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  Her nonsense. Her delusion that she and this rich, married norteamericano were in love. When, then, would he move his wife and children out of the house she stayed in? When would they walk hand in hand down a street? When would their sad, furtive, animal trysts be replaced by something less deceitful? When would she share his bed at night?

  The job she had gotten Alejandro doing the rich man’s garden. The gratitude he was meant to feel for having his brains fry in the heat every day. Then, that day last week when the norteamericano was supposed to be at work and Alejandro had walked in on them in his sister’s room. The blood from her bad time that he’d seen in her discarded panties, which lay on the floor by the bed; it hadn’t stopped their depraved lust.

  We have done her a favor in taking her stinking whore’s bounty. Now we shall see how much the cynical norteamericano really loves her!

  Eugene was thinking about Madeline. A sequence of images, between thought and dream, started to play through his head. They seemed to gain a three-dimensional clarity he would never have thought possible. Then he heard a rustling sound, and he could see it through his closed eyes. Madeline was unselfconsciously naked in the tent, ready to climb back into her sleeping bag after getting up to pee outside. Yes, he could see her, even through the membrane of his eyelids. But Eugene needed to get closer still to her opaque figure, as her nakedness would contain surprises, secrets, like every girl’s did. You always thought you’d be able to envision them perfectly with their clothes off – curves, flesh tones, proportions – but they always held mystery. The nipples, the color, the moles, the texture and extent of the pubic hair: they were always different to what you imagined. Like Lana, whom he’d masturbated about so many times at Long Beach Poly before he got her naked in their high-school grad year; his mind becoming a data bank of intricately constructed pornographic narratives in which she starred, or co-starred, with him. The first time that he saw her nude in his bedroom at his parents’ house he almost felt like asking her in his shock: What have you done to your tits? But Madeline; he had always seen her in a certain way. Perhaps if he just opened his eyes now … they would meet with hers, and then … no. She wouldn’t be there, surely: not like that. She was in her sleeping bag. Far better to sustain the delicious virtual reality of it in his substance-enhanced headspace.

  But.

  But now she was crouching over him, almost touching him. Eugene felt his breath draw into his lungs and his heart pound. Then it happened. Her hand slipped down into his bag and touched his leg. Then it was caressing his thigh in slow, twisting movements. Her fingers seemed so cool and his cock stiffened. He should open his eyes. It was her. She was really doing this to him. Open them.

  No.

  Keep this going a little bit longer because his cock was so hard and …

  … and her cool finger was tweaking its head …

  … and …

  AAAAGGGHHHHH!

  A terrible jab.

  She’d stabbed him.

  Eugene was up and he was screaming, — WHAT THE FUCK, MAN!

  It wasn’t Madeline. It was a rattlesnake: a long, green, twisting rattlesnake. It was sliding across his stomach, out of his sleeping bag, onto the plastic floor of the tent.

  Scott and Madeline were immediately woken up by his cry. — Damn! What is it! Madeline hissed as Scott blinked into a furtive consciousness.

  Eugene pointed at the slithering creature as it headed across the groundsheet. — A rattlesnake … a rattlesnake bit my cack!

  Scott groped around, laying his hand on the torch by his back. As he clicked it on and directed the beam, they watched the snake moving away from them. — Looks like a Mojave rattler, Scott ventured, — those dark stripes on his head …

  Grasping his heavy-heeled brown shoe, his features cut in a vengeful tenacity, Eugene started to climb out of his sleeping bag. — Sonofabitch …

  — Don’t kill it! Scott shouted.

  — What!

  — You never heard of conservation, man?

  — Conservation? What the fuck! You expect me to conserve some fucker that just bit my fucking dick!?

  — Listen, man, you’d better sit down … these guys are pretty damn toxic.

  At those words, Eugene felt shaky for the first time, sinking back onto the floor, pulling the bag to him. The rattlesnake slithered underneath the tent flap, into the freedom of the desert. Eugene touched his crotch. Although his genitals were as flaccid as they had ever been, he could feel his pulse in them, pounding on his fingertips. — Oh my God … it bit me … my goddamn pecker …

  — Don’t lie down, Scott shouted, — keep your heart above the wound!

  Eugene quickly pulled himself up, resting on his elbows. He took heavy, ragged breaths.

  — Where did it bite? Scott asked again, as Madeline stared at Eugene.

  — My privates … Eugene said more modestly, — a rattlesnake! Damn!

  — For God’s sake, Eugene, Scott gasped, — those things are fucking dangerous!

  — I fucking know that, Scatt, it bit my damn pecker. Eugene went onto his knees, letting the bag fall around him, and pulled down his shorts. There were two red puncture marks an inch from the tip of his penis. — What am I gonna do! he squealed, in a sudden panic.

  — If only that shaman were here … Scott mused, looking around the tent for inspiration.

  — Fuck the shaman! Eugene cursed.

  Madeline shook her head. — He’s only saying because these people have healing knowledge, Gene.

  Eugene grimaced. — Well, he ain’t here, he said mournfully.

  — I couldn’t tell for sure what type of snake it was, Scott pursed his lips, getting out of his bag, rising in his green boxer shorts as he stepped toward Eugene, — but I’m sure it was a Mojave green; these sons of bitches are one of the most venomous snakes around. Their toxin attacks the nervous system, not just the tissue … that poison’s gotta come out!

  — How the fuck can we …? Eugene gasped in horror.

  Scott edged closer, eyes trained on Eugene’s cock. — We gotta open up the area around the wound. You make two crisscross incisions over each hole with a knife, to draw out the bad blood, he explained, and he reached across for the large, multipurpose Swiss Army knife in his bag.

  Madeline was trying to get a signal on her cellphone. In the storm the device seemed a useless and dead artifact, technology rendered impotent and void by nature’s whims: complacent men against indifferent gods.—This is supposed to be fucking America, she hissed in frustration.

  Eugene looked agog at the glinting blade in Scott’s hand. — This is Boy Scout bullshit! His voice went high and fey. — That sorta crap’s probably been discredited for years! Nobody’s slicing up my fucking dick!

  — It’s just four goddamn little nicks, Gene! We ain’t got time to pussy about here! Scott wailed.

  For the first time, Eugene realized that he could actually die; that his life could end out here in the stony, unforgiving desert, in such sad, unlucky circumstances. He thought of the footballing career he chucked away to party with Lana, following her around clubs as she ‘networked’ for the purposes of her own advancement. The bitch would hear of his demise as she accepted an Academy Award with a fake tear and a halting choke in her throat. Trembling under the terror and exasperation of it, Eugene gasped, — Okay … okay … I’ll do it, he said, steeling himself as Scott handed him the knife. Then he looked at his cock in his hand, the two angry red holes, and the blade of the knife. Something ugly rose in his gut and he thought he was going to pass out. — You … you do it, his tones hushed as he handed the knife back to Scott and lay down balancing on his elbows to keep his torso raised, looking upwards at the orange roof of the tent.

  Eugene gritted his teeth as Scott took his penis in his hand. Winced as his friend made the first cut. Though he had to hold him firmly to get purchase, the sensitive skin of Eugene’s penis yielded easily to the blade. Droplets of blood spotted up in a line along the incision. It o
nly started to flow when Scott made the second, crisscrossing cut. — Maddy, throw me over that towel!

  Madeline quickly complied and Eugene screamed as he looked down and saw the dark red blood quickly absorbing into the white towel. — WHAA … YOU’RE FUCKING CASTRATING ME, MAN!

  — If you don’t stay still, I goddamn will!

  Scott quickly crisscrossed the second wound, urging Eugene to hold the towel against himself as the blood flowed out. — It’s done, he said, then looked at his friend, — but we ain’t finished yet. Somebody’s gonna have to suck the poison out.

  Eugene instinctively glanced toward Madeline. His expression was hopeful and pleading.

  She gaped at his bleeding cock in the towel. It was large and fat. She’d always thought of him as smaller in that way for some reason, even though he was a big guy. Maybe it was swollen with the snakebite. — Don’t even think about it, she snapped. — That bloody mess … that is so gross!

  Eugene felt utterly wretched. He now fancied he could feel the deadly venom of the snake, winding its way through his veins and arteries, meandering with slow menace toward his heart. He looked at her in apoplexy. — You goddamn selfish bitch, he half begged, half threatened.

  Madeline lurched forward a little in the bag she kept wrapped round her, even though she was still wearing her brown tank top. With her free hand she swept her tumbling hair back from her face. — I ain’t gonna suck your cack. It’s dripping with blood! You could have herpes or Aids or any shit. No way, she said, her frosty finality taking Eugene back to that party.

  — I’m probably fucking dying, man … it’s fucking medicinal, it’s first fucking aid, Eugene pleaded.

  — I’ll do it. Fuck it, Scott said.

  Eugene regarded his friend with sudden trepidation. There was something about Scott, crouching there in those green boxer shorts. There had always been something about him: from way back in college. His girl’s eyes. His lady hands. Scott had had few close friends at UCLA and after they’d graduated he’d followed Eugene up to San Francisco on the basis that it was a ‘cool spot’. Moved close to him in North Beach. And he’d never really seemed that interested in pussy. The kid was just plain weird. — Keep away from me, man … Eugene said, raising his hands, — I want her to do it, he pointed at Madeline who again shook her head.

  — For God’s sake, Eugene, you might get seriously ill. Scott took another step forward.

  Eugene upturned his palms. — Back off! Just keep away from me you goddamn faggot!

  — Whaaat! Scott protested in disbelief. — You let me cut holes in it with a knife, but you won’t let me get the fucking poison out! He pointed to Madeline. — She ain’t gonna suck your cock, Eugene! he roared.

  — You’re darned right I ain’t … Madeline said, looking at Eugene’s bloody penis with horror. He expected her to suck on that, and have every sniggering dude and frat boy back in the neighborhood make a face as she walked into a bar? No way.

  — You selfish freakin – I’m fuckin dying! Eugene cried. — You’re murdering me!

  Madeline looked at Scott, then at Eugene. — Listen, you asshole, Scotty’s offered to suck it out. You’re murdering yourself with your own fuckin homophobic bullshit. You think when we get back to San Francisco that he’ll be in every bar on Castro boasting about sucking a bit of poison out of your miserable limp dick?

  Eugene let this sink in, and looked at Scott, who shrugged. And so he gave a sad, tired nod as his friend knelt down and once again took his cock tentatively in his hand. He looked down at his old college buddy. Eugene had never seen eyes so faggish as the ones in the head that gazed sadly up at him. My God, he thought. It all makes sense now. He nodded and looked back up at the roof of the tent. Madeline watched in fascination, as Scott’s mouth sucked below the bloodied, swollen tip of Eugene’s cock.

  The storm had taken them by surprise. It had seemed appropriate, the anger of gods scorning them in this terrible flight from Carmelita’s vengeance. They had just wanted to get away, though they had no real notion of where they were going. The younger brother, Noe, the more circumspect of the two, regarded Alejandro, five years his senior, stern as he drove ahead through the dust.

  Taking from your own was so bad, Noe fretfully considered. Carmelita would never forgive them. God would never forgive them. They had ended it; all those years of their big sister’s protection and love. It had been America. They had been promised a better life here, but it had changed Alejandro. Hardened his heart. Noe thought of how Carmelita had taken them to church in Ciudad Obregón every Sunday, always making sure that they were neat and tidy. Insisted that they attended school and even visited their father in prison as they prayed for his soul, and put flowers on their mother’s grave.

  He looked at Alejandro’s square jaw, his heavy features in which those sunken eyes were set. Killer’s eyes, Carmelita had once said, after Alejandro had beaten a young man to a pulp in a bar, over some petty argument. The eyes of their father.

  Yet it was Carmelita who always made excuses for Alejandro. It had been he who had found their mother, back in their home town in southern Sonora, bending at the kitchen, breathing heavily, pain etched on her face as she smoked a cigarette. A pot of rice and one of fava beans had cooked down on the stove and the house stank of burning food. And then Alejandro had seen the blood in her lap, and on the big knife that lay on the table. He’d started to cry and asked her what had happened, even though he knew, and in demented rage, he quickly searched the house for his father. He was certain the knife had been wielded by the old man’s drunken hand, his breath stinking of tequila and the cheap perfume of whores.

  But the old man had fled.

  Their mother had begged Alejandro not to call a doctor or the police, said that it looked worse than it was, protecting her treacherous husband even as her own life blood oozed out across her lap. Then she keeled over and fell heavily onto the tiled floor. Alejandro screamed and ran for help. It was too late; their mother was dead before they could get her to the hospital.

  Sure enough, the police found their father a few hours later, and he instantly cried out his confession. They had argued and she had pushed him to his limit and he had blindly struck at her with the knife, his mind muddled with drink. When he saw the blood, he’d crossed himself and wandered for a while, eventually ending up back on the seedy Boulevard Morelia at the dingy Casa de Huéspedes he frequented, and in the arms of his favorite whore. She was a big, meaty woman named Gina, and the police officers found him sobbing and singing an alabados, a poignant hymn of praise on the suffering of the Virgin Mary, as she cradled him like a baby.

  Then their big sister Carmelita had tried to become their mother. She took the boys to America and worked so hard to give them a better life. Noe remembered passing the old harbor for the last time, the mottled cloudy sky, the squawking of the birds and then driving across the desert roads over the yellow rock and tumbleweed-strewn terrain toward the highway. All the time Carmelita singing, and telling her excited little brothers about how good their new life in America would be.

  And this was how they had repaid her!

  A sister who had so recently seemed a browbeating harridan was slowly being recast as a madonna figure in Noe’s penitent soul. He looked over at Alejandro’s tight mouth again, his big gold-ringed fingers on the wheel of the Chevy.

  It is him, the bullying oaf! He has done this to me. Taken me from my school, from my friends. Poisoned my soul. He’s just like our shitbag of a father!

  Alejandro turned at that point, catching his scrawny younger sibling’s angry gaze. — What is wrong? he snapped.

  — Nothing, Noe said meekly, kittenlike under the harsh stare of his older brother.

  — Do not look at me like that, he spat and contemplated Noe again, his cold black eyes murderous.

  A bolt of fear struck Noe square in the chest and he turned away to the side window. It felt cooler on his cheek, reminding him of the times when their father would borrow his bro
ther’s old car and drive the family down to the beach at Miramar, by Guaymas, along the Pacific Coast of Mexico. He recalled the distinctive shapes of the towering denuded mountains, which surrounded the bay. The time he cut his feet paddling in the water on the shells from the delicious oysters native to the area. How he and Alejandro would beg for change when the anglers from all over the world would converge on Guaymas to participate in the tournaments and pursue the fish catch in the Sea of Cortes.

  Now, looking gloomily out through the settling dust at the slowly visible horizon, broken only by big rocks, he contemplated his now saintly sister again. What had they done to her? The money. Her savings. All her hard work. Her chance of a better life: they had ruined it.

  There was something ahead. The dust was clearing and a peculiar-looking object, giving off a luminous orange glow, was visible by the side of the road. Alejandro stopped the car and the brothers got out, each disappointed that on closer inspection the entity that had excited them was something as banal as a tent. Beside it was a 4x4 vehicle, which had almost turned over on its side, having run into a steep sudden rise of dirt, sand and shale, trapped by some rocks and banked up from the road. Alejandro pulled his .38 revolver from his inside pocket, and transferred it to the external pouch of his leather jacket. Noe went to speak in protest then thought against it. To his knowledge, Alejandro had never shot anybody before, but with a lunatic rage and desperation propelling him through this strange land, both sensed that he was destined to do so, and probably quite soon. Noe just hoped and prayed that it would not be him.

  The settling sky brought out a red sun, which shimmered in front of them. In the growing light they could vaguely ascertain smudged figures in silhouette from inside the tent. Noe touched Alejandro’s arm, in a spirit of affirmation rather than any attempt at restraint, but in the event, it was brushed aside. Alejandro confidently opened the tent flap.

  Instantly greeted by that smell he knew so well, the meaty, sour scent of spilt blood in the heat, Alejandro could scarcely believe his eyes as he surveyed the scene before him. One gringo was on his knees, performing fellatio on another, as a pretty girl looked on. They were a truly disgusting people, Alejandro thought with rancor. The penis of the man was covered in blood. The girl, she had a bloody towel in her lap. The animal had obviously fucked her in her stinking pussy when she was at her dirty time of month and the other gringo pig was sucking him clean! He wondered, in a bitter rage, if those were the sordid games his sister was participating in right now, the sissy boyfriend of her wealthy lover licking her foul menstrual blood from his dick as she watched on eagerly like the whore she had become. Now the cock-sucking norteamericano pig turned and spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground.