A So-Called Vacation

by Genaro González

  Javier responded with a nervous giggle of relief. “Gus! For a moment there I was sure it was your dad! I thought I was tripping.”

  “Paula suggested I get out here before Dad’s buddies leave work and take over the place.” He thought for a moment and shook his head in disbelief. “And guess what? I actually listened to her. I must be getting old.”

  “No,” said his brother, “you’re just getting wiser.”

  Gus greeted Javier, but this one seemed just as interested in the car as in his cousin. “I remember Uncle’s car from the times I’d have my truck checked in the garage. I knew he’d make sure they’d look over my rig as careful as if it was yours or Gabi’s.”

  Gus didn’t quite know what to say, so he took out his self-conscious unease with a thump on the hood. “I tell you, this old heap still has some kick in it.”

  “That’s what I told your dad. ‘You know what you have here, Uncle? A muscle car! A classic! They don’t make them like this anymore. You’ve got to get inside there and juice it up.’ And you know what he said?”

  Before he realized it, Gus was imitating his father’s unfazed nonchalance. “‘I’m the classic. They don’t make them like me anymore.’”

  Javier slapped his thigh. “That’s right! Then he gave his left chest a tap and mimicked, ‘Better yet, what if they put some of that juice into this muscle?’” He covered up his mouth and lowered his voice. “Say, I hope I’m not being disrespectful to your dad.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Gabriel. “Besides, I don’t think he’d want us moping all over the place.”

  In fact, Gabriel remembered the times he had come to the same funeral home with his parents. He always preferred to stay with his father, who waited out in the parking lot with the other men while the women stayed inside and mumbled through their mass rosary. Gabriel recalled how the men generally passed the time in subdued but entertaining conversations. Every now and then someone would remind the group why they were gathered there, and they would pause and say a few good things about the deceased, along with some of their better times together. Then soon they’d return to their muted banter.

  Gabriel considered asking Gus whether he was ready to view their father’s body, but then decided to wait a while. He was glad that despite the occasion his brother was easing into a more lighthearted state of mind. Gabriel even directed his brother’s attention to the rig. “If you think you made an entrance driving up, check out what Javier brought.”

  Gus examined the eagle as closely as Gabriel had. “Those bombs hanging from its claws … they look like nukes.”

  “Thank you,” said Javier. But a moment later he reassessed his beaming pride. “You don’t think it’s too over the top?”

  “Oh, not at all,” said Gus, with a straight face that would have made his father proud.

  Javier seemed relieved. “My girlfriend says I got carried away with all the arrows and bombs.”

  “Not at all,” Gus repeated. “Like I used to say in high school, if you have to show your guns, they’d better be big ones.” He flexed his own arms for emphasis.

  “On the other hand,” Gabriel added cautiously, “Maybe you could do without the rebel flag.”

  “But it’s just harmless stars and bars, primo. No guns, not even a mean-looking eagle.”

  Gabriel wanted to bring up the racial message it sent to nonwhites like themselves, but he didn’t know where to start, so he didn’t.

  Gabriel noticed that the man who had been watching them had pulled back his hood. Usually he was bad with names and faces, but the man’s eyes were unforgettable. “Isn’t that one of the Borrados?”

  “Oh, you know those guys too?” asked Javier. “Yeah, he’s the oldest.”

  Gus agreed. “What’s he doing here?”

  “You tell me, primos.”

  “He’s not here for Dad’s funeral, is he?” asked Gus.

  “Could be. I remember he dropped by the garage one time. Your dad and this other guy gave him some spare change. So did I. In fact, I got the impression it was a regular thing.”

  Gus turned to his brother first. “So Dad did know him!” Then he turned to his cousin. “Did he know he was one of the Borrados?”

  Javier shrugged. “That I don’t know. What I do recall is his telling another worker afterward how fortunate he was to have two successful, able-bodied sons.”

  Gus looked at him closely. “Dad said that?”

  “His very words, primo.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me that when we talked about him back home?”

  “Simple. It hadn’t happened yet.”

  “You’re sure? You’re not just telling me …”

  “It hadn’t happened yet,” Javier said once more. “I know that for a fact because after your dad made that comment he asked me about my recent trip out there. He kept asking me about you and your family.”

  After Gus grew quiet, his cousin added, “Your dad was a good man, Gus. He was a character, but he helped out other characters.” He gestured toward the Borrado. “Maybe he’s paying his respects.”

  “Talk about ghosts from the past,” Gabriel said, almost to himself. “We met them one summer, at a migrant camp in California. In fact, Gus and I were just reminiscing about the place.”

  “Oh, the time your dad took you guys out West.” Javier paused and glanced at Gus. “Hey, I’m not touching a sore point, am I?” Gus made a never-mind motion with his hands.

  Gabriel tried to get a better look, then averted his gaze when it seemed the Borrado might bolt at any moment.

  “Say, primo, does the guy owe you money?” asked Javier.

  “Who, him? He wouldn’t be asking me for money. His other brothers must have a fortune by now.”

  “The Borrados, you say! You’re sure you met them in this world?”

  “Sure. They worked like ants,” said Gus.

  “Isn’t life strange? This one hasn’t done a full week’s work in years, and his brothers aren’t much better.”

  “All that work as kids must have worn them out,” said Gabriel.

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.” Javier tried to savor the irony. “So you knew the Borrados as kids, huh?”

  The phrase had a strange ring for Gabriel as well, and he realized that even back then he considered them miniature adults. “Well, I sort of knew them. They didn’t hang out with the rest of us guys, though.”

  Javier’s tone turned more incredulous. “And they worked their butts off, you say?”

  “I’ll say,” said Gus. “Their father would just set them loose, step back and rake in the money.” He could not help but think of his own father, and how they had let him down that summer. His melancholy continued until he realized that the disappointment had been mutual. “I wonder if their father ever built them that air-conditioned castle he promised.”

  “Now that you mention it, old Don Pilo does have a big house, right outside town. But he’s the only one living in it. Right now his middle son lives in an even bigger house. The kind with burglar bars, except they keep the burglars in. And he’s locked into that lease for a few more years.” He said this so matter-of-factly that it took Gabriel a moment to figure it out. Javier added, “Maybe that’s the castle Don Pilo promised them. It may not have a moat, but it’s got watchtowers.”

  “What happened to the one who worked with you?” asked Gus.

  “Good question. One day he took off for Dallas with a load of Mexican mangos and never returned. Poof, not a trace. It’s one thing to disappear when you’re small and scrawny. But you tell me how an entire eighteen-wheeler can vanish into thin air.”

  Gus couldn’t, so he simply stared at the Borrado, until he could no longer see his face directly.

  “So,” Gabriel said, “this one ended up with all those empty rooms in his father’s mansion. All to himself.”

  “Are you kidding? He hates Don Pilo! Don’t ever get him started on one of his ‘our father’ stories. I mean, none of our old m
en are perfect, but why keep harping on it? He even said his mother’s passing away was the old guy’s fault. Can you imagine?”

  “But Don Pilo took them on R and R every year,” said Gus. Gabriel added that even with the cynicism of his adulthood he still saw him as nothing worse than a lethargic widower who, left with three energetic sons on his hands, had harnessed their hyperactivity.

  Javier gestured with his chin toward the Borrado. “See, that’s how I would have answered the guy if I had known about their childhood. I even said one time, ‘Just stop whining and get a life, man.’” His gaze locked Gus’s. “After all, what’s past is past. Right, primo?”

  “Unless it’s prologue,” Gabriel muttered.

  “What’s that mean?” Gus asked him.

  “I was just hoping that Dad did find out how they ended up.” He felt ashamed after he said it, even though it had been mostly for Gus’s sake.

  They watched the Borrado put a soft drink to his lips nervously.

  “Look at him,” said Javier. “Like a bantam cock wetting his beak. Except this one’s got no fight left in him. He’s all tail feathers and hollow bones.”

  “He must have crammed a lifetime of work in a few years.” Gabriel recalled the time in the field when the youngest brother had reminded him of a famished chick. Now he wondered how he had ever envied them. A moment later he added, “They never looked well, not even as kids …”

  Javier dismissed his concern with a sharp click of his tongue. “Ah, nothing modern medicine can’t cure.”

  Javier said goodbye and headed for his rig, where the Borrado intercepted him. The two talked, but Gabriel only caught their gesticulations. At one point Javier pointed toward the funeral home and guided his attention to his cousins. The man looked his way, with a gaze that was both absolute and abstract, as if seeing them for the first time. Then and there Gabriel realized that all that time the Borrado had been staring at his cousin, not at him.

  Twice Javier waved him a polite farewell and attempted to move on, but each time the man trailed him. He even pulled out his wallet and offered him money, but it was not until Javier tucked something shiny between the bills that he was able to walk away without being followed.

  The Borrado waved goodbye with one hand and made an odd gesture with the other, pressing a fist to his lips as if he had touched a holy man. The movement was so mesmerizing that even after he retrieved his soft drink from the car’s hood and took a gulp, Gabriel and Gus stayed glued to his every move.

  The Borrado held up the bright, dollar-sized object Javier had given him and tried to tear through the bright foil with his teeth, but the cardboard backing proved too tough. He then held it tight while he pushed through the foil’s blisters with his thumb. He cursed when the first pill fell on the asphalt, and when the second bright red heart dropped, Gabriel felt his own heart jump so quickly that he barely felt his brother nudge him hard on the ribs.

  “Christ!” Gus whispered. “Remember, Gabi?”

  Gabriel thought he had whispered back, until a second nudge startled him again.

  “Remember, Gabi? Remember that time, in the strawberry field?”

  “I remember, Gus,” he answered softly.

  “It’s identical. I mean, it’s the same stuff. So then the guy’s not really mental, right?”

  “No. Not the way we thought, anyway.”

  His brother, so close that Gabriel felt him shiver slightly, said, “This is so strange.”

  Gabriel could only nod. After a moment he added, “It was one of his brothers we saw, though.”

  “Still, it’s like … what do they call it, bro?”

  “Déjà vu.”

  Gabriel could see once more the small red heart the other Borrado had dropped in the dirt on that distant afternoon. But what he found so odd was not how the scene had been repeated just now. The truly disturbing thing was how something so terrible could have taken place long ago in that field, in broad daylight, and before their very eyes, and they had been oblivious to it. If anything, they had been envious.

  By now the Borrado facing them had scooped up his own amphetamines in one quick move, yet it wasn’t until his hand was halfway to his mouth for the second dose that he realized Gabriel was watching. With a slow sweep of his hand he slipped the remaining drugs in his shirt pocket and glanced around with a studied, nonchalant air.

  Perhaps sensing that his dissimulation seemed unnatural, he began approaching them. But at that moment, Gus grabbed his younger brother and hurried to the funeral home.

  When they reached the entrance, Gus stopped and said, “I had to get away from that guy. I don’t want to deal with that stuff. Not now.”

  “Me neither.”

  Gus put his hands on his younger brother’s shoulder and pushed down a bit, as if trying to plant him on that spot. “What I do want is to be alone with the old man for awhile.”

  “I understand, Gus. I’ll wait out here by the door.”

  While he waited, Gabriel scanned the parking lot for the Borrado. He had just decided that the man had left when someone grazed his shoulder so unexpectedly that it made him startle. Gabriel looked behind him and to his left and found himself face to face with the Borrado. Gabriel was so surprised by the apparition that he could not even ask him where he had been all along.

  Instead, staring at the small, assorted scabs on the man’s forehead and hairline, Gabriel did all he could not to flinch. Now that the Borrado walked all day without the protection of his field sombrero, his complexion had taken on a splotchy aspect. But his eyes remained the same—transparent.

  He stammered a bit, as if conversation did not come easy, then he pointed to where Javier’s truck had been. “My friend told me …”

  “Javier. He’s my cousin.”

  The interruption threw the Borrado off somewhat, and he started a new round of stammering. But when he finally spoke again, his words were clear and steady. “He told me your father died. He said he worked with Mr. Woods.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  The Borrado extended his arm to offer his condolences. Gabriel was expecting the calloused, clammy hand he remembered from the time Don Pilo had introduced them in the fields. Instead it had the soft warmth of a child’s hand.

  “Your father seemed like a kind man,” said the Borrado.

  Gabriel, not quite knowing what to say, almost answered, So did yours. But he caught the irony behind the innocuous reply just in time. He said instead, “I always thought your father was nice too.” He realized at once the raw, unintended truth behind the remark, but it was too late to take it back.

  Afraid that the words might trigger one of the Borrado’s diatribes, he tried to explain how they had met before, in California. When the Borrado didn’t seem to remember, Gabriel said, “Then I ran into you again a few years ago. Outside Mr. Woods’ garage, where my father worked.”

  The Borrado remembered that occasion and, oddly, it seemed to trigger his recollection of the earlier encounter. “Oh, yes. We knew each other from Don Rafa’s camp.”

  A part of Gabriel wanted to continue the conversation, but another part felt the unease of walking on eggshells. “I have to check up on my brother,” he finally said. “He’s inside.”

  The Borrado nodded and started to back off a bit.

  “Wait,” said Gabriel. He reached for his wallet and started to search for a five when he remembered his ten-dollar bill. “My father would have wanted you to have this.” He removed it carefully from its special compartment and offered it. “I carry it for good luck.” He didn’t mention how he had come by it. He only said, almost as an apology, “Spend it before it falls apart.”

  He didn’t wait for the Borrado to thank him but instead opened the door and went in. For a moment he was convinced that the man had followed him inside, but when he looked back there was no one there.

  Gabriel entered the chapel on the left and immediately saw Gus. His brother was still standing before his father’s body, his arms clasp
ed behind his back, as if he were guarding the coffin. An elderly couple stood silently a few feet away, waiting to pay their respects. Gabriel did not interrupt Gus either but rather waited a few minutes and then cautiously ventured outside again.

  By now the Borrado had retreated to the shade of an enormous jacaranda where the hearses were parked. Gabriel watched him retrieve another heart from his shirt pocket and slip it in his mouth. Then he took such a deep, satisfying quaff from his soft drink that Gabriel almost envied his pleasure. For an instant, Gabriel thought he saw in those jaded eyes the momentary glimmer of a child’s joy, or at least the closest that man would ever come to it.

  Other titles by Genaro González

  Only Sons

  The Quixote Cult

  Rainbow’s End