Page 47 of The Delivery

But Tommy’s attention is elsewhere; he’s already lost interest. At the store entrance there seems to be some sort of commotion.

We push the cart laden with things we don’t really need past a cheapsuited store manager barking loudly in Spanish at a lower-lever parking lot employee. As we step out into the night, the ground in front of us illuminated by large halogen parking lot lights holds the most beautiful design painted all in white. They appear to be gravestones, deeply contrasted and glowing against the black tar, some of them hold skulls on top with illegible scripture. Other stones have soft flowing blurs escaping them, wafting off into nothingness—spray-painted spirits escaping woefully into the air.

This isn’t a happy picture; it’s full of fear and despair. It’s small and only a humble collection of a few lines, but with this man’s talent, the rudimentary becomes sublime. The lower corner bears his signature and next to it is a likeness of my contrast stencil-face, but it looks even better than the one we made. This one really looks like me.

Tommy marches ahead with the grocery cart and pops open the trunk. I strain my eyes through the dark to try to see him—maybe he’s nearby watching my reaction.

“Don’t bother. He’s long gone by now. He’s teasing you at this point, really. He’s playing a game of cat and mouse. He’ll come out when he’s ready.”

I slump into the passenger’s side seat and reluctantly pull on my seatbelt.

“I’ve been waiting so long. It’s making me crazy. I’ve been waiting three years, Tommy, not just three days in Tijuana.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t done him yet. I had a whole different vision going on.”

“I’m not planning on doing him. I’m going to find him and then deliver him to Mexico.”

“Why do you say it like that? He’s a person, not a pizza. What if he doesn’t want to go?”

“He told me he did. He has family there. I saw him in detention before he was deported. I promised to do something for him.”

“So you’re not in love with him?”

“I am. I think I am. I don’t know what love is. I’m his social worker. I could never sleep with him.”

I stare out the car window at the white spray-paint softly glowing against tar-black of the parking lot and the blue-black of the night.

CHAPTER 22

“W

ooo weee, girl, wake up!” Tommy whistles as he pulls the car into Paradise. I must have dozed off. We get out to unload too many bags of groceries for the one night we have left together.

Rocco and Claudia are in the garden, listening to opera, the volume at full boar. Claudia has a huge green parrot squawking on her shoulder and shifting its feet in an endless sidestep dance.

“Well, boys,” Tommy says, setting the groceries down by the whitepainted iron garden chairs. “Lana is delivering him to Mexico because she’s his social worker. She isn’t going to have sex with him. So says the news of the day. We put her face all over TJ. If anybody at all wants her—they’ll know where to find her.”

Rocco is reclined with his eyes closed, and he’s got a pipe full of smoldering tobacco pressed tightly between his lips. The parrot squawks again and pecks at Coco’s wig, tonight’s style is a sharp, blonde bob. Rocco squints, his left eye open and removes his pipe.

“Well, someone will find you here. But I’m afraid we have to leave tomorrow.”

“¿Qué es eso? “ Coco coos as she puts the parrot back into a large wrought iron cage. “¿Es para mí?” she asks, coming over and taking the piñata from me.

“Yeah,” I shrug and smile at Tommy.

“Did you eat, mi amor? Are you hungry? Nobody is in the hotel. It’s Sunday night so I made espaguetti.”

“Any luck on social media?” Tommy asks Rocco who is once again reclined.

Rocco exhales a puff of white cherry-scented smoke, opens his eyes and nods. “I found him. He has his own account. I followed him with yours. He’s been looking in graveyards. I guess trying to find his sister. He must have found out she died.”

“Uhh!” I make a noise out loud without wanting to and run for my phone. My hands are shaking as I scroll through his pictures. Most are of his artwork and very few are of him. There’s a cut-off arm every once in a while or a bar shot with friends where he’s not really looking at the camera. There are some of his son, which, for selfish reasons, are painful to see.

“Lana is in love,” Coco announces, handing me both a beer and a shot of tequila.

“Not again, I don’t think my liver can handle it,” I say, taking both only to set them down again and tear through the pictures. The best thing I’ve ever come across in my life is way back in his account at the very beginning. Mozey posted a photo of me, him and Lex on some freezing, gray, Detroit morning. I remember my dad taking it with Lex’s phone. I don’t recall ever having seen it—I’m sure I’d remember it.

We all look so young it’s hard to believe it was taken only three years ago. My cheeks are pink from the cold, and I’m wearing my grandmother’s ill-fitting and outdated coat. Lex’s hair is a mess like he just woke up, but I do think the photo was taken the day we went to court. Mozey is dressed in all black and has a sort of half-smirk like he’s contented and feels warmly toward us. We could be three orphans or three Eastern European immigrants arriving at Ellis Island at the turn of the last century. You’d only have to change our wardrobe, our expressions would stay.

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