Gateway to the Moon_A Novel

by Mary Morris

  “Hola, papi,” Miguel calls back. “It’s all good.”

  Miguel leans his telescope against the counter as Vincent Roybal takes a long drag on his cigarette. “See any ghosts?” Miguel laughs. The old man likes to tease him about going to the cemetery at night. “How about spaceships? Any landing up there?”

  Once more Miguel laughs. It’s always the same joke with the old man, but Miguel doesn’t mind. Besides everyone in Entrada knows that Miguel is crazy about spaceships. The ones that might come here and the ones that NASA has sent off into space. He’s read everything he could get his hands on about Roswell and the rumors that the army has an alien in captivity. And he’s obsessed with Voyager. Once he spent so much time staring at the sky, looking for Voyager, that he got a frozen neck and his mother had to massage it with hot oils and compresses. He knows every piece of music, every image and greeting on the Golden Record that ET was supposed to find and use to make sense out of human life.

  “No spaceships. No aliens.” He grabs a quart of milk from the fridge and also a Hershey bar for himself. He thinks about slipping the candy bar into his pocket the way most kids do, but decides to pay for it instead.

  There’s a short line. Old man Roybal can’t just ring up an order. He has to ask how this father is or that sick cousin or how someone’s favorite team is doing and at times it seems as if he’ll go on talking forever. As he waits for Mr. Roybal to finish with “Señora Mendes of the large breasts,” as Miguel has heard him refer to her, his eyes scan the store. He likes to look at the wall with all of the “For sale” and “To rent” flyers. There is always a missing dog with a name like Nachos or a kid’s bike that has been taken from a yard and a “Please return: No Question Asks.” That pretty much says everything, “No Question Asks” when it comes to Entrada. Miguel crosses out the k, add an s and a comma. “No questions, Ass.”

  On the wall, buried among the sad eyes of missing dogs and an offer to sell an old Honda 360 for a hundred dollars, he sees a notice, “Couple Seeks Afternoon Babysitter for Two Little Boys. Must have wheels.” It’s got smiley faces all over it and little tabs with the number to call. No one’s taken a number yet. Miguel could use some cash. His mom is barely getting by and he has almost nothing to spend on books, gas, or girls. The job is out on Colibri Canyon Road just north of Santa Fe, about forty minutes from his place. He gets out of school at two and can easily be there before three. Besides summer vacation will be starting soon.

  Miguel knows Colibri Canyon. He worked there once when his father was laying pipes. That was a long time ago but he remembers it as a dirt road that winds its way through the canyons. It’s a pretty isolated spot. But Miguel isn’t picky. In the summers he does construction, mostly installing drywall and painting houses, so this summer maybe he’ll try babysitting. It seems like easier work. He tears a strip from the sheet and tucks it into his pocket. Though he isn’t quite fifteen, he looks older, and he’s been driving since he was twelve. He can get his learner’s permit soon. And his father’s old Chevy sits in front of their trailer.

  At last Señora Mendes heads out the door, and the bell tinkles as she goes. “Papi, can I make a call?” the boy asks.

  Mr. Roybal points to the old black phone. “Help yourself.” Instead of calling his mother, Miguel phones the number in the notice. In two rings he hears a woman’s singsongy recorded voice. She sounds as if she’s doing a commercial for dish soap. “You’ve reached the Rothstein residence—Rachel, Nathan, Jeremy, and Davie. You know what to do!” And then there is the beep.

  Miguel hesitates. “I’m interested in the position of babysitter,” he says. “I saw your ad,” and he leaves his name and number. When he hangs up, he goes to pay for the milk and Hershey bar. But old man Roybal has spread out on the counter the tattered copy of his family tree and he’s hunched over it. Miguel leans across the counter, gazing at the maze of branches that make up the Roybal lineage, which consists, more or less, of everyone in Entrada. It makes Miguel uneasy to see his own name dangling from a stem with the year of his birth and a blank space for his death. He doesn’t like to think about life having a beginning and an end. He prefers to think of it as a continuous loop that goes around and around the way the Navajo do.

  Miguel takes out his wallet and is about to pay when the old man waves him away. “You’ll pay me next time.”

  He assumes he won’t pay the next time either. “Thanks, papi.”

  Vincent Roybal gives the boy another wave, dismissing him. “De nada, m’hijo.”

  Miguel walks home under the starry night, telescope under one arm, munching on his Hershey bar. He loves chocolate. Even though it’s bad for his skin, he has a candy bar at least once a day. He’s so skinny he’d eat them all the time if he could, but his mother always says he’ll ruin his dinner. So he sneaks them on his way home. Besides he’s almost starving when he walks in and is greeted by the familiar smell of the chicken stew his mother has cooked.

  “You’re late,” she says without looking up. She’s right. She’s already swept the house, moving all the dirt into the center of their trailer where she scoops it up with a dustpan. He’s never understood why she doesn’t just sweep it out the door. But when he asks her, she just replies, “Because we don’t.” She’s turned the portrait of the Virgin Mary to the wall and lit the candles. She’s said the blessing with her eyes closed, moving her hands in a circle. His mother doesn’t like to perform the Friday-night rituals without him, yet she won’t complain. She’ll just ignore him for a little while.

  He walks over, putting his hand on her shoulder. Looking down as if she were a bonsai, he kisses the top of her head. With a ladle in her hand she pretends to bat him away. She looks tired and the lines around her eyes and mouth have deepened. But Miguel can tell from her lush black hair, the fine features hidden in the folds of her now plump face, that she had once been pretty. She’d also been a spelling whiz. Once she made it to the state competition. Miguel certainly didn’t take after her in that regard. She’s still spunky, but working as a hotel maid and drinking too much beer and eating tacos have taken their toll.

  “Wash your hands,” she tells him.

  The trailer is small and narrow. Just two rooms. Miguel sleeps in the bedroom since his father moved out. His mother sleeps on the couch. Mostly they eat standing up at the counter, but on Friday nights they eat at the fold-up table. Now she serves him a large bowl of chicken stew with a crust of bread and brings a small bowl for herself.

  His mother tends to graze rather than eat but she makes a point of sitting with him. He can tell that she isn’t in the mood for talking. Sometimes when she’s tired from her job at the hotel in Taos, she doesn’t want to talk. Instead she works on one of her crossword or sudoku puzzles. Her real name is Gloria but her father called her Morning Glory because she is perkier in the morning, fading by the end of the day. Now most people just call her MG.

  “It’s good, mami,” he says, patting her on the arm. His mother looks up at him and smiles. It makes him so happy to see her smile. Her whole face alters. It is as if he can see her as a girl—the one his father fell for when they were just kids themselves. As Miguel gets up for a second helping—one he doesn’t really want, but he wants to see that smile break across her features again—the phone rings. His mother makes no attempt to answer it. “I got it,” Miguel says.

  When he picks up, he hears a woman’s voice. “Is this Miguel?” She sounds light and breathless as if she is talking while on a treadmill. He pictures blond hair, blue eyes. Not from around here.

  He hesitates. “Yes,” he says.

  There is a pause. “You called,” she says, “about the babysitting job.”

  Then he remembers. “Oh, yes, I did.”

  “Good. So you’re interested. That’s great. Can you come by tomorrow?” He expected that she’d ask him something about his age or his experience, of which he has none, but she doesn’t. It is as if she is hiring him sight unseen. “I’d like you to meet the bo
ys,” she says. “You can start work on Monday. Is that good?”

  Miguel nods, and then realizes she can’t see him. “Yes, that’s good.”

  “And you have a car right?”

  Miguel thinks about his father’s old Chevy. “Yes, I do.”

  She gives him the address out in Colibri Canyon. And then she hangs up.

  When he gets off, his mother asks what it was about.

  “A job.”

  She nods, looking at him with her cold, dark eyes. “You need a job. But you also need to study.” He looks back at her the way he always does. Nothing about his mother has ever seemed familiar. He has never seen a flick of her wrists, a grimace on her face, and thinks, “I do that.”

  Perhaps he is an alien. It would explain his link to the stars. Perhaps some starship deposited him in this place and wiped out his memory. At times Miguel scans his mother’s face, looking for a trace of himself in her eyes, her mouth.

  “I can do both.”

  She makes a face. “We’ll see.” They finish their stew in silence. Miguel watches the hands of his grandfather’s old clock as they move mysteriously backward.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE ARCHIVIST—1992

  Entrada rests in a valley north of Santa Fe and south of Taos, nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Before it became the “Blood of Christ” range, these mountains were known as the Sierra Nevada or the Sierra Madre or just the Sierra. No one remembers when or why they became the Sangre de Cristo. Some say it is because of the color of blood that the mountains take on at sunset after a snow. Others think it is because it’s hard to live here and every day is a sacrifice.

  To the east there is a dip in the mountains, like a cup. Every schoolchild learns, as Miguel did before the sixth grade, that when Coronado slept in this valley the moon rose through the dip in the mountains, and he named it Entrada de la Luna. Gateway to the Moon. Most of the locals just call it Entrada. Locals joke that the early explorers must have mistaken this land for the moon—it is so dry and rocky.

  The earth is unyielding—except in the spring when the rains come and then it can be treacherous. Flash floods rush down these hills into the villages and pueblos below. But then the desert springs to life. The cacti bloom crimson and gold and the piñons smell sweet with their sap. You will never confuse this place with a desert then. Still it is not an easy place to make things grow. Piñon nuts, chilies, and garbanzo beans are about the only things that can be sown. Garbanzo beans are as hard and dry as the land they come from. Very few can make a living from this land, though most people remain because they have nowhere to go. And some are destined to leave.

  Vincent Roybal hopes that Miguel will be one of them. In the doorway of his store he lights a cigarette as he watches the shadow of the boy making his way home. Vincent is a tall man, not as tall as Miguel but tall for Entrada, and as he leans against a wooden pillar, his head almost touches the roof. As he observes Miguel disappearing down the road, he thinks about how he’s always coming into his store from the old cemetery after dark, carrying that telescope of his. He has grown used to his visits and gives the boy whatever he needs. Vincent feels protective of Miguel as if he were his own grandson.

  And at times Vincent wonders if he isn’t. But that’s a place where he will not allow himself to go. It isn’t something he cares to think about. Still he likes it when Miguel stops in, always asking to use the phone and call his mother. He is a good kid. Vincent wonders when he’ll leave Entrada. Maybe for college.

  It is more than he can say about his own son, Pascual. Pascual only left in a hearse after a motorcycle accident on the road to Española. Of course he’d been drinking. They were always drinking. He ran himself into an old cottonwood tree just a few miles up the road. But Vincent doesn’t want to go there either. If he does, he’ll never get to sleep. In fact if he can help it, Vincent Roybal thinks of very little except for the family tree he is researching and his excursions into the distant past. The present doesn’t interest him that much anymore.

  He pauses, taking another drag. “Your mother is going to kill me,” he says to his dead son. “I shouldn’t smoke. And I shouldn’t keep letting that kid take whatever he wants and never pay for it. But that’s my business, isn’t it, m’hijo?” Vincent finds himself speaking more to Pascual since he’s been dead than he did when he was alive. When Esmeralda catches him mumbling, she doesn’t know he’s talking to their long-gone son. She thinks that he’s gone mad.

  Vincent steps out on the porch. As he smokes, he gazes at a broken-down truck and some old tractor wheels in his front yard, at the dry, barren land, and ponders the same thing he always ponders. Why would anyone ever settle here? And why would they stay? As he thinks, he smokes. He can’t quit. He’s tried, but he’s surrounded by cigarettes. He sells them all day long. Everyone wants a pack, a carton, loosies too. Years ago he quit for a month during which time he became an alcoholic. He gave Esmeralda a choice. She preferred the cigarettes.

  He supposes they each blame the other for what happened. Since Pascual’s death they rarely sleep in the same bed, in part because neither of them really sleeps. They both wander the house and the store at all hours and sometimes even out into the arroyo. Once Esmeralda found him snoring under the branches of the oak in the old cemetery. On the rare occasion that they find themselves in the same bed, he inches his body away from hers. Once every month or so he makes love to her, like an old car motor you turn over now and then to make sure it’s still running. Of course if he thought about it, Vincent would realize that everything changed when Pascual died. But Vincent’s head is filled with the things he doesn’t want to think about.

  Vincent Roybal is an old man now, long past the time when he should have retired from his store. He is almost seventy years old and had anticipated long ago that his surviving son, Tomas, or his daughter, Katrina, and her husband would take over. But Tomas moved to Dallas to work with a tech company and Katrina is in Albuquerque and no one wants to run the store so that he and Esmeralda can retire and move to Galveston or Orlando. Anyway Esmeralda will never move away from Entrada nor, he suspects deep down, will he. It is hard to move away from a place where your family has dwelled for four hundred years. And Vincent has lived in this house with its store his entire life, as had his father before him.

  In fact Roybal’s has been a general store since anyone in Entrada can remember. In the old days it sold sorghum and pintos and garbanzos in large bins. It traded with farmers for milk and eggs. He still has the bins for the beans that are the mainstay of the diet of the poor people of Entrada. Most people raise their own chickens for eggs, but still Roybal’s sells eggs and cheese and milk. They also sell sodas and candy bars and cigarettes and small bottles of whiskey in brown paper bags and cans of beer. Over the years Vincent has watched the Pueblo people who come into his store getting fatter and fatter. The Hispanics too, but not like the natives.

  His own people are more compact, leaner. He attributes this to their good diet and European ways. Vincent Roybal knows that his ancestors came from Spain. He likes to believe that once they were rich aristocrats (and he has found some evidence to prove this) and that for a reason he cannot conceive they settled in this valley long ago. He knows that they are among the first explorers of the New World. He just doesn’t know why they came here to a place that is so remote from anything they’d known before.

  He imagines his great-great-great-grandfathers—how many greats will that require?—departing from cities like Toledo, Ávila, and Seville. Men with a sense of mission and discovery. Curious men who longed to see the world, who weren’t afraid to set out on perilous journeys across unknown seas where monsters might await them, rogue waves might crush them, swirling waters sink them, where they might meet cannibals who would eat them or desert islands where they would die of thirst. What made them come to rest in a dry, impoverished land of frigid winds and relentless sun that has no gold and whose soil will yield nothing much more than the hard b
eans that can break your wisdom tooth in half if you bite on it before it has cooked for three hours?

  It is what he ponders at night when he is restless and insomnia takes over. The insomnia that makes him open his store to Jack from Santa Domingo Pueblo whenever he runs out of booze and comes in the middle of the night with the delirium tremors or half the town when they run out of cigarettes or the teenage boys who come tapping on his window at any hour of the night for a package of ribbed and lubricated Trojans. It is his insomnia that makes him open up early in the morning to the women who run out of eggs or juice and insomnia that keeps him from his siesta when children come by after school to steal Cokes and Milky Ways.

  As far as Vincent Roybal is concerned, he hasn’t slept in years. If he sleeps at all, it is dozing at the cash register, his head resting on his hand, or in front of the TV late at night. He rarely makes it into his bed. He sleeps wherever he seems to land, like a dog. Vincent has to sneak up on sleep. Or let it sneak up on him like a thief in an alley. If he plans to go to bed, he’ll be awake all night.

  He blames it on the mystery. It is what he turns over and over at night in the dark recesses of his brain. And what Vincent Roybal ponders the most is that he has no idea who he really is. Part of that answer he believes lies on the counter in his store. It is the family tree he’s been working on for years the way some people work on jigsaw puzzles. He knows his own generation and all of his siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews and their children and he knows back to his father and mother and to his grandparents before them.

  For the rest he has gone to Santa Fe where he scours the County Clerk’s Office for the births and death of anyone with the last name of Roybal or for whoever first laid claim to his land. A few weeks ago he found it on a yellowed sheet of paper. A simple land claim filed with the county centuries ago. On it is a seal and the signature of Federico Cordero de Torres, whom Vincent believes to be his first ancestor in the New World and the man who built his house where Vincent Roybal’s house and store now stand.