Eartheater

by Dolores Reyes

  “I’ve come to ask a favor.”

  My brother and I made eye contact and my head split again, as though her voice were another swig of booze. Neither of us moved and the woman didn’t look like she wanted to leave. She was dressed in elegant clothes.

  “Open up,” I told Walter, and my brother undid the lock.

  “What sort of favor?” I asked the woman when she came through.

  “Help. I need your help.”

  We went inside. The house was a dump, dingy like an animal’s lair. But the woman seemed to have eyes only for me. She sat down without a word. She waited, as though being there, beside us, were an important part of what she had come to do.

  When my brother went to the kitchen to put the kettle on for mate, she asked:

  “Do you have vision?”

  She said it quietly, like a secret.

  “No.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Do you have vision?!”

  Thick bitch, I thought. Though I didn’t like it, her question forced me to take a hard look at myself. I’d never thought of what I did as vision. Vision was a strange thing, like believing I could guess the winning bet. Which had nothing to do with closing your eyes and being faced with a naked body on the earth.

  “No. I used to, but not anymore.”

  “Did you try just now?”

  Walter had come back, so I didn’t answer. How did she know about us? The woman wouldn’t shut up, though. She said she needed our help, that she’d heard there was someone here, in this house, who could see, that she had money and was willing to shell out a tidy sum.

  “We don’t need your money,” I said.

  “But I need you.”

  Hernán walked in, shoving the door open. We hadn’t put the lock back on the gate and he’d let himself through. He’d brought a new CD. I was scared he might hear the woman say the thing about sight.

  I was frozen in place. Walter sent her packing, as though he felt the same way.

  Before she left, the woman knelt down, righted the two bottles by the sofa, and said:

  “You drink this junk for kicks. Won’t you eat earth ’cause somebody needs it?”

  I felt like beating the shit out of her but stayed right where I was. I couldn’t even look at Hernán. As I watched the woman walk across the yard, I took a deep breath and slowly let it all out, till I was empty. Only when Walter locked the gate did I breathe.

  Hernán had put a CD in the PlayStation. The music was getting started.

  I bet she waited for Walter to leave. Alone, lips sealed. Not moving the slightest. A woman looking for her son can turn invisible, like a cat stalking a pigeon.

  I got it, she was looking for somebody.

  I’d started noticing a special trait in people who were looking for someone, a mark near the eyes, the mouth, a mixture of pain, anger, strength, and expectation made flesh. A thing broken, possessed by the person who wasn’t coming back.

  I opened the door and let the woman in. She sat opposite me. She set a can down on the table and stared. Didn’t even blink. What was it? Money? Chocolate? Fancy folk can do that, I thought, stuff a bunch of chocolate and cash in a can and set it right in front of you. So you’ll say yes, even if you don’t want to.

  I didn’t like her.

  She started talking. For her husband, she said, it was always nothing: sometimes kids fall behind, sometimes kids disappear. It had been like that in the past, when Ian was two years old and still couldn’t walk, and it was like that now, when he was sixteen and hadn’t come home.

  I didn’t want to listen, not for all the chocolate in the world. But she went on: that his absence was killing her, that her body hurt more now than when she’d given birth to him.

  “Ian,” she said. “My son. He never hurt a soul, you know. He couldn’t.”

  Scared she’d never shut up, I cut in.

  “What’s in the can?”

  “Earth.”

  I didn’t want to, but the woman opened the can and left it there, and the memory of earth turned to water in my mouth. Dark earth shone inside and some part of me responded without words.

  I didn’t want to, but my body did. I touched the dirt like it meant everything. I pulled it toward me without lifting it from the table.

  “Turn around,” I said. “You can’t watch.”

  She didn’t much like that. She took her time, mulled it over, then got up and turned her chair to face the other way. She didn’t try to steal a look.

  I grabbed some earth from the can and bit by bit stuffed it in my mouth.

  The house grew dark, like it’d been covered in a black sheet. I had the urge to switch on the light. To keep the night, which the earth had unfurled around us, from swallowing us up. Everything was so dark, so like a deep well untouched by the sun, no good could come of it. When I was about to stop, to quit out of fear and open my eyes, the darkness retreated, as if somebody had lit some candles, one by one. My eyes got used to seeing again.

  Though I couldn’t make out much, I heard everything clearly. Her voice. The woman’s. She said, screamed: Ian. And after yelling his name over and over, there, in the brightest spot, in the heart of the light, a little boy around eight years old emerged.

  He wasn’t a clever pup but a strange, lost-looking boy. The light that shone from his body was weak, sickly, sad. The woman kept saying “Ian, Ian” without waiting for an answer.

  She gripped him hard by the hand and started tugging at him. I tried to make out the boy but couldn’t. A man appeared beside the woman and spoke to her:

  “Did you find him?”

  “Yeah. Can’t leave the kid alone, not even to pee.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Behind the birthday party. On his own.”

  “Who took him there?”

  “I did, thought he could wait five minutes.”

  Like a secret, a secret the man didn’t want to know, they fell quiet. They were looking at him. Then the man asked:

  “Why’d you leave him on his own?”

  “’Cause I can’t right take him to the bathroom with me, can I? He’s eleven.”

  “Means nothing, though. His age means nothing,” the man said and they both went quiet again, as though the sad light that radiated from Ian were weakening their bodies, too.

  The man got mad again and recovered some of his strength.

  “Stop making excuses. Don’t you care about him?”

  The boy stood between them. Then he began to shuffle to the side. Like he wasn’t even listening. He looked up, ahead of him. I tried to make out what he saw but found nothing.

  They spoke as if the little boy wasn’t there. I tried to get a better look, but he slipped away from me. The voices grew quieter and quieter. I got tired of trying to listen to what they said, of trying to see what the earth chose not to show me.

  I opened my eyes.

  The house was darker than the night that swaddled the lost boy.

  “It’s no use,” I told the woman. “I can barely see him. Only you, doña. Arguing with a man who keeps asking why you left Ian alone.”

  The woman grew even sadder. All of a sudden, she bounced back and said:

  “His dad.”

  “I can see the two of you, doña. But the kid keeps slipping away.”

  The woman dropped her head and cried in silence. She opened her purse. To look for something to dry her eyes with, I thought, except she pulled out a wad of money and a stack of photographs instead. She placed the pictures on the notes—there were so many of them—and pushed them toward me. It was the little snot. I thumbed through the first few photos. In them, he was older and wore the same lost expression.

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “Okay,” she said, looking up. “So how do we make it work?”

  Hernán laughed on his moped.

  “It’s not that far,” he said. “How come you’ve never been?”

  I said nothing. I didn’t even go to the grocery store anymore.


  “We’re close, already on Route 8.”

  That much I knew. I also knew about the market, which had opened a couple of years ago. But no, I’d never been.

  “What should we hit: Mega or Fericrazy?”

  I laughed.

  “What do I know. Whichever you’re most into.”

  “Mega,” read a billboard over the entrance to the road, and I could make out a parking lot thronged with mopeds, people, and cars. The road was in fucking bad shape. We kept having to dodge water, mud, trash.

  “Let’s go to that one,” I said, pointing to the spot where buses stopped to let out smiling families.

  Hernán parked the bike as close to the entrance as he could. He tried to say something, but it was so noisy I couldn’t hear him.

  “Inside,” I mouthed, and we started walking.

  A massive warehouse. Concrete floor. No real plants, just gross plastic ones. I’d never felt so far from the earth and I didn’t like it one bit.

  I opened my backpack and for a split-second showed it to Hernán, like it was a game. He went real wide-eyed, and asked:

  “Where’d you get a hold of so much cash?”

  “I got it and that’s that. What do you care?” I said with a smile.

  “You aren’t going around sticking people up, are you?”

  We both cracked up.

  “We’re gonna make it rain,” I said, brandishing a couple of five-hundred-peso notes, and shaking them in the air. Hernán laughed.

  “For sure,” he said, winking.

  We strolled. There were four rows of stands, one next to the other. The passages between were crammed full of people. Everybody looked happy. On a corner, people hawked sweets as though it was a public square: candied almonds, popcorn, chocolate peanuts. I took some cotton candy and tried to pay with a five-hundred-peso bill. “I haven’t got any change,” the woman serving me said. Hernán pulled out twenty pesos and handed it to her. I put mine away.

  “Girl, you’re gonna cost me steep,” he said and took my hand.

  It felt weird but good.

  He took me to a beer counter where a guy was emptying bottles into disposable cups. Each cup held a liter for the hands awaiting them. “Two,” I ordered and paid. I pocketed the change and we walked on. Cotton candy in one hand and a liter of beer in the other. We paused in front of an enormous booth. Strings of movies in plastic sleeves that hung in rows on the front and sides. Boxes filled with CDs and DVDs and a bunch of folks flipping through them. The movies were sorted by category: Domestic, New Release, Comedy, XXX, Horror.

  “These are the ones I’m always bringing you,” Hernán said, gesturing toward two boxes. He took a real long sip from his disposable cup. The first box was for “compilations” and there was a chick in a red thong and a Santa Claus hat. The other just said “Latinos.” I browsed that one. I turned each sleeve over and read the song titles. I set three aside. Hernán asked to see them so he could check out the list of songs, too. We glanced at one another and laughed.

  “Your mouth’s full of pink goo,” he said, and I felt the beer go to my head. I sucked on two of my fingers so he wouldn’t have the chance to complain about my sticky hands too.

  “Let’s see,” he said, and came up to me. He gave me a long kiss, a sugary mix of lips, beer, and his soft tongue, which I loved. I wanted more, but Hernán pulled away.

  “Best check out the CDs instead. Your brother’s gonna kill me.”

  We laughed. Why should Walter give a shit?

  In the end, we picked out five CDs and Hernán threw in a horror flick. He said we could watch it later on the PlayStation if there was nobody around. I said maybe we should eat something first. We paid and they handed us a bag, which I shoved in my backpack, and made our way toward the stands in the back. Hernán drank his whole beer. I still had half left, so I shared it with him.

  We ordered two cheeseburgers and fries. We didn’t wait long. We ate with our hands at a table for two. They didn’t sell beer there, only pop, so we didn’t order anything to drink. We made do with what was left in my cup.

  “These fries are mad good,” Hernán said a couple seconds after he’d finished chewing. “Let’s head back to yours?”

  I nodded yes. Where else would we go? But then I thought of my brother. I hadn’t even told him I was going out with Hernán.

  “Let’s get Walter a present first,” I said, and he agreed right away.

  I don’t know if the scent of patties was from our burgers or if the warehouse was thick with smoke. The massive Mega warehouse was windowless and the exit was through the entrance. The smoke from the food skidded against our bodies and against the clothes draped on the coat hangers in the booths. Bringing something for Walter also meant bringing him a little bit of all this. And I liked that.

  Where’d you get the money?” my brother asked, unable to stifle a huge smile.

  “You like it, though?”

  He held up the jacket and stared at it like the thing was a ghost. I thought of Hernán trying it on for size, which made me giggle. There’d be no movie that night. Some other time.

  “I’ve been working. Took on a gig.” My brother kept mum, so I carried on. “I’m helping that woman from the other day. She’s paid me.”

  For a second, I thought Walter hadn’t heard me: he wasn’t talking or moving or even glancing my way. He wasn’t getting mad either. Nothing. Then, he looked up at me.

  “You sure, lil sis? If you’re doing it for the money, don’t.”

  “It’ll all be all right,” I said without thinking. “I’m sure of it.”

  My brother came up to me and kissed me on the cheek. Then he said the jacket was awesome and asked me where I got it. I laughed.

  “It’s a surprise, Walter.”

  He took it to his room, saying he’d wear it some other time. It was special so he was gonna put it away for now.

  The same can on the table and the woman, looking stern and saying she’d brought the right earth this time.

  “How am I supposed to know?” I didn’t want to eat dirt every day.

  I walked around. Bided my time. Went to the kitchen and put the kettle on even though I knew I wouldn’t be drinking mate till later. That day, I wanted to be able to say no.

  “Mate?”

  The woman shook her head. Annoyed, I went to the kitchen and turned off the burner.

  I came back in. Averted my eyes.

  “I’ve got a stomachache.”

  “I didn’t come yesterday,” the woman said, and I felt kind of sorry for her.

  “News on Ian?”

  “The cops have stopped looking for him.”

  I studied her, then. She had these awful bags under her eyes; her neck and jowls were flabby and starting to wrinkle. But she had strong arms. She sat firm and upright as she waited for me to grab the can. I knew the woman wouldn’t let up till I found him. She was starting to grow on me.

  Walter came out of his room, spotted her sitting there, and stalked off in silence. He didn’t even say hello. Him leaving like that rubbed me the wrong way.

  Sometimes I thought that if my brother never came back, I could have eaten all the dirt in the house—I could’ve broken it, made it quake.

  “Hand it over,” I said and she nudged the tin toward me.

  Hope she’s done it right, I thought to myself, but said nothing. I was no chump.

  I ate some of the woman’s earth but instead of thinking about the little snot, I thought of Hernán’s kiss, of the cotton candy and beer from the day before.

  I closed my eyes and saw her.

  It was like returning to a night long ago. A night that had been wearing out and had ceased to exist and that I could only see from there, from that moment, in my head.

  Ian looked worn-out, too. Like he was high. The man pushed him. He didn’t cry. He wore his usual expression, except frightened. The man had on green overalls and stared at Ian. I recognized him. I didn’t like him one bit. He stared at the little
snot like he was sizing him up. Ian could barely stand. His eyes drooped and his head flopped side to side. He shook himself, trying to pry his eyes open again and stand up straight. It was like the air had turned strange.

  Ian fell. His body was on the floor now. The man sat beside the boy, but with his back to him; Ian, who’d smacked his head on the ground, bled.

  The man was Ian’s father. His eyes had been glued on his son, but now that the boy’s body was spent, on the ground, the man was pretending he wasn’t there. He pulled a lighter from his overall pocket and began to smoke. He looked down at the cigarette and then ahead of him, past the smoke, somewhere I couldn’t see. He smoked for a while, calm.

  Then, he got up.

  He walked toward a car. Try as I might I couldn’t make out the license plate. He opened the back door and grabbed a couple of black trash bags. He rooted around for something else, didn’t find it, and gave up. He went back to Ian and lifted him. He walked away, the boy’s body and the trash bags in his arms, and he lumbered through some real tall weeds. I tried to follow but couldn’t. They were out of my sightline and I had trouble moving. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t go forward. Little by little, I went stiff. Like a statue. I was trapped in that bullshit. I gazed down, hunting for earth, but found only trash engulfing my shoes. I gazed ahead and tried to find the man stealing his boy’s body. But the trash mushroomed into mountains. The stench penetrated my nose, as though it were a swarm of furious wasps beating their way out of my head, hurting me.

  I opened my eyes. The stench still stung. It reminded me of the smell of dead dogs on the roadside.

  I looked at the woman, strong arms clasping her purse.

  She waited for me to speak. I waited for the stench to leave me alone.

  I didn’t know whether she’d like what I had to say.

  I was washing my face when Hernán came by. I was the sort who never cried. I shoved my hands back under the cold water. My eyes stung and my hands burned, but worst of all was Ian’s dirt inside my body. Still clamoring to speak.

  Hernán put on some music, Cri cri minal the song went, over and over, and I don’t know why that made me want to cry too. I patted myself dry with a towel and glanced in the mirror. I never used to cry. I tried to keep my eyes open so as not to see what the earth wanted to show me. My eyes kept tearing. I thought of the woman and hoped she’d never come back. She had asked me to see but hadn’t been able to stomach what I saw.