Part 9 (1/2)

”That was back when I was starting out, before I opened my business.”

”See? I remember. At least the mind still works.” The old man tapped his finger to his temple.

”You look good still,” he said, though really he had no recollection of the man.

”I never took care of myself and now I have so many problems with my health. Twice a week they take me to clean my blood.” He raised a s.h.i.+rtsleeve to show him his bandaged forearm. ”This leg isn't mine.” His left s.h.i.+n made a hollow sound when he rapped on it with his cane. ”I have some good days, but more than anything I spend the time waiting for G.o.d to take me.”

”At least you can still get around.” Don Celestino handed him the jug of water.

”Maybe you are one of those who likes to kneel down and be giving thanks, but not me. Most of it hasn't been so good.” He fiddled with the control stick and moved the wheelchair side to side. Then he c.o.c.ked back his head and looked up as if he had remembered something. ”I can see you have been a lucky one to stay healthy, but just wait and see.”

”For what?”

”Just wait.” He held up his hand as if cautioning him from coming any closer to the edge of a cliff.

”What will I see?” Don Celestino asked.

But the old man had already spun the wheelchair around and zipped forward. A moment later he was out of the parking lot and back on the boulevard, his tiny flag flickering against a strong headwind.

The traffic was heavier now and he braked for a yellow light he could have easily made. The driver in the truck behind him laid on the horn, which normally would have caused him to return the gesture, but today he simply ignored the sound. He drove a little slower once he was in the neighborhood and closer to the house. When he saw his front yard, he couldn't help thinking about the ambulance pulling up and how Socorro had watched them load him in the back. What must she have been thinking when she saw him so weak and helpless? Then again, his condition that morning had been because of the diabetes, which could've happened to him regardless of his age. He was older, yes, but he was not old. A little old man, un anciano, would be falling asleep in his chair while the rest of the people in the room continued with their conversation as if the unconscious man were a faulty table lamp that at any moment might twinkle back to life. He wanted to believe that the difference in his and Socorro's ages was less dramatic than what the actual years would make a person think. It wasn't as if the thirty years or so that stood between them were suddenly going to widen from one day to the next. If anything, from now on his aging would be gradual, less noticeable: he was an older man, after all; Socorro was the one still holding on to some of her youth.

”Sometimes you sound like your brother,” she'd said on the drive home from the nursing home. Now he couldn't recall what it was he had said that had prompted her comment, probably since he was more surprised with her response and how such a thing could have occurred to her: Sometimes you sound like your brother. She seemed disappointed when he turned down his brother's idea to take a trip into Mexico, as if he naturally would be in agreement with such a plan. Sometimes you sound like your brother. Had she realized, as he had during the visit, that he was much closer in age to his brother, an elderly man living in a nursing home, than he was to her? What other similarities did she notice between him and his ninety-one-year-old brother? Was she now only waiting for the day when he would go on with his own stories about Indians kidnapping children and riding through the night? Would she be surprised?

He pulled into the carport and stayed there after turning off the engine. He wondered whether he should be proud of how well he had maintained his health all these years or be worried that the years would eventually catch up to him, and not at a measured rate, as most men experienced, but in his case it would happen in one cruel and sudden push. The former seemed a false and limiting prospect, since he knew he couldn't hold on to his good health forever, while the latter felt self-defeating and no different from the outlook of the old man at the water station.

He stepped out of the car, using the door frame to help pull himself up and out. The easiest way to carry the water jug was by holding the neck in one hand and gripping the plastic handle in the other hand, but just the other day at his doctor's office he had seen a deliveryman hoisting a water jug onto his shoulder like nothing, like he was putting on a s.h.i.+rt. Don Celestino spread his legs in the same way now, evening his stance before gripping the plastic handle. He staggered a little under the extra weight, then caught his balance and headed into the house.

18.

Don Fidencio hobbles along the sh.o.r.e, making sure his cane doesn't sink too far into the sand. The strange part is that Amalia is a little girl again, while he is still an old man. Even Petra is only in her thirties, so beautiful and happy. He can see Amalia is wearing the bathing suit they bought for her at the Kress, while her mother has her blue jeans rolled up to her knees and is wearing one of his mail-carrier s.h.i.+rts, with the tails tied into a knot. Neither one seems to notice that he is old and using a wooden cane. That, and he is wearing only his boxers, held up by his trusty suspenders. There are other children there now, running and playing in the water. It must be late summer, the time of year when he usually took the family to Boca Chica. The truck is parked at the southern tip of the beach, near the mouth of the river. Petra walks to the back and, on the tailgate, makes chicken-salad sandwiches for the family. Only he sees her hands are much larger than he remembers, thick and burly, like the hands of a man from Oklahoma that he bunked next to when he was working in the CCC camps. He remembers how the man used to pick up a railroad tie and walk off like nothing. More than sixty years have pa.s.sed since he has seen hands like this. Where could Petra have gotten these hands? What happened to her young, delicate hands? No wonder she's not wearing her wedding ring. How, with those breakfast sausages for fingers? He asks her if she would like help making the sandwiches. It seems an unusual offer to make, considering that in all the years they were married he never helped her with these sorts of things. And suddenly he wants to help her make sandwiches? What could be next? Making the bed? Scrubbing the toilet? But really, he asks only because he is worried about what kind of job she will do with those hands of hers. He imagines her leaving a big thumbprint in the middle of the white bread and he knows that as tasty as the sandwich might be he won't like that. Who wants to eat a sandwich disfigured in this way? But when he offers to help she doesn't hear him or maybe just ignores him, and goes on. The children have waded into the mouth of the river. The distance to the Mexican side is maybe thirty feet and the water barely reaches their chests. He sits in the lawn chair to keep an eye on them, but when he looks down again the lawn chair has large wheels attached to its sides. One of the little boys is giving Amalia a piggyback ride in the water and after they reach the other side she turns and in Spanish shouts, ”We're in Mexico, Daddy! We're in Mexico!” He waves and, as usual, yells, ”Tell them I said h.e.l.lo and that your father is puro Mexicano!” The children beg him to come over to the other side, and after much persuading, he tries to stand but finds his legs have finally given out on him. He tries repeatedly and keeps falling back into the seat. Finally he rolls the chair closer to the sh.o.r.e, until the wheels begin to sink in the marshy sand. In the weightlessness of the water the old man feels his body young again. He lifts his feet as he floats on his back. He sways along with the river's current, keeping his eyes shut and feeling the water lap against his renewed body. In the distance he can hear the laughter of the children, but when he opens his eyes he's now in the community pool in Amalia's subdivision. Of all places to be. He was there years and years ago when he went up to Houston to visit her and go watch a baseball game. Several families are gathered around the patio tables and some men are grilling s.h.i.+sh kebabs. From all the decorations it looks like the Fourth of July. It seems cloudier here than a second ago when he was floating in the river. He is happy to be the only one in the pool. No one seems to notice an old man floating on his back, his underwear now clinging to him in an unflattering manner. The people carry on with their conversations, but with his head halfway in the water he hears only m.u.f.fled voices. He can barely make out the metal sign hanging from the fence. But how come? But how come? he remembers her asking him the one time he took her to the public swimming pool. What did the words on the sign say? Why did the man tell us we couldn't go inside, Daddy? Just because. But how come, if they let all the other people? What did the sign say, Daddy? If he was grateful for anything that day, it was that she was still too young to read what it said about the dogs and Mexicans. But how come, Daddy? How come we have to go home? The water looks dirty, that's how come - now shut your mouth. And that was all. How could he explain it then, if today, after so many years, he still doesn't have the words to answer her question? He thinks if he can remain very still in the water, just floating, maybe not even breathing, they might not notice him. That's all he wants now, for them to leave him alone and just let him float. He figures he can wait until it gets dark and they leave, then get out of the water. And it's working - he hears less and less of their m.u.f.fled talk. He feels so at ease that he ignores the tingling in his left calf. This is the happiest he has felt since his accident in the yard, however long ago that was. All he wants is to keep floating along, but a few seconds later his leg cramps up so much that he loses his steadiness and goes down. And there, underwater, he realizes the cramp is really someone pulling on his leg. He strains to see who it is, only the pool water is now as murky as the river. But he knows without seeing his face that it has to be The Son Of A b.i.t.c.h. The old man yells for help: Ayudenme! Ayudenme! Me estoy ahogando! These are the loudest words he has ever shouted, but it all happens underwater. The pool is deeper than he ever imagined. The people keep laughing and having a good time at their barbecue. And he begins to swallow water.

19.

The mattress sloped to one side as if the bed might be sinking into the cement floor. The room remained dim, the sun not yet pa.s.sing through the fabric she had tacked to the window frame. If it were any day other than Sunday, she would already be struggling to get up and prepare breakfast, then rush to get ready for her workday. Socorro could hear the rickety whir of the fan and what sounded like m.u.f.fled voices coming from the street. When she turned onto her right side, toward the wall, the sheet slid off her leg as if it were caught on something.

”It looks like she wants to wake up.”

”I remember when she was a little girl, I would have to carry her to the bathroom so she could get ready for school.”

”Mami?” Socorro squinted until she could make out the figures in the room. ”Is something wrong?”

”We just want to talk to you,” her aunt said.

”Now, at this hour?”

”I lost my sleep again,” her mother answered, ”and then your tia woke up.”

”Can we talk in the morning?”

”We want to talk now, mi'ja, when your mind isn't so mixed up with other ideas.”

Socorro reached for the lamp behind her.

”No, leave it off,” her mother said.

”But why?”

”Leave it,” she repeated. ”We want you to listen to our words.”

Socorro sat up so she could at least talk to them more comfortably. She strained to see the outline of her mother's wheelchair angled toward the bed. With her short dark hair slicked back, it looked as though she had just come in from swimming. What little light there was s.h.i.+mmered off the bulbous shape of her forehead. Her aunt sat on the edge of the bed with her legs dangling off the side. She was wearing a thin nightgown, sheer enough to reveal the thick black bra.s.siere that she removed only to bathe. At night she undid her long dark braid and let the ends reach the small of her back.

”A mother only wants her daughter to be happy.” She rolled the wheelchair closer in order to pat Socorro's leg.

”Good, because I found somebody who makes me happy.”

”And later?”

”What about later?”

”These relations.h.i.+ps look nice at first, but then later is when it comes out, that he only wanted a younger woman so he could take advantage of her. And I know because that's the way it happened to the daughter of a woman who used to help at the church, the girl was staying after she did the cleaning, with hopes that there would be more, someday more, someday more than was.h.i.+ng his underwear, and cleaning his toilet, and the rest of whatever she did for him, the things he wanted her to do in the bed. And you know what else she got? Nothing, because he was like this one you found for yourself, already with one foot in the ground.”

”Celestino is healthier than most men half his age.”

”Like the men your own age,” her aunt said.

”And that, what difference does it make?”

”What difference?” her mother said, almost whispering as she pulled up even closer to the bed. ”Those are the men you are supposed to marry, not their grandfathers.”

”Who said anything about marriage?”

”And then?”

”We're just friends.”

”Such good friends, but you cannot bring him here for us to meet him? You prefer that your little friend stop the car across the street instead of bringing him inside to meet your family, like you are embarra.s.sed for him to meet us.”

”Or maybe for us to meet him?” the aunt offered.

”Bring him here so you can criticize?”