ISLA | Chapter Seventeen
La Boca Vieja
Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
What a damn cluttered mess.
Kathryn expected the room to burp with indigestion due to the half-masticated memories clinging to the walls. The place—part bar, part half-hearted restaurant—felt like the belly of some ancient sea creature, a century swallowing everything that floated past: driftwood, bar stools, old Polaroids, salt-rusted signs. She watched dusty light filter in through a single, massive round window at the front—definitely more gaping mouth than reluctant light source.
Roberto flicked a switch, adding only a dull, orange glow throughout. Out of sight, a jukebox whirred, clicked, and warbled to life. The needle caught somewhere in the middle of a spinning 45. José José’s voice came in already broken.
Pero lo que no entiendo es por qué te fuiste así
sin despedirte
“The jukebox is broken-hearted,” Roberto said. “It only plays break-up songs.” He chuckled to himself like it was a line he’d wheeled out too many times to count. Then, as if on cue: “But you’ll find no iguanas here.”
Wincing, Kathryn was thankful to no longer be in proximity to the beasts and gaping maw she woke next to, its eyes focused on her like…
“Breakfast?” Roberto asked, setting down his catch. “Then you can be on your way.”
Kathryn saw his slight smile again as he disappeared for a moment into the back. It was almost like the dance he had been doing since the paseo, a dodge. Maybe a kneecapping, too—seemingly proving the rumor of the journal true with a single line—but still a dance, since he hadn’t answered any of George’s dozen questions.
“Where is it?”
“Not far offshore.”
“How come it doesn’t show up in atlases?”
A shrug.
“What’s the name of it?”
“It has many names.”
“Yes! Food!” George called out, “All I’ve had is a concha.”
He too had been gawking at all the trinkets. Even without the alien jazz band George could see the outlines of patrons who might’ve stumbled into this beachside cantina: Hammerhead hunched at a table, Muftak leaning against the bar. Greedo waiting to confront Han Solo. Why did he know their names? All of them. Well—except the vampire-devil. Nobody knew about that guy.
Roberto busied himself behind the bar. He glanced over his shoulder before looking at something more closely. Could it be? A small, folded square of parchment, its corners softened by time. A charcoal rubbing from a stone relief, unmistakable from the one he’d seen in the boy’s sketchbook: the upturned hand. The streak across the palm. Yes, this was the same image. But how?
Roberto stared at it longer than necessary. Long enough for its presence to feel heavy again.
Carefully, almost reverently, Roberto peeled it off the back wall and folded it in half—then again. He slipped it into his breast pocket. When he turned back to face them, the smile had returned to his lips—but, for a moment, not his eyes.
Motioning to a beautiful and speckled fish, Roberto said, “Yes, the boy is right: food. Here we say, ‘todo el mundo echa una mano’. You know this?”
“Hasta el mesero hambriento,” Kathryn says, like a reflex.
Roberto looks at her, surprised.
“Sous-chef long enough and you learn a few things,” Kathryn says with a shrug.
Roberto looks around, picks up a knife and a pan. He motions to the kitchen, as if to say, “all yours?”
Kathryn drops her things on a chair, “I already look like hell, might as well smell like fish on the plane, too.”
For his part, Roberto started gathering flatware and glasses.
There’s a ka-chink as the record changes. An upbeat tune. Roberto lights up. “Finally, not a break-up song!”
Her name was Lola
She was a showgirl
George’s eyes narrow. “You serious?”
Kathryn groans from behind the kitchen wall. She knows what’s coming. “Here we go…”
“It’s a murder ballad,” George says. “Tony gets shot.”
“Doesn’t say who did it,” Roberto counters, amused.
“Or does it?” George leans in. “There’s blood and a single gunshot, but just who shot who?”
Roberto thinks about this for a minute. “Lola?”
“That’s what I’m saying! Still wearing the dress she wore that night, drinks till she’s half-blind... she’s gone mad because she shot her boyfriend.”
Kathryn calls out, “You’ve ruined that song for so many people.”
“Only the ones not paying attention.” George yells back with a shrug.
“He gets it from his dad,” she says before disappearing further in the back.
“My dad said songs could tell stories any way they wanted. Mysteries. Half-truths. Even myths.”
Roberto glances at Kathryn, who is occupied with the fish, making her way around the kitchen.
“An interesting man…”
George squares his feet on the opposite side of the table.
“Are you going to tell me anything or are you wasting my time?”
There it is, Roberto thinks. The boy’s stance was like his questions: forward. But what kind of itch was he scratching?
At the beach, the alley—the boy had been sizing him up, but not this directly. Roberto takes another look—definitely a tourist. They always arrive with too much or too little. This one had only a cheap backpack. The ones with droopy wallets hire local guides, pilluelos with cheap souvenir maps and fake discoveries at lesser ruins. These two aren’t rich. Derelict? Roberto wasn’t sure, but they weren’t packed for a long trip either. Unplanned?
“I was born there,” Roberto says, letting the words land with authority. But before the next question can spool up, he adds, “The island isn’t a secret, just out of sight. Marineros say la Caída Azul. The blue fall. Hidden by the curve of the ocean.”
George registers this with a blink. He says aloud, almost to himself, feeling the shape of the puzzle piece, “That makes sense.”
“Hmm?”
“Yeah, why it was chosen–” He stopped himself but the words had tumbled out, unexpected. It was only a fragment, an idea of his father’s. But speaking it aloud felt like crossing some invisible line. Like letting a stranger, even one who might already know, in on a secret.
“You tell me… what do you think you’ll find there? Your father wrote it all down, a journal?”
George felt the weight of his backpack, still on his shoulder. He shifted it higher, pulling it close.
“I don’t know…” George’s voice and eyes wandered low, down to the dust of the restaurant. Of all the things he’d considered, it was as honest an answer as he could muster. But it came out guarded, childlike.
Roberto’s smile faded. He’d seen this before. His scowl returned—maybe to its natural state. “Treasure hunting?”
George saw the lion he’d imagined earlier as Roberto’s eyes narrowed, looking at prey.
“I just mean…”
“Maybe you should go.”
George felt whatever door might have been cracked start to close. His lips parted as he tried to sort out the right path, his brain feverishly typing then deleting the next command: Ask about the cave. Ask about the creatures.
“You’re just like the rest: robando. Sin respeto.”
The backpack felt heavy again, pulling down, the zipper opening just a single tooth.
You have to show him.
George could. He could produce the journal, put it right there on the table. But… what if Roberto thinks it’s filled with the writing of a madman too? Didn’t Kathryn think that was the case, island or not?
“Every language has dug a hole around here. I’ll have no part of that.”
Pull it out of your bag.
George could feel the moment slipping. In another few seconds, the old man would kick them to the curb, locking the door behind. Roberto started re-stacking the dishes. One by one, they landed with a clunk.
Building.
Like decisions.
Like choices.
Like every time George stepped further into the unknown—a choice made—he wasn’t punished. He was rewarded. Kathryn didn’t believe his father’s stories or the journal. She didn’t believe the island existed. She never wanted to hear about it. At the beach, she’d tried to tell him his father might have been crazy.
But if it did—and if it was only a short boat ride from here—then he had to know what was waiting there. No matter what Kathryn thought.
And this man might be able to tell him exactly what his father had been searching for.
Show. Him. The. Journal.
Roberto grabbed the stack of dishes, lifting them from the table to put them away.
“Stop,” George said, trying to keep his voice low. He unzipped his backpack, pulling out the journal—the map falling to the floor. Flipping open the book, searching. “My dad was there years ago. Not treasure hunting.”
George opened the page to a drawing, a hurried sketch.
“He went looking for something. Not gold. Just… something that mattered.”
It was the creatures, just as George’s father had described in the bedtime story, standing around a central column. Glowing torches. Long robes. To the side, a rough sketch of the jaguar creature, jaws wide, arms reaching.
Roberto stared down at the image. Everything else in the room became a soft blur as he began to feel the pounding of his heart in his ears. The robes on the creatures swayed for just a moment. Torches flickered. And echoing somewhere out of sight, he heard the long, fierce howl of the jaguar.
This boy did know something. But how?
One hand lifted to Roberto’s face, a finger gently touching his lips. The other mindlessly drifted to his heart, his breast pocket. A stumped finger rubbed at the folded picture of the glyph resting inside. Roberto’s gaze lingered on the image.
“I think something is hidden, to keep it safe from…” George searched for a word to complete the thought.
Roberto finished the sentence, “The barbudos. The bearded ones.”
George gave the smallest nod and inched closer, whispering, “My father did. He’s gone and this… this is all I’ve got.”
The man looked older—like the weight of something long-buried had just shifted under his ribs. Slowly sitting at the table, Roberto’s hand rested on an empty glass.
“Things that matter,” he repeated and gave a slow nod. Not to George, not even to agree—but remembering.
For a long moment the only sound was the music fading down and the sound of frying fish in the kitchen.
George didn’t know the right question, only that he had to ask something. Anything. If he could just crack the silence. “My father said the island was cursed.”
The man only nodded.
“What’s on the island? What is it?”
Roberto glanced toward the window, the sea, then back to the table, where a beetle—drawn by the heat or the smell—scuttled across the wood grain. He didn’t flinch. Just picked up an empty glass and set it down, clean and quiet, trapping the thing in place.
Roberto didn’t look up. “It’s a trap.” His voice was flat, like it was a thing he’d only said to himself.
The beetle bumped once against the rim of the glass. Then again. It started a slow circle.
From outside, laughter. Not Kathryn’s. Quick and light, like glass clinking together in the wind. George glanced up, reflexively. Nothing in the window but the edge of a palm frond, trembling.
“And when you go there, looking… the island hides it further from your grasp.”
He tapped the rim of the glass once, twice—with his two stumped fingers. Soft.
Kathryn’s voice called faintly from the kitchen. “Five minutes.” A clock, hitting its final ticks.
“When the barbudos came, they burned the books, the temples. Tried to tear the gods from us. They thought they’d wiped the slate clean. But my people are astuto.”
“What’s hidden there?”
“History. Everything the Spanish wanted to destroy,” Roberto said, looking at George. “And mi tierra remembers. The blood, the ash—the history is all still there, bound beneath your feet. And when you go digging—looking for treasure, for glory, for some story to wear like a prize—they see that. They judge it. Sin respeto. And they don’t forgive.”
Roberto slowly lifted the glass. The beetle crawled just past the open edge. With a loud thunk, he flicked it across the room. They both watched the shape of the beetle fly, then disappear into the dark somewhere under a table.
“Can… it be found?” George asked.
Plates clinked in the kitchen, outlining the silence between them. The record changed to a quiet, sideways march. For a long moment, Roberto looked at George.
“Sí. Maybe. But I stopped looking a long time ago.” he said. But something hung on the scruff of his voice. “I tried to open something I shouldn’t have.”
A breath. The man sat heavy, pulled down with an invisible history as the lion seemed to shrink from view.
“But it wasn’t mine to open.”
George could feel the answer within reach but still miles away. His eyes moved across the room—dollar bills left by travelers with inked names and half-remembered dates. Polaroid photos, shoved to fill what space was left. His eyes stopped on a photo—two boys, younger. One with long hair and a grin he now recognized as Roberto’s. The other caught mid-laugh, pushing back a mane of hair.
Mirrored sunglasses.The man from the beach.The thief.
Roberto followed George’s gaze, their eyes meeting as George turned back. “The gods test the heart. Your brother knows where it splits.”
In the corner of the window, something moved again. A shape slipping by. Then another. A flicker of motion moving toward the shore. Two figures. Barefoot. Half-hidden by palms. One of them lifted an arm—not a wave, exactly. But an invitation.
A current ran up George’s back. His fingers tightened on the backpack strap, his feet shifted. The journal, still in his hands, felt warm. His father’s voice, still tucked between his breaths, surfaced clear as glass: “That bell is ringing for you.”
Something was waiting on the island. But not for Roberto. Not for Kathryn. Maybe not even for him. Just waiting.
He had to know what was there.
“Baño?” George asked, already moving.
Roberto motioned, then said, “Your father…”
George paused momentarily, his heart racing, waiting for the man to stop him.
“Saw more than he should have.”
It came out almost as a whisper. George heard.
From the kitchen, Kathryn’s voice: “Can I get a hand?”
The jukebox spun on.
Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
George was already gone.
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Music
Franqueza - Jose Jose
Copacabana - Barry Manilow
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover - Paul Simon
George is one step closer! This is great, J. Can't wait to see what happens next!
George convinces Roberto he is worthy of the quest. For what, we don't yet know. But he is on his way. This is another well written chapter, J. You lit the fuse on suspense with this one. What did Roberto see that he wasn't supposed to see? Will the same fate befall Geoge?