::::::No, I didn’t ever—my pale americano… :::::: But his resentment evaporated quickly. He was a curiosity, John Smith was. Never had Nestor come across anyone more instinctively unlike himself. The guy didn’t have a Latin bone in his body. He couldn’t see him as a cop, either, not for three seconds. There was something bland and weak about him. This kind of guy—it was hard to imagine him being aggressive enough to come up with the Cop Look, even. ::::::Nevertheless, he, an americano, is my only hope of keeping the tide of my own people, my own family!—from sweeping me away.::::::
When John Smith drove him up to the Isle of Capri, he barely recognized the place. In the noonday sun it looked small and gray and dead. What would have ever seemed glamorous about it? It didn’t glow… it was a cheap little dump, that was all. He spotted his Camaro, thank God.
He thanked John Smith again and promised to find out what he could about the Russian. As he departed the car, he experienced a strange feeling. In a moment, John Smith would drive off, and he, Nestor Camacho, would be left abandoned. Abandoned was the feeling… it began to steal over his central nervous system. Now, that was strange. He had an irrational urge to ask the americano to stay a little longer… at least until the shift began at the Marine Patrol marina. I’m alone!… more alone than I’ve ever been in my life! And the patrol shift would only make it worse. By the time the shift had ended last night, at midnight, his “comrades,” his “brethren,” were looking at him as if they wished they didn’t have to. And that was merely the first day after the whole thing with the man on the mast. Tonight they would be wondering why couldn’t he do the decent thing… and disintegrate… the way all decent marked men do.
::::::Oh, why don’t you just jump into the river and drown, you miserable little maricón!:::::: He had always looked with contempt at people who submerged themselves in self-pity. At that point they lost all honor. And here he was, Nestor Camacho, treating himself to the perverse relief of avoiding the struggle—and all the assholes—by giving up and halfway hoping they’ll pull him under for the third time. Hey, that’ll end the pain, won’t it!
In fact, there must be something peaceful about drowning… once you get over the initial shock of never breathing again, never drawing another breath. But he had already gone through the initial shock, hadn’t he. What exactly did he have to live for? His family? His friends? His Cuban heritage? His loved ones? The great romantic love of his life? Or maybe for John Smith’s approval. That made him laugh… rancidly. John Smith would very much approve of his going under for the third time. That way he could wring one more touching human-interest story out of this shit. Nestor could see the pseudo-sincere look on John Smith’s face, as if he were still standing here facing him.
That conniving skinny WASP! Anything to get a story… that’s how sincere he is… Other faces began to appear… vividly… vividly… faces for an instant along the railing of the Rickenbacker Causeway bridge. For that instant—a woman in her forties… he had never seen a more hateful face in his life! She spit at him. She raged. She tried to finish him off by beaming death rays from eyes set deep within her contorted face. He could hear the boos coming at him from all directions, including from below, from all the small craft that had come out for no other purpose than to shoot him down. And—who… is… this? ::::::Why, it’s Camilo el Caudillo! He’s right there before me with his arms crossed smugly atop his paunch… and here’s my simpering mother sopping with sympathy, even though she knows el Caudillo’s word is Gospel… Yeya and Yeyo—hah!:::::: So every living Camacho generation looks upon him as the Ultimate Traitor… Uncle Andres’s cousin-in-law Hernán Lugo, who had taken it upon himself to preach at him at Yeya’s birthday party… Ruiz’s father, at Ricky’s, turning his head about forty-five degrees so he could say out the side of his mouth, Te cagaste—“You shit all over it, didn’t you, and all over yourself”… and aaahhh, it is Mr. Ruiz who now sits immediately before him with his back turned, snarling out the corner of his mouth beneath his