Author: bas2218

They always had to gather to pray. Before any meal dinner, the whole family gathered to pray. Before my cousin’s eighteenth, they gathered to pray. He hated every second of the attention and every prayer for better grades and less drug use. Before letting the baby cousin eat his PB&J, at least two of the aunts had to gather to pray. In quiet, tiny restaurants they had to gather to pray, no matter how uncomfortable it was, no matter how inappropriately loud we all knew my uncle’s voice would be. Always gathering to pray. At least on Thanksgiving it made sense. But Thanksgiving was the longest prayer gathering on the day everyone was the hungriest.

It was always my mom who gave the gathering the first go.

“C’mon y’all, time to pray!”

“Let’s go everybody, I know y’all are hungry.”

“Hey guys, everybody is ready to eat, let’s go ahead and pray.”

It never worked the first time around.

There was still football on and it usually wasn’t halftime yet. None of the uncles or grandfathers or cousins payed any attention. Maybe my mom could tally one or two of her sisters.

The aunts. This time around was always a little bot more harsh. People were actually getting hungry.

“Hey, let’s go. Get off the couch.”

“Get up, it’s time to pray. Right now.”

“Brian, Curtis, Leanna, circle up. We have to pray.”

Always blaming it on us, the cousins.

“We’re coming. Wait on more play.”

“They’re about to score, one minute.”

“Sorry, I was playing with the babies. I’m coming now.”

Four plays, a touchdown, and three more minutes with the baby cousins and we’re n trouble. In trouble with the aunts.

“Now!”

“Curtis, get over right now and hold my hand. Let’s pray.”

“Get in the circle right, Leanna. We’re all here.”

It took three or four tries, but we were gathered.

Before we could pray we had to talk about praying.

It was always the same.

“Who’s saying the prayer today?” one of the aunts would ask.

“Jimmy, do you want to do it?”

“I can do it, but maybe Papa wants to do it,” Uncle Jimmy would say.

“Oh no, he’s happy for you to do it.” Mimi would say.

She loved to answer for Papa.

“Now, wait a second. I’ll do it, but let’s ask Steve first,” Papa would say.

Always gracious.

“Y’all don’t want Steve praying today. He’s already had four beers,” Aunt Linda would say.

Chuckles. It was easy to laugh at the uncles.

“Hold on, now. I’ll give everyone the best prayer they’ve ever heard this afternoon. But we should let Father Sam do it,” Steve would say.

He really didn’t want to pray.

Father Sam was the other grandfather. The grandfather to the Greek side of the family.

He was a Greek Orthodox priest, retired. He never turned down a chance to pray. It’s probably not great for a priest to say he doesn’t want to do the prayer.

That has to be sacrireligious or something.

“No, sir. Steve, I’ll leave it up to you. I prayed last year. It’s gotta be your turn.”

Usually it was settled here.

“Okay, I’ll go ahead and pray.” Steve would say.

Or Jimmy would jump in, “I’m ready to eat, y’all. Let me do this one quick.”

Jimmy played linebacker at the University of Florida. He likes to eat. He was usually serious about being hungry.

This year, no one stepped in. People just looked around. There aren’t many awkward moments in our family. Things go as they usually do. According to plan. The normal way.

“Shit, I’ll do it,” I said.

The normal way was boring anyway.

“Brian Aubrey Smith!” That was my aunt. No one uses my middle name.

“Bri, you can’t say that on Thanksgiving,” my dad said.

He usually didn’t care what I said. Maybe that was too much.

“Sorry, I mean shoot. Shoot, I’ll do it. Sorry, I’m hungry.”

“Really,” my mom mused.

“Sure. I guess. I don’t want to let Uncle Steve get embarrass himself,” I said.

When I said it’s easy to laugh at the uncles, I really meant Steve. It’s easy to laugh at Steve.

“I appreciate it,” he said. “You always were my favorite nephew. No offense, Curtiss.”

“None taken if it’s helps us finish this prayer.”

“Alright, Brian, let’s hear that short prayer of yours,” Mimi said.

“That short one’s my favorite,” Aunt Linda added.

“The shorter the better,” from Jimmy.

“I love short prayer. Right to the point,” said Papa.

They think it’s funny to repeat after one another.

“Hey, Bri, is it gonna be short?” from my dad.

No one laughs. He’s always too late. Takes it too far.

“Can I just pray so we can eat?” I ask.

“Y’all be quiet. Go ahead.” said Mimi.

“God our Father, once again, we ask your blessing. Amen.”

That was the first prayer I learned.

It rhymed so I guess that’s why they teach it to little kids. It’s the only one I use because there’s nothing worse than having to come up with a heartfelt prayer on the spot.

My mom hates that prayer.

—–

Thanksgiving dinner is always held at Jimmy’s house. Jimmy the linebacker. It’s Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Liz, Nicole, Melissa, and Curtis. Jimmy’s parents are full Greek. One hundred percent. Born and raised in Tarpon Springs, Florida. That’s the home of the sponge industry in the United States;. It’s also home to one of the most famous Greek communities in the country. It’s deeply Greek and deeply traditional. Every year they throw a cross in a lake. Every full-blooded Greek young man in the Church dives in after it, jumping from dingy little boats that probably should not hold their weight. One kid comes up with the white cross and has good luck for a year. I’m always happy we don’t have to drive out there for Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t know what to do with all that Greek tradition. The most Greek thing we have at Thanksgiving is the grape leaves wrapped around rice and lamb. Unbelievably delicious. Sometimes Jimmy cooks up some baklava. It’s not as good as the grape leaves. The rest of dinner is pretty classic American. I guess traditional would be the word. Traditional would probably be the word for the whole family.

Mashed potatoes with a ridiculous amount of butter. Creamed corn with a ridiculous amount of salt. And a ridiculous amount of butter. Green beans with barely too much butter. Sweet potato casserole with too much butter and too many marshmallows on top. Ham with way too much fat. Mimi’s biscuits that Aunt Linda insists on buttering way too heavily. The turkey is good. I don’t think you can really put butter on a turkey.

The seating situation is traditional. Three tables. Two for the adults and still a kid’s table. Curtis is the youngest kid left in the family. He’ll be 21 in a month. The kids table sticks around because we like it. But it wouldn’t be our Thanksgiving without the kids table traditional. It’s best that we have it, though. The cousins don’t see each other that often. We don’t talk about a lot. We like to tell each other we’re going to travel together.

“I want to run with the bulls this summer,” I say.

“Do they do that in Italy?” Melissa asks.

“No, in Spain.”

“Barcelona?” she asks.

“No, Pamplona.”

“Ohhhh, I want to go,” says Leanna.

“Come with me,” I say.

“My mom will never let me go. She’s too worried.”

Linda. She worries a lot.

“Yeah, she worries too much. You’ll be with me,” I say.

“Doesn’t matter. She won’t even let me go to Boston by myself,” she says.

“Oh well.”

Curtis has different plans.

“We’re all going to Vegas for my 21^st.”

“Shut up,” Melissa says. “Dad will never let you go.”

“Are you serious? He wants to go with us,” Curtis says.

“I’m in,” I say.

Nicole just shakes her head and keeps trying to feed Malachi and Joshua at the same time. She’s on her own because Tim, the new husband, likes to sit at the adult table.

He always wants to talk politics with Mimi.

Sometimes we’ll talk about other stuff. Boys and girls, mostly.

“How’s Adam, Melissa?” Leanna asks.

“He’s good. I wish he was here today. I miss him,” Melissa responds.

I look at Curtis . We know they’re getting married soon.

“So when is he proposing,” he asks.”

“Shut up!” Melissa laughed and turned red.

Curtis nods at me.

Linda pops her head n the door.

“Got yourself a girlfriend yet, Brian?” she yells.

She can’t hear so she’s always yelling.

“No m’am, not yet,”

“We’re all waiting in you, she says.”

“You’ll be the first one I tell,’ I promise.

I always make the same promise. I don’t think I would ever tell her.

She gossips enough with my mom. She would find out soon enough.

“You better. Y’all want some dessert,” she asks.

Everyone gets up.

—–

Dessert always comes with a seating change. Mimi always like to talk to me during dessert. She likes to bring up big topics during dessert. Tim talks politics with her on purpose. I avoid these conversastiosn at all costs. Once a year, during Thanksgiving, I can’t avaoid them anymore. Politics and religion. It’s all she talks about. She knows I hate going to church. She knows I never say the prayer when we gather. She knows I don’t want to talk about it. So of course she calls in the aunts so we can talk about it.

“When was the last time you went to church, Brian” Mimi asks.

“On Sudnay,” I say. “With Mom.”

My mom nods.

“When was the last time you went to church without your parents,” Mimi asks.

“I’ve never done that,” I say.

“I mean at school,” Mimi asks.

The aunts look at me. Not a good time to lie.

“I never go to church at school.”

Mimi leans back and scowls.

“I think we need to do something about this,” she declares.

“That’s a good idea,” agrees Linda.

“Good call, Mom,” Liz says.

“Sure, let’s do something,” says my Mom.

“You can’t do anything,” I assert. “It’s school. I have to study on Sundays.”

Mimi believes she can do something. She contends that I need to send proof of one church visit each month or I don’t get any birthday money. I wonder if I am suddenly twelve again. My mom shuts me down, saying I need to have some respect. Mimi theorizes that I should also be the prayer guy from now on. I scoff. The aunts glare. That’s Papa’s job, I argue. Mimi doesn’t think he will mind. He wants the best for his grandson. I argued. The aunts agreed. I’m the prayer guy now. Another good Thanksgiving, they agreed

“Again. Again. Again.”

“I’m hitting it as hard as I can.”

“Don’t hit it, grind it.”

He looked up, through the glass doors backing the kitchen. The sun had just risen at 7:30, late for a South Carolina summer day. When he had stayed there with his grandmother as a kid, she always told him she would be up with the sun. He tried a few times to wake up before her. He loved to watch her made breakfast. Twice to hit the snooze button only one time. Both times the eggs were on the table before his head broke from his pillow. Once his grandmother had eaten all the peaches before he put his pants on. The sun would come hot and early tomorrow.

—-

The house had been there before the Sunday flea market had begun to draw tourists and it would be there when they stopped driving in from Asheville, though he wasn’t sure when that would be. At that flea market a headstone store had moved in and moved out all while the house was being built. The house had grown up with the pines and it would die with tilted crabapple tree in the yard. The house peeked over the hill, only the brown roof and peaks of green paint above the black wooden doors visible from the road above the plummeting driveway of white marble gravel. It looked so perfect where it stood that the locals laughed. They thought it was tacky. No character. The builder, his great-grandfather, had polished all of the character out of it on purpose. For a man like that character wasn’t something a house could have. If it was, he didn’t want it. This family needs some class, he said.

—-

 

“Again. Hey. Fucking Again.”

“Will you shut up? Give me a minute here.”

“Just playing. You know how get when I’m bored. And fucking hungry.”

“I’ll get it done.”

The bowl rattled to the granite counter, circling and ringing and clanking and circling until it shimmered to a loud stop. He clamped his left hand to his hip, his right hand hanging down at the end of his dangling arm, beginning to curl tightly.

“Remind me why you aren’t doing this.”

“I’m not supposed to handle sharp objects.”

“This pestle isn’t sharp. It just crushes the pills.”

“The patient should not handle items or objects which could pose a threat to himself or others. I’ll show you the doctor’s note again if you want. I have that shit memorized.”

“No, I got it. Who are you going to hurt with this thing?”

“Did my mom show you all those photos in my file?”

“Yeah, they were nasty.”

“Remember the pictures of my fingers? I did that with a spoon.”

“I did that with a spoon.”

“Oh. I guess I should handle this, then.”

“Thanks.”

—-

At one point he had hoped to fill the house with children. His grandparents had always loved when the house was crawling with them. His cousins climbed trees in the front, played catch in the back, tore the swing of the tree across the street after pushing each other for hours. The house sprawled then, wide and expansive with potential. Now, just the two of them, it was shriveled, always uneasy with enclosing only two visitors. He dreamed of filling it with a family. He assumed there would be children, but he spent more time imagining the wife. That’s how he spent most of the time when he wasn’t grinding pills or calling insurance companies or picking up prescriptions or scheduling appointments with one of the psychiatrist’s three secretaries. One of them was nosy, one always forgot his name, and the third was always late to work. “Beautiful Aryan babies,” is what his friend said should be filling the cribs in the master bedroom, the second bedroom, and the three guest bedrooms. There had always been cribs all over the house and no one had ever bothered to move them. Now there wasn’t the money or space or consecutive free moments to even put them in the garage. The garage was stuffed with all of the books on addiction, recovery, self-help, and nutrition that could be found in southern South Carolina. The cribs couldn’t fit, and making space would have meant that the two of them would have to discuss the books.

—-

He never told himself he was imagining his wife, never admitted how much the idea filled his head. He was a romantic, he told himself. Grow up, it can’t happen. You have a bigger problem. A dangerous, pill-popping problem. He thought about her most in the dark. The nights in the mountains were naturally dark, free of the yellow blink of third-world streetlights and the spilled light of half-broken TV sets through thinly woven blinds. That was where he thought he had seen her first. In that darkness, she melted, a bolt of blinding, ski-bum blonde hair sinking into the incomplete, mottled urban darkness. Melted into the surroundings the way he had watched the still sink into the trees when his grandfather sprayed the glinting tin dark green. She would look different in the mountains, at the house. She wouldn’t sink. Maybe he had met her already, maybe he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure.

—-

The Sun did rise early the next morning. He was awake when it rose, listening to the crashes on the other side of the house. The windows in the guest rooms were being shattered again. That would make the third time in a month they would have to be replaced, along with the furniture that was

The first time it was a luxury to replace the creaking splintering furniture from the older wing of the house. The second time he tried to pick cheaper furniture. This time he probably wouldn’t replace it. He walked to the room from which the most recent crash sounded and knocked.

“Leave me the fuck alone.”

“We can’t afford new windows.”

“Leave me the fuck alone.”

“You’re going to have to sleep without windows.”

“You’ll just buy me some new ones.”

“I can’t afford them.”

“Fine. Did you bring me my pills?”

“No. You can get them this morning.”

“Leave me alone if you don’t have my pills.”
He opened the door and walked in. Four of the five windows were shattered and one had a long crack in its bottom half. The desk chair sat on its side beneath the last half-intact pane. There was less glass than usual on the carpet, but there was beneath the window nearest the bed. He spread out the pile tossed the longest shard he could find to the source of the debris. He caught it with both hands without flinching. The glass was already bloody. Maybe there would be kids and a wife in the house after all.

 

The tourists always wonder why Guadalajara is deserted in the mornings. They think it is because of the gangs. Gangs come out when it’s dark. Sometimes it’s still dark at 6 A.M. 7 A.M. So they tell their tourist friends the gangs are why no one is the cafetinas frying eggs and serving coffee or setting up their stalls and hawking mangos and oranges when there’s barely enough light to walk down the streets without tripping on a gato sleeping on the sidewalk. They think everything happens because of the gangs. They like to talk about what they see on the news in other countries and their TV shows with the shootouts and the blood on the bodies. They assume I’m not one of them. I don’t blame them for thinking it’s all about the gangs. But we’re used to it. Everyone is worried about us. The gangs are going to get you in the light or in the dark, they don’t really care. If the day gets too bright too early they’ll just wait until it’s dark again. It gets dark at night in Mexico just like everywhere else. If it’s too windy at night they’ll take care of you during lunch. Guns and knives and blindfolds and white vans work at night and in the afternoon. Maybe it’s 5:30 AM. Some pandillero who just spent all night guarding a cookhouse or driving eight suitcases of cash through six checkpoints doesn’t want to be up shooting at anyone before he can see the sun. He’s asleep just like you and I want to be, but probably in a softer bed with a better A/C unit stuck in his bedroom window and a girlfriend with a bigger ass sleeping on the only pillow in the house that’s not covering a gun. But really, it’s not all about the gangs. We’re not that bad. They’re not that bad.

Really.

En verdad.

En serio.

—–

 

Sometimes in the mornings I thought about what Mama used to tell me. We always talked during breakfast, sometimes before I went to school and sometimes before I went to work with Papa.

“Mama, Mama. Yo quiero leche, no jugo de manzana.”

“How do you ask?”

“Por favor.”

“No.”

“Por favor, senorita.”

“No. En Ingles,” said Mama.

“Mama, can I have milk instead, please?” asked Dolores

“Of course, Dolé,” said Mama.

“No quiero hablar Ingles, Mama.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“I don’t want to speak English, Mama.”

“You have to. What does Papa always say?”

“Ingles esta la via el la cima.”

“Excuse me?”

“English is the way to the top,” said Dolores.

“He’s right,” said Mama.

“But los gringos speak English and they yell so much.”

“Where do you hear the gringos yelling?”

“They yell at all the other girls. At the prostitublo.”

“DOLORES! You do not go down there!”

“Papa took me down there.”

“When did he do that?”

“When we visited tía el sabado.”

“Which day?”

“Saturday. Papa taught me some new English, too,” said Dolores.

“Like what?” asked Mama.

“Hijos de putas. Sons of bitches.”

“DOLÉ!”

“And cocksuckers. Mamon. That’s what he calls la policia.”

“DOLORES! You do not speak like that!”

“I know English, Mama.”

—–

Hace calor.

Siempre.

Always.

Really, it’s the heat.

Guadalajara is hot, and it doesn’t cool off at night like it does in Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta. By February, it’s too hot for the kids to come outside and play before school. When it’s too hot for the next Chicharitos and Guardados and Messis to bicker over who gets to play striker first and kick each other in the dust until they’re so late they forget their backpacks in their rush to grab the ball and sprint towards the bell. It’s too hot for anyone to wake up early to frying fifty cent churros for the pasty Euros who can’t wait to get back to the tequila and las tetas. The heat in Guadalajara sits and stinks. I’ve seen pictures of Acapulco and Caracas and Rio. They like to make their heat tropical and pretty and paint their building all different colors. It’s all greens and oranges and reds and blues bumping against each other at sharp angles. A mezcla that looks like one of those blankets they sell in our square as productos tradicionales, all bright yarn and clashing patterns and no anything someone would use in their house. Walk three blocks there and all those colors are whirring and simmering and you might break a sweat. It’s hotter than that here. It’s the kind of heat that slaps you in the back of the head when before you can open your door and then seeps into your chest and down your back and into your feet before you can even decide which way you want to walk. Nothing is green or blue. The buildings are brown and the street dogs that started off grey have brown fur that’s never going back to grey no matter how much they beg for water outside the cafes. The dust and the brown sucks in the sun and spits it back out at your face.

The tourists love to imagine they are in danger. The love to blame the gangs. They forget to blame the heat.

Think of your favorite movie gangster.

Your favorite jefe de las drogas.

Does he seem like the wake up at 5 AM to be on the street by 6 AM type?

I’m probably not your favorite gangster.

We don’t do things like they do in the movies the tourists watch.

I still don’t want to leave my pillow before sunrise.

I think I’ll stay inside until someone calls me.

Where it’s cool and I can rest.

Tiempo es dinero.

Horas de sueno.

—–

Sometimes I think about Mama while I’m at work.

“Mama, por qué todos mis amigos tienen que trabajar?” asked Dolores

“You know that I will not answer that,” said Mama.

“Why do all of my friends have to work?”

“You know that I will not answer that.”

“Do we have more money than them?”

“Look at my dress, Dolé.”

“You look fine.”

“Look at these windows. Do you think we have more money than them?”

“No. It looks like we have a lot of broken windows.”

“Exactly, Dolores.”

“It looks like we have a lot less money than them.”

“You’re right,” said Mama.

“Claro. So porque are all the other girls working?” asked Dolores.

“What?”

“So why are all the other girls working?”

“Do you want to work?”

“I already work, Mama.”

“You work for people who protect you.”

“They don’t protect me.”

“Didn’t they teach you how to shoot a gun?”

“Si, pero the girls who have to work are protected.”

“Not as protected as you are.”

“Why?” asked Dolores

“The other girls don’t have your father,” said Mama.

“So what?”

“What did Papa teach you today?”

“He showed me how to stab.”

“Was that all?”

“He took me on a drive.”

“And he told you what he was doing?”

“Si, claro. And he told me what all the drivers do.”

“Do you think the other girls learn those things.”

“I don’t know, Mama.”

“They don,t, Dolores. They don’t”

“But what am I protected from?”

“Do you like the tourists? The gringos.”

“No.”

“Neither do the other girls. Trust me. They them. You should thank your father.”

“Why?”

“You will not ask questions about this.”

—–

Amarillo.

“Juevos con frijoles.”

“Agua fría. Dos pesos.” Cold water.

When the morning is over and the sun is full everyone wants cold water.

They stock the cars with plenty of cold water. When I’m driving there are usually two barrels of it in the passenger’s seat and five or six in the back seat. The border patrol officers see the barrels and all they can think of is cold water and air coniddioning and a cold shower and a dark rrom away from the sun. When I pass a checkpoint it looks like the busted Impala is sinking onto its back axle because of all the water I am carrying para mi familia. That’s what I always say. Just water for my family. They suspect nothing. Work is easy for me. Only the heat and the repetition get in the way. Every morning is the same. Nubes, por favor. Clouds, please. Dios mio, lluvia, por favor. Give us some rain. By nine the sun is up and I can see the orange ring around its sharp yellow core. There will be no clouds or rain. I can smell the grease cooking from downstairs and I can hear the vendedores shouting. I hear American English and I roll over and sneer and spit. I have eight stops to make. It will be an easy day. No one will give me trouble.

For some of the other drivers it is harder. La policia know most of the members in Guadalajara. All of them have been arrested a few times. Most of the officers probably recognize which banditos they have arrested. It’s hard to avoid double takes and closer looks when your both sides of your head are shaved clean and scarred from what was once a fresh tattoo but has now rotted and twisted and knotted and turned your scalp red. The bandanas can cover the markings on the nose and chin but the letters on the forehead give the rest away. For those guys, work is hard. A constant scramble of bribes, smiles, winks, threats, scowls, gestures, nods, and the occasional shot. Every stop a little dance, ritualized but lethal. No one would believe them if they said they were crossing the border with water for their families. They don’t look like family men. They always want me assigned to more dangerous duty. La nina, they call me. “Send the girl. No one will notice her.” They never do. I act like I don’t hear them. Lately they say it more often and they say it louder to let me know they want me to hear. I don’t think I will be protected for much longer.

I wonder if his protection is running out.

Dios mio.

Mi padre.

Seguridad.

—

Bruja.

Puta.

Cabrona.

Preguntas. Questions.

I am so full of questions, but I do not think they are good. All they care about are the questions as they drag me away. “Why are you talking to the other girls? You are a stupid girl. What do you want to know? What more do you want? Do you think you are that special? You don’t have to work. Stay away from them. Who do you think you are? Do you think your father can still protect you? Protect you from your stupidity? What did you think would happen?”

“We should make her work now.”

“She is too old to work. An old woman. Take her bandana.”

“Get her gun, boludo. No, no, no, hombres. Don’t touch her. Estupido. Think of her father. Her father hasn’t been here for ten years. What can he do?”

“We’ll make her work for one night.”

“She speaks English.”

“Her mama taught her.”

“She would have been our best girl.”

“Her old lady was always smarter than that old bastard.”

Mama would have had questions.

Puta.

Bruja.

No mas preguntas, chica.

—–

“Bow your head, Dolores,” said Mama.

“Porque?” asked Dolores.

“Dolores,” said Mama.

“Why?” asked Dolores.

“Because that is how we pray.”

“I don’t think these statues are going to help us.”

“They’re not statues.”

“They’re statues. Look at them.”

“That is Jesus and that is Mother Mary. They will save you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then pray to your father.”

“I thought we didn’t pray to people.”

“Well, you won’t pray to God.”

“Why should I pray to Papa?” asked Dolores

“You should believe in him,” said Mama.

“Why?”

“He can actually protect you.”

“Why doesn’t he have a statue?”

“People don’t put scary statues in churches.”

“Why is he scary if he can protect me?”

“He will protect you. He scares other people.”

“Dios te salve, Papa, llena eres de gracia…”

“Dolores. English.”

“Hail Papa, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

—–

Arbol con sangre.

Tarde.

Marron. It is evening and everything is brown and still.

Now I know why Papa taught me how to stab and how to drive and how to protect myself and gave me his protection.

Now I know why Mama always reminded me to pray to Papa and be grateful for his protection and remember that I was not like the other girls and appreciate what my father did for me and what he taught me.

He had taught me so much and I had seen so much.

Sometimes when he took me to work I thought that I wasn’t supposed to see what I saw.

That he would be upset if he found out how man bodies I had seen and that I had seen them hanging from trees and bridges and statues in squares and intersections all over the city.

Maybe he drove me through those places on purpose. So I could see.

—–

 

The tree had never held one of the gang members for very long before. Some of them used to climb it one at a time to tie a rope around its thickest branch and then again a week later, when even the two red bandanas tied over their mouths and noses could not block the smell. It’s leaves were always falling off, crumpling to the ground. The soil was too dry and the air too hot for growth. The leaves grew green for a week or two in the spring and then died, their color indistinguishable from the bark and from the dirt that barely covered the roots. The branches were strong, though. Guadalajara has a dozen trees. Half of them are in the jefe’s backyard. The rest persist around Muchachita, Little Girl Pond, in one of the squares in another neighborhood. Not a neighborhood where the tourists can go. It was once a fertile pond, they say. The water is dark, but it is murky. It is brown near the bank where it is shallowest and the light can touch the mud at the bottom. The light that reaches the trees is marred and broken, peeking through the most cramped apartment towers the city offers. The day is fading, stuck somewhere between the afternoon that has been baked into the ground and the hotter evening that is rising up from it. Nothing is clear: the water, the day, the light. It is an unfamiliar part of the day in Mexico. The day has its heat and its work and the night has its dark and its time to hide away. I just want to get through this in between time. The tourists call it twilight. Ocaso is what I call it. I can hear Mama. “Dolores.” “Twilight, Mama.” Twilight is a nice word for an ugly time. I don’t know what Papa would have said. I won’t be up at 6 mañana. No one will say we should send la niña. I still hurt between my legs and my lip was swollen and my back was bruised. I had watched them climb the tree before so I could still manage. Papa had brought me to this tree to see what happens to the disloyal ones. The ones who talk to la policía or take a cut off the top or want to stop working. Sometimes their whole bodies would hang from the tree, sometimes it was just the head. I tie the three ropes on the big branch and I hope it holds. It has held a body and a half before but never two and a half. It’s really three quarters of two bodies so I guess two and a quarter. One didn’t have arms and I took a leg of the other. The last one doesn’t have a whole head and I start sweating as I tie the rope around an ankle. The rope is a little too thick and I have to pull tight tow secure it. It didn’t have to look nice. The tourists wouldn’t see these. It is dark and I pull the ropes tight over the branch. It is evening and the pond is black.

Hace calor.

 

Still. Tranquilo. Todavia.

Forgotten in the weeks before they left were the goodbyes and the farewells, the last suppers and the final visits.

Nothing except the rain felt different. The rain had always been home. A descending grey sphere, diffusing and touching everything, evenly and in common. Now the grey was heavier and stickier as it dampened the preparations.

Rake’s grandparents called to attempt a breakfast on the last day, but it was too late. There was packing left to do, and his parents would have found another excuse even if they weren’t so infatuated with that one. It had worked for his father’s last day at the hardware store and his mother’s last behind the counter at the County Liquor

“It’s the same thirty customers every night. Ten of them just left the bar, ten of them          pay me with quarters, and ten of them think I don’t know they’re sixteen. I don’t want        one of them damn screw-ups to tell me they’ll miss me.”

Rake had tried it for his last day of Sunday school, but it didn’t seem to work on his parents.

“Son, we are going to church today and you are getting in that car if I have to drag you to      it by your jacket collar.”

“I don’t want to have church on our last day here.”

“There’s church whether you like it or not. We’re having lunch with Father Clayton               today and he will ask you about Sunday school. What are you going to tell him?”

“I’m going to tell him I liked it.”

“You’re going to tell him which fuckin verse you read and how long it took you to                     memorize and what dress Mrs. Betty wore and that you shared your snack with your               goddamn neighbor.”

“But John stole half of my snack.”

“I don’t care what John did. You’re going say you liked it.”

—-

Rake watched a neighbor leave a tray of food on the good front step one late afternoon. The bottom step shuddered under the weight of a foot and the top step was missing two of its wooden slats, so the middle, faded but stable, offered the only surface for resting the tray. Though it was the only usable step, it had gone years without new nails, and it was always slippery with a sheet mud that the weak Northwestern fall sun could never dry.

She rang the doorbell three times. Rake knew better than to answer and waited in the kitchen until she stopped ringing before he scuffled to the door.

“It was Mrs. Elizabeth,” he shouted back into the house.

“Thank God you didn’t answer it.”

A plain white card rested on top of three pots covered in aluminum foil. The foil was cold. He opened the card carefully.

“We hope you’re doing better. We’ll miss having you next door and wish you all the               best!!! We’re praying for Rake and Melissa.”

Scrawled at the bottom was, “P.S. —- I called twice yesterday and rang the doorbell three times today but no one answered. Wish I could have caught you!”

“Does she think we’re having a funeral? Doesn’t she know you only bring food for                   funerals? Or when people are sick?” his mother barked from behind him. “I thought             they would be happy we’re getting out of here.”

Rake drooped the card back onto the foil and whirred around, presenting the tray to his mother.

“And it’s cold,” she said. “Three cold casseroles. She really does think someone’s                   died.”

—-

Rake was one when his parents bought the house they were preparing to move out of. Their stories about it were some of the only that didn’t bore Rake with retelling. His father had a rotating wheel of reports about his drinking buddies from work that he would tell when he got home three hours after dinner had cooled. Four too many beers, spin the wheel, get the story about Dave, whose wife waited to hadn’t cooked him breakfast in a year. Take an extra shot of bourbon, spin the wheel, get the story about Jimbo and why he got first dibs on the overtime hours even though he wasn’t the best salesman on his own shift. His mother didn’t have any, unless they were about old neighbors who got divorced or new neighbors who yelled at each other and kicked theirs dogs.

“It was a little grimy piece of shit – but it looked nice on your mother,” his dad would             begin.

“We moved in this house back when South Bend was nothing more than three streets,           two docks, and a diner. Back when you didn’t have to pay to dock your boat in the                   harbor.”

The house had been there before the Sunday flea market with its nautical theme had begun to draw tourists and it would be there when they stopped driving in from Olympia, though his father said that couldn’t happen soon enough. Across the road from that same flea market a headstone store had moved in and moved out all while the house was being built. The house had grown up with the pines and it would die with tilted crabapple tree in the yard. It peeked over the hill, only the brown roof and peaks of green paint above the black wooden doors visible from the road above the plummeting driveway of white marble gravel. That was how his father said it looked when they bought it. Rake had watched his father paint it once when he was ten.

“One coat is all she needs.”

It had needed several coats then and several more in the years since. The Pacific rains were salty and they sucked the cheap paint off the walls, lifted the gravel out of the driveway, and teased the planks off of the steps.

Sometimes the story took this turn or that. Maybe his father would remember the old couple with three cats that had lived next door or the time the police came for the man down the block whose garage door was always closed. There was a joke about the broken windows that never really seemed to work. The delivery hadn’t really improved in all the years. His father always finished the story with a summary.

“I came in this town looking for work, but no one wanted to trust the new guy who was         staying at the motel paying in cash. Your mother found a job because her boss was an           old pervert. It got so bad for me that I went to the church to see if they might know               anyone hiring, even for a couple days at a time. Turns out they had this house needed           repairing. Some crazy old widower had died and left it to the church a couple years                 before. No one would buy it because the old man had himself a reputation. Anyway, it           had been sitting there for a couple years and Clayton told me if I could fix it I could have       it until he sold it. I guess it never sold.”

Usually this was a dinner story, but Rake’s father had started in even though it was breakfast and they were headed towards tardiness. Church started at 11:00. On time for his father was somewhere around 11:10, but it was 11:15 and he hadn’t even finished his cereal. Rake usually had a series of questions about working on the house, but that required at least another fifteen minutes.

“So why are we leaving, Dad?” he asked.

His father paused.

“I’m about to tell you about building the front door.”

“Why are we moving, Dad? You built this house.”

His mom swooped in to fill the glasses on the table.

“Rake, are you done? Stop pestering your father and clean your plate.”

“We’re leaving because of your sister.”

“What?”

“We have to move because of Melissa.”

“Why?”

“Your mother says people are talking.”

“About what?”

“About Melissa.”

“She doesn’t live here anymore.”

“But we’re her family.”

“I know. So what?”

“People talk.”

“About what?”

“Rake, put your plate in the sink. You’re not even dressed for church,” his mom blurted      from the kitchen.

“I am ready for church. Dad, I don’t get it.”

“Goddamn it, Rake. Get what?”

“What people are talking about.”

“Honey, not now,” said his mother. “We have church and an important lunch.”

“Damn, you’re persistent, aren’t you?” said his father.

“Honey, we don’t need to talk about this today. Maybe when we’re all settled after the          move.”

“I want to know why we’re moving. Dad fixed this house himself. We should stay here.”

“He’s got a point.”

—–

Everyone in South Bend had heard about Westport. It was the largest fishing harbor in the state. Rake had heard his dad say the really big boats docked in Kodiak, but Rake wasn’t sure where that was. He had seen on TV that the big Deadliest Catch boats docked in Kodiak, but he had heard that they stopped in Westport sometimes to fuel up. He thought Kodiak might be in Canada, but he didn’t think it could be in Washington. It sounded too big for Washington. He had asked his parents about Westport once. They had been sitting in the backyard.

“You don’t need to know about Wesport,” said his father.

“At least tell him where it is,” said his mother.

“Let him go look it up on his own,” said his father.

“I’ll ask one of my teachers,” said Rake.

His mother squinted at his father and flicked a glance at Rake before saying that she needed to use the bathroom.

His father shook his head, leaned back in his chair, and told Rake that he received the greatest piece of advice of his life in Westport.

“If you don’t know what you want to do with your life, work on a fishing boat for a                   month. Then you’ll know what you don’t want to do.”

“I think about that every time I have to teach someone at the store how to use a                       screwdriver,” he told Rake.

Rake could hear the a door close quietly inside the house. He thought it was his parents’ bedroom door.

—–

“Are you serious?” Rake asked his father.

“I am, son.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She said the town was too small for her.”

“You told me Westport isn’t much bigger.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said that at dinner the night she left.”

His father stared at Rake and crossed his arms.

“Anything’s bigger than this place.”

“How big is Westport?”

“5,000 people. 10,000 when the season is good.”

“Why would she want to go there?”

“She said she wanted to see more of the world.”

“Where has she been since she left?”

“Alaska, mostly. Canada once.”

“What is Alaska like?”

“About the same here but colder. And darker.”

“But it’s always dark here.”

Rake’s father uncrossed his arms. He touched his hair and crossed his arms back across his chest.

“It’s darker in Alaska.”

“So why are people talking?”

“That’s a different story, son.”

“What are they talking about?”

“Us.”

“Us?”

“Us. Me. Your mother. Your sister.”

“Why?”

“They think they know why she left.”

“Why do they think she left?”

“The people here don’t like us very much, Rake.”

The doorbell rang again.

This time it was a whole family of neighbors.

“For Christ’s sake,” yelled Rake’s mother.

“Keep it down,” urged his father. “They’ll hear you.” He shut off the kitchen light and        sat back down in his chair.

“It’s Mr. and Mrs. Brooke,” said Rake. “I didn’t know they had kids.”

“They don’t like us either. We never introduced you.”

The doorbell rang twice quickly and a third time after a minute had passed. No one moved for the door.

Mrs. Brooke turned and placed a wide tray on the bad first step. The tray wobbled and flipped into the mud under the step. Mrs. Brooke crouched down and put a hand over her mouth. Mr. Brooke placed a hand on her back and said something before kneeling to pick up the tray. The dark mud clung to his light blue jeans. Mrs. Brooke pinched a card from the mud, wiped it with her hand, and placed it in front of the door.

“I think the food spilled,” said Rake.”

“It was probably just another casserole,” said his mother.”

“Should I get the card?” asked Rake.

“It’s covered in mud. Leave it outside,” said his father.

—-

Lunch with Father Clayton was right after church. Rake didn’t have time to sneak into the bathroom to wrangle his way out of his tie and sweater before Clayton slapped him in the back.

“Heya, Rake, how are you on this fine day?”

“I’m good, Father Clayton.”

“How was Sunday school today?”“It was good. I learned about Abraham.”

“Wonderful! How is Mrs. Betty today?”

“She was OK. She wore an ugly skirt.”

His mother grabbed his shoulder before Father Clayton could begin to chuckle.

“Never speak that way about your teacher.”

“It’s fine, Rake. I appreciate your honesty. Ready for lunch?”

—–

“So, how is Melissa?”

“She’s fine, we think,” said Rake’s mother.

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Not for a couple months.”

“She called me last week.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am. She asked about you three.”

“Why did she call?”

“She was hoping I would visit her.”

“Will you?”

“I told her she should see you all first.”

“We can’t see her.”

“Why not?”

“People talk.”

“She’s your daughter. You should see her.”

“People will talk.”

“You’re moving anyway. What the people in this town say doesn’t matter. But you know      they’re not wrong about what happened.”

“Yes they are.”

“Why do you think she left?”

“This town was too small for her.”

“Westport is barely bigger.”

“It has 10,000 people in a good season.”

“We all know that’s why she left.”

“We can’t see her. People will talk.”

—-

Father Clayton told Rake where Melissa was staying in Westport and put him in a pickup truck with a fisherman whom he said attended the church. Rake didn’t recognize him. He took Rake as far west as Randle, a drive of half an hour that took two because a propeller slipped out of the bed of the truck and the man’s employees weren’t allowed to carry their cellphones on the job. They repaired the boats and conditions were dangerous so no distractions were permitted. It took a while for help to arrive and lifting the propeller back into the bed was a four-man job. The man didn’t like to be called a fisherman because he owned and operated the business and coordinated all the fleets and ordered all the parts and made the flights for his crewmembers to Northwest Washington and to Alaska and back to their homes in California and Oregon and Michigan and Alabama.

“Where are you from?” he asked Rake after they had tried for twenty minutes to lift the      propeller themselves and then decided to wait for help.

“South Bend.”

“Where’s that?”

“Washington?”

“What part of Washington?”

“Southwest Washington. On the Willapa.”

“The Willapa what?”

“The Willapa River.”

“Near Seattle?”

“Near Olympia.”

“Is that near Seattle?”

“It’s near Portland.”

“How big is it?”

“We just left it.”

“Oh. But how many people?”

“Like a thousand people I think.”

“Damn, that’s small.”

“We’re moving. My dad says people talk.”

“That’s true. You ever been to Seattle?

“Yeah. I’ve been twice.”

“Just tell people you’re from Seattle. It’s easier.”

“But I’m not.”

“Trust me. It’s easier.”

“What if they ask me about it?”

“Lie. It’s a big city. Tell them you love it. Make it up. They won’t know.”

“Is Seattle better than South Bend?”

“Trust me. It’ll be easier.”

“Can you give me a job?”

“A job? Doing what?”

“Fishing.”

“How old are you? 15?”

“No.”

“No, kid, I don’t think I can give you a job. Maybe in a couple years.”

——

Randle wasn’t far from Westport. Rake had heard they had two high schools and all-you-can-eat fried fish restaurants. He paid for three orders of French fries with ketchup at the counter of the first diner he could find, sat at a booth, and counted his money. He asked his waitress how much a bus ticket to Westport would cost.

“Sweetie,” she laughed, “They’re not gonna let a little thing like yourself buy a bus                 ticket. The rules say you have to be eighteen and you don’t even look seventeen.                     Nobody wants to get fired so you can make it halfway across the state and get yourself           lost.”

He had never been in a taxi but he thought they were expensive, so he didn’t want to take one. His dad always moaned about the price when he came home later than he should have.

“Damn Dave, takin my damn keys like I’m a damn drunk. Cost me twenty-five fuckin           dollars just cuz he thinks I can’t drive.”

He asked the waitress if she would drive him to Westport.

“I’ll pay you as much as I can. I have eighty dollars left so I can give you forty.”

“Honey. I can’t drive you that far. Let me call your parents.”

“No.”

Rake stood up quickly, bumping the last basket of fries and nudging the waitress and he pushed out of the booth.

“Do you know anyone who can drive me? I have forty dollars.”

“The gas alone will cost you thirty.”

“I can pay fifty.”

“Why don’t you just hitchhike? Plenty of people will be happy to pick up a little guy like      yourself. They’ll just be happy to have someone to talk to and they don’t think you’ll            rob them. Or kill them.”

“I tried that already.”

“No one would pick you up?”

“The guy told me I should say I’m from Seattle. I’m from South Bend.”

“Well, that’s just smart advice, honey. People like big city people.”

“I’m from South Bend.”

“Uh-huh. Let me see if I can help you.”

“Will anybody drive this young man to Yakima for fifty dollars?” she bellowed from              behind the counter.

“I’ll do it for seventy,” shouted a man at the corner of the counter.

He was wearing a suit but his tie was slung in front of him dangerously close to a dash of spilled mustard. He had a burger, a beer, and a milkshake in front of him and was making strong progress on all three.

“I only have eighty dollars,” he told the waitress again.

“Offer declined,” she said, nodding at the man in the suit.

—-

The waitress was right. It didn’t take long for someone to slow down for Rake as he stood on the curb in front of the diner, his hand in the air, his stuffed blue duffel on the ground beside him, one foot wobbling in the air as he tried to balance on the other.