Amigoland (19 page)

“You should just go and leave me here.”

“So you can say that I left you behind?”

“No, so you won’t visit me just because you feel guilty.”

“Who said anything about feeling guilty?”

“Why else would you be coming around here?”

The one-legged grackle landed back in the grass, just beyond the ashtray canister that lay on its side. The bird pecked at
something in the grass but didn’t seem to find what it was searching for. A couple of pecks later it looked at the old man,
as if it were asking permission to come closer.

“Maybe if I called and explained to her about the trip,” Don Celestino said, “maybe she would listen to me.”

“You go,” he answered. “You and the girl go on the trip.”

“Fidencio.”

“I told you to go already, just leave me here.” His voice started to crack, and he had to twist around in the other direction
before his brother finally got the message and stood up.

The old man turned as his brother was walking inside. The Turtle With The Fedora had come to check on the little birds. He
could see her saying something to his brother and then they both looked outside toward the patio. When Don Fidencio turned
the other way, the one-legged bird was standing on the next bench, gazing back at him.

I
n the early light of day, he found the orange crumbs on his pillow and pajama top. He looked for the rest of the package in
the nightstand and then in the #2 shoe box, but found no sign of his last two crackers. After a while he went back to the
closet and checked the other four shoe boxes. He figured one of the aides must have come while he was sleeping. The ones on
the night shift were the worst, always lurking around in the shadows, waiting for the first chance to go through a sleeping
man’s things.

The hall was clear all the way to the nurses’ station. No Turtles, no hampers, no food carts stacked with trays. This was
the best part of the day to be moving around; the others, if they were awake, would need help getting dressed and into their
wheelchairs before they made it out of their rooms.

“Good morning to you, Mr. Rosales,” said The One With A Beak For A Nose.

With both hands still on the walker, he raised two fingers to acknowledge her but otherwise kept moving.

“Are you feeling better today, sir?”

Don Fidencio gave her only a half shrug. He was alive and her job was safe for another day. What more did she want from him?

The Turtle With The Fedora was parking her wheelchair across from the nurses’ station. She tried rolling forward a bit, as
if she might block his path, but he scuttled up enough to the right to miss her. “No, this one has no time to say hello like
a decent man,” she said. “He wakes up only so he can go make life hard for the poor little birds. For that he’s good — nothing
else. See how he goes as if he were already late to church, but this is only so he can upset the poor birds.”

He turned the walker toward the recreation room and came upon an attendant pushing a broom in his direction. The woman didn’t
look up or try to exchange pleasantries, and for this he was grateful.

“Buenos días,” a voice called out from the far end of the hall. Don Fidencio didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
Every morning with his “Buenos días,” as if anyone believed he really knew how to speak the language.

“¡Buenos días, Mr. Rosales!” The One With The Big Ones repeated. “Looks like you’re doing better today. Like I was sharing
with your daughter, ‘Just give your father some time, and he’ll get to liking things here at Amigoland.’ ” The voice faded
only after Don Fidencio turned the walker toward the patio door.

The three or four grackles on the grass fluttered away when they heard the familiar sound of the walker banging against the
glass door. With slow measured steps he moved toward the stone bench. A thin layer of fog shrouded the early-morning sun rising
in the distance.

One cigarette. That was all he had to last him until these people served their oatmeal and warmed-over biscuit. He lit the
cigarette and took a short draw from it. The tiny ember shone brighter than the muted sun and the faint lights coming from
the kitchen. The yardman had left the ashtray canister too far for him to reach without standing. He could feel some of his
hunger waning now and he realized it was by pure luck that he had this one cigarette to hold him over. He still wanted to
blame the aides for taking his package of crackers, though really it was Amalia who had caused all this. As upset as he had
been with her, he knew he shouldn’t have stayed in bed so long, most of it lost in one restless dream or another. There was
one of these he wanted to recall, but the more he tried to remember, he wasn’t sure if it was last night that he’d had it
or some other night or if he wasn’t getting the pieces all mixed up or if what he thought he dreamed might have been someone
else’s dream that was told to him. He was with his grandfather, that he knew. His grandfather was a little boy, though. He
had never seen a photo of his grandfather as a little boy, but he knew this was who it was. Only instead of also being a little
boy in the dream, Don Fidencio was as old as he was when he fell asleep. And still, somehow he was able to stay on the horse
that the Indian had him on. He clung to the animal’s mane while the Indian sat behind him, holding the reins. Another Indian
had his grandfather on the horse next to them. He remembered looking over and the little boy cocking back his head, the same
as his grandfather used to do when they were off on some adventure, just the two of them. A perfect crescent moon illuminated
the plain that eventually stretched out into the darkness before them. At one point Don Fidencio slipped to one side, so much
so that he was underneath the horse, but then somehow spun back around to the top. And when he came back up, he was a little
boy. He spun around twice more and kept coming up as a little boy. Then he looked over and noticed that the little boy who
was his grandfather had disappeared. The Indian began to speak to him in words that he had never heard before, words that
sounded as if he were speaking underwater, words that seemed to come from someplace other than his mouth. Beneath him he could
hear the gallop of the horses’ hooves upon the barren earth. But the longer the Indian spoke, the more Don Fidencio began
to hear the Indian’s words in his own Spanish. He tried to ask him a question, but the Indian told him to be quiet, to listen.
You need to be ready when the sun comes up, the Indian said. Be ready for what? he asked. Just be ready. What about my grandfather?
I know where he is. I need to find him, my grandfather. Just be ready. The horses seemed to be moving in slow motion now.
Don Fidencio kept asking questions, but the Indian’s voice had trailed off.

He had woken up more achy and tired, as if he really had been riding a horse all night. From then on his sleep came and went,
until he woke up for good and finally stepped outside for his morning cigarette. He was playing with the lighter — turning
it on, turning it off, turning it on, turning it off, counting how many tries it took to make his thumb do what he wanted
— when he heard a noise behind him. He figured it was probably the grackles rooting around the stump again, looking for their
own breakfast. But the second time it was more of a metallic sound, like the yardman clicking open the back gate. It was too
early for this, though. With the fog still heavy, the first rays of sun had barely reached the patio, and dew clung to the
weeds and spots of grass. He tried to turn, but his stiff body helped him only so much.

“Fidencio.”

How curious, he thought, the yardman calling me by my first name. They had met once, but this had been months ago, and without
exchanging names. Since then it had been a friendly wave or a nod, and usually with Don Fidencio standing at the window because
the man tended to do his work during the middle of the afternoon when it was too hot to be sitting outside. Even stranger
was that he’d whispered his name. What good reason could one man possibly have for whispering another man’s name?

“Fidencio,” the voice called out, this time with more urgency.

When he finally turned, his brother was standing at the back gate, leaning in so only his white hair floated there like some
apparition. Then his brother motioned for him to come closer. The old man held on to the walker in order to stand and see
what this was all about.

“Andale, Fidencio.”

“Andale to where?” the old man said, though still not sure why they were speaking in hushed voices. He stamped out what was
left of his cigarette.

“Over here, so we can go already.”

“To where?” Don Fidencio asked. “Was the front door locked?”

“Over here, just hurry.”

“They still need to serve the breakfast. Here, they take their time, like old people don’t have stomachs anymore.”

Don Celestino glanced over his brother’s shoulder at the recreation room. He thought he saw someone in a wheelchair at the
window.

“It doesn’t matter, just get over here.”

“Yes, for you with your stomach happy and full, what does it matter, but for me…”

“I came to take you with me.” Don Celestino reached for his shoulder. “Do you understand?”

Don Fidencio stared back at his brother, trying to make sense of it all.

“Remember I called you last night?” he said. “I told you we were taking the trip to the other side, to Linares. The way Papá
Grande wanted you to, remember?”

The old man held on to him as he stepped out from behind the walker.

“You have to bring it with you, Fidencio.”

“Ya, I never want to see that thing again.”

“Lower your voice,” he said. “For now you need it. Later we can find you something else.”

Don Fidencio shook his head and set the walker back in front of him. His brother pushed open the gate until it was wide enough
for him to make it through. The taxi was idling at the curb, pointed out toward the main road.

T
hey drove up just as Socorro was crossing the street in front of the bridge; she waved back before she realized Don Celestino
and his brother were sitting in a taxi.

“She changed her mind, then?”

“A man should be able to take a trip if he wants.” He had come around the car to kiss her on the cheek and open the door,
but she wasn’t responding to either gesture.

“Celestino.” She stayed where she was on the sidewalk and a man pulling a mini–shopping cart had to step into the grass to
avoid bumping into her. “You talked with her, yes or no?”

“So she could tell me no?”

“She got that from her mother,” Don Fidencio called out from the backseat. “The both of them were born with heads as hard
as that pavement.”

“Then what, Celestino?” she asked. “You stole him?”

“How could I steal him?” he said. “If he came on his own, that’s not stealing.”

Down the street the traffic had just stopped at the light and a moment later a patrol car eased up behind the other cars.

“You took an old man without permission.”

“Why when I call him an old man, you say he’s my brother, and now I help him, and you say he’s an old man?”

“You know what I mean, Celestino.”

“You were the one who said we should take the trip.”

“For all of us to go together, yes — not for you to steal him!”

“Please stop saying it that way and just get in the taxi.”

“For what?” she said. “So they can take us all to jail?”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” he said, and tried not to flinch when he heard what he thought were sirens. The traffic at the
light was pulling to one side.

“Answer me,” Socorro said. “How could you, knowing the problems you were going to cause?”

“He promised he would go back,” Don Celestino said. “Just for a couple of days. We take him to see the ranchito and after
that we can come home.”

He had more to say about this, but he was watching the patrol car turn the corner that led away from the bridge, back in the
direction they had come from earlier.

Socorro walked away, toward the front of the taxi, as if she might suddenly turn and cross the bridge. Most of the other cleaning
women had either caught their rides or taken the bus. When she glanced back, the old man was in the backseat, fiddling with
his suspenders, causing his shirt to untuck. He had buttoned his shirt the wrong way and it looked as if one shoulder was
higher than the other. They must have stopped along the way to eat something because crumbs and grease stains blotched the
front of his clothes. Beneath his cap, the sleep had stayed crusted to the corner of his left eye.

“And the medicines?” she asked.

“The medicines?” Don Celestino said.

“Please tell me you weren’t going to take him without his medicines.”

“No, no, of course not,” he said. “I was going to buy them for him. How could we go without the medicines?”

“So, then?”

“Maybe your friend that works at the pharmacy can help us.”

“No, no more medicines,” the old man said, and wagged his finger at them.

“Please, Don Fidencio, this is so you can go on your trip.”

“Ya, I have taken enough pills!” He was still motioning with his finger. “No more, I tell you. At least that, at least let
me live like a normal man.”

Don Celestino squatted down next to the rear door of the taxi. “Look, you want to go on this trip or you want us to drive
you back?”

“You already said you would take me.”

“Not if you were going to get sick on us. So you can end up in the hospital? Is that what you want, to be sick in another
bed?”

This seemed to quiet the old man. He shook his head a little longer before he swung open his door for Socorro.

“Stay where you are, Don Fidencio.”

“No,” he said, “so you and your man can be together in the backseat.”

He planted his feet squarely on the curb but kept rocking back and forth, not quite making it off the seat, until his brother
gave him a hand. After he was finally standing on the sidewalk, Socorro brushed off the crumbs and then redid the buttons
on his shirt while he stood there looking like a man being measured for a new suit.