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Chug!
Marco had never stolen anything before. Though the miserable task had fallen to him (as he had known it would) he wasn’t at all sure how to begin.
Heart thumping wildly in his chest, mouth dry, palms clammy, Marco looked over his shoulder, an involuntary response to an imagined sound and a guilty conscience. He stood perfectly still, ears at attention, listening. He could hear the adults murmuring in the livingroom, but he heard no tell-tale footsteps. He was alone in the kitchen. It was now or never.
He opened the refrigerator, wincing at the noise it made as he broke the vacuum seal, and scanned its contents for the beer Chucho had brought home just an hour earlier. He saw a gallon of whole milk, a half-empty bag of coffee beans, some avocado, tomato, orange juice, a beef marinade and three cans of Coke. But he didn’t see the beer.
Closing the refrigerator, he tiptoed to the kitchen’s doorway and peered around the corner. The grown-ups were talking quietly, their faces somber. They’d looked like that for weeks now, at least the women had. Chucho had only returned from his last haul a few days ago, but already the news of the recent deaths had settled into the lines of his face, making him appear older, careworn. Even Aunt Conchita, who was usually a grab bag of laughter and smiles, had replaced her usual merriment with an intense melancholy.
Looking at them made Marco feel sad.
Then he saw what he was looking for. On the coffee table were four tall, frosty bottles of Corona. Chucho and his friend Manny were drinking the other two.
There was no way he was getting to that beer without anybody seeing.
Marco withdrew into the kitchen and considered his options. He could go back to the shed outside and tell Alejandro and Cheehawk that he couldn’t get the beer and suffer their taunts and name calling. That certainly wouldn’t be anything new. But there was another option, and on this night, Marco wasn’t yet ready to concede defeat.
Chucho kept the tequila on the top shelf of the pantry, out of the twins’ reach. But the six pack of pulque that he’d brought back from Mexico last winter sat collecting dust on the pantry floor, underneath a sack of potatoes, forgotten by everyone.
Everyone except Marco.
He didn’t know what pulque was except that everyone had laughed when Chucho had brought it back from the homeland, saying they hadn’t had pulque since they were teenagers. Chucho had popped open a can, taken a deep swig, made a face that was a cross between revulsion and merriment, and passed it around. Everyone had tried it, shaking their heads, declaring they much preferred beer and that the agave should stick with producing tequila. They’d finished off that one can and put the other five in the pantry where Marco now knelt, silently retrieving a single can from its plastic yolk.
He sighed with relief, glanced around once more, and, finding himself still alone, hid the can under his t-shirt and, triumphant, slipped quietly out the back door.
“What the hell is this?”
Cheehawk held the can of pulque with a look of bewildered disgust on this face. “This isn’t beer. It isn’t even cold,” he complained. “You got the wrong stuff.”
Marco shrugged. “The beer was in the living room with the grown-ups. I couldn’t get it without them seeing me. Anyway, this has alcohol in it, too.”
Cheehawk looked skeptical. “How do you know?”
“Because when they were drinking it at Christmas they wouldn’t let me and Alex have any.”
Alejandro nodded. “That’s true.”
Cheehawk popped the top open, closed one eye, and peered into the small, dark opening. “I can’t see anything,” he said. “I’m not gonna try this, Marco, until you try it first.”
Marco’s jaw dropped. “I don’t even want any! I got it for you! I’m not drinking that!”
“But you were supposed to get the beer,” Cheehawk said. “So since you got the wrong stuff, you should have to try it first!”
Cheehawk pushed the can into Marco’s hands, and the younger boy sighed, closing his fingers around the warm can. He should have known it would end up like this. He wasn’t remotely curious about the effects of alcohol, but he didn’t want to look like a scaredy-cat either.
He put the can to his lips. Holding his breath, he took a tiny sip.
“Do you feel anything?” Cheehawk asked.
Alejandro elbowed him in the side. “Doesn’t work like that, stupid! You don’t get drunk right away!”
Cheehawk scowled, returned his attention to Marco. “What does it taste like?”
Marco had been prepared for the worst. When they were very little, Alejandro had made Marco taste a cup of black coffee that their mother had left on the patio overnight. It had tasted awful, and had left an oily, acid taste in his mouth that seemed to linger for days. Using that awful experience as a baseline, Marco had sipped gingerly and fretfully at the pulque, steeling himself for the worst.
It wasn’t anything like he expected.
The warm liquid was thick and frothy, and tasted like strawberries dipped in honey. He took a second sip, less fearful, and this time it tasted like tres leches cake with cinnamon and nutmeg. A fuzzy, warm sensation filled his chest and began to spread slowly to his stomach, his cheeks, until suddenly he was warm all over.
“What’s it taste like, Marco?”
Marco set the can down in front of him and shrugged. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “It kinda tastes like a carnival.”
“A carnival?” Alejandro rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Well, I said it was hard to explain,” Marco said. “You can just try it yourself!”
Cheehawk and Alejaandro exchanged looks, and finally the older boy gave a litte shrug and picked up the can. Hellbent on not being upstaged by a weenie like Marco, Cheehawk knocked the pulque back, taking in a large swig.
His eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he choked, retched, and spit the pulque out. Droplets splattered all over Alejandro, who gave his friend a push. “HEY! Watch it, Cheehawk!”
“It’s nasty!” Cheehawk sputtered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He leaned over, spat a few times on the dirt floor of the shed, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. “Marco, you liar, that’s the worst taste I ever tasted!” He pushed the drink toward Alejandro. “Here, Alex, you try it!”
Alejandro shook his head vigorously. “No, thanks. I believe you,” he sad, shrinking away from the drink.
Cheehawk changed tactics and pushed the drink into Marco’s hands. Marco accepted the drink wit a confused look on his face. “It was nasty to you?”
“Not cool, Marco!” Cheehaw howled. “You made me drink it even though you knew it was gross. You should drink the rest of it,” he said.
Marco chuckled. “I didn’t make you drink it,” he said. “Plus, it doesn’t taste bad to me. I like it.”
To prove his point, Marco brought the can to his lips and took another long, slow drink. This time, the warm, thick liquid that filled his mouth tasted like pineapple sprinkled with brown sugar. That flavor slowly faded to be replaced by another: roasted almonds and toffee. And finally, thick, hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and drizzled with hot caramel sauce.
When he sat the can down in front of him, the can was empty, and Marco, unbeknownst to him, was drunk.
“He drank it all,” Cheehawk breathed, incredulous. “He drank the whole thing! Marco just drank a whole can of that nasty alcohol!”
While the boys stared at him in frank disbelief, Marco felt his eyelids grow heavy as a pleasant, warm sensation took over his senses. He felt as though he were floating, and he couldn’t stop the goofy smile that was spreading over his face.
Marco’s transformation did no go unnoticed. Cheehawk turned to Alejandro, pointed an accusing finger. “You said it didn’t happen right away,” he said. “But check him out. He’s gonna pass out!”
Alejandro, though he would never admit it, was impressed. “It’s not supposed to work right away,” he said. “I don’t know! Maybe that stuff is different from beer. Don’t ask me!”
The two boys watched as Marco gazed off into space, eyes unfocused, grinning like an idiot.
“We should tell on him,” Alejandro said, a wicked smile of his own appearing on his face. “We should go tell Mama and Chucho that Marco drank their pulque. I bet he’ll get in so much trouble!”
Marco was nominally aware of what his brother was saying and what they planned on doing to him. He had a vague sense of their betrayal as they scrambled to their feet, giggling at their own mischievousness. But as the warm feeling enveloped him, and his eyes began to close and he curled himself into a ball on the ground, he found that he just didn’t care. The sweet, heady flavors of the pulque were still fresh on his tongue, and the fringes of reality began to fade and blur as Marco drifted off into his first alcohol-induced slumber and dreamed his second lucid dream.
June 17th, 2010
I wonder whether it is his innocence, or his spirituality (for want of a better word) that made the drink wondrous for Marco.
I hope he doesn’t get into trouble.