Junior Year Box Set

I felt my stomach roll. Dad had told me that when he was younger, he’d gotten drunk on Southern Comfort. To this day, all he had to do was smell it, and he’d feel woozy. Phil reminded me of being sick, and suddenly the food didn’t have quite the appeal it had a moment ago. That didn’t slow down the other guys, though; they had street tacos. Deep down, I hoped they got sick.

The girls decided they all wanted jewelry, hand-painted bowls, and blankets, so that was my cue to move on. I gave Pam money and told her to make sure Zoe got something as well. I wasn’t worried about Tracy, Halle, or Brook. And I gave Cassidy some cash since I knew she wouldn’t let Pam buy her anything. For some reason, Cassidy wasn’t shy about asking me to buy her stuff. I don’t think she spent a dime of the money her dad gave her for the Cuba trip.

I asked Cassidy to keep an eye on Pam. Not that Pam would overspend, I just worried about her in a crowd. I didn’t want her freezing up and something bad happening.

I gathered my guys, and we wandered off to the sketchy side to see what we could find. Nicki and his team split off with us. It looked like Fritz was sure that we’d be okay with them.

“We have to get those,” Phil said as he excitedly pointed at a booth.

At first, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and then I saw them. In Mexico, they have a version of professional wrestling called ‘lucha libre.’ The wrestlers wear colorful masks while in the ring. Phil had spotted a booth selling masks.

I was getting myself some of these. A young girl was in charge of the stock.

“How much are they?” I asked.

“For you gringos, two hundred each,” she said, puffing up.

“Good luck,” I said and began to walk away.

“Hold on, Mister. These masks are made by my grandfather. All the top wrestlers buy from him. You will only find cheap knock-offs anywhere else.”

“Does your grandfather know you’re selling his masks?” I asked.

“Of course he does. You wouldn’t accuse me of stealing from him, would you?” the girl asked in a huff. “On second thought, I can’t sell to you.”

“That’s just as well. I’m not paying that much for a mask.”

“Have you never negotiated before?” she asked like I had two heads or something.

“I might go ten each,” I offered.

“Good. We’ve established you want to buy masks. Now we just have to come to an agreement on price.”

While I haggled with the girl, the rest of the guys wandered off to search for other treasures. I checked out the masks, and they were all made well. She told me how her grandfather hand-stitched each mask, and it took him almost a week to make each one.

I could tell that most were machine-stitched because the stitches were evenly spaced. The girl wasn’t happy when I pointed out flaws in a few of the masks. There were a handful that looked to be much better quality than the rest. Those I might believe her grandfather had made.

“Some of these aren’t worth more than five bucks,” I pointed out.

“You’re killing me. Either buy something or get moving,” she said.

She had fifteen masks that I would consider buying. I could see down the road giving them as Christmas presents to some little boys and a girl I knew. When I was growing up, I would have killed to have these. I ended up paying twenty bucks each for them. The girl seemed to be happier that she made me work to buy them; getting paid seemed to come in a distant second.

“You look like a man who’s looking for something different. Am I right?” she asked.

“That depends. What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“Come with me,” she said.

I sent a text to let the guys know that I’d gotten the masks and was going with the girl to check out something else. Nicki and his men trailed me, so I wasn’t worried about being robbed. They were also handy at carrying what I bought. Maybe I should have sent them shopping with the girls. I suspect the only reason the girls asked me to go shopping was they wanted me to be their pack mule.

The girl took me to a pickup truck that had what looked like two big boxes with tarps over them. It turned out they were cages.

“I have cats for sale,” she announced.

“I don’t need a cat,” I said.

She pulled back the tarps, and there were two baby tiger cubs inside the cages. They were panting hard, and I was worried she might be killing them. Without thinking, I jumped into the back of the truck and opened their cages. From the look of them, they couldn’t be very old. They were about the size of Precious.

“They need water,” I told her.

The girl had a cooler with bottled water in it. I first poured it over them. They didn’t like that much and began to complain by making high-pitched distressed ‘rah’ (little roar) noises. They were much happier when I put water in my palm, and they could lick it out.

“I want a thousand dollars for both.”

“I’ll give you two hundred.”

“Sold.”