Chapter Twenty-Three

Maricruz picked up the phone again and dialed the number to the restaurant.  Her brother Miguel answered, “Los Tres Hermanos, the best and only Mexican food in town, how may I help you?”

“Miguel, it’s Maricruz.  Put Umberto on the phone.”

“Where are you, Mari?  People are starting to come in.  We could use you out on the floor.”

“I know, I know.  I’ll be there soon, but I need you to put Umby on.”

“He’s working the grill right now.”

“Then take over for him for a second,” she said in an increasingly short tone, “and put him on the damn phone, Miguel.  It’s important.”

“Geez, don’t get your panties in a twist,” he said, surely knowing how much she hated when he said that.

She could hear Miguel put the phone down on the counter and then she heard her brothers talking. Umberto’s voice finally came through the phone.  “What did you say to dad after he ripped me a new one when we saw him earlier?” he asked excitedly.

“I don’t have time for this, Umby.  Just listen to me—”

He cut her off.  “He told me he’s going to help me open up my gym!”

“Really?” she asked, in utter surprise.

“You must have made him feel like crap,” he answered her.  She really must have.  For her father to give up that kind of money he must have had nothing less than a sackcloth and ashes kind of change of heart. 

“I just told him—wait, we can talk about that later.  Listen, there’s a trucker who just walked into the restaurant.  Do you see him?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he told her.  “Mean looking dude.”

“That’s the guy Lyle was telling you about earlier, the guy who hurt Amanda.  Is Lyle there yet?” she asked, expecting the answer to be yes.

“Nah, haven’t seen him yet.”

“Hmm,” Maricruz wondered.  “He left here a few minutes ago.  Plenty of time to get down there.”  She worried where he might be.  “Where’s Amanda now?”

“Dad’s got her cutting lettuce and tomatoes and helping Benny fill up bowls with chips and salsa.  He said he’d give them both a little cash when the lunch hour was over.  Amanda seemed pretty pumped about having some money of her own.”

“Listen, Umby,” Maricruz said, very seriously.  “You need to make sure she stays quiet and stays out of sight.  And keep Benny back in the kitchen.  I do not want him out on the floor.  I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“Why don’t you just call the police?” Umberto asked her.

Maricruz snapped back at him.  “Because the police probably won’t do anything to him based on the story of a runaway who stole a car last night.  Even if they did arrest him he’d be out in no time.  We’ll end up calling the police eventually but Lyle’s promised Amanda he’d protect her no matter what.  I’m not sure he trusts the cops to really do that.”

“What’s he got planned?” Umberto asked in a tone that wasn’t so much concerned as genuinely curious. 

“I don’t know, Umby, but I’m really nervous about it.”  She paused.  “He just got sober and I don’t want him to do anything stupid and get himself arrested or even worse, killed.  He’s on some kind of mission to be a better person, which I’m happy about, but I can’t help but think he’s trying to accomplish that all in one day.”

“You want me to call my friends in?” Umberto asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I called for originally.  Get your buddies there.  Maybe they can keep Lyle from doing something dangerous.”

“Consider it done, Mari… and thanks, Sis.”

“For what?”

“For sticking up for me with dad.  You’re a hell of a big sister.”

“No problem Umby,” she said, filled with sisterly pride.  “Just give me a free membership to the gym and we’ll be even.”

“Got it!... Oh, and Mari, you probably ought to hurry up and get down here.  More people are coming in and Dad’s starting to ask about you.”

“Don’t tell him I called” she said.  “I just have to do one more thing and then I’ll be in.”

Maricruz hurriedly changed into her black pants and black Los Tres Hermanos polo shirt that she wore to wait tables.  She threw on her shoes, coat, and a stocking cap and went to the kitchen, pulling a seven-inch carving knife out of the wooden block that held the knife set she’d inherited from the restaurant when her dad finally sprang for a new one.  She stuffed the knife in her coat pocket, and then made her way down the stairs to the sidewalk, and then ran back behind the building and into the alley.  She took as long and confusing a route back onto Main Street as she could and then across it and into the alley behind that side’s row of buildings.  She sneaked up that block, not seen by anyone as far as she could tell except by the occasional stray cat.  She poked her head around the building and studied the midnight blue semi truck with the Double Barrel Trucking decal on the door.  She saw that it had those terribly tacky and sexist mud-flaps that she hated, the ones that portray anatomically impossible big breasted bimbos sitting with their backs arched and knees pulled up, hair blowing in the wind.  Judging by the fact that she couldn’t see across to the restaurant, she surmised that as long as she stayed on this side of the truck she’d go unnoticed.

She looked around to insure that no one could see her and then pulled the stocking cap down as low as she could on her forehead.  She was about to take off in a sprint, but then she saw someone climbing out from between the tractor and the trailer.  “Oh crap!” she yelled out silently in her mind as she ducked back behind the corner of the century old brick building.  If Umberto said DB was in the restaurant then who was out at his truck?  Did he have someone with him?  She peeked around again and saw a tall slender man in a puffy blue coat and a gray cowboy hat.  Lyle!  What in the world is he doing?  She tried to get his attention but he was too far away to hear her unless she yelled so she decided that she’d just need to run up to him.  She took off sprinting as fast as she could toward the truck, whispering as loud a whisper as can still be called that, “Lyle!  Lyle!  What in the world are you doing?”  Her voice startled Lyle and he reached toward his lower back for something but when he saw that it was Maricruz he brought his hand back around empty. 

“What am I doing here?  I’m cutting wires that run from the tractor to the trailer.  What the hell are you doing here?”

Maricruz pulled out the carving knife and dramatically stabbed it into the front driver’s side tire, but the knife stopped.  Apparently she wasn’t strong enough to push it all the way through the tire’s sidewall.  No air came out at all.  “Damn it,” she whispered before pulling the knife out and trying it again… and again… and again with no luck.  She stood staring at the tire and then at the knife.  She’d had no idea how thick and tough semi tires were.  She’d just known her carving knife could do the job.  After all, it always looked so easy in the movies.  Some guy would pull out a switchblade and just jam it in.  She realized, though, in that moment that she’d never seen anyone try it on a big rig. 

“I really thought that would work,” she embarrassedly admitted to Lyle who had a look of concern on his face.

“You’re lucky it didn’t work,” Lyle scolded her.  “There’s so much air pressure in there that tire would have probably exploded if it had worked and that knife would have come out of there fast.  Geez, Maricruz.  This isn’t like you.”

“Well this isn’t supposed to be like you either, Mr. Turn-Over-A-New-Leaf.”  Lyle stood back as she talked because she always moved her hands around as she spoke, but this time one of those hands had a carving knife in it.

“I just can’t stop thinking about what he did to Amanda,” he told her.  “This son of a bitch deserves whatever we do to him.”

“But what good is it to cut wires?” she asked.

“I was just trying to knock out all his trailer lights so he’d get pulled over if he tried to run off from here.  But I like your plan better.”

“Do you think we could just let out the air in the front tire?” she asked, noting how less dramatic it was than slashing the tire, but how much more sense it made.

“It’ll take a while but that’s probably our best choice.  I’ll do it.”  Lyle reached out for the carving knife.

“No.  Use your pocket knife,” Maricruz told him.  “I have something else I want to do with this knife.”

Lyle unscrewed the stem cap and then used the point of his pocket knife to push the stem valve in, releasing a powerful hissing stream of air.  All in all it took more than ten minutes to deflate the tire down to the point that the wheel rested on the snow covered parking lot asphalt.  “There’s no way he could drive on that,” Lyle said.  “Take that, you evil prick.”  

While Lyle had let the air out of the tire, Maricruz had been just a few feet away using her knife for its intended purpose: carving.  She stood on the truck's running board as the knife’s point dug deeply into the midnight blue paint with metallic specks in it, releasing the chilling sound of metal on metal, and spelling out “RAPIST PERVERT” and then “PIMP” beneath it on the truck door.  She then went back over it a couple of times to make sure each letter was deep, wide, and easily visible.  As she stood back and read it, she couldn’t believe she’d done it.  Lyle was right; she wasn’t that kind of person.  She almost felt guilty about it for a moment but then she thought about that girl who’d been sleeping curled up in her chair just an hour earlier and what he’d done to her and allowed other scummy perverts to do to her, and she didn’t feel bad about it anymore, although she would need to confess it later to Father Carl.  Instead of feeling contrite and repentant, her blood boiled within her and she actually wished she could do something else, anything else to get some little bit of revenge for Amanda.  She knew, however, that she and Lyle were risking getting caught and needed to get to the restaurant. 

Lyle walked up behind her and joked, “Not exactly what you expected for our first date in ninety days, huh?”

When Maricruz had thought about it again and again over the past ninety days she sure never imagined having to spend that special day of reunion and reconciliation rescuing Lyle on a snowmobile, meeting a girl who’d been raped and whored out and then who stole a car, confessing to Lyle that Rick was Benny’s biological father, which was then followed by a huge fight and passionate sex, and then carving curses into the side of a semi truck.  She just wanted a quiet day with Lyle and Benny, maybe a nice lunch and a movie.  This day had gone off the rails from the beginning and even though it was only half over it seemed it would never end.  She couldn’t help but wonder what was coming next when they would make it back into the restaurant.  “No, honey,” she said.  “I had something else in mind.”

Maricruz wiped the paint chips from the tip of the knife and then stuffed it back in her deep coat pocket.  Lyle did the same with his pocket knife, pushing it down into the tight pocket of his Wranglers.  He grabbed her hand and then the two of them slinked back around by the long way she’d come, passing through the alley behind a row of buildings and then they walked casually across Main Street so as not to attract any attention if there did happen to be anyone who could see them.  Lyle held her hand very tightly as they trudged through the snow-packed alley up to the back door of the restaurant.  Lyle stepped in front of Maricruz to open the door for her and, when he did, Maricruz caught just a little glimpse of the gun tucked inside his belt beneath his coat.

“Lyle, what in the world do you have---”  She didn’t finish her question because as the door opened it revealed her father standing in the door with a scowl on his face and his arms crossed. 

“Where have you two been?” he asked indignantly.  “Word has gotten out that we’re the only restaurant in the county that’s open.  We’re getting busy and you two are out running around doing God knows what.  To make it even worse, that girl Amanda that you brought home—who I’m pretty sure is a criminal by the way—is in my office curled up in a ball crying and shivering.  Umberto said something to Amanda while she was filling a pitcher with ice water for your cousin, Adriana, to take out to the customers.  When Umberto told her something about a trucker being here and that she needed to stay in the kitchen, she dropped the pitcher, spilling water everywhere and then ran into my office and closed herself in there.  You can see her through the window in the door, balling her eyes out.  What’s going on, Mari?... On second, thought, you can tell me about it later.” 

Fernando turned around and started to walk off but as he did he said, “Speaking of that trucker, he’s been sitting there waiting for someone to take his order for ten minutes.  If we weren’t the only restaurant open he would have left by now.  Adriana can’t work the floor by herself and I need everyone else in the kitchen.  The guy is costing us a fortune; he’s already on his third bowl of chips!  Get out there and take his order.”

Maricruz’s eyes grew large when she heard that she was going to be waiting DB’s table.  She looked at Lyle who put his hand on her shoulder.  “Just try to treat him like any other costumer.  Let me handle everything else.”  Maricruz took a deep breath and did her best to convince herself that as far as she was concerned DB was just another customer, a RAPIST PERVERT PIMP customer who might have a little extra spit flavored Mexican rice on his plate, but a customer nonetheless. 

As they walked into the kitchen, Maricruz stopped at the sink to wash her hands.  As she dried her hands she watched as Lyle headed for the office to check on Amanda, and as her father met Lyle half way, throwing him a white apron and telling him, “Lyle, you can work off the gas money it cost me for those snowmobiles to save your butt this morning.  We’ve got tables that need to be bussed out there.  So check on that girl but then I could really use you out there.”

“Sure thing, Fernando,” Lyle responded.  “Just give me a minute.”  Lyle knocked softly on the office door and then walked in.

Maricruz grabbed her order pad and pen and walked out of the kitchen into the dining room where she spotted the pile of scum from the pits of hell who called himself DB.  He was wearing a mesh net hat that had the name of some truck stop on it.  Through the mesh, Maricruz could see that his light colored hair was cut very close to his scalp.  His face was less rounded than it was like a hunk of granite that had been carved into the image of someone who looked like he’d been kicked out of Marine boot camp for being too violent and cocky.  As she looked him over in disgust in his navy blue and red plaid flannel shirt, blue jeans, and work boots, she guessed that the earth had been cursed with his presence for about forty years or so.

Just as she was about to approach DB to take his order, the bell that alerted them to a new customer rang and she looked over to see Father Carl walk in, take his coat off, and then hang it on a hook near the front register.  As always, he was wearing his long sleeve black clergy shirt with the white tab collar, along with black slacks and black shoes.  She couldn’t help but smile when she saw Father Carl.  She knew that some of the old guard in the parish felt he played a little too fast and loose, not so much with church doctrine but with church protocol.  He’d always been so kind to Maricruz, however, and he humored Abuelita better than anyone. 

Maricruz motioned for Father Carl to go back into the kitchen and then with her heart pounding and her face growing flush from anger, she finally approached DB’s table and asked him, “Can I take your order?”

DB looked up at Maricruz and tipped the bill of his hat up so he could see her better.  “Oh hey there, Sugar. Or I guess I should say Brown Sugar.  It’s about damn time.  I thought I was going to either die of starvation or old age in this shithole restaurant before I ever got any damn service.”  After he said this he inspected Maricruz visually as though he was looking over a rental car to see if there was any damage.  “But I guess the wait was worth it, Honey.”

“What do you want to eat, sir?” she asked, clinching her teeth.  She then took his order, grabbed his menu out of his hands, and then began walking back to the kitchen.  “How could this horrible day get any worse?” she asked herself out loud in a whisper.  No sooner did she get the question out of her mouth than she received her answer.  The bell above the door rang again, announcing another customer.  Maricruz looked back over her shoulder and then stopped when she saw that it was Rick walking through the door nearly an hour before he said he’d be there.  That wasn’t the worst part, however.  Maricruz had to steady herself against a table when she saw that Rick had people with him, and that those people were his wife and their two teenage sons.