You come upon La Frontera just after entering South Carolina. So many billboards have announced it, it’s almost like there is nothing else up ahead. Each billboard features the same dark-skinned beauty with upraised hands posed with castanets, passionate eyes beckoning, a rose in her hair, breasts voluptuously peeking from a snug, red dress. You can’t help but follow her. It’s why you go there.
Come to La Frontera, 50 miles ahead! La Frontera, 30 miles ahead! La Frontera, 10 miles to go! It’s not a mirage, but a miracle. Just ahead!
By the time you turn off I-95, you feel you know the señorita with castanets and a rose in her hair. Her glance has hypnotized you, pierced through your armor after so many hours on the road, so many nights without dreaming.
Over the flat rooftop of La Frontera’s cantina sits a Ferris wheel, its chairs suspended on this breezeless afternoon. Next to a Shell Station is an eatery serving dogs and chili con carne, where you will go after you have had your fill of beer.
Inside is a long rectangular hall with one row of translucent windows set near the ceiling. You piss out the road in the men’s room in back marked “Vaqueros,” then head to the bar. The chubby Mexican bartender wearing a wide brimmed sombrero pushes a bottle of Dos XX Ambar slightly in your direction. “Our best,” he tells you. You are the only customer at Happy Hour.
“You got señoritas, amigo?” You inquire after spitting out tobacco juice into a paper cup stuffed with napkins.
“No, no, señor,” he laughs like this is an old joke, “no señoritas.”
Not sure of the Spanish word for games, your thumbs press imaginary buttons to indicate your next desire.
“No games, sir. Just a pool table.” He points behind you. So you ask for another brew and some change.
Three cues are propped against a wall next to a pool table that appears to have been scratched by a feral cat. You take the taller middle cue, then wave your arms to indicate music as there is no jukebox. The bartender disappears and soon you hear the scratchy static of Mariachi music, making you wish you hadn’t asked.
Now the saloon doors swing open and two women walk in, one short and dark haired; the other, tall and blonde. The blonde has a ponytail and wears a cap with an equal sign on it backwards on her head and has a birthmark on her right cheek. The short, busty one is wide-eyed and wears an oversized orange tee, khaki shorts and high tops. They order beers at the bar then turn to face you. You raise your bottle to them.
“Interested in a game, ladies.”
“No thanks, man. Just cooling off,” the brunette salutes you back. You take shots with the bowed cue while the women watch and drink, then order another round. As you re-rack, the blonde says, “I’ll play. Wanna put five on it?”
“Sure.” You stretch out your hand, tell them your name. The blonde is Kim. The brunette, Jan. They are from Connecticut, on their way to visit Kim’s parents on Hilton Head. Closer up, you see the stain across Kim’s cheek could be a burn scar.
Having shot pool steadily over the years since you started trucking years ago, you can tell right away by the way Kim arches slow over the table prepping to take a shot that she has played more than a few games. Once, you catch sight of her navel as she stretches, and as you look away Jan meets your gaze.
Whenever it’s your turn, the two women whisper secretively. Kim is ahead until she scratches with the eight-ball, which makes you smile a little, so you agree to play two out of three games.
Feeling your sudden edge, you decide to show you are a good sport by buying your opponents a drink. They are taking their time now before shooting, and you are impatient.
“Let’s go, Kimmy.”
“It’s Kim,” she says as if to put you in your place.
The bartender is your only audience, sometimes staring vaguely in your direction while washing and putting away glasses. More than once you catch him down a shot, his back to you. This is probably his life-- tequilas and tacos, and if he raises his sombrero, steam will rise.
“What’s so funny?” Jan wants to know. You realize you have been smirking and give a big grin, you are just feeling buzzed. They start giggling then--at nothing in particular, little things, the strange afternoon, the bartender too with his black sombrero and its white stitched brim.
“Hey, man, let’s see your hat,” says Jan.
“No. I can’t. Nobody else can wear it.”
“C’mon. We just want to play a game,” says Kim.
“Hey dude, if you have some hot chiles, we can play the sombrero game.” Jan decides to elaborate. “We put some hot chiles in a bowl inside your sombrero, and you play music, see. And we dance around while the music plays, and when it stops, we stop. But if somebody keeps going after the music ends, you have to eat the chiles. You have hot chiles, right?”
“Yes, sure. I have chiles, but you can not use my sombrero, señorita.”
“Be a sport, dude.”
It’s then you sense your opportunity, to show who you are, to help out a little. You approach the bar a little like John Wayne in one of the Westerns your dad used to watch afternoons on that static-y TV set in the den when you sat quietly in a corner, your eyes riveted on the screen too. Heading toward the man, you are aware of a sense of self you have never fully mastered, someone bigger, stronger, as you lean across the bar and peer into his small, dark, red-rimmed eyes that are full of booze, tired and sad, and a little frightened too.
“Give me your hat, amigo--por favor.” You put out one hand, palm up, dramatically.
“No señor. I have to wear it. The establishment requires it. I am not the owner and I do not wish to lose my job.“
“Give me the sombrero--right now,” your fingers snap, then you gaze off into space, looking somewhere between the two women and the man you are trying to intimidate. He shifts a little, then seeing your moment you go for the sombrero fast as a snake, but the dangling cord under the man’s chin catches on his throat, snapping his forehead forward so it strikes the bar hard. The sound of cracking wood reverberates.
“Bam!” Somebody yells and you all laugh, holler, hoot, waiting for the dazed guy with a swelling head to come up, the way it happens in movies or cartoons. But nobody comes up, and soon a hush replaces the merriment, so you lean over to see what is happening.
He is lying on his stomach on the wooden platform, face turned your way, gasping, his left hand jerking toward his heart. His shoulders twitch, his body goes limp and a stain of pee spreads down one pants’ leg.
“Hey,” you say feebly, woozily then turn to face the women, who register what you have seen in your gaze.
“You really hit him, huh?” Jan grabs Kim to keep her from moving toward the bar. “What—did—you--do?” she says accusingly.
“What should we do, do we need to worry—I mean, about fingerprints. Maybe he just passed out,” Kim offers half-heartedly.
“Maybe,” says Jan, pulling her toward the entrance. They disappear into bright light.
Of course it’s up to you to do the right thing. You could go around the bar, check the man’s pulse on his neck, find a phone, dial 911. You could search in back to see if anyone is there, alert someone at the gas station.
You take a shot of tequila, that being the one thing you feel sure about doing, then take the sombrero sitting on the bar, the wide-brimmed accident, point of
consideration, take it to the other side of the bar and place it under the man’s head before leaving.