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Zihuatanejo; the city whose name Red could not forget. And in it, 50,000 people. One of them, Andy. The man he hopes to find.
The beach looks endless from the bus. A long strip of gleaming white sand that mouths the great ocean. He’d never seen the ocean before now. The books he’d read while behind the prison walls described the ocean as vast, as blue, as torrential and dangerous. He feels like a kid with his head hanging out the window as far as he can without falling out, taking in the sight of the thing. The pacific is all of the things he’s read about, and more. Brilliant and bountiful because there in the rounded basin he can see a boat and a man, the first person he’d seen for miles, and he taps on the head rest of the driver in front of him and gets him to stop.
Red overpays the bus driver in American dollars and when he gets out of the taxi, hope wraps him in a buoyant, rising energy that propels him toward the beach. The sun is unforgiving in his descent to the shore, to the boat, to the man. Days ahead of him, but hoping he has gone to the right place. The place Andy told him to go. The odds are against him. A city with thousands of people. One man on a beach near a boat could be anyone. Regardless, he walks. The thin, old cotton clothes on his back seem to disintegrate under the beating sun. Crusting, crackling. Sweat trickling down his neck. But he has no obstacles other than the time ticking away in his lungs. Even his luggage is weightless as he has no belongings. Just his second-hand clothes, the money Andy stowed away for him, and the promise they made together years ago.
Red has made out a shape of a man squatting on top a rusted old boat, scrubbing, and it’s the shape of him, the shape of his nose, the silence about him, on a beach devoid of others, that draws him closer. His hat blows off his head when he gets close enough. He doesn’t care to go after it. It is meaningless in the face of Andy, who turned around to look at Red without Red having to say a word. It’s as if Andy had expected Red to arrive today. Like he knew. Like he had summoned Red, pulled him across the border with his lure of hope. Well, it worked. Red’s here.
Andy jumps off the boat and comes to stand before Red. There are no words spoken between them. They throw their arms around each other. A warm embrace. They hold each other so tightly, for so long, that when Andy finally breaks away it leaves Red feeling as if he’d forgotten what it was to live life detached from Andy.
Red looks at Andy, words evading him. Their breath hangs in the space between them. The sun lathers them in hot sweat. Then, wordlessly, Andy goes to put away his tools in his dingy boat while Red stands idly by, still overcome by the profound shock of having found the man he was looking for.
It perplexes Red that Andy should land himself such a run down thing given he'd run away with hundreds of thousands of dollars. With that kind of money Andy could’ve bought himself a yacht. But Red supposes it’s like Andy’s rocks. He’d find the ones on the prison grounds, the ones people never looked at twice and made them into something beautiful no matter how long it took to wear away the unpolished layer.
This trait rings true when Andy takes Red back to his apartment in the city. A modest, small thing on the second level of a 1920s apartment block. The apartment block and the four adjacent ones have recently been dipped in canary yellow by the local government. In the afternoon sun, the curved edges of the rendered walls look like yellow teeth beveled by the air, by the culture of the place. Music plays from somewhere. A gramophone. A busker. A party further upstairs. And amongst the calamity of music is the croquetting clamor of cooking utensils. Women’s laughter. Spices and meat lace the breeze which inspires longing more than relief.
At the brown door, the only facet saved from the vibrant yellow, Andy takes Red’s hand and presses a key into his palm.
“For now, this is yours.”
Red looks at the small key in his palm. Then at the door. “Huh?”
It’s the first word he has said to the man. His mind had been amok of things to talk about, to ask him about, in the walk back to town but he’d been too exhausted from the exercise. His age getting to his ability to keep up with the younger man.
He had been resting against the wall of Andy’s apartment, just next to the door. And Andy had given him a key to it.
Andy nods. “It’s not much. It’s all I have at the moment, but not for long. I need to go and speak to a few people. I'll have another place lined up for you soon enough. It'll have to be cleaned first, nature of the thing. A deep clean. It'll take about a week and by then, it'll be all yours."
Andy's blue eyes weigh heavy on Red.
"Andy,” Red starts. The second word. The only word he has been thinking about for years, and finally, he’s in front of it. In front of Andy. “You can't be giving me real estate."
"Red, it's the least I can do." Andy puts a hand on Reds shoulder in a way that conveys he's serious. "I'll make sure to get you one with a good view. Much better than this one. There's a fellow who's been trying to offload some harbor view properties. Not my kind of thing but he knows I've got money, see, he’s been pressing me. And now I've got an interest in what he's selling. Your arrival might just make the two of us happy." He pauses, mulling over his turn of phrase. "I'll stop by the markets in the evening. Want me to pick up anything?"
Red can’t ask for anything more. Andy removes the hand from Red's shoulder and Red watches the younger man waltz down the cobblestone road, dancing to his own inner tune.
He watches the space Andy leaves behind. Feels the music carry into his stomach. Hears the sound and smells of women cooking carry into his eardrums. The heart of this city drums into the soles of his feet.
Long after Andy has departed, Red turns around and keys into Andy’s studio apartment. It’s a poky little thing made up of one room with a small alcove at the far end of the room which makes up a kitchenette. A wooden counter houses a cooktop and a sink, and beside it, a narrow, grime-stained fridge is wedged into the corner. On the eastern wall of the alcove, a narrow arched window is fitted in which, when opened, gives a view of the city street below, awash in color from market roofs. Perhaps the external color of the building had been inspired by the interior, because the walls are all drenched in yellow. A reddish stone floor is covered by a persian rug with the exception of the kitchenette which lays bare. The only remaining remarkable piece of furniture in the room is a bed made neatly in a rust colored bedspread. A dingy apartment to match a dingy boat.
After sticking his head in the sink and taking a few long swigs of water from the tap, Red leans his weight against the counter. Dust-filtered light pours in from the small window, illuminating the room in a warm glow. A few minutes pass, of oxygen circulating, lungs finding air, blood finding an equilibrium, and it dawns on Red that this is the first time he has been in Andy’s space. He’d never been into Andy’s prison cell. Neither had Andy been to his own cell. Visitation was done in the public realm of the prison. The grounds, the cafeteria, the accounting office, and later, the library. Those were prison spaces influenced by Andy but also frequented by others. A cell was one of the only spaces that was a prisoner’s sacred space, really, aside from the occasional riffling by guards. Red of course had an inkling of what sorts of things might be in Andy’s prison cell given he’d smuggled in quite a few trinkets for his old friend. Namely, the Rita Hayworth poster. But he had never gone inside, leaned by his barred window, sat on his bed, as he does now. He hadn’t even seen the hole in the wall Andy had dug behind Rita Hayworth. The workmanship was concealed by concrete slathered over the entire wall. Out of sight, out of mind.
The moderate pain of standing up eases with him sitting on the edge of Andy’s neatly made bed. Red looks down at the floor, at the persian rug which is about the only decorative item in the whole place. Not a single painting on the wall or book on a shelf, which perplexes Red more knowing how much Andy loved to read. The home gives nothing to see, shows nothing of the personality he knew for nearly two decades.
Too tired to work out why he is so angry about it, Red lays down on top of the bedspread and lets sleep find him. He opens his eyes and all he sees is dark. And at some point, that dark becomes a dream.
On the layer of sleep between dream and reality, he smells greasy bacon and coffee. It pulls him out of his slumber, drenches him in bright morning sun. He blinks bleary eyed, trying to piece together the colors of the room and remember where he is. In Zihuatanejo, the city of 50,000 people, the place where Andy will be. Where he is, now.
Red stirs in the bed. Bed sheets have been wrapped around him, a pillow wedged under his head. He rolls onto his back and looks at Andy working over the stove. Steam rising from a kettle on one element and oil sizzling in a pan with the bacon. Red swings out of the bed, places his feet on the cool stone ground and clocks Andy’s back flinching, like he has sensed Red has awoken.
Red’s still in his clothes from yesterday. He can smell himself, an odor that clings to his armpits and neck. He sits for a moment. Smelling the cooking. Hearing the morning. Realizing he has nowhere to be. No job to attend to. No rent to be paid. No parole to report to, or else he’ll be jailed again for crossing the border.
Andy pours a mug of coffee and brings it and the whole pan over to the bed and sits by Red. He places a towel on his lap and rests the pan over the top. Inside, there’s two pieces of toast, eggs and bacon still sizzling in the hot grease.
“Don’t have guests over much,” Andy says, slightly tinged with embarrassment. “Won’t matter given your place will be ready in a week.”
Red digests the information silently. Andy picks up a piece of toast and rubs it in the grease, then plucks a fried egg and a couple of pieces of bacon and draws them on top the toast before taking a bite. Red’s stomach grumbles.
“Why isn’t there anything?” Red asks.
Andy’s eyebrow quirks. He munches on a big bite of his breakfast.
“Why isn’t there anything of you? Don’t you live here?”
Struggling to swallow his food quickly, Andy holds up a hand, one finger raised, and then passes the towel and pan to the center of the bed behind him. Then he twists and squats beside the bed. He reaches underneath the bed and pulls out a dark wooden box. He removes the lid and shows Red. Inside, a dozen or so rocks of different shades and shapes are bedded amongst a thin sheet of velvet fabric.
“Thieves,” Andy says. It’s all he says for a little while. He pushes one of the stones inside the little box with his forefinger, lodging it in one corner. “Didn’t have a key before.”
“They took everything but this?” Red touches the box. The solidness of it surprises him somehow, as if he didn’t think it were real, that he’s still in a dream.
Andy nods.
Red picks up one of the pinkish toned rocks. Smooth. Not a single blemish.
“You could live somewhere better. You have the money.”
“I don’t want to.” He sighs. Red returns the rock and Andy puts the lid back on and pushes the box back under the bed. He sits on his heels, his arms wrapped around his knees in a flexible manner Red could never achieve. “I’m used to it. Anything bigger than a place like this just seems wasteful.”
“You told me you used to have a four bedroom in the suburbs.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound accusatory.
Andy shakes his head. “Can’t go back to that. I’m a different man now.”
He rises and collects the cooling food from the center of his bed and sits back down next to Red. They eat together. Their knuckles bump together as toast is swiped through the remaining grease. Red feels better after a good feed. He knows he smells and he’s thankful for Andy not commenting on it. Only he learns that there’s no bathroom. If he has to take a piss he can do it out the window, otherwise Andy usually strolls down to a cafe or one of the warehouses he works at to relieve himself. And it’s the ocean that cleans him. So it’s what they do that morning. They go down to the beach for a swim.
At first, Red just sits on the shore and lets the waves come to him. Lets the water wash over his skin. He watches Andy dive in, his great long arms waving through the water like fins of a whale. It’s his second day in Zihuatanejo and he’s feeling okay. His hopes aren’t as high as the day before but he feels good being with Andy. He feels safe. Seeing the rocks Andy keeps under his bed also made him feel a little better, but it doesn’t make it feel right.
Andy’s hair is dripping with sea water, a grin skewered by the force of the water. He comes to sit next to Red, his shorts clinging to his lean body.
“What am I going to do with myself?” Red asks the world.
He feels old and breakable, sitting there on the sand. A wave could knock him over easily, he would let it. He’s older than Andy. He’s going to die soon, probably. Lung cancer or some other kind of cancer will catch up to him sooner or later.
“Whatever you want,” Andy suggests.
The two sit close. Red feels Andy’s ocean-cooled body in comparison to his, warm. Dried.
Red ponders Andy’s suggestion. “Whatever I want, huh?”
“Yes, sir.” Andy’s looking out at the sea. A line of seawater dribbles down the side of his cheek from the point of where his hair has stuck to his face.
“I want to make you breakfast tomorrow.”
“That counts on you getting up before me, old man,” He says with a cheeky smile.
Red glances at Andy’s face. At his wet lips, though he doesn’t mean his gaze to linger for so long. “Or maybe I need to find a way for you to sleep in longer.” The thought hangs. “You still quit the drink?”
Andy stretches his arms above his head. He lays back on the sand, his hands underneath his head. “Yep.”
Red nods. He can’t help but gaze down at Andy’s bare chest. Fine dark gray hair litters his abdomen.
Andy’s question distracts him. “What do you really want?”
Red tears his eyes away from the younger man to answer honestly, but it’s just in time for him to brace for the impact of a particularly large wave. It washes over them, seawater burying into his armpits, in between his legs, in his mouth a little. When it subsides, Red coughs and splutters, and Andy laughs. He gets to his feet easily and helps Red up. Red finds his clothes and throws on one of his unworn secondhand shirts. He stumbles on the sand and Andy finds him. Red leans his weight on Andy, who takes it happily. The two of them walk back into the city. On their way, Red gains his strength and pulls apart. They walk separately.
“I’d like to…” Red starts, circling back to what they had been talking about at the beach. “Have a family.”
“Hey, you know that Rita Hayworth is single now, right?”
Red looks up at Andy. A crinkle beside Andy’s blue eyes.
Red lets out a hearty laugh. “Nobody wants an old man. No, no, that ship’s sailed. You though, you still have time. You shouldn’t be putting me up in your place when you could be giving it to a girlfriend. A free man like you, you must have girls falling at your feet.”
Andy says nothing. Their sandalled feet find the cobblestone path that leads to the markets and eventually winds up to the smoker’s teeth apartment blocks. “I did find freedom here, Red,” Andy says, “But I found that freedom isn’t enough without purpose.”
“Purpose,” Red repeats, nodding solemnly. “Easier said than done in a country where I don’t speak the language.”
A pair of children scamper between their legs as they chase after a dog. A busker nearby plays a jaunty tune.
“How about you work with me? Just like old times.”
“Just like old times, you’re graciously giving me something to do when I need it.”
“Tomorrow, come with me and I’ll show you the ropes.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Alright then,” Red says. He puts his hands in his pockets and strolls beside Andy.
He doesn’t quite know what to think. All of this seems so surreal. To have even found Andy at all, let alone a place to live that doesn’t remind him of the death of old friends, to have a job, to have purpose. All of it because of Andy. This impossible man. The man who did the impossible.
That night he sleeps in Andy’s bed again. Andy sleeps on the floor. It’s heinous. The next night Red vows to take the floor but Andy won’t have it. His place is going to be ready in five days and Andy claims it won’t matter that he’s on a makeshift bed on the floor of his own apartment. And come the third night, Red is so exhausted from meeting not even all of Andy’s clients that he gruffly tells the man that if he doesn’t come up and sleep on the bed with him then he’ll go back to America. Let himself get caught and he’ll never see Andy again.
It’s the threat or it’s that Andy’s so tired he doesn’t want to fight with his friend, or it’s that Red had accidentally phrased it in a way that meant they would both be sleeping in the same bed. Red’s not sure which line of reasoning it is that gets Andy to relent, but whichever it is, it means that Andy’s climbing into bed next to him. Red considers going to the makeshift bed on the floor but at this point he’s frankly too tired and sore to get up, so stays put, and lifts the blanket to let Andy sidle in.
They lay together in the dark. There’s a festival on in the streets. Music and singing carries through the open window. Bells jingling and in-sync dancing drums through the floor and strings carry through to an almost-dream, a land of joy and celebration. Red wants to go there, wants to slip away to that dream laced with the joy of the night, but steely blue eyes keep him anchored to this room, to this bed. To the slim space shared between them.
“Thank you, Andy,” He murmurs, because he doesn’t think he’s said that yet. “For everything. I.. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
He can’t see so well in the dark. It’s the movement that signifies to Red that Andy has rolled onto his back. He can hear the man’s breath. An anxiety disturbing even breathing. Red lies on his side, repositions the pillow under his head and drops his hand in front of his thigh where he accidentally bumps Andy’s hand. Andy flinches away, and Red suddenly thinks of all the times Andy was raped. He doesn’t know why that thought crosses his mind. Maybe because they’re so close and Andy seems so vulnerable. He remembers how Andy used to fight back. How sometimes he fought back so well he could avoid the brutal scenes. But more often than not he was outnumbered and he would let it happen. He would let two, three, four men go through him. Leave him with scars and blood on his face, on parts of Andy Red never saw.
Emotion caught in Red’s throat, he splutters, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?” Andy replies in a hushed, baffled voice that cuts through the noise from outside.
“For not doing anything.”
There’s a long pause. “You did plenty. You did a whole lot for me, Red.”
Red fights back tears. “I never stopped what the sisters did to you.”
There’s an even longer silence. Red listens keenly to Andy’s breathing. Hears the anxiety affect his breathing worse and feels eternally bad for it. Andy’s been quiet for so long that he doesn’t know if the man has fallen asleep or not. All of the unsaid things over the years seem to bubble and coalesce into a volcanic eruption that pours forth from Red’s mouth.
“I knew it was happening. We all did. But we turned a blind eye. We were all just glad that we were no longer the target,” Red confesses. Though he hides behind the collective knowing that he was never one of Bogs’ targets. Not really. Because he wasn’t Bog’s type; white. He could have fought back, scared Bogs somehow, done what the guards did to Bogs, crippled the bully to stop him from touching Andy or anyone else that way. And still he turned a blind eye to what the sisters did to his friend.
He wants to reach out now, to touch Andy’s hand but he doesn’t. Respects that Andy might not want to be touched, that to be touched like that, to be talking of these things, reminds him of what has been done to his person.
Andy’s a handsome man, Red meant what he said when he said that Andy must have women falling at his feet. But that’s one thing, another thing is accepting them into your life. Andy had spent two decades in prison. Red twice that. People like him and Andy cannot be comprehended by those outside the prison walls. They don’t understand the lifestyle they lived. How unforgiving it was. It’s only those inside, or who were inside, who get it. And for that, Red understands why Andy lives the way he does. So solitary. With scarcely any special little things that Andy used to adorn his prison cell with. Why he lives so predominantly outside of his home. In the world. In amongst people and the markets and the ocean. Still, people like Andy and Red, they deserve happiness, right?
“I’ve got to get you some posters,” Red says conversationally.
“I only take posters smuggled in from friends,” Andy responds, his voice seemingly unaffected by Red’s previous confession.
“Well good, I’m your guy for that.”
In the new day, Andy is slow to get out of bed. Lays awake, two pillows tucked behind his back, for much longer than he usually does. Red notices it. Takes note. Takes note, also, when he brings breakfast to him, of Andy’s slim body. Of how the bed sheets have wrapped around Andy’s waist. He looks at Andy as if he were a woman and it bewilders Red because the way he looks at Andy doesn’t make sense. The way Andy makes him feel. And he wonders if it isn’t just because he’s free now. Because he’s safe. Because there aren’t guards around every corner and there aren’t people preying on them. There aren’t eyes everywhere. He’s free to look, to feel, to sit with feelings that he’d hidden for more than half his life.
He thinks about that. About freedom, and purpose, and what it means to act without fear. To make honest decisions, to react truthfully. And to be able to do these things in the presence of Andy, accommodated for, and by, him. In his spaces. In his work, his apartment, his bed. And in the ocean, where bodily fluids are diluted into the great mass that covers the earth. Small tests underway. Looks. Gentle touches. His hand on Andy’s lower back as they move around each other in the kitchen. A forefinger touching one of Andy’s knuckles in bed, feigning sleep. The intimate vulnerability in which they share as they change clothes in the one room. The nudity exposed as they swim in the morning water.
And then it’s the night before Red’s harborview house is meant to be ready and he doesn’t want to go. Andy shows him the way there the next day and Red finds a way to go back to Andy’s. Finds ways, night after night, not to leave. Drinks too much. Sits on the sill of the single window, with one foot dangling out, and smokes. Andy’s hand on his shoulder, keeping him inside the apartment. Keeping him close. Finds his way to Andy’s bed. He doesn’t want to be alone. Neither of them do. Not now that they know what it’s like to have another, to have each other.
One night, many nights after the night he was meant to sleep in his own bed, Red has drunk too much, as is the normal now, but has newly found his head in Andy’s lap. Andy strokes Red’s hair, pulls his thin fingers through the tight curls in red’s gray hair and Red hums in appreciation. It’s then that Red starts to cry thinking about all the time that they’d lost not being able to do this. Not being able to have solace, to lie like this, to feel each other tenderly, happy in the comfortable silence the other offers.
“Hey,” Andy murmurs, chastising Red gently.
His thumb scrapes away the tears welling in Red’s eyes. Clears one eye of tears, then the other.
“Hey now…” Andy murmurs again when the tears keep coming.
They don’t talk about that night much. That particular night. Red thinks it’s because Andy already knows what it meant. Andy’s like that. He tends to be able to read between the lines. And though they don’t talk about it, that night doesn’t change things. They are still close, they still sleep in the same bed, in Andy’s bed, in their bed. In their apartment. Which slowly fills with trinkets. Slowly painted by the personality of both men who inhabit it. Red could have more with how much he’s earning. He could have the house Andy gave him. He could not work for another day in his life. But he wants to. He wants what he has right now. What he has with Andy. And though he doesn’t think there will ever be anything more between them, he’s happy as things are. He doesn’t want anything more than what they have together. A quiet closeness. Respect, understanding. And hope. Hope that together they’ll be okay. It’s all he needs.