Barefoot Dogs
Page 8
BETTER LATITUDE
It didn’t rain that Thursday afternoon, but the air tumbled over the city, old and musty, as if rolling out of a drawer that had been closed a long time. It was Laureano’s last week of school. I picked him up late because I’d had to take care of a last-minute walk-in at the office, and treated him to McDonald’s. You know your son; you know how much he loves that shit, and I know, I know it’s bad for him, but I wished for us to be in a festive mood. I didn’t want to go home right away. I needed my sore mind and his relentless energy to rest somewhere else.
I drove to the McDonald’s on Barranca del Muerto, the huge one overlooking Periférico that has an enormous playground out front—I’m sure you don’t know which one I’m talking about, for you’d never set foot in such a place anyway; you said that American fast food was tacky, that only wannabes and the poor craved it. Laureano didn’t eat one single Chicken McNugget. He gulped down his fries and orange juice as fast as he could and darted to the playground, as if they were giving away lollipops there. He spent a lifetime in the ball pit, leaping and jumping and splashing furiously, surrounded by kids who looked younger than he was. They regarded him with caution and kept their distance, for he seemed too adamant about the whole business of having fun, as if it were a dead-serious matter. I remained at the table where we’d eaten, writing your name on the burger wrapper, an orphan french fry as a pen and ketchup as ink, watching Laureano through a large window below a sign that read
WELCOME TO PLAYPLACE
He looked like a frantic dolphin trying new tricks in the open sea, riding the waves of a multicolor storm. I tried to stay present, watch him go mad, but my mind was stuck with you.
Four weeks had passed since I’d last seen you, since the three of us had eaten dinner together. It was a Wednesday. You stayed over, we slept together but didn’t make love—I had my period. The next morning you sat next to Laureano at the kitchen table and watched him scarf down a bowl of cornflakes with cold milk while you drank black coffee and complained that you felt exhausted. You said you were reaching that age when one always feels tired no matter how much one sleeps. I felt like I’d reached that age some time ago but didn’t say anything. What was the point of discussing inevitable miseries with you so early in the morning, minutes from your departure? Laureano got ready for school and when you both were in the car I asked if we should wait for you that night. You asked what day it was. I said it. You considered it. You said you were not sure you’d be back in time for dinner, but that you’d come back for sure. I stayed at the curbside, watching your car until it turned the corner and I never saw it or you again. The morning lit with clouds, the shades of green in the tree leaves and the fuchsia blossoms of the bougainvillea creeping down the wall at the entrance of the house; all had grown pale as if it had trouble breathing, paler than every color in Mexico City has ever been since I can remember.
We left McDonald’s in that deadly hour of the afternoon that’s neither lunch nor dinner time and when people at restaurants seem out of place. We came home and I said, Laureano, it’s bath time. He begged me to let him go outside and hang out in the tree house. I couldn’t believe his stamina. I felt tired all the time, it overwhelmed me to see this kid boasting of his energy, to see him only wanting to have fun, as if nothing else mattered. I wanted him to take a bath as soon as possible, for he’d been playing in that filthy ball pit barefoot and he hadn’t washed his hands since. I didn’t even want to think about the germs that stuck to his feet, his face. I wasn’t in the mood to argue, so I let him go.
An hour passed and he was still out there. It was that moment of evening right before darkness breaks. The sky drew white and I felt winter had reached us again even though it was late June. I slid the backdoor open and called for Laureano. He didn’t reply. I called him again. Your son, stubborn as a stale loaf of bread. I started in his direction, but suddenly his freckled face stuck out of one of the little windows and he said he was coming. He had this big, insuperable grin on his face. This little you.
Laureano jumped down from the porch of the tree house and ran to me with his cheeks flushed and gleaming. I said that it was bath time. He stopped dead in the middle of the yard and said I wouldn’t believe who he’d been hanging out with. I had zero interest in finding out. I’d been up since six thirty in the morning, it had been a hard day at the office, four pedicures (old diabetic widowers, customers delightful as hemorrhoids), one case of severe athlete’s foot, and one surgery to fix a good pair of nasty ingrown toenails. I had no energy left for riddles, but Laureano insisted that I guess. I mentioned some of his stuffed animals by name—Denver, the giraffe; Pensacola, the rooster; Pompeya, the sheep—but it was no use. He giggled; he shook his head with tenacity and said I’d never find out. I give up, I said, and he revealed he’d been hanging out with you. Laureano’s eyes shone disarmingly, enraptured by jubilance. Little bastard happy like it was Kings’ Day. The flesh of my legs turned into Jell-O, squishy and tremulous. My lips quivered. For a second, I hated him. I wanted to slap him in the face and hug him and burst into tears and yell
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME
all at once, but I didn’t. I imagined your lanky, six-foot-tall frame curled up inside that toy house next to our son, your salt-and-pepper hair scratching against the ceiling like a porcupine with a rash, your long, infinite arms and your strong hands struggling to fit in that box, and the image was heartbreaking and hysterical. I asked Laureano to tell me more, but he said there wasn’t much else to it. I forced a smile and cleared my throat and repeated, bath time. I held his hand. It was warm, soft with the newness and the hope and the fearlessness of youth. We came inside. I looked forward to a drink.
When Laureano was stripping off his clothes in the bathroom he said I had to wash his ears thoroughly because you’d taken a look at them and said they were yucky. I asked him to say that again, and he did. Did you really check his ears when you guys were together? Little you confirmed and added that you’d checked his fingernails and his toenails and his teeth as well. I grabbed him by the shoulders, bent down, and explored his ears. That’s when he said you’d deemed his fingernails and toenails neat, but that he could do a better job brushing his teeth. That’s when I thought
YEAH, RIGHT
A month had passed since he’d last seen you too. He seemed to be missing you as much as I was, but we hadn’t talked about it. I knew he’d long grown used to your intermittent presence in our lives. He already knew you’d only spend a couple nights a week at home, that you’d drop him off at school every now and then. I didn’t think it was necessary to address your absence just yet.
Then one evening at dinnertime he asked when you were coming back. We were finishing dessert. While I searched for an answer to the very question that haunted me every day, I offered him more lemonade. He gave me those eyes of yours that meant, cut the crap, Mom. I said you’d had to make a long trip for your job, longer and farther than usual, which was why you hadn’t been able to come home or even call, but that you would, soon. He asked where you’d gone. Little cactus thorns pierced my lungs. China, I said. He asked where in China. I wanted him to shut up and stop hurting me, but I said you hadn’t gone to Shanghai or Beijing, but to a town in the south, a village so small its streets weren’t paved but made out of powder, its airport so humble only one plane landed there every week. He looked at me with his eyes wide open in amazement, and I felt abominable for taking advantage of his six years of age. He wanted to know the name of the town. I said I couldn’t remember, for I’d hardly heard of it myself, and coaxed him to finish his fruit salad. He begged me to look it up on the world map we’d given him for his birthday, the one we’d just stuck on the wall above his bed. It was past eight. It was time for bed; we’d do that in the morning, I promised him. Little fucking you insisted, insisted, insisted, his fruity-smelling voice growing louder and more unsettling, until I conceded. He charged out of the kitchen. I trail
ed behind him dragging my feet, wishing I could turn water into whiskey, wishing I’d made wiser decisions in my life.
I found Laureano standing barefoot on his bed, his index finger crawling along the mustard-colored corner of Asia, looking for you. No, it isn’t Hong Kong; that is actually a pretty big city, I said. He asked if it was Beihai, or Shantou, or Simao, or Xiamen, his finger hopping across the far-off land. He called out the names he found in southern China, and he read them fast. He was full of wonder, so smart and small. I thought about all the disgraces life had in store for him and how handsome he was and how well he could read at such an early age, a jumble of thoughts that made me feel very lonely. I wanted to kiss him forever and run away with him to another planet where I hadn’t met you and he was still my son, somewhere else where you were a different man and you were with us, but I just stood on the bed embracing him from behind, our feet touching on the duvet, my index finger pointing to the tiniest, most isolated spot I could find. All he said was