Last Bender

This the chapter excerpt I was going to read on Sunday but was persuaded not to.

Elma stared out the window of the car. Irmela got in back and pouted.
“I don’t have time to drive around, so I’m dropping you at David’s. You don’t like it there, get in the car and drive somewhere else. I hear Portland’s nice.” We were in a neighborhood now, things were crumbling down. People squatting in the building shells. A truck load of Mexican soldiers came barreling along in the opposite direction. “Shit,” I said, and turned down a side street. There was a whistling and an explosion followed by mortar rounds. They were landing near. I drove deeper into the neighborhood, down single lane roads with adobe homes falling into ruin. Chickens ran around the better kept yards, where there were gates and fences, but mostly it was blocks of rubble where people and animals swarmed like moyotis in search of food and water, or trash. The gun fire stopped. I wasn’t sure where we were. People were staring at us; we had reached a hinterland of shacks built from salvage. There were storefronts and food carts around an overgrown park , where a few scrawny goats chewed on the grass. After about an hour I was back to where we had started from, which wasn’t far from Junior’s.
“Alright ladies, it’s been nice.”
Elma leaned over the seat back and said to me, “Do you think I would have slept with you if I thought it would end like this?”
“It’s not you, it’s you two.”
“But all you really want is to fuck my sister. Or maybe it’s both of us you want.”
“That’s a thing that sounds better than it is. Like something you sell, not what you buy.”
She got out of the car and slammed the door. Irmela looked back and waved at me. She was smiling.
The road to Junior’s was totally fucked up. The Mexican army truck, the mortars, and soldiers on patrol on every block shooting at shadows. I drove around a check point and made it to El Rodeo de las Aguas where he had his office, a small, gold and silver entrance pod with brAinfoAmLights. The lift lowered you through a SensiWeb interior and released you into the reception area. Jorge sat in a waiting chair reading a magazine and Junior’s wife Gildebrand manned the desk, making phone calls and keeping his schedule. “He’s really pissed,” she said, handing me a folder. “This is the house you have to show.” It was ten past ten. I walked through the stone doors and into his office. He sat behind an empty glass desk in a mica chair. There was a green plant behind him and a trickle of water flowing over jasper.
“Bob, you made it.”
“I’m sorry, everything got all fucked up. Irmela, the young one, made off with my car.”
“I hope you’re done playing with them. Stick to professionals, or get married, that’s my advice. Because of cooz you kept me waiting two hours. I need dependable men around me, Bob. Now, we go a ways back. I feel personally invested in you. Not only can you sell a house, you handle the side work well, better than most. Your cut isn’t larcenous, you deflect the heat and I’ve never lost a dime on you. But this is a bad sign.”
“Look Junior, except for the parties, I hardly ever work for you anymore.”
“You don’t look good, Bob. Those two kept you up for the past week?”
I scratched my unshaven cheek and coughed a little. “They smoke too much tobacco. It makes me hoarse.”
He stared at my face for a long time and said, “Your eyes are bloodshot.”
“That would be the marijuana.”
He pushed a button on his desk and said, “Send in Jorge.” He smiled broadly and folded his hands on his belly, which always means he’s mad. “You’re not going to like this, Bob.”
I didn’t feel good.
The door opened and in came Jorge, excited. “Where’s you cuatl?”
“The Priest is out on business,” I said.
“I mean the sister with the glowing hair.”
“All right, knock it off. Jorge, show him on the TV,” Junior said. The screen on the wall behind his desk turned blue. He swiveled around in his chair and leaned back, hands still crossed on his belly. There were no credits, just a shot of a dark hallway, and then of a bed in a tiny, filthy room. “Skip over this part,” he said. Jorge fast forwarded, and the images raced by, of a woman taking off her clothes and lying down, and then the camera moving up over her whole naked body. Then another girl raced in and undressed. “There.” He slowed it down to normal speed and I could see that it was Irmela and Elma. But they were much younger. Irmela really did look 13. Their faces were totally blank, like kachina dolls. Irmela’s eyes were uneasy. They didn’t move exactly, but there was something happening in them, some conflict, that would never make it out. The more I looked into them, the more difficult she was to read. She wasn’t scared and she wasn’t jaded. It was as if she knew exactly what was happening to her yet was paralyzed and couldn’t respond at all. They started to kiss and touch each other. Then Irmela went down on Elma and Elma went down on Irmela.
“Turn it off, I’ve had enough.”
Junior looked self satisfied, and patted his belly. “You know what that was called?” he asked.
“Incest,” I said.
“Gaha, Babes of the Abyss.”
“No, no, that’s their band,” I said
“No, that’s their act.”
“They play Austrian or Australian folk music. I saw them. I heard them play guitar and sing.”
He smiled and pulled forward into the desk. “You’ve been drunk for a week. See, when a man goes down, it’s everyone’s concern, because when a man goes down, he takes out those above him, and below him. You bag out, there goes the Priest, and the six or seven maggots who depend on him. But I won’t have you take me down, understand? Your are not alone in this world Bob.”
I opened the folder and started to go through it. “Can we get down to business, Junior? This house I have to show–”
He shook his head. “Lay off the booze and the cooze, Bob, that’s my advice. And lay off those two girls. And I mean it. I catch you with them again, there’ll be trouble. The fact is, they don’t belong to you, and you don’t belong with them. I know you like the conechichihualli.” He and Jorge laughed. “But you’re going to start talking like a monkey soon.” Jorge made some monkey sounds and laughed. “So Bob, do you want a copy of the movie, in case you miss them?”
“Alright, I got it, I got it.”
Jorge said, “Ooo oo oo ah ah ah!”
I said, “We all know where the monkeys and the snakes came from.”
“Yeah, San Diego,” Jorge said. “Temazatl.”
“Enough,” Junior said. “Now the house you have to show is about a three hour drive north. You’re meeting Charlie gets Along. Don’t give him any bullshit, just study file and point out the obvious. Do you want to take Jorge with you?” He nodded towards Jorge.
“Only if I have to.”
“He’s got a gun and he drives. You’ll be able to get a little rest that way. And don’t forget to shave before you leave.”
“Let’s go,” Jorge said, standing.
So Jorge drove up north and I studied the file. When the road turned to dirt I took the wheel and he snoozed against the door. As I drove I thought about Elma and Irmela, and the more I thought about them the angrier I got. Kicking them out was for the best. Junior wanted it that way. But why did he give a shit? It made no sense. No more sense than they themselves made. Those two didn’t add up to four. Elma’s expensive luminescent hair, the contradictory route through Europe and the East they said they travelled, the weird accent, even their ages. Junior was right. They were trouble. But the pictures of them wouldn’t let me alone. Elma was right, I had wanted to fuck them both, sure. Who wouldn’t? But I never wanted it to be real, cause when it was real it was disgusting. Not the sex, the knowing they were sisters, and kids, and what fucker would make kids do that? Unless they did it on their own? But it was twisted either way. I didn’t know whether to put it past them or not; and if they did want to do it, so what? What would that mean? I couldn’t fuck up my whole life just for screwing Elma and putting up with Irmela. It was crazy that I was even thinking about it. They put their tongues into each other’s mouths; Elma fingered Irmela’s butt. I didn’t want to think about that stuff. They ate a dog! They had to be hungry to do that. I didn’t know anything about it really. There was the Uncle in Montreal. And then vague things about New York and Vegas. But Vegas is hell for anyone. And that film wasn’t made in Vegas, it wasn’t depraved enough. That film was home made. It was their pimp David’s work. I could smell his fat sweaty ass on it. And Irmela had said as much. He liked to watch girls fuck. I owed it to them to get them out of there. Fuck Junior.