Authors: Terry Trueman
Hurricane
A NOVEL
TERRY TRUEMAN
For Jesse Cruz Trueman
  LA RUPA, HONDURAS
MARCH 1998
It's early on a Saturday morning in our little town of La Rupa. I'm in a championship soccer game on the main street of townâactually the
only
street in town. Today this street has become a soccer field. All our neighbors are out cheering me on. They smile and wave and jump up and down. Even my dog, Berti, looks interested, and nothing ever gets her very excited. But one voice stands out from all the others. “José,” a man with a deep voice says. “JOSÃ!” the man calls again. But when I open my eyes, the soccer field and all my adoring fans are gone.
My older brother, VÃctor, wakes me up with a gentle tug on my shoulder. “Come on!” VÃctor says, giving me the “shush” sign so that I won't wake our little brother, Juan, sleeping in his bed across the room. Berti wakes up too, lifting her head and staring at us. She gets up to follow.
VÃctor leads me to the back door before I even have any breakfast.
I'm grumpy, but VÃctor ignores my mood. When he has a plan, like he has right now, there is no changing his mind. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he is on a mission.
It is a nice morning. The air feels warm and a little damp. Our grass is chopped really short because Ernesto, the man who cuts it for us with his machete, was here just a few days ago. I glance up at the hillside behind our house, behind all the houses on this side of La Rupa. Last year a logging company cleared lots of the trees off that hill. The trees used to be home to the wild parrots that fly overhead on most days. The parrots are still around, though; they just moved a little bit deeper into the forest.
VÃctor interrupts my daydreaming. “Look at this,” he says, nodding at the huge, dirty, old brick barbecue that has stood just outside our back door since we moved into this house. Both Berti and I stare at it. VÃctor smiles and says, “This thing has got to go.”
I askâstupidly, I'll admit, but after all it's still early in the morning, “Where's it going?”
VÃctor laughs. “We have to tear it down and get rid of it.”
I look at it again, tall and brick and sturdy. “Why?”
VÃctor says, “Mom and Dad have their twenty-year wedding anniversary coming up. Mom has never liked this thing, and it's ugly. Dad suggested that we could tear it down and make the backyard nicer for their big celebration.”
Our mom likes to cook outside, since the days and evenings are warm and humid. She uses a small barbecue we have in the back, but she has never used this big one. None of us have ever used it, and no one in La Rupa has anything like it. Still, looking at what VÃctor is suggesting, I can see that it's going to take a lot of hard work.
VÃctor and Dad are probably right. Tearing the stupid thing down is a good idea, but it's going to get hot today, like it does every day, and it isn't going to be easy to break all these bricks apart.
“VÃctor,” I say, “this is going to be a pain.”
VÃctor looks at me and smiles. “José, anything worth doing is usually a pain, but getting rid of this thing will make our home nicer. Think of how much better our house will look when your preppy friends from your rich kids' school come to visit. It'll be great. Come on, just help me for a little while. Let's get to work, okay?”
VÃctor often teases me about my “preppy friends.” I think he's always been a little jealous of my going to the International School, where we're taught in both Spanish and English. He calls me “preppy” when he wants to give me a hard time. He doesn't understand that I kind of like this nickname because I like being called the same thing that all the rich kids at school are called. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll be rich too! VÃctor didn't go to a bilingual school. When he was starting school, Dad's business was just getting going and our family couldn't afford the high tuition then. Besides, VÃctor had always wanted to work with Dad anyway; school was never important to him. I'm the student in our family, not my big brother. He's a hard worker, though, strong and tough and stubborn like Dad, only different. In ways it seems like VÃctor is almost a grown-up already. He's always been almost a grown-up. I don't know how else to describe it. I'm not going to say that VÃctor is kind of bullheaded, but that doesn't mean it's not true!
So for now, like it or not, I'm a worker too, and VÃctor's helper.
I look over at Berti. She's lying in the sun, relaxed and comfortable. She doesn't know how lucky she is to be a dog. In all the many months we've had her, she's only learned one trick: sit. When you roll a ball for her, she just looks at it. When you call her to come to you, she only does it if you have a treat in your hand that she can smell. Playing, running, and even taking a walk are of little interest to her. Berti's idea of an exciting life is to lie around all day doing ⦠well ⦠nothing.
I have no such luck today.
Mr. Arroyo, who lives with his wife behind their little store across the street, is already sweeping his porch like he does every morning. He's a funny, smart, nice guy. When he glances in our direction, he smiles and waves. The kind of “store” he and his wife have is called a
trucha
. Most neighborhoods and most small towns in Honduras have them. I've seen movies from the United States where they have Circle Ks and 7-Elevens, small stores where you can buy a few things when you need them. Here in Honduras we have truchas that are built in the front part of people's houses. The only trucha in La Rupa is at the Arroyos'.
In the first half hour of tearing the barbecue down, a crowd of neighbors gathers along the street and the side of our backyard. It starts with the kids, but eventually parents come over too. We have a big audience. The Arroyos lean out the window of their little store and smile, and Vera RamÃrez, who lives next door, cooks bacon and eggs in a skillet over a little fire in her backyard while watching us. Eventually almost all of La Rupa show up: the Handels, Mr. Marpales, the Cortez boys, Mr. RamÃrez, the Ortegas, the Baronases, the Altunezes, Mr. and Mrs. Cortez, the Barabons, and the Larioses. Everyone wanders by to watch us for a while. Truth is, there are not a lot of other things to do in town anyway.
“Hey, VÃctor, that's quite a structure to be tearing down,” says Mr. RamÃrez, smiling, “only I'm not sure what La Rupa is going to do without our jailhouse.”
VÃctor laughs.
I whisper to VÃctor, “Jailhouse?”
VÃctor smiles at me and says quietly, “He's just kidding, but look at this thingâbuilt of bricks and almost big enough to be a jail.”
I pick up a load of bricks and stack them against the back fence, where VÃctor has told me to put them. When he first suggested this idea of storing the bricks, I asked, “Why are we saving them, VÃctor?”
He looked at me like I had asked the stupidest question in the world. “These bricks aren't cheap. What do you want to do, just throw them in the street?”
“No,” I answered, but I couldn't think of anything else to suggest.
VÃctor patiently said, “We'll find a use for them someday, José. Maybe Dad and I will pave the patio area, or maybe we'll find someone who wants to buy them, and we can haul them out of here then.”
I said, “Oh, sure. That sounds good.”
“For now, though,” VÃctor said, “let's get them out of the way and stack them neatly against the back fence there, okay?”
I tried to think of some argument against moving them all that way, but I just answered, “Okay.”
So hauling bricks is my job, and as we work, I make a bunch of these trips.
Allegra Barabon calls to me, “José!” I glance over and see her twirling one of her pigtails around her finger. “Do you feel like a mule?” I don't answer, but I force myself to smile at her dumb joke.
Our sister Ruby, who is sixteen and the unofficial beauty queen of the town, comes out and watches us too. Ruby says teasingly, “My goodness, VÃctor, you are truly the greatest brick barbecue destroyer in all of Honduras.”
She looks over at our crowd of neighbors and smiles. Now she says to VÃctor, “As you can see, such talent does not go unrecognized nor unappreciated!”