Gun Work

“This bullshit...” Atrocidad indicated the empty doorway to Barney’s room, meaning the killer that had filled it less than twelve hours earlier, and in a larger sense, disgust at the pervasive all-around injustice. “Mano is in danger too. We have to get you out of here. I respect Mano, and I trust you because I trust him.” He shrugged. Easy. “Do you think you can make it?”

“I have to,” Barney said. “Don’t I?”

“I once watched El Cholo wrestle with the flu in Guadalajara. He had a 103-degree fever and we practically had to carry him to the ring. The fight starts, tres caidas, something like twenty minutes nonstop, and he jumps into the ring off the rope, doesn’t miss a hold or fall, gets his ass kicked but he was supposed to that night, and before he steps out of the ring he does this little victory jump on each side, making sure he doesn’t miss anybody in the audience, and they love him, because he’s like defeated, right, but never broken. Then he steps out of the ring and boom, all at once, he’s half-dead again.”

“But he made it,” said Barney.

“Exactamente.”

“He’s very strong,” said Mano of Barney. “They cut him, they shot him, he was in the Rio Satanas and did not die.”

“We get him one of those big hoodie coats,” said Atrocidad. “Put him in the back of the van, he keeps his hands in his pockets... it should be okay.”

“If I don’t bust open and start leaking at the border crossing,” said Barney.

“You can walk, right?”

“Just barely. Enough to fake it.”

“You have to be a pretty good liar, basically,” said the wrestler, indicating that this was not only a deep virtue, but often a matter of sheer survival.

“He can walk,” said Mano. “Not run, but walk, sí.”

“You come down here to see us fight at Arena Coliseo, eh?” said Atrocidad, with just a microscopic preen.

“Yeah, I used to.” Then, ruefully: “I love Mexico.”

“But you have not come for a while, and when you return, it was for the wrong reason, correcto?”

“Yeah.”

“Come back to Mexico for the right reason,” said Atrocidad. “You will always have family here. But first, let us deal with the things that threaten that family. You have family, back up north?”

“No.”

“Sometimes the people to whom you are bound by blood are less important than those to whom you are bound by éticas, by honor, yes? But sometimes, you give up your blood, you are bound to a new familia, maybe one you are worthy of, or one that is worthy of your honor and respect.” He recited this as though it was his personal gospel. “You understand?”

“Sí, claro,” said Barney. “Painfully.”

“Con mucho dolor, eh?” El Atrocidad laughed raucously, his trademark evil badguy chuckle, exposing gold-rimmed teeth. He would have slapped Barney on the shoulder had he not been afraid of breaking him. “It’s good for you, pain, sometimes, eh?”

“God, don’t say that.”

“It’s true. Es verdad. Sometimes it is the only truth there is.”

In a world of lies, Barney had to admit that the big guy was right.

There were no words with which Barney could take leave of Mano; the little puppet-like man had saved his life, risked his own.

Mano held up a highly-polished piece of river agate in a pewter setting, scarlet, alabaster, deep green, with an eyelet for a leather thong. It caught the sunlight.

“This has no value,” he said. “It is a common stone. But es muy bonita, yes?”

“Very beautiful,” said Barney, reluctant to accept it because he could not hold it in his bandaged hands. The gauze had been modified to free his working fingers, but every movement brought stabbing agony to his hands as a whole.

Mano draped the totem around Barney’s neck.

“Remember me, my friend,” he said.

It sufficed, for what Barney could not articulate. Finally, he said, “I’ll see you again.” It was all he could offer, but it was enough.

El Atrocidad’s chariot was a yacht-sized Cadillac in patchy, oxidizing gold, with enfeebled rocker panels and no air conditioning. Barney was packed into the back seat between two very wide luchadors, with a third riding shotgun as Atrocidad drove them to the airport, at dismaying speed, as though piloting a Jeep through a minefield during an air raid.

Offstage, rudos and técnicos frequently hung together, or wolfed down heart-attack-sized tortas at the Café Cuadrilatero, a wrestling-themed eatery in Mexico City run by another legend, Super Astro. Bitter enemies in the ring dined together after bouts; trophies and captured masks adorned the walls. In the mythology of lucha libre, a good guy could become a bad guy in an instant, or the reverse; lose his dignity in a hair match, regain it with a “turn” or switch in loyalties. The cosmic balances of the universe had determined that Barney would be ferried north by an entourage of two good guys, two bad.

No time to stop for a Super Gladiador at Astro’s, unfortunately. One of those monstrous sandwiches could feed about eight people... or two luchadors.