Chapter 6
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Disclaimer: I own nothing, yada yada yada, Robert Rodriguez yada yada yada.
Rating: T for language. You know how it is, once Sands opens his mouth...
The first time Sands woke, he was in the back of a car. His head was in someone's lap. That same someone was holding his hand. If he squinted, he could almost see the smoke-colored upholstery covering the Chevy's ceiling.
"Turn right," a voice said. It came from above his head. Chiclet.
Good ol' Chiclet.
Listen, I need you to get something for me. You're probably gonna need your bike, though, okay?
Sí.
It's in a black bag, in my apartment. The lock's busted, you'll have to find a way to get inside. Bring it back here, but don't get too close if the men with guns are still around. Got it?
Sí.
Good kid. He'd not only brought the fake arm that had saved his life when Ajedrez came out to finish him off, he'd left a second time and brought real help.
And now. . . now what?
The click of a turn signal was driving him mad. Chiclet's fingers were cold. He let himself fall into the waiting blackness again.
The second time Sands woke he was lying on his back on the world's softest bed.
Muted voices came from his left. They were talking about the cleaning power of Ajax. The room smelled of blood.
"Chiclet?" The word came out in a gummy moan.
"I'm here." A hand crashed down on his forehead.
He sank.
Mask of hideous bandages. Peering, glaring eyes. You've been spying on my operation for some time.
Desperate attempt to be brave. I feel it's only fair to warn you that killing me would be crossing the line, and you will have every single Marine from here to Guatánamo Bay up your keister, mister. So just know that.
Fortunately for you, nothing you did is worth dying over. You have only seen too much.
We are going to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Hands gripping him, holding him down. Metal whirring. A woman laughing. His own panicky, terrified breathing.
He would not scream. He would not scream. Hewouldnotscream. Hewouldnot—
A short cry exploded from his throat. He jerked, one arm flailing, the other bound to his chest by something soft.
"Sands." Chiclet's voice came from his left.
It was enough to ground him in reality. The last of the dream faded, leaving him with just the dull aftertaste. "Where are we?"
"The Plaza Genova," Chiclet said. Glass clinked, and he heard the sound of water being poured, the sweetest sound he had ever heard.
"Drink," Chiclet said. Obediently he tried to lift his head, only to find it weighed a ton. Chiclet helped him, and he drank greedily.
He hurt all over. Knife fights always ended badly. Especially when he was one of the participants.
"Where's El?" he asked.
"I am here," came the mariachi's voice. It sounded from across the room. He wondered if El resented patching him up. He wondered if El was feeling guilty right now for waiting so long to intervene. He hoped so. He sincerely hoped so.
"What time is it?" God, he hated to having to ask such stupid questions. It was hard enough to stay in control of things nowadays without some annoying loss-of-consciousness to deal with too.
"Four o'clock," Chiclet said. "The same day," he added helpfully.
He'd been out almost the whole damn day. That was not good. He took a deep breath, then immediately regretted it. He groaned. How many times had he been cut? He'd lost track after four.
Fucking knives.
And then suddenly he remembered something. Falling. Striking the ground. Hearing the click of plastic hitting concrete. The cool air on his face. "Chiclet." He spoke quietly, not wanting El to hear. The boy had to lean down to hear him, so that warm breath misted his cheek. "Does he know?"
Chiclet's breath caught, then resumed. "Yes," he whispered.
"Fuck!" Sands shouted.
The afternoon was hot and sunny.
His sleeping self, the part of him that knew he was dreaming, snarled and tried to pull free of the dream. He hated dreaming about sunlight and sight – sunsight – even more than he hated dreaming about Barillo. At least the dark dreams did not give him false hope.
There was no stopping it. He was a prisoner of his dreaming self.
He walked down the street, bopped down it, more accurately. Cell phone pressed to his ear, itchy fake mustache pressed to his upper lip. The boy in the yellow T-shirt was riding his way, dinging that damn bell.
I don't ever want to see you again. Fuck off.
One wish come true.
The sunlight dimmed, sending shadows reaching across the day. He began walking a little faster. He had to keep going. If he slowed down he would be caught and dragged into a shadowed doorway further up the street, like a moon tugged toward a large planet with a dark gravitational pull.
Someone was standing in the doorway, blocking it. Their face was in shadow, and all he could see was a silhouette. It looked vaguely familiar, but in a way that sent dread spiking through his heart.
He walked down the street, trying to hurry. He drew even with the doorway and then stopped dead. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Suddenly he could not make his legs move. He could walk no further. The shadow in the doorway had begun exerting its pull, and he was sliding helplessly into its grip.
Inane lyrics filled his head, lines from Chiclet's favorite song, heard over and over until he had smashed the radio, but still the kid had sung it under his breath, just to piss him off.
Que voy a hacer
Je ne sais pas
Que voy a hacer
Je ne sais plus
Que voy a hacer
Je suis perdu
His stupid brain insisted on translating the lyrics. He spoke them into the cell phone, even though there was no one on the other end because they had cut him off, turned him loose, thrown him to the wolves. He was on his own now.
"What am I going to do?
I don't know.
What am I going to do?
I don't know anymore.
What am I going to do?
I am lost."
And now his feet began to work again, only they were taking him in the exact opposite direction he wanted to go, toward the shadowy figure in the doorway. It had hair down to its shoulders, and it was wearing a suit jacket. There was something wet on its face.
"No," he whimpered. He did not want to go through that door. He wanted to stay here, walking his beat, throwing shapes for other people to catch. He wanted to stay here in the sunsight.
Chiclet dinged the bell again. He looked around frantically, searching for someone to save him, but the people on the street had vanished. Only the sound of their passage remained, shuffling footsteps and whooshing cars and disembodied voices.
Shadows completely covered the doorway, blotting out the afternoon sun. The figure standing there was close enough to touch now.
He dropped the cell phone, recoiling in horror. Whining in the back of his throat. Shaking his head.
No, please. He did not want this.
Against his will, he stepped through the doorway.
The light disappeared.
He stumbled out onto the street, his hands held pitifully before him, feeling the way.
I can't see!
Eventually he realized that he was awake, and some of the panic receded. Just a dream, damnit. True, he couldn't see, but it was just a dream. Same old shit, different day.
He became aware that he was curled up. And whimpering. Disgusted with himself, he throttled the pathetic sounds mid-whimper and forced his body to relax.
What a day this was turning out to be.
The room was quiet. Somewhere to his right, Chiclet was breathing in long, soft snores. The air felt cooler, much cooler, so it had to be night.
He was thirsty. And he hurt all over. His arm, his stomach, his leg, the side of his neck. He felt like a mummy, wrapped all over in bandages.
It was all too familiar, he thought wryly. He had very few memories of the days after the disastrous coup, but one thing he did remember was the annoying stretch and pull of bandages.
He remembered a few other things, too. Mostly in flashes. Nothing you could call coherent, unless you were being really generous. The sound of Chiclet crying. The warmth of sunlight on his face. Pain. Lots of pain. Wooden floorboards. Jorge Ramirez speaking formless words.
To this day he wasn't sure how long it had all lasted. Most of November, he knew that much. One of his first truly stable memories from that time was hearing Christmas carols sung in Spanish. So he figured he had surfaced from his delirium sometime in mid-December. Possibly sooner. It hadn't been until Christmas Day itself that he had finally captured time and made it his own again. Everything before then was choked with haze and pain.
He had never asked Chiclet what he had said and done during those dark weeks. He didn't really want to know – some of the things he had raved about while feverish might be embarrassing. The only thing he knew for certain was that he had not screamed and ranted and had a breakdown, defying everyone's expectations. He knew this because he had heard them talking about him one day soon after his return to the conscious world. They had been worried about "setting him off." Jorge Ramirez had firmly said that if he hadn't gone off by now, he never would, and they could all just stop tiptoeing around thank you very much, or he, Jorge, was going to go crazy.
He remembered lying on his bed and grinning upon hearing that, a cold, hard grin that had hurt his mouth. But it had been a true expression, not the fake platitudes he had been serving up for so long, and after that he had recovered quickly. By the New Year, he had been gone from Culiacan for good, taking Chiclet with him.
And now it was happening all over again. He was hurt, and Chiclet had to take care of him. Only this time the boy did not have any family around to help. There was no former FBI agent grudgingly offering advice. There was only a thirteen-year old kid doing the best he could.
And El Mariachi.
Sands swallowed hard, tasting bitter resentment. He licked his lips experimentally. "El?"
"What?" the mariachi asked.
Shit. So El was awake. And El had heard every pathetic noise he had made in his dream and after. Things just kept going downhill.
"Do you need anything?" El asked.
Now that was a loaded question if Sands had ever heard one. He lacked the energy to give it a proper response, however, so he just sighed. "Some water would be nice. Or tequila."
"The only tequila is in the mini-bar," El said. "And I am not paying ten dollars for it. So you get water."
A long moment of silence passed while Sands struggled to accept that El Mariachi had just tried to make a joke. "Whatever. Just get me some damn water." He paused, then asked, "What time is it?"
"Almost eleven-thirty," El said. The chains on his pants and jacket jingled as he stood up and moved across the room. A bottle cap was unscrewed. Glass clinked and water gurgled. He walked over to the bed and the mattress shifted slightly as he leaned over it.
Sands instinctively flinched. He couldn't help it. Never again would he be able to lie flat on his back and feel comfortable with someone leaning over him.
El must have seen him flinch. The mariachi hesitated. "Can you sit up?"
Flushing with dull fury, Sands nodded. When he spoke however, he kept his voice light. "Oh, I don't think I'm ready for a wheelchair just yet."
He managed to sit up on his own, thank Christ for small favors. It hurt, but he refused to let that stop him. Everything was going to hurt for a while. He was just going to have to deal with it.
"Here." El sounded strangely uncertain. "Your glass."
Sands resisted the urge to commit violent, messy murder. He had been dealing with Chiclet for so long, he had forgotten what it was like to be around someone who did not understand. He and Chiclet had developed a shorthand over the years, learning quickly what worked and what didn't. With Chiclet, he rarely felt like he was blind.
With El, it was all he could think about.
He slapped out his hand. "Give it here."
Glass touched his fingers. He grabbed it, half-hoping it would slip and fall so he could then scrabble for it and throw it at El. No such luck. He got a firm grip on the glass, and he was able to drink.
The water was cold. He drank it all, despite the fact that it made his head ache. When he was finished, he held out the empty glass. The instant he felt El's hand touch it, he let go. "I have to take a piss."
Chains jingled as El moved back from the bed. The glass thumped as the mariachi set it on a hard surface. "Do you want me to help?" For the second time, that note of uncertainty overlay El's words, making him sound younger, and less of an asshole.
"Christ, El, I can piss by myself," he snapped wearily. He pushed back the covers and swung his legs over the bed. It hurt, especially in his left leg, and he winced in a sharp breath.
"I should hope so," El said, a little too formally. And yes, that was indeed guilt in the mariachi's voice. Sands was damn glad to hear it. "I meant, do you want me to help you walk to the bathroom?"
He did not reply right away. He wished Chiclet was awake. He did not mind when Chiclet took him by the hand and led him around an unfamiliar room. The kid did not make him feel stupid or clumsy or lost. Chiclet knew the things to tell him so he could orient himself and find his own way. Chiclet knew the dangers an ordinary room posed to a blind man, and Chiclet knew the best and quickest way to reduce those dangers.
El, on the other hand, was a fucking moron.
He sighed. "Whatever floats your boat." He held out his right hand; the left was currently snugged against his chest by the sling wrapped around his neck.
After a long moment in which he could hear a clock ticking, El took his hand.
The mariachi's fingers were rough and callused. All those years of playing guitar, Sands supposed. But his grip was steady. Sands used El's weight to brace himself as he pushed and heaved to his feet.
Standing up was not a good idea. The world kept wanting to tilt alarmingly. Everything hurt. He hung his head, concentrating on breathing in and out, aware that he was clinging to El's hand but unable to let go.
After a length of time comparable to an Ice Age, the pain receded enough to let him stand up straight. He let go of El's hand and walked his fingers up the mariachi's wrist until he could comfortably grip El's forearm. "Lead on."
El set a slow pace. Sands was grateful for it, but at the same time, royally pissed off. He hated feeling this way. Worse, he hated feeling this way in front of El. Worst of all, he hated El for being so nice to him.
The room was big. Either that or they were moving more slowly than he thought. Whatever the reason, it seemed to take forever to reach the bathroom. Chains jangled, and he heard a light switch flip on. This struck him as incredibly funny, and he wheezed with laughter. "Wouldn't want me to bump into anything in the dark, hey, El?"
The arm beneath his hand tensed.
"Blind men don't need light switches. You weren't thinking, were you, El? But you're not sorry, are you?" He heard the brittle note in his voice, revealing how upset he was, but he could not rein it back. "You're not going to apologize, are you? Because that would piss me off. And then I might have to kill you."
El stood still for a long moment. Then he said, "The sink and toilet are on the right. Shower is on the left."
Sands patted his arm. "Good boy."
When he was done in the bathroom, he shuffled back out onto the bedroom carpet. He had discovered that he was wearing clothes that were most definitely not the ones he had been wearing this morning. And while he was not exactly enamored of blood-stiffened jeans, he was even less pleased by the thought of El Mariachi having something to do with his clean state.
Three steps away from the door, he paused. El was standing close by; he could sense it. The mariachi probably was wondering if he should offer assistance again, and how to do that without startling the poor, lost blind man.
He looked in the direction of El's breathing. "Feel free to stand there all night."
El made a guilty noise. "I--"
Sands raised his right hand. "I can do it," he said icily.
On the way here, he had counted the steps to the bathroom. He retraced them now, halving their number, forcing himself to ignore the pain and walk at something approaching a normal pace. He was pleased to find the bed right where he had expected it, and he sank down with a smirk. "See, I'm not so helpless after all."
"I would not say you were helpless," El said. It was the voice of a man who appreciated for the first time that his roommate was a killer. It was also the voice of a man who was not planning to sleep any time soon, not while that killer was awake and nearby. "Not after watching you take down those men last night."
Sands shrugged, using only his right shoulder. All that walking around had aggravated the pain of his wounds, and he wanted to lie down again. "Gunfights are easy," he said. "You'd be surprised. It's the little things that are hard."
El did not ask him what he meant by this, which was just as well. He had a sneaking suspicion that it hadn't made any sense, anyway.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Christ, he hurt! He remembered how toward the end, shortly before he had left Culiacan, Ramirez had apologized for the weeks he had suffered. They had access to morphine but they hadn't wanted to give him any. They had thought he would become addicted. "You were never very stable to begin with," Ramirez had added.
He had just laughed.
Right now, he thought morphine sounded like an excellent idea. Too bad he wasn't about to get any.
"None of your injuries are serious," El said. "The cuts are shallow."
"I know," Sands said. On his orders, Ramón had used a blunted knife.
Poor Ramón. Who had volunteered for this assignment without really understanding what it was all about. Who had not yet heard that five of his compadres were dead under Sands' guns. Who had waited in his room by the pool all night long, probably cursing Sands' name the entire time. And then at last Sands had left the motel room and made his way out to the courtyard, where he had placed a single phone call. Yet even then poor Ramón had been forced to wait a little while longer, until El showed up on the balcony below. Only then could the charade be set in motion.
Stupid, predictable, honorable El. He sincerely hoped that one day the mariachi would know what he had gone through for him. He had told Ramón to make it look real, and by Christ, that was exactly what had happened.
"I know you don't want to hear this," El said, "but I truly am sorry for what happened to you."
He knew El was not talking about the five new knife cuts adorning his body. Some other day, when he had the energy and could stand up without wanting to fall over, he would punch El in the face for that remark. "You and me both," he said.
"Chiclet--" El hesitated when he said the boy's name, perhaps unwilling to accept that someone would let himself be named for chewing gum. "Chiclet would not tell me anything about it."
Of course Chiclet hadn't said anything. Sands had never doubted the kid's loyalty, but it still made him feel good to hear the proof. "So, you expect to hear the gory details firsthand, is that it?"
Suddenly he wished he was armed.
"Only if you are interested in telling them," said El.
"Well, what do you think?" He spoke in his laziest drawl. If Chiclet had been awake, he would have recognized the warning signs of the impending storm and ducked for cover.
"I think you are a dangerous man," El said, changing the subject and apparently deciding that he did not want to hear all about the Day of the Dead after all. "I think you are hiding something from me. And I think I will stay with you, until my curiosity is satisfied."
The rage that had been growing in him popped like a soap bubble. Dancing glee took its place. It was all too easy. El was his now. So he would miss a few phone calls as a result of today's knife play. That was too bad, but it was a risk he had freely undertaken. Besides, it hardly mattered now. The end result would still be the same.
Sands smiled. "You're right. I am a dangerous man."
Author's Note: The lyrics Sands hears in his dream are from "Me Gustas Tu" on the OUATIM soundtrack. It's a nice song, but you do not want it stuck in your head. Trust me.