19. The parade goes by

All the elements swirled in the blender. Ice, air, water, sugar and guanabana forsook their individual natures in order to become something new together. In anticipation Merilee licked the sweat from her upper lip. Her Sam was already deep into his sandia.

Where were they? in the village of Palenque in the state of Tabasco, Mexico. What time? 9 A.M. Mean temperature? 102 degrees Farenheit and going up. Doing what?

Having breakfast at a thatched refreshment stand run by the wife of Palenque's sole constable.

For a week they had been searching the heated green jungles and shimmering veldts of Tabasco for Alyosha and the Tribe. Just this morning Merilee had awakened to the thought that perhaps Alyosha said Oaxaca rather than Tabasco. She had not yet told Sam her notion, or the keeds, who would be woefully disappointed.

Moreover, they were preparing for their wedding tonight atop the high-test temple at the ruins of Palenque, to be performed by an ancient Maya priest amid jungle hybiscus and candelas and incense. As they drank their liquados they watched the native boys at work with butterfly nets. Sam had promised them two pesos each for chickadees to set free cheep cheep into the night sky when the sacred moment came. So far the boys had corralled only 174, or $27.84 American money's worth, but a big push had been organized for today and the boys hoped for 300 by nightfall.

Merilee and Sam were also under constant surveillance. The policeman. a plump acne-blessed man, was convinced they were in his village for the purpose of scoring, since no other gringos had ever lingered more than an hour after visiting the ruins. Most of the villagers believed their officer had fallen in love with the bewildering gringa, because he followed her puff puff on a lady's bicycle whenever she appeared on the street.

They made an admirable parade. Merilee at the head absolutely squared away in a vast white huipil, her eye on the sparrow and her feet skating her along somewhere down there under the billowing skirts of her gown. Girl, currently in heat, followed Merilee loyally. Alfred followed Girl, nose to her tail. If they paused or even slowed he would climb up her backside and begin pumping away, though his business could never reach hers. Girl snarled or gave him hot tired looks as if to say "too hot for love" or "men! for God's sake!" Puff puff the constable on the bicycle brought up the rear, hot on the trail of the greatest bust in Palenque history. Merilee's opinion of the cop was some what like Girl's current feeling about Alfred.

It was lucky for the poor man's overtaxed heart that Merilee and Sam had decided to have their prenuptial breakfast in the palmy shade at his old lady's refreshment stand, where he could rest and have his wife churn him a cooling drink in her blender.

Merilee took some hard rolls from the secret recesses of her huipil and then brought from the TR a can clearly labeled TRANSMISSION OIL. She spread the rolls with a clear greenish substance, handed one to Sam and bit into the other herself.

When they had set out for Mexico, Merilee had been worried they wouldn't find any dope right away so she had scrounged around and gotten together some exorbitantly-priced lids. These she dumped into a saucepan of butter. When heated, the butter separated, the white stuff and the weed went down and the clarified stuff, or ghee, and the essence of the marijuana surfaced. Cooled and solidified, the clear part was scooped into an oil can which came to Mexico cradled in the spare tire. A dab made Merilee and Sam happier until noon and everybody else none the wiser.

The cop had found a fly in his refreshment. He berated his poor stonefaced wife about it and then began slapping her. Worse and worse yet. Tulsa scenes. Merilee had to turn away. Alfred, pecker stiff but useless, had climbed onto the hood of the TR. From there he launched off onto poor Girl's head.

"Why don't you guys just cut it out, huh?"