by Gary Soto
Gordo was stretched out under the picnic bench, as if he was at the taxidermist waiting to be stuffed. Gabe had to laugh at the image inside his head: poor Gordo stuffed and, like a trophy, propped on top of their television.
“You still alive, Gordo?” he asked with a smirk.
The cat raised his head, blinked. He was languishing in the heat—poor cat, sporting fur on a day like this. Gabe returned inside for a handful of ice cubes, which he set floating like glaciers in the cat bowl. He picked up Gordo and was bringing him to his bowl when he heard, “Hi, Gabe. These are really tasty.”
Through the haze of heat, he saw his dad looming over the tomato plants, gripping a tomato the size of a cue ball. He brought it to his mouth and bit it. Juice squirted on the front of his shirt, the tomato was so ripe.
Gabe poured Gordo gently from his arms. “Oh, hi,” he muttered. He stepped out from under the patio awning and immediately felt the heat beating down on him.
“I just a need a place to be,” his dad said.
Gabe was silent.
His dad stepped out from the tomato patch and moved toward Gabe. The tomato in his hand dripped juice and tiny seeds.
“I looked for you,” Gabe said. He lifted an arm and pointed south, in the direction of the Rescue Mission.
His dad swallowed the last bits of tomato while he thought about what Gabe had said—I looked for you.
And he had. In the four years since his father had left home, Gabe had sometimes yearned for his dad and would see men who resembled him everywhere. His dad, a Raiders fan, wore black and white, in homage to a team that seldom won. Gabe would see men in such colors, and think, with something like pride, that could be my dad! Most times, he would then hurry away. Other times, he approached these men in silver and black. But none of them was his dad.
“Is that right,” his dad remarked. “And where was that?”
“Downtown,” Gabe answered. The image of the Rescue Mission, refuge for the down-and-out, played on the screen of his mind. He noticed the plastic medical band dangling on his dad's wrist. “You're sick, huh?”
“I wish I could lie,” his dad answered. “I wish I could do a lot of things.” He stepped slowly into the shade and lowered his gaze on Gordo, who was drinking from his water bowl. “Is that Sammy?”
“Nah, Dad, Sammy's in cat heaven.” Sammy had been their trickster cat, who lived not nine but thirteen adventurous lives. The last was used up when he tried to cross the street one time too many. “This is Gordo. He's a pound cat.”
His dad smiled and whispered, “Gordo.” He snapped his fingers and Gordo, whiskers dripping water, yawned.
“Dad, you need to eat something,” Gabe said. “Wanna come inside?”
“Nah, Gabe,” he answered. “This is fine.” He plopped himself down on the picnic table bench. He appeared exhausted as he lowered his head. “I could use a cold drink, though.”
Without hesitation, Gabe climbed the back steps into the kitchen, poured a glass of water with ice, and returned in a hurry.
“This is nice,” his dad said. He took a long drink and pressed the glass against his forehead. When he pulled it away, liquefied dirt began to form rivulets on his brow. He touched the muddy moisture, studied it for a moment, and then wiped it on his pants.
“Dad,” Gabe began. “I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry?” his dad asked. “That's what I'm supposed to say.” He took another long drink from the glass, rattled the ice cubes, and confessed, “I'm an alcoholic, Gabe. I drank and drank. One time I even downed a bottle of mouthwash for the alcohol.” He paused and rattled the ice again. “I was a lousy father. Guess you know that.” He sent the ice cubes flying from his glass and tumbling like dice across the patio. “How long do you think they'll last?”
Gabe looked briefly at the ice cubes but didn't answer.
They sat in silence, watching flies methodically doing figure eights in the shade. His dad rose and washed his face from the garden hose, and moved it to the flowerbed, splashing water on the cement patio and sending Gordo scampering away.
“Dad, let's get cleaned up.” Gabe could smell the stink of street living, and he believed that his dad would feel better if he just stood ten minutes in a shower. He would get some of his own clothes, jeans that might not reach his dad's ankles but at least would be clean. He would get him a fresh T-shirt, socks, underwear.
“Nah, your mom wouldn't like it.” His dad shook his head. He glanced at the cat, let a smile rise on his stubbly face and asked, “What's its name again?”
“Gordo,” Gabe answered.
His dad chuckled and tickled the back of Gordo's scruff.
Gabe disappeared into the house and into his bedroom, where he pawed through the drawers for clothes. In the bathroom, he retrieved a toothbrush from a drawer and a partially used tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, and tiny bottle of hotel shampoo. On the back lawn, he would have his dad lower his head, and Gabe would bathe him. It would bring him back to clean living. First he would shampoo his dad's wild hair and splash his feet with the garden hose. Maybe he could make his dad strip his shirt off, and his pants. He could keep on his underwear if he wanted.
“Oh, Dad,” he muttered, his lower lip trembling. “I won't let you die.”
Gabe sensed tears beginning to drip from his left eye. He wiped away a long tear sliding from his right eye. He searched frantically for a razor, but when he couldn't find one, he hurried outside to the patio.
“Dad?” he called.
A pie tin banged among the tomato plants. The neighbor's dog barked. Somewhere down the street, a heat-struck gardener was starting up a leaf blower.
“Dad!” he shouted. In flip-flops, he shuffled to the back fence and peered over. No one. There was just big-eyed Gordo standing in weeds along the neighbor's graffiti-marked fence.
He returned to the shade of the patio. He stared at the place where his dad had sat. His eyes fell on the ice cubes that his father had tossed. They were now puddles, disappearing just like he had.
At five his mother came home, fanning a newspaper at her pinkish face. On her white blouse, her name tag sagged.
“We were robbed today,” she said, slipping out of her shoes. “Gabe, get me a glass of water, lots of ice.”
“Robbed?” Gabe was in front of the television. He punched the remote and the image of a baseball player collapsed and disappeared.
“These stupid kids!” she scolded, as if it was his fault. “Never mind, I'll get my own water. It's so hot I can't sit still.” She disappeared into the kitchen, returned to the living room, and bypassed her son to stand in the hallway where the cooler vent roared. She drank her water in large gulps. “They're so stupid!” His mother dabbed a Kleenex on her brow, sipped her drink, and told him how three kids in baggy clothes had come in eating Cheetos and left orange fingerprints on everything they touched.
Frankie and his crew, Gabe bet. Or fools like them.
“Then the stupidest one came up to Marta.” She chugged her icy drink and moved from under the cooler vent to the recliner. “The kid says to Marta, ‘I want it all.’” His mom plopped down, took another sip, and continued. “Marta has her register close. She can't open unless you buy something.”
“Closed,” Gabe corrected. “The register is closed.”
His mother narrowed her eyes at her son and barked, “Smarty pants. You know what I mean. Get me some more water.” She held out her glass.
Gabe filled the glass with tap water and tossed in two ice cubes, but dumped the water when his mother screamed, “Just bring me ice cubes.”
She told how the boy took ten dollars from Marta's cash register and ran out, dropping a load of watches, candies, batteries, shampoo, and sponges in the parking lot. He had stuffed the items in his baggy pants, but the pants were more off than on his skinny hips.
“Sponges?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah, I said he was stupidest. He could have taken his butt down to the Dollar Store and rob them fo
r like way cheaper.”
Gabe refrained from correcting her English. He let her finish and then said, “Dad was here.”
She looked at him through tired eyes. “He's going to be a big bother,” she remarked. Her shiny face suddenly darkened with worry.
“He doesn't look right. Mom, he's sick.”
“You don't have to tell me your father's sick. I lived with him.” Her voice filled with anger. She tapped a finger against her temple. “He's sick up here.”
She turned her head and directed her anger to the television, which was off. Her reflection was on the screen, looking like the hurt women on her favorite soap operas.
“He wants to come home,” Gabe attempted.
“He doesn't have a home,” she answered quickly. She raised her glass and rolled a chunk of ice cube into her mouth.
“Mom, I know—”
“You don't know!” she snapped. Her hands had become claws as she bunched up the doily on the recliner's arm. She looked down. “I broke a nail.” She pouted at the chip of fingernail in her palm.
The debate was over.
Gabe found sanctuary in his bedroom, where he lay on his bed, arms behind his head. His dad, he reflected, had not been a good husband, and not much of a father. He had loathed him for years, this absent man, and whenever he had run across a photograph of him in a drawer, he had been tempted to crumple it. But now his father was sick—or so he said. Now he was a man hauling a small suitcase.
An hour later, he heard his mother in the kitchen, frying the round steak. When he ventured in—cautiously, for there was a possibility that she was still fuming—he discovered her shaking the handle of a large skillet, angrily shoving it back and forth. Her eyes were wet. Had she been crying over her ex-husband, his dad—or were the tears the result of dicing the baseball-sized onion?
“Set the table,” she ordered.
“I have a game tonight,” he began to explain. “It's too hot to eat.”
“You're going to eat with me.” She began to grate cheese on the frijoles, which were simmering on the back burner.
Gabe pictured Coach Rodriguez, scanning the field and counting his players. “Thompson, Sanchez, Padilla, Romero … hey, where's Mendoza?” Coach, unforgiving when players were late, would point him to the bench and keep him there.
Still, he set the table and poured his mother a glass of water with ice, and for himself a glass of Kool-Aid.
They ate in silence, until his mother asked, “How did he look?”
“Sick.”
“What does ‘sick’ mean? Like he's skinny?” Her eye fell on a cherry tomato. She prodded it with a fork and said, “He could be lying, you know.”
Gabe had considered this possibility. His dad had lied hundreds of times, spun many tales of deceit. He recalled how his father had bought him his first bicycle and said that it was new. He was only six then, but he did know new from old, truth from lie. The bicycle, with training wheels and bright plastic ribbons dangling from the handle grips, had belonged to some other child first. There were tiny pebbles embedded in the tread of the tires, and the reflector in the back was cracked.
“Yeah, Mom, he's skinny. And he has a thing on his wrist.”
The cherry tomato that she was prodding was now lanced on the end of her fork. She asked, “What do you mean, ‘thing’?” She brought the fork to her mouth.
“Like a bracelet. Like from when you're in the hospital.”
His mother, chewing with her head down, pushed the rice and frijoles around her plate. Gabe could tell that she wasn't relishing her dinner. He couldn't taste his either. On any other day, he would be jumping up for second helpings of frijoles, arroz, and a third tortilla burnt crispy, the way he liked it.
“Mom, he says he's sorry,” Gabe said.
“And I should care?” Her eyes glared at him until he looked down at his plate. She spooned salsa onto the frijoles and tore a piece of tortilla. “You think he's nice because he says he's sorry? Big deal!” She brought the tortilla laden with frijoles to her mouth.
“I'm just saying, you know, he's better.” Gabe had lost his appetite. He bullied his frijoles around the plate.
“I don't care. I don't want him to come around!”
Mother and son, napkins in their fists, ate in silence.
Gabe was right. When he finally showed up at the game, their team down 4–5 in the third inning, Coach Rodriguez posted his meaty hands on his lean hips and spat, “Get in the dugout, Mendoza.” He slapped the clipboard against his thigh, raising dust embedded in his pants.
Gabe obeyed without a word. He clutched two shopping bags filled with supplies for his dad and moved to the far end of the dugout. He had intended—and still intended—to confide in Coach Rodriguez about his dad. But for now, he sat alone, his mitt at his side, and watched the game, where even the weakest hits found holes in the infield. Neither of the teams played well.
By the fifth inning, the score was 9–5, Kerman in the lead. Most of the players got on base by walks, when the pitcher couldn't find the strike zone. There were at least five hit batters, and one had to be taken out when he got blasted on his left shin and couldn't run. Coach Rodriguez stood with his arms folded across his muscle-plated chest, not in the least happy when a figure appeared in deep center field.
“It's him,” Gabe muttered to himself. He hurried out of the dugout when the game was halted.
The umpire, strolling out past second base, called, “Buddy, get off the field. You!” He hooked a thumb, as if giving the “out” sign. “You're holding up the game!”
Gabe hustled along the first-base side into right field.
It was his dad, a nuisance to the players, a lunatic, a slovenly dressed bum.
“Dad, you're in the way,” Gabe yelled as he approached his dad. Immediately he wondered whether his dad might take the wrong meaning from his words—you're in the way.
“It's not practice?” his dad asked innocently.
“No, it's a real game.”
His dad seemed genuinely baffled—a real game? He scanned the players huddling at second base and those grouped at the pitcher's mound. He turned to his son and asked, “What's the score? Why aren't you wearing uniforms?”
Gabe led his dad from center field, aware that he might have halted the game on purpose—had he wanted to stand in center field and bask in everyone's attention? They parked themselves at a picnic table under a tree. Gabe became uneasy when he noticed three homeys grouped near the little kids’ pool. They were staring at Gabe. Was it a warning?
“You know, I played ball,” his dad said. His good eye twinkled as he remembered.
“I know you did. You were good, huh?” Gabe thought of his dad's high school uniform, which was hanging next to a deflated inner tube in the garage. He recalled three of his trophies layered with dust, the shine of their glory years long gone.
“I was OK. Played second base. My arm wasn't strong.” He looked down at his wrist and turned the plastic hospital bracelet so that his name showed. “In all my years, I only hit one homer. Sad, huh?”
“That's better than me. I can barely get it out of the infield.”
“Oh, come on, a boy like you?” His injured eyed opened and closed almost immediately.
“I'll be right back,” Gabe told his father. “Don't leave.” He hustled to the dugout to retrieve the bags of clothes and personal items. Coach Rodriguez eyed him, not so much with anger but with suspicion, as if asking, “Who's the man?”
The players in the dugout watched Gabe for a few seconds, then turned their attention back to the game when another player got clocked—a ball hit him between the shoulder blades.
He returned to find his dad hoisting a cigarette to his lips. He was striking a match when Gabe said, “You can't smoke here.”
His dad lifted his heavy brows. He appraised his son, and tucked the cigarette behind his ear. He looked up when the crowd shouted. “Looks like someone scored.” Two players were chugging around the base
s.
Gabe, straddling the bench with his back to the field, had to turn to see. He should have guessed: Pablo was touching first base, holding for an instant, and then digging for second when the center fielder overthrew the cut-off man. Gabe was drawn into the game, almost becoming one of the players. Then he remembered why he was at the table: private time with his dad.
“I got some things for you.”
“‘Things’?” his father asked. “That's nice, Gabe.”
“Dad, just tell me. Are you really sick?” He didn't want his dad to be sick. He only wanted to know the truth.
“I know there's something wrong,” he answered.” I can't keep food down.”
Gabe let this piece of information filter through his mind. Could his dad be lying? He confronted him. “You're not like, really sick?”
“Gabe, I'm just tired. I can't do this anymore, living like I do on the street.” He paused. “Look at my eye.”
Gabe winced. The eye was red and weepy.
“I wish I could say that I hurt it doing something good. But it got damaged when I fell over and hit a doorknob in Eugene, Oregon. I was drunk.”
Gabe wasn't sure if his father was being truthful, even though he wore a plastic hospital bracelet, got around on broomstick legs, and had an injured eye. Still, he placed the shopping bags on the picnic table and studied the names and cusswords etched in the wood. He recognized one of the names—Frankie Torres. For all Gabe knew, Frankie was one of the dudes hanging out like a vulture by the kiddie pool.
“I brought you clean clothes,” Gabe said. “And I got other stuff for you.” He set the two shopping bags on the table.
His dad seemed indifferent—no smile, no mirth in his good eye. His attention had returned to the cigarette that he pulled from behind his ear. It had to be a temptation, for his lips were slightly parted and trembling.
“I got to go.” His dad rose and touched the brim of Gabe's baseball cap. “I'll see you when I'm better.”