In Perfect Light

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  “You never told me that she was your friend.”

  “I loved her.” Dave could see his hands trembling. He hated to see him like that—wounded and hurt. He hated that more than anything.

  “You could have told me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t.”

  “You didn’t kill Homero.”

  “Sure, I did.”

  “He died of a heart attack.”

  “As I was beating the crap out of him.”

  “His bruises were minor.”

  “So why did they charge me?”

  “It’s complicated. What do you remember about your hearing?”

  “Not much. You made some kind of deal. Look, you want to know the truth? I wasn’t paying attention. You cared more than I did. You got me off. That’s all I know. I guess I never cared to know the details.”

  “Those details are your life, Andrés. You can’t just check out like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s your life.”

  “And what a life it’s been, Dave.” He pointed at the bartender and then at his empty glass. “Look, Silvia was gone. Everyone was gone. Even Ileana. But at least she wasn’t dead. She was out there somewhere in the world. But she didn’t belong to me anymore. So Silvia was the end of all that. So I didn’t care. And then you decided that it wasn’t the end for me, so you rode into town on your goddamned BMW and rescued me.”

  “And you’ve never forgiven me for it.”

  “I told you then I didn’t give a shit. What you did, you did for yourself. You did it for Dave, not for Andrés Segovia.”

  He Was Happy

  I’m bringing him home this afternoon, Grace.”

  She was sitting in her backyard, drinking coffee as she talked on the phone. Staring at the morning light. She pictured his smile.

  “Grace?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You’re not saying anything.”

  “I’m listening to you be happy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really, amor.”

  “You haven’t called me amor in a long time.” He paused, then whispered, “I love you, Grace. I always have.”

  “I know, amor.”

  “Liz and I are doing the right thing.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Grace?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “Mister, have you been talking to Richard Garza?” She stopped herself from saying anything else. Already she’d said too much.

  Mister listened to her silence. There was something wrong.

  “You’re bringing a son home today, Mister. We shouldn’t be talking about me.”

  “Grace—”

  “When you and Liz get settled in with Vicente, we’ll talk.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You promise?”

  All that hope in his voice. “I promise.” She could picture his smile. She shook her head.

  “Coming over tonight? Liz and I want you to come.”

  “To see my new grandson? Of course, amor.”

  Apocalypse:

  Everything Happens in an Instant

  (Timing and Order in the Universe)

  This is the story of the world: A man gets into a car. He takes a drive. It is not an unusual thing—to get into a car and drive it down the street. For an instant, the man is distracted as he drives. This, too, is not unusual—the world has many distractions. Too late, he sees a car has run a red light. He tries to react—the reflex of his foot on the brake—and though his reflexes are good, there is no reflex quick or agile enough to avoid the impact. There is a screeching—a look of panic on the faces of the two drivers who realize, God, God, all the angels and saints—and then a crash. Metal on metal. Metal on bone. Blood. Perhaps a scream, perhaps a final prayer I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins and a man or a woman or a child who was alive a second ago is dead now. The man, who was in the middle of his life, has suddenly reached an early end. There is a randomness to this ballet of death. This is the order of things. This is the secret to understanding the universe.

  Everything happens in an instant.

  Normalcy. And then apocalypse.

  Mister and Liz took the day off. To prepare. They cleaned the house. They dusted all their books, cleaned the already clean wood floors, mopped the bathroom, scrubbed the tile, put a new bedspread on Vicente’s bed, fussed with it out of nervous energy. They sang as they worked, lost and happy in the pleasure of their pedestrian tasks. Mister hung up a Diego Rivera print that Liz had found in a vintage store. Children breaking a piñata. He would tell Vicente stories of the painting, would give a name to each child, would tell him about the artist one day, and about the murals he painted in Mexico City, largest city in the world. And Vicente would come to know it, to see it, to understand everything about this image that he had chosen to hang on his wall.

  They did not stop until everything was spotless—the kitchen, the bathroom, the hallway, the two bedrooms. The back porch was swept, and reswept. Everything was rearranged, for a blind boy to find his way around. Everything was ready. In this house, nothing would ever hurt him.

  When they were done, they showered.

  They made love to each other in Vicente’s new room.

  Grace closed the file, made sure it was labeled properly, then placed it back in its rightful place. She nodded approvingly as she thumbed through a cabinet full of her files. It was a good system, her records beyond reproach. She was proud of that—a symbol of her professionalism. She hated people who were careless with other people’s lives. Perhaps her files were as much a tribute to her care as they were to her pride. Not a virtue, your pride, Grace. Sam’s accusations had been too gentle. And he had always been too quick to forgive her.

  She looked over her files one more time. So many of them. So many cases. So many lives. Well, this had been her life’s work. Maybe she was an archivist after all. Maybe her sense of order would survive her, if only in the files she left behind. But maybe they could still be of use. Too many of her clients were recidivists, addicted to their broken lives, always returning to their crippled ways. Her files could still be of use.

  She was confused now about seeking treatment. Maybe she’d just been angry over the news. Maybe she’d lost hope. Or maybe she was just afraid. That made her normal. The dream had come to her again. Sam and Mister were clinging to each other, spinning each other around. Around and around until they became the light itself. She woke, their names in her throat.

  But God had sent another day. She’d almost wept at the sight of the morning sun.

  And then Mister had called.

  In the lateness of the afternoon, Mister called the Rubios. “I’m on my way.”

  If Mr. Rubio was sad to let Vicente go, there was no trace of that sadness in his voice. “He’s waiting for you. He spoke today, for the first time. He patted his heart and said, ‘Mister.’”

  Mister hung up the phone. And patted his own heart.

  He stared at Grace’s picture on the shelf as he was walking out the door. He picked it up and kissed it. “I’m not afraid, Grace.” He put the picture back down and walked into the kitchen. Liz was grating cheese for the tacos. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “No. I want you to be the first thing he senses when he walks into this house.”

  Andrés didn’t come back to his house that night. He thought of Ileana, and then remembered it was his fifteenth birthday, and maybe this was the best gift anyone could have given him—his little sister wasn’t dead, and she didn’t have to live like them, like him and Yolie.

  But he wasn’t going to do this anymore. Not anymore. He would wait and hide and lurk in the streets and get Silvia to help him. He would stay until Carmen got word that Ileana was safe. Then he would leave. Not that there was any going back to Mrs. Fernandez. It was too late for all that
. But he knew there were people who took in children, and though he didn’t feel like a child anymore, he was still only fourteen. He knew that you couldn’t do anything when you were his age—except maybe what he was doing now. And he would never do this again. No one would ever touch him again. Not ever. For any reason. He’d kill them first.

  He didn’t care about Yolie anymore. And Yolie didn’t care about him. She was lost. She was in a worse hell than him. She wouldn’t last long. He knew that. The drugs were in her and owned her, and she spent all her money on getting them. Silvia had tried to get her to stop. Even Silvia, who thought everyone could be saved, even Silvia thought Yolie was lost.

  He didn’t know what time it was, but it was late. He decided to go to La Brisa to see if he could find Silvia. The bar was dim. He sat at the bar, the bartender poured him a Coke, and he lit a cigarette, and as he lit it, he saw her. He waved at her, and she came up to him and kissed him. “Mi hombrecito.”

  She was the only one who could touch him now. He told her everything, what had happened, what he’d done. “You did the right thing,” she said. “I know a place you can stay—until we hear word about Ileana. Then I’ll take you to El Paso.”

  She took him to a house that was not very different from the house where he lived. A lot of people lived there, a group of transvestites. She told them Andrés needed a place to stay. They were nice to him, and told him he could stay for as long he needed to. He was tired, and they made a space on an old couch and told him that was his new bed. He fell asleep, even though there was a lot of noise in the house. He had already learned to sleep through every kind of noise.

  When he woke, he found a suitcase at the foot of the couch with all his things in it. And a note from Silvia. “Never tell Yolie where you are. She’ll sell you to Homero for another fix.”

  He stayed there for a few weeks. He didn’t know how long, maybe a month. Silvia told him not to go out. “Homero has people everywhere,” she said. “He owns half the whores on the street, and if they see you, God knows what that bastard will do to you.”

  So he didn’t go out. And every day, Silvia would go and visit Carmen and ask about Ileana. Andrés felt like he was a prisoner, like he would be a secret forever. That was his punishment for agreeing to leave Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez with a broken heart. You have to pay for everything you’ve done. His mother had told him that. And so now he would have to pay, for everything he’d done for the past three years. He knew that God had stopped believing in a boy like him.

  One day, Silvia came by early in the morning. She seemed sad, and he knew something was wrong. “Ileana?” he said. He felt his heart throbbing faster and faster.

  “No, it’s not Ileana. Carmen has heard nothing.”

  “What, then?”

  “It’s your sister, Yolie.”

  “What?”

  “Carmen found her lying in an alley, most of her clothes torn off. She’s dead, Andrés. She’s gone.” Andrés didn’t know why Silvia was crying. Yolie hadn’t been nice to her—not ever. But there she was, sobbing for Yolie, and he wondered why some people stayed soft no matter what happened to them. Not him. He was hard, now. Maybe harder than Mando or Yolie had ever been. He’d been a soft little boy. But that boy had been killed, and this hard boy was the only thing that was left—a boy so hard that he didn’t even cry when he heard his older sister was dead. He didn’t even ask where she was going to be buried. He didn’t care about anything.

  He lit a cigarette, and told Silvia not to cry. “No llores. Ya basta de laigrimas.”

  “Silvia made sure Yolie had a church funeral. She made all the arrangements. Though I don’t remember how she did it. I do remember that she changed back into a man when she went to see the priest at the cathedral. It was strange to see him dressed as a man. He was a woman to me. I never even asked him his real name. You know, I didn’t go to the funeral.”

  Grace nodded.

  “You don’t disapprove?”

  “Why would I disapprove?”

  “She was my sister.”

  “You have every right to hate her.”

  “I do hate her.”

  “And so you’re a bad man—because when you were fifteen, you were so angry and so numb that you refused to go to her funeral?”

  “I don’t forgive myself.”

  “One of these days you’re going to stop beating the crap out of yourself.”

  “You don’t know about some of the things I’ve done.”

  “And if I knew, I’d hate you, is that it?”

  “Yes, you might.”

  There was a softness in his voice that she had never heard before. “I don’t think so.” She smiled and nodded at him. “You wouldn’t mind, would you, if I had one of your cigarettes?”

  “I thought you quit.”

  “I’ve picked it up again. You see, Andrés, the thing about life is that we’re always backtracking. We think we’ll never pass a certain street again—not ever. We think we’re done with it. And years later, we’re on that street again. Retracing our steps. Looking for something we left behind.”

  “Cigarettes. We’re looking for cigarettes.”

  He was smart and could say such charming things. If life had been different for him, he would have been like Sam—educated and sophisticated and intellectual. And she wondered if maybe that’s what she saw in this young man—a stunted beauty of a man who might still grow. Even in his damaged state, he could light up a room. He could fill it with a presence that was large and rare. Like Sam. And wasn’t it funny, that this young man should come into her life even as she was dying? She could feel it, that death. It was beginning to have a presence, too. Yes, wasn’t it funny, that she should feel such affection for this young man. That she should care so much. They were friends, that’s how it felt. She, who never let things like this happen with her clients. But it didn’t matter anymore. Because he was the last. And she was free of her professionalism. But she wasn’t free to be careless. And anyway, she didn’t have to worry about carelessness. She didn’t have it in her.

  She let him light her cigarette. “Tell me. I want to know how you came back.”

  “To El Paso?”

  “Yes.”

  Mister didn’t notice. Not at first. Mister didn’t notice that there was a man and a woman at the Rubios’ front door. He was in his head, having a conversation with Vicente, What should we name your bear? When he stepped out of the car, he did notice. The man was holding a gun to the woman’s head. He could see the whole scene clearly. Everything became perfectly clear to him in that instant. It was Vicente’s mother—he recognized her. Mr. Rubio tried to wave him away, but it was too late.

  The man turned to Mister and pointed the gun at Mr. Rubio. “I’ll kill him, you fuck. If you say a word, I’ll kill him. Then fuckin’ kill you, too.”

  Mister nodded. Grace had taught him to stay calm when things went wrong. So he tried his best to be her son, stay calm, steady, calm. But his beating heart wasn’t cooperating. He told himself everything was going to be okay. Everything was going to be fine. He and Vicente and Grace would be having dinner in an hour.

  The woman wore a look of panic and disbelief. She looked at Mister, and he knew she was saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and he wanted to tell her that it was okay, that everything would be okay and that it wasn’t her fault and he hoped she knew that with the way he looked at her—but it was so hard to tell what she saw in his face. Maybe he was wearing a look of panic, too. He didn’t know.

  For an instant, he thought of running. He could save himself. But he emptied himself of the urge. Everything would be okay. None of this was happening. It was a joke or a bad dream, and he would wake soon, and he and Vicente would get in his car and go home. Go home to Liz, who was waiting for them. And Grace would be coming, too.

  “You’ll regret one day that you didn’t say good-bye to Yolie.”

  Andrés nodded. “I’ll regret everything one day.”

  “You don’t talk li
ke a boy.”

  “What do I talk like?”

  “Like an old man.”

  He shrugged.

  “Amor, it’s time for you to go back.”

  “I won’t. Not until I hear word about Ileana.”

  “She’s everything, isn’t she?”

  “Somebody has to make it out alive.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m already dead.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You’re just a boy.”

  “I thought you just said I talked like a very old man.”

  “You’re still a boy.”

  That’s what they said to each other, Silvia and Andrés, the evening of Yolie’s burial. They talked and smoked, and then walked to Carmen’s house, even though Silvia said he shouldn’t be out on the streets. Carmen was packing her things when they arrived. “I’m leaving in the morning. I’m going back to Jalisco. Homero gave me a day to leave.” She smiled, such a sad smile. “I should have left a long time ago.” Then she laughed. She handed Andrés a handwritten note. Andrés unfolded the note. “Ileana’s living in California. She’s safe.” He found himself running down the street, running and running and running and running, and he found himself in that bar where Homero had taken him and Ileana one night, and when he rushed into the bar, he saw him, Homero, and he jumped on him like a tiger pouncing on his prey, and he was pounding on him, pounding and knocking him to the ground, and he heard himself yelling, “I hate you! I hate you! You sonofabitch! Rot in hell, you sonofabitch!” Andrés didn’t remember anything after that—except that Silvia and another man carried him out of the bar before Homero could get up from the floor where he was lying. And he remembered Silvia whispering, “I’m taking you back tonight.”