After dinner, Josie went back to Marisol’s room to play with her old dollhouse. Ed, Marisol’s mother, and D.Q. went out to the backyard for fresh air. Marisol volunteered Pancho to help her with the dishes.
He was standing next to her by the sink, drying the dishes, when it occurred to him to ask, “Does your brother have a car?”
“No.” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just funny what’s in your head sometimes. I was wondering just now what you were thinking about and you asked me if my brother had a car.”
“I just want to know how we’re gonna get back. You need someone to jump your mother’s car to start it. If your brother had a car, we could use his.”
“Why would you be worried about that at this particular moment?”
“I don’t know. Why not?”
She shook her head, smiling. “Are you that anxious to get out of here?”
“I’m not anxious.”
Marisol took a dinner plate from the sink with suds, scrubbed it with a sponge, and dipped it in the adjoining sink filled with clear water. Then she gave the dish to Pancho, who dried it with a towel embroidered with blue daisies.
Marisol said, “What were you guys talking about before dinner, when I was with Josie in my room?”
“Prison.”
“Oh, great. Of all the times for Ed to show up.” She sighed. “And no, he doesn’t have a car. He lives in a house with other…”
“He’s in a gang.”
“Yes. Have you ever been in one?” She seemed afraid of what he might answer.
“No.”
“Would you ever be in one?” She was scrubbing the same dish she’d been scrubbing for the past minute. He took it from her hand and dipped it in the sink with the clean water.
“No. I can’t see it.”
“We didn’t always live in this house, in this neighborhood. Till about five years ago, we lived in a pretty bad section of town. I guess Ed felt he had to join for his own protection.”
“You didn’t join.”
“No. But I didn’t have to. My older brother was in a gang, so I was protected. In a way he made it possible for me to go to school and study and be a regular kid.”
They continued washing the dishes in silence. Pancho let himself imagine what Marisol would think of him in two weeks if he ended up killing Robert Lewis. Would she be surprised? Would she be talking to him now if she knew what he might do? She seemed relieved when he told her he wouldn’t join a gang. He would kill for his sister. That’s how he saw it. But the reason he killed wouldn’t matter to Marisol, he knew.
He felt drops of water on his face. Marisol had sprinkled them on him with her fingers. “Now where did you go? Still worried about how you’re going to get back home?”
“It’s still early. Maybe we can walk over to that park that’s supposed to be close to your house.”
“Okay. But what do we tell the others?”
A shiver of something similar to fear ran through his body. “I didn’t mean…I meant all of us. You thought—”
“I’m kidding.” She pushed him with her shoulder. “Geez! So there is something that scares you! I was beginning to think you weren’t human.”
“What scares me?” Pancho said.
“Walking alone with a girl obviously terrifies you.”
“Not just any girl.”
“Mmm. Did you just say something nice to me?” She turned slowly toward him, and he felt himself go red from the top of his head to the very end of his toes. She stayed like that, looking at him, and he felt a force pulling him toward her. He began to yield to it and then he pulled himself back.
“D.Q. is looking forward to walking with you in the park.”
“D.Q.?”
“Yeah.” He concentrated on drying the dish he was holding.
“He told you that?”
“Yes. I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you.”
“Why?”
“He was looking forward to talking to you. He’s hoping he’ll get to see you again. We’re leaving tomorrow for his mother’s. He thought this was the last time. He doesn’t want it to be the last time but, after tonight, it may be hard for him to…see you. He hopes you…He’ll tell you. That’s why he wants to talk to you.”
They were done with the dishes, but Marisol remained standing in front of the sink. Then she said, her head down, her hands looking for the stopper that would let the water drain, “What about you?”
“Me?” He sounded scared.
“Yes, you, Pancho Sanchez. What about you?”
“What about me what?” He wasn’t as dense as he was pretending to be. He half knew, half hoped what she was asking. But what was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say? There was no future for him. It was D.Q. who needed all the future he could get.
“What about you?” This time she said it softly, almost as if she were all alone and speaking to herself.
He folded the towel and watched the last of the so-called clean water ebb away. “I can’t…” He stopped himself. I want to but I can’t is what he wanted to say. He looked at her for a few moments and then said softly, “Come on, let’s go to that park.”
“Okay,” she said. “Wait.” There was a calendar attached to the refrigerator with a magnetic strip. Marisol ripped off a corner of the calendar. She went back to the counter and wrote something on the paper with a small pencil. She handed it to him.
“What?” he asked.
“My phone number. You better call me.”
He opened his wallet and placed the piece of paper in there, next to Robert Lewis’s address.
CHAPTER 27
“Pancho!”
“What?”
“You asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think of Marisol’s brother?”
“He’s an asshole.”
“What’d you guys talk about on the way to the park?”
“I don’t know. He wanted to know if I was interested in joining Los Locos.”
“His gang?”
“Yeah.”
“What you say?”
“I said I’d think about it.”
“Think about it?”
“I didn’t want to show disrespect. On account of the fact that you’re romancing his sister and all.”
“Pssh. I hope you’re not even considering it. Los Locos.”
“I don’t know. He made it sound like it was just a regular business. He said gangs have gone modern now. It’s all about the money. And I’ll have some protection when I end up in prison.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Yeah, I’m kidding.”
“Good. I mean, not that what you might end up doing is much better.”
“How’d it go with you and Marisol? You get a chance to tell her what you wanted to tell her?”
Silence.
“Hey, you still there?”
“It went okay.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No, it’s okay. It’ll be okay. I expected it.”
“You’re making no sense.”
“Well. Let’s just say that she’s going to visit us.”
“At your mother’s?”
“And in Las Cruces. She has an aunt and a cousin in El Paso, which is only an hour away. What did you and her talk about when you were doing the dishes?”
“Just stuff. You know. About her brother. How they used to live in a bad neighborhood before. Things like that.”
“That’s all?”
“Pretty much. Why?”
“I don’t know. She seemed happy.”
“I didn’t say anything. We washed the dishes.”
“Sure you did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t pay any attention to me. I don’t mean to sound resentful or anything. I’m glad. I’m glad whatever it was you said made her want to come see us. Of course, it means you’ll need to
be around when she comes, which I hope you are.”
“What I can’t figure is why you don’t want to stay with your mother. It’d be a lot easier for Marisol to come see you there than to go all the way to Las Cruces.”
“It’s hard to explain. Maybe it’ll be easier to explain it after we’ve spent some time at Helen’s. You’ll see for yourself. You wouldn’t want to…die…at a place like Helen’s. You’ll understand once you’re there.”
“That’s just it. Maybe you need to be in a place that’s not good to die, so you’ll want to live.”
“I want to live. Trust me. It’s just that there are some things more important than living at any cost.”
Silence.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you. I saw your mother. I was riding the bike from…I guess I was coming back from putting air in the tires or something. She wanted me to go with her to meet someone. So I went. His name is Johnny Corazon. We went inside his house and we talked. Your mother wanted me to meet him because she thinks he can help you. There were lots of pictures on a wall behind a statue of the Virgin, pictures of people he had healed. Or he says powers working through him are the healers. They showed me a picture of a boy who had gotten cured from cancer. I mean, the guy was kind of weird, he had these gym shorts and hair in a braid and he was this old dude trying to look like a kid, but it may be worth a try. I don’t think it would hurt. He said it definitely wouldn’t hurt. It would only help.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so much all at once since I met you.”
“Sorry.”
“So, Johnny Corazon, that’s the guy’s name?”
“Yeah. He gave me that plastic heart that flashes, the one I gave Josie. He had a whole basket full of them.”
“That’s kind of funny, isn’t it? Little plastic hearts that flash from Johnny Corazon.”
“What do you think? You think you might see him?”
“You know what I always wondered? If God wanted to work a miracle and cure me, why wouldn’t He just go ahead and do it. Why would he wait for me to go see Johnny Corazon and have Johnny do whatever it is Johnny does?”
“Maybe God wants to see that you believe. That’s what your mother thinks. You need to believe first and then you’ll be cured.”
“Really? I wish she’d tell me how to do it.”
“Tell you how to do what?”
“How do I believe? What more can I do? Can I turn on a little switch in my head and after that it’s ‘Oh, I believe I’m going to be fine’? How can anyone possibly think that I don’t want to be cured? Just because I don’t want to be caught with my pants down when death comes doesn’t mean I don’t want to live. That’s what a Death Warrior does—he accepts death and gets prepared for death and yet he wants to live with all his soul, with all that is in him. It’s not a contradiction.”
“Oh, man. Maybe we should get some sleep.”
“Besides, who are you to be preaching to me about wanting to live? You’re willing to just throw your life away as if it were worth nothing.”
“I wasn’t preaching anything. I was just telling you—”
“Why don’t you go see Johnny Corazon and have him cure you? You have an illness too. A cancer that fills your head like a fog. That need for revenge no matter what, what’s that? That’s a cancer that will sure as hell kill you. At least I didn’t bring mine on myself.”
“All right.”
“It’s not all right. What would I not give to be you? I would give up my brains to have your body, to have your life, to have life ahead of me the way you have yours. And you don’t even realize what you have. You’re going to piss this gift away for what? I mean, have you ever stopped to think what your sister would say to you if she could talk to you? You think she wants you to kill this guy? Really? You say you’re doing it for her, you say it will make things right, but that’s bullshit! You’re killing that guy for you, not for her. You think killing that bastard is going to help you get rid of the loss and guilt and self-hatred for not being a good brother. You are so wrong. You’re so wrong it’s unbelievable.”
“I already told you. I thought about all that. I don’t have your brains, like you say, but this is one thing where I thought about all there is to think. I expect I’ll feel worse after I kill him, if I kill him. I’ll feel worse and I’ll feel better too. I’m not doing it because of feeling better or worse. That’s not what I mean by making things right. You wanna know something else? If I could give you my life, I’d give it to you. I’d say, here, take it. Use it, ’cause I don’t have any need for it!”
“Pancho.”
“Go to sleep, man.”
“They say that diffuse pontine glioma can affect how people act and talk and feel. Back there where the brain meets the spine, that’s where all your basic emotions come from. People that have DPG can get wacky as the illness progresses.”
“Great.”
“I’m just telling you so you’ll know.”
“Now I know.”
“All right.”
CHAPTER 28
Helen arrived at ten the following morning. She appeared in the doorway of the dining room where Pancho and D.Q. sat at a round table with a group of kids and their parents. “Hello, Helen,” D.Q. said when he saw her.
“Hello, Daniel. Hello, Pancho.” Pancho nodded. She was wearing a white pantsuit with a blue scarf tied loosely around her neck. Nothing she wore ever had any wrinkles. He took the last bite of pancakes drenched in syrup and butter. Andrés’s mother made the pancakes as a sort of thank-you gift. She also made a fruit salad with mangoes, papayas, and pineapples. Pancho thought she probably bought the expensive fruits with all the money Andrés had won off of him.
“Are we almost ready to go?” Helen asked when she didn’t see anyone getting up from the table.
D.Q. rolled his wheelchair away from the table. “Well, good-bye, guys,” he said to the group. Pancho pushed his chair back and stood up. Andrés’s mother was the first to hug him. Then Andrés, the little hustler himself, leaned his head against Pancho’s chest. In return, Pancho pulled his ear. There were no words spoken.
They went back to their room and got their things. Helen carried the smallest of D.Q.’s bags, and Pancho carried the rest. Pancho was folding D.Q.’s wheelchair in the driveway when he remembered Josie. He had not seen her all that morning. He put the wheelchair in the back of Helen’s SUV. The same group of people who was with them at breakfast was standing by the entrance, waiting to wave good-bye. “Have you seen Josie?” he asked Andrés’s mother.
“No. That’s strange,” Andrés’s mother said. “I’ll go check her room.”
“I know where she is!” Andrés said. “She’s hiding.” Andrés pointed to the back of the house, and Pancho knew exactly where to go. He motioned to D.Q., who was already sitting in the front seat, that he’d be right back, and D.Q. motioned for him to go on and take his time. Helen was sitting in the driver’s seat, a frozen smile on her face, her two hands gripping the top of the steering wheel.
Pancho went around back and climbed up the ladder of the jungle gym. She was crouched inside the tent, hugging her knees against her chest. “Now what?” he asked, poking his head in. She looked away without answering. “Don’t tell me you’re crying?”
“Nooo!”
He clambered in and sat in front of her. “D.Q.’s mother is out there waiting for me. She’s going to take off without me if I don’t get back.”
“Good,” she said. “I mean, that’s not good.”
“You want me to go?”
“Yes.”
“Marisol’s going to take you and Andrés to the movies in the afternoon when she comes in.”
“I don’t wanna go.”
“I guess I don’t want you to go either. I think Andrés likes you.”
“Yuck!”
“Yeah. Better stay away from him.”
She looked at him finally. “We’re leaving for Santa Fe tomorrow.”
/> “Your mom told us this morning. Your tests came back. Your cancer’s in revision.”
“Remission, dummy.”
“That’s what I said. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna get your eyelashes back and everything.”
“I have eyelashes! They’re just white. See?” She batted her eyelids, like she had something in her eyes.
“D.Q.’s mother has a horse.”
“So?”
“Maybe you can come visit.”
“All the way from Santa Fe?”
“Is it far?”
She rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe how dumb he was. She opened up her hand. “Here.” It was Johnny Corazon’s plastic heart. “It doesn’t work anymore.”
“I gave that to you.”
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“Okay.” He took it from her. “I guess I better go.” He lifted himself from the floor so he could crawl backward and then descend. He turned to look at her one final time just before he went down the ladder. Her lip was quivering and her eyes were bright red. He opened his arms and she came to him. He held her head against his chest and he opened his eyes as wide as they would go in order to keep them dry. She wanted to say something, but he pressed her tight. “Shhh. Don’t say anything.” He let go of her and started down as quickly as he could.
“I want my heart back,” she said between sobs.
He still had it in his hand. He went up a rung and gave it to her. His vision was blurred as he walked back. He stopped beside the house and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt. He clenched his jaw shut. This was ridiculous. He didn’t cry after his father died. He didn’t cry when Rosa died. Why now? Hot snot was flowing out of his nose and he could feel waves of pain rising up and getting stuck in his throat. He thought of Rosa. Had he ever been playful with her like he’d been with Josie and the other kids? Had he ever felt the loneliness of loss he was feeling now?