1. Shotwell keeps one hand on the pistol, one hand on the Melville. The sun leaks through the dry brown palapa. The sand is cool in the shade. Out there the ocean breaks. To be restless is to lose one's self-mastery. I dig a hole deep enough to hold the puppet circus I keep in my knapsack. Three rings, elephants, horses, camels, clowns and a trapeze act. I whinny like a one-legged horse stuck in quicksand. Shotwell chuckles, the sick bastard. A split second is all I need. I lunge. Shotwell reels. We embrace. Later, as I sit in the swimming pool surrounded by my seven empty floating plastic martini glasses, I whistle for Angelina. But her daughter Anna Marie comes instead. 2. "What do you see in that stinking bastard, anyway?" I ask her. "Mr. Shotwell, you mean?" "Yes, yes. Shotwell, that miserable dung heap." "He is a man for whom the sentence 'I am unable to satisfy you for the seventh time today, my love.' is unknown. He is a master of Tao who does not want to be full. Precisely because he is never full, he can always remain like a hidden sprout, and does not rush to early ripening. You, Mr. Purse, are like a cheap bracket that holds a shelf." This Melville thing. This desert thing. This coming down to Mexico on a whim to buy a stolen first edition of The Confidence Man from a book crook named Shotwell thing. All these things. They're getting to be too much. I crave a lick of Anna Marie's brown thighs. I yearn for another glimpse of her mother Angelina's red painted toenails. Now the sun's way too much. Too much vodka. A ringing in my ears. I vomit. 1 | 2 | Home