Monstress (7 page)

He set a Snickers bar and a banana next to my pillow. “Eat breakfast and let's go.”

On my own, the walk to Chinatown took seventeen minutes; with Papa Felix, it was twice as long. But I stayed ahead, by half a block sometimes, and when he caught up at the butcher shop he was out of breath, and he accused me of trying to lose him in the crowd. He took a seat on a bench outside the Chinese bakery next door, then gave me a fifty-dollar bill. “Just get it done,” he said.

I entered the shop, pushed my way through the crowd to take a number. They called me twenty minutes later; I paid for the livers and left. But outside, the bench was empty; Papa Felix was inside the bakery now, sitting at a corner table with three silver-haired Chinese women. They leaned in as he spoke, nodding despite the quizzical looks on their faces. I couldn't remember the last time he'd solicited business like this, but his method was the same—he tapped their foreheads with his thumb, shut his eyes, and mouthed secret prayers to himself. It was always a bogus-looking act, but at some point I just assumed that Filipinos were somehow predisposed to believing anyone who claimed to understand their pain. And yet I could imagine these Chinese women making appointments with Papa Felix, who would insist they pay up front, then arrange for them to meet us long after we'd gone; he'd done it before. I pictured these women knocking on our hotel door, awaiting help that would never come.

I went inside, walked up to Papa Felix. “I'm ready to go,” I said. His eyes were still closed and he kept on praying, so I shook his shoulder. “Open your eyes. Let's go.”

He turned to me, gave a mean look that I gave right back. “I'm
working
,” he said.

“I'm not.” I slammed the bag of livers on the table. The Chinese women glared at me with scolding faces.

I walked to the end of the block. I tried to cross, but the light was red, and Papa Felix caught up with me. “What were you trying to do in there?” he asked.

I pressed the button for the crosswalk. “Nothing.”

“The maid yesterday. Those women today. You're trying to tell them about us?”

I pressed the button again and again.

“You think I'm stupid.” He grabbed my arm, squeezed it tight. “I know about you, Felix.”

He was stronger than I thought. “Let me go,” I said, then finally pushed him off. He stumbled back, almost fell, and the bag of livers slipped from his hands, everything inside spilling onto the sidewalk.

The traffic light was still red, but I crossed the street. Papa Felix would be close behind me, so I walked faster, zigzagging through the tourist crowds. Police blocked the next intersection—a moving truck had rear-ended a minivan—and I couldn't continue. So I turned around, ready to face him, to say whatever needed to be said. But he wasn't there. I started back through the crowds and finally found him still on the corner, head bowed like a mourner at a grave. He was bent down, picking up the livers from the sidewalk, one by one; a true believer might have thought he was extracting Negativities from the Earth itself. To me, he looked like a penniless man gathering coins.

“Just leave them,” I said. “Let's go.” Standing over him, I could see the silver in his roots, all that I'd missed.

What else could I do? I joined Papa Felix on the ground and helped him clean up. People who passed us looked curious, then repulsed by the livers in our hands. Some shook their heads, like they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

T
hat whole day his focus was off. Twice he palmed a liver but not a blood bag, which made for oddly bloodless Extractions. Then he did the opposite with the last patient, extracting nothing but blood. He tried to explain: “Nothing is there. Nothing is wrong with you.” The patient got up and refused to pay, then peeled a plastic crucifix from the wall and dropped it on the ground. He slammed the door on his way out, so hard the walls shook. And I realized I was done.

I began cleaning up, one last time, and made no ceremony of it: I simply put things away. All the while Papa Felix just stood by the window, staring straight ahead at the vacant building across the street. Only when I took the day's cash from the ice bucket did he finally speak. “Don't deposit the money,” he said. “You keep it. Belated birthday gift.”

Birthday.
I had turned nineteen three weeks before, on the plane to America. But I didn't know exactly when it happened—that whole time in the sky I wasn't sure if it was today or tomorrow, which country was ahead or behind and by how many hours or days—not until Papa Felix leaned over, in the moment before he fell asleep, to whisper, “Happy Birthday.”

I put the cash in my pocket. “I'll take it to the bank.”

“I know what you think of me, Felix. But it's the best I could do.” He was still staring out the window, but squinting now, as if the evening moon were unbearably bright. “Can you tell me the name of a man who would do any different?”

I didn't answer. I grabbed my windbreaker and backpack. I checked the peephole before leaving, but as I stepped into the hall I noticed a small, white envelope on the floor. I picked it up. Inside was a picture of Papa Felix, and on the back was a note that read
Felix Starro and Felix Starro. Regards, Mrs. Celica Delgado
. It was the photo she'd taken two days before, and when I looked closer I saw part of me within it, the very edge of my face. But what struck me was Papa Felix's graying eyes and the sinking skin beneath, his knobby shoulders, the fading color of his old hands.

T
hat night, Papa Felix slept even more deeply, and I took the cash from the inner lining in my luggage and packed it into a large, padded envelope, then put it inside my backpack. I slipped into bed but stayed awake. It was morning by the time I finally closed my eyes, noon when I woke.

Papa Felix was dressed, packing his clothes. “Last full day in America,” he said.

I got out of bed. “You didn't wake me.”

“It's a long plane ride back,” he said. “Best to sleep now, as much as you can.”

I showered, dressed. My meeting with Flora Ramirez was at 3
P.M.
; I told Papa Felix I would spend the day souvenir shopping. “Souvenirs,” he said. “Waste of money, waste of time. What's to remember about this place?” He looked at me expectantly, as though he wouldn't move or speak until I answered.

I gathered my things, promised to be back before dark.

T
he taxicab driver said that Flora Ramirez lived on the edge of the continent. “If the big one hits,” he said, “you're out to sea.”

We turned onto La Playa, stopped in front of the seventeenth house. Metal bars covered the windows, and dried-up ivy spread over the walls, hiding the address.

I stepped out of the cab, walked to the door. I meant to knock but she opened first, as though she'd been watching me through the peephole. I followed her in, up a flight of carpeted stairs to the living room. This was my first time in an American house, but it wasn't so different from any house back home—there was a two-person couch and a white wicker rocking chair, a small glass table in between. I'd expected flowers, but there were none that I could see, not even a vase.

The house was silent, and I wondered if Flora Ramirez had any family. Yet on the floor, propped against the wall, was a large picture frame full of faces and bodies cut out from photos, like a creature with a hundred different heads. Closer, I saw that they were all Filipino, some smiling, some not, and I recognized one of them, a small body in the middle. It was TonyBoy, Charma's cousin. His hand was up like he was waving hello or goodbye at the camera. I wondered when my picture would be added, where Flora Ramirez would place it.

“Those are the ones I help,” Flora Ramirez said. There were several brown envelopes in her hand. “Do you see how happy they are?”

“I see TonyBoy.” I pointed at his picture.

She blinked.

“TonyBoy Llamas. My girlfriend's cousin.”

She nodded, then put the envelopes on the table. “Check them.” She sat on the rocking chair.

I picked one up, took out the ID card inside. It was a driver's license, my first ever; blue capital letters spelled out
CALIFORNIA
across the top. My picture was grainy and faded, as if taken years instead of two days before, and the expression on my face surprised me, how it matched what I felt now: my eyes were focused but blank, my mouth plain and straight as a minus sign.

Then I saw it.

John Arroyo Cruz
was the name printed beside my face. The signature below spelled it out, unmistakably.

“Is there a problem?” Flora Ramirez asked.

“John,” I said.

“Nobody keeps a name. That's not the process.”

I set the card down on the table.

She said it again: “Nobody keeps a name.”

The thing to do was nod and say,
I understand,
to accept what she had done with gratitude, without questions. But I wanted to know: “Who is he?”

She leaned back in the rocking chair, silent for a moment, like she didn't want to answer. “A store clerk from L.A.,” she finally said. “Killed one year ago. I know the parents.” I glanced over the faces on the floor. I wondered what names Flora Ramirez had given them, and what people she had taken them from.

Suddenly my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Charma. “I need to answer,” I said. “Sorry.”

She got up from her chair, said, “Be quick,” then went into the kitchen.

I flipped open my phone, moved to the corner of the room. “I can't talk,” I whispered, “but listen: How's TonyBoy?”

“Who?” Static crackled over Charma's voice. “Are you there?”

“I'm here. Have you heard from TonyBoy?”

“TonyBoy?” She paused. “Not in months. Maybe a year. Why?”

I looked out the window. Beyond the metal bars the ocean appeared motionless, the clouds above equally still, and on the street below there was no one, just a few cars passing by. At the end of Flora Ramirez's driveway, a trash can lay on its side, rolling back and forth with the wind. I imagined myself in the future, walking down a similar street: If someone called out
John,
would I answer? Would I even turn around?

I told Charma I had to go, then hung up without saying goodbye.

Flora Ramirez returned, sat in her rocking chair. I took my place on the couch. She mentioned the hour, the other appointments she had today, and I knew it was time for me to pay. I unzipped my backpack. The padded envelope was right there, plump with all the cash inside, but I pretended to search through the various compartments of my bag. “I made a mistake,” I said. I explained I had two similar bags, one for sightseeing and one for business, and I'd brought the wrong one with me. “If I could have more time”—I zipped up my backpack—“I can bring it later today.”

She stared at me for a moment; I knew she didn't believe me. But she didn't call me a liar, didn't reach for my backpack. She simply rocked back and forth, like she was giving me a chance to confess the truth. “If I could have more time,” I said again, and my heart would not slow down.

“You do what you need to do.” She looked out the window, toward the ocean.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

We stood up, and I followed her down the stairs. Neither of us mentioned my possible return, and neither of us said goodbye. I wondered if Flora Ramirez was her real name, and if not, who she had been before.

I walked to the end of the block and waited for a taxicab, remembering the driver's license and the life I'd glimpsed from it: John Arroyo Cruz lived in a city called Riverside, was born two years before I was. His eyes were brown—mine were true black—and he was five feet six inches, slightly shorter than me. At the bottom of the license, I had noticed the word
donor,
and now I pictured myself dead, thinking, if I were not Felix Starro anymore, what would be taken from me, what would be left.

D
espite my steady cell phone signal on the taxi ride back, I didn't call Charma. Instead, I typed a text message that said
There is a problem
. What it meant exactly, I didn't know; but as I hit
SEND
, the days ahead became perfectly clear: there would be sixteen hours on a plane, sitting across the aisle from Papa Felix, yet in the moments before landing I would wish for takeoff again, just a little more time in midair. Then, it would be night after night of jet lag, sitting on the edge of my bed, wide awake.

It was almost dark by the time I returned to the hotel. I took the elevator up, and when the door slid open the Filipino maid was standing there, purse clutched to her chest. I stepped out and she stepped in. Her eyes were red from crying, but she couldn't stop smiling; and just as the door slid closed I heard it again—a sigh, that breath of relief.

I ran to Papa Felix.

The room smelled like sampaguitas again, and everything was back—the massage table, the rosaries and crucifixes, the candles. Papa Felix was at the bathroom sink, scrubbing his hands. “Was she here?” I said. “The maid?”

He looked at me in the mirror. “Liar,” he said. “That girl knew all about us.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I helped her. That girl is pregnant. And do you know why she came to see me? To take it out of her. She said it was a miracle that I was here to fix it.” He dried his hands, then reached beneath the sink for the Cutty Sark. “Sixteen, pregnant, wanting to kill her baby. It's an ugly country.”

“She thinks it's gone? That everything is okay?”

“I helped that girl, more than she knows. Someday she'll understand. You, too, God willing.” He poured what was left of the whiskey, drank it down. I imagined the maid walking along the street with peace of mind, dazzled by the miracles of Felix Starro, so grateful for them. I thought how light she must feel, believing all her Negativities were gone, just like that.