CHAPTER THREE (5)

He rolled up to the trailer park, immersed in corrugated steel and mangy dogs that were ridden with god-knows-what. He was glad Toddy was not with him today: not only did Toddy fail at being a he-man (which is an integral characteristic of any collector, weed or taxes or anything else to be collected), but he failed at being a minority. This pained Squirley, but that is the way things work in both southern and northern Little Mexico – if you weren’t dark, you were fucked. A white man dare not show his face in Little Mexico, less he be mugged or even worse.

Squirley stepped out of the car and threw his feet to the ground, creating a miniature dust cloud. He took of his sunglasses and squinted under the sun. A trailer stood before him with an ancient steel frame, an unpainted, verging on dilapidated, box that rattled in even the minutest gust of wind. The entire structure was propped up on concrete slabs displaying the weeds that grew succulent beneath its monstrous shade. It was clearly a double-wide, perhaps even a triple-wide (if they even made those), and its enormity overwhelmed Squirley. He felt like a man at the base of a wide mountain. The windows of the trailer were sealed with cardboard that had been bleached by the sun, and they, too, rattled as he banged on the door.

“Hola, cabrón,” answered an ebullient Gato, in thick Spanish rolling the o for an unusually long syllable.

“Hola, amigo,” foiled Squirley in his horrendous broken-accent.

Gato held out his hand and Ryan noticed the missing left pinky. Trying not to stare, he shook it.

“You got any weed for me today, Gato?”

“Holms, I got notheen. I been dry for dos weeks.” Gato held up two fingers in European fashion, exhibiting a stub and a ring finger.

“Pedro got busted last week,” he continued, “dey sent heem straight back to México man. We all scared shitless ov’r he-ur.”

Squirley looked around as Gato went to the fridge and handed him a Tecate beer. The triple-wide had been gutted, the remnants of past walls seemed pierced through the whitewashed frame. The kitchen was moderately clean, which was to his left, but the rest of the trailer was full, so full that only small pathways could be made between the trees. Fledgling marijuana plants, only three feet high and relatively young, crowed the entire span of the rest of the trailer. They were uniformly potted in opaque, plastic, black containers, each with a drip-system that connected each row. The conspicuous care taken with each plant, the factory-like output, the whole idea seemed a dream to Squirley in this beaten down part of the Burro where nothing was perfect but these, these beautiful creatures.

“You like?” asked Gato, with the same wide-eyed pride. He went over and rubbed one of the leaves between his fingers, then ritualistically put it up to his nose and breathed in deeply. Squirley intensely wished to do the same, but fearing Gato, and the revolver on the kitchen counter, he opted not to go near Gato’s precious orchard.