Let Their Spirits Dance

  I don’t say anything to Mom about Chris losing track of Jesse the day he was killed. It doesn’t matter what happened on the field that day. Jesse went after Tennessee, and if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been the brother I knew. I want to know more about Thom, the woman Jesse loved. Beautiful smell. Did she love him back? Is she still alive?

  This morning Chris is like a kid wanting to please me, like Manuel when he gave me chocolate valentines.

  Stable Light ·

  Michael tells me light runs in waves that don’t interfere with each other even when they cross paths. How can this be? You’d think the elements would merge, yet everything remains distinct, every electron orbiting separately from the others, yet “conscious” of everything else around it. Our reality is really only stable light. In another dimension we might be traveling at the speed of light and our concept of time would be eternal. We wouldn’t look at things horizontally or vertically because all points in space would be equal. That’s the way it is with us, we’re traveling in one light beam all the way to the Wall, an unbroken web with Jesse somewhere in the middle. Still, we’re separate from each other, thinking our own thoughts, connecting with him in a hundred different ways.

  I think the Guadalupanas wanted Chris and me to fall in love. They know it’s not happening. How they know, I can’t say. I think they’re disappointed with us, even though I know they stayed with their husbands and slept all their lives in their marriage beds. There’s a sad frowning in their faces, lines that yesterday were anticipating some new love story unfolding before their eyes are now back in place.

  Chris is still in love with Margie. Maybe he’s thinking the bad times between them weren’t so bad and the good times were better. I’m always remembering bad times between me and Ray. I don’t want to think about the good times. Maybe I chose Ray to satisfy my craving for suffering and appease the Indian blood coursing through my veins. I’m wondering if I’m an addict for suffering, a freak who looks for the wrong choice to make, the wrong step to take. My mom and Irene memorized the formula for suffering before they were born. They have accepted it the way they accept their swollen feet and aching knees. Cold, uncaring men, traitors, are part of their plan to prick their own flesh with pins.

  I think of Thom and Huong, Li Ann’s mother, one and the same being, little women who bear great secrets and great suffering. Where is she, this woman who held my brother’s heart in the palm of her hand? Chris is of no help. He never found Thom. There’s a part of me that wants to fly from D.C. to Saigon.

  • WE LEAVE TOPEKA later than we planned. By the time the men got up and dealt with their hangovers, it was almost noon. Passing through Kansas City, Kansas, we pay a toll before we get into Missouri. This is new to us, and something we’ll have to get used to. People everywhere recognize us. Sometimes they follow us in their vehicles for a short distance. At times, we spot a helicopter flying overhead, signaling another news story about our whereabouts. It’s as if America is caught up in a mystery story: “Where are the Ramirezes?”

  We stop at gas stations and people ask us how Mom’s doing. Some people want to shake her hand, others take her picture. It’s unbelievable, I tell Chris. Mom’s getting famous in her old age. At a gas station in Kansas, Missouri, I get on the laptop with Michael, and see messages from the man in Little Saigon who calls himself, [email protected]. Several people are standing close to the van. They spot Mom and Irene through the windows, and start waving. Mom and Irene smile and wave back.

  “Hams,” I tell Chris. “These old Guadalupanas are two big hams!”

  It doesn’t take us long to cross over the Kansas River and drive into Missouri. Truman was born on the Missouri side. Still, who is he to me? Another unknown I read about in history books. There’s a sign advertising a prairie house, and it reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author who wrote about her days as a child in the 1800s. Chris tells me part of the Civil War was fought in Missouri. The Battle of Lexington, he says, was a big one. I’m wondering if the men and women of Aztlán, who walked as one and huddled together in circles at the end of the day, came this far. Is it just my family who’s passing through to remind the world that Aztlán existed?

  On our way to St. Louis we pass a restaurant owned by someone named Ruiz-Castillo, Everybody wants to stop there and have some Mexican food. We park our cars along the road to talk about it, and finally decide that it wouldn’t be worth it. The food’s not the kind we have in Phoenix, Manuel says, and just think of the time we’ll lose.

  At St. Louis, the Guadalupanas want to stop at a church to say a rosary, and almost make us stop as we cross over into Illinois and they see a sign advertising Our Lady of Snows shrine. Chris tells me we’ll lose two hours by the time they get out of the van and into the shrine and everybody else stops to take pictures and buy souvenirs. Then there are tourists to contend with, and people who want to get Mom’s autograph, as if she’s a movie star. He says we have to keep moving so we can get to Richmond, Indiana, before dark. My mother’s face is pale today, and she’s complaining of an upset stomach. Irene gives her half a lemon to suck on, telling her this will stop the nausea. I’m worried it’s more than that, maybe her heart condition is disguising itself as indigestion. I tell her we can stop at a hospital somewhere, and she says that will make us lose even more time. I’m tempted to call Dr. Mann, but Mom says he’ll only scold her, and why should she listen to him, since he’s in Arizona and she’s in Missouri? The road through St. Louis leads us into Illinois. We cross over a bridge into Illinois, and spot gambling boats at Station Casino. There are ferryboats like the ones in Mark Twain’s stories, chugging away through the water. St. Louis boasts buildings with huge spires, and a gigantic metal arch separating Missouri from Illinois. Everywhere there are buildings constructed in French Colonial style.

  We’re finally in Indiana, the Crossroads of America. I’m not impressed with what I see of Indianapolis; most of the buildings we pass are old and look small. I’m amazed at the history all around us, though, places that look like scenes out of an English colony. We pass a town named Terre Haute, and I wonder if it’s a British name, French name, or Indian, or a combination of all three.

  By the evening of Wednesday, June 4, we reach Richmond. The Guadalupanas are sleeping on top of each other in the back seat. Mom’s using Irene’s shoulder as her pillow, and Irene is leaning on a real pillow propped up against the window. The motels in Richmond are packed, and the TraveLodge where Manuel made our reservations lost our paperwork. The manager was very upset when he realized who we were, but there was nothing to be done, outside of driving miles from where we were to another motel that had room. Chris and I suggest the Sheraton or the Hilton to Mom, and she says no. That’s for rich people, she says, and what if the kids break something? Now we’re stuck driving up and down the main street, searching for another place.

  We find out the reason everything’s so crowded is that medical people have descended upon Richmond to attend, of all things, a convention on aging and geriatric care. A convention called the Intergenerational Communication Link is going on. That might be lucky for me, if they could help me understand the two old women I’ve been traveling with these days, help me understand why they had to make this journey now, when they both know my mother’s heart condition could lead to her death. Why don’t they go back home and grow passion vines? They’d see the story of suffering each day in the palm of their hands. Mom and Irene don’t tell me what’s going on inside of them. They’re keeping secrets they only share with La Virgen, the mother of all mothers. I want to shout at them, “Dying is real!” but it’s no use. They would just look at me, and ask how many more miles to the Wall.

  We finally manage to get rooms at the Budget Motel, a place with lopsided mini-blinds and frayed carpet. The guys we picked up in Kansas, Pepe and Gonzalo, say they’ve stayed in the motel before, which makes it all seem worse. Management is scurrying around spraying air freshener and supplying us with extra towels. The w
oman, who tells me she runs the motel at night, says she read about us in the newspaper. Her uncle went to Vietnam, she says, and now he’s in a veteran’s hospital suffering from diabetes, which isn’t connected to the war, but keeps him in a place that reminds him of the war all the time.

  Our room smells of cigarettes, and there’s nothing we can do about it. The kids take a room upstairs and Cisco almost flips Michael over the balcony rail when he tries his fireman’s carry hold on him. It’s a hold that means the opponent gets thrown a few yards up in the air. A fellow motel resident ran out to stop the fight and found out it wasn’t really a fight, which made him mad. He looked like a Hell’s Angel, and I think he was disappointed when he couldn’t use the knife he had unsheathed. The Wall is only one day away. We’ll be in Frederick, Maryland, before nightfall tomorrow, and there’s nothing left to do after that but turn our faces toward the Wall. We’ve decided to do laundry at Frederick and get things ready for our entrance into D.C. Mom says she doesn’t want Jesse to see her in dirty clothes. I remind her that Jesse can’t “see” her, but she says she wants to look nice.

  At two o’clock in the morning, I still can’t sleep. I’m sharing a room with Lisa and Lilly. The girls went to sleep without turning off the TV. I find the remote and turn it off. The room goes dark, except for light from the lamppost illuminating the window. I hear people in their rooms, a man and woman arguing. Thumps on the wall, a TV still on. I get up and open the door, looking up into a moonless, starless sky. Scattered raindrops are falling with big spaces between them, reflecting colors from cars and dark specks from puddles on the asphalt. Everything is dreary. I miss Ray. I miss Chris. Maybe I miss being held in the arms of a man and lying back to pretend the world belongs only to us, that the magic between us will keep until morning.

  I walk out the door and regret taking a deep breath. The smell of the city streets gets caught in my throat. I look up at the balcony and see Chris at one end, leaning on the rail smoking a cigarette. He doesn’t see me in the dark. He finishes his cigarette and flicks the dying ember to the ground. He stands looking up at the sky with his hands in his pockets. I want to walk up the stairs and put my arms around him, but I don’t. It will only open up all the pain, and tonight I’m so weary, if I hear anything more I’ll burst. I wonder if he’s talking to Jesse.

  Crossing El Río Salado ·

  There’s something about getting closer to a place that makes you want to turn around and start all over again. It’s unexplainable. I don’t want the journey to end, even though that’s all I’ve thought about for weeks. Endings start new things and I don’t know what this one will start. We’ve touched Jesse in so many ways already I wonder if we still need to touch his name on the Wall. Nothing can convince my mother we don’t.

  We pass the Mad River as we loop into Ohio on Thursday, June 5. So far I’ve counted two Springfields, one in Illinois and one in Indiana. I’m wondering if there are more. We stare at places that look like German villages. Everything is so green I imagine we’re in a giant greenhouse. People at a gas station tell us the land has been reclaimed and replanted where it was overused by industry. Miles of forests bordering the highway are covered with wildflowers. We spot farmhouses built so close to trees, I wonder if the family has enough room to park their cars and open their doors.

  At a rest stop, we meet a couple of truck drivers headed for California. “Ohio’s nice country,” they say, “but the snow gets too high for us. We hate driving in winter.” It’s hard to imagine that snow piles up so high people can get lost in it. The truckers have picked up a hitchhiker, a guy who claims he was in the DMZ as a Marine in 1969. “Saw so much action up in Hue, it was hard to come back to sanity,” he says.

  Donna tells me the guy still looks pretty insane, and both of us are hoping he won’t want to go to the Wall with us. It’s too late. By the time we leave the rest stop, Pepe and Gonzalo have convinced the guy to travel with us to the Wall, telling him he’ll never get another chance. Of course, my mother says it’s OK, and Manuel throws a fit because he says the guy’s a crackpot. “We might get in trouble taking him, Doña,” he explains to my mom. Mom doesn’t even respond. We know no matter what we say, the answer for Fritz, that’s what he calls himself, will be “yes.” Fritz says his grandparents settled in Ohio in the late 1800s. They were German, Scottish, hard workers, he says, the kind who lived by the sweat of their brows. His parents were the same way. Fritz says he didn’t like to sweat, so he left home at age fifteen and broke his parents’ hearts. “Then look what happened,” he tells me. “God got even. He sent me to Vietnam, and I sweated so much over there, half the time I thought I was standing in puddles of water.”

  We’ve got mainstream America traveling with us now, and he’s taking a good look at Donna. Donna’s already preached to him, telling him if he hasn’t found the Lord yet, it’s still not too late. Paul puts on his red headband, which means he wants to look dangerous. He’s mad-dogging Fritz, and I guess Fritz thinks Donna’s not worth a fight, especially after he hears her preach. Paul teases Fritz. “Hey, I met your cousin Fratz the other day,” he says. Fritz just smiles and doesn’t seem to mind.

  Irene gets into an argument in Ohio over hand cream. She says she has some lotion made from aloe vera that causes skin to get soft and white. Mom says that’s not true, because aloe vera is better for your hair and not that good for your skin. She says she bought vitamin E cream from a drugstore once and that it is proven to seep in through the skin and restore moisture. I never even knew Mom cared about her skin. I turn around and notice her skin is clear, smooth, almost wrinkle-free. I try to imagine her as a young woman, her skin supple, her breasts fully formed, the creamy skin held taut around the nipples. It surprises me to think that way about my mother. I’ve always seen her as sexless, someone who couldn’t make my dad stay home. She catches me looking at her.

  “Don’t be so hardheaded, Irene,” Mom says. “What would you know about creams, your family worked out in the fields most of your life.”

  “Forgive me for saying this,” Irene answers, “but I lived around herbs all my life and I learned from the very best, my abuelita, who was a curandera straight from the mountains of Jalisco.”

  “Don’t start on curanderas!” Mom says. “My mother held the degree on that one!” She grabs her purse like she’s gonna fly out the van door while the car’s still moving.

  “Ay, both of you, stop!” I tell them.

  “You’re right, Teresa,” Mom says. “Who cares who uses what? Our skin is as dry as a snake’s back, nothing could make it look good.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Irene says. “My skin is soft because I use aloe vera cream. Here, touch my arm.” She moves her arm up against Mom.

  “Esta mujer! You are unbelievable. I don’t want to touch your arm! I told you, I don’t care about skin anymore.”

  Lilly’s sitting in the seat directly behind Mom. “Touch my skin, Nana,” she says, putting her face next to Mom’s.

  “See, now here’s beautiful skin, mijita has perfect skin!” Then Mom’s eyes fill with tears. “I remember when I saw Jesse after he was born, ay, I thought I was looking at an angel. His face was so soft, I couldn’t stop kissing him, and now look, all I have left to touch is his name! The war has never ended for me!” Irene takes out a Kleenex and admits the war’s never ended for her either. The fight over hand cream is over.

  We pass through Columbus, and the land is resplendent with acres of trees in full bloom, ash, white pine, oak.

  “Let’s live in Ohio, Mom!” Lisa says. “The forests, they’re so beautiful!”

  “What do you think, Chris?”

  “If you can take the winters,” Chris says.

  “She can’t even stand the winter in Arizona,” Lilly says.

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Come on, girls,” I tell them. “We’re not moving to Ohio, unless you want to come here on your own, someday.”

  We stop at Newark to eat at a busy f
amily restaurant. Newark news people descend on the place. They talk with Gates, Yellowhair, and Willy. They ask Priscilla and me about Mom, and start counting how many people are with us. “We keep growing,” I tell them. “No telling who will join us next.” One woman hands Mom a St. Christopher medal.

  “To go with your other medallion,” she says. “To protect you all the way to the Wall.” Tears start in her eyes. “My boyfriend was killed there,” she says. “We were high school sweethearts. Look.” She shows Mom a picture of a handsome young man in a Marine uniform. “Good-looking, huh?”

  “Very handsome!” Mom says. She shows the woman a photo of Jesse.

  “Very handsome too!” the woman says.

  Michael tells me to come look at all the messages he’s getting on the laptop. I ask him about the Vietnamese man from Little Saigon, but Michael says he’s not sending any more messages.

  Paul’s helping Michael answer e-mails, and is making up messages like a whiz. “Like son, like father,” I tell him, “or is it the other way around?” I am stunned when I see lists and lists of names sending messages to our web site: Adams, Acosta, Lane, McMillan, Shubert, Tan, Redding, Alarcon, Yusef, Vital, Stein, Ortiz, Johnson, Williams, about thirty Smiths, lots of Garcias and Hernandezes, Hendrix, Jordan, the list goes on and on. I see one from Barry and Eleanor Kinney, the elderly couple we met in the Coconino Forest in Flagstaff who had a son who served in Vietnam. The messages are pleas, good wishes, prayers, heart-breaking stories, blessings, and many requests: Touch his name, my son, my husband, my brother, my cousin, my uncle…touch his name, touch his name. There’s a message from Holly Stevens, the reporter from Phoenix. Get ready for Frederick, she says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask Michael.

  “How should I know?” Michael says. He looks flustered, irritated because he doesn’t have time to answer all the messages.