Did you shit your pants, Chito?, Josefina asks from the passenger seat of our car, or is that the smell of love in the air?
I smell it. Probably roadkill.
Roadkill? So romantic…, she says. Either way, love or carrion, the vultures will clean it up.
The city looks like it’s had a good cry. The storm-torn clouds above the Nashville skyline reflect the last light of day. Street puddles below are shredded by my tires splitting the grimy gutter-water as I drive the wrong-way onto a oneway street. Josefina let’s out a shriek. Chito!, she calls my attention to the oncoming traffic. Whoops, never-mind…, I say. Which is a damn spooky thing to say given that a gypsy woman once told me those would be my last words. “Whoops, never-mind…” I do a 7-point u-turn to an orchestra of honking horns and attempt to change the subject by commenting on the lovely sunset. Jo is unimpressed. She lowers her head to look up out of the windshield and provides a generic jest, saying, the sky looks like your ass. Her lips begin to smirk as her brain churns. Jo takes another look out the windshield and says with more enthusiasm, it looks like your ass after I’ve smacked it! See there, Chito: those clouds are still lily-white, but over here you have pink hues and red deepening into a bruised purple. Yeah…, I’ve seen it all before. Plffpt!, she dismisses the sunset before faking a yawn she draws out to exaggerated lengths, stretching her arms across the close quarters of the car, smushing my face with her left forearm reach. Oh don’t mind me, she says with pretend sleepiness.
It’s been a long few days of touring Tennessee and Josefina is over it.
We arrive. Early. I begrudgingly surrender my car keys to the valet and we head to the bar within the hotel lounge. Conversations around us go on pause as Josefina passes through. I’ve seen this before when she enters a room. I’ve seen this before in the jungle. When the jaguar appears, the birds zip it. They watch until she passes. A quiet jungle is a dangerous jungle. We order cocktails, sit at the bar and the birds behind us begin squawking again. The drinks arrive. They’re fancy.
I open my mouth to speak. But don’t. Josefina, alerted by my preparatory inhale of breath, turns her head in anticipation. Out with it, Chuckles…, she says. I was just thinking…, I begin. Oh shit, she says, here we go. Tonight is an engagement party, I state the obvious. Perhaps we don’t tell the darling couple about the wedding we witnessed last night. No need spoil the mood. Josefina scowls, offended. She asks, you think I am going to yuck their yum?, fuck their mum?, suck their bum? No, Chito, I will leave that to you. We’ve got a great story, a cautionary tale!, she says, and I doubt Vic Neverman will be able to pass-up an opportunity to spoil the mood when there is a great story to tell.
It would be in character…, I agree with her.
Seriously, though, Josefina asks, between tonight’s newly engaged and last night’s newlyweds, who do you think has a better shot of lasting until death-do-them-part? Tonight’s couple, I say, but that is likely recency bias after last night’s shit-show. Wrong!, Josefina disagrees. Tonight’s couple may be together longer, but the marriage consummated last night will most definitely end with the groom’s death. The vultures are already circling, she says. Stop…, I say, stop it with the vultures. Vultures, she says, are sacred to my people. They purify the earth. Clean them bones. You white people are too squeamish; wouldn’t understand. Vultures should be featured on wedding invitations. At least for second marriages. Third, fourth, etcetera…
Fine, but let’s not wish anything more foul on the newlyweds than what they’re already facing, I say.
Dios fucking mio!, she says, Chito!, nothing we say could make a dent in that Chernobyl train-wreck of a Sharknado marriage. Last night was the first wedding I’ve been to where the groom head-butted his mother on the dance floor. Yeah, I say, but there’s… Don’t!, she interrupts me, do not for a minute try to justify a man head-butting his mother!, at a wedding, at a zoo, even at a Cracker Barrel, that’s just, it is bad juju. Yeah, yeah, I say, I would never justify the groom’s actions, I just wouldn’t lead the story with the head-butt. If we’re going to tell the story properly, we should first lay the groundwork…, I say. Josefina says, the marriage was doomed the moment the decision was made to send wedding etiquette expectations to the guests along with the invitations. No one was allowed to wear denim or camo, no white dresses, no sequined dresses, no chewing tobacco, no spitting tobacco, no vaping, no cowboy hats, no trucker hats, no headwear of any kind, no outside alcohol or energy drinks, if you have a plus-one it shouldn’t be your donkey or first cousin though horses and second cousins are okay…, Josefina recalls the rules for attending yesterday’s wedding & reception with only mild embellishment. Jo, I say in defense of the guidelines, keep in mind the audience. This is Tennessee. Formal guidelines are a good idea. Not that you obeyed them…, I mention. You loved my dress!, Jo says. Yeah, everyone did and that’s the problem, I say to counter. Josefina huffs a sigh before saying, de todos modos, the bride didn’t obey the rules either, did she?, what?, with her tiara and blue jean cocktail dress and camouflage garter all the way up her thigh… ay güey, pobre cita…
You’re right, I say to capitulate. I know the cocktails are working when Josefina begins sneaking more Spanish into her speech. Which I adore. However, when it does happen, I know there is even less use trying to argue.
Okay, Chito… How would you begin last night’s story?, Josefina asks as she scans the hotel lounge for the beautiful people, how to begin if not with the good manners police? Would you lead with the mother of the groom being stoned on painkillers & speed? Sipping cheap champagne as she nurses her bloody nose? No, I say, I’d mention how the groom was raised by his step-mom. And really, the idea of doing the mother-son dance with each maternal figure, first the birth mom then the step-mom, is not a bad one… it was just poor communication and execution. Communication?, ha!, Josefina laughs and says, the birth mom acted surprised, shocked, insulted when the step-mom stepped-in. Birth mom fucking refused to yield, like the marching band in bye bye Miss American Pie. It wasn’t poor communication, vaya mandanga, it was pure Tennessee shithousery! To be fair, I say, we can’t blame it all on Tennessee. The birth mom is from Florida and the groom is from North Carolina. Where in North Carolina, she asks, did he learn his negotiation tactics? Blackbeard’s School of Maritime Diplomacy?
I check the time and order another round of drinks from the bartender.
No hombre, there will be no divorce for those kids, Josefina says. The bride’s brothers are already colluding. Absolutamente. The groom’s wedding band will be shat out in a Smokey Mountain hog farm by Christmas, I’d bet. Don’t worry, Chito, Josefina says sweetly, I’d never kill you. No yo personally. But if I needed to make sure you got got, it would be muy fácil. You know how? No, I say, don’t tell me and ruin the surprise. She says, I would tell your nut-job gun-slinger compadre, Cyrus Lee Hancock, about the affair you had with his first wife before she became his first ex-wife. I’d let his vengeance do the work for the both of us…, she suggests. Will you stop?, I ask as the bartender arrives with fresh cocktails.
I delay further retort until the bartender departs.
You know damn well there was no such affair, I say to her. And I know you know I know you know damn well there was no such affair. You’re fucking with me as you like to do, I say to Jo, you’re inventing shit I cannot defend because I can’t swat at air. Josefina studies my face a moment and says, you are so full of shit, but good try. No!, I say, nothing ever… Shh, she shushes me with a scowl, rejalate. Josefina hisses through clenched teeth, lower your voice, you are making a scene. I am…?, I say and shake my head. I drink deeply, inhale deeper and exhale calmness. Damn Chito, Josefina pushes me with a finger, look at you: all riled-up. You are convincing no one. What I do know, Jo says, is she played you both for fools. His first wife may not be Mexican but she’s a Latina from Texas which is close enough; I know how she thinks. I know she played you honkeys against each other.
Josefina bottoms-up the watery remains of her first drink before pushing it away and accepting the new concoction. She turns towards me and says, ay, don’t be pouty, Chito. I am just saying if the time comes, I will use your past transgressions, real or imagined, against you. It doesn’t bring me any joy to think of all the creative ways the demented mind of that maniac Cyrus Lee Hancock might exact his revenge, she says. Okay, maybe just a little joy.
Claro, I say, accepting my fate. I imagine it. Some future invitation to hike in the woods with Cyrus Lee… “whoops!, never-mind.”
I check the time and am relieved to see we’re close enough. We grab our pre-party drinks and meander towards the hostess. I tell her we are with the engagement party. The Hancock engagement?, she asks, right this way…
Jesús Christo!, Chito…, Josefina says with horror once we enter the banquet room, we’re the first jagoffs here.
We are the first guests to arrive, but the newly engaged couple is present. Cyrus Lee Hancock looks like Marc Antony in a tailored suit about to cross Caesar’s Rubicon. His latest fiancé is classically beautiful. She’s the typical statuesque blonde you see on billboards advertising toothpaste and/or laser hair-removal. Vic!, Jo!, Cyrus Lee comes to us with his new fiancé in tow. Hand-shakes, half-hugs, introductions, reintroductions. I’ll be right back, Cyrus Lee says and offers by way of over-explanation: this new herpes antiviral requires me to drink like a fish. As he departs for the lavatory, his fiancé smiles, waiting for him to be out of earshot before saying to me, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Vic. You are the only person from his past I have met and, uh… I have questions. Oh?, I ask with some concern. My mind races, wondering what she is going to ask. Did she want to know if I was a soldier of fortune with Cyrus Lee Hancock in Central Asia? No. Was I involved in Cyrus Lee Hancock’s swindling or racketeering schemes in Florida? A little. Did I know where the bodies are buried? I’ve a hunch. But it isn’t anything like that. What she wants to know is worse. This latest fiancé, with her flawless smile and lasered legs, says to me, I really, uh, I want to know about, and, um, he won’t tell me anything, but I really want to know what his first wife was like… Was she as awful as I have heard?
Yeah, Vic…, Josefina says. Jo has the leer of a vulture and crosses her arms like a prosecutor waiting on a defendant to stutter out a response. Do tell us, Josefina says before charmingly suggesting, tell us or else! Jo then turns to her new best friend and says cheerfully, yesterday I learned how to perform a surprise head-butt! The fiancé, unsure of how to interpret this information, says by way of response: oh…!? The two women turn back to me, expecting my full report.
I do not want to defame the first Mrs Hancock. I should tell the truth. I should tell the ladies the pioneering original spouse of Cyrus Lee Hancock was delightful, a wonderful person, and, to be honest, it was Cyrus Lee who was the tyrannical dick. I should. And what?, ruin tonight’s engagement party? Not to mention that by speaking positively about the first wife, I would be walking right into the trap of Josefina’s self-fulfilling paranoia? Tomorrow she & I have a ten hour drive back to Florida. If I give a glowing endorsement of Cyrus Lee’s first wife, Jo is going to make the next 24 hours a living hell for me. The next 24 days… 24 years… hell she’ll haunt me for 24 lifetimes… she would.
Awful?, I say with hesitance, yeah, uh… she was awful… awful-ly… well, I guess she was awfully pretty.
Shit. I can hear the flapping wings of the birds circling overhead. This will not end well.
Uncharted Dives 