Twenty-eight years have led me to this room up in the old hotel, above the neon. The manager, Mr. Chen, gives me the grand tour;…
Posts published by “Robert Mailer Anderson”
Javier sat cramped in the second van’s cargo area smothered in brightly colored piñatas; Sponge Bob Square Pants, Dora The Explorer, Emmo, classic Mexican burros, and a cluster of canteros where Satan lurked inside the clay centers and tempted you with the decorated conical points, one for each of the seven deadly sins. Alma had explained the history and superstition of the canteros to him one better day when they were stuffing one full of candy for Alfredo’s birthday. She had told him that their used to be eight deadly sins, but good Catholics only believed in seven.
The electric gate wasn’t working and Ella had to get out of the truck and drag it open herself, which probably screwed things up worse and would make the gate harder to fix later, then she had to get back into the gargantuan gasguzzling Tundra that as an environmentalist she hated, drive the polluting monstrosity through the pie wedge opening, park on the outside of their property which had a steep incline just before the white line that marked the skirt of the two-lane highway – meaning some beer-drunk asshole could easily drift off course and hit her – set the parking break, get out again to close the stupid gate, and then climb back into the truck and hope the engine didn’t stall or the emergency brake didn’t slip. Rose was with her too, which made her worry even more about the beer-drunk assholes and the part where she had to leave the truck to close the gate.
All is well here at our house. Religious fanatics were on other side of town. But religious fanaticism is a threat all the way around…
“I can’t believe it,” Gooch said, after swinging open the polished door to his hotel room. “Imagine you and me, both right here.” I hadn’t…