Barefoot Dogs

by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

  That night I asked Josefina if she missed Mexico. She said she sometimes did, but not every day. She said she liked Palo Alto, she liked that she could walk to the grocery store without worrying that someone would snatch her purse or mug her. She liked that she could take the bus to church and no one messed with her, that the house where we now lived had a dishwasher so she didn’t have to scrub all the dishes by hand, but she did miss her sisters and visiting her hometown on weekends. I asked her if she wanted to go back. She thought about it, looking at her Bible. She’d already stuck pictures of her family and a laminated poster of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the wall above her bed. Hers was the only decorated room in the house. I’ve always lived with your family. I’ve known you and Maxie since the day you were born, you were the size of a butternut squash the first time I held you in my hands, and just as heavy. We giggled. You’re like my children, she said. Josefina didn’t have kids or a husband, not even a boyfriend. If she ever did, I never met them. Do you think we’ll ever go back? I asked. I don’t know, Bernardo. Yes, you do. You just don’t want to tell me. You calling me a liar, young man?

  I’ve been thinking about your mom and her swimming lessons, Ambrose said at recess a few days later. She said she knew how to make her stop. You need to embarrass her in front of everybody at the pool. I asked her if she did that with her own mom. Sure, it works all the time. But you have to really embarrass her, like, really bad, like, OMG. I wasn’t sure if she was right. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that. Even if I did, how would I do it? Well, you need to come up with a plan, baboon, Ambrose said. Plan it out, man. I liked the way she called me baboon, but I didn’t tell her.

  • • •

  The weather began to get colder. I started to participate in class, replying to simple questions Ms. Brinkman asked. She was happy. She said we no longer needed to meet every week. I was so excited to be off the hook I wanted to hug her. But if you feel like talking, you can always come see me, sweetie. My door’s always open. I nodded. How’s the writing coming along? I stopped writing, I said. Ms. Brinkman looked serious at first, but then she smiled, as always. Well, that’s probably because you don’t need it anymore, right? I nodded. You can go back to it if you feel like, sweetie. Writing’s always a great help.

  Dad had dinner with us that evening. Most evenings he didn’t. His job at the university kept him busy. Josefina was serving flan for dessert when I asked my parents if we were going back to Mexico City for the holidays. Dad didn’t answer, instead he said he was thinking we could spend the winter break in Hawaii. He said some colleagues at Stanford told him it was a fantastic place for Christmas. Mom said it was a great idea. I’ve heard the weather’s gorgeous there that time of the year, she said. But we always spend Christmas at Grandpa’s, I said. Yeah, Grandpa!, said Max completely out of the blue. Mom and Dad looked at each other. He said they were doing renovations at Grandpa’s this year so we’d have to wait. We can celebrate at our house or with our uncles and aunts, I insisted. Josefina came out of the kitchen and asked who wanted a second helping of flan. She never offered second helpings of dessert when my parents had dinner with us, but that evening she did.

  I spent that night and the next lying on my bed, figuring out my plan. Both nights I lost track of time, and when I went to Josefina’s room she was asleep. I slipped into her bed and pushed her big body with mine so I could fit in. She moved over but didn’t wake up. The morning after the second night, Josefina didn’t ask what I wanted for breakfast, she just grabbed the first box of cereal she found in the pantry and served me a bowl with cold milk. There’s something going on and you’re not telling me, Bernardo, she said. I know you. You can’t fool Josefina. I didn’t reply. I wanted to tell her what was keeping me busy at night, but I couldn’t.

  Ambrose offered to help with the plan, but I said it was okay. I felt embarrassed to share the details with her. I was afraid it wouldn’t be good enough. She asked if I was ready for the big day. I said I thought I was. Well, good luck, baboon, she said. It made me uneasy, the way she said it.

  • • •

  It happened on a Monday. Before heading to my swimming lesson, I went to the bathroom, removed the one-liter bottle of sparkling water I had kept hidden in the cabinet, and drank it all in one big gulp. Mom had to wait for me in the car. When I finally jumped in, I couldn’t help a burp. She asked if everything was okay. I said it was. We didn’t say anything else on our way to the pool.

  We were halfway through the lesson when my bladder started to hurt. Mom was a couple lanes away, doing freestyle kick laps, holding her colorful board. Her coach complimented her technique. Good job, Carolina! the coach shouted. At the end of the lesson, my own coach was giving our group feedback on butterfly and backstroke, the styles we’d practiced that day, when I crept out of the pool and stood by the edge. Coach gave me a half smile. I waited for Mom to reach the far side of the pool, and when she did, I called her name. Mom! Mom! I yelled. She took off her goggles, gave me a big grin, and waved. Everyone was looking at me. I pulled my swimsuit down, and aimed for coach. The shot of pee reached target on her swim cap, right at the beginning of her hairline, and splashed on her collarbone, her chest, the tip of her nose. She shrieked and sprang back away from me. It looked like she was moving in slow motion through the water. I aimed for the kids. They began to wiggle and twitch and scream. Coach called my name. One of the kids started crying for his mom. Bernardo! coach yelled. Bernardo! I looked at her. Stop! she yelled. Stop! I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. I had to look away. More screams erupted. If Mom started screaming too I didn’t know, I couldn’t see her reaction, my eyes were now shut. My face was burning.

  I stayed by the edge of the pool with my eyes closed. My swimsuit pooled around my ankles, cold and itchy. It felt like a long time passed before I heard Mom approaching me, yelling I’m sorry! I’m sorry! so loud it sounded as if she were apologizing to every person in the pool. She pulled up my swimsuit, wrapped me in a towel, and whisked me out the door. She didn’t say anything to me. She just kept yelling I’m sorry! I’m sorry! imploringly.

  When we reached the car, I was shivering. I didn’t remember the last time Mom had spanked me. I opened my eyes, expecting to see rage on her face, but I found her wrapped in a towel herself, damp and disheveled, covering her wet face. She managed to pull herself together and asked me to change my clothes inside the car. Then she asked me to wait on the sidewalk while she changed. It was cold outside, and getting dark. Okay, how about a burger and a milkshake? she proposed once we were both in the car. She sounded exhausted. I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say. I wondered if I’d ever be able to look her in the eye again. She took out her cell phone, called home, and told Josefina that she and I were dining out. She asked her to serve Max dinner and make sure he was in bed by eight thirty.

  • • •

  Mom drove downtown. On our way back from swimming lessons she’d usually turn on the radio and listen to the news, but that evening she played classical music. She parked on the street and we walked in silence to the Palo Alto Creamery. Mom asked for a booth. She sat on one side and I on the other, facing each other. When the waitress brought us the menus Mom said I could order whatever I wanted. I ordered a chili burger and an Oreo cookie extra-thick milkshake with whipped cream and hot fudge. Excellent choice! the waitress said as she wrote on her little pad. Mom ordered chicken noodle soup and asked to see the wine list. The waitress said they didn’t have one. Mom ordered tea.

  Okay, Bernardo, what’s going on? Mom asked after the waitress left. I didn’t reply at first. She said she wasn’t mad, but she would be if I didn’t tell her the truth. I cleared my throat. I want you to stop taking swimming lessons with me. My voice came out low and shaky. She sighed. You know that’s bullshit, don’t you? She’d never used that word with me before. I want the truth, Bernardo. Please. She said it like she was begging. Her face looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. I
don’t like it here. My face blushed. Our house is too small. I miss our home. I miss my cousins, and my friends, and Grandpa. I miss them too, Mom said. She sounded like she’d aged decades in the last two hours. I don’t know what we’re doing here, and every time I ask why we moved or when we’re going back home everybody ignores me or lies to me. I hate it, I said, and started to cry. I couldn’t fight back the tears, and I was embarrassed. Mom looked like she was about to start weeping too and inched around the table and embraced me. She whispered my name a couple times as she buried my head in her chest. It was warm. To my surprise, it didn’t smell like chlorine. It smelled like perfume, like flowers. We stayed like that until the waitress showed up again.

  Alrighty! The waitress placed our food in front of us and shuffled things around on the table so that Mom didn’t have to withdraw. Enjoy, folks! the waitress said, and left. Mom took a spoonful of soup and said it was good. She asked if I wanted to try it. I said no thanks. I took a bite of the burger. It tasted chewy and sweet. I didn’t finish it.

  I know how you feel, Bernardo, Mom said after we had finished eating. Telling lies is not okay, but explaining why we’re here is not easy. All you and your brother need to know is that Dad and I love you guys very much. We’re doing this for you. Tell me why we’re here, Mom. Please. She looked like she was going to say something, but stopped. I insisted. Please, please, please, please. Okay! she said, raising her voice. But you cannot repeat any of this to Maxie, and you cannot tell your father we talked about this. He’d kill me if he ever finds out. I nodded. Her face changed. She thought for a while. Then she said there were some mean people in Mexico who wanted to take everything we had away from us. They started calling home every day to say that if we didn’t give them what they wanted they’d harm us or you guys, or even Grandpa. We couldn’t let that happen, she said. So, we had to get some distance. We’ll have to spend some time here, until those people forget about us. I wanted to know why those people would want to take what was ours and why we couldn’t do anything to make them stop. I wanted to know how long we’d have to wait before we could go back, but Mom didn’t give me time to ask. She looked at her watch and said it was late. She asked for the check. Things will be fine, Bernardo, I promise, she said. Things will get better. It will be fun to discover this new place. Don’t you like it here, even a little bit? Isn’t it gorgeous? I just nodded. As we headed to the car we stood outside the restaurant and she gave me a hug like she hadn’t in a while. My baby, my poor baby, she whispered in my ear.

  • • •

  On our way back home Mom wanted to know what had happened at the pool. I said I was sorry. I wanted to say something else, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. First Mom said that of course it could never ever happen again. She tried to sound severe. That was a strange and stupid thing to do, Bernardo, she then said with her regular voice, looking at me through the rearview mirror. Where did you get that idea? I didn’t reply. It was so embarrassing, Bernardo. What were you thinking? We’ll have to send that poor coach some flowers. You’ll have to write her a note, okay? And those poor kids! And their parents! Oh, my God, Bernardo! She sounded concerned, but I couldn’t help feeling that she was about to laugh. We can’t go back to that pool, I said. That’s for sure, she said. But we’ll find another one, Bernardo. It’s not the end of the world.

  Mom, I said when she parked the car outside the house, does Josefina know why we’re here? She looked at me through the rearview mirror with the car keys in her hand. She said Josefina had been with us forever. She said it was as if she were part of the family. God only knows the things Josefina knows about us, Bernardo.

  That night the light in Josefina’s room remained on till late. I knew she was waiting for me. I wanted to go in there, snuggle next to her, and tell her everything about that day, what had happened at the pool, how much I feared going to school the next day. I wanted to tell her what Mom had said at the Creamery, what she’d said in the car, and how I felt. But I didn’t. I closed the door to my room, got in my bed, and turned out the lights. But I couldn’t sleep. I had to turn them back on.

  ORIGAMI PRUNES

  I first met Laura at a washateria the day both my washer and Michael Jackson died. It was the end of June, Austin gusty and yellowed in heat, orange in the sky. Wildfires were consuming the Hill Country, and local TV anchors had started to talk about the end of the world. It was Thursday and for no reason, I had called in sick.

  “First time in a laundromat?” I chose that word because it sounded nicer than washateria, and because the moment I spotted Laura I felt the urge to impress her. I knew immediately where she came from. People like us recognize each other from miles away, we overdressed outcasts adrift in middle-of-nowhere America.

  “Why, yes,” she said in Spanish, glaring dismissively at the buttons on the washer’s control panel.

  “These guys are a piece of cake, unlike the one I’m sure you have at home.”

  “Like I know how that one works.”

  “Of course.” I smiled.

  “May I ask why are you doing this yourself?” I said. “Why didn’t you ask one of your domestics?” I wondered if she employed in-house servants in Austin as she surely had back in Mexico, or if she could now only afford them by the hour. I wondered if hers was one of those families that brought their longtime maids with them from home and then, once abroad, called them au pairs. I wondered how many servants she had on payroll before, how many remained, and if she cried at night for her loss.

  “Ugh,” she hissed as she threw clean, perfectly folded clothes into the machine. “Don’t get me started.”

  Laura’s helplessness was wrapped in a thin layer of arrogance that made her sexy and unnerving, a thing you wanted to put your hands on. She’d dyed her hair the color of an explosion in the sun. I thought it made her look older than she was. She wore single white pearl earrings. You can tell a woman’s true class by the way she wears pearls, Grandma would say. Diamonds are flashy and expensive, an easy bet. Pearls are different. Pearls are hard to pull off.

  She’d forgotten to bring detergent and softener, and so had I. I bought two single-load packets of Tide and a small bottle of Downy at the vending machine, and got both washers going. The laundromat was cool and almost empty. Besides us, there was an elderly Asian man folding one synthetic-fabric sports shirt after another, and an obese young Latina with two little girls who played tag all over the place, filling the room with giggles and yells. They were loud and annoying, but we didn’t have the nerve to give the mom a look. “These people are hopeless,” was all Laura said.

  We sat facing a long line of mammoth dryers with glass doors, and waited. Two large flat-screen TVs showed a muted news segment on Detroit’s auto industry, the same soundless images repeating themselves on a loop, like a recurring dream. I glimpsed at the screens from time to time, but Laura ignored them. We watched jeans and panties and skirts roll in soothing twirls of hot air as they dried in the big machines, a troupe of dancers flying and tumbling together, as if their owners’ bodies had broken free, vanishing into merrier realms.

  “Where are you from?” I asked.

  “Mexico City.”

  “I know that.”

  Laura grinned.

  “I mean, which part of the city?”

  “Which part do you think I’m from?”

  Crow’s-feet branched from the corner of her eyes. She wore very little makeup—unusual for a Mexican housewife. Michael Jackson was minutes from the end and the larger world was about to change. Ours too, but I didn’t know it. She did. Laura’s plump body was clad in a navy linen dress decorated with water lilies that played nicely with the vintage mustard Gucci bag that lay on top of the washer, like an aardvark in a cattle ranch. Every time I remember Laura in that dress, my balls tingle.

  “You look south.”

  She let out a small laugh.

  “You’re doing well, count
ry boy. Keep going.”

  “San Angel, I’d say.”

  She giggled and looked out the window. Had she just called me country boy?

  “I grew up in Polanco, but moved to Chimalistac when I married. His family always lived there.” Laura stood and reached for her purse. She retrieved her phone and ran a finger up and down the screen, pretending to check her messages. I took out my phone and started to imitate her every move. I wondered about the color of her nipples.

  Like Laura, I still lived under the weight of having fled the city where I was born. I worked for the Department of Protection for Mexican Nationals of the Consulate, running dead-end errands like visiting undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation, pretending to make them feel cared for. The Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores had just transferred me from Raleigh to Austin. I had moved to Raleigh from Mexico City because my parents had begged me to take the job in the Mexican Foreign Service that Dad had secured for me. They’d recently moved to La Jolla themselves, tired of seeing friend after friend disappear in broad daylight, exhausted from wondering each morning when their number would be called. I didn’t want to leave. I was cutting my teeth as a reporter for El Financiero, but Dad said that letting me stay was the same as their not leaving Mexico at all.

  In the days after I moved to North Carolina, I started having dreams that my friends from Mexico would ring me from Butner asking for help, but when I called the prison I’d learn that they’d already been deported to an undisclosed location. I started dreaming of Grandma, clad in one of the bright silky dresses she liked so much that smelled of baby powder. I’d see her in her living room, knitting, singing “Solamente Una Vez” as if the bolero were a lullaby. She died alone in her apartment on Cofre de Perote on a winter morning the year after I moved.