clear he wants me to find him. I kicked open the gate to Josephina's back door. I need her now more than anything. She always knows what I want, be it breakfast, or relief from late night obsessions. Should I tell her about the letter? Why bother to wonder? She will look at my face and say, "What's going on?" in a flash. There have been times she's even guessed my story long before I could muster to tell it. Violet was...or maybe still is...her daughter. And I am Josephina's lover. I will tell her after breakfast.
We embraced in the doorway. She was in a long and well-wrinkled white cotton nightgown and she smelled like a woman just waking up. Any smell of Josephina never failed to arouse me. But even as my hands slid down her back and fanned out over her hips she was onto me. "What is it now?" she asked, her face nuzzling sleepy beneath my chin. I lost my face in her thick dark hair wishing things could just be simple for awhile. And in my long sigh, I whispered out these words. "Balthazaar is alive. And maybe Violet too." I tightened my grip around her, expecting her to faint. She didn't. Just some several abrupt sobs making her face wet against my neck and her fingernails digging into my shoulders. And then she pulled away.
The table was more full of burnt out puddles of past candles than anything else. I sat and looked at her. She had her back to me, cracking eggs into a bowl. Whipping them. Pouring them into a black iron skillet. I took her robe off, in my mind. Funny how such thoughts can erupt like that. "How can you think such a thing?" she said, turning to look at me. I pulled the papers from my pocket. "I got a letter. It is from Balthazaar." And this is where she fainted. By the stove. She was only out a few seconds. By the time I jumped to grab her there on the floor, she was coming around. I helped her up and to a chair. "Its true Josephina." I said, kneeling in front of her and trying to heal her pain -filled face somehow with my hands. "Don't leave me now." she said. "Read the letter, Josephina. Pack your bags. I will finish the souffle. "
We were on the road by noon. We would make the coast by nightfall. We would spend the night there. Get some food. Fuck. Sleep. Get up in the morning and mark our course out on the map. Move efficiently south through each little town and harbor. It is an art to pull into a town and gather information without arousing suspicion. One cannot go about holding up photos. Have you seen this man? This woman? You are seen as a hunter of people. And there are many in the south who are in hiding. The news of your investigation will precede you into the next town and the next. You will get nowhere. Josephina and I will be as tourists. Lovers on a holiday who have stolen away from some impossible reality in the north. In essence, just two more people on the lam and hiding. Seen as such, we can perhaps find people here and there who take us into their confidence. Over tequila perhaps a story slips out. Josephina is adept at this. Loosening the tongues of men so as to find out what she wants to know without asking the question.
It was unusual. The way Josephina and I hooked up. Balthazaar and I had been like brothers since childhood. We were born the same month of the same year. I was 17 days his elder. And now here we are as young men. I am with a woman some 10 years older than me, and he is with her daughter. Or at least he was, until something went wrong and they are lost now from one another. It was to have been a simple deal. I made the arrangements. Balthazaar and Violet would make the exchange. A few precious stones I was middling out of Africa to a collector whose name I dare not say. Enough American dollars for all of us to live quite easily for some time. The deal was to go down on a charter boat amidst partying and pleasure fishing. Violet, while young, was as alluring as her mother. And she is a seamstress, as well. It would be relatively easy for her to conceal the stones in the hems of her clothing. And Balthazaar was renown for his calm collectedness. He was at his best when backed against the wall. So what went wrong? Its all I think about as I drive. The sun is a big red bobber slowly rising from the sea. Josephina is curled up asleep on the back seat.
By early afternoon it will be too hot to be on the road. We should make La Coma by then. Spend a day or two poking about. I headed the car up into the mountains.
Why La Coma, Santos?" Josephina said, looking down at the map as we wound our way up into the Sierra Madre just West of the Gulf of Compeche. "It is the middle of nowhere." she added, turning to look at me. "That is why we are going there." I replied. "It is the kind of place Balthazaar would think to go. A place where Violet might have tried to hide. At least, he had some reason to think so." "Be careful, Santos" she said, as I geared down for a steep and winding portion of the road.
By the time we pulled into La Coma the air had changed from the grueling hot temperature as we had made our way up, and now, into a much colder, thinner air. "Why would anyone want to live here?" Josephina mused, looking out the window at the shacks and shanties that lined the dirt road. "It is not a question to be asked, my love." I said, glancing over at her. "Yes, yes...I know." she replied. "It was once a mining town,"I said, in answer to her question.
Many came here in search of riches. And a few did get rich. But, it was a short lived vein of gold, and it all ended abruptly. All that's left is what we are looking at now." "Squalor" she muttered. "Yes, squalor." I replied, as I pulled over in front of a two story structure with a painted cafe sign on its window.
I inquired as to where we could get a room for the night. The woman replied that there were three rooms on the floor above. She was quite accommodating, and offered to help with our bags and show us a room. And she asked the expected questions as we made our way up the dusty wooden staircase. Where did we come from? Where were we going? And what did I do for a living? I explained that we were escaping the congestion of the North, and that we would go down tomorrow to the seaside. I was a writer, and needed a place to quietly do my work. She said that this was a quiet place, and that perhaps, we should stay here. I thanked her for her kindness, as we approached the room. I hugged Josephina, as I told the woman how much my wife wanted to be by the sea. She smiled and nodded, and handed us the key. "I will make breakfast for you in the morning, then. Yes?" "Yes." I said nodding.
The room was as dingy as one might imagine in such a town. Josephina turned the blankets down and sniffed the sheets. I walked over to the window and looked down on my car, hoping I had locked it. A man was walking by pulling an unwilling pack-mule along and yelling at the beast. He stopped by my car and then looked up toward me. It was clear there were strangers in town. I followed him with my eyes as he pulled his mule on by. That's when I saw it, as I watched him cursing his mule down the road. On the other side of the road, some kind of market. And above it hung a pink neon angel.
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