Tortuga

by Rudolfo Anaya

  I didn’t understand. “What about the mountain?” I asked.

  “The mountain,” she laughed, “why any fool could have named it, it’s plain to see it looks like a turtle!”

  We laughed with her, and at my side I felt Ismelda’s presence. She knew something about the mountain, but she never said anything. I wondered what the secret was, and had I already found it in my dreams?

  “When I was a little girl my grandfather used to tell us stories about the mountain. He said that once upon a time the mountain was a real turtle which had left the sea of the south to rejoin his brothers of the north … it followed the river north, and here at Agua Bendita it stopped to rest, and it fell asleep in its wandering. And that’s all that old mountain is, a sleeping sea turtle which is going to wake up someday, look around then start its journey again.…”

  So Josefa’s story was where the kids’ stories came from, that the mountain would free itself and move again, as we all wished to free ourselves and move again. I looked at Jerry. He pretended to be busy with his beadwork, but he was listening. I looked at the mountain through the window and saw the fringe of the lava flow around the base, and I shivered because I saw the dark clotted blood of Salomón’s turtle!

  “The mountain isn’t dead,” Josefa said, “it’s just waiting.…”

  “Waiting?”

  “Waiting for the people to return to learn its secret …” We waited breathlessly. She continued. “The hot springs of the mountain cover a distance of seven miles up and down the river, and there are seven major springs … the water that comes boiling out of those springs is more than water, it’s hot turtle pee. Yes, that’s why it’s miraculous and can cure sickness, because it’s the hot pee of our brother the mountain. You’ve seen how a turtle struggles and pees in your hand when you hold it? That pee is so strong that some people get warts from it, same as from a frog, but it’s good because it’s strong!” She paused and looked at Ismelda. “Some curanderas use the pee of the turtle to cure—”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Paralysis,” Ismelda whispered. I looked at her and saw the image of the mountain swimming in her dark eyes. I looked at Josefa and she winked.

  “Sure,” she said, “it’s that strong! But the doctors don’t know it. They say it’s the minerals in the water—Bah! If it’s just the minerals in the water why don’t they pour those minerals into their bathtubs and take their baths at home, eh? Because it’s more than just the minerals!” She paused and looked out the window. “It’s the power of the mountain … the power in our sleeping brother … just waiting.…”

  Her words created a sleepy silence in the sun-flooded room. No one spoke. Strands of golden sunlight wove us together, wove us into the time of the hill and the river and the shell of the mountain. Over us the blue sky flowed like water, a palpable magnetic stream which spilled over its edges and flooded the earth with its intensity. We dreamed, each one of us woven into the same dream, dreaming of a time when the mountain would rise and walk and we would follow it north, saved by its holy water. The room buzzed with a quiet, summer madness, then the spell broke and Josefa stood.

  “Time to move on, time to work.…”

  I felt Ismelda at my side. She leaned close to me and I felt her warm breath on my face. “Take care of yourself, Tortuga,” she whispered, “don’t go play in the mud now that you’re all clean—”

  I smiled and her dark eyes filled with love. I wanted to say something to her, something about how I felt about her and what I was beginning to learn from my stay at the hospital, but I couldn’t find the words and they moved on to clean the rest of the ward, lugging their mops and pails with them.

  Later the doctors came on their rounds and I lay quietly while Dr. Steel probed and asked questions. Some of the pricks from his needle were beginning to feel sharper, and he grinned when I said so. He made comments on my progress, notes which the Nurse jotted down on my chart, medical gibberish which made the visiting interns nod and pucker their lips with hems and hahs.

  “You’re ready for some physical therapy,” Dr. Steel said. He winked at me. I knew he was happy for me.

  “Good,” I answered, “I’m ready.”

  They turned and gathered in a group to discuss my case, the smashed vertebrae and the consequent paralysis, the slight movement which had returned, the treatment and the prognostication … and far beneath us the river of hot turtle pee gurgled as it ran under the ice which covered the land and the river.

  8

  Peeeeeeeeee-Teeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  Ready for PT?

  What’s PT?

  PT PT PT, you mean you don’ know!

  Oh my.

  PT is prick teaser, get it?

  PT is PT boat—

  PT is the end of the line, or the beginning.

  PT is physical therapy, that’s when they start pulling your legs and arms apart and making them move. And KC is going to be your PT!

  Oh, KC will rub you sooooo close, ooooooh soooo close. She’ll put her big fat boobs all over you, she’s a teaser, a real teaser. She makes your wand feel soooo good—

  Then she asks you, you wanna little?

  And if you can climb on she’ll let you have it!

  She’ll do anything to get you to move. She’ll torture you, threaten you, tease you, play with you, rub her boobs on your face, but she gets you to movin’—

  I like the way she smells. Sweet sweat. She sweats with you while she’s working you over.

  Oh my—

  Who’s KC?

  She’s the physical therapist, the wonder woman of exercise who makes you wish you never got paralyzed! She makes you move even if you don’t want to—she’s kinda like Jesus, she pulls you out of the dead—who was the guy Jesus pulled out of the dead?

  Laz-rus.

  Yeah, Laz-rus. Laz-rus was dead, dead and buried, paralyzed cold, and Jesus said, Laz-rus, come out of the dead! I command you, come out of the dead! And poor ole Laz-rus had to do what the Lord commanded, but can you imagine how painful it was?

  Oh mmmmy—

  Yeah, I mean those nerves and bones were cold, and he had to move them again! And the heart started to pump again, and the blood shot into his dry veins and pounded in his head, and the juices started flowing into his empty stomach and burning everything, and the nerves started jangling like live telephone wires, shooting sparks and messages to the brain and the balls and everywhere! Can you imagine ole Laz-rus shouting, Stop, dear Jesus, stop! Oooooh, stop this friggin’ pain! Oh God he was hurtin’, and he probably thought he was better off dead, cause there ain’t no pain like the pain of coming back to life!

  Jesus is the patron saint of all the PT’s.

  Yeah.

  They love to bring people outta the dead.

  Yeah.

  Especially KC. You can be burning with pain like Laz-rus, and all she says is come on, baby, give it to me sweet baby—

  It’s worse than being born.

  Yeah, except when you’re born you want it. Salomón said we can’t help wanting to swim in the electric-acid of life. It takes only a while to suck air and feel its force in your lungs, and only a while till the acid burns you, then you’re safe and warm sucking at your momma’s breast. But PT is like coming back from the dead, and who in the hell wants to come back from the dead, huh?

  Maybe we did come back from the dead, ever think of that. I mean, this place is like a dumping station between life and death. Our twisted bodies were dumped somewhere and Filomón picked them up to bring them to Dr. Steel to straighten them out … and where do we go from here?

  Back to where we came from—

  Or back to the dead.

  Oh my—

  I remember the pain. Oh God, I never want to feel pain like that again! Never. I’d rather stay dead! There’s nothing to compare it to, unless it’s Laz-rus. He knows what it’s like to be born again, and I bet you all my comic books that if he had known he’d ah said no thanks Jesus, leave me alone, find s
omebody else to bring back from the dead. I’m happy here, it’s quiet and peaceful, just watching the worms do their business, I don’t wanna be an experiment, no suh. And he should’ve been left alone, right? Because what does the guy get for coming back? A pat on the shoulder, then everybody turns to the miracle worker and Laz-rus is left out in the cold, alone, to wander in his crumbling, stinking body forever, worse than a leper, a man no one will touch, they throw rocks at him, the dogs tear at his mouldy flesh, there are no friends left, who wants to have anything to do with a man who came back from the dead?

  What about us? We will be born again in Jesus Christ. The preacher said we will be born again!

  Listen, if it’s going to be that painful then you can have it. I don’t want anything to do with that being born again business. It’s too painful. If St. Peter met me at the pearly gates and said before you come in I’ve got to work you over so you’ll fit in heaven, I’d say screw it. I wanna be just as I am, even if I am a lop-sided freak. Send me where I don’t have to face another PT in my life, ever—

  What about Tortuga?

  It’s his time, man, he has to decide.

  You know damn well KC’s not gonna sit around and twiddle her fingers while he decides. When she comes in she’s ready for work. She grabs ahold of an arm or leg and starts pulling. She’s so mean she’ll break open that friggin’ cast if she has to! She’s a mean, mean momma.

  But she’s good, don’t forget that. She may be a bitch, but she does it for your own good! I mean she will beat the hell outta you to get you goin’, but she does it for you. She pushes you to the end, I mean the goddamn living end!

  This is the living end, har, har, har, our ward is the living end!

  And when she asks you if you’ve had enough and you can’t stand the pain anymore just say, give me more! Give it to me!

  Why?

  Cause if you give up, she gives up. If you get your it-hurts-too-much feeling into her, then she can’t do her work, and you’ll be the loser. Look at Sadsack. He cried and begged cause he couldn’t stand the pain, and pretty soon she felt sorry for him and she began to lay back and so he never came all the way back from paralysis—

  PT is like life.…

  Hey, watch it! A philosopher loose among the cripples!

  It is, man, you gotta commit yourself to it, and once you do there’s no turning back and no excuses. You’re either for it or not, right?

  Raaaaght!

  KC gets you hot but she stays cool. I mean, she knows what she’s doing. When she did it to me she spread herself all over me. She spread her big, sweet boobs over my face and my little wand was waving like mad. She grabbed it and laughed. This is the cure, she laughed, as long as this pecker keeps tickling you’ve got the stuff to make it! I couldn’t move an inch when I first got here, except my flagpole was sticking straight up for somebody to hang a flag on it, and the minute KC touched it it exploded. And now look at me, here I am running around! I swear she can do anything.

  Yeah, and the first thing she’s going to ask you is: Are you a turtle?

  And the answer is: You bet your sweet ass I’m a turtle!

  They all laughed, and their laughter was like the roar of a hurricane in the enormous white room.

  “Hey,” the dark woman laughed, “you look like a turtle! Are you a turtle?”

  I looked at her and said, “You bet your sweet ass I am.”

  She laughed a deep, throaty laugh, and her big breasts shook. She leaned back and slapped her big hips. She had bright red lips and flashing eyes.

  When she stopped laughing she looked at me and asked, “Hey, you’re a smart one. Now tell me, sweet child, you wanna walk like a man … or you wanna stay a turtle?”

  “I want to walk like a man,” I answered, “I want to get up and get the hell out of here.”

  She smiled, then she nodded. “Good. We got a lot of work to do, honey—”

  She pulled off the sheet that covered me, felt my arms and legs, told me to push and pull, feeling each muscle for its strength, jotting down her findings on a chart. She pulled harder than Dr. Steel had ever pulled and when I felt the first stabs of pain my legs drew back, like a turtle draws into its shell at danger. But she drew them out, slowly at first, warming up the muscles, cooing, “Push, baby, push, now don’t that feel good.…”

  She pulled and the feeling was a fire that went screaming down broken nerves and dead muscles. I screamed at first. Like a wounded animal in pain I heard my pitiful cry echo in the room, I saw Jerry turn momentarily, his eyes cold to the cry he hadn’t expected, then he turned back to his work and I learned to hold the pain in check. KC paused, pulled again, waited for my response, and when I clenched my teeth she smiled and pressed her body closer to mine and whispered, “Give it to me, baby, give it to your momma—” And I gave it to her, one more inch of bending joints and muscles full of searing pain, one more grunt which popped the sweat at my forehead, then the relaxing and the massage of KC’s hands as the rhythm rested, then the pull again, like two people making love, pushing against each other, learning to work together. She took as much of the pain as she could into her arms and body, but she couldn’t take it all. I thought the exercises I had been doing on my own were painful, but that was nothing compared to the forced movement. The added pressure shot pain through the bones and blood and left me exhausted, sweating, gasping for air. White light exploded in my brain, exploded in each muscle that moved for the first time as the tentacles of pain reached out and suffocated me. Soon there was nothing but pain. I ceased to exist. I couldn’t feel KC’s hands on me. I felt swept away into the blinding, white light which kept exploding to the throb of the veins on my temples.

  It ain’t easy, Tortuga, it ain’t easy, Salomón said to me. Nobody promised the electric-acid wouldn’t burn you, and that’s the beauty of it, that’s the beauty of life—no eternal rose gardens, no repetitious sweet melodies, instead a search for the fragile flowers of the desert and a floundering to find our own voice to sing our own songs … It ain’t easy, Tortuga, but being born ain’t easy. In the spring there’s a blind-green force that pushes to renew itself in dormant limbs, and as it forces itself to life it burns the tender marrow of the shoots with its acid … ah, pity the sleeping plant which awakens one day throbbing with the wet electric juice of life, Tortuga, pity it for the pain it feels—but celebrate its dance.…

  Long after KC left I could still feel the piercing pain in my newly awakened, trembling muscles and tendons. I lay trembling and shivering, like a rabbit which has been mauled by a dog, gasping for breath. I felt limp and weak, but I felt exhilarated. The pain meant the muscles weren’t dead.

  “It takes time,” Jerry said.

  I smiled. He had shared the half hour of therapy with me. He had tried to weave as much of the pain as he could into the patterns of clouds and sky and thunder in the beads. “It takes time,” I agreed.

  At noon Mike and Ronco and Sadsack returned from swimming and we shared Ismelda’s lunch. We were all hungry from our morning’s work, and the flat, round tortilla bread was the only thing we had tasted of home in a long time.

  “First time Ismelda’s ever brought anyone a gift,” Mike winked.

  “She sure likes Tortuga,” Ronco said.

  “Better be careful with her, Tortuga, she’s a witch—”

  She is a witch, I thought, through the power in her fingertips she started to draw me from my paralysis. Now there was the new strength of KC. I wanted to shout. I wanted to kick my legs like a young foal to show the world it could not keep me down. Instead I smiled and tasted Ismelda’s fragrance in her warm tortilla bread.

  That night when lights were out Mike and Ronco celebrated my first therapy session with a party. Ronco mixed aftershave lotion, rubbing alcohol and orange juice, a drink he called the Ronco Lift and which he swore was stronger than bird farts. They had a little marijuana which Ronco had bought from Speed-o, so they rolled some and smoked and drank. Franco, in one of his rare times whe
n he left his room, came by and played his guitar for us and smoked with us. I think he came because he was glad for me and because in the dark room we could see each other only as shadows. Outside, a storm whipped down from the north and rattled the hospital like an old tin shack, but inside the time was mellow and lazy in the heavy, sweet drift of smoke.

  You scored a big one today, Tortuga … I bet KC’s gonna bring you through …

  I feel high on pain, like I’m floating out there, somewhere …

  That’s the way it is. I cried the first session I had with her, Ronco said.

  I wanted her soooo bad, my pecker was aching, but I couldn’t take the friggin’ pain, Sadsack cursed and spit in the dark.

  I never got my turn, Franco said sadly.

  I tried, oh yes I tried

  To satisfy, her wandering way.…

  Ah, screw it! he mumbled and pushed his chair out of the room.

  We were silent for a long time then Mike said, Pain is a high, and we try to replace that high with songs or women or booze. We never learned to live with pain, or we knew how once then we forgot. It’s as natural as being born …

  Or gettin’ laid …

  Yeah. But we’re always running away from it. There’s a whole ward over on the other side full of glue sniffers. Kids that ran away from all that pain out in the world. You pass by there and the place smells like a glue factory, and to come down they smoke some of this dope. Burned brains.

  How many wards are there?

  Lots … but let’s not talk about that now, why man, we’re celebrating!

  Wheeeeeeeeee—

  I’m sure getting sleepy, Sadsack mumbled.

  The talk drifted slowly back and forth, soft words riding softly on the dark velvet of the night. Nobody got wild or loud. We talked about the memories of good times, and we made up stories about the things we wanted to do when we got out of the hospital. Silence crept into the long space between words as the rest of the kids got sleepy and wandered off to their own rooms. Somewhere Franco crooned,

  A little love

  That slowly grows and grows

  Not one that comes and goes