Fiction Saturday – “And Pull The Hole… Chapter 37

Fiction Saturday

Chapter Thirty-Seven

 

       Lizard Boy smiled as Laura and Davis walked over to the metal storage shed.

“Things are better at the border. They’re opening up again,” he said to them in his usual staccato style.

A small, stocky man with strong Mayan facial features, held open the door to the shed and motioned them all inside. His face exhibited several prison tattoos. He was bare-chested and wearing a leather vest. His coppery skin showed a number of scars. He had a large knife sheathed on his belt and over his shoulder was slung an AK-47, the Third World’s weapon of choice. In his left hand, he held a fresh caramel Frappuccino.

“I’m glad you liked my coffees,” he said. “Just like I used to make at Starbucks. Good, huh? Well, bien viaje, amigos.”

Fiction Saturday – “And Pull The Hole… Chapter 36 Continued

Fiction Saturday

Chapter 36 Continued

Outside, the sun was beginning to go down and an offshore breeze was finally cutting through the hot and hectic city. The shopping-mad tourists were heading home and the drinking-mad tourists were arriving. The mood in Tijuana was changing, like it did everyday at this time, from commercial cordiality to alcoholic depravity. The zebra-painted donkeys that pulled small carts along the avenidas so tourists could have some unusual pictures to take home to Iowa, were being replaced by other donkeys for another kind of entertainment that Tijuana was famous for.  

Fiction Saturday – “And Pull The Hole… Continued Chapter 33

Fiction Saturday

Chapter Thirty-Three

 

Tomás wheeled his cab back over to the frontier and parked in the large lot right by the border that is reserved for taxis only.

“Señor, I am confused,” he asked Davis.  “What are we doing here?  What are we looking for?  Are you and the Señorita in trouble?”

“Yes, Tomás, but we’re not criminals.  It’s just that some people are looking for us.”

“Say no more, Señor.  I think I understand.  After all, I too, have in-laws.”

Davis let it go at that.  No sense in scaring him away.  Laura had already paid him for the full day.

“Tomás, I’m going to move up a bit closer and take a look around.  Don’t leave.”

“Señor, of course not.  May I come with you?”

“Sure, why not?  Come on.”  Another pair of eyes couldn’t hurt, Davis reasoned.

After Tomás locked up his taxi, the two of them walked up the ramp that crossed over the northbound highway leading to the Customs station.  Every few feet a young peddler approached them, offering a variety of last minute shopping opportunities.  Tomás shooed them away with a blast of rapid-fire Spanish obscenities.  Many of these merchants were ten years old or younger, and were often the biggest earners in their family.

From their vantage point Davis and Tomás could look into the plaza on the U.S. side of the border.