“You think only women believe in dreams?”
“Look, Diego, everyone has dreams, know what I’m sayin’? I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ bad about dreams, but you don’t go lookin’ for someone just because you had a dream, that’s bullshit. This woman’s drivin’ you crazy—just relax, we’ll have a beer—talk about it.”
“Are you going to help me or not?”
“Look, I’ll do what I can. But I think she just stood you up.”
“Mary wouldn’t do that. She’s a little crazy, well, she’s a lot crazy, but she wouldn’t stand me up.”
“Her name’s Mary? You got yourself a gringa?”
Diego glared at him. “Where do you look for missing people?”
“What does your gringa look like?”
“She’s about five-foot-six, has blue eyes, dirty blond hair, wears piles of weird clothes, carries a bag with her all the time. I don’t think she has a place where she regularly stays. She lives out on the streets I think—and she thinks she’s the Virgin Mary.”
Mundo laughed. “I know that pendeja—everybody knows her. She’s a fuckin’ pain in the ass. What the hell are you doin’ hangin’ around that pinche broad?”
“She’s not a pendeja.”
Mundo shook his head. “Look, man, sharp guy like you—she’s not worth your time.”
Diego got up from the bench and wrote angrily on his pad: “Just forget it. I thought you’d help me. I should have left you in the trash.” He ripped the note off his pad and shoved it in Mundo’s hand. He walked toward his house, turning his back to Mundo. Mundo read the note and chased him. He took him by the shoulder and tried to talk into his face. Diego pulled away and kept walking.
Mundo grabbed him again. “Look Diego, calm down—don’t get excited. I didn’t know you had such a bad temper.”
“I don’t have a bad temper,” Diego scribbled. “You could piss anybody off.”
Mundo threw his hands up. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you. Pinche Diego.” He lit a cigarette and offered it to him. Diego shook his head. “Come on, take it—take it.”
Diego took it, put it in his mouth, and took a deep drag.
“I’ll find her, man—I’ll find her.” Diego wasn’t watching his lips. Mundo touched his arm and made sure Diego watched his lips. “I’ll find her, goddamnit.”
Diego said nothing. He tried to keep himself from crying.
“Look, just go home, Diego. I’ll get back to you. If she’s in this pinche city I’ll find her. You got the right man for the job. Just wait for me at your place, got it?”
At about four-thirty in the afternoon, Mundo found Diego sitting outside the steps of his apartment. His pallid skin had turned red in the sun. There was a pile of cigarette butts at his feet. The day had grown hot and windless, and the thick smog hung in the air like the cigarette smoke in Vicky’s Bar. Through the dense air, the Juárez mountains seemed to have moved farther and farther away. Diego could do nothing to pull them back toward him.
Mundo looked down at Diego but said nothing.
“Did you find her?” he wrote after a while. It wasn’t really a question.
Mundo nodded, unable to speak.
“Well?”
“You’re not gonna like it—it’s not a good scene.” Mundo kept shaking his head.
Diego lit another cigarette. He offered one to Mundo, Mundo took it, but did not light it. “Where is she?”
“You really want to know?”
Diego nodded. He stared out at the Juárez mountains.
“It ain’t nice—I don’t think you really want to see.”
Diego wasn’t watching his lips. He just stared out at the mountains. “They seem to be getting farther away,” he wrote.
Mundo stared at the pad. He sat next to Diego and took him by the shoulder trying to make him look up. “I said it ain’t nice. You shouldn’t see her—won’t change nothin’.”
Diego looked at him blankly. He wrote on his pad: “Did you know that Carlota’s jewels are buried out in those mountains?”
“Who’s Carlota?”
“She was Maximilian’s wife—the Empress of Mexico.”
Mundo looked at him strangely, “You’re goin’ crazy, ese—snap out of it.”
Diego nodded. “Take me to her.”
“You sure? You don’t look so good. I don’t think you should see her.”
“I’m already deaf—but I’m not blind. I can see—I want to see.”
Mundo nodded, and lit his cigarette.
They walked toward downtown, both of them dragging their feet. On Santa Fe Street, Mundo noticed a cloud of thick black smoke coming from the south side of downtown. He pointed up, and Diego’s eyes followed his fingers. “Let’s go check it out.”
Diego shrugged his shoulders and followed Mundo, The smoke led them to Sacred Heart Church. When they arrived, the fire engines, policemen, and a silent crowd of watchers all stood in the middle of the street. Firemen raced to put the fire out. Mundo watched Diego as he made the sign of the cross. Out of respect, he bowed his head. Diego searched the faces in the crowd, most of them as silent as he was. He sat next to Crazy Eddie who was sitting on a curb and crying. “What happened?” he wrote.
Crazy Eddie raised his arms, but he let them fall as if they were too heavy for him. “My church—my church has burned down.” Diego handed him a handkerchief. Crazy Eddie wiped his tears on the handkerchief, wrapped his arms around himself, and rocked himself on the sidewalk.
“It’s OK, Eddie,” Diego wrote. “The outside is still standing. Look, it’s only the inside that’s gone. They’ll fix it.”
“It’s the inside that counts!” he yelled. Diego watched his contorted face. He put his arm on Eddie’s shoulder and nodded that it would be all right. Eddie did not believe it.
He stared at the firemen who had put out the last of the flames and were trying to gel people away. Some women gathered, some of them crying, others speaking to each other; and the children began playing in the puddles of water left on the street. Everywhere, people’s lips began moving. Diego saw one of the cops saying: “All right, it’s all over. Everybody go home,” but no one moved. Some of the firemen dragged out some of the statues from the church—all of them covered in a black film. The women clapped.
“Hey, the santos survived the fire,” Mundo said.
“I didn’t know you were religious,” Diego wrote.
“Hey, man, I’m religious—made my First Communion and everything. I even got a rosary.” He pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to Diego. “See—it goes everywhere I go. Yeah, God saved those santos.”
“But he didn’t save Mary,” Diego wrote.
They walked to the morgue in silence.
9
“I HATE THIS BLIGHT.” Jake sat in the kitchen staring out into the darkening San Francisco sky. “It’s like a fire that spreads and refuses to go out.”
“I hate it, too,” Tom said.
“But you’re not losing your lover.”
“No, I’m not losing my lover.” He wanted to comfort this hard man, but there was nothing he could say. And anyway, Jake would refuse to be comforted. Tom felt almost as lost as the man sitting next to him—and angry, but he knew Jake would not be the one to listen to him or even see that other people were losing Joaquin, too. For a minute, he hated Jake for isolating himself and all the resentments came flooding back into his body. But Jake had built walls around himself all his life—he had always been like that, lived like that, made a virtue out of living like some goddamned cowboy in a movie. But hadn’t he been taught to do that—hadn’t they all? To be alone in grief was to be strong. Tom did not want to be alone, did not want to be strong. Jake stared out the window. Tom stared at Jake. Sometimes, I hate being a man, Tom thought. Whoever invented it should be shot.
“Is life simple for anyone?” Jake asked. His question hung in the air like the evening rain. He looked at Tom.
“Is life supposed to be simple, Jake?”
“Maybe for some—don’t you think?”
“Everybody gets to stop breathing some day. Is that simple enough?”
“We’re talking past each other.”
“Yes,” Tom smiled, “we always have.”
“What will happen now?”
Tom shrugged his shoulders.
“Joaquin’s the only thing you and I have in common, Tom.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it, Tom? He’s the only thing that comes between me and chaos. He always mediated our—our—whatever it is we have.”
“Why can’t you call it a friendship?”
“Is that what it is?”
Tom wanted to tell him he was an ass. He wouldn’t. Not tonight, “You’re very hard sometimes,” he said. He looked at Jake with a look that almost resembled disgust. “Tell me something, why do you find it so difficult to belong?”
“Belong to what?”
“Never mind—it doesn’t matter.”
“Want some coffee?”
Tom nodded.
He got up, ground some coffee, and put on the kettle.
“I love him, too,” Tom whispered.
“Did you say something?” Jake asked.
“I said I love him, too.”
“I could have lived without hearing that,” Jake said.
“I could not have lived without saying it.”
Lizzie walked into the room. She stared at the two men. No one said anything. They pretended they had not been talking—and Lizzie pretended she had not heard the last part of their conversation. They all waited for the coffee in silence, each one separate, isolated, alone as if they had told each other there could be no touching. Jake thought of nothing but the great sadness of his life. There was nothing now, that is all he thought, and suddenly he decided that after Joaquin took his last breath, he would drive to the Golden Gate Bridge and take a plunge. He pictured himself dead before he hit the water like the heron in his dream. Tom tried to keep from howling, tried to keep from hating Jake, hating him not only because he was so hard and self-centered, but because he would learn nothing from this, he would be as isolated and ignorant about the world he lived in as he ever was. Jake was incapable of learning anything. Jake was capable of feeling—what was that? What was feeling without thought?—I feel bad, I feel good, I feel sad. Was that what living was? What was great about that? All Jake could do was feel, and he hated him for that. Without wanting or needing to, Lizzie could hear what they were saying to themselves. And since she overheard, she could not stop herself from intervening. “You won’t,” she said.
They both looked at her.
“What?” Jake asked.
“You won’t jump off that bridge,” she said. “I’ll chain you to your bed if I have to, but you’re not taking a dive—not tonight—not ever.”
Jake stared at her. “How did you—”
“Shut up,” she said, “I’m talking. And you,” she said turning to Tom. “You will stop being angry with Jake. You will stop hating him. Tonight, we will respect the dying. All you can think of is your own grief—is that all? There’s a man in the other room—and he is dying. Why aren’t you thinking of him—of him, damnit—him! And I want a cup of coffee.”
Jake served her a cup immediately. She took a sip of the hot, bitter liquid. It was strong, she thought. She stared at the two men in the room. “I’m sorry,” she said, then smiled. No one spoke. Jake served Tom a cup of coffee. He squeezed the doctor’s shoulder.
Lizzie felt Joaquin’s heartbeat as she sat quietly drinking her coffee. The two men said nothing. There was so little to say, Lizzie felt Joaquin’s heartbeat grow weaker, felt him struggle for each breath. He thought of nothing now—only of taking one more breath. The world and the people in this room were no longer his business. Then she felt a terror, as if his body had become her body, and his body had decided to wage one final battle before retreating, run one final race before resting. She felt her own heart racing as if she were running the final race with him. He was young and he was walking toward the edge of the river, and he was with others, and there was a woman there. Mama. She smiled at him, at who? At her? She was there, she could see. The river was cold and it was night and he was crossing the river—is this the end of the word?—and suddenly the waters came over him, he was sinking, his heart was racing, could no longer breathe, it was going to burst, his heart, her heart—it—they—were going to burst. Lizzie felt the coldness of the water and the taste of a snowflake in her mouth. She felt afraid, could not breathe. She had never been this close to anyone, not like this, never like this. She grabbed Tom’s arm, “What is it, Liz?” he asked. She looked sick and frightened and far away and it seemed as if she were dying.
Lizzie took a deep breath. She looked at Jake. “He’s going,” she said. “Jake, he’s going.”
Jake and Tom ran out of the kitchen, not out of any real belief in Lizzie’s words, but out of instinct. They were irrational animals running without knowing why, running because they were afraid, running because it was all they knew how to do now, and they had become all instinct. Mr. and Mrs. Sha, and Tom’s lover. Rick, who had been sitting in the living room talking and keeping vigil ran into the room after them—they too ran out of instinct like a crowd running together toward an unknown goal, something leading them in the same direction like lost pilgrims in search of an altar or anything that would pass for a shrine. Jake grabbed Joaquin from the bed and picked him up. He sat on the chair and held his fragile body in his arms. “It’s OK, J. You can let go. You can let go now. I’m here. You can let go.” Jake heard himself speak the words he had sworn he would never speak, Tom watched them, his grief too great, too heavy to allow him to move. Joaquin’ breathing filled the room. There was nothing in the house except Joaquin’s breathing, just his breathing and this handful of people who sat—motionless—motionless because movement seemed so futile, so insignificant—and their communion was delicate because the man who had brought them together was leaving them, and perhaps after his passing they would no longer belong to each other. There was nothing, nothing but his breathing, nothing else. And then there was quiet. And no one noticed the room was dark and that the candle had gone out. There was only this silence and this darkness and then suddenly, one by one, the room was full of their sobs.
In the kitchen, Lizzie heard Jake’s words: “You can let go now, J.” She felt herself floating away. She saw her body sitting limp and lifeless on the chair. She felt Joaquin’s passing in her body, a nothingness with no point of reference. There could be no point of reference. There was a space within her, and yet she was nothing but space. And there was a freedom. It was not nothing—she knew it was not nothing. Tom walked into the room and touched her lifeless body. She looked up at him from her chair, “Are you OK?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I could have sworn you were dead when I touched your arm.” He shook his head and stared at her. He looked frightened.
“Tom?”
“Your hair,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s white.”
She nodded. “I felt him. When he died. I felt him when he died.” she said, her voice beyond any sadness. “His candle went out.” She took his arm. “Don’t be afraid.” Lizzie’s voice helped calm him, but he trembled as if he were cold. She rose from the chair and held him. She sat him down on a chair and handed him a whiskey. “Drink it,” she said. He poured down the drink. Lizzie walked into Joaquin’s bedroom, and stared at Jake sobbing into his dead lover’s body. “It’s time to give him up,” she said softly. She gently took the dead man out of Jake’s arms. Mrs. Sha was beside her helping to carry him. They placed him softly on the bed. Lizzie felt strong. She’d never imagined her body could feel this way. Mr. Sha covered him with a clean white sheet. She relit the candle that had gone out and placed it on the nightstand next to his body. She led Jake out of the room. Tom thought it odd and stupid and unnecessary to pronounce him dead, but it was his j
ob, and somehow, despite the heaviness he felt, he called the coroner and gave him the appropriate information, the time of the death, the cause. It was official, and yes, he would contact the funeral home. But he waited for that. He would call them later. He sat a while in his friend’s room. Of all the men he had seen die, of all the men he had buried, this one cut him, cut him deeply and he felt himself bleeding. “I’m not even forty,” he said to himself “and I have known too many deaths.” He was fighting despair, a despair that wanted to claim him—but he fought it. He fought it, and wondered why.
Tom sat and sipped a cup of coffee in the living room. His lover sat next to him saying nothing. It was as if there was so little air in the room that no one spoke in order to preserve the little oxygen there was. Jake sat on a rocking chair—close to Tom. Mr. and Mrs. Sha sat quietly on the couch drinking tea. Mrs. Sha wept silently. Lizzie thought it was odd she made no noise. Lizzie ached for someone to break the silence. Jake said nothing, just looked down at the floor. In the dim light, his hair looked darker, and he looked much younger—like a boy. Lizzie stared at him. He looked exactly like someone she knew. She stared at him for a long time, then suddenly looked at the picture on the piano. “Oh my God!” she yelled. “Oh my God! Every day in front of my nose, every damn day and I—Oh my God, Lizzie, you idiot-you’re a such an idiot!” She banged her open hand on the piano.
Tom looked up at her as if to say. What now? Your hair has turned white, we have lost our Joaquin, we have fought with each other and ourselves and outside it is the coldest day of the new year and we are too tired to say or do or think anything. What more—is there more? Jake didn’t seem to hear her at all.
“Jake?” she said. “Jake!”
He looked up as if to ask why she was yelling. He wore the same look as Tom. What more?
“Jake—what’s your last name?”
He stared at her blankly, “Marsh,” he heard himself say. “What a stupid question to be asking.” He looked at her strangely, almost disapprovingly. “You’ve practically lived here for months and months—and you don’t know my last name?”