Читать книгу City of God - Gil Cuadros - Страница 8

INDULGENCES

My mother and father had both come from the same home town, Merced, California. They romanticized the red checkerboard-patterned water tower on J Street, the Purina feed store on K, the old, semi-demolished church that looked like Mexico, rough-hewn, gritty pink stone L Street. Pulling off the highway, my parents would cluck their tongues, stare out of our black Impala, disbelieving the changes. They told my brother and me of the time when blacks kept to their own side of town. “Now the place has gone to pot.”

Dad parked at the small grocery store, El Mercado Merced, a converted house with boarded-up windows and wrought iron bars for protection. The place had a little bit of everything: warped, dark, wooden shelves carrying sodas, tortillas, lard and eggs, things the neighbors always seemed to run out of first. It was central to both sides of my family. Uncle Ruben lived near the corner; Grandma Lupe, across the street; Uncle Cosme, next to her. My great-grandfather Tomas had lived two houses down. “Papa” would walk this street every day, wave to my relatives as he passed by, his blanched wooden cane steadying his balance, the handle dark where he gripped. It was Ruben who went to try to see in the windows why Papa hadn’t gone by that day. It was Cosme who called two days ago to tell us Papa was dead.

My little brother and I ached to get out of the car, the long ride had caused our legs to fall asleep. Jess had complained the whole way that I was invading his side; my father turned from his steering: “Do I have to remind you that you are fourteen years old and should just ignore your younger brother?” Dad was already irritated and said he was going to take Jess to Grandma Lupe’s. I was to go with my mother. My mother wanted me to mind because someone had died.

“It’s out of respect,” she warned while she collected the things she needed from the glove box: a mirror, make-up, tissue. And as we walked the short distance down the street, I looked back and saw my father pull a six-pack of beer from the old cooler in front of the mercado. His hands dripped melted crushed ice, and the sidewalk became stained with its moisture.

My great-grandfather’s house always reminded me of a ranch, the oppressive heat of the San Joaquin Valley, the large wagon wheel leaning against the standing mail box, the way the long, tan, stucco building hugged the ground. I expected tumbleweeds to roll by, a rattlesnake to be coiled seductively in the flower bed’s rocks. My mother’s cousin, Evelyn, had been taking care of Papa and she met us at the door before we even knocked. My mother had just straightened herself again, licking the tips of her fingers in the driveway, touching up her hair on the porch. Evelyn and my mother fell into each other’s arms as soon as they saw each other, making a show of tears, almost religiously. She was the same age as my mother, thirty, maybe a few months apart. I stood awkward on the porch, afraid to walk in unannounced. Evelyn wore a flimsy dress, a brownish print the same color as the house. Her teeth were stained, and when she smiled her long dog teeth poked out. Hair hung down her back like dry weeds.

“Well,” she said, facing me, “who is this foxy young man?”

My mother laughed. “This is my oldest boy.” Evelyn swung her dress like she was dancing to a ranchero tune, showing her kneecaps, and I stared. My mother always wore pants and it was strange, I thought, for a woman to be home in a dress. She wasn’t going anywhere.

She tilted her head coyly at me. “Why don’t you give me a big hug. We’re family.” I put my arms around her like a mechanical claw. She pulled me in tight, placing my face above her breast. I could smell her sweat, a scent of dairy products, cheese and bad milk. It felt like her breast had dampened my face and I wiped away droplets from my cheek. “He looks like your old man, Lorraine.” My mother acknowledged this standing near a cabinet filled with ceramic salt and pepper shakers, ashtrays from Vegas, Tahoe, and the biggest little city, Reno. Mom had confided to me she wanted something to remember Papa by.

My mother said, “I just came over, Evelyn, to see where it happened.” She held a ceramic Siamese cat with an ear broken off and holes bored in its head.

Evelyn explained that she had come home late from work, she had found him in the bathroom, collapsed, a green mess pooled underneath him. She said, “He started having trouble, not making it in time, then I’d have to clean it up. Sometimes he’d lose it just sleeping in his chair. I told your mother, Lorraine, that he should go into a home. No one wanted to hear about it. I couldn’t take care of him twenty-four hours a day.”

My mother started to cry again and walked over to see the bathroom, a tissue covering her nose and mouth. I stood with Evelyn. I had heard so many stories about her, how she was dropped from the crib, how soft and impressionable the skull is at that age. My aunts would start low and sympathetic, how it wasn’t Evelyn’s fault for the way it was with her, but then would tell each other what a tramp, a slut Evelyn had become. They’d snicker about how she slept with black men, white men. Papa should have put her away. Evelyn’s Papa’s angel. Evelyn’s a lesbian.

Evelyn smiled at me. I looked around the living room, touched the lamps made out of thick coiled ropes, burlap shades. Evelyn lit a cigarette, clicked shut the silver-toned Zippo lighter. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No, not really,” I answered.

I felt embarrassed. My whole family was always asking when was I going to get a girlfriend. My mother begged me to find a girl soon, not to be so shy, said it was natural for me to like girls. She’d say she worries because she’s a mother, don’t you want to make your father proud, your brother should look up to you. The truth was I had a lot of friends who were girls. They would pass notes with me in class, short-lined confessions of love for some other boy. Their reasons for love were always the same: the color of eyes, the length of hair, the muscles sneaking out from the boys’ short-sleeved shirts. These same boys would shove me around before the bus came. My body would grow warm and my heart would pound when they put their hands on my chest and shoulders. I would notice the color of their eyes, the strength they possessed. “Fucking sissy,” they would say and then give me one good last punch.

Evelyn seemed like she couldn’t believe I wouldn’t have a girlfriend. “Oh, then you like someone. What’s her name?” I squirmed that I didn’t like anyone and no one liked me. She offered me a sip of her soda, it fizzed in a glass, water had ringed the wood coffee table.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Oooh, you’re so polite. Why don’t you sit next to me.” I came over to the Afghan-covered couch where she sat. I could hear my mother’s sobs, the bathroom becoming an echo chamber. Evelyn moved close to me on the couch. “I bet you kiss like a stud,” she said. She put her hand on my knee and I started to feel a horrible warmth between my legs, growing. She squeezed my thigh as if to make me laugh, then asked, “What do you do for fun?”

I stumbled as I stood up, fell back down. “I go to the Scouts,” I offered, hoping the conversation would end and my mother would re-enter the scene, grab me by the wrist and take me away.

Evelyn looked deep in my eyes, as if to devour a creamy pastry. “Will you do me a favor?” she asked. I nodded, hoping it would involve leaving. “Will you kiss me?” I pulled back but she came forward and vise-gripped my head. Her other hand reached down and grabbed my dick, her nails digging into the khaki material of my pants. I wanted to vomit, her breath was like my father’s, unclean, like a whole night of beer. I shoved her hand off my lap and got up. I licked the sleeve of my shirt, trying to get out the taste of her. She started to laugh as I unlocked the door. The brightness of outside kicked in my allergies and I started to sneeze as I ran to Grandma Lupe’s house, saying out loud, “Forget my mother.” My father sat on the steps drinking his Miller’s. He tried to grab onto my butt as I passed him. I let the screen door slam behind me and ran for the nearest bathroom, Grandma Lupe’s. I barely made it before I puked. From inside I could hear my grandma talking on the phone saying Evelyn should have been locked up a long time ago. My head hung over the tub’s edge, water rushing down the drain. The porcelain reeked of Calgon and Efferdent.

Tension and humidity hung in the old house. Relatives were arriving every moment; my grandmother was wringing her hands. My mother was still crying that she couldn’t depend on anyone: my brother, too young; my father, always drinking; and me, worthless. I was too embarrassed to tell her why I had run out of Evelyn’s and had decided to hide out in the backyard. I was surprised that my mother had come to get me. My brother and I were playing in the old rickety garage filled with an ancient white Chevy on blocks, wooden barrels of pecans and walnuts in the dark back corner.

My mother wanted me at the kitchen table with all my aunts and my mother’s aunts. I was the only boy except for two viejos, my mother’s uncles, both too old to decline the meeting. My mother said, “You are family. You need to hear.”

My grandmother Mikala sat at the center of the long kitchen table; she mirrored the Last Supper needlepoint that hung, framed, above her head. Grandma Mickey’s face was near-silhouette because of the big open windows behind her. Jars of nopales glittered in the pantry. Cactus grew along the fence outside and guarded this secret meeting. Just as my mother would light up at the onset of a long story, Mickey smoked a Newport. She exhaled a large burst of smoke. “As you know, I went to the police. Papa had horrible bruises on his body, especially on his hand, like someone had kept on slamming the door on his wrist. I think Evelyn killed him, made him have a heart attack. The bruises on his hand were ugly.”

Around the table, aunts and cousins shook their heads, each taking turns. “Evelyn has always been crazy. She was spoiled rotten by Papa. He never saw how evil she was. He always gave her dresses and toys, didn’t give anything to us kids.”

Grandma Mickey raised her open palms. “I will make her pay, I swear.” I felt sickened that a murderess had kissed me that day and I wanted to interrupt Mickey, to tell her Evelyn had grabbed between my legs. Mom made me put my hand down, kept it hidden below the table, squeezing my fingers occasionally.

My mother’s Uncle Ruben spoke. “It’s all our own faults, we should have never left him alone with her. Mikala, you should have taken him instead of leaving him with that crazy prostitute. And where is Evelyn’s mother? Mary is always gone, never responsible. Hijo! It was bad enough Papa had to take Evelyn in and raise her, just because Mary didn’t want her child in an institution.”

Mikala again raised her palms. “It would kill Mary to know her own girl killed Papa.” There was argument all around the table about what to do, then dinner was passed, refried beans, peppered steak, home-made tortillas, Pepsi taken out dusty from the cellar. We all ate with gusto, ready to stone Evelyn. I held my secret, knowing it wasn’t important. All around me people were saying, “Eat Gilberto, eat.”

I had never been to a wake before, the orange and purple summer night having just started, the air extremely dry. I could make out bats flying against the sunset. My Grandma Mickey and all her sisters were behind dark netting, a special section for the immediate family. From behind the curtain, I could hear their sobbing. My mother whispered to my father that Evelyn was inside and it wasn’t fair, none of the other cousins were there. My father sighed, uninterested. I pretended to be appropriately mournful since I’d never seen a dead body before. It lay in its open coffin, a spotlight illuminating his pasty face, like a stage actor, I thought. My mother huffed, “It makes me sick, you can hear her going on and on.”

My father said, hot-tempered, “She has a right to her grief.”

My mother turned into quick anger, “You know what I mean, Danny. You heard what my mother said.”

Exasperated, my father whispered sideways, “You have no proof.”

“The bruises, Danny, the bruises,” my mother near spat till my father said, “Shh!” In the quiet before the wake, I could easily make out Evelyn’s wails. They were the kind of wails that could be mistaken for laughing, as if this were all a joke and my great-grandfather would pop up then and yell, “We pulled a fast one on all of you!”

I thumbed through the small book given to me as I had entered the mortuary, How to say the Rosary Apostolic and Other Indulgences. Grandma Mickey said it was a gift for me: “The mysteries are great and powerful for the devout; the joyful, sorrowful and glorious acts of Jesus purify our sins.” It was pretty boring stuff, fifteen Our Fathers and one hundred and fifty Hail Marys. The pictures made it seem more exciting.

After the wake, uncles, aunts, grandparents and children waited on the steps of the mortuary, leaning against the colonnades. An aunt kicked a strip of no-slip on a step with the point of her shoe, her husband held his jacket over his arm, his short-sleeved shirt exposing his various tattoos of roses and crosses. Another man with a full black mustache that covered his mouth’s expression spoke with him. Aunt Mary had been hastily escorted out by her youngest daughter. Evelyn stood by the coffin long after everyone had left. “Nearly threw herself on top,” an uncle said. Everyone had moved their cars so they blocked all the exits, the headlights aimed for the front door, the marble walls, the angels and muscular men along the frieze. Ruben called out, “She’s coming.”

When Evelyn walked outside all the car lights’ high beams were turned on. The women and men stepped away from their cars, toward Evelyn. They began yelling, “Get out of here! We know you did it. You murdered Papa. Sick, sick, sick!” Evelyn had been covering her eyes, trying to see, to adjust. She wore an open black crocheted top and the headlights bore through to flesh, bounced off the black Qiana dress as if it were made of white.

She started to scream, to reason, “I didn’t do it.” I wondered why she didn’t just run or why one of my uncles didn’t put a stop to this, their barrel chests filled with breath, their shirts almost too tight, their top buttons aching to pop. But they wouldn’t. She tried to block her eyes with her hands, shaking her head, “He always shitted on himself.” Horns blared, hands heavy on steering wheels; my brother leaned on ours from the back seat, our father having rushed us in early. My Grandmother Mikala walked up to Evelyn and began to slap her, nails curled to puncture, looking fierce. Evelyn defended herself, thrust herself like a cat, wild and rare, on top of my grandmother; both fell dangerously down the steps, backs, spines, shoulder blades hitting the corners. People rushed in like a mob, women pulling her hair, kicking Evelyn in the stomach, the ass, her breast. The men tried, some laughing, to extract their wives from the brawl. My brother and I jumped up and down in the back seat, acted as if we could feel the blows or were giving them, vocalized the sound of each good hit, “uhh, opff.” We watched as Dad returned with my mother, who was nearly scratching his eyes out, saying loudly, “That bitch.”

My father hastily drove away to his mother’s house, it now fully night. My mother told me to forget what had happened, that it wasn’t a good thing, that she was already feeling ashamed, her voice quiet and firm. She thought that maybe I should pray. My little brother was asleep already, his straight black hair next to my thigh. I rolled the window down slightly, letting the air rush in. I could barely hear the radio, a scatter of signals. I stared outside, wondered if my family would ever turn on me, where would I go, who would I love. The long farm roads leading back greeted my thoughts, the rows of grapevines, tomato furrows, cotton, all lined up in parallel paths ending on the horizon, designed like manifest destiny. Lit by my father’s high beams, still ignited, I watched as we passed a scarecrow off the road, dry weeds for hair, a flimsy brown dress, a stake skewered up through the body, arms stretched open as if ready to embrace.