Amigoland (5 page)

He suspected they were helping themselves whenever he was on the pot or out of the room for longer stretches of time and there
was little chance of catching them in the act. Just the other day he had remembered to get up in the middle of his meal and
head back to the room, but they must have known or been watching him because the room was empty except for The One With The
Hole In His Back, who had fallen asleep eating his meal. Worse still was that by the time he pushed the walker back into the
mess hall the attendants had already picked up his tray.

The thieves must have been busy with the other residents last night because all the boxes seemed to be in order. He clicked
his government-issue pen so he could record today’s inventory in one of his old pocket-size address books, the leather exterior
as worn and cracked as the hands that were holding it. There were only a few blank pages left in this particular book and
soon he would need to find more space for his notations. He thumbed through the rest of the pages, but they all seemed to
be taken up with one name or another that he couldn’t place. It wasn’t until he turned the
R–S
tab and saw his own family name that the entries began to correspond some with his faded memory. Vicente had died from a
bad heart, still in his fifties. Baltazar they shot in Reynosa, something having to do with a woman he was seeing after somebody
else had seen her first. He couldn’t remember how Enrique had died anymore, only that it was sad. Luisa was from the cancer,
but what kind he couldn’t say. When he turned to the next page he saw Celestino’s name. Of eight brothers and four sisters,
only the two of them were left. At least he thought it was still the two of them. The youngest and the oldest, almost twenty
years separating them. That the youngest was alive would make sense, he supposed, but what good reason could there be for
the oldest to be alive and for the rest of his brothers and sisters to be gone? What sense did it make for him to be still
walking around? For what? For him to be stuck here, waiting to die? At least if Celestino was alive he was probably out there
living his life like a free man.
If…
They hadn’t actually spoken in years. Why, though?

He sat down to wait for the hour that they would let him go outside for his first smoke. After that it would be only a few
minutes until they served him breakfast. He opened the address book again. If he wasn’t mistaken, Celestino was the one who
used to cut hair. Either he or Martín, but he thought it was more likely Celestino. And whatever it was, why they hadn’t talked
in so many years, had something to do with cutting hair. He raised his cap and smoothed down his hair. Of all the things in
this world to have an argument about.
You call this a haircut? I told you not to touch the sideburns!
It seemed ridiculous to him now, whatever started it. For only the two of them to be still alive and not talking.

He had to dial twice, since the first time he misread the number and had to listen to a recording of some woman telling him
he didn’t know what he was doing and that he needed to hang up and try his call again. The second time, he concentrated, keeping
his thumb under each number next to his brother’s name and then using his other index finger to stab at the tiny digits on
his phone.

It rang. He was happy to not hear the woman’s voice. It rang again. She acted like he was the first man on earth to call the
wrong phone number. Just wait till she turns ninety-one and see if she doesn’t dial a number wrong now and then. It was a
common enough mistake. Nothing to criticize. Nothing to scold him about. They didn’t even have phones down here when he was
born, that’s how old he was. No phones! None! Not even one! At least, not his people. Who knows what they had on the other
side of town? But where he was, if you wanted to talk to so-and-so, you had to walk to wherever so-and-so was and do your
talking. Not like now. The other day some young man, all dressed up in a suit with a tie, came to visit his grandmother, one
of The Turtles, but he spent most of his time pacing up and down the hall talking to himself, like maybe he should be living
in the part of the building where they locked up The Ones Who Like To Wander Off. Then Don Fidencio noticed the young man
had an earpiece with a long white cord that connected to a tiny phone attached to his belt. Who would have imagined such things?
A man talking to another man somewhere else and neither one of the two actually holding a phone in his hand. Not like he was
doing now with the receiver pressed up to his ear. Only God knew how many times it had rung when he heard something click
and a woman’s voice come on the line. She was different from the first, but still. It wasn’t seven a.m. and already he was
about to get scolded, yelled at for the second time that morning. No sir, not Fidencio Rosales. He refused to listen to whatever
she had to say and hung up. Yell at the next guy who marks the wrong number. He didn’t know why he’d picked up the phone in
the first place, what was so damn important. Then he looked back at his thumb stuck inside the little address book.

D
on Celestino heard the phone ringing in the living room and wondered who would be calling him in the middle of the night.
When he glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand, the numbers looked as blurry as if he were underwater. He groped around
trying to find his eyeglasses and finally had to get his face up close to the clock to see it was already 6:45 in the morning,
much later than he normally woke up. Especially when he went to bed so early, as he had the night before. The phone was still
ringing. He looked at the clock again. And here he had thought that by going to bed a little early he’d have that much more
time in the morning. Now he had less than half an hour before he needed to be there. The bridge wasn’t so far away, but he
would hardly have time to shower and shave or even take care of his hair.

He sat on the edge of the bed and used the bedpost to pull himself up. The ceiling fan was on, but he was sweating all the
same. Maybe all he needed was a little orange juice in his system and he would be fine. He headed toward the kitchen, staggering
a bit, until he had to lean up against the wall before he could go on. He could feel his heart beating as fully as if he were
still out working in the yard. It made no sense, not after a full night of sleep. It occurred to him he should sit down, but
he worried that he might not be able to stand up later. And besides, the phone was still ringing. He was almost sure it wasn’t
Socorro calling him. Whoever it was would probably wait while he drank his orange juice. It wasn’t more than a few sips that
he needed anyway. Two or three more rings at the most. Don Celestino had barely opened the refrigerator door when it occurred
to him that she could be calling to tell him she was delayed or that something had happened to her mother, that she wouldn’t
be able to come today, or that, yes, she was coming, everything was fine, she would be there at the bridge like she had every
other Thursday morning, only that this time she had shown up a little early and was waiting for him, and to please come for
her now, or something else, something important, something that he would only ever know if he picked up the phone before it
stopped ringing.

He could hear the ringing in his head now. His chest seemed to tighten a little more with each ring. He was only two or three
paces from his recliner, where he could sit to take the call. Whoever it was would wait that long. He’d never felt this way
in the morning and he thought it might have to do with not eating enough the night before. It had only been a few months.
How could they expect him to remember everything he was supposed to do along with checking his sugar level? The orange juice
would help. Maybe he should have served himself the glass first. But right then the answering machine clicked on and the prerecorded
voice announced that he wasn’t available at the moment and to please leave a message and he would be sure to call back. He
was waiting for the caller to say something, waiting to see if it was her voice, when suddenly the line cut out.

N
ear the far end of downtown, a street cleaner lumbered alongside the curb, whirling up a torment of dust and trash. The few
drivers out at this early hour avoided the machine and the billowing cloud left in its wake. Most of the dollar stores and
fabric shops would not open for at least another hour. By now the shopkeepers on the other side of the river were tossing
buckets of soapy water onto the sidewalks in front of their businesses, sweeping away the dust that had gathered overnight.

Socorro glanced at her watch and then down the boulevard that led to the bridge. A flock of wild parrots squawked as they
formed a green tapestry against the grayish sky. The group maintained its pattern, flying in the familiar direction of his
house, then dipped beyond her line of vision. Socorro tugged on her skirt and looked down the street. She had woken up early
to give her mother the medicine and then make breakfast and still have time to get ready. It took her several minutes to find
a nice skirt and blouse that she could work in, and afterward pinned up her hair instead of simply keeping it in a braid.
She debated before the mirror whether she should just wear her usual blue jeans. She had taken the black skirt off twice when
she noticed the time and had to rush to catch her bus.

Now Socorro wondered why she had rushed. All that worrying for nothing, as if she were some young girl. Behind her, the bridge
was backed up with drivers crossing over to work or shop or bring their children to school on the U.S. side. Across the street,
a few taxi drivers leaned up against their cars and vans, waiting for the next fare. Beyond them stood the hall where she
had seen couples walking together to the dances on the weekends. She was still looking around for his car when a silver truck
pulled alongside her and the driver waved, trying to get her to smile back. “Let me take you to breakfast,” the man said.
She turned away, as if she hadn’t heard him. Just beyond the side mirror, black cursive letters informed everyone of the vehicle’s
proper owner, but she saw this only as she searched for somewhere else to focus her attention. A figurine of a saloon girl
on a tiny swing was dangling from the rearview mirror. He tapped the figurine with his finger, watching it sway to and fro.
“Why work today? We have all our lives to work. Take the day off and come with me.” His thick mustache and long, dark sideburns
looked as if they had been drawn with a piece of coal. She held on to the strap of her purse and turned her attention to traffic
along the boulevard. Any second now her ride would be pulling up. Already it was past the time that he usually came for her.
“A woman as pretty as you should not have to work so hard for her money.” The saloon girl rocked back and forth, her tiny
red heels tapping against the smudged windshield. He liked what she was wearing. “The way it fits you,” he explained. “I don’t
like my women too small, without enough to hold on to.” She dropped her left hand, tugged gently at her skirt. She heard a
distant fluttering, and then another flock of parrots glided across the muted sky. “Why don’t you come over here, sit here
next to me? You look about the right size.” He could tell she wanted to. “Only to spend a little time getting to know you,
mamacita,” he said. “Look at all the room I have here for you.” He patted the vinyl seat. “Why do you want to be this way?
There’s no reason to be afraid.” She felt flushed in that way she hated. Tiny beads of sweat were gathering along her neck
and down between her breasts. She pulled at the collar of her blouse, hoping for any little breeze. She glanced behind her
as if someone had just called her name. The sunlight shimmered off the razor wire above the back gates of the immigration
offices. The serrated blades seemed newer and less rusted than the ones that lined the bridge. “Look, they just paid me last
night. Come closer. Look, mamacita.” Some of the taxi drivers were staring now and one of them was saying something that they
all found especially funny.

“Mamacita, I want to talk to you. Why do you treat me this way, what are the people going to say?” He reached out for her
and she pulled away, walked a few steps toward the end of the block. He followed her, stopped each time she stopped, inched
forward with each step she took, then backward when she reversed her direction. “And why not, mamacita?” He reached for her
again, then a third and a fourth time. Socorro knew that if he touched her, she was going to do or say something that she
would regret, maybe even before she managed to get it all out. Just one more time, she kept thinking. Just one more time.
It was only when she crossed the street that he finally left her, but not before he called her a puta and then other ugly
words that she herself might have said if he hadn’t driven away so fast.

She exited the bus, rubbing the key between her thumb and forefinger. Don Celestino had given it to her several months earlier
when he dropped her off at the house one morning and then hurried off to make it in time for a doctor’s appointment. Maybe
that was it — that he’d had an early appointment with the doctor. There could be so many reasons he had not come for her.
Socorro knew it was a bad habit of hers to always imagine the worst. She walked a little faster and tried to put these thoughts
out of her mind.

Along the boulevard, the 18-wheelers surged to and from the bridge. She thought she could hear what sounded like a siren in
the distance but couldn’t tell if it was getting closer or farther away. From the bus she had to walk only two blocks past
the school before she was on his street. She also cleaned the house of one of his neighbors, which was how she had come to
clean his. La señora Muñoz lived midway down the block in a small clapboard house surrounded by all shapes and sizes of plants,
as well as the two papaya trees, a small palm, and a large ebony that dropped its pods and tiny leaflets near the street.
Socorro could see a little boy crouched along the curb in front of la señora’s house. He had stopped to cram as many of the
pods as he could into his backpack. The elementary school was several blocks away and he seemed too young to be walking alone.
Socorro wondered where his mother could be. He was lost in his little world as he worked to stuff the pods into his backpack.
She was about to ask if he needed help when the little boy finally stood up, but it was only so he could look past her at
the ambulance that was headed this way.