Tienda
BEN PORTER

We’re out here building with nothing to do. If Rod didn’t pay once a week

we’d be gone, Johnson. That happens on Tuesdays when we walk to the tienda and buy liquor. You got to bring a cart, something we made from a wheelbarrow. We’d use the trucks but Rod says we can’t, says by night we’re too drunk. Not that he isn’t. He’ll take them blind drunk. But he says he can because it's his insurance and his ass put up for the loan. He acts like he’s different, like we’re children and he’s the only one who knows responsibility. But of course, everything costs money. What else would life cost? 

It was Tuesday and me and Steve’s turn so we’d trundled off with the cart.

Walking from the motel we could hear the guys whoop from the pool. They were well gone. And we were well gone but we walked, passing a fifth back and forth. The desert was still hot and you couldn’t even see the tienda. 

How come other places have a store or gas station or something but here

there’s nothing? 

There are lots of places that have nothing. 
Name three, I said. 
Most of them don’t have names. But they are there. 
You’re not listening. I’m talking about civilization. Like when you see those

maps from space at night, when you see the lights and they’re stretched out across the country. Here there’s no light. 

Got to have people first, Steve said, and the sky got orange and the sun

dipped close to the Santa Rosas. 

Take Wal-Marts, I said. What comes first. Wal-Marts or people? 
People, dumbass. 
Why? 
Because I thought about it for two seconds. You've been to a nice big

supercenter. Think of what it costs—all that CMU, the steel? Then the people to work it? You think someone is just going to set that up and wait for folks to move? 

So why would people move? 
People move. It's why they are anywhere. The Pilgrims. The Oregon Trail. 
But there you go, I said. They moved for food and stuff. Land to work. 
Here, you carry this fucking thing, Steve said, dropped the handles of the

cart and lit a cigarette, and started walking without even looking at me. I watched him for a minute before picking it up and putting one foot in front of the other.

The road was straight, cut by the shadows of fence posts. It looked like a

zipper and the tienda just a spec at the end of it. Steve could have asked me to push the cart and I am working up to telling him off, but he says they all moved because it was God’s plan. 

No, it wasn’t, I say to his back. 
Fuck yeah, it was. Read that stuff they wrote. City on a hill. You can see why. 
I’m just saying we should get out of here, I said. 
That’s why they did it. God’s the reason. 
There isn’t a reason. 
Steve stopped and let me catch up. He took a drink of vodka. I set the cart

down and waited for him to finish. He passed me the fifth. 

Yes, there is. Shit. Think of America and all of civilization we saved. The

Nazis, and the terrorists, and the 9/11s. There’s no America then evil does what it does. 

I don’t know about that, I say. 
You’re dumber than spit then. Tell me something. 
Steve squatted and lifted his pant leg and pulled out a .32 from an ankle

holster. Then he stood up.

What keeps me from going down to the tienda and stealing my booze and all

the money in the cash register? 

Cops, I say. And jail. 
I picked up the wheelbarrow and he looked at me and started walking. The

.32 hung loose on his finger. Light fell and the tienda glimmered at the end of the road. Steve juggled the gun and the liquor. I could tell he was trying to think of some kind of answer. 

So you’re saying if we lived somewhere with no cops and no jail stealing the

liquor and the money is OK in your book. What if I shot somebody? 

Steve aimed and took the head off a fence post. 
I jumped.
See what I mean? It's easy. 
I walked and kept my eyes ahead. Shit, I don’t know. 
Only one thing makes sense. God tells you to treat your neighbor as yourself.

It's the telling of it. That’s the only thing. 

I’ll think about that, I said, my eyes straight ahead. I hated that he made me

jump. 
 

The tienda got close, its neon, the sign for the gas. Some stars came out and

darkness started to take things. We walked into the parking lot and Steve was strutting in the gloom. Then I thought of something. 

OK. What if God said something evil was OK? Like raping. What if God said

to rape somebody? 

What are you talking about? 
I’m saying, what if God told us to do something wrong? 
How? He decides what's wrong. 
So there’s no reason to do what’s right? Even for God? 
Steve squinted at me and he scratched his head with the .32. 
I guess, he said finally. What he says goes. Who else is going to tell us? 
I don’t know, I say, and we went into the tienda. A bell rang over the door

and a child screamed. 

Sorry! Steve said. It's not like that. He holstered the .32 and came up

touching his thumb to his forefinger. Everything is OK. 

Sorry, I say. 
The kid had wide eyes and was ten or eleven and sat behind a steel cage at the

cash register with cigarettes and expensive liquor. Steve was at the refrigerator getting beer. We stacked racks and fifths and six packs on the counter and paid with the money the guys gave us. Then we loaded it all on the cart; went back inside to get our stuff. 

I got mine stacked all before the kid and took out my wallet. That’s when

Steve put his hand on mine. He shook his head. I met his eyes. An owl hooted somewhere on the roof. 

What’s this? 
That’s the kind of guy I am. 
For fucking real? 
I know what friends are for. 
I looked at the kid. His hands were white, pressed hard on the surface of the

counter. $473.00 appeared on the cash register. He looked at me like it was an equation he’d never be able to solve. 

That’s when Steve hugged me. 
Shit man. I—
He snatched a dream catcher hanging over the cash register. 
And one of these, he said, before counting out his money. 

I couldn’t stand there watching him pay so I took our stuff to the cart. It had

gotten cold and there was no moon. Tangerine dusted the rim of the Santa Rosas. I felt blank and stupid and couldn’t tell why I didn’t buy my own booze. 

Steve came out and tried to take the cart. 
No way, I said. Your hands aren’t good here. 
Steve smiled and lit a cigarette and looked at the stars. I took the cart. He felt

different, like he’d unburdened himself and given it to me whatever it was. He had always been a motherfucker. 

And that’s when I realized I was waiting for him to tell me what to do. 
Let’s go, I said. 
I started but he got in front of me. 
Wait, he said, and reached into the cart and pulled out a fresh fifth. Mine. 
Do you care? He said, twisting the cap off. 
You paid for it. 
Let's go. 
And we trundled off into the dark. 
It's not like he didn’t share and we got drunker, silly, our feelings mixed up. It

felt good to have a week’s worth. The road was dead-straight and moonless we staggered down—even started joking. Sometimes a car would come and light us and slow. We’d laugh and pretend to be blind, arms out like zombies, kicking the dust it made. 

Steve said something—I can’t remember what—that was the funniest thing

I’d ever heard. A little while longer and I wept. And his sympathy was boundless as I revealed my secrets, as mine was for him, our deep secrets about women and fathers, about how we're just howling tatters of what we deserved. 

But soon silence fell, as it always does, and I felt I’d swallowed nickels. My

dinner came up and went back down. The temperature dropped and I realized I was waiting for him to ask for whatever it was in exchange for the booze. He kicked a rock under my wheel. I almost lost the cart, the girth of glass and liquid pitching in the dark. 

Fuck, watch it, Steve said. 

Sorry. 

And why did I say sorry? I sat the cart down and took a long drink. Whatever

it was I hoped it was cheap, nothing too profane or illegal. I heaved the cart and got it moving. Then he kicked another rock beneath my wheel. 

Watch it fucker, he said, as I veered across the road to keep the cart from

tipping. 

You watch it, I think. 

That’s when he laughed and I saw him stoop to take out the .32.  That walk

—lazy and shuffling—kicking things. I hated it and remembered: I hated him. But he gave me a gift, if it was a gift. And I knew, just knew, he would ask me for something. 

A flash, a great sucking sound. 

Steve shot at a mass splotch in the sky gathered before us, what we knew to be

a mountain, but looked like the cape of a giant. Headlights as eyes appeared at its peak. 

I couldn’t stand it—a dead cool feeling at the base of my skull dripped down

my spine and settled in my stomach. It came out loud. 

Where did you get all your money? 

I work, don't I? 

So do I!

There you go. 

Something, a jackrabbit, tore through the sage and struck a tin can like a bell. Steve shot. I kept walking.

Don’t bullshit me, I said. 

I’m not. 

All right! I won’t ask if you don’t want to say. Just don’t bullshit me. 

As if the giant stooped, headlights fell steady down the mountain and I heard

Steve walking at a distance. 

Then again, if I was, how would you know?

I knew it, I say, and turn as he approaches, laughing. I want to shove one of

the bottles into his throat. 

Well, how come you can buy all the booze? I yell.   

Same way you do. Brother Rod drops it into my bank account. 
He howled. This was his joke. That I don’t know anything. That I only have

a job because Rod’s my brother. 

The headlights settle at the bottom and move toward the highway we walk

down. I stop and put my hands on my knees and vomit all over the place. 

Now I know you’re bullshitting, I say, wiping my mouth. 
Yeah? How's that? 
And I lie; try and make him feel like I feel. 
Because I know how much Charles gets paid. 
Steve went silent. And then, yeah? How would you be knowing that? 
I keep quiet and enjoy it. The giant gets on his stomach and writhes,

headlights moving in our direction.

Steve shoots. Bottles clink gently in the dark. 
Fifty bucks an hour, I lie again. 

Yeah right, Steve mumbled. 
He turns on me quickly and withdraws another bottle—who knows whose? 
The headlights. I pull the cart over but Steve wanders to the center, walking

the double yellows. 

Come on! I yelled. 
Shut up about it! 
All the roadkill lit up, the trash; diesel clatters against the mountain walls. 
Problem is, Steve said. You don’t know how to take a gift!
His hair is white and the headlights illuminate the fifth he carries as he

smashes it, the sparkles mixing with the sound of the horn and gunfire. 

It would be fucked if he made more than me.
Everything was white.