El fin de Canción. The poet called the roads. The end of this forgotten city.
I worked on the roads in Chihuahua. I said then. From Chihuahua to Ciudad Juárez.
For the mines?
Yes.
During the war I read about these roads. The poet said. The Americans wanting a new one each day it seemed.
I wanted to tell him then of how I had stood by as the faces of mountains were destroyed. Witnessed entire villages told to move because some men with some instruments said to move. Thousands of sunburned ears gone deaf from the blasting of boulders into pebbles. But I did not have the words then and the poet was always an imposing figure.
Roads in Baja will be very slow to stretch the length of this peninsula. He said. Before a man went from spring to spring. In this way from Tijuana to Guerrero Negro. Ciudad Constitución to El Arco at Cabo San Lucas.
I learned from the poet that during the war access to the copper and gypsum mines in Baja was greatly desired by the United States. A road was paved as far south as San Quentin. But along this bandidos struck with machetes and rifles whose ends were filed to cut like knives. This upset the American investors very much. The Mexican businessmen also. But for many Mexicans it was something of a quiet and often not so quiet pride.
But here. In the south. The poet continued. A truck with a flat tire or one stuck in the sand will leave a man to die of thirst before he comes to any water but that of the salt of the sea or the ocean. You leave Canción and you find bones in the middle of these roads delicate as chalk in a landscape watered by the sun. Shaded only by vulture wings. This road they are working on. It will not connect us to anywhere for many years to come.
How will Cantana bring the tourists? I asked.
Airplane. The poet said softly. He threw his cigarette to the ground and looked quietly where it lay smoldering.
The uneven roads were good footpaths for the poet. But as the sun set he had some difficulty walking with his eyes not the best from years of reading in shadows. His vulgar talk and nasty smile made me forget sometimes that he was just more than sixty years old. His mind so young and alive. We passed the abandoned mine the metal roof of which was light in that coming dark. The poet did not speak to save his breath for his smoking as we walked. Many times I lent him my arm.
Did I ever tell you about my time in el Bajío? The poet said. I worked on the railroads there just before la Revolución. I met a girl whose father I worked for. Melones hasta aquí. And she had pretty eyes. When I looked into them. The poet laughed. This girl. Her father was a drunk. He left out pliers and wrenches and hammers on the kitchen table whenever I came to take her on a walk. I had no place to sleep and I washed in a river. But I was a hard worker and he respected this. But he was right to have those tools out to intimidate me. When he fell asleep drunk and after her mother went to sleep this girl would sneak out of her window to meet me. I talked her into doing this on those walks we took. Late at night I waited behind a low mud wall throwing stones at trees. Fence posts. Cats. This girl had the most beautiful neck. I would kiss it for hours. For so long because it was the only thing she would allow me to do to her. I would make those pretty eyes roll back like pearls in that moonlight.
But the old poet never shared stories of his family. The women he mentioned all were in stories like this. In his talk I knew the poet was very lonely. Much more than me.
I am convinced that the hillsides are the most beautiful poems. The poet said when we were resting on several large stones the men working on the road had pushed to the side. These mountains here have seen almost as much change as a square of dirt during a rainstorm. He sighed smoke. Rolling a cigarette with one already between his lips. I read poems every night. They compare women to a flower. To a breeze. I cannot tolerate these poems. We have done much to these hills. And only more will be done in the future. Our landscape is not of trees and forests and deserts but hotels and tourists and their cameras and airplanes. We are as far west as this part of the world can be you know. And instead of it ending it just rolls back on itself. It refuses to stay old even when old is just fine. Look at me. He laughed lighting the fresh cigarette. I am a perfect example of how wonderful old things can be. Baja has never been Mexico and it is not the United States. It is becoming a bastard child of both and no longer its own. The businessmen want the tourists to spend their money. And those of us who are not the businessmen allow this. Maybe I am just jealous that none of the money ends up in my pockets.
He laughed then but I knew that he was testing me. From the hills the work on the hotel seemed insignificant. But the sight of it growing taller than the buildings below higher even than the cathedral upset the poet. I understood that when he spoke in this way it was best not to interrupt him.
And I am not even Catholic! He yelled pointing to the towers of the cathedral. But so few complain about the height of this hotel. What this means to their religion. Not when the businessmen promise them money. Only the priests maybe are more corrupt. For centuries they have answered only to wealth. Bleeding the poor they have fooled.
For all the time I was friends with the poet we never spoke of my work on the hotel. It was a difficult struggle. The work it brought to Canción. The money it might bring to those who lived farther and farther from the plaza mayor in canvas tents and mud jacales. The poet knew I was ashamed to speak of why I had come to Canción now that he and I were friends. Most of the time talk of the hotel dissolved the poets words into grunts and gestures. And for a poet I think this is the most beautiful and difficult thing.
Dark was coming and I had not yet swum to ready myself for the fighting the next night. I rubbed my hands on my cotton pant legs thinking the poet would recognize that I was ready to move on.
Do you pray dog fighter? He asked me then.
Sometimes.
You understand that God is not for sometimes?
He is also not for everyone. I answered.
Bueno. The poet smiled at me but not so that his teeth showed. Then taking his cigarette to his mouth he said. But remember that there is a time when everyone will turn to God. And it is wrong to do this if you have said wrong things of Him. Especially saying that He does not exist. Because He does. God is a beautiful thing. The best poem we have. You do not want to say bad things about Him. This way when your time comes to turn to Him you will not look like some fool. The old poet paused. And do not lie. He said. Lies exhaust me.
We came down from the hills and into the hard packed streets. Then onto the cart and hoof polished stones nearing the large square. Here we passed a small girl struggling beneath an accordion. With her arms wrapped awkwardly around the instrument her tiny fingers pressed the worn keys as she began to sing. A boy skipped from person to person accepting coins that plinked at the bottom of a tin can above the music sharply. Wind came through dusty palm leaves softening the sound of the poets raspy breathing. Our shadows intertwined against the drawn shutters of the buildings we passed. The boy moved quickly to those walking toward the plaza. When he turned from the poet he bumped into my leg and fell onto the ground. The coins clattered over the stones. The sister collapsed the accordion. I offered my hand to the small boy but he jumped to his feet and hurried after the coins. A band of poor children that had been lurking in the shadows dove into the street but the sister snapped them back with hard vulgar words. The poet laughed smoke. The eyes of the boy shone white in fear of my size.
You have a good heart dog fighter. The poet said as we left. But people only notice your shoulders and hands.
That night I stood at the window of my room looking over the garden on the rooftop. The cleaning woman had hung the clothes on the line earlier in the day and the smell of the cacti in the wet soil of their clay pots was comforting. The long walk with the poet had been good. The day had been dry and warm. Not too hot. I concentrated on the towers of the cathedral across the rooftops. The streetlamps cast thin lines of glaring light along the windmill blades. In the shadows of the windo
ws I kept my questions. Stared into them standing in the dark of my room feeling the contours of my fists. I thought then of the dogs. Of my father. I feared somehow he was going to be at the fighting. Hunched with ragmen wrapping my arm. Or at the fence with red eyes like the drunk. I feared him standing among the yelling men. That he would whisper.
I put money on the dog.
A lamp turned on in the room of the dentists mother across the courtyard. Spilling into shadows and making other shadows. The dentist undressed his mother from her dress while she sat on the bed. Wrinkled skin the color of thin paper the poet used in his stall at the market. While he folded her dress she felt for the nightstand and then the pillow as she lowered herself to rest. Jorge pulled a thin blanket from the foot of her bed neatly to her chin. He spoke to her soft words I was not able to hear. He brought his ear to her mouth when she spoke. Then the door to the back room opened below and music from the Victrola seeped into the courtyard. One of the young men called for the dentist but Jorge kept his ear to his mothers whispers. Then the door to the back room closed and in the quiet Jorge turned off the lamp by his mothers bed and the shadows were dark again with time. I heard the dentist on the creaking stairs. The young men laughing in the back room. Then the sound of another door closing to me. Another light turned off.
In the quiet of the dark I stood at my window and listened for her in the music of the sea and the breeze and the laughing and the lights in the distant windows flickering votive candles. I thought about the fighting and my grandfather and the old poet and I was very nervous and scared even when I tried now to hear the yelling men calling my name.
I sat on my bed in the dark holding my own hands.
In the small room on the rooftop using a small knife Ramón worked at dismantling a skinny leg from a wood chair. He tried sawing through the leg at its narrow ends but the knife was not for sawing and when this became too difficult he cursed the knife and broke the chair against the metal railing of the spiral staircase.
Where do you hide yourself? Ramón asked me while trying to saw the leg. People in the cantinas are always asking where you are. Wondering why you never come out with us.
I saw you the other night. I told him then. You and some others.
Where?
Near the abandoned church.
You should have stopped us. We are always out late. Walking the streets. Causing trouble.
Maybe next time.
There is going to be a Christmas party next week. At the house of a friend of ours. Plenty of beautiful women. You should come.
When he had broken the chair over the railing he picked one of the legs off the floor and held it in his hand admiring it in the golden light. A wicked smile eased into the corners of his mouth.
I should have done that in the beginning. He said.
In the month since my first fight the cuts on my chest had healed. Ramón sat in a different chair rubbing the eucalyptus balm over the scar above his knee. Now it was nothing but a long pink slash of thick skin. To be fresh for more scars we stretched and did push ups and sit ups listening to the fighting on the rooftop. I could tell that something distracted Ramón. He looked to the stairs with much anticipation in his eyes. Listening to the sounds of voices two floors below where Elías the doorman stood guard. The yelling men on the rooftop cheered for the first two fighters but waited for Ramón and myself. For Ramón because he had beaten two of the dogs of Mendoza. And for myself because my great size is rare in Mexico.
When Vargas footsteps came heavily up the metal stairs Ramón walked quietly on his toes to a far corner of the room where the person climbing the stairs would have his back to him. When the fugitive reached the top of the spiral staircase he looked to me and smiled. His eyes scanned the room for Ramón but then across his face he realized where Ramón was and this was when Ramón hit him with the leg of the chair in the back of the head just above his thick neck. Vargas fell to the floor unconscious. A welt rose along his neck and below his ear instantly. Ramón giggled. He bent over and took from the fugitives hand the painted stick he had chosen below. Ramón replaced this stick with his own.
Let Mendoza be for someone else tonight. He said.
With the loud thud of the fugitive falling to the floor Elías came running up the staircase with his revolver drawn. He put the revolver back in his pants and he and Ramón stood over Vargas laughing.
One bottle or two? Elías asked while shaking the dog fighters hand.
No. Ramón answered. María.
María?
De los ojos grandes.
Muy bien.
When the door opened and Ramón went out to fight two ragmen helped the fugitive to sit in a chair. His eyes were glassy. They threw water in his face to wake him. I had not moved from where I sat.
You are going to have to kill him now. I said to Vargas as he shook his head to stir himself awake. He did not realize that Ramón had switched the painted sticks.
Why? He asked without looking me in the eyes. So Cantana can have me killed?
Ramón is friends with El Tapado?
They drink together in all the cantinas. Share women. Steal other mens women.
I sat quietly. Before I had not thought of Ramón as the way for me to meet her. I suspected the dog fighters spent time with all the businessmen except Cantana. Ramón was handsome though. And colorful in his fighting and this made him very popular.
Why do you think I spend time with him? Vargas said a moment later.
Cantana?
No. Ramón.
No sé.
I like the women he brings. I am not a handsome man like he is. I do not have the money or power Cantana has. But I do not mind their scraps. Their scraps are very tasty.
This was over a woman? I held my hand to the side of my neck where his welt was. María?
Some whore. He winked. I bet Ramón that he could not knock me unconscious. Vargas laughed a short laugh after saying this. It was a bet. Nothing more. The fugitive lowered his face and shook his head slightly to stir himself. I will get him though. You wait. The golden boy will get what he deserves.
But then came the yelling men.
Ramón! They chanted. Ramón! Ramón!
Cabrón! The fugitive chanted. Cabrón! Cabrón! He looked at me and smiled but I knew that he was disappointed.
I was next to fight. While the ragmen prepared my arm with the heavy rug I searched for her in the crowd of businessmen and yelling men busy placing their bets. The well dressed young man went among them but I did not see him stop in front of Cantana. I could not find Cantana.
It was not until I caught the back legs of the second dog I had to fight and swung its head against a metal pole of the ring that I saw her. Each time I did this the dog came back and flashing its teeth snapped uselessly at me until the skull was crushed and blood spilled from its ears onto the floor of the ring. Under the light of that full moon the businessmen stood around her yelling my name. Again and again while the mistresses of the businessmen cried and the businessmen themselves clapped their hands. When I found her alongside Cantana her eyes sunk like teeth into my skin. I was panting. Standing in the blood of the dogs I had just killed. And still I could think only of kissing her neck. Of rubbing the back of her soft hand against my cheek. Burying my face in the fragrance of her long black hair.
While Vargas killed his dog I stood among the men looking through the fence across the ring into her eyes. I did not care that Cantana could see this. The fighting had been between the three of us. Furious and violent between our eyes. She sat next to Cantana but never taking her eyes from me. Her high cheeks red from the warmth of the lights above the ring. The corners of her mouth turned down some but only enough to push up gently the plush of her lower lip. Her eyelashes long and dark and beautiful when she blinked. My mind went empty like the dark water surrounding us when we made love in the bay. The quiet of her eyes like stars falling onto my chest. Her singing to me in a voice she shared with no one else. Her smile a s
light pinch at the corner of her eyes. But plenty.
I felt strong but of some different strength. I felt good. It was better than any number of men yelling my name. I felt myself a great man above the fury between us. I told her that I was for her alone. That my days were spent imagining us talking in the kitchen of our home. Kissing in the quiet of our small room. Our children asleep. She looked into me without judgment. And together we were alone surrounded by yelling men before the fighting of dogs.
After Vargas had killed his dog Cantana put his gloved hand on her arm. I awoke from her to find the businessman staring at me. His eyes hot coals behind his sunglasses. But a smile on his face because he recognized our love. He nodded at me then as he stood to leave. I knew that he enjoyed allowing this love. That this was the power of Cantana. It was this way when I stood in rooms knowing how scared others were of not what I did with my arms and hands and chest but what I could do. Cantana and I understood one another very well.
That night once more though he took her from me into the shadows beyond the light of the ring. We had stared into one another and admitted our love. But to do that without words was also to admit Cantanas hold over us both.
Five
The Christmas party the following week was held at the house of the young businessman Rodríguez. He was the fourth man that I had followed walking through the plaza mayor with Elías and Vargas and Ramón. He lived alone in a neighborhood at the north of Canción where in the hills the roads were of stone and the houses not built alongside one another but with fences around them containing landscaped yards. Tall palm trees lined the path to the front of the house and on the side wall I noticed a bougainvillea as old and beautiful as the one at the dentists. Music from a mariachi band came from the back of the house. Inside I heard women laughing and through some windows saw the twirl of their skirts dancing.
The Dog Fighter Page 11