“You really need to get over that screen door, Muscles,” I told him. He didn’t react to the pejorative nickname, but I knew it got to him, which was why I used it. “You know what I don’t get?” I added. “It wasn’t even your place.”

“Jack,” Pita said. “Drop it.”

But I didn’t want to. This trip was getting to be too much. First, Jesus invites himself. Then he invites Nitro—and no one bothers to tell me?

“Anyone else coming I don’t know about?” I asked.

“We mentioned Nitro was coming last night,” Pita said.

“Not to me you didn’t.”

“I’m sure we did,” she said.

“We did,” Jesus assured me with bullshit sincerity. “Maybe you just don’t remember—?”

“Guys! Guys!” Pepper interjected brightly. “What does it matter? We’re all here, and we’re going to have a great time. That’s all that matters.” He flourished his arm toward the trajinera. “Now all aboard!”

3

A long yellow table down ran down the center of the gondola. Fourteen chairs accompanied it, giving everyone plenty of room. Pepper and I sat across from each other near the bow while Jesus and Nitro sat near the stern. Pita and Elizaveta settled smartly in the middle of the boat, acting as a buffer between Nitro and me. The boatman or oarsman—or whatever you called the guy who steered the gondola with the long pole—was two boats down, playing cards with two other boatmen. He was middle-aged with a grizzled moustache and wiry salt and pepper hair. Dark salt stains dampened his shirt around his neck and beneath his arms. When he saw us boarding, he jotted across the boardwalk, disappearing into the crowd, returning a few minutes later carrying a large bucket of ice filled with beers, sodas, and an assortment of juices. I asked him how much for the lot. He told me three hundred pesos, which worked out to twenty pesos a drink, or roughly one dollar. I passed money to Pita, who passed it to Jesus, who paid the guy. Then Jesus plunked the bucket on the table. Elizaveta and Pepper each took a soda, Jesus and Nitro and me a beer. Pita declined everything. She was on some strict diet, and I rarely saw her indulge in anything that contained more calories than a stick of celery.

The boatman expertly guided us away from the crowded dock and into the waterway, then we were on our way.

4