Chapter 4
Self-Pity
Disclaimer: You guys know the drill. I don't own El and Sands.
Rating: R for language
Summary: Everyone knows you shouldn't have serious conversations after you've been drinking. Apparently El Mariachi and Agent Sands have yet to learn this.
Author's Note: So I finally watched the end of Desperado with the subtitles turned on. And I found out that Bucho doesn't call El Mariachi Miguelito like I had thought. He calls El Manito. Which is a nickname meaning "little brother." So there goes my theory on how we could learn El's name. I guess that still makes him the Man With No Name.
For all those who wondered, my favorite line in the last chapter is: "Honestly, sometimes El had all the intelligence of a retarded four-year old." I love having fun at El's expense. g
And for Erin, who reeled me back from the brink of stark raving writer's panic, thanks, dear. You're the best.
****
It is El Mariachi's turn to dream.
Carolina is looking up at him, one hand at her brow to shield her eyes from the sun. She is smiling.
His daughter is holding Carolina's other hand, and clutching her doll. She tugs at her mother, wanting to go to the market, like Carolina has promised.
He smiles at them. He waves good-bye.
Then he hears the jeeps, the dull pulse of their engines. He is not prone to leaps of intuition, but he suddenly knows that something bad is about to happen. Fear seizes him, and he leans over the balustrade. For a sick moment that seems to last an eternity, he is unable to speak, then his throat unclenches, and he is able to scream her name.
Carolina looks up at him, then at the approaching vehicles. Her dark eyes widen.
He races down the stairs, slamming into the wall as he tries to make himself fly, so he can reach them that much faster. He runs out the door and is plunged into the bright sunshine at the very instant Marquez shoots.
And his whole world falls apart, right in front of him. He is stunned, too horrified to move as Marquez turns and points the gun at him. He only has eyes for Carolina, and his daughter, and their blood sinking slowly into the hot sand.
When the bullets rip into him, he scarcely feels the pain. He is consumed with grief, with loss, with an agony no physical pain can ever match. On his face in the dirt, he watches Marquez take the silver necklace, the gift he had given Carolina shortly before the birth of their daughter.
Marquez gets into a jeep. The engines roar and the vehicles drive away.
El Mariachi crawls to his wife. She is already dead.
His daughter is already dead.
He has left a bloody trail behind him in the dust. Men are running toward him, wanting to help, now that it is safe to do so. He does not even look at them.
He looks only at Carolina. Her eyes are open, unseeing. She will never smile at him again. She will never sing to their girl again.
He drops his head and rests his cheek in the dust. He tries to find the strength to cry, but he had nothing more to give. He has given it all just to cross the distance separating him from Carolina.
Still wishing he could weep, he falls unconscious.
****
El woke with a start. The tears were still wet on his cheeks. He brushed them away angrily. There would be no more sleep for him. He got out of bed and went over to the window. The occasional car passed on the street, and he could hear lively music from the bar down the block. It was almost three o'clock in the morning.
Dark despair washed over him, making him bow his head until his forehead touched the window. Hours like these, when it seemed like morning would never come, were always the worst. His grief was strongest during these times, and some nights he felt like he wouldn't be able to carry on, that the strength needed to get up and leave the house and go on about his life was completely beyond him.
Tonight was one of those nights. Abruptly El decided to get drunk. Very drunk. Knowing who he was, the local bars vied for his favor, and they often gave him free bottles. He had quite an extensive array of liquors to choose from in his pantry.
Tonight, he thought, was a tequila night.
He turned away from the window. In the kitchen, he heard a sudden crash, and the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. A voice snarled a curse.
El hurried out of his room. He was a little dismayed to discover his heart was racing. When he had first heard the broken glass, he had thought it was someone smashing the window, that he had been found by the very people he was hoping to avoid. Then he had heard the voice and he had realized just who was out there.
The kitchen was dark, and for a moment that perplexed El, until he realized that Sands simply had not turned on the light. After all, he mused, it was not like the agent needed it.
He flicked the switch, bathing the kitchen in dull yellow light. Sands was standing at the kitchen counter, feeling his way through a cupboard. Shattered glass lay on the counter and on the floor; a strong smell of peppers filled the air. El made a face and opened the window. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for something to drink. Something strong."
Without a word El walked over to the pantry in the corner. He opened it and peered at the many bottles lined up on the floor. "What do you want?"
Sands had turned around at the sound of the door opening. He grinned, a ghastly expression that told El he was not the only who had struggled with dreams of the past on this night. "Tequila. Lots of tequila."
El grunted his agreement. He grabbed two bottles from the pantry, held them both with one hand, and used the other to grab Sands' arm and steer him toward the table.
Predictably, Sands yanked his arm free. "Let go of me." He made his way to the table on his own. He held his right hand out, feeling for the chair he knew had to be there, finding the back and pulling it out. He moved so he stood with one leg against the side of the chair, and then sat.
El watched all this, fascinated. It occurred to him that making your way through the world when you couldn't see it was quite a feat.
He opened one of the bottles and began to drink. The tequila burned all the way down, a fiery sensation he relished. He was looking forward to getting drunk, all right.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't sleep much anymore," Sands said. "Have you ever tried sleeping when you can't even close your eyes? Trust me, it's a very strange feeling."
El decided he didn't want to think about that one too much.
He put all his focus onto drinking. Lift bottle, swallow tequila, lower bottle.
Repeat as necessary.
****
Sands matched him bottle for bottle, and at some point El found himself carrying his entire stock in both arms from the pantry and dumping it on the kitchen table. "I'm tired of going back and forth," he sulked, rather loudly.
"Sure," Sands said with a smile, and drained the bottle he was holding.
El stared at him. Even in the middle of the night, with no one around, Sands wore his sunglasses and his guns. He looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice, to just get up and run right out the door and not look back.
"Why did you come with me?" El asked. He frowned at the bottle he had just opened. The label was nothing more than a blurry smudge, and he had no idea what was inside.
It didn't taste bad, though.
"Let me put it to you this way," Sands said. "Given a choice between staying with you and staying with Jorge, I choose you. Jorge was too crabby all the time."
This struck El as amazingly funny. "I thought I was crabby all the time, too."
"You? El my dear friend, you," Sands pointed at him, "are many things, but crabby is not one of them."
"Yeah? Just what am I?" El slurred.
"Hell if I know," Sands said grandly. He reached for a new bottle, knocked over two, fumbled among the ones still standing, and grabbed one that was a violent dark green color.
"All I know," Sands continued, "is that you're the only one still here. Let the record show."
El nodded. "I'm still standing," he said.
****
They drank.
The sky was just beginning to lighten with dawn when Sands told El about his one and only encounter with Barillo.
Being drunk had given Sands permission to indulge himself. There had always been a layer of the grandiose to his speech, but alcohol made him eloquent in a way El had never heard from him before. He talked about his relationship with Ajedrez, the daughter of Barillo. He told El that the sex had been good, that the element of danger and unease had been even better. He said Ajedrez had come after him, and made him think she wanted him. He had been flattered. He had decided to trust her, and tell her his plans.
He told El the sinking feeling he had gotten when she had sat across from him at that table in the cantina, how he had believed then that he was going to die. He told El – as if El needed to be told – about the pain of betrayal.
He talked about waking up to see Barillo standing in the corner, face covered in bloody bandages. Trying to act like he hadn't noticed the danger of his situation. Trying to act cool.
He told El what it felt like when they had ripped his eyes out, how he had screamed. "I didn't beg, though." His expression twisted with self-hatred. "But don't get the wrong impression. It happened so fast I didn't have time to beg. If they had drawn it out, you bet your ass I would have."
He described the way the kid had helped him. The terrible moment in the taxi when he realized that he would have to fight them, and he would have to win. The gunfight with Barillo's men. How he made himself a fool in order to make them laugh, so he could hear where they were. How he killed Ajedrez.
The last thing he said was about the boy in the yellow T-shirt. "That kid saved my life. And I had told him to fuck off."
A long silence stretched out. El peered into his bottle and wondered when it had become empty.
He took a deep breath, and told Sands about Carolina.
He described how they had met, how she had been innocently walking down the street, about to get caught in the middle of a shoot-out. He told Sands about his quest to find Bucho, never guessing he was searching for his own brother. He talked about the boy, the boy of his own story, and how he had realized that saving the life of the child was more important than any claims he might have on revenge.
He talked about the new life he had found with Carolina, how beautiful she was. How she sang to him when he was trying to sleep. Her smile, her walk.
How betrayed he had felt when he had learned about her relationship with Marquez.
"She didn't tell me, because she didn't want to hurt me," he said. "By the time she met me, she hadn't seen Marquez in almost a year. She thought he didn't want her anymore. She thought she was through with him."
He told Sands about their confrontation with Marquez in the bar, how Carolina had cried as she shot him. He said that he had truly believed the threat was gone, that they were free to live their lives together.
After a few more drinks, he talked about the day he had lost them, his wife and his daughter. How his own life had hung by a thread for weeks. How he had not wanted to recover, so he could join them. How finally his thirst for revenge against Marquez had provided the spark he needed to live.
But he had not gone after Marquez. Instead he had found the sleepy town with its guitar-makers and its pleasant people. There had always been a reason not to go after the General, and he had begun to think he would never meet Marquez again. He told Sands how badly he had missed them, how badly he still missed them, how every day without Carolina hurt. He said that the pain had gotten easier with time, and he had learned how to cope with it. He said that he had believed his quiet life in the village would never end.
"And then, you," El said.
"And then me," Sands said. His voice was laced with bitterness. "They should have drowned me at birth."
"They should have," El agreed, and drained his latest bottle.
"But they didn't, and now we both have to live with me," Sands said. "Damn the luck." He was slurring his words by this point, but it was obvious that he was still a long way from passing-out drunk.
He drew one of his guns. "Maybe I should just make things easier for everyone," he said. "Whaddaya say?" He put the muzzle of the gun against his temple.
El let the bottle drop from his fingers. It hit the table on its side, rolled to the edge and wobbled there, precariously close to falling off. He suddenly felt very sober.
He thought fast.
"Don't waste the bullet," he said.
Sands did not move for a long moment, then he sighed. "You're right. Of course." He lowered the gun. "I'm not even worth wasting a bullet on."
"Stop it," El snapped, feeling braver now that the gun was not aimed at Sands' head anymore. "Self-pity on you is like…like the cheap side of Sears." As soon as the words left his mouth, he winced. He had gotten it wrong somehow, he knew that much.
He waited for Sands to raise the gun again, and this time pull the trigger.
Then Sands spoke, in the lazy drawl that meant he was hiding a deeper, more genuine emotion. "El, my dear friend, I believe you mean to say, 'Self-pity on you is like the softer side of Sears.' And while I understand your sentiment, I'm afraid I cannot agree. My self-pity is indeed derivative and it is very unbecoming," -- here his voice became hard and cold -- "but it is most definitely not cheap. It is bought and paid for, and the price was very dear. So forgive me if I happen to believe that I am entitled to it. And by the way, I believe if you don't like that, you can go fuck yourself."
El nodded and relaxed a little in his chair. If Sands was angry, that meant he was fine. The danger was past.
Sands put the gun away. He was sulky now. "Go to hell, why don't you." He lurched to his feet, staggered a few steps to the right, and promptly ran into the fridge. He cursed, righted himself, then made his way out of the kitchen. El heard him thud down the hall and then the door to the spare room slammed shut.
El just sat there. He searched among the bottles, looking for one that still had some liquor in it.
There was nothing left. With a loud sigh, El slumped forward and laid his cheek on his crossed arms on the table.
The bottle at the edge of the table rolled off and shattered on the floor. Deeply asleep, El never heard a thing.
****
When he woke, it was mid-afternoon. Bright sunlight streamed in through the window, reflecting off the curved side of a bottle, and hitting him square in the eyes. Groaning, one hand holding his forehead, El sat up.
Sands was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, one foot propped up on the back door behind him. He was smoking. He had obviously been standing there for a while; the cigarette was little more than a long thread of ash. He looked as bad as El felt. "We talked last night, didn't we?"
"We did," El affirmed, then winced. He had to remember to speak in a softer voice.
Sands nodded gingerly. "That," he said, "is what I thought. I have absolutely no idea what we said, but I am fairly sure that whatever we did talk about – we probably shouldn't have talked about."
So Sands wanted to act like last night had never happened.
El had no problem with that.
"Then we didn't say anything," he said.
The merest hint of a smile crossed Sands' face. "I knew there was a reason I liked you," he said.
And with that, leaving El sitting at the table in slack-jawed amazement, he dropped his cigarette to the floor, ground it out under his heel, pushed open the back door, and went outside.
*****
Author's Note: I owe a thanks to Erin for this chapter, for her suggestion about Ajedrez and Sands' relationship, and why he trusted her. The idea that Ajedrez chased after Sands and made him think she wanted him is her idea, not mine. Give her all the credit for that one.