Forever Innocent Read online

  In fact, that’s how I met her, just a couple weeks after I left New Mexico.

  I’d driven my Camaro through the border states, aimless, exhausted, stopping nowhere. The picture of Finn they passed out at the funeral sat on my passenger seat and I glanced at it often.

  The only real thing I’d done as a parent was sign away my kid’s life. And after my stupid exit during the funeral, I was pretty sure the world had decided I was no more fit to be a dad than my own father had been.

  Somewhere in Utah I decided that a vasectomy was the way to go. Corabelle had been on birth control, and it hadn’t mattered.

  Once I got the idea in my head to do it, I couldn’t think about anything but finding a doctor and getting it done. I had no other goals, no other place to go.

  I went to three clinics stateside, trying to find a doctor willing to do a vasectomy on a teenager. No dice. I remembered my grandpa used to get his denture work done in Ciudad Juarez because it was cheaper and there wasn’t any hassle with insurance or paperwork.

  I was already west by then, so I sold my laptop for cash and drove along the border until I got to Mexicali. A doctor there sent me on to Tijuana, where I finally found someone who didn’t want to see ID, and cash on the table was good enough to get snipped.

  The procedure itself wasn’t too bad. They gave me some pill that made me loopy and sluggish. I felt a needle and some pinching. Afterward, though, walking was impossible. I couldn’t really understand the nurse’s instructions and had no idea what I was supposed to do for pain.

  I ended up at the farmacia in hopes of scoring something stronger than Tylenol. The girl behind the counter was beautiful, long black hair curling down her back, not unlike Corabelle’s. She spoke enough English that I could explain what had happened, and she consulted with a man in the back. She gave me a cold pack and a jockstrap and a bottle of pills with the stern instructions to take only two per day.

  I was saved. I stayed at a hotel across the street, unable to go any farther, and I remember looking out the window and seeing her close up the shop. The nightlife was colorful and the pain, while duller, kept me up for hours.

  In that hot little room, though, the magnitude of what I’d done started to hit. I couldn’t go back to Corabelle, not ever. She’d take it personally. She’d assume I didn’t want a baby with her after all. I would have to stay away. I’d finished us.

  I don’t think about those first few hours after the surgery any more than I replay that span of time after the ventilators went silent. But when I pulled myself together enough, I tried to find a diversion inside those four filthy walls.

  All the TV channels were in Spanish, so I pulled a chair up to the window, surprised when I saw the girl back again, lounging on the corner, wearing a low-cut stretchy blouse and a short skirt.

  She seemed uncertain about what she was doing, and that innocence caught my attention. A man approached her and they argued a moment, but she sent him on his way. Probably wanting something for free. When an hour passed and she had no luck, I made my way painfully down the stairs and out onto the street.

  She saw me coming and pressed her hand over her cleavage. “Feeling better, señor?”

  “How much?”

  “Perdón?”

  Suddenly I worried that I was dead wrong. She was just hanging out here, waiting for someone, someone who was really late. I waved my hand at her. “Sorry. Never mind.”

  I turned away, but she caught my shoulder. “You are not well for this.” She glanced down at my pants, bulging from the cold packs.

  “I know.” My ache for Corabelle was suddenly fierce, and the comfort of this woman seemed like it might help.

  “Okay. I come. You are up there?” She pointed at the hotel.

  I nodded.

  We walked back across the street and up to my room. I had to take it super slow, and she held my arm, keeping me steady.

  “This doctor. Was he good?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  She helped me get settled on the bed. “Why you do this? You are so young.”

  “I have my reasons.” I reached out for her hair, tweaking the strands between my fingers. When she faced away, taking off her shoes, I could almost believe she was Corabelle.

  We still hadn’t agreed on a price, and I had no assurance that she wouldn’t rob me blind if the drugs knocked me out. But most of my stuff was in a locker on the other side of the border. I could probably afford to lose everything I had on me. I twined my fingers through her hair, relieved I could touch her without worrying about her reaction, and closed my eyes.

  Her body fitted next to mine and now I could really imagine that Corabelle was next to me. We were on a holiday, our honeymoon maybe, and this was all we could afford. Her parents were watching Finn for a couple nights, and we’d gotten away. The girl laid her hand on my chest and I held it.

  “Rosa,” she said.

  “I’m Gavin.”

  “You rest, Gavin.”

  And so I spent my first night with her in a seedy hotel room and slept through the haze of pain medication and sore balls. I stayed in Tijuana for a week, until I figured out that I wasn’t going back home and I needed to find a job. Settling in San Diego made sense, and since I was already accepted to UCSD, I could easily get admitted, take a GED for my diploma, and start my coursework.

  At first I went back to see Rosa just to get a sense that I had taken a few steps into my past. I always paid her, but it was probably my fourth or fifth visit before we finally got to business, when my loneliness hit a peak. After her I found other girls, closer, in San Diego, and realized that prostitutes were a perfect solution. No strings. No mess. No mistakes.

  Over the years, I got to know Rosa better. She always seemed happy to see me, and now that I was restless about Corabelle, I wanted only her.

  The apartments where she lived were stacked in rundown buildings with adobe facades. Normally I wouldn’t enter one alone, being so obviously an outsider, but every time I thought about what Corabelle might be doing with that baby-faced punk, I couldn’t give a shit about any of it. Bring on the switchblades, the fistfight, even the gunpoint. Anything was easier than trying to be the good guy again just so Corabelle could finish me off.

  I knew better than to leave my bike on that street, so I rolled it right into the corridor between the two halves of the building. I kept my back to the wall as I pulled out my phone to text her.

  It took a few minutes, but she finally responded with “I’m coming down.” I didn’t know if that meant she was rushing someone out, but I didn’t much care either. Rosa was my top choice, and tonight it would take more than any ordinary girl to settle me.

  The locks began twisting and creaking as someone fumbled with the other side. When Rosa opened the door, I didn’t respond like I expected. She looked the same, long black hair now laced with blond, her curvy body strapped into things that pushed up and squeezed in. She motioned me inside, looking both ways down the corridor into the night. I grasped the handlebars of my bike and rolled it in as I always did, and we shoved it into a little room under the stairs where people stuffed their trash until collection.

  “Mi amante,” she said. “I am glad to see you.” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in to her lips. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, but I managed a passable kiss. She led me up the stairs to her door.

  Some people would probably have considered the place squalor, but to me it was typical for the district. The walls were peeling and the rail rusted out. A weak light sputtered at the landing.

  Inside the apartments, the tenants took care of their spaces. Rosa covered her walls with large woven tapestries in red and gold and green. Candles burned in every corner, and a CD turned low just covered the street sounds with rhapsodic love songs in Spanish.

  “Sit,” Rosa said, pushing me to the sofa, also covered in bright blankets. She moved to her kitchen and returned with a Corona. “Bad day?”r />
  I nodded and knocked back half the bottle. Rosa could handle this. I’d come here in bad shape before.

  “Ah, pobrecito. Let me fix.” She knelt and began to untie my boots.

  I laid my head back on the sofa and tried to relax. Her ceiling was covered in stains. We were all born into such different circumstances. I hadn’t been that much better off than Rosa, a tumbledown house on a bad street in a small town. My biggest luck had been to back up to middle-class row houses across the alley, and Corabelle.

  Damn it, I’d come back to her again. I took a long pull of the beer and watched Rosa set the heavy boots aside. She wore some tight contraption of a shirt with lace strings up the front. It pushed her breasts up so that they started spilling over. She caught me looking and tugged on one of the strings, letting it loose.

  Normally I’d already have my hands on her, pulling that off, burying my face against her skin, but today I felt so detached, like she was on a screen rather than in the room. She seemed to understand this and stood up, turning in a slow circle as she plucked at the rest of the laces. They came out, one by one, until the shirt fell open and she shrugged the whole thing off her shoulders.

  Her dark naked breasts were kissed by candlelight. I should have been feeling it, and alarms started going off that I wasn’t. This couldn’t be about Corabelle. I wouldn’t let it. Rosa had been my escape for years, easy and friendly and open to whatever I wanted.

  Damn it, it was already happening. I couldn’t help but compare them, Corabelle’s innocent beauty next to Rosa, who seemed to be trying so hard with the eyelashes and rouged cheeks. Where Rosa was ample, Corabelle was slight. I should have had my hands and mouth on the feast in front of me, but I just sat there like a chair, nothing stirring in my pants.

  I’d make this happen. I would force it. With a growl, I grasped Rosa’s hand and pulled her toward me. She tumbled into my lap with a light laugh.

  I pulled her into a kiss, plumbing her mouth with my tongue. She met me with practiced ease, and as soon as I sensed her working to please me rather than responding on her own, I jerked away again. Bloody hell. She’d been fine before.

  “Very bad day,” she said, smoothing down my hair. “Let me fix.” She reached between my legs and squeezed.

  It wasn’t going to work. Not today. I lifted her off my lap and set her on the sofa. The window beckoned and I stood beside it, looking out on the streets. People walked down below, making deals, passing cash for women or drugs or wagers. I didn’t used to know any of this. If none of the crap had happened four years ago, I still wouldn’t know. I’d be out of school, teaching kids like we’d planned. Finn would be wandering around, a year away from kindergarten, and WHY THE HELL WAS THIS ON MY MIND AGAIN?

  “Something’s different, Gavinito.”

  I shrugged. “Old life came back.”

  “Like the day we met?”

  “Something like that.”

  “The reason why you get cut so young?”

  I whirled around, tugging out several bills — money I couldn’t really afford to be wasting — and left them on the table. “I have to go.”

  Rosa nodded, picking up her shirt. “I see you again soon, when day not so bad?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  She worked the series of locks on her door and pressed against the doorframe. She seemed to know I wouldn’t be back. “Adios, Gavinito.”

  “Good-bye, Rosa.”

  I rushed down the stairs, anxious to be out of there. I shouldn’t be messing with Corabelle for the same damn reasons. It’s not like her learning about the vasectomy four years later would make it any easier. She’d want kids eventually, and I’d screwed her over.

  But then, what if she didn’t? What if she felt like I did? Maybe this would be the right thing.

  I had to talk to her. I had to know what she wanted, where she was going. And if there was any place for me. I’d make one. I’d make her see.

  My anxiety rose as I headed for the trash room. Of all the times I’d been in Tijuana and hadn’t cared what happened to me or what could go wrong, this night I just knew the bike would be stolen or I’d get thrown in an alley. Murphy’s Law, my dad used to say when something went south. “Shit that can go wrong, will go wrong. Right when you need it not to.”

  I was relieved as hell to see the Harley sitting where I left it. I rolled it out and opened the outer door more cautiously than usual, watching to make sure I wasn’t interrupting a deal. I normally rode through with swagger that made people leave me alone, but right now I felt like a nervous tourist trying to get the hell back home.

  The corridor was empty so I walked the bike down to the street. I’d go to the coffee shop, live there if I had to, until I saw Corabelle again. I didn’t think for a minute that that pink-haired chick would give Corabelle my number, not after she ran off with the other guy.

  When I popped out on the street, a pair of men just a few feet away looked up. Damn it, I’d been distracted. You couldn’t do that in Zona Norte.

  “Who the fuck is that?” one of them said, some college kid from stateside, and he took off running.

  Shit.

  The other man, short and thick and blasting machismo in a leather jacket, strode up to me, smoothing his long sideburns with his fingers. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Just moving on.” I threw my leg over the Harley, but I misjudged his intention. Sideburns rushed me, arms around my chest, and dragged me off the bike.

  “You lost me a fine customer.” He delivered a sharp kick to my gut, and sparks flew behind my eyes. He ran his hand along the chrome. “Nice ride.”

  When he started to lift it from the ground, I swung my boot around to knock him off his feet. By the time he recovered, I was up again and ready to finish this out. No way was someone going to screw me over this late in the game.

  Sideburns seemed to relish the thought of a fight, and I caught the glint of a set of brass knuckles. That was good, I thought. He felt he needed an edge, which meant he wasn’t a street fighter.

  He lunged first, and my fist connected with his jaw in a crunch of bone. I had no time to think about the pain, because he was back, delivering several sharp blows to my ribs.

  He could hit me there all day. I whipped around, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him into the street. He stumbled off the curb, shook himself, and charged again.

  I’d had enough of this bullshit, so I let him get close enough to take a poorly aimed shot at my chest, then I aimed low and hard, a forward punch into his gut followed by two in a row to his face. He blew backward, falling into the wall.

  He raised his hands in the air and stumbled toward the curb like he was leaving. He seemed calm, too calm, and that’s when I knew he was packing.

  This was no good. A sorry-ass punk like him would take a potshot at me when I rode away. I had to shut him down.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  When he turned back around, I ran at him with a growl, knocking him into a car. Four rapid punches to his face kept him still long enough that I could reach around and feel for the gun stuck in the back of his waistband, under the coat. I jerked it out, knowing I’d have to ditch it somewhere before I got to the border.

  I aimed it at his head. “Back off. I have no issue with you.”

  I kept the gun trained on him as I moved to the bike. I couldn’t lift the Harley without lowering my arm. If he had a second one, this was over. Adrenaline soared through my body and I wondered for a moment if Corabelle would notice if I disappeared, rolled into some ditch in Mexico.

  Sideburns watched me as I lifted the bike. Normally I would have pocketed the shells and tossed the weapon, but my prints were on it, and the last thing I needed was for him to kill somebody later and drag me into it.

  The Harley roared, and I kept the gun in my left hand as I took off down the street, watching him for as long as possible. I had to give the universe credit, she was going to direct me the way she wanted me to go, closing off ot
her avenues until I followed her path. I couldn’t come back to Zona Norte anytime soon. Sideburns would be watching this street, assuming I’d be back, and next time wouldn’t go so easy for me.

  I took the most direct route back to the main highway and as soon as I hit the stretch that was unpopulated, mostly trees and brush, I pulled over.

  I yanked an oil rag from my saddlebag, and in the light from the headlamp, I emptied the gun, a Glock, letting the ammunition fall onto the rag. I was careful not to touch any of the bullets as I used the rag to toss them into the thick brush.

  Then I wiped down the gun as best I could, letting the oily rag take off any prints. I pushed aside a thorny bush and kicked at the dirt to create a shallow hole. Once the Glock was buried and the brush back over it, I breathed out a relieved sigh. That had been too close. Way too close. I’d been in fights before, back when I’d shoot pool in Tijuana and sometimes some punk didn’t want to give up his losses. But this was more. This was another sign that my life was going some other direction.

  I got back on the bike and headed toward the border crossing. It wasn’t until the guard checked my ID and waved me back through that I realized how lucky I’d been.

  Now it was time to take that luck and make it work on Corabelle. Time to man up and face everything.

  Chapter 15: Corabelle

  The day had actually gone pretty well.

  Austin and I had walked through campus, gotten cheap noodles from a cart vendor, and hung out near the Sun God statue, staring up into its colorful protective face. I suspected he might have skipped a class for me, but I didn’t ask him about it. Fridays were my clear days, catch-up days, but this early in the quarter I could goof off still.

  When evening came, he asked if I wanted to walk over to his place. “Don’t worry that I’m trying to get you alone,” he said. “I have six roommates and nobody ever gets anybody alone.”

  “Six!” I appreciated, as I had throughout the day, how easy Austin had made everything, as if anticipating my every point of concern.