2.
Gifted Blue Eyes [Theme]

Boca Chica—the Little Mouth—was a Paradise rolled and overthrown atop white sand beaches (commonly folklored as the fine dust of crushed Revolutionary skulls) where the house dared not hold nor win.

See also: Our Trotsky Chotski: Screams from the Little Mouth by Julio Mir

Newly-planted casinos dotted the interior of this ivory coastline wearing hotels like shell corporations.

A dozen children (17 shoes shared between) loitered on hot, jagged asphalt, beneficiaries of one such establishments’ open door policy: enticed by the flashing lights, ringing bells, and aromatic smoke clouding the air. They sprinted toward the first Tourist they caught stumbling out half-drunk and broke at mid-noon, seeing in their imaginations a robber baron wearing a top hat while cradling 2 cartoon burlap sacks with dollar signs painted on the front. The youngest settled down for nickels, hard candy, and emptied pockets turned out apologetic.

The oldest, 15 maybe 16, knew better. She sure as hell wasn’t about to gamble her future away playing this childish. Game and “18” in the span of the question, she fantasized about ruby heels rather than a second pink sneaker.

Later, she caressed white sand, smooth like powder, as she lay on her back over-tanned under God’s watchful blue sky.

“Beautiful!” the Tourist shouted, more company funds wired over to cover his losses.

She sat up to wave, smiling back with the lower half of her face, watching him wade nipple deep into waters that never went overhead no matter how short a person or how much a local kind of wished a motherfucker could just drown. Looking past the lumpy speedo vanishing into a spillage of varicose pudding, her 1000 yard stare spanned miles out toward the first-world country she’d now call home.

“…between the blue lululemon bodysuit,” Mademoiselle supposed with a hearty giggle, “and the Burberry accessories, I could call the outfit for this mission my ‘Blu-blu-berry suit.”

Bocaza—“Bigmouth”—was what the Friendly Local Shopkeeper in the outdoor clothing kiosk draped in “premium, top-of-the-line Mainland hand-me-downs” muttered about this black chick under breath. Accosted…

“Bye!”

…endless chit-chat. The Shopkeeper spent several minutes counting out dollars-and-cents from various countries overseas, tallying the amount converted into pesos on scratch paper due to the sole cloud on this bright, ninety-degree day crossing the sun and deading his cheap solar-power calculator which lost its charge at the mention of shade. The currency chart meant to help customers had had the numbers peeled away in scratchy lotto patches rendering it equally clueless.

The chatty black chick seemed wobbly regarding her own balance: six bulging canvas shopper bags and her purse hanging awkwardly off her arms brimming with dresses, jackets, pants, capes, scarves, and sketched ideas. Mademoiselle stabilized herself, open arms ready to embrace the world like cannons on a conquistador ship, and went about her business; heels tapping out her retreat in Morse code on the cobblestone of the Colonial Shopping District, the vainest of veins on Free Boca Chica’s corpse. She whistled the theme song to the prematurely canceled modern-day revival of her favorite telenovela: Miss Me With That Bull—-!

MISTER MISSED HER aka TRIFLIN’ RIFLE
(lyrics provided by Valerie Cruz)

Scoped you from miles out, baby
Know long-distance had to play its part
These closed windows can’t shade ya
My love’s a rifle aimed straight for your heart
But I’m through wanting, honey
You speak radio silence
Need space? That’s fine
I got another goal in mind
I shoot the shot
End mission
Leave broken glass and get
To the door to realize
I’m locked in from the other side!

Attracting eyes, so blue
What are they going to do?
Just more col-lat-er-al
Attracting eyes, so blue
What are they going to do?
Just more col-lat-er-al

Ooh, need my love now, baby?
Bleeding my way down your Boulevard (no)
Been taught sweet words can’t tame ya
On hands-and-knees I’ll make all your pain quit
Oh I’m through wanting, honey
Your life to turn around and heal
So cold lately
I’ll probably go in for the kill
You can forget it, honey
Beg, I won’t relent
Mercy this time
Won’t bother to make the climb!

Attracting eyes, so blue
What are they going to do? (are they going to do?)
Just more col-lat-er-al (collateral damage)
Eyes, so blue (Eyes. So. Blue.)
What are they going to do? (are they going to do?)
Just more col-lat-er-al
Yeah

I’m through wanting honey
Don’t speak radio silence
So cold lately
I got another goal in mind
We can forget
End mission
Leave broken glass and get
Mercy this time
Locked in to make this climb

Attracting eyes, so blue (eyes so blue)
What are we going to do? (are we going to do?)
Just more col-lat-er-al (collateral damage)
Eyes, so blue (Eyes. So. Blue.)
What are we going to do? (are we going to do?)
Just more col-lat-er-al (collateral damage)
(Eyes. So. Blue.)
What are we going to do?
(are we going to do?)
Eyes. So. Blue.
Just more col-lat-er-al
Attracting eyes so blue
What are we going to do? (are we going to do?)
Just more col-lat-er-al (collateral damage)
Baby I need your love too
Baby don’t mean to play rough oooh
Baby you know I love you

The buzzing sensation in her pocket wasn’t solely the sting of a wallet having its wings spread too far in a flight of fancy. Mademoiselle’s beeper relayed time and place:

“Shipment arrived at Löwchen Sawmill
15.596893, -71.812467”

Minor pit stop—well-maintained if impoverished, the bungalow welcomed Mademoiselle, gladly accepting her bags deposited on the floor near her ironing board moonlit as a sewing board. She called Rosemund at the number she copied off his business card to formally accept the modeling gig. Red strings on a corkboard connected by thumbtacked photos and black marker conjecture recreate the sinister web weaved by The Commission. A member of whom (RIP Father Ignacio Bálonez) she’d X’d out herself both on the photograph pinned to the board and in Prague a year or so prior before he could rain “Heaven” down on an unsuspecting populace, leaving 8 members of the Commission, minus Rosemund, to identify.

“Excellent!” Rosemund answered, “As fortune would have it, my employers will all be gathered tomorrow evening at the Isla Cardosa Spa & Resort…”

Night twirled into daylight uninterrupted by sleep. Mademoiselle held up the ball gown stitched together by hand in its younger sister’s honor: tonight.

At the sawmill specified, refurling the map proved impossible until it was rolled into a ball and discarded in frustration. Mademoiselle glanced and moved between identical stack of 2×4 wood to identical stack of 2×4 sawed wood to identical stack of 2×4 sawed wood until the monotony was broken up by one indistinguishable man in a yellow hard hat pointing her back in the direction the other indistinguishable man in a yellow hard hat had just directed her away from.

“Finally!”

Mademoiselle pulled on the wooden dress box hidden in the stack at the coordinates pulling it delicate as a Jenga block.

Inside:

1. A pair of wired headphones
2. Car keys
3. Fake ID with the name Carmelita Applebaum
4. A cassette tape labeled “Fiesta”

Taking out that last item, she inserted it into her tape recorder then hit PLAY.

Magnetic tape (audio decaying, worn out from overuse) chirped to life engendered to neither sex. Breathless staccato annoyance emitted:

“Not to be anal-retentive regarding a ‘Mission Analogue’ but I hope it dawns on your swarthy little brow how utterly tedious this exercise in primitive has been. The less we interact with clay-pots the better. Repairs on your coup de grâce came down to the wire even requiring a couple of my Cicadas be displaced putting the finishing touches on the ride over. Speaking of wire, your funds remain both necessary and ruefully inaccessible without arousing undue attention from The Company. I would like to be imbursed, nevermind reimbursed. Look inside the trailer above license plate A119644.”

Mademoiselle wasn’t sure either where one would put a PAUSE in this machine gunfire text-to-speech by KITUNDUKUTU (ironically “Kitten”) nor whether they were man, woman, or machine—and thus anticipated their conversations with the eagerness of message 55 on voicemail from an aggrieved ex-stalker.

KITUNDUKUTU Post-scripted:

“By the way, I took the liberty of suggesting a few minor modifications to your tailor. Properly utilize your proclivity for attracting male attention. Less cloak-and-dagger, more cleavage-and-stiletto. ”

That negligible negligee of gloomy grey crêpe she had mistaken for the box’s lining unfurled into a barely there cocktail…

Dress him down gently, Mademoiselle thought, I saw it coming. The matter has already been redressed and rectified.

Bitters nevertheless oozed up the back of her throat as she flipped the cassette and hit RECORD:

“Purr however you want, my sweet Kitten, but I will not play victim to your cretinous fashion sense!”

Refurling the dress proved, too, impossible (as little as there was to fold) until it was rolled into a ball and discarded in frustration.

Moving deeper into the sawmill, semi-trucks parked waiting to transport the day’s lumber, Mademoiselle clocked the A119644 license plate and lifted the roll-up door of the unlocked tractor trailer, finding her spirits lifted once again.

0 to 60 in 1.5 seconds time
Pedestrians need not fear crossing our path:
My sweet Pantera C-103 stops and turns on a dime.

Her name’s Pride 1, carving through hillside in a tight, narrow swath
Bright eyes greedily swallowing 2 night’s worth of shadow and haze
Pray for any prey that’s trapped in her gaze.

Ode to Pride 1

Minimalist architecture lorded itself over the mountain propped at its base reduced to its footstool. A fortress which abided no law, natural or man-made, besides 1— “Form follows function”. The Modernist credo. Glass, steel, and reinforced concrete arranged in blocks, all straight lines spanning 260,000 square feet.

Mademoiselle drifted the steep curve of the country road lined with indigenous palm trees, recently imported back from a failing Tinsel Town at 11-almost-12 times the initial cost, through the open gate.

A screech: “Halt!” from tuxedoed Security is simultaneously regarded and disregarded, the supercar cutting off the silver Rolls Royce Seraph-of-dubious-skill-parallel-parking where Pride 1 slid in effortless. Mademoiselle touched up her make-up in the rearview; no heed was given toward the Middle-Aged White Woman bang? Bang. BANGING! on the windshield.

Gull-wing doors flipped upward, buttons pushed, Pantera roared its engine appearing to take the same defensive pose as its owner who rose and kept rising over this bourgeoisie petite. Standing a solid 6’4 in 6-inch fringe mule heels.

“Is this a hill worth dying on?” Mademoiselle pressed, barely acknowledging the woman while painting her lips blood-red.

The woman’s answer trailed off becoming more and more hypothetical until an inside voice stepping back into her retreating vehicle.

“We’ll park next to the riff raff, Harold! Sebastio will not hear the end of this! This is not how VIP ought to be treated.” could have been heard had Mademoiselle ever concerned herself with the herd.

“I’ll be goddamned!” The Valet whistled, catching car keys thrown without a glance.

Strutting down her own red carpet, the statuesque black woman in the blue 18th century ball gown fashioned from 20th century boutique fashion—skirt frills in triplet concentric circles like poetry-in-motion and topped by her patented Cordobes hat favoring her right side draped in a veil—left a trail of pale faces gawking and speechless.

The Doorman was at a loss: What to say? he shook his head in disbelief at this black porcelain doll.

“Name, madam?” he settled on.

The harsh word shrieked in her mind like microphone feedback.

“Note to self,” she thought, “Carve ‘oiselle’ into this bird-brain’s chest.”

“Carmelita” she started, showing her ID with a sigh, “Applebaum.”

Finger scrolled down guest list landed on

“Mrs. Applebaum, yes, beg pardon. Proceed inside toward the gallery. The auction will begin in a few hours.”

Inside the Isla Cardosa Spa & Resort, Mademoiselle felt woeful, out of place, bumping shoulders with this city’s elite. Creeping realization snatched confidence from her. “I’m not like them!” “They’re not like me!” tangoed in her mind. Existential dread cataloged all evidence repressed. She thought back to the cream faces in Faux Beaucoup admiring the rich blackness of her hair:
showering her with ‘negrita’ ‘negrita’ ‘negrita’.

How could I be so blind!? These wealthy whites…

She embraced herself shaking with righteous indignation.

…had lost all decorum and good taste! Old money cradling and curdled by Nouveau Riche sensibility! Lacking that substrata’s admittedly admirable ambition appearing themselves to have just rolled out of bed. Couldn’t be bothered to dress for any occasion, wearing flip-flops in Rosemund’s bonafide gourmet restaurant worthy of the City of Light itself! Unbothered to step foot out of pajama bottoms or even disrobe out of hotel robes or their morning clothes for this masquerade ball…

I’m an island of 1, she swooned with glove on forehead, refugee from the old world and its ways.

The Server in his white dinner jacket held out a tray on his left hand balancing a champagne offering to Mademoiselle.

Lazier, still! The help dressed the part more than their masters!

She drained three glasses without looking.

“If only we had our tête-à-tête at the restaurant,” an Unmistakable Voice mused to himself aloud, “I could have spared you this humiliation.”

Mister, ever the awkward accountant no matter how much he peacocked or peacoated, fought and scratched—her self-conscious Dandy Lion, stood by in his white checkered suit allowing the corner of his mouth to twitch from the deluge of mocking laughter it held at bay.

What was with those ridiculous sunglasses? was the foremost and apropos thing on Mademoiselle’s mind before decorum subsumed it with ‘more important, immediate’ thoughts:

“You’re too kind,” she replied.

“Funny how my virtue always repels you,” he feigned wounded, “Your cruelty only attracts me.”

“Like a gadfly to—”

“Shush, now. Crass talk diminishes us.”

“My sweet mockingbird… I’ve heard one too many of your songs.”

“What good are songs without dances? You already on your back foot.”

Instinct swam back to the surface; Mister was never a wit: nit or otherwise. No resistance was made when her trembling hand hesitated reaching for the sunglasses on Mister’s face.

Horror! Abomination!

“Dinclinsin!” Mademoiselle spat out, slur drooling on heavy lips, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIS EYES!?”

Pale blue irises wilted on white mounds,
stems cut
awash in saltwater
surrounded by a splotchy white strip where
nurtured soil with its light fragrance of cocoa and shea butter
had been chemical blasted into white sand,
no longer blooming at the sight of her
or any stimulus at all.
In thrall to no horizon beyond that vacant
endless beach CHARLOTTE and CHARLOTTE twice more!

“I’ve missed you,” Mister’s lips flapped.

The lightheadedness seizing her wasn’t mere terror. A second gentleman caught in her periphery clasped her head and neck from behind, somehow both firm and delicate, holding her in his arms speckled with roses as she fell backward.

“I’ve made special accommodations in anticipation of your arrival, Agent CHARLOTTE,” Rosemund taunted, baring teeth in the shape of a smile.

Rosemund thinks I’m CHARLOTTE!

Rabbit-Caution, dragged and drugged, couldn’t escape her trap closed tight as a vise.

I have to warn him! Have to—

“You’re guest-of-honor at this little Black Soirée.” Rosemund said to Mademoiselle’s unconscious body, undisturbed, “Welcome.”