“What’s the situation with your medicine?” she said.
Don’t make me think about that! “I can manage,” he said shortly.
“For how long?”
“As long as I must.” Oh, stop it, she deserves better — a straight answer. “I have one dose left,” he said. “Its effects may last until morning.”
“Good God.”
“I shouldn’t have let my supply run so low. There’s nothing to be done about it now. You had better concentrate on aspects of this affair that you can do something about.”
“Such as?” she said with bitter weariness.
The door to the studio swung open.
Involuntarily he remembered a desert wash tumbled full of bodies, the refuse of some brushfire war, ragged bundles of bloat, stink, and buzzing flies.
Bobbie, the young one, stood in the doorway with the rifle in his hands, looking embarrassed about it. Miss Stern opened her mouth, probably to scream.
Bobbie said, “Beto says come get some supper.”
8
Look at her, Roberto thought resentfully. Like a general! Shouldn’t have let her get all that stuff on their list, but you can’t leave the whole bunch of them in there with one roll of toilet paper. The whole place would stink too bad to go inside even if you had to.
She reminded him of the teachers he’d had in school, always so bossy. You did what they said when you were little because they were older, and later because you were in the habit. Unless you broke the habit, man.
I did. But not the rest of them.
Look at her, for god’s sake! Skinny old lady with patches on her jeans, she talks and everybody jumps. Even Blanca took a hand at stirring the pot when the old lady told her to. Everybody worked.
Except Roberto. He stood munching a heel of bread with the shotgun in the crook of his elbow. Every time someone opened the door to the refrigerator they had to stop short to avoid hitting him. Roberto glared, daring them to touch him or ask him to move.
The old lady ignored him. She sent tall Jeff for drinking glasses from the top cupboard and two girls for plates and silver. Miss Stern was at the sink rinsing the things that came off the shelves dusty. The old woman didn’t seem to do a lot of entertaining. Alex, scowling, was heating up two bricks of frozen hamburger meat on the range.
The old lady would step along past Alex on one of her circuits of the big kitchen and reach over his shoulder to sprinkle into the meat something from the spice rack on the wall. Roberto had had Bobbie collect all the knives and lock them in the truck. The old lady had smashed a garlic clove between two cutting-boards before anybody knew what she was up to — God, he’d jumped in a cold sweat at that slamming sound. Now she was opening cans of beans and tomatoes.
Even the sick man was working. He moved slowly around the table setting out napkins from the paper towel roll over the sink.
The food smells made Roberto’s mouth water. He devoured the rest of the bread.
Maybe now while he stood here, somebody was doing a news flash on the tv: that the land sharks were caught, the cops with the quick trigger-fingers had confessed, Martín Maestas was home, and Roberto could go home too.
Boy, he must be getting soft in the head to think something like that! He was in the kind of trouble that didn’t just go away. Real trouble, the kind this lady with her nice house and her friends who liked to make sure she was okay wouldn’t know nothing about. The Englishman, now, he had the worst trouble there was. But the old lady made Roberto mad. She must have it real easy, a nice easy life, to be acting so confident now. She must really think nothing could hurt her. Maybe he’d show her different before he left here. Hell, he was going to have to give up his own life on Pinto Street, wasn’t he? Not so great, but it had suited him okay. Why shouldn’t she have to give up something too?
Blanquita looked funny with her rigid arm stuck up at that weird angle. He had been crazy to let her persuade him to bring her along. How many other crazy things had he already done? Maybe he had made a fatal mistake somewhere along the line and didn’t even know it.
The people he’d known who worked for La Raza, or said they did — trying to get Chicanos out of jail, trying to get the housing projects and the barrios cleaned up, and this and that — they would know better than he did how to handle this crazy mess.
But Roberto had never hung out with them. He’d hung out with the drinkers, the players, the fighters. Politics was a big bore, like most things.
So here he was, in this stranger’s kitchen with a bunch of kids and a guy dying of cancer. What had happened to his idea of slipping away alone, like a ghost with a gun in his hand, a sly coyote, a shadow?
Meanwhile, there was something that needed doing. He brushed crumbs off his chin and he motioned with the shotgun. “Come on, lady,” he said. “You can leave the cooking for a minute. You got to make a phone call to the school and tell them these kids aren’t coming home tonight.”
Her eyes narrowed. He had caught her by surprise with this, he could see, and she was not liking it, not a bit. He braced himself for an argument.
“It’s too late,” she said. “There won’t be anyone there now.”
“Then call one of the school people at home. She can tell you who.” He pointed with his chin at Miss Stern.
The old woman didn’t look at the teacher. She said to Roberto, “What do you think I should tell them?”
She knows the answer, but she’s asking me, making me do the work. Jesus. Playing games at a time like this. Or else she thinks I’m too dumb to think of something.
He had a simple story for her to tell. “Say the van broke down and you’ll have somebody out to look at it first thing in the morning, and meantime everybody is going to bed down here overnight. Nothing to worry about, just a little mechanical problem, you understand? Not fixable right now, but no big deal to get fixed tomorrow morning.”
She turned to Alex. “Lower the flame a little, you don’t want that scorching. I’ll be right back.”
The house was like any nice old country place around here that somebody with money had fixed up: Navajo rugs, heavy old wooden chests and sideboards and things, corduroy and leather couches and chairs. You’d think a painter would want to brighten the place up a little. The pictures on the walls were on the sober side, and he didn’t see her name on any of them. Ashamed of her own stuff, or what?
She kept a rolodex next to the living room phone, like in an office. He watched over her shoulder as she flipped through it to the name “Mary Morgan.”
He mutely pushed the muzzle of the gun at her: don’t forget about this.
She got this person first try, a good sign.
“Don’t worry,” she said calmly, “everything’s fine. I’ve got lots of room for them here… It won’t kill them to sleep on couch cushions for a night, after all. I just wanted to make sure you — of course… Heavens, no, why ferry everyone into town to spend money on a motel? Really, it’s no imposition; Ricky and I are glad to have the company.”
The other person talked awhile. The old woman was gazing across the room at a big Indian blanket on the wall. Suddenly she jumped, her eyes got big, and she almost dropped the phone. Roberto whipped around and stared, saw nothing, realized it must be a trick and swung back again in a panic, but she was just standing there, the phone pressed to her ear, like before.
She said, “A little disorganized, maybe, and chagrined to have something go wrong. She’s doing all right… No, she’s out helping them bring a few things in from the van — do you want to hang on and talk to her? There’s no real need; we’re fine. This outing will become part of your school history, a distinction for everyone who took part.
“Good. I’ll tell her… You must be very relieved. I’ll bet. Yes, it’s going to be a lot of phone calls t — sorry about that. You have a class list there at home? Yes… Really. No problem… No more buses. The last bus south was late afternoon, I think.
“Fine. I’ll let you know. Yes. Goodnigh
t.”
She hung up.
He let out his breath and jabbed her arm with the shotgun muzzle. “Why did you do that? Making me turn around like that?”
“I didn’t,” she said, looking blank. Then she said in this low, thoughtful voice, “Oh, you mean when I saw — I thought I saw — You may as well know. We think we have a ghost here, and I thought I saw it just now: a man in a black cap and gown walking on the back patio.”
He forced a guffaw of laughter. “Hey, come on, a ghost? What you think I am, some kind of retard? You think you can scare me talking like that?”
“You asked me what happened, and I’m telling you.”
“Tell you what. You just shut up and go back in the kitchen.” Man, that made him feel better, just saying “shut up” like that to this Anglo lady with her god damn ghost story.
In the kitchen, she went over to the range and gave the mess in the pan a couple of stirs with a wooden spoon. Everybody watched while she lifted the spoon, tasted the food, and added salt and other stuff to the pot. Then she served the teacher and all the class kids and Blanca, who lined up with a plate in her hand like the others.
He didn’t like how she moved, though, sort of mechanical and forgetting things like giving people spoons. Distracted.
“Everybody out on the patio,” he said. Show her who was scared of the ghost she pretended to see out there. She shot him a funny look, like she was a little nervous herself. She’d have to do better than that.
They began trailing out onto the patio.
The sick man stayed where he was, sitting at the table with his food plate untouched between his hands. The lady leaned to speak with him. He shook his head. He looked yellow.
“Talk louder,” Roberto said. “I want to hear what you’re saying.”
The man didn’t look at him. “I’m not hungry. I need my medicine.”
Jesus, it wasn’t enough to have Blanca on his hands! “Where is it?”
The man closed his eyes. She spoke for him. “In the bedroom that’s last down the hallway. Surely you can take Mr. Maulders there and let him stay the night in his bed.”
Roberto saw how her hand lightly brushed the man’s slumped shoulder. He’s sick, the gesture said. He can’t run away or attack anybody. Were they lovers, the two old people? Some old people were still jumping in the sack with each other when they were pretty creaky, like Horacio’s grandparents. This English guy would have to be something to still get it up, though dying and all — unless he was faking being so sick.
“Got a lock on the bedroom door?” he said.
“Yes, but —”
“No but. Which key?” He fished out her keys and held them up. She pointed. “Hey, Bobbie,” Roberto called out into the patio. “Come in here a minute and go with this guy to his room. I’ll take over out there.”
Outside, with the old lady looking on like stone, he made them all string themselves out along the wall so they couldn’t talk to each other without him hearing. He was pleased with himself, watching them eating in silent isolation from each other. One thing at a time, that was the way. Then you could keep up with all the little things you had to think about to stay on top of the situation.
He leaned against the edge of the redwood table where Blanca had parked herself with her plate.
“Do you think he needs a priest?” she said.
It took him a second to figure out she meant the Englishman. “Don’t be dumb,” he said.
“But maybe he’s dying right now,” she said. “I’ve seen dying people in the hospital who looked better than him.”
“Who says English people are even Catholic? And anyhow there’s nothing I can do about it. Just keep quiet and eat. You were so hungry, remember?”
One thing, man, one sure thing: that old lady better not say anything to Blanca about any damn ghost, or to Bobbie either, that soft little queer. If she opened her mouth about that he’d blow her head off. Blanca was the one who had believed in La Llorona, the wailing woman who supposedly wandered the banks of the Albuquerque irrigation ditches looking for kids to steal in place of her babies that she’d drowned a hundred years ago.
Something moved, crackling the brush on the hillside across from the patio. Roberto squinted up there, shotgun at the ready. It was only that black dog, digging at something under a bush. He felt his legs go weak with relief. Shit. Could have been the cops.
That was what the old lady was trying to convince him was a ghost? Damn her, thought she was so smart.
“I want some of that supper,” he announced.
Blanca said, “But it’s all dished out, Beto. You want some of mine?”
“No. I want some of theirs.”
They all stared at him: the man with the gun who was hungry. The old lady started toward him with her plate. Jesus, did she think he would eat off her plate when maybe she was screwing with a guy dying of cancer? She must be trying to poison him.
“Not yours,” he said.
“Why not?” She stopped. She sounded irritable, like his mother when things had gone bad all day at the discount store. “I’m your host, and I’m offering.”
“Host my ass,” Roberto flashed, fed up with her. “This isn’t even your house, you know that? It’s a Spanish house. All that carved wood and tile floors and those latías up there in the ceiling? Spanish people built this house. You people stole it, that’s all. Well, now Spanish people are taking it back. While I’m here this place is mine, and that food is mine, too, if I want it.”
Jeff, who sat coiled on the ground like a snake, said suddenly, “Oh, come on, Roberto, that’s crap, you know? People have been taking whole countries from each other for all of history. You just got stuck, that’s all.”
“No, man, you’re stuck!” Roberto shouted. He swung the shotgun toward Jeff, who shrank back against the wall, lifting his plate shoulder high as if sheltering behind it.
“Okay, okay,” he said, “whatever you say, man. Take it easy, I didn’t mean anything.”
That was better, a lot better. But the old lady just wouldn’t leave it alone.
She set her water-glass down on the heavy redwood table and tapped the glass with her spoon. The twinkling sound made them all look at her. “For the record the main portion of this house was built by a family named Lobo y Vargas who ran livestock up here originally. They were wiped out in an Indian raid. A nephew named Roybalid inherited. He had a dry goods store down in Albuquerque. So far as I could find out from the records, he never came out to see the place but sold it to a rancher name Shortman as soon as his uncle’s estate was settled. Shortman ran cattle, invested badly, sold in turn to an Englishman named Bellows. The Bellows granddaughter, Nancy, leased it to a neighboring rancher until I bought it from her shortly before her death.”
“So what?” Roberto glared at her. Just for an instant he saw in his mind’s eye an image of a slim, dark man walking along in an orchard slapping the trunks of the twisty fruit trees, encouraging them as if they were cattle. Something from when he was a baby at the family ranch, it must be, days he only knew from what Great-uncle Tilo or Mina might say. He made a fierce mental grab for the image, trying to hold onto it — that must be Dad, what did he really look like? — but the old lady wouldn’t let him. She had to go on talking.
“Plenty of Spanish landholders were cheated out of their property in this state, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case right here. Now that that’s understood — are you still hungry?”
“Shut your mouth, I’m thinking!” But it was too late. The scrap of memory blinked out. He was left standing there like a fool.
Suddenly the teacher, Miss Stern walked up to him and held out her plate. Her face was shiny with sweat, and he could see her trying to talk, swallowing and licking her lips, and not being able to. Too scared.
He had a headache now, and he had no appetite at all. “Just set it down there on the ground,” he growled. What had the man looked like?
She bent and put her half-fille
d plate on the flagstones near his foot. Then she walked over to the back patio wall and stood holding onto it, facing away from them all.
Roberto looked down at the plate and nudged it with his boot. He said loudly to Blanca, “How can you eat that shit, anyhow?”
Moving sharp the way you do when you’re mad and you don’t care who knows it, the old lady stepped over and grabbed up the plate, like Roberto was nothing, a statue or something.
“Hey!” he said. “What the hell you think you’re doing?”
She whistled up the hillside at the Doberman. “We don’t waste food in this house. I’m going to feed this to the dogs.”
“They already got fed,” Bobbie said quickly.
Roberto yelled, “Fuck the dogs! You want to do something, you ask me first!” And he yanked up the shotgun and fired, felt the kick, the crash, heard the yelp, heard it break off sharp. A good shot, satisfying. He felt loose inside, melted with release.
Bobbie moaned, “Shit, Beto, what did you do that for? He wasn’t hurting anything.”
The dog on the hillside was just a dark heap now, one rear leg jerking automatically in the air. Everyone stared, except Jeff, who sat crumpled like a bag of laundry, his head covered by his crossed arms. The teacher held onto the wall with both hands. The two girls grabbed each other and breathed in little screams. Spacey Joyce just hugged herself and blinked.
Even the old woman was quiet now. The paper plate shook in her hands. Food tumbled off onto the paving at her feet.
You worry about me, lady, not about ancient history or some stupid ghost.
Bobbie sounded like he was nearly crying. “He’s dead. I can see it from here, he’s quit moving. You killed him for nothing. What did you do that for?”
Roberto stared at him. Was he crazy, or what? It was to show these people not to mess with us, that’s what for! To teach the old lady a lesson! And it worked too, you could see that looking around at their faces. What about that, you smart-asses? Dumb Roberto from the valley that just came along for the ride with his smart cousin to your dopey class. A shotgun made a lot of difference, more than just the old pistol alone. They’ll remember.
Dorothea Dreams (Heirloom Books) Page 18