In Perfect Light

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  “We won’t take anything,” Silvia said. He watched her change and become a man again. He didn’t like it, that she changed back into a man. He hated men. He hated them because of the things they did. “I was born in El Paso, did I ever tell you? My name is Guillermo.”

  “I like Silvia better.”

  “Me, too. But not tonight.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “My sister’s house. She lives in El Paso. You’ll be safe, now, like Ileana.”

  He nodded. When they were both dressed, they went out into the streets. They made their way to the bridge. At the top, over the river, in between the two flags of the two countries, Andrés looked back.

  “Don’t,” Guillermo said, “Never look back. Nunca, nunca, nunca.” As they walked toward the American side of the bridge, Guillermo whispered, “When they ask you to declare your citizenship, just say American.”

  “I can’t prove it.”

  “You can prove it with your English.”

  “What about you?”

  “I have my papers. If they ask, tell them I’m your uncle.”

  Andrés felt his heart beating as he waited in the long line. When it was his turn, he smiled and said, “American citizen.”

  The man in the uniform looked at him. “Are you alone?”

  He thought his heart would burst. “I’m with my uncle.” He turned around and pointed at Guillermo, who was waiting right behind him.

  The man nodded and motioned him to keep moving.

  Andrés smiled and walked on. When he left the building, he waited for Guillermo. When Guillermo caught up with him, Andrés broke into tears. Guillermo held him and told him he was safe now. “It’s over,” Guillermo kept repeating the words. Andrés repeated the words, too. He wanted to believe. It’s over.

  “It’s still not over, Grace.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “I never even bothered to look for Ileana.”

  “It’s not too late.” She opened her drawer, then took out the sheets of paper. “I think these belong to you.” She placed the pages on her desk.

  “Where did you get those?”

  There was a fire in his eyes. She was glad for the fire. She picked up the pages and handed them to him. “Take them. I’d read them if I were you. You might find something that’s at least worth the paper it’s written on.”

  Andrés took the sheets of paper and stared at them. He folded them carefully and placed them back in his shirt pocket.

  “That’s why you got mad—because they took what you wrote away from you.”

  “What do you suggest would’ve been the appropriate response?”

  “Did you at least give one of them a decent punch?”

  “One of them had to go to the dentist.”

  She laughed, then shook her head. “I don’t approve of violence.” She looked at him and searched his face. “You should look for her.”

  “And if she’s dead?”

  “And if she’s alive?”

  “Alive. There’s a word.”

  The man waved him inside with the gun. Mister watched the man, the look of rage and confusion on his face. He stared at the waving gun. It’s like a movie, he thought to himself, one of those movies with a familiar plot, the part of the crazed man played by a mediocre method actor.

  The first thing he saw when he entered the living room was Vicente clinging to Mrs. Rubio. She looked at him, but said nothing.

  “Sit down. Everybody, sit the fuck down!” The man, the crazed man, kept Vicente’s mother by his side.

  He sat down next to Mr. Rubio on the couch. Mr. Rubio squeezed Mister’s hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  Mr. Rubio shook his head and shrugged.

  “Don’t fucking move unless I tell you to.” He looked at Mister, then looked at the woman. “Puta. You’re nothing but a puta, Alicia.” Spanish wasn’t his first language. “That the guy you gave our son to? That the guy?”

  Alicia shook her head. Mister knew her name now.

  He slapped her hard, and she stumbled to the floor. He pointed the gun at her. “I asked if he was the one.”

  “Yes,” Mister said. “I’m the one.”

  Andrés remembered waking up in Guillermo’s arms. He looked around the room and saw the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The flames were calm, calmer than the flames in his own heart. He slipped out from under Guillermo’s arms and went to the window. He looked out into the backyard. There was a hummingbird sucking on a blossom on the pomegranate tree. He didn’t know anything about hummingbirds except that his father had told him that they liked to fight. So maybe you could like to fight and still be beautiful, like the hummingbirds.

  On that first day, Guillermo took him everywhere. They walked through downtown, and Guillermo bought him clothes—shirts and pants and shoes and tennis shoes and underwear and T-shirts and socks and everything. “For a new life,” he said. Guillermo borrowed his sister’s car, and he took him out to eat at a place called the State Line, and they ate ribs and potato salad and bread and barbeque beans, and they ate and ate until Andrés thought he would burst.

  And afterward, they went back to his sister’s house, and they sat on chairs in the backyard and smoked and talked. “Tomorrow, you have to go see a caseworker.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You have to live somewhere. They’ll give you a nice family—unless you want to go see if Mrs. Fernandez will take you in.”

  “No. Let her alone.”

  “Then we have to get you into the system.”

  “The system?”

  “You know, there are people who care for kids—”

  “I’m not a kid.”

  “Okay. But you’re a minor.”

  “I don’t want to live with anybody but you.”

  “I live in Juárez.”

  “Move back here.”

  “That’s my home. I won’t come back here. And besides, you need a decent family.”

  “You’re decent.”

  Guillermo kissed him.

  Andrés looked at him. “I want you to be Silvia again.”

  “I am Silvia. Only when I come to El Paso, I have to be Guillermo—and that’s not who I want to be. You understand, Andrés?”

  Andrés nodded.

  “My sister thinks I’m taking advantage of you. She gave me a lecture.”

  “Then your sister doesn’t know you.”

  “Well, a man with a boy—what is she supposed to think?”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Don’t tell her anything.”

  “She just wants us to leave, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will I see you?”

  “Every week. We’ll make a date. Saturdays at noon at San Jacinto Plaza. We’ll smoke and talk and have lunch.”

  “You promise?”

  “And did he keep his promise?”

  “She.”

  Grace nodded. “She. Did she keep her promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Almost every week for two years, Silvia and I saw each other.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  “When she died. No, that’s not right. When he killed her—that’s when I decided it was over. First my mother and father. And then Mando and Yolie. And then Ileana—”

  “But Ileana may be alive.”

  “I lost her just the same.” He lit a cigarette. “Mom and Dad and Yolie and Mando and Ileana. And then Silvia. And then I just said, Screw it all to hell. It’s over.”

  “And here you are.”

  “Yeah. Here I am.”

  “Maybe you’re just in love with being an outsider. You can join the human race any time you want to.”

  “What makes you think I want to join? I live in the kind of world that looks at me like I’m some kind of freak. You know, when I told Dave I hadn’t gone to college, he flinched. Just
for a second. He was so surprised. I don’t think he could believe a guy like me could be smart or articulate about anything—because I hadn’t gone to college. Maybe it’s better if people think you’re stupid or slow. They don’t expect anything. I live in a world that doesn’t expect anything of me because it’s already decided I don’t matter.”

  “What the world expects? What does that matter?”

  “I wasn’t born a gringo, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I wasn’t either, Andrés. In case you hadn’t noticed. And I wasn’t even born a man.”

  “Big fucking deal, Grace. I was born a man and used like a woman. You don’t have a goddamned thing on me.”

  “This isn’t a contest, Andrés. You win the one that says you’ve been screwed over more than anybody else in the universe. You win that one. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t know anything. I know a few things about what the world does and doesn’t expect of you. I never worried that much about it. I went to the University of Texas. Already that made me more successful than most people who grew up in my neighborhood. And every time I did spectacularly well in my classes, and I’m here to tell you that I did spectacularly well, I could always see the look of surprise on my professors’ faces. You don’t think I noticed? What you saw on Dave’s face, I saw every damned day of my academic career. So what, Andrés? I wanted to do something, to be something—and I did it. I don’t think I deserve a medal, and I don’t think I’m particularly special. I wanted to do something, and I figured out a way to do it. But I’ll say this, too, Andrés, I was lucky. I was a very lucky girl. I had someone who kissed away all my bruises.” She smiled. “Me and my Sam, when we were young, we had a lot of fight.”

  “I’m glad for you.”

  “Are you?”

  He looked at her. He wanted her to understand this one truth. “Whatever you have, I’m sure you’ve more than earned.” He clenched his teeth. “The war I’m fighting—it’s not against you, Grace.”

  “At least you’re fighting.”

  “And you, Grace? Are you still fighting?”

  She was surprised. By his question.

  All he saw was the man’s eyes, dark as a sky about to let loose a flood on the land. He looked back and pleaded—but only with his eyes.

  The man looked down at Alicia. “So you thought he’d make a better father? You think he looks like me? Do you? Do you, goddamnit!” He pointed the gun away from the woman and pointed it in Mister’s direction. He’d never dreamed an end like this. He looked at Vicente. That’s how he wanted to leave—looking at Vicente.

  When the bullet struck his heart, he had enough breath in him to utter Liz’s name—and then Grace’s. Their names echoed in the room for an instant. And then everything was quiet. And the light was gone.

  He was at least spared the carnage that followed. His turned out to be the kindest death.

  Andrés arrived at Grace’s office at 4:00. Exactly on time for his appointment. Mister left his house at 4:30. He arrived at the Rubio’s at 4:54—exactly six minutes after Robert Lawson arrived with Alicia Esparza at his side. At 5:07, as Andrés was leaving Grace’s office, Mister was dead, warm blood still flowing out of his chest. At 5:25, when Grace was getting into her car to go home, everyone else in the Rubio house was dead—the gunman included.

  Robert Lawson left a note and put it on the kitchen table before he pointed the gun at himself: “This is what happens in a world where fathers don’t count.”

  He left the boy Vicente alive. Unable to wake anyone up from their sleep, Vicente decided to lie down next to Mister.

  Grace, Liz, Light, and the Sadness of Dreams

  The emergency room at Thomason Hospital resembled a morgue. Grace Delgado and her three sisters sat in the waiting room. They said little, but when they managed to utter a word or two, they spoke in whispers. Grace was stoic, just as she had been after Sam had died. She retreated to her own desert, prayed and fought with God there. Her sisters would touch her, squeeze her hand, kiss her. She let them. A fleeting thought ran though her head—that her sisters had always loved her more than she had ever loved them. She was wrong, of course, but typically, she was overly harsh on herself, even in her fleeting thoughts.

  Liz paced the room, away from Grace and her sisters. Grace knew enough to leave her alone.

  “Would you like some water?”

  Grace looked up at the familiar voice and took the cup of water Dolores was holding out toward her. She drank. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. She pictured Mister’s face, unscarred and youthful and perfect, his dimples making him seem even younger than he was. He’d loved to smile and laugh and speak his mind. Such a lovely and tender young man. She thought of the expression on his face when he’d dug a grave for Mississippi. He was perfect in that light.

  She looked up and found herself staring into the grave face of a young, but tired doctor. “I’m looking for a Mrs. Delgado.”

  Grace nodded. “That would be me. But I think you’re looking for her.” She pointed her chin toward Liz. She rose from her chair and made her way to where Liz was pacing the floor. “Liz,” she whispered. The doctor was standing beside them.

  “Mrs. Delgado?”

  Liz looked at the doctor numbly. “Yes?” The question hung in the air.

  “I’m very sorry—”

  She stopped him in mid-sentence. “I want to see him.”

  “He’s not, I mean, I have to warn you, he’s—”

  This time it was Grace who interrupted him. “Would you be so kind as to let my daughter-in-law have a few moments—” Her voice dropped, almost cracking.

  The doctor nodded.

  Grace took Liz by the shoulders. “Go on,” she whispered. “I’ll be in when you’ve had your time.”

  Liz and Grace searched each other’s faces for a moment.

  “It’s okay,” Grace whispered.

  Liz nodded, then followed the doctor through the swinging doors that read: NO ENTRANCE WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF HOSPITAL STAFF. She turned back and looked at Grace, her lips trembling.

  She didn’t know how long Liz had been in the room with Mister. She was beyond caring about time. She sat in a chair that faced the swinging doors. She did not take her eyes off the door. She sat almost motionless until Liz appeared, her eyes red, her hair disheveled. Their eyes met. She rose from the chair where she’d kept vigil. Liz was standing in front of her. “I think he’d like it if you spent a few moments,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” Grace said.

  “Even now he’s beautiful,” she said, her voice breaking down.

  He seemed not dead at all. His hair, still wild as a flame, his face as calm as a breezeless dawn. Not dead at all—except he’d lost his color. She touched his forehead, then ran her fingers through his hair. She gasped, then felt the hot tears and the convulsions, the pain in her heart, the same pain she’d felt when Sam had gone. She’d told herself that nothing would ever hurt like that again. But she’d been wrong. This was worse, this awful, relentless, merciless gnawing at her heart that made her wince in pain, that made her fall to the ground on her knees and clutch at herself as if she were trying to claw away the pain. She did not hear herself screaming my son, my son. She did not hear her words breaking down into wails. Nooooooooo myyyyyyyyyyyeeeee sooooooonnnnn, her cries becoming an astonishing howl. This was loss, this was pain in its cruelest, purest form, and it seemed she would break and she didn’t care if she did, didn’t care about anything because there wasn’t anything left but this hurt that was eating away at her body with a hunger that was even more ravenous than the cancer.

  She became a stream, and the only waters that flowed through her were of him, Mister, being held out to her the second he was born, his eyes alert, his nest of thick black hair begging to be combed, Mister trying to convince her not to make him go to school, Sam can teach me everything Grace, Mister standing in front of an empty building, Grace, this is my new coffee shop, La Dolce Vita, that grin impervious
to cynics, Mister wailing at Sam’s grave. She wanted it to stop, to stop, and yet she wanted the images to run through her forever, and God, she was, she was breaking, and then—right there—in the midst of all these wordless articulations, the dream came to her. The dream, her friend of many years, it came to her. And now she understood it as she never had. There they were—Sam and Mister, spinning each other round and round and round, until they were one with the blinding light.

  She opened her eyes and found herself kneeling on the floor.

  She picked herself up.

  She kissed him one last time. “Amor,” she whispered. That was the last word she had spoken to him. It was a beautiful and worthy word, as beautiful and worthy as her son.

  She pulled her hand away. And left the room.

  What Are We—Asleep?

  Andrés hadn’t been studying long. He’d come back from his session with Grace. He’d put on some coffee and lit a cigarette. He thought about Ileana. Maybe she was still alive. He’d put aside his thoughts, then opened the book he was reading for his history class. Then the phone rang. He picked it up. “How’s it going, Dave?”

  “How’d you know it was me, caller ID?”

  “No one else calls me but you.”

  “You should get out more.”

  “My lawyer told me I should study. So I study.”