The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey

by Orenduff, J. Michael;

She opened the door to the condo while staying behind it. Good idea, since she was naked. Benz was on the balcony. I shoved a reluctant Geronimo out there. We sprinted to the bathroom. The shower was running. The room was full of steam.

  It got steamier.

  We’d been apart only four days. It’s not like we can’t go four days without making love. We’re not sex maniacs.

  Our passion wasn’t fueled by the lapse of time as much as by the uncertainty.

  Did she want me back after her father’s visit? Would I come back after his visit to me?

  At some point after our heart rates dropped below three figures, she put her head on my chest and said, “He likes you.”

  “He managed not to show it.”

  “I was mad at him when he told me he’d gone to see you. And I was a bit peeved at you for not remembering to take the mugs.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But after he told me, I was glad he did it. Now everything is out in the open.”

  “No more things on your I-have-to-tell-you-these-things-one-at-a-time list?”

  She gave me a coy smile. “Maybe. You want to know something he said that’s really neat?”

  “What?”

  “He said if I insisted on dating a white man, you were a good choice.”

  “Isn’t that like saying ‘Since you insist on dating a fat girl, it’s good the one you chose doesn’t sweat much?’”

  She gave me a love bite and asked about my conversation with her father.

  “He asked blunt questions, and I gave him blunt answers.”

  “No wonder he liked you. He likes straightforward people.”

  “I’m not all that straightforward,” I admitted.

  “What were his blunt questions?”

  “He asked if we were sleeping together.”

  “I figured as much. What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Twice every day, seven days a week.’”

  “Seriously. What did you say?”

  “I said if you had decided or ever did decide to sleep with a man, you would do so for reasons that even a father could not object to.”

  “Perfect. What did he say?”

  “He said that wasn’t an answer. I told him it was the only one he was going to get and the only one he was entitled to.”

  “That is blunt.”

  She lifted her head off my chest and gave me a look that said, Now you have to ask me the same question.

  So I did. “Did he also ask you if we were sleeping together?”

  “Yes. After he told me he had searched you out and you hadn’t answered the question.”

  Her pause prompted another question.

  “So, what did you tell him?”

  She scooted up closer to me, our faces inches apart. “I told him you are the first man I’ve ever slept with.” She kissed me. “And I told him you are the last man I’ll ever sleep with.”

  I jumped out of bed and yelled, “Yes!” I looked at her and said, “Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

  She looked down and then back up at my face. “Are both of you proposing?”

  Okay, I probably should have gotten dressed. Or at least stayed under the sheets. But it wasn’t the first time I’d asked her, so it hardly needed to be formal. And standing in the nude is about as informal as you can get.

  “I don’t want this ever to end,” she said. “But I still have some thinking to do about the marriage part.”

  “Remember when you tricked me into telling you about my history with women?”

  “I didn’t trick you into it.”

  “Yes, you did. You said it was one of those things on your I-have-to-tell-you-one-at-a-time list, and you made me go first. But you didn’t have anything to tell, so it was a trick.”

  “And why are you bringing this up?”

  “You remember my last girlfriend before you was Dolly Aquirre?”

  “Did you propose to her?”

  “No. You’re the first person I’ve ever proposed to. And like you said to your father, you are the last person I will ever propose to.”

  “That’s sweet, Hubie. But my question still stands. Why bring this up?”

  “Because she told me she wanted to be my girlfriend but didn’t want to marry me. So I’m wondering why it is that girls hesitate to marry me. Am I like the convertible Hertz rented to you one weekend? It was fun to drive but not practical to own?”

  “Don’t be silly. You’re more of a compact car than a convertible.”

  “Thanks.”

  She kissed the frown off my face.

  38

  The next few weeks were uneventful. I began to think life would return to normal.

  You already know it didn’t, because otherwise why mention it?

  It was a lazy Saturday. I was on a bench in Old Town, about to nod off when I heard, “Gud marnink, Youbird.”

  “Good morning, Father,” I answered.

  I didn’t have to look up to know it was Father Groas, the priest from Old Town’s San Felipe de Neri Church. He’s the only person in Old Town with an eastern European accent. It is less noticeable when he speaks Spanish because the vowel sounds and extended s’s of his native tongue fit better than they do with English.

  When I mentioned that theory to the good father, he said, “Is true. Wass easy to learn Spanish bot difficult to learn Anglish.”

  “It was a snap for me.”

  He laughed. “Wass easy for me to learn Rusyn.”

  Not Russian. Rusyn. The Rusyns consider themselves to be the indigenous inhabitants of Carpathia, part of which is in Ukraine. The official Ukrainian position is that the Rusyns are Ukrainians and the Rusyn language is a merely backward dialect of Ukrainian. Sort of what we in America think of people from Boston. It sounds funny when they add an r to the end of Cuba, but they are not speaking a foreign language. It is merely a dialect of English.

  He sat next to me. “I think Got plan this meeting, Youbird. I wass trying to find you to suggest you attend this year’s Día de Muertos tomorrow.”

  “I’m not Catholic, Father.”

  “Yass, you always say so. But am I not your priest?”

  “I am proud to claim you as my spiritual adviser. But I seldom attend Mass.”

  “Tomorrow is special, Día de Muertos. I wass told one of your students died. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered. The names of the dead will be written on luminarias, which will line the steps in front of the nave. You would like to add a name?”

  “Yes. Ximena Sifuentes.”

  I walked with Father Groas back to the church. After he entered his office, I went to the parish gift shop next door and bought a Calavera Catrina carved by a santera named Marie Romero Cash.

  My official class roll included an email address for each student. Tristan gave me a laptop, but its sole duty is security. It maintains the pictures snapped automatically when anyone enters or exits the shop. And even if I knew how to send an email, I couldn’t do so because the laptop is not connected to the Internet.

  Which seems to me a great advantage. Susannah’s email address was recently hacked, which resulted in her friends receiving messages that purported to be from her but were actually viruses.

  Not surprisingly, Tristan gets most of his email from women. They fall into two groups: attractive coeds who are hoping for a date and Nigerian widows whose husbands were bank presidents, a job that must be highly stressful considering how many widows it has created.

  I’m not opposed to the Internet. I’m just waiting until they get it debugged.

  I knew Tristan sleeps late, so I walked at a leisurely pace, composing an email in my head.

  I committed a misdemeanor by letting Geronimo off his leash. No one complained. He knows the way to Tristan’s apartment and is disinclined to explo
re unfamiliar territory.

  Tristan answered the door in his underwear.

  “Sorry. Just got out of the shower.”

  I sniffed the air. “You using mothball-scented soap?”

  “New underwear. Mom sends me a package of new briefs four times a year. She always packs them with mothballs.”

  “That’s a lot of underwear.”

  “Yeah. She says I need to have new underwear each time the season changes.”

  Nothing she does surprises me, so I didn’t respond to that.

  “I think you forgot to pull off one of the labels on that pair.”

  He looked down and retrieved a white slip of paper protruding from near his hip bone. Then he read it to me.

  “‘You may not have everything you want. But you have everything you need.’” His face was red. “She sends little notes in each pair. Sort of underwear fortune cookies.”

  “You have a great mom, Tristan. Look how good you turned out.”

  I handed him the napkin with my draft email. It read:

  I hope you can join me tomorrow morning at San Felipe de Neri Church in Old Town at 10 a.m. for a Mass celebrating the Day of the Dead. There will be a prayer for Ximena, and a luminaria will be lit with her name on it. I will give extra credit to all who attend. I suspect God may do the same.

  “You want to leave in the part about God?” Tristan asked when he got to the last sentence. “Some people are sort of touchy on the topic of religion.”

  “Who would object to saying God might give you credit for going to church?”

  “The Church of Euthanasia might.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “No, there’s actually a religion with that name. They believe the earth is being destroyed by humans because there are too many of us. Instead of ten commandments, they have only one: Thou shalt not procreate.”

  “So they want to save the planet by having humans become extinct?”

  “Exactly. And since the Catholic Church is against birth control, Church of Euthanasia members would especially not want to go to Mass.”

  “I think Edward Abbey might have joined that church had he known about it.”

  39

  I awoke at nine the next morning to the sound of rain and the silence of anxiety.

  Albuquerque gets afternoon thunderstorms, not morning drizzle.

  I showered and shaved. Ironed a pair of chinos and a blue shirt.

  Using my Tilley hat as raingear, I trotted to the Bronco, drove to Old Town and trotted again to San Felipe de Neri Church.

  It was dark and smelled of candles and wet wool. My students were huddled on the rearmost bench. The looks on their faces seemed to say they were happy to be near the door in case they had to beat a hasty retreat. Probably not regular attendees.

  Susannah, Aleesha and Carly had brought scarves. I sat next to Mia and handed her my handkerchief.

  “Put this on your head.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I say so.”

  She did.

  Father Groas introduced himself to each of them after the service. If any of them were unhappy about the Catholic doctrine on birth control, they kept it to themselves.

  He was a hit with my charges. With his Transylvania accent, bushy black beard and outsize robes, he is something of a spectacle. He is also a raconteur.

  Raúl challenged him about the day of the dead. “Shouldn’t modern churches reject pagan beliefs?”

  “Do you study art history?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you not begin your study with such things as the cave paintings of Lascaux?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are the earliest evidence of human creativity.”

  “Just so,” said the good father as he stroked his beard. “Pagan beliefs are the earliest ahvidence of human awareness of a greater power. Chust as the seed of the great painters of the Renaissance can be seen in cave paintings, so too can the seeds of modern religion be found in our pagan past.”

  Raúl nodded.

  Father Groas turned to the parishioners now gathered on the steps in front of the nave. “The luminarias khave the names of our brothers and sisters who went to the Lord this year. Regrettably, the lighting must be canceled becoss of the rain. But the light of those we honor today can naaver be extinguished.” He thrust his hand forward and made the sign of the cross. “Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord.”

  My students located the luminaria with Ximena’s name on it. They encircled it silently, rain dripping from their eyebrows and noses.

  Except for Mia, who remained next to me.

  “Here’s your handkerchief back. Thanks for helping me not look so stupid. But it doesn’t change anything.”

  I handed her the gadget Tristan had given me after the class when Mia had requested extra credit. “There’s something on this you need to listen to.”

  I punched the button and handed the miniature recorder to her.

  She placed it against her ear. Then she looked down. She handed it back to me.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to come to class. I want you to learn how to handle clay. I want you to make a pot and sell it as part of our fund-raiser for Ximena.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  She walked away.

  A couple dressed in black approached Father Groas. He read the paper they handed him then led them to Ximena’s luminaria. The students moved away discreetly.

  The woman began to cry. The man put his arm around her shoulder.

  Susannah stepped forward and signed to them. They smiled at her and signed. The conversation lasted ten minutes. Then she called me over and introduced me to Señor and Señora Miguel Sifuentes.

  40

  Susannah handed me the notebook Señora Sifuentes had given her. It was six by nine, bound in black leather and had a red ribbon connected to its spine. I opened the notebook to the page marked by the ribbon and read out loud.

  Your words are temporary

  mere ripples in the air

  betraying your thoughts to strangers

  My words are forever

  curves and lines on a page

  cloaked in the silence of my life

  I see your every word

  You know none of mine

  “Ximena wrote this?”

  Susannah nodded. “Her mother said she loved writing poetry.”

  The Sifuenteses had accepted my invitation to have coffee. They and Susannah signed. I brewed coffee and watched. There was a lot of finger spelling.

  I read another poem.

  I decline the offer of an interpreter

  interpretari – from the Latin – understand

  Lips and ears are not required

  Only mind

  “So what did you learn?” I asked.

  “They live in Gallinas Canyon north of Montezuma. They work for a wealthy woman who owns about a mile of riverfront full of plants and animals.”

  “The river is full of plants and animals?”

  “The land next to it is. Señora Sifuentes is the housekeeper. Señor Sifuentes is the farmhand. Mows the fields. Feeds the animals. The woman was visiting her daughter on the island of Majorca when Ximena died, so they only learned of it a few days ago.”

  “Do they have other children?”

  “No. After Ximena was born, their employer paid for them to get DNA testing. They both tested positive for GJB2 and GJB6 mutations.”

  “In English?”

  “Any child they have will almost certainly be deaf.”

  “And you know this because Mark ha
d those mutant genes?”

  “He had only one. My parents had neither, so their having a deaf child was just random. But if both parents have mutations of both genes, any child they have is almost certainly going to be deaf. They said they didn’t want another deaf child.”

  “Ms. Nose might be very angry with them. She’d say they’re rejecting their own culture.”

  “That wasn’t the reason they decided not to have another child. They aren’t ashamed of being deaf. But they know the challenges being deaf presents and wanted to concentrate on helping Ximena. They are so proud of her. Did you know she was an honor student?”

  I shook my head. “It’s hard to tell when you’re teaching a studio class. Although it’s pretty obvious that Raúl is brilliant and Mia is not.”

  “Why did you hand Mia a cell phone?”

  “It wasn’t a cell phone. It’s a small recorder.”

  I retrieved it and handed it to her. She listened to the recording.

  “She offered sex for a grade? That is so sad. Why did you record this?”

  “To protect myself in case she gave a different version of what happened.”

  “And she did?”

  “Yes. She filed a sexual harassment complaint about me.”

  “First an equal educational opportunity complaint, then a sexual harassment complaint. What’s next? A violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because you didn’t recognize that Ximena was disabled?”

  “Ms. Nose certainly wouldn’t think she was. And I bet Ximena didn’t think she was.”

  “But Ms. Nose might think Ximena was a traitor to the cause because she read lips. Some deaf people think that’s a form of linguistic colonialism—being forced to use a language that is not your native tongue.”

  “Native tongue is probably the wrong phrase to use when describing sign language.”

  “Oops. But you understand what I’m saying, right?”

  “Sure. But if deaf people don’t learn to read lips, how can we communicate with them?”

  She signed.

  “Okay, we could all learn to sign. But only about one in a thousand people is deaf, so although it would be great if we could all sign, isn’t it more practical for the one in a thousand to learn lip reading than for the other nine hundred and ninety-nine of us to learn signing?”