There Is No Otherwise by Ardin Lalui

There is No Otherwise
By Ardin Lalui
    *
    A PICKUP RODE NORTH on route eighty out of El Paso. Heat rose from the ground before it like a fog, twisting the air so that the road and the entire Mesilla Valley looked like a melted photograph. To the east the Organ Mountains stretched upward like fingers from a grave and to the west was the Rio Grande flowing behind a few good miles of bottomland.
    *
    T HREE BOYS SAT IN the cab of the pickup looking straight ahead. None of them spoke. Their hats were swung back on their necks and they each had on clean shirts. Cigarettes hung from their lips like they had a permanent place there. The oldest, Ashton Modine, drove through the towns of Canutillo, Vinton and Anthony Texas and across the line into New Mexico fast enough that dust rose behind the truck in a cloud and hung over the streets after they were gone.
    *
    T HE OTHER TWO WERE Modine's coworkers on the Tobin Ranch, Arliss Ermey and John Paul McGrath. The three spent more time together than most married people. They slept in the same bunkhouse, ate at the same table, and shat in the same crapper. There have been families built on less.
    Arliss sat in the middle and he leaned over JP to flick a cigarette out the window. He took another from the pack on the dashboard and put it in his mouth. Outside, the blur of Anthony Texas as it appears from a vehicle moving seventy‐five miles an hour flew by and he said to the driver, ‘would it kill you, Modine, if we were to slow down? I mean, I'm all for getting there, but the journey's the sweetest part.’
    ‘It was you all didn't want to stay in El Paso.’
    JP took himself a cigarette and pushed in the lighter and waited for it to pop out.
    ‘I'd have stayed in El Paso,’ he said, ‘if anyone would have asked.’ He lit his cigarette and passed the lighter to Arliss.
    Modine said, ‘light me one of them would you?’
    They burned through Vado New Mexico and Arliss almost swore he saw heads turn to watch them go by. ‘Goddamn it, Modine, what's the hurry? This here anticipation's the sweetest part.’
    ‘Maybe for you.’
    A mathematical twelve minutes later and the truck was on Main Street Las Cruces and pulling over outside a bar. Modine got out of the driver side and stretched his arms behind his back. ‘How about this for a place, Arliss?’
    ‘Well we're here aint we?’
    ‘This good enough for you, JP?’
    JP nodded.
    ‘Wouldn't want to go making no decisions on your behalf.’
    ‘This is fine, Modine.’
    JP was straightening out his shirt. He smoothed it over with his hands and took a look at the bar. Whatever it had been in the past, its glory days were long gone. Paint peeled off the siding and a sign in faded lettering read, ‘La Luna’.
    ‘After you all,’ Modine said and they went in.
    *
    A PART FROM THE BARTENDER the bar was empty and they walked up to him and ordered three whiskies. He put three glasses in front of them and poured a round. They picked up the drinks and faced each other as if coming to an agreement and then drank the shots and Arliss made a circle with his finger for another round.
    JP pulled up one of the stools in front of the bar and sat on it. He lit a cigarette and examined the place. In one corner was an old jukebox and beside it was an older piano. Neither looked like it would work. There were a few tables and chairs distributed around and some space in front of the piano and jukebox where you might dance if you had a mind to, and if you had a woman to dance with, and music. He nodded to himself. In his opinion it was about the kind of place where nothing good would ever happen to them and it was just like them to drive an extra fifty miles to find it.
    He looked at Modine and Arliss. They were surveying the place for themselves. Arliss said to the bartender, ‘what's there to do for fun round here?’
    ‘Como qué?’
    ‘Como mujeres. Como chicas.’
    The bartender smiled. ‘Ah sí,’ he said. ‘You stay here?’
    ‘We'll