by Ron Arias
Then, several months later and still possessed by a relentless, stubborn memory, he sat down at his desk and placed a sheet of good-quality paper squarely before him. He removed the cap of his new, gold-plated fountain pen and wondered what Joseph Fields, the enslaved son of a scrivener, would have thought of such an instrument. For a moment Medina held the pen poised over the paper. Then with a flourish, his hand descended and he began to write.
The Chamizal Express
I remember the bus. It was called the Chamizal Express, and it always left around dawn before anyone was awake. Rudy, the driver, must have been awake, but I never noticed because he was always so quiet.
The old bus had been dug out of the dirt and weeds, patched together again, painted and supplied with leather-covered front seats. It was named Chamizal because that’s where they found it, in that wasted piece of no-man’s land between Texas and Chihuahua—a place, as my aunt would say, neither here nor there, ni de este lado ni del otro.
One morning I climbed on with all the other half-asleep passengers, eventually found an empty seat, one by a window, and waited for the bus to move. We all waited. Then we slowly opened our eyes and began to crane our necks and wonder why there was no driver. Finally someone whistled and Rudy appeared, swung into the driver’s seat, pumped the gas pedal and started the engine. I remember that some days the bus would move; other days the gears would churn into a kind of silence and Rudy would gesture for us to be patient. On those days a few of the men and women—some with children—would leave, muttering as they hurried off toward the regular bus stop further down the highway.
This time, however, the Chamizal seemed to jump forward as if it were eager to get moving. The stars still lit the sky, the air was cool, and everyone appeared to settle back for a bit more sleep before the heat and noise of the day began. I had turned in my seat, facing the window, eyes closed, when something began pushing into my back. It was my neighbor’s knee. In trying to get comfortable, this person—the stranger on the seat next to me—had folded one of her legs onto the seat so that her knee projected into my spine.
I shifted slightly, thinking the movement would rouse her enough to pull her knee back. Nothing, not a muscle moved; she was lost in sleep. From the light of the half moon I could see her perfectly shaped teeth, her dark lips and a small, delicate nose, nostrils tightening, then relaxing with each deep breath. Her sleep seemed so profound, so active, you might say, that I decided not to bother her. The knee would remain where it was, and I would have to sit facing forward and as tightly as possible against the window-side of the bus.
Carefully, I moved into this position, and since I was now thoroughly awake I began to worry about not being able to sleep. I counted stars, then imagined my aunt peacefully smoking her pipe. But nothing worked, I couldn’t sleep, and from the hint of blue in the sky I knew it would soon be light. “Why me,” I thought. “Everyone but me has escaped.”
The snoring grew louder, and from the smell of things, I’m sure some of the passengers had relaxed completely. Apparently Rudy now felt he was safe and that no one would notice, because he began to swerve and zigzag across the highway. Once he even stood up and let go of the steering wheel, laughing like a wild man, his red shirt rippling behind him in the wind coming from the open window.
That’s when I first clutched at my neighbor’s knee. But it was only after Rudy sat down that I realized my hand was gripping warm, smooth skin. I removed my hand and looked up to see that same, soft face of an angel.
Suddenly, the bus lurched to one side and my neighbor immediately fell on top of me. She was now lying across my lap and chest, still asleep. In fact, as I looked around in the shadows and half-light I could see that everyone was asleep, even though some of them had been thrown against each other. The next lurch went the other way, and this time not only were bodies thrown from one side to the other, but most of the overhead boxes, sacks and suitcases dropped onto the passengers below. I managed to protect my head with my arms. When the bus righted itself I was practically in the aisle, with my young companion draped across me, one arm flung over my shoulder. She was smiling.
I sat up straight and again glimpsed the bizarre figure of Rudy. This time he was steering with one foot on the wheel, his body hanging like a monkey from the overhead handrails. The Chamizal Express had left the highway and seemed to be rolling down a long, bumpy slope. That’s when Rudy dropped to the floor, turned off the headlights and said the only words I’ve ever heard him speak: “Hasta luego.” Then he jumped out of the bus and I heard him laugh one last time.
For a moment I thought my lovely, young seatmate was awake because she embraced me, kissed me on the lips and pressed her body against mine. I wanted to go on smelling the faint, sweet scent of her hair, wanted her to press even closer, but I knew that if I didn’t stop the bus, no one would. And the Chamizal seemed to be moving faster now, pitching and bouncing as crazily as a ship in a storm. I began to feel sick, yet a sudden drowsiness had entered my head. I had to stop the bus or we would all die.
She kissed me again but this time she followed it up by asking my name. I couldn’t believe it. Here we were, being thrown from side to side, about to crash into who knows what, and she asks me ever so calmly, “What’s your name?”
I started to answer, thinking I should enjoy the moment, when suddenly the bus ride became smooth, level, quieter. I looked at my angel.
“What’s your name?” I asked, holding her in my arms, happy we were both still alive.
“Linda,” she whispered.
In those sweet moments just before sunrise, I looked around and could see the other passengers starting to stretch and yawn. “Where are we going?” I asked, no longer feeling sick and now wanting to sleep.
I vaguely remember the haze of early dawn. The bus rolled to a stop, a sound like footsteps on gravel came closer, and Rudy—all smiles—hopped up to the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Sleep,” Linda said softly. The Chamizal shifted into fourth or fifth gear. I slumped back, and my knee flopped sideways against my neighbor’s thigh.
“We’re almost there,” she whispered.
“Where?” I asked.
I couldn’t catch her answer because all I could hear was the creaking and grinding of the old Chamizal as it traveled west with the sun.
El Mago
Luisa’s father called him the curandero. Sally’s mother called him an unfortunate. The girls simply called him El Mago. Although he was older than the girls could imagine, there was no odor of age about him—only, it seemed, the smell of paper-thin, hairless skin. He was squat, fat and had nicotine stains on one hand. Luisa remembered he had a harsh brittle cough and she thought his chest was like an empty milk carton filled with tiny bone particles.
On this Sunday, like many others before, the two girls sat fidgeting in their blue corduroy jumpers and plain white blouses, in the pew behind the nuns, listening to words about Christ and God and the Virgin and so many saints they would never keep count, all the while watching a fly rub together what looked like its hands. Or they watched the sleepy altar boy, his shoelaces untied, or played silent games with their fingers and feet, or folded and unfolded catechism pamphlets, waiting, finally tiring and waiting some more. As usual the two had gone to Mass by themselves, leaving their parents, who usually attended a later service.
Luisa and Sally had been best friends since third grade and often told strangers they were twins, even though Luisa was smaller and darker, Sally being rounder and the fair-haired güera. When they first met the old man he told them he wasn’t fooled, but it was good to play sisters. He said this in a friendly way, not trying to hurt.
El Mago’s clients called him Don Noriega. He lived alone in a shabby-looking wooden house halfway up a steep hill overlooking the old streetcar line to Glendale. The neighborhood along the LA River knew him since two generations back when he arrived from an obscure town in northern Durango. A hypnotist, soothsayer and folk docto
r, he rarely left his house, receiving payment usually in the form of food or small gifts. Around the sides of his house and in the back he grew all the herbs, spices and exotic plants he needed for his cures.
His living room, which doubled as a waiting room, was lavishly decorated with thick Moroccan rugs, plaster sphinxes, pictures and figurines from pre-Colombian cultures, soft plushy chairs and odd-shaped, marble and brass antique lamps. On one side was a water-filled glass tank containing slender, yellow-and-black striped fish from the Amazon River. On the other side were two cages of colorful birds from New Guinea and the rainforests of Panama. And adjoining this room was another that was lined and divided with filled bookcases.
Luisa and Sally first visited when they accompanied Sally’s grandmother on a visit about her migraines and pains in her gall bladder, which she called her vesícula. Before Don Noriega attended to the business of healing, he devoted a few minutes to the girls. Speaking to them in Spanish, he overcame their shyness by giving them each a piece of hard candy. And then in a raspy voice he told them not to worry about breaking things in the house. He invited them to explore whatever attracted their curiosity. When Luisa, the more awkward of the girls, tipped over a metal stand with zodiac charts on it, Don Noriega helped her prop up the stand again. Gently and with a wink, he said all things can be repaired or left behind. They’re just things. But it’s the damage here, and he pointed to his heart, that cannot be fixed. Then he sat down to chat with the ailing grandmother, and the girls were left to themselves.
After standing fascinated before the tank of fish, the girls moved on to another room, which was dimly lit, cluttered with boxes and books, and saturated with a strange incense. Sally’s grandmother could be heard laughing in the other room. The girls began poking around, running their fingers across dusty surfaces, looking into corners. With an innocent curiosity, they held the tiny statues of half-men and half-animals which they had taken timidly from the shelves.
It wasn’t long before Sally shrieked and came running out with a terrified look on her face. “There’s a dead man!” she screamed.
Puzzled, Sally’s grandmother looked to Don Noriega for an explanation. He sat back in his deep chair and after an unhurried draw on his cigarette, told Sally that it was a fake mummy of a boy, not even a man. He cheerfully explained what a mummy was and why people long ago used to preserve bodies. “It was a reminder,” he said, “for the dead must leave something behind to remind the living of those once known and loved.”
But the old woman, with Sally trembling in her arms, was set on leaving. Don Noriega went into the other room to tell Luisa she would have to go too and that they were waiting for her. He found her standing beside a small desk tinkering with the beads on the taut wires of a small, box-like instrument. In a corner, on the other side of the room, was the opened mummy case propped up against the wall. Don Noriega told Luisa she would have to go but she could come back another day. He promised to play music for her on the little instrument.
Luisa raised her eyes. “Why do you have so many weird things?”
He looked down and Luisa could see the lines deepen at the corners of his mouth, eyes softening and friendly. “If you like these things, why do you ask?”
At the door Sally eyed Don Noriega the way she might watch an unpredictable ogre. Luisa, biting her lips in thought, waved goodbye to him from the sidewalk
When the story of the mummy was told, the girls’ parents told them they could never again visit “the old brujo without a broom,” as Luisa’s mother put it.
For months afterward, Luisa was torn between wanting to see him and not wanting to disobey her parents. The girls had to pass by his street every Sunday, yet Luisa never told Sally about her private wish. Walking along the weeded-over streetcar tracks, Sally would invariably poke fun at “that old mago and his mummies.” Luisa always kept silent, not knowing what to say.
One Sunday, as usual, the girls left the church eager for daylight and make-believe games on the way home. But more than that, today Luisa had made up her mind. She would visit Don Noriega. When they approached the street on which he lived she would simply say goodbye to Sally and leave. She felt that seeing him was somehow worth the risk of a spanking.
“Luisa!” Sally said, looking alarmed. “You’ll get in trouble.”
“No, I won’t.”
“What d’you want to see him for?”
“I just do. But don’t tell.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
Luisa looked down at the rocks and gravel between the track ties, her mind pulsing with excitement. She moved her head, side to side. “No,” she said, trying to sound casual. “He even asked me to come back.”
Sally squeezed the palms of her hands together. “Luisa! I wouldn’t do that.”
“Go ahead and tell,” Luisa said, challenging her friend. “I won’t get mad.” She started up the hill. “Go on, Sally. Don’t wait for me.”
Sally stood watching her friend climb the steep sidewalk and turn at Don Noriega’s house.
The front yard was cluttered with scattered and charred boards, cans, pieces of black cloth, blackened books, metal poles, wires, chairs, bottles, jars, pots with shriveled plants and the outlines of sofas exuding tufts of cotton and matted stuffing. The door was boarded closed, as were the broken windows at the driveway side. Luisa looked like a waif standing in front of a ruined dream. She felt limp and bewildered, not yet sensing the numbness of death within the paint-peeled walls.
She stepped around the marble base of a lamp and picked her way around to the rear of the house, all the while wincing at the sharp smell of charred wood. There was no back door, only a blackened doorway. She knocked softly on the frame, calling hello into the dark interior. After a moment she heard a wheezing brittle voice.
Luisa hesitated, then stepped in. She was careful not to trip, even while bumping into strange objects at every turn, going from room to room, cautiously looking into every corner and closet. A painting fell down, a plaster statue almost tipped over. She fought to control her fear. In the front room, behind the door to the street, she saw the water-filled fish tank. The little creatures were still there floating on the surface. Luisa pursed her lips. With her forefinger she pushed one of the slivers and it slipped past the others, bumping into the side of the tank.
In the silence she heard the cough again. The floorboards creaked as she stepped through the room where the mummy was, now resting on the floor. She went into the hallway, which was pierced with soft light through holes between the skeletal roof timbers. There, in the first room to the left, sat Don Noriega. He was on the edge of a bare metal cot with no mattress. Luisa stood in the doorway unable to speak but smiling.
She moved toward the cot and sat down. She closed her eyes and felt the old man’s presence. Soon she heard the delicate sounds of the music box. She opened her eyes and saw the little instrument next to her. Sunlight filtered in and the notes from the strings seemed to dance and entwine themselves around the pale white rays. For a long while she sat and listened to the music.
Then she heard a shrill voice calling her. “I have to go now,” Luisa whispered. She stood and for a moment could not move. Something held her back, something weighed in her chest and throat and she began to cry. Before leaving, it seemed the blurred image before her placed the small box lightly in her open hands.
In the hallway she groped toward the back door, catching the smell of incense and spices as the hot autumn wind blew through the house.
Sally was out front, hands on hips, calling her friend’s name. Luisa came from around back, stepping over the mess on the ground. She held the piece of burnt wood in her hands, two wires dangling from one side.
“Wow,” Sally said, “not much left.”
“Yeah,” Luisa said.
“What’s that?” her friend asked.
Luisa seemed surprised. “What’s what?”
“That thing, what you got in your hands.”
“Oh,
this . . .” and she held it up for Sally to inspect. “A present.”
“A what?”
“A present I picked up.” “What do you want that for?”
Luisa pulled a wire loose. “Nothing, I guess. No good now.”
She knelt down and set it on the ground, remembering that it was not her heart she was leaving. It was just a thing, a piece of charred wood.
“Come on,” Sally whined, “the place gives me the creeps.”
Stoop Labor
Chávez hurried along the wet sidewalk. His umbrella, taut against the rain, had three dime-sized holes at the very top. Stopping at the corner, he wiped away the dribble from his forehead, removed his eyeglasses and put them in his front pants pocket. Three more blocks. He cursed the gutters, filled with running mud, and beat his free hand against his thigh. He hesitated, undecided, then jumped out into the street. Before he fell, he glimpsed the sky, gray and hateful.
He scrambled to his feet and retrieved the umbrella, which had begun to float away. He glanced around to see if anyone had seen him. On the opposite side of the street, two persons huddled in the shelter of a storefront awning. The nearsighted student could see their expressions, yet he imagined a distinct giggle. Mentally he unfurled his middle finger.
When Chávez arrived at the sorority house, the downpour had almost stopped. He paused before the concrete stairs to close the umbrella. The soggy cuffs of his trousers hung sadly over his wet shoes. Seeing the gleaming white columns, he smarted at the thought of unburdening the three-story building of its trash, the refuse of thirty-eight sorority sisters. Choking a sigh, he stepped over to the driveway and slowly walked up the slope around to the back porch. The rear door was up thirteen steps—he counted them twice a week on the days he collected the sorority’s trash. On the other days he avoided the unlucky steps and worked as the house gardener, mostly mowing the grass and trimming the bushes, like the thorny oleander that threatened to engulf one of the columns out front.