FLEEING BACK TO NOWHERE
ALM No.93, September 2026
SHORT STORIES
I came out of the john and Billy was sitting there.
"We gotta get out of this pissant town," he said.
The TV was on and only the gambling junkie was watching it. A young kid, an expat, a transplant, who lived only to wager on everything in existence. He'd win a small bet on some college basketball game and say, 'there's my lunch for tomorrow.' He bet for his meals, if he lost he starved.
"How much money do we have left?" I asked Billy.
He told me two hundred but I knew there was more, there was always more, he was never straight with me. He kept some of it in his sock and would stuff it down in there when he thought I wasn't looking. Little fucker was tired but what could you do, you needed someone around. There were times when I wasn't so sure and then the loneliness would come rolling round and smack me in the face and I'd realize the error of my ways.
Billy was a mess though, for sure. Look at him in his rags, his beat-up baseball cap, his flannel shirt hanging down. No one had worn a flannel shirt since Cobain had killed himself and here we were, thirty years later and Billy was still rocking the look. He was at least thirty years behind the times, more like fifty, he was lost in the nineties and didn't care, he wanted to stay there, forever. He'd tell you so, when he was drunk.
Which he always was. He was four deep into the Tecates and asking for more, as we speak.
"Cool it, dick," I said to him. "I'm not dragging you out of any more bars this week."
"Not askin ya to," he said.
He stared at the basketball game, out of desperation. "We gotta get out of this pissant town," he said.
"Yeah, you said that already," I said. "Yesterday it was 'shithole country', is it just the town or is it the entire country?"
"Fuck you," Billy said.
Pablo gave him another beer and I said okay fine and I got ahold of one too. The previous evening a hooker had rolled in with a pair of johns, the first one we'd seen since we'd been down there. There'd been a brief fracas and then she'd scrammed, apparently the transaction hadn't gone smoothly, someone hadn't liked something. Fairly cute girl, long dark hair, sassy, waving her little finger in both their faces, a pair of derelicts staring blankly back. The Mexican girls weren't all obese like back home, fewer McDonalds I suppose. Although they did have a Carls Jr.
"I'm not going back to that tourist alley again," Billy said after a healthy swig. "You said we weren't going back there again and then we did last night."
"The hot chicks are all down there, all the tourists and shit," I said.
"I don't care, it's a parade of morons. And the beers are double the price, literally double. Why pay one-twenty when you can go two blocks and pay sixty here."
"Because there are no chicks here."
"Fuck chicks. Done with em. Too much fuckin trouble."
"That's the idea."
"What's the idea."
"To fuck em."
"You're not funny."
I knew what he meant though, women had worn me completely the fuck out as well. You never knew what they wanted and they would never tell you and even if you figured it out, it was always something other than what you had. The satisfied woman had yet to be birthed. Whatever they got, they wanted more, and then when they got that they changed their mind and moved on to something else. The goalposts changed so often they might as well not have been there at all.
"Let's try the red bar again," I suggested.
"Which one?"
"The red one, the one upstairs, with the wacky doorway, the one you can't find."
"There was no one in there last time and it was a Friday night, it was eleven o' clock and they were fuckin closing up already."
"Maybe it'll be different tonight. Come on."
It was worth a try, at least. They had about three bars there worth going to and we were sick of the other two already. The tourist shit down by the water didn't count, it was like America with Spanish instead of English, you might as well jump into the sea. I kept hoping to find a local dive or two further inland, some little cave or shack just for the natives but they didn't seem to have many of them. I don't think the natives had much money, in fact I was sure they didn't. Then again we didn't either.
"Wonder where that hooker went," I said as we ambled along.
"Home," Billy said.
The red bar was along the main drag, towards the middle, halfway between the Irish pub and the hotel. It was on the second floor and you had to know that the entrance was down at the other end of the block or you couldn't get in. Mexico was fucked up that way and that was what I liked about it, Billy's comments about pissant towns notwithstanding. He was like a chick himself, never satisfied. When we were back in San Diego all he did was bitch about the states.
We walked up the stairs and went in. The place was empty, just the two bartenders from before and one drunk schmuck at the bar, a little guy wobbling on the stool with his eyes all googling and the beer running down his shirt. They had about ten TVs going in this place, it was supposedly a sports bar. Football stuff everywhere. To me it looked like just another den of iniquity. Not that I was complaining.
The drunk spoke up immediately, he needed a friend. Another young kid, another transplant, another lost soul.
"Hey, my name's Vic," he said, holding out a hand. Billy shook it, I was on the other side and didn't want to anyway. The bartenders were young kids themselves. Mexico was young. Maybe they all died here before they got old.
We looked around. Vic spilled some more beer down his shirt.
"Lemme buy you guys a drink," he said. We stared at the bottles in front of us. One of the most foolproof ways of telling if someone was insane was if they tried to buy you a drink with a full one sitting right in front of you. There were guys back home who did this and all of them were insane, without exception.
So we knew Vic was insane. And he was insistent on proving it.
"I got deported," he said.
"Not surprised," I said, quietly.
"Yeah, I got deported, like seven years ago. I'm filthy rich though, I own eleven properties. I run this town."
The bartenders turned around and busied themselves elsewhere, they didn't like Vic too much, it was fairly plain to see. After a few more minutes neither did I.
"I'm filthy rich," Vic said. "I own eleven properties."
I stared straight ahead and let Billy handle the load. He was better at handling barflies than I was but only marginally and I could see him already beginning to wilt.
"Less do some coke," Vic said. My ears perked up. Billy politely declined, I swatted him.
"Are you nuts? It's Mexico, it's a foreign country," he whispered aside.
"Let the man speak," I said.
"Come on, less do some coke," Vic said, trying to pull Billy toward the bathroom. I looked at the bartenders, they were pointedly looking away, trying to remain uninvolved; I took that as a sign from God and interceded on Billy's behalf, making myself available for the first time. Vic grabbed my arm and dragged me into the bathroom. He took out his little baggie and away we snorted. The bathroom was a tiny red space, dimly lit. Everything in this bar was red, in a minute I'd be snorting and pawing away and looking round for the flag, ready to charge.
We finished up and went back to the bar. Maybe Vic wasn't so bad after all, however many properties he did or didn't own. My outlook improved.
"Gimme nuther beer," Vic said. The kid shook his head, smiling cryptically. "Whassah problem?" Vic said.
"You're the problem, Vic," the chick bartender said with her back turned, looking up at the TV.
"C'mon, gimme nuther beer," Vic said.
The kid brought it over, a giant mug of draft beer, as big as your head. Vic picked it up and spilled half of it down his shirt, it was all over his face, he was practically bathing in it now. The bartender smiled his subtle little smile. Back in the states I would have assumed he was a douchebag, you know, a Rico Suave type too good for the human race in general and yet down here I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and I was probably right about it, too. Down here he just seemed laid back, unassuming, a chill dude just trying to make it in the world, same as everybody else. Good-looking kid too, dark and mysterious, probably good with the ladies.
But back to Vic. He was swimming in beer and ready for more. "Less do some coke," he said. Billy turned away, disgusted. Billy was turning into a little prude, he was pussying out more and more these days. Yeah it was Mexico but there was nobody there and the bartenders were obviously perfectly fine with it. Vic took his baggie out, stuck his finger in and then tried sticking it up Billy's nose. Billy told him to fuck off but he didn't. He snorted some right out of the bag and then threw it on the bartop, spilling white powder everywhere. I stared covetously, jonesing. Vic was rapidly turning into my new hero.
Billy got up to use the john and when he came back he sat on my other side, to withdraw himself from the line of fire. Vic moved over a stool and latched onto me again.
"Lemme buy you a drink," he said.
"No, let me buy you one," I said, and did. Shots went up and shots went down. "Everyone is friends down here in Mexico," he said. "Everyone is nice, there are no problems. Don't worry, I run this town."
Vic babbled, he waved his hands around, he leaned back and almost fell over. He settled down momentarily. "I was in love once," he told me. The bartendress groaned and moved further away. "Yeah, I was in love once." He swiped the bartop carelessly with his arm and the little baggie went down onto the floor. I groaned, inwardly.
Vic told me a little about the girl that had gotten away. His eyes were misting up, he was waxing maudlin. I didn't have any time for that shit on that particular night but I listened with all due respect, in return for the coke I'd been given. There was a spot of it sitting on the bar in front of me, I dabbed it with my fingertip when no one was looking and sniffed it up. I didn't care, I had no shame, I'd had precious little to begin with and now I had even less. I tried hitting on the bartendress and got nowhere fast. She was originally from LA and spoke good English and had seen about a thousand guys like me too many. She probably saw that many in a given week.
"Fuck this shit, man," Billy said from the other side. "Seriously, let's get outta here."
"I'm talking with my new friend," I told him, over my shoulder.
"That's enough, Pete."
"You have better places to be?"
"Yeah, anywhere but here."
"Okay, there's the Irish bar, tourist alley, or back to the hotel."
"What about that place halfway back, Sharkeys or whatever."
"That place is cold as hell, it has no heat."
"Why the fuck did we come down here in February anyway."
"Because it's supposed to be nicer than this. Fucking climate change and all."
Billy stared sullenly at me, his jowls hanging, his spirits as tarnished as his perceived prospects. He tried to speak and found he could not. He just stared.
"Here, back to the Irish bar, that tourist alley shit or back to the hotel. You pick."
"Fine. Let's go to tourist alley then."
"You're horny then, are you. About time."
"Fuck you, Pete."
I'd defeated him yet again. In truth he was a damn easy fucker to do it to but it never made the victories any less sweet. I was a petty bastard and this would never change. I measured my small victories relative to the things around them, savored them like the little daily treats they were. I was a person becoming more and more content with the little things in life with each and every passing day. When I was an old man I'd be making love to my rocker.
We went to tourist alley. That was what the expats called it down there, tourist alley, the two or three block strip with the bright lights and the loud noises and the touts running after you the whole time. I'd been offered coke booze weed and women within the first thirty seconds of getting there on the first night; they probably offered you young boys if you stuck around any longer. And Billy was right, the beers were literally twice the price. The things you did for the littler head. Truth be told I was only marginally more interested in poontang these days than my beleaguered companion was but the coke was now chasing through me and I was becoming increasingly in the mood for love. Coke had a way of doing that to you, problem was it didn't last long enough.
So we hit the bar in tourist alley, the big monstrosity at the base of the street, the high profile place with the corporate sponsors and shit, the kind of place I would have steered miles around back in the states to avoid. The girls were all bundled up, it was too cold, it was highly disappointing. February in Mexico was normally better than this, the world was changing, in a few years seasons would be a thing of the past. Hail falling in the desert and all that. Billy sat despondently with his bottle.
"Hafta get outta this shithole country," he said to it.
"We're back to the whole country now, at least that's been settled," I said to my own bottle. "Look, you know what might happen to me if we go back, right?"
"I know."
"Well, then? And on what money would you subsist if you returned there without me, hmmm?" No response. "Yeah, so shut the fuck up and drink your beer."
I was in trouble back home, the law was after me. If they caught up to me I was a goner, I was dead meat, I was looking at five to ten easily. I wasn't big enough fry to warrant a welcome party at the border (I didn't think) but anything was possible these days. And Billy knew that. And Billy didn't care. Because Billy was an asshole. Then again so was I.
We went upstairs into one of the clubby clubs and it was no better, a bunch of dickheads hamming it up, the girls all bunched up in protective conglomerates. "You can't even talk to them, what's the fuckin point," Billy said. "Not when you look like that," I said. "Why don't you get out of the rags at least every so often."
"You're that much better," he said.
"I get laid at least once a year though," I said.
We went down toward the water. A couple of places open there, open air, too dark, too cold. Wintertime lay upon the whole thing, threatening to suffocate it. Tiki style, tacky, thatched rooves, swings for seats. A mariachi band playing on the stage, shivering Mexicans trying to live it up for the benefit of inebriated gringos. The whole thing nauseating.
"You're right, we have to get out of here," I said into Billy's ear.
"About time," he said. "Fuckin hallelujah."
Mexico was great in lots of ways, it had its charms. The sun was out (most of the time) and the food was great and the beers were cheap but for some reason Rosarito wasn't doing it for me. I'd been in a decade-long funk and I don't think Valhalla would have improved my spirits any. You were down for too long and then suddenly you found that up was completely out of reach. There were temporary cures for this kind of thing but unfortunately we'd left Vic back at the red bar.
Billy went to the john and returned. He'd been drinking two beers to my every one and was just about done, I'd probably be propping him up on the way back. Hopefully he wouldn't puke or start any crap with anyone. A group of young kids was down on the beach, dancing around the fire, whirling and twirling like dervishes in the shadows. I didn't care, I was sick of it. They could hang me when we got back, whatever, I was tired of Mexico and ready for whatever came next. Even if whatever came next was just the Great American Death, revisited.
Nightmares at night. Despondency, desperation. An entire world on the edge. AI, systems failing, robber barons, hail in the desert. Monkeys scurrying like vermin, like lice, like the eternal plague. A dream I'd had once too often. Morning, light through curtains, the morning does indeed come. I noticed a smell, I looked over at Billy, he'd puked over the side of the bed.
"Asshole," I said, and tried to get some more sleep.
We packed up our things and wrangled up a taxi. Billy had the hangover from hell and wouldn't stop bitching about it. I told him to quit but he wouldn't. My mind was on Mexico, about the mixed feelings involved; yeah it had gotten stale but the fucker had a serious appeal, it got under your skin, into your blood. The old anxiety had faded away from the moment I came across the border and the only time it had resurfaced was whenever we ran into anything American, fast food joints, gringo dickheads hogging the sidewalk, that fucking tourist alley. White people were the bane of planet Earth, it was time to disengage from western civilization entirely, forever.
But not right now, apparently. There we were, racing back to the border and I barely even knew why. Because shithead had expressed dissatisfaction, that wasn't a good enough reason. And I could get my ass arrested on top of it. Sometimes things happened in life seemingly of their own accord, without direction, without the possibility of contradiction or diversion. I wasn't a big fan of God but perhaps he occasionally intervened. Maybe fate was actually a thing.
Billy's outlook was bleak, it was physically manifesting all over him, it was bothering me.
"Snap out of it," I said.
"My head," he said, holding it.
I watched the Mexican countryside go by outside the window, all the sun-drenched aridity, the brown hills, the water on the horizon all blue and delicious, like a giant jolly rancher stretched lengthwise. I was going to miss this place. The cab driver knew little English and didn't want to try any and I knew little Spanish myself and so the ride remained fairly quiet. Billy moaned occasionally but that was about it.
We made it to Tijuana before the traffic stopped. There was the border, just across the road, a line of giant iron pillars barring the way. We sat for awhile and then the driver got impatient and made for a side street and we skirted the problem that way. As we rejoined the main road I looked back and saw what looked like a pile of cars behind us, haphazardly arranged. There was smoke in the distance too, I wanted to ask the driver about it but the language barrier persisted and in a few minutes we'd made it to the hotel. Hotel Economico, less than thirty bucks, deals still existed on earth.
We went inside, a giant female frog was squatting in a cage. Billy was still moaning and she was glaring at him with distaste.
"Please excuse my beleaguered comrade," I said. "We have a reservation."
"I can check you in, but you can't leave the hotel afterwards," she said in good English.
"What?"
"No, they took out a major drug lord today and the cartels are attacking everyone. Check the news, you'll see."
"We can't leave the hotel? At all?"
"No, it isn't safe, you have to shelter in place. We're doing it too, the stores are all closing up, everyone's going home."
We didn't know what else to do, we were tired, we checked in anyway. We went upstairs to the room, there was no heat and it was cold. Some lunatic with headphones on was sitting in the little interior courtyard cursing to himself, wishing harm on the entire world in general. The fates had intervened and not in a good way. Fucking cartels, if you could believe that. Someone had been telling us the other night that the cartels very often outgunned the police, that in a standoff the odds were close to even, or worse. It was a fucked up country no matter how much one loved it or how much one was going to miss it. The potential for disaster was everpresent. It was paradise sitting there with your tacos and beer in the sunshine and then the police jeep rolled around the corner with the machine gun turret in back; you were traipsing around the countryside as if in a dream and then they took out some drug lord and the cars and buses were being set on fire and the roadblocks were popping up all over the place. There was no perfect place on earth. It still beat sitting on your ass back in the states, waiting for your demise. I suppose you just chose what tormented you and then permitted it to do so.
We sat in the restaurant downstairs and checked the news, the frog hadn't been bullshitting, the news was everywhere. Flights canceled, giant plumes of smoke, Puerto Vallarta in complete disarray. We sat at the table eyeing the open door suspiciously and ate runny huevos rancheros and chatted with old gringos bent in half who'd been down there in Meheeko forever. They said stuff like this happened every so often and that yes, you had to take it seriously, the cartels did not play around. There was little of the diplomatic hedging you heard so often in these types of conversations, when discussing the safety situation with the locals in some supposedly dodgy locale. Shit was real here and everyone knew it. There was a hush in the streets, traffic was sporadic and when a car did pass by it was invariably going way too fast. There were sirens in the distance and a lot of worried frowns on the passing faces. They looked resigned to their fates, they were used to adversity, and not the first world kind, the real deal, the genuine article, dirty water, not enough food, real fears of not making it through the day. There were times when existence felt foolish, like it wasn't even worth it anymore. There were days that made you question your sanity. There were lives that felt unfair, whether being lived personally or viewed from a distance. Way too many of them.
"I don't wanna sit here all day, it's too cold up there," Billy said.
"Neither do I," I said. "What are we gonna do."
"We could make a run for the border."
"What about the snipers."
"What does that old feller know, he doesn't know anything."
"Yeah but they could be out there, you don't know either."
We were at an impasse. I swallowed down some more soggy beans and considered the matter further, and drew no further conclusions. How was one to know anything. I grumbled and Billy grumbled back and all we did was sit there.
Finally I stood up. "Fine, we're going," I said, loudly. The frog in the cage glared distastefully again and I didn't care. Fuck Mexico and fuck the drug cartels and fuck death, kick it in the nuts, enough was enough, time to get out. We retrieved our bags and handed the key back at the desk and went out into the street. The sun was shining, brightly, it looked like nothing was going on, like nothing should have been going on, like nothing had ever gone on. It looked so nice out there. It looked like paradise, continued.
I looked right, up the street. Supposedly you took a right up there and crossed the highway via some sort of footbridge but we didn't know.
"Fuck this, let's take an Uber," Billy said.
"Yeah," I agreed.
I took out my phone and pushed the buttons and five minutes later a car pulled up and we were off. Our driver was Javier, a young swashbuckling kid, brash and cheerful, afraid of nothing, ready for anything. We told him about the drug lord and his skies darkened entirely, somehow he didn't know, he hadn't gotten the word. He got on his phone as he drove and started mumbling worriedly to himself in Spanish. Coming around a bend we hit a huge wall of traffic, the beginning of the queue leading to the border. Javier was calling various people, his wife, his mother, checking if they were all right, telling them to stay inside, to not go anywhere that day. 'Shelter in place', some kind of military term I thought, I'd heard it at least once before. We however were not sheltering in place, we were stuck in traffic like sitting ducks, helplessly waiting for the fates to strike us down. Beneath the underpass were groupings of scruffy looking people sifting through large piles of garbage. A gardener of some sort wearing a uniform was doing some weeding along the fringe. Women went between the cars with bundles on their heads, selling various things, men too (albeit bundle-less), selling watches, lottery tickets, whatever they'd scrounged up. You eked out your existence here, you didn't have a 'career', you hustled on the street or you died. The police were entrepreneurial and working for the cartels was completely understandable. If we were in God's own image then heaven was a place I wanted to stay away from entirely.
"My God, that line," Billy said, observing the snarl. "It's endless."
"How's your hangover?"
"It's receding, for some reason."
"The threat of imminent death will do that for you."
"I suppose."
Billy was okay, he was a good kid, I was glad he was there with me. I wouldn't have wanted to face this shit alone. Javier got off the phone for the third time and inserted it into a holder on the dashboard and we watched the news; the footage was mainly of Puerto Vallarta, the place was going up in smoke. What a place, what a world, what a life.
It took well over an hour but eventually we got where we needed to be. We paid Javier and got out and found the queue for foot traffic, it was even longer than for the cars, it wasn't just around the block it was all through Tijuana, it snaked around corners and around bends and across roads and back again, past kiosks, past vendors, over the river and through the woods, over the hills and far away. Apparently half the world had the same idea we did.
"Fuck this place," Billy said.
"I know, shithole country. It's not that bad, it's just a line."
"You say this as we flee for the border in order to avoid getting murdered."
"Point taken. Shut up anyway, it's too hot."
And it was. The sun was out in force and beating down on us as we stood there with our packs along the sidewalk, it was cooking us pretty good. So much for the cold February. I looked at the people in front of us, in back, natives mostly, women and children standing there patiently, chatting, shooting the breeze, laughing, playing little games with each other. The prevailing personality type here was so charmingly mellow and light-hearted, it was vastly superior to the nitwit routine back home, the giant spoiled brat thing they all insisted on doing. There was a song by the Who called Eminence Front and I'd never bothered to figure out exactly what they meant by the title but I assumed he was talking about the nitwits and it certainly described the phenomenon well enough. Arrogance at all costs, privilege at all times, be a dick and get away with it. There was almost none of that down here.
We waited. And waited. The sun beat down. We kept waiting for the cartels to arrive and they didn't, no trucks peeling around corners, no molotov cocktails or gunfire or kidnappers waving weapons around. Maybe the reports were exaggerated, maybe all the action was down south. And yet we'd seen one roadblock already that day. Again, how was one to know. Get the fuck out was probably the best option.
As we finally approached the gates my thoughts turned to my other predicament, my legal quagmire, the possibility of detainment, the looming spectre of a rather prolonged confinement. Whatever, you rolled the dice and took your shot. Staying in Tijuana wasn't much of an option. Anyway Billy would never have gone for it, he was at his wits' end, I could tell, I'd lose my wingman if I tried it. Dive in, hold your breath and see what happens.
And yet my pulse was quickening as the line dwindled down in front of us, as we passed from bright sunshine into cavernous interior, my breathing was becoming more labored as I considered what I was potentially getting myself into. The idea had been to stay down there for a good long while, to let things blow over, I didn't know what I'd been thinking. I looked around and watched as the scene changed; the guards now looked like executioners, the gatekeepers sitting at their desks like magistrates, the people all around me like snitches from hell. Ten years in prison was a long time, even five was. Even six months. And I was no sort of tough guy, I'd never make it, I wouldn't last a week. I'd be one of the ones getting raped on a daily basis.
We made it to the front of the line. Billy went through first, there were no problems. Then it was my turn. My tongue had turned to sandpaper and my voice was cracking as he asked me questions, I was croaking things back at him. He looked at the passport, cross-referenced it with his screen, looked back at the passport for far too long. My eyes went dim, I was seeing spots around the margins.
"I don't feel well, I feel sick," I mumbled. I stepped backwards and did a slow measured fade back into the crowd.
"Wait a minute, sir," the guy was saying. The guards were there but most of them were pretty far away and the one nearest the door wasn't paying enough attention. Finally he saw me as I was backpedaling toward the entryway and he was moving quickly to intercept but now I was jogging and then running then sprinting, toward all that bright sunlight pouring down, toward all that paradise, all that salvation, heading headlong for whatever awaited me there.
Scott Taylor hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a writer and a musician, and an avid world traveler. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Vast Chasm, Blaze Vox, Adelaide Literary and East Of the Web. His novels 'Chasing Your Tail' and 'Screwed' have been released with Silver Bow Publishing, and a pair of novellas have been included in anthologies with Running Wild Press. He graduated from Cornell University and was a computer programmer in a past life.
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