Page 42 of The Delivery

“Put some flipping clothes on. For Christ’s sake, Lana. I’m gay.”

“Yeah, well then quit checking out my ass,” I say and finally spot it. I grab it and see that I’ve got fourteen missed calls. “Fuck!”

“Hey, is that my toothbrush? In your mouth? You are a dirty little cunt!”

I toss the pillow back at him. I frantically push return call, and the phone just rings and rings until a Western Union generic voice mail answers the call. I scroll back through and see there’s another number. I select that one and a woman’s voice answers and says, “Bueno?”

“Huh?”

“Bueno?”

“What?”

I’m just breathing like prank phone caller. I’m sweating and spinning and my knee joints feel like loose teeth. They might hold me up or they might pop totally out of place.

“Lana?”

“Reme?”

“He picked it up. 8:30 this morning. A surcursal at Avenida Revolución and the corner of Chula Vista.”

“Reme, could you please text that to me? I don’t speak any Spanish.”

My heart is chug chugging, a steam engine roaring through my chest. I suddenly have energy that radiates out into my limbs, like thousands of pop-rocks going off simultaneously under my skin.

“He picked up the money!” I shout at Tommy as I tear the sheets off of him. “Get up! We’re going to a surcursal-something-something called Revolucion!”

“Calm down, loca! Just because he picked it up—” Tommy glances down at his watch “—over two hours ago, doesn’t mean he’s there waiting for you,” he says as he scrambles into some boxer briefs.

I find my shorts from yesterday and pull them up commando over my hips. I’ll just wear Tommy’s tank top. I don’t need to look pretty. I’ll skip a bra. Sorry, tits, don’t hate me.

“Maybe he’s nearby having brunch or a cup of coffee.” This is my optimism speaking. It paints a highly unlikely picture. My optimism is delusional.

Tommy slides his thin frame into a pair of skinny jeans and slips on a tank top.

“We’ve got to leave a note for Rocco. He’s either swimming or jogging.”

I jog in place as Tommy scribbles out the note. I toss him the keys as I’m guessing he’s more accustomed to driving under the effects of so many drugs.

We race to the address of the Western Union and with how Tommy handles a car it’s a miracle we don’t get pulled over. We arrive at a street that looks like a forlorn boardwalk in the dead of winter. Abandoned, desolate restaurants that have boards nailed up over their windows. Huge, colorful signs advertising promises that no longer exist. I moan out loud as we get out and slam the doors of the car.

“Doesn’t look like a brunch hot-spot. But you probably already noticed that,” Tommy quips.

There are a few strip clubs and peep shows that look like they’ve just shut their doors to the after hour crowd at ten in the morning. A few wavering drunks teeter in the sunlight like disoriented nightclub zombies. The air smells like piss and vomit and the pissy, vomity smell of spilled beer, now baking in the sun.

“I don’t think there is anywhere around here to get coffee,” Tommy says, taking in the scene and shaking his head.

“Shut up!” I say, marching toward the Western Union outpost, which itself, has probably seen better days.

The air-conditioning is broken and instead of cool air what greets you is the smell of black mold and cloying wetness—the odor of leaking Freon. It’s a nasty trick, with the vengeance of the Tijuana sun.

“Hello, good morning,” I stutter to the man at the desk behind the Plexiglas window. I hit him with my biggest smile. I’m sure I look like a drug addict with my blood-shot eyes, insane hair and my way too skinny, skinny jeaned clad, boyfriend. Tommy looks like a classic junkie, he’s standing apprehensively just over my shoulder gnawing his cuticles. We need cash for medical bills, no really, we do.

The money has been picked up, the description fits to a T. That’s all he can tell me. No details. No goodies. Didn’t see what direction he left in or in which he came. Doesn’t know if he arrived by car, on foot or if he flew in on a fucking unicorn-shaped airplane. The reception guy is not impressed with my story and couldn’t care less about our plight. Oh, a heart broken gringa with her gay, looking for her long lost love—a Mexican, who is picking up her cash. Please just get out of my face.

Mozey Cruz now has five hundred dollars in cash money. Four hundred eighty minus the Western Union transfer fees. This is all I know of the man that I think I’m in love with.

“Where would he go with all of that money?” Tommy says, lifting a leg up onto the bumper of the car and stretching in the lazy heat that is picking up some humidity.

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