Johan Van Zanten and Tina :) Hulbe posted: He was short. And fat. But i was lost. "Which way to Midway?" i asked. "Que?" "Which way to the airport?" i repeated to the short, fat, gasoline station cashier in a less than friendly part of Chicago, hopefully somewhere near Midway Airport. "No habla ingles, pendejo." "Uhh..." i babbled. "Donde, uhhh esta el aeropuerto?" "Y jole chinga," he muttered, raising a sloppy eyebrow, fat as 1/2lb of bacon. He kicked the door of the gas station open and stepped out of the cashier's booth. He was about 4'3". "Vamanos, pendejo," he grumbled, slapping me in the stomach with the back of his hand. He turned, took a sombrero down from a peg next to the door and stepped out among the gas pumps, heading for my car. I stood in the store, dazed. All i wanted were directions. Instead, i had been repeatedly insulted by a short, fat, and incredibly smelly man. I mean, *really* smelly. Not just a little BO, but a serious apparition of a smell, like when are contentedly wandering back to your car after a delightful dinner, and the wind suddenly changes direction, overwhelming you with the scent of the restaurant's dumpster, which has been baking in the South Texas sun for the last 12 hours. But worse. The short, fat man stopped at my car, and turned to face me. A look of mild annoyance crossed his face. "VAMANOS, ESTUPIDO!" he screamed at me from outside, across the parking lot. Everyone at the gas station turned to look at me. Inside the store, a pack of saladitos wobbled oddly in response to his command, and fell to the sticky linoleum floor. I stared at them for a moment, looked up at the unattended cash register, and walked out the door. As i arrived at my gaudy, red, ugly, generic American rental car, he said, "Don you mek me heet you with me corzappa, eh?" patting his leather vest with a small but very fat hand. I had no idea what a 'corzappa' was, and i didn't want to find out. I put up my hands defensively, partially in response to his threat, but mostly still in response to the smell! It was unghodly. "Vamanos," he repeated. I didn't move. He looked at me for a moment. "Get in el coche," he said, and got in on the driver's side of my car. The rental people would probably debit my credit card a few thousand dollars to get rid of that smell, i thought to myself. I opened the passenger door, and leaned over so i could see his face. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" i demanded. Blank stare. Bad smell. New, yet permanent-looking sweat stains were readily apparent on the driver's seat upholstery. He raised a fat, beefy hand, patted the chest-area of his leather vest, and then motioned me into the car. "Is that a threat?" "No, theese ees una 'corzappa', " he said, beginning to reach in side of his vest. "Ok, ok, i'm getting in," i said as i climbed into the car. What could i do? I had 16 minutes until my plane left the airport. It was Labor Day, and the airport was likely to be a Zoo. I could run away from this weird and incredibly smelly man, but then i would never make my flight, nor would i have the rental car. "I wheel tek care of tu, esse, " he said, placing in his mouth and lighting the disgusting remains of what was either a cigar or a piece of dog feces. Then he held out his hand palm up, the "cigar" between two of his fat, twinkie-like fingers, the noxious smoke pouring up into my face. I sputtered and coughed, "What? YOU WANT MY MONEY??!?!" i coughed some more. Long exhale of even-more retched smoke into the small compartment of the car, "No. Tu keys." I looked at him in shock. Somehow, even though he had gotten in on the driver's side, i had not anticpated his desire to drive the car. "No!" i whined. I lept out of the car, ran around to the drivers side, and tried to open his door. There was a uneventful snap-clunk as my hand raised the locked door handle and slipped off. "OUT!" i screamed. Blank look through a cloud of smoke. "The rental company will have a fit if you drive this car! Do you even have a license?" Slight smile. Puff, puff... exhale. The motorized driver's seat reclined and lowered. I reached into my pocket, took out the keys and inserted them into the lock. Before i could turn them, though, the door sprang open, smacking me hard and bouncing me against the pump behind me. A fat, yet incredibly-dexterous hand poked out of the door and grabbed the keys, like some obese, hairless ferret. The door closed, and the car started. "STOP!!!" i screamed in desperation. The short, fat man turned and looked at me, his face barely high enough in the window to be visible. He gave me a long, calculating look. I felt i was being measured for a part in something ugly. A drop of sweat ran down the side of my stomach in the humid, September heat. "Get een," he mouthed through the closed window, and jerked his thumb towards the passenger seat. What else was there for me to do? I looked at my watch. I nervously walked around and opened the door. "My plane leaves Midway in 14 minutes!" i brayed. I saw him stomp on the gas, and heard the engine rev all the way up as he reached for the gear shift. I jumped into the car, a moment before he slammed the shifter from "P" to "D". "My door-" i started, as the car squealed away from the pumps. There was a grotesque and other-worldly cough as what was left of the "cigar" went past my nose, out the car, and then a sudden, hard, hard, right turn, out of the station onto the street. The door slammed shut, just as the filling station exploded. We sped away, the short fat man seemingly unconcerned with the destruction of his (former) place of employment. "Tay-hassss," drawled the grimy man at the wheel of my rental car. "Um, Midway," I gulped. A terrifying thought was growing in my head. "Si, Tay-hassss," he repeated as Cicero, hometown of Al Capone, receded quickly in the rear-view mirror. Within seconds, we were on the interstate, racing south from Chicago - my fear confirmed. Not only was I going to miss my flight and owe my soul to the rental company, but I was never going to see anywhere or anyone again. Snaking lines of trees and yellowing cornfields flew by the window. "We're driving to Texas. We're driving to Texas. We're driving to Texas." I repeated my new mantra in my head. Perhaps if I concentrated hard enough, I would find myself in seat 23A, waiting for a complimentary beverage and snack, wondering if the guy sitting next to me really is Jimmy Hoffa or just looks like him. Suddenly, we swerved to the left, barely avoiding collision with a semi - "Universal Movers" the side of the truck read. The wheels tore deep grooves in the turf in the center divider as we swerved back onto the highway. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!" The smelly fat man grinned and let out a laugh that seemed to emerge from a bottomless well. His teeth were yellow-grey, like faded and chipped limestone tombstones, his gums grey mortar, barely holding them in place. He reached a greasy arm across in front of me, opened the glove compartment, pulled out the rental papers, and threw them out the window. The wind ripped at the white sheets and in an instant they were gone. "We're driving to Texas. We're driving to Texas. We're driving to Texas." "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!" A new foul wave of odor washed over me as the man returned his right hand to the steering wheel. I couldn't understand why, but I felt very tired. As I drifted off to sleep, the fat man lit another cigar stub, more fetid than the first. Everything was quiet when I awoke. I was sitting, propped up against the wind-worn carcass of a wagon, abandoned long ago beside a dry oasis. The car was nowhere to be seen. The soft warm scent of the desert night told me the short, fat, greasy man was gone as well. A small, furry face with bandit-mask markings peered at me through a knothole in a wagon board. All the stars in the universe glimmered in two crafty eyes. "Well," I thought, "at least I have nothing for him to steal." At dawn, I was jolted awake by a spray of sand and gravel as the red rental car slid to a halt on the dusty, seldom travelled road before me. The door flung open and the man inside hissed "VAMANOS! Weeee musssssst hurry." I jumped quickly into the passenger seat at the force of his command. The little animal - a ferret, I now saw - darted in just as I closed the door. Rubber tires spun on a road more used to wagon wheels and horseshoes, dug in, and like a flaming red rock from a slingshot, we hurtled down the road. "Where are we going?" I asked. The pangs of hunger in my stomach gave me courage. "I DEMAND to know where we are going." "We eet later," said the man, "now we work." The stench that filled the car as he spoke helped drive thoughts of food from my head. I thought of fastening my seatbelt but realized that wherever we were headed, I probably didn't need it. Moments later, the fat man crashed on the brakes with his foot. As I hit the dashboard, it occurred to me that a certain amount of bulk might protect a person during such encounters. We had arrived in a small, dusty town. Horses were hitched outside a saloon, mercantile, and jail. Farther down the street was a cluster of houses. Before each house was a garden, enclosed by a picket fence. The fences held in nothing but tumbleweeds. At the end of the street was a church. At least, I thought it was a church, painted white with a steeple and bell, but in front was a small statue, a chubby figurine with red robes and an ear-to-ear grin. I guessed we were headed for the saloon. The fat man drove the car to the back of the saloon and parked. "Is he trying to hide a flaming red car?" I thought, suddenly noticing that there were no other cars around. In fact, there were no telephone poles, no street lights, nothing to make this whole scene not seem like a cheap western movie. Except for the grinning statue at the end of the street. "Out!" he ordered, and I complied. As I opened the door, the ferret jumped out of the car and ran into the saloon. "Are we going to the saloon?" I asked. "Is there food in there?" "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!" That damn laugh again. "Si muchacho, there ees food, pero nada por tu, I theenk." The fat man grabbed his sombrero and strode into the building. The saloon was dark and cool. A thin, brown-skinned man with oiled black hair lying flat on his head and a narrow mustache was wiping the bar with a rag. "You have returned!" he let out a short yelp and then drew himself close to my companion. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "Thees ees mi compadre, Johaaaaan," he drawled. "Heee weeel help ussss." How did he know my name? What was I about to do? Where was the food? The barkeep laughed and hissed "Then let us have a drink, to celebrate good fortune!" He slammed a bottle on the bar. I gulped. Tequila. I stared at the straight glass half full of tequila. I had never been especially fond of tequila, particularly on an empty stomach. "Uhh... thanks, but uh, do you have anything to eat? I haven't ingested anything except this portly man's second-hand smoke since i had some Lebanese food in Chicago." Coarse laughter like a 1972 AMC Gremlin trying to turn over on a cold morning. "Cheekago, eh, El Dupree? That's some trip." "No kidding. The whole thing is just one big dark, impenetrable blur. I don't even want to think what the National is gonna charge me. The car is definitely overdue." "Que? Dupree, tu steal un otro tren? Y jole. Tu cajones es mucho grande. No doubt los federales Americanes will come after you again. Still, eef he can do what we need, eet will be worth it, no?" "Si." "Food! I need food!" i repeated, pantomiming eating with my empty hands. "Comer! You know FOOD." "Shhhhhhh.." they both said. "Sorry. Well?" The bartender looked at the short fat man, whom he called "El Dupree", Dupree smiled another sickening grin and nodded. I looked away into the bar, lest i lose my appetite. Though it was dark and smokey, i could make out dim figures around the room. Most of them seemed to be sitting with their backs to the wall. There's something weird about the way these people dress, i thought, it's like they.. hmm.. were extras for a movie or something... "Amigo. Aqui." I looked back at the bartender. He was putting a plate in front of me. On it was a corn tortilla wrapped around something not quite discernable in the dim light. I lowered my head closer to it and peered at it carefully. "What's this?" "Es un taco, esse." "Yeah, but what's in it?" "Oh well, we can not afford much, even for los amigos del Dupree. Some frijoles y chorizo." "Chorizo?" "Si. Es muy bueno." "Sorry, i can't eat this." "Que? Tu no like?" "Well, i'm sorry, but i don't eat meat." "No come mi chorizo? Dupree i don't understand. What eees este hombre saying? He doesn't eat meat?" Dupree just grinned and nodded. There was the creaking of chairs and tables >from around the room. I realized, unpleasantly, that i was now the center of attention. "Uhhh.. urrmmm.. well maybe i can just pull the chorizo out and set it on the side...." i said, opening the taco. "Unless.. well, gee, is there lard in the beans?" "Que? 'Lahd'?" the bartender said, rolling the word out of his mouth like it was not only alien in tongue but in conception. Confusion reigning over his face, he looked at Dupree. Dupree patted his copious gut several times. The sounds made caused my stomach to turn. "Ohhhhh si, si, there eees "Lahd" en este frijoles!" The bartender smiled proudly. I sighed and pushed the plate away from me. "I don't think i'm hungry anymore, anyway." "Que? We geeve you our food and you push eet away! I kill you where you stand, gringo!" he said hotly, as he reached for something under the counter. "You had better tek sometheeng he has geevan tu, amigo, o tu no see ma~nana." I looked around hurriedly for some peanuts or something on the bar, as the bartender brought an antique-looking, double-barrelled shotgun to bear on my chest. I whimpered. There was only one thing i could do. I slammed back the straight glass of tequila. The bartender's countenance metamorphosized from murder to respect and approval. "I seee why you brought theeese one, Dupree. He has guts." Guts which were quickly beginning to agitate for the return of the last few things they had borrowed from the material world -- via the quick route. But there was nothing there to return. So instead the room responded by dipping first to the left and then to the right. When the top of the bar rushed up toward my face, i overcompensated, fell off the back of the bar stool and found myself on the floor. The room dimmed, til all i could see was the roundish glow of amber light just above me. "Es bueno. Heee neeeded to sleep before el trabajo," Dupree said. I awoke with an incredible headache. Or rather, i awoke *because* of an incredible headache. It was still dark but strangely, i could feel myself moving... like i was sliding, slowly... and then BAM! Suddenly my head fell back on something hard. "Ooowwwwww SHIT!" "Bueno! Tu es eweke. Yo tired of dragging tu." I sat up, rubbing my head gingerly, and looked about in the darkness. The light of millions of stars shone down on me, an elaborate and beautiful blanket of night sky i had not seen in many years. Behind me were the few steps up to the bar. One of them readily presented itself as what my head had just hit. "Vamanos." "What time is it? Where are we going?" "Vamanos. Para Ernesto." "What? Who's Ernesto?" The big little man stopped midstride. I realized for the first time in the day or two i had been with Dupree that i had surprised him. He looked down at me, fingering something at his almost-boundless waist that i could only dimly make out in the starlight. It seemed to be a large swatch of leather hanging from his belt. From behind Dupree, the bartender gasped. "Eeeef we had ze time, i would feeet you with a nice sombrero, mi amigo. Pero, no puedamos. Vamanos." There was the relieved exhale of air from the bartender. What the hell was going on? A sombrero? Why the hell would i need a sombrero in the dark? "That's ok, i looked stupid in hats, anyway." "Then este es el sombrero para tu, " he said, and i though i could even see a little starlight reflect off of his disgusting, non-white teeth. The fat man reached the car in a few loping steps. He opened the door and ordered us "In!" The bartender took the front seat and I climbed in the back. I expected the ferret to follow along but he was nowhere to be seen. El Dupree turned the key in the ignition and stomped on the gas pedal. As we sped away from the town, I turned to look over my shoulder. The windows of the church were ablaze with candles. A lone lamp flickered in the window of the jail. The rest of the tiny community slept in darkness. My eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light as we drove. I recognized the profiles of mesquite and tumbleweeds. Within an hour, the dark outline of an adobe rancho rose on the horizon. El Dupree slammed on the brakes and we skidded to a halt beside a wide courtyard. Olive trees, growing in wooden planters, cast wiry moonlight shadows on the tile floor of the yard. An arching entryway framed a splashing terra cotta fountain. The ferret sat on its rim, watching a reflection of the moon distort with every splash. The heavy wooden door of the main rancho house swung open, flooding the courtyard with warm, yellow lamp light. "Dupree!" cried a willowy young woman with flowing black hair and charcoal eyes, as she ran toward us. The woman stopped beside the fountain. Her blue and green skirts rushed on forward, swirled back around her shapely figure and came to rest about her with a jingling of keys that hung from her belt. "Rita," said the bartender, "he has returned." "Man~ana," said the raven woman, "the funeral is..." She stopped short at the sight of me. "Johaaaaan, he weeel help ussss." drawled the short, fat man as he strode toward the door. The woman gave a weak smile and nodded in my direction as she stepped aside, giving El Dupree, and his odor, a wide passage. A small fire flickered in the hearth of a family room. Two men, wearing tight black pants, white shirts with billowy sleeves, and bright red vests decorated with hand-stitched scenes of bull and cock fights, sat on a worn wooden bench. Rita lifted a similar costume from the bench an offered it to me, "para tu." She gestured toward a door down the hall. "Me?" I asked amazed. "These are for ME?" "Si, mi amigo." said the greasy man. "Thees eees why." He patted his chest as he spoke. A half sinister, half amused grin spread over his face. For a moment, he looked like the statue at the little church back in town. "Ahora!" I took the bundle of clothes from Rita and she almost smiled. "Who is this woman? What are we doing?" I thought, as I walked toward the room down the hall. "And why am I about to dress like a mariachi?" The first rays of rising sun illuminated dust in the air as I donned my new attire. The clothes fit as though they were made for me. I neatly folded my old clothes and carried them with me, back to the sitting room. It was empty. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!" the fat man's laugh echoed across the courtyard. I followed it, and his stench, and the faint hint of cooking juevos, past the fountain to an open door in a second rancho building. The kitchen! An old, grey woman, her body curved, like the waning moon, stood cooking tortillas on a hot griddle. She moved quickly, for one so old, the sleeves of her white peasant's blouse danced expertly about the hot stove top. On a time- and use-smoothed table sat steaming platters of juevos, frijoles, and chorizo. A blue ceramic bowl held bright red salsa, flecked with green chilies. Rita sat staring out a small window while the men noisily ate. El Dupree, gripping his fork in a death-lock, sat alone at one end of the table. Quickly, I grabbed a plate and joined them. Having arrived late, I was forced to sit next to the greasy, smelly man who grunted as he ate. I held my breath and plunged in. This time, I was not going to miss my opportunity. As the old woman cleared away breakfast dishes, we followed El Dupree to the courtyard. I noticed that the two dressed-up men held musical instruments, a trumpet and a guitar. "We really are a mariachi band" I groaned to myself. The short man thrust a viola toward me. His stubby, fat fingers held its neck in a strangle hold and for a moment I saw myself in its place. "Tu instrument," he said. "My what?" I shouted, but not too loudly. "You expect me to play VIOLA in a mariachi band? Are you insane?" Instantly, I realized the answers to these questions and wished I had not asked. El Dupree patted his chest with one hand and offered the instrument with the other. "Tu instrument." he said. A small stream of people were entering the church as we arrived in town. Our group now included our leader, whose persuasive abilities I could neither understand nor deny, the two other mariachis, the bartender, and me. The ferret remained at the rancho with Rita. We followed the others into the church and found places in the back of the room. A closed coffin lay before the altar. As a slow dirge began on the piano, a grizzled old man stepped in beside me. "You will play?" he asked in an east-coast accent. "Yes," I replied in a whisper. "Can you tell me, whom do we bury today?" The old man looked me over slowly, obviously deciding what story to tell. "He is Sen~or Wilson, the sheriff. He was shot two days ago." "Shot?" I tried in vain to hide my surprise. "Yes, by Ernesto, two days ago." "Why?" "The sheriff, he was used to getting what he wanted and he wanted Rita. Or, most people say, he wanted her land. Since her father died in a freak chile-roasting accident, she owns the biggest ranch in all of Texas. She is in love with Ernesto and Ernesto with her. The old man paused for a moment while the congregation repeated a short chant. Two days ago, as the sun was setting behind a rumbling storm in the west, Wilson followed Rita right here, into the church. Nobody knows what happened, Rita will not speak of it. Anyway, the truth is an ambiguous thing, subjective and objective. It is like a rainbow, owing existence to both circumstance and perception. Truth, right, wrong, ideals, absolutes..." the man's voice slowly rose and I thought he was about to spit on the floor of the church. A small woman wearing strings of beads and clinking bracelets turned around in the pew before us and shushed my companion, "Alberto, not now." Chastened, the old man continued his story. "Some minutes later, Rita rushed out of the church and ran down the street to her horse. Most everybody in town was in the saloon when it happened, we all saw her go by. When we saw Wilson follow, we knew it was trouble." The pastor of the church walked before the coffin. I was surprised by his appearance. Rather than the black suit and white collar I expected, he wore brown cloth leggings and an orange and red serape. The service began and the old man finished his story. "Like lightning >from the storm, a single shot cracked through the air. Straight through the heart, he fell down cold and dead." A electric shiver raced down my spine. Suddenly I knew what we were about to do. At the end of the service, the parishioners began ringing small silver bells and proceeded down the steps into the main street of town. Four pall bearers, one of whom was the bar tender, lifted the coffin onto their shoulders and followed down the street. We mariachis fell in behind and began to play. El Dupree had disappeared. As our music started, the people ahead of us began to dance and the pace of the music quickened. Horses tethered in front of the bank pricked up their ears and whinnied as the parade went by. The door of the jail stood open. I could have sworn I heard the snap of vinyl from inside but nobody else seemed to notice a thing. A fourth mariachi, wearing El Dupree's lard-stained sombrero, joined in, playing a wooden flute. I peered under the rim of the hat at a handsome young man with the sparkle of hope in his eyes. "Ernesto?" I asked. The slightest smile answered my query. The statue before the church was enlightened.