Travels With Georgie, Part 2
Reflections in the mind of George Crocker
May 6, 2013: Fargo, ND – Crocker’s bizarre recollection continues…
February 6, 2013: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – George Crocker awoke in a daze and looked around him; adobe on three sides and bars on the fourth. The hour had to be early – the jailhouse had no windows, but the faint light beneath the jails door betrayed the hour. So did the deep snoring of the lone jailer. George sat there and shook his head in disbelief. He thought, ‘Where’s Georgiana? How am I going to get out of here? What happened in last night’s game? I think we have a day game, don’t we?’
Crocker was not alone in the jail. In the cell next door, there was a pair of American college boys who had a bit too much to drink last night. Normally that’s the type of clientele the jail hosted.
George noticed a tray of food had been lain on the bed; they must have brought it in while he slept. He had exhausted himself trying to get the guard to understand there had been some error. “Don’t you understand who I am? I’m George Crocker and I have a game tonight!” But the guard had nothing to do with it, finally just leaving George to his protests as he grabbed a chair and sat outside in the warm air.
“Cold tamales…” George contemplated as he looked at the food on his tray, “…and warm water.” He forced the tamales down with the grit-laden spoon they had given him, washing it down with equally grit-laden water. He gazed at the spoon they had given him. What had he said about the dogs? Fed with silver spoons? “Geez…” he thought, “how did I get in this predicament?”
February 7, 2013
“Shut your freakin’ trap, dude, or I’ll dig out and kill you!” The drunk in the cell next to him had finally had too much of George Crocker’s routine. “No one cares about the Caribs or Mahi-Mahi. I just want another beer.” The guard, who was still stationed outside, burst the door open and ran up to Crocker’s cell. “You must-a be silent, Señor. I no more want-a to hear you.”
George lowered his voice to a near whisper, “But dude, do you have any idea…”
“Yeah, I-a do. You-a George Croacker, béisbol star. I-a know. I-a know dat if you-a don’t stop, I-a put you-a in de dungeon.”
George shut his mouth. This numbskull would never understand. He turned and went back to his bed. He stared at the bars and tried to imagine how the games had gone. Surely they’d been difficult without George Crocker’s bat. He saw himself, in Bogota’s visiting grays with red trim, turning on a pitch for a home run. He saw the team dancing around the pitcher’s mound as the last out was recorded and Bogota qualified for the playoffs.
“Oh!” Crocker called out as he jerked upright and wide awake. He had dozed, and when his eyes focused, he saw the guard walking away from his cell. It was the clank of the cell door closing that stirred him from his sleep. He looked around, only to see another tray of food on his bed. He frowned. “More cold tamales.” He looked up at the guard, whose back was rapidly disappearing from view, and he called out, “You could at least bring me a warm burrito and a cerveza. After all, don’t you know who I am?” Before he had a chance to finish, the drunk from the cell next door – his third neighbor in three days – called out, “Yeah, we know; you’re George F’in Crocker! Now shuddup!”
February 8, 2013
George Crocker finished his luxury meal of cold tamales and warm water. He was still hungry. His Bogota team was no doubt off to their playoff location, ready to launch their claim on the crown, and all George Crocker could do was stare at his used spoon and stick it back in his mouth and lick the last bits of tamales off it. “Damn thing is cleaner than it was when they brought it to me. That’s just groady!”
George just sat there, spoon in hand, staring at it. Tonight was his last night in Cabo. Tomorrow, they were taking him a federal prison to await his arraignment. He knew enough, in that tortured and beaten brain of his, that that was not a good thing. “People go to those places and never come back,” he whispered to himself. He just sat there, staring at the now clean spoon.
Crocker wanted a beer. If he was going to be leaving Cabo and disappearing for good, he wanted a beer. “What did that drunk say?” He asked the question in his mind, and for once his mind responded sensibly: “Why, he said he’d dig his way out!” He held the spoon back in front of himself, cocked his head as if in deep contemplation, then put the spoon down and, after taking a quick look for the guard, he bent over by his bed and scrapped the spoon against the wall. The old adobe crumbled in a fine powder and fell to the floor, leaving behind a small depression.
Crocker lifted the spoon up to his face and stared at himself through the finely powered adobe that now coated the spoon. A wide smile spread over his face as he reached over and placed the spoon under his pillow, then slipped the tray under the bars of his cell. He sat back on his bed, put his hands behind his head and, with a smile, said to himself in a low tone, “I’m George Crocker, and I’m getting me uno cerveza!”
February 9, 2013
“Croacker… Croacker, wake up!” The guard was in a panic. George could tell from his tone of voice. His head hurt and the guard’s loud, whiny, panicky voice was giving him a grade-A headache already. Why did he feel this way? “Oh, yeah…” he thought to himself, “that case of Bohemia last night. Man, that was sweet stuff!” He slowly opened his eyes and blurrily looked at the guard. “What do you want?”
The guard shook Crocker more vigorously. “Croacker, wake up! What happened in here?” The guard – by now George Crocker had learned his name was Hector Salazar – stood with his arms held wide, pointing to the floor. Crocker sat up on an elbow and looked around at the floor that was littered with a dozen bottles of Bohemia. “Where did this all this come from?” he asked.
Crocker looked, focused on the bottles and sat bolt upright when he realized what he had done. “Well,” he began, “you said that dude from the airport – what was his name? Pablo Here-Today Gone-A-Zalez? – was coming back today to take me away. Well, I wanted a beer before I was carted off to Nowhere Land.” He looked at Hector. “Dude, what would you do?”
Hector stood straight up and stared at Crocker. “Where-a did you-a get dat-a cerveza?” He bent over and picked up a bottle. “We-a need to-a get this all-a cleaned up. Pablo can’t-a not see dis.” He put the one bottle on the lone bed and bent for another, then repeated his original question. “How-a did you-a get all dis cerveza?”
Crocker just smiled and held up the spoon. “Dude, do you know what this is? This ain’t no ordinary eating spoon. This is some hip MacGruber-like secret agent tool.” Crocker leaned over and scrapped the wall. He turned with a wide smile. Hector just stood there with a dumb, stunned look on his face. “I dug a hole in the wall when you passed out.” Crocker grabbed the bed and pulled it aside, displaying a wide hole in the adobe wall of his prison cell. “Then I crawled through and went to the corner liquor store. Man, I tell ya, I thought Mexico was supposed to be cheap. Do you know what I paid for those beers?”
“You mean-a you dugga hole in da wall, went for some-a cerveza and you came-a back?”
“Dude, they wanted 400 pesos for those brews! I was like, are you kidding me? Do you know who I am? I’m…”
“George flippin’-a Crocker; we know!” shouted the fourth inmate in four days in the cell next door. “I think the entire F’in world knows, you idiot!”
“Anyway, he wouldn’t budge. Then I realized I didn’t have my wallet, so I had to come back and search through your desk before I found it.”
Hector just starred. “You-a mean you-a came back?”
“Yeah, I needed some pesos. Then I saw that I didn’t have any, so I found some in that safe over there. You know, you really should close it. They call it a safe for a reason, you know, ma man? So anyways, I owe you guys 400 pesos.”
Salazar finally began to move. He quickly picked up the bottles. “You need-a to getta outta of here, now.”
Crocker looked at him perplexed. “Huh?”
“I said, you-a need to getta outta here. If-a dey see dis, dey-a are going to kill-a you for escaping. I gotta to leave, too”
It was Crocker ‘s turn to stare at Hector. “Whatchoo talkin’ about, Willis?”
“Why did-a you come-a back?” asked Hector yet again in disbelief as he picked up the last bottle.
“I wanted some beer before they took me away for good. Not too hard to understand, compadre!”
“Leave.” Hector went out to his desk and grabbed his cover and sombrero. “Leave now-a, before dey getta here.” He threw the wrap over Crocker’s shoulders and placed the sombrero on his head. “Getta outta here, you-a dumb American. Why you not-a leave already? I-a not-a know.”
Hector had been the guard at the Cabo jailhouse for 15 years and not once did he have a problem with a prisoner. They were almost all drunks who slept off their drink and then were released. Then here comes George Crocker – “George F’in Croaker,” he thought in his mind. He went to his desk and retrieved Crocker’s cell phone and handed him some more pesos. “Leave. Leave now-a.”
Crocker pocketed his phone and the pesos and walked out the same door he walked in through. He looked up at the bright, early morning sun, squinting to protect his bloodshot eyes. Then it dawned on him. “I’m free? I’m free!” And with that, he ran down the road, turned into an alley and continued to run.
After what seemed like five minutes of running, he stepped into a deserted doorway, pulled his iPhone out and logged into his Facebook account. He typed out a message and pressed “Share”. There was a pause, and then the message appeared on his wall.
