Cold in July

35

“This here,” Jim Bob said introducing us to the man, “is Manuel Rodriguez. He’s in the country legal, but he ain’t a legal doctor.”

“That was a nice introduction,” Rodriguez said shaking our hands, “I hope to do the same for you another time, Jim Bob.”

“Important here everyone knows how we stand,” Jim Bob said.

“Ah, business,” Rodriguez said. He was a little guy, maybe four feet eight with black hair going gray at the temples. His eyes threatened to close even as he looked at you, as if he had been awake too long. He had some ill-fitting dentures, and I kept wanting to hold my hand under his chin lest they fall out while he talked. We were at his house. A hot little wood-frame place he shared with Raoul, three other women and a little girl. The place smelled of sweat and cabbage, and mildew that came from the old straw that backed the almost worthless water fan in the living room window. Two of the women looked to be in their thirties, the other, perhaps Rodriguez’s wife, was closer to fifty. They all wore clothes that were too small or too large. Jeans and blouses and flat-heeled shoes fresh from garage sales. The little girl wore a stained yellow dress and had a doll without any clothes. She sat on the floor and looked at me. I smiled at her. She smiled back, but she didn’t come over to see me.

Jim Bob had brought meat and vegetables with him, and he gave those to the older woman and she thanked him in Spanish and gave him a nod. He said something back to her, and she took the meat and put it in the freezer compartment of a bullet-shaped refrigerator and put the tomatoes in the bottom. She took the okra to the sink and started washing it. One of the younger women got a pan out from under the sink and set it on the drainboard and the younger woman took a knife and cut the okra up and put it in the pan. The third woman stood by, as if on sentry duty. She had a stern face, like she had seen much and hadn’t liked any of it. I wondered if this was Raoul’s wife, the one whose pussy hair he didn’t want to plant. Raoul himself, after a friendly greeting, had gone outside.

No one introduced us to the women.

We sat on the couch for a time, and Jim Bob and Rodriguez talked about the weather and Jim Bob told him about his hogs. The third woman, the one that might have been Raoul’s wife, seemed to be taking a personal interest in me, and like the things she had seen before, I wasn’t any better. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. I checked my fly casually. Zipped. She finally quit watching me and left the room, no doubt to glare at some wallpaper or something. The little girl held up her doll for me to see, but it was a look from a distance. She still didn’t come over to see me. I smiled at her and she kept smiling. The two women at the sink kept their backs to us. Russel got up and went out on the front porch to smoke a cigarette. I twiddled my thumbs and tried to look interested in the conversation, which had switched from hogs to the Astros. Jim Bob and Rodriguez were worried about someone’s pitching arm. I wished I had a cigarette to smoke.

“Shall we go outside, gentlemen?” Rodriguez said.

“Why the hell not,” Jim Bob said, and we all went out to join Russel on the front porch. I smiled at the little girl on the way out and patted her doll on the head when she held it up to me.

It was cooler on the porch than inside. There was an old couch on the porch, and Rodriguez sat on that. Jim Bob sat down on the edge of the porch and Russel sat down on the steps. That left me to lean on the porch post, because the rest of the couch was a disaster area. Springs stuck up through the cushions like corkscrews craving your ass.

Rodriguez’s manner had changed now that we were outside. He looked a little more alert. “The money up front like last time?” he said going right into it.

“Five hundred up front,” Jim Bob said, “and if nothing happens, you keep it. We get some holes in us, I’ll pay you whatever it takes to plug them.”

“Last time,” Rodriguez said, “it was five hundred just for you.”

“It’s five hundred for all of us this time,” Jim Bob said. “You have to work on more than one of us, I’ll pay you for what it’s worth. You know my word is good.”

“Medicine, when you are not legal, is very expensive,” Rodriguez said, looking pained by the fact.

“I know that. Wouldn’t need you if you were legal. We just want to make sure we got someone here to take care of us so we won’t have to report any bullet wounds to the police.”

“I can only do so much. If it’s real bad-”

“We go through this every time,” Jim Bob said.

“I like you to know,” Rodriguez said, and he waved a hand at us. “I want them to know. I can only do so much without a hospital and nurses and the good medicines.”

“They understand,” Jim Bob said.

Rodriguez considered. “Five hundred for three up front is not much.”

“Take it or go fuck a goat,” Jim Bob said.

Rodriguez smiled and his false teeth looked certain to go for a dive. I started to leap for them, but by some miracle they stayed in his mouth. “I like goats,” he said. “They feel good and tight on the dick and they don’t talk back and want to have this orgasm thing. They just baa a little. But you see, I got the wife. And she does talk. She likes money. We have to pay the rent on this very nice place. She and I are legal, but the others are not. They work hard to pay their part of the rent, but they can’t get very good jobs-”

“I pay Raoul good,” Jim Bob said with more than a taste of indignation.

“And my wife and I, we’re not making so much either. Ever since the legal abortions, I’ve hardly made enough to put food on the table. And Rosalita, she has the bad knees. And there’s the little girl-”

“Christ,” Jim Bob said, “all right, all right cut the fucking fiddle music.”

“But I haven’t told you about the mother I send money to in Mexico.”

“Good,” Jim Bob said. “Don’t. I’ll make it a thousand up front, just to have you on hold, but that’s more than you’re worth. I’m doing this for your wife, who deserves an orgasm, by the way, and Raoul’s little girl. To hell with your old mother in Mexico. She’s probably been dead fifteen years.”

“Twenty,” Rodriguez said.

Jim Bob sighed like Atlas’s job with the world had just been handed to him. He got up and took out his wallet and turned slightly so Rodriguez couldn’t see in it. He took out some bills. He put the wallet in his back pocket again and went over to Rodriguez and bent down and placed the bills separate of each other along the Mexican’s leg and straightened up.

“Count ’em,” Jim Bob said.

Rodriguez did. “Very good,” he said. “A thousand. I am now on duty.”

“Just make sure you don’t go to Mexico anytime soon to see your old mother’s grave.”

Rodriguez laughed and showed those ill-fitting false teeth again. Damn, those things made me nervous. “I will be here until you tell me this thing is done and you do or do not need me.”

“Another thing,” Jim Bob said. “We’ll need to borrow a car for a day or two. Three at the most.”

“You are welcome to Raoul’s truck,” Rodriguez said.

“That’s generous of you with his truck,” Jim Bob said, “but I really didn’t want to send up a smoke signal everywhere I went. Something with four doors would be nice. Inconspicuous, unlike the Bitch. And since you only have one other car, I must be talking about that one.”

“You must be,” Rodriguez said. “That would be the Rambler, of course.”

“Very good,” Jim Bob said.

Rodriguez shook his head. “The car is a great comfort to me. I have places to go, people to see, things to do.”

“How much?” Jim Bob said.

“About forty dollars a day,” Rodriguez said.

“Forty dollars a day,” Jim Bob said. “I can rent cheaper than that from fucking Hertz. I’ll give you twenty dollars flat out for as long as I need it. I’ll check the oil and water and bring it back with a full tank.”

“Very well,” Raoul said. ‘Twenty dollars for as long as you need it.”

Jim Bob looked suspicious. “That was too easy.”

Rodriguez shrugged. “It has three flats.”