Teeth of the Cocodrilo

“Gracias,” said Aaron Landers, as he took his paper plate of empanadas and parted the line of taxi drivers and construction workers queued up to buy lunch. He made his way to a concrete parking stop to sit and unwrap the spicy black bean snacks. Street vendors cooked behind their carts filling the air with aromas of onions and meat and spices. Many tourists avoided street food believing it to be toxic. The vendors sure as hell weren’t about to poison their neighbors and friends. They were mostly family affairs with the mother and father cooking and taking food orders, while the kids readied plates, napkins, and cleaned up the little fold-up tables. The primo location sat beside the bus station and the nearby Playa del Carmen Wal-Mart. After the lunch hour, many of the carts shut down which allowed their kids to return to school.

Aaron looked across at a construction site where a future condo would rise. Sometimes he’d stop to watch the workers and shake his head. Not seeing any pilings bored down, he’d question how long his own condo rental would last. Aaron wiped sweat from his brow and crumpled his napkin. While inhaling one last lungful of charcoal smoke and sweet onions, he mounted his 100cc Suzuki feeling late morning heat rise from the asphalt and sidewalks.

He was grateful for the wind racing past his ears when he turned onto the Federal Carretera 307. A week’s worth of groceries for his Maroma Beach condo was secured in the rear bike carrier. Plenty of loud semis passed him, blowing dirty exhaust around the busy four-laner. He debated swinging onto the shoulder where it was safer, but that would require dodging the scattered detritus of foliage from last night’s blow. A few of the palm trees along the wide center median had their long fronds hanging by a thread, swaying in the traffic turbulence.

Aaron looked forward to the late afternoon and a short trip to Cancun airport where he’d meet-and-greet a tour group of firefighters for their week of R & R in the Mayan Riviera. After an orientation during the bus ride to the small Mamitas Beach Hotel in Playa del Carmen, they’d kick-off their week with a ‘Welcome to Mexico’ party.

Maria Vasquez, a local woman and a real looker he’d met almost a year ago, hinted she would like to accompany him, check out the situation this afternoon--finally. Aaron was working on her, applying some pressure in the hope she’d work for him full time for the parties and tours. He couldn’t understand why she was so hesitant. Aaron gave more thought to her than almost anything else.

Ahh, Maria. A Mexican beauty. A knock out, head-turning woman who somehow had become an obsession. Her bubbly personality and smile; the way she affectionately touched his forearm when she spoke were part of it. Most of all it was how she looked deep into his eyes, causing his cynical heart to melt making him forget about a long engagement that he ended last year at home in Canada. There was nothing for him back there. His parents had passed on several years ago and only his sister remained there. Growing up, he was never close to her as she had moved out of the house soon after high school and settled in Calgary. They had nothing in common, not even looks. Sure, there were a few friends up there, colleagues he’d see occasionally when they’d come down for some R & R. Mexico was it, the be all, end all: the view in the windshield as Canada faded in the rear-view mirror.

His Mayan Classic Tours company was beginning to grow, at times encroaching on his leisure time of diving, scouting dive areas near Cozumel and south in Belize. The sport was a low impact activity easy on his back and shoulder.

While working for Edmonton Fire Rescue he had slipped off a roof. While chain sawing a vent hole in a snow-covered roof during a house fire three years ago he fell to the ground resulting in a few cracked vertebrae and a broken shoulder. No more heavy lifting for this smoke-eater. The shoulder injury still gave him pain when he pushed his body too much. Thankfully, the frightening dreams of falling off roofs were fading. Someone told him if he ever hit the ground in the dreams, he wouldn’t be waking up.

Aaron was able to take a leave of absence to see if he could start a business in Mexico. That period ended and if he decided to return to work, he’d have to go into the fire inspection branch or become a Mexican fire chief. He laughed at the thought.

A few years back, as fate would have it, while jogging along the beach in Puerto Morelos, he had met an old friend of his father, who owned a nearby Maroma Beach condo. The man apologized for not attending his father’s funeral. Aaron’s father suffered a massive heart attack while pruning hedges. The man offered the condo whenever he wanted.

Aaron’s mom had passed three years after her husband’s death from a blood disease. His parents used to occupy his thoughts almost hourly, but these days they came to him mostly when he called upon them in introspective moments. A few years and several trips to the Mayan Rivera and swimming along with whale sharks, Aaron began to organize his first diving excursions. Word got around and firefighters across Western Canada were eager for more. Thus, the creation of Mayan Classic Tours. Last summer he attended a few emergency equipment trade shows during in Canada catering to the fire rescue service. This year would be an initial foray into the U.S. trying to drum up more business in the off season.

Aaron’s phone began to vibrate. He pulled over at a white concrete bus shelter close to where two men set up folding tables and unloaded bags of oranges. He spoke on the phone with Manuel, confirming the four o’clock Cancun airport arrival. Manuel, his favorite cabbie, considered Maroma Beach and its resort as his territory. Many residents knew him. After ending the call, Aaron observed several locals waiting for the northbound Cancun bus at the concrete shelter. Their thumbs flitted as they texted, oblivious to the world. He regretted buying oranges from the supermarket but pulled an orange from one of the shopping bags and unsheathed a firefighter knife from his belt. Carrying the knife was a habit he’d kept from his firefighter days. The scent of the juicy orange filled his lungs as he sliced into it.

A resounding smash and screech of metal attracted his attention.

About a block and a half away, objects were flung everywhere as a car and cube van collided. In a thin cloud of dust, a black car spun around on its side with a horrendous scraping against the road. A billboard on the roadway median shuddered and dropped on one end as its post was severed and impaled the car.

The white cube van lurched on two wheels, its back doors flung open upon impact. Groceries and good were strewn across the road and onto the grassy center median. Dust and smoke rose from the scene. A man emerged from the cube van, staggering on the roadway like a drunk, holding his head. Steam rose from under the hood.

The world plunged into an eerie silence.

Everyone at the bus stop looked up, processing what had just happened, then broke their silence, chattering and texting madly. A few lifted their devices hoping for a picture. A tire rolled across the highway.

Aaron dropped the orange, fired up the Suzuki, and gunned the engine. Two men at the bus shelter ended their texts and dashed toward the scene. Vehicles blocked both northbound lanes, so he swung onto the shoulder. A spike of horror hit Aaron when he neared the scene and spotted liquid pooling under the black car. He cursed. The rescue threatened to be a recovery. He cursed. With luck the liquid would be plain antifreeze. This wasn’t a great location for a fire-involved accident as it was between the major centers of Playa del Carmen and Cancun. Nearby little Puerto Morelos, a small sleepy beach town, might not even have a responding fire truck.

The cube van appeared to have rammed the rear quarter panel of the car, spun it around while it came to rest on the grassy median with one front tire torn off, its hot oil pan down on the dry grass. The impact almost ripped away the car’s trunk, separated the axle from the frame, and likely ruptured the gas tank.

It reminded Aaron of a vehicle accident he’d seen years ago, when half the car separated behind the driver’s seat and skidded across the intersection. It must have been an impromptu, an insane carnival ride for the two passengers in the rear seat. When his crew pulled up, one of the guys in his crew joked in a carny guy’s voice, “Do you wanna go faster, kids?”

Aaron quickly braked, set his motorbike against a palm tree, and removed a flare from under his motorcycle seat. He hit the striker and flung it down the highway over the blocked vehicles. No movement came from inside the black Mercedes sedan as he approached.

An orange light flickered from under the cube van’s engine compartment. The short grass on the median ignited. Aaron felt a surge of adrenalin jacking into his bloodstream as he dashed to the car.

A woman, in the driver’s seat, hung from the seat belt, her head down. The billboard on the median advertising Bimbo bread, teetered on one post like a crippled animal. A length of the other post had somehow rammed through the rear window of the car and rested on the dashboard beside the woman’s shoulder. Aaron had seen stranger things before.

Passersby were already comforting the stunned man from the cube van. A semi-truck driver stopped in the southbound lane and scrambled across the median with a small fire extinguisher.

Aaron climbed up onto the upset car and looked inside. Shit, two boys were in the back seat, one’s legs partially laying over the other. The bigger boy had a head wound and torn ear from the billboard post flying past him. Both vibrated in shock, eyes bouncing as if they were rabbits about to be devoured by a monster.

The woman’s window was open so he checked her carotid artery for a pulse. No blood flowed from a deep gash on her forehead. Her cheek was torn enough to see her gums and teeth. No pulse. He pushed in his fingers deeper. Her face was a mask of blood, red splashed over her silk black dress. Her well-manicured fingers displayed rings with colored gemstones. Whomever she was, she had a few bucks and wasn’t going to the Wal-Mart. His eyes moved to the rear-view mirror and his own strained face. Like old times again, he thought, as if nothing had occurred in the years in between then and now. He stretched further down trying to pop her seat belt, but her body and side air bags hampered his efforts.

In the corner of his eye he spotted white smoke rising from the median and a stronger smell of gasoline.

Aaron felt the heat of an exhaust pipe come through his sandals and slid off the vehicle to face a crowd of bystanders. He felt his shoulder begin to throb. For just one moment, he wished he had a magic lamp, make the genie bring in his old crew. ‘Poof’: one firefighter on a hose line, one stabilizing the vehicle, and another with a trauma kit and oxygen equipment ready to attend to the patients. Most of all some protective duty gear. Shorts and sandals weren’t going to cut it.

The truck driver with the extinguisher pulled the trigger and became obscured by the powder cloud. The expanding grass fire however, wasn’t paying attention. Flames had already spread to the rear of the car and up the billboard seeking to bake the puffy white Bimbo mascot.

Aaron yelled and pantomimed to the crowd a pushing motion. For a moment, they merely stood there hesitant or afraid until he made to push on the vehicle. The smell of burnt hair went up his nose as flames whipped around from the back of the car to lick at his legs. He howled and danced and beckoned the onlookers.

“Empujar! Push!” he cried. “Rapido!”

His action and words clicked in them at the same time. Someone tossed a blanket down over the flames, smothering them. Several men stepped forward and began to rock the vehicle.

“Uno! Dos! Tres!”

With a final heave, the vehicle teetered off its side and onto its tires in a muffled whump of metal springs and squashed tires. The boys the back seat stopped quivering, probably due to the jolt of the car righting itself. One of the boys muttered aloud while the other keened in a high pitch.

Flames crept up near the trunk of the car. Sirens rose and fell from down the highway as they neared. The gathered crowd spoke louder, their words urgent, panicky. A few women held hands to their mouths.

Aaron tried to wrench open the smashed back door but had no luck, except to cause a white spike of pain to explode from his shoulder. Someone ran over with a tire iron and smashed the glass. Aaron took it from the man and cleared the remaining glass crumbles from around the frame. He reached for his knife and ducked into the window and began sawing through the seat belt of the boy closest to him.

The crowd shouted, agitated, as flames reappeared from under the vehicle to lick at Aaron’s bare legs. He jumped back, cursing his decision this morning to wear shorts. A man threw another blanket on the flames.

In he went again and sawed faster, finally cutting through, causing the boy to flop against the door. Aaron reached in to haul on the boy, trying to ignore the screaming pain from his shoulder. He felt a solid bump against his good shoulder and saw a uniformed policeman beside him, reaching in. They got the boy out awkwardly. The policeman handed the boy off to the crowd.

The window on the far side had flames already licking at the door. Aaron crawled through the window, his pelvis on the door frame, and was able to reach down enough to release the seat belt. He seized the boy’s arm but dropped his knife on the seat, and began to haul on the boy. The policeman tried to squeeze in but couldn’t.

“Ayudar! Help!” called Aaron. Feeling his shoulder about to give out, he stepped away. Someone from the crowd pointed to Aaron’s legs and tossed a bottle of water at him. He picked it up and dribbled it down his hot legs, feeling the relief.

The policeman turned to the crowd and shouted, rallying some men, before he turned back to the window.

Aaron jammed his upper body in again with renewed grit. The rescue, it was all about the rescue, nothing else matters, he thought. Standing on his toes he seized the boy’s leg which flopped across the seat when the vehicle had been righted. Feeling the heat scream up his legs, he grabbed the boy’s jeans as hands sprouted between Aaron’s horizontal torso and the window frame, grabbing, clenching the leg. One leg, then another and finally the boy emerged. The crowd clapped and cheered as they carried him out of danger.

A tall man with coveralls tried to haul the dead woman out the window, but the now gasoline soaked blankets ignited. Aaron tried to get closer to help the man, but the heat and pain were too much.

He shouted for more blankets, but one look at the rising flames told him it’d be useless. He spied the red flasher of a fire truck racing toward them southbound on the accident blocked northbound lanes. The woman would be partially immolated by the time any water arrived. More fire extinguishers from more truck drivers were deployed, creating a cloud of white powder and CO2 flakes. For a few seconds, it appeared the fire was beaten down, but the extinguishers were too small for all the spreading fuel and the orange beast needed food.

A woman offered Aaron a bottle of water and guided him over to sit on a semi-truck’s running board where he felt back pain join in harmony with his raging shoulder. He could only look on as black smoke and flames engulfed the Mercedes.

The policeman herded people back cognizant of a possible explosion from a gas tank. The crowd was slow to back away until a tire blew, like shotgun going off.

Manuel his cabbie appeared in front of him. “Señor Landers, policía want to ask about woman.”

“Hey there, Manuel. What are you doing here?”

Manuel indicated his white taxi. “Taking someone to Playa. The woman?”

Aaron shook his head. “No pulse. Muerto, dead.” Adrenaline drained from him in several long shivers. He watched firefighters begin to douse the vehicle, steam clouds obscuring the car.

“S’okay, Señor Landers. I see, you muy bueno.” He turned to speak to a policeman who looked at Aaron and nodded somberly. The policeman took down some info and left. Manuel helped him to his feet. “Put something on your legs,” said Manuel. “You hurt. I drive you home. I care for your moto.”

An ambulance and more policeman parted the crowd as Aaron trudged over to Manuel’s taxi, exhausted, shivering in the hot Mexican sun. As he’d done in his career as a firefighter, he’d try and put this out of mind with the rest of the trauma cases he’d seen, banishing it to a deep dark place.

On the way home and throughout the night he couldn’t shake a feeling this was the beginning of something, not the end.