Russell washed his hands again and dried them with a paper towel. His skinned knuckles had begun to bleed.
Back at the bar, he ordered another beer and, as an afterthought, one for Bog as well. He turned to him and said, “So, tell me about my attitude.”
“The way I figure it,” Bog said, “you get what you give. You send out enough bad karma, and it’s gonna come back to you the same way. You send out good karma, ditto. You get me?”
“Good things happen to good people.”
“Right.”
“And bad things happen to bad people.”
“You got it.”
“That’s really deep, Bog. That’s really profound. So, bad things never happen to good people, and vice versa. Right?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about karma here.”
“So how come you got stood up tonight, Bogdonovitch?”
Bog thought about that for a minute. “Maybe it was all for the best,” he said, and laughed suddenly. “My mother always used to say that. She’d pray for something, and if she got it, she’d say, ‘My prayers were answered,’ and if she didn’t get it, she’d say, ‘Maybe it was all for the best,’ so either way, she’d win. I used to say to her, ‘Why bother praying at all, you know what I mean?’ And she’d get really tear-assed.” He smiled, remembering.
“So what you’re saying is, I’m right.”
“Sheez,” Bog said.
They had another beer, and then Russell said, “I’ve got to go,” but he continued to sit there.
Bog took this as a sign. “Listen,” he said. “I want to say something to you, Russ, and I want to say it nice. Because I like you. It’s about your attitude. You’ve got a whole lot of very bad karma churning around inside you. It’s like you just swallowed a hand grenade and it could go off at any minute.” He pointed to the blood crusting on Russell’s knuckles. “You could turn into a very violent dude.”
Russell listened, and it was as if he were two people listening. He was aware of himself standing at the bar, a painter getting a little homespun philosophy from another painter, and he was aware of himself as the man with the hand grenade inside him, ready to go off. And he could choose. He chose to be the painter, and he kept on listening.
“You’ve got this nice wife and this kid. You drink too much. You should be home with your family. Go on. Go on home.”
Russell clapped him on the shoulder.
“Okay?” Bog asked. “I just wanted to say it nice.”
Russell threw a couple dollars on the bar, punched Bog on the arm, lightly, and went out to his car. Violent? He was as calm as could be.
He drove home carefully, because you could never find a cop when you needed one, but as soon as you had a couple beers, there was a cop behind every freaking bush. He’d never been stopped even once.
He pulled the car up on the lawn in front of the little stucco house. There was a light on in the kitchen, and he could see the blue glow of the television, so Maria must still be up. Bog was right. He had a wife and a son, and he ought to be home with them. Maybe they could start over. Maybe she could love him after all—if not right now, maybe later.
He went around to the back and let himself in. Maria was seated at the kitchen table, a cigarette in her left hand, her right curled around a glass. It looked like scotch in the glass. He was going to walk over and sweep her into his arms and kiss her. Good karma. But she saw him looking at the glass, and before he could make a move toward her, she said, “It’s tea. So don’t get your hopes up.”
He didn’t say anything. He was not going to let her get to him. He walked through the kitchen to the little alcove and, stooping over the crib, he gathered his son into his arms and lifted him high into the air the way he used to when John was still a baby. But John was two and a half now, and he’d been deep asleep, and as his father lifted him into the air and then squeezed him to his chest, he screamed in fright.
“Put him down,” Maria said, “put that baby down,” and she pummeled Russell with her fists, shouting.
John screamed, and Maria began to cry, but Russell danced with him across the kitchen floor, saying, “You’re my little son, and we’re doing our little dance. Shhh. Shhh,” but the baby only screamed more loudly. Russell laughed and kept on singing. Finally he became aware of Maria punching him and the baby crying, and he stopped, confused. “Here,” he said, and thrust the baby toward her. She took him and went into the bedroom, and Russell sat at the kitchen table, waiting.
After a long while, the crying stopped and he could hear only the sound of Maria singing a lullaby. Then the singing stopped and Maria stood before him.
“Are you out of your mind?” she said. “Has the booze made you lose your fucking mind?”
He bowed his head and said nothing.
“You make me sick,” she said. “You make me want to throw up. I wish to God I’d never laid eyes on you. You’ve ruined my life, but no more. No more! By God, I’m getting out of this trap, and you’re never going to see me again.”
Still he said nothing.
“I detest you. I …”
He looked at her finally, and she stopped. His face was white, bloodless. He got up and walked over to her. He stood above her. He said, quietly, “I live here too, you know,” and he moved to the back door. Quickly, before she could realize what was happening, he put his fist through the glass in the door, and then he swung around and put his fist through the wall next to it. “I live here too!” he shouted, a crazy man.
The baby woke and began to cry.
Russell punched the refrigerator and the stove, he beat the doorposts with his fists, he shouted.
Maria snatched up the baby and ran out the front door to her mother’s house.
When the police came, they found the kitchen a shambles, but the husband, who had done all the damage, was sitting quietly at the table, his head bowed, his hands folded. “I’m sorry,” he said. There was no mark on the woman or the child, and the police concluded that she had probably been cheating on him or something and he just lost it and broke some furniture. They couldn’t arrest him for that. They gave the two of them a warning and went back to their car. Nothing unusual. Just more of the same.
Ana Luisa decided to take things into her own hands. On Friday afternoon, therefore, she and Maria drove up to the Stanford Shopping Mall. She had planned the trip carefully, she had paid for a baby-sitter, she had helped Maria with her hair. It was her treat, she said. She bought Maria a sweater and a wool skirt at Talbot’s, some good black pumps at Nordstrom’s, and then, to set the mood, she took Maria window-shopping in Neiman’s, Macy’s, Jaeger’s. “All these wonderful things,” she said, “and all you need is money.” Then it was time for coffee and she led the way to Café Andrea.
The tables were tiny and the service was slow, but there was real silver and real linen and the women having coffee were rich and beautifully dressed. Maria wanted to leave.
“But, Mama,” she said, whispering, “it’s so expensive.”
Ana Luisa continued to study the little menu.
“We don’t belong here, Mama.”
“Have some of this,” Ana Luisa said. She pointed to “Tiramisù,” handwritten in lavender ink. “This is the best.”
Maria flushed. Her mother’s voice was so loud.
The waitress came and took their orders, and after a long while she returned with their coffee. “The cake will just be another minute,” she said, and disappeared, apparently for good.
Maria looked up. Nobody seemed to notice them. She took a sip of her coffee, which was very strong.
“This is nice,” she said.
“Sí,” Ana Luisa said. “Now, querida, we have to talk about the marriage.”
“Not here,” Maria said. “Not now.”
Ana Luisa looked around. The table nearest them was empty. At the other tables women were talking quietly, intimately, about their own marriages, probably. For a girl who once had so much ambition,
Maria was not sophisticated at all.
“When?” Ana Luisa asked.
“He’s crazy,” Maria said, and lowered her voice. “I don’t want to talk about it. He’s crazy and he’s a drunk and I just want out.”
“He’s your husband,” Ana Luisa said. “You can’t get out. You have to ignore him and go ahead by yourself. He’ll follow. They always do.”
“He drinks up all his money.”
“Then get your own.”
“Sure. Oh, sure. I’ll rob a bank.”
The waitress stood there with two squares of cake, creamy in the middle, a dusting of cocoa on top. “Tiramisù,” she said, making it clear she had heard nothing. “And I’ll bring more coffee.”
Ana Luisa ignored the cake and leaned across the table. “Get a job,” she said. “Lose some weight. You’ve got a child you’re responsible for. You can’t just sit around watching television all day and complaining about Russell all night. You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to get ahead. What ever happened to your old ambition? You’ve got to make something of yourself.”
Maria lowered her head, and for a moment Ana Luisa thought she might be crying.
“Try this cake, mi niña,” she said. “It’s very nice.”
The waitress returned and filled their coffee cups again. “There,” she said, hovering. “Is everything fine?” And when Ana Luisa nodded, she said, “Lovely,” and went away, professionally oblivious.
“I can’t do anything,” Maria said finally. “I don’t know how. I couldn’t even be a waitress.”
“You can type,” Ana Luisa said. “You’ve got that nice typewriter I bought you for college.”
“I can’t even do that anymore.”
“You can lose weight. Anybody can do that. And when you lose some weight, maybe you’ll remember how to type. You never know. Maybe you’ll want to.”
Maria smiled. Her mother was trying. “I’ll lose weight,” she said. “I promise.”
“Good, good, querida. Good for you. Now eat some cake. It’s very nice.”
Maria put her fork into the cake. It was light and creamy, and when she tasted it, she discovered it was flavored with rum. It was like nothing she had ever eaten. She took another bite. So this is what it meant to be rich—to have coffee and cake on Friday afternoon and never even worry about gaining weight.
She would diet tomorrow. That was a promise.
John was dreaming again, the same dream he always had.
In this dream, he was very tired, but he couldn’t let himself go to sleep because he had to keep the block from falling. It was a big square block—like his alphabet blocks, only bigger—and it was up at the ceiling, in the corner of his room. He had to keep looking at it, and then it wouldn’t fall. But if he looked away, even for a second, it would begin to come down on him, and as it came down it got bigger and bigger, filling up the entire room, crushing him in his bed. But it didn’t crush him. At the last minute, just before he died, he knew somehow—but how?—that he had one more chance, but only one, and then the block was back up at the ceiling, in the corner of the room, and he was staring at it, trying to keep it there by looking at it, because if he could keep it there, the fighting would not start and they would not scream at one another and everything would be all right. He stared at it, and stared, but he must have looked away for a moment because suddenly he was awake, huddling against the wall next to his bed, and he was cold and wet.
Out in the kitchen his father’s voice got louder and louder, and he didn’t know why, but he knew it was his fault.
For John’s third birthday, Russell bought him the biggest toy he could find. It was a giraffe, with tan and orange fur and a satisfied smile that made Russell laugh out loud. It stood five feet tall.
Buying it was not easy. Russell had been fired for missing work too often, and then taken back part time, so when he asked for an advance against his paycheck, the boss had laughed and told him to go fuck a duck. But Russell had pleaded—it was his son’s birthday, he’d work overtime for no pay at all—and the boss couldn’t stand pleading, so he gave Russell the money just to get rid of him. After work Russell drove to San Francisco to get the giraffe.
By the time he got home, they had already finished dinner. As he walked past the kitchen window, he could hear Maria and Ana Luisa singing “Happy Birthday,” and he paused at the back door and looked through the glass. They finished singing, and Maria set the cake—white, with Happy Birthday in blue— on the table at John’s place and tried to coax him into blowing out the three little candles. She puffed up her cheeks to show him how, but John was too excited and just kept clapping his hands in delight. Maria gave him a big kiss and then blew out the candles herself.
Russell flung the door open and held the giraffe in front of him. “Happy Birthday,” he said, his voice high as he attempted giraffe talk, and then he came out from behind the toy to give his son a big hug. John had moved forward to pat the giraffe, but when he saw his father, he pulled back, shy suddenly, and as Russell came toward him, a look of fear crossed John’s face and he ran and buried his head in Ana Luisa’s lap.
“John,” his mother said. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see the nice toy your daddy’s brought you? Isn’t that nice?” And to Russell she said, “We didn’t expect you. Not this early. And not sober.”
Russell was looking at his son, who would not look up.
“He’s getting shy,” Ana Luisa said, and smoothed his hair.
“Or somebody’s telling him things,” Russell said.
“God! Not on his birthday,” Maria said. “Do you mind!”
“Why else should he be afraid of me?”
“I thought that’s what you wanted. Everybody to be afraid of you.”
Russell sat down and pulled the giraffe over to him. “John?” he said. “John, I want you to come here.”
“Go to your father, poquito” Ana Luisa said.
“Now, John,” Russell said.
John raised his head from Ana Luisa’s lap. He was confused, and he looked at his mother.
“Go ahead,” she said.
He walked to his father and stood looking down at his shoes.
“No, look up,” Russell said. “Okay. Now, are you my good boy? Have you been a good boy today?”
John nodded solemnly.
“Of course you have. You’re a very good boy.” Suddenly Russell saw that his son had changed. His curly blond hair was dark brown, and his eyes were dark too. He had become the image of Maria. Russell reached out to touch John’s hair, and at once the boy drew back and his little arm shot up to ward off a blow. “No,” Russell said. “I wasn’t … I didn’t … ,” but he saw that any explanation was hopeless and he gathered the boy gently in his arms, pretending none of it had happened.
He said, broken, “Happy Birthday, son. Happy Birthday, John,” as if he had lost him too.
Russell was consumed with love. For over a year he had told himself he hated her, he told himself she had turned his son against him, he told himself it was all her fault, it was all his own fault, it was nobody’s fault. But one morning, hung over as usual, staring into a gallon can of paint, he saw the truth and accepted it. He loved her, and she did not love him.
He felt as if his tongue were on fire.
Maria had taken a two-week course in computer programming, and though she didn’t meet the qualifications for a job with Ackerman, Holt, and Sawyer, she was hired anyway because they were desperate, Mr. Lang said. Mr. Lang was personal assistant to Mr. Sawyer and did all the hiring. The firm was doing record business in wills, divorces, and tax cases, and the flow of documents was literally overwhelming, Mr. Lang explained to her, so they had to have somebody, anybody, who could at least type. Mr. Lang said this apologetically, as if Maria deserved to know. He added further that one of their clerks was on pregnancy leave and another one, a male, might just as well be, since he was out more often than he was in, and when he was in he spent most of the time in th
e men’s room, so she could understand, Mr. Lang said, the bind they were in. Well, now, he said by way of conclusion.
Maria loved the work. She sat at the computer all day typing complicated documents that dissolved marriages, made and lost fortunes, struck compromises with the IRS. It was exciting to be in a busy office, and though all the other programmers seemed to hate their jobs, Maria loved hers. She had a desk and a computer in the central pool, but she worked principally for Mr. Foster, who was young and just out of law school and who would be cute if he lost some weight. Maria herself had lost a great deal. She had her figure back, and she had cut her hair. She was earning money. Soon she would be able to file for divorce.
On Friday she worked late and Mr. Foster asked her to join him for dinner. She hesitated. He was her boss, and she was a married woman.
But Russell, she knew, would be out somewhere, drinking. And her mother had already picked up John at day care. Why not go and have a good time?
“Yes,” she said, and even though he was fat and boring, she enjoyed herself. The food was good, and the restaurant was nice, and she was a woman out on a date with a man who was going to be somebody. She began to see that everything was possible.
Russell showed up late for work and the crew had already left for the job, so he said to hell with it and went and had a beer. He had another beer, and then he thought he would go for a drive. He found himself in south San Jose, near his father’s place, and so he drove by.
The street looked the same as always—no trees, no shrubs, just rusted-out cars baking in the sun—but the house looked different. The front yard had been cleaned up and there were new stairs, the raw wood still unpainted, leading up to the door. So the old bastard had gone in for home improvement. Russell parked the car and stood in front of the house, just looking.
“You don’t live there,” a voice said.
The Shrine at Altamira Page 6