Los Mangles Rojos

1.

There was a truck, back opened and piled with soiled towels, idling on the narrow stamped cement path. A sour smell of dampness, sweat, and burgeoning mildew – not only the physical truck – impeded his grumbling scooter. It was the same every evening around this time. Thoughtless day laborers, hired to collect the mountains of laundry created by thoughtless hotel guests, cared only for how quickly they might receive payment for this menial task.

And so Tico slowed, then stopped, one foot on the ground and the other lightly resting on the gas, hand squeezing the whining brake.

“Quitarse del medio,” he muttered through gritted teeth. But there was no one around. The truck’s cab was empty, passenger door ajar, but none of the small army of riders was nearby. Tico remembered, impatiently, the pool was just down the path to the right where, likely, many more towels awaited. Perhaps at least ten minutes’ worth.

The truck would not be moving.

Hopping to one side, he guided the scooter slowly through the tangle of short bushes abutting the truck, cursed the black smear of grease which appeared on his fresh white shirt, and again seated himself on the scooter when he was a few feet past the truck. As his foot pressed the gas, he felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket.

But he already saw Tomasa leaning against the stucco gate. And when she saw him, she picked up her bag and flagged him down like a motoconcho on Spanish Avenue.

“Hey,” she breathed into his ear, sitting behind him just as he sped up again, past the resort entrance and the grim-faced guard with his rusted shotgun. The sky was periwinkle, filled with a dusky coldness already coloring the western horizon, and Tomasa did not look back at the guard that evening.

2.

Definitions are useless, thought Tomasa, focusing on the vibrant statue with its bared teeth gleaming down at her. They are bulky, tawdry, overblown and – ultimately – imprecise, if not wrong. That Pre-Columbian motif she always understood to be so sinister, so threatening, was only a smile, after all. And she smiled at this, or imagined she did, unable to tell if the crunching she felt in her mouth was granules of sand or her pulverized teeth.

And Tico, whom she had thought to be so benign, so gentle – had also turned out to be the opposite.

The statue continued smiling at her as she lay in the dirt under the red mangroves. Aside this seldom traveled path, she was confident she would not be found, and was, surprisingly, relieved.

3.

The heavy sack of dirty towels stank of rotten eggs, along with the usual damp rank, rendering the added aroma indiscernible. Almost imperceptible. So that when Pedro lifted it above his head, only vaguely acknowledging its extra weight with a low grunt, the smell couldn’t be distinguished from the nearby mangroves crowding the waterside. Deep into the truck, the bag settled into the other towels.

Tomasa handed Pedro the crisp bills, smiling, “Buenos noches, mi amigo.”

The guard watched the truck leave the gate, resting his weight on the shotgun. His hand first grasped the barrel, then lifted it near his nose, as he thought he smelled the residue of its having been fired. Briefly sniffing his hand, he watched Tomasa ride past him out of the gate, waving.

Hastily, he waved back to her, and the gun fell.