Painted Cities

by Galaviz-Budziszewski, Alexai

  Within a couple of weeks we had a set routine. I was security. I made sure there were no witnesses, gave a whistle if someone was coming. Marcus tended to the animal, herding it in the safest direction once it came back. And Alfonzo, who had been an altar boy for two weeks back in the sixth grade, gave the invocation.

  “May the holy ghost follow you through your new life. May you hold dear this blessing from God’s Country.”

  Chuey did the work.

  Besides us, only Chuey’s great-grandfather knew what we were doing. Since the discovery he’d become a coach, instructing us on how to use the power. “Ask him if we can bring back humans,” Marcus once told Chuey. “We could go to Graceland and bring back Elvis.”

  The following day Chuey had a response. “My great-grandfather says the power is to be respected. It can be used only for the common good.” His great-grandfather’s answers always begged more questions. Eventually we stopped asking things altogether.

  We met under the trees on Twenty-First Place. From there we combed the streets. After the streets were cleared, we moved on to garbage cans, where we found parakeet mummies wrapped in newspaper, cloudy-eyed goldfish wrapped in toilet paper. The goldfish we collected in a Tupperware dish Alfonzo had stolen from his mother’s kitchen. Then we took the fish back to Marcus’s house and gave them life in the warmth of his basement bedroom. By late February Marcus had more fish than he had space for, and we started calling him Aquaman and telling him he was going to grow gills. Every time we found a new fish Marcus would say, “Hey, you guys need to take some.” But we always protested and said our parents wouldn’t let us.

  We all started collecting things. Alfonzo had a puppy he’d named Cloudy. We’d found Cloudy frozen behind the junkyard on Peoria Street. His legs were stiff. His white coat was matted and ugly, bald in some spots. When Cloudy came back his coat was fresh and new, thin and wispy. We could feel Cloudy’s ribs as we held him up and had him lick our faces. He was a puppy again.

  By March I had three birds: a finch named Ron Kittle, and two parakeets—Harold Baines and Mike Squires, my White Sox all-stars. I had found a birdcage in the dumpster behind my apartment building; I began calling the cage my dugout. I was anxious to add Carlton Fisk to it.

  By late March, by spring, all four of us had maxed out on absences. Our parents were called in. We made excuses. I claimed that gangbangers were after me, that they had threatened to kill me unless I joined their gang. Mr. Stoner, the disciplinarian, asked me to name names, and I rattled off a few I had seen spray-painted on our neighborhood’s walls. Tom Cat, Jerry Mouse, Player, Jouster. My parents were sympathetic. So was Mr. Stoner. He let us all stay in school with promises that we would not miss another day. We even signed contracts. By April, though, we were missing days again, and by May, by graduation, we had stopped going completely.

  Those days were fun. It seemed quite possible that we could make careers out of raising the dead. We could leave the neighborhood, travel the world, resurrect important figures in history. Already I found myself scanning the obituary pages of the Sun-Times, cutting out clippings of former presidents, kings and queens, rock stars, anyone famous, creating a list of important people we had to bring back to life. We wondered together if there was a statute of limitations on Chuey’s power. Could we bring back Martin Luther King Jr.? Could we bring back George Washington if we ever found where he was buried, or King Tut, who had been on display at the Field Museum downtown? These questions were on all our minds in late May, when Chuey told Brenda Gamino he could raise the dead.

  I am not upset. The truth is Brenda could do that to a man. The second week of school I’d tried to ask her, “So how do you like high school?” Only my tongue got thick and it came out more like, “How do oh a hisco?” She just looked at me and smiled. “What?” she said. I wanted to kiss her right then and there. Her voice, even questioning me the way it was, was soft and warm. I think I wanted to marry her.

  “No, no,” I said. “High school… I mean… if you like it… is what…”

  “What?” she asked again. And I just turned and walked away, my Adam’s apple so far up my throat I felt like I was gargling.

  Marcus had done it, and Alfonzo too. Brenda just made people say stupid things. But Chuey had been saved. He was too embarrassed. He’d never said a word to Brenda. I believed Chuey when he said that Brenda had been the one to start talking to him. Her question had been, “What are you going to do this summer?” And in the heat of the moment, in the desperate search to say something of meaning, something she would remember, Chuey replied, “Raise the dead.”

  She didn’t mind us much, Brenda. I’m not sure she remembered that any of us had ever tried to talk to her. Those last few weeks of school we used to pick her up, the four of us. They weren’t really even dating, not yet. They would walk together, laugh out loud, hold hands. Marcus, Alfonzo, and I would follow, smoking cigarettes, anxious to get back to the business of Life, hoping someone like Capone didn’t show up to make us look stupid.

  Brenda used to say things: “You know, they’re not going to let you guys back in.” “We know,” we would reply. “We have a plan.” But her comments began to have an effect. More and more while out on rounds, Chuey would start talking about going back to school, going to summer school even. Our plans were at risk.

  So maybe he showed her at some point. Maybe they were walking after a rain and he found a dead worm on the school baseball field. Or maybe they found a dead bird, a pigeon hit by a bus, or a sparrow who’d ingested rat poison. Chuey said he never showed her, that he never even brought up the power, but he must’ve done something—otherwise she would’ve thought he was crazy, talking about “raising the dead” the way he did. But maybe she thought he was a little off anyway. When you’re a teenager you’re willing to take more things on faith. Reality hasn’t been defined by experience. Anyway, she asked Chuey, the night her brother OD’d, to bring him back to life. And then Chuey called us, and at 11:30 p.m., May 15, we met at Twenty-First Place and started walking to Brenda’s house. The trees were in full bloom by then. Even at night the smell was like inhaling through a sheet of fabric softener.

  We didn’t know Brenda’s family. Chuey didn’t know them, and he’d walked Brenda home dozens of times. It’s no wonder, though, that she kept her family a secret. I wouldn’t have admitted to Capone either.

  It’s beyond me how they came from the same family. One of them must’ve been adopted. Brenda looked like her mother. They had the same eyes. But then Capone had their mother’s skin—dark, sandy. So who knows, maybe they had different fathers. For so long Brenda had seemed otherworldly—even with her talking to Chuey, she was still beyond us, beyond Marcus, Alfonzo, and me. Yet here she was, sister to the most obnoxious gangbanger in Pilsen. Things suddenly seemed possible.

  He’d OD’d in his bedroom. Brenda walked us there after meeting us on the sidewalk. They lived in the back basement of a narrow three-flat. Their apartment was cool and wet; the concrete floor was glossy with humidity. Carpets covered some spots and as we walked through I found myself taking long strides from carpet to carpet.

  Capone was sitting on the floor, leaned up against his bed. His head was cocked sideways, his chin dug into his chest. White vomit streaked down the left side of his mouth onto his black T-shirt. He was filthy. He stank. He looked like he hadn’t bathed in a week.

  “How long has he been this way?” Marcus asked.

  “We just found him,” she said. “Maybe a half hour ago.”

  “No, dirty like that,” Marcus said. “When’s the last time he took a bath?”

  “Que dijo?” their mother asked.

  Brenda ignored her.

  “I don’t know,” Brenda said. “He leaves home for weeks, then just shows up for breakfast or something. We haven’t seen him for a month.”

  Her mother looked to us like she was waiting for a response.

  The last time the four of us had seen Capone was back in the winter, back wh
en that white Cadillac had stopped in the middle of Paulina Street. I wondered if he’d been stoned since then. I wondered if his death was the end of a five-month-long high.

  “You sure he’s dead?” Alfonzo asked.

  “His heart’s not beating,” Brenda said. She raised her eyebrows like Alfonzo was an idiot.

  Alfonzo nodded in return.

  Chuey got down on a knee and reached for Capone’s wrist. He searched for a pulse, using two fingers, stopping at various points like he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Capone’s arms were covered in tattoos. On his right forearm, close to his elbow, were the masks of comedy and tragedy, both crying large white tears. Just below was a fat, green, faded crucifix. And then at his wrist, where Chuey was searching, the word AMOR was written in Old English script.

  “Can you do something, Jesse?” Brenda asked. She used Chuey’s real name. No one ever used Chuey’s real name, not even his family. I wanted to correct her.

  Chuey sighed. “An hour max,” he said. “Easy death, no violence. We’ll take care of it.”

  I looked to Alfonzo and Marcus. They both looked at me. Chuey had never sounded so official.

  Chuey reached into his pocket and pulled out a penlight. He pried open one of Capone’s eyelids and then shined the light in. He pulled the light away and brought it back quickly. He did this two or three times for each eye. With each flash he gave a small grunt as if whatever he was looking for wasn’t there.

  Capone’s pants were stiff and crusty. They were blue but hazy, spotted with dirt and grease. They looked like the pants of an alley auto mechanic. Capone’s socks had been white at some point. Now they were black at the soles, lighter shades of gray toward his ankles. I couldn’t believe Capone was on the floor, dead. I felt a sense of satisfaction. I felt like cursing him, talking to the dead body, making up for all those times he’d hassled me on the streets of our neighborhood. Serves you right, motherfucker. I felt like kicking him.

  Chuey continued with his examination. He wiped Capone’s chin and neck with an edge of bedsheet, then felt under Capone’s jaw the way a doctor does, lightly, gently.

  I thought to remind Chuey of that time Capone had punched him in the chest. I thought to remind Chuey of what he’d said back then: “It’s not like that fucker will ever learn.” Then suddenly I remembered what Chuey’s great-grandfather had said way back in January, how the power was to be respected, how it could be used only for the common good. We weren’t supposed to bring Capone back. Our job was to bring back harmless things, cats, birds, dogs, goldfish, a decent human being—not Capone. I opened my mouth to say something, but then I saw Chuey look up to Brenda. He smiled and nodded with confidence, reassurance. He was going to bring Capone back, common good or not.

  “Qué van hacer con mi niño?” Brenda’s mother asked.

  “Mom,” Brenda answered in English. “Just let him be. He knows what he’s doing.”

  On a bedside table a burnt-out glass tube sat looking like it was about to roll off and shatter on the concrete floor. In the center of the table a tiny Bic lighter, blue, just like the one Marcus carried, was standing upright.

  “You guys let him smoke in here?” Alfonzo asked.

  “He just does it,” Brenda said. “I tell her all the time.” She turned to her mother. “But she won’t just kick him out.” She said this last piece forcefully. Her mother didn’t bother to look.

  “We’re going to have to lay him down,” I said to Chuey.

  Chuey gave a nod.

  “They like to kick,” Marcus said to Brenda. He smiled like an apology.

  I reached down and started to pull at Capone’s arm. The closer I got the more I picked up his odor. He was sour. I didn’t know if it was the drugs, the death, the filth, or all of the above. Alfonzo and Marcus went for Capone’s legs. I could see the looks on their faces as they pulled at his ankles.

  Chuey was on his knees. He started to rub his hands together.

  “Qué van hacer?” Brenda’s mother asked.

  “It’s okay, Señora,” I said to her. “Somos professionales.”

  She was holding her hand up near her mouth. She was leaning to one side, watching us, waiting for what we were going to do next.

  “Okay,” Marcus said. “Ready.” He grabbed Capone’s left leg. Alfonzo grabbed the right.

  Chuey was breathing deep now. His eyes were closed. He looked like he was preparing for a dive, like I’d seen competition divers do once on a National Geographic special. Then he started humming.

  Brenda’s mother turned to her.

  “Mom,” Brenda said. “He’s an Indian. This is a ritual.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Does anyone else know we’re here?” I asked Brenda.

  “No,” Brenda said.

  “You didn’t call the police?” I asked.

  “No,” she said again. “We found him and I just called Jesse. I know what you guys do for a living.”

  There was a pause. Even Chuey stopped humming. I expected him to open his eyes, to look at me, to us, for our reaction. He began humming again.

  “What’s his name?” Alfonzo asked Brenda.

  “Leo,” she responded.

  And then, as I waited for Chuey to give his gift, for some reason I began to feel close to Capone. I’d seen him around for so many years, spoken to him so often, said what’s up in hopes of avoiding confrontation. I’d even run from him a couple of times, when my appeals to his human side failed. As I stood there looking at his limp body, things started to make sense. I could see him growing up in the tiny basement apartment. I could see him in Cooper Elementary, where I had gone. I could see him making friends, hanging out with the Latin Ambrose, until suddenly, almost unexpectedly, he couldn’t turn back. I felt sure Capone was a father. Maybe his girlfriend was one of the young mothers, the gangbanger girls I’d seen walking their babies on Saturday afternoons. I looked to his mother. She was old and tired, like my mother, like all our mothers. She still had her hand up near her mouth, hiding it, as if her lips might reveal more than she wanted to. Without me realizing it, Capone began to seem normal. I felt like we were all in the same boat, like our neighborhood, Pilsen, was just a rut people fell into. I began to think we were doing the right thing. That maybe Capone had seen God, or someone, or something, and was going to come back a new man, reborn. Maybe he’d seen the other side. I studied his tattoos, the upturned spear, the name CAPONE written in script on his neck, under his ear. Maybe this was what the gift was meant for, second chances, or even a chance at all.

  Finally Chuey stopped humming. He opened his eyes and nodded to Alfonzo. I tightened my grip.

  “May the holy ghost follow you through your new life,” Alfonzo said. “May you hold dear this blessing from God’s Country.”

  And then Chuey tapped Capone’s ankle.

  Like always at night, it happened slow. First his right foot twitched, then his left. Then there was nothing. Seconds passed. Two or three minutes even. Then his fingers twitched. Then his whole body snapped, for just an instant, like his muscles, his veins, had suddenly inflated. Capone wheezed, a breathless, flat wheeze, barely audible, but it was noise, and Capone had made it.

  “Dios bendiga,” Brenda’s mother said. She dropped to her knees. “Mijo!”

  Capone growled. His chest heaved. It wasn’t breath—breathing hadn’t started yet, but Capone’s lungs swelled, then emptied. Brenda’s mother reached for Capone.

  “Don’t!” Chuey barked.

  Brenda’s mother snapped back, startled.

  Then real breath started. It was obvious. Capone’s chest rose and fell, slowly at first, then quickly, then regular, like his lungs had found a rhythm, had caught up to the beating of his heart. He was mumbling, every breath seemed to carry a sentence

  “Mijo!” his mother called out. “Aqui estoy, mijo,” she said.

  Capone’s mother reached for him again. This time Chuey let her go.

  Capone opened his eyes.
He stared into his mother’s face. He had that wild look, the same one he had when he was high, when he was pushing kids up against walls, asking them what they “be about,” ready to kill. His mother was whispering to him. She was returning his stare, praying for him. Then Capone flexed his arms. I felt him pull. His biceps bulged; his eyes widened. I leaned all my weight into his wrist, trying to pin it to the floor.

  “It’s all right!” Alfonzo said from below. “It’s okay, man, relax. Leo, let it go!”

  “It’s all right, Leo,” Brenda said. “You’re home, you’re here, you’re safe.”

  Then Capone gave a cry, a shriek. Another spurt of energy shot through his arms, his body. I leaned into his wrist again. On the other side Chuey did the same. Suddenly Capone gave way. His arms went limp. His eyes went clear. Now he was Capone, Leo. Now he was alive.

  “Mamá,” he said. He was breathing hard, panting. Sweat was pouring down his face, beading up on his nose, his unshaven face.

  “Mamá!” he cried. “I know what I did.” He was sobbing. “I know what I did, Mamá.” he said again. “I saw the other side.”

  Capone’s mother wiped his face with her bare hand. She grabbed his cheeks and kissed his lips.

  I loosened my grip on Capone’s arm. Chuey, Alfonzo, and Marcus released their holds as well. Capone was still. He was whimpering. Brenda got to her knees. His mother was hugging him. Then Brenda was hugging him. Then they were all crying and hugging together.

  “You’re okay, Leo,” Brenda said to him. “You’re okay.”

  “I did something wrong,” Capone said. “I know what I did. I saw myself.”

  “It’s okay,” Brenda said to him. “You’re back now. It’s over.”

  Capone continued to whimper. His smell was stronger. The whole bedroom smelled spoiled, like clothes that have sat in the washer too long.

  “You know,” Marcus said. “It’s easier when we bring them back in the morning.” He wiped his forehead. “They don’t fight as much.”