Hammerhead Ranch Motel

27

C. C. Flag slammed two more shots of Irish whiskey from the decanter in the office at Vista Isles. The press was gone; and so was the Vista Isles staff. Zargoza had ordered Flag over to the home after the Proposition 213 fiasco. He’d done his best to explain away all the missing Medicare patients by changing the subject and bashing immigrants. Now he deserved a reward. He hit the intercom and called the night nurse.

She arrived in his doorway with her medication cart. “You buzzed me?”

She was young and curvy with long sandy hair. Not too hard on the eyes, Flag thought.

“Come over here and have a drink with me,” he said.

“I’d love to, but I have to make my rounds.”

“Don’t worry about your rounds. I have a lot of pull around here.”

“But these are prescription medications. These residents are on a very rigid schedule. Some of their lives depend on it.”

Flag picked up a medicine container. “Oooooooh! Dilaudid!” He dumped the pills in the breast pocket of his safari jacket.

“Hey! Those are for a patient who’s gonna die from cancer!”

“My point exactly.”

“Wait!” she said. “I’ve seen you on TV. You’re the Proposition 213 guy. You’re my hero. You really tell it like it is. I’m so tired of how migrant workers keep exploiting us.”

She strolled over to the desk. “Well, I guess one drink won’t hurt anything.”

“Now you’re talkin’!” Flag poured her a double over rocks.

By the time the first drink hit her bloodstream, she was on her third. Then Flag forced more liquor into her. Then she was bent over Flag’s desk without panties. Then she was bent over the toilet, hair hanging in the water. Funny, thought Flag, I could have sworn she was more attractive earlier.

“Hey, baby. I gotta use the restroom,” said Flag, banging on the door. “Get a move on.”

She only moaned and her head lolled over the bowl.

“Damn,” said Flag. Already smashed, he poured another. When she was still in there fifteen minutes later, he could wait no longer. He decided to use the restroom down the hall. He was down to his underwear and socks, so he grabbed a Vista Isles bathrobe from the closet and headed out the door.

A little after midnight a brown panel truck pulled up outside the veranda of Vista Isles and two of the Diaz Boys climbed out.

They flashed corporate ID at the front desk and made their way to the third floor and poked around.

Weaving up the hallway toward them was an old man in a Vista Isles robe. They watched him smack into a doorjamb and bounce off a fire extinguisher.

The man walked up in his bathrobe and socks, and he put out his hand to shake. “How ya doin’, young fellas. I’m C. C. Flag. Hope ya’ll will vote for Proposition 213. Take the state back from the fuckin’ Latins.”

The two Diaz Boys looked at each other and smiled.

“I’m the Daddy-O of Rock ’n’ Roll. I’m a famous radio personality, loved and admired by millions,” said Flag, swaying off balance.

One of the Diaz Boys whispered to the other: “Classic dementia.”

The second one turned to Flag. “Sir, are you a Medicare patient?”

“Medicare?” said Flag. “Absolutely! I’m an American. I deserve my Social Security and my Medicare, goddammit!”

The two looked at each other again and grinned. This was too easy.

They slapped electrical tape over Flag’s mouth and carried him down the fire escape to the waiting truck.

A n hour later, Flag’s Vista Isless robe was gone and he was dressed in homeless rags in anticipation of his drop at the Tampa bus station. The Diaz Boys took the Twenty-second Street exit on Interstate 4 so they could catch a little of the Latin Heritage parade on their way downtown. They pulled onto a side street next to Seventh Avenue and found a parking space with a good view.

The parade hadn’t started yet, but the two Diaz Boys were already talking excitedly about the Gloria Estefan Revue. “It’s supposed to sound exactly like her,” said Juan.

They turned around and looked behind them. The back doors of the van were open and Flag was gone. The two looked at each other and shrugged. Bus station, Ybor City, what’s the difference? They looked back out the windshield and waited for the parade.

Three Latin Heritage Festival officials were at the parade staging area on the east end of Seventh Avenue, going over their clipboards. Everything was ready except the grand marshal hadn’t arrived and two road-tour members of Miami Sound Machine were still in the can. The officials saw an old bum in tattered rags wobbling toward them.

One pointed with his clipboard. “What’s this comin’ at us?”

Another official was about to run the bum off when he felt a twinge of recognition. “Hey, you’re someone famous… I got it! You’re that guy on the sweepstakes envelopes!…C. C. Flag.”

The chairman of the Latin Heritage Festival grabbed Flag’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “I’m a big fan.”

“Is he our grand marshal?”

“He’s got to be,” said the chairman. He turned to Flag. “You done parades before?”

“Of course I’ve done parades.”

“I dunno,” said the first official. “That’s not what it says on my clipboard. It’s supposed to be someone from the mayor’s office.”

“That’s got to be an out-of-date program,” said the chairman. “You want somebody’s nephew when we can have a bona fide celebrity?”

“So what’s with his rags?”

“You idiot! He’s supposed to be one of the refugee rafters,” said the chairman. “That’s this year’s theme. Weren’t you at the meeting?”

The official threw up his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say.” He turned to the parade’s support crew and clapped his hands to get their attention. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” He turned and yelled at the row of blue portable toilets: “Miami Sound Machine-time to shit or get off the pot!”

The festival chairman waved over two assistants, who placed a silk sash across Flag’s chest and helped him up on the grand marshal float.

The Diaz Boys were enjoying the parade immensely, especially the Gloria Estefan Revue, which featured a prerecorded tape of Gloria regretting that she couldn’t appear at the festival in person and then cuing her latest album while bitter members of the Miami Sound Machine danced and played backup.

Then came the next float, carrying a realistic replica of a Cuban refugee raft. Standing in the middle of the raft and waving to the crowd was C. C. Flag, wearing a gold satin sash that read “Mr. Latin Heritage- Tampa Bay.”

Juan and Rafael Diaz suddenly recognized the man on the float going by, and they exchanged worried glances.

“Whoops,” said Juan.

He started up the van to get the hell out of there. He was about to pull out of the parking space when a black Jeep Eagle sped by and skidded up to Seventh Avenue. Three members of the Posse Comatose jumped out of the Jeep, charged through the spectators and climbed up the grand marshal’s float. They began whaling on Flag.

Because of concerns of violence surrounding the upcoming vote on Proposition 213, the parade was attended by a contingent from the militant Hyphenated-Americans Defense League. For security reasons, the members attended the parade in disguise. And when C. C. Flag came under attack, the brass section of the Miami Sound Machine jumped down from its float and charged the Posse Comatose. It was a near-riot. Flag fell off the back of the float and was scooped up and pulled to safety by unlicensed gypsy nacho vendors working the skirt of the crowd.