Carry Me Like Water (53 page)

“Nena!” She heard her name echoing down the stairs, “Nena,
come and see!” She rose slowly from the floor and made her way up the stairs. Eddie was leaning over the railing. “Nena, it’s incredible. It needs a little work—but it’s really incredible!” He looked like a college boy.

She smiled at him calmly. “Tell the realtor we’ll take the house,” she said softly.

“But you haven’t seen it all,” he said.

“No, amor, but you have.”

He laughed. “I didn’t know you were so spontaneous.”

“After making love to me for more than seven years, you think I can’t be spontaneous?”

“The bedroom’s different.”

“Nope.”

As she reached the top of the stairs, Jake walked up to his brother and put his arm around him. “Great house,” he said— “not as big as the one we grew up in—but much simpler. Lots of light. Did our house have light, Eddie? I don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember light.”

“Lots of light in this house,” Maria Elena said. “They call it the city of the sun.”

“This house?” Jake asked.

“No—the city.”

“Well, I haven’t seen much of it—but I can tell you this much, Nena, it’s not San Francisco.”

“Are you two fighting?” Eddie asked.

“No, honey, we’re not fighting—we’re just relating.” She winked at Jake as she spoke. “Where’d you put the realtor?”

“She’s on the third floor talking to Lizzie—turns out she’s an ex-nurse—and they’re talking shop.”

“Does Lizzie like the house?”

“Are you kidding—she loves it. She says she wants to live in the ballroom—windows on every side. She’s decided she wants to paint.”

“And maybe,” she laughed, “she’ll give us lessons on how to leave our bodies.”

I’m leaving mine soon enough, Jake thought.

Maria Elena stood between them and took each of them by the arm. “Give me a tour of my new house.”

“I didn’t know looking for a house would be so easy.”

“Jake, everything is easy when you have money.”

Eddie noticed the bitterness in her voice. It was like a grain of sand in his eyes.

2

O
N MONDAY MORNING
Diego walked slowly and carefully through the darkness of the downtown morning as if he were walking on bodies he thought he might crush as easily as leaves—no one on the streets but him and the weight of the things he felt. The dark sky was turning pale blue and he wondered if his boss would be at Vicky’s waiting for him to return, waiting with extra work, waiting with a face that made him feel as though he should be invisible. He imagined his boss’s face, hard like the street he walked on, like the concrete of the gray jail. Normally, his boss didn’t show up at Vicky’s until noon, but he sensed he would be there on this morning, there, waiting. It felt strange to be walking back to work after a week’s absence—he had never been free of work for a whole week, and now he felt as though he had been gone for a lifetime, and had forgotten about that previous life. He didn’t want to be walking toward Vicky’s—not anymore—that path too much like the steps that went nowhere. He dragged his feet on the sidewalk as he approached the faded blue building. He read the hand-painted sign on the wall:
VICKY’S BAR
. He hated the hand that had painted it. Diego stared at the letters as if by staring at them, he could erase not only the name of the place but the whole damn building. He put his key in the door and walked in. The lights were on, and his boss was waiting for him, his face sagging with wrinkles, and yet
the wrinkles were anything but soft—ungiving as if his wrinkles had hardened permanently. His skin looked like cracked stone. Diego shut the door behind him and stood motionless.

His boss glared at him. “Give the kitchen a good cleaning before the day’s over. Wax the floor before the noontime lunch crowd. You’re working late every day this week until you catch up on your work—and no overtime pay. You got that? And I’m cutting your salary to two seventy-five an hour.” He held up a sign that read: $2.75. “Did you get that, deaf man?”

Diego paused and then nodded.

“I’m surprised you had the nerve to come back to work.”

Diego did nothing, just stared at his lips.

“You’re pretty brave when you have that hoodlum with you.” He took off his apron, then came out from behind the bar and handed it to Diego. He grinned: “So long as we understand each other we’ll get along fine”—he paused—”like we always have.” He walked back to the bar and picked up his briefcase. “I’ve been working my ass off all week. I’m going home, but I’ll be back around noon—and the place better look good.”

Diego walked into the kitchen and began preparing the food.

His boss walked in a few minutes later and stared at him. Diego tried to ignore him, tried not to look up from his work, but he could feel his boss’s eyes crawling on his body like roaches. Diego felt him as he left the room, and he took a deep breath. He lit a cigarette. When the food was prepared, he stepped out into the small dining room and bar. His boss was gone. Diego shook his head as he looked at the filthy floor. He took out the ammonia and the mop and stacked the chairs on lop of the tables. He scrubbed the floor and then waxed it. It shone like the T-Birds’ cars. He lit a cigarette and stared at the drying floor from the kitchen. All the dirt was gone. He smiled at his good work. “Magic hands,” he thought, “like Mundo’s.” The first customers walked in and sat down at a corner table. Diego smiled at them and brought them a menu.

The week went by slowly. “This will never end,” he wrote when he got back home each night, “it will never, never end.” He worked late every evening until Vicky’s was spotless. He didn’t write any notes to his boss all week, not once. His boss cave him orders when
he came in around ten o’clock. He seemed happier now that he knew Diego could read lips. He always ended his orders with: “Did you get that?” When he spoke too fast, Diego would shake his head. “Idiot, pay attention,” he’d say, and repeat the command. Diego hated him more than he had ever hated anyone. His hate for his sister wasn’t like this, he thought, not like this at all. Sometimes even his hands itched as if they were on fire when he saw his boss’s face. He scratched at them. This is hate, he thought, this is really hate, and he wondered if he would ever feel anything that made him feel as sad or alive as this hate that blew through him daily. “Magic hands,” he thought to himself, and laughed. He even had a dream that he could hear, but the only thing he heard was his boss saying, “Did you get that? Did you get that? Did you get that?”

Sunday morning Diego woke early. It was late May, and soon it would be summer. The winds had come and gone. He didn’t bother with coffee; he didn’t brush his teeth; he didn’t shave; he didn’t wash himself. He put on his dirty clothes, and before the sun rose he walked through Sunset Heights and stole flowers from people’s gardens until he had a large bouquet. He went downtown and bought a newspaper from a machine and wrapped the flowers carefully on a bench at San Jacinto Plaza. He took a long walk toward Concordia Cemetery. It took him over an hour to walk there, but he had not minded the walk. Diego placed the wilting flowers on Mary’s unmarked grave. He pulled the weeds and raked the litter away with his hands. He placed a note with the flowers on the ground: “I’m going to get you a marble marker.”

The sweat rolled down his face and burned his eyes—the loose dirt from the graveyard stuck to his sweaty skin. He stared at the colors of the flowers and remembered the tulips he had seen at the plaza on Easter Sunday. He clenched his fist and his teeth, turned from the grave, and headed toward downtown. By then, it was almost noon. He thought of going back home, but decided to keep walking. He wandered toward Sacred Heart Church and watched the workers rebuilding it. An old lady came up to him and asked him something. He didn’t understand what she was saying. He
shrugged his shoulders, and she repeated her words but her lips were too difficult for him to read.

“¿Que no entiendes español?” she asked.

Diego look out his pad and wrote: “Señora, no oigo. Nací sordo. Si habla despacio y con cuidado la puedo entender.” He showed her his note.

“Ay,” she said, “pobrecito, Dios lo ha de cuidar. Mire, estamos juniando dinero para renovar nuestra iglesia que se quemó.”

Diego stared at the raffle tickets in her hand,
GRAND PRIZE: BRAND-NEW LINCOLN CONTINENTAL. DONATION
$1.00.
SPONSORED BY THE DAUGHTERS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY OF SACRED HEART CHURCH.
Diego smiled to himself, knowing that he would buy a ticket. What was he going to do with a new car? He didn’t even know how to drive. He smiled at the old woman and took a dollar out of his pocket.

“¡Que lindo muchacho!” she said. “Tan amable.”

He smiled at her as he put his raffle ticket in his wallet, and watched the workers that kept coming in and out of the church. He wondered how long it would take before they finished rebuilding it.

As he stared at the doors of the church, Luz appeared in front of him—out of nowhere like a vision, like the Virgin of Guadalupe had appeared to the Indian Juan Diego.

He shook his head and wondered when the dreams were going to go away. He closed his eyes and opened them again. Luz was still there—in front of him—standing like a statue. He smiled at the image.

“So,” Luz said, “why the hell are you buying raffle tickets from old ladies, my Diego? You really think you’re going to win the pinche jackpot?”

He stared at her, wondering when she was going to disappear. Maybe she wasn’t there. Maybe she didn’t really move her lips, maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he had gone crazy. He wanted to write on his pad and show her his handwriting, but he was afraid. Maybe she’d disappear. He wanted her to be real.

“Well, Dieguito,” she said, “no kisses? Not even a pinche abrazo?”

He reached over and touched her arm, real skin—it was her. He
smiled at her, touched her face, and did not want to move his hand away. He looked into her bright brown eyes and hugged her, held her in his arms for a long time, the tears from his face rolling off onto her shoulder. She let him cry and softly rubbed his back. Finally, he let go and looked at her again. She wiped his tears with her wrinkled hands, and Diego stared at her eyes that sparkled like the water in the river.

They sat at the corner, and Diego took out his pad. “Don’t ever leave El Paso again, Luz. You understand?”

“No, my Diego, I’m never leaving El Paso again, that’s for damn sure. If I’m going to be screwed over, I’d rather be screwed over in El Paso.”

“I never thought anybody could look so good,” he wrote. “You look beautiful.”

Luz grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Ay Dieguito, you think I’m Miss America or something. Not only are you deaf, querido, but you’ve gone damned blind.” She threw her head up and combed her hair with her fingers. “Look at me, Diego,
I
look like a dried-up prune.
I
smoke too damn much—it’s wasting me away. The cigarettes and the pinche floors I clean, they’re going to kill me.
I
feel like shit, Dieguito.”

“But you’re home now, Luz.”

“Yes, I’m home, but I lost my house in Juarez, and now I don’t have a pinche place to live. I think I’m going to look for something here in El Paso.” She paused and took a deep breath and coughed. “I have enough money. I worked my ass off in Chicago, and now I’m going to rest a while, Dieguito. I’m going to have to go back to work, but I can rest a while.”

“You’ll find a place,” Diego wrote, “something nice. There are lots of places here.”

“Never mind nice, Dieguito, just some place with a bed and a kitchen.”

“I’ve never had a place with a kitchen,” Diego wrote, “the only kitchen I know is at Vicky’s Bar.”

“You still working for that pinche?”

Diego nodded. “Where else?”

“You shouldn’t work for him, Dieguito. I see you’re still letting
yourself get run over by everybody. God is going to lose patience with you. Carlos told me your boss has a brother who works with the migra. A bunch of bastards in that family—the poor mother. You should refuse to work for people that are in with the migra. Aren’t you afraid God will punish you?”

“Being deaf is punishment enough. If God punishes me for working at Vicky’s then he’s a bad God. Why are the wrong people always being punished?”

Luz looked at his answer and laughed. “Ay Dieguito! You always have something to say, don’t you? What would have happened if God had given you a voice? You’d be running this city and those pinches on city council would be working at Vicky’s.”

Diego laughed, his dark eyes lighting up in Luz’s presence. She had brought something back to him, something which only she could give. “I can’t believe you’re home—I just can’t believe it. Everything’s going to be all right—I can just feel it.”

“Yes,” she said, “here we sit in front of this damned church that burned down.” She stopped. “Did a gringo burn it down?”

Diego looked at her and grinned. He shook his head.

“Just thought I’d ask,” she said. “Anyway, like I was saying, Dieguito, here we sit in front of this burned down church, and you’re still living in that apartment with that pinche, cheap, poor excuse for a landlord and you’re still working for that bastard at Vicky’s and I don’t have a place to live, and you’re telling me everything’s going to be all right. Some things never change, Dieguito. You’re beautiful, my Diego. A piece of work, you are, amor.”