Diego laughed and touched her arm. She brushed her fingers against his hand.
“What do you think I should do?” she asked.
“I think you should go,” he wrote. “What the hell? If you don’t like it you can always come back. El Paso’s not going anywhere. What have you got to lose?”
She nodded. “And you, Diego? Why don’t you come with us?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’d lose my job.”
“Why don’t you tell that son of a bitch you work for to go straight to hell? Tell him to shove Vicky’s blue bar up his ass.”
“What would I do in Chicago?” “Same thing you do here—nothing.”
“Well then, I think I’ll stay.” He printed his letters firmly, stubbornly.
“You’re never going to get anywhere with that attitude, Diego.”
“It’s OK,” he wrote, “as soon as I was old enough to know I was alive, I knew I would never be going too far.”
Luz cackled. Diego could almost picture her laugh in the air. “You have a sense of humor, mi amor. Hold on to it.”
“A sense of humor?” Diego wrote, “Not really, Luz. It’s just that you laugh at everything.”
“You’re damn right, Diego. You learn to laugh at everything. People who cry are boring. There’s nothing more boring than someone who’s always crying.” She flipped her cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. As Diego watched her, he felt the urge to tell her to stay. He wanted to yell at her: “Stay where you belong. Who will I talk to on Saturdays?” She looked at him. “You know, Diego, I’m getting old—but I’m going to laugh until the end. If I stop laughing they’ll treat me like a cigarette butt.”
Diego nodded. He put his pen on his pad and asked: “So, when are you leaving for Chicago?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I have to think about it some more.”
“If you decide to go, come and say good-bye to me at Vicky’s.”
She took his pad away and wrote: “What am I going to do about you, my Diego?” She looked straight into Diego’s eyes and said, “If I’m not at the bridge next Saturday you’ll know I’ve gone with Carlos to Chicago.” She squeezed his hand. “Thanks for the cigarette, Diego.” She rose from the steps slowly and walked down the street. She wrapped herself in a black shawl even though it was too hot to be wearing one. He wanted to grab her and keep her from going. He wanted to scream at her: “Goddamnit, don’t go!” He wanted to hear himself yell it; he wanted to know what it was like to feel sounds coming out of himself, to feel the notes touch the insides of his throat like fingers.
THE HERON DIES
IN FLIGHT
1
“NO MORE MEDICINE, Jake. I can’t do it anymore.”
“You’ll die.”
“Then let me.”
“I can’t.”
“When my body wanted to breathe, it breathed, when it was hungry, it ate—now it’s hungry for other things. Let it go, let it die.”
“You talk about your body as if it doesn’t even belong to you anymore.”
Joaquin bit his lower lip, then licked it, his mouth as dry as the soil he was raised in. “I know. But there’s more, there’s more than just the physical, there’s more than—”
“More what? More shit?”
“Not more shit, Jake. I don’t know—”
“Oh, you mean like heaven. Shit, J—”
“I didn’t call it heaven.”
“Oh, the great beyond?”
“Don’t, Jake. You think there’s nothing more to you than your body?”
“It’s a great place to start.”
“But is it a great place to end?”
“We don’t have any options. That’s where it starts—that’s where it ends.”
“There’s more.”
“No—”
“You don’t know.”
“What we—you and I—what we know will be gone. Our two bodies, they’ll be gone. I don’t care about anything else, J.” “It’s just that you don’t know anything else.”
“Do you, Joaquin?”
He bit his lip again. He stared at Jake for a long time—then reached over and combed his blond hair with his trembling fingers. “I had a dream last night. It was dark and there was light around her and she kept saying, “No tengas miedo, Hijo de mi vida, no tengas miedo.”
“Which means?”
“She was telling me not to be afraid.”
“Who’s the she?”
“My mother.”
“It was a dream.”
“She came for me.”
“That’s ridiculous. What do the dead need from the living? The dead have no lips, they have no voice. The dead don’t speak, J—and even if they did, they’d only speak to each other. Let the dead care for each other—let the living do the same. And it’s the living that matter. Take your medicine.”
“That stuff is killing me, damnit. I know my body. I know what it’s saying. I heard it tremble the first time I saw you in that bar, gringo, I heard it almost scream. I felt it turn into a fist when my mama died.” His voice was beginning to sound like the desert. “I know my body. You have to help me die.”
“I won’t.”
Joaquin leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Jacob Lesley Marsh, you don’t have a choice.”
Jake pushed him away. “The hell I don’t.” He started walking toward the door.
“When are you gonna start accepting what’s happening to us? Stupid gringo. Are you just gonna play hide-and-seek until it’s time?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Jacob, aren’t you tired? Aren’t you ever going to get tired of being angry? What’s so great about being pissed off all the time?”
Jacob stared at him for a long time. “I don’t always want to hear everything you have to say.”
“I’ve heard that line before, Jake.”
“No, I don’t think you’ve ever heard it.”
“Are we going to fight?”
“No, we’re not going to fight.” He slammed the door as he walked out of the apartment.
Joaquin stood at the door and laid himself down on the floor. He felt small and fragile and was afraid he’d break if he made a sudden move. “I’ll be safer on the floor,” he said, forgetting that Jake had just left. He stared at the ceiling and tried to think of a reason to keep fighting.
2
DIEGO THOUGHT ABOUT LUZ all week. He felt her breath in his room, smelled it; he dreamed her face fading away like smoke. At night he would stare at his pad and spell “Chicago.” C-H-I-C-A-G-O. It was a strange word and he thought the word looked Aztec, but he had gone to the public library and discovered that Chicago meant the place of bad smells. He wrote a note to himself: “Who wants to live in the place of bad smells?” He thought of sneaking over to the barrio to spray-paint a new sign on the walls: CHICAGO STINKS! VIVA JUÁREZ! He thought he might add: “Luz, don’t go. Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.” He almost ran to the door and down the stairs to buy the spray paint. He pictured himself spraying the letters on the wall; he could see his handwriting, large, angry. But he changed his mind because he felt he would be making a public beggar of himself. How would it look, him begging an older woman not to leave—how would it look?
Saturday morning he woke up, put on the coffee, and went to his desk and grabbed his suicide letter. He did not read it, but took it back to bed with him and held it. He tried not to think about Luz—she’ll be at the bridge, she’ll be there. He drank his coffee as dark and bitter as his room, and did not rise until the light of the morning shone through the window. He combed his hair in the mirror and looked at his face. He saw the lines coming out from under his skin, from somewhere deep within him. Soon my face will be a map, he thought, a map of crooked roads going nowhere like the steps. He read the newspaper from the day before. The printed words were all jumbled; he could make no sense of the sentences—they seemed to be knots on a string, knots he wa
nted to untie but somehow he felt his fingers were not gifted enough to undo them. He threw the newspaper down on the floor, lit a cigarette, and puffed on it furiously. He could feel the smoke in his throat and lungs. He puffed on his cigarette faster and faster as if he were trying to catch himself on fire. He lit one cigarette after another until his throat felt as though he had eaten ashes. He sat at his desk, took out a piece of paper and wrote: Luz, be at the bridge. Luz, be at the bridge. Be at the bridge.
At eight-thirty he thought it was time to take himself down to the river. He wanted to run all the way to the bridge, but he dressed himself slowly. He went up the steps that went nowhere, then back down. He walked through San Jacinto Plaza and noticed the Border Patrol eyeing him. Diego watched them watch him. He walked toward Sacred Heart Church making himself walk slowly, making himself count his own steps: one, two, fifty, one hundred. He walked into the church, dipped his hand into the holy water, and crossed himself. He lit a candle before the statue of St. Jude and whispered, “Luz, be at the bridge.” He made the sign of the cross, kissed the feet of the statue, genuflected, and inched himself out of the church heading toward the river. As he reached the top of the bridge where the flags were being tossed by the hot wind, he stared down at the river of mud. Today it was browner than usual and it was running fast, almost angry. He turned away and faced the place where Luz always sat. He opened his eyes. She wasn’t there. He walked up to the place where they first met, stared at the blank spot on the hard cement—and waited. He tried to concentrate on the people hanging around, the people walking toward El Paso, the people selling their goods. A small boy selling Chiclets came up to him; Diego handed him a quarter. He smiled at him, lit a cigarette, and waited. He knew she would not come.
At noon he walked back to Sacred Heart Church and blew out his candle. He kept going to the bridge every Saturday, and every Saturday he stared at the river, closed his eyes, watched the people—and waited. He did this for a few weeks until one day he stopped going. He stopped working on his suicide letter. Winter in El Paso came early that year.
About the same time Luz left, Mary disappeared. Diego looked for her on the streets but he could not find her. Crazy Eddie and his boss were the only two people he saw regularly and neither wanted to take the time to talk to him. Sometimes he tried to get Tencha, the fruit lady, to talk to him. She was kind, a good woman, but Diego knew his presence made her feel guilty because she could talk and he couldn’t. Some people were like that. She smiled a lot but she couldn’t bring herself to have a conversation with him. Diego stopped writing on his pad. He left his suicide note on top of his desk but he never touched it. He was tired of trying to think of the right words.
One morning he tried to throw his letter out the window, but before he could make himself let go of all the pages as he held them in the air, he pulled them back inside his room. He wadded up the pages, wadded them up into balls, and threw them against the wall. He stared at the white balls on the floor, picked them up, and smoothed them out with his hands. He put them back on his desk.
Mr. Arteago had left for the winter and didn’t turn on the heat. Diego’s apartment was so cold that he was glad to be in Vicky’s kitchen. One night it got so cold that Diego went out and bought a bottle of Jim Beam and got drunk. He jumped up and down on the floor and wished Mr. Arteago was home so it would drive him crazy. He lay there, took another drink, and laughed. He remembered Luz saying “People who cry are boring.” He lay on the floor and laughed to himself all winter.
3
“HI,” HE SAID quietly as he walked in the front door.
“Hi,” she said.
Eddie and Helen looked at each other, then looked away, then stared at each other again. He wanted to kiss her. Maybe she didn’t want to be kissed. We’ll talk, Eddie said to himself. How to start? Open your lips and say—what? His mind had forgotten all the words. He felt as if language had abandoned him completely. There was nothing but chaos in the forgetting of all words—he panicked in that dark. He put his hands in his pocket as he stood in the entryway. He wanted to turn around and run. Instead, he locked his knees. Helen stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“I was just going to put on some coffee,” she said, a stiffness in her voice as if she were being extra nice to a visitor she was obligated to care for.
He nodded.
She cleared her throat.
“I should change,” he said, playing with his tie.
She nodded.
Eddie started to walk up the stairs.
Helen walked into the kitchen.
“It will never be right again. Maybe it was never right, maybe the fantasy’s over. Maybe everything is over. Is it over, Helen? So soon? Is it over?” Eddie ripped off his shin and tie and tossed them impatiently against the wall. He put on a T-shirt. He let his dress pants fall to the floor. He stepped on them. “Maybe if we just make love it will be fine, everything will be—” He put on a pair of jeans. He looked in the closet for a pair of tennis shoes. He picked up an old pair, then threw them against the wall, almost hitting the window. She would know it was all his fault. He put on his sneakers in slow motion, looked in the mirror, combed his hair, walked down the stairs. He saw his wife sitting at the kitchen table. He stood in the doorway and took a deep breath. Eddie smiled nervously at the woman he married. “Was it her I married? Was it me? Were either of us there that day?”
Helen returned the smile. She seemed nervous to him—that was good, he thought. He wanted her to be as nervous as he was.
“It’s like a first date,” she said.
He nodded. “What did we do on our first date?”
“We went to a concert,” she said.
“No, I mean what did we say?”
“You came to the door and said ‘hi.’ And then I said hi,’ and then we didn’t say anything. It was hard for us to talk. I remember.”
He nodded. “What did we talk about?”
“Our parents.”
He looked at her strangely.
“I was only kidding.”
He nodded.
She played with her watch on her wrist. “My name’s Maria Elena Ramirez,” she said quietly, “and I was born and raised in EI Paso.” She paused. “That’s in Texas.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “I know where it is—and it’s a beautiful name.”
“You said that to me on the phone.”
“It is a beautiful name,” he repeated. “And my name’s Jonathan Edward Marsh and I come from—” His voice cracked. He took a deep breath. “I come from La Jolla, California.” Tears rolled down his face, he stopped, started again, then stopped. “And, uh, and my father had sex with me from the time I was seven until I was—” His voice cracked again. He placed his hands over his eyes. “Fourteen,” he said. “Until I was fourteen.” He wrapped his hand tighter around his face.
He felt his wife pull his hand off his face. She opened his palm and kissed it. He felt her arms around him, her big belly rubbing against him. She rocked him gently. “Oh my Eddie,” she whispered, “how could he have done that? To you—my Eddie? To you? Who could hurt you? My Eddie. Milagro, eres un milagro, mi amor.” She felt free—to say words she had never allowed herself to utter in his presence. He wept into her shoulder. He could not control what his body was doing, it trembled, it did whatever it wanted. “And my mother let him.” His voice was muffled and distant and distorted in the same way a mute distorted and made distant the sounds of a trumpet, “She let him.” Maria Elena felt him tremble in her arms. She wanted his hurt to run through her blood like wind ran through the desert in the spring. She wanted his sadness—to keep it and then to let it blow through the air like a light and graceful kite and then show him, “You see? Do you see? Look, it’s not as heavy as you thought.” Maybe people could be happy, she thought, maybe it was possible. Maybe Eddie could be happy. Maybe she could be happy, too. She wanted to spell out the word and make sure it was a word, and make sure it had a meaning. “Corazón,” she whisper
ed. He wept on her shoulder for a long time, washing her shin in the salt that sprang from his years of silence. “Tears are a funny thing,” he said—and then stopped crying.
He shivered for a few moments, then took her by the arm and led her upstairs to his office. He took out three plain black notebooks from the shelf and handed them to her. “You can read these when you have time,” he said. He pointed to the shelves. “There’s a few more.” His eyes were red, and his hair was wild and uncombed as if he had been walking in a strong wind. She sat down on a chair and opened one of the books; it was filled with pages and pages of Eddie’s handwriting. She leafed through the book and stared at the dates. Each entry addressed to a man whose name her husband had never uttered in her presence. She looked up at him as he watched her. He looked fragile and hurt and afraid. She stared at the handwriting then looked up at her husband again. She looked at the man’s name and was afraid to say it aloud. “Who’s Jacob?” she asked. “Is he a former lov—”
“My brother,” he said.
“Oh.” She was ashamed of her accusation. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Is he dead?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. My parents kicked him out of the house when I was seven. I never saw him again.”
“And you loved him.”
“Yes.”