Amigoland Part 17

"It matters more to me than it does to him," he said. "He only cares that I'm still alive."

When she finally nodded, Don Fidencio thought about making her swear to this, but he let it pa.s.s when she pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

"You should have called us."

"For what, if it was too late?"

"It was an accident," she said. "People have accidents."

"But how many times?" he opened his hands to ask. "Old people who are supposed to be in nursing homes, those are the ones who have the accidents." He paused as he glanced at the bed. "He never should have taken me out of that place. He should have left me to die there with the rest of them."

"Please, stop saying those things." She tried to reach out to him, but he pulled away.

"And why not, if this is only the truth - my body is useless, the same as I am. So young, what do you know about these things, about your body not doing what you wanted it to do, what it was supposed to do?"

Socorro looked the other way, then down at her lap. She wanted to say something to him, offer some words of hope or a way to restore his faith that things would get better, but instead they stayed like this, each of them realizing there was nothing left to say.

"Let me help you," she said, kneeling beside him.

He raised the sleeve of the unders.h.i.+rt to wipe at his nose. "I want to stay alone, without any help."

"We can't leave you here," she said.

"So that he can take me back there, leave me like they did already once, this time for good?"

"n.o.body's going to take you back," she said, now standing next to him. "Your brother promised to take you to Linares."

"How, then?" he said, and with his chin he motioned toward the pile of clothes.

"Leave it," she said. "Just clean yourself, and I can go buy you new pants and a s.h.i.+rt to wear, like if it was another trip."

"And if it happens to me again?"

"It won't," she said.

"And still, if it happens?"

"It won't, I told you."

"Now you sound like me when I was trying to convince Amalia and her husband."

"Maybe I do." She helped him stand up. "Maybe you were right to call him that ugly name you like to call him."

"The Son Of A b.i.t.c.h?"

"That one."

They ended up staying an extra day in Ciudad Victoria. Socorro explained to Don Celestino how his brother had been sick during the night, probably from something he ate at the bus station, and was in no condition to be traveling. He hadn't opened the door because he'd been embarra.s.sed for anyone to see him that way.

She spent the rest of the morning shopping for the clothes the old man would need for the next couple of days. By the time she returned to the hotel, she found that Don Fidencio had used one of the plastic chairs to sit in the shower while he cleaned himself. And meanwhile, Don Celestino had gone out for a walk and, as she discovered later that afternoon, located a pharmacy that sold those little blue vitamins he was so fond of.

34.

Two men, both short and dark, stood alongside the lonely highway. They wore straw cowboy hats, the bands soiled a dark hue as evidence of their labor. Earlier it had drizzled, and their bright long-sleeve s.h.i.+rts, one yellow and the other red, were still dripping from the cuffs. Next to them stood a nylon sack thick with bristling ears of corn. Empty soda bottles of various colors, potato-chip wrappers, and cigarette b.u.t.ts littered the gravel patch where they had come to wait for their ride.

Don Fidencio leaned back against the headrest as the driver edged the bus onto the shoulder. This would be no less than the tenth stop he'd made in the last two hours since leaving the station. They had missed the first-cla.s.s bus earlier that morning and, in order to not waste any more time, his brother insisted they take the next direct bus, which, as it turned out, was direct but not nonstop.

Behind the two men, the shoulder dipped and then farther on extended toward what appeared to be a grove of some sort. One of the men turned and called to someone behind them. A moment later, as the dust and empty wrappers were still settling back to the ground, two young women emerged from where the earth dropped off. The same man held out his hand to a woman carrying a baby swaddled in a pink blanket; the second woman carried a wet tarp and a pair of plastic shopping bags filled with groceries. The four adults boarded the bus with the sleeping baby and the nylon sack. Once the bus pulled back onto the road, the old man yawned and turned toward the window again. The bus slowed for a curve in the road and then accelerated again on the straightaway. A wet goat stood tethered to a metal stake near the shoulder. Across the dense countryside there was no sign of a house or a farm or so much as a dirt path leading to the metal stake. Just a goat getting sprayed with the rainwater still on the highway.

They crossed a truss bridge with only two lanes and a while later pa.s.sed a sign that read, BIENVENIDO A NUEVO LEoN. BIENVENIDO A NUEVO LEoN. At least they were getting closer; the next sign indicated that it was thirty kilometers to Linares. The clouds from earlier had lifted, and what remained of them was covering the very tops of the mountains to the west. The blossoming huisache roused the countryside with alternating splotches of green and a yellowish-orange. Less frequent were the yuccas' lush white flowers blossoming high above the rest of the scrubland. Even an old man with poor eyesight could tell the land had changed the farther from the border they ventured. He wondered if his grandfather had ridden past these same thickets when he was taken from his home. This thought sat with him for several kilometers until he tried to recall the last thing he had seen of his own house, but he moved on when he realized that all he could recall was the dank hotel room he had been in the last two nights, which he was trying his best to forget. They hadn't arrived yet and he was asking himself what the point of it was. All this way to wake up dirty in his own bed? It didn't matter how far they traveled because this wasn't going to change his condition. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or the day after, the same thing might happen again, and if not that, then something worse. How far could he be from another stroke or from having to be fed and refed because he couldn't so much as remember to swallow? And more unbearable things, those that he had heard happening down the hall - he could only imagine what the shouts and gurgles and sobbing were all about. If anything, the worst of it was probably more likely to happen than not happen. And so the shame he felt that early morning in the hotel had since been replaced with the simple and irrefutable truth that this was where his life was headed now; he had escaped one prison only to discover that there was no way of escaping his own failing body. At least they were getting closer; the next sign indicated that it was thirty kilometers to Linares. The clouds from earlier had lifted, and what remained of them was covering the very tops of the mountains to the west. The blossoming huisache roused the countryside with alternating splotches of green and a yellowish-orange. Less frequent were the yuccas' lush white flowers blossoming high above the rest of the scrubland. Even an old man with poor eyesight could tell the land had changed the farther from the border they ventured. He wondered if his grandfather had ridden past these same thickets when he was taken from his home. This thought sat with him for several kilometers until he tried to recall the last thing he had seen of his own house, but he moved on when he realized that all he could recall was the dank hotel room he had been in the last two nights, which he was trying his best to forget. They hadn't arrived yet and he was asking himself what the point of it was. All this way to wake up dirty in his own bed? It didn't matter how far they traveled because this wasn't going to change his condition. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or the day after, the same thing might happen again, and if not that, then something worse. How far could he be from another stroke or from having to be fed and refed because he couldn't so much as remember to swallow? And more unbearable things, those that he had heard happening down the hall - he could only imagine what the shouts and gurgles and sobbing were all about. If anything, the worst of it was probably more likely to happen than not happen. And so the shame he felt that early morning in the hotel had since been replaced with the simple and irrefutable truth that this was where his life was headed now; he had escaped one prison only to discover that there was no way of escaping his own failing body.

The old man had fallen asleep by the time the baby started crying. Only with the hum of the tires on the road and the soundtrack to the most recent romantic comedy did he manage to sleep through the wails.

The baby was still sobbing when Socorro caught the infant's attention by opening her eyes and mouth wider than he had seen anyone do in his short life. He seemed confused now, not sure if he should return to crying or pay more attention to the lady with the curious face.

"Did you hear me?" Don Celestino asked.

She ducked just below the seat back and then peeked over the top, which caused the baby to giggle and hide in his mother's shoulder before they started the game all over again.

"Socorro?"

"Why don't we talk about it later?" This time she peeked around the side of the seat and sent the baby into a fit of laughter. "I think we are almost there."

"Because already it's been two days since we left."

"I called her once, she knows where I am. What more do you want?"

The baby's mother turned to see what was so funny and then stared at Socorro until she sat back in her seat. The mother placed the baby against her other shoulder, which did little to calm him. Finally she rearranged the blanket to cover the child and give him her full breast.

"She's going to think I wouldn't let you call."

"Why are you so worried?"

"You ask me that question when you know the woman doesn't like me?"

"And you think a phone call is going to change that?"

"Maybe one of these days she'll change her mind about us being together."

"Let me worry about my mother, and you worry about your brother."

Don Celestino turned away, as if he were gazing out the opposite window at something he had spotted on the countryside.

"I don't know why you want to make it worse," he said when he turned back.

"And I don't know why you always have to worry about how things look to everybody else."

He glanced over his shoulder, as if he might need to go to the lavatory. Then he turned back toward the seats in front of him. At least his brother was snoring loud enough that he had little chance of hearing them.

"Sometimes it seems like you're afraid," she said.

"What is there to be afraid of?"

"Nothing." And now it was Socorro who turned away. They were pa.s.sing in front of a brick schoolhouse, long and narrow, with a chain-link fence surrounding it. Schoolgirls dressed in gray skirts and white knit s.h.i.+rts gathered in a large circle near one corner of the yard, while the boys, in their darker pants and white s.h.i.+rts, chased a soccer ball at the other end.

"How can you say I'm afraid?"

"Then tell me why it all has to be a secret with us."

"How much of a secret can it be, if your mother knows and my brother is here with us?"

"And the rest?"

"We're together," he said. "Going places, seeing things together, like a couple. What does it matter, the rest of them?"

He was still searching for a way to make her understand when they pulled into the central station. They waited for everyone to exit before he helped his brother to stand up and make it down the aisle and off the bus.

Don Celestino carried their change of clothes and the toiletries in a small backpack they had bought the day before. He would have put his brother's medicines in there as well, but the old man said he didn't want to arrive in town with his hands empty, like some trampa. They walked in halting steps as they avoided the direct path of the travelers exiting the terminal and the candy vendors who were waiting for them with wicker baskets balanced atop their heads. As they entered the building, two little boys wearing identical red-checked s.h.i.+rts raced around the rows and under the seats, neither one paying much attention to their mother, who was yelling for them to come sit down. The bus driver, his tie loosened, entered the small, spa.r.s.ely lit cafe at the far end of the terminal. Most of the turquoise-colored seats in the sitting area were filled with travelers waiting for their destination to be announced. Three bus lines operated out of Linares, but only two of these counters were open. According to the schedules listed on the wall behind the counters, each of the companies offered service back to Ciudad Victoria at least once every hour. If they were lucky, Don Celestino thought, they might be able to head back north as early as tomorrow afternoon.

Socorro held his hand while he kept a close eye on Don Fidencio ambling forward with his cane. They had barely arrived at the exit before a couple of taxi drivers began jockeying for their business, each offering to carry their bags for them. Outside, a row of six taxis stretched the length of the building. The drivers let their conversations trail off when they noticed the possibility of a new fare. Don Celestino led them toward a small green-and-white taxi with spoked hubcaps. The driver, a young man no more than twenty-five, wore baggy blue jeans and a white T-s.h.i.+rt underneath his Chicago Bulls jersey. He was sitting on the edge of his open trunk, talking to another driver leaning against the hood of his car.

Before they reached the taxi, though, the old man stopped suddenly and looked around. "I say we should go with another one."

"For what, if they're all the same?" Don Celestino tugged on Socorro's hand, but his brother had already pulled away and was walking to the end of the line.

"That's not how it works here," the young driver complained. "The first one in line goes before the rest."

But Don Fidencio had no interest in what he or the other drivers were saying or in stopping to respond. With the rubber tip of his cane he knocked on the door of a faded red taxi. The driver was an older man who had been napping in the front pa.s.senger seat. He quickly opened the back door and trunk before he realized his new customers had no real luggage.

When they were all situated, he swung the car around the long row of taxis, ignoring the shouts from the other drivers. "And to where can I take you?"

"You know this town?" Don Fidencio was sitting up front with his cane hooked on the seat; he still hadn't learned how to fold it up, so it was best to leave the thing as it was.

"You ask if I know this town?" The driver took hold of the steering wheel with both hands, then shook his head and rolled his eyes up toward the material drooping from the ceiling. "I have spent all my years in this one place. n.o.body knows Linares better than me. n.o.body, n.o.body - that I can guarantee you."

Don Fidencio made sure to glance over his shoulder at his brother.

"Those other boys with their new cars don't know the half of what I have up here." He pointed to the side of his head. "Now tell me, with what can I be of service?"

"We came to look for a ranchito that's supposed to be somewhere around Linares," Don Celestino said.

"Of those we have no shortage," the driver replied. "Which ranchito is it?"

"Fidencio?" his brother said.

"Eh?"

"The name of the ranchito?"

"Wait so it can come to me," Don Fidencio said. "I heard it so many times, every time he wanted to tell me the story."

"Then you should know it."

"It had a funny sound to it."

"Yes, but tell him the name."

"You want me to remember every last detail?" the old man said. "Like if it wasn't enough that I can still tell you what happened to our grandfather." He rubbed at the back of his neck for a few seconds, then ran his fingers across the stubble on his chin.

"If all you were going to remember was the story, we should have gone to some other place that was closer."

"Maybe if he heard or saw the name," Socorro said.

"Excuse me," Don Celestino said, "but is there someplace where they have all the names of the ranchitos?"

The driver glanced into the cracked mirror, but he had to adjust it to find the pa.s.senger's face. "At the munic.i.p.al building, there they would have the records and names of the ranchitos, if that's what you are looking for."

"Then to the munic.i.p.al building."

On this command the driver turned sharply to the right and drove several blocks before he slapped the steering wheel. "Only that today is Sat.u.r.day, and Sat.u.r.day is one of the days when the munic.i.p.al building is closed. If you had come yesterday, Friday, then they were open all day. Now they don't open until Monday. Closed Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, open on Monday. That's how they do it here."

"One more day is nothing," Socorro said.

"You mean two days - today and Sunday." Don Celestino counted them off on his fingers. "And then another day to travel back."

"If all of you would be quiet, allow for a man to think," Don Fidencio said.

The driver pulled over next to an open-sided furniture store that faced the street. A salesgirl came to the front and waited for her first customers of the afternoon. She was standing next to a brand-new bedroom set. Lamps, nightstand, and a queen-size bed with a carved headboard of an eagle in flight. She smiled at the old man in an inviting sort of way. Her lavender skirt accentuated her dark legs as far up as he could see. She'd either forgotten to b.u.t.ton her s.h.i.+rt all the way or the poor b.u.t.ton at the top had simply busted from all the strain. He finally had to force himself to shut his eyes so he could concentrate. Then he tapped his hand on his knee just to make sure he didn't doze off while trying to recall what he had been told. He went over it from beginning to end - the news of a circus arriving in town... the trip into town on the limping mule... the muzzled bear in its cage and the midget man who went around collecting money from everyone... Papa Grande first hanging on from his uncle's back and later from his father's back, and seeing more because his father was taller, but also seeing the horses so far away and up on the bluff... then not seeing the horses on the bluff, but having a sense he would see the horses again... and not knowing what to say to his father, especially since the horses were gone and the bear was standing on its hind legs and following the midget in a circle... everyone laughing and laughing, and then screaming because the horses had finally arrived, but not alone... dropping down from his father's back and hiding under a wagon... but then pulling away in time to see them kill the bear, and scalp the midget and then his uncle, and finally shoot his father down below, and him lying in the dirt, bleeding to death... and then the Indians gathering all the children, and his mother fighting to stop the one that had grabbed him, and then her front being covered in blood... and then they were riding away, faster and faster, from the only place he had known - all of what he thought he remembered from his grandfather's story.

"It was either El Rancho Papote or El Rancho Capote."

"That first one, Papote, isn't even a word," the driver said. "And the second one, if it is a ranchito, I never heard of it." He looked into the backseat for some indication of what they wanted to do. "What if I drive around some more and see if it comes to him?"

They crossed through the middle of town, along the way pa.s.sing the munic.i.p.al offices. An army jeep rumbled off in the opposite direction as one of the three soldiers stood in the back of the vehicle, holding on to the roll bar with one hand and his Uzi with the other. The taxi driver had just pa.s.sed a Pemex station when he slowed down and pointed to a street that rose as it approached a small bridge. "Over there is where we have the festival every year. If you want, I can show you where."

"I want to see it," Socorro said.

Don Celestino was staring out the window and didn't seem to care one way or another about the festival grounds. His brother had his eyes closed again and was hoping he would fall asleep so the name of the ranchito might come to him in a dream.

The driver turned left and slowed down for the first of many speed b.u.mps that awaited them every few hundred feet. The brick and cinder-block houses were set close to the street, each with its own fence of unpainted pickets or metal bars that had chicken wire near the bottom. The one or two larger houses had stone walls with shards of green and brown gla.s.s mortared along the top. Here and there bright-eyed bougainvilleas peered over the shorter fences. The smell of masa wafted through the car as they pa.s.sed a tortilleria every few blocks. In between were tiny family-run stores where men gathered outside to talk about their work or lack of it. The driver honked at a man in a cowboy hat who was riding a green bicycle in the opposite direction. Later he tapped the horn at a young woman wearing those blue-jean pants they liked to wear now.

As they crossed the bridge, down below they could see the thatched roofs of several ramshackle houses that edged toward the slow-moving creek. Chickens walked about freely and a hog remained tied to a utility pole. The houses became scarcer as the paved road turned to caliche and later to hardened dirt. They knocked about as the taxi heaved itself in and out of potholes or jerked to one side to avoid a large stone and, in the process, hit a larger one. Finally they came to a clearing where a dozen empty concession stands, painted in bright reds and pinks and yellows, extended across a small valley like a ghost town only recently abandoned. At the far end of the lot stood a small Ferris wheel, one of its top seats rocking back and forth with the light gusts of wind.