Find the Sex, you Dirty Buggers - A.J.

Dodging to the left, landing on the balls of her feet, she avoided yet another crevasse in the sidewalk. A black dog with bald spots on his ass meant swinging to the right side of the road up ahead. He was probably nice, but dogs love to chase people who are running, and if his teeth should catch the hem of her shiny shorts, there’d be no one around to help dislodge him. Not to mention rabies around here. Her boss had said there was none in the country, but who really trusts those claims in the tropics. Past the dog, who sniffed the air as she passed but trotted behind only for a few steps, she slowed to a walk. There was a lot more walking than running going on lately. Maybe it was the hazards, maybe it was the heat, maybe she was just lazy. But the ground was still getting covered and she was still out seeing the neighborhood. It was Halloween, which appeared not to mean as much here as back in the United States. But then it was late, past eleven, and kids likely had their costumes on at six when the sun went down. By now, they were surely in a post-sugar coma, the bag of candy crumpled next to the bed, wrappers scattered through neighborhood streets. She’d seen no one on foot in the first couple miles out, and only one so far since coming back. There’d been a couple boney cats screwing in the bushes outside the Catholic church. Their howls were miserable and with the door open showing the mossy green walls inside, she wondered why they didn’t go on inside. It was Halloween after all. Trick or treat. The little cantina where she had lunch some days was closed up for the night, or as much as they could close an open air lunch counter. The metal boxes that held thin paper napkins had been removed from the rough picnic tables and all the cooking gear hauled away from the outdoor grill. It’d be nice to sit down for a minute, but off in the shadows, even in the sticky humid heat, she felt cold. She’d heard something recently about the difference between where she was living now, and back home. In New York, people were afraid to go out at night because someone on the streets might rape, mug, or kill them. Here, people are afraid to go out at night because while they’re gone, someone might steal their stuff. Ever since the night her roommate had scared someone out the backdoor as she came in the front, all shadows held boogeymen, whether she was inside or out. Passing the front entrance to the zoo with it’s new brightly painted murals of monkeys and birds, she continued on to the employees’ entrance. There was a wrought iron gate a little ways past, hidden under an old overhanging mango tree. Donde estan mis llaves? The most commonly spoken words to herself, she was constantly wondering where her keys were. There was always a door to unlock, and never a light under which to search a key ring. Normally she kept a small flash light in hand, but this night had chosen to use that palm space for mace instead. Besides, once she was in the gate and had tiptoed past the caretakers’ house, it was a familiar stroll along the algae-slick sidewalk, past the pond, past the nursery, down the hill with the croc on the right and the deer on the left, then the gate through the trees onto the path to her house. The only real fear once she was on zoo property was the enormous yellow-assed orb-weaving spiders that loved to build their webs across open paths, and always at face height. She swore the individual strands must be as thick as knitting yarn, as whenever she ran into a web her legs kept moving forward but her head was stuck, glued, to that great hunting spot. Then, always, it was the mad freak-out dance, legs beating up and down, arms waving wildly as she squealed, worried not so much about getting the web out of her hair as removing the monster spider that was likely on her forehead and about to eat her face. But all that was ahead in the dark, and first she had to find the right key, the right key, the right key..that one. Sliding it into the lock, a quick turn to the right and the gate snapped and the metal door creaked open. Stepping through and closing it quietly behind her so as not to disturb the caretaker's family, she continued under the shadow of the mango tree, her old running shoes making little noise on the pebbled gravel. She was half-way up the path past the caretaker's house, lost in thoughts of spiders, before she noticed a noise coming from the porch. Stopping to listen, she looked toward the one bare bulb that burned next to the front door, moths orbiting the light. The door was shut tight, but the sound continued. A squeak and a soft moaning. Was a monkey out again? Had a howler gotten out and injured itself? Out of habit, she looked up in the trees, but it was too dark to see anything but the outline of branches. Then the moaning came louder, from the left side of the porch, a few feet outside the glow from the bare bulb. There on the old futon the old man kept on his porch for smoking cigars in the evenings, was Marta. She was guessing it was Marta anyway, the daughter of the house, one of the women who worked the entrance of the zoo, but it was hard to say for sure from this angle. Skirt sidled up over her meaty haunches, she was straddling two legs that together were about the size of one of her own. Khaki pants undone, collected in a pile that hid all but the tips of his dress shoes, these legs were going no where in a hurry. Pointy knees were visible in the space under her butt as she lifted up and down, the outline of thin fingertips around her waist. Clearly he didn’t mind the way her dark skin bulged over the top of her skirt, it gave his fingers something to sink into, a way to guide her body up and down on his lap, a way to hold her still as he shoved his hips up, or push her down to meet him harder. Not that she needed the guidance. She was bouncing up and down with the enthusiasm of a kid on a trampoline, oblivious to the late night runner a few feet away, stuck under the old mango tree.