CHAPTER THREE. An Honest Man

Tyler put his hands up, because that's what he had seen people do in the movies. Despite working in a convenience store for the entirety of his working life, he hadn't seen much in the way of stickups or shootouts because he lived in what was probably one of the most boring small towns on earth.

Not that he was complaining. He was glad that he didn't need to count that as one of the experiences on his personal resumé.

"Okay, fine. But you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"I'm a kid named Tyler from a small town. I work at a convenience store. My mom says I have no purpose in life and I should go out and find it. My kid sister Trixie says I'm a total loser, but I don't think she means anything bad by it."

He sighed, like a great fire-bellows. Man, this dude had some lungs. 

He probably smoked cigars, though. The short fat kind. He seemed to be the type.

"Anyway Trixie gave me this idea that I should take the money I'd saved from doing literally nothing but sit on my ass and watch movies and read books and play video games and go on some kind of destinationless adventure, and I went to bed with all this sort of...purpose, for the first time I can remember, and...I woke up here."

Paco stared at him.

"What kind of a name is Tyler?" he demanded.

Tyler stared back.

"What do you mean?"

"Tyler's a last name."

"Yeah. But, like. Tons of guys my age have it. Some girls, too. It's become like. A super popular choice to name kids last names as first, especially girls with those Scottish or Irish Mc/Mac type of names, you know, but. Yeah."

He unexpectedly ran out of steam, but felt that was to be expected, given that a small angry man was holding a machete to his chest.

"Say I believe you. I gotta tell you, the most unbelievable part of your story is that your name is Tyler. Well."

Tyler was inexplicably offended somewhat by this, since his mom gave him that name.

"My mom gave me that name," he said, offended.

"She shouldn't have," said Paco, ignoring Tyler's huff of disbelief. "And those were definitely a lot of words I didn't recognize. Anyway. Let's say I believe you. I do like an honest man. Do you think Joe's in your body, wherever you are?"

The thought had never occurred to Tyler, but now he was kinda freaked out that his family might be unwittingly living with some adventure hero from those old serials, and Joe swaggering around in Tyler's admittedly soft bod demanding mojitos or whatever those guys did. Probably not mojitos. Straight tequila. Worm included.

Or was that mezcal?

"Hey!" said Paco, tapping the very sharp pointy tip of the machete against his chest, bringing him back to the currently unreal reality. "I'm sorry, am I boring you? Something distract you from this scintillating conversation?"

"Wow. Scintillating. Good word."

Paco, for some reason, puffed out his chest like a proud bird.

"Flattery will not get you anywhere!" he resumed. "Answer the question."

"I don't know! I sure hope not. Does he like Pop Tarts?"

Paco blinked.

"Does he like what?"

"Pop Tarts. They have this new red velvet kind - some kinda red velvet craze lately, I dunno - anyway, I went through this whole, um. Pop Tart phase. And I'm over them, like way over them, but Mom keeps buying 'em anyway 'cause she knows I like 'em, or I used to, and I just haven't had the heart to tell her. And this Joe dude's gotta work out so he probably has like. Protein shakes for breakfast. Or just. Coffee and regrets. He can't live on Pop Tarts!"

Now Tyler was really going bananas, because that last thing there sounded a little too close to the whistle of a teakettle. And why did he care whether this he-man guy had his protein shakes or not?

Paco suddenly put down the machete.

"Okay. I believe you."

Tyler was startled, but of course, extremely grateful.

"Uh. Can I ask why?"

"First of all, because...well. Hearing Joe, or at least someone that looks and sounds exactly like Joe, talk like that? Unless it's some kinda gag, man, it's really jarring - and if it is a gag, I know you're bored, Joe, but really? After Penelope, and everything?"

Tyler wanted to ask who Penelope was, but wisely decided against it.

"But mostly," sighed Paco. "It was the Pop Tarts."

And he turned around, with his back to Tyler, who now was the only one with a machete in striking distance of his opponent, and started hacking away at the jungle again.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"And you believe me?"

"Sí. Yes. I do."

"Why?"

Paco stopped hacking.

"For a man who is no longer standing in front of a bare machete," he said, "you certainly seem to want to tempt fate."

"I'm just...curious, is all. I wouldn't believe me."

"Like I said. We've seen our fair share of supernatural shit. This isn't even the weirdest thing that's happened to us."

"Really? You'll have to tell me about that sometime. And you're...uh. Okay with me tagging along?"

Paco turned around and looked at him again, this time with the machete safely by his side.

"Mira. Tyler. Or whatever your name is."

"It's Tyler."

Paco shook his head.

"Qué pena. Es un asco. Anyway. I figure you've got the body of my friend, so I gotta stick with you til he comes back to me, if he does. Besides, Tyler, you sound pretty young, and firstly I'm not going to abandon some kid to his fate. I'm especially not going to lose the body of my best friend to some supernatural shenanigans."

"Good alliteration."

Paco puffed up proud again. Interesting. Something else to ask him about.

"So that means," Tyler ventured slowly, "that I wasn't in any real danger, because you wouldn't kill your friend?"

Paco grinned.

"You're catching on," he said. 

Then he pointed the machete again.

"But I'm not above a little friendly maiming," he said. "And I know Joe can handle it. So watch yourself."

"Noted," said Tyler faintly, kind of wishing he could meet Joe, who sounded pretty cool.

"Now," said Paco, turning around and hacking away at the jungle again, "you're not going to be good at everything instantly, okay? You're still another person, another mind, in that body. So hang back and learn, at first. From me, from other associates. You'll learn from experience, too, but don't go rushing into every gunfight and poker game you see. Understood?"

"Understood."

"And be careful of other things."

"Like Penelope?"

"Like Penelope," agreed Paco, and paused. "And Rita. And Sue. And a few others. I'm sure he's on his way to racking up more, whenever he gets back here."

He grumbled to himself in Spanish.

"Like I said. He's a good man. One of the best. But women are his weakness. And not his only one."

"And you? What's your weakness?"

"Now there's a question that gets a man a machete."

"Sorry. Thought I'd ask."

"By the way," asked Paco. "How old are you?"

"Just turned twenty-three."

"Ha! Thought you were a kid. At twenty-three, I was running rum to the - ah, but you don't need to know about that. Your position here is gonna be very need-to-know. When I need you to know it, you'll know it. Otherwise...zip it."

"Got it. Can I ask a question?"

"Certainly, Tyler Pop Tarts."

"It's not - ugh. Anyway. We're on Earth, right?"

Paco gave him an over-the-shoulder look like he had just found himself with a madman.

"Yes," he said very slowly. "What kind of a question was that?"

"Well, you said you were familiar with the supernatural!" Tyler said desperately.

"Yes, I said supernatural, not extraterrestrial," said Paco. "Not exactly the same thing."

"There was this one Indiana Jones - "

"Who?"

Something else occurred to Tyler just then, and he wasn't sure why he hadn't thought to ask about it before, but he definitely had the excuse that waking up as some burly adventure serial hero does something to the brain.

"What year is it?"

"Okay, Tyler, if that is your real name," said Paco. "How the hell would you not know it was 1888?"

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit!!!!

"Now, are you gonna help me cut down these vines or I gotta do everything myself?" asked Paco. "Get off your duff, Tyler, like your mom says, and maybe you'll grow up big and strong like Joe here. But first, help me cut through this stuff, will you?"

Tyler noted he'd dropped the friendly amigo - but that was okay, since he was used to it often being used in a menacing way, meaning you were anything but - still, it was a little sad, and now he hoped to gain that back again, on some level for Joe, even though he was aware that Joe would get it back either way upon his eventual return.

If he ever returned, that was, and if Tyler ever got back to his own home -

and his own time.

Shaking himself out of his paralysis, the number 1888 flashing through his head like his own personal Miami neon sign, Tyler set to it, and started to hack through the jungle at Paco's side.