?We might have to fight our way out of here.?
I was trying to find a flicker of awareness in Rick?s eyes. He was scared shitless and his lips were trembling.
I repeated myself.
?We might have to fight our way out of here, okay??
Rick nodded a bit. I think.
In another life, Rick was a music teacher for a state university in Canada. Here, he was a sex tourist?a tall, skinny, blonder-than-blond, whiter-than-white mark?completely out of his element in the underbelly of the Mexican Badlands. I was his bodyguard?an American ex-pat boxing trainer working at a fairly prominent gym, hustling to produce pesos for a fledgling boxing promotion while wading through the muck of withdrawal from a raging morphine addiction.
Rick and I were deep inside Minerva?s?a brothel, exclusive to ?made? men from a certain cartel. Total ?Mexican Experience,? just like Rick wanted. A regular home in a residential area remade in red velvet upholstery, each room converted into a makeshift screw room. Cum stains on sofa arms, pudgy thugs in cowboy hats pawing at half-dressed senoritas, visible through wide open doors, and the smell of Sico condoms in the smoky air. It was not for outsiders. We were outsiders. We somehow not only found the place, but managed to get in. No Bueno.
?Pinches gabachos (Fucking Yankees),? one of the door security shouted at us, waving his AR-15 in our direction as if it were an extension of his hand. He was a young kid with a chubby face whose maroon USC hoodie and jeans made him look like half the people you?d find in any mercado in town. ?Como se te ocurre venir aqui? Quien eres? Quien chingado te mando? (How did it occur to you to come here? Who are you? Who the fuck sent you here?)?
I didn?t answer. It was to our benefit to play dumb foreigner. Show them we know too much Spanish and they start thinking that, maybe, we know too much about too much. We stop being doe-eyed gringos and start being locals. And you definitely don?t want to be a local.
Another member of door security came forward. He carried no weapon, but I could see a holster strap under his White Sox jacket.
?Do we know you?? He asked in fairly good English. ?This is a private club.?
?The taxista brought us,? I replied in as casual a tone as possible. Sadly, it wasn?t the first time I had a gun (or two) pointed at me these last few months. ?I wanted to take my friend to find some chicas and the guy brought me here?.what?s wrong? Not open? I mean, we can leave??
I tried the ol?, ?let me be on my way? move, but was held up by the English speaker. Two more security guards came over. Some of the men pawing at their chicas stopped their muggings and stood up to see what was going on.
?No problem my friend,? he said with a Mexican ?oh yeah, no problem for us, but we?re going to get something out of this for ourselves? smile.
At that point, really, anything could?ve happened. Anything could?ve been asked of us?and we were kinda stuck. There?s no real bargaining leverage in being a nameless, easily disposable gringo facing a pack of heavily-armed cartel thugs.
?You need to buy one bottle for you to stay?1500 pesos?.One bottle each?plus chica, por supuesto (of course).?
Phew. I exhaled and let go of my tension. 3K was nothing?and I wasn?t gonna pay, Rick was. Rumor had it that, up in Tamaulipas, one guy got gang raped with tequila bottles for being in a similarly wrong place at a wrong time. Yeah, we got off easy?or so I thought.
Just then, a female voice screamed something inaudible from the back of the house. The crowd in front of us parted as she pushed her way through.
?Es el?.ese pinche gringo! (That?s him?That fucking White guy!)?
And there she was, Xiomara?a beautiful, golden-skinned Aztec goddess with a jarring personality disorder that saw her bolt from purring kitty to real deal, carpet cutter-to-face nasty in an instant. I had used her?along with a few other working girls?as a ring card girl for a show I helped put together in the next town over. We had a history, a bad history from a year ago when I chased off her pimp brother for trying to sell her for ?servicios? in a locker room bathroom. She insists that I owe her 2,000 pesos for lost wages from that night. She pretty much tries to fuck me over about that money whenever we bump into one another?and we seem to bump into one another way too often, always when it?s most inconvenient for me.
?Se hace el innocente (He plays innocent),? she screamed at me, wagging her finger in an exaggerated, no-no, fashion, like a coked-up school teacher scolding a particularly bad pupil. ?Es el peor de todos! (He?s the worst of them all!)?
Ironically enough, Xiomara would eventually lead me to a pile of cash and indirectly open the door for my biggest fight card ever. But, right now, she was trying her best to get me killed.
(Continued?)
