Amigoland Part 10

After he was convinced he wasn't going to find anything under the bed, it took still more effort to pull himself back into the chair. Then he glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch and realized his brother and the girl would be coming by in twenty minutes to take him out to lunch. He'd resisted giving her a name like he had done with these people in the prison, but this also made it more difficult to now remember the real name that went with her face. Already he had met her five or six times, however many it was, and he couldn't think of her as more than the girl. It wasn't like The Turtles, so many to keep track of. There was only one of her, whatever her name was. They had taken him to dinner the other day, and the whole time he hadn't been able to remember her name until his brother happened to say it in pa.s.sing.

From the closet he pulled out the #3 and #4 shoe boxes before he thought to open the #2 box. As soon as they had brought him back to his room, he had written her name in one of his old address books. Which one, though? He had two bundles of the little books, each bound with thick rubber bands. He started with a red one and found the name Julio Betancourt, which meant nothing to him, as did Martin Colunga. This last name had been underlined several times, as if it had some particular importance, but still nothing came to him. Under M, M, he located the name Jimmy Udall, which made sense only because he had he located the name Jimmy Udall, which made sense only because he had MECHANIC MECHANIC written next to it, something he wished he had done with the other names: written next to it, something he wished he had done with the other names: NEIGHBOR, OLD FRIEND, OLD FRIEND NOT WORTH TALKING TO ANYMORE, WORK FRIEND, NEPHEW WHO DOESN'T CALL ANYMORE, NEIGHBOR, OLD FRIEND, OLD FRIEND NOT WORTH TALKING TO ANYMORE, WORK FRIEND, NEPHEW WHO DOESN'T CALL ANYMORE, etc. Scattered throughout several of the address books, he found only the initials - etc. Scattered throughout several of the address books, he found only the initials - DLN DLN or or LG LG or or JM JM or or SFL SFL - of women he'd had relations with, or tried to anyway, but he wasn't about to write down their actual names so Petra could find them. The phone numbers themselves were written in a special inverted code that he'd had trouble deciphering at times. - of women he'd had relations with, or tried to anyway, but he wasn't about to write down their actual names so Petra could find them. The phone numbers themselves were written in a special inverted code that he'd had trouble deciphering at times.

He stopped turning pages when he saw Chano Gonzalez's name. They had been good friends for years at work, but more so whenever it was that Petra left the house to live wherever it was she went. He and Chano would get together Sat.u.r.day nights to watch the boxing matches on television. Then Chano's eyes started going bad because of his diabetes, which he took care of about as well as Don Fidencio did, only Don Fidencio didn't have diabetes and could eat and drink whatever the h.e.l.l he wanted. So he started going for him in the car and bringing him back to the house, but it wasn't the same anymore because Chano could barely make out the television and Don Fidencio had to spend the whole time telling him who was winning and how. Later Chano had something go wrong with one of his feet and they had to cut his toes. And after that he only got worse: more toes, more parts of his leg, and finally his woman wouldn't let him out of the house, which was how he stayed until he died a few years later.

DEAD FRIEND, he wrote next to his name. He wrote the same thing next to every name, even ones who might have still been alive.

Under R, R, he found his brother's name, the only other Rosales listed in this particular book. He checked the cover to see if there was a date that might indicate when it became just the two of them left behind. In the end, though, he had to settle for finding the girl's name, written right next to his brother's name. The problem was, he couldn't read his own writing, as tiny and chicken-scratched as it had always been, only now also with this constant tremor that made it seem as if he had written it with the pen held upright between his corn-ridden toes. The he found his brother's name, the only other Rosales listed in this particular book. He checked the cover to see if there was a date that might indicate when it became just the two of them left behind. In the end, though, he had to settle for finding the girl's name, written right next to his brother's name. The problem was, he couldn't read his own writing, as tiny and chicken-scratched as it had always been, only now also with this constant tremor that made it seem as if he had written it with the pen held upright between his corn-ridden toes. The S S he could see, but the rest was a mystery to him. All those years of figuring out mailing addresses, and this is what he had to show for it. Sonia, Sulema, Severa, Sofia, Sylvia, Solidad - none of them sounded right. He could tell now he should've written the name in the same large block letters he had just used to write next to his friends' names. Don Fidencio shut his eyes and concentrated, concentrated, concentrated, the whole time hissing the first letter of her name until it sounded like he was releasing the air from a tire. he could see, but the rest was a mystery to him. All those years of figuring out mailing addresses, and this is what he had to show for it. Sonia, Sulema, Severa, Sofia, Sylvia, Solidad - none of them sounded right. He could tell now he should've written the name in the same large block letters he had just used to write next to his friends' names. Don Fidencio shut his eyes and concentrated, concentrated, concentrated, the whole time hissing the first letter of her name until it sounded like he was releasing the air from a tire.

When he opened his eyes, he gazed at the letters until he managed to untangle them one by one. There was the o o that looked more like a lopsided egg, and the that looked more like a lopsided egg, and the c c and the and the q q mixed up with the second mixed up with the second o, o, which looked like a cracked egg because it was too close to the first which looked like a cracked egg because it was too close to the first r, r, which swallowed up the second which swallowed up the second r r and third and third r r or a or a p, p, but then there was still another but then there was still another o o that did actually look like an that did actually look like an o. o.S-O-C-Q-O-R-P-O, he wrote at the top of the page. It was one thing to not be able to write and another to not know how to spell. He stared at this for a minute or so before he crossed out the Q, Q, then the then the P. P.S-O-C-O-R-O. Now it was so clear to him. Of course, Socorro. That was her name - Socorro. He used both hands to grab ahold of his walker and stand up. "Socorro... Socorro... Socorro," he said, shuffling out of the room.

They had taken a booth near the back of the little restaurant, where they would still be able to talk if someone put money in the jukebox. Steam billowed out each time the kitchen door swung open and one of the waitresses came out with a plate of food. The place was only half full. A teenage couple in hooded jackets sat in a corner booth where the owner couldn't see them sneaking kisses while they shared the plate they had ordered. At the next table three men in cowboy hats sipped their coffees while the older one of the group did most of the talking. A pair of Border Patrol agents sat close to the door, one of them keeping an eye on the kitchen workers, the other more interested in the carne guisada he had on his plate in front of him.

The food was already on the table by the time Don Celestino came back from the restroom, where he'd checked his sugar level. He had ordered the enchiladas verdes, Socorro the taquitos, and Don Fidencio the menudo. Once the old man started eating, he barely looked up from his bowl. Now and then he stopped between slurping his soup to take a deep breath and chew a tougher piece of tripe. His few remaining teeth clicked in a staccato manner as he gnawed at the meat until he could swallow it.

"Do you remember the last time you ate menudo?" Socorro asked.

He raised his hand to indicate she had caught him in midchew.

"Sometimes they serve it there," he answered finally, "but never with enough spices because people would be burping all night."

"Maybe it's better that way, so you can sleep."

"I barely sleep anyway, at least that way I would have a good reason," Don Fidencio said, and spooned up some hominy. "Last night I spent it lying there, staring at the ceiling. I would sleep for twenty or thirty minutes, then wake up and just be there. It came and went like that until the early morning, when I remembered something more from our grandfather's story and couldn't sleep anymore. And finally, after another hour, they served breakfast."

"You should write it down," she said, "so it stays with you."

He looked up at her and then at his brother.

"It was nothing that important, just something about when the Indians were attacking them." He slurped up another spoonful. "And anyway, n.o.body wants to know what an old man remembers."

"Come on and say it," Don Celestino told him. "We've been waiting to hear what you would come up with for the next chapter."

"So you can make fun? No, I prefer to stay with my mouth shut."

"Go on, we want to hear what more you remember."

"I prefer to keep it to myself." He stirred his soup without looking up.

"And if you forget it later?" she asked.

He hadn't considered this. The girl had a point: so much had slipped away from him once. What's to say it wouldn't happen again? This afternoon he could lie down for his nap and wake up to find his memory had been erased completely or smeared to the point of being indistinguishable, like some of the names in his address book. At least if he told it to the girl - Socorro - she could hold on to it for him and tell him later, if he couldn't remember it himself.

"He told me a circus had already traveled through most of Mexico when it arrived in the north and stopped in Linares, before they planned to travel over to this side of the river. All of the families from around there went to see this circus. None of them had ever in their lives seen a bear or an elephant or whatever else they had brought in the circus. It wasn't like those fancy circuses they have today. This one was just a man who came to town with a few wagons full of animals n.o.body had ever seen. He stopped the wagons in an open field close to a river that pa.s.sed through one side of town. I think it was in the fall when this took place, but it could've also been the spring, or the summer. But maybe not the spring because they would have been busy in the fields." He stopped to rub the back of his neck, then shook his head. "He told me when it was that it happened, only I forgot that part even before my mind turned to cheese. What I remember was, the circus man had brought out the bear tied to a thick rope, but with so many people crowded around and Papa Grande only seven years old, he could barely see what the animal was doing. His brother was younger and could see even less, but then their father had the good idea to put Papa Grande up on his back so he could be higher. And their uncle did the same with the little brother. Now that he was higher, Papa Grande could see the bear standing on a block of wood and then standing on one paw, then on the other. The bear did more tricks, but by then Papa Grande didn't see them because something had caught his eye. Off in the distance, past the field and away from the river, he could see some horses. They were still more than half a mile away when he spotted them. At first he thought they were just horses, but when they got closer, he could see men on the horses and that these men were Indians."

The old man scratched at the crown of his head. "He never said exactly how many of them - but I guess maybe twenty or more, enough that he should have told his father or his uncle. Maybe he thought the Indians and horses were part of the circus, because he only kept watching them get closer and closer without opening his mouth. If he had, maybe it would have turned out different."

"Maybe he was scared," Socorro said.

"Not as much as when they grabbed his uncle, the one they scalped - it could have been his uncle they scalped first or maybe it was the circus man - I have trouble remembering which one they got hold of first. But it was with all the confusion that he got separated from his mother and his little brother, since she must have been trying to hide him somewhere. Then Papa Grande saw when the first arrow hit his father. That was the other part I remembered, how they killed him." The old man stopped to point down to exactly where. "Right to the bladder was where the arrow got him and how he bled to death. This is the man who would be our great-grandfather."

The waitress refilled Don Fidencio's coffee cup, and he took his time adding the Sweet'N Low and then the creamer. Though his brother and Socorro had finished with their meals, he was only halfway through his bowl of menudo.

"So then to the bladder?" Don Celestino asked.

"Yes, down there to the bladder."

"And you are sure he said it was there, nowhere else?"

"That was the way Papa Grande remembered it, to the bladder." The old man used his b.u.t.ter knife to show him where again.

His brother only halfway nodded.

"What?"

"No, nothing."

"No, nothing what?"

"It just seems like a curious place for the arrow to hit him, that's all."

"And what is so curious about it? The bladder is a part of the body, every man has one. The Indian could have hit him anywhere - in the stomach, in the heart, in the kidneys - but he hit him in the bladder, like I just said."

"Not the appendix?"

Don Fidencio set the b.u.t.ter knife back on the table. "Already I told you what I remembered, the way he told it to me that last time. When I was there, not you."

"I think you might be confused with that one part," Don Celestino said. "How would he know where exactly the arrow got him, that it was exactly in the bladder, if he was only seven years old? At that age, what could he know about a man's bladder?"

"He knew enough just seeing where the arrow was sticking out of his father."

"And that was the only arrow that got him?"

"Maybe it wasn't the only arrow," Don Fidencio said. "I said an arrow to the bladder killed him - that's all I said. Who cares how many or where the others went? You think Papa Grande sat there counting the arrows that were sticking out of his father, writing it down, so that later you might believe the story?"

"I was only saying it seemed strange that the arrow would hit him right there."

"Go talk to the Indians about that - they were the ones who did it."

"Which Indians?"

"The Indians that attacked the circus," the old man snapped. "Now who is the one that can't remember things?"

"He means what kind," Socorro said.

"Just Indians, the kind that ride horses and shoot arrows, what more do you want me to tell you? All I know is the army had been trying to kill them off or send them to the north, but over here they were also trying to get rid of them. n.o.body wanted them around."

"But which ones? Comanche, Apache..." Don Celestino tried to remember others, but they weren't coming to him right then. "How can you say, 'Just Indians'?"

"I can say whatever I want." He took a sip of his coffee. "The thing is, you're always against me. Only because I know more about our grandfather and where he came from, more than some people."

"Yes, Fidencio Rosales, the one who knows everything there is to know, even how much I cared about our grandfather."

"If for real you cared, you would at least take me to see the ranchito. It wouldn't matter that you refused to believe what happened, you would still take me."

"Again with your ideas?" Don Celestino leaned back against the booth.

"You said we could go one of these days, you said it, that I remember."

"And tell me how you expect to go in your condition?"

"You make more out of it than it is," he said, and kicked at the walker. "I use this thing only because those women stole my canes. If not, I would be walking fine, same as always, same as I did for forty-two years, and then they couldn't keep me locked up. Against my wishes, they have me there."

"And if you get tired?"

"Then I rest, like I do now. Being tired is not going to kill me. Ya, I would've been dead for years if that was all it took. And anyway, this is just for a couple of days. We could leave in the morning and be there by the afternoon and start looking for the ranchito. And only for a day if you wanted, coming back the next day or the one after that, if we needed to rest."

"If you needed to rest, not me," his brother said.

"What I mean to say is that however it turns out, it wouldn't take so long. Just for a few days to go there and back, so that way you could get back to your house."

Don Celestino thought about how he had just flipped the calendar to a new month, March, then reviewed each day, comparing it to February and January, and tried to fill in as many squares as possible - take trash can out to curb, buy groceries, pay utility bill, check air-conditioner filter. take trash can out to curb, buy groceries, pay utility bill, check air-conditioner filter. He looked at his brother and for just a second he imagined what the calendar might look like with a big He looked at his brother and for just a second he imagined what the calendar might look like with a big X X across at least a couple of those days. across at least a couple of those days.

"But still, all that way to see a ranchito?"

"I checked and it was only four or five hours by bus," Socorro said. "If it was me, I would think it was a short trip. And then on the way back maybe you and your brother would have one less thing to argue about."

Don Celestino turned as if he'd forgotten she was sitting next to him in the booth.

"You wanted to go?"

"Maybe, if somebody invited me."

21.

The trip, as it turned out, was shorter than any of them had imagined. At dinnertime Don Fidencio happened to mention it to The Gringo With The Ugly Finger and The One With The Worried Face, who in turn mentioned it to The One With The Flat Face, who in turn mentioned it to The One With The Big Ones, who in turn mentioned it over the phone to Amalia, who then called her father to say she wasn't going to let him take a trip to someplace that probably didn't exist anymore, if it ever did. She reminded him several times, as if he might have forgotten, that she was his legal guardian now. And it didn't matter how much he complained or who he wanted to call a son of a b.i.t.c.h or who he wanted to say was to blame for all this - the fact that he was being taken care of as if he were an invalid, the fact that they kept making him take so many pills, the fact that they thought he needed more a.s.sistance when he needed less, less, less, the fact that they had stolen his canes only to make it look like he did need more a.s.sistance, the fact that because of all this she was now claiming that he was too weak to be going anywhere - because he still wasn't going anywhere. Don Fidencio tried to explain that the trip wouldn't take so long, a couple of days at most, but she wasn't listening. No was no. He finally slammed the phone down, then called her back two more times, but only so he could do it again.

Later he called his brother and this time went ahead and left the news on his answering machine (calling back three times because the woman on the recording kept cutting him off before he could spit out all the details). And no, there was no reason to call him back. What was there to talk about? She said it herself, he was too old to be going on trips. She left word with the people in charge of the prison. "The One Already Halfway Dead does not have permission to leave the building, not even for just a couple of days." For nothing.

He spent the rest of that day and the next morning in his room, taking his meals in bed, and came out the next afternoon only when he needed to go outside to smoke. Four of The Turtles had gathered near the large window inside the recreation room, hoping to see the grackles that poked around in the gra.s.s. The Turtle With The Fedora knocked on the window to get his attention. When he turned, she motioned for him to move away, find someplace else for his vices, not in the one area reserved for the poor little birds. Don Fidencio stared back at The Turtle With The Fedora with the same lifeless stare he had given the grackles. Then he stood up, steadying his hunched-over body, and without using his walker shuffled over to the window. He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, drew one out, tapped the end of it on the back of his splotchy hand, then steadily guided it to his waiting lips. It took a few clicks on the lighter before he could make his thumb hold down the tiny lever that kept the flame going. The Turtle With The Fedora looked over her shoulder and said something to The Turtles gathered around her, all of whom shook their heads in unison. She was turning back toward the window when the old man blew a cloud of smoke toward her face.

The Turtles filed out in their wheelchairs, one by one, just as Don Celestino walked through the recreation room to get to the patio. Near the corner of the back fence, one of the male grackles had hopped onto a rotting stump and was using its beak to poke around inside, as if it had found something to eat, a termite or some other insect. Two of the other grackles came to investigate, but the larger one scared them off by flapping its wings.

"They let you smoke out here?" Don Celestino asked.

His brother shrugged, then scooted over to one side of the stone bench. "And why not?"

"You need to take care of your health."

"For what, if this is where they send you when you are ready to die?"

"Just because she said no this time doesn't mean anything. Maybe later she could change her mind."

"You mean when I get a little older?" Don Fidencio drew from his cigarette and c.o.c.ked his head back to exhale. "No, she just wants me to stay here with all the other strangers who are waiting for their next home." He used his chin to motion toward the ground in case there was any doubt in his brother's mind where this next place might be.

Don Fidencio tapped his cigarette, and the ashes floated onto the patio and then off into the yard. A one-legged grackle was hopping in lopsided circles, carelessly drawing itself closer and closer to the bench, as if it sensed that the old man was preoccupied at the moment.

"What if we went somewhere else that was closer?" Don Celestino asked. "I was thinking we could drive over to Reynosa, see where you went for your first haircut, maybe the shop is still there."

"Ya, I told you that she said no!" he said, then kicked the ashtray canister and sent it rolling into the gra.s.s. The gimpy bird hopped along until it was able to lift off and flutter to the top of the wooden fence.

"You should just go and leave me here."

"So you can say that I left you behind?"

"No, so you won't visit me just because you feel guilty."

"Who said anything about feeling guilty?"

"Why else would you be coming around here?"

The one-legged grackle landed back in the gra.s.s, just beyond the ashtray canister that lay on its side. The bird pecked at something in the gra.s.s but didn't seem to find what it was searching for. A couple of pecks later it looked at the old man, as if it were asking permission to come closer.

"Maybe if I called and explained to her about the trip," Don Celestino said, "maybe she would listen to me."

"You go," he answered. "You and the girl go on the trip."

"Fidencio."

"I told you to go already, just leave me here." His voice started to crack, and he had to twist around in the other direction before his brother finally got the message and stood up.

The old man turned as his brother was walking inside. The Turtle With The Fedora had come to check on the little birds. He could see her saying something to his brother and then they both looked outside toward the patio. When Don Fidencio turned the other way, the one-legged bird was standing on the next bench, gazing back at him.

22.

In the early light of day, he found the orange crumbs on his pillow and pajama top. He looked for the rest of the package in the nightstand and then in the #2 shoe box, but found no sign of his last two crackers. After a while he went back to the closet and checked the other four shoe boxes. He figured one of the aides must have come while he was sleeping. The ones on the night shift were the worst, always lurking around in the shadows, waiting for the first chance to go through a sleeping man's things.