Rock and Roll Heaven: A Trio of Uncollected Stories

CROSSINGS

On the second page the girl was murdered. Kelius read on. The murderer, as yet faceless, spread a plastic dropcloth over the tiles in the kitchen and drew a surgeon’s hacksaw from the lining of his overcoat. He began to disremember the body. In detail. Kelius was sickened, recalled to himself that it was only fiction, and read on, oblivious to the jolting of the bus. The murderer wedged the torso into a suitcase, arranged the limbs around it, packed tight, before the stiffness began to set in. It was 4:51. The girl’s father was due home at 5:00. Even now he was out in the street, striding along in the welter of heads and shoulders, handbags and briefcases. Kelius watched the glow of the kitchen clock as the murderer hurried to hide his traces. Suddenly the bus was stopping. Kelius looked up and his stomach clenched — they were at the border already. Half a page left in the chapter. His eyes rushed down the ranks of columns and letters. The murderer was rinsing his dropcloth in the shower, water running red against the porcelain. Then he rolled it up, jammed it into the suitcase, dropped the twin latches, hefted his burden and slipped out the door. “Señor.” It was the bus driver. “Es la hora de bajar. Estamos llegado a la frontera.” Kelius did not speak the language, but understood the gestures. He reluctantly folded back the page, tucked the book under his arm, and stepped out into the sun.

There were men in uniforms with mustaches and automatic weapons. A gate, a little brick building, two jeeps, a truck, an old Ford. Kelius could make out the river off to his right, a metallic glint caught in the tentacles of the cactus. He followed the others into the building.

It was absurd, he knew, but every time he went through this he felt that something would go wrong, that they’d somehow detain him, refuse to let him pass the border. He never dealt in contraband, and gladly paid duty on the things he brought back to sell in his tourist shop. And he had money. Still, he thought of the uniforms, the strange harsh language and arcane laws, the implacable yellow faces of the men with guns.

Inside he showed his passport. The man behind the desk made a notation in his ledger and stamped the document. “Pase por la puerta allá,” he said, indicating a door at the far end of the room. Kelius followed the finger, beginning to sweat under the arm where he’d tucked the book.

The door opened into a larger room with a long table. The other passengers were there. They were spreading their luggage on the table for the benefit of the inspectors. Kelius observed that the inspectors wore uniforms identical to those worn by the men outside. They were young and relentless. They neither smiled, nor spoke. They pointed, poked, sifted, rattled Kelius waited his turn. He rested a foot on one of his bags, the silver K like a mirror, then opened the book and resumed his reading. The story rushed back on him. He saw the girl’s father standing at the elevator, watching the numbers descend. And then the murderer brushing by him as the doors parted. The irony. The father stepped into the elevator and the doors closed on him like the shutter of a lens. At the same moment the murderer hurried through the front door, down the steps and into the street. His gait was awkward, the suitcase tugging at his arm. Up the street, the bus. He hailed it. “Señor.” Kelius looked up. His suitcase was on the table. The inspector motioned for him to open it. It was then that he became aware of the flies, then that the blood rushed to his bowels, then that he tripped the twin latches and pulled back the lid of the suitcase, stamped with flashing K and packed tight with the stiff, wet, hacked and already decomposing flesh of a young girl.