Caramelo (57 page)

And soon there’s salty water

(that’s not too good for drinking)

’cause it tastes just like a teardrop

(so they run it through a filter)

And it comes out from a faucet

(and is poured into a teapot)

Which is just about to bubble

Now think about your troubles

—“Think About Your Troubles,” by Harry Nilsson, from
The Point!

      B
ig changes. Tapicería Tres Reyes is prospering under Uncle Baby and Uncle Fat-Face’s direction. Father can’t believe it. Father is invited to come back into the business. After all, he’s family. But on the condition that he leave the managing to Fat-Face.

Uncle has redesigned the whole operation. He found an old taffy-apple factory on Fullerton Avenue, and now they take in mass volume—restaurants, hotels, funeral parlors. Tapicería Tres Reyes is one of the main sponsors on José Chapa’s morning radio show. Kennilworth, Winnetka, Wilmette have given way to work from Pilsen, Little Village, Humboldt Park, Logan Square, and Lakeview. The Brothers Reyes have their pictures taken with crowns and kingly gowns, and really it would all be great if Father didn’t look so tragic. He wears the face of a King Lear instead of a King Melchor.

Who knows why, but eventually only Father’s picture is featured in the advertisements. In both the pages of
El Informador
and
La Raza
newspapers, as well as on commercials on Channel 26, Father appears wearing an oversized crown beneath the caption—“Inocencio Reyes,
El Rey de
Plastic Covers.”

Father’s not happy. He doesn’t want to be known as “The King of Plastic Covers,” but that’s what he is. How can he complain when they’re overwhelmed with customers? But it’s the kind of customer that wants his chrome kitchen chairs reupholstered or his car seats redone in tiger stripes. Father has to hire
americanos
, and slowly
los polacos, los alemanes
, even
los mexicanos
, give way to ’Mericans with their impatient trigger fingers on the staple gun. They’re a younger generation of upholsterers who don’t know how to hold a hammer and have never tasted a tack. In
less than an hour they knock out huge curved couches made of crumpled blue velvet and circular swan beds with red satin headboards.

Father is forced to accept whatever job comes—barstools, booths, waterbeds, truck cabs, even a coffin lining for someone’s pet cat. Uncle Fat-Face and Uncle Baby don’t mind. They’ve always been careless about their craft. But Father’s a perfectionist. This new prosperity makes him ashamed to call himself an upholsterer and confirms his worst suspicions. The public likes junk.

—But that’s what the customers want! To look as if they live in Pancho Villa’s villa. Oh, my Got! Father says.

It’s true. The poor want to pretend they’re kings. They don’t like being poor, and if they can fool themselves a little with a bed that looks like the empress Carlota or Elvis slept there, all the better.

The good thing is Father doesn’t have to pick up a hammer anymore, and he’s a boss now with a whole workshop full of workers, but it makes him grieve to lose the fine antiques he once worked on. He sighs for the lost coins and cuff links, the blue pearls in the loose down cushions of his past.

There’s more. Father and Mother are about to become grandparents. We came back to find Rafa hadn’t been living with Ito and Tikis after all, but had moved in with his fiancée, Zdenka, a blonde as pale as a magician’s rabbit. Their baby is due in a few months, and nobody even leaked a word about it to us, can you believe it? My brothers have always been experts at covering up for each other with healthy lies. They’re not like me, determined to bludgeon Father with the truth at any cost.

Ito and Tikis are another story. They’ve gotten used to living as bachelors and refuse to come back and live under Father’s roof. Father has to accept this. —They’ve become too American, Father says and sighs, —They sleep on the floor with milk crates for furniture. Like hippies! Father blames himself, and says he failed us.

It’s too much. —
Ya no puedo
, Father says every evening when he collapses into his Naugahyde La-Z-Boy. —I can’t anymore. And something about saying this makes his body believe it. But nobody takes Father seriously, because for the first time in his life, Father’s making good money. In the words of Uncle Fat-Face, Tres Reyes is making a killing.

—Father, does that mean you’re dealing
drogas
now? I joke.

Father says nothing. Then with a sigh:

—The ones on
drogas
are the customers.

But the biggest change since we’ve moved back to Chicago is how people act around me. Nobody mentions my “abduction.” The more they don’t mention it, the more it’s obvious. Like the square on the kitchen door where that old Mexican calendar once stood. Somebody tore it down before I got back to Texas. But that rectangle, a paler shade than the rest of the door, just shouts,
What’s missing here?

My brothers. I thought they’d say something like if they ever catch Ernesto they’re going to kick his ass. That’s what brothers are supposed to say to save the family honor. “Honor.” That’s the word they’re using nowadays to bring home the boys from Vietnam. But they don’t say a thing, my brothers. I feel like I’m dragging around a clubfoot. Everybody refuses to look at me, and that just makes it worse.

I don’t know anything, but I do know this. I’m not ashamed of my past. It’s the story of my life I’m sorry about.

When I got back to San Antonio Viva gave me a good
regañada
for not knowing anything about birth control. —Shit, if you can’t control your own body, how can you control your own life? What do you want? To self-destruct or something? She made me march over to Planned Parenthood with her, and I learned more about myself in that one visit than a year with Sister Odilia, that’s for sure.

Viva’s smart. Broke up with Darko after she started college. She finally figured out she didn’t want to
marry
Darko, she wanted to
be
him. Isn’t that funny? He’s the one who got her thinking about going to school and helped her figure out financial aid. Everybody who comes into your life affecting the pattern. Darko got her unknotted and moving and all. But you sure don’t have to marry him as a thank-you, right?

Ernesto got married. Viva said he knocked up some little
católica
who won’t even let him smoke pot, can you believe it? Mister Holy Roller. Destiny’s like that. Whatever you don’t expect, you just better hunker down and duck.

It’s just like the story of the volcanoes my Little Grandfather told me when I was a kid. That’s just the way Mexicans love. They’re not happy till they kill you.

You’re the author of the
telenovela
of your life all right. Comedy or tragedy? Choose.

Ernesto. He was my destiny, but not my destination. That’s what I’m thinking.

—
L
ate. Every first of the month they give us a story, Mother says. —They never pay the rent on time. Do they think we’re made out of money? We’ve got bills too. They’re taking advantage of us, that’s what.
Te hablo
. I’m talking to you, Inocencio.

We bought a two-story walkup on Homan near Fullerton. We live on the top floor, and Rafa and Zdenka moved in downstairs. There’s a family of
chaparritos
from Michoacán renting the basement. Mother thought it would be great to be a landlady. Until she became a landlady.

Mother has a steak sizzling on one burner,
tortillas
on another, and on another she’s reheating
frijoles
for Father’s dinner. —All hours, all hours I’m heating and reheating food. I’m going to retire. Then what, eh?

She complains, but food is the only language she’s fluent in, the only way she can ask,
Who loves you?

—Mija
, please, Father says, snuffing out a cigarette and lighting another. —I suffered a big
coraje
with Fat-Face this morning over a love seat, and now this. I’m tired.

—Well, I’m tired too, Mother continues. —I’ve had it with those tenants. I tell you, if you don’t do something, I will! Do you hear me?

—Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it, Father says.

And a short time later he comes back, mission accomplished.

—I fixed it.

—You’re kidding. Already? How?

—I lowered the rent.

—Holy cripes! Are you crazy? I leave things for you to take care of and now look …

—Listen, Zoila, listen to me! Don’t you remember when ten dollars meant a lot to us? Don’t you? Remember when sometimes we didn’t even
have
ten dollars, not even
that
sometimes till the end of the week? That wasn’t so long ago, and I don’t know about you, but never,
never
will I forget how ashamed I felt having to grovel to that dog Marcelino Ordóñez every first of the month. In English he adds, —Make me sick.

And he does look sick, his face an odd color, like silly putty.

Mother says nothing. I don’t know if she’s humbled, angry, or what, but something holy descends into the room and blesses her with the wisdom of silence for a little, just this once.

—You, to the kitchen, Mother says to me. —Help me with your
Father’s dinner. Then, when he is out of hearing range, she adds, —He works hard.

Mother slices an avocado and chops up some
cilantro
, and has me squeezing limes for Father’s limeade.

—You know what your problem is, Mother shouts into the living room. —You can’t leave your work at the shop. Stop thinking about your troubles. You and Lala are always going over the past. It’s over, it’s finished! Don’t think about it anymore. Look at me. You don’t catch
me
worrying. Are you going to sit at the table, or do you want a tray? Mother shouts, tucking the
tortillas
into a clean dishcloth.

No answer.

—Inocencio, I’m talking to you, Mother continues.

Again, no answer.

—Te hablo, te hablo
.

But Father doesn’t answer.

83.

A Scene in a Hospital That Resembles a Telenovela When in Actuality It’s the Telenovelas That Resemble This Scene
^*

      W
hen I was little, there were things I couldn’t think about without getting a headache. One: the infinity of numbers. Two: the infinity of the sky. Three: the infinity of God. Four: the finiteness of Mother and Father.

I’ve gotten over numbers one to three, but number four, well, no matter if you have a couple of lifetimes to get used to it, I don’t think anybody is ever ready for their mother or father to die, do you? They could be one hundred and fifty years old, and you’d still yell, —Hey, wait a minute!—when their time came. That’s what I think.

In a way, you’re waiting your whole life. Like a guillotine. You don’t have to look up to know it’s there. Somehow you think you’re going to be courageous when the hour arrives, but I felt as if my bones had been drawn from me. The shock of seeing Father strapped in a hospital bed, anchored by machines and tubes, and Father not being able to talk, his body bubbling over in rage and fear and pain. I couldn’t hold myself up. Like those mummies in the basement of the Field Museum; they pulled their innards out through the nostrils and stuffed them with cloves. That’s how I felt when I watched Father, nurses hustling around him and hustling us out. I couldn’t hold myself up.

Father’s been moved to Intensive Care. He’s only allowed visitors one at a time, and right now Mother is in there.

I’m scared.

I plant myself on a vinyl couch in the waiting area, but the room is full of little kids pretending to do their homework while watching
The Newlywed Game
, laughing too loudly and spitting sunflower seed shells at each other. I want to listen to anything but their racket and that stupid TV show. I keep trying to pray, but the words to the Hail Mary get tangled inside my head, like when you crochet and miss a stitch and have to unravel what you just did. It’s been such a long time since I prayed. I wander out to the hall and find a row of plastic stack chairs, and this is where I arrange myself with my eyes shut so I can concentrate on praying.

—He wants to see you, Mother says, plopping herself in the plastic chair next to me. I must’ve been asleep, because the sound of her voice makes me jump. Then I don’t have an excuse, I
have
to go in there.

—Lala.

Mother calls me back, patting the plastic chair next to her, motioning for me to sit down again.

—Lala, listen to me. She takes a deep breath. —I know you think your father’s perfect … Don’t roll your eyes, smart aleck. You don’t even know what I’m going to say. Listen. You think he’s perfect, but you don’t know him like I know him.

—I’ve known him my whole life!

—What’s your life? You’ve only been on the planet fifteen years! What the hell does a
huerca
like you know?

—I know lots of things.

—Just enough to get you into trouble.

She means Ernesto. The fact that she’s right only makes me more pissed.

—Lala, I’m talking to you. I was waiting to tell you this for when you were older, but with your father this sick, he might … Well, I just think it’s time.

A pain flutters through my chest like a fish darting through a current of cold water, and I hear a voice inside my head say,
Pay attention! Listen. Even if it hurts
. Especially
if it hurts
.

—Your father, Mother says. —Before me and him got married … he already had a kid. Out of wedlock I mean. I didn’t know about this before I married him, and even after, nobody told me nothing. For the longest.