BACK FROM THE BARDO
Original Edition
By
James Cage
Copyright © 2006 James Cage
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book was re-edited February 23, 2017.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Photo: The Fire-Eater
Book I: Holding the Bricks
Book II: Astral Andy and the Funny Bear
Book III: Germ Spreaders on a Train
PROLOGUE
This edition is updated, edited and revised. Chapter headings have been added to make the stories easier to follow.
The following is a definition of The Bardo. In Tibetan Buddhism, The Bardo is an intermediate place after death. An individual experiences visions within The Bardo state. These visions can be extremely frightening and terrifying. How the soul reacts within The Bardo determines the individual’s next rebirth.
The novel is divided into three books. These three books were originally published as short stories. Therefore the sequence follows the publication of the original short stories. The first story: Holding the Bricks, published in 1987, is an action adventure described through the eyes of a young twenty-two year old male. The second story Astral Andy and the Funny Bear, published in 2000 is written by a more mature thirty-year old, reviewing his recent past. The third story Germ Spreaders on a Train, was published in 2006. The story contains many historical facts and has detailed descriptions about various subjects.
The Fire Eater
Photo: The Fire-Eater
Courtesy V.J. DiGiovanni
Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico 1977
BOOK I: HOLDING THE BRICKS
Chapter 1
Guadalajara, Mexico July 4, 1976
It is the middle of the rainy season, a hot, muggy, July Saturday night in Guadalajara, Mexico. As I stroll along Avenida Mungia, I listen to meat broiling on a taco cart. Written by a prankster, “Carne de Perro,” is scribbled on the side of this cart. Nonetheless, there are a number of customers enjoying the tacos.
I just left the Teatro Reforma having viewed a very funny Italian film starring Ugo Tognazzi. The name of the film with Spanish subtitles is called Venga a Tomar Una Taza de Cafe con Nosotros. I think the Mexicans can understand Italian fairly well.
From inside a Volkswagen, a voice shouts, “Jaime, Jaime.” It’s Tom and I’m glad to see him. He pulls the car next to me, flips open the door and I jump in.
Tom is twenty-eight years old, dark hair, brown eyes. He speaks fluent Spanish. He is an American medical student, studying in Guadalajara. He pays for his education by dealing marijuana. Most Americans are home for summer vacation. However, I am stuck in Mexico, repeating examinations. Tom is here making drug deals.
Tom says, “What do you know about cocaine, Jaime?”
“Not too much,” I answer.
Tom drives the car straight through Avenida La Paz, spins it around the Fire-Eater in the middle of the road, cuts a right turn then zigzags down side streets until we reach his house.
Tom lives on a quiet street, located in a community behind the shopping mall, Plaza del Sol. His newly built home has chopped glass cemented into the roof with iron bars covering the windows. He parks his car in the driveway and we go inside.
“Jaime, I have something to show you.” Tom disappears into his bedroom, while I inspect the Indian rug hanging from the wall. A few minutes later he reappears with a large Ricamesa shopping bag and pulls out two white bricks and says, “Each brick is ninety percent pure cocaine. They weigh one kilo per brick and cost ten grand each. Do you have twenty thousand dollars Jaime?”
“I don’t have that kind of money. Hmm, well maybe I know someone who does.” Then I add, “Hey Tom, how are you going to get that stuff across the border?”
Tom responds, “Look, here in Mexico the price of this coke is twenty thousand.” Once it is on the USA side of the border, it goes for forty or fifty thousand dollars wholesale. If you cut this stuff and deal it, the profit can be much more, maybe even two hundred thousand bucks.”
“Wow,” I say, as he hands me a can of Tecate beer.
“Ok Jaime, who’s your friend with the money?”
“You know him, last summer he lived in the apartment next to me. He is a kid from Ohio, named Rob Loesser. He wasn’t here long. Rob studied Spanish for a few months, and then went back to the states.”
Tom says, “I remember him, you took him to the whorehouses because he was afraid to go there by himself. Am I right?”
“Yes, that’s the guy.”
“Look Jaime, I want you to do me a favor. Keep these bricks for me until Thursday. I am driving to Puerto Vallarta tonight to look into another deal.”
“Why me,” I ask.
“Because I know you won’t do the drugs.” Tom smiles and says, “I can trust you.”
Tom drops me off at Minerva Circle in the center of town. I walk a few blocks to my apartment building, carrying the bricks in the Ricamesa shopping bag. Once inside the apartment, I lock my door and place the bricks into a closet. I also lock the closet. I go to bed, slightly disturbed.
Thursday finally comes. I wait all day and then go to Tom’s house. There is no Tom. While driving from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta, it is a common occurrence for Mexicans, American tourists and students to fly their cars off the mountains. The tortuous highway connects Guadalajara to the mountain town of Tepic, than goes down through the jungle into Puerto Vallarta.
I search the newspapers El Occidental, El Informador, and the English Language News for accident reports. There are many accidents, but none involve a Tom Jenner or a 1970 brown Volkswagen Beetle with California plates.
Chapter 2
It is now the first Monday in August. The semester at the university begins and the contingent of American students returns for classes. Tom has been missing three weeks. A couple of students, one from Minnesota, the other from Texas ask me about Tom’s whereabouts.
I say, “I haven’t seen him in school today.” These two guys proceed to ask others about Tom. I figure they are worrying about their marijuana source.
The cocaine traffic in Guadalajara is controlled by a gang of vicious young thugs from Culiacan, a city north of Mazatlan, on Mexico’s west coast. These gangsters know where every brick of cocaine is from Acapulco to Nogales. Tom would never have two kilos of pure coke without paying them first. So, Tom is gone and I’ve been left holding the bricks beneath the watchful, unseen eye of the Mexican Mafia.
I continue to go to school every day, study as well as I can. I keep to a normal schedule: workouts at the gym, dinner and movies are part of my activities. Sometimes I get a girl from downtown. As the weeks pass by, my stomach is upset. I have problems sleeping and I am losing weight.
Chapter 3
It is ten o’clock, Saturday evening, the ninth of October. I will be unable to sleep. I get into my car and drive down Avenida Vallarta through Avenida Juarez into the busy and heavily trafficked center of the city. I continue to drive onto Avenida Javier Mina to the red light district.
I park the car on a side street and walk to a building with a red light dangling from the top of the doorway. I press the buzzer. A small window opens and an eye peers through it. The man opens the door. I walk in and go up a flight of stairs.
It is smoky and crowded inside the whorehouse. There are waiters, bouncers, girls and customers. There are no Americans in this place, only Mexican males, young and old. I am the only American in the house. Olivia Newton John sings in English on the radio, “Come on over put a smile on my face.”
I stand at the large b
ar in the middle of the main room. A waiter comes over and says, “Que pasa?”
I ask, “Ester esta aqui?”
“Si.”
The waiter calls a girl over. She leaves the room to get Ester. The waiter says, “Una toma?”
“Una cerveza.”
The waiter brings me a bottle of Superior Beer. I hand him ten pesos and give him another ten pesos tip. I take a swig of beer from the bottle.
I feel a tap on my shoulder. Ester is behind me. I have known Ester for three years. She is twenty-six years old, five feet two inches tall, dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, very pretty, and well built. She speaks and understands English. However, inside the whorehouse I speak to her only in Spanish.
“Por toda la noche.”
She says, “Un momento Jaime. Ya me voy a conseguir mi chaqueta.”
I wait a second. Linda Ronstadt sings in English on the radio, “You’re no good, baby you’re no good.”
Outside the house, Ester and I walk down the street to my car. I open the car door for her, she gets in and we drive to a motel.
Inside the motel room, Ester and I drink a couple of beers. She turns the radio on and Mexican music plays softly. “Ya no me cantes cigarra. Que acabe tu sonsonete.”
Ester kicks off her shoes and sits on the bed. She sips the beer then places the bottle down on the night table. She lights a Baronet cigarette and gives it to me. She then lights one up for herself.
She says, “Jaime, you have lost weight.”
I answer, “Yes, a little. How have you been Ester?”
“More or less well. How come you have not called me?”
“I have had a lot to study at school. Ester, I am going to leave Mexico and I am not coming back.”
“You always come back, Jaime.”
“Not this time.”
Ester touches me. We go to bed.
Chapter 4
It is Monday afternoon, the eleventh of October. The air is cooler and the rainy season has ended. I am standing inside the school administration building, located in sector Lomas Del Valle, an upscale area of Guadalajara. An attractive, young Mexican woman is busy looking through a file cabinet. After a few minutes of reading, she shuts the cabinet drawer, turns and walks to the counter in front of me. She states softly, “Senor Thomas Jenner has taken a leave of absence from school and will resume studies in January.” She smiles, “Jaime, when are you taking me to dinner again?”
“Next week, y muchas gracias,” I answer. She smells of nice perfume. I like this girl. I exit.
Early the next morning, after receiving the news that Tom has taken a leave of absence, I drive my car to Servicio Jose Vallarta. The car needs an oil change, tune up and brake job. Then I hail a taxi and journey to the city of Tlaquepaque, a downscale suburb of Guadalajara. There is an area in this town of artisans where one can have specific items made to order by skilled craftsmen. I shop around, pick up some souvenirs, drink a Corona and take a cab home.
The bricks of cocaine have been in my closest untouched for three months. I close the shades to my windows, dead bolt my door, take the bricks out of the Ricamesa shopping bag and place them on a clean table. Using a hammer and screwdriver, I chop one brick into a large, grainy pile. The stuff sprays into my nose. I retrieve a surgical mask to cover my face.
I divide this pile into six smaller lumps. I wrap the individual lumps inside cellophane, sponge and cotton, covering each with a large sock. I repeat the process with the second brick. To protect the souvenirs I purchased in Tlaquepaque, I also cover these items with cotton, sponge and a heavy brown sweater. I pack the socks and sweater into a heavy, duty gym bag. The few items of clothing I own are packed into two medium sized suitcases. Textbooks and notebooks are placed inside two cardboard cartons. It is now late afternoon. I double check my apartment and go to pick up my car.
Jose, at Servicio Jose Vallarta, is an excellent mechanic who can fix anything inside or outside a car. He charges fair rates and gives rapid service. He has completed the repairs on my red 1970 Chevy Malibu with Texas plates. Jose says, “Donde vas, Jaime?”
“Quien sabe,” I answer.
Chapter 5
It is 5 AM, Wednesday, the thirteenth of October. As I drive through the eastern mountains, I slow the car and turn to see the lights of Guadalajara in the valley behind me. I take a gulp from a can of Tecate and wash down a Lomotil to ease my stomach for the six hundred fifty miles ride ahead. After two hours of rough, mountain driving, I stop for gas at the Pemex station, in the not so hot town of Tabasco. The peasants in Tabasco look like movie extras in films about Emiliano Zapata. I pass them by as they wait at the bus stop.
I am back on Highway 54 North going out from the mountains. When I get to Zacatecas, I pop a Fleetwood Mac tape into a Panasonic recorder. I just listen to the music and follow the road ahead. The next gas stop is Villa de Cos where the Mexican army checks vehicles going south for guns and other contraband. They don’t bother to check vehicles driving north.
The next two hundred fifty miles are two lanes highway across the Mexican desert to Saltillo. This is a relatively safe journey in daylight. Trucks and buses are visible for hundreds of yards. It is simple to pass or slow down. The desert air in October is clear and the temperature is only in the low eighty’s at the warmest. The desert smells good. It is a nice ride.
Through Saltillo, I motor into the congested traffic of the industrial city of Monterrey. I stop for gas and continue to drive toward the American frontier. Ten miles from the border, I am stopped by the Mexican Federales. They check my car papers, find them to be in order and I continue onward. Thus, I have been granted unmolested passage through Mexico by the drug Mafia.
On the United States side of the border at Laredo, Texas, my car idles in the inspection lane. I open a bottle of Coke and sip from it. I watch customs agents thoroughly search a Ford van in the opposite lane.
Another customs agent comes to check my car. He says in a heavily accented West Texas drawl, “License and registration, please.”
I hand him my Texas documents.
He says, “Remove your key and get out of the car, please.”
I get out of the car, drinking my soda.
The custom agent orders, “Open your trunk. Do you have anything to declare, fruits or vegetables?”
I answer, “I have nothing to declare.”
The customs agent does a half-assed job checking the baggage in the car trunk. He does not open the luggage. He does not even bother to check the gym bag inside the car.
Then he asks, “When was the last time you were in Texas?
“Six months ago.”
“Do you have any food from Mexico?”
“Just this Coke,” I answer.
“Get the fuck out of here, wise-ass.”
I get back in my car and get the fuck out of there.
The entire road trip has taken thirteen hours. I register for a room at the Grand Hotel in Laredo. Once in the room, I vomit into the toilet, before crawling into bed. I have a nightmare.
Chapter 6
Flashback 1966
It is 1966. I am sixteen or seventeen years old. I am in my Uncle Jerry’s bar and grill in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. I have just cleaned the place up and drink a glass of milk in the kitchen. My uncle drinks a cup of black coffee. It is the middle of the night. The wall clock shows 3:00 o’clock. The door to the bar is open and two large men walk in. My uncle goes into the barroom. He recognizes the men. He says, “Hey guys, what’s up?”
The two men draw revolvers with silencers and shoot at Uncle Jerry. Uncle Jerry quickly dives behind the bar. As the two men move around the side of the bar to kill him, I enter the room from the back kitchen entrance. The men hear me and turn. I unload into them at close range, double barreled, saw-offed twelve gauge shotgun shells. The shotgun blasts are not so loud. The two men drop. I stand motionless and stare at the dead
men. I have blown their heads clean off.
Uncle Jerry comes from around the bar. He has been shot, there is blood dripping from his right shoulder. With his good left hand, he grabs the shotgun from me.
He says, “Go home and don’t ever say a word about this to anyone. I will take care of everything. Thanks Jimmy.”
Chapter 7
Back to Present
It is Thursday, October 14. 1976. I awaken from my nightmare, shaking. I jump into the shower, dry myself and inspect my body in the full length bathroom mirror. I have lost at least fifteen pounds since July. I am very thin. About the same weight I was ten years ago.
I continue my journey, drive up Highway 35 North and pull into a McDonald’s at Austin, Texas. I enter the hamburger restaurant. There are three very pretty teenaged girls in blue jeans and boots sitting in a booth enjoying their meal. They are having a happy, gleeful conversation. One of the girls, a tall, good looking blonde has an exceptionally beautiful pair of well-endowed breasts. She turns her head and smiles at me. I silently smile at her. I exit the restaurant. I will eat the food in my car.
I turn on the radio. Roy Orbison sings, “I feel so bad, I’ve got a worried mind.”
Texas is cowboys and trucks, country music and beer, shotguns and pretty women. I love Texas. I feel secure here.
When I finish my meal I go to the phone booth, outside McDonald’s. I telephone Rob Loesser in Ohio.
“Hello, is Rob there?” I say to the guy who answers the phone, who I know to be Rob.
“Yes, this is he. Who is this?”
“It’s me, your buddy from the Guad,” I respond.
“Hey Jaime, how ya doin?” he answers excitedly.
I deposit some more change into the telephone and say. “Look, Rob, I got some stuff you may be interested in. It is rather expensive. The cost is negotiable. Have you been in contact with Tom? You understand what I am talking about, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I’ve been waiting to hear from you for a long time,” Rob answers. I can hear him light a cigarette, as he slowly says, “Where can we meet?”