Into the Beautiful North(79)

He felt a little shaky pulling into the Bahia Hotel’s lot, imagining his Mighty Irma watching him from a window. His lost Irma. Queen of Strikes! Empress of the 7-10 Split!

Which room was hers? He parked and tried to rise from the car in one fluid motion, as if he were still dancing like he’d danced on those tropical nights so long ago, as if the years had not piled on him and tired him, as if his hairline were not thin and gray and flashing bright spots of light where the sun hit his scalp. He squared his shoulders and set his jacket and strode toward the doors, all the while feeling eyes, phantom eyes, burning into him from every direction. He maintained his splendid stride and positioned one flat hand before his belly like a blade, thus emphasizing the excellence of his slim physique.

There was no one in the lobby. He boldly stepped to the desk and announced her name. The young man called her room and murmured to her. It was like a Humphrey Bogart mystery!

“Yes, ma’am,” the young fellow said. He hung up the phone. “Room two twenty-seven,” he intoned.

Chava Chavarín slapped his fingers on the counter and grinned with less verve than he would have preferred. He turned in sheer terror and lurched toward the elevator.



He tiptoed down the hall. There was still time, he promised himself, to leave. He could clear out his apartment in a matter of hours and head up the freeway to San Francisco. 219. 221. He smoothed his mustache. 223. He coughed. 225. He needed to pee. 227.

He stood there and shook himself, got ready to knock.

The door burst open.

Atómiko bopped out.

“?Qué onda, guey?” he said and went on down the hall.

Irma called from within:

“Chava? Is that you?”

He stepped away from the door. He turned right, turned left, headed back toward the elevator. Atómiko was standing there. He shooed Chava back toward the room with his hands.

“I’d hit that nookie if I was you, pops!” Atómiko yawped. The elevator pinged. He got in. “Good luck,” he said. The doors closed.

“CHAVA CHAVARIN,” Irma’s voice boomed, “YOU COME HERE THIS INSTANT!”

He turned.

She stood in the doorway. Forty pounds heavier. Dyed. In tight black stretch pants and a large loose red satin top. Magnificent.

He smiled.

Took a step.

She blushed.

Oh, my!

She giggled.

Oh, you’ve still got it, Chava!

His step lightened. He rolled up and bobbed down. He glided. When he got close enough to smell her lilac eau de toilette, he said, “Hello, my love.”

She rushed back into her room.

He followed.

Quietly, he closed the door.





Chapter Thirty



The next day, Nayeli and Tacho left Grand Junction and rose to Glenwood Springs. The mountains had teased them, stepping close and jumping away, until suddenly there they were, in all their dread and mass: the great Storm King brooding over the steaming hot springs while a small wildfire worked the canyons behind the Burger King. Nayeli and Tacho sat on a cement table and watched helicopters drop buckets of water on the thin line of flames. A group of metal chicks in black T’s and wallet chains slurped milk shakes and smoked. They all looked upslope at the copters.

“Hey,” one of them called. “You guys Pakistani?”

Tacho shook his tail feather and said, “Mexican! Queer, too!”

“Wow,” she replied, flicking some ash. “Don’t tell my dad that.”

The helicopters whopped in the sky, their blades flickering silver in the sunlight.

“How you likin’ that burger?”

“Is like God cook it!” he enthused.

“Dude, you’re a riot.”

Everyone basked in cross-cultural bonhomie.

“Later,” the chicks called as they hove to their feet and shambled away.

Tacho drove into Glenwood Canyon, along the cantilevered freeway; to their right, the Colorado River surged green and cold, and across the water, a yellow locomotive pulled a train into the side of a cliff and vanished.

Nayeli said, “Why do they call the river ‘red’ when it’s green?”

“It’s the USA, morra,” he said. “They do whatever they want.”

Rafters bobbed along. Apparently, an avalanche had recently destroyed part of the elevated roadway. A road crew stopped the traffic. Tractors and trucks beeped and huffed. Far uphill, a guide vehicle began to lead the oncoming line of traffic along the single open lane. To their left, as they sat in the ticking traffic jam, Storm King and his minions formed a solid wall of rock. Aspens flounced all around them, peeking their heads above the sides of the highway. Their little yellow leaves, in the light, flashed like soft coins.

Suddenly, a mayfly hatch burst out of the gorge. Millions of mayflies. Gold, shimmering, they rose from the water of the Colorado in swirls, wafting like metallic snow blowing up into the sky, silent.

Nayeli could not stop laughing.

“Look how beautiful!” she cried. “This is some kind of sign. No? God making a miracle for us.”

A Native American in a hard hat waved them ahead. Tacho slowed and showed him his Apache Homeland Security T-shirt. The man gave him a thumbs-up. “Yes!” Tacho enthused.

They drove on, higher and higher. Nayeli could not breathe. They were too high. She had never been so high. It gave her a headache. Her lungs could not pull enough dry air into her body. It made her dizzy. Tacho grimly clutched the wheel and leaned into the climb, as if he could force the straining minivan up the increasingly impossible slope.