1

It wasn’t just that getting old was no picnic, everyone knows that, but the thing that surprised Pace was how invisible one becomes. Throughout the first seventy-five years of his life—though he seriously doubted there would be a second seventy-five—Pace had maintained himself relatively well; he’d kept up his strength as best he could, and his mind, like Cool Hand Luke’s, was right. He did not beg for company, entertaining himself mainly with his writing and reading. At seventy-seven, however, his eyesight had begun to fail; he also sustained a bad fall, breaking his left wrist when he lost his balance on the step-ladder while trying to reach a book on the top shelf of Louis Delahoussaye’s library; and he had torn a muscle on the right side of his gluteus maximus stretching awkwardly to lift a stump he intended to chop up for firewood. As a younger man, Pace had been able to hoist a great deal of weight with one arm; he learned the hard way that those days would not come again.

He often thought about how different his life at this stage might have been had Pastor Perfume James not been killed a few years before in the infamous Easter tornado; that is, of course, if they had stayed together. Perfume was forty-two years younger and knew what she was getting into by hooking up with him, but she had insisted that the disparity in their ages did not matter to her, that with God’s help she would deal with Pace’s inevitable infirmities as they occurred. Perfume was certainly pleased that his cock came to attention in her presence without pharmaceutical assistance. Pace insisted that she take this as a compliment to her charms and she did.

It was easy for young folks to dismiss or ignore old people. The day before, on the street in Bay St. Clement, as Pace was coming out of Vincenzo’s Plumbing Supply, where he had bought a new augur to snake a backed-up commode, a seven or eight year-old girl had come up to him and said, “You’re ancient, mister.” “Yes,” he said, “I am.” She reminded him of Gagool Angola, whom he had not seen in almost seven years. Gagool was now fourteen. She had probably forgotten Pace and most likely he would no longer recognize her. The thought of this stung him. Their few moments together, even during a difficult time, had been not merely memorable but sweet, even tender. It was enough, thought Pace, only because it had to be.

At the age of eighty, Lula, accompanied by her friend Beany, had embarked on what turned out to be her final road trip. Pace was not yet eighty, but he had not travelled in years and had the itch. He needed to go before his eyesight got any worse, or some unforeseen ailment seized his person. But where to? He’d not heard for five years from his cousin, Early Ripley, in New York, whom he had once planned to visit but never did. Early suffered from prostate cancer and was probably dead by now. Of course Pace could go to New York, anyway, but the idea did not appeal to him: too many people in too small a space.

He had been thinking lately about Mexico and Guatemala. The indigenous people there had understood the concept of the Up-Down, though that certainly had not tempered their proclivity for violent behavior. Visiting Uxmal, Chichen Itza and Tikal intrigued him. Pace had recently bought a used Toyota 4Runner with only forty-three thousand miles on it, after his ancient—like himself—Nissan Pathfinder had finally expired with just shy of three hundred thousand miles on her. The Toyota would work, but he needed a companion, not just someone to talk to, but in case one or more of his body parts failed him. Oscarito, Jr.’s son, Oscarito III, would be a good one. He was only thirty-two years old, unmarried, and a crack automobile mechanic, which skills could undoubtedly come in handy. Pace decided to ask Terry—short for Tercero, Spanish for third—as his daddy called him, if an all-expenses paid road trip to Old Mexico interested him. Of course Pace knew that it might be difficult for Terry to take time away from the service station and car repair business he and Oscarito, Jr., operated in Bay St. Clement, but it was worth a try.

To Pace’s surprise and delight, Terry agreed to go. He told Pace, whom he had known for half of his life, that he could get away for two or three weeks at the beginning of December. “As long as we’re back before Christmas,” said Terry. “I can’t miss my mama’s birthday, which is Christmas Eve.” Oscarito, Jr., thought it was a good idea, too, seeing as how his son had been working six or seven days a week for months.

Pace had more than a month to prepare for the trip, plenty of time to decide on a route and how much they might be able to accomplish over a relatively tight schedule. It would take too long to drive all the way to the Yucatan, let alone Guatemala, Pace figured, so he set his sights on their heading straight to Mexico City, where he’d never been, and seeing what happened once they got there.

“Plenty of sizzlin’ little angels in Mexico City, I bet,” Terry said.

“As the poet wrote,” replied Pace, “We present ourselves among ignorant beasts by appearing as angels.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Terry.