The Delivery (12 page)

I don’t have to look at the signature to know who’s responsible. My heart thumps in my chest with awe and pride and longing. Just like in the movies, I undo my seatbelt and leave open the car door as I move forward on instinct to the masterpiece in front of me. I’m enraptured despite the blaring of so many car horns behind me. Luckily I’m not the only one who abandons convention to get a glimpse at this thing. It looks like some reporters have gathered and everyone is snapping pictures. How the hell did he do this in the cover of night? Or how the hell did he get away with such a huge detailed piece in the middle of the day. I’m no dummy, this piece wasn’t a commission, nor was it anywhere near legal. It’s inflammatory, it’s provocative, and it simply reeks of Mozey.

I step right up to it, and I can smell the fresh paint. I can almost smell his scent lingering here. I want to hug the wall, hold onto something tangible. In the bottom right hand corner is his unmistakable signature. The Mo, the Z and the cross.

I walk toward his tag still in a daze, staring at the red drops that drip down from the cross. I swipe my finger across them and bring my hand to my face where a bloodlike stain of paint colors my skin. It’s fresh. The paint is still wet.

Mozey Cruz is even closer than I think.

Chapter 19

I
run straight to Rocco and Tommy’s room when I arrive in Paradise. I bang on the door, but no one answers it. I rush back down the stairs, yelling for Claudia. She comes out of the office that’s off to the right of the front desk. She’s got a nylon stocking on her head and her hands are clutching bosom, which I’m guessing is fake padding stuffing up her ample brassiere. There’s one false eyelash attached to her lid, the other eye is natural and looks naked in comparison. She has nylons on her legs and a slip covering just the tops of her thighs.

“Dios mío,” she exclaims as she sees it’s just me and stops running.

I take her in in her pink satin nightgown covered in lace at the bodice that hangs upside-down at her waist. Where her hands cover her chest, I think I see mastectomy scars. But that wouldn’t make sense. I’m confused about her gender, and it breaks my train of thought.

“Female to male, honey. It’s not what you’re thinking,” Claudia says, raising her eyebrow over the exaggerated lash.

“Wait, I’m confused. Then why do you dress in drag?”

“Long story,” she says, looking unimpressed with my curiosity. “Why’d you come running? Did you get your purse stolen?”

“No. Sorry I yelled. I was looking for Rocco or Tommy. I just had some good news. They didn’t go back to San Diego yet, did they?” My heart falls at the prospect of having no one to share with and of trying to deal with really being alone here.

“At the pool, last I checked. Rocco was doing his laps and Tommy was painting his toes.”

“We have a pool?” I’m thinking,
for twenty-five dollars a night
?

“We’re in Paradise, my love. One has to go swimming. Walk through the garden, at the back, you’ll see a blue painted door. It says
piscina
and pool, you can’t miss it.”

I make my way through the garden, which is really quite dense. It’s got Ficus trees growing with so many vines you’d think this gay garden had been here since the beginning of time. It’s humid and gives off the deep earth smell of fertility. The ground is spongy and moist, which means Claudia must water it continuously in this arid climate. In the middle of the garden, partially obscured by leaves that are as big as my body, sits a moss covered erotic statue of two men in coitus. It looks to be indigenous or more likely an indigenous replica. The two men have hawk-like noses, and long hair and sport earrings. But they are definitely two men because I clearly see two penises.

My head swims a little from the excitement, the heat, and the completely bizarre scenario of finding myself in Tijuana, in this hotel, with these two crazy San Diegans as my newfound best friends. There are more erotic statues and huge flowering trees. It’s bigger than it looks from above; you could almost get lost in here.

I find the blue door eventually and push on the bar to open it. I step out into blaring white sunlight and barren pool area that looks like a large parking lot converted into a swimming spot. Its starkness and utter lack of flora contrast dramatically with Claudia’s fecund garden of Eden vibe she has going on inside. My eyes dilate so quickly it hurts, and I squint. Rocco is doing laps in a matching yellow thong and swim cap. Tommy is in the sliver of shade provided by the pool’s sole umbrella. He’s reading fashion magazines and already hitting the cocktails.

I shade my eyes from the glare, just as a tractor passes noisily and uncomfortably close to the chain-link fence that divides the parking lot pool from an actual parking lot. It kicks up dust and exhales a burst of black soot into the air.

“Fuck,” Tommy shouts, fanning the air with his glossy magazine.

“Isn’t it just… I don’t know—nicer in San Diego. Don’t they have beaches and lots of beautiful places to go? I shout, still shading my eyes and aiming my voice across the pool.

Rocco stops swimming and floats onto his back. Tommy uses his magazine as a visor to see me through the blinding glare that bounces with zeal off of the pool’s aqua blue surface.

“Drugs,” they say in unison like one of those couples that has been together so long they’re like separated twins. One twin feels an itch and the other twin scratches it.

I kick off my tennis shoes and sit on the ledge submerging my over-heated feet into the cool, shimmering water.

“They have drugs in San Diego. Come on, you guys. I think what’s really got you is all of the seediness. Like coming down here gives you a free pass to be bad.”

“Very insightful, little Miss Muffet. We also like the tacos. Now how was your day off?” Rocco asks, swimming over to me and pulling on my legs.

“I found him.”

“Do tell,” Rocco says as he muscles his compact little body out of the pool to plop down beside me and drip cool water on my cut-off exposed thighs.

“Well, I didn’t actually find him. But I have evidence he’s here. How come Claudia got a sex change if she still wants to dress as a woman?”

“Everybody is different,” Tommy says as he saunters over to hear the gossip.

I drag my messenger bag over that I’ve discarded beside me and fish out my phone, handing it over to Tommy. He scrolls through the photos, whistling like he’s impressed.

“Check these out, Rocco. Lana’s got herself a real artist. No wonder she’s a goner.”

Rocco grabs the phone and examines the pictures I’ve taken of Mozey’s creation. “Holy shite, Cher. These are really stunning. You’re such an ingénue to fall in love with his talent and his ideals. How very optimistic.”

“But that’s just it,” I say, replacing the phone. “I’m seven, almost eight years older than him. And more importantly, I was his social worker. I
made out
with him when I was his social worker. I’m a mandated reporter. Had I seen anyone else in my capacity doing what I did, I would have been obligated to call in a report.”

Rocco puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in for a wet, side-hug. “But it also feels right or else you wouldn’t be here searching for him.”

“I was paid by the government to try to help him, not fuck him. I never even discouraged the thing that got him into trouble. If anything, I admired his tenacity. I’m terrible at my job and I’m a terrible person.”

Tommy opens his magazine and pulls out a blister pack of little yellow pills. He presses a few into his hand and then knocks them back with some maraschino cherry colored cocktail.

“What are those? You chew them?”

“Skittles,” he says as he presses two into my palm. “These’ll make you feel better.”

“I’ve had Skittles before. These are no Skittles,” I say as I chew the tablets up into chalky dust that dissolves on my tongue. I lie back on the cement and close my eyes to the sun.

“Doesn’t this guy carry a cell phone? What is he, a monk?”

I sit up fast and catch a head rush. For a second I think I’ll fall face-first into the pool.

“He used to Skype with my brother! But that was ages ago,” I add.

“Nobody ever changes their Skype address. You should at least try it.”

“I’ve changed mine
many
times,” Tommy says, getting up and sauntering back to his umbrella.

Two hours later, I’m seated in front of the vanity mirror in my next-door neighbors room while Tommy teases my hair into some ill-fitting Bridgette Bardot glamour. I’m buzzing like crazy off the pink drinks and Skittles, and Rocco’s gone out to secure God knows what illegal substance for them to ingest. These two stay high all weekend. I’m trying my best to keep up with their enthusiasm.

I’ve tried Mozey’s old Skype address maybe forty times from my phone. I try it again in my lap and pray to the blank screen, the empty-face icon with no avatar. Tommy snatches the phone out of my lap and tosses it behind him onto the bed.

“I don’t care if he’s Michelangelo. Your moody blue is killing my buzz. I’m trying to make you glamorous, but your grumpy mug is ruining all of my hard work.”

“I thought you said we were going to a foam club. Won’t we get wet and ruin it all anyway?’

Tommy freshens my drink and drops two ice cubes in with a clear plastic tong.

“Entrances are important, my dear, even if you’re going to get wasted.”

“I’m already wasted,” I say, slurring my words. I’ve never done so many drugs. Never even had the desire to. What if I’m spinning out of control on a steep downward trajectory? What if these few days signal the beginning of the end, my descent into madness, my eventual downfall? My mind catapults forward to see myself indigent on the streets of Tijuana. No job. No prospect of escaping my own hell I’ve created. Begging at the traffic light intersections just like that mother with her children.

“I’m not going out tonight. I’m gonna sleep this off and pretend like it never happened.”

“Don’t even say that!” Tommy says as he thawaps me on the shoulder with the back of the paddle brush. “We’re leaving tomorrow. This is our last night together!”

As if we’d been friends for ages. As if we’ll even ever see each other again. I’m just about to tell him that they’ll have more fun without me when the hotel door flies open and in bustles Rocco with Coco in tow decked out in full club regalia right behind him.

“Smile, ma Cherie! I bought fresh churros!”

So I, of course, give in because my friends are so cheerful and genuinely bent on me having a good time. I let Tommy dress me up until I look like some kind of psychedelic pin-up girl from 1950. At least we wear the same size. I just pretend it’s Halloween and I’m wearing a costume and my costume is kind of X-rated and not something I would, in real life, ever be caught dead in. But who needs a lot of clothes when it’s ninety-five degrees out and you’re heading to a foam club?

We eat fresh churros dipped in smooth cajeta, which Coco says is caramel made from goat’s milk. It sounds disgusting but what it tastes like is heaven. I chew more pills, drink more drinks and restrict myself to one line of coke, while my counterparts do many, many more than I can count.

We leave the hotel at quarter-past eleven. We get street tacos as Coco says, “to equilibrate our bellies.” I’m wearing sneakers with my slut costume to this bacchanal because I didn’t bring any streetwalker shoes with me to Mexico. Go figure.

We stand huddled around the taco cart that has a bright orange tarp flung haphazardly over the top. Our group, a giant burp of color in an otherwise tame and regular, taco-consuming crowd. I have to look down at my plastic plate while I eat because the bald light bulb on the cart against the black Tijuana sky is making my brain hurt. I’ve got twenty different shades of red darting behind my eyes.

In a hellish gesture, Coco orders brain tacos for everyone to try before we hit the foam-dome. I decline and stumble away from the light and plop my butt down on the ground on what appears to some semblance of a sidewalk. But then Coco brings me a plate anyway, and I stare at them with apprehension.

I let my mind wander to Mozey and the likely possibility that we are right this very minute both in the same city. In my mind’s eye, I let my hands wander all over his body. His shoulders, his pecs, his hard, rippled stomach—which I actually haven’t seen in nearly three years, but still, it’s easy for me to recall it. I wonder what he’s doing, if he’s painting or drawing? I wonder if he would disapprove of me hanging out with these guys and getting so loaded.

The way I look at it is, if you’re going to make a move as monumental as starting over, you may as well go out with a bang when you leave your old life behind. Bang! Bang! Throw a glossy celebration for loss and a huge fuck you to new beginnings. Or is it the other way around? I’m overloaded. I’m on a crash course. I’m sitting in a pile of neon green tulle munching on brains wrapped in tortillas. How long before consequences catch up with my real life?

“CoCo!” I yell.

“Qué pasó, mi amor?”

“Can you get me one of those glass bottled sodas that tastes just like flowers?”