On The Grind

Chapter 50

"Scully… hey, Scully.. Somebody was whispering. "Wake up, homes. Hey, wake up."

Little pieces of my senses started to return, first smell, then the pain.

"Scully! You gotta wake up! I need help."

God had blessed me with a very hard head, but I was often too careless and my brains always seemed to be getting hammered.

"Wake up, man. Hey, Scully, wake up!"

I was looking at a carton of creamed corn. Last time it was green beans. All I needed to enjoy a hearty vegetable feast was a settled stomach.

I was lying on my side on a floor that appeared to be moving. Never a good sign after a head injury.

"Scully? Shit, man, are you awake?"

"Trying," I said with great deliberation. Something was wrong with my mouth. I felt around with my tongue. Several of my front teeth were gone, others broken. Shit.

"Scully, over here."

I turned my head and was now looking at crates of asparagus and lima beans. I was in the magic vegetable kingdom… The jolly Green Gi ant was probably going to kick my ass.

"Scully, wake up, man."

I finally figured out why the floor was moving. I was in a truck, and the truck was moving… Deduction. As I came to a little more, I could hear the hum of big truck tires on pavement. I turned my head farther to the right and saw Rocky Chacon a few feet away. Like me, he was tied up. He'd also been beaten and was propped against the inside of the big semi truck full of produce and canned goods. The trailer we were in was at least fifty feet long.

"Thank God you re alive," he said.

"I'm not talking to you," I finally replied.

"What'd I do?"

"You were supposed to escape. Sound the alarm. Get help."

"So were you."

"Yeah, but you're El Aboratador."

Every time I spoke there was a terrible pain in my mouth. The exposed nerve endings from my own broken teeth were killing me.

It really pissed me off that Horace had knocked out my choppers while I was unconscious. That guy needed a new rule book.

"Where are we?" I was talking now like a ventriloquist, keeping my mouth closed. I had to get past my broken teeth, will myself to ignore the pain. I had bigger problems.

"Why are we in a truck?" I asked.

"I heard 'em say we're heading to Calexico. We're in a big eighteen-wheeler."

Calexico was on the California side of the Mexican border, off Highway 8. That was pretty much everything I knew about the place.

"Why Calexico?" I asked, taking a painful physical inventory of my injuries.

It was more than just my head and my mouth. I'd been really worked over with that sap, head to toe. I had damage everywhere.

"I think they're going to move us across the border to Mexicali on the Mexican side."

"In a produce truck?"

The truck suddenly bounced over some bad highway and there were sharp pains in my rib cage, hip and, of course, my head. Even my nuts ached.

"I think Calexico is a big Customs stop," I finally said once the testicular pain had subsided. "Customs will go through a big truck like this with dogs. They'll never be able to smuggle us across the border in this."

"I think they're taking us there to kill us," Rocky said, making it worse with every sentence. "But why take us there? They could just as easily kill us here."

"Different laws," I said. "I'm a cop and you're a famous prize fighter. Here it could cause problems. They can't get extradited for capital murder in Mexico."

"We need to come up with a plan," Rocky said. "In every fight I've ever had, no matter how bad it's going, there's always a moment where victory can be snatched from defeat. The same will be true here. We've got to find and exploit that moment."

"Yeah, good thinking." I wanted to curl up and die. My head was beginning to get fuzzy. My thoughts blurred.

"How should we handle it?" he pressed.

"I don't know. I think maybe I'll go back to sleep for a while. I feel like shit."

"Sometimes a man must ignore pain. Focus on the goal. In a fight you've gotta keep punching."

"I like it" I said. "While you do that, I'm just gonna close my eyes for a minute."