We watched him climb into the car, his case and his guitar piled on the back seat. My mother’s face was solemn and she was biting the skin around her nails. Coyote waved and we waved back as we always did, but we both felt that this time was different, although we didn’t know why.
Once again we were alone. Just the two of us. My mother and me.
21
That was the last I ever saw of Coyote — until he turned up in my office three decades later, a dirty, malodorous vagabond. I twirled the green feather between my fingers and stared down at it while the old feelings of resentment and hurt resurfaced to cut me with their spikes and make me bleed all over again. It wasn’t his leaving that did it — he had left countless times — but his failure to come home.
At first we continued as before, my mother and I. She laid the table every evening, setting a place for him, just in case. I remember the white tablecloth with red cherries on it and the matching napkins. Coyote’s was clean and ironed, ours crumpled and used. It sat there, that napkin, in its silver holder, day in day out, until his place became like a shrine. I remember my mother’s lemony perfume, the sight of her shining hair and expectant face, the joy in her walk, the song on her lips, the light in her eyes, because Coyote loved her and she never doubted he’d come back. After all, he always had.
But Coyote didn’t come back. It was months before we had news of him. Now, in my mother’s apartment, I rummaged around in the trunk until I found his postcards. It didn’t surprise me that my mother had kept them; they had brought rainbows into our home, rainbows that lasted only moments before disappearing into nothing, because I now realized that she kept everything. They were gathered in a slim bundle, tied up with string. I counted them. There were eight. They kept us going for the first couple of years and then, when they dried up, hope and faith filled the void and let us glimpse those elusive rainbows from time to time, until I descended into a world where there was no sun, no light, and no rainbows. I hated the world. I hated my mother. But, most of all, I hated Coyote for what he had done to me.
I did not like to dwell on those years. They were painful. I looked back instead to that summer at the château, when Coyote had come to us with his mystery and his magic and transformed our lives. He had given love and healed the past. He had taught me how to trust and I had given him my heart, my soul, my faith: my all. The first three years in Jupiter were a time of light. For once the great sun had shone on my face and I had felt special, beloved, cherished, valued. Then Coyote had left and I was no longer good enough or worth enough for him to bother coming home to. I took my mother’s love for granted, but I measured myself against his. He had rejected me and what followed were years of darkness, rebellion, and self-hatred. The chevalier faced the biggest battles of his life against the most deadly enemy of all: himself.
My voice should have been my means of communication. After all, as a small boy I had longed for it, believing it to be the key to solving everything. I had assumed that, with its return, the world around me would shift into place again and I would no longer be at odds with it. At first, that had been the case. I had been proclaimed a saint in Maurilliac, and in Jupiter I had been everyone’s darling. But then Coyote abandoned me and the rot set in, eating away at my spirit little by little until I could barely look at myself in the mirror without an overwhelming sense of self-loathing. You see, the war had taken my father away; Coyote had left of his own accord. My father hadn’t abandoned me; he had been killed. Yet Coyote had chosen to go because he no longer loved me. I meant nothing to him. He moved on, leaving me behind like unwanted baggage.
My voice was useless because I didn’t know how to express my anguish. I didn’t know the vocabulary. In fact, I now realize that there simply aren’t words to describe that sort of pain. So, as I couldn’t speak, I used violence instead. The first time I smashed a window, the feeling of release was so intoxicating, I was temporarily cured. I strutted off home, dizzy with pleasure, empowered by the sense of control the act gave me. The blood that gushed from my broken skin seemed to carry with it all the poison that had accumulated inside. My mother took me to the hospital in a frenzy of worry, while I just lay, as pale as death, smiling serenely into nowhere. When I caught her eye I saw something unfamiliar there, as if I were a stranger to be feared.
For the first couple of years what I did was just petty violence, nothing more. I hooked up with a few other lost children and went out after school in search of trouble. We vandalized walls with paint, scratched cars, shoplifted. But mostly we just talked about it. Plotted and planned, smoked what cigarettes we could scrounge, and shared stolen bottles of liquor. We giggled over girlie pictures and talked about sex, which none of us had yet experienced. Having been the darling of Jupiter I now grew into a menace whom people crossed the street to avoid. My blond hair and pretty blue eyes could no longer hide the criminal I had become, and what did I care? I hated myself, why on earth shouldn’t they? It wasn’t until high school that I began to fall into more serious trouble: sex, drugs, and violence. At fifteen I looked much older. I had been such a small boy, but now, perhaps due to the abundant American food, I was tall beyond my years. Strong broad-shouldered, and my inner fury made me brave. I joined a gang of older boys who met in an abandoned apartment after school to smoke marijuana. They called themselves the Black Hawks. They were feared in the school playground because they preyed on the younger, weaker children, from whom they stole pocket money in order to pay the drug dealers who lurked outside the school-yard. I didn’t care much for that; I had been the weaker child in Maurilliac and I knew what it felt like. I was more interested in sex and violence, because those were ways to lose myself.
The street fights we got ourselves into gave me status and a sense of importance; I was bigger and stronger than anyone else. I could beat the shit out of a giant. I’d see the red mist and that was it; I was all over the place, punching, kicking, snarling. The sense of release was exhilarating, like slicing open an abscess on my soul and feeling the venom trickling out. I enjoyed seeing fear in the boys’ eyes, because I had always been the child afraid of everyone else. Often I superimposed Monsieur Cezade’s face on that of my opponent, before ramming my fist into his jaw. Violence gave vent to my anger and blotted out the pain; sex enabled me to forget the little lost boy I really was. If I was a man I could shove my troubled boyhood into the past and close the door.
The first time I fucked a girl I was thirteen. She was called May and had slept with just about every male in Jupiter. She was pretty enough, with tousled brown hair, hazelnut eyes, and skin that had soaked up too much smoke and alcohol to be considered rosy. She was soft and curvaceous and heavily perfumed. I didn’t know how old she was and I didn’t care; I just wanted to lose my virginity as quickly as possible and be a man. Besides, she was cheap. I could afford her with a few weeks’ pocket money plus a little saved from helping out in the store. She gave me a discount, she said, because I was so young and handsome.
I wasn’t the blushing first-timer she had expected. I explored her body without embarrassment, running my hands enthusiastically over the white plains of her thighs, delving my fingers into the folds between her legs, taking her nipples in my mouth until she wriggled away, protesting that she’d throw me out unless I let her show me how it was done. “You’re like a dirty dog,” she complained, taking my hand and trailing my fingers over her flesh. “Touch me slowly and gently. I’m not a bone!” I was a willing student and a quick learner. While I feasted on her body I could ignore the nagging ache of rejection within me and, for an hour or so, bathe in the sensation of being adored.
Once the mystery was gone, I wanted sex all the time. After I joined the Black Hawks, sex was easy. I could have anyone I wanted, except the nice girls who crossed their legs before marriage; no one could have them. I was good-looking and a member of the Black Hawks, which was a big deal. There were plenty of girls wanting a piece of me.
Girls who were game fell into two categories:
those who fucked without strings and those who needed the security of a relationship in order to fuck. Obviously the first category suited me better but, to me, women were like countries to be conquered and explored: once I had satisfied my curiosity with one, I looked to the next. I didn’t want to go back over old ground unless there was no other option available. So, I had to hop from relationship to relationship, which was hard work, but also a challenge. I soon gained a reputation, but this seemed to do little to dampen my allure. I was angry and aloof. There was no shortage of girls wanting to tame me and, besides, girls are always drawn to the dark side.
If my mother knew of my after-school activities she didn’t let it show. I suppose she was too busy running Captain Crumble’s Curiosity Store to bother with my low grades and truancy. She was barely ever home, anyway. I didn’t notice our drifting away from each other, the growing expanse of waves that flowed between our boats as we sailed in opposite directions without so much as a backward glance. We were both in pain, but I thought only of my own and of the temporary refuges I found in the arms of pretty girls and in the bosom of the Black Hawks. My Saturdays helping out in the store dwindled, and I began to spend less time at home and more time getting into fights. The one place I always felt comfortable, however, was at Maria Elena’s; it was probably due to her that I never killed anyone, for, while she was there, the lines of communication remained open and I always had one foot in a sane and stable place.
“You should really talk to your mother,” she said one day. “She’s very worried about you.”
“I don’t think she cares,” I replied with a shrug.
“You don’t know what you’re saying. She cares very much.”
“What’s there to talk about?” I grunted, turning away from Maria Elena.
She sat down on the sofa beside me and took the bottle of soda out of my hand. “You’re in trouble, Mischa, and we only want to help.” Her voice was serious. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, I turned to face her. “Don’t think we don’t know about your after-school activities. We weren’t born yesterday. Besides, that bruise under your eye didn’t appear in the night.” Her face softened and she looked at me sadly. “You were such a sweet little boy. Where’s he gone to?” I was stunned into silence by the love on her face. I felt my throat constrict and fought back tears. “Your mother misses Coyote as much as you do.” The mention of his name caused my shoulders to hunch defensively.
“I don’t miss him,” I replied sharply. She smiled at so blatant a lie.
“We all miss him. What do you think he’d make of your behavior?”
“I don’t care.”
“We care.” She gripped my hand tightly. “We care about you. To Matias and me you’re like family. We don’t want to see you descend into drugs and crime. You go there, Mischa, and you’ll never come out. There are gangs out there far worse than yours and they think nothing of killing people. You’re too good for that. You should be concentrating on your studies so you can make something of your life. It’s not going to happen on its own. We all have our sorrows and disappointments, but we all have to work through them. We can’t choose what happens to us in our lives, but we can choose how to react. Coyote has gone. You can either let yourself go and end up in a ditch one day or move on.”
I sat reflecting on her words. She had touched a nerve and it hurt. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to restrain myself from losing control and throwing everything in her tidy living room out of the window.
“Your mother is all alone. She has not only lost her husband but she’s losing her son. Look beyond yourself for a moment and think of her. It’s not her fault that Coyote left. He abandoned you both.”
I saw my mother in my mind’s eye, naked and shaved, trembling on the cobblestones in the Place de l’Eglise, and my heart softened. It had always been just the two of us: Maman and her little chevalier. My eyes stung with tears.
“I have to go out,” Maria Elena said, getting up. I heard the door close and the echo of silence that followed. I leaned forward, placed my head in my hands and cried. I had never felt so alone.
That night I got into terrible trouble. We had arranged a midnight fight with a rival gang in a parking lot outside Jupiter. It was an industrial park out in the middle of nowhere, the perfect place for a fight. The night was unusually dark, the place badly lit, the wind that whistled around the buildings icy cold and sharp. I was like a bull in a pen, snorting and stamping, eager to vent my fury with my fists. I never expected the other gang to be carrying knives. It all happened very quickly. I suppose they wanted to teach me a lesson. I was arrogant, cock-sure, the Black Hawks’ deadly weapon. Within a minute I had about three on me at once. I jabbed one on the nose, heard the breaking of cartilage beneath my fingers, and kicked another, right in the crotch. He doubled up, gagging in agony. But then a sharp pain seared through the side of my body and my legs gave way beneath me. I looked down to see the silver glint of a switchblade catch the light as it withdrew from my coat. I placed my hand there and saw blood turn my skin red. Letting out a deep groan I fell to the ground. The patter of running feet grew distant until they disappeared altogether into the night.
“Man, that’s bad.” I felt a hand prize my own from the wound before quickly replacing it. “Blood. Shit, he’s a goner. What the fuck do we do now?”
They didn’t have to do anything. A night watchman had witnessed the whole episode and telephoned the police. As their headlights illuminated the parking lot, the Black Hawks deserted me. Every one of them. Suddenly I was alone on the wet asphalt. As I lay dying in the drizzle, I thought of my mother. She wouldn’t have deserted me. Not ever. I had to live to say I was sorry.
When I came to, I was in the hospital, my mother at my side. She was holding my hand, looking at me with that worried expression creasing the skin between her eyes. When she saw me open my eyes, she smiled. “You silly boy!” she said. “A chevalier only fights for good: how could you have forgotten?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied in a whisper.
“It’s going to be okay.” Her face glowed with resolve. “We’re going to move to New York. I’ve had enough of Jupiter. We need a change, don’t you think?” I felt a sudden panic fall heavily on my chest.
“How will he find us there?” I asked hoarsely. Now her eyes glittered and the corners of her mouth twitched in an effort to hold on to her smile.
“If he wants to find us, he will.”
“Do you think he’ll come back?”
“I know he will. One day.” She was so sure. I wanted to be as sure as she.
“How do you know?”
“Because I just do. Call it a hunch. The wind brought him once, it’ll bring him again, I promise.”
“I didn’t think you believed in magic.”
She reached out and stroked my forehead. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Mischa Fontaine. I taught you all the magic you know.”
So we packed up our things and moved to the Big Apple.
22
I liked Manhattan immediately. With the share of the money my mother got from selling the warehouse and all the crazy things inside it, she bought a small apartment above a shop in lower Manhattan, next to Mr. Halpstein, the eccentric clockmaker. It was simple but it didn’t matter. We both felt a sense of liberation, as if we were shedding our skins and emerging clean and new.
I liked the anonymity of the big city. I could put the Black Hawks and the violence behind me. I could choose to walk away from it all, into a place where no one knew me or my history. I could wander down the sidewalks without sending people flocking to the other side of the street as if I were a wolf among pigeons.
My mother set about building up a business. She called it Fontaine’s and began buying and selling real antiques, not the junk Coyote had collected at Captain Crumble’s Curiosity Store. She went to auctions and house sales and, little by little, she created a fine inventory. My mother had beautiful taste. After all, she was French and had spent a grea
t deal of her life at the château when the owners had been people of culture and refinement. She was an intelligent woman. It didn’t take her long to grasp the trade. When she wanted to charm, few were able to resist her, and it wasn’t long before she gained a reputation for having a good eye and sound sense. I think it gave her enormous satisfaction to use her mind. She had been wasted in the laundry room at the château and in helping Coyote with the accounts at the warehouse. Now she ran her own show and she relied on her own instincts. She made contacts, but I don’t think she made friends.
I missed the only friends we had had: Maria Elena and Matias. They visited us a few times in those early days, but I never went back to Jupiter. I had made the decision to change. I did not want to be reminded of what I had become. But even they gave up in the end. My mother had changed towards Maria Elena. She was no longer warm and confiding. They didn’t laugh the way they used to. Something had gone and I sensed it was irretrievable. I had believed my mother and I had drifted away from each other, but after we moved to New York I realized that it had been my mother who had been slowly drifting away from us. Maria Elena and Matias returned to Chile. Their leaving wasn’t a rejection, but I felt once more isolated and alone.
My mother had taught me nearly everything I knew. Now she included me in the business and we grew close once more. “One day it will all be yours,” she said, as I endeavored to tell a Louis XV from a Louis XVI. But I never thought it would be. My mother had always been there, I couldn’t imagine life without her.
At Fontaine’s, my boyhood interest in Coyote’s magnificent warehouse was reignited and I grew to love those old chairs and tables to the exclusion of people. Why would I want to trust human beings, when those I had known had never stuck around for me? Every time I loved, I lost. And every time I lost, I grew a little more cynical. People had blown in and out of my life like seeds in springtime. Not one had settled and taken root, even though the ground had been ripe and hungry. My mother was all that was left, and the furniture in which we invested our hearts.
The Gypsy Madonna Page 19