It is a known fact that General Aviation (the private aircraft industry) in South Florida is heavily dependent on drug traffickers to keep its planes in the air; and since we’re the happy-go-luckiest of tippers, when it comes down to a popularity poll between your basic Contrabandista with his foolish grin and pocketful of hundreds and the forces of all that’s right and good, I’m afraid the bad guys get the nod as far as most folks go.⁷²

The point is, Harry had been forewarned about the situation by a “friendly” on the ground. He did a runway touch and go, then roared west at fifty feet, barely clearing the roofs of the uncountable (and interchangeable) tract homes that litter South Miami.

We were flying on fumes and Harry didn’t have Flash’s cavalier attitude toward fuel consumption, so he made an emergency landing at Homestead Airport, which is, as I mentioned earlier, where I regained consciousness from our “conference.”

Everyone else had already sensed that something was amiss when they’d looked out their windows and seen street lights at our altitude or a little above us, going by at over 500 miles an hour.

Anyway, Harry apprised us of our situation as the fuel truck lumbered across the field. We all jumped out to assess our position. I lit a joint and scanned the night sky. I could hear helicopters and sirens approaching.

“Hey, Aileron, look at that beauty.” Flash and Aileron were giving a nearby Lockheed Lodestar the once-over.⁷³

The fuel truck was stalled. Harry ran over. I could see his face reddening as he spoke to the driver. “The fuel truck is out of gas!” Harry yelled. I’d never heard Harry raise his voice before.

Flash and Aileron were picking the lock on the Lodestar. Robert and Jim were trying to uncork the last bottle of Louis Roederer ’71 while balancing a coke-laden mirror between their knees.

José had donned his Bandito Sombrero and was loading his Thompson submachine gun.

High Pockets was howling. (He doesn’t like sirens.)

I took a long hit of my joint and exhaled contemplatively.

The lead helicopter had a bullhorn mounted on it, along with a horrendous spotlight. “Throw down your arms and lie flat on the runway!” boomed across the Western Hemisphere.

José answered by blasting both the bullhorn and the spotlight. The chopper veered sharply. José grinned, his gold front tooth catching a ray from a nearby runway light. Jim and Robert raised their glasses in a toast to José’s impressive marksmanship. Robert bent over the mirror.

Meanwhile, Flash and Aileron had hot-wired the Lodestar and were taxiing in our direction. I immediately sensed that this was our last hope.

Harry and our copilot were technically in no legal trouble, so I concentrated on getting the rest of us aboard. High Pockets went unassisted. José needed persuasion. Robert and Jim flat out refused to go, claiming that when the cops arrived, they’d just deny everything. I pulled my 9mm and threatened to kill them both if they didn’t get on board the taxiing Lodestar. High Pockets and Aileron were barking like maniacs from the copilot’s window.

Robert calmly pulled his grenade out of his jacket pocket, raised his eyebrows and said, “Oh, yeah?” He and Jim clinked glasses and had another slug. Robert fumbled for more coke.

I dove into the Lodestar, now doing about 15 mph. Flash gave it full throttle.

I watched the image of Jim and Robert sitting by the Lear sipping bubbly recede. They would soon be overrun by agitated federal agents. My eyes moistened. Even a dead judge would give them fifty years apiece.

Flash kept us at about 100 feet, roaring between buildings in downtown Miami Beach, then out over the water, turning south toward the blue Caribbean.

Things were not looking good. The Lear would be confiscated, along with the $890,000 in the back (or whatever was left after the Feds divided it up amongst themselves). My two best friends were in jail. A serious jail, not some outhouse with a bicycle lock in Massachusetts.

The three of us owned an offshore corporation in the Cayman Islands with a couple million or so left in it, but it took two of us to draw money out. We had set it up as sort of a joke when we were seriously wealthy a few years back. I couldn’t even remember the name of the bank, never mind the corporation. With both Robert and Jim in limbo, that money was gone, too.

I tallied my assets. Not including loose change, I had $312.

José said not to worry. We’d go back to Riohacha, collect his Bandito Army, smuggle them back to the States, storm whatever jail they had the boys in, then get back down to normal business. It sounded good to me, but unfortunately things didn’t go exactly as we planned.

The first thing was that Flash missed South America. Just before dawn, we crossed Central America somewhere south of the Canal without realizing it. Flash continued to wing his way south, but he was over the Pacific, not the Caribbean. I had taken a nap and crawled back into the copilot’s seat at about 0800. I calculated that we should’ve been on the ground in Colombia by then. Ahead was nothing but ocean.

Flash’s explanation was “headwinds.”

When I inquired about the snowcapped mountains fifty or so miles off on our left side, he told me to leave him alone.

“There shouldn’t be anything out that way until Africa,” I said.

“Then it’s Africa,” he replied.

“You have no idea where we are,” I said.

A contemplative pause. Flash fired up one of his Rastafumian Bombers and exhaled. “Look,” he said. “I know exactly where we are. We’re right here.” He pointed down. “It’s everyplace else that I’ve got some problems with.”

We finally hung a left and landed at a little coastal strip in Bolivia for directions. While we were being refueled and redirected, I bought a local newspaper. My picture was plastered across the front page. There was a smaller picture, an insert, of High Pockets, his tongue hanging out foolishly. I suddenly felt dizzy, disoriented. What were High Pockets and I doing in a local Bolivian newspaper? We had broken a few laws here in the past, but nothing very serious. I quickly skimmed through the story.

I was now a left-wing terrorist and had been seen recently in the company of the infamous Carlos. My mission, the story said, was to assassinate every president and dictator in the Third World. High Pockets, they claimed, was a Canine Killing Machine. We had both been trained in Libya by our old friend “known only as ‘George’ and were able, through specially developed meditative techniques, to blow ourselves up by force of will.

We were numero uno on the hit parade of every agency of every government represented in the United Nations (and a few that weren’t).

“This is outright slander,” I mumbled to High Pockets, not realizing that he had wandered off. I tried to figure out who or what had caused this gross misinterpretation. They had mentioned George. That was a clue. I thought of Robert and Jim, wherever they were. Those two idiots would say anything for a laugh, especially when they were high and under interrogation. But this story was too coherent.

I turned the page absently. To my surprise, José’s picture was plastered across that. This was getting ridiculous. I started reading. “Oh, boy,” was one of the things I said before finishing. I looked up. José was sitting in the dirt eating a Bolivian Burrito with a Bolivian Bandito. I suddenly needed a drink. There was bad news here for José, too. Here it is: Because of José’s “ties” to me, George and Carlos the Terrorist, he had been linked to a Marxist Revolutionary Front in Colombia. Apparently his Dope Lord Cronies got wind of this in Riohacha and ran amok with José’s Empire. Communism is the biggest no-no of all in the Dope Lord Code of Conduct.⁷⁴

According to a Dope Lord spokesman, José’s Bandito Army defected to various other Dope Lord Armies, with only a handful of his most loyal men fleeing to the southwest to await his return.

I got up slowly and looked around.

High Pockets and Aileron were sniffing Bolivian doggy behinds near a couple thatched huts.

Flash was supervising the Lodestar’s refueling by peering into the tank with a lit joint in his mouth.

José was picking a flea or louse from his three-day growth and nodding sagely while the other Bandito filled him in on the local Bandito Gossip. Apparently the guy hadn’t heard about José’s problems.

There was a small, corrugated-metal general store a few yards away, so t walked over and in. The only things they sold were flour, tequila and STP fuel additive. I bought three bottles of tequila and went back outside, still a little woozy from what I’d read.

I took a long pull of tequila,⁷⁵ gagged slightly, straightened up and made my way over to where José and his buddy sat in the shade of a gnarled old oak, the only tree for a mile or so along the wild coastline. I sat down.

I handed each Bandito a bottle, then took another serious swallow. In fact, I drained half the bottle. My lips stretched across my teeth involuntarily and I could feel blood being diverted toward my eyeballs in case they decided to get bloodshot.

“Aaee-aah!” I yelled. This also was involuntary, but the two Banditos took it as a challenge and proceeded to chug-a-lug their bottles.

“Ahhh ...” José said.

“Ahhh ...” José’s buddy said.

This was more or less what I’d hoped would happen. I looked at my watch. I’d give José’s system five minutes to get the tequila pumping, then tell him about his empire having been pillaged and all. First I would read him the front-page article about me to get him laughing. Timing is everything when breaking bad news to a Bandito.

I waited the five minutes, during which time José got three more bottles of tequila. (I still hadn’t finished my first.) He and his buddy chug-a-lugged theirs again. Again they both said, “Ahh ...” I started the story.

José listened attentively, laughed at my part, then looked at his own picture on the second page. He puffed up like a rawhide-and-buckskin canary. He deflated slowly, like a leaky balloon, however, as I read on. From his eyes I couldn’t tell whether he was just extremely drunk or Out-of-Control Bandito Drunk, which is like the hyperspace of drunkdom.

In point of fact, neither was the case, which is one of the many reasons I will always respect José as a leader of men. The effect of the bad news on him was this and only this: It sobered him up.

He calmly asked his Bandito Buddy where the nearest phone was. The guy said about an hour or so to the south by jeep. José then told me he’d be back in a couple hours or so, and left with the guy after negotiating for the use of the town’s only jeep.

I was passed out under the tree when he got back. He sat down and woke me gently. José was a Sad Bandito.⁷⁶ Everything was true. He couldn’t return to Riohacha until he’d reconsolidated himself and defeated the Dope Lord who’d stabbed him in the back, using José’s nonexistent leftist leanings to foment dissent amongst his men. José had twenty good men, though, camped in the Sierra Nevadas.

He had other news. About me. There were bounties on High Pockets and me from various dictators (plus the CIA) that added up to over $200,000. No one could be trusted. The whole continent was crawling with agents, double agents and informers.

José gave me one of his special Bandito Embraces and told me not to worry. He’d take care of me until we got back on our feet.

We passed another bottle of tequila between us. José called Flash over and had me explain things. José (through me) then told Flash he was welcome to come up and hide out with us. He further explained that the Lodestar was hot as a jalapeño and was therefore unsafe for travel. José and I would be continuing on by jeep and, later, by burro.

Flash fiddled with his crimson ponytail and smiled. “Thanks, maan, but me and old Aileron, we’re used to livin’ in a plane, ya know?” He slipped the rubberband back over his ponytail and rambled on. “Ya know, this is an even nicer set of wings than the old Looney Tune and, man, when I finish customizing this dude with the old red, white and blue Flasheroo paint job, ya know, who’s going to recognize the sucker?”

Flash started to walk back to the plane. He turned suddenly. “Treetop level, man. Very important concept.”

He then pointed at me, though he spoke to José. “This dude is heavy, man. His mind is at treetop level.”

With that, Flash and Aileron boarded the Lodestar (he had already started calling her the “Loaded Star”), cranked her up and took off.

Three weeks later José and I reached his men in the mountains south of Santa Marta. High Pockets and I moved into our shack and this tale began. Or the tale behind this tale began, since this part was the part of the tale that dealt with how the tale got into position where it mattered how it began at all.

When I first started to write this story I had it in my mind that it would end when the past caught up with the present (as it now has done), but things didn’t work out exactly as I planned. Something has happened here that seems to happen all too often in life itself: The present has gotten out of hand. I’ll tell you something. If I ever write another book (very doubtful) I’ll do the whole goddamn thing in the past tense, so at least I’ll know what will get out of hand before I start.

Hey, I have a quick conceptual quiz for you all. Here it is: The past and present sections of this story have now converged on each other.⁷⁷ There are two possibilities that can explain this. Either the present part of the story slowed down a bit and waited for the past part to catch up, or the past part speeded up and overtook the present part. (We will overlook other possible combinations of these two possibilities.) Which of the above two possibilities has actualized? I’ll give you a minute to think.

Ready?

The answer is this: If your body didn’t eject gas or air in a scornful, involuntary eruption (a laugh followed by a fart would’ve been the best reaction), you failed miserably.

From a relativistic standpoint (and there probably is no other standpoint), my question is meaningless. I meant it comedically for those of you who have done your homework.

The question is also meaningless in the sense that the present cannot slow down and wait, either in a narrative or in life. It just rambles on like the village idiot.

Let me add at this point that if you haven’t as yet taken it upon yourself to do some outside research, I would prefer that you put this book down and forget about it. Go read some Erma Bombeck.