Tequila Shuffle

Something a little less intense and a little more lighthearted than the usual. Thanks to blackrandi for the invite. Thanks to blackrandi, sbrooks103x, Bebop03, stev2244 and the ever-so-lovely Nora for the beta reads and editing. This would be unreadable without all of them. There are others who prefer not to be named; you know who you are and you know you are appreciated.

*****

Fuck me to tears.

Even my goddamn hair hurt.

My skin was a thousand pinpricks of sharp pain.

I tried to open one eye, but the painful brilliance of a supernova pierced through my brain, slamming into the back of my skull with all the delicacy of a semi-truck.

With a load of steel girders. And plate glass.

Driven by Ted Nugent. A really pissed off Ted Nugent.

Probably a drunk Ted Nugent.

There was a horrible screeching sound slowly building, kind of like cat nails on an endless chalkboard.

Sweet Jesus save me. Or Buddha... or Shiva... or anyone out there...

Cthulhu? Anyone?

I felt myself heave and retch, but there was obviously nothing left in me to come out anymore.

The horrific screeching was slowly coalescing into something... well, if it wasn't coherent at least it was recognizable as a human voice.

I forced my eyes open against the pain and unsuccessfully tried to understand the blurry form looming over me.

I crushed my eyes shut, then tried again. A pair of feet came into focus in the dry white dust in front of me: Barbie pink toenail polish and a pair of open-toed slippers that seemed to be made mostly of pink cotton candy.

Okay, a woman's feet. Well, maybe. Leonard, over in Trailer Six, sometimes liked to feel pretty when he'd been drinking, but this probably wasn't him. The feet were too small by half, lacked toe fungus, and the well-formed legs attached to them were missing both his many moles and his full thigh tattoo of Rick Astley.

The banshee voice started making sense, after a fashion. I couldn't fully understand it because it was Spanish, and what little Spanish I'd learned from Sesame Street in my delicate formative years did not include most of whatever was being said. I had picked up a larger vocabulary lately, but, hell, I'd have had trouble following English at that blurring speed. It was probably best that way, because if I was a hearing things correctly, the last sentence that blurred by had included the words for "thirty-two donkeys" and "your whore of a grandmother." I was guessing that probably wasn't an invitation to a Tupperware party. Unless Tupperware parties had really changed since my Mom had one when I was a kid.

Concentrating, I realized I had to be laying on my side and probably in the trailer park. The dull white gravel dust was pretty unmistakable.

At least I was near home. Such as it was.

I pushed myself to sit and immediately began dry heaving from a combination of nausea and a headache that had to be among the greatest manmade disasters in history.

The screeching snapped off and those two delicate feet jumped back out of immediate splash range with a yelp.

My nausea subsided and I looked up, only to realize that shit had actually managed to get worse.

Rosa Rafaela Rodriguez.

She was glaring angrily at me from behind her oversize pink frame sunglasses, clutching her nearly transparent pink robe closed with one hand, while pointing accusingly at me with the other.

Her Chihuahua stood, practically vibrating with fury just behind her, clearly poised to tear my throat out on command.

Most everyone in the trailer park avoided Rosa. Leonard described her as "The angriest woman on the planet."

I'd been avoiding her like a religion since I had first bumped into her at the mailboxes and she'd reacted to my friendly greeting as if I'd attempted to kidnap her. In addition to handfuls of court notices for fees I didn't have the money for, lawyers bills I couldn't pay, a reminder to pay my parole supervision fees, and final notices from utilities -- some of which I wasn't even sure I'd ever had -- I got both barrels from her. After realizing there was no possible way to break even, I'd just turned and walked away from her, which sent her spiraling to new heights of righteous fury.

I still enjoyed the hell out of watching her whenever she was outside. She never seemed to wear anything other than that near-transparent pink robe, probably to just drive every guy in the trailer park crazy. Still, her exhibitionist streak occasionally brightened my otherwise bleak existence in our mostly abandoned trailer park.

She drew herself up to her full height of probably five feet and launched into me again. Ignoring her, I struggled to my feet, wavering a bit as I pushed some kind of umbrella off of me.

She stopped suddenly, looked me over with a growing expression of disgust and finally lapsed into English. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I looked down and realized I was standing in the rosebushes surrounding her trailer, which explained those pinpoints of agony.

More disconcerting, I was also naked... and apparently painted green, white, and red. This was just getting better and better.

There had to be another half- dozen-people standing in a loose amused semi-circle behind my tormentor. Leonard, happily sober, or at least sober enough to be wearing overalls instead of a peignoir, was standing behind her. Also behind her, were Maisie, who vaguely resembled a much larger Danny DeVito in drag, along with Delbert and Tawny, who were wearing matching sweat suits and had five o'clock shadows.

All of them were staring at me.

I snatched up the umbrella to shield myself, which sent the Chihuahua into a frenzy of spins and hysterical wheezing barks.

Maybe because the "umbrella" was actually a comically oversized brightly colored straw sombrero.

"Asshole! You scared my little Liam!" Rosa reached down and snatched up the little dog.

I shook my head to clear it, regretting that instantly. "Fuck, that hurt. Wait...Liam? Who names a Chihuahua 'Liam' for fuck's sake?"

"She likes Liam Hemsworth, 'cause she thinks he's hot." Maisie volunteered the information, nodding and fanning herself dramatically with her hand, making her calico housecoat flap and wobble disturbingly. "I like that Chris Hemsworth myself, but I wouldn't kick Liam out of bed for eatin' cookies, if you know what I mean." She stopped for a second and gave a gap-toothed grin. "They're pretty close though, maybe it'd best to test drive them. Maybe at the same time."

Somewhere out there, I was sure both Liam and Chris Hemsworth shuddered and cringed in sudden fear. For their sanity's sake, I hoped they would never have a clue why.

Rosa's sudden shriek of outrage wasn't really completely in human hearing range, but I cringed from the sound anyway, expecting the glass to shatter out of all the trailer windows.

That'd suck because that Alex kid who used to do all the maintenance had disappeared a while ago. He'd mostly played video games and whined about how boring his life was, but he could at least fix windows.

I was pretty sure if she hadn't had the sunglasses on, I would have seen the whites all the way around her eyes as she leveled an accusing finger at me. "You think that's funny?"

"God, no." I blinked. "And I'm pretty damn sure Chris and Liam would be horrified by it."

Maisie gave me a sharp "huff" and folded her arms over a chest the size of a pro linebacker's.

"That's not what I meant you..." Rosa launched into another diatribe in Spanish. Probably, I judged, not a history of the Spanish-speaking peoples of North America. Unless there is some kind of historical theme involving my grandmother and thirty-two donkeys. It could be, though it seems unlikely.

I couldn't follow Spanish well enough to really understand what she was saying. Besides, it was starting to sound like she might be repeating herself. To be honest, her robe had fallen open when she picked up "Liam," so I wasn't really absorbed in whatever it was she was saying anyway.

She wasn't wearing a stitch under her slightly too small robe, and the Chihuahua was rapidly becoming my favorite dog ever by wildly pawing at her and pulling her robe even further open.

Rosa was not only built with curves like Monaco Grand Prix, she was also very well-groomed. Into a very pretty little heart shape.

She caught herself, glanced down, then back up, looking me dead in the eye. "Asshole."

"Hey, I..."

"What are you, a third-grader? Never seen a naked woman before?"

I was really getting tired of her attitude. "Not very many built like you and I really love the heart."

That seemed to take her off her stride and she snatched her robe closed, much to my disappointment. I kept the sombrero in place.

She glanced down at the crown of the sombrero and I was sorely tempted to drop it to teach her a lesson, but I really didn't want to give Maisie any ideas.

It probably wouldn't have actually fallen anyway; Rosa really was hot as hell.

She realized I'd caught her looking and shifted uncomfortably. "You need to clean your vomit out of my rosebushes, Asshole."

I looked down at the ground around me again. It looked like an entire squad of Marines had lost their dinner in her prize roses. Fuck it, I probably owed her to clean it up, but I was really tired of her bullshit. "I'll get to it this afternoon."

Rosa cocked her head in disbelief. "Yeah, right."

I shrugged. "What can I say, you stole my heart. Just, you know, keep it next to yours to keep it warm." I nodded pointedly to where the hot dry wind was blowing the bottom of her robe open again.

She tried to get her robe closed but managed to pop one luscious brown nipple loose as she got that delicate, lovely heart covered again. She finally looked up at me. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm just staying until the show is over."

She gave a frustrated growl of annoyance. Or maybe that was the Chihuahua. Then she raged off, the friendly Santa Anna wind blowing the robe up to expose a perfectly delightful bare butt as she rounded the corner of her trailer and stormed back in.

I stood there for a moment as most of the rest drifted off, leaving only Leonard, Maisie and me there.

"That's quite a woman," Leonard muttered, scratching himself through the unbuttoned side opening of his overalls, exposing a band of delicate red lace across his hip. "Sop that up with a biscuit."

Maisie rolled her eyes at Leonard. "For God's sake, Leonard. She's half your age."

He grinned luridly. "Yeah, she is."

"Pervert."

"Yep." Leonard nodded agreeably, still looking where Rosa had disappeared.

"Hey, Maisie?" I followed his gaze, but Rosa didn't come back out.

"Joseph?"

"Please tell me it's Sunday."

"It's Sunday."

"Then I'm not late for work."

She shook her head and looked over at me, puzzled. "What does "Mex-i-cano Hon-or-ario" mean anyway?

"Honorary Mexican..." I looked down and could just make out letters written in black across my chest. "Son-of-a-bitch, I'm gonna kill Miguel."

Dragging myself over to my trailer, I retrieved my key from under the lone flowerpot in front of my trailer. It wasn't a very good hiding place, but I had fuck-all that anyone would want to steal, anyway. My living room furniture ensemble consisted of two folding lawn chairs, a thrift shop radio that sometimes worked and a milk crate for an end table. I pulled on a clean-ish pair of shorts, then lugged several buckets of water over to Rosa's garden. I figured asking to use her hydrant would probably have started another storm, and I wasn't ready for that.

I spent the rest of the day, fighting my hangover with drawn curtains, four or five gallons of water and enough Tylenol to wonder if I was going to wake up alive on Monday.

Hell with it, not waking up again would probably be a step up from where I was.

I set the alarm on my dollar store watch and went to sleep.

*****

I dragged my ass to the open gate long before the goddamn sun rose and watched Miguel grind the beater former school bus to a reluctant halt.

"Heyyyyy José!" He was grinning from ear to ear.

"It's Joseph. You fucking asshole."

He grinned like a hyena. "It's José now, we made you an honorary Mexican, remember?"

"Yeah, I saw the label, asshole. You didn't have to use a permanent marker. I don't remember much, but the way I felt yesterday, I think the ceremony involved replacing all my blood with tequila."

He nodded solemnly. "And Mezcal."

"You asshole. You didn't even get me home."

"Hey, you said you were fine. We dropped you off at the gate."

"You took the word of a naked drunk man?"

"You weren't naked. You had a sombrero." He seemed very pleased with himself.

I glared at him as I sat down in the seat behind him. "I came to in Rosa fucking Rodriguez's..."

"You nailed her? Holy shit. You're lucky you survived, she's hot as ..."

"Shut the fuck up Miguel. I woke up in her fucking rose garden."

"Is that a metaphor? Tell me that's a metaphor, 'cause I bet her rose garden is amazing." He shook his head and chuckled as we pulled away. "I'd love to be her gardener. Except she's my cousin and she has that whole "pissed at all men and would probably kill you the next morning" shit going on."

"It's not a fucking metaphor, dickhead. She has roses growing around her trailer. And I threw up all over them."

"Lucky you alive man. She got a crazy-ass hot temper. Her ex-husband was fucking around on her with her sister-in-law. She beat the hell out of both of them. She's dangerous."

"That's kind of my point, Miguel. Why the fuck you do that to me?"

"Hey, it's a position of honor. You're the first gringo crew boss we've had who doesn't act like we gonna steal everything in sight."

"Jesus, Miguel. We're harvesting fucking tomatoes. What the fuck are you gonna steal?"

"It's pronounced 'Hey Zeus' now that you're a Mexican. And he's sleeping in the back. We like that you got common sense. That shit ain't very common, you know?"

I might have been the designated crew boss, but Miguel ran everything; I just stayed out of the way and mostly just-picked tomatoes with everybody else.

"You know, you could always be the crew boss."

"No way. I need you to take the blame in case one of these assholes steals something." He repeated that in Spanish to the rest of the crew on the bus. They roared with laughter all the way to the fields.

We weren't even three hours into the fourteen-hour day when the Fish showed up.

"Well, Joseph. Here we are. Just checking in on your sorry ass. Making sure you made it to work." My parole officer smiled at me. The repulsive grouper-like features that gave PO Hennan his nickname twisted in a grotesque parody of human emotion.

"Yeah, well, I'm here."

"Another miracle Joseph. It won't last. You know what the difference between a parolee and an inmate is?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "It's just one little fuck up. And you're a great big fuck up, so it's just a matter of time."

"I'm meeting my parole conditions. I'm working, I'm clean, and I'm not involved in shit."

"You've had three jobs before this one. Six months and three jobs. Now you're working with a bunch of wetbacks." He looked over at Miguel, who just looked back at him blankly, like he didn't understand a word of English. "Can't get any lower than this; you'll never make another eighteen months."

I glared at him. "I lost those jobs because you fucked them up for me."

"They needed to know what kind of loser they'd hired." He looked around and gave a nasty sneer. "Speaking of clean, I think it's about time to test again." He looked at this watch. "You have two hours to get to the test center and piss in a bottle."

"Seriously? I don't have a car and the test center almost two hours away, as is."

"You know the deal. You don't make it or you fail it, you're back inside, shithead." He gave a low, sawing chuckle and headed for his car.

"Fuck."

Miguel walked up beside me and we watched him roll away.

"You sure you're not really Mexican, José?"

"Pretty damn sure, unless Mom was banging the gardener."

"You might wanna ask, you know? Just to be sure?"

"Why?"

"Cause that man really wants to put you on the other side of a fuckin' wall." He stared after Fish's car as it faded into the distance leaving a trail of dust.

"Jesus."

"You're pronouncing it wrong again. Remember you're Mexican now. And he's in field three." He looked back and waved one of his guys forward. "Don't worry about getting to the test center, my cousin, Alejandro here, has a bus license, he'll get you there and back. I don't have the time to break in a new crew boss."

We made it to the test center with a good 15 minutes to spare. I had to pry my hands from the edges of the seat, since I didn't know you could actually drift turn a bus. In heavy traffic.

On the way back, Alejandro was pretty chatty, which was great except that he couldn't speak English. My Spanish was still limited to mostly counting to ten, naming the colors and an assortment of obscenities I'd picked up over the last couple of months, so there really wasn't much overlap.

When we broke for dinner, Miguel sat down next to me. "Saturday night you started to tell me how you ended up here. But you passed out before you could tell me how a big shot stockbroker ends up picking tomatoes."

I shrugged. "Not that much to tell. I got caught up in an SEC investigation into the firm. I didn't think it had anything to do with me, so I wasn't worried. I showed up, was told to go home and was locked out for the duration of the investigation. Turns out there was an account under a fake name doing a lot of insider trading. It was closed two days before the SEC latched on to us and the money went somewhere offshore. I didn't do it. Hell, I didn't even know about the account, much less that I'd been given access to it; there were maybe six or seven of us that had access, but I got blamed. They didn't have the evidence to prove I did it, at least not enough to take to trial, but they pulled my Series 7 license to trade."

"You ended up in jail though?"

"Yeah. While they were investigating, they searched my car and found enough cocaine to hand me off to the local police and charge me with possession with intent to distribute. It wasn't mine, but I couldn't prove it. And a clean piss test isn't really helpful if they bust you for dealing. They were trying to use it as leverage to get me to tell them where the missing money was; I guess it was a lot even by our standards, tens of millions maybe? But I didn't know anything about it, so I didn't have anything to trade. Got three years. It was supposed to be in prison, but you know how overcrowding is here. Ended up in county and only had to do six months before parole. First-time non-violent offender."

"You sure you didn't take the money? If you got millions of dollars, I got a cousin...?" Miguel raised an eyebrow in mock interest.

"If I had millions of dollars, you think I'd still be around here? Fuck, Mexico's just two hours away."

He shrugged. "So where'd the drugs come from?"

"For a while, I was sure they'd been planted, but you get paranoid when everything goes to shit all at once like that, you know? Really, though, I picked up high-end clients from the airport all the time. Gotta give them the personal touch, you know? Some of those trust fund babies and celebs couldn't make it all the way to the hotel without taking a hit. One of them could've left his shit in my car and never even remembered it."

"Bad luck." Miguel mused.

"Once that shit starts rolling, it doesn't stop. Everything fell apart. My wife was humiliated; she kind of stuck with me until I was sentenced but dropped divorce papers on me as soon as I was in prison; stripped our accounts, savings, and CDs. The way it all came apart and how rough the trial was, I wasn't really even surprised. The whole thing put so much stress on everything. She didn't want to talk about it, she just wanted it over."