taking another bite out of the celery.
“My brothers are up north, surfing,
and checking on things on our land,” she says.
“I get bored at the house.
I just quit smoking
and I get antsy
all cooped up inside.”
The girl shares her past in
her singsong voice.
“I was crazy, you know?”
She says she used to be curious about everything,
always searching for the biggest high
the most delicious sugar moment,
the loudest music that would drown out her thoughts,
or the fastest ride that made the earth sweep aside.
Ultimately, she says, she was just a magician
trying to perform the greatest escape.
She tells of mushrooms and acid and dancing
and liquor and Brazilian herbal drinks that
reorganized the shape of the universe.
“And then you know what happened?” she said.
“What happened?” asks Anthony.
“I found something even better.”
“Better?” he asks, “better than what?”
She smiles, gets up, and skips away,
“Come on!” she calls over her shoulder and he follows,
not from curiosity but
because there’s nothing holding him to the beach.
She’s the wind that’s blowing
so he sails with it
because his sadness is feeling a little stale
here amid the speed junkie rhythm of the boardwalk.
Anthony gets into the car,
his grief
is still clinging to his bones
but he’s heard enough from the hollow ocean
and now he’s ready to go.
It’s not that he’s attracted to this girl,
she seems otherworldly,
a flower that belongs to no bouquet.
But she has a constant small smile
that has nothing to do with him,
which he likes.
Friendly but distant seems
just about right.
They drive thirty minutes south
pulling off the freeway into a Latino neighborhood
and parking in front of a small bungalow.
As they stroll up the walkway
she waves over her shoulder down the street.
“Who are you waving to?” asks Anthony.
“Oh, a cop I know.”
XVII
It is only
a coincidence,
the path of Anthony’s plan to disappear and dissolve
intersecting with the line of her pack’s simple plan,
the plan her brothers send her out on
while they drive north and check in on Ruiz.
Every morning she parks the little truck and pokes around.
38 percent of the country’s homeless
live in LA, and a lot of them prefer the beach to the concrete.
Living on a million-dollar beachfront
how crazy are they, right?
But they could use a little guidance.
If you’re scrounging for driftwood souls,
this isn’t a bad place to look.
She and her brothers have been illuminating
another way for these fellows,
far from the old shopping carts and empty 40’s.
With her sunflower dress and dancer’s gait
she wanders along the beach,
sniffing for the weak but strong
trolling for the troubled,
and Anthony was just one more
falling into her net.
It’s a simple coincidence,
while up in the canopy of heaven
Coyote the trickster
trots across the sky
to tell the prime mover
what he’s done.
This is a good one, he thinks.
This one’s really going to wow him.
And just like every other time,
the prime mover really
doesn’t
give a damn.
XVIII
Annie lights candles for Anthony
as some women are apt to do.
Anthony reaches beneath a dog-eared Orwell novel
and pulls out an old copy of Thrasher.
He unwinds on the couch, leafing through the magazine and
suddenly feeling tired in the plush warmth
of the pillowy room.
She puts a pot of herbs on the stove
letting them boil so that the wooly wet smoke
and the jasmine scent weave together into
a light, aromatic fog.
“Tell me what happened.”
He pauses, puts the magazine down and stares at the ceiling.
He measures the trust of the moment
and then, choosing to believe in it, he simply says,
“She died, in a fire.”
Annie turns down the heat, tucks her hair behind her ear.
“I had some brothers who died in a fire too.”
The room is quiet.
She watches his eyes fade down
as the herbs and the embrace of the couch
lure him into his first real sleep in weeks.
She kneels beside the couch
and looks into his sun-worn face.
Sleeping men are so open.
Her finger traces the front of his shirt
stopping at his heart.
“So vulnerable,” she thinks.
She lays her head on his chest
tears gleaming in her eyes
like small pieces of broken glass.
Some memories just rush over you,
like waters flooding down from distant mountains
long after the rain has passed.
She remembers being carried through Nogales.
In her mind, she is still there now,
naked in the arms
of the man who pulled her from the kennel’s fray.
She had listened as the dogs’ barks
faded away while the din of the town rose around her.
Feigning sleep, fearing the pace of her heartbeat
would give her away,
she kept her eyes closed and wondered
where each step was taking her.
Men gathered around them as they walked,
speaking quickly, apparently
unsure what to do with a blonde, naked girl
who had fallen asleep in the dirt of the town.
But born and raised in southern California, Annie knows
little Spanish save for taco, chimichanga, senorita.
And the factory workers have no English
but Nike and Coca-Cola and Ford.
So she didn’t try to understand,
she didn’t try to do anything but
keep her eyes closed
and pray.
The men
seemed hungry for the girl,
but the man carrying her shook them off, shouting,
and brought her to a boardinghouse.
A woman came out, there was more noise
more shouting.
Annie kept her eyes shut.
Finally, they took her inside.
Someone dialed a cell phone as
they laid her down on a couch in the front room.
They covered her nakedness with an old, stained sheet
and Annie waited wondering
where the river of events would eventually spill out,
when the moment of opportunity would arise,
“It will come,” she thought, “wait Annie wait.”
An hour later, she awoke with a gentle smile,
blinking and rubbing her eyes as other men came in.
These weren’t workers, they wore nicer shirts,
clean jeans.
One sat on the
corner of the bed,
his English was clear.
“Hello.”
“Hello?” She bobbed her head.
He smiled and his smile was almost warm but mostly wary.
“So, what were you doing in the cages?” he began.
“Boy,” she exhaled, feigning confusion, “yeah, let’s see…
I was at a club, like at two last night and…”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head
as if the rest of it escaped her.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Well, a lot of places. I just travel, have fun, you know?”
He leaned back,
relaxed a bit, her blonde routine was working well.
“Crazy,” she said, “crazy night.”
He smiled.
Nobody suspects a beach girl.
“What do you need?” he asked, getting up, ready to go.
“Well, I think I missed supper.” She smiled
trying to be the easiest thing
he’d ever seen.
“Oh,” she added with a chuckle, “and some clothes.”
The man looked her over,
“Why don’t you come with us.”
As the driver steered their black Expedition out of town,
the man introduced himself, “I am Tomas.”
“I’m Anastasia,” she said, remembering an old cartoon
about a princess lost in a foreign land.
“Well, Anastasia, you are very lucky.
Those dogs at our factory are trained to kill.”
She nodded. “I’m sooo good with animals.”
She looked out the window, unsure of landmarks,
wishing for bread crumbs
to mark her way.
Up a hill, they came to a large house,
the gravity of its luxury
pressing it low onto the horizon.
Servants moved through the place,
preparing a quick meal of steak and rice,
delivering clothes, a white T-shirt,
flip-flops, underwear.
She hadn’t touched clean cotton for months
and, as the maid handed it to her,
the fabric was still warm from the dryer.
In her guest room she lay down with a cold glass of iced tea,
again pretending to sleep.
She thought of her brothers trapped in the cages.
A maid came in and refilled her glass.
In the afternoon she rose and joined Tomas for a cocktail.
They were almost alone, a waiter loomed in the back,
as did a bodyguard.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“Many things,” he said. “I own the factory with my brother.”
“Oh. What do you make there?”
He smiled. “We make pharmaceuticals.”
“For who?”
“For American consumers.”
“Oh,” she said, giggling. “I’m American. Can I have some?”
He grinned.
Out of his breast pocket came a plastic envelope
filled with pure whiteness.
“This is not what we make. This is something better,” he said,
laying out a thin line on the polished teak surface.
She remembered the bloody story of one of her brothers
and how drugs sometimes didn’t sit so well.
“Not much,” she said, “I’m a bit of a lightweight.”
She inhaled a little,
felt the urge to change
surge up within.
She clenched her stomach to hold it down,
hoping that Tomas didn’t notice.
She felt
a few blades of fur poke out
from her lower back
but as she exhaled,
“Whooo!”
they discreetly receded.
She smiled wide
at Tomas.
He smiled too.
“Yeah, this is nice, really, thank you so much for everything.” She scootched closer.
She had never played this game before; she didn’t have a natural false face,
but he wasn’t reading her very carefully either,
his mind had already descended to what would come next.
He tucked his arm around her, pulled her close.
Nobody is ever afraid of a beach girl.
Two nights later, she rose naked
from his bed.
Slipping across the room,
she quietly opened the bureau drawer.
Digging around, thinking
“Surely, surely…”
Annie’s hand found something metal.
Looking up at the dresser mirror,
she saw his shadow blearily rising from the bed.
“What are you—” were his final words.
The gun’s loud report
shook through the house.
Fucking idiot.
She heard footsteps and crouched down, still naked, waiting.
A man came into the room with a gun and
one blink died one blink
as she fired she thought,
what bodyguard ever ran toward
a bullet like that loser just did?
What a moron.
What a complete fucking moron.
She put on a T-shirt and underwear
as she listened for any more footsteps
but the house was strangely quiet,
no bodyguards and no servants.
With a half a mind to half a plan,
she collected the wallets from the dead men.
Tomas’s wallet was light and empty.
She wondered if the rich
always travel like that through the world.
But the other dead man’s wallet
was so thick it felt like a paperback novel.
There was surely enough cash there
to make it to the U.S.
She grabbed the new corpse’s gun, took a lighter and
the car keys from the countertop and,
walking past the bar,
a bottle of tequila too.
Moments later
she was gunning the SUV down the road.
The city was easy to find,
its milky aura shone in the night
like some man-o’-war glowing
in the dark sea.
But finding the factory was a problem.
The only good news was that while the whole town
would soon be looking for Annie,
no one would expect her to go back to the dogs.
She turned right and left,
her head out the window
sniffing the air.
At the sound of a siren, she turned down a warehouse stretch.
Putting the van into park, she leaned out and screamed as loud as she could.
Then listened for the call back.
Nothing.
Driving again down the empty streets,
her head still out the window
there was nothing familiar in the air.
The factories would be up near the border.
She took a screeching left,
and aimed toward what felt like the north.
Parking on a bridge, she leaned out the window
and screamed again.
A bark echoed in the distance.
A quarter mile away. Over to the right.
She drove fast.
Two minutes later, she recognized the factory wall.
She could hear the dogs barking wildly on the other side.
She had only moments before someone would come out.
Running barefoot to the corner of the building,
she tore off her sleeve and stuffed it into the tequila bottle.
Her hands shook as she tried to light it but
it caught quickly,
flickering with an orange jack-o’-lantern flame.
The thick glass
of the window broke easily
followed by the sound of something else smashing inside
followed by a brighter flame still.
You could call it blind luck except as she well knew
places like that are always loaded with something
itching to blow.
Another explosion, louder, and black smoke billowed out.
Back in the truck, she shoved it into drive
and bore down on the kennel fence.
She aimed for the left side, away from where she knew her dogs would be,
toward the curs, noses to the chain-link, barking.
Yes, well,
meet the metal, you fucking assholes.
The fence went down hard, some dogs along with it.
She leapt out and put a bullet straight away
into a head.
Opening the back of the truck,
it was almost like they had practiced this chaos.
One, two, three brothers jumped in.
Where was Nick? Batten? Shit no.
They were down to four.
She jumped into the cab again just
as the men started running out of the factory,
firing out the window till her gun was empty,
sending the men diving to the dirt where the dogs,
unleashed and angry
were biting at anything that moved.
As she drove away
the workers’ screams filled the air
behind her.
Her brothers changed in the back.
Palo rode shotgun,
his hand on hers.
Her face was wet.
They drove west, with the dawn behind them,
bruised and scarred and knowing in their guts
the darkness was far from over.
Five days later
they’d finally made it over the border
broke and tired.
The truck was left burning
in the Zona Norte section of Tijuana.
The wallets she’d stolen
had, in the end, yielded no money,
but among the thick billfold’s contents
were sheets of paper bearing rows of numbers,
some sort of code.
It occurred to Annie and Palo that perhaps they held
a treasure nonetheless.
There was no time to figure it out.
They buried the wallets in a barrio alley
and carefully marked the spot.
A half mile from the border
they left another brother
dead in the soil,
shot by a farmer
simply looking after
his chickens.
So then they were three,