Amazombia

  Chapter 33.

  My heart leaps up into my throat. I’m back on my own again, and the queasy feeling I get from being in a crowd makes my hands shake. A couple of trouble makers look up at me, and Paco starts walking sideways right into them. I can’t control this horse with one hand, so I tuck the gun in behind my belt buckle, and the trouble makers scatter.

  I sit a little taller in my saddle. A gun can be a powerful game changer. I prod Paco gently, and he nuzzles through the crowd. Now and then I throw some of the beads I’m wearing down to help part the ways. I go along the sidewalk of the main drag. This isn’t a village. This is Amazon City. Totally puts the Rockettes Palace to shame. I learn that the name of the city is called, fittingly, Paradise. And it feels like it. It is lit up just like Vegas used to be. It didn’t take long at all for the girls to become homesick and make this place their own.

  Off to one side of the main drag is a water fountain, a huge floor of black marble. A bunch of native kids play in the water as it shoots up in dizzying sequences. Half their time is spent chasing the water after it’s shot high in the air. A flash of lightning by the ocean reminds me that the water hitting my hat won’t be fountain made for long.

  The Vegas Amazons built this city from the ground up. It wasn’t their style to just overtake an old city, board up the unused buildings (because, you know…the zombies like to sometimes lurk in the old haunts), and make do. Instead, they built up relationships with the natives, building schools, getting rid of the corrupt leaders down here (that’s another story unto itself, let’s just say it was back breaking work), and making South America hospitable up and down the east coast. It was like how the magnetic poles shifted. The west coast girls went east, the east coast girls went west. The Canadians? They took the rest.

  Anyhow, in the middle of the fountain is this large bronze statue of an Amazon, must be forty feet high. She’s holding a spear in her right hand, and she’s gazing down into something cupped in her left hand. Whatever it is, it can’t be made out from ground level.

  “Rumor has it she’s holding the beginning of time in her hand.”

  I look to see who said that. It’s the young peacock from before. She’s still got her feather headdress on, and for an Amazon during Carnival, she’s modestly dressed. She’s wearing a one piece thing, very demure.

  “Oh hello, miss,” I say. “Beginning of time, huh?”

  “I don’t believe it, though. I generally don’t believe in rumors.” She smiles as the fountain splashes down on her, not a care on her face as the water flattens some of her feathers.

  “Tell me, miss, are you part of the show?”

  “Show?”

  “The parade, I mean.”

  “That? Oh no. They don’t let minors participate. Sometimes things get rough.”

  “I could imagine,” I say. “With the way those women are dressed, and all the booze those guys are drinking.”

  “No, you must be new here. The Amazons get rough.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, miss. You’ll have to forgive me, up until the last rainy season, I didn’t get out much.”

  “If you want some friendly advice…”

  “Oh, I need all the advice I can get, miss-“

  “Well, my mother always says when in Rome, do as the Romans do, when in Amazon country, do as the Amazonians tell you to do. Then she usually dishes out chores. I am so glad to be on Rumspringa.”

  “Miss, you wouldn’t happen to know an Amazon by the name of Riley Jr., would ya?”

  “Why?” she says alarmed.

  “Oh, no need to be alarmed, miss. Come here,” I whisper into her ear that I’m Riley Jr.’s dad.

  She squeals like a school girl. I’m excited…saying I also squealed like a school girl would just be redundant.

  “So you know her?”

  “Sure, she’s my Bee eff eff,” she’s grinning ear to ear. She straddles Paco with her long legs, and hugs me from behind. “Do you want to meet her? You’re all she ever talks about when she’s not complaining about her chores.”

  I’m nervous. “Really? You don’t say? Well which way?”

  She grabs the reigns from behind me. I’m on a horse, dressed like a cowboy, gun tucked into my belt. It’s Carnival, and I have a beautiful young Amazon hugging me from behind. Oh yeah, I’m about to meet my teenage daughter for the first time. So any happiness I had there for a moment is again…replaced by nervousness.

  She starts clicking commands to Paco, and guides him back around the statue.

  “I thought you were taking me to my daughter, miss?”

  “Oh, I will. I just thought you’d like to take in some of the sights first.”

  “Meh, I’ve seen a jaguar eat a zombie in the wild; I think I’ve seen it all.”

  “Well, OK, if you insist, he-yah!”

  Paco gallops towards the crowd, and he’s not stopping. I shut my eyes. I open them when the screaming of the crowd turns from cheers of joy to cries of pain. The young Amazon behind me pushes Paco full steam into the crowd. A few natives go flying, but I have learned living in the jungle that these are hearty people, and I’m sure the cracking of bones I hear are not nearly as painful as their cries of agony dictate. We make a path through the crowd. A big purple foam jaguar float with a bunch of yellow flowery Amazons is coming right at us. Paco swerves just in time as the young girl behind me screams with glee.

  “Perhaps you should let me drive, miss?”

  She lets go of the reigns, “OK, see that mirrored building ahead? Turn down that street, it will be quicker.”

  I do so, I lead Paco down a street with a couple of ice cream vendors. One of those crushed flavored ice wagons. A bunch of tattooed kids (some with tattoos on their face, but I know they’re not slaves) are skateboarding around (slaves don’t skateboard, see?).

  “OK, see this alley? Turn down here,” she says.

  “Here?” I start turning Paco down a long dark alley.

  “Yeah, it runs parallel to the parade, see?”

  As we go down the alley, every now and then between buildings I can see the parade. For an alley, it’s a clean affair, hardly any garbage bins, and those that we do see are not overflowing, and smell like potpourri. The young girl grabs me tight from behind. I can hardly breathe under her tight grip. She makes the butterflies in my stomach fly up into my mouth.

  “Easy, miss” I say. “You’re squeezing the life out of me.”

  She lets go, and I sigh with relief.

  Then I hear a gun get cocked from behind, and a warm barrel pushes up against the base of my skull.

  “Stop the horse,” the girl behind me says.

  I stop Paco. He whinnies. “He’s stopped, miss, I won’t cause you any trouble. There’s no need to hold that gun against my head, honest.”

  She dismounts, and a couple of thuggish looking natives come out of nowhere. One of the thugs takes the gun from her.

  “Where did you get this?” he asks her.

  “From him. I don’t think it is Paco’s. The horse is definitely his,” she says.

  Utoh.

  “Where did you get the horse?” the thug asks me.

  I’m sweating bullets. Dramatically enough, there’s a flash of lightning overhead, and I can see the menacing look this thug and his amigos wear on their pointy faces.

  “I found him on the road into town. Honest. I figured he belonged to somebody in town here, so you, you know, I rode him into town, like I am now, see? And I uh…well. I take it you are Paco’s friends? Here’s his horse. If there’s a reward or anything, I uh…you can forgo having to worry, about. You know. Of course…I imagine there’s a reward, because this…this is one fine horse. What’s his name?”

  One of the thugs grabs me down from the horse.

  “You know,” I say, “names are not important. What’s in a name? I don’t need to know his name. Or yours. Matter of fact, I don’t even remember seeing any of you, or the young girl in the feathers over there. Really. I forget who I
am at times. Heh heh. That’s funny, right? Who am I? Who are you? Let’s call it a night, right? Sound good? OK then, good night. Miss…thank you for a lovely time. Be sure to thank Paco for letting me borrow his horse. OK then. Good. Good night, uh…beunas noches.”

  “Beunas noches,” says a thug.

  Blackness.

  I awaken lying in the alley, face up, and cold. Rain is falling gently, and it is quiet. I try to sit up, but it feels like my back is broken. I don’t recall much. I can wiggle my toes, so that’s a good thing. My fingers too. Ooh. My head is killing me. Oh. My tongue. My jaw. I feel like I nearly bit my tongue off.

  I roll over into a puddle. It is late at night, maybe even early in the morning. I don’t know. I cough as I get up, and I feel the back of my head. Big egg there. Did I faint again?

  The horse, that’s right…I was hoodwinked by that tart in the feathers. Mo always told me not to do favors for girls. But wait. She was doing me a favor…or was she? My kit is gone, my bird, my hat, they took my leather boots that made me two inches taller. I still have my shirt and pants, so things are looking up. I got a good cough too.

  Oh, the chaos of the parade is pounding in my head. The rain has not damped anyone’s spirits. I wander down the alley. Every now and then I hear metallic rolling wheels on concrete, so I follow that noise. I follow it to the skater kids and the snow cone wagon. I stumble out of the alley towards them, and naturally, they give me a good looking over. It’s not like you ignore homeless people, or drunks, like it was in the old times. These kids don’t associate stumbling with anything more than the zombie shuffle. I must look the part, because they stop what they’re doing.

  I probably don’t speak a lick of anything they do. Lick. Boy that snow cone stuff would do my throat good. I feel all raspy. I got to talk, but all that comes out is mumbles and groans. Oh, my tongue. I take a shot at scoring a snow cone by pointing at my open mouth and going, “Ahhh…ahhh.” I rub my stomach too for good effect; I figure that’s the universal sign for hunger. Ow. My shoulder really hurts, I straighten out my arm, try to stretch it out far. Ooh. That’s better. Oh, I think my arm is broken. My elbow shouldn’t be bent like that.

  A young fellah skates up behind me, I go to turn around but my neck is real stiff. I can’t even lower my arm. I slowly turn around, moaning every inch of the way.

  He hits me in the face with his skateboard.

  I don’t…blackness again.