“I can’t do that, Carmen. How the hell am I not going to do that? But I can’t do that.”
I kissed her again, more forcefully and dramatically, for show and fun, than with the affection I felt. I then nudged her away and turned to walk back to my van with braggadocio. I took three steps, turned back to her, then ran to kiss her again.
“Someday I’m staying,” I said, “but not tonight. Good night, mi amour.”
Her form in the dark teased me. I couldn’t take it. Is this God, or Mother Nature? But either way, I could not take it. I kissed her again with passion.
“I love you, Carmen. I—”
She reached up to stroke my hair. “What are we going to do?” she asked.
****
The daytime temperature in the desert of New Mexico reaches over a hundred. It’s a dry heat that doesn’t punish like the humidity back home, but it creates a constant thirst. I had not been getting enough water. During the night it got frigid. With my sleeping bag, I didn’t get physically cold, but I was constantly breathing in cold air.
I was thirsty the entire night. When I awoke the next morning, I felt an irritation in my lungs and a raspiness in my throat. I tried ignoring it as I drove to work.
“You’re the only one who showed up,” Doug said angrily as I walked into the shed upon arriving. “I can’t count on anyone for anything.”
He led me to a roll of fence wire against the wall.
“We can manage this ourselves. The others can go to the picnic with Ira, if they ever show up. We have to load this and some tools into the pickup. The poles are already there. We have to partition off an area.”
He complained the whole trip about how no one worked hard and no one was loyal except me. I thought about telling him why, but decided it wasn’t the time.
Doug and I were still building the fence when some of the management from Moriah Energy began addressing the miners. After the speeches, the miners formed into groups for competitions, and the Kerr group formed into one of its own. We won the tug of war, and Ira won the hammer-strong-man event of high target.
Next was a fifty-yard dash. Those entering were cocky, and I wondered why. I had been up most of the night, had gotten up early to work, and was in my work clothes, including steel-toed boots. But so what?
“Where you going, McIlhenny?” Ira asked.
“I can beat these turkeys,” I boasted.
“What makes you so sure of yourself? Because you’re an ex-Marine?”
“Yeah, and I used to play football.”
“So did some of them.”
“But I’m from Texas.”
I was in front the whole time and won by five yards.
“You lucked out,” Ira scoffed as I returned.
“You make your own luck, Ira.”
“You got a saying for everything, don’t you?”
“That’s what they’re there for.” I smirked.
Even after supper I felt drained. I purposely avoided Carmen’s restaurant and ate pizza. I needed to conserve my energy for when I had her alone. I was limp as I ate, and could barely keep my head up.
“I was afraid you worked late again,” Carmen said as a greeting at the door to her mother’s house. She leaned up to kiss me, but my kiss back was limp. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Come on in. Let’s sit on the couch.”
“I don’t know if it’s my glands,” I said. “They don’t feel swollen, but they’re irritated. It may be my sinuses. I don’t have a runny nose, but maybe it’s a cold just starting.”
“Oh, Dalhart, what will you do? You’re a laborer. You don’t get time off. Not paid leave, anyway. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Stay with me. Take it easy. You’ll be okay.”
She held me by the hand and led me to the couch in the living room. She sat down at one end and gently tugged at me to lie down and place my head on her lap.
“I got sick at Camp Pendleton both times I was there, in the Marines,” I reminisced to her. “I think the same thing is happening now.”
“Oh, no.” Carmen sighed as she rubbed my cheek gently with one hand and stroked my hair with the other. “You just got into my life. I can’t bear you to feel so much stress. What will happen now? What will you do? What will I do?”
She struggled to lean down but managed to kiss my forehead. I lay like a wet dishrag, taking in all the energy she was prepared to give me.
“If I fall asleep,” I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no,” she pleaded. “Oh, Dalhart, no. Don’t let anything be wrong. And we were so patient and honorable with each other, and now, what if we never get to give ourselves to each other again? I don’t mean to sound selfish.”
I slowly and painfully raised my hand to touch her forearm as she stroked more of my hair.
“It was important, Carmen,” I said listlessly. “I needed to go slowly. I needed to get to know you, but mostly I needed for you to know me more. I’m different, Carmen. Different from anyone you’ve ever met. I cherish the time we made love, but this had to be real. Beyond sense gratification. Beyond whim.”
“Yes, you are so different, Dalhart. You’re special. But you give me so little credit that I understand how you feel about it, about us going slowly with one another. I’ve been understanding. Please accept I have.”
“I’ve had flings before, Carmen. I’ve enjoyed myself at a girl’s expense before. Your mother was right to make us promise. I probably would have pounced on you if she hadn’t made us promise. You’re so pretty and full of life. You have a spark. I can’t resist. All that is good. But I wanted more from you. And from myself. Beyond this sense gratification thing, like I said. All that’s okay. Nature has its way. This replenish-the-earth thing. All these biological instructions going on inside us. But there’s more to us than that, and you get trapped by it so easily. It takes on a life of its own. That’s why so many religions try to discipline it out of you. I don’t agree with that. But I understand it. But all these demands of Mother Nature are fulfilling, too, even spiritually. But not if it’s just another reason to party.”
“Dalhart.” She grinned. “Are you delirious? You’re such a philosopher. Please, just get well. You’re rambling on like you have to tell your life story in the next five minutes.”
“Can you handle it?” I asked fearfully. “It’s so hungry inside, Carmen. I don’t know if I can make you happy. Other girls have wanted things from me. It gets old. I’m not trying to sound trite, but it gets so shallow. I need more. In Houston they were throwing themselves at me. I didn’t think a person could get bored with sex. But I didn’t want anyone after awhile.”
“It’s okay, Dalhart. Relax. I understand. It’s all right, mi amour. I told you about my marriage. I understand what you’re saying. I love that you’re different. Don’t worry. Just get well, sweetheart. Relax, darling.”
“What if you reject me and want the party stuff?” I whined. “I need answers in my life. But I don’t even know the questions yet. I’ll drive you crazy. You’ll reject me.”
“Me reject you? You are crazy. You’re the most exciting person I’ve ever met.”
I reached up to feel her cheek. “Others have thought so too,” I explained. “Until they find out. I’m so complicated. I’m so vulnerable, Carmen. You’ll reject me if all you want from me is a good time.”
She touched my lips with her fingertips. “Shhh,” she said. “You’re sick and feeling insecure. I’m here. There’s more to me than a good time. You haven’t seen that yet? Dalhart, you’re hurting me that you don’t see how I love what we’ve been. I know you’re sick and insecure, but please, know who I am. Know what you’ve made me. Sleep, sweetheart. Stay here all night. You’re home now. With me. Neither of us has anything. Suddenly, with you in my life, it’s like I have everything. Pow, just like that. So go to sleep, Dalhart. Feel my warmth.”
I could barely breathe all night and felt weak the next morning. I was glad it was Sunday, but I had to go to Jose’s baptismal. My throat hurt
, but mostly it was my lungs. I felt congested.
Carmen was up by the time I got dressed for Jose’s ceremony. She prepared breakfast.
“Mother saw us on the couch last night,” Carmen said as I sat down at the dining table in the kitchen. “It’s okay. You’re family now to her. She adores you. I explained you were sick, and she kissed you on the cheek and left us. You were snoring. You were so out of it. I wanted to carry you to my bed, but I slept well on the couch even slouched like I was. Our first night together. Well, not counting Monument Valley, of course.”
I smiled at the thought but then turned serious again. “I can’t afford to be sick, and I don’t have insurance, except through Kerr for injuries incurred on the job. Nothing for illness. If your mother doesn’t mind, I’ll sleep on her couch. Maybe I’ll get over whatever I have, with rest and a warm bed, meaning the couch. We’re not sleeping together while we’re at your mom’s. I have to respect her. But I do need a warm bed, if it’s not imposing. I have to go to a baby christening now, but I’ll be back by noon.”
“You don’t look good, amigo,” Jose said when I showed up at the church.
“I’m scared I can’t go to work tomorrow. Maybe even for a few days. Doug’s going to fire me.”
“He won’t fire you,” Jose assured. “He likes you. Thanks for coming. And thanks for bringing your Polaroid. I want to remember this day.”
****
I made it through three work days. After each day I went to what now felt like home. Carmen’s mother babied me until her daughter came home from work. Then Carmen took over while her mother trustingly left us to ourselves. Carmen laid out a mattress on the floor next to the couch, to sleep next to me.
I could not get up on the fourth day of my illness. That afternoon I drove to the Kerr offices and told old man Kerr I was too sick to go on. I would return to Texas.
“I’ll never see you again,” Carmen said, bravely as much as bitterly, when I told her of my plans. “You’ll forget us hicks in Gallup, New Mexico. If you’re going to stay at your mom’s anyway, until you recover, I don’t see why you can’t stay here. A mother’s a mother. I come attached with mine.”
“I’ve imposed long enough,” I replied. “I don’t know how long this will take.”
“It’s no imposition,” Carmen pleaded. “You heard my mother tell you this.”
“But then it becomes one.”
“And then what?” she asked. “What will you do then? In your post-Carmen world?”
“I have your address and your phone number,” I said hoping it would reconcile her to my departure.
“Ahh,” she scoffed. “You’re brushing me off. You may not know it, but that’s what you’re doing. You’re not even well enough to drive that far, but you’re still leaving me.”
I stood silently. I wanted so much to convince her, but I didn’t think I could. I even wondered if she wasn’t right. Out of sight, out of mind. Gallup might seem like halfway around the world by the time I recovered. But it was time to leave. Time to find out about the rest of my life and if she would be a part of it.
New Mexico looked even prettier on the drive back. And now it was a part of me.
****
“I remember when you came home from boot camp,” my mother said as she brought soup into my bedroom and set it next to my bed. “You were so gaunt then, sunken cheeks, and so pale. I’d hear you coughing all night, those dry coughs. You were on the verge of pneumonia. Now too, I think.”
“I guess that medicine is helping, though,” I said. “I couldn’t afford a doctor, but a pharmacist recommended something when I told her my problem. I can’t afford pneumonia.”
“You just need some rest,” Mother assured. “You’d be coming home in a couple of weeks anyway. School starts soon.”
“I didn’t save enough money. I don’t know if I can pay tuition and have what I need to live on, besides.”
“You’ve still got the G.I. bill,” she reminded, “and you’re a grad assistant. Did you get enough material for your thesis?”
“I could write a novel.”
“Write your thesis first.”
“I got sick and came home to my mommy,” I mocked. “Jose can’t do that. And he has to worry about being deported, too.”
“You lived in an old panel truck,” she summarized. “You weren’t insured, you survived on minimum wage and saved money for school too. All for a thesis. You don’t do anything the easy way. You can’t stay in summer school like the others and do research in a library. You have to go out in the desert with a bunch of illegals and Navajos. Collecting primary data, you call it. Always living on the edge is what it is. You’ll never change. You joined the Marines in the middle of a war nobody else wanted to fight. Don’t you need security, like a normal person?”
“Security is boring,” I answered, trying to feel brave again. “But—”
“But what?”
“Mother, I need to tell you something. You’re not going to like it.”
“You’re gay?” She looked harshly at me. “That’s why, in spite of all those girls throwing themselves at you, you never got married?”
“Worse than that. I’m in love with a Mexican.”
“Male or female?”
“Female, Mother. Get real.”
“Just thought I’d ask.” She sighed in relief. “Everyone else you grew up with is on their second marriage now, and you go traipsing off into the desert. You may not be gay, but you’re weird. So, what do you mean, you fell in love with a Mexican girl?”
“I met her after I started work in Gallup, a couple of weeks later. It got deep. Real, real deep. Then when I got sick, she and her mom helped keep me alive. Except for her brown skin, you’d love her. She’s poor, though. But she’s got class, and her mom is an angel.”
“What do you mean, if it weren’t for her brown skin? You act like I’m a racist or something. Did you tell her that? Just how serious are you? In love, I know. How much in love?”
“Totally, incredibly in love.”
“From just over a month? Are you sure?”
“I found the love of my life from knowing her just over a month. And not only that, one of the greatest friends I’ve ever had and admired is an illegal from Durango, Mexico. I’m going to miss them. I hate it.”
“You’d have brown-skinned kids, wouldn’t you? If you pursue this relationship with this Mexican girl. I’d have brown-skinned grandkids.” She sat back as a smile eased onto her face. “I’m part Cherokee, after all. I have olive skin. Remember when I’d get sun, and then we’d go across the border and the border patrol wouldn’t let me back in Texas until I could prove I was American? God plays his little games, doesn’t he? So now I’m warming up to her like he planned it or something. When can I meet this girl? Is she going to be my daughter-in-law?”
“I don’t know if she’ll be your daughter-in-law. I’m going to see if I can forget her. Then I’ll know.”
“Here we go again,” my mother complained. “My son just can’t settle down. I finally got me a daughter-in-law and grandkids, and I can’t even meet them because they won’t exist.”
****
The cough persisted until after classes began, and I wasn’t able to jog or lift weights for a month.
One night I dreamed of Jose. I don’t know if it was something I read in my research that stirred it, but the dream haunted. How he called out to me. “Don’t forget me,” he pleaded in the dream. People like him need to know there’s a Dalhart McIlhenny in the world.
And I never forgot Carmen.
“Hello,” I heard her mother say. “Hello. Who is this calling, please?”
My heart swooned to hear her voice. I wanted to talk to her.
“Hey, this is Dalhart McIlhenny,” I said, my voice edged with the excitement of being in touch with them again. “Is Carmen available?”
“Dalhart? This is Dalhart? Oh, Dalhart, are you all right? We were so worried about you this whole time. It’s been ov
er a month, Dalhart. You broke my baby’s heart. We didn’t know if you were okay. You were so sick when you left us, and then we didn’t hear diddly squat. Not even one call from you. Carmen, my poor, poor baby, has been frantic.”
I had to control myself to keep from choking up. I felt terrible. I’d been so preoccupied with getting well and sorting out my life, I left her hanging. I had barely considered that. I understood why. I didn’t want to light any candles of waiting and want. But suddenly I felt so selfish and wondered why it had taken so long to feel the need to call her.
“Carmen,” I heard her mother yell out, with the phone obviously away from her mouth. “Carmen, dear, it’s Dalhart. Come, baby. He’s calling from— Wait a minute.” I heard a breath into the receiver and knew her mother must be ready to talk again to me. “Dalhart, are you in Gallup? You know where we live, though. Where are you calling from?”
“Texas,” I answered.
“Are you still at your mom’s?”
“No, ma’am. I’m at Texas A&M.”
“Texas A&M? Isn’t that where you went to college?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let me speak to him, Mother,” I heard Carmen’s voice say in the background.
“Here she is, Dalhart.”
“Dalhart. Is this really you?” Carmen asked.
“Yes, it is, Carmen. I’m so sorry I didn’t call. I love you, Carmen. Please forgive me for not calling until now.”
“Is it true? You’re at your college?”
“Yes, it is, mi amour. I have so much to say to you.”
“Is that good?” she fretted.
“It’s up to you if it is. I miss you. I want you to come live with me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Do you think that might happen?”
“I don’t know what to say to you, Dalhart. I can’t believe how you just left me hanging. Now you call and somehow at the snap of your fingers I’m supposed to run off to Texas with you? I’ve lived that life before. No, thanks.”
“I know. Can we talk? Can we talk for the rest of our lives? I was sick, and I told my mother about you and she wants me to marry you, and I had to know if it was the right thing to do.”
The Kerr Construction Company Page 6