Free The Surf Guru by Doug Dorst

saint would have opened her eyes, shown her that Lars is like the feijoa, a fruit that rots from the inside out, turning brown and foul-smelling underneath its shiny green skin. I may be a man who blackens eyes, cleans his gun, and dreams violent dreams, but I live by San Humberto’s example. I am not a bad man.
    As much as El Gris deserves his punishment at the Festival, I would rather see Lars in his place, sweating and crying and helpless, knowing the floor will fall away beneath him, knowing his neck will soon be snapped and we, the true citizens of Ciudad San Humberto, will lead the hyenas to his swinging corpse. That is the picture I have in my head when I drop my coin into the well. I hear it clink at the bottom, metal on metal.
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    I am doubled over in the pain of last night’s drink. The hot air scorches my lungs when I breathe. The shade of the fruit stand is little comfort. Hammers pound and pound from the direction of the square. The construction committee has begun to reassemble the gallows.
    I am startled by my daughter’s voice, suddenly close. “Those papayas are lovely,” she says.
    Sunlight stabs my eyes when I look up. “I sell good fruit,” I tell her.
    Ysela is nearly twenty, tall and slim, with graceful limbs and wide, dark eyes. She is the most beautiful woman anyone in town has ever seen. These are not the foolish words of a proud father, for I am anything but proud of her. Her beauty is simply a fact, just as it is a fact that hyenas can smell carrion from seven miles away through a crosswind. Today she wears a new-looking dress of deep carmine. It does not cover her calves.
    She tucks a strand of her long black hair behind her ear. “Yes,” she says. “You do your job well.” I know she says this to make me feel better; she must have heard all the complaints. Even so, I thank her.
    â€œI hope you are well,” she says. “I worry.”
    â€œI do not need your worry,” I say.
    â€œHow is Rubén?” she asks.
    â€œThe same. Always the same.”
    She looks up and down the road, then quickly opens her basket and hands me a bottle of tequila, the best Lars sells. “Tonight, at least, you won’t have to go into the bar,” she says. “I know Lars makes it difficult for you.” I tell her I can buy my own drinks, Lars or no Lars. But I take it from her and hide it behind the stand.
    She bites her lip. A habit, when she is anxious. It is the same look she had just before she told me she was going to work in Lars’s back rooms.
    I asked her, Have you lost your mind now that your mother is gone?
    She said, You can’t control me like you controlled Mama .
    Do not talk to me that way. I am your father.
    I will talk any way I want to talk. And I will make my money any way I wish.
    I will drag you from there and beat sense into you.
    I will curse you whenever someone is inside me . Whenever I am fucking.
    San Humberto will make you pay.
    San Humberto would pay me to fuck Him.
    So now, with her lip bitten and her calves exposed, I brace myself for her news. But what she says is not what I expect.
    â€œI want to see Rubén. Will you show me the way?”
    â€œRubén does not want to see you,” I say. “Not while you work for that man.”
    Her eyes narrow, but she says nothing.
    â€œMay San Humberto guide you,” I say.
    â€œMay He guide you as well,” she says curtly, then turns away. I watch her walk; it is Madalena’s walk, a walk of confidence, even arrogance. In my blurred vision she could be her mother, and I cannot stop watching her.
    I do not even notice the two boys making off with all of my lemons until they are halfway to the square. The children are getting bolder these days.
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    Each day Vargas visits the jail and brings back the same news: Ayala is despondent, El Gris is strangely calm, and the two of them whisper together through the bars. I am filled with