Page 46 of The Delivery

“Check the Dibujeros too, Rocco. He’s definitely one of them.”

Tommy and I hit up the store to buy cans of black spray paint, and ask around about Mozey. The cashier is wishy-washy and won’t give us a straight answer. He does have an amazing mullet and some of the longest, yellowed fingernails I’ve ever seen on a man. He casts dirty looks at Tommy, feigning offense at his femininity, but I feel like it’s just a cover for what appears to be deep interest. He’s definitely checking Tommy out while pretending to be disgusted by him.

He explains that he doesn’t work everyday but that someone who looked like Mozey maybe did come in and purchase because his coworker may have told him about a customer with a similar description. Of course, he paid in cash and gave no indication of where he was headed or staying.

I pass him a quickly scribbled note to give to Mozey if he shows up again. He practically snatches it out of my hands with his freakshow fingers. He’s either got a bit of a tremor or else he’s hung over. The note quivers in his hand as he nods at us with hooded eyes. I can see him tossing it into the garbage can before we’re even out the door.

“Everyone in Tijuana is on drugs or possessed by demons,” I say as we walk down the steps of the ferreterría.

“No. They’re just scared of narcos and a lot of people are on drugs. It’s a border town for Christ’s sake. A last resort and a dead end for most. Here you find desperate people taking desperate measures to survive.”

“And then there’s the influx of hedonists that just come here for the sex and prescription drugs,” I add, taking a jab at his and Rocco’s odd penchant for South of the border getaways.

“Speak for yourself, slumdog. I come here for the food. Want to go get some tacos before we head back to the murals?”

Tommy and I spend the day spray-painting the stencil onto both of Mozey’s murals, right by his own signature. We also find a few spots that seem like they’d be hard to miss if you were scouting for urban canvas. All day long, I hope and pray we’ll just run into him. I feel more connected to him with the can of paint in my hand, and I like how the undersides of my fingertips are black like I’d sometimes see his. Tommy is right about the food. We eat a late afternoon lunch of tacos al pastor and some incredible, crazy looking soup with red broth that supposedly contains cow stomach. I have no fear of food, and for that I can thank my paternal grandmother. She had me plucking chickens in her back yard from the early age of seven. She taught me to boil the feet and heads to create a rich broth. I’ve known from a young age it doesn’t have to be pretty to taste amazing.

I tell Tommy what I know of how Mozey lost his sister here almost fifteen years ago and how he doesn’t think she’s dead. He believes she was kidnapped—so that’s why he’s here—trying to find her.

“What’s he got to go on? How old would she be?” Tommy asks as he spoons out a large wedge of avocado and drops it in his soup.

“She was a baby, really. I think eighteen months or so. That would put her at about sixteen or seventeen. He knows the name of the crooked coyote that escorted them, and he knows her name, according to my brother.”

“What was it?” Tommy asks, squeezing in lime. I copy exactly what he does because he knows the ins and outs of how to eat in Mexico.

“Brisa,” I say through a sip of sweet, gritty rice milk laced with cinnamon.

“Oh, like the wind,” Tommy says thoughtfully and flags the waiter down for the bill. Tommy’s Spanish is pretty great, and even though I tease him, I’m actually impressed with his great affection and knowledge of this place.

We get in some sidewalks and telephone polls before it gets dark. We’re having so much fun with the project we keep joking about becoming full time street artists. Tommy has already invented a tag which he’s practiced in a hundred places. It says simply Tommy, but he’s managed to get the whole thing looking like a giant, abstract penis. It’s also kind of fun sneaking around trying not to be seen or get caught. As the sun sets, I’m disturbed by my super-contrast stencil face peeping out sadly from so many Tijuana cement walls. I’m scared to be left alone here without Rocco and Tommy. I’m scared to have my haunted face left lingering here, attached to walls for decades without knowing the future of how or when I’ll leave. With or without Moisés? What if I don’t make it out at all? My scowl will stay here, frowning onto eternity once my body becomes dust.

We trudge back to the hotel when we run out of paint. The sound of the bead banging against the tin of the empty can has got me melancholy and deflated. Tommy insists on stopping at the super market where he buys me a piñata and a shit-ton of spicy Mexican candy to fill it.

He gets so many looks here for being flamboyant. He’s dressed in a flowing, canary yellow, silk shirt that now boasts drops of black spray paint. His hair is feathered dramatically, and his tan is insane. He’s like a Technicolor gay dreamboat that belongs on the big screen. I smile like a maniac at him while he loads my arms with bags of candy.

“Lana,” he says, grinning. “You’re moody, brooding look suits you better. Somehow that smile catches me off-guard.”

“What are we celebrating?” I ask him. There’s so much candy in my arms I can’t imagine it all fitting into our small, six-pointed star piñata.

“Meeting each-other, saying goodbye and your reunion with your lover,” Tommy says as he stacks mineral water and some type of orange drink into our cart.

“But what if it doesn’t happen? What if celebrating early jinxes it?”

“Positive thinking, my dear, will get you everywhere in life. If you want it badly enough, think it, and the universe will deliver.”

We push our cart to the checkout, and Tommy buys spearmint gum for Rocco. He throws in some Spanish language tabloids and some chocolate marshmallow ghosts.

“Can you read those?” I ask, sucking on a chili spice covered lollipop that is scorching my throat and making my eyes water.

“Not really. I just like the pictures.”

“Tommy, you called Mozey my lover, but just for the record. I’ve never made love to him.”

“What?” Tommy says, his eyes bulging at my confession. I cough on my lollipop. I kind of like the idea I can say that out loud at the check out and maybe no one besides Tommy understood what I said.

“Remedy that, baby girl! As soon as we find him. No use in searching him down if you haven’t even tried his lollipop. What a waste that would be! What if you don’t even like it?”

“Oh, I’ll like it!”

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