by Mary Morris
But the dancer chose her and she cannot ignore it. In the tent coffee and fry bread are being served. Rachel wears her earrings and they treat her as one of them. A little girl cries when she spills her juice and Rachel wipes her hands and pours her another. She munches on the hot, greasy fry bread and sips the strong coffee. She cannot remember when anything tasted so good. She helps pour coffee. She clears the table when plates are left. The native women smile and thank her.
She wants to stay longer, but suddenly she looks at her watch. It is almost ten o’clock as Rachel races to her car and drives like a wild person down the hill from the pueblo toward Santa Fe. She speeds to the bakery where the baker hands her the cake. It looks just like a volcano with strawberry lava made from cinnamon sprinkles pouring out of the crater and white ash frosting along the sides. She zips over to the grocery store where she grabs a half gallon of apple cider and paper goods. Plates, hats, napkins. Then she flies over to the school.
She’s ten minutes late. When she arrives, the children are all sitting at their long red tables. Some of them are pounding on the wood. Others are crying. The teacher glares at Rachel as she quickly presents the cake. Dashing around she hands out plates, party hats, cups. “Look at this,” Rachel says, displaying the cake. “It’s a volcano. It’s about to erupt!”
There are some oohs and aahs, but mainly she is greeted with impatient, hungry looks. She lights the candles and they all sing. “I’ll cut the cake,” she tells the teacher, “if you’ll pour the cider.”
Ms. Johnson bristles in disbelief. “Cider? They can’t have cider. That’s double sugar. No double sugar!”
Rachel shakes her head, dismayed. “Right. Double sugar.”
The teacher races to the fridge where she grabs a half gallon of milk and begins pouring that instead.
“Not for Davie,” Rachel shouts but Ms. Johnson just shakes her head.
“I know,” she says as she pours cider into Davie’s cup.
The children scarf down the cake, then race outside. Just as Davie is about to follow, he erupts into projectile vomit. “Oh no,” Rachel shouts. “It’s a non-dairy cake.” He vomits one more time and she cleans him up, and then wipes off the table. In an instant Davie is better and races outside to join his friends.
When Rachel looks up, the room is empty. All the children are running around outside, screaming. She slumps in the chair that is only big enough to hold a child. It seems as if she cannot get anything right—not even cake and ice cream. She’s going to have to go and yell at that baker. She can see her mother saying that to her. On the table beside Rachel the volcano is melting.
* * *
“I didn’t do it,” Jeremy says later that afternoon when Miguel picks them up after school, and Davie comes crying to the car. He has snot running down his face, blood in the corners of his nose.
Miguel gets down on his knees. “Hey, buddy, what happened to you?” He clasps Davie by the hands but Davie can’t stop gulping, hiccupping. He can barely catch his breath. “Okay now, breathe. Hey, it’s your birthday. You shouldn’t be crying. Tell me what happened.”
But Davie can’t catch his breath and Miguel is aware of Jeremy standing back, rubbing his foot in the dirt, churning up a little dust devil. “It isn’t my fault.” Jeremy folds his arms across his chest.
Miguel sighs. “Jeremy, what happened?” Jeremy begins a long rambling story that has to do with older boys with whom Jeremy was playing who wanted a ball that Davie had, but Davie didn’t want to give it to them even though Jeremy told him that he should. On and on it goes—this narrative of how innocent Jeremy is in the face of the boys who want to hurt his baby brother. Miguel doesn’t believe a word of it, but all the same Davie says nothing to alter the story and just keeps bobbing his head up and down in agreement as if this were the true version. It makes Miguel feel the way he felt when he and his friends were arrested, each one covering for the other until they all ended up in juvie for a month.
Still, no matter what the truth is, and he is fairly certain that Jeremy isn’t telling it, Davie is small for his age. It is one thing that Miguel has been spared for he has always been big. In fact Miguel has no memory of being little. He always towered over his father and mother, over his friends. For as long as Miguel can remember he’s had to duck when going through doorways. He has no idea how many times he’s hit his head; he wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t had half a dozen concussions by now.
But nobody ever picked on him. No one dared. And Davie is always going to get picked on unless he learns to fight back. In the car, he has Davie sit in the front seat. They stop along the way to get slushies, but he makes Jeremy stay in the car. Jeremy needs to know, no matter what, who is boss. And Davie needs to learn how to fight.
When they get home, Mrs. Rothstein is nowhere to be seen. “Jeremy, you go watch cartoons.” Miguel takes Davie into the bathroom where he washes his face and wipes his nose. Then he stoops down and takes a good look at Davie’s face. “It’s not so bad,” he says. “Come with me.”
As they walk into the yard through the sliding glass doors, Miguel tries to remember what his father taught him when he was Davie’s age. His father was an amateur welterweight, and though he’d taught Miguel very little, he had shown him how to hold up his fists. “Okay, it’s your birthday and I’m going to give you this present.” In the yard Miguel assumes a stance. “Davie, look at me.” He holds his fists in front of his face. Davie mimics him. “Dukes up. That’s all you have to remember.” Miguel punches into the air, bringing them back to his face. “Okay, keep those fists in front of your face. Punch from there.” He takes the tetherball by the string and holds it up. “Now punch this ball.” Davie assumes a stance, a fierce look on his face. Then he slugs the ball. “Bring those fists back. That’s right. One, two, three…”
Davie begins slamming the tetherball, hitting it harder and harder as if months, years of rage are flying out of his hands. Miguel is surprised at how much power he has. “Wow, that’s enough. Now here, try it with me.”
Miguel gets down on his knees and holds up his forearms. “Now hit my forearms. Give it all you’ve got.”
Davie shakes his head. “I’ll hurt you.”
“Nah, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” At first Davie hesitates. But then he lashes out. He starts swinging like a crazy person, and Miguel can barely deflect his strikes. Miguel is stunned at the fury Davie manages to find as he lets those fists fly.
* * *
It is homework time when Miguel is ready to bring Davie inside. Miguel has his own homework to do as well. He’s back in school now. His sophomore year. He has more math homework and science than he’s ever had before. And that whole Columbus curriculum to learn. But Davie doesn’t want to come in. He wants to keep pounding the tetherball until Miguel shakes him out of it. “Come on, it’s time.” In the living room Jeremy is glued to the television with Baxter flung across his lap. “Okay,” Miguel says, switching it off. “That’s enough TV for one day.”
Jeremy shouts. “That’s my favorite show.”
“Well, not today it isn’t. We’re going to do something else.” He decides to teach them how he learned the order of the planets in the solar system the way Mr. Garcia taught him. Man Very Early Makes Jars Stand Up Nearly Perpendicular. Miguel thinks that he can go through his entire life and never forget this one phrase.
He’ll teach Davie at least. He’s still curious. But maybe not Jeremy. Something happened to that boy. Perhaps Davie doesn’t care that his father is never around. But Jeremy does. Miguel always has his father. Even after Roberto moved out, he’s there every day for him. Never mind that he’s often drunk, that he earns a living by airbrushing cars. Miguel doesn’t have a yard with a picture window that looks out over the mesa. He doesn’t have a big room of his own to play in or a swing set in a fenced-in yard. But he has a father who comes looking for him when he drives his car off the road.
In fact, for most of his childhood Miguel only had a cot
in the living room. His parents’ bedroom door was made of cheap wood and it was as if there was no separation between Miguel and his parents’ marriage. He may as well have been right in the room with them. In his early years he was a keen observer of his parents’ marriage. He overheard their lovemaking, their drunken fights over his father’s infidelities. He watched and listened, blow by blow, to their shouting, the hurling of objects, and ultimately to the demise of their union. He watched his mother go from the cute, pixieish woman she was into the heavy, flat-faced woman she became. It was as if Miguel in his short life had already been married, divorced, and grown old.
Rachel comes into the living room. She is about to ask Miguel if he wants some ice cream and cake, but he is imparting a lesson to the boys. “Do you know,” Miguel tells them, “that our brains are like the universe? We have as many neurons in our brains as the universe has stars. In fact the brain and the universe resemble each other.”
“What are neurons?” Davie asks.
Miguel is trying to figure out how to answer that when Rachel says, “I didn’t know that. It’s very interesting.”
Miguel nods. “And we know less about the human brain than we do about the universe.”
Rachel stares at him, not blinking.
“It’s as if each one of us is a universe unto ourselves.”
“Where do you go to look at the stars?” Rachel asks.
“I have a place near where I live.”
“Will you take me sometime?”
Miguel feels his throat catch. She doesn’t say, Will you take me and the boys? She is asking him to take her. Why would she do that? Where is her husband? Why is he never here? Why has Miguel never met him? He knows that something is wrong between them and he cannot help but feel as if he is a stand-in, and not a very good one. And yet here he is, going along, because the truth is she turns him on. And he senses that she, for whatever reason, has some kind of a thing for him.
“If you like,” Miguel tells her. “In a couple of weeks when there’s a new moon. That’s when the sky should be the clearest.”
“I’ll get a sitter. How far is it?” As he sits on the couch beside her, Rachel wonders what it would be like to be with this boy. She could just slip into his arms and let him hold her. She is awed at his sense of wonder. The way he sees the world with a child’s eyes. She is touched by his kindness. She gazes into his green eyes, struck by the depth of them. A whole universe lies inside of those eyes. Galaxies lie in the bottom of thimbles. Who is the poet who said that? She could be his mother, and yet what she wants right now is to curl up inside of those long, dark arms, to pull him around her like a blanket and find some rest. Instead she stands up, willing herself away.
“It’s almost an hour’s drive.” He doesn’t look at her. His gaze is straight ahead. “We can find a closer spot.”
“No,” she says emphatically as she turns to leave the room. “I want you to show me where you go to see the sky.”
* * *
As Miguel makes his way back to Entrada, he is aware of a banging in his engine and feels a drag as he shifts into gear going uphill. He decides to detour over to his father’s trailer. Instead of making his turn, he stays on the road north. This will be a good excuse to see his dad. Not that he needs an excuse, though he rarely just pops in for a visit.
In fact, Miguel wants to see his father. He is hoping that he can find a way to talk to him. Man to man. Because Miguel is bothered, no, it is more than that, he is obsessed with Rachel Rothstein. He finds himself thinking about her all the time. He can’t wait until after school when he goes to her house to babysit her kids. At night before bed he grows hard just thinking of her and has to jerk off. He wakes up in a sweat, dreaming of her in that orange bikini, smelling of sunscreen and lemons.
This can’t be normal. Miguel is still a virgin. He hasn’t been with a girl yet, though he’s done his share of fooling around, but he is drawn to this woman in a way that he doesn’t think is entirely natural. He is almost fifteen and she is really old. At least thirty. Maybe more. But none of the girls his own age turn him on the way Rachel Rothstein does. Miguel doesn’t believe in sin, but this seems sinful. He wishes he could talk to his mother, but how could he? How do you explain to your mother that you are having wet dreams about a woman who is almost her age?
As he clangs up the hill, he sees his dad standing in his garage, cans of spray paint all around him, and wearing a mask. He is putting the finishing touches on a wolf on someone’s truck. His overalls are filthy and covered in paint as is the whole garage. His father looks as if he’s putting on weight. His gut is sticking way out. He is probably drinking again. Roberto only looks that way when he drinks. He remembers his father from his boxing days, when he was a model welterweight, trim and healthy. Now he is soft as dough with a hacking cough.
Roberto sees him coming. Flicking off his mask, he steps outside the garage. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Roberto says in a fake British accent. Yes, Miguel thinks, he’s been drinking.
“There’s a banging in my engine. Can you check it out?”
But Roberto can tell his dad has already been listening. As he gets out of the car his father says, “Yeah, you probably need a new radiator and you’ve got a leak in the exhaust pipe.” His father points to the driveway where a small pool of dark liquid is already forming.
“You could tell that just from the sound?” His father throws him a fake punch and Miguel ducks, pretending it is going to hit him. It seems as if they always go through this routine. His dad throwing a punch, Miguel ducking. His father gives him a hug, patting him on the back, the way athletes do after a game when one team has won and the other lost. The loser gets that pat.
“Yep, but I’ll check it out. I assume that’s why you’ve come by.”
Miguel shrugs. “Well, if you’ve got a sec.”
“Hey, for you, kid, I’ve got nothing but time.”
“Dad…”
His father turns his back to him. “Don’t worry. I can handle this.” Like a doctor Roberto checks out the car’s vital signs. He throws open the hood. Checks the oil, the fan belt. He bends down to look at the muffler and gives each of the tires a kick, though Miguel feels that this is more bravado than anything else.
“So how ya been?” Miguel asks.
“You know. Hanging in there.” Roberto drags the creeper he made from a piece of plywood and the wheels of an old pair of roller skates out from a corner of the garage and slides under the car. With a wrench he bangs at the bottom. Miguel waits for his father to ask him how he is, but he doesn’t. Instead he slides out and starts jacking up the car. “Hey, Dad, use the jack stands.” Miguel points to the metal stands in the corner of the garage.
“Jack stands are for sissies.” He gives the car a kick. “She’ll hold.” Then he lies back down on the creeper and disappears under the car, first his head and then his torso. Miguel can’t imagine the dark places where his father goes.
Miguel loves to watch his father work. The way he can take apart an engine and put it back together again. The way he can lie under a car or a truck and find what’s wrong. His father has always had a fascination with machines—motorcycles, radios, toasters. It doesn’t matter. If anything is broken, he’ll fix it. He’ll lay all the pieces down until he figures out exactly what’s wrong. He does this sometimes even if a gadget isn’t broken just to see how things work.
Miguel has little interest when it comes to machines. He has built his own telescope, but to him it isn’t the same. He only wants the telescope in order to see the stars. But his father actually loves to figure out how things work. Not Miguel. He has no knowledge of electrical currents or brakes. He doesn’t understand how an image comes on the TV, how a telephone rings. Miguel lives as if the world is a magical place. Presto. Things happen, appear, disappear, and he has no idea how. But his father actually knows how they work. And he isn’t afraid to slip into small places—behind a refrigerator, under a car. He does
n’t mind pipes that go to places Miguel doesn’t want to think about. He’s seen his father climb into a septic tank to clean it out. He’s seen him hold two wires together to see which one is live.
Lying on the creeper, his legs and belly sticking out, Roberto resembles a dead bug. Beneath the car he grunts about the exhaust pipe. “It’s all rusted out. I gotta replace this. And you should get a new radiator. I’ll have to get parts.” He whistles through his teeth. It sounds like a crow flying overhead.
Miguel wishes he knew something about cars. If he gets stuck on the road at night, he can’t even change a tire. And if he were interested in cars, it would give them something to talk about. His father could tell him about cool hubcaps or horsepower. He wishes his father cared about the sky. It doesn’t matter to Roberto that black holes can suck anything into them. Or that there are stars flickering in the sky that died a billion years ago. Miguel wants to show his father the constellations he’s tracked in the Milky Way. The moons he can see with the telescope he made. But all that seems to matter to Roberto are machines, and mostly cars. His father talks about them as if they are women. He admires their smooth lines, their shiny façades. He complains about the way they let you down. He grows despondent when he has to trade one in.