Part 7 (2/2)
”IF IT WAS ME, I WOULDN'T LET HIM TOUCH ANOTHER HAIR.”
They turned around to find The One With The Hole In His Back sitting up in bed. The Gringo With The Ugly Finger and two nurse's aides were also watching from the doorway.
”Que guapo!” The One With The Flat Face said. ”Mr. Phillips, don't you think he looks handsome with his new haircut?”
”It might surprise you ladies to know, but I had a very similar haircut when I was working for Pan Am,” The Gringo With The Ugly Finger answered. ”Back then, I was what they used to call 'a looker.' ”
Don Fidencio turned toward the larger mirror again and kept gazing into it until he could see the faint traces of a face he had almost forgotten.
16.
There was an old lady she knew by the name of la senora Jenny. Her daughter would drive by the bridge on Sat.u.r.day mornings. One Sat.u.r.day Socorro would clean the large house where the old lady lived alone; the next Sat.u.r.day she cleaned the daughter's house, where she lived with her husband. Then one Sat.u.r.day they drove to la senora Jenny's house, only she wasn't there. Before the daughter left for the day, she explained to Socorro that her mother had had an accident getting out of the bathtub. She made a sign to indicate the old lady had broken her hip and then she winced as if it were happening to her there in the kitchen. Socorro kept coming every other Sat.u.r.day to clean la senora Jenny's house, though obviously there wasn't much cleaning to do, considering no one had been in the house for the last two weeks. Still, she washed the unused sheets, swept the spotless kitchen, vacuumed the untouched carpet, scrubbed the clean toilets, and dusted off what little dust there was on the furniture, as if the old lady might show up at any moment. Eventually the daughter sold the house and told Socorro that her mother had found a new home, where there were people who could take care of her. Up until now this had been Socorro's only experience with a nursing home.
Don Celestino found a s.p.a.ce at the far end of the parking lot, near a narrow road used for deliveries. The one-story building was made of tan-colored stucco that formed a long Spanish facade stretching out in either direction before its corners turned sharply toward the back. They entered through the arched driveway and from there continued through a pa.s.sageway surrounded by wilting brown gra.s.s and thick palms. As they were approaching the lobby door, she noticed someone waving at them. The old lady sat hunched in the wheel-chair, wearing a Philadelphia Eagles sweats.h.i.+rt that hung off her like a green-and-silver gown. Once they were inside the lobby, she seemed not to recognize them and adjusted her thick gla.s.ses as if she'd spotted someone else at the far end of the pa.s.sageway.
Don Celestino had to slow down when Socorro stopped to say h.e.l.lo to the old lady. Through the windowpane that separated the lobby from the living area, he could see an old man in a wheelchair pumping his right leg up and down so he could pull off his pajamas. The old woman next to him seemed oblivious to it all and was more concerned with licking the outside of a Kleenex box. Don Celestino waited for an aide to dress the old man, then he tugged on Socorro's hand.
”I have to go now,” she told the old lady.
”Yes, of course, go enjoy your visit. I have to wait here for my son.”
Around the corner from the lobby, they stepped aside for a one-armed man wearing a World War II cap who inched his wheelchair down the middle of the hall. The closer they moved to the room, the harder it became to navigate around the old women parked in their wheelchairs near the nurses' station. Don Celestino tried to explain to her that they all liked to wave, but she wasn't listening. It continued this way until they arrived at the room and he knocked on the doorframe.
”Come in,” Don Fidencio called out. Though it took some effort, he insisted on standing to greet his two guests.
”Fidencio,” his brother said, ”I would like to introduce you to Socorro.”
She leaned in to take his hand in both of hers and right away the old man noticed how nice she smelled, as though she'd taken a shower just before they came to visit. And she was young! Much younger than he had imagined when he thought about his brother spending time with the cleaning woman. A girl really, at least compared to the two of them, but given the chance to be out of here with someone on his arm, he would take her at whatever age she came to him.
His brother walked to the other side of the room and brought her a chair.
”Please, sit,” Don Fidencio said. ”I wish I had more to offer you.”
A faded newspaper photo of men playing baseball hung on the wall behind him. A white telephone sat at the edge of an overbed table; two phone numbers were taped to the back of the receiver. The line was tangled around the bed railing and the cord used to alert the staff at the nurses' station. Socorro sat back but then leaned forward so it wouldn't look like she was too relaxed or uninterested. Here she had been asking to come visit his brother and now she didn't know what to say to him or how to sit properly. She was still trying to get her mind off the unpleasant smell coming from the other bed.
”For weeks I have been telling Celestino that I wanted to come visit,” she finally thought to say.
”Sometimes my little brother likes to pretend he's going deaf, but I can imagine he would have to listen to such a pretty girl.”
Don Celestino shook his head as he sat on the edge of the bed.
”Do you like the way your brother cut your hair?” she asked.
”He did a good job,” Don Fidencio replied, running his fingers along the hairline in the back. ”The women who work here, the helpers, they were still talking about it this morning when they gave me my shower.”
Socorro smiled. The old man sat up a little in the chair and tugged on his s.h.i.+rt collar. ”I could bathe myself - better than they can wash me - but here they won't let me do it alone - nothing, not take a shower, not serve my own food, not walk unless I push this thing around.” He kicked the walker aside.
”How nice that you are still healthy and strong at your age.”
”That's what I have been trying to tell my brother, that I'm strong enough to be living somewhere else besides here in this prison. Only because I got sick one time, for that they left me here. But this was in the past and not anything so serious, just what happens when you get old.”
”If you get sick, this is a better place for you to be, where they can help you,” Don Celestino said.
”Yes, help me, even if I don't want the help anymore. And what if nothing happens to me and I just continue this way forever?” the old man said, and then turned to the girl. ”Tell me the truth: do I look sick to you?”
She hesitated, first looking up at Don Celestino and then back at the old man.
”To me, you look fine,” Socorro said. ”But my mother also has days when she feels good and later she gets sick on us.”
”But at home?”
She nodded.
”You see?” Don Fidencio said. ”That's what I mean, that I'm well enough to be living at home. And then if I get sick, he can bring me back. He can leave me there at the curb if he wants, not even get out of the car.”
”Ya,” his brother said. ”She didn't come to hear your complaints.”
Don Celestino was afraid this might happen and had called earlier that morning to tell him that they would be stopping by to visit but that he didn't want to hear him begging to come to live with him. He explained all the reasons why, again, including that he himself wasn't in the best of health. The old man seemed to accept this, though at the time Don Celestino understood that his brother would pick and choose what he wanted to remember.
”I was only talking about my health,” Don Fidencio said. ”A man should be able to talk about his health if he wants to.”
”You look good to me.” Socorro noticed he had shaved that morning but had missed a spot just below his chin.
”And really the one thing I have trouble with is my memory, but the other day some things came back to me.”
”About your life?”
”He thinks he can remember his first haircut,” Don Celestino said.
”This one doesn't believe me, but it happened that way. And then more came to me last night.”
”I remember a lot from when I was a little girl.”
”Wait until you get to his age.”
”Only because he was not there,” the old man snapped. ”Because he didn't spend time with our grandfather like I did. That's why he refuses to believe what I say. He thinks he has to be there for the world to continue. But I know what I am saying. I was with Papa Grande and I remember everything he told me.” He used his index finger to tap on the side of his head. ”For weeks he had been promising that he was going to take me for my first real haircut - no more putting a bowl on my head and cutting around it, the way my mother liked to do.” He pretended he had a pair of scissors in his hand and was cutting his bangs. ”'Ya, you are getting to be a man,' he would say, even if I was only four years old. But he said if he was going to take me, I had to promise not to cry the way he had seen other little boys do. If I was going to cry, then it was better to wait until later. 'Real haircuts are for men, not for little boys.' I said I wouldn't cry, but what did I know if I had never had a real haircut in a barbershop? When it was my turn, the barber put a board across the chair and I climbed on.”
”The other day you told me there were animals carved into the arms of the chair,” Don Celestino said. ”How would you know that if there was a board across the top?”
The old man stopped to look at his brother and then over at the girl. He felt disoriented as he glanced about the room, as if he had been roused earlier than usual from his afternoon nap. His brother was always doing this to him, making him question what he knew to be true, what he had lived. Last night in bed, he had gone over and over what he would tell them this morning when they came to visit, how he would say it to them to make it all sound more believable, so his brother wouldn't always be doubting him and would finally take him at his word.
”I know because I saw it before he put the board down,” he responded. ”And because that wasn't the only time I went to that barbershop. Later he took me again and I sat in the chair without the board.”
Don Celestino seemed less than convinced, but he let him continue.
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