El Cantina Senorita de Rojo
Mexico City, Mexico.
September 15
Hard right to the jaw. Head flying back, spotlights in the eyes. Powerhouse to the gut. Cheap shot. Shouldnt've let him get away with it. Ah well, gotta give them their money's worth. I'll be pounding on this guy's butt good and hard soon enough.
Another right, deflected off my ribs. Gotta go down on this one; making it look convincing. That one hurt a little. Caught me right over last night's exit wound.
A couple weeks ago, I'd decided I'd had it with the desert cantinas. The big city fight clubs offered a nice change of scenery, and since Mexico City was only a couple hundred miles away, why not give it a shot? Yeah, they have their reputations, but it's really nothing spectacular. More money, more sluts wanting to spend your money, more jerks looking to get a piece of you, more chances to get drunk on better whisky.
Of course, I don't necessarily want whiskey right now. Or even a smoke. I crave lead. Hot, liquid-solid-metal relief pumped straight into the brain.
Snap-kick straight to the groin. Ouch. Flying back into the barrier, growling a little when some drunk girl tries to wipe my sweat onto her shirt through the fence. Everyone's crazy down here, I swear. Everyone including me. I've just about had enough of this punk--I roll to my feet, catching him mid-jeer with a fist straight to his dirty little mouth. And I really mean dirty...his teeth are just about black. Or at least whatever teeth he'll have left after he finishes spitting blood out.. I just hope none of that junk came off on my knuckles...
When you break it all down, suicide is nothing more than a bad one-night stand. It's fast. It's messy. It takes you places you don't want to go and then dumps you there until you wake up feeling like mano y mano with a sledgehammer. But in the process of all that, it takes your mind off who you are, what you are, and that's what keeps me coming back for more.
/Speaking of sledgehammers, I think I'll repay an eye for an eye and play with his ribs a little while. Yeah, see how he likes it. He didn't even take a bullet last night./
Death's got a real racket going on with all this mystic garbage. She's not some regal queen on a throne; she's a cheap prostitute in a gutter alley. She doesn't care how or when or where just as long as she gets her payment in flesh. A payment that I am in a unique position to provide, which makes me one of her favorite customers. Oh yeah, she leaves the light on for me every time I come around. Stands in her doorway wearing her best black lace with a blood red smile on her lips.
/Finished with the ribs; I heard a couple things crack that weren't meant to crack. You gotta play rough in this town; if not, the guy you took it easy on in the ring will catch you in an alley and his hombres will hold you down while he slits your spine with his switchblade. Never happened to me; never gonna happen to me. They want to fight hard, that's ok. I'll fight harder./
You're not supposed to dream when you're dead, so I don't know what to call the things I see. Memories? Premonitions? Sometimes they're even good things, fragile, beautiful things that I almost can't recognize as mine. Last night, for example, I remember detail-by-detail the first time I told Marie I loved her. I even remembered how she smelled. Oranges and coffee. Or I'll remember dancing with her, walking with her...just plain looking at her. It's like death taunts me with all the lives I lost the chance to live. She sells me make-believe futures in exchange for bullets and blood.
/Uppercut to his nose; shattering the bone. Blood splatters on my face, on the crowd through the fence. They cheer. It's just about time to put this guy out. One more good one ought to do the trick./
Other times, the suicide queen deals out the past, every single memory of the road that brought me to this dead end life. That's the darker half of the addiction-- she keeps me pumped full of a hundred and one reasons not to live, a never-ending feed of logic telling me why I need to come back for another fix.
/Winding my arm back for the killer blow; blood in my eyes, blood in his eyes. Wanting to scream and make it all just go away. Wondering, in the last second before my fist connects with his temple, what Marie would think or say or do if she saw me here, if she saw me like this./
I play my games with suicide, she plays her games with me, but at the end do you want to know the real, gritty truth? At the end, I'm never too sure which one of us is really the whore.
Knockout.
"So, you're the Wolverine. Impressive. Not as tall as I thought. Wider though."
Great. Another one. What does this one want...my money, my pants, or both? Maybe if I ignore her, she'll just go away.
"Bartender....a drink. Tequila, like my man Wolvie's drinking. Order him another one too. On me."
And she expects me to thank her for this?
"I ain't your man." I growl over my shoulder, not even bothering to look at her. Seen one; seen 'em all. I'll be surprised if she's not stone drunk. No one here is that perky naturally.
"Good, cause I ain't your woman."
She leans against the bar beside me, and I turn my head until I can just barely see her out of the corner of my eye. Not what I was expecting. She's a short little thing. Dark brown eyes just like....no, I won't think about it that way. Blue hair. No kidding. It's the color of Marie's favorite pair of opera gloves, a midnight blue so dark it could be black. She's wearing dark purple lipstick.
"Buzz off, kid."
She sounds young. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. Twenty would be pushing it. Marie will be nineteen this year. No, don't think of it that way either. It'll hurt you too bad.
"I bought you a drink. You have to give me five minutes."
I slide around sideways so that I'm half-facing her, half-facing my tequila. "Thirty seconds."
"Xavier never taught manners at his fancy house?"
My hand freezes around my glass, all my senses instantly flaring to alert. The claws prick the back of my knuckles.
"Xavier?"
"Hello? Your old boss. Leader of the X-men? Ah, don't look so paranoid. I'm an information broker. It's my business to know things like this."
"Then this conversation is over because I ain't got information to sell."
She glares at me like Scooter used to when I said something exceptionally dumb at dinner.
"My uncle and I are part of an underground for people of a certain...genetic persuasion. Word has it that there's a tough guy on the fight circuit who's paying a thousand for information about a mutant once associated with the X-men. Rogue."
"You got the wrong man."
"And do you know anyone else in Mexico who comes equipped with steel claws in his hands?"
Ok, heard enough. I'm leaving now before her back-up team gets here to shoot a tranq dart into my spine. She grabs my jacket as I swing off the stool. Gotta admit; that's gutsy for someone who knows about my...capabilities.
"Relax." She says. "I'm one too. Radiation's my thing. Comes out through my skin when I get mad."
"You always tell your mutation to strangers? I could take you across the border and sell you for that."
Maybe it's the eyes, maybe it's the fact that she sounds too much like Marie, but I figure I owe her at least a warning. She's too young to end up rotting in a camp or a laboratory or hooked on heroin in the brothels waiting for the next fat businessman.
/Like Marie?/I growl at the thought.
"You won't." Her voice is still calm, edged with a bit of cockiness.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because we can tell you how to find her."
Every muscle in my body turns to stone. I can't even swallow my tequila; it pools in the back of my mouth, burning holes in my tongue. Five seconds pass. Ten. Fifteen.
"What makes you think I'm still looking?"
She tilts her head to the side a little and looks at me.
"Because you wouldn't take a pounding like you did tonight if you'd found her or found a way to live without her."
Now that, I don't have an answer for. I try, but I don't. She stands up from the bar, waving her hand for me to follow her.
"C'mon. Talk to my uncle. He can help you. I promise."
We cross the room to a small booth filled with a greasy little man who might just have more metal on him than I do. Thick gold chains around his neck, falling down the neck of a yellow silk shirt worn Vegas-style. Rings jammed over rings on Polish sausage fingers. The scent of tarnished metal hovers around him; a nearly imperceptible corruption and decay. The smell of dealing in flesh, in secrets. In men and women and hope.
"The name's Reggie. Reggie Vargas."
He reaches out to shake my hand. I don't move.
"Jilly, darlin'," He pats his niece, or the girl who claims she's his niece, on the hand. "Make yourself scarce while the gentleman and I get to business." He grins up at me. A silver grin.
"So you're the Wolverine. I was wonderin' when I'd get the chance to meet you. Your reputation precedes you, as always seems to be the case."
"What reputation?"
"Seventy fights on both sides of the Rio Grande, all won by knock out. Sixty-eight before the first round was over. What happened to the other two? Get tired or just bored?" He laughs; it sounds like grease splattering on cement.
"Just get to the point. Kid said you got some information I'd be interested in."
"All in good time, my friend. Would you like a drink?"
I tense my knuckles; six blades of metal glow dully in the smoke-filled air.
"You heard I had these, right? Part of my reputation? Because I tend to use them if I get impatient. I feel that comin' on real fast now."
His grin wavers, oil under heat, but he regains composure with practiced speed.
"You're looking for a girl. Have been for some time. It would have made it easier if you'd spread it that you two were with the X-men in the first place. Me and Jilly busted our chops tracking that down, when all we would have had to do was ask....everyone knows about you guys. Or at least, what's left of you. Your buddies took it hard when the Big Apple cracked down."
I relax my muscles, watching the skin split then regenerate as the steel slides back into my flesh.
"So you've found her?"
"Tracking down a mutant on the run these days is like looking for a rat in the sewer. The trick is to find the biggest nests. I keep tabs on most of the places that get the heavy traffic. Her particular talent makes it a bit easier, but I wouldn't go so far to say I've found her."
"But you do know where she might be."
"Call it an educated guess."
"Where?"
"What do you think this is? Charity?"
A scrape of metal against metal; I pin him to the table by his necklaces.
"Charity is me letting you keep at least one or two vital organs if you keep me waiting any longer."
"Ok, ok, point taken."
His face is red; sweating like water running off lard. Why do I think it's more over concern for his jewelry than his life?
"No more stalling."
I let him up. He coughs; swallows the rest of his drink; scoots back from the table before he talks to me again.
"Three thousand for the information and an additional four to get you across the border."
"How bout you tell me while you can still talk and then I cross the border on my own?"
"How long you been down here? A month? Two months?"
"Long enough."
"It's gotten worse up there. They barely even tolerate the registereds, now. You get three choices-- reservations, camps, laboratories. But you're smart...you're strong...I'd give you three weeks before they picked you up as an unregistered. And even if you did stay on the streets, you'd never be able to find her. You gotta be able to move around."
"You can make that happen."
"We offer our clients total mobility-- gene therapy treatment to hide the mutation as long as you want."
"How?"
"Implants, drug cocktails...that's not important. What's important is that you'll be able to go anywhere a human can go. But that kind of freedom comes with a price. I only asked you for seven thousand. I've had offers of up to seven hundred thousand. And I'm even willing to make it easy on you."
He pours himself another glass of tequila; charm oozing from his smile to clog every pore in his face.
"I know you don't have that kind of money. I'll cut you a deal. There's another mutant playing the circuit who's undefeated. He'll be here in two weeks, and I want you to fight him. I'm not talking this fight club crap you put up with. I'm talking high stakes fighting. I'll put ten thousand on your victory. You win and I'll consider it your fee. I'll even let you keep two thousand for expenses."
I don't have to think. Not really. It's an instinct; a craving, just like the twitch of my finger that sends a bullet into my bones.
"One condition."
"Name it."
"Tell me what you know about her now. I'll fight for you and pay your fee. But I need some kind of guarantee."
"They call it the Phoenix Compound. It belonged to a whacked-out group of survivalists before the legislations. Mutants exclusively. It had to be some kind of weird cult thing, but now it's turned into a sort of sanctuary for those who can afford it...and those who can put up with that kind of craziness. I've been hearing lately that an X-man showed up there not long ago; with two women. A redhead and a girl with white streaks in her hair. That was your description of Rogue, right?"
"Yes."
You can hardly force the word out between your teeth. She's alive. She's safe.
"Where is the compound?"
"First you fight for me. Then we'll talk location."
"Fine. Just let me know when and where."
"Certainly. You need anything in the mean time, just let me know."
One last tarnished silver smile.
I walk away.
Marie is alive. I knew it; I always knew it, even when I gave up. Even when I buried her in my mind. It was so much easier to gain the forgiveness of a ghost. A ghost can't say they hate you for leaving them. A ghost can't bleed because you failed to protect them. A ghost can't say they don't love you anymore. That's the fear, isn't it? That's the ice water dumped straight down the spine.
I need another drink.
Dancing In Rooms: Logan
You promised her you'd be across the border by now; you're not. Another delay; the usual apologetic message received at the usual designated pay phone. We're sorry, but the security is getting tighter. You'll have to wait. At five hundred dollars a head, you expect better service. You hang up the phone and try not to look at the hope in her eyes when you shake your head.
(Not yet. Next week, they said.
Isn't that what they said last week?)
She rubs her hands together, you smell the cold on her. A thin, dry smell like old ice.
(So where are we supposed to go this time?)
A basement, a cellar, an attic room-- these are the places you have been, the places you have bought or begged to hide until the arrangements are finished that will get the two of you across the border into freedom. Such places are safe, unquestionably, but they are also expensive. You don't want to tell her you're running low on cash. The smugglers want a thousand to take you across the border, and even if you get there, it takes just as much money to live in Canada as it does in New York City.
You have to take her somewhere, though, can't expect her to spend the night on the streets, not when there's snow on the ground and registration patrols looking for anyone out past curfew. So you take her hands inside yours, pushing warmth into the stiff bones, and you take her to a motel you remember from the one time you hit New York on the fight circuit. That was a long time before you met her. You're surprised the place hasn't burned down by now, or been shut down by the police on drug charges. It's the first time you've done this, and it's a risk, but no one asks questions at this kind of dump, not as long as you can pay the bill. And you can. You slide the clerk an extra twenty to keep his mouth shut, grinning at him around your cigar.
(My wife wouldn't approve of the little lady.)
She smiles at this, a bored, beautiful smile that convinces the man you're not a mutant, just an adulterer. He nods and the cash disappears into his grimy sweatpants.
The room is a bad as you remember. Carpet the color of rotting spinach, spotted with beer stains and cigarette burns and even a little bit of blood in the corner. It smells of stale urine, of decaying teeth. A cotton spread covers the double bed, colored a dull yellow pink like a callus on the sole of your foot.
You drop your bags on the floor; a cloud of dust floats up. She's still rubbing her hands. It's colder in the room than it is outside.
(I'm sorry. You deserve better.
Don't talk like that. I don't deserve anything. Anyway, it's good camouflage.
We won't be here long. Just a couple of nights.
Then there's nothing to apologize for, is there?)
She tests the bed; bouncing as she sits.
(Did you lock the door?
It doesn't lock.
Oh.)
You notice a radio in the corner, battered and corroded as the rest of the room, but a relief nonetheless. The reception is poor; more static than sound, but eventually you find a station that is clear enough to listen to. Public radio; a violin playing something wild and beautiful and sad. She plays like that for you, sometimes, but most of the time now she just looks at her violin. Touches it, like a wish or a prayer.
(Keep it on that station.) she says. (I want that one tonight.)
Neither of you have to say a word about what happens next. It is routine, ritual, as familiar by now as getting out of bed or brushing your teeth. She stands in front of you, slides her arms around your neck, leans her head over your heart. You hold her around the waist, hands together at the small of her back. And you dance. It doesn't matter what kind of music there is. Rock, blues, classical, country. Or sometimes there isn't music at all; just your heart and hers beating out the silence.
A long time before this afternoon, she told you why she loved to dance. When a person dances, she said, they're free. Nothing else matters but the motion and the music and you can close your eyes and be anywhere or anything you want to be. She asked you to dance with her the first night after you left the mansion. Both of you were a little scared that night; she was worried she'd slow you down and you were worried you'd make a mistake and lose her. The dance was meant to calm nerves, to quiet fear.
Now you dance every night as a way to remind yourselves that all this was temporary; transient. A defiance, perhaps, but also an escape. A need to be somewhere else. It made it harder, though, when you knew that every time was, in a way, the last time. Because neither of you knew if you'd still be together by morning, or if you'd even be alive.
The time of the dancing in rooms lasted almost a month, but you never could quite figure out why she loved the sad things most of all-- the dissonant chords, the minor keys. Or rather, you knew all along but never wanted to admit it. You knew she heard herself in the music. She heard both of you, and she knew in advance how the song would end.
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