Not Part of My Objective
Logan gave a final glance around the silent apartment. His knapsack and duffel bag were already sitting on the floor next to the door, he’d washed up the coffee mug he’d used and left it beside the sink, and he really didn’t know why it was already ten o’clock and he was still there.
He picked up his bags and let himself out of the apartment. It was cooler this morning, beginning to feel like fall, and as he fished the key out of the mailbox for the last time he had to reach past envelopes and magazines. He took the mail out so he could reach the key; on top was a long white envelope with the logo of the University of New Orleans in one corner. He couldn’t help his gaze falling on her address. Marie D’Ancanto.
He’d never even asked for her last name, and he was kind of sorry he knew it now. He locked the front door, stuffed the mail back into the box and dropped the key in after it. The truck was just across the street; he threw his gear into the passenger side, got in and headed toward Route 10, towards Texas and Mexico and away from Louisiana.
He drove all day and most of the night. Someone had once told him jokingly that you could drive forever in Texas and still be in Texas; it was a damn big state. But he kept going, all along the coast of the Gulf, until he finally reached Brownsville, just short of the border. He found a cheap motel room for what was left of the night, and slept for a few hours on rough sheets that smelled only of stale cigarettes and bad Mexican food.
Logan felt better the next morning as he crossed into Mexico. The first stop was Matamoros, right across the border, and driving into the town felt satisfyingly normal. He found the fight club and saw several familiar combatants, none of whom seemed particularly pleased to see him. That made him feel even more at ease, and later that night, when he was back to pummeling them into bloody pulps, it was a relief to find it so easy to slip back into his usual routine.
He collected his money at the end of the night, the dour ringmaster doling it out reluctantly as Logan’s gaze swept the bar. There were several local talents hanging around, and he knew from experience they’d prefer to go with the winner. There was a blonde with a slightly rabbity look, another blonde in a tight pink dress that hurt his eyes just to look at, and a dark-eyed beauty who’d had the sense not to bleach her hair. She smiled when she saw him looking and raised her glass in a brief salute. He stared at her for a long moment.
Then he grabbed his money, knocked back his beer and walked out of the bar. He strode directly to his truck, threw his stuff in the back and slammed the front door behind him. He fished for a cigar in his jacket pocket as he swung the truck around and headed back towards the highway, savagely battering the lighter against the dashboard when it refused to work on the first try, because damn it, he needed a smoke. He’d never been sentimental or maudlin in the least, so the reason his hand shook just a little as he finally got the cigar lit had to be sheer incredulity at the improbability of it all, the utter coincidence.
Lots of women probably wore gloves.
He made Cuidad Madero that night, and he slept in the truck, waking to the cries of gulls and the smell of the salt sea air. He was a day ahead of the circuit here, so he had a full day to pull his head together and stop acting like an idiot. He didn’t bother with a motel at all, just skulked between dive bars until the early hours, then crashed in the truck again for a few hours. The fights passed in a blur this time; between near-exhaustion, too many drinks and a couple of lucky shots early in the night, he was actually facing the last pairing as the underdog. He paced in his corner, trying to shake off his fatigue as his opponent was introduced to a roar of applause. The other man was huge, muscular, not an ounce of fat on him.
He didn’t have an adamantium-laced skeleton, but there were moments when Logan wasn’t sure that was going to matter, especially when he was trapped against the grid of the cage with those meaty fists battering his midsection. He managed to twist away, but the man stuck out an oversized foot and tripped him as he tried to find a little breathing room. Logan hit the concrete, hard, and then his opponent was on him, lifting him and throwing him into the bars.
He stayed down for a few seconds, rising just in time to beat the count. He cracked his neck, willing the healing to kick in and dull the pain. His opponent circled, watching warily, looking for an opening that would let him put Logan down for good. He lunged and Logan tried to avoid the punch, but it connected and Logan tasted blood. He wiped a hand over his chin as the man continued to circle, continued to scout his weaknesses. Logan forced his mind to the task at hand. Just gotta get one good punch in.
He spun away from another blow and caught the man’s arm as he followed through. He threw his opponent forward, letting his momentum carry him, and the man crashed into the bars. He didn’t go down, but when he turned Logan was ready. He caught the next punch on his forearm and the other fighter’s face twisted in surprise and pain at the impact. Logan used the shock against him, driving him back to the bars again and landing a kick to his knee. The larger man didn’t buckle, but the pain made him swing wildly in his fury and Logan got the opening he needed. He swung from the heels, straight up and into his chin, and his opponent went down as though he’d been shot.
In the tiny curtained area that served as a dressing room, Logan threw water over his face and neck, dashing away some of the blood and sweat and trying to clear his head. That’s enough of that. He needed a day or two off, because getting back in the cage with his mind somewhere else was going to get him in serious trouble. A couple of days, that was all he needed, and he’d get it together.
A few days later, in Mexico City, it was Día de la Independencia, and he was wandering through happy, half-drunken crowds of revelers. There were stands set up everywhere selling food and noisemakers and all kinds of cheap handicrafts, and late that night there were fireworks displays. Logan found himself standing in the shadows of a boarded-up storefront, drinking Dos Equis and ostensibly waiting for the fireworks to end, but instead he was watching people passing by. Wondering what brought them there. Where they were going. Who they were.
Coalcomán and Ocotlán were next, deeper country where Spanish was far from the only language spoken and his typical laconism went unremarked at the best of times, because there was little to communicate that couldn’t be managed with the point of a finger, a nod or a shrug. Ocotlán sat on the borders of a lake, and Logan watched three suns set over its waters. The colors looked different each time.
Aguascalientes, and he caught himself thinking that the name would make Marie laugh, even if it was just the equivalent of ‘Hot Springs’. Jerez, then El Salto, where he was stuck for almost a week by floods that washed out the roads and made driving impossible. Guadalupe Calvo, in the Sierra Madres, and then Hermosillo, on the Rio Sonora, where jasmine bloomed everywhere. By the time he reached Heroica Nogales, he’d quit pretending he wasn’t heading back towards the border, because he could track his proximity simply by the amount of English he heard spoken.
He crossed the border on the Day of All Souls, and on the periphery it was hard to tell which country he was in. He kept moving, and because you really can drive forever in Texas and still be in Texas, he slept in the truck again on his way to Houston, where he arrived early enough that he had to wait an hour, drinking bad street-vendor coffee, before the bank opened and he was able to empty the safe deposit box he’d had there for the last ten years. Before he left town he bought a phone card at a corner deli. He found a pay phone in the back of a quiet luncheonette and dialed a number scrawled on a piece of paper he had stuffed into a pocket of his jacket.
“Hey. It’s Logan. Callin’ to see if that offer still stands.”
“Yeah, you’re a fuckin’ genius.”
“No, I’m in Houston. Headin’ out in a few minutes.”
“Okay. See you in a couple days.”
He hung up, his mouth twisting in a half-reluctant smile, and ordered a sandwich to go before climbing back into his mud-spattered truck and continuing his trek.
It was a little after eight o’clock in the evening when he turned the last few blocks off Jackson Square and found a place to park. New Orleans was different in the fall, the lush vegetation in retreat, and the night air had a slight chill. Logan shouldered his knapsack and went up the steps of the porch. He checked the mailbox and the key wasn’t there; that was good, it probably meant she was at home. He knocked on the door, preparing himself as he heard someone moving inside.
The door opened and when he looked up, he was face-to-face with a young blond man.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Travels and introspections. That sort of thing.