Jesus on the bottom. I wondered to myself who would want to swim in such a thing. Was it disrespectful? But then I saw other pictures of children splashing, a woman lounging, and a man standing on the edge smoking a cigar, ignoring the fact that a 40-foot Jesus was beneath them. I had to wonder what it would be like swimming in such a pool. This was written as much to answer that question as it was for those people who steadfastly believe that if they do enough good at the end of their lives, it makes up for a lifetime of being bad. Suki vaguely resembles my sister. It’s true I was thinking of her when I wrote this, especially her sense of humor, but my sister is a much nicer person than Suki. I love this story. I think it’s one of my most honest.
NOW SHOWING ON SCREEN 3
Fugue on the Sea of Cortez
Starring Tom as the wandering soul,
June as the woman he shouldn’t have
and the giant shrimp as the elder god
“This does for vacationing alone in Mexico what The Hills Have Eyes did for Recreational Vehicle travel.”
–The Salted Morgue Gazette
In Smell-O-Vision
He'd traveled from The Panama Canal to Puerto Peñasco listening to a soundtrack created to drown the memories of his own cowardice. Dangermouse, Van Halen, AC DC and Madonna reinvented themselves in a thunderous Crazy-For-Those-About-To-Rock-Might-As-Well-Jump-Material-Girl-We-Salute-You crucible where he was the strong, confident cavalier that he’d always wanted to be since he’d grown-up reading about the scions of Shannara, improbable hobbits and Stainless Steel Rat space heroes. Really nothing more than vapid electronic musings, fugue voices that carried him along on an expository stretto until his escape chute landed somewhere else where the women were fine, the liquor was cheap, and his conscience had a way to escape.
“Uno mas, por favor.”
The bartender wordlessly slid another frozen margarita over from the platoon of drinks he’d prepared for the afternoon rush.
“Gracias.” Thomas Greely Jones relished the icy tequila, so far the only deterrent against Mexico’s molten heat. He gazed out the window and watched the boats returning from a day of shrimping, the air above them swirling with pelicans and gulls eager to steal the day’s catch. White-skinned tourists lay on the beach in front of their resort hotels, their drinks served by malnourished, brown-skinned locals. Rich white kids skipped along the water’s edge, their boogie boards slipping across the waves in mad gyrations, oblivious to squalor, their only concern the moment and the now. Farther out to sea along the azure waves of the Sea of Cortez, a dozen swimmers treaded water, their gazes locked on the horizon.
All seemed as it should be except for these twelve swimmers. For the life of him, Thomas couldn’t figure out what they were about. The waves of the Sea of Cortez were the most languid of the sort. The swimmers didn’t have diving apparatus, as one would expect a group such as theirs to have, perhaps waiting for pickup after a long day of coral snooping? What were they doing? Why were they treading water when they could turn, swim and easily make the shore? He was about to ask the bartender, his mind already searching for the words in Spanish, when she walked in.
Mid-twenties and blonde with an athletic build, she wore flip-flops, black shorts and a black T-shirt with the slogan Army of One emblazoned across the front. Her hair hung halfway down her back. Elfin features surrounded a freckled nose. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t place it. She found a seat by the window, kicked off her flip-flops and drew her feet beneath her. She stared at the sea, the dozen swimmers, and the horizon, her furrowed brow the only expression on a face that could raise a nation.
Then he had it and his heart sunk with the memory.
Her expression reminded him of his mother's when he’d told her he was going AWOL. Away Without Leave was the official term, and she hadn't begrudged him his decision, although he could have sworn she could see inside him. Her eyes had never been accusing, but had held him in their inquisitive rays as she tried to plumb the depths of his conscience to determine if it was something she’d done which had caused such a heroic malfunction. He’d told her what he’d told his First Sergeant when he’d called that final time before he turned his back on the red, white and blue. "I’m a conscientious