Amigoland Part 11

The hall was clear all the way to the nurses' station. No Turtles, no hampers, no food carts stacked with trays. This was the best part of the day to be moving around; the others, if they were awake, would need help getting dressed and into their wheelchairs before they made it out of their rooms.

"Good morning to you, Mr. Rosales," said The One With A Beak For A Nose.

With both hands still on the walker, he raised two fingers to acknowledge her but otherwise kept moving.

"Are you feeling better today, sir?"

Don Fidencio gave her only a half shrug. He was alive and her job was safe for another day. What more did she want from him?

The Turtle With The Fedora was parking her wheelchair across from the nurses' station. She tried rolling forward a bit, as if she might block his path, but he scuttled up enough to the right to miss her. "No, this one has no time to say h.e.l.lo like a decent man," she said. "He wakes up only so he can go make life hard for the poor little birds. For that he's good - nothing else. See how he goes as if he were already late to church, but this is only so he can upset the poor birds."

He turned the walker toward the recreation room and came upon an attendant pushing a broom in his direction. The woman didn't look up or try to exchange pleasantries, and for this he was grateful.

"Buenos dias," a voice called out from the far end of the hall. Don Fidencio didn't need to turn around to know who it was. Every morning with his "Buenos dias," as if anyone believed he really knew how to speak the language.

"Buenos dias, Mr. Rosales!" The One With The Big Ones repeated. "Looks like you're doing better today. Like I was sharing with your daughter, 'Just give your father some time, and he'll get to liking things here at Amigoland.' " The voice faded only after Don Fidencio turned the walker toward the patio door.

The three or four grackles on the gra.s.s fluttered away when they heard the familiar sound of the walker banging against the gla.s.s door. With slow measured steps he moved toward the stone bench. A thin layer of fog shrouded the early-morning sun rising in the distance.

One cigarette. That was all he had to last him until these people served their oatmeal and warmed-over biscuit. He lit the cigarette and took a short draw from it. The tiny ember shone brighter than the muted sun and the faint lights coming from the kitchen. The yardman had left the ashtray canister too far for him to reach without standing. He could feel some of his hunger waning now and he realized it was by pure luck that he had this one cigarette to hold him over. He still wanted to blame the aides for taking his package of crackers, though really it was Amalia who had caused all this. As upset as he had been with her, he knew he shouldn't have stayed in bed so long, most of it lost in one restless dream or another. There was one of these he wanted to recall, but the more he tried to remember, he wasn't sure if it was last night that he'd had it or some other night or if he wasn't getting the pieces all mixed up or if what he thought he dreamed might have been someone else's dream that was told to him. He was with his grandfather, that he knew. His grandfather was a little boy, though. He had never seen a photo of his grandfather as a little boy, but he knew this was who it was. Only instead of also being a little boy in the dream, Don Fidencio was as old as he was when he fell asleep. And still, somehow he was able to stay on the horse that the Indian had him on. He clung to the animal's mane while the Indian sat behind him, holding the reins. Another Indian had his grandfather on the horse next to them. He remembered looking over and the little boy c.o.c.king back his head, the same as his grandfather used to do when they were off on some adventure, just the two of them. A perfect crescent moon illuminated the plain that eventually stretched out into the darkness before them. At one point Don Fidencio slipped to one side, so much so that he was underneath the horse, but then somehow spun back around to the top. And when he came back up, he was a little boy. He spun around twice more and kept coming up as a little boy. Then he looked over and noticed that the little boy who was his grandfather had disappeared. The Indian began to speak to him in words that he had never heard before, words that sounded as if he were speaking underwater, words that seemed to come from someplace other than his mouth. Beneath him he could hear the gallop of the horses' hooves upon the barren earth. But the longer the Indian spoke, the more Don Fidencio began to hear the Indian's words in his own Spanish. He tried to ask him a question, but the Indian told him to be quiet, to listen. You need to be ready when the sun comes up, the Indian said. Be ready for what? he asked. Just be ready. What about my grandfather? I know where he is. I need to find him, my grandfather. Just be ready. The horses seemed to be moving in slow motion now. Don Fidencio kept asking questions, but the Indian's voice had trailed off.

He had woken up more achy and tired, as if he really had been riding a horse all night. From then on his sleep came and went, until he woke up for good and finally stepped outside for his morning cigarette. He was playing with the lighter - turning it on, turning it off, turning it on, turning it off, counting how many tries it took to make his thumb do what he wanted - when he heard a noise behind him. He figured it was probably the grackles rooting around the stump again, looking for their own breakfast. But the second time it was more of a metallic sound, like the yardman clicking open the back gate. It was too early for this, though. With the fog still heavy, the first rays of sun had barely reached the patio, and dew clung to the weeds and spots of gra.s.s. He tried to turn, but his stiff body helped him only so much.

"Fidencio."

How curious, he thought, the yardman calling me by my first name. They had met once, but this had been months ago, and without exchanging names. Since then it had been a friendly wave or a nod, and usually with Don Fidencio standing at the window because the man tended to do his work during the middle of the afternoon when it was too hot to be sitting outside. Even stranger was that he'd whispered his name. What good reason could one man possibly have for whispering another man's name?

"Fidencio," the voice called out, this time with more urgency.

When he finally turned, his brother was standing at the back gate, leaning in so only his white hair floated there like some apparition. Then his brother motioned for him to come closer. The old man held on to the walker in order to stand and see what this was all about.

"Andale, Fidencio."

"Andale to where?" the old man said, though still not sure why they were speaking in hushed voices. He stamped out what was left of his cigarette.

"Over here, so we can go already."

"To where?" Don Fidencio asked. "Was the front door locked?"

"Over here, just hurry."

"They still need to serve the breakfast. Here, they take their time, like old people don't have stomachs anymore."

Don Celestino glanced over his brother's shoulder at the recreation room. He thought he saw someone in a wheelchair at the window.

"It doesn't matter, just get over here."

"Yes, for you with your stomach happy and full, what does it matter, but for me..."

"I came to take you with me." Don Celestino reached for his shoulder. "Do you understand?"

Don Fidencio stared back at his brother, trying to make sense of it all.

"Remember I called you last night?" he said. "I told you we were taking the trip to the other side, to Linares. The way Papa Grande wanted you to, remember?"

The old man held on to him as he stepped out from behind the walker.

"You have to bring it with you, Fidencio."

"Ya, I never want to see that thing again."

"Lower your voice," he said. "For now you need it. Later we can find you something else."

Don Fidencio shook his head and set the walker back in front of him. His brother pushed open the gate until it was wide enough for him to make it through. The taxi was idling at the curb, pointed out toward the main road.

PART IV.

23.

They drove up just as Socorro was crossing the street in front of the bridge; she waved back before she realized Don Celestino and his brother were sitting in a taxi.

"She changed her mind, then?"

"A man should be able to take a trip if he wants." He had come around the car to kiss her on the cheek and open the door, but she wasn't responding to either gesture.

"Celestino." She stayed where she was on the sidewalk and a man pulling a minishopping cart had to step into the gra.s.s to avoid b.u.mping into her. "You talked with her, yes or no?"

"So she could tell me no?"

"She got that from her mother," Don Fidencio called out from the backseat. "The both of them were born with heads as hard as that pavement."

"Then what, Celestino?" she asked. "You stole him?"

"How could I steal him?" he said. "If he came on his own, that's not stealing."

Down the street the traffic had just stopped at the light and a moment later a patrol car eased up behind the other cars.

"You took an old man without permission."

"Why when I call him an old man, you say he's my brother, and now I help him, and you say he's an old man?"

"You know what I mean, Celestino."

"You were the one who said we should take the trip."

"For all of us to go together, yes - not for you to steal him!"

"Please stop saying it that way and just get in the taxi."

"For what?" she said. "So they can take us all to jail?"

"Nothing's going to happen," he said, and tried not to flinch when he heard what he thought were sirens. The traffic at the light was pulling to one side.

"Answer me," Socorro said. "How could you, knowing the problems you were going to cause?"

"He promised he would go back," Don Celestino said. "Just for a couple of days. We take him to see the ranchito and after that we can come home."

He had more to say about this, but he was watching the patrol car turn the corner that led away from the bridge, back in the direction they had come from earlier.

Socorro walked away, toward the front of the taxi, as if she might suddenly turn and cross the bridge. Most of the other cleaning women had either caught their rides or taken the bus. When she glanced back, the old man was in the backseat, fiddling with his suspenders, causing his shirt to untuck. He had b.u.t.toned his shirt the wrong way and it looked as if one shoulder was higher than the other. They must have stopped along the way to eat something because crumbs and grease stains blotched the front of his clothes. Beneath his cap, the sleep had stayed crusted to the corner of his left eye.

"And the medicines?" she asked.

"The medicines?" Don Celestino said.

"Please tell me you weren't going to take him without his medicines."

"No, no, of course not," he said. "I was going to buy them for him. How could we go without the medicines?"

"So, then?"

"Maybe your friend that works at the pharmacy can help us."

"No, no more medicines," the old man said, and wagged his finger at them.

"Please, Don Fidencio, this is so you can go on your trip."

"Ya, I have taken enough pills!" He was still motioning with his finger. "No more, I tell you. At least that, at least let me live like a normal man."

Don Celestino squatted down next to the rear door of the taxi. "Look, you want to go on this trip or you want us to drive you back?"

"You already said you would take me."

"Not if you were going to get sick on us. So you can end up in the hospital? Is that what you want, to be sick in another bed?"

This seemed to quiet the old man. He shook his head a little longer before he swung open his door for Socorro.

"Stay where you are, Don Fidencio."

"No," he said, "so you and your man can be together in the backseat."

He planted his feet squarely on the curb but kept rocking back and forth, not quite making it off the seat, until his brother gave him a hand. After he was finally standing on the sidewalk, Socorro brushed off the crumbs and then redid the b.u.t.tons on his shirt while he stood there looking like a man being measured for a new suit.

24.

This early in the morning there was hardly any traffic on the bridge going to the other side. The driver paid the toll, and less than a minute later they had crossed over. On the other bridge, headed in the opposite direction, two rows of cars and trucks inched along toward the U.S. checkpoint. The pedestrian line that Socorro had used to cross over only a few minutes earlier now extended the full length of the bridge.

Up ahead, the taxi driver slowed down for the speed b.u.mps leading to the minitraffic light in front of the customs building. Red meant you had to pull over for one of the inspectors to look in your trunk before permitting you to drive on; green meant you were free to move forward.

"But these men need their papers to travel," Socorro said, as the driver continued on.

"That, they can do at the bus station, and much faster, with no lines."

Don Celestino patted her hand. "The man knows - he takes people to the bus station all the time, right?"

"Only for the last seventeen years," he said, glancing in the rearview mirror.

Away from the bridge the city buses swelled with people's arms and faces in the open windows. The more hopeful of the street vendors were setting up for that occasional tourist who might wander over this early in the day. The homemade-candy vendors stood guard over their gla.s.s stands, shooing away the incessant flies and bees. A young man with tire shanks for knees crawled between the cars, hustling along the pavement to catch up to an arm reaching out with a few pesos. A barefoot boy, hunched over as he carried a three-foot-high crucifix on his back, searched for his next customer among the idling traffic. On this side of the street, a city worker in green cover-alls was raising a small dust storm with her thatched broom. Next to a taxi stand, a driver in a yellow muscle shirt was haggling with a sunburned tourist, while his equally sunburned wife and kids waited on the sidewalk, trying not to touch anything. A skinny woman, holding two nylon-woven bags teeming with groceries, berated her three kids as she crammed them into a packed Maxi-Taxi van. Farther down a campesino rode atop his wooden cart as his burro clomped along, both of them scornful of the honking cars and trucks behind them.

After the second block they were able to get beyond some of the congestion and speed the rest of the way down Calle Obregon, pa.s.sing the restaurants, the bars, the discos, the curio shops, the occasional boutique or doctor's office or dentist's office, and several pharmacies other than the one they were looking for. The driver, a slight man with reddish-brown skin and a smallish head, had to keep pushing his oversize aviator gla.s.ses back up his thin nose. Once he was closer to the center of town he turned on his radio so everyone on the street could hear the c.u.mbia playing over the sound of his m.u.f.fler. He especially wanted to impress the young mother pushing the stroller near Plaza Hidalgo, but the girl paid as much attention to him as she did to the babbling coming from her baby.

Don Fidencio rolled down his window to get some air. Later it would rain; he didn't need a weatherman to tell him this, he felt it in his knees, especially the weaker of the two. Across the street he could make out the cathedral's conical spires rising higher and higher into the grayish sky like a pair of matching dunce caps. If they weren't in such a rush, he would tell the driver to pull over so he could get his shoes shined at one of the stands in the plaza. These black-rubber-soled shoes weren't the kind one would normally think to shine, but at the same time it was a good idea to make sure they were presentable before arriving in Linares. Not that anybody would've paid attention to what an old man had to say. If they hadn't listened to him about the pills, what chance was there that they would stop now? Pills for his heart. Pills for his blood pressure. Pills for his cholesterol. Pills for his kidneys. Pills for his heartburn. Pills for the pain in his legs. Pills for him to make cacas. Pills for him to sleep. Pills for this pill or that other pill not to make him sick. Everybody wanted to give him a pill, whether he wanted it or not. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, they always had a pill for him. Like he might die if they didn't force another pill down his throat before he finished his meal. The One With The White Pants used to push his cart through the mess hall like it was a hot summer day and he was selling paletas to all the kids who had been only waiting for him to ring his bell and now they were going to chase him down the street with money in their hands. Please, sir, give me just one more for my heartburn - I can feel the meat loaf coming up already. No, me first, me first. I need one for the terrible pain in my big toe. I want one for my arthritis. Me first, sir, me first. Me, me, me!!! Give me one of those big pills you would not feed to a horse! Please, sir, me first! Please, sir, give me just one more for my heartburn - I can feel the meat loaf coming up already. No, me first, me first. I need one for the terrible pain in my big toe. I want one for my arthritis. Me first, sir, me first. Me, me, me!!! Give me one of those big pills you would not feed to a horse! Please, sir, me first!

25.

Chayo raised her gla.s.ses, holding them up close to her face, then removed them altogether since they were really only reading gla.s.ses and at the moment she didn't have anything in front of her to read, not a prescription, not a label off an old vial, not the name of a medicine scribbled in English on a piece of paper that she could then look up in her big red book with all the proper medications listed in Spanish. The gla.s.ses were attached to a silver-beaded necklace that she was knotting up between her fingers until she finally let it rest against the front of her blue smock. Then she and Socorro moved to one end of the counter while the two men lingered at the other end: Don Fidencio, near a small rack of sungla.s.ses, trying on the various styles; Don Celestino, next to a plastic display, where he was sniffing an open tube of brilliantine.

"You can pretend the medicines are for my mother," Socorro said, reaching out for her hand.

"Your mother, I have known for many years," Chayo replied.

"But remember that first time, how I came here and you hadn't met her?"

"That was different. By then your mother had been to many doctors. You showed me what they had given her."

"Don Fidencio has been to the doctor many times."

"Yes, but who can say what they prescribed for him?" She let go of Socorro's hand. "Here you have me in the dark. All you can tell me is that he needs medicines for his blood pressure and cholesterol, so he will not urinate so frequently, and because he had a stroke not that long ago, and the rest only G.o.d knows. Like that, you want me to guess, like I was his doctor."