by Ron Arias
Praise for the work of Ron Arias:
“Be prepared to be astonished by Arias’s storytelling and his world of youthful adventures where the imagination meets real-world knowledge. He writes of families disrupted by personal tragedy and war that manage to survive, of a community where young and old come to each other’s assistance.”
—Héctor Enrique Calderón Valle, Professor of Spanish, University of California, Los Angeles
“The Road to Tamazunchale is one of the first achieved works of Chicano consciousness and spirit.”
—Library Journal
“In terms of craftsmanship and artistry no Chicano novel before The Road to Tamazunchale has tapped the artistic resources of the modern and contemporary novel (and the arts) in a comparable way, deliberately and intuitively . . . daring and commendable.”
—Latin American Literary Review
“Arias, who reported the story in People magazine, here interviews virtually everybody involved in this affair, and reconstructs the agony of the families waiting at home as well as the desperation of the fishermen. The account of their adjustment to their plight is as interesting as the fact of their survival.”
—Publishers Weekly on Five Against the Sea
The Wetback and Other Stories
RON ARIAS
The Wetback and Other stories is funded in pan by a grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
Recovering the past, creating the future
Arte Público Press
University of Houston
4902 Gulf Fwy, Bldg 19, Rm 100
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
Cover design by Caroline McAllister
Cover image by Paul Botello
Names: Arias, Ron, 1941- author.
Title: The wetback : and other stories / by Ron Arias.
Description: Houston, TX : Arte Publico Press, [2016]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025128 | ISBN 9781558858343
(softcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781518501005 (ePub) |
ISBN 9781518501012 (kindle) | ISBN 9781518500992 (pdf)
Classification: LCC PS3551.R427 A6 2016 | DDC 813/.54—
dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025128
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Copyright ©2016 by Ron Arias
Imprinted in the United States of America
16 17 18 19 20 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
The Wetback
Eddie
Bedbugs
Awakening
The Chamizal Express
El Mago
Stoop Labor
Canine Cool
A House on The Island
The Castle
The Boy Who Ate Himself
The Interview
Lupe
The Story Machine
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Most of these stories were written and published in the early 1970s when I was teaching and had the time and motivation to write creatively. I was driven to write fiction because I wanted to make sense of my life and life in general in my own way. And then for about thirty years I stopped writing about imaginary people and places, mainly because I had jumped into a rollercoaster of real-life stories as a journalist with a global beat, often feeling like a character in my own reported stories.
That period ended and I returned to writing fiction, motivated by the same business of making sense of people and what they do. Many of these tales may be read as allegories about a Los Angeles neighborhood called Frog Town, which no longer has an abundance of frogs and exists officially as Elysian Valley. But the stories all spring from actual facts, from a time when frogs were everywhere, when children found a drowned man in a dry riverbed or when a young soldier went off to war, disappeared and became myth.
For this collection, I have sharpened or rewritten published stories and have written two new pieces.
To Joan
The Wetback
That afternoon, Mrs. Rentería’s neighbor’s grandchildren discovered David in the dry riverbed. The young man was absolutely dead, the children could see that. For a long time they watched him from behind the clump of cat-o’-nine-tails. His body lay so still that even a mouse, poking into one nostril, suspected nothing. The girl approached first, leaving behind her two brothers. David’s brow was smooth; his gray-blue eyes were half closed; his dark skin glistened, clean and wet, and the rest of him, torn shirt and patched trousers, was also wet.
“He drowned,” the girl said.
The boys ran over for their first good look at a dead man. David was more or less what they expected, except for the gold tooth in front and a mole beneath one sideburn. His name wasn’t David yet; that would come later when the others found out. David was the name of a boy who drowned years ago when Cuca predicted it wouldn’t rain and it did and the Los Angeles River overflowed, taking little David to the bottom or to the sea, no one knew, because all they found was a washtub he used as a boat.
Circling the body, the older brother said, “How could he drown? There’s no water.”
“He did,” the girl said. “Look at him.”
The younger boy backed away. “I’m telling.”
The brothers then ran across the dry sand pebbles, up the concrete bank and disappeared behind the levee. Before the crowd of neighbors arrived, the girl wiped the dead man’s face with her skirt hem, straightened his clothes as best she could and tried to remove the sand in his hair. She raised David’s head, made a claw with her free hand and raked over the black hair. His skull was smooth on top, with a few bumps above the nape. Finally she made a part on the right side, then sat down on the sand with the young man’s head on her lap.
Tiburcio and the boys were the first to reach her, followed by the fishmonger Smaldino and the other men. Most of the women waited on the levee until Tiburcio signaled it was okay, the man was dead. Carmela, the youngest of the women, helped Mrs. Rentería first, since it was her neighbor’s grandchildren who had discovered David. Then she gave a hand to the other older women.
For some time they debated the cause of death. No bruises, no bleeding, only a slight puffiness to the skin, especially the hands. Someone said they should remove the shoes and socks.
“No,” Tiburcio said. “Leave him alone, he’s been through enough. Next you’ll want to take off his clothes.”
Tiburcio was overruled: off came the shoes, a little water and sand spilling out. Both socks had holes at the heels and big toes.
“What about the pants?” the grocer Wong asked. “You going to leave them all wet and sandy?”
“All right, let’s take them off,” Tiburcio said, rolling his eyes back, seemingly resigned to the inevitable.
In this way they discovered the man not only lacked a small toe on one foot but also had a large tick burrowed in his right thigh and a long scar running from one hip almost to the navel.
“Satisfied?” Tiburcio asked the crowd.
Everyone was silent.
David was certainly the best looking young man they had ever seen, at least naked as he now lay. No one seemed to have the slightest shame before this perfect shape of a man. It was as if a statue had been placed among them and they stared freely at whatever they admired most. Some of the men envied the wide chest, the angular jaw or the hair, thick and wavy. The women for the most part gazed at the full, parted lips, the sunbaked arms, the long, strong legs, and of course the dark, soft mound with its finger of life flopped over, its head to the
sky.
“Too bad about the missing toe,” Wong said.
Smaldino elbowed his way forward for closer scrutiny. “And the tick, what about that?” he said after a moment’s inspection.
Mrs. Rentería asked for a book of matches, which Wong quickly gave her. After striking the match head on the cover, she held the tiny flame close to the engorged, whitish sac until the insect withdrew. There were oohs and ahs, and the girl who had combed the dead man’s hair began to cry. Carmela glanced at the levee, wondering what was keeping her uncle Fausto.
They all agreed it was death by drowning. That the river was dry occurred only to the children, but they remained quiet, listening to their parents continue about what should be done with the dead man. Smaldino volunteered his ice locker. No, the women complained. He would lose his suppleness, the smooth, lifelike skin would turn blue and harden. Then someone suggested they take him to Cuca, perhaps she knew how to preserve the dead. Cuca had cures for everything, so why not for this beauty of a man?
“No!” Mrs. Rentería shouted, unable to control herself any longer. “He’ll stay with me.” Although she had never married, never been loved by a man, everyone called her Mrs. out of respect, at times even knowing the bite of irony could be felt in this small, squarish woman who surrounded her house with flowers and worked six days a week changing bedpans and sheets at County General. “David is mine!” she shouted defiantly.
“Who says?” Tiburcio asked. “And since when is his name David? He looks to me more like a . . . ” Tiburcio glanced at the man’s face. “ . . . a Luis.”
“No señor!” another voice cried. “Roberto.”
“Antonio!”
“Henry.”
“¡Qué Henry! Enrique!”
“Alex!”
Trini, Ronnie, Miguel, Roy, Rafael, Bruce Lee . . . The list grew, everyone shouting a name. One by one they turned away to debate the naming, everyone except Mrs. Rentería. She stepped next to her prize and kneeled for a moment. Then she stood and wrung out the sopping gray shorts. Gently, she slipped his feet through the holes in the pathetic garment, eventually tugging the elastic band past the knees to the thighs. Here she asked for help, but the group of curious adults and children didn’t seem to hear. So with a determination grown strong by years of spinsterhood, she rolled the body onto one side, then the other, at last working the shorts up to his waist. The rest was the same and she finished dressing him by herself.
In the end, Mrs. Rentería had her way. When the others stopped arguing, they returned to surround the body, now clothed, although no one seemed to notice. He appeared as breathtaking dressed as he did naked. “You’re right,” Tiburcio told Mrs. Rentería, “his name is David . . . but you still can’t have him.”
About this time Fausto arrived, helped by Mario, a hip, goateed boy whose weaknesses were stealing cars and befriending old men. The two figures stepped slowly across the broken glass and rocks. Fausto, winking at his niece, immediately grasped the situation. David was a wetback. Yes, there was no mistake. Years ago, hadn’t he brought at least a dozen young men from Tijuana, one, sometimes two at a time, cramped in the trunk of the car? Months later, after they had found work, the grateful fellows would sometimes show up at his house, dressed in new clothes, sometimes sporting an earring in one lobe. The clothes, even when spiffy, were always the same kind of clothes. Fausto wasn’t too quick to spot the new women arrivals, but the men, like young David here, were an easy mark.
“How can you tell?” Smaldino asked.
The old man raised the hoe he used as a staff and pointed to the gold tooth, the cut of hair, the narrow trouser cuffs, the scuffed, pointy shoes. “It’s all there. You think I don’t know a mojado when I see one?” As a last gesture, he stooped down and closed the dead man’s eyes. “Now, what will you do with him?”
A small girl stepped close to Fausto and asked if she could have the young man.
“No, m’ijita, he’s too old for you.”
Mrs. Rentería repeated her claim, and before the others could object, Fausto asked in a loud voice what woman among them needed a man so much that she would accept a dead man?
“Speak up! Which of you can give this man your entire love, the soul of everything you are? Which of you, if not the señora here? She has no one.”
The wives looked at their husbands, and the girls and unmarried women and widows waited in silence.
“Then it’s settled,” Fausto said with unusual authority. “You, Tiburcio . . . and you, Smaldino, and you, Mario, take this man to her house.”
“Hey, I ain’t touchin’ no dead man,” Mario said.
Carmela stepped forward. “That figures. You go around stealing cars but you won’t help us out here.”
“All right, all right,” Mario muttered, “one time and no more.”
That evening so many visitors crowded into the small, frame house next to the river that latecomers were forced to wait their turn in the front yard. Even Cuca, her stockings rolled down to her ankles, had to wait in line.
Mrs. Rentería had bathed and shaved David, clipped his hair and lightly powdered his cheeks. He wore new clothes and sat quietly in a waxed and polished leather recliner. The neighbors filed by, each shaking the manicured hand, each with a word of greeting, some of the men with a joking remark about the first night with a woman. And most everyone returned for a second, third and fourth look at this treasure of manhood that might not survive another day of summer heat.
Like all discoveries, it was only a matter of time until David’s usefulness for giving pleasure would end, until the colognes and sprays would not mask what was real, until the curious would remain outside, preferring to watch through the window with their noses covered, until the women retreated in the yard, until the men stopped driving by for a glance from the street, until at last only Mrs. Rentería was left to witness the end.
Happily this was a solitary business. For several days she had not gone to the hospital, her work was forgotten, and she passed the daylight hours at David’s feet, listening, speaking, giving up secrets. And not once did he notice her splotchy hands, the graying hair nor the plain, uninspired face. During the warm afternoons David would take her out, arm in arm, to stroll through the lush gardens of his home, somewhere far away to the south. He fed her candies, gave her flowers and eventually spoke of eternity and a breeze that never dies. At night she would come to him dressed as a dream, a sprig of jasmine in her hair, then lie by his side until dawn, awake to his every whisper and touch.
On the third day Fausto knew the honeymoon was over. “Señora!” he called at the door. “It’s time David left.”
Mrs. Rentería hurried out from the kitchen. Her hair was down in a carefree tangle and she wore only a bathrobe. “You’re too late,” she said with a smile. “He died this morning . . . about an hour ago.”
Fausto examined her eyes, quite dry and obviously sparkling with something more than grief.
“He died?”
“Yes,” she said with a nod and a smile, “of love.”
The odor of death was so strong Fausto had to back down the steps. “Señora, I’d be more than happy to take him away for you. Leave it to me. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait!” she shouted. “David’s already gone.”
“I know but I’ll take him away.”
“That’s what I mean. The boy, that greñudo friend of yours, carried him off just before you came.”
“Mario?”
“I think so. He’s got pelitos on his chin.”
“Then fine, señora. Your David will get the best burial ever.”
Mrs. Rentería told Fausto she wanted to go with Mario but the young thief told her to stay home. He would take care of David’s send-off himself.
“Don’t worry,” Fausto said, “we’ll take good care of him. The body goes, but the soul . . . ”
“I know, his soul is right here . . . in my heart.”
“Señora, keep him there because if you ever
lose him, watch out for the other women.”
“He’ll never leave. You see, I have his word.” She pulled a folded scrap of paper from between her breasts and studied the scribbled words.
Fausto asked if he should say something special at the burial. “Some prayer . . . a poem?”
Mrs. Rentería answered with a toss of her head. For a moment, the glassy eyes were lost in the distance. Then she closed the heavy wooden door, clicked both locks, dropped the blinds behind the big, bay window and drew them shut.
David was not buried. “A man so perfect should not be buried,” Fausto told Mario. With the teenager’s help and using a skill more ancient than the first Tarahumara natives, the old man set to work in his backyard, painstakingly restoring David to his former self. Even the missing toe was replaced.
By late evening the restoration was complete. Only one chore remained. Carmela brought a pitcher of water into the yard and wet the dead man’s clothes, the same shabby clothes he wore when he had arrived.
“More water,” Fausto said.
Mario took the pitcher from Carmela’s hands and skipped into the house. David was about his own age, heavier, but he could have been a brother. Ever since Mrs. Rentería had taken the dead stranger home, Mario’s admiration for David’s composure and quiet sense of confidence had grown. “The dude is cool,” Mario now thought as he returned with the filled pitcher, “but he’s got to leave Elysian Valley looking as fresh and wet as he was when he had arrived.”
After David was doused a second time, Fausto asked for the egg—a dried quetzal egg Mario had plucked from the Museum of Natural History’s ornithology collection.
“What’s that for?” Carmela asked.
“Oh, Cuca once told me that you do this”—Fausto lightly brushed the egg on the dead man’s lips—“and it brings him good luck. I don’t believe it . . . but you know, just in case . . . can’t hurt.”
Fausto stood back and examined his work under the porch light. “Mario, pick him up.”