The Luck of the Maya
by
Theodore Brazeau
Copyright 2013 Theodore Brazeau,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1019-7
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Ancient days were not truly great
Ancient peoples wanted only to fight
Ancient names are not true gods
Ancient evil of their faces is fearful
They make enemies, they use owls
They cause injustice and they cause violence
They lie and sneak and they deceive
They are black and they are white
They are masters of stupidity and of confusion
The Popul Vuh, circa 1555 AD
Santa Cruz Quiché, Guatemala
There must be no blame, no obstacle, no lacking, no misery,
No deceiver from behind or from ahead
They must be neither caught, nor hurt
Nor seduced, nor burned
Nor diverted from the middle road
The Popul Vuh. Circa 1555 AD
Santa Cruz Quiché, Guatemala
CARLOS 2017
I’m sitting on my deck with a beer in my hand, looking at the water in Galveston Bay and the fading day beyond it, contemplating ideas about luck, good and bad. Where it comes from, how it changes. Who doesn’t have it, who does, and where do they get it.
I’m Carlos Montoya (sometimes), Sam Stockman (other times), and various other people on occasion. I’ve been sitting here doing my contemplating for a while now. I thought about getting up and doing something useful. But when you have no feet, sometimes sitting is easier.
Lucy has been telling me I should write it all down, and I‘ve been telling her no, what for, but I’m getting a little bored sitting around with a beer in my hand, contemplating things, so I’ll give it a shot. Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone will pay attention…
Lucy says if I write it down, she will, too. And she has her diaries to back her up. “I’m going to write this story, too. I don’t know if you remember all this stuff right. You didn’t even remember our anniversary last year,” she said.
Well, yeah, I said, but that was because...
“No excuses,” she interrupted, “this is important stuff. Just don’t forget.”
Forget? Forget what? I asked.
“Forget anything,” she said. “I won’t.” She smiled her off-center smile. I hadn’t seen that for a while.
The feet? Well, they’re in México somewhere, but we’ll get to that. There’s a lot more to this weird story than feet.
THE NO-NAME BAR
LUCY 1978
That must be the place, I thought, squinting in the sunlight. It’s ugly enough. The bar had been pointed out to me some time ago. I wasn’t sure I’d remembered correctly and there was no sign to help out.
How can you have a place of business with no sign, I thought.
I parked the dumpy little Office car I was driving and hoped it would be stolen. Then they would have to get a new one and I could help pick it out.
I was dressed very ordinary that day, in practical clothes. Jeans and boots, with one of my Mexican blouses and a little silver. Not trying to impress. Not looking for trouble, either, and I didn’t expect any, even though this was a kind of sleazy part of Houston. I wasn’t even armed.
Avoiding the worst of the trash in the street, I went to the supposed bar and pushed open the door. It was so dark I couldn’t see a thing. I stood for a minute while my eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Sure enough, it was a bar. A few barristers slouched up to the bar, sitting crookedly on stools. A couple of them stared at me owlishly, blinking at the bright doorway, the rest stared at their drinks. If I wanted any trouble from this bunch I’d have to help them off their stools.
Now I could see a little better and I spied my guys in the back booth with a few empties on the table. I hoped they weren’t too far gone into the beer. I wanted to talk to them.
I’d never met these two before, but I knew who they were. I’d seen them at a disco some months ago. They were sitting at a table on the upper level and caught my eye. I don’t know why, maybe just because they were kind of cute.
At the time, I was at the disco with Martin and my cousin Gonzalo and I had asked. Gonzalo didn’t know them, but Martin had worked with them a couple of times down on the border. He filled me in a little, and I was surprised to learn we had acquaintances in common. I even knew the uncle of one of them, who had done some cattle business with my father years ago. Martin said they did some low level smuggling out of Brownsville. No drugs, just miscellaneous stuff. Good guys, he said.
I hoped so, because here I was.
They were staring at me as I walked over and sat down. They continued to stare, so I said, “I am not a whore,” just to start the conversation.
CARLOS 1978
Jeb and I were sitting in a no name bar in Houston, in the far left booth by the back door. The bar would have had a nice view of a street lined with junk cars if it had had any windows, but that would be far too luxurious for this establishment. It was crummier than most, but Jeb and I hung out here from time to time. We didn’t really like the place, no one could, but the beer was cheap and it was handy. Besides nobody here ever asked any questions. No one was ever sober enough to think of one, and that included the bartender.
We were on our third beer and hashing out our last job. Semi-successful we concluded. Successful because we made out like the bandits we were and our pockets and bank accounts were fuller than they deserved to be. Unsuccessful because it would be a long time before we’d be able to work or even show our faces in Matamoros. Or even Brownsville. I was crying in my beer about that. Brownsville is my hometown and what little family still speaks to me is down there. Well, Jeb had said, you can write, they can read. A lot he cares, he’s an orphan anyway. We had a good start on some dandy beards and mustaches, but I didn’t think they were good enough to keep us out of trouble on the border.
And not only on the border, we’d had a little trouble the night before, right here in Houston.
We’d planned to meet at a bar—not this one—a slightly more upscale one where you might actually find a girl.
“I had just parked the car,” Jeb had told me at the time. “I looked around and saw this Ford wagon picking up speed and coming real fast toward me. I saw a gun poking out the window, pointing in my direction, so I dove down and rolled between the parked cars. They