Cats come back sometimes. That’s the problem. That's what the burlap sack is for. Cats come back but they can't untie the knot, can't break loose. They get stuck inside. They go through all nine of their lives in a quick as the wet of the water soaks through the jute fiber, invades their tiny lungs, turns their purr into a milky wheeze. At that point it's a countdown.
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
3...
2...
One.
Cats come back sometimes. Sometimes when you least expect it. Sometimes when they can do the most damage. Ricardo remember his childhood days, setting off cherry bombs and pulling hard on the girls’ hair- sometime he come away with a bloody fistful- and he remembered back to the shanty town outside of Santa Fe where he grew up, the Mexican immigrants pack together like a can of refried beans. He was just a boy and he already hated all of his neighbors, ignorant pigs and animals. At five years old he made the vow to learn English so he didn't end up like the other men: day laborers, drunk all night on mezcal and knifing each other over card games.
Ricardo remembered being a boy, hating it besides the pinatas and the parades. Besides his Mother's tortilla pies. Back then she was always singing, always taking in stray cats, and when one of them had a litter she would make that ugly face, like she didn't see it coming, like she forgot that cats had kittens. It was her way of saying to him and his brother: "Take care of it."
And so Ricardo and Miguel would walk down to the bodega, swipe a burlap sack from the pepper stand and load it full of fresh kittens, eyes moist, high mews, and walk a mile to the little bridge above the Golondrinas river. They would drop a few stones in for anchor, tie the sailor's knot that their father had taught them before he put the gun in his mouth, and then- unceremoniously- they would drop the sack into the water.
Miguel used to smile in pure delight, watching for bubbles or resurfacing, but Ricardo always found the fall to be anticlimactic. Why kill them like this when you could get creative? It tasted better with a tire iron.
It was the night before the big day, and Ricardo was lay back on his prison mattress, smoking his smoke, finding sleep for once hard to come by. His heart made jog in his chest as he thought about the blueprint. There was a lot riding on tomorrow, the rest of his life and then some: he would break free or die trying. He and Wally Mors had laid the dynamite in place at the construction site this afternoon... sealing the sticks of golden explosive behind fresh-laid brick, the wick extending between a hole in the cement like a serpent’s tail. The wick was waiting.
Now it was time to dream... to dream of the outside.
9…
But it turned out in the end there was no time to dream, no time to sleep, because it was morning before Ricardo could close his eyes and open them again, the sun up in the sky early and unscheduled, and the jackets were poking him awake through the bars with their sticks, shouting to get up, get up and get eaten… there was work to be done.
In the mess hall that toothless fuck Brewster put a load of cold mush in his mouth, opened it wide and shouted across the room: “Hey Cortez, I got a gourmet breakfast for you!”
Ricardo didn’t blink. There was work to be done.
8…
At the job site the mortar and masonry tools where just they had left them, and while one of the jackets backed up a dump truck full of bricks into the yard two inmates with wheelbarrows began to stack and unload. There were thirty men on construction duty today, 100 yards from the jailhouse proper, at the South Wall building the addition to the prison that would house another three-hundred men, building a box to bury bad men alive. So far no one had noticed the missing TNT… the head of the construction crew stood in the guard tower shouting obscenities as usual. Ricardo began stacking bricks, thinking of the work there was to be done outside, the blood to be spilled and the flesh to be scarred. He tried to remember the last time he had ridden in a car, the last time he had been laid. He thought of the taste of lobster and his mouth made water. He wanted to taste it again. Just one more time…
7…
At 8:30 AM Wally Mors looked across the yard from the lumber pile and put two fingers to his temple. Good. Ricardo thought of Santos, and Violet, and would they ever be surprised to see him again. He thought of the day when he was thirteen, when he had got tired of drowning kittens and strangled his Mama with his bare hands. He could still hear the music. That was just before he shot Miguel in the face to see how big a mess he could make. He smiled, nostalgic.
6…
The jackets were watching him closer this morning, and least that’s the way it felt to Ricardo. If they knew something, anything, they weren’t giving it away. The bricks were piling high, they seemed to stack themselves. Ricardo realized he was numb, his body working on automatic and his mind a thousand miles. Suddenly he had to laugh out loud: one way or another all his problems would be solved today. Across the way Wally Mors lit a cigarette. Ricardo asked the jacket for a break. He leaned up against yesterday’s brick wall and lit a cigarette, ashing back in Wally’s direction.
5…
He wondered if Linda Darnell was still making pictures. He would definitely have to find her and fuck her if he got out.
4…
Ricardo’s heart start to pound in his throat. There was a world just outside these walls, you better believe it. His hand began to shake as he raised his cigarette for a drag.
3…
So long, you cocksuckers.
2…
Wally Mors started screaming, holding his hand and howling like a woman making baby.
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch that goddamn thing stung me!”
Ricardo looked up, watch Wally dance around the yard, jackets watching, looking back and forth to each other, dead-eyed drones in uniform, and Wally screamed like the Devil. He pointed to the stack of wood: “Fuck it! There’s a scorpion in there!”
And as the guards advanced on the injured man Ricardo fell back, and with one chance, struck the last match he had left against his matchbook cover, which was wet with sweat from today’s nerves.
And the match caught fire.
Ricardo kissed it to the wick, and the flame begin its journey to destruction sublime, and there was no time for a countdown because-
The South Wall exploded in a shower of broken brick and debris, the impact from the blast knocking everyone to the ground. Ricardo’s vision go shaky as the ground tremor and quake. The jackets and the other inmates run from the cloud, stones and gravel still airborne, hanging for a moment before the meteor shower that would rain like bullets, and finally visible on the other side of the hole was the sight he had been waiting to see. On the outside stood Wally’s sister beside her running car, waiting patient and afraid.
The projectile rock cut the faces of the jackets still on their feet. And Ricardo, he ran.
He ran to the driver’s side window where Felecia Mors wordlessly handed him the M16, and Ricardo turned and began to fire, pumping slugs lazy good, taking out anyone dumb enough to stand up, any inmate fool enough to think there was room in the car for him.
Wally stood, rose to his feet, pounding his way across the work yard, and he almost got there. Almost but one of the jackets got to his knees and plugged Wally twice in the back. He fell to the ground.
Felecia cried out but Ricardo didn’t hear. He shot the guard for what he did to Wally. Then he shot Wally, just to be sure. There would be no wounded on this ride.
Ricardo jumped into the backseat, screamed at Felecia and the girl began to drive, the Dodge pulling away fast and up the valley road, away from Santa Fe toward Agua Fria. Ricardo turn to watch out the back window, but there were no police cars on their tail, no guards in hot pursuit. He only turned away twice to yell at Felecia: “Faster.”
Ten miles later there was no one in sight. He wondered how long the car could last before it would give out and overheat, before he’d have to steal another one. He wondered where he would dump Felecia’s body when he was finished with her.
The girl started crying then, only 19, and through her senseless sobbing she asked Ricardo without looking back, “How could you do that to my brother?”
Ricardo laughed. He laughed like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. He reached up from the back seat and put his hands beneath her shirt, squeezing her breasts and pulling hard on her nipples.
“Drive.”
The Dodge kicked up a trail of dust that died down quick in the breeze-free air. Ricardo could smell the cypress trees, taste the blue of the sky wide open. He saw release, and the potential to do some serious and permanent damage to the world that had caged him. He thought: sometimes things work out exactly like you plan them.
Sometimes cats come back.
