Wide World In Celebration and Sorrow

by Leon Rooke

  The fourteen people who took sick have today received a questionnaire. Where do you think we went wrong? At what point did you begin to feel sick? Is it possible that your sickness had to do with mixing pig and strong drink, plus whatever else? What was the status of your health prior to your arrival? Were our actions, once you fell ill, all that might be expected? Would you come again, and how soon?

  The wife hopes the responses will be in before this weekend, since this weekend we plan an even larger party. The invitations have gone out. We’ve hired Ted Oliver to sing and bring his band. Ted Oliver’s band is a wonderful band, the finest available. As the wife says, you can’t go wrong with Ted Oliver.

  The brothers are coming, that’s for sure.

  The pig was smoked, maybe it was the smoke. Whatever the case, we went to considerable trouble, smoking that pig. This weekend we shall not serve smoked pig, even if it is not the same pig. We are laying cucumber sandwiches by, just in case. My wife will dance. She is an extraordinary dancer, especially when Ted Oliver sings, and I think we can assure everyone a good time. We will have hot tubs on the premises as well.

  My wife figures twelve. I figure eight. We shall compromise on the tubs, just as we did on the Ted Oliver band.

  Last week she tried to get the Ted Oliver band, but they were on the road. That was unfortunate because, as the wife says, last week’s music was definitely not up to scratch. She hardly danced at all. Then everyone took sick.

  This week the brothers will be passing out their usual leaflets.

  Maybe the stallion. I’m still looking him over. But not smoked. I put my foot down there.

  We hope you will join us. Actually, everyone we know is invited.

  Know, too, that we have a backup plan in the event it showers.

  Frankly, on this one, we are leaving no stone unturned.

  FURTHER ADVENTURES OF A CROSS COUNTRY MAN

  After the man say, “Get off my betrothed, I plenty mad, blow you straight to hell and then some,” I get up and go that way myself with never the shot being fired. That a bad time all right, plenty worse time I ever been in before, but it nothing to what come next and I tell you now that story, the truth ever word or God in Heaven see me dead.

  A man of my nature he always on the move, on the go to the somewhere he never been, headed for the somewhere he never get to in all the world. I think sometime the sun it will not shine on me another day but there it come, over the hill, over the meadow dusk green in the dew, above the trees on the far slope or rising up from the roof house or over the water, yes, there it come one more time, one more try, shining and so fat happy as the man with the full stomach and the tamale dripping from the mouth – there, one more time, pretty you please and pretending like the fool that it never shine the day before.

  But before it is the day get worse it have to get better.

  Mal, mal, hoy es muy feo, the man with the shotgun say, he blow me straight to hell, he say, or his name is not Fernandez Brown.

  I get up, please, right away you bet, I say, and rise up from the warm skin of Chlorine to my trembling weak knees as the two barrels of the gun stare me in the nose.

  Oh, Fernandez, Chlorine fast to explain, tugging at the North the Border stretch pants which have snag on the tree, I so glad you come, I not know how I survive another minute. This man, she say, I never see, he come up from the nowhere and throw his fat arms around me and wrestle me to the earth where he lay down over me and all my struggles in vain oh my Fernandez I call your name but he stuff my mouth with his tongue and I think I about to die till you come oh Fernandez shoot him sweetheart while he kneel over me breathing so hard with his pig face, shoot him sweetheart where he hurt, show the bastard amigo what you do to the man who violates the girl who love you with all her heart and who never been touched to this day.

  So there she stand now between the two of me with not a stitch on her hide but as much as the truth in her naked heart and I am listening to her speech and saying to myself oh Mother of Jesus in what the name of hell I do now, save me Good God on High and I devote the rest of my life to your work, I work and slave and drink the milk of life and never use the name in vain or touch another woman with two legs, I do the duty where my heart is and find the woman I marry the three weeks before and give her a home in the Church and never stray the sheep no more, no sir. But never mind it is not the use, I see that soon. I see Fernandez his eyes over the wet bosom of Chlorine and looking at her body over the hips and the good strong legs brown as the summer sun, and he wet his lips and smack his tongue in the mouth and I see the two barrels of the gun begin to drop from where he have it aim between my eyes and that Fernandez Brown with his eyes hungry on the girl as the disease of man ever go and I know now anytime he going to throw the gun to the soft earth and take his bride to be and throw her flat back down on the ground as I have done myself, and I think to myself you a good man, Brown, you a man of my own heart, do it quick, forget I here. But what he do is he whisper, “Chlorine I never see you like this, I never know.” And in the daze he gently stretch the gun out to me, he say, “Compadre, hold this please,” and I say, “Thank you, sure.” And then he touch the bare shoulder with his finger and with his hands he feel the shoulders of that Chlorine and cup the breast and pinch the nipple between his thumb, and he bury his head then against her neck and bring her into him, and he begin to breathe so hard I think his ears going to carry him into the air, and Chlorine she say, “Ah!” and they go on with their love in the fields of the clay for the pots standing straight as the tree but with the wind snapping at the leaves, and while I look I see the smile on the face of Chlorine and she open her eyes and with one of them winks at me and then she closes them again and yank the husband to be right off the ground onto her.

  And so that is how I get away, one more time to roam, I back up, back up, away from there, and at the ten pace I turn and run for the life that is mine to keep, to run until the muscles in the legs about to break from the skin and the breath so hot inside me I think I destroy myself, with the ache in the chest and the terrible gnawing in the side and I think I die from so much running, to and from the love I never to find for long. And I think as the day begin to fall oh blessed Mother save me from this running, this love, this ache, to let me lie down and sleep. And then I fall on the straw of the tree I lay and in the sleep that night I am running, twisting, turning, searching in the dark between the El Paso and San Miguel for the way out of and to this love which boil in the black heart of mine till it most deplete. O Blessed Virgin Mother of Love, I pray, save me from this trouble mine! But I go on aching in the sleep, trying to rise, dreaming, trying to grab hold of what it is hold me down, and sling it off, and then there is the stab of light through the dark and in that light the smiling face of Carmelitta, Roseda, of Chlorine and in my sleep I am back to the clay field again and it is hell.

  “Who?” I ask of the man in my ear, “sure thing, this woman yours? Please forgive, a common mistake, so sorry, I presume she not spoken for otherwise not touch her for the world. Not happen again, please excuse, here, you take her back.”

  But Chlorine, arms noosed around my neck, will not let me rise.

  “Up!” the man in my head say, “Pronto! Be the gentleman once in you gringo life, quick, I count to three then I blow the brains straight out you rear. One… two…”

  “Wait,” I say, “I try, I try –” But something is pulling the other way and it is Chlorine, his betrothed, one track of mind she got, her hands on the back of my head pulling my lips down to hers and her two legs locked over my own there with the knees bend, holding me so that to move at all I cannot except to wag my toes, and I beg, I sweat, I plead, I say, “Hold the horse, Mister, I doing the best I can,” but Chlorine she whump me in the back and my voice break as I hear the man with the gun say “Three!”

  Goddam, goddam. I think in the last second before the shot pile into me of Carmelitta the bride of few weeks who I been such rotten to and who I never to see again, a
nd who when next she hear of me her bastard husband it is she hear he have his backside blowed off while he straddled one more woman, the new chick, and I whimper unto my breath mal mal bad way Gonzalez Manuel to go, he never have a chance, all the time the pull and the push, I try to do better in the next land to come. The shadow of the gun move over me and I shut the eyes and wait for the death to come, and the hammer click in the bolt and the second of silence fall between the prayer and the answer and then the silence explode in me and the pain nor more than a whistle in the dark for I done gone to where I due.

  In the morning I wake like a man done been to sleep in the sea. But I a man and one who learn from what he do, from where he go. A man of my nature he not get far if not the nature change. Theretofore it is that I say: so long so long, to Carmelitta, good wife of three week; to Roseda of the Marketplace, goodbye, so long, adios to you all, I now a man redeemed, know thyself, take care yours truly, cry none the more or roam the street for your feel the touch, I a man of new girth, me, Gonzalez Manuel, on my mother’s breath I swear never to look again at the woman another day. No sir, Amo a mi madre, padre, hermano, hermana – sweetheart, bah!

  And so I get through the first day.

  And wake to the new spirit in the heart and the sun on my face and there is the goat grazing at my chin. Good morning, I say, buenos días, so far so good, and I shake the horn of the nice beast and pull the whisker and say, Ba-ah-ahhh! I know how you feel, goat-friend, I not much the same myself.

  But I not moan the spilt milk for long, I steal the chicken pretty quick soon and wring the neck to it go pop, and then I hit the trail once more and pluck the hide of the bastard ugly bird while I march along without the care for the one first time in all my years. When the sun straight up over the head in the sky I look sad at the plucked bird and say, Algunas legumbres, chícharos, espinaca, caldo espeso, ah! Sorry son, now the time; and plop his sagging yellow hide through the stake I drive in the ground, and then I go back under the tree, lie down, wait him cook. I catch the wink, forty times, I think, to it wake myself snoozing through the nose, and I get up and eat the sorry bird, and then I lay down the body, mine, to sleep off more the time. Night come on and I confess to the Father of my sins, as Carmelitta say I should, and I say to the Son, yes, you right, brother, a man travel with the Cross he get not far but a man know how to go light with the heavy load there not be a river he cannot be cross. And I say a word for the Holy Cross too I say, Watch out, friend, Gonzalez Manuel, once of El Paso now from San Miguel, he not far from that point hisself.

  And so it is I get with the good intent and the fresh heart and the one bird through the second day and night and into the third.

  On the third day, Holy Mother of Mary, my luck change to gold. Or so I think. And in the heart I can say to myself without the bitterness hello Carmelitta, hello Roseda, you too that man’s betrothed, I now find the one woman put you all to salt, the one woman in all the world who can to share the hour and the day with Gonzalez Manuel. No more the El Paso, pretty boy soldier town USA, no more the San Miguel, pig sty of the world, pig’s snout and chicken’s craw. In the summer both you stink and in the winter you freeze up but now I friend for sure with this new earth I find, and we beat the devil out of you, me and this woman here, if you don’t watch the step and provide us with the what we want. We taking nothing off no one no more no sir, we give you the business, you try.

  For she different, this woman, I see at the glance.

  Her name Helene, she say, de Troy, and it is on morning of the third day with the chicken leg over my right shoulder for the luck that I have come upon her, travelling companion for the duration, clean-cut American girl this time, no more the half-breed south the border señora with un poco heart, el poco poco head.

  Ah, Helene! Claro, caluroso, bonito. Ah! Bien hecha, yes!

  For love of her I have to hurt myself, me he lastimado, llame un médico por favor, estoy enfermo, mi cabeza y todo mi cuerpo me duele. Ah! Helene de Troy… I tell you now of her what I know.

  She is fled she say from the tall stranger who make her to set up in the hotel room of the Two Pines all the night long yanking on the Duncan Yo-Yo with the finger, he who say his name is Bertha Cunningham, Vice-Pres of the USA Steel, with cash and the credit card. Pay her plenty, she say, nothing fancy required, just the straight stuff, but he never let her finger to rest or let the hand to switch and after few weeks she sees his attention go, he looking over other sweet girls in the street so in the daylight hour when he is asleep with the cover up to his head she reach over with the good hand and take the money belt from around the waist and get out, she say, of that one place fast. I see her first after the third long day of my travel as I pass over the ridge of the Two Pines, bathing, she is, the swollen finger in the creek that flow down from god-knows the place. I scout around the ridge and come up to the one pine and she is no man with her around there so I yell out over the dark ground, “Drop it,” just in the case she have a gun, but she right off unbuckle her britches and let them fall, saying, “OK, Mister, if you must, but make it snappy, see, I got some distance to spread between me and this place.”

  “You some chick,” I say later, to which she reply when the time come, “That is what they all say,” and it some many evenings latter yet that she say to me, “Mister, you ain’t no slouch yourself, excuse me for taking you for granted, that what happen to a girl who live all her natural life in the city of San Diego. But how come,” she say, “some big honcho like yourself is out here wandering around in this godforsaken and who else will have it wilderness.” That is the way she talk, with the words long strung out together, slapping around like the beads on the string, planned that way for effect, I think, so to speak, because she a short-of-breath chick and with them kind of talk her breast they bob and dip like the cork with the fish pulling at the other end which matter of fact and to put the fact straight is most often the case. Or was. But then one day of the hot and the sol in the sky, tiempo seco so much she say she parch in the throat and will but to die for the water, we come upon the sign which say POBLADO PRÓXIMO and I say to her, sure thing, soon, kid, none the worry, tengo hambre, tengo sed, you too, but that change soon, be brave, the earth provide. Next is the sign which say DESVIACIÓN, detour, CAMINO EN REPARACIÓN, and we must to go that way, and so for the hours we do unto I have to carry Helene de Troy in the arms she so tired with the faint, crying “Water, water, my love!”

  “Not to worry,” I say, “We have the God on our side, I am man reborn.”

  And pretty soon quick there is the cabin in the nowhere which is call St. Lopete and this man who say, “Sure, go ahead, wet the whistle, take the drink, your business your business, who I to stop?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “sure,” doing all I ever can to give the man his right, “but this your well here, it on your land, contain your water, it your place in the world to say who drink here and who don’t, now ain’t that not right? Once I to take advantage of the fellow man but now I got the peace in the heart and though we both stand here perishing of the thirst we not move to you say we do.”

  He feel that way hisself, the man say, and hug me with the neck, and do the same to Helene de Troy, all over, on the up and the down.

  “Drop the bucket!” he say, “draw the water, best water in all the land!” And he stand back to smile like the man in the John Wayne, thumb hitched in the gallus, one cool number he, I think, do us the good turn with not once the ask to pay.

  So we throw the bucket down the well, it go splash and wade around and sink to the bottom and we pull on the rope and draw up the bucket, it come up leaking in nineteen hundred holes like all the boys of San Miguel peeing at one time, and we lean on the board and drink the water and say, “Ahh! Ahhhh!” and the man nod and blink and smile and cry, “Drink more, drink your fill, no better water in all the land, you come to the right place, I fix you up dandy, mucho pronto. Now you want to sleep? Sleep, I give you the room!”

  “Gracias,” I say, “su
re you are the caballero if ever one I see.”

  And we leave him grinning by the well and go inside the room to sleep.

  But in the night I wake to the sobbing in my car and it is Helene de Troy who cannot be still. I am tired, she say, Gonzalez Manuel, I am cold. Estoy cansado, siento frío: I am myself sick and cold. And for the hours that is how it go, poco, mucho, alto, bajo, and it is next morning that my travelling companion for the duration is dead and cold in my arms as all the flowers of the world. Helene, Helene, I hold her in the arms with all the care crushing down unto it tie up the flesh in bones and I think the heart to cry out in fear and pain. For all the forgotten love she sleep and never in this world now to find, oh Helene; to slide so soon from me while I sleep and never to slide this way again. Through the hours I hold her in the arms and stroke her yellow hair and gaze into the quiet sleeping face that is screwed tight with her pain, unto finally I am not the strength to move myself and I fall back into the poison sleep with the finger on the dead, parted lips of my Helene.

  Later I to find the man has fled the scene with all our clothes and the money belt he has taken from me in the night. He has gone.

  That is how come I to know finally I done crossed over the line of Mexico into Texas, Lo peor, lo peor, va de mal en peor.

  I in that place for two weeks before the strength come back to me to bury Helene de Troy, which I then do, out near the soft dirt around the well where I find seven other graves. It enough to give a man the American USA religion for sure, a thing like that, that he find on such a bright hot day that he still can find hisself among the living. For the moment though, throwing the dirt over her face, I got it nothing in my heart but hurt and yell out across the broken land, “Come back here, you sonabitch,” the one who say, “Sure, take the drink.” The blood run up my head, I slam the shovel against the house over the well unto I all but knock it down and I cry then for the little girl who drop her pants so fast you still see her with the clothes on before it come to you indeed that they ain’t no longer on, a good, well-seasoned girl who have it in her heart to please, that now she dead is a shame, a pity, poor thing who never done nothing to that sonabitch who done it all to her. I get dizzy after a while in the sun with the anger, I sit down and rest the head in the arms and it on into evening before I wake up with the crazy bird all but standing hisself on my shoulders. When I stand up and shout and wave the arms the buzzard all but fall over hisself from the heart failure, he squawk and cuss and leap into the air and I aint seen him since. Serve the buzzard right, I say to myself, if he never see another human face.