Let Their Spirits Dance (17 page)

“Just a Seven-Up. I gotta keep my wits about me.”

“With all that money, you bet! Hey, baby, can you slap some here?” He extends his hand palm up, then laughs. “It's so good to see you!”

Scotty yells into the room, “Hey, Gates…your ol' lady's been calling! I don't want no trouble. That woman fights like a man!”

“No trouble…no trouble,” says Gates. He looks over his shoulder at the back door. “Let's move, baby, where I can have a good look-see.” He moves toward a corner where he's facing the entrance and the back door.

“Your mom told me to warn you that Erica's on your trail.”

“Yep, that's the one Scotty's talking about.”

My nerves are standing on end as I think of what will happen if Erica comes in fighting like a man while I'm talking to Gates or Kamika is wrapping her leg around his leg.

“Listen, Gates, did your mother tell you we're going to the Wall?”

“What wall?” He glances at the front door, then the back door.

“What do you mean ‘what wall?' The Vietnam Wall! With the money we got, Mom's making the trip to D.C. I don't know how she'll make it, she's been so sick, but you know Mom, she believes God wants her to go there to touch Jesse's name before she dies, and there's nobody who can talk her out of it. She's made a promise, Gates, we call it a manda in Spanish, and she's inviting you to go with us, 'cause she remembers how you and Jesse were friends.”

I hear Percy Sledge on the jukebox, “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and wonder if Kamika put in the money to hear the song.

“I haven't heard a jukebox in years,” I tell him. “All I ever hear are tapes. Well, what do you think?”

Gates lowers his head. His face has changed from smiling to somber. He is frozen in place.

“Gates?” I put my hand on his arm. “What's wrong?”

“Look at me, Teresa. Do you think I want to get to that Wall? I got
brothers on that Wall, Black, Brown, and White! God, girl, look at me, I'm a fuck-up! I never got it together, Teresa. I can't let them see me like this.” He shudders.

“Gates, they're not gonna see you! They're names on the Wall. They don't have eyes. You got as much right to be here as anybody else. Jesse would tell you that.” Gates has his head in his hands and is shaking it from side to side.

“I can't go, Teresa! I just can't. All the medals and shit they gave us, for what? Last of all they built the Wall, like they were saying, There, now shut up! I saw my buddies shot over there like dogs. White guys made the plans on paper, but the blood was real, and they didn't give a shit about us. Body count…that's all they cared about, body count, body count, like they were counting toy soldiers and not men. Then at the airport when we got back to the world, people were crazier than we were—throwing shit at us, calling us baby killers!”

“Gates…Mom wants you to go with us. It means a lot to her. It'll be OK.”

Gates looks at me, his eyes pleading. “Think about your brother, Teresa. He was the best ever. Now explain to me why he's dead and I'm alive? Can you give me a reason?”

“Me, give you a reason? I couldn't even figure out how we were gonna get to the Wall, but we're on our way! Life and death are all a big mystery to me, Gates. I don't know why things are happening the way they are. Nobody has the answers. Maybe earth is a place for questions, not answers.”

Kamika is back with the drinks, a Seven-Up and two beers. She looks at Gates. “What's wrong? You look like you at a funeral.”

“I am,” he says.

“Somebody die?” she asks me.

“Kind of.”

“What you mean ‘kind of.' Either somebody died or didn't.”

“Yes, somebody died.” I take a drink of the Seven-Up. “Think about it, Gates.” I put my hand on his shoulder. He keeps his head in his hands.

“I have. I'm not going.”

“Going where?” asks Kamika.

I walk out the back door. It's easier than going all the way to the front, past the men at the tables, Bea and Scotty. The sun is sinking, outlining a pale edge of violet orange in the sky. What am I going to tell Mom? She's so crazy these days she'll come looking for Gates herself. While I'm trying to figure out what to tell Mom, a gray, rusty Monte
Carlo screeches to a stop in the parking lot. As I open my car door, a woman jumps out of the Monte Carlo in a pair of faded Levi's, a tank top, and thongs. She's taller than Kamika, thick-boned with wide shoulders. She slams the car door shut and runs toward the back entrance. A piece of gravel gets stuck in her thong and she yanks off the shoe and shakes off the pebble without slowing down. I hear Scotty yelling for Gates, and I know I've just missed Erica. A glimmer of hope crosses my mind as I drive away. Maybe Erica will make things so miserable for Gates, he'll want to go to the Wall. I look through my rearview mirror and see a blur of fluorescent blue, short shorts, and faded Levi's as Kamika and Bea charge at Erica like two bulldogs protecting their territory. The whole thing looks hopeful for Gates slipping out of town.

I
t's five o' clock in the morning when I walk out into the front yard. We're ready to load up the vehicles we rented, two seven-passenger Chrysler Voyagers, one white and one gray, and a sky-blue Nissan Maxima, all brand new. It's the first day of June, 1997, and the last week at Jimenez Elementary. Lucky we're going in June, Irene says it's the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus…all that love! We're bound to get there in one piece. I don't answer her. I'm learning to sit still and watch. Trying to figure out things hasn't done me any good lately.

I tried talking Mom into waiting until next week to leave, but she's convinced we should be on the road. This business of rushing makes me feel like I'm fighting to get ahead of something. I'm leaving things undone. The divorce is pending, the court date is next week, my kids aren't out of school, the house is still for sale, and worse still, I had to say good bye to my second-grade class early this year. My attorney, Slick Sam, says he can't postpone the court date again. I guess he's not as slick as I thought he was. Sandra postponed it twice, saying she had new evidence. I've thought of a plea bargain but that would mean I'd incur guilt. How do I explain all this to my school district? Anything on my record could mean the end of my job, still I won't call up Sandra to try to reason all this away. I've got too much pride, Mom says. Pride that might cost me my job, maybe even a warrant for traveling out of state.

The smell of orange blossoms is everywhere, heavy, sweet. Then, like perfume behind my ears, I catch the faint scent of a rose bush that leans heavily against the fence. The fence used to be chicken wire, now it's chain link. The shiftless renters next door never water their lawn, and the yellow rose bush is the only plant that has survived. I remember Ricky Navarro's mother had flowers everywhere, front and back and in pots on the porch. I walk up to the rose bush and smell the huge yellow roses, carefully outlining the petals with my finger. I miss the tall stamen of the passion flower and its purple starburst middle. Something feels amusing to me and I can't explain what it is. A big joke in the sky, like God's got a marching band on hold just for us. I look up at the sky and catch myself smiling even though I tell myself I should be serious. Is it lack of sleep that's making me giggle, or the fact that soon we'll be in Albuquerque, and I'll see Chris Montez again? Is it all the money we have? Magic! Manuel's already invested some of it in CDs, a trust fund, and savings. He's got American Express checks and an ATM card for ready cash. Motel rooms have been prepaid all along the route we're traveling. My mother asks that Manuel give Irene, Willy—and Gates, if he shows up—$500 spending money, and $1,000 each for Paul and Priscilla. I'm wondering what Irene will spend her money on—more medallions? Manuel thinks Mom's too generous with her money and should be investing in a new house. I told him he's crazy. Mom will never leave El Cielito.

I'm trying to trace the source of the happy feeling I'm getting as I stare at the door of the shiftless renters' house. The door is cracked close to the hinges. The wood around the doorknob is black. It looks like it's been open and shut by a hundred greasy hands. A sudden longing to see Ricky Navarro comes over me. I'd convince Ricky to go with us if he was here and serve him tea and cappuccino in real china cups all the way to the Wall. We'd toast each other, his green eyes smiling over the lip of the cup.

I feel like the ballerina in the glass cabinet. I spin in a pirouette. I've got on my short black overalls with a white rayon top underneath, white socks, and tennis shoes. Manuel says I still look like the high school cheerleader he remembers. I know he's exaggerating, but it feels good to hear him say it. The sun is shining on me, already warm, its white light promising another scorcher. I feel good, tingly, like a kid on the first day of school. Something is about to happen that is more than getting to the Wall. My body is telling me, my mind is reacting, and I have no idea what it's all about.

I've talked with Dr. Mann, and have emergency numbers for physi
cians and hospitals in every state. He's concerned about Mom's heart condition. The left part of her heart doesn't function well, the artery on that side is hardening. Mom takes Lipitor to keep the blood flowing and her heart vessels clear. She's got nitroglycerin on hand for chest pains caused by angina. “Not a good idea to take your mother on such a long trip, Teresa. Her high blood pressure could lead to a stroke, or something else.”

“Ok, Doctor, OK. You tell her. Maybe she'll listen to you.” The doctor tried, I have to give it to him, he tried. It was the first time my mother looked through him like he was made of glass. She nodded, yes, yes…then when we left the office, she asked me if I had the shopping done for the trip.

Lilly calls me to the phone. It's Espi telling me that she and Tommy will be praying for us all the way. “Call me, Teresa, as soon as you get there,” she says in a worried voice I can't match up with the funny child's face I keep in my memory. Hearing her voice reminds me how much I miss the crazy things we did as kids. It's that way every time I'm around Espi. We're still on the city bus, bringing home paper bags with creased-down sweaty handles filled with items on sale and layaway clothes our mothers paid on for a month. We're trying not to laugh, holding hands behind the organ as Tommy and Manuel hit the wrong note. Serves them right for standing there sweating under Yolanda's lamp just to be close to us. Espi is the keeper of my secrets, dark ones I don't understand that stand on sharp edges like razors in my soul.

Elsa, Julio, and Marisol are here to say good-bye. Elsa dressed Marisol in a pink summer dress with little sandals. I lift her up to rub my cheek against her dimpled face and kiss her. “Don't let the dog jump all over her,” I tell Elsa. The baby walks up to Cholo as soon as I put her down. “See, there he is, already jumping on her new dress!” Elsa and Julio will be staying at Mom's as much as they can. Paul put out the word around the neighborhood that we're leaving. Everybody knows that means he's got eyes watching the house. Julio's from Las Lomitas and he's not the type that will let anybody from El Cielito sneak up on him. Everybody respects reputation in a barrio, strength and the ability to defend.

Elsa's cool with me, aloof. She makes a big fuss over Mom, ignoring me. “Take your medicine, Nana, don't forget. Tell my mom to call us every day.” She looks at me, but doesn't say anything.

“I'll try to call as much as I can. Don't leave the house alone for too long. You know how Nana worries over burglars.”

“I know what to do.”

“Give your mother a hug,” Mom says.

“I will, I will,” she says, but she doesn't.

The neighborhood is coming alive, on a Sunday morning. Even the Ruiz clan, who hasn't seen a Sunday morning since they quit going to church twenty years ago, is up. Everybody thinks we're millionaires, and we are compared to everybody else. Irene's kids come over to see us off. Ray comes over to help the kids load up the cars. I'm glad he's wearing sunglasses, saves me the effort of having to look into his eyes. He picks up Marisol and turns around once with her in his arms. “Tata's princess,” he says. He walks into the house with Elsa at his side.

I lose count of all the boxes of snacks being packed in, corn nuts, fruit roll-ups, Doritos, bean dip, and things that crackle and snap in your mouth, to name a few. We should invite a whole platoon, feeding them would be no problem. Willy and his wife Susie are partly to blame for all the extra snacks. Willy grabbed all he could from the store before the new shipment came in. He wanted his dad to think everything had been bought out.

“Gotta keep it simple for Dad, Teresa. If I tell him I brought all this stuff, he'll charge me for it!” Willy says. Susie is standing next to him, a pudgy, half-Filipino, half-Chinese woman. Her ethnic background confuses people all the time. In the summertime she gets dark and looks Hawaiian, in the spring she looks Filipino, and in winter, she looks Chinese. It gets more confusing as you hear her slip from Chinese to Filipino, to Spanish, then back to English!

I'm surprised Willy's running his dad's store. He always said the farther away from his folks, the better, but I guess the Chinese way won out. Xiu and Chong Wong are in their eighties now and live with their daughter, Helen. On holidays they dress up in their Sunday best and sit on two rockers in front of the store. They still talk in Chinese that sounds like they're arguing with each other and sip tea through toothless gums. General Custer, their dog, died years ago. He was poisoned by a piece of bad meat a thief left in the yard for him. After that, Xiu decided to get a dog that would bring out the Chinese in all of them. She didn't care about General George Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn as her husband Chong Wong did. She bought a shar-pei with some of the money they hid in the walk-in refrigerator. They never kept the shar-pei at the store, it was too expensive. They named him Lin Chow, and I heard he's on his third eye operation to remove wrinkles that settle around his eyes. Without the operations Lin Chow would already be blind. Willy told me Lin Chow has cost his parents more money than all the kids put together.

I'm watching the twins and thanking God they're dressed in their baggy clothes. I don't want them stirring up Mom and Irene. I'm not in the mood to hear a description of the horrors that await disolutas who run around half-naked all the way to D.C.

Ray's already mentioned Cisco's earring several times. I think the Guadalupanas can't see it, which is why they haven't taken up on it themselves.

“How can you go to the Wall with that thing stuck in your ear?”

“Dad, some of the guys who made it through Vietnam wear earrings!” Cisco says.

“I don't wear one! Never will either.”

Ray's ignoring me. “I can drive the van,” he told me the night before we left. “Can't you put your anger aside and let me help you? Manuel doesn't have to go.”

“My mom wants Manuel to go. He's handling all the money. Besides, where will you sleep, Ray? Won't you be lonely without Sandra? She'll get mad. Oh, and by the way, tell her the subpoena she sent doesn't mean a damn thing to me. We'll see what the judge says.”

I said all this between clenched teeth. The part of me that wanted to reach out to Ray has shrunk to the size of a pea. Inside me, the cells that still remember him are floating loose, forming clusters of cells that send new messages to my brain, messages that are untangling knots I've held inside since the days of Consuelo and Dad.

Blanche and Betty show up with a tin of peach cobbler.

“Here, Teresa, get some meat on them bones,” Blanche says to me. She gives Mom a big hug that lasts over a minute. “Alicia, don't you worry 'bout nothin'. 'Member when our Lord healed you from the migraines? Nothing to it, praise be to His name!” Both women are crying.

“Is Gates coming?” Mom asks. “We'll wait for him.”

“NO! Don't wait!” says Blanche, alarmed. “That man don't know if it's day or night.”

“But…I—”

“Mom, we don't know. He still might come,” I tell her.

“Call him up, mija,” she tells me.

“Oh, no, Alicia! Who knows where that man is!”

“Drive safe, Manuel,” Blanche says. “My aunt lives in D.C., and she doesn't even own a car. She's so s'cred of driving up there she moves by subway.”

“I'll be real careful, Blanche. Too many women looking over my shoulder,” Manuel says.

Riding up the street in a black Riviera is Priscilla and her new boyfriend. I think his name is Albert. He's dark with broad shoulders. He drops Priscilla and the boys off. Priscilla gets out of the car wearing Levi's cut-offs, a black tank top, and wooden clogs.

Paul looks closely at Albert. “I think I saw him in the pen,” he says.

“Got everything ready, Teresa?” Priscilla asks me. “I know how you crave organization.”

“I'm sure I forgot something, if that makes you feel better.”

“Here they go!” Paul says. “I hope the two of you make it to the Wall in one piece. I can just see one of you making a U-turn and coming back home.”

Priscilla kisses Albert, and they say good-bye.

“Hey,” Paul calls out. “You done some time?”

Albert ignores him and drives away.

“Shut up, Paul!” Priscilla says. “Just cause you've spent half your life in there, you think everybody else has, too.”

“I never forget a pretty face,” Paul says sarcastically.

Coming up the street is the Channel 5 van.

“Uh, look at this! Michael's got the news people out again,” Paul says. “That kid's got a big head. Needs a little deflating, if you ask me.”

“Don't start!” Donna tells him. “He can't help it if he's smart.”

“Don't start with me, Donna!”

“Stop talking so loud. You'll upset your mom.”

“He's my kid, Donna. Remember, I am his father. I can have my opinions about my own kid.”

My shoulders slump. Already I'm tired of Paul and Donna, and the trip hasn't even started! By the time I walk up to the Channel 5 van, Michael is explaining the route we will take to the redheaded reporter, Holly Stevens. Michael's got a map of the U.S. with a dark, red line drawn across the center. The camera is rolling on Michael and the scene of us loading up the cars.

“We'll take Interstate 17 to Flagstaff, then Interstate 40 through Winslow to Albuquerque to pick up my uncle's friend Chris Montez. From Albuquerque we'll go on I-25,
I
means interstate, to Colorado Springs, running into state highway 24, then back to I-70 to Topeka, Kansas, and all the way to Baltimore and Washington, D.C.”

“My, aren't you the little map expert!”

“This is nothing. I want to be a cosmologist when I grow up. I have to start somewhere.”