“You’ll go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t believe in the war.”
“So?” He tried to smile. “I’ll go to Canada.”
“Sure.”
“I will.”
“Liar. You’re not a very good liar.”
“I’m an excellent liar.”
“Excellent,” she repeated. “You know something, you’re my
favorite book, Gustavo. I know everything that’s written inside you. I know every word.”
xo ch i l . g us t avo. l 323
“Ditto, chick.”
“I hate chick.”
“Vata.”
“That’s better. Vato. ” She laughed. I want to laugh forever. Let it be this way forever. “Take me with you. Wherever you go—take me.”
“I can’t.”
“Take me.”
“Army doesn’t take girls.”
“You’ll go then?”
“I don’t know.”
“It you leave—if you go somewhere—I’ll go too.”
“You mean, like, over the rainbow?”
“Why are boys so mean?”
“Because we have to be.”
“No. That’s a lie you all tell yourselves.”
“Maybe it’s a lie we inherited.”
“Walk away from the lie, Gustavo.”
“I’m trying, Xochil. I’m trying like hell. Listen, I got drafted, Xochil. Don’t you know what that fucking means?”
She could sense the tears and the rage he was holding back.
She pictured him coming in from the rain, her father’s condemning look. She leaned into him and sobbed into his shoulders. I hate this world. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
“Mom got a phone call. Mr. Rede died,” he whispered.
She nodded, digging herself deeper into his shoulder. I hate, I hate this world.
a b e
We used to say we got up at o’dark thirty.
When the sun rose, we’d already been up for hours. At least
it felt that way.
I didn’t have a watch. None of us did. They took away our
hair, then they took away our grins and attitudes, then they took away our watches.
I figured we got up at four or four thirty in the fucking morning.
We’d eat. I’m not gonna talk about the fucking food. It wasn’t Mom’s cooking—but, you know, I never complained. There was
a guy there, half Italian, half Mexican. Always talked about his mom’s cooking. I guess I was lucky, I didn’t drag any memories of good food into the Marines. My mom wasn’t exactly a gour-met chef. You know, a lot of Jell-O salads, casseroles with cream of mushroom soup, macaroni and cheese, SPAM, stuff like that.
Hell, when I was eighteen, I didn’t have any nostalgia about
a b e l 325
home cooking. Bring on the fucking mashed potatoes. I didn’t
give a rat’s ass what they put in front of me. I ate it.
You know what I hated, when we’d hit the racks, when they
came and made us fucking present arms in bed. I hated it when
they fucked with you like that. Right there, in the middle of your ten-minute sleep, there you were fumbling for your rifle. That didn’t happen too much, though.
The thing is, you were always kept busy. My dad would have
liked that philosophy. He used to get pissed off as hell when I sat around doing nothing. A man doesn’t do nothing. A man works.
Next to freedom, work was his favorite word.
We’d shower. Once I even heard a guy singing. I don’t know
why I remember that. Maybe I liked the song. Maybe I missed
hearing people sing.
After basic, it was off to Infantry Training Regiment at Camp
Pendleton.
That’s where we got all our tactics training.
How to use a bazooka.
How to use flame throwers.
How to use our BARs.
How to throw grenades.
It was during those six weeks that I started writing a lot of
letters. I think it was six weeks. Maybe it was more, maybe less.
Those days sort of ran into one another. No one day stood out.
Every day the same. Or at least, that’s how I remember it.
I wrote my dad. I wrote my mom. I wrote my sisters. I even
wrote my little brother. They all wrote back. I saved their letters.
I don’t know why I bothered. In the end, I lost them all.
I wish I still had them. To remind me who I was.
charl ie
Wednesday, September 20, 1967
Rosaries. Nothing more than a priest standing before the friends and relatives of the dead and leading them in the recitation of the rosary. Always, on the evening before the funeral, everyone gathered, dressed in their finest, sober clothes, rosary beads and novenas in hand. That was the tradition, though I have no idea where the tradition began. Most rosaries were held in small chapels of funeral homes that tried to approximate the idea of sacred calmness, imitations of real churches, and only the blind grief of survivors allowed the fiction of serenity to stay intact. I hated funeral chapels. I was happy when Monsignor La Pieta allowed
my grandmother’s rosary to be held at Holy Family Church. I
always loved that church, loved the smell of it, the intimacy, the smallness of it, the way you could hear every creek in the floor of the choir loft.
“The dreaded pinche rosary,” Gus said. Pinche. He loved that word. But he sure as hell didn’t love all those rituals we grew up
charl ie l 327
with. I think the idea of God was just another ritual for Gus. As useless as the rest.
“What’s so bad about rosaries?”
“Look, even if there is a God, don’t you think we’re boring the crap out of him?”
“Well,” I said. “It’s okay, I think. I mean we should have a
rosary. I mean, her name was Rosario after all. So I think it’s okay. It’s a good idea. She liked the rosary and she liked going to them. And I don’t think God ever gets bored. Too many things
going on.”
Gustavo looked at me accusingly. Well, maybe accusingly isn’t the right word. He just gave me that look that made me feel com-promised, a look that said, “Don’t you have any balls?” He loved to give people that look. He shook his head. “Okay. Right. We’ll all do the rosary thing.”
I thought maybe he was going to skip out on the funeral al-
together. Mom and Dad had stopped trying to make him go to
Mass.
“Don’t you think Grandma Rosie would be happy that we’re
having her rosary in a real church?”
“The dead are above all that crap, Charlie.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they’re dead. Dead means dead. Dead means you’re
not alive anymore. It means you don’t need to eat anymore. It
means you don’t need to sleep anymore. It means you don’t get
tired anymore. It means you don’t have to believe in anything
anymore.”
He was annoyed. But also distracted. There was something
in his voice. But I was persistent. I was nothing if not persistent.
“What about resurrection, Gus?”
“Resurrection.” Gus made that face of his. “Let’s say there is such a thing. Let’s just say there is. Does that mean we just keep doing everything we’ve been doing while we were alive? Why
328 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p would anybody want to keep on feeling the same damn things
they felt when they were alive? What’s the point?”
“Maybe we just get to keep feeling the good things?”
“I would expect that from someone who likes the Monkees.”
He wasn’t smiling—but I knew a part of him was.
“You’re doing it
again, Gus.”
“Doing what again?”
“Being superior.”
Then he laughed. There was something in his face. Some-
thing. “Look, Charlie—” he stopped. He was whispering. “I’ll
never be better than you. Not ever. You can put that in your pot and smoke it.” And then he did something that he’d never done
before. Not ever. He pulled me next to him and hugged me. I felt really small and it was strange because I felt, well, like I wished Gus were my father instead of my brother.
And then he let me go.
He just looked at me.
I looked back at him. I wanted to ask him what was wrong.
Gus didn’t go around hugging people for no reason. He wasn’t
like that. Something was really wrong. I had a feeling it had
something to do with that letter. I had a feeling I knew what
that letter was about. I wanted, I don’t know, I don’t know what I wanted—to speak, that was it. To speak. But something in his eyes told me not to ask, told me not to say anything. So I didn’t.
We both started dressing for Grandma Rosie’s rosary. We
didn’t say anything as we changed out of our everyday clothes.
Gus was whistling something. I didn’t recognize the tune. It was sad. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I just remember that it was sad.
But even if it was sad, I liked listening. I admired that about him, that he could whistle entire songs. I couldn’t even call a dog with my style of whistling.
I changed into my black pants and my white shirt to the tune
of Gus’s whistling. I took off my tennis shoes, put on a pair of
charl ie l 329
black socks. As I fumbled with my shoelaces, Dad came in to
check on us. He studied us, making sure we were dressed prop-
erly. He was holding two black ties in his hand, one for me and one for Gus. My father, he had a supply of black ties. He handed them to us. He stayed in the room until we put them on. Gus
struggled with the tie more than I did. I liked the knots on ties, double Windsor, that’s what they called it, the knot on the tie. I thought it was very cool. I thought of it as an art I had conquered.
It made me feel like I was part of something. I wondered about the tradition of ties and the art of tying them, where that came from. England, probably. Ties, rosaries, whistling, silence—I was surrounded by traditions. Maybe that was part of Gus’s problem—the traditions he hated followed him around.
Dad didn’t say a word. It was as if he’d forgotten all the words he’d ever learned. And just then, at that moment, I noticed he was tired—tired because he was sad and being sad made you tired as hell. That was it, he was tired—or maybe—or, or, or. Gus always said that’s what my name should be: Mr. Or.
On his way out the door, Dad shook his head at me and
smiled. “Shine your shoes.” His voice was hoarse and he barely spoke above a whisper. When he left the room, Gus looked at me and we both laughed. Then Gus bent down and took my shoes
off. “I’ll shine them,” he said.
a f am i ly
Wednesday, September 20, 1967
The saccharine smell of affordable perfume. The faint but
pungent odor of cigarette smoke on the black suits of the men
clutching their rosaries without grace. The aging women in their black dresses, most of them wrapped in Mexican silk shawls to
protect them from the chill of the over-air-conditioned church.
The warm greetings in Spanish on everyone’s lips: comadre, hace años que no la veía y usted la misma, ni muestra los años . . . The embraces, the warm glances, the tears running down the women’s faces, the kind gestures, the soft lilts in the voices, the sympathy in the expressions—even from people whose affections were suspect.
They were all here. Everyone.
In the front pews, the grieving sons and daughters, all of them with their wives and husbands at their sides, each of them lost in some memory of Rosario, grandmother, mother, mother-in-law,
godmother, aunt—beautiful—a spoiled and difficult woman who
a f am i ly l 331
had cast her lot with a man who lost his land and fortune to a revolution. Rosario, a harsh, superior woman who had softened
at the hands of a daughter-in-law who took her in, cared for her, nursed her, bathed her, read to her, prayed with her, loved her; Rosario, a woman who had learned, at last, to return the affections that had been given her, had learned the meaning of kindness, had learned to forgive, had let go the controlled, relentless veneer of the class she had been born into. A good life. That is what they were all thinking. A good life. And for once, what they were thinking was not a lie.
And sitting just behind: the next generation, half of them al-
ready adult and married with children of their own, completely and utterly American—Mexico already a dream, and a bad one
at that. The youngest among them residing in that awful, liminal age, not yet adult, no longer boys and girls, no longer needing to be told to behave, but not knowing exactly what was expected of them. They, too, had become utterly, completely American, the
Spanish on their tongues, more graceless than their ever-changing voices and bodies.
They were all there. Everyone.
Octavio and Lourdes stood at the entrance to the church, directing traffic, shaking every hand, receiving every embrace—face
after familiar face. Sometimes, Octavio would glance over at his wife, and once, she caught his gaze. He hoped she knew what he was trying to say: I have never loved you more.
Then, the hour arriving, Octavio and Lourdes made their way
through the crowd to the front of the church, the mourners making a path for them through the crowded aisle. The two of them knelt in front of Rosario’s open casket, her body no more than a relic of another time and another country, an emblem of inheritance and disinheritance, a reminder of exile, a finger pointing at all of them. This is where the journey ends.
332 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p Octavio and Rosario took each other’s hands, prayed, To thee do we cry poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, weeping and mourning in this veil of tears . . .
Octavio didn’t flinch as he softly, slowly, loosened the ring on his mother’s finger and wordlessly pushed the ring into his wife’s palm.
Lourdes looked at him with a question.
He leaned toward her and whispered, “She wanted you to
have it.”
“No.”
“She made me promise.”
“It’s too much like stealing,” she whispered—then shook her
head.
“I promised her.” Lourdes stared at the ring. Rosario had nev-
er taken it off—not ever. The last reminder of her lost fortune.
It was too much like payment. The thought of that insulted her.
“No,” she whispered.
“She made me promise,” a pleading in Octavio’s whisper. “You
can just put it away. It doesn’t matter. She made me promise.”
She was dead. This argument was futile. She would put it
away, never wear it, never advertise this extravagant gift. She took the ring from her husband and clutched it in her fist. Octavio gently took her elbow. They took their place in the front pew.
The priest appeared at the front of the church, sprinkling holy water on Rosario’s body. A lone voice sang the Ave Maria and the grieving congregation stood, crossing themselves. Monsignor La Pieta’s voice boomed out into the church with a faith so complete it bordered on arrogance, Pray for us Oh Holy Mother of God, and the voices responded like a well-practiced choir, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. . . .
Lourdes made no effort to stop the sobs. I hate, I hate this hurt.
a f am i ly l 333
• • •
“I
hate this.”
“Shhh.”
“I’m whispering.”
“Shhh.” Xochil clutched at her rosary.
“Even if there is a God—”
Xochil reached over and whispered directly into Gustavo’s
ear. “Pray. You don’t have to believe. Just pray.”
He nodded. Yes. Make believe that you are like the rest of
them. He felt his brother leaning into him—then felt his small body trembling. “Why,” Charlie whispered, “why do we have to
die?”
Gustavo reached over and placed his arm around him.
“Tell me, Gus, why?”
“Shhh.” He held Charlie close, then closer.
“Why, Gus? Why?”
“Pray,” he whispered. “Just pray.”
The house was loud, crowded, friends and relatives eating,
drinking, beer, coffee, food, cigars, cigarettes, a different conversation in every room. In the kitchen, his aunts consoling one of their friends, her son busted for using marijuana, It will be all right, I have a cousin, Ricardo, a good lawyer; in the living room, an argument about the war, Gustavo surprised that all of his uncles didn’t think alike, one of the women breaking into
their discussion, Have some respect in the house of the dead; in the backyard, yet another discussion about that bastard Francisco
Madero and someone bragging that a relative had been one
of Pancho Villa’s assassins. Everyone eating, everyone drinking, everyone talking, everyone commenting on Lourdes’s beautiful
children, Lourdes, bandito sea Dios, que hijos tan hermosos. And her own sister interjecting, Yes, such beautiful children—but so
334 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p disrespectful. Where did your twins get their politics? And Gustavo, well, he’s a man, and his hair! And I hear Xochil is passing out flyers against the war at the university! Lourdes smiling at her sister’s accusations, squeezing her arm a little too firmly. Their politics? From their mother. Her sister’s expression turning to stone.
And in the bedroom, three old women, the last of their genera-
tion, sitting quietly, inconsolable, pointing at all the pictures on Rosario’s wall.
Nobody noticed when Xochil slipped out. Except for Gus-
tavo. He followed her, had almost called out, but changed his
mind as he saw her climb into Jack’s car.