*ONE MONTH LATER
******NAYARIT, MEXICO
CANTINA EL GALLO*******
CALIX
The heat doesn't lift here. It just sits. Dust in your throat, diesel in the air, sweat drying before it can fall.
The bar isn't a bar. It's concrete walls sweating, tin roof ticking with heat, one dead bulb buzzing. Banda low and distorted out of a speaker with the foam ripped off. The fridge door doesn't close. The floor is wet from mop water and beer, sticky under your shoes.
I take the stool at the end. Cigarette unlit between my knuckles.
The bartender doesn't ask. He puts mezcal in front of me. No ice, no lime. Just the bottle. Pours without looking at me.
I don't drink it.
Two old men slam dominoes in the corner like they are trying to break them. A girl, maybe nineteen, washes glasses in a grey bucket and keeps glancing at me. Not because I'm handsome. Because I'm clean.
