With its mile-high altitude and the latitude of Hawaii, this area of Mexico's Western Highlands had lured one of the world's largest colonies of expatriate Americans. Prominent among them were several thousand military retirees. And on this mild, cloudless morning in mid-June, Roddy Rodman headed for a small hotel in the lakeside town of Ajijic for a biweekly breakfast with several others who, for one reason or another, had shed the Air Force blue.
There were five this morning, seated in wicker chairs at a round table in the outdoor section of the restaurant. One of the faces was new to him.
"Hey, you're late," Herb Derry said. "Better grab a seat while there's still enough huevos to go around."
"You trying to egg me on, Herb?" Roddy joked.
A retired major and former maintenance officer, Derry was a gregarious operator known for his ability to get anything fixed from a souped-up Porche to a pesky parking fine. His most prominent feature was a beer belly that gave his shirt the look of a half-filled flour sack slung over his belt.
Everette Marcuse, white-maned, distinguished looking, a weatherman who had made a lengthy and painstaking study of the meteorological charts before selecting this spot for his golden years, waved a hand toward the stranger seated beside him. "Meet my new neighbor. He and his wife just moved in next door. Colonel Warren Rodman, Chief Master Sergeant Clinton Black."
Roddy caught the flicker of recognition in the sergeant's dark eyes and thought immediately… he knows. The others were aware of his court-martial, but it was a subject that had been quietly laid to rest. No one dared or cared to resurrect it.
Black smiled, stood and stretched an arm across the table. He had light brown skin and thick, black hair. Give him a trumpet, dress him in black bolero pants and jacket and he'd look right at home in a mariachi band, Roddy thought as they shook hands.
"Nice to meet you, Colonel," he said.
"Forget that Colonel stuff. The name's Roddy. Where're you from?"
"Fresh out of the Pentagon," the sergeant replied. "And you can call me Clint."
Herb Derry cocked an eyebrow. "Clint Black, huh? You must have done some moonlighting in the country music business."
The sergeant grinned. "I play a pretty mean guitar, but I'm afraid you're talking about the rich Clint Black."
"He just retired from the Air Staff," Marcuse enlightened everyone. "He was senior intelligence NCO."
Derry exaggeratedly slapped a palm against his forehead. "Intelligence! Hey, we can sure use a bit of that around here. Why did you decide to become a tapatío, Clint?" he asked, using the nickname for Guadalajarans.
"Actually, it's sort of a homecoming. My mother grew up on a ranch near Guadalajara. I'm half Mexican to start with."
"You just plan to enjoy your leisure, Clint? Or will you be like some of the guys and try to work a little to keep out of the wife's hair?" Roddy thought the Sergeant had a rather youthful look.
Black gave a slight chuckle. "For the present, I'm only interested in taking it easy. Take awhile to acclimate my wife to the surroundings, I imagine. She's a New Yorker."
Derry, who had an irresistable urge to explain the nuances behind everyone's behavior, quickly elaborated on Rodman's comment. "Roddy couldn't give up driving airplanes. I think he frowns on us deadbeats who just enjoy spending Uncle's money. Of course, most of us couldn't get working papers for anything but teaching English anyway. He's obviously got connections. Only an FM3 but he's a legal part-time jockey at Miguel Hidalgo Airport."
FM3 status granted a five-year residency permit, but no employment without working papers.
"I merely applied for a job with a guy who knows his way around the system," Roddy replied with a grimace. "I enjoy flying sightseers, whatever else comes along. I've got two students to work with this afternoon. Jockeying a little two-seater Bell is quite a come-down from a Pave Low, I'll admit. But with my bum leg, I'm happy as hell to be flying anything."
The other two breakfast companions were an ex-colonel named Barberry, a former flight surgeon and look-alike for M.A.S.H.'s Alan Alda, and Will Ullman, a stocky, muscular man who had been a chief master sergeant in the Security Police. No one was quite sure under what circumstances he had left the service.
"What did you do about your daughter's graduation?" Barberry inquired. He had missed the last breakfast and hadn't talked to Rodman since the middle of May.
Roddy frowned. He had wrestled with that one for quite awhile. Lila, his younger daughter, had written and called regularly ever since he had come to Mexico. She had wanted him to come back for her college graduation. But he still wasn't ready to face the family he had left behind. He couldn't shake the feeling that where they were concerned, he had been an abject failure. Going back would put him at risk for the one thing he didn't think he could take — rejection. Not from Lila, certainly. But he knew he had a problem with Renee, and he wasn't sure about his former wife. Just thinking of Karen brought a hollow ache inside. That was one wound that time had not healed. He kept telling himself that one of these days, he would go back and make amends. But not now. It would have to be some other day.
"I called Lila and told her I wouldn't be able to make it," he said with a contrite look.
"I don't think he's been north of the border since he came down here a few years ago," Derry told Clint Black.
It was true. At first he had used the excuse that he needed more time to rehabilitate his leg. But now about the only problem the leg presented was, as the doctors had promised, a tendency to be arthritic. It had become a handy early warning mechanism for approaching cold fronts. Once in a great while it would throw him off balance, like a trick knee from a football injury. Considering all he'd been through, though, he was in much better shape than he might have ever hoped for. The mental and emotional price had been the highest to pay. The bill collector had really socked it to him with that guilty verdict in the court-martial. He had promptly drunk himself into oblivion. When he sobered up a few days later, he found a note from Karen advising that she was filing for divorce. It provided the final needle jab that finished deflating the sagging balloon of his self-esteem. It left him, almost literally, flat on his face.
The court's sentence had cost him a substantial loss of position on the promotion list for general. It effectively notified him that his career was over. And when he put in for a disability retirement, it was approved so fast the ink had hardly dried on his letter of request.
Roddy rented a small apartment at Fort Walton Beach and initially maintained his officer's club membership at Eglin. He quickly became a fixture at the bar, until the second spectacle created by his toppling off a barstool. He claimed it was caused by his bad leg. The club manager assured the board that it was the result of too many double shots of Scotch. They requested that he take his business elsewhere. He shifted his base of operations to a small, dark bar near the beach, where it appeared he was intent on fulfilling Karen's prophesy that he would end up in the gutter.
On a hot, muggy fall afternoon nearly three months after his retirement, something happened to turn his life around. Reflecting on it later, Roddy was astounded that he had acted as resolutely as he did.
The bar was a long counter cluttered with napkins and ash trays and bowls of peanuts and bottles of hot peppers and other strange looking condiments. Perched precariously on a tall barstool, Roddy viewed the bartender with consternation. He had lost count of how many drinks he had consumed. In a thick-tongued voice, he argued with the thin, wiry young man, whose acne-pocked face resembled a moonscape.
"Now le's be reason'ble, young man," he pleaded in a drunken slur. Then plea turned to challenge. "I ask ya, who in holy hell would know if he's had enough better than me? Huh? Tell me that."