A Nation of Amor

by Christopher McConnell

  Teresa passed my sentence in mommy’s court this morning. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. I’ve lost my occupancy rights. She’s free-lancing. A regular rebel. I guess mommy doesn’t mean more than the last person who feeds you at her age.

  She sat on my lap at the table this morning. Her aunty and all her cousins made a nice little audience. When she was sure she had everybody’s attention she rapped me across the face with her spoon. Then turned, laughing, to her adoring public. Then she did it again. So I’m the town clown. So she treats me like a substitute teacher for a few days. The little angel.

  I unlatch the back door and the fumes hit me. It smells as if I’m locked inside a brand new car. I lean over the back porch railing and there she is, peeking from around the side of the house. But even Teresa’s wise enough to take a pass on the scene in the back yard. Mano’s there. The crazy one. Even for a Matos. The one that when he was six you knew he’d never see twenty-six.

  The hazy air is full of spray paint. Right there, on Tom’s pride and joy, a greasy black and gold tag. Mano’s talking to himself, I hope. Because if that’s singing it ain’t no lullaby. With his free hand he’s applying the seventh or eighth coat of paint to Tom’s precious bricks.

  His other hand cradles a baby. Some poor thing crammed down in the folds of his leather jacket. I can see a few wispy threads of black hair poking out. The baby isn’t cramping his style too much. Mano’s got it shoved into his armpit like a stolen car stereo.

  Mano doesn’t notice me. Luckily, Teresa shows no desire to investigate the back yard any further. Teresa isn’t stupid. It’s just Westtown. Where most two-year-olds already have enough good judgment to avoid the stink of recklessness that Mano gives off. If that baby stuffed into his jacket could walk, it’d be making it’s way to the front yard right now too.

  I silently back into the apartment. Great. I guess I could be thankful that Mano chose a wall in back. I guess I could also be thankful that because it’s Tom’s house none of the neighbors are particularly bothered. But it can’t be too long before somebody gets a bee up her ass and calls the cops.

  I free my Coqui and set Tom’s key on the window seat. Teresa erupts into the front yard. She makes a line for the front gate and presses her head in between the bars. She’s stuck. Good work Teresa. I’ll call 911 and tell them to bring a hacksaw. Then you can try to explain to the social worker how mommy let you get an hourglass-shaped head.

  And, of course, he’s back early. Mr. Stolarz. My Tom. A guy who when he says 5 p.m. means 5 p.m., dammit Sara, not 4:50 p.m. or 5:10 p.m. And it couldn’t be much after 4 o’clock. He walks up the street, staring at my daughter as if she were a calling card next door’s mutt left on his lawn.

  Teresa yanks her thick skull free. She rubs her ears, sizing up Tom while he unlocks his gate. She doesn’t cry. Kid’s got a hell of a pain threshold when I’m out of earshot. Before Tom can get inside she’s racing for the back yard again. Pumping along in that kid way which is always one misstep from leaving the skin of her face like a patch of burnt rubber on the pavement. Tom lights after her but I rap hard on the window and wave him up to me.

  Just get out. I saw Meryl Streep do this one time. She closed the elevator doors on Dustin Hoffman’s face. Meryl had an elevator. She also left the kid with Dustin. And Meryl didn’t have a Latin King tagging up the back yard. I listen to the click clack of Tom’s feet on the stairs. I haul my bag over my shoulder and drop coquí inside.

  Tom plows in. He kisses me on the forehead. Without passion, like mother superior kissing a novitiate. I hate that.

  “How’d that yard monkey get inside the gate?” Tom barks. I guess you could call it a kind of “Hi honey I’m home.”

  But he doesn’t stop to chat. Or listen. He rushes around the room, dropping another piece of clothing with each step. Tom can’t get undressed in one place. And his clothes. When not on his body everything’s another throw rug. He gets himself a beer.

  “I let her in, to play,” I answer. “Tom, listen, I’ve left my key.”

  But by the time I say it he’s in the john. The door’s open and he’s peeing. The streaming sound echoes, drowns out my voice. I could move closer but he won’t hear me. Tom’s a rapt pisser. Legs astride, cigarette hanging from his lip. He’s all concentration. Finished, he emerges wearing only plaid boxer shorts and socks. Tom considers this sexy. Too bad he never asked me.

  I could run for it. Scoop up Teresa and be in the car before he gets his pants on. But he’d come after me. Too much like past performances. Sure. Tom would come charging after me. My knight in tartan boxer shorts.

  “What a day,” he grumbles, launching into the first monologue of the night. “You know what I just saw? Rey Matos beating his brother to a pulp on Division Street. Trashed the beemer too.” Tom grins. Sweetly, like he’s just tied two cats together by their tails. “Sounds like reason enough for a celebration to me. Eh?”

  “Tom, I’ve taken all of my—”

  “Wherever you were going, cancel it,” he yelps. “We’re to meet people in less than an hour.”

  For a guy with a framed diploma I shouldn’t have to paint a picture. The apartment looks like a sock turned inside out. And past him, down the corridor, the back door is ajar. Open just enough for Mano’s spray paint to tease his nostrils. If he’d listen, he’d not only hear the big brushoff. He’d also hear the thump and pause, thump and pause, of Teresa heaving her way up the stairs. If he’d listen.

  “Tom, I’m leaving, I’m not coming back,” I tell him.

  But he didn’t listen. He smelled it. His face screws up and he marches toward the open door in back.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “Good-bye Tom, I’m—”

  “Shhh! Don’t you smell that?”

  Rushing in his stocking feet, he skids and slides like a kid on ice skates for the first time. Maybe I should do an interpretative dance for him. Use Teresa’s thumping as a bass line, Mano’s shake, rattle, and spray as the rhythm section.

  Tom never blows under pressure. He gets artful. He rises to the occasion. Tom would be a good fireman. Or maybe a mercenary. Any job where the time clock is really a few split seconds to make the right decision.

  It doesn’t take him long to absorb the situation. He jabs back into the room and lifts the receiver from the telephone. It could be luck? Or maybe just dramatic tension? But Tom’s got his back to the door as Teresa mounts the last step. She pauses at the threshold, her cheeks flushed red. I guess a flight of stairs is a tough workout when your inseam is a little over twelve inches.

  Reactions are for suckers. If you wait another few seconds the logical outcome generally presents itself.

  Tom is clear over the phone. He’s polite. Earnest. Yes officer, no officer, thank you officer. He rings off his address in a crisp tone. He spells the hard parts, like Mano Matos, that’s M-A-T-O-S. Tom’s a taxpayer. He’s doing his duty. Thank you God for 911.

  He sets down the phone and quickly lights a cigarette. Tom smokes after sex, too.

  Teresa waited for Tom to finish his call. A real little lady. Won’t barge in while somebody’s on the phone. I wonder who taught her that? Her body starts to rev up, the way kids do, taking a few steps in one place before breaking into a sprint. Kind of like a hot rod spinning its wheels before it takes off.

  Teresa crosses the room at a good pace. She screeches “Mommy!” At the top of her lungs. Just for good measure. I open up for her like I’m catching a medicine ball. She leaps into me, wrapping her arms around my neck. I hold her tight and turn her face away from Tom.

  From his expression, I figure Tom never had much practice being dumbstruck. I guess he expected to look dumbstruck about as much as he expected to see me holding my two-year-old daughter. Ain’t life a grab bag full of cheap, useless surprises.

  For a moment, it’s like somebody has me on a string, pulling me on a line higher and higher away, up into the stratosphere. Tom. His empty room. His empty house. Surround
ed by that impregnable gate. An island in the middle of West-town. A barely visible neighborhood amidst all the others. Until I’m so high and so far away that Westtown looks like just another cornfield in an aerial photograph of the great state of Iowa. But then I thud back to earth. Those trips are always too short.

  Tom reaches for the phone, like he’s reaching for a gun. But there’s nobody to call. Even for a good taxpayer. He makes like he’s putting a hand in his pocket. Too bad he forgot he isn’t wearing any pants. He folds his arms and brushes the cigarette ash against a bare bicep. He clamps the cigarette between his teeth and rubs the red burn mark on his arm. His eyes shrink to slits, cigarette smoke drifting into them.

  I guess he’s thinking about all those things he said to me once. Especially about the cost of condoms as opposed to the cost of keeping thousands of illegitimate children on welfare. Maybe not. Maybe he’s thinking about smashing my face in. Maybe he respects me now. After all, having an illegitimate child isn’t the easiest secret to keep. Nice word that, illegitimate.

  “I’ve left your key. Good-bye Tom.”

  The ash falls off the end of his cigarette. A trail of gray flecks dot his chest. “How could you do this to me, Sara?” He asks.

  I take a good nanosecond to try and figure what my state of motherhood could possibly mean to him. But even that is allowing too much time. He’s about to kick into gear. I head for the door.

  “You fucking whore!” He shouts. “I made you, Sara!”

  I take the stairs two at a time. Teresa’s speaking to me. Kid questions. Who was that man, mommy? Why mommy? Where are we going, mommy? Why, mommy? Why, mommy?

  Because mommy wanted to be so tough. Because when mommy was seventeen she guessed she knew as much about life as anybody. More. Because mommy loved the dangerous life. Because mommy loved cocaine. Then mommy loved a Bugsy. When that got boring mommy loved a cop and a Bugsy. Because mommy was going to live the glamorous life. And now, it’s just Teresa and mommy, getting into a beat-up Chevy and driving off to college to live in the mature students dorm with her Hefty bags full of scraps left over from the glamorous life.

  A roller pulls up in front of the house. Two cops jump out, a little too quickly, seeing as there must be more important matters than another Latin King tag. I guess nobody really knows what motivates a cop. Especially me.

  Another pair must be around back. There are shouts, then the rubbery slap of two high-top gym shoes running up the gangway. It’s a flushing movement. Two cops beat the brush in back, two waiting for the prey in front. I could make it easier for them and open the gate. But even I wouldn’t knowingly get in between the police and a cornered Mano Matos. Unless that punk can pole vault, he isn’t getting out of the yard without cuffs around his wrists.

  Mano darts into the front yard. He reaches into his jacket and even if any of the cops know that’s a baby in there, it don’t look like he’s reaching to tweak any kid’s nose.

  A gunshot reverberates down the gangway. That sound is unmistakable. Anybody in Westtown has heard that sound at night. Even Teresa knows that’s a nighttime sound, not a sunshine sound.

  Mano’s down. Felled like a tree. Like his legs went dead. Cut from beneath him. His jacket spills open and something red, but not because it’s a puckered newborn anymore, rolls out on the grass. I press Teresa’s face into my shoulder so she can’t see it.

  One of the cops is shouting into his car radio. He’s got to shout to be heard over Mano’s screams. Big, throaty screams. A human siren. Alive. All-encompassing. So even as the ambulance gets closer and closer, Mano’s screams are still at the top of the register.

  A pointed gun peeks from beyond the corner of the house, followed by an arm, then a body. It’s Husky. It’s old home week. It’s a garden party for the ex-lovers of Sara Figueroa.

  Mano’s gun is still in his hand but he doesn’t look able to lift his head, let alone point and shoot. His chest is soaked red but whether it’s his blood or what’s left of the baby’s head is anybody’s guess.

  Husky doesn’t take any chances. Husky steps a big, black clodhopper onto Mano’s wrist. He presses, as if he was pushing a spade into the dirt, until Mano lets go of the gun. Mano’s hand is covered with black paint. Mano keeps screaming, but it gets lower, like a wounded animal bellowing. A big animal.

  Too many strange sounds for an afternoon in June. People are running down the street. Coming from all directions. But Tom hasn’t buzzed anybody through the gate yet. And I’m not moving Teresa from this spot until all those guns get holstered. Teresa struggles against me. She wants to see.

  All Westtown is out, foaming at the gates. The mob is three, four deep beyond the iron bars. The paramedics can’t get through. They all want to get in to the kill.

  Teresa sees Husky. She kicks at me with her hard little shoes. I try to change my grip but she breaks free. She hits the ground running. She heads straight for Husky, her little legs churning, and through the sirens and the screams of pain and the mob shouts I hear her chirp, “Daddy! Daddy!” Like Husky was walking through the front door after a hard day’s work.

  Tom must have buzzed them in because the crowd pushes its way through the gate. Somebody lays a jacket over that poor baby’s body. It barely makes a dent beneath it.

  After the riot, they’ll have a Latin King funeral for it. There’s a special florist who spray paints roses black and gold. They’ll arrange the brittle flowers in the shape of a three-pronged crown.

  MARIZA DEL RIOS

  June 17, on the Division Street bus

  Flaco says,

  “How you do on the test, Mari?”

  But I wait to answer ’cuz a police car with its siren blaring burns past the bus. There it goes, heading straight for West-town. Bookin’ down Division Street into whatever trouble is wrecking a nice summer day. There’s always a little more trouble ahead on this street.

  I say,

  “I think I passed. I’m pretty sure I passed.”

  And Flaco smiles at me nice. He knows and I know, and it’s a strange feeling. Feeling confident and all. Flaco’s about the smartest guy I know. But for me it’s different, to feel like this. I surprised myself that I could answer him so straight. Like for once I got the right to pimp a little that I be smart and accomplished something.

  Flaco says,

  “You passed. I know you passed, Mariza. You’re too smart not to.”

  And we both stop talkin’ because there ain’t nothing to really say and if we try to push it we might hurt this moment. I feel all tired and wasted, but somehow proud and happy, like we both just ran a marathon. I lean my head against Flaco’s shoulder but it ain’t nothing nasty like that. Just two friends that have been through a lot together, even if he is a guy.

  I wonder how much we been through? Last year, sheeit, I could never imagine anything more than taking care of little Josie for the rest of my life. But now I know that I could start community college in September. Crazy! And still, it only be some scrappy GED. I mean, most peoples in the world probably look all snotty at a GED, but here in Westtown it makes me a big shot. So, it may not seem like much to everybody else but it means everything to me. If I can do this, why can’t I do lots of other good things too? A GED might be a baby step, but it’s a step.

  The bus stops and lets an ambulance zoom by. Damn, must be something comin’ down for real. That fuckin’ Mano, at least it ain’t him this time. He couldn’t get into any tall troubles with lookin’ after Josie today. You know what, I bet he did a pretty good job of it too. I bet he did. I bet he liked seein’ his daughter and not havin’ to act like Mr. Gangster all day.

  The ambulance goes,

  “WOOO WOoo Wooo wooo!”

  The sound trailing away and I know that’s called the Doppler effect. The way I feel now even a sound that horrible don’t even bother me too much. You know what, I’m gonna take Josie over to see mama and my sister tonight. Yeah, and I’m gonna tell mama that about getting my GED and about going to co
mmunity college in September, even if it is only part-time. I don’t have to prove nothing to them anymore, I don’t have to fight and hate mama anymore either. I can talk to her now like a grown-up because I’ve got something to be proud about, I’ve got my own little life now. And no matter how many fire trucks or ambulances are racing to all the troubles in Westtown, well, those things will always be there on the horizon of the future. So not just for now, not just for the two more stops on this bus ride, but I hope forever, I know I can take any of those troubles on and look at them in the eye. Anything. And that’s for real.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1993 by Christopher McConnell

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3357-2

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