Roberto to the Dark Tower Came by Tom Epperson

Author:Tom Epperson [Epperson, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Meerkat Press, LLC
Published: 2018-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Three days until the day Roberto is to die

When Roberto awakes, there’s a coarse red and black blanket covering him. He sits up, and looks around. In the soft light of dawn, he sees the dark-green jungle, the brownish-green river. He’s the last one up. Daniel’s up front smoking a cigarette and talking to Ernesto, while Lina is sitting with her back to Roberto, talking on a satellite phone. She’s telling someone about the convoy crossing the bridge and the Leclerc tanks. Now as she puts the phone away in her backpack, she sees Roberto’s awake, and smiles.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he says, rubbing his neck. He climbs over the seat and sits down. “Thanks for the blanket.”

“Thank Roque, it belongs to him.”

Roberto turns back to Roque, holds the blanket up. “Hey, Roque, thanks!”

Roque smiles. “You were . . .” he says, and then he hugs himself and pretends to shiver.

Roberto laughs. “Yeah, I was freezing.”

The boat starts rocking a little as Daniel comes back his way. “Hey Roberto, you’ll never guess what Ernesto used to do.”

“What?”

“He was an artificial inseminator on cattle ranches. He’d get semen from the bulls and put it into the cows.”

“So how did the bulls feel about that, Ernesto?” says Roberto.

“It made them sad,” says Ernesto. “They’d rather put it into the cows themselves.”

Roberto and Daniel laugh, but Lina frowns.

“Cattle ranches. Do you know how destructive they are?”

Daniel yawns and stretches. “I need to piss.”

Roque steers the boat to the bank. Everyone gets out to stretch their legs and relieve themselves. The river’s low; there’s a wide strip of dried mud between it and the edge of the forest. Roberto walks a couple of meters into the trees. As he pees, he sees small dark shapes moving in the treetops.

Roque is near him, peeing too. Roberto points and says, “What kind of monkeys are those?”

Roque smiles. “Squirrel monkeys. They’re waking up. They’re looking for breakfast.”

Roque is wearing a blue baseball cap, a maroon T-shirt, black jeans, and knee-high rubber boots. The cap has the head of a red bull on it, and above that: CHICAGO BULLS. Roberto asks him where he got it.

“From an American. He was a basketball player.”

“On the Chicago Bulls?”

“Yes.”

They both zip up, then head back to the boat.

“How’d you happen to meet him?” says Roberto.

“I was a guide. At this place in the jungle where tourists would come. He was a black man,” and he raises one hand way up. “He was very, very tall. So tall they had to put two beds together for him so he could sleep.”

Roberto laughs. “Yeah?”

“He was very nice. Always making jokes with people. He liked me. He said, ‘Roque, come to Chicago, I’ll buy you a ticket, I’ll show you the city, you can come see me play.’”

“Do you think you’ll ever go?”

“No. Why? I don’t want to leave the jungle.”

* * *

The sun rises over the trees and it becomes hot on the river. Roberto rubs sun block on his face and neck and arms.

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