Mile Zero by Thomas Sanchez Read Free Book Online Page B

says Central America is like a rat without a head.” Brogan’s words flew from his mouth into the whir of the fan blades. “My brother says everybody down there is running around like rats without heads.”

     

4
     
    I F A MAN wants to get up in the morning he does not drink himself into oblivion the night before. Obviously St. Cloud had not wanted to get up. It was too early in the morning for him to be at the Star of Cuba laundromat, deep into a fifth cup of
buche
as he watched the clothes of strangers crash around behind portholes of scratched glass on dryer doors. At least something was on its way to being dried, if not purified. The machine heat from groaning washers and dryers made the humid day even more unbearable. Why was it the best
buche
shops in town seemed to be in abandoned gas stations turned into laundromats? To get to the source of
buche
in this laundromat St. Cloud had to walk the length of the moldy concrete building, past rows of machines, where a slot had been cut through the wall. A smiling Cuban woman on the other side of the slot cheerfully squeezed from steam-hissing steel nozzles a caffeine nectar to jangle the nerves and propel the timid. Hot liquid in a hot room in a hot town.
    Justo nudged St. Cloud, puckered his lips and swigged his seventh
buche
of the morning. “One hour,
una hora
, I want you at the courthouse. The kid’s life could depend on it. You’re not there it’s your hung-over college-educated ass that will be on the line.”
    “Okay, so I missed the arraignment earlier this morning. You going to have the judge empower you to jail the court-appointed interpreter for contempt?”
    “Not a bad idea. You and Voltaire in the same cell. That way I’ve got the two of you together and I won’t have to go searching every bar in town to find you.”
    “Voltaire’s the boy’s name?” St. Cloud squinted into heat ascendingthick as a tropical mist from clothes being folded at long tables by chattering Cuban housewives, none of the women over twenty-five, each dressed as if ready to run away to Miami, high heels and brightly painted fingernails, tight pants and careful white ankles, a roomful of passion thrilling to the
buches
they sipped to fuel their insouciant chatter. St. Cloud liked their style, among other things. These sultry beauties turned the drudgery of their daily lives into a full-dress operatic rehearsal of jealousy and hate, bartering back and forth a currency of ever changing value, gossip.
    “That’s the kid’s name alright, Voltaire Tincourette. Speaks only that Haitian
paysan
dialect you heard on the boat.” Justo pursed his lips at another hot cup of
buche
, looking at St. Cloud across the cup’s rim. “Can’t understand a thing Voltaire says, except that he’s scared as hell.”
    “Voltaire.” St. Cloud spoke the name as if it were a code that would release him from the reality of his own life, allow him to walk through the mist of the laundromat and invite all the lively Latin beauties up to the pink palaces of Miami. He wondered which one of their husbands would have a knife up his heart before he made it past the greyhound dog track at the edge of town. “Those French colonialists really had a sense of humor, naming their slaves after philosophers. Maybe that’s what they really thought the philosopher’s role was, verbal piecework for the intellectual glory of the race.”
    “You’ve got a verbal piece of work cut out for you this afternoon in the courtroom. Don’t make me come looking for you again or I’m going to let the husbands of these fine married ladies know what’s going on in that diseased mind of yours.” Justo laughed and slapped his broad chest, walking into the mist of steaming stacks of clothes. The young women stopped their chattering, glancing at him respectfully with an unconscious slight bow. Justo wagged a finger playfully at them before disappearing through the door.
“Di tu secreto a tu amiga y seras su