Mike recognized the boy who had played the bull.
The boy handed Juan the bottle, and the two spoke rapidly, Juan pulling at his mustache.
Mike caught the words “Pepe” and “cárcel.” The latter word was repeated several times, but he could not recall its meaning.
Juan and the boy finished talking, and Juan fished a coin from his pocket and tossed it to the boy, who once again became a bull. With head lowered and horns pointing outward, he went charging through the cape-like doors.
Juan unfastened the towel from around his middle and turned to Mike, his manner quite serious. “Carlos has taken Pepe to jail.”
“This is something new?”
“Si. It has never happened before.”
“What will happen?”
“I do not know, but we must help Pepe.” He paused as if realizing it was none of Mike’s affair. “You will help,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Of course. If I can.”
Juan took the cardboard license from behind the bar and stuffed it under his shirt, then hurried outside.
Mike followed him into the street and was again struck by the suddenness of the heat, the brightness of the sun.
Carlos and Pepe were nowhere in sight. All was quiet. It was still the siesta.
Juan led the way along the dusty, unpaved streets till they came at last to a squat, adobe building with Estación de Policia in neat black letters above the door.
They entered a bare, cheerless room containing a desk and two straight-backed chairs.
Carlos glared at them from behind the desk as they entered.
“How is Pepe?” Juan asked.
“He is loco!” Carlos said, waving his arms. “That is how he is! He is loco, loco, loco! He will not understand he is no station wagon!”
“Maybe he is a station wagon,” Mike said.
“What? You say this? No, my friend, you think as I do. You cannot believe him. He is loco!”
“How do you know Pepe is loco?” Mike asked. “How do you know he is not a station wagon?”
“Because he is no vehicle,” Carlos answered, turning away as if not wanting to discuss it.
“Our friend Juan here,” Mike said, “is he a bartender?”
“Si.”
“Why is he a bartender? What makes him a bartender?”
“He serves tequila.”
“If you come to my home and I serve you tequila, am I a bartender?”
“It is not the same thing, my friend. Pepe is human — he cannot be a vehicle.”
Juan could contain himself no longer. “What have you done with Pepe?” he demanded.
“Pepe! Pepe! Pepe!” Carlos shouted, waving his arms. “Why will you not understand? Pepe is no station wagon. I say to him, ‘Pepe, where are your wheels?’ and he tells me he is a station wagon.”
“You have put him in jail?” Juan asked.
“He would not go to jail!” Carlos shouted. He pounded on his desk. “I gave him parking tickets! I gave him tickets for honking his horn! I gave him tickets for disturbing the siesta! I told him for this he must go to jail. But he said he could not go to jail because a station wagon cannot fit into a jail, that a jail is for people.”
“What have you done with him?”
“I have impounded him.”
“You’ve what?”
“I have impounded him! He would not go to jail, so I chained him to one of the government vehicles. I had to! I had to do it! He would not go to jail! So I impounded him as I would a stolen vehicle. Oh, he is a bad station wagon, that Pepe!”
Mike smiled. “Then you do believe that Pepe’s a station wagon?” he said. He tried to visualize the little old man standing off Carlos — Carlos with his heavy arms and broad shoulders.
“Eh? No! He is not a station wagon!” Carlos said.
“But don’t you see that he really is?” Mike said. “He’s as much a station wagon as Juan is a bartender. Juan is a bartender because everyone agrees that he’s a bartender. And Pepe is a station wagon because everyone agrees that he’s a station wagon — except you.”
Carlos shook his head.
“Oh, I know he isn’t official, that he doesn’t have a license. But would you deny Juan a license if he needed it to tend bar?”
Carlos again shook his head, and Mike continued.
“You said, ‘Oh, he is a bad station wagon, that Pepe!’ So you must believe him.”
“I said it only because I was angry.”
“You gave him parking tickets?”
“Si, I gave him parking tickets.”
“Do you give parking tickets to pedestrians?”
“No. But Pepe is different.”
“Of course he’s different. He’s a station wagon! You gave him tickets for honking his horn, for disturbing the siesta?”
“Si,” Carlos said and shrugged.
“Do you do this to the others? No, because they don’t have horns.”
“But Pepe’s horn is so loud — it is the loudest horn in all Mexico!”
“But he does have a horn — you have just admitted it. The others, do they have horns?”
“No,” Carlos said. He sighed heavily.
“Of course they don’t. And now you have impounded him. Can you impound a citizen? No! What do you do with citizens who break the law?”
“I put them in jail.”
“But you didn’t put Pepe in jail, even though you are bigger, stronger than he is. You impounded him! You impounded him because he’s a station wagon, because in spite of everything, you believe he’s a station wagon.”
Carlos shrugged imperceptibly. His normal gestures were violent, sweeping, and the two men, who had been following his every move, sensed that this was his moment of truth and were silent.
Carlos studied his strong, brown hands. It was as if he were aware of his hands suddenly for the first time. His expression might have been the same if he were considering cleaning his nails or cutting his hands off at the wrists.
“ ’Sta bien,” he said at last, avoiding their gaze, “give me the license.”
Juan took the license from beneath his shirt and put it into the hand that Carlos held out to him.
Carlos straightened himself to his full height. Then, assuming his most official manner, he strode into the street.
Mike waited with Juan in the comparative cool of the office, but hearing the station wagon start up, the two men rushed to the door in time to see Pepe come charging around the corner of the building. He was bent forward stiffly from the waist. His hands were pressed tight against his forehead, two gnarled fingers projected forward, forming a bumper.
Mike caught a remembered glimpse of the children playing in the sun — and understood.
The station wagon stopped at the sight of them and honked happily. Then with feet churning the dust, Pepe went honking and beeping down the street, his license plate wired to the seat of his pants.
By then Carlos had rejoined them. “Who’ll pay for the tickets?” he asked.
“Wasn’t he the first to use the meters?” Mike asked.
“Si. It is so.”
Carlos turned to Mike and again assumed his most official manner. “I am sorry, señor,” he said, “but I must give you the ticket for illegal parking. But for you I will make it easy, very easy — only ten pesos.”
“But you said—” Mike began, then broke into a grin and took out the dollar bill he had offered Pepe. “Hell, for eighty cents it’s not worth it. Besides I knew it was going to cost me when I listened to the old man; I just didn’t know how much.”