After forty-two hours cramped on buses, eating whatever junk he could get at the irregular stops, his first order of business was to have a decent meal. He set off in search of a restaurant that had been his favorite, back in the day. Outside the terminal, he hailed a cab, providing the driver the address as he slid into the back seat. The young man had changed since he’d last been in town, as had the city itself, growing by leaps and bounds. His carefully-trimmed goatee and closely-cropped military haircut ensured nobody would recognize him, which wasn’t much of an issue considering his long absence. He’d developed into a hardened combat veteran since leaving as a teen boy and his bearing and additional muscle weight filled out his uniform, lending him a formidable presence. The boy had left and had returned a man.
The taxi arrived at the restaurant, La Chuparrosa Enamorada, nestled on the banks of the Canal Rosales, and the young man paid the driver and hoisted his duffle. It was a Tuesday, so the breakfast business was thin, which wouldn’t have been the case had it been the weekend. The place typically had a standing room crowd on Saturdays and Sundays, due to the generous portions of mouthwatering food. He had been there a few times with Emilio on special occasions and it was one of the things that had been on his mind since boarding the bus in Veracruz. The waitress invited him to an outdoor table overlooking the water. He ordered a glass of orange juice and a plate of chicken chilaquiles in red sauce – a local favorite and one of the restaurant’s signature dishes.
When his food came, he thought about his next move, while remarking on how little things had changed in the last twenty months. In this sleepy area, things seemed to always remain the same, even as the city grew at an unprecedented rate. First thing he would need to do is secure reliable transportation. Taxis weren’t going to be an option for what he had in mind, so he’d need to get some sort of conveyance sooner rather than later. With his bankroll being as thin as it was, that meant stealing something, or probably several somethings, depending on how far he decided to travel.
He munched on his food, savoring the rich, spicy sauce, and cleaned his plate as efficiently as a dishwasher would. Stuffed, he paid the bill and strolled out onto the rural road, scanning the surroundings for something he could liberate opportunistically. It took him half an hour to spot a suitable vehicle that was easy enough to break into and hot wire, but he eventually found a thirty year old Chevrolet truck with a broken wind wing. Within seconds, he was in the cab. It took him ten seconds to find the ignition wires and soon he was meandering down the familiar road that led to Don Miguel ’s estate. The surroundings were still verdant and wild, nature seemingly impatient to encroach on the slim progress man had introduced. When he was a quarter mile from the turnoff to the ranch, he pulled the old truck onto a dirt track that led off into the wilds and parked where it couldn’t be seen from the road. He had no idea what he would find at the hacienda when he made it to the estate, but he’d learned to be cautious about everything and considered it best to err on the side of prudence.
He moved stealthily through the woods until he found one of the myriad game trails that ran through the immense tract of Don Miguel’s property, and soon was jogging along as he had in the old days. It was cool in February so he barely broke a sweat and before long, he was in the cluster of trees that ran along the side of the property, near the horse barn where he’d so long ago been set to move hay as the commencement of his training. The main house was deserted, with none of the security men that were everywhere when he’d been living there. No matter; he hadn’t come for anything in the house. He wanted to see his mentor, Emilio, and Jasmine. For all his efforts Jasmine had survived in the place she’d carved out of his psyche, and he wanted to bring closure to a door that bulged, and threatened to burst open in his recurring dreams.
The young man continued along the perimeter and down the track until he reached the caretaker’s house that reposed several hundred yards into the woods. He knew that trail like he’d been on it only yesterday, the loosely-placed flagstone that served as a driveway all too familiar under his feet. Surprisingly, he felt a buzz of anxiety in the pit of his stomach as he neared the front door – an altogether alien sensation for him. There, sitting as it always had, was the modest colonial home, deliberately styled in a rustic, sponge-painted manner to mirror the design sensibility of the larger main house. Pausing on the front porch, he registered that there was something different about the home than the last time he’d been there, almost two years ago. It seemed quiet, as though nobody was living there – much like the main estate had seemed from a distance. Shaking off the sense of foreboding, he knocked on the door, and when he heard nothing from inside, he walked around the side to where Emilio parked his big navy blue Ford Lobo crew-cab truck. There it sat, unchanged, next to the small Chevy econo-box Emilio had bought for Jasmine with his bonuses from Don Miguel.
He moved back onto the porch, and knocked again.
“Emilio. Jasmine. Please. Open the door. It’s me…I’m back…” he yelled.
From inside, he heard a faint rustling, and then Jasmine’s distinctive voice.
“Go away. There’s nothing for you here.”
“Jasmine. Please. Open the door. I need to talk to your father. It’s important,” he tried again.
“He’s dead. Everyone’s dead. Don Miguel, my father, his sister and his mother. There’s only me left now, and I don’t want to see you. Please. Just leave. Go now, and stay away,” Jasmine warned.
“Dead? How? How is that possible? What’s happened since I left? Tell me, Jasmine. Please. Just open the door. I don’t want to have this conversation through a slab of wood. I just travelled over a thousand miles to see you…please, Jasmine. I’m begging you. I need to see you.”
“No you don’t. You left without a word to anyone, and now death has come to the valley, and it’s only me left alive – and you. Do yourself a favor, and leave now, while you can,” Jasmine implored him.
“If you don’t open the door, I’ll break in. You know I can find a way. Jasmine, please. This has gone on long enough. Open the damned door so we can speak like adults. I need to know what happened…and I need your help,” he finished starkly.
The lock creaked and the door swung open. It was dark in the small living room, all the drapes pulled, he saw as Jasmine padded in bare feet to the chair in front of the television and sat. She was wearing a nightgown even though by that point it was noon. It was so dim that he could barely make her out.
“Can we turn on a light or open a window? I can’t see my own hand in front of me.”
“I…I’m comfortable with it like this. This is my house now, so I keep it the way I like. If you have a problem with it, leave,” Jasmine advised in a monotone.
What the hell was going on here? Even after two years, people didn’t change that much. What had happened?
“Jasmine. No problem. You want it dark, I like it dark. Can we start over? Tell me what happened to your father, Emilio. Please. Start at the beginning. I haven’t had any news since I left.”
“I see you have a uniform. Marines. Is that what happened to you? You ran away and joined the navy? That’s classic. A total cliche,” she exclaimed with a bitter laugh.
“It’s a little more complicated than that. But tell me about your father.”
Jasmine let out a long sigh, and sank further into the large, padded easy chair – one of Emilio’s few luxuries; a place he could relax at the end of a long, hard day and watch some television in peace.