Collecting his paycheck from the jefe was a prospect Fernando distinctly dreaded. It necessitated venturing into Alfonso’s sweltering hot trailer of a lair to be hopelessly ensnared in long-winded tales of false bravado. If not outright lies, these were at best no tales of his own. The jefe had a highly romantic opinion of himself, built entirely on delusion.

Braving the infernal trailer early one day to collect his wages, Fernando was surprised to see the jefe sitting slumped in his chair over the messy desk. His black cowboy hat was askew. His propped elbows were braced on the desktop, supporting his head which he’d been clutching.

He stared downward in what seemed like blank and abject misery. His beady black eyes were dully glazed. His stumpy fingers dug into his puffy red cheeks. As Fernando entered the trailer, the jefe gave a start, glaring up at him.

“What is it? What do you want?”

“It’s payday, señor.”

At this simple statement, the jefe was startled grimly afresh. Recovering himself somewhat, he frowned aside.

“I’m in the middle of something. You’ll have to come back later.”

Fernando looked the jefe over where he sat slouched with eyes averted. His thin black hair was slick with greasy sweat. Perspiration beaded his sheening face. His throat worked strangely, as if trying to swallow.

Fernando approached him like he would a sick, shying dog. “You don’t look too good, jefe. Is something the matter?”

The jefe jerked his head once, spastically. Fernando’s eyes flicked down to the desk, littered more than usual with smudged papers. Notices, invoices—all overdue. Tacked to one bill laying front and center was a handwritten letter of spiky, unmistakable threat: pay up, or else.

When Fernando glanced back, he saw the jefe’s eyes had strayed toward him. He looked very much like a whipped dog now, long-faced and faintly quivering.

“I fucked up,” he rasped out. “I really fucked up this time.”

Fernando caught his eye and held it. “What happened?”

There was no accusation in this demand, no anger—though both of these things Fernando felt acutely. Instead, he asked this with a tone of calm expectation, as if inviting a troubled friend to confide in him. At Fernando’s show of sympathy, the jefe quelled.

“I fell behind on some payments. This and that, you know. I’m not a perfect man. I have my vices, and these women—you know how they are, weaseling away your last damn cent.”

From his shirt pocket Alfonso took out a stained red kerchief. He blotted at his shiny face with it, accomplishing nothing. Fernando waited with concealed impatience for him to resume.

“Things were heating up in town,” the jefe said. “Some people were getting angry, menacing me. So I took the amount I had and I—well, I thought—but that motherfucker swindled me…”

“You made a bad bet and gambled away the wages,” Fernando surmised, in that same disarming tone.

The jefe looked at him plaintively. “I fucked up,” he said again. “Now what am I going to do? I can’t pay the bills. I can’t pay you. I’m going to lose my workers, and my suppliers have already cut me off. That’s why we’re behind schedule as it is.”

Fernando nodded. Chico had been grumbling for days about the shingles not coming in on time. The tiles were delayed, too.

“I’m out of money,” the jefe continued to lament, more fearful than remorseful. “Out of excuses. The patrón—he is going to kill me.”

“Ask him for an advance,” Fernando said. “Tell him whatever you need to tell him.”

The jefe’s face crumpled. “I already did,” he replied in a small voice. “It was the advance that I lost.”

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La Gorgona © CS Dark Fantasy