Chapter 7
El's Gift to Sands
Disclaimer: Sands and El belong to Robert Rodriguez. But after writing this chapter, I want to own Sands just so I can cuddle him close.
Rating: R for language
Summary: El gives Sands a present, and we finally learn what happened in Puerto Vallarta a year ago.
Author's Note: The alternate title for this chapter is Sands Hits Rock Bottom. Enjoy the ride.
It's a long way down.
****
Now that they were on the road again, Sands' good humor was restored. He was still pissed off, and still – annoyingly enough – scared, but these days that was about the best he could do.
In other words, folks, it was back to the status quo.
They had waited for another whole day before leaving Villa de Cos, and then they had waited still further, until sundown. El had said it was safer that way. Fewer people would see them leaving, and if anyone was following them, it would be easier to tell. Unable to argue with this logic, Sands had been no less ticked about it. He hated making decisions and then being forced to wait to carry them out.
He was feeling much better now, however. They were just outside Durango. El had announced his intention of stopping at the first hotel he found, where they would stay the night. No one had followed them out here, which meant El's little pal who had loaned them the house had made good on his word, and spread rumors of the mariachi's appearance elsewhere in Mexico. The CIA, it seemed, had left Villa de Cos for good.
The car slowed. "Here," El said.
They pulled into a parking lot. Sands stayed in the car while El went to go check in. Money was not an issue – apparently one of El's mariachi buddies had given him a shitload of money after the coup, saying it was El's fair share of the spoils.
Sands thought it was downright saintly of him to not mention that this money should have been his in the first place. After all, he had nearly died for that money. He had lost his eyes for that money. Still, he said nothing. That was one argument he knew he would lose, and he didn't play to lose.
While he waited for El to come back, he rolled a cigarette. He was running out of tobacco, and he hoped he could buy more here. Tomorrow he would send El out to get some.
He heard the jangling sounds of El's return, and he got out of the car. El went first to the trunk to remove their bags and the guitar case that went everywhere with them, then unlocked the door to the motel room. In the time this took, Sands had smoked half his cigarette.
They went inside. El shut and locked the door. They spoke little. Within twenty minutes of arriving at the motel, they were both asleep.
Or pretending to be.
****
In the morning, El went out.
Sands amused himself by turning on the TV and listening to the purple prose being spouted on a soap opera. He aimed his pistol at the screen and mouthed, "Bang," killing the worst actress on the show a dozen times over. Then in the last act she took too many pills and fell into a coma. Everyone on the show ended up clustered about her bed, crying, except for one woman who seemed to be laughing. Sands guessed she was the one who had orchestrated the whole coma. He blew her a kiss, one conspirator to another, and put his gun away.
After that there was nothing interesting on. He turned the TV off and sat at the small wooden table in the front of the room. The morning sunshine had already made the table and the chair almost uncomfortably warm, but he didn't care. El could come back at any moment, but Sands did not worry himself with that. He knew he would hear the sounds of El's return, and have plenty of time to react long before the mariachi even set foot in the room.
He reached up and removed his sunglasses.
Warm sunlight bathed his face. A shuddery sigh escaped him. He could remember sunny days, a whole mass of them, but the sun in his memory was never as bright as it had been in reality. In his memory, it always seemed to be on the verge of raining; purple-black thunderheads glowered in the west, sending forked lightning down to the dusty earth. The storm was always there, always waiting to descend on him without warning.
He leaned forward, into the sun, yearning for it with all his being.
The doorknob rattled. El was back. Snarling curses, Sands grabbed the sunglasses and shoved them back on.
The mariachi sounded loaded down. Paper bags crunched in his arms, and something thumped against his leg as he walked into the room. Sands sat where he was and made no offer to help.
El set something down on the table in front of him. It smelled good. He reached out a tentative finger and discovered a styrofoam box. He pushed open the lid and the aroma of eggs and greasy bacon wafted outward.
At the moment, however, Sands was not interested in food. He was more curious about the other packages El had. At least one of them was heavy, judging by the way the man was moving. He heard the bed springs squeak, and then El said, "I have something for you."
He grinned. "Gosh, El, a present! And it isn't even my birthday."
He waited for the mariachi to ask just when his birthday was, but El only said, "If you want it, come here."
"Oh, no." He had stopped falling for that trick when he was eight years old. "You can bring it over here."
"I can't," El said in exasperation. "It's too big."
Sands smirked a little. "What did you get me? An elephant gun?"
El said nothing. The mariachi, he knew, was too busy having one of those if-looks-could-kill moments.
"All right, all right." He reached into the styrofoam box and scooped out a piece of bacon. He stood up, munching on it slowly, taking his time. He knew he was driving El crazy, and he savored every moment.
When the bacon was gone, he licked his fingers, one by one. He thought of taking another piece, then decided that would be pushing things too far. He turned to the right and took three and a half paces, turned right again and took three more paces. Now he was standing near El, in front of the bed. "So, what do you have for me?"
"Here." A hand took his.
Immediately he jerked his hand back. "I can do it myself!" he snapped.
El grunted in exasperation and seized his hand again. Sands seriously considered decking him, then gave in with a mental shrug; after all, it wasn't like the mariachi was going to hurt him. He allowed El to guide his hand forward and down, to something resting on the bed.
His fingers brushed smooth wood. Wire strings. He explored the object, but by the time he had run his fingers over the curvature in the wood, he knew what it was.
A guitar.
He pulled his hand back as though he had been burned.
A guitar. El had brought him a guitar.
And not for the first time. El had given him a guitar once before.
In Puerto Vallarta.
A tremor ran through him. He had spent a year trying to forget that day, with moderate success, but now the memories caught up to him with a vengeance, clamoring at him to remember. Look at us! they shouted gleefully. We're still here!
He didn't want to look.
But on this, like with so many other things, he had no choice. Helpless not to, Sands remembered.
*****
"I went to the market today," El says. "I got something for you."
They are living in a small house on the beach. El found it, and Sands used the last of his money to buy it. He is penniless now, although he refuses to tell El that. The U.S. government will have frozen his bank accounts by now. He needs to come up with a way to make money, and fast. The way he sees it, he can either sell drugs or sell his body, and neither option is very appealing.
For the time being, however, thoughts of living on the street as a beggar are pushed to the back of his mind. "What is it?"
"See for yourself," El says.
The silence that follows this remark is a heavy one. Sands debates shooting El in the gut for it, but then he realizes the mariachi genuinely meant no offense. El, quite simply, forgot for the moment that he was talking to a blind man.
On second thought, he takes El's response as a compliment. If someone like El Mariachi can forget he is blind, maybe he's doing better than he thought at fooling them all.
Feeling light-hearted and not a little proud of himself, he crosses the room, moving with easy confidence. He already knows its layout and dimensions by heart; he has not stumbled or bumped into anything in four days.
El has set his mystery gift on the dining room table. Sands walks up to him. "What is it?"
He reaches out and finds the object. It is made of wood, but as his fingers explore further, he finds the strings, the narrow neck with its metal frets.
It's a guitar.
El has given him a guitar.
Abruptly the day darkens. The stormclouds in his head slam together, and he hears thunder. Hatred rocks him to the core.
El has given him a guitar.
"What the fuck is this?" he demands, nearly choking on rage and grief. El has given him a fucking guitar, and he is blind.
This is what happens, the voice in his mind says snidely. This is what you get for letting someone close. You see what happens?
You see?
"I can't fucking see!" he shouts. He grabs the guitar by the neck and brings it down on the table with one swift swing. It makes an indignant twang, but it does not break. He is so pissed off by this – how dare it not break! -- that he dashes it against the table again, harder. This time the neck snaps off, so it is only held to the body by the strings. He brings it down again, and the body shatters.
He lets the pieces fall to the floor. "This's a real funny joke, El. Fuck you!"
He swings at the mariachi, wanting to bash El's face in. He cannot remember the last time he was this enraged. Anger is dangerous for someone like him. It's harder to stay in control when he is angry, harder to remember that most days he is only one step away from an asylum.
Sands doesn't care anymore.
He is standing so close to the mariachi, there is no way he should miss. But he does. His fist encounters only thin air, and he staggers slightly from the follow-through. "Where are you?" he shouts, hating that he can't see his enemy, hating El, hating himself. "Where the fuck are you?"
"I'm right here," El says. The mariachi's voice comes from behind him. Sands spins around and lashes out again, and for a second time, his fist meets only empty air.
This time, however, he hears the jingling sound as El moves away. He doesn't give El the chance to laugh at him. He simply guesses where the man is standing, and swings again.
Nothing. El ducks and backs away, stepping on the wooden splinters of the guitar and crushing them underfoot.
The guitar. Thinking of it fills Sands with rage. "Great present, El. I'd love to see what you buy a deaf man. Oh wait, I can't see!" He throws himself in the direction he believes El to be in.
And gets an armful of nothing. He stumbles on the carpet and falls to his knees. He doesn't get up. Why bother? He will only humiliate himself further if he does.
He is beyond caring. "You fucker," he says dully. "I saved your life."
"I know," El says. "That is why I am doing this." His voice is always changing location. He is walking in circles, Sands realizes, his hands covering the chains on his clothing so they will not chime and give him away.
At first he tries to follow the sounds, but El keeps moving, always walking, turning, changing position so fast he can't keep up. It's too new to him, trying to make sense of his world with sound alone as his navigator. He kneels there, almost shaking with anger, and something else he can't name. "What are you doing? Stop it."
El says nothing. Just keeps moving, always moving, taunting him with sound.
"Stop it!" he shouts. "Fucking stop it!"
"Why?" El says. He moves again, and now the mariachi's voice comes from right behind him, over his left shoulder, tormenting him with its closeness. "Why should I?"
"Because I can't see!" Sands screams, and launches himself at El Mariachi.
He misses, of course. He lands flat on his face on the floor.
Deep inside Sands, something snaps. For months now he has thought only of survival, of hunting down Escalante and the cartel. Of beating the odds and besting everyone who laughs at him or looks at him funny or who even notices he is there. Staying ahead of the game. Keeping away from the grabbing hands and tripping obstacles of the world. He has been so busy trying to convince everyone, including himself, that he isn't blind, that he has never really allowed it to sink in.
Until now. It has only taken four months, but the awful truth finally hits him.
"Oh God," he moans, still on the floor. "Oh God, I can't see. I can't see."
He goes limp, presses his face against the floor. The hated sunglasses dig into his cheeks, his brow. He doesn't care.
He cannot remember the last time he cried, and now, now when he wants to cry more than anything, he can't. He has no eyes. He will never cry again.
The irony does not escape him.
He is blind. He is never going to see again. He wants to hook his fingers into the empty holes where his eyes once were. He wants to tear and gouge and rip away the scar tissue, dig right into his skull, until he bleeds, bleeds to death, just so he doesn't have to live in this nightmare any more.
He wants to wake up.
A horrible wail emerges from his throat, and part of him is appalled by the sound, the sound a wild animal trapped in a cage might make. He cradles his head on his arms and sobs pitifully, terrible, tearless sobs, forcing them out past the pain in his chest.
Oh El, he thinks distantly, just put a bullet in me now. Please.
But El does not shoot him, and Sands eventually sobs himself into unconsciousness.
When he wakes, it is evening. Crickets sing outside the window, and the room is much cooler. Outside, waves crash on the beach; the tide is coming in.
"I hate you," he says. He is lying on the couch, fully clothed. El has taken his boots off, but has not touched his guns.
"I know," El says. "But you feel better, no?"
He wants to smash El in the face. Because the annoying thing is, El is right. He feels utterly spent, drained of all emotion. But he also feels cleaner, somehow. Like he has sicked up something black and hairy, something that has been curled up inside him for a long time, poisoning him from within.
"El Mariachi," he sighs bitterly. "Mexico's premiere psychologist. Don't you ever do that to me again."
"I won't have to," El says.
Sands says nothing. Half an hour later he has fallen asleep, and it is the first sleep he has had in weeks where he does not dream of sharp metal and laughter.
Before falling asleep, however, he swears a vow to himself. He will never forgive El for making him break down like that.
The very next day, El leaves Puerto Vallarta.
****
And now, another guitar.
"Are you trying to be funny?" he asked. He balled his hands into fists so El would not see them trembling.
"No," El said. "I thought you might want it."
He kept his tone light, praying his voice wouldn't reveal the pounding of his heart. "And what made you think that?"
"Well," El said with studied casualness, "if you are to teach me how to play with the slide, you will need a guitar of your own."
Sands just stood there. He supposed it was possible that El had suddenly developed a sense of humor, even this late in the game, but he was still suspicious of the mariachi's motives. There was no way El had forgotten what had happened in Puerto Vallarta. And if the man even attempted to talk about it now, Sands was going to beat him to death with this new guitar.
The chains on El's pants jingled as he walked off and sat at the sunlit table. Styrofoam squealed as he opened the box containing his own breakfast. "If that is how you feel, I will take it back tomorrow."
"Don't," Sands said, before his brain could stop his mouth.
"You want to keep it?"
Shit. He winced. He hadn't meant to say that. Well, it was too late now. "Sure," he said, giving a shrug, acting he didn't care, even though everything inside him was screaming.
He refused to touch it now, when El might be watching, but he remembered the way the instrument had felt under his fingers. Once upon a time, he had played the guitar. Once upon a time, he had even been good at it. Maybe he could learn to play again. Hell, it would give him something to do during the long, dark, empty days.
"Yeah," he said. "I want to keep it."
*****