Guys at school told us about this nightclub in Juarez. A wild place, according to these guys, and you had to see it to believe it. So about a month after high school graduation, I told my parents I was going on a weekend fishing trip up north with my buddies, Luis and Tony. Instead, we drove south from Albuquerque to El Paso in Luis' ’55 Crown Victoria. We thought of it as a kind of graduation present to ourselves.

Since we had been told that it wasn't wise to take your car into Juarez at night, we took a taxi from our motel in El Paso. The nightclub was jammed with people that Friday night. We wandered around for a while, had a beer, then Luis, Tony, and I split up, and it was every man for himself. I met a girl, we danced a few times, and I was sitting with her at her table. She didn't speak English, so I gave her my line in Spanish about being an architect from Chicago. I was doing all right, too, when along came Tony and sat next to me and had to practically yell to be heard over the music. He said that we should go to this place the bartender told him about. A whorehouse. Beautiful women and good prices, according to Tony, according to the bartender. Besides, if we didn't like it there we could come back here.

Suddenly, I noticed that the woman I was with seemed to know more English than she let on about because she had this look on her face and she said something that I didn’t quite hear over the music. Then she got up and walked away. I turned to Tony like I wanted to kill him, but he just sat there smiling. What! said he, real innocent-like. The first thing I thought was, why the hell would I want to go to a whorehouse when there are all these women here? But then I thought, I've never been to a whorehouse. And about the woman I was with I thought, so I spend a few bucks buying her drinks, we dance, I feed her the bull, and maybe I get laid. And did I come here maybe to get laid? Naturally, it became clear to me, and I said to Tony, fuck it!

Luis was leaning against the bar all by his lonesome. He had a girlfriend back home, and at first he said he didn't want to go to a place like that, but he probably gave in because he didn't want Tony and me to think he was pussy-whipped, which we did anyway. So he said fuck it, too. But I knew Luis wouldn't take a whore.

From the nightclub we took another taxi, which was nothing but a beat-up old green and white Volkswagen with the passenger seat taken out, which meant we had to squeeze into the back seat. Tony told the taxista where we wanted to go, and it didn't take long to get to the place. I was surprised because it was a huge, two-story, wood-frame house with a big front porch, the kind of house you would see in the older neighborhoods almost anywhere. The house dwarfed the other houses on the street. We paid the taxista, but he didn't leave. Instead, it looked like he was going to wait around for more business.

Tony pointed to the red porch light and said, I'll be goddamned! It's true what they say! Luis told him to be cool, which Tony wasn't capable of being.

Some kid who couldn't have been more than nine or ten greeted us at the door. He was very polite. Pasen, caballeros, pasen. As he led us in I noticed that the way he limped one of his legs must have been shorter than the other.
I figured that front room must have been one hell of a living room in its day. It was dimly lit, and the place was downright cold, like they had the swamp cooler blasting away on high. Man, it's like a freezer in here, said Luis. Tony smiled. Don't worry, boy. Things'll warm up soon enough. To the left was a long mahogany bar, where a few guys, who paid us no mind, stood and drank. I wondered if they were customers or if they just came in for a drink because that side of the room did look like a bar. To the right were two big, maroon couches and a couple of coffee tables.

The kid told us, Siéntese, caballeros, por favor.

I knew this guy in high school who said he had been to a whorehouse, and he said you have to tip everyone because that's how they make their living. So I gave the kid a dollar and said, Bueno, amigo, traíganos las mujeres.

The kid smiled and said, Por supuesto, señor, and he went to a back room just off the bar.

Hey, what did you do that for? Tony said. You didn't have to give the crippled little fucker no money.

Buddy or not, sometimes you just wanted to slap the daylights out of Tony. Not that it would have done any good.

I just shrugged. He's gotta earn a living like anyone else.

The women, four of them, wore dresses that were very short and very tight, and the cold didn't seem to bother them as we had ice-cold cervezas and talked trash and I found one I liked or maybe she found me because she sat so close to me and she put her hand on my thigh and her tits and her perfume made me crazy as she leaned in and spoke almost in a whisper to me. She had freckles and she wore turquoise earrings and she had dark brown hair flowing half way down her back. I figured she was probably about my age. Cómo te llamas? she whispered so close I could feel her breath against my ear. I told her, and she asked me to repeat it, and then she said she never knew anyone named Manny. I explained that my name was Manuel but everyone called me Manny. She said she preferred Manuel and she would call me that, and I said fine. I asked her what her name was. Maribel was her name. I said that was a pretty name, and I meant it. We talked a little more, and after a while, she asked me if I wanted to go upstairs now. Cuánto? I asked. She told me how much and I didn't know if that was a good deal or not, but I didn't care because all I wanted to do was go upstairs with Maribel.

When we stood up, Tony looked at me and shook his head. Hey, man, you're supposed to wait a while. Buy some drinks first, you know? Take your time.

But I just smiled because who the hell wants to take his time at a time like that? Maribel held my hand and led me upstairs, and I looked back and saw Tony sitting there between two women, and Luis sitting there with one who was trying her damnedest, too, but I knew she was wasting her time with Luis. The poor guy was probably feeling guilty as hell.

I must have looked like a tourist gawking at everything. I couldn't help it. It was my first time in a whorehouse and part of me was nervous and part of me was curious but mostly I was excited as hell.
There was a landing at the top of the stairs whe
re an old woman wearing a red bandanna sat next to a table stacked with white towels. The old woman handed a towel to Maribel, and I thought, what the hell's the towel for? are we going to shower? Then the old woman looked at me and smiled a toothless smile. I figured I should tip her, so I pulled out a dollar and handed it to her. She took the dollar and turned away.

Maribel led me down a dark hallway with closed doors on either side. Near the end of the hallway stood a guy who looked like a police officer. I stopped cold in my tracks when he walked toward us, but Maribel pulled me along. He was tall and heavy, with greased-back hair, and he wore a white shirt, dark tie, dark pants, and he even wore a badge and a pistol. He looked at Maribel, then at me, no expression on his face, really, and he stuck out his hand, palm up. So I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out another dollar hoping I wouldn't have to tip much more because I didn't want to run out of money before I even got laid.

At the end of the hall, we went into a room that was lit by three candles on each of the three triangular wooden shelves held up by brackets in one corner. They gave off a soft, flickering, yellowish light that showed Maribel half in shadow. The plaster walls were light greenish, I judged, and the room was small and crowded. A queen-size bed, the light, tan it looked, bed spread pulled back. A dark wooden dresser opposite the foot of the bed, on top a white doily, an empty blue and white basin and a blue and white pitcher, and both looked like they were made of clay with a fine, gloss finish. A wooden chair next to the window opening out on the street. A small crucifix on the wall opposite the window.

The street was quiet, except for a dog barking every now and then in the distance. I asked Maribel if I should pay first, and she said whatever I wanted. She smiled as I put the money on the dresser and I smiled back. Somehow I thought I might feel guilty as I put down my money that night but I didn’t. I watched her take off her dress and carefully lay it over the chair by the window. She looked at me and smiled. She told me to take off my clothes. So I did. She took everything off except her bra and panties, then she came to me, gently pulled off my glasses and laid them on the dresser. She undid the clasp on her bra, I pulled down her panties, and we got into bed.

That wasn't my first time, but I was so excited I came before I could get into her. Maribel was quick with the towel. It was embarrassing but it was also funny, and I figured it happened to other guys, else why the towel? At least I hoped it happened to other guys. She said it was all right and she said it in such a way that I believed her. Then she surprised the hell out of me by telling me we could try again in a little while, no extra charge, if I wanted to. If I want to? said I. Which made us both laugh.

As we lay there, we got to talking. Maribel said she came from a pueblito in the state of Queretaro far to the south. Her parents were dead and she and her brother, the kid who greeted us at the door, were living with an older sister and her husband. But the sister and brother-in-law were mean and stupid, so Maribel up and left when she was fifteen, and she took her brother with her. They had been in this border town now for three years. She was going to los Estados Unidos with her brother some day. Then she'd leave off whoring for good. Get a job, send her brother to school. Maybe see if a doctor couldn't fix his leg. She asked me what I did, and I didn't feed her that bullshit about being an architect from Chicago. I told her I was a stock boy at K-Mart, which I was. And I told her I hated high school and was glad it was over, and I couldn't much see what I was going to do now, other than maybe join the army. But at least I got through high school. At least that crap was over.

It occurred to me that maybe she'd get in trouble, us being in there a while and her only getting paid for the one time. I asked her but she said not to worry, no one would say anything, and even if they did, she'd just say it took me a while to get it up and to come. Uh-huh, I said, which means the same thing in Spanish as in English. By that time, I was feeling chipper again.

The second time we didn't need the towel. She had her legs wrapped around me and she dug her nails into my back and I lost track of everything but the warmth and her perfume and the next thing I knew I was being pulled by the hair backwards. I fell off the bed onto the floor and felt the cold barrel of a pistol digging into the side of my face.

No se mueva! someone yelled. And I didn't move, until the two men stepped away, still pointing their pistols at me. One of them grabbed my pants and shirt and threw them at me. I sat up and looked at Maribel, who stood by the dresser with the blanket wrapped around her.

Qué hacen aquí? she said. Estoy trabajando!

Cállate, puta! was all one of the men said.

I put my pants and shirt on and held my shoes as the two men shoved me out of the room, down the hallway, then down the stairs to a doorway that led to the basement and a small room with gray, cinder-block walls and a bare light bulb sticking out of a socket. There was Luis, and Tony was lying on the floor, naked as a jaybird and barely conscious, his face bruised and bloodied.

There were six men in the room, including the guard from the hallway. Each was armed--one of them with a carbine that had a banana clip. I didn't think it could get any more crowded in there when in came another man. He was short and fat and dressed in khaki. The others called him jefe, and he stood there looking at us while one of them told him what had happened. Tony was in a room with his two whores, and one of them made a remark about his not being able to get his sapito up and the dumb ass actually punched her. The other one ran and got the guard in the hallway, who came in a beat the living shit out of Tony. They must have been on the other side of the house because I didn't hear a thing.

At first, the jefe smiled when they told him what happened, then he laughed. His men laughed too. For a moment I thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad for us after all but then he went ballistic, screaming about how no one beats his putas but him or his men and he ought to kill that hijo de puta con el sapito que no trabaja, which made his men laugh. I almost doubled-over myself when the jefe kicked Tony in the balls. Tony squirmed on the floor and cried like a baby.

Don't hit me no more! He gasped for air and coughed as he tried to speak. No more, please, no more!

And Tony kept crying and sobbing and even though I knew he was hurting I wanted him to shut up. Pocho, the jefe called him. To be called a pocho is a great insult. A pocho is a Chicano who can't or won't speak Spanish and doesn't want anything to do with his own people. The jefe nodded to one of his men, who threw Tony's clothes on the floor next to him.

They made Luis and me put our hands against the wall and they searched us and took away our watches and wallets and everything else we had in our pockets and they put it all on a small folding table in the corner. The jefe looked at us. Pochos! I figured this guy probably called every Chicano he met a pocho. Still, there's something about being called a pocho--by anyone, especially by a pimp in a whorehouse--it's like being called a whore, and it pissed me off and I said to him in Spanish that I wasn't a fucking pocho and I said it loud too because I could curse with anybody in Spanish. Luis whispered to take it easy.

I don't give a flying fuck! I said in English. I ain't gonna let some spastic psycho in a uniform call me a pocho!

And the jefe, who didn't understand English, looked at his men and said, Qué dijo? but his men couldn't understand English either.

I looked at the jefe and smiled. I mean, I actually smiled. I think you're a dickless punk.

Manny, said Luis.

It was crazy and I knew it even as I did it and I always accounted for it afterward by figuring something must have snapped. All of you, I said, you're all dickless punks, and all you're good for is beating the piss out of some guy who’s scared shitless of everyone and his mother to begin with.

They didn't know what the hell I was saying, maybe that's why I said it, but one of them told me to shut up and he took a step toward me but the jefe stopped him. No valen estos pinche pochos. These fucking pochos are worthless. Then he laughed like he just heard a hell of a good joke and his men laughed along with him. Pero qué chistoso! said the jefe. But what a funny guy! What a joker! Which pissed me off too but I didn't say anything. Then he slapped me on the back like we were old friends.

They took everything except our pants and shirts. Tony had only managed to get his pants on when the jefe told his men to throw us out. He pointed at me and laughed. Qué chistoso!

The front room was empty, which made me think that some, maybe all, of the guys we saw there when we came in were bouncers. A woman shouted from the second floor landing, Pinche americanos! Fucking Americans. At least she didn't call us pinche pochos. But then it occurred to me that maybe to them it means the same thing. I saw them looking down at us and I saw Maribel, and one of the guards waved his pistol at them. Andale, putas, pa sus cuartos!

The guards laughed at us as we walked out of the house and down the front porch steps. The same taxista who brought us there was leaning against his Volkswagen, but when we tried to get in he said he wouldn't take us anywhere unless we showed him the money up front. Luis told him we would pay him when we got to the motel on the U.S. side. He asked if we had any watches or other valuables. Are you fucking blind? I said to him in Spanish. Can't you see that we don't even have any fucking shoes? The taxista laughed, which pissed me off almost as much as being called a pocho and a chistoso and I told him to shut the fuck up or I'd beat the crap out of him but Luis grabbed my arm and said there wasn't any point in sticking around because those guys might come out any minute, especially that crazy general. He ain’t no fucking general, I said, probably just some cock-sucking private who's running a whorehouse for some asshole politician. And Luis said we should just get the hell out of there as quick as we could.

Tony had gotten his shirt on and was sitting on the ground. We helped him up, and as we started away from the taxi Maribel called out from an open second-floor window.

Manuel. She told me to wait because her brother was bringing my glasses down, which I had written off with all my other stuff. A moment later the kid who had greeted us at the door came around the side of the house, probably from a back door, and hobbled up to us. He handed me my glasses. Toma, señor. Then he turned and went back the way he came. Gracias, I called out. De nada. Don't mention it. I wished I could have given him another dollar but they had taken every cent I had.

I put my glasses on and looked up at Maribel and she at me. Then she was gone.

Luis and I practically had to carry Tony. I wanted to ask him if he was out of his shit-for-brains head to do what he did. But I didn't say anything because I figured he was hurting as it was and he'd gotten what he deserved. We thought surely we'd run into more trouble before we made it to the border, but the streets were quiet and we weren't that far from the border anyway.

Luis was worried we might not be allowed to cross without I.D. We're from los estados unidos, I told the guards, and we were at a cantina and there was a little misunderstanding regarding a woman. That's all they needed to hear because the guards laughed and looked at the three shoeless, beltless guys, one of them who’d gotten the hell beaten out of him.

Didn’t you have a good time, boys? Are the women here too much for you? Very good but very dangerous! Muy bueno pero muy peligroso!

They must have figured they weren't going to get anything out of us, so they told us to go with God and be sure to come back soon, like we were tourists. The guards on the other side took one look at us and laughed too. Since we had been let through on the other side, there must not have been any point in stopping us, so they let us through.

We took a taxi back to the motel and Luis had to go to the front desk to get another key because they had taken even that. Then he went up to the room and got some money we had hidden in our socks in case of emergency and came down and paid the taxista. We figured we had just enough money left to pay the cost of the room and put enough gas in the car to make it home.

Next day Tony didn't say much. He just lay in the back seat and slept most of the way. Luis and I didn't say much either, but when we were just a few miles outside of Albuquerque, he started in on me.

You know what, Manny? You're fucking crazy. You didn't used to be this way. But now you are.

Me?

Don't play innocent with me. You almost got us killed.

Hey, Tony's the one--

No, I mean you. You are one vato loco. What the hell’s wrong with you, man? You don't mess with guys like that!
But I just laughed. Interrupting a good fuck does that to a man.
I'll tell you something. That's it for me. I ain't never going down there again. Never! Man, you could disappear forever down there and no one would know it. I'm gonna stay as close to home sweet home as I can from now on.
Which turned out to be true because Luis got married and stayed in South SanJo. He went into debt up to his chin to buy some run-down shack about a block away from his parents' house. I thought he was crazy, and I told him so. By the time I got out of the army Luis and his wife had two kids with a third one on the way. He worked at the airport loading baggage onto planes and I knew he would always work at the airport loading baggage onto planes. But Tony made it out of the barrio all right, only it was to the state prison near Santa Fe. Armed robbery with a couple of other dumb asses from South SanJo. Tony always thought he was a bad ass but Luis and I knew better.
I joined the army near the end of that summer after high school. And I saw parts of the world that weren't any better off than Juarez. After the army, I came back to Albuquerque and had some bullshit jobs here and there for a couple of years, then I got a job reading meters for the city. It wasn't so bad, except maybe in the summer with that damned heat. For a while I had an apartment in a different part of the city but it turned out to be a rattrap and besides I had money problems so I moved back into my parents' house. I started seeing a girl I'd known in high school and when she got pregnant we got married. Nobody twisted my arm but what was I supposed to do? Two years of living with her parents was more than I could stand, and I finally did what I spent my whole life telling myself I would never do--I got a bank loan and bought a house in South SanJo because it was the only place I could afford to buy one.

Ever since that night at the whorehouse, I imagined myself going back there and rescuing Maribel, taking her out of that place by force and killing that son of a bitch jefe in the bargain. And I wouldn't forget about her brother. I would take Maribel and her crippled brother to los Estados Unidos where we’d have the kid’s leg fixed and send him to school and Maribel and I would live happily ever after. But not in South SanJo. We would buy a farm up north, far away from places like Juarez and South SanJo, maybe near Chimayo or Truchas because I always liked the mountains and the snow. Grow garlic, beans, squash, tomatoes, whatever we wanted. Have lots of kids. And Maribel would cook for me and wash my clothes and give me all the sex I could ever want or handle and basically worship me because after all didn't I rescue her from that goddamned Juarez whorehouse? And wasn't I a nice enough guy to make a former whore my wife and the mother of my children? Hell, why wouldn't she worship me?
It was all bullshi
t because I never rescued Maribel and I wonder from time to time if she wanted to be rescued. All these years later I don't know why I still think about her so much. There has to be a reason I tell myself but I’ve never been able to figure it out and I wonder if it would matter even if I could figure it out. Mostly I wonder if she ever thinks about me. Even remembers me.

Sometimes late at night I'll have this urge to wake my wife and tell her about Maribel. Just like that. How she held me and whispered Manuel. How she looked down at me from the open window and then was gone. How years later I still think about her. I'll want to tell my wife because I’ve got this idea I can’t shake that maybe I need to tell her my story somehow and maybe it will help. Maybe it will help. It's a stupid idea and I know it and I never go through with it. How could I? And even if I could, what the hell difference would it finally make?

I should have done something right away. I'll bet some other guy rescued Maribel long ago.