I thought about all the lost souls I knew. That’s how Mrs. Apodaca put it. And she wasn’t wrong. “They just wander about. Almas perdidas. Es una tristeza.” I hated to agree with her, but she was right. So many people walking around the world, lost. And it was sad. And I was becoming one of them. I didn’t want that. But I didn’t know what to do about myself. If I thought about what Father Fallon had said, I would get angry. I’d have to smoke a cigarette or two before I calmed down. But I’d turned my back on a sacrament. My mom had told me that a man never turned his back on a sacrament. Maybe she was watching. Maybe she knew. Or maybe she had better things to do than watch me.
That day, after I’d tried to pray at the church, I stopped by to see Larry on the way home. He was watching television. The house was loud and crowded with all his older brothers. Everyone fighting. They liked to fight in that family. “Let’s go buy a Coke,” he said.
“A Pepsi,” I said.
“A Coke,” he said.
We just had to fight. About everything.
On the way back from the store, I asked him. “Did you ever go to confession again?” I asked. “After that day?”
“Hell no,” he said. “And I’m never going back.”
“You’re not afraid?”
“Of what?”
I nodded. I realized that I’d never been afraid of anything. And now I was afraid of everything. I was afraid something would happen to my Dad or that something would happen to my sister. Hadn’t something happened to Juliana? Didn’t bad things happen to the people of Hollywood all the time? And I was afraid of Father Fallon. Afraid he had the power to take heaven away from me. Maybe he had the power. Maybe he didn’t. I wasn’t sure. But I was afraid. I wasn’t so fearless anymore.
“Of what?” Larry asked again. “Afraid of fucking what?”
“Nada,” I said, “never mind.”
“You’re too serious, ¿sabes? Pifas says you have to learn how to relax. ¿Entiendes, Méndez?”
“Yeah, yeah. Como chingan.”
“God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about confession, anyway.” This from the theologian who thought that masturbation was the same thing as having an abortion.
“What if he does?”
“Then we’re completely screwed. ¿Sabes?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I said. Talking to Larry never made me feel any better.
It was a sad Lent. I was sad about everything. On Holy Saturday, my dad thought it would be a good idea if we all went to confession together. Me and him and Elena. Shit. Shit. “Okay,” I said.
There were two confessional lines that Saturday. One line for Father Francis and one line for Father Fallon. Father Francis definitely had the longest line. Dad got in the shorter line. He didn’t seem to care if he was in Father Fallon’s line or not. What sins did he have, anyway? Me, I got in Father Francis’ line. Maybe it would all work out. Why do we always hope? I saw Father Fallon’s line get shorter and shorter. And then there was no one left on his side of the church. He came out of the confessional. He walked up to the row where I was sitting. “Over here,” he whispered. All of us in that row looked at each other. He waited. We nodded. It was over for all of us. We who’d had such hope.
My heart was pounding. God. It was really pounding.
I took a breath. I went first. What good would it do to sit there and listen to my heart thumping against my chest. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. . . “I stopped. “The last time I came to confession, I walked out.” There. I’d said it.
“You?” he said. “You turned your back on a sacrament.”
“Yes,” I said. “I am heartily sorry. I am, Father.” I wasn’t sorry. Why was I lying? And my dumb heart just kept pounding as if my body was a locked door and my heart was a fist. Pounding and pounding. And I thought maybe the wings had come back. Those wings, they came and went, came alive, then went dead. I couldn’t think. I don’t remember anything else. I know I was in there for a long time. I kept saying, “Yes, sir, yes, Father, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of a storm and you don’t know anything, you’re just scared and confused and everything around you is chaos and turmoil and you don’t know what to do, so you don’t do anything, just close your eyes, and when you finally open them, you don’t know how it is that you’re still standing there. The storm gone—and you’re standing there. In all that calmness. I heard myself reciting the Act of Contrition. Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because I offended thee my God who art all good and deserving of all my love . . . Fallon gave me a severe penance, an entire rosary. He lectured me. I didn’t listen. Then I heard the words of absolution. And his final words “Go and sin no more.” When I walked out of the confessional, I didn’t feel clean. Not clean, dirtier than before. Dirtier than I’d ever been. Even after praying the rosary. Even after completing my penance. I wasn’t clean.
I watched Elena as she looked for eggs on Easter Sunday. My dad had bought her a new dress. Blue and pink. And new shoes. White. She was clean. My dad had bought me a new shirt, too. I didn’t feel any better, any cleaner, any purer because I was wearing something new.
I kept watching Elena. She laughed every time she found an egg. “Look!” she yelled. “Look, Sammy!” I wanted to be her voice. I wanted to be her laughter. She was eight, almost nine, and yet she seemed to be younger than that. I wondered if I had ever been like her. I didn’t think so. I had never been that pure.
I didn’t go to confession for a long time after that. When I thought about going, I remembered I’d never confessed that Juliana and I had had sex. But what was the point? What was the point in telling the priest you had sex with a girl who was dead?
One afternoon, I was walking to the store to get a Pepsi. The sun was setting, and the light was beautiful, like there was a halo around the earth. I saw Father Fallon walking down the street, walking toward me. Maybe it was just a dream. But he kept walking. He was real. He was there. Walking. I guess he was just enjoying the evening. Who knows? I didn’t know anything about what priests did when they weren’t on duty. As he came nearer and nearer, I could hear my heart pounding again. I took a breath. And then he was four feet away. “Hello, Father,” I said.
He looked at me. He didn’t say anything. He just kept walking. I turned around and watched him. “Hey!” I said. Then ran after him. “Father. Father.”
He turned around. I caught up to him. “Yes?” He looked at me. He wanted to know why I was bothering him. I wasn’t anything to him, a fly on a plate.
“Father.” I looked at him. “Why do you hate us?” The question just came out. Like it had been there on my tongue all this time, just waiting for a chance to escape.
“What?” he said. I could see it in his eyes. He did hate us.
“Why do you hate us?”
He was going to say something. But he saw something in my eyes. My heart had stopped pounding. I wasn’t afraid. I don’t know why. I just wasn’t. I think it was him—he was afraid. Of me. Of Sammy Santos. I could see that. He turned. And started to walk away. Then he turned back and looked at me. “I don’t,” he whispered. “I don’t.” But there was no conviction in his voice. No hope of being believed. He turned away again. I watched him until he disappeared. I just stood there.
As I walked back home, I got to thinking. And then I knew what I’d been afraid of all those months. I hadn’t been afraid of confession. I hadn’t been afraid of Father Fallon. I was afraid of what I had inside. That I was bad. But I wasn’t. What I had in there, it wasn’t all bad. There was some good there. I knew that.
A part of me had believed Father Fallon when he’d called me animal. I’d believed him. Why had I believed him? And then I kept thinking and thinking and then it occurred to me that I should run after him. Because I’d said the wrong thing. Why do you hate us? That wasn’t it. I should’ve called him what he was. You’re a dam
ned liar. And then I shook my head and thought. Hell, Sammy, let the poor man alone. Let him alone.
I whistled as I walked back home. Lent was over.
Chapter Fourteen
I wasn’t thinking about love. That’s the last thing I was thinking of. I’d already learned that lots of things could kill the bruise in my heart I called love. Cancer, that would do it. A bullet, that would do it. I suppose that other, more subtle poisons could kill it, too. But there was nothing subtle about the world I lived in, nothing subtle about cancer. Or a bullet blasting out of a gun. Or the barrio I lived in.
But at school, everybody was obsessed with finding some love. The end of October—1968—and people went around desperate. Passing notes. Investigating who might be interested in going out with them on weekends. As if being alone was a sickness. Like the flu that was going around. There was a lot of talk about who was going out with who, and who put out and who was a good kisser and who wouldn’t let you touch her. Guys like to talk. About girls they wanted—but would never have.
People went around looking at people from a distance, observing them. Are you the one? What made most of us so desperate? I hated desperate. And I didn’t want to have anything to do with all that note-passing, please-look-at-me stuff that was going around. No thanks, no, not a good time. Not me. Love, not what I was looking for. René told me my bad attitude was all because of Juliana. I just told him to shut up. I told him high school kids didn’t know crap about love, and to just shut the hell up. He just kinda looked at me like I was having a bad day. I hate when people look at me that way. And I wasn’t gonna let him have the last word with that look of his, so I just yelled, “René, you piece of shit, what do you know? The summer of love just passed us by, shithead—didn’t you know that? It just passed us by. It’s over.” I didn’t know why I was yelling. And old René, he just flipped me the bird and kept walking.
That September, I’d gotten a job working at the Dairy Queen on Saturdays. One day a week and sometimes I’d substitute. Dad said no more working during the week. Plenty of time for working when I got older. Okay, I said. The Dairy Queen job was the compromise. I needed to work. But I didn’t need love. Sometimes I’d flirt. Not much. Just some. It depended on the girl, but I’d stop if she did something that reminded of Juliana. And I hated all that, thinking about her and seeing her in other girls even though that was impossible, because those girls were alive and Juliana was dead. But still I tried to flirt as if everything inside me was normal. It depended on my mood. If I had a lot of homework on my mind, I’d be in my head. I didn’t mind thinking about my homework. Better than thinking about Juliana.
Gigi would come by the Dairy Queen on Saturday afternoons. With her friends. She wanted me to flirt with her in front of the whole world. I never did. I knew her game. She was starting to give me those looks again, those you’re-a-shit looks. Those looks—I wanted to run from them.
Yeah, yeah. She lost her bid for the presidency of the Senior class. Maybe so, but I didn’t feel so sorry for her after a while. She’d become a celebrity for that speech of hers. Gigi Carmona had made it big at Las Cruces High. Free Speech Queen. She’d made the principal blush—in front of everybody. Everything was Gigi this and Gigi that. The whole thing was getting on my nerves. Gigi, Gigi. The Mexicans loved her—especially the Mexicans from Hollywood and Chiva Town. The first Mexican-American princess Hollywood ever produced. Gringos loved her, too. Radical chic. Gigi Gigi. She got invited to all the parties, wanted me to go with her. No thanks. Never went. She’d get mad at me. I’d bring her back to earth by whispering her real name. Ramona Carmona. Ramona Carmona. “You’re a real pinche,” that’s what she’d say.
She even went out on a date with this gringo named Adam. No comment. “How was the date?”
“How was what date?” I didn’t like coy. She’d told half of Hollywood.
I didn’t say anything. I looked at Angel who was standing right next to her.
“You mean Adam?”
“Did you have a good time?” I smiled. At Angel.
“He’s got blue eyes.”
“My pen’s got blue ink.”
Angel laughed. Gigi gave her a look. You know which look.
“He’s got a Camaro.”
“His father paid for it.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Did he pick you up?”
“Yes.”
“Met your mom and dad?”
“Yes. He’s a nice boy.”
“You step out of Hollywood, the world’s full of nice boys. Glad he’s one of ‘em.”
She looked at me. “He’s not so different from Hollywood boys. He tried to kiss me.”
“You shoulda let him,” I said. “Mighta been fun.”
“I’m not a puta, you know. You’re a pinche.”
“No one said you were a puta. A little kiss on a date, what’s the big deal? Especially on a date.” I handed her the sundae she’d ordered. I put extra pineapples. On the house. She loved pineapples. Genetic memory. A Mexican thing. Like the Aztec greeting. She took it and walked away. Then she turns around and says, “He wasn’t that special.”
“I know that,” I said. All of Las Cruces knew that.
Pissed her off. Really did. I looked at Angel, handed her an ice cream cone.
“I didn’t order this,” she said.
“On the house,” I said.
“OOUUH, big man.”
I just looked at her. I’d never heard her pop off before. “You’re hanging around Gigi too much.”
“Gigi didn’t give me a voice, you know? I had one before Gigi.”
Fair enough. I nodded.
“Keep the ice cream,” she said. She handed it back to me.
“Your friend’s waiting for you,” I said. I did that Aztec thing with my chin. I couldn’t help but watch her as she walked away.
I paid for the ice cream cone I’d made for Angel. Ate it. Good. I liked ice cream. And right then I was thinking that I was more hungry for ice cream than I was hungry for girls.
Appetites came and went. Like a spring wind.
Quitting time that evening, I decided to walk home. I called my dad, told him I was walking. Just felt like it. “Just like your mother,” he said. “She loved to walk.” As I was walking up Lohman, a car passes me. Stops. Nice car. Mustang. Brand spanking new. Absolutely. A beauty. Cherry red. Baby, baby, baby—that was a real car. And Jaime Rede pops his head out. “Sammy! Wanna ride?” He was all smiles. Acted like he was my best friend. I’d known him since I was four. He’d been pissed off for all of the thirteen years I’d known him. And now, now he was all sunshine and lollipops like that dumb 45 Elena played over and over on her record player. I hated that song. Now, Jaime was trying to be my friend. Or maybe he was on pot. Mota. Maybe that put him in a good mood and made him act like that song Elena liked so damned much.
I gave him the Aztec greeting. That chin thing. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll take a ride.” I liked the car. When I got to the car I looked at his eyes, to see if they were red. Nope. Not dilated. Normal. Didn’t look like he was smoking weed. There were guys at school—you knew. You just knew. Then I saw who was driving. I shouldn’t have been that surprised. “Ese, Sammy.”
“What is it, Eric? What is it?” I repeated myself sometimes. If I wasn’t happy. Like saying something twice made it sound like it was more real.
He nodded to the song on the radio, keeping the beat. René always said that—you gotta keep the beat. Keep it in your head. Fine, fine, yeah. Except I hated The Who. Liked Chicago. Loved Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Loved brass. Hated The Who—but it was The Who that was on the radio. And Eric nodding to the music. Keeping the beat. “Órale, Sammy, ¿qué dices, Sammy?” I hated that. Talking to me in Spanish. Fry. Eric Fry. I knew English. Knew it better than he did. I know for a fact he’d never read Great Expectations. God, that boy was white. I don’t mean that he was just a gringo. I mean his skin. God, it was white.
“No
thing,” I said, “just comin’ home from work.” I wanted to ask him if he knew what that was. I knew he hadn’t paid for the Mustang he was driving. Just like that Adam guy Gigi had gone out with. Knew where Eric lived, too. In those homes in Mesilla Park Eddie’s father had built. Work. Can you spell it? It starts with a W, ends with a K. K as in suck. I nodded, smiled. “Just comin’ home from work,” I said again. “You?”
“Nada, nada,” he said, “no hay nada que hacer.” I mean, his accent was perfect. Spoke like a native of Chihuahua. That’s what pissed me off. Here he was, this rich gringo, nice looking, sort of, if that was your type, had everything, was nice to everybody, the works, the whole package—and everybody thought he was so fucking far-out and groovy because he spoke Spanish. Nobody thought Mexicans were far-out and groovy because we spoke English. Nope. That’s not the way it worked. Nope, I didn’t like gringos who got to be more Mexican than Mexicans. “Nope,” I said, “there’s nothing to do in this town.” I wasn’t gonna use one word of Spanish in that car. Hell no. Not me. Not Sammy Santos. American all the way.
“So,” Jaime says, “you goin’ out tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Goin’ out with Gigi?”
“Nope,” I said. I didn’t feel like talking to these guys. Neither one of them. It was like telling them what I was gonna tell the priest at confession.
“How come? She’s got it bad for you, ese.”
“Don’t think so.”
“What are you, Sammy? Blind? ¿Ciego? ¿Qué no puedes ver? That girl would go to hell for you.”
“Is that right?” That was my father’s line. “She’s a good girl, Gigi. What would she want with me?”
“You should ask her out.”
“Why don’t you ask her out?”
“It’s not me she likes. She likes you, Sammy.”
Eric pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11. I liked the Pic Quick better. I wasn’t the one driving. “Órale, ¿quieren algo de tomar?” His Spanish was pissing me off.