Another excerpt! This is also one I wrote long ago. Maybe next week I'll get up the nerve to post something I haven't been revising for years. But, here ya go:

1:19

This was not the first time Maria had come through Arizona. The last time had been several years before, when Maria had first taken to the road. She was little more than a child, but a thousand miles from home, and unafraid. She didn't know what it was, but she felt some reason to be in Douglas, Arizona on the day the Fed busted the Underground River—a four-lane highway that ran under the border and existed for one purpose: to bring marijuana to America. Under the streets of Douglas, Arizona, a giant purple semi with an empty trailer raced through the semi-lit tunnel. The flash of passing light illuminated the face of Terry, singing Simon and Garfunkel at the top of her lungs. It was three a.m.

 

Breakfast was gas-station fare again. Donuts as rubbery as any of her 18 wheels. That's OK. Incarnacion had the real food Mexico-side. He always made sure to feed his drivers; that way, they wouldn't have to stop en route. Always immaculately dressed, Incarnacion had inherited the business from his maternal uncle, and took all matters concerning the business with utmost seriousness. Terry felt her stomach rumble, and turned up the radio to drown it out.

 

Today, she was going to pick up a thousand pounds. She'd take her cab to Ramon, the mechanic's garage, and then walk with Incarnacion to his favorite restaurant, Las Pueblas. Incarnacion was slick, and he wished to maximize his time. He hired only women, and romanced them all, but never let on that he got any further than Las Pueblas with any of them.

 

With hands like warming lubricant—blushing and slightly sticky—he led Terry down the street. They held hands and the busty abuelita who ran the restaurant thought them charming. Yet each woman she thought more heartless than the last, and watched to see which ones she thought Incarnacion were truly in love with, and which ones were just for sport. Poor fool. These women were so cruel to sweet, and boyishly handsome Incarnacion, she thought. Never a kiss. Never an embrace on entering or exiting her establishment. And he held the door for them all, and bought each one her favorite dish and a bottle of wine each time.

 

Such manliness, she decided, were lost on the ladies of today, who seemed to want only some man with watery blood that they could order around, instead of a man who did everything to make his lady's life easy because his blood was made of love. They seemed to hold him just at arm's length flirting and teasing. Even in public, most of Incarnacion's ladies called him Papi, but not Terry. Terry refused to call him anything but Carnation.

 

“Darling,” he said, taking her hand, “It has been too long since I have seen you.”

 

“Only three days, Carnation,” Terry slurped her coffee and gazed at the Mexican beer signs on the wall. She tried to ignore the warm prickle his touch excited. Took her hand back deliberately.

 

“Ah, but to me, it is an eternity,”he purred. Terry always had the sense that Carnation was acting in a movie that only he knew about. His staging, timing seemed rehearsed. He leaned toward her, though slightly, and asked for the tenth or fiftieth time: “Maybe you won't go till tomorrow morning? Or tonight?”

 

Terry refused his invitation politely. It was ok, it was part of the act. The luminous brown eyes seemed ever on the verge of tears. Women only wanted to work. Abuelita scoffed from her post behind the bar.

“The road has been kind to you--”he brushed a whisp of hair from her forehead. Terry carefully ignored his remark.

 

While the two had breakfast, Terry's rig would be taken by a technician to Incarnacion's farm, wherever that might be. Terry never knew. She only knew that when Carnation walked her back to the garage, she was to get in the cab and head back by the underground road. The road that led to it was secret, dusty and confusing.

 

And then, the tunnel itself. Eighty feet under the surface and fully paved. Four lanes and fully lit. A marvel in drug trafficking. Terry'd been on the roster for about a month, or about 10 runs. Approximately four or five tons of marijuana. The back third of the truck was pampers, and Terry felt perfectly secure with all that padding.

 

Not to mention—for her, the mota was free. That was an offer Terry would not refuse. Before she headed out, she would always roll joint upon joint, pile them in her cupholder and climb up into the cab. Incarnacion waved to her just like a sad gigolo whose favorite girlie is going away. It was an act he did well. But all girls were his favorite, and they all left him standing there---just as neatly dressed as when they had begun, and standing in the dirt driveway of Ramon's garage. With dust on his expensive shoes.

 

Terry sighed as she drove out of the town to the winding roads that eventually led to the tunnel. Twelve miles of dust clouds finally parted to reveal a perfectly natural-looking cave that was the entrance to the underground road. Terry waited the signal and then drove into the earth. She must pull over at the station half a mile in, and exchange her clothes for fresh ones; dye her hair and trade her ID for a new one.

 

Somehow, when she got there, Incarnacion was already there. Again, his too-soft hand to help her from the cab. He was a caring employer; he put a cuban blunt in Terry's mouth and unbuttoned her shirt for her. He tasted the marijuana-leaf tattoos on each of her breasts. And now, out from under the eyes of the matron of Las Pueblas, Terry ceased to be cruel to Incarnacion, just as all his ladies did, once in the safety of the way station. They were a dedicated bunch of employees.

 

Terry drew her wallet out of her tight jeans and held up her license to Incarnacion. He grabbed it and ripped it with his teeth, then dropped to his knees and pulled the same tactics on her zipper. With only a little coaxing, he brought the jeans to her ankles and kissed a third leafy tattoo.

 

He washed her hair with as much tenderness as he fucked her. And while the hair dye was working, she rode him like only an 18 wheelin girl can.

 

In a silky blue dress over comfy tan capris, "Amanda" strode from the way station on trembling legs. She felt a line of liquid find its way toward her shoes, and she could still taste Incarnacion on her lips.

 

As she drove, the tunnel seemed very quiet and peaceful. Amanda smoked her first joint, holding the tiniest roach imaginable and still smoking through pursed lips by virtue of her new acrylic talons. Then the roach was too short even for that, and she flicked it out the window. She watched it bounce behind her on the road. And held it with her eyes for as long as possible. The lights on the wall flashing by in hypnotic rhythm.

 

Groping toward the tuner knob, Terry searched for some lively music. Her arm felt heavy and far away, she was love-exhausted, and could think of nothing but curling up with Carnation and drifting off to sleep in sweaty embrace.

 

Her eyelids grew heavy, and she fought with ever increasing volume. Still, her shoulders drew downward and her face quivered with fatigue as the miles slithered by. She was less than a mile away from the exit that led up to the streets of Douglas when her eyelids sank closed and her arms fell limply to her sides.

 

Some moments later, Amanda awoke and couldn't tell which hurt more: her head or her pussy. There is almost never any traffic in the tunnel; no one had seen her, and no one was likely to for a while—until the next outfit came through. Amanda rolled out of the door and staggered to her feet.

 

Ah! But the engine was still running. She hauled herself back in to the driver's seat and waited a moment for her eyes to focus. The truck wasn't in gear. She'd struck a column, which had fallen and brought down a chunk of the roof. It looked like a lot from the rearview mirror, and even more when she turned around.

 

Above ground, Jeanine Hickson was watering a very large hole where her flower garden had lately been. She hadn't noticed yet, because she was busy bragging to her neighbor, Mrs. Farina, that hers was the best garden because it was built on such a lucky patch of earth. Mrs. Farina seemed speechless, in awe. Her mouth moved but no sound came out. It was only after a lengthy description of the carefully composted soil that Mrs. Hickson noticed that Mrs. Farina was actually not all that impressed with her flowers.

 

Amanda saw the daylight filtering through the roof. Back to the cab. She was dizzy, and already, she imagined cops in their masses pouring over the dusty roads looking for entrances, but never dreaming the four-lane wonder of the Underground River. And pictured the border patrol walking around topside, demanding the secrets of the desert at spear-point. Like a woman in a weary, underwater dream, Amanda stretched one thin arm to the door and hauled it closed. Her vision blurred, but she put the engine in gear and stepped on the gas.

 

And almost ran over Maria Juana Remedios Esperanza del Luna.

 

Sweat burst like a rainstorm from her brow, she could not react, only watch a young girl approach her door. The girl could be no more than sixteen, Amanda thought. She had long red hair, and her smile did more to light the tunnel than the globes on the wall.

 

“I heard you crash; I was walking by out there...” Maria pointed to where the exit must be.

 

Before either could say anything else, another semi-truck roared up and Incarnacion leapt from the cab. He kissed Amanda's temples and said he'd seen her on the surveillance.

 

“And we must go,” just like an actor from a more dramatic era. He kissed Amanda on each cheek and they got back in their respective cabs. Against a possible blockade, they decided to drive side-by-side, top speed.

 

Maria looked worried, she was still mostly a girl, after all. Her beauty was not lost on Incarnacion, and he comforted her, over the CB radio. “We will not be hurt,” he promised in his best comforting voice. He leaned out the cab window but was careful not to touch his fine suit to the dusty sides.

 

“But them?” Maria could not stand to watch people hurt each other. She shouldered her backpack, and accepted the joint that Amanda lit and handed to her.

 

“I have an idea,” she said through the smoke. She told them about it.

 

“But you will be mowed down like a pawn between bishops!” evidently, Incarnacion was also a chess player. Maria wished there was more time, for a game or two. But if wishes were joints, Maria would never need to trade for weed again, and Incarnacion and Amanda and all the other girls would be out of a job.

 

“But I am not a pawn...” Maria assured herself, and she turned away from them.

 

Carnation and Amanda got back in their cabs. Carnation pulled his truck up level to Amanda's and as close as he dared. And Maria took her place. Then slowly, they drove the last stretch of the tunnel up into the light of Douglas, Arizona, and the unblinking black eyes of several dozen border-patrol and DEA handguns.

 

Cameras flashed, people gasped—two semis came out of the earth—with a young girl standing with a bare foot on each nose. Blue-jeaned and wearing a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. This should have become a famous photograph: her arms were held wide, long red hair blowing over her shoulders, and her smile even wider than her arms, making the gap she straddled look small. Some of the officers dropped their guns; some merely lowered their weapons; no one fired. The semis came to a stop in unison, and Maria climbed down with the ease and familiarity of a circus performer at the end of the act. But this was not the end of Maria's act.

 

She opened the duffel, and produced a gallon bag of joints. She moved forward, and side to side, sometimes into the crowd and through it. There seemed to be no restriction on her movement, though she couldn't turn without bumping an officer of the law. She lit every joint herself and handed it to each officer. Many did not smoke it, but only stood staring after the redhead girl. No one spoke in the whole crowd.

 

The smoke began to rise. It became difficult to see very far. Some officers began to feel like they ought to do something, but couldn't remember what it was, and so holstered their weapons. Some unloaded their guns and began to toss the bullets around like heavy confetti. Agent Demarzello, head of the DEA operation, began to laugh hysterically and turned toward her team.

 

“Did you see? Did you see her?” she could barely get the words around her laughter, “Her feet! Her feet aren't touching the ground!”

 

Incarnacion and Amanda used the tops of their trailers to climb over the entrance to the tunnel and escaped into the desert, where they now live on a self-sufficient farm. They grow only enough marijuana for themselves.

 

Maria staid to smoke a joint with the local police and a very old woman who couldn't talk about anything but her mysteriously disappearing flowerbeds. She wondered if anyone had seen them. Maria hadn't seen them, but she did have a hunch.

 

“Ma'am, we haven't seen a thing,”chuckled Officer Porter.

 

It was only when the smoke began to clear that the law noticed Maria was gone.