Last Summer of the Death Warriors

by Francesco X Stork

Pancho picked himself up and dusted himself off. Just then, Marisol emerged from the back door. Josie ran to her and jumped into her arms.

  “I brought you a juice box,” Marisol said. They walked off toward a wooden bench under one of the cottonwoods. Pancho turned and began to walk away. “Where are you going?” Marisol called after him. He stopped without turning around. “D.Q. is taking a nap. Come sit down.”

  He turned and saw them on the bench and hesitated. He tried to think of something he could tell her he had to do, a place he needed to go, but nothing he could say came to mind. He took small steps back toward them. Josie was sitting on Marisol’s lap, sucking on a straw. Marisol beamed as if he were doing her the greatest honor by coming to sit next to her. He sat tentatively on the edge of the bench, ready to take off at any moment.

  Josie took the straw out of her mouth. “Guess what? We were up there on the slide and all these birds came and he said they were liable to eat me!”

  “No way! He said that?”

  “Yeah! He said they liked my head because it looked like an egg.”

  Marisol shook her head and shot him a look of disbelief. He glanced away quickly.

  “Can he come to the zoo with us?”

  “He has a name. What’s his name?” Marisol asked. Josie stuck a finger in her nose and said, “I forget.”

  “Pancho. His name is Pancho,” Marisol said, removing the finger from the nose.

  “Pancho,” Josie whispered. She laid her head on Marisol’s shoulder. Her eyelids closed and opened in slow motion. “Can Pancho come to the zoo with us?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” She put her hand on Josie’s head.

  “You ask him,” Josie said, and closed her eyes.

  A moment later, she was already dozing, her mouth slightly open, one arm limp by her side. Pancho waited until he saw her chest rise with her breath. “She’s asleep,” he said, surprised.

  “It’s the chemo,” Marisol said. She removed the half-full juice box from Josie’s grasp. “The same thing happened to D.Q. He was awake one second and sound asleep the next. That’s good.”

  “Yeah, that’s good,” Pancho said. Although he had no idea why it was good. He was still on the edge of the bench. He pushed himself back slightly to avoid sliding off. He could feel Marisol positioning Josie so that the girl’s body stretched along the bench with her head in Marisol’s lap. Marisol was wearing khaki shorts, and her skin was light brown, like his. She had white sneakers on. He folded his arms and leaned back, accidentally touching her arm as he did so. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “You and D.Q. should come to the zoo with us,” she said. “If D.Q. feels up to it, it would be fun.”

  “If he feels up to it,” he repeated.

  “Were you with him today when he received the treatment?”

  “I sat next to him.” D.Q. had sat in a chair that looked like a barber’s chair while a yellowish liquid that looked like antifreeze flowed into him at the rate of one bag per hour. D.Q. watched the liquid leak into him and did not say a word. “What’s it feel like?” he had asked D.Q. when it was all over. “It burned a little,” was all he had said.

  “It’s good that you’re here with him,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he answered. He held back from telling her that he didn’t have much of a choice.

  “You live with him at St. Anthony’s?”

  He turned and looked directly into her eyes. She might not have been anything to write home about, but there was something about her face, especially her eyes, that made him want to keep looking. It was like seeing a face he had glimpsed someplace before but could not remember where. She held his gaze comfortably, and it was he who finally looked away, embarrassed by the fact that he was staring.

  “Of course you live with him, that was a silly question,” she said when he didn’t respond.

  “I’ve only known him for a week.”

  “You don’t have to know him very long for him to make an impression. He’s very unusual.”

  “Unusual?” he asked. He instantly regretted sounding like he was interested in how she felt about D.Q.

  She stroked Josie’s head gently as she spoke. “He’s the first person my age I met with cancer.” She bit her lip but smiled when she saw that he was looking at her. “There’s something unusual about him, don’t you think? Not unusual as in weird, but as in out of the ordinary. Like he’s in touch with another dimension the rest of us can’t see. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with such strong faith.”

  “Faith?”

  “Don’t you think?”

  “I never heard him talk about faith.”

  “I never have either,” she said thoughtfully, “but you can just tell.”

  “You work here long?” He didn’t want to talk about matters he didn’t understand.

  “This is my second summer. And I worked here last year after school and on weekends, and I guess I’ll do the same next school year.”

  “What do you do exactly?”

  “A little of everything. I want to be a nurse after I graduate from college, so this is good preparation for that. Mostly I try to spend as much time as I can with the kids. I help the parents find the social services they need. I do some of the paperwork when Laurie, the director, gets overwhelmed. I even cook sometimes.”

  “You get paid?”

  She laughed. “At least you didn’t ask me what everyone else asks me.”

  “What?”

  “Usually people want to know if I find the job depressing. You know, being with kids who have cancer. And yes, I get paid. Not much, but I get paid.”

  “I’m supposed to be getting paid too,” he said. “Just for hanging around D.Q.”

  “Hey—” Her face lit up with an idea. “Why don’t you help me with the kids? They like you for some reason.” She glanced down at Josie and then she grinned. “D.Q. will be sleeping quite a bit during the day. You can help me then.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “What else are you going to do all day?”

  “I brought a book.”

  “One whole book?” she teased.

  “I have some places I need to go.”

  “I need someone to give the kids a ride in the rickshaw. It’s only for an hour or two a day. You can pick the times.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. I can tell you’re an athlete; this will keep you in shape.”

  He felt his face redden. No one had ever called him an athlete before. He had never participated in any sports at school, but before his father died, not a day went by when he didn’t jump rope or hit the bags. It struck him as funny that he never saw it as staying in shape or as something an athlete would do. It was simply something that felt good.

  “What’s a ricksha?”

  “Rickshaw. It’s not a real, real rickshaw. A rickshaw is a cart for carrying people that’s pulled by another person, like a taxi. They have them in China and India. What we have is a bicycle that pulls a two-wheeled cart with a seat. The kids love riding in it. There are paths by the golf course that you can take. It’s lots of fun.”

  It came to him that he had once pulled a wagon behind his bicycle. He was thirteen and Rosa was sixteen, and the wagon was much too small for her, but she managed to sit on it cross-legged. They had left the trailer park and were on the way to the convenience store down the road when a red Thunderbird convertible pulled up beside them. The four high school kids in the car began to jeer and make obscene remarks at Rosa. She waved and smiled at them. He pedaled faster and they increased their speed. He slowed down and the car slowed down. One of them offered Rosa a beer and she replied with her usual, “I’ll die if I drink, so help me Diosito.” This struck the boys in the car as hilarious. Then the boy on the passenger side leaned out of the car and spoke to him. “Hey, kid, what’s the matter with your girlfriend?” “She’s not my girlfriend!” he replied angrily. But he wasn’t angry at the jeers and catcalls. He
was angry that anyone could think Rosa was his girlfriend. “Hey, don’t get upset, guy,” the boy in the car said. “What’s the matter with her? Is she retaaarded?” There was a burst of laughter from everyone in the car. Even Rosa thought that was very funny. “Hey, honey, show us your boobs!” the boy in the backseat called. Pancho stood on the pedals of the bike and pumped with all his strength. The wagon behind him jerked and Rosa fell. When he looked back, Rosa was sitting on the sidewalk, laughing and lifting up her blouse. He jumped off the bike, rushed toward her, and tried to pull her shirt down, yelling at her to stop, until the Thunderbird finally roared away. “Those boys were funny. Pancho, weren’t those boys funny?” Rosa asked, still sprawled on the sidewalk.

  He had not thought about that incident since it happened. Now, sitting there on the bench under the cottonwood with Marisol and the sleeping Josie, the memory of what he said to Rosa ripped through the forgetfulness where it had been concealed. “You’re nothing but a puta, you know that? You’re just a big puta! I wish you were dead!”

  He bent over on the bench and put his hands over his ears to stop the sound of his own voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  For a moment, he did not know who was speaking. He straightened and cleared his head with a shake. “Yeah,” he said, recognizing Marisol. “You think I could use that rickshaw to do some errands?”

  “Of course. Help me carry her in. I’ll show you where it is.”

  He stood and lifted Josie from the bench. The girl opened her eyes, closed them again, and then plopped her head on his shoulder. He followed Marisol to the back entrance of the house.

  CHAPTER 20

  The “rickshaw” was parked inside an enclosure that housed air conditioners and water pumps. The handlebars were rusty and the front wheel was flat. He could not imagine anyone getting any pleasure out of riding in that rickety thing.

  Afterward, they went inside the house. She took him past the TV room and the dining room. A man and a woman sitting at a table drinking coffee stopped talking when they saw the sleeping child on Pancho’s shoulder. Past the dining room, they entered a hall with blue wooden doors on both sides. The floors were carpeted and they made no sound as they walked. The whole house seemed to be enveloped in a peaceful silence. She stopped in front of one of the doors and pointed at it. He understood that was the room he would share with D.Q. Delicately, he transferred Josie to Marisol’s shoulder.

  “Most of the kids will be out playing around four,” she whispered, and winked at him as she left.

  He opened the door softly. The room had two single beds, a night table with a lamp, a rocking chair, a desk with another chair, and a chest of drawers. The curtains on the window were only half drawn and a ray of light fell on the curled-up figure of D.Q. on the bed farthest from the door. Pancho closed the door and dropped his backpack on the empty bed.

  “What else are you going to do all day?” Marisol had asked him. He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his sneakers. The Panda had asked him to stay with D.Q. for two weeks, until the end of the treatments. He saw countless seconds and minutes and hours stretch before him like a line of ants that went on forever. He had never thought of time as an emptiness that somehow needed to be filled. But filled with what? “I brought a book,” he had told Marisol. He had one book that took him months to read.

  He lifted up his shirt and looked at the bandage around his chest. It was clean. He flopped back on the bed and turned sideways to look at D.Q. He watched until he saw him breathe. Here he was wondering what he was going to do with the innumerable minutes and hours and days that stretched before him, and there was D.Q., who probably knew he had a definite number of days left. What if he could trade places with D.Q.? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to know for sure that the boredom and emptiness had an end.

  Then he closed his eyes and imagined that he had killed Bobby and that he was caught like he knew he would be. He was lying on a cot in the prison cell where he would spend the rest of his life. He was seventeen now. Assuming that he lived to, say, seventy…How many years was that? Whatever that came out to, you’d have to multiply it by 365 days to figure out how many days that would be, and then whatever that number came out to, you’d multiply it by twenty-four to figure out the number of hours you’d have left. He stopped that line of thinking because it made him dizzy. What would probably happen is that he wouldn’t last that long in prison. He’d get into a fight sooner or later with another prisoner and that would be the end.

  He rolled on his side until he reached the edge of the bed and he lay there looking at the floor. Then he rolled to the other side and lay there staring at the green parrot he had carved. D.Q. had placed it on the night table that separated the beds. He felt weak, as if a boxing opponent had spent round after round banging away at his kidneys. Those body shots gradually drain the legs and arms of strength, and the mind eventually loses its will to fight. Ever since he met D.Q., people had been taking body shots at him. D.Q., Father Concha, Marisol, the little bald girl, Helen, they all pummeled him with words and requests that weakened his focus on finding the man who killed his sister.

  There was a moan. It could just as well have been his, but it came from outside of him. After a few moments, it was followed by the sound of gagging and retching. D.Q. had managed to lift his head a few inches off the pillow before spewing out a rush of white liquid. His eyes bulged out and then his head fell back on the pillow, and out of his mouth came the gurgling sounds of someone drowning. Pancho stood up and rushed to the bed, tipping the desk chair over. He grabbed D.Q. by his underarms and sat him up, then tilted D.Q.’s head forward to drain the liquid from his mouth. Another wave of vomit rose and erupted over both of them. The vomit was warm, like the glass of milk his father used to drink before going to sleep.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, partially soaked, waiting for the next bout, while D.Q. tried to come back from wherever he was. There was one more heave, but the only thing that emerged was a giant burp. “Excuse me,” D.Q. said. “I didn’t mean to burp in your face.” Pancho wiped his face with his arm. “Oh. I guess that’s not the only thing I did. You should have just let me be.”

  “You were choking on your own puke.”

  “Lovely.” D.Q. lifted up a hand with dripping fingers. “I feel like someone put me inside a bottle of tequila and then shook it. Have you ever gotten drunk?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I don’t drink.” Pancho realized he was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He stood up quickly and began to look around for something to dry himself with.

  “We’re going to have to change these sheets,” D.Q. said. He burped again. “Maybe later. This little scene may not be over with yet. Ohhh. I hate being nauseous. Oops. That’s whining, isn’t it?” He scooted to the side of the bed that wasn’t wet and began to unbutton his cowboy shirt. “Can you get me a sweatshirt from the top drawer?”

  Pancho came out of the bathroom with two pink towels. He threw one to D.Q., then he went over to the dresser. D.Q. had already put his clothes in the top two drawers. He found a dark blue sweatshirt and threw that to D.Q. as well, hitting him in the face. It occurred to Pancho that his whole wardrobe consisted of the pair of blue jeans, the New Mexico State sweatshirt, and the two sets of St. Anthony’s T-shirts and shorts that D.Q. had given him a week before. He emptied the contents of his backpack into the bottom drawers. He put on a new T-shirt and went over to his bed. Just as he was sitting down, he saw a plastic wastepaper basket next to the desk. He grabbed it and dropped it next to D.Q.’s bed. “Puke in there,” he told him.

  “Could you get me a washcloth with cold water? I think it would help.” D.Q. was gripping the bed as if it were some kind of roller coaster.

  Pancho muttered under his breath as he went back to the bathroom. “What are you going to do while you’re here?” Marisol had asked. I’m going to be cleaning up D.Q.’s upchuck, he should have told her. When the water got as cold as it was
going to get, he soaked the washcloth and squeezed half the water out of it. Then he went over to D.Q.’s bed and waited for him to open his eyes. He was not going to put the washcloth on his forehead like some kind of mother hen. “Thanks,” D.Q. said, when he finally saw him standing there.

  Pancho watched D.Q. shiver. There were some shelves in the bathroom with extra linen. He grabbed two white sheets and a pink wool blanket. “Can you stand up for a minute while I change the sheets?” D.Q. nodded. He lifted his legs slowly off the bed, then stood holding on to the windowsill. He looked like he was about to crumble. Pancho lifted the wet sheets. The mattress had a rubber covering. He wiped it dry with the towel and threw a clean sheet on top of it. He motioned to D.Q. that he could lie down again and gave him the wool blanket.

  “You know what I really could use is a sponge bath,” D.Q. said as he propped the pillows on the bed. Pancho glared at him. “Just kidding.” D.Q. grinned.

  Pancho took the bundle of wet sheets and placed them by the door. He smiled to himself when he remembered picking up the wet towels at the gym where he used to work. He was no stranger to all the smells the human body could produce. He sat down on his bed. D.Q. groaned. “You should have taken the bed closest to the toilet,” Pancho said.

  “I thought it would be good to look out the window,” D.Q. answered. “But you’re right. We should probably trade. Oh. Oh.” D.Q. leaned his head over the side of the bed and reached the wastepaper basket just in time. After a minute or so, he came up and sighed. There was a container of pills and a glass of water by the side of the bed. He shook out two pills, popped them into his mouth, and washed them down with water. “These are supposed to help with nausea.”

  “I can call someone,” Pancho said.

  “No. We have to stick through this. If it seems like I’m too sick to handle this on my own, they’ll put me back in the hospital and…”

  “Yeah, I know.” Pancho lay back on the pillow. “You want to be near your girlfriend.”

  D.Q. coughed. “She’s not really my girlfriend,” he objected meekly. “What do you think of her?”