November 16, 2003
Tijuana, Mexico
Rose peeked out at the nightclub stage, adjusting her low-cut top and straining to see how many people were in the nightclub. It sounded like there was quite a crowd, a rumble of voices with the occasional louder voice shouting or shrieking in English or Spanish, or the combination known as Spanglish.
She jumped as Daffodil came up and tapped her on the shoulder. Whirling around, she let the stained curtain fall back, hiding the audience from view. "What’s going on?"
"I hope you’re ready to sing solo. Tim’s got that cough again."
Rose sighed. Tim had suffered from a severe cough off and on since she had met him, occasionally coughing so hard that he spit blood. He was thinner than he should have been, and seemed to catch every cold and other ailment that went around. It was part of why she had put off breaking up with him so long—she was concerned about his health, and worried that breaking things off would make it worse.
"Any chance that he’ll be able to sing, do you think?" she asked, watching as Daffodil washed her hands. With their chronic lack of money, Daffodil was the closest thing to a doctor that they had, and her medical knowledge came more from observation and casual interest than from formal training.
"Not unless this audience wants to watch him spit blood. I think you’d better keep your distance from him for a while, Rose, until this clears up. It shows all the symptoms of tuberculosis, probably picked up in one these dumps. If it is, he’s contagious."
"Don’t worry about me. We split up this afternoon, while the rest of you were sleeping in the back of the van."
"Nevertheless, when we get back to the United States, I think both of you should go to a county hospital and get a TB test, and maybe some others, too."
"Why?"
"If he has TB, you might have it, too, and if he has something else, you might have also caught that."
"What do you mean?"
"Hasn’t it struck you as odd that he gets sick so much, and the rest of us don’t? It’s not like he works in a medical facility, where he would be exposed to things like that. Did you ever ask him about his…history…before you got involved with him?"
"His history? What do you mean—oh…oh, shit…no, I never thought to." She put her head in her hands. "Oh, my God…I am so stupid. You’d think I’d know better. After all, my father died of AIDS." She stopped, her face paling. "You…you don’t think Tim could have AIDS, do you?"
"I hope not, but…it isn’t normal to catch everything that you’re exposed to, you know. And TB, if he has it, occurs more often in people with compromised immune systems."
"Oh, my God…" Rose didn’t know else what to say.
"I assume you were smart enough to use protection?"
"Of course. I didn’t want to get pregnant. I just didn’t think about anything else happening."
"Well, condoms protect against both pregnancy and disease, if used every time…"
"It was every time. I didn’t want to take any chances."
"Well, that’s good. You’re kind of naďve, but you’re learning more every day." She looked at Rose’s pale face. "Relax, Rose. With the kinds of places Tim frequents, it wouldn’t be surprising if he caught TB or something—even without a compromised immune system. Plenty of otherwise healthy people in Third World countries catch it just because they’re exposed to it. And he does smoke heavily, and let himself get run down—that might be all it is. After all, I’m not really a doctor, and I don’t have any equipment to test things, or much medicine to treat symptoms. Herbs and over-the-counter drugs only go so far, and you can’t trust street drugs to be what they’re supposed to be…even when they’re good for treating something."
"I know, but…hell, how am I supposed to perform tonight? I’m a nervous wreck now!"
"You’ll do it, like you have every other night. Even if he does have AIDS or something, you were smart enough to use condoms, which greatly reduce your risk of catching it."
"I can’t believe I was so stupid."
"You won’t be so trusting again."
"I thought I’d learned not to trust people implicitly, after…what I’d been through before."
Daffodil raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question her as Angel came up to them. "Five minutes, people. Get your makeup on."
"Come on, Rose." Daffodil pulled her toward the rickety table where they had set up their makeup. "We’ve got a show to put on."
*****
In spite of her nerves, Rose began to relax once she was on stage. She had always enjoyed performing, even when she was in high school. The crowd was loud and appreciative, better than many audiences had been over the months since she had joined the band. A few people even sang along when she launched into a Spanish song she had learned.
It wasn’t until halfway through the show that things began to go wrong. Angel was at the front of the stage, shouting in Spanish and getting the crowd excited, when something he said set off some people standing near the stage.
Rose had no idea what he had said, but in minutes the mood of the crowd had turned ugly. A half-filled bottle of beer flew towards the stage, narrowly missing Jim, and within moments more objects were flying. Angel threw a bottle back at the crowd, splattering them with beer, and then fled toward the back area, shoving Rose along as she stood frozen, watching the mob with shocked fascination.
Once backstage, the four of them grabbed their belongings and shoved them into bags and pockets. Daffodil yanked Tim to his feet as he got up slowly, drowsy from the cough syrup she had given him earlier.
They could hear the manager trying to calm the crowd, who sounded as though they were rushing the stage. A moment later, he rushed into the back, locking the door behind him as someone began banging on it.
"Get out of here!" he shouted. "I don’t what you said, but that mob is ready to kill!"
The members of Hard Times didn’t need to be told twice. Their hands full of their equipment and belongings, they rushed out the back door, heading for the van as someone saw them and alerted the mob to where they were going.
"What in the hell did you say out there?" Rose demanded, running beside Angel and jumping into the van as Jim grabbed the keys from Tim and started the engine.
"I said all illegal immigrants should be taken out and shot.”
“What the hell did you say a stupid thing like that for? And so close to the border, too!”
“I was just joking around."
"Obviously, somebody didn’t think it was a joke!" She leaned forward to Jim, who was trying to steer the van safely through the parking lot. "Forget safety! Get us out of here before they catch up! They’ll move out of the way!"
He put his foot on the gas, jerking the van forward and away from the crowd, narrowly missing a group of terrified-looking teenagers trying to avoid the mob.
"Which way?" Jim asked, directing the van down the street and away from the angry crowd.
"North!" Daffodil demanded. "We’re not far from the border! Get us to the Border Patrol! They won’t follow us there!" She turned and gave Angel the evil eye. “And if they do catch up to us, we’ll throw them Angel. What a stupid thing to say—and his own mother came here illegally.”
“It was a joke!” Angel protested, not sure whether Daffodil was serious or not. He could never quite tell with her.
“It wasn’t funny.” Rose glowered at him.
“Just leave the comedy to me, okay? I’ve pissed people off, but nobody ever started a riot over something I said.” Daffodil looked out the back window, wondering if any of the other cars on the road were following them. “And you’ve ruined any chance we have of getting other gigs in Tijuana.”
“Like I said, it was just a—“
“Joke. We know. And it was about as funny as…as…” Rose’s eyes fell on Tim. “As tuberculosis.”
At that moment, Tim stirred, sitting up. “What joke?” He coughed. “Who’s got TB?”
Rose turned Tim’s head so he was facing Angel. “Cough on him. He almost got us killed.”
“What?” Tim was still loopy from the cough syrup, and maybe something else, though Daffodil’s look told Rose that she hadn’t given him anything extra.
“Angel thinks he’s a comedian. He isn’t,” Rose informed him sourly, wishing at the moment that she had never joined the band. Between Tim’s illness and general obnoxiousness—plus her fear that she had caught something from him—Jim’s five-finger discounts, Angel’s not-so-funny sense of humor, and Daffodil’s unlicensed “medical practice,” her fellow band members were beginning to seem like more trouble than they were worth.
“We’re almost to the border,” Jim announced. “Get your ID’s ready.”
They showed their various driver’s licenses and passports to the border guard and he waved them through. As they crossed the border, Rose pushed the now-sleeping Tim’s head off her shoulder and turned to look out the back window, hoping that if anyone was following them, they wouldn’t be able to cross the border. If someone did catch up to them and try to do them harm over Angel’s remark, she had every intent of ditching the others—except maybe Daffodil—and disappearing before she could get into more trouble.
Sometimes, it seemed like trouble followed her wherever she went.