Dawn patrol rifling through the leather-lined byways of my trusty travel satchel: Two boxes of Maalox, seventy-five pellets of Lidocaine, five sheets of high-powered hemorrhoid suppositories, a half tube of Neosporin, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored antacids, H2 blockers, proton pump inhibitors ... and also a bottle of fungal cream, a quart of spearmint mouth wash, a case of enema kits, a pint of raw Ibogaine and two dozen Prednisone.
Not that I needed all that for the trip, but once you hit your roaring forties, the tendency is to take your medical stash as far as it can go.
The vermillion spitball clots in the sink cause instapanic. Are my pulsing temples a hangover or the telltale hoofprints of an oncoming stroke? Aneurysm? Some nervous seconds playing What comes next?
The bathroom mirror tells no lies. Every glance a testimonial to the old adage nobody gets out of here alive. What's with this pimple on my forehead above my right eyebrow? At forty? The indignity of it all.
Ringtone: Charly Garcia's 'Botas Locas'.
The familiar white noise of beeping video poker machines amidst murmuring drunkards. "So Duck, is you mis-generating with Traci or what?"
How did Gus sniff out the blind date? Loose lips sink ships. "Wha--? None of your beeswax."
"That's a nada."
"No. I'm just … biding my time."
Gus spits out his beer. "Duck, be honest. Is keeps our amigoship … symmetricated."
High-pitched squeaks from the phone's speaker. Probably cleaning cheap beer spitlets off the video poker screen.
"Drinking early, I see."
"Drinking? No ..." A loud cow belch. "LSD."
"Huh?"
"Aye, is macrodosing Wendsday, Duck."
"Gus, it's Saturday … and don't you mean microdosing?"
"Nah. Ya' can't see Jesus goin' small. Especialmente for breakfast. Duck, mi body is a sacred temple filled to the brime with a delicated ecosystem of pisco sours, yerba maté, chili dogs, cheap bourbon and nachos."
"Sounds like a temple of doom."
"Sí, but the LSDs keeps mi biorhythms naturalized."
"Have you tried intermittent fasting?"
"Intermittent fisting? Aye, Duck, if that's how you is leading off your blind dates no wonder you is striking out with the ladies."
Christ. Do NOT make me hear this. I apply Hapee toothpaste, then fire up my trusty Spongebob toothbrush. Multi-tasking is a great way to avoid reality. "Fasting you big goof. I gotta melt this pus gut and build a six-pack to compete with that Baywatch Bogen creep."
"¿Qué?"
"You know the score. The same circular firing squad of self-doubt that's plagued me since … forever."
Rinse and spit.
"Well, you is talkin' to the right guy. C'mon, take yourselves for a walk and knock some belly farts loose."
Pacing a figure eight loop from my bed to the front door. "What? You're a romance expert?"
"I has been divorced seis times. Of course I is a romance expert."
A tall, thin shape outside the window blinds.
"Duck, the importanced thing is, fortunes favors the balderdash."
Footfalls slow to a stop outside my door.
"Belie you me, Duck, our Fears is bigger than us all. They controls us likes god. Y I is talkin' every god, even the Atheist formerly known as The God."
Not my imagination. Someone's standing outside my door.
"Aye, I loved mi sexto wife with all mi corazónes. He was so cool, you know, even though ten years later I hates her rotted, stinked guts."
Gus blabs on while I pull the phone from my ear, tip-toing closer. I'll catch this fucker.
"I wrotes her this poemic. Wanna hear?"
"No Gus, that's not really--"
A clearing of the throat and a hearty belch, then Gus breaks into song. A couple of stanzas before it's recognizable, and Good Lord his falsetto is unbearable.
Just as I turn off my electric toothbrush and reach for the door handle, a slim manila package slides underneath the door.
Crap. The phone drops to the floor with a dull thud. Damn butter fingers. Gus' voice plods on like perfect pitch has gone out of style.
After an awkward fiddling about, I lunge into the walkway, temporarily blinded by the sun's low-skimming morning rays. No one. Either there's a ghost on Boracay's postal payroll or I'm losing it.
The manila folder is real enough. A savage tearing of the flap. Out pops a magazine. A weird magazine. Very. Girls and Corpses. Winter issue: The Snow Angel of Death. What the hell?
Gus mercy kills the last notes so off-key it defies the law of modern harmonics."Aye, hows about that fluckin' masturdpiece, eh, Duck? Duck ... is you there?"
I bend over and snatch the phone. "Stunning. Although, I'm pretty sure your "masterpiece" was a top-ten hit by Muse back in the day. A little advice, if you're going to steal music, maybe lift a song from a band nobody's heard of?"
"Aye, I only kipes the best, Duck. You wanna hears mi Stairways to the Jack Daniels Heavens? I plays a mean air guitard."
"Not really. I got bigger fish to fry. Like the sick turd that signed me up for the Girls and Corpses magazine with my name and The Manila Dahlia's address on it." Oh no. "You know that means."
"¿Felicitaciones?"
"Somebody's got my credit card number. Crap."
A deep, maniacal groan erupts from the phone. "Aye, they is comin' to get you, Ducky."
CLICK.
I look down at the blood-stained bristles on my electric toothbrush. An ambulance siren trails away in the distance. What did Nathan say, again?
Never drink the tap water.