She was rising now, feeling like her bones were made of lead, that her shoes were on backward, that her smile was frozen to her face. Her palms were damp in the long ivory-colored gloves, and she clutched the priceless gown of matching taffeta and silk, the color of camellias. Dozens of people had labored over the straight-bodiced, full-skirted dress that Freddy declared had “the magic of a star.”
Freddy…She turned to him, breathless, her eyes wide and bright. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, then kissed her cheek, smiling with relief and pride, his eyes brimming with tears. She felt him nudge her forward.
Charlotte took a deep breath, nodded, then marked her spot on the stage. Freddy had given her an amphetamine before she left for the theater to help her get through the long program. She could feel it racing through her veins and humming in her ears.
All around her were smiling faces, people pressing their hands upon her and murmuring congratulations, wanting to get close as she slipped past them in the row. The orchestra was playing the theme song to Camille as she glided up the aisle, up the stairs, gracefully skimming across the immense stage to where Mel Gibson was holding out a statue to her.
She felt the weight of the Oscar in her hands, a heavy gold statue that embodied so many dreams for so many people. An object of desire, even adoration—the golden calf.
She looked out over the elaborate art deco podium and didn’t see the thousands of people, colleagues most of them in one form or another. She didn’t think of the billion people watching her by satellite across the world.
Charlotte Godfrey thought only of Michael Mondragon.
Bobby came out to the porch just as Luis honked impatiently. Adjusting his collar, he waved to his father, then turned and rolled his eyes to Michael.
“Vamonos!” Luis called out. “We will be late! You think they wait for us? Get in, let’s go!”
After an hour’s drive to a remote valley, they arrived at their destination. It wasn’t a place so much as an event. Under the blanket of night, trucks and cars clustered around a seedy-looking wooden structure. The Clubhouse, they called it. It was flanked on both sides by swarming men and long corridors of bird crates brought for the fights. Luis tapped the steering wheel with anticipation while Michael and Bobby exchanged glances in the back seat. Michael tied back his hair at his neck, on guard. Bobby was wary.
They made their way as one across the hard-packed field. All around them, tough, hardened men with beer bellies and muscled arms, most of them Mexican, were pushing shoulder to shoulder to squeeze into the Clubhouse. No concern for fire laws here; the joint was already splitting at the seams with shouting spectators, handlers and countless squawking birds. Behind them men were hissing in Spanish for them to get a move on. “Andale!” The fights had already started.
At the wide door stood a giant, bulky, full-bearded man. He was wearing a soiled sports cap, a denim jacket so greasy you could scrape it with a knife and a scowl. Beside him, mounted beside the entrance, was a handwritten sign that read No Dopeheads, Faggots Or Bleeding Hearts Allowed.
Michael looked over his shoulder to check how Bobby was dealing with that. Bobby only winked, then slipped though the door. Michael followed right behind. Once inside, they marched through the soggy stench in a line behind Luis.
“Over there,” Luis shouted over the clamor, pointing in the air to a cramped corner where Manuel was pacing, sucking a cigarette, beside a crate of birds. “Manuel has our birds. Beauties, they are. Come on.”
“Your birds?” Michael hissed, moving close to Luis’s ear.
Luis turned and pushed his way through the crowd to where Manuel was removing one large tricolor rooster from the crate.
“At last! You got here just in time,” Manuel shouted to Luis over the din. He ignored Michael. They had not been comfortable with each other since their words in October.
“The birds are tense,” he said to Luis. “We lost two fights already.”
“Sí, sí,” Luis responded with the calm of experience. He moved beside the crates, bending over with a grunt and checking his birds. “What can we do, eh? We must lose a few. But no more. They cost me good money.”
Michael could only wonder how much money. This activity was definitely not in his books.
Luis selected a long, straight blade from a row and scythed it through a page of a telephone book, then tried it against the callused skin of his thumb. He nodded, satisfied. Then, taking hold of the gamecock, he strapped the blade to the rear of its left leg.
“Look at him, Miguel,” he said, calming the bird with knowing strokes. “He’s magnificent, eh? A conquistador. No one teaches this bird to fight. It comes from God.” Then he looked at his sons, his eyes shining. “It’s in the blood.”
Michael watched, fascinated, as his father handled the bird, stroking and kissing his head, oblivious to the roar of the crowd as one fight ended and men shouted and scrambled to cash in their bets. The signal was given and Luis moved into the pit, cooing to his bird, along with another handler sporting a cowboy hat. Michael drew nearer. The crowd erupted in a frenzy of renewed betting.
“Fifty bucks on the cowboy hat!” shouted one.
“Fifty on the red jacket!” shouted another, referring to Luis.
The men swarmed, frantic to place their bets while Luis and Cowboy Hat swayed rhythmically three times toward each other. The birds squawked and glared, catching the scent of the fight. Michael felt his adrenaline flow. The cocks were psyched. The room was close with the smell of sweat and blood, the heat of unwashed bodies pressing and the mounting tension of the kill.
For the kill was coming. One only had to see the crazed look in the eyes of the gamecocks to know that the fight was to the death. Michael looked from the eyes of the birds to the eyes of his father, then to the eyes of the men surrounding the pit. They were no different.
The birds were mad now; the crowd hushed. Luis and Cowboy Hat set their birds on the ground behind the lines in the sand. Instantly, their hackles rose and Luis’s bird charged at the other rooster, pecking at his neck. The other bird attacked, missing, flying over the other bird’s head. Then they were at it in earnest, all over each other, pecking at necks, stabbing at breasts, in a blur of feathers.
It was over in a few minutes. Cowboy Hat’s bird was down. The crowd roared. Michael’s stomach tightened. Cowboy Hat moved closer to make clucking noises with his tongue, entreating his bird to peck. It was no good. The bird was either dead or feigning death. Luis’s bird flew up and perched upon the other bird’s carcass, flapping its wings and stretching its neck while Luis crowed nearby.
Instantly, the teeming mass of men erupted into renewed shouting as money passed hands. Michael turned his head in disgust as Cowboy Hat grabbed hold of the vanquished bird and smartly swung it around, breaking its neck. Then he tossed the warm carcass onto a pile of other dead birds.
“So, this is God given, is it?” Bobby quipped, staring at the pile of discarded birds and beer cans.
Michael offered a wry smile in return, wishing he had a beer to wash out the stale taste in his mouth. “It’s sure about blood, anyway.”
“To think I’ve succeeded in avoiding this for thirty-three years.”
“God, what a bunch of lowlifes. That son of a bitch at the door was spawned in a sewer. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Our mistake was to let Papa drive. Now we’re stuck.”
“How many more do we have to sit through?”
The crowd erupted again in a savage ovation. From over their heads, he could see a bird swirled by his neck in the air.
“Another one bites the dust,” Michael drawled, scowling.
“I’ll never eat chicken again,” Bobby said, twisting his mouth.
“Don’t bet on it. Here comes Papa with a plate of roasted bird and some beers. Hmm, I wonder where the chicken came from?”
“Here you are!” shouted Luis. “I brought you some food.”
Both Michael and Bobby raised their pa
lms simultaneously. “Just a beer for me.”
“How much longer?” Michael wanted to know.
Luis looked crestfallen. “It’s just getting good.”
“Great,” Michael said, heading to the back of the Clubhouse, resigned to having to spend another hour or so in this hellhole. “Go on back to your birds,” he called with a wave of his hand. “We’ll be hanging around till you’re done.”
“Manuel is alone by the birds. Why don’t you stand by him?”
Michael stopped and turned his head, his face hardened. Luis didn’t argue and turned away. Michael was relieved to see his father’s back.
Thunder rumbled overhead as an evening storm moved in. Inside, the humidity deepened. The air grew thick and rank. A blue haze from the smoke of countless cigarettes hung low. Michael watched his father perform in his element. Even the most naive spectator could see that his father was a person held in great respect in this motley crowd. Through the evening the rest of his birds won, though one of the winners had to be put down, anyway. By the end of the fights he’d won a pot of dough, enough to replace the birds he’d lost and then some. Men gathered around Luis, admiring his birds, slapping him on the back.
You crazy old man, he thought to himself. Here in this visceral world of blood and guts his father felt right at home. Well, he wasn’t like his father. Never could be. Never would be, he decided.
Michael looked over the heads of the crowd and checked on his brother. Bobby was resting against the wall. His face was pale and smudged with dark circles under his closed eyes. It was getting late. The crowd had thinned. The eyes of the men that were left were bloodshot and their breaths reeked of cheap liquor. Michael shook his brother’s shoulder and set his mouth in a grim line. Blood and booze. A mean combination.
“Let’s go,” he said to Bobby.
Bobby stretched his shoulders and wiped a palm across his face, nodding. “None too soon. I feel like I need a bath. Maybe two. You go get Papa and I’ll go get the car.”
Michael fetched his father, where he stood laughing and joking with his cronies.
“All right,” Luis snapped, lifting his hands. “Just let me count my money. Help Manuel carry the crates to the car.”
He did so. Manuel helped him lift the crates without speaking, then led the way across the floor littered with brown and green bottles, cans and spit. Michael blinked wearily, eager to be gone. Outside, the fresh night air was like a welcome slap in the face. Thunder rolled; cool air was moving in. He gulped a few breaths over the crates, noting that the birds had quieted in the fresh air.
A few cars were clustered near the door. A few were cruising past, filled with laughing men, more drunk than not. Everyone was eager to get home before the storm broke. A few more cars were scattered like sleeping beasts in the brittle grass. Manuel’s truck was parked only a few feet away. They went there first, delivering the exhausted birds into the rear of the pickup.
Michael scanned the shadowed lot, his brows gathered, his eyes sharp. His father was stepping out from the Clubhouse. A few men huddled by a maroon sedan, shoulders hunched, money and something else being exchanged. He swung his head from left to right, a sense of foreboding rippling through him. Where was Bobby and the car? He should have been here by now.
“Bobby?” he called out. Sheet lightning flashed in the sky as the storm rolled closer. He could smell rain in the air. He walked a few paces in the direction of where they’d parked, his gut tightening. These guys here wouldn’t think twice about beating up a guy they thought was weak, much less gay. Wouldn’t even ask. They’d consider it sport. Damn, Bobby was wearing those linen pants.
Thunder rumbled like a growl, and again lightning streaked the sky. He saw two cars parked ten yards off, his father’s and a green low rider. Its doors were open. Someone was sitting on the hood. Farther out in the field, to the left of the cars, stood a circle of men, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the black night. He heard a sudden swell of laughter. A shout. Then a few muffled grunts.
“Bobby!” Acting on gut instinct, Michael took off on a trot toward the noise, fists at the ready. He heard Luis and Manuel at his heels. Drawing near he heard the unmistakable sound of fist meeting flesh, and counted four men, maybe five. And one man was down on the ground, being kicked.
Michael picked up speed and vaulted into the group of men, ramming his shoulder into the chest of the one who hovered over his brother, pushing him off his feet to the dirt. He swung around to look at his brother. Bobby lay in the dirt, his arm over his face and his knees to his chest. Even in the dim light of the moon he could see that he’d been bloodied.
The vision cloaked his eyes with red. His months of well stoked anger bellowed from his mouth like a furnace of fury. He showed his teeth, raised his fists and lunged at the first man who was fool enough to get back up and fly at him. He was a big man, fat but soft. Michael felt his knuckles connect with jaw. Crack! He knocked the delito down. The pain felt good. Raw.
He threw back his shoulders, stretching his neck. “Come on,” he shouted at the rest of them, waving them in. “Cowards! Cholos!”
The three other men, thin and edgy, danced on the balls of their feet like bantam cocks, then charged. Michael got a left hook into one before he felt a solid punch in his gut. The air whooshed out of him, and he staggered back two steps. But he ducked his head and lunged, swinging again and again, his fists meeting hardened muscle. Michael was bigger, stronger than this guy, but the dark-skinned man with a blue hair net and a tattoo was a skilled street fighter, as tough as taut leather. An uppercut made Michael see white. He walloped mercilessly and they tumbled to the ground, grunting and swearing.
Manuel and his father joined the fight, taking blows and giving them back, hard. Their heart was in the fight. This was more than honor; this was family. They fought hard and mean before the other men took off, shirttails flapping in the wind as they sprinted across the field to their cars. Luis had to hold Michael back from chasing after them.
“Enough,” he called out, spit spraying.
The fight was over in a matter of minutes, but it had been bloody.
Luis was panting; his shirt was torn and his left eye was swollen shut. But he bore a grin that spread from ear to ear. “We fought them off, mi’jos! Together. Eh? The Mondragon men are conquistadors!”
Manuel laughed and nodded, dragging his sleeve across his bloodied nose. “Sí. They better not come this way again, huh. We’ll kick their ass.” He stumbled over to Luis and wrapped an arm around him, patting his back.
Michael hurried to Bobby, who had lifted himself up on one arm. His head was drooped over his chest and he was breathing hard.
“Bobby, how bad is it?” He was worried. This looked real bad. He bent down beside him and Bobby raised his head. Michael’s breath caught. Bobby’s beautiful face was a swollen, disfigured mass. His lips were cut, his eyes were black, his nose was bent, and blood flowed down his lumpy face like thick rivers through the Black Hills. Swallowing his bile, he gently took hold of Bobby’s shaking shoulders and leaned him against his own.
“No,” Bobby protested through broken teeth. “Blood.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“I think—” Bobby coughed, spitting out a tooth. “I think a rib is broken.”
Michael swore, sure much more was broken. Bones, ribs, his spirit.
Luis came up behind him and swore loudly when he saw his son. “No lo creo… Look what they’ve done to my boy! Call them back, Manuel. I want my hands on them!”
“Go get the car,” Michael counter-ordered.
“Sí, the car. Quickly,” Luis agreed, nodding. “We must get him home to Mama.”
“I think the hospital,” Michael said.
“No. No hospital.” Luis had a deep hatred for American hospitals. They were not for the Mexican people, he’d said for many years, ever since he was turned away when he was young and very sick. He stepped closer, taking charge.
“Does it hurt?�
� Luis asked his son.
“No,” Bobby mumbled.
“Can you endure?”
“Yes.”
Luis nodded, satisfied.
Michael saw a perverse pride in his father’s eyes, looking down at his battered son.
“A conquered man has no face or heart,” Luis said to Bobby. “But mi’jo, you have both.” With eyes shining he stooped to hug his son.
“No, get back,” Bobby cried, his palm outstretched.
“There’s blood!”
Luis hesitated, his hand in the air. He didn’t understand.
Michael did. “You’re cut,” he said to Luis. “Your wound is open.”
Luis touched his broken lip with his fingers, still not comprehending. He moved forward again.
“No!” Bobby shouted, scooting on the dirt, the effort causing him to wince. “Papa, get back. The blood.” He coughed and lowered his head. “I have AIDS.”
Luis’s eyes grew round with understanding. He yanked back his hand as though burned and sat back on his haunches. He turned to Michael, seeking verification.
Michael nodded, eye to eye.
“How? When?”
“You know how,” Bobby said, his voice soft and broken. “You’ve always known. You just wouldn’t admit it.” He lifted his gaze. He appeared resigned. Defeated.
Luis looked at Bobby, then Michael, with a dazed expression. This hit had been the hardest. He staggered to his feet and backed away.
Bobby squelched a sob and bowed his head. Michael felt the weight of him sag against his chest.
“Don’t walk away,” Michael shouted out after Luis’s retreating back. “You son of a bitch. Don’t you walk away! He needs you. Now more than ever. He’s your son.”
“He’s not my son!” Luis shouted back. He had tears in his eyes, but his mouth, swollen and dark with blood, was chiseled. Thunder rolled in response. They all stared at one another, stunned, not knowing what to do or say next.
“He’s not my son,” Luis repeated in a mumbled voice, stumbling backward like a drunk.
Girl in the Mirror Page 33