Prologue

“There it is. There’s our lovely little town.” This introduction pours from the heart now, when Charles Blackmore crests the last ridge before winding down the hillside to the twinkling lights of town.

The night he says it to Anthony Drury he has to correct himself. “No, wait. That’s not it. That’s some industrial slum I forgot the name of; well, hell, they all look alike at night.” They ride a few more minutes until, cresting the last ridge, Charles fixes his bearings and says, “There it is. There’s our lovely little town.” He smiles fondly and says he’s new on the job; the first crest fooled him, but it won’t happen again. “It’s one thing that made me a solid actor,” he says. “Instant recall. I read a script; I know a script. Leaves more time for the flourish, if you can get the basic step down. I’ve played the last crest casually. I’ve played it sentimentally, and I’ve played it from the heart. I think the heart is best. Don’t you?”

Tony Drury scans the lights and measures the place. “How new could you be, if you already played it three ways? How solid could you have been, driving a taxi in Mexico?”

They’re too late, these two, for hollow claims and false fronts. Tony Drury wants away from all that.

Charles smiles. “You never heard of me?”

“That’s right. I heard of a Charles Laughton, a Charles Boyer, Lindberg, Manning, Durning, Keating. I know of a Prince Charles and a Charles McCarthy, but I can’t recall a Blackwell.”

“Blackmore. And it’s a tour van, actually.”

“A tour van. Yes. Sorry,” Tony says, pressing on, lest an unresolved untruth taint his homecoming. “How solid could you have been, driving a tour van in Mexico?”

The fond smile twists to chagrin. “You’re right. I’m no better now than I ever was, which wasn’t much good. My name is Charles. Joven Carlos, if you like. I’m a failed actor. How’s that? I had potential, until my nosedive. Engines screamed; smoke plumed; flames licked about. But I never failed with my lines. Get the picture?”

Tony turns from the spectacular view to his driver. “Why punish yourself?”

Charles shrugs. “I thought you preferred it. You need to read your customers in this line of work, if you want the decent tips.” Tony laughs and turns back to the view. Charles says, “You’re an actor yourself, no?”

“No. Just a bullshitter. I have my lines down, too.”

“Touché. You should fit right in.”

Silence enfolds. The fixed price for the hour and a half trip from the airport is thirty-five dollars American, as if that leg is still outbound, tied to the economy of origin. Tony pays thirty-seven, because two dollars goes farther here, and he feels the service only adequate.

He carries his own bag, makes small tidings with the concierge and goes up. The room welcomes him with dim light and thorough quaintness. An oblong mirror with beveled edges and a filigreed frame of ancient madrone reflects gently over the dresser. Stippled walls in mottled yellow promise a soft tomorrow, when sunlight will ease through the translucent glass brick in the ceiling. Big flowered tiles on the bathroom walls go better than you’d expect with medium singing-bird tiles in the shower and a green-and-orange swirl on the floor. Water pressure is adequate for rinsing off the road, and the rough-hewn brass-fish towel rack and mismatched mounting screws are refreshingly low-tech.

Stepping back outside to release lingering tensions of a day on the road, a rejuvenating traveler looks both ways as if checking traffic before stepping into the future. “I wonder where she is now,” he wonders of the woman of chance. Well, her presence seems as obvious here as anywhere, given proper timing and patience.

A lovely discovery the next block down gives pleasant closure to contemplation of random events in nature; the liquor store is open. A man coming up the street stops near the entrance and says, “Hello.” Tony nods. “Don’t I know you?” Tony shakes his head. “Haven’t we met? In the past, perhaps?” Tony says he only just arrived and no, they haven’t met. The man apologizes, and on second thought offers his hand. “I’m Bob Wattelle.”

“That’s all right,” Tony says, shaking his head and stepping inside. “Many people tell me I look alike.” The man stares after him uncertainly, as if to ask, You look alike whom? But Tony is already taken with the incredibly slender, tall and beautiful half-pints, already preoccupied with good thoughts, the first in a long while. Each shape captures a unique appeal, and he strives to try them all. Selection is difficult until he realizes, hey, I have all night, which is a joke, of course, because he actually has all the nights a man could want. Happy to be surrounded by evidence of a prevailing aesthetic, he glances at the door, but it’s empty. He regrets his behavior with Bob Wattelle and Charles Blackhole or whatever it was. They could have been friends. Still could be, he supposes. He makes his selection and determines to open up.

Three restaurants in the next block lure him along. He chooses La Grutas because it sounds Mexican, and soft salsa music scores the journey well. A tart aroma feels warmed by the fireplace and cayenne—could it possibly be relleños?

Inside, a waiter bows and bids buenas noches and seats him near the fire. A woman several tables over waves her arms and exclaims, “He barfed! They made him eat the salad, and he barfed! All over the table! Everywhere!”

He orders a Negra Modelo, folds his napkin and goes to the quaint, swinging doors under the painted caballero. A little boy in the booth retches while a man holds him from behind as if to keep him from falling in. The man says the worst is over, wait here. The man goes to fetch a clean cloth. The boy, red-faced and tearful, watches Tony Drury relieve himself and with a shaky voice says, “I barfed.”

“I know,” Tony says. “It happens to the best of us.”

“They made me eat the salad,” the little boy says.

Tony shakes his head. “They shouldn’t have done that. They made me eat Jell-O with peas in it once. I puked, same as you. That’ll teach them. You don’t have to eat anything you don’t want to.”

“What about when your mother makes you?”

“You heard me. Now you’ll always have the salad under your belt, in case you have to remind them.”

“What about when it comes out your nose?”

“Well,” Tony laughs. “That can happen to anyone, too. It happened to me once, and I wasn’t even sick. Eating chicken noodle soup and this guy tells this joke about B.B. King’s wife—maybe you’ve heard it. Anyway, it was so funny I couldn’t stop laughing, and the noodles came out my nose.”

“It hurts,” the little boy says.

“Yes. I know. But it was funny.”

The man had returned and tells the little boy, “It’s not funny to you, is it?”

The little boy says no. Tony says, “But it’s pretty funny to look back on, noodles coming out your nose.” He shakes off, repacks, flushes, washes and says, “I have to go now. Good luck.”

The man dabs the cloth and doesn’t turn around. The little boy says thank you and good-bye. Tony pulls out his skinny pint, uncaps and samples the wares. A lustrous glow rounds the moment with gentility and the spirit of a brave child. He winks. The little boy smiles. And he returns to his table for another happy surprise, which is the beer with its unique flavor, complex yet smooth, and yes, it was chili relleños he smelled from outside, prepared with a delicacy suggesting dinner with friends.

A few more beers, a nice walk around the garden in the center of town, a nip or two from the slender beauty, and arrival never felt so good. He turns in, feeling more at home all the time.

The morning begins when it feels good and ready. A chance discovery of a breakfast nook behind a bookstore yields tamales of extreme caliber. A few hours before siesta allow for further discovery among the cobblestone streets and pastel masonry. An enterprising fellow up on Ancha San Antonio has rigged a bicycle chain to an electric motor that turns a linkage of tortuous complexity that turns a rack holding two hundred splayed chickens. A propane tank fuels the fire evenly below and discourages bacteria. A line forms. Tony Drury stands in it, and when his turn comes he holds up one finger and says, “Sí,” several times to questions he feels unthreatened by. He goes back to his room with a perfectly barbecued chicken, two perfectly marinated jalapeños, a hard roll and another slender beauty. Eating with two hands feels decadent and rich and perfect as well as prelude to a lovely lie-down for an hour or two. A most pleasant snooze assures another enjoyable evening in which cocktails will run till eight or nine with an excellent dinner afterward. He drifts off in the warm reverie of mere pennies on the dollar.

Near dusk he strolls a jardin transformed, not so much physically as essentially; hordes of people walk it, sit on its benches, absorb its bounteous society. Some talk, some read, some sit. People who would be home staring at the tube elsewhere, here gather for the event called life. Day fades to night. Long-tailed grackles come to roost in the ficus canopy, their chatter soon drowning all the idle chit chat humanity can offer, until the people are reduced to smiles and nods. Pigeons by the hundreds roost in the parapets and towers of the gigantic church across the plaza, on the figureheads and between their legs, as if the church is a cliff, and refuge can be taken in the dramatic front.

A man sits beside him when the street lights and church lights come on and delineate the darkness. The man asks in Spanish if he, Tony, just arrived. Tony says no, he arrived yesterday, because a day and a night feel like all the difference.

The man sits back and sighs and says more and more are coming now.