No Rest for the Wicked

Chapter 10

"BM Jr., move it, would you?" Luna groused at the large alpaca. She pushed past him and started to shovel his poop. "I'm not sure why I call you Jr. There's nothing junior about this level of defecation," she declared as she let the droppings fall into the wheelbarrow.

When she had left Korea, Luna found herself a small ranch on the outskirts of Oaxaca where she could hide in anonymity and still work on her efforts to save the Mixtec languages. In buying the farm, she had forced herself to diversify a bit. She could no longer spend every waking moment doing language work. She now had animals to feed and grass to mow these days as well. The hard, physical labor of the farm had been good for her, getting her back into her body so that she didn't get caught up in her mind too much.

Despite standing by her decision to leave Korea and her Woojin-ah, she had to admit that she had really benefited from having been close to him again after all those years. She truly believed that he didn't judge her, even if his fans might have. She had finally begun to see that what happened all those years ago had not been her fault. She was a child, facing something incredibly frightening, the thought of losing her beloved father. Yes, her actions had taken a life, and that was nothing to view lightly, but looking back, she couldn't really identify what that little girl could have done differently.

Luna returned to the present moment when she felt BM Jr. nibbling on the shoulder of her blouse. "Hold on," she said with a laugh. "I'm getting your apple for you," she said as she pulled the fruit out of the pocket of her mandil. "You're just as impatient as your namesake," she teased the large alpaca.

"Who did you name him after?" came a male voice from behind her. Luna spun around, her heart skipping a beat or two as her eyes adjusted to the sun beating down behind the male form. Squinting slightly and covering her eyes with her hand, she cautiously identified him.

"Woojin-ah?" she asked in disbelief. "How did you find me?"

"Well, you didn't make it easy. I'll tell you that much," BM complained. "I assumed you would head back to this area where you could continue your work. After that, it was just a matter of finding which one of the tiny villages you had gone to. "Did you know that Mexicans can be very helpful?" he asked rhetorically. "Although, I did get lost like three times on my way out here," he admitted.

"No, you can't ask Mexicans for directions," Luna warned him gleefully. "They don't want to not know how to get somewhere. So, if you ask for directions and they don't know, they'll just make something up so as to not seem ignorant.

"Ah, well, that would explain a lot," he said ruefully. "But I've made it here now. Are you just going to stand there and ask me about my trip? You can't tell me I came all this way just to chit chat with you," he said, trying to suppress a wide grin.

Luna ran into his arms, and he swung her around like a rag doll. "Ahhh, I'm gonna be sick," she yelled as the spinning mercifully stopped. Her head was still swimming when he leaned down and kissed her lips that still tasted like the chilaquiles from breakfast. But the kiss was only serving to make her head swim even more. She felt like she was still spinning. She grabbed his shirt for stability. Soon she was opening his buttons and trying to tug the shirt off of him.

"¿No te esturba?" she asked, pulling at his shirt impatiently.

"What does that mean?" he asked as he escaped her kiss for a moment.

"It just means that this has got to be bothering you since it's driving me crazy," she said as she finally pulled off the shirt, breaking the last button in the process. The white button flew through the air and landed on the pile of alpaca poop that she had just shoveled.

"Ahh, my button!" he exclaimed. For a moment, it looked like he might have been willing to reach into the steaming, brown pile to retrieve his button, but Luna stopped him.

"No, no, that lives there now," she told him. "You don't need to pick it out of BM's BM," she told him.

"Oh, you named him after me," he cried out, momentarily distracted from kissing Luna.

"Well, yeah, I knew you always wanted to raise an alpaca that was named after you," she replied.

"And here I thought no one actually listened to those YouTube interviews," he said.

"I listen," Luna defended.

"Of course you do," he assured her as he kissed her sweat-salted forehead.

Later, as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon, Luna led him to the farmhouse where she prepared him a simple meal of chorizo con huevos and freshly-made tortillas. With their bellies full, they each were looking to clean off the day's dirt.

"Where's the shower?" BM asked, innocently enough.

"So, about that," Luna began. "I don't currently have plumbing at the moment."

"You don't have what?" he asked for clarification.

Instead of an answer, Luna just continued on talking. "I have a tent out there with a garbage can full of water and a bowl. You just scoop the water into the bowl and run it over yourself," she explained.

"Okay," he replied, sounding overwhelmed. "And the toilet?" he asked.

"Yeah, so, that's just an outhouse situation," she replied sheepishly.

BM had no intention of acting like an entitled prick. So, he accepted the situation for what it was. When they had both finished their "showers" and were ready for bed, they stood in the living room of her tiny farmhouse.

"Uh, do you have a guestroom, or something like that?" BM asked, knowing the answer already. The tiny house didn't even have a bathroom. A guestroom was not an option.

"Well, I would let you sleep in my bed if I knew you would be around for a while," Luna admitted.

"Yeah, I've got to stay for a good long while because I need the sleep. I haven't slept in like three months," he complained.

"And what makes you think I'm going to let you sleep?" Luna replied, slyly.

"Whoa, look out," he replied with a good-natured chuckle.

Luna led him by the hand to the lumpy mattress perched on a precarious-looking metal frame. BM lay behind her, spooned up against her so that she could feel his heartbeat against her back. She pulled his arm around her. The clanging sound of a poorly-installed ceiling fan that hit the bowl of the lamp with every rotation was the only noise besides their breathing.

"So, are you on hiatus, or what?" Luna asked, waiting for his answer. When she heard nothing, she turned her head around the best she could and saw his features softened by deep sleep.

"You little turd," she teased her sleeping Woojin-ah. "For someone with insomnia, you sure do a lot of sleeping," she added, though she knew there would be no response. The banging of the fan and the sweltering heat kept Luna up for some time after BM had nodded off. It occurred to her how curious it was that they were living in a place where their histories didn't really matter. They could set aside their own histories to help the people around them save theirs. She thought of everything that awaited them at daybreak. There would be work, but there would also be moments of playfulness just like they had experienced as kids. She already knew where she was taking him first thing in the morning. The old tire swing on the branch of the sturdy tree at the center of the property was undoubtedly Luna's favorite spot, and she hoped it would be BM's too. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought of all the plans she had for the two of them. "But first some sleep," she thought drowsily as she nestled into the shape of his body.