The Pledge

A torrent of wind had blown through the Las Vegas Valley for 362 consecutive days when Santana Cervantez decided to walk across the highway during the stampede of evening commuters.

From behind a torpid bar that aligned the highway, Santana rose from his portable bed—a large trash bag containing barbed twigs and crunchy leaves. He combed his untamable beard and charcoal-gray hair with licked fingers.

He pulled from a pocket of his oversized army fatigues a can of albacore. The inexorable wind, having picked up clouds of dust, attacked Santana like bees.

Is it too much to ask that I eat my last meal in peace?

Santana walked into the bar he'd been forbidden to ever enter again. A week earlier, he'd had to use its bathroom. He'd eaten an apple whose inside was as brown and mushy as baby food to assuage his ravenous hunger. The apple gave his stomach virulent fits. On the third day of his unmanageable bowels, having wandered near the highway, he ran into the bar—too fretful of the watery shit knocking on his rectum to heed the owner's protest, and still too prideful, even after 33 years of homelessness, to shit in public. Before Santana could finish relieving his impatient stomach, the owner pulled him off of the toilet and dragged him outside. With his pants huddled around his ankles and shit dripping down the inside of his thighs, Santana had looked at the desert horizon and said:

"Lord knows I've tried, Lord knows I've tried."

Now, with the can of albacore in his hand, Santana strode right through the owner's incredulous protest and locked himself in the bar's bathroom. From his waistband he pulled out a screwdriver, the only relic of luck he had come across in three decades, and opened the can. The owner banged on the bathroom door. He shouted, "I'm callin' the cops, you hear!"

Santana drowned himself in the delight of albacore, a taste that had stuck with him since his childhood. The owner said:

"They're going to send your dirty ass where your kind belong: jail."

"Ol' Bus Tinkler—he got hisself fo' months in the pen. He fittin' to get hisself good 'n' fat offa tree meals a day. That's tha ticket, I'm tellin' ya."

"I've learned to get by with or without food—so long as I'm responsible for both."

"Not me, not Sunshine. Life's been a drunk father to me; I'll take what I can git."

"I'll tell you what, Sunshine: I'll work like a dog to keep my rights, but I ain't gonna be treated like one to regain 'em."

"Well, a dawg eatin' mo than me these days, that's fo' sho."

"But a dog always owes the hand that feeds him. I plan to owe no man nothing.

"Git on, Santana, git on."

Santana ate each morsel of dry fish with slow, deliberate bites. After finishing, he gathered his irreducible belongings and prepared to take on the fleeting rush of life one last time.

As he headed toward the bathroom door, he saw an image in the mirror that demanded his attention. He approached the mirror, staring at the unrecognizable man in the reflection. He stroked the glass as to scrutinize the man's features: leather skin, the color of beach sand during high tide, too heavy for the deteriorating bone structure from which it sagged; inorganic lips, brutalized by the desert climate; sunken, moistless eyes.

Those are my eyes, and that is me: my God.

He walked out of the bathroom and through the owner's barrage of threats and insults with an imperturbable stride. As soon as he stepped outside he felt the torrid wind—an eastward current that evoked in him choking memories of his childhood in Monterey, California.

Despite the deaths of his parents, Santana's youth had been so light and whimsical that the sea breeze directed his days. Having felt like a caged seagull in the classroom, he left school at the age of 16 for a job canning sardines, which would embed in his pores a permanent odor. Seven days a week he parted the misty morning air on the way to the wharf, where he would work until the sun vanished; that is, until just before his 22nd birthday, when machines overtook the canneries, supplanting the sweat and blood of human labor and sending Santana abroad in search of a new vocation.

Santana took up jobs in Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles; and then he migrated to Las Vegas, where with demons in his eyes he proclaimed his irrevocable pledge: Here I will make a living or die trying.

His first job was dealing blackjack at a Downtown casino, in the days when corporate regimes began to depersonalize the mob-run city. Santana could not pitch the cards fast enough to satisfy his implacable pit bosses.

"Four hands per minute, Sahvantez, or you're outta here," they told him. But Santana came from a people whose motto was "Slow down—take 't eeaassy"; and so, before the end of the first pay period, he was fired.

He found a job that revived his oceanic leanings, waiting on tables at Emrich's Seafood Heaven. But his insatiable hunger for anything from the ocean compelled him to snack on mackerel and salmon while on the clock—an unforgivable transgression in the eyes of his employers, who sought to ring every penny of profit out of their fish.

With a tarnished resume, Santana couldn't find another job. Unemployed and hungry, he deluged his conscience with a case of beer, walked across the street to a grocery store owned by an avaricious Chinese couple and, too intoxicated to be stealthy, placed a can of tuna in the pocket of his skin-tight pants. When the police arrived, they handcuffed Santana on account of a quick calculation: Santana's wild facial hair and ineludible stench of sardines convinced the officers of his vagrancy.

Santana served four months of intolerable jail time. When the county released him, with a small fold of dollar bills with which to resurrect his life, Santana bought a bus ticket out of the town of his misfortune.

The bus overheated 40 miles outside of Las Vegas. While the shipwrecked passengers waited for a rescue under the harsh Southern Nevada sun, Santana began walking back to Vegas, unable to ignore his heart as it reverberated his irrevocable pledge.

Santana left his scant possessions in the bar's parking lot. He staggered toward the highway. His bones ached. With his eyes fixed on the highway he struggled through the resisting wind.

"Damn wind—don't give us no rest: from the west, swamps us with nostalgia; from the east, carries away our dreams."

"And I ain't got the strength or energy or courage to chase 'em anymore, Charlie."

"But—"

"But if that's how it is, I will bear it."

Santana approached the lip of the highway. The exhaust fumes of the fleeting cars intensified the hellish breeze. It made Santana's eyes water and his nose burn. He focused on a discarded soda bottle across the four westbound lanes. As the bottle rolled around at the mercy of the wind, Santana started walking toward it at an apathetic pace.

SKKKKKKRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT!!!

A silver truck came fishtailing toward Santana. In an instantaneous and eternal moment, he jumped back.

"Tell me, mijo—what did you see?"

"I was hitting the rubber ball against the garage door, and it was hard because your house is slanted and the ball went into the street. I got the ball and looked down the hill and that's when I saw mama and papa. They were driving up the hill that is before the hill your house is slanted on. I waved to them and they waved back. They were both smiling. Then they got to the top of that hill which is the bottom of your hill, and I was so happy to see them and mama was still smiling and papa was driving real slow like he always drives and—"

"Whooaa, whoa, Santana. Slow down, mijo—take 't easy"

"And then—a car that had been invisible hit the side of mama and papa's car; and then I jumped—I jumped because I was scared for mama and papa. Mama didn't even have time to stop smiling. I saw it, I saw it all; and I jumped because I was scared my mama and papa were going to die—"

"No, mijo: You jumped because you thought for a second that you were in the car, and you were scared that you were going to die."

"I ... I ... but ... I ..."

"It's OK, mijo, it's OK."

"Tio Salvador?"

"Yes, mijo."

"Is it bad that I was scared for myself when I jumped?"

"No, mijo. It only proves that you have the will to live."

In the flux of screeching cars, Santana didn't know what substantiated his will to live. He had been lonely. He'd given names to the ugly nocturnal bugs who scurried aimlessly across the same sidewalks on which he slept, and who cast shadows the size of rats under the streetlights, because he considered them friends. His only flesh-and-blood-and-spirit friend was Charlie, an educated man who couldn't trade his degree for a ticket out of the inhospitable streets. During their downtime, Charlie narrated stories that would satisfy Santana's heart, but couldn't fill his belly. During the best of times, Santana's diet consisted of 10-cent cans of tuna that he opened with one of his sparse possessions, a flathead screwdriver he'd found hanging from a Juniper tree in the Red Rock mountains, with an oracular message taped to its handle: "He who finds this tool shall never go hungry"; and tasteless coffee, which stained his teeth yellow and his upper lip brown. He received the coffee at a humble shelter Downtown run by a group that was conceived in heaven and birthed at the university. Santana would not, however, accept charitable donations, insisting that he work for every cup of coffee or holiday dinner. To Santana's misfortune, the shelter did not offer bedding. In the warm months, Santana slept during the day wherever he could find shade, usually behind a minimart in North Las Vegas, where the city officials weren't concerned with preserving a presentable image. Inside the minimart was a taco stand whose owner would occasionally allow Santana to clean the stoves for leftover fish tacos.

Out of the silver truck a young man, who would have been as handsome as anyone in the city of beautiful people if it wasn't for his rabbit teeth, confronted Santana while he stood in an ineffable daze. Without a word the man socked Santana across the cheek. To the external ear it sounded like a POP!; but to Santana's internal ear it sounded as if his jaw imploded. Santana dropped to his knees.

The belligerent man wasn't satisfied. With innumerable kicks he pounded Santana's sternum, ribs, lower back and—most painfully—his insubstantial stomach; all the while shouting at Santana a blitz of curses and insults, of which Santana made out only one:

"You beggars are the fuckin' scum of the Earth!"

Returning to his truck, the young man noticed blood on his left forearm. It was not his victim's. He traced it to the tracks on the inside of his elbow.

Santana remained motionless after the attack. Neither the cars nor their passengers moved. He listened to the gales howl overhead. The stars were sparse; and the moon, whole and sugary in the March sky, seemed closer to the Earth than ever before.

The sun, in its westward descent, penetrated Sebastian's blinds, flooding his room with warm light. Sebastian opened his eyes and felt his tongue dry and swollen in his mouth. He arose. Sloshing his way to the bathroom to excrete the gallon of beer he had drunk that same morning, Sebastian noticed the time on his clock; he shook his head, rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes and then looked again. It read 3 p.m.

He threw on his work clothes: a white button-down shirt with a cowboy's tie and black jeans that were too short on his flamingo legs. He then brushed his teeth and sped off to work in his new silver truck without having gone to the bathroom.

Sebastian screeched into the parking lot of Lazy Moe's Bar and Grill. He jumped out of his truck and was struck by the diabolical wind.

"Every damn day," he grunted to himself. "I'll die before this wind gives up."

He entered the front doors, prepared for his manager's inevitable reproach; but, to his relief, his manager wasn't there. Only Alfonzo, the busboy and cook and occasional bouncer, was in the bar.

"Boss called—he said he wasn't coming in today," Alfonzo said. "Nobody's been in yet."

"Weird," said Sebastian. "Boss has never missed a day."

Alfonzo carried on with his chore: recleaning pint glasses. He didn't look up.

"Yeah—weird."

"Did he give a reason?"

Alfonzo looked up at Sebastian, and then turned away to elude eye contact. "No, no reason."

Sebastian rushed to the bathroom.

The first customer didn't come in until four o'clock. His hair had been disheveled by the wind. He wore large, rectangular shades.

"Whatcha drinkin', boss?" Sebastian said as the man approached the bar.

"Water."

"And?"

"Just water," the patron said. "My wife won't kiss booze breath."

"She'd probably be upset just the same if she knew you were here, drinks or not."

"Yeah—but a man's gotta eat somewhere: Make it water and fish sticks."

"You got it, boss."

The patron took his water to a corner booth and drank it meticulously while he read the evening newspaper that blackened his fingers with fresh ink.

Alfonzo had brought out the fish sticks when Sebastian shouted from behind the bar: "You going to LT's after work?"

Alfonzo looked at the sole patron but couldn't see his eyes behind the newspaper and dark shades. "No—I don't think I'll be going tonight."

"What? Why not?"

"I, uh, had too much to drink last night."

"Don't be a sunuvabitch."

At 5:30, the bar was still vacant, except for the man with the rectangular sunglasses. He was still eating his fish sticks, reading the evening paper and draining the same glass of water. Then, two men wearing the unmistakable attire of tourists walked in with an air of joviality. They looked interchangeable.

Sebastian's entire world stopped, as if he saw two apparitions.

The two men sat at the bar. Sebastian couldn't gather himself to speak, or even to place coasters before the patrons.

"Two Long Islands," one of the men said.

Sebastian felt disoriented. He trembled.

"Nice silver truck out there," the second of the men said. "Yours?"

Sebastian nodded. His eyes didn't blink and his hands filled two glasses with concoctions that were not Long Island Iced Teas.

"I hear those things are pretty expensive," said the second man.

"Probably too expensive for my blood," said the first. "Especially since I waste money getting you drunk."

The men laughed, and then looked to Sebastian, encouraging him to share their laughter. Sebastian formed an unctuous smile.

That's when he remembered the picture: Jeremy had showed it to him as he was about to flee Miami. "Those are the bosses," Jeremy said.

"So those are the bosses, huh?" he said.

"How far is Vegas, again?" Jeremy asked.

"You must make some serious dough pourin' these magnificent Long Islands," the second man said, having taken an exaggerated drink. "I bet you bought that fine bitch on tips alone; paid the dealer cash, straight up."

Sebastian felt nauseous. He looked to the kitchen: Alfonzo was gone. He looked at the man with the rectangular sunglasses, who was no longer reading the paper. He felt a drip of sweat, large and cold, fall down his temple.

"Yep—I wish I could afford a truck like that," said the second man.

"I just don't think we're fast enough to buy one of them, you know," the first said to his comrade, though staring at Sebastian. A grin crept up the left side of his face. "You gotta be faster than the next man to make the kind of dough it takes to buy one of them."

"Yep," said the second. "I guess me and you are classic slowpokes."

The men laughed heartily.

"Say—you wouldn't take us for slowpokes, would ya?" the second man said.

Silence.

Sebastian made a break for his truck: he hopped over the bar and pushed through the front doors; then he tripped. When he rose to his knees, the two men were standing above him with pistols aimed at his head.

"The Long Islands tasted like shit," the first one said.

Sebastian regained consciousness in the back of a car that reeked of menthol. His hands were bound behind his back with rope tied in an inept Boy Scout knot. The windows were rolled up and the stench was oppressive.

Sebsatian tried to look through the window, but he could only see a bleak reflection of himself. A stream of blood leaked from his Roman nose. His cheeks, once lean and crisp, were puffy like a feeding squirrel's. He couldn't recognize his lips. His head throbbed.

He turned to the driver of the car: It was the man from the bar with rectangular glasses. He was humming along with the song on the radio: "Let's Get It On," by Marvin Gaye.

"Where you taking me?" said Sebastian, his voice cracking.

"Ah, you're up, Bugs Bunny?"

Sebastian thought about his teeth. When he wasn't beat up in the back of an unknown car, he couldn't go more than five minutes without thinking of his buck teeth. He parted his lips, which was an excruciating exercise, and looked at his teeth in the window. The front right tooth was chipped, ruggedly.

"Listen: I'll sell my truck and give you everything if you let me go."

"That's where you're confused, Bugs," said the man. "Don't you know you don't have a truck to sell anymore." The man resumed his humming.

"Damn, man! Do you even know why you're doing this?"

"Don't know, don't care."

Sebastian sunk deeper into the seat and let his head fall against the window. The throbbing was unbearable.

Sebastian opened his eyes again when he noticed the car had stopped moving. At first, he was sure that they had arrived at a remote plot in the monotonous desert: his burial site. Looking out the window, however, he saw construction signs and a middle-aged woman with cropped hair and a large tattoo on her forearm directing traffic with a reversible sign. Sebastian thought it was his only chance.

He unlocked the door with his teeth and kicked it open with the force of adrenaline. He ran frantically, seeking refuge in an aimless scurry.

Sebastian was lost in North Las Vegas. He hid in a minimart with a taco shop inside of it. The sweat of his hands helped him to slither out of the fallible knot. He collapsed on the bench of an unclean table and decided he would spend the rest of the night there.

As the mauve sky darkened into a deep purple, the man with rectangular sunglasses slid into the seat across from Sebastian, who was staring at the window, lost in the image of his ugly reflection against the backdrop of cimarron trees bending at the force of the wind.

Glaring at the image, Sebastian said: "Son of a bitch."

"Hola," the man said, startling Sebastian.

Sebastian's legs tensed, as to flee, but became paralyzed when he felt a steel cylinder against his kneecap.

The man pulled Sebastian out by the arm. Sebastian didn't put up any resistance, having felt an unconquerable sense of resignation; thus, when the man pushed Sebastian into the alley behind the minimart and pointed the gun to his head, Sebastian didn't even flinch.

"Normally, I'd just kill you now, then go make love to my wife," said the man. "But after the shit you got me in today, you're gonna suffer."

The man assaulted Sebastian with a flurry of pistol-whips. As Sebastian's flaccid body leaked streams of blood onto the concrete, he could only form one complete thought:

There is no wind in this alley.

When the police arrived on the scene, they discovered three men: the young bartender and the man with rectangular sunglasses (now cracked) on the ground; and a homeless man who smelled of sardines standing over both of them. An officer demanded that the three men put their hands up. They obliged, except Sebastian, who was imperturbable on the ground.

"This bum tried to mug us," pleaded the man with broken sunglasses, having risen to his knees. Blood seeped from a gash in his side. "He beat the hell outta my friend here, and when I tried to stop him he stabbed me with a screwdriver."

The police shined their flashlights on the frozen vagrant, whose raised hand still held on to a screwdriver.

In handcuffs, pressed against a patrol car by a female officer, the homeless man closed his eyes as the ceaseless wind blew through his hair.

"Is there a work program in the pen?" he asked the lady officer.

Joshua Longobardy attends UNLV.