Like Son Page 8

  My love,

  “She went through me like a pavement saw.”

  Yours as ever for the revolution,

  Nahui

  Talk about cryptic. And the revolution? What revolution? Questions flooding my brain, my eyelids turned heavy. Fuck, I was tired. I wanted someone to tuck me in and give me a kiss on the forehead and praise me and tell me how brave I was being. Just under the layers of exhaustion from travel and the thrill at having arrived in New York, there was very tangible uncertainty. I could feel it on my tongue. It tasted metallic like a zinc tablet. It made me salivate and gag a little. Maybe I’d made the wrong decision. Maybe it was more chickenshit of me to leave California than it would have been for me to stay. I wished I could have called my dad because then he could have told me if this was how it felt when he left Mexico. There was something soothing in knowing that even though I’d left Los Angeles with crap for a plan and only a vague notion of destination, my father would have understood why I felt compelled to go and never look back. Of course, inevitably, exactly because I was trying to run forward with blinders firmly in place, I was completely preoccupied with all that existed just beyond the peripheries of what I knew. I wanted to sleep and get rested so I could wake up early in the morning and start in on my new future, but—winding, repetitive, stumbling thoughts—I found myself trying to piece together an unknown past instead.

  Exactly how did my father’s mother know Nahui Olin? It made absolutely no sense to me. Just from looking at her, it was obvious Nahui had been a fancy-pants boho artist from a rich family. And from what I knew, my dad’s mom had been a simple working woman to her dying day. Day in, day out, she had worked alongside my father on their small farm until he left for Vietnam and then the States. He said she’d go into town for church on Sundays, but that was about it. And any time she wasn’t in church or the fields, she was in her little house, cooking or washing or sleeping too few hours. So where’d she meet Nahui? I found it highly unlikely that Nahui was a church friend. My father told me once that his mother had cleaned houses in town before he was born. And she did again after he headed north. Maybe that was how they knew each other? Had my father’s mother cleaned Nahui Olin’s house?

  I’ll send more money, my father told me he’d written his mother when he found out she was cleaning houses in the city. You shouldn’t have to do that kind of work.

  I’ve done it before. It’s honest work, she had written back and refused more of his money.

  He said he’d hated thinking about her knees bruised and hands shriveled from long hours of scrubbing other people’s floors and windows. Each day she must have left exhausted and with still more work to do in her own home and neglected fields. She must have looked dead in her eyes those days, he’d said. But maybe she didn’t. Maybe everything my father thought he’d known about his mother had been wrong. Maybe, yes, she had cleaned the houses of rich people when she was young, but maybe, just maybe—my eyelids fell shut, my breathing slowed—maybe just maybe …

  “Consuela, I wrote this for you,” Nahui Olin said. And startled my father’s mother out of her daze.

  The year was 1943. Very pregnant and prone to such moments of being caught in daydream, my father’s mother was at the zócolo to give a final prayer at the church she’d attended each Sunday of her life. She would start for Chicago the next morning. The thought of leaving behind everything she knew filled her with dread. But there was nothing she could do. “We are going,” her husband had said. And she knew they needed to. Forty-six cents an hour for legal work up north—it was the sort of opportunity they couldn’t let slip by.

  Easily tired with my father inside her, she was nonetheless still strong. And determined, same as her husband. Tall, muscular, and broad-shouldered, he’d been an obvious hire for the railroad company, but the recruiter had looked at his young wife’s protruding belly and had wanted to hire only him. Disgusted to have to play such games, she batted her eyelashes and, a convincing smile lighting up her pretty face, flexed the muscles of her right arm for show: “I promise, I am a good worker.”

  She signed the paperwork along with her husband.

  And cried herself to sleep that night.

  Something tragic was waiting for them. There had been signs. Only hours after she’d been hired, she had seen warning in the pueblo curandera’s eyes.

  “Will you please bless my babies?” she had asked when she arrived at the curandera’s home with her toddler daughter in tow.

  “Of course,” the curandera had said, and invited them in. “Sit, please.” She motioned to her one chair and then to the clean-swept dirt floor beside it for the girl.

  The curandera kneeled in front my father’s mother. One hand on her pregnant round stomach, the other hand on the little girl’s head, the old woman closed her eyes and breathed slowly, the deep wrinkles of her face smoothing as she concentrated. This quiet stillness continued for minutes.

  And then: “No!” The curandera yanked her hands away as if she’d felt fire.

  “The baby?” my father’s mother asked nervously, her hands moving in an instinctive, protective gesture to her middle.

  “It is a boy,” the curandera said. And then she stared at the little girl and refused to say more.

  The next morning, the curandera visited my father’s mother.

  “This is for the girl,” she said, and handed over three slices of candied sweet yam. “Give her some each night before she sleeps.”

  “Is she sick?” my father’s mother asked.

  “And this is for you, Consuela,” the curandera continued without answering. She handed my father’s mother a powder of crushed chamomile flowers and roasted chili peppers. “Mix it with hot water. Drink one cup each morning at sunrise until the baby is born.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Go to church before you leave. Pray,” the curandera said.

  And so, the final day before her departure, my father’s mother woke before sunrise for her visit to the church and, as was her new habit, she prepared the sour tea she’d been prescribed. Nose pinched to get the mixture down into her empty stomach without retching, she drank the tea. Cup cleaned and left to dry, she kissed her still-sleeping daughter and husband and set out on the five miles of dirt road to church.

  May we all reach our destination in good health. May my son know his home even though he will be born so far from it, she planned her prayer as she walked in the foggy morning air. Tired after only a mile, she stopped to pick up a honey-colored pebble from the dirt road. When her son was born, she thought, she would put the rock in the palm of his hand. She would tell him to reach for it whenever life brought anxiety. Over the years, the small, rough stone would turn smooth-comfort and dark-oiled from his fingertip caresses.

  This pebble is your home, my love, she could hear herself telling him, and she bristled against the sentimentality of her thoughts. She missed her usual unwavering sensibility—life was so much easier without strong emotions—but she’d come to accept that her old ways simply weren’t possible when she could feel a child squirming and kicking just below her heart. She felt possessed, this creature inside literally moving her, making her as sensitive and emotional as the original gods. Frustrated, she continued toward the church.

  Once there, my father’s mother lit candles and prayed to have her overwhelming fears lifted away. Usually God warmed her to let her know she’d been heard. That day the church remained damp and chilled. She wandered out to the plaza to stand in the late-morning sun, to collect herself for her final walk home. As she sat at the plaza fountain’s edge, Nahui Olin appeared and stood directly in front of her, much too close for a simple friendly hello.

  My father’s mother, the young woman who had cleaned Nahui’s dilapidated family manor for years, knew personally about Nahui’s intense flirtations, the sort that back then could only be politely referred to as eccentricities. Countless were the times Nahui—a woman of fifty who painted her face brightly, dressed in the manner of t
eenaged harlots, and who sometimes spoke as only sailors did—had made her blush and forget the task at hand. There was the day Nahui serenaded her with the mariachi song “Por un Amor” as she tried to sweep and mop and dust. For a love/I’ve cried droplets of blood from my heart/You’ve left my soul wounded … And then there was the afternoon Nahui insisted she choose which she thought was the prettiest dress in a fancy Parisian magazine. The next week, my father’s mother arrived to clean Nahui’s house and was presented with the dress, custom-made for her. Please, mi amor, try it on. The color suits you so. But my father’s mother knew instinctively—from her upbringing, from all she’d been taught at church—that such behavior was scandalous, that it was devil’s play. And so, although she was flattered and she sometimes smiled in return without intending to, she tried not to encourage Nahui. Really, all she could do when Nahui suddenly appeared with her insistent interruptions was pray that she would walk away just as abruptly. The day at the fountain, my father’s mother hoped for the mercy of such convenience. But it was not meant to be.

  “Consuela, I wrote this for you,” Nahui said, tapping the book she held in her hand.

  Everyone knew of course about Nahui’s artist friends and that she herself wrote poems, that she was one of the uncommon women whose name could be found printed on the front page of a book. But, like everyone else in town, my father’s mother also knew Nahui had written the particular book she held, A dix ans sur mon pupitre, as a ten-year-old, decades before my father’s mother had even been born. Clearly, there was no way Nahui had written the book with her in mind.

  Did she really know about me before I was born? my father’s mother wondered silently. No, she pushed the thought from her mind, that simply couldn’t be.

  The explanation to Nahui’s outlandish claims had to be simple: She was surely insane. But my father’s mother, too polite, too poor, and too cautious, didn’t argue. She just sat there, blushing furiously, as Nahui, the grown daughter of wealthy and powerful parents long dead or moved to Paris or wherever it was such money and comfort settled, stared her down. And when Nahui thrust the book at her, my father’s mother took it.

  “Thank you, Miss Nahui,” she said, and nearly dropped the book for how much her hands trembled.

  “You’ll kill me if you go,” Nahui said then.

  Sitting low on the fountain’s edge, eyes averted, desperately hoping Nahui would decide to leave and not create more of a scene, my father’s mother felt upon her chin a hand that had never done a day’s labor, a hand pale from silk gloves, a hand soft from the thick honeysuckle-scented creams she herself had dusted on vanity table silver trays. That smooth hand cupped her chin. Head tilted back gently, my father’s mother looked directly into green eyes she felt certain were owned by God himself and the devil too. In fact, though she was shocked by her own boldness, she looked into Nahui’s eyes the entire time.

  The entire time Nahui kissed her.

  And Nahui did kiss her. For all to see. Seriously, everyone saw. The whole city and all the surrounding pueblos. Those who weren’t there when it happened saw it later through busybodies’ recounted tales. Everyone saw. And talked about it. But right then there was silence. Not a single person said a word. Not even Nahui as she turned and walked away.

  Her heart stopped. My father’s mother’s heart stopped outright, though not literally, of course. It hurt. The kiss had truly hurt. But she wanted another. And another. And another still. The pain of that kiss was delicious. The pain was a life she could understand. The pain was one she’d carry with her for the rest of her days.

  The book Nahui had given her held tight to her chest, my father’s mother felt her son kick with particular force. She sat at the fountain for hours and read the book’s intricate words until the hot sky blushed her cheeks. That blush never went away.

  Eventually, she walked home, carrying a little honeycolored worry stone and the book inscribed to her by the most elegant of hands.

  … and then, in Chicago, after the train crash …

  My father’s needy infant mouth still hungry at her breast every night, his mother worried for his safety. She feared she had caused her baby girl’s death. An innocent love, any Godfearing soul would concur, was taken away as punishment for wicked love. After all, hadn’t she longed for more of Nahui’s kisses, for more of her touch? Hadn’t she thought of Nahui when her husband sought her affections? Wouldn’t she run back to Nahui if she could? Didn’t she think of Nahui still? The possibility that God had more punishment arranged terrified her.

  And so, soon after the railroad company took what remained of her little girl’s body and buried it, she made her decision. Barely twenty years of age but not so young anymore, she cautiously prepared her four worldly possessions for travel.

  Twelve-inch iron skillet. Threadbare sock filled with earned green bills. The tiny pebble she had collected from the dirt road back home. And Nahui’s book. The skillet was oiled and wrapped in old newspaper. The sock sewn shut. Those two items she handed to her husband for the journey. The worry stone she placed carefully into her pocket. And in the warm snug space between the small of her back and the stiff denim of the American bluejean workpants she’d taken to wearing, she tucked Nahui’s book.

  The book. Her husband knew about the note Nahui had written on the inside of the back cover. He knew, same as everyone else. With a heavy heart, he’d heard gossip about the day Nahui gave his love the book. He knew the details of the fountain kiss almost as clearly as he knew the small of his wife’s back—her skin there pale and untouched by sun, soft with a dusting of fine hair as innocent as he liked to think they’d once been together. A private spot. One of his spots. To see her let the book touch her there was more than he could bear.

  “Please, leave the book, Consuela,” he said.

  “Take the boy,” she said and handed my father to him.

  … and in Mexico, five years later …

  As my father helped his father tend to the crops, storm clouds gathered overhead and turned the sky dark.

  “We’ll go in soon, just a little more work,” his father said.

  Meanwhile, my father’s mother sat inside their simple shack home, stealing time with thoughts of Nahui.

  Sweet love, how I’ve missed you, Nahui had said when she returned from Chicago.

  Nahui, why do you do this to me?

  Be mine.

  I can’t.

  Thunder and lightning struck the field.

  That same thunderclap woke me from my lucid dreams. I opened my eyes to see it had started pouring outside. For a moment, as I lay in the bed of my new apartment, the lights off, all the smells and sounds unfamiliar, I wasn’t sure where I was, let alone how long I’d been asleep. It was like waking up into yet another strange dream. I’d never experienced a thunderstorm in the middle of summer before. The thunderclaps were so loud, car alarms wailed in beeping mechanical choruses on the street below. I heard people scream and laugh in the sudden downpour. The air was thick with the overpowering scent of city rain, the mix of damp asphalt and diluted motor oil. There was the occasional splashing sound of tires driving by on the wet street. In all that earthly dampness, my mouth felt unbelievably dry. And my gut was in knots for how hungry I was. My stomach was empty. Literally. I wasn’t sure how it had happened exactly, but only coffee had passed my lips for two days. No wonder I was so goddamned loopy.

  The wind shifted outside, and rain started coming through the open windows in horizontal sheets. I couldn’t see much in the dark room, but I realized the retablo of Nahui would be soaked shortly if it wasn’t already. As I stood, my vision blurred, I saw blue sparks, and I had to sit back down quick to avoid falling outright. An embarrassing thought filled me: I was a young brave on a vision quest, I had fasted and I was in the woods, the deer were talking to me now, everything would soon be clear, I would know my spirit name, and I would learn my mission in life. Told you it was embarrassing. At least I can admit to shit like that. Of course, all th
at was really going on was that I needed something to eat. And some more sleep. I was just a dumb kid alone in a big city with a big scary thunderstorm outside. I took some deep breaths, stood up slower this time, and managed to close the windows. Somehow, miraculously, Nahui was untouched by the rain.

  Fireflies still sparkling in the park like microcosmic parallels of the lightning filling the sky above and Nahui watching me from the windowsill, I fell asleep again before the rain subsided. Until early the next afternoon, I slept the most refreshing sleep.

  I woke the next day with Nahui’s book pressed between my face and the pillow. Not only had I kept it in bed the night before, I’d slobbered on it in my sleep. Hoping to not injure the book further, I slipped it back in its padded envelope, returned the envelope to my father’s briefcase with the rest of his things, and tucked the briefcase up on the top shelf in the closet.

  By week’s end, I had a job with a courier service in the financial district. Starting at 4 A.M., eight hours each day, Monday through Friday, I manned dispatches. The hours seriously sucked and the work was beyond dull, but it paid decently, and I was able to leave it behind when I clocked out. My life was simple. And it was mine entirely. Sure, I met some people—work buddies and random people at coffee shops, a few parties here and there—but mostly I kept to myself. On the average day I’d work my hours, grab a couple slices and a soda on the way home, watch television until I was tired, sleep, wake, and do the same all over again. Heck, sometimes on my day off I’d throw a movie (or two, if I could sneak a second showing) into the mix. Very exciting … Not really, but I was happy this way. Don’t get me wrong, living in New York was totally cool, but mostly I was stoked just to be far from what I’d left behind.

  Two months into my subletting, Ted’s buddy’s lease ran out. When he came to move all his junk, he asked me if I wanted to buy some stuff dirt-cheap. Sure, I said. Why not? He sold me the bed, kitchen table, a couple chairs, the ancient television, and the stereo with its two foam-covered speakers for fifty bucks total. He even threw in two pillows, sheets, and some towels for another dollar. It was like stumbling on my own personal bargain stoop sale. He must have left a good luck horseshoe tucked somewhere amidst the things I bought, because for some reason the realtor knocked on my door that same day and asked if I wanted to take the place—with a huge rent increase, of course. No big deal, I just picked up more hours at work. For three months I coasted along and nothing major or notable happened in any way, shape, or form. Then, without any warning whatsoever, wham, everything, absolutely fucking everything, changed.