The Fugitive Grandma Lives

Chapter 10 - Buen Samaritano

Gustavo Mendoza had lived through many days when he expected to die. "Hay Más Tiempo Que Vida" they used to say in growing up in his village. "Life is short so seize the moment." He learned very young to fight for his moments and stored the way like little jewels that would be buried in a special hiding place where no one else could find them.  The narcos and guachos might come into the village and steal away your life at any time. They'd take your life as soon as shake your hand and then there would be no more moments until the end of days.

So he made the long journey with his wife through the jungles of Chiapas and the hills of  the Sierra Madres across the border to the land where the asphalt glistened in the sun and every gas station had a bathroom. He might be an illegal here. He might have to live in the shadows and work the jobs that nobody else wanted. But at least he would have his moments. Or that's what he thought at least.

Never did it occur to him that a fat, rich old guerro would wack him in the head with a golf ball on the driving range because he couldn't wait to play on to the 18th hole. He lay flat on his back under a powder blue sky where stray clouds floated like lonely angels. It felt like a cannon had just cracked open his skull and his whole mind was spilling out onto the fairway. And once every hope and memory had left his body to form a muddy puddle there'd be nothing left. He would finally have no more moments.

The world became so quiet he was sure he must be on his way to al cielo when suddenly the strange abuelita drove up in a golf cart.

"Call an ambulance," she hollered in a gravelly voice.

"He's fine," their boss replied. He was a fat, bald guerro named Ed Sterling, who ran facilities and security. "He can walk it off."

"Whaddya mean walk it off? The poor guy's face is covered in blood," the abuelita said.

"Gus is fine," Ed assured the woman with an empty grin. He slipped on the fairway fell over right next to Gus, smearing pant leg with blood and soil.

"'Gus is fine,'" the old woman mimicked in an angry voice. "The hell he is!"

"Who are you ma'am?" Ed asked peevishly as he picked himself up off the ground.

"The only one here with a conscience, I guess."

Gus felt his body being lifted by the abuelita and his partner Pedro into the golf cart, while their boss watched in a state of frozen shock. The old woman carried herself with the speed and vigor of someone less than half her age. The way she carried him with her partner, she seemed to be possessed with a supernatural strength and determination like a bruja from the old tales he heard as a child back in the village. She hopped behind the steering wheel and drove the cart clear across the fairway. Lying in the back seat, he watched the fairway grow smaller in the distance. Ed had jumped in his own cart, waving an angry fist as he trailed them in hot pursuit.

"You come back here, lady!" he said, squeezing into the ill-fitting driver's seat of the golf cart.

The old woman flipped him the finger and slammed her foot on the accelerator, gliding down a slope from the fairway along the bank of man-made lake between the 7th and 8th holes. She swerved sharply to the tight left, dodging a sand trap. Her pursuer didn't react quickly enough and when he tried the same turn the weight of his bowling-ball shaped belly seemed to tip the cart into the lake.

"Dang it!" he shouted as he splashed in the shallow water. He looked like an overgrown baby taking a bath.

Gus clutched the bloody ice pack by his scalp. He still wondered whether this was really happening or dream-like journey through the afterlife.  He once heard that real bruja knows walk in between two worlds, weaving the fabric of magic and reality into a single piece of cloth. He never believed those tales from the toothless old folk who sat around the campfire. Not until now.

The abuelita leaned back in the driver's seat, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't worry buddy. I got ya covered."

They sailed through a shower of sprinklers on the front lawn, finally leaving the grounds of the country club. The golf cart was barreling down a suburban street, zig-zagging between cars and SUVs in the direction of the nearest hospital. Horns blared as the woman merged their cart onto Highway 74, pushing the flimsy electrified frame at 20 miles per hour while the hulking tonnage of Mercedes, BMWs and Hummers whizzed by at twice the speed. The golf cart's battery was dead by the time they coasted into the parking lot of the hospital in Rancho Mirage. Momentum carried them as far as the sliding entrance to the emergency room.

"Does he have a driver's license? Or a social security number?" The admitting nurse in the triage room failed to conceal her surprise. This hospital in Rancho Mirage was better known for treating ex-Presidents and aging movie stars than taking care of undocumented landscapers. Fortunately, like most undocumenteds, Gus was fully documented and he took two cards out of his wallet, wondering whether they bother to run a full check.

"Just take care of him and ask your questions later," the abuelita begged the nurse.

"Who are you ma'am?"

The abuelita shrugged as if she wasn't sure how to answer. "Just a good Samaritan."

A pair of nurses wheeled Gus into a room where they staunched the bleeding and bandaged his temple. They flashed a light in his eyes to check his pupils and asked him a few questions in Spanish to check his mental state. The abuelita was gone, disappearing from his life just as unexpectedly as she had arrived.

They told him to sit tight and they were going to do a series of tests to check if he had a concussion. They left him alone in the hospital bed and Gus knew he faced a dilemma. The longer he waited, the better the odds they might check his documentation. It was about making the best choice faced with only bad options. Gus was used to that. It was his bread and butter. He waited until the hall outside his room was clear, then he slipped on shoes and regular clothes and left the building through the fire exit.