The wooden deckchairs creak as they rock gently back and forth, as if occupied by ghosts that greet me at the door. When I was young, living along the coast in a stilt shack, my mother would sit out on the deck at night, drinking her whiskey and bitters, while having a cigar. It was because of her that I developed a taste for the drink and learned how to balance just enough ice to liquor for a smooth flavor. For a hard, unyielding woman, she enjoyed her quiet moments, and sometimes I think she might be rocking in these chairs, staring out over the peaceful bayou.
I enter the door of the foredeck and get hit by a blast of cool sixty-eight degree air, where the open living space and helm stands empty. With dark blue walls and rich cherry-wood trim, brown leather furniture and hardwood floors, it’s as posh as any apartment in the city.
The ceiling converges into a skylight at the center of the room. A fifty-inch TV is mounted to the wall above an electric fireplace, all powered by both generator and solar panels that line the canopy of the top deck. Beyond the helm stands a fully equipped gourmet galley, which I’ve only used a handful of times, and I dump my bag onto the granite countertop, as I pass through towards a narrow hallway that breaks off into three separate rooms and a door that leads to a stairwell to the top deck, or the aft deck. One of these rooms I’ve turned into an office, and the other is something of a hobby room, where I keep all my fishing supplies and exercise equipment. The top deck has a jacuzzi and grill, but like everything else on the boat, I can’t say I get much use out of those, either. Time is something of a luxury in my line of work, and there never seems to be enough.
I make my way toward the third room, the master suite, which boasts a king-sized bed, walk-in closet, and bathroom, where I quickly undress.
The shower is an elaborate contraption, with three sets of knobs that control the three different showerheads. I set the one behind me to pulse, and step inside, allowing the cool water to rinse away the sweat. Wearing a suit inside the air-conditioned club is one thing. Having to wear it on the ride back to the houseboat is unbearable, with humid temperatures reaching almost ninety degrees.
I rest my forehead against the tiled wall and let the punishing force of the water massage away the ache in my muscles. A life of solitude isn’t necessarily one I chose, but it’s a life I’ve come to appreciate and accept. Though there are times I’ve fantasized what it would be like to walk through that door and find a woman warming my bed, those thoughts tend to be fleeting. Quickly followed by a bloody fucking massacre, the likes of which I’ve seen a few times. Entire families wiped out by the cartel in acts of revenge. Women always suffer the most, as punishment to whomever crossed their leader. It’s why I moved my own sister two hours away from me, to care for her at a distance. Because anything close to me risks the most vile destruction.
The worst I witnessed was four years ago, when Julio sent me to El Paso to retrieve a guy named Pedro Juarez, an ally to the Matamoros cartel. Pedro had come home to find his wife and two daughters brutally tortured and murdered by his enemies. The attackers had smeared their blood everywhere, and when I entered the house, there were few places I could step, or touch, without getting it on me. Balled up on the living room floor, his pregnant wife lay naked, hogtied, and cut open at the belly. The children had been dismembered, their limbs scattered around her in a way that seemed taunting. And the man I was sent to retrieve sat slumped over on a chair with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. They’d left him alive to find his family slaughtered, perhaps a punishment more tortuous than the mercy of death. Since then, every fantasy I’ve ever had about a woman has ended with that blood-soaked memory.
My head tends to be a fucked place, sometimes. As a result, the women I take to bed are nothing but a brief moment of detached and mindless sex. Nothing but a