together, I told her to tell me where she lived.
She sat smoking her cigarettes the whole way. When we got to her apartment building, I waited until she got inside okay. Then I cracked all the windows to air out the car for the drive home. Then I drove home.
* * *
She was late the next morning. She came in with her wrist taped up. She told the guys she sprained it falling out of bed. They loved that. She’s still friendly with them, but doesn’t talk to me anymore. For a while Dave was coming up, putting his arm around me, and asking if the honeymoon was over, if the bloom was off the rose.
She doesn’t talk to me anymore. But she doesn’t avoid me, either. At lunchtime she still comes in and out through the back lot and up the dock. I’m at my usual spot, and she’ll go up the steps, then stop and light a cigarette before going inside. She looks right at me the whole time.
So I eat my lunch in my car. It’s at the far end of the lot, back where the busted pallets are piled. From where I’m parked I can see her come in. I can see her walk past where I used to sit. My not being there doesn’t faze her at all. She just gets on with her life. When she’s gone, I get out and grab a few minutes on the dock before going back to work, a few minutes of sun at least, before it moves over the building, and then only until the fall. By early winter the sun’s too low and doesn’t hit the dock at all.
* * *
I’ve started a new routine. On the weekends I go up into the mountains for a long run. I’ve got water bottles stashed in hiding places up there. I drive up and replenish them once a month. Above the tree line the roads end in cul-de-sacs, and from then on it’s nothing but fire trails that switchback through scrub and grass and rock. I take it easy getting up there, but once I hit the trailheads, I pour it on. I pound up that grade and I don’t ease up until I reach the plateau.
I go all day in those mountains. I’ve gotten lost up there. Sometimes I don’t get back until after nightfall, so depleted, so close to the brink, that it takes everything I’ve got to just hang on and make it home. I’m weaving and staggering along, and I’m laughing. People have pulled over and gotten out of their cars to ask if I’m okay. They think there’s something wrong because sometimes I can’t stop laughing. But there’s nothing wrong. Sometimes that’s just how good I feel.
Somoza’s Dream
He is scuttling through the dark. His bare foot steps into something cold and slick. His leg shoots forward. He skids. The ground beneath him is suddenly gone. Synapses fire, nerve bundles twitch, and he is falling. Muscles spasm in myoclonic response. His legs jitter under the sheets. Dinorah, lying next to him, crabs away. Then an alarm, sharp and jangly. He stirs, and his tumble ceases. He reaches for the clock, kills it. Through eye slits, a vast room takes shape in the chocolate dark. Drapes as thick as hides cover ceiling-high windows. Morning light bleeds in. He snorts, hawks, swallows. He awakes, knows now where he is. His room. This world. Today: Wednesday, September 17, 1980.
The Presidente-in-Exile rises.
In the bathroom, post-shower, post-shave. He steps on the spring scale. The needle flutters shyly below one seventy-five. Not bad. He gives his belly a small-caliber-gunshot slap. “Not bad at all,” he says.
In the dressing room, his fingers glide through a kelp of neckties, fondling the Zegnas, stroking a yellow jacquard. He snaps it out, runs it through his collar. He speed-dials Bettinger, puts him on speakerphone, confirms their appointment while finishing up the knot—nine sharp, Van Damm’s office at the Banco Alemán. “The fix is in, Tacho,” Bettinger says. He pads to the shoe closet, selects a pair of burgundy loafers, Russia calf Henleys. “The bitch is prone,” Bettinger purrs. “Knees up and ready for fucking.” He drops the shoes to the carpet, kicks them
She sat smoking her cigarettes the whole way. When we got to her apartment building, I waited until she got inside okay. Then I cracked all the windows to air out the car for the drive home. Then I drove home.
* * *
She was late the next morning. She came in with her wrist taped up. She told the guys she sprained it falling out of bed. They loved that. She’s still friendly with them, but doesn’t talk to me anymore. For a while Dave was coming up, putting his arm around me, and asking if the honeymoon was over, if the bloom was off the rose.
She doesn’t talk to me anymore. But she doesn’t avoid me, either. At lunchtime she still comes in and out through the back lot and up the dock. I’m at my usual spot, and she’ll go up the steps, then stop and light a cigarette before going inside. She looks right at me the whole time.
So I eat my lunch in my car. It’s at the far end of the lot, back where the busted pallets are piled. From where I’m parked I can see her come in. I can see her walk past where I used to sit. My not being there doesn’t faze her at all. She just gets on with her life. When she’s gone, I get out and grab a few minutes on the dock before going back to work, a few minutes of sun at least, before it moves over the building, and then only until the fall. By early winter the sun’s too low and doesn’t hit the dock at all.
* * *
I’ve started a new routine. On the weekends I go up into the mountains for a long run. I’ve got water bottles stashed in hiding places up there. I drive up and replenish them once a month. Above the tree line the roads end in cul-de-sacs, and from then on it’s nothing but fire trails that switchback through scrub and grass and rock. I take it easy getting up there, but once I hit the trailheads, I pour it on. I pound up that grade and I don’t ease up until I reach the plateau.
I go all day in those mountains. I’ve gotten lost up there. Sometimes I don’t get back until after nightfall, so depleted, so close to the brink, that it takes everything I’ve got to just hang on and make it home. I’m weaving and staggering along, and I’m laughing. People have pulled over and gotten out of their cars to ask if I’m okay. They think there’s something wrong because sometimes I can’t stop laughing. But there’s nothing wrong. Sometimes that’s just how good I feel.
Somoza’s Dream
He is scuttling through the dark. His bare foot steps into something cold and slick. His leg shoots forward. He skids. The ground beneath him is suddenly gone. Synapses fire, nerve bundles twitch, and he is falling. Muscles spasm in myoclonic response. His legs jitter under the sheets. Dinorah, lying next to him, crabs away. Then an alarm, sharp and jangly. He stirs, and his tumble ceases. He reaches for the clock, kills it. Through eye slits, a vast room takes shape in the chocolate dark. Drapes as thick as hides cover ceiling-high windows. Morning light bleeds in. He snorts, hawks, swallows. He awakes, knows now where he is. His room. This world. Today: Wednesday, September 17, 1980.
The Presidente-in-Exile rises.
In the bathroom, post-shower, post-shave. He steps on the spring scale. The needle flutters shyly below one seventy-five. Not bad. He gives his belly a small-caliber-gunshot slap. “Not bad at all,” he says.
In the dressing room, his fingers glide through a kelp of neckties, fondling the Zegnas, stroking a yellow jacquard. He snaps it out, runs it through his collar. He speed-dials Bettinger, puts him on speakerphone, confirms their appointment while finishing up the knot—nine sharp, Van Damm’s office at the Banco Alemán. “The fix is in, Tacho,” Bettinger says. He pads to the shoe closet, selects a pair of burgundy loafers, Russia calf Henleys. “The bitch is prone,” Bettinger purrs. “Knees up and ready for fucking.” He drops the shoes to the carpet, kicks them
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