by Carol Roper

Standing behind a glass fence on the terrace of the dream house he and Sofy had designed for their cliff side lot thirty-two years ago, Porter Thomson focused his night vision binoculars on the fishing trawlers off shore along the Pacific North Coast of Mexico. The air he breathed was vibrant with a rising scent of sea grass and earth from the estuary below. 

Sofy, his wife, the tracker of their finances complained when she saw the binocular’s price. She’d been born rich and always worried about money. Conversely, Porter had been born poor and never worried about having enough. Life always provided what he needed. This was true because he and his single mother lived in Cape Cod in the nineteen fifties where the community council philosophy was, ”A rising Tide Lifts All Boats.”  Mother and son were subsidized by the council. Porter was smart, studious, won prizes for his pictures and a scholarship to a private college where he studied art and photography. Upon graduation he was hired by the art department at Cosmopolitan Magazine. To fill time, until she married the man her father picked for her, Sofy had acquired a job at Cosmopolitan as a proof reader. Her father’s plan was upended shortly after Porter and Sofy met at an event in Andy Warhol’s Union Square studio.

Theirs was the passionate attraction of opposites destined for a lifetime of disagreements. They fell into a workplace affair, fueled by secrecy, cocaine and the abundant hallucinatory drugs that flowed through New York City like rats. When Sofy became pregnant with their first child, she defied her father’s threats to disown her and married Porter in a private nondenominational ceremony followed by a large reception that drew a mention on Page Six.

Porter defended his binoculars, they were needed for his night birds project. “Saving money is for the young, we’re old,” he added.

“I hate you,” she responded, not for the first time. She periodically demanded he move out or alternately, to agree to a divorce. It had been this way since her stroke.

Sofy’s hair had whitened and she’d shorn it to her head like a nun’s. He missed it. He missed her love. Sofy was his first and only love. Porter was devoted to her.

They still shared a bed though Sofy had declared even before her stroke she’d had enough sex for one lifetime and didn’t want to fuck anymore.   

He tugged at his green, baggy cargo shorts and favorite Stones T-shirt, bought so many years ago at the Rolling Stones at the LA Coliseum when his curly hair white was brown. He shook his foot and kicked a tiny stone loose from his Bass sandals. 

His attention turned to the estuary in the valley below and found a trio of coyotes silently padding along a horse trail.

He’d been completing the preparation of his nighttime elixir of whisky and German beer and aligning his vape pipe when he’d heard the desperate shriek of a rabbit before its life had ended in a coyote’s jaws.The balance of nature, like love, is both beautiful and cruel.   Porter identified with the rabbit, though death wasn’t frightening to him, only the thought of leaving Sofy alone. 

He’d prepared, he thought, a memorable dinner of penne arrabbiata for them and chose a crisp, Italian wine as accompaniment. Porter prepared all their meals to make sure she ate something nutritious. Sofy had taken a few mouthfuls of Penne, before pushing it aside. She didn’t touch the wine. She was not thin, in fact she had gained weight yet she ate little.

After dinner they watched a forgettable Netflix movie then Sofy went to bed. He’d heard the sounds of late night TV hosts reviewing and mining USA politics for flat jokes about annihilation. And a bit later, silence. That’s when Porter carefully tread into their bedroom to check on her. He was haunted by that terrible morning when he’d been about to get into bed when he realized Sofy was not yet awake, looked over at her and saw she was having a stroke. He’d raced for aspirin, pressed a tablet into Sofy’s mouth while phoning a neighbor afflicted with COPD who quickly arrived with an oxygen tank to keep her breathing on their race to the hospital. Now an oxygen tank was at the ready in the en suite bathroom. Sofy was sleeping normally, their two Labradors dozing at her feet.

They’d had six sets of dogs in the forty-three years since they married. He accepted the inevitable pain of having pets. Each time one died, or had to be euthanized, Porter suggested they stop. But Sofy grieved for months, sometimes for years and couldn’t handle a lack of animal companionship.  Their most recent Labs had been rescued from a puppy mill in Arizona. It infuriated Porter to learn the mill’s owners didn’t receive jail time. Instead they were given a mere slap-on-the-wrist fine for violation of a county home business ordinance.  No knew, no doubt, they were somewhere operating another puppy mill until they were caught again. Capitalism was immoral because it had no bounds; if a profit could be made from enslaving people, animals, earth and now artificial intelligence, humans would do it.  People were disgusting and Porter knew he was no exception.

Returning to his terrace office, Porter glanced at the desk piled with photos of night birds. This was his project he said, if asked, he was working on for the Avian Society which was a lie. Maybe he’d publish a book one day. Or more recently, he thought he might create a calendar of his photos.

“Alexa, what time is it?”  He addressed a small round plastic disc on the glass topped table. 

“4:30 a.m.,” replied the feminized AI voice.

“Miles till dawn,” he thought.

Reaching into his pants pocket.  He withdrew a small box of Cannabis gummies bought during a shopping trip to San Diego and popped a strawberry flavored one in his mouth. 

He would’ve liked to log in to the community Chat group, but he no longer had access. The Administrators had blocked him for violating the rules, which was kind of ironic as Porter had established the group and the rules.

“Well, fuck ’em, if they can’t take a joke,” he’d said, but the rejection stung and Sofy was not sympathetic.

“You’re too argumentative,” Sofy told him.

“I’m honest.”

“You’re provocative. You keep asking why American immigrants call themselves Expats?”

“It’s a valid question. We’re the only migrants who refer to ourselves with a colonist term.  We’re not colonizers, we’re the United States of America, immigrants, for foreigners.  We are guests of Mexico,”

“You’re delusional,” Sofy said.

“I’m factual. Are we or are we not residents with Visas?

 “You exhaust me,” she said, walking away.

He blamed himself for bringing in other volunteer editors but the group had grown so large that it took Porter most of the night and part of his waking hours to monitor it. He told himself he was glad to be rid of it.  

Stepping outside on the terrace, he scanned the sky for any crepuscular birds in the predawn but saw only the moonlight illuminating the scenic highway the Mexican government had built in the nineteen seventies along the coast from Tijuana to Ensenada to encourage tourism. No vehicles traveled the highway before dawn. Several eighteen-wheelers were parked off the road in front of darkened street food on the beach side where visitors swarmed every weekend. Porter and Sofy had rented a beach house, when they first arrived as many do, but after experiencing the influx of campers every weekend outside their window grilling a goat, drinking beer, playing loud music, setting off illegal fireworks and shitting in the sand they decided on build on the hillside Cul-de-sac where there was no traffic and little noise. 

Insomnia, some suggest, is a distinguishing feature of genius. Porter was smart and held in contempt those he perceived as less than his equal: television news anchors, his neighbors, people who rode motorcycles; any one with whom he disagreed, the attitude of noblesse oblige as if every single one of their community hadn’t come to Mexico because they were failures at home. Discarded and damaged by the one irreversible fact of becoming too old to be productive for the U.S. economy.

Porter knew he was once considered a “fun guy” who had become not fun. But his”fun guy” depended on cocaine and lysergic acid and he regretted he’d introduced Sofy to those dangerous pleasures because she had become addicted and had gone into recovery and been clean for years, but she was always small and fragile and keeping up with him, who was neither, had cost her health.     

Lowering the binoculars, he glimpsed a spark in the corner of his right eye. Anxiety rose in him. The seed of worry had been planted by a young ophthalmologist during a recent eye exam in San Diego.

The doctor casually warned of the potential for a Retinal detachment. Porter, infuriated at the attempt to up-sell him.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you, doctor? A nice fat fee for retinal surgery pays a lot more than an annual eye exam. It would pay off a nice chunk of your student debt, wouldn’t it? Keep hoping.” 

The millennial-aged physician’s mouth stiffened. The doctor looked over the retinal exam camera and said, “You’re seventy-five.”

“I know how old I am.” 

Porter would’ve liked to punch the doctor in his smug mouth, but he controlled himself because if he did punch the son of-a bitch, he’d end up in jail for assault, not be the first time.

Shutting his eyes, he counted slowly to sixty. When he was done, he rubbed his hands together, raised his palms to his eyes and felt their relaxing warmth. He let his hands drop into his lap. Gently he opened his eyes. His eyesight was normal

He was okay with his life now. The lingering dissatisfaction of his younger years was gone as were his resentments for not having achieved outstanding notice for his photography and art. 

Their two kids were successful in their own lives, given the boost of Sofy’s inheritance providing down payments for their homes and tuition for their children’s private schools and extracurricular activities.

Feeling weary, Porter placed the binoculars on the desk, pulled the ergonomic desk chair out and sat down feeling the cool leather against the back of his legs.

The spark he had seen was in the estuary and that was troublesome. 

A feeling of victory over his body flooded him until he began to rise from the chair and the pain in his knees caused him to groan. He took no medications for his arthritis because prescription drugs upset his stomach. Marijuana was what he used and the side effects were pleasant not painful. Standing at his desk, Porter reached for the vape pen in his cargo shorts, put the mouthpiece to his lips, pressed and inhaled vapor. Almost instantly he felt better.  Clicking the vape pen off, he laid it on the desk and picked up his binoculars.

Stepping outside the atrium onto the terrace a sense of well-being engulfed Porter. He raised his binoculars and scanned the estuary.  A fisherman’s skiff was pulled up on the far side of the river, an illegal gillnet draped over the seat. A duck with six ducklings floated mid-river. He saw a great blue heron nested in a eucalyptus tree. A reflection of moonlight on a leaf.  Nothing sinister. But a subwoofer-like feeling in Porter’s gut pulsated like a portent.  

He was lowering his binoculars when headlights on the Scenic highway caught his attention. He raised and focused his binoculars and saw a small pick-up truck speeding north. 

“Stupid,” Porter murmured watching the vehicle approach and veer toward the yellow crash containers at a closed exit to La Mision.  He gasped seeking the truck zigzag back toward the main road for a millisecond before it skidded toward the guard rail, soared into the estuary and burst into flames.

“Jesus Christ!”

Alexa emitted a creepy laugh.

A few minutes earlier a man crouched at the shallow edge of the river in the estuary. He was a painter of some renown gathering mud to mix into a small canvas bag that he planned to mix with pigment that would add the depth and richness that gave his paintings a unique texture. He had been gathering the mud there all his life, before it was made illegal to remove anything from the estuary where long before his ancestors had lived along the cliffs and fished on the waters. Long before the area became a haven for displaced rich people built their precarious homes along the cliffs. But he had no bitterness. His prime clientele paid him thousands for a painting. His daughters had graduated form a fine Mexican university and were about to become a pediatrician. He and the villagers had been able to hire lawyers to stop a corporate mine upstream from diverting their water.  In the winter rains Leo’s small bag of dirt would be replenished and the streams and rivers filled with waters and old tires, refrigerators and detritus that people carelessly threw there and he and the village volunteers would clean it before it reached the sea.

Leo, the son of a gifted shaman, felt a subtle change in air and turned to see two pairs of yellow coyote’s eyes staring at him from a nearby bush. 

“Vete!” he whispered and the Coyotes ran off.

Leo tucked the garden spade into the rear pocket of his paint-stained jeans pocket. His knees felt stiff as he pushed himself up but loosened up in a few moments, he was after all still in his forties, not old.  Standing at the river bank he relieved himself. A hot stream of piss stirred the water.   Closing his pants he glanced toward the highway. And glimpsed light. At pre-dawn no big rigs or tourists traveled unlit road, yet he clearly saw two headlights approaching and as his father had taught him to discern between visible and invisible worlds watched as a silent truck veer across the highway and rise over the guardrails and saw it was driven by Xolotl the dog god of the underworld.  

Leo clutched at his heart thinking of his daughter who would miss him he fell to his knees as the truck cleared the guardrails and burst into flames and dissolved over his head.

Xolotl had not come for Leo. Then who? 

He glanced up at the foreigner’s houses on the cliffs.  

Copyright Carol Roper 2024

Written by Carol Roper

ⒸCarol Roper Copyright 2024

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