Border Tales Too

Border Tales Too

The Borderland (Mis)Adventures of CBP Officers

Elvis T. Mahoney & Co-Conspirators

Book I

by

James Whitesell

Copyright@2015 by JamesWhitesell

Smashwords Edition

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Border Tales Too

Book I

Table of Contents, (not as Elvis' brother Crispus says, Table of Crap)

Prelude In The Beginning

Chapter 1 Dr. George Washington Carver Littlejohn

Chapter 2 San Luis The Unsinister Minister

Chapter 3 Margie Jo

Chapter 4 Fenwick

Chapter 5 The Trainees

Chapter 6 Fenwick At Work (Sic)

Chapter 7 The Guardian Angel

Chapter 8 The Morley Gate

Chapter 9 Mango Tea

Chapter 10 Sister Slap Ass

Chapter 11 Mr. Escalade (Sample Chapter from Book II)

Border Tales Too

Book I

Editor's Advisory

Beware!

This is NOT a non-fiction book

Prelude

In The Beginning

Hey, Elvis said to the CBP--Customs and Border Protection--human relations specialist who was completing his employment paperwork. You're kinda cute. Are you available? How about a date? This set the employment specialist, Zaluchia Mbonge, to chuckling and then into a belly laugh that eventually caught the interest of everyone in the HR room when she started snorting and thumping on her work table. Zaluchia 'Chocolate Chip' Mbonge was nearly seventy years old and packed two hundred and sixty pounds on her five foot two frame. Besides which she had seven children and fifteen grandchildren and a hulking husband who even at seventy-two was still strong enough to bend Elvis into a human pretzel in less than a minute. Though, were he there, he would have been chortling and pounding the table in hilarity right along with Zaluchia. One of the main reasons they'd stayed together over nearly fifty years of marriage was that they had very similar senses of humor. Plus both viewed most white folk as being just downright fucking weird.

Zaluchia finally calmed down enough to be able to talk. With difficulty, still chuckling, but she got the words out.

Honey, she said, I heard about you from the specialist who did your hiring interview. She stopped to chuckle. Or maybe I should rephrase that. I was warned about you.

He wouldn't give me a date, either, Elvis said with a completely straight face.

Welcome to the Unites States Customs and Border Protection Service, Mr. Mahoney, Zaluchia said through another round of chuckles.

God....... Another chuckle interrupted, punctuated with a slap on her desktop

God....help us. You're hired.

And so he was.

Chapter 1

Dr. George Washington Carver Littlejohn

Elvis signed up with the government dental insurance plan, along with the health insurance, when he first climbed onto the Customs and Border Protection employment express. It all sounded so good he even signed up for the vision plan, too, though he had visual acuity rivaling a (somewhat near-sighted) hawk and almost as good as the budget binoculars of his allegedly peeping tom 2nd cousin, Barnwell Mahoney Clinton. A good deal was a good deal, and a guy never knew when his eyes would go bad, Elvis figured. First chance he got, wherever the government eventually sent him, he was gonna make an appointment with a dentist who was part of the dental plan's provider network. Which meant no out of pocket costs for Elvis, at least for routine work like cleaning and simple fillings.

His first dental appointment, however, popped up before the insurance kicked in. It was in Brunswick, Georgia, where he went to have his teeth whitened for the CBP basic training graduation ceremony at the nearby Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy.

His grandmother Rattler Sue--a woman renowned throughout the hills and hollers on both sides of the old Mason/Dixon Line for having the most unique speech patterns of anyone with a masters degree in English--admonished him that whenever you start inter somethin' new, do 'er up right with a big ol' bright smile 'n attertude ter match. So, bright smile tooth whitening in mind, Elvis asked the permanent staffers at the Academy about local dentists.

I know a good one, said N'kiah el Mahood--formerly Philadelphia born Lawrence Leroy Smith--who taught public relations and handcuffing techniques at the Academy. He's good and not too expensive. Just tell him that I sent you. And use my nickname, Naughty Nicky. What? Naughty Nicky? Elvis decided he didn't want to know. Anyhow, Elvis took N'kiah 'Naughty Nicky' at his word and made an appointment with the dentist, who had his office in the old antebellum center of Brunswick. Heck of a location, Elvis thought, when he got there. Stately oak trees, handsome 19th Century brick buildings, flowers in profusion. Would have fit right in with nary a glitch, as Rattler Sue would put it, with that old flick, Gone With The Wind. A movie which the branch of the Mahoney clan that emigrated to the Oklahoma panhandle, where there was no thick forest to obscure the view of things like sunsets and approaching law enforcement vehicles, claimed the movie was really about Oklahoma. Their Oklahoma family opinion:

Gone with the wind? Heckfire, that's Oklahoma just about every year."

Anyhow, the old 19th Century core of Brunswick made a big impression on Elvis before he even set foot in the dentist's office. Actually, two kinds of impressions. The first was that it sure was a cool place. The second was that it just might be so cool that it was also darned expensive, especially considering his dental insurance hadn't kicked in yet. Right away he spotted the sign. Dr. Littlejohn, DDS, the sign over the door announced. Yep. That must be the place. Besides which it was the only door with a sign over it on the entire block.

Elvis opened the outside door and stepped inside to a pastel painted room bathed in a soft light coming through both lightly tinted windows and an opaque skylight. Sitting behind the receptionist's desk was a world class knockout babe, with skin the color of polished obsidian, a luxurious mane of curly black hair that was almost iridescent in the muted dappled light, lips that could have been the inspiration for the inventor of Botox and the biggest pair of dreamy hazel eyes Elvis had ever seen. His suspicions were immediately confirmed. Any place that had a babe like this working the reception desk was sure to be goddamn expensive. He was half tempted to turn around and leave. But the desk dwelling beauty spoke, in a low, sexy voice, before he could move.

You must be Mr. Mahoney, she said. Your appointment is next. She handed Elvis a clipboard with several forms attached to it. Would you fill these out, please, Mr. Mahoney, she said in that low, sexy tone that riveted Elvis so firmly to the spot that he might as well have had his shoes nailed to the floor. At that moment, had the desky beauty directed him to charge the wall head first, he would have done it. And smiled happily as he sank towards the floor and unconsciousness. She, however, saved him from potential serious injury.

Please take a seat, Mr. Mahoney, she said in her sultry Southern drawl. Elvis obediently took a seat. Though, much as he would have liked to, not on her desk or even --Oh Bliss!--on her lap. In a couple of minutes he was done with the forms and handed them back to the desk bound beauty.

If you'll just wait a bit, Mr. Mahoney, Doctor Littlejohn will be with you in a minute. Elvis dutifully sat back down. That minute had hardly passed before the desky beauty picked up the intercom, listened, then nodded at Elvis. You can go in to the dentist's office now, Mr. Mahoney," she drawled. Sounding, was it even possible, even sexier and sultrier than before. She motioned at a door with her arm.

Elvis stood up, mightily resisting the urge to rush at the desky dusky temptress and fall prostrate at her feet to beg her for a date, or at least for her autograph, and forced himself to head for the door into the dentist's inner office. He opened the door and went in, with one final glance over his shoulder at the knockout receptionist. She gave him a little wave with a sweet smile that sent Elvis' inner fantasy machine into overdrive. Inside the room, a tall dark skinned man with startling carrot colored hair and piercing blue eyes turned to look at Elvis. It was Dr. George Washington Carver Littlejohn. And his initial friendly reaction to Elvis' entry took a sharp detour when he caught sight of Elvis' skinny build, also populated with red hair and bright blue eyes.

Elvis was, in Dr. George Washington Carver Littlejohn's immediate shocked impression, a dead ringer for that goddamn red-headed peckerwood plantation owner from slavery days who knocked up most of his good looking female slaves and passed on the red-haired, blue-eyed gene to a good many of their descendants. Dr. Littlejohn included. From that moment on, despite his usual gentile nature, Dr. George Washington Carver Littlejohn's knee jerk instincts took over. He was no longer seeing Elvis T. Mahoney, erstwhile CBP trainee over at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. He was seeing Colonel Bertram St. John Spotswood, the goddamn peckerwood slave owner and Confederate officer whose statue was only recently removed from the courthouse park. Dr. Littlejohn foremost among the irate protesters who forced its removal from public property. Though the statue was immediately relocated to a piece of private property right down main street and the Sons of Confederate Veterans even had the goddamn redneck gall to hoist a Confederate battle flag over the statue. Dr. Littlejohn still hadn't calmed down over that sneaky peckerwood sleight of statue hand and seeing a Colonel Jerkwood lookalike come into his office really stoked the long slumbering resentments in his red headed, blue eyed, black skinned innards.

Colonel Spotswood, despite losing an arm at Sharpsburg, an eye at Second Manassas and a leg at Gettysburg, still managed to knock up a few more slave girls before the Yankees marched in and put an end to it. Most of it, anyhow. Though, despite the mainstream history books accounts of the so called emancipation, those same Yankee liberators had their way with more than a few of the black girls. And not always done with any kind of consent. Said dubious occurrences also making a considerable contribution to the local gene pool. Though none of it of the Colonel Spotswood/Dr. Littlejohn red hair, bright blue eyed gene packet.

Dr. Littlejohn simply could not control himself. Elvis had barged into his consciousness and become a proxy Colonel Spotswood and once there the doctor couldn't get the notion to budge. Not that he tried all that hard. It was, as the saying goes, all downhill from there. Proxy revenge forthwith ruled the Elvis/Dr. Littlejohn dental encounter.

So what can I do for you today, Col.....er.....ah, sir, Dr. Littlejohn said, motioning as he spoke for Elvis to park himself in the dental chair. Which at that moment was seeming to Dr. Littlejohn more like the electric chair, at least potentially, than his normal dental chair, which he affectionately privately called Mr. Drill 'n Jerk.

Tooth whitening, Elvis said. That's why I'm here. To get my teeth whitened. Want to look my best for the graduation ceremony over at the Academy. Normally Dr. Littlejohn would have his dental assistant perform a routine procedure like teeth whitening. Not this time. This was not a normal situation. This was a Colonel Bertram St. John Spotswood proxy situation. One that required a certain kind of attention. A very special kind of attention.

Yes, sir, Col...Spot...er...ah...young man, Dr. Littlejohn said. OK. One teeth whitening procedure coming up. Which sounded kind of strange to Elvis, the dentist seeming to him to be acting somewhat on the peculiar side. Reminding him of the time he caught his older brother Lispus in their grandpa's sheep pen with his trousers down around his knees.

Just taking a leak, Lispus lamely lisped. The expression on Lispus's face however giving Elvis a pretty good idea what the origin of the word sheepish was.

Maybe I should come back another time, Elvis said to Dr. Littlejohn, starting to get a touch suspicious, though his suspicions were way off the mark. Kind of like when his ex-girlfriend, Blind Maybelle Knockwirt, tried her hand at the archery range. Maybelle wasn't actually blind, but she was so near sighted that she often mistook Elvis for her pet Golden Retriever, Brutus, who had a distinct reddish tint to his coat. If you're busy, I could come back another time, Elvis continued in a somewhat worried tone. Maybe in a year or two. Dr. Littlejohn struggled mightily with suppressing the shit eating grin that was battling to surge onto his face. The Doctor having just had himself a real bright idea revolving around his undergraduate major. Organic chemistry.

Just sit tight, sir, Dr. Littlejohn said. This won't take long at all. And you'll have a smile as bright as the spotlight illuminating the statue of local war hero Colonel Bertram St. John Spotswood.

Who? Elvis said, sounding confused.

"You.....you......you wouldn't know. The Doctor said. But I will say that you look a whole lot like him."

Me. I look like a war hero? Which war? WWII?

Not quite, Dr. Littlejohn replied. Long before that.

Wow. WWI? Cuba? The Philippines? Utah?

No, Dr. Littlejohn answered. Way back. The Civil War.

Oh, Elvis replied, using the name he'd sometimes heard growing up. The War Between the States. Dr. Littlejohn gritted his teeth so hard he cracked a filling. War Between the States? That's what the goddamned peckerwoods called the Civil War. He took a closer look at Elvis, this walk-in Colonel Bertram St. John Spotswood lookalike. Could....could....could it be? Could this red headed beanpole actually be a descendant of Colonel Jerkwood? Maybe the Colonel did some prolonged dallying among the white folks, too. Sure wouldn't put it past the randy bastard.

Do you happen to have an ancestor named Colonel Bertram St. John Spotswood? Dr. Littlejohn said with no little hopeful expectation in his voice.

Sure do, Elvis said. I'm a direct descendant. Dr. Littlejohn revisited his tooth gritting and nearly popped the cracked filling right out of its toothy home. It was all he could do to not grab Elvis by the neck and wring his neck like his granddaddy did with the unlucky chicken of the week every Sunday afternoon before the family sitdown dinner. Then Elvis started to cackle.

Just funnin' you, Doc, he said. I saw the statue of that colonel dude out on the street with the Confederate flag waving over it. Figured you'd be none too fond of him. That, Dr. Littlejohn was thinking with no little fevered irritation, was the biggest understatement he'd heard since pediatrician Dr. Chester McAdoo told Littlejohn and his wife that she might be pregnant. Littlejohn's wife subsequently giving birth to triplets, two of them identical twins with skin the color of copier paper, carrot red hair and bright blue eyes. Which came as something of a surprise to his wife, who was blacker than the inside of Mr. Peabody's coal mine and who, being somewhat disoriented from the drugs used to assist her in the delivery of the triplets, accused her husband of infidelity. Besides which, how the hell was she going to breast feed three babies with only two boobs? That did it for Dr. Littlejohn. This red headed redneck might not be a descendant of Colonel Jerkwood, but, by jerking with Dr. Littlejohn, he had just won himself the honor of Colonel Jerkwood Preferred Proxy.

Before Elvis could say anything more the dentist leaned over him.

Open wide, please, he said. Elvis opened wide. OK, Dr. Littlejohn said. "I know what to do. Exactly what to do. Elvis blanched. Just a bit. Maybe he really should leave. But then the dentist was back with a medicine jar and what looked like a small paint brush. Hold still, he said. This won't take long. Elvis closed his eyes and let his mind wander while Dr. Littlejohn busily brushed his tooth whitening compound onto Elvis' teeth. It didn't take long, though long enough for Elvis' mind to wander to coastal Bangladesh and its legendary humungous salt water crocodiles with gleaming somewhat white and very dangerous teeth. There, the dentist said. Done." He hit the emergency release on the dentist's chair and Elvis hurtled back to an upright position, putting a slight crick in his neck when his head bounced a couple more times than the rest of him.

There is a pasty looking gummy substance covering your teeth. Dr. Littlejohn said. Do not eat or drink anything for at least three hours. Then brush your teeth very vigorously for at least two minutes. After that, rinse out your mouth and your teeth will shine forth in a truly dazzling fashion."

Elvis set out to do what the dentist directed him to do, leaving the outer office and the babe receptionist however with some wistful reluctance, and went back to his quarters. Three hours later he vigorously brushed his teeth for two minutes and thorough rinsed his mouth free of the gummy residue. Then he looked in the mirror and opened his mouth wide to reveal his new sparkling smile. And his teeth did indeed shine forth in a truly dazzling fashion. There was just one problem. His teeth. They weren't white.

They were red. Brilliant, florescent fire engine red.

The sound of which, that of a fire engine, not dissimilar to the one which immediately erupted from Elvis' brilliant fire engine red teeth

Ahhhooooiiiiioooooaaaaaa!!!!

The motel where Elvis' trainee class was billeted, with the unfortunate if inadvertent name of Chivington's Eternal Rest Motel (Bertie Joe Chivington locally famous for having failed high school grammar three years running) immediately morphed into pandemonium. Elvis' hollering even made its way across the street to Jimmy Roy Carter's Bar-B-Q restaurant and sent the patrons flying out the doors. Jimmy Roy, who was a veteran of Bosnia and Somalia, not helping matters any with his own yelling.

Terrorists! Take cover! Quick! Unfortunately for Jimmy Roy, the patrons all sought cover outside his Bar-B-Q and left Jimmy Roy with a bunch of half eaten meals and a stack of unpaid tabs.

The dentist's office told an irate Elvis that the tooth whitening compound had been mislabeled in the factory. They weren't sure just what the intended function of the mislabeled compound was, but a lab sample showed that it wasn't toxic. They were oh, so sorry, but there was nothing they could do. Just wait a couple of weeks or so and Elvis' tooth color would fade back to the normal more or less white.

Elvis didn't have a couple of weeks. Less than a week later he was standing in the graduation line ready to receive his diploma. A casual observer would have thought he looked strangely jumpy. Like he'd just discovered he had body lice and they were having lunch at his expense. But anyone who knew him wouldn't pay it much heed. Just, Elvis. They'd say. Twitchy Elvis twitching again. A few steps ahead, handing out diplomas, stood Customs and Border Protection's first black female Academy honcho, Director Lavinnia Okumba McCumber. As Elvis approached she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye as she was handing a graduation certificate to brand new officer LaQueen Mombasa. Director McCumber's hand was out and about to grasp that of widely grinning new officer Mombasa.

Congratulations, Ms..... The Director began. Just then Lavinnia's corner eye contact grabbed onto the face of an officer a couple of spaces back and derailed Lavinnia's diploma-handing focus. Ms...Bombastard, she stuttered out in her temporary confusion. LaQueen Mombasa, temperamental to a fault nearly as big as the San Andreas, was not one to suffer insults lightly. Especially from some goddamn black assed uptown bitch with an attitude. Even if she was a hefty six footer.

That's Mombasa, big mama, she spit out. With an M. Not a B! LaQueen then grabbed her diploma and stomped off the stage at the academy theater where the graduation ceremony was being held. Later that day she confided in her best friend, Shawree Smith, what that goddamn Oreo cookie bitch did to me. She's lucky I didn't whup her uptown black ass but good." LaQueen might as well have done a TV interview with a Jacksonville News at Six reporter Chatty Kathi Mohamet. By the time LaQueen got to the personnel office to complete her out-processing the next day her assigned duty station had been changed from her home area, New York City, to an island in the Pacific, Guam. A U.S. territory that had a very serious problem with the exotic mildly venomous brown tree snakes. LaQueen had a deep seated fear of all snakes, and especially venomous ones, be they mildly or mightily venomous. At least that is what she'd told her formerly best friend, Shawree Smith. The same Shawree who somewhat unmiraculously received her own last minute change of duty station from miserably hot and humid Brownsville, Texas, to Washington D.C.'s Dulles International. Washington D.C. being, not so coincidentally, Shawree's home town.

As LaQueen stomped off the stage the corner of Lavinna's eye stayed riveted on Elvis' approach. Tommy Chung was next in line and Lavinnia somewhat distractedly went through the congratulatory motions with him. She couldn't keep her focus off the next guy. There was something about that guy just behind Tommy. He looked familiar. But she didn't remember anyone in the graduation class with such a big, droopy mustache. It hung down and covered his mouth and Lavinnia couldn't help wondering how the hell the guy would even eat without catching his mustache in his teeth and damn near dislocating his jaw. Then Elvis stepped forward, his face a mysterious mask in contrast to the wide self-congratulatory grins all the other diploma getters were flashing. He held his hand out expectantly, ready for either a diploma, a handshake or both. What he got was a question.

I don't remember you, Lavinnia said suspiciously. Then she looked at the name on the diploma. Mahoney. Elvis T. Mahoney. Then it hit her. Elvis! It was that goddamn smart ass woodchip Elvis! She should have recognized him by the red hair.

Since when did you have a mustache, Elvis? She said with the same suspicion. I don't recall you having one."

Just grew it, Elvis replied. Last couple of weeks. Lavinnia's eyed narrowed.

A couple of weeks. A mustache that long? In a couple of weeks?

Yep, Elvis said. We Mahoneys are known far and wide as quick mustache men. A pause. And also some of the women. Some kind of genetic natural selection. You know, Darwin stuff. But it sure used to come in real handy back in the outlaw days when a quick new identity was needed in a hurry. Despite what Lavinnia's acrimonious ex-boyfriend, Louisiana Creole-born Special Agent Gaston LaRue, might have thought on the subject, Lavinnia did not in fact get dropped on her infant noggin as a baby and be consequently mentally challenged from that defining noggin crunching moment on. She knew damn well Elvis was up to something. She snorted derisively and would definitely liked to have grabbed Elvis' dubious handoff and run down the field with it. But there was still a line of hopeful faces queued up behind Elvis. Reluctantly, a spastic tic suddenly taking up residence just below her right eye, she hot-eyed him as she shook his hand and grudgingly gave him his diploma. Elvis could hear her marginally audible growling and was sorely tempted to do his laughing hyena routine on the spot. But there are occasions. And then there are occasions. For once, Elvis made the right choice. The laughing hyena didn't even so much as chuckle. He did however quietly pass gas, the foul result of which hit Lavinnia's nostrils just as Elvis was exiting the stage.

Late that night, tucked in bed, Lavinnia lay awake for a good half hour trying to figure out just what the fuck that smart ass Elvis was up to.

Elvis was without doubt the first graduate of the Academy to go through the graduation ceremony with a droopy false mustache and a totally grim smile free expression. Everyone else was exuberant and grinning from ear to year. Not Elvis. He was glowering. And more. He was plotting revenge. Elvis was dead certain that Dr. Littlejohn had done this on purpose and with a little snooping around town figured out just why. Colonel Bertram St. John Spotswood was not a war hero, at least not in the eyes of the local black folk, many of whom had red hair and bright blue eyes, and Dr. Littlejohn had been at the forefront of de-warheroing Colonel Spotswood. Which was all understandable enough to Elvis. With the exception of him, Elvis, becoming a proxy Colonel Spotswood for Dr. Littlejohn's revenge. That was not cool, Dr. Littlejohn, Elvis muttered. Not cool at all.

Elvis reported the dentist to the Brunswick Better Business Bureau and the Georgia State Dentist Licensing Board. He never heard from the Georgia State Dentist Licensing Board, but he did hear from the Brunswick Better Business Bureau.

We cannot substantiate your allegations, the BBB said. No further action is required. The anonymous chairman of the BBB complaints department was Dr. Littlejohn himself, said anonymous chairmanship a handy way of derailing any complaints against him.

Elvis then went back to the dentist's office, but didn't go in. He waited until he saw Dr. Littlejohn come out of his office at the end of his work day and climb into his Toyota Avalon. Knowing what car the dentist drove, that night Elvis went to the local grocery and bought two pounds of fresh garlic cloves. He ground some of them into a fine powder and mixed the powder in with a pint of gasoline. The rest he made into a viscous paste. The next day Elvis, using some of the dubitable skills from his teen years, picked the lock on the Toyota Avalon's gas tank in the secluded parking lot behind the dentist's office and, using a funnel, poured the garlic powdered pint of gasoline into the Toyota's tank. Then he climbed under the Toyota and smeared fresh garlic paste all over the undercarriage.

After repeated trips through the car wash failed to dislodge the obnoxious recently arrived odor, Dr. Littlejohn took his Avalon to the Toyota dealership three times in the following weeks, claiming that the strong odor in his Avalon was a manufacturing defect. The dealership denied his claims and, doing what dealerships do, charged him top dealership dollar every time he brought the Toyota in. Adding up to far more than the two hundred bucks Littlejohn had charged Elvis for the teeth whitening that turned out to be a teeth reddening. Which Elvis nevertheless considered an equable settlement and the matter therefore closed.

Though he did take a Brunswick souvenir refrigerator magnet and prominently display on his frig the newspaper article from the Brunswick Daily News. An article about how an unidentified low life sneakabout had crept into well known local dentist and community leader Dr. George Washington Carver Littlejohn's garden in the dark of night to vandalize it....

By dumping bright red paint all over Dr. Littlejohn's prize-winning wisterias.

Chapter 2

San Luis

The Unsinister Minister

A handful of years passed and Elvis was a border veteran, a senior inspector on the district mobile Enforcement Team--ET--that specialized in catching drug smugglers that tried to sneak their loads of dope through the various Arizona ports of entry. He was on assignment way over on the California border at the Port of San Luis. Elvis and one of his ET buddies, Pancho Soltero, were roving behind the primary lanes coming in from San Luis Rio Colorado across the border in the state of Sonora in Old Mexico. Elvis wasn't quite sure why they kept calling it Old Mexico. Maybe over in New Mexico, at the Port of Columbus, it made some sense. New Mexico. Old Mexico. Keep things straight. But here? In Arizona? Didn't make any sense to him. Old Mexico? Why old? He sure didn't see many old people coming out of Mexico at the Port of San Luis. The whopping majority of them were young, Mexico well known for producing lots of young people on a regular basis.

Oh, well, Elvis mumbled. Some things in life just don't make sense.

Just look who run the country, Elvis said to his long suffering ET buddy, Pancho.

What? Pancho said, not having been paying much attention to Elvis as a curvaceous Mexican of the female variety was walking by on a nearby sidewalk with a sensual swagger that Pancho thought was downright suggestive--though the actual fact was she had a pinched nerve in her right hip that made her involuntarily jerk from little needles of pain when her right foot connected with the sidewalk. Which fact Pancho completely misinterpreted as he to continued to eyeball her supposedly suggestive progress down the sidewalk. Then, Elvis' voice. Again. Pancho? Are you listening?

Reluctantly, a little piqued, he turned to look at Elvis with a not altogether friendly stare. What did you say? Adding, with extra emphasis, after he thought about the high price he was paying for listening to Elvis as the woman of his dreams (the fourth that day so far) was disappearing, possibly forever, from view, just what in the fuck did you say now, Elvis!

I said, some things in life just don't make sense, a pause while Pancho waited for God knows what crazy-assed idea Elvis had come up with. As an example, Elvis continued, just look at who's running the country. A year earlier Pancho might have imploded. No more. He was an ES. Elvis Survivor. He just groaned, snarled just a little, and returned his attention to the most recent lady of his dreams. Too late. She was gone. Gone! That did it.

Goddamnit, Elvis, I will never, ever forgive you! Elvis said nothing. He merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged. And why not? At least once a day Pancho said he would never, ever forgive Elvis. Pancho's fervent anti-Elvis imprecations however invariably vanishing before they were even halfway through their initial pitcher of draft beer after work.

So long as Elvis bought the first round.

An hour later Pancho came walking back from a primary lane to where Elvis was standing intensely watching water dripping off an evaporative cooler. Pancho jabbed him in the side. Look, El, he said.

Ouch. Elvis retorted, rubbing his side. You should cut your fingernails, Pancho.

I did cut them, Pancho retorted. Those were my fingers.

Then you should cut your fingers, Elvis shot back. Pancho ignored him. He wasn't about to be diverted. He pointed at a Ford Minivan just being cleared on a primary lane.

There might be a lookout on that Ford, he said. "I