“Yes,” I say. “Sonia called him.”
“So he’s probably waiting for you.” Her smile spreads ever wider. “No, no, no, you have to come with us.”
“No, really, it’s okay,” I say. “We need to shower and run some errands. We’ll take a taxi out to his place tomorrow.”
“A taxi!” She starts laughing. “Why are you going to waste your money on a taxi? We can take you there right now.”
* * *
Martin and I are crammed in the backseat of the Suburban between our backpacks and cousins that I didn’t even know I had. The dust and sweat of the bus ride is still in our hair, our pores—this is not how I imagined my first encounter with my father. We sit in traffic, idling past pharmacies, liquor stores, dental clinics, panaderías, carnicerías, and fruit stands.
“All the norteños are down here right now,” my aunt says, looking back at me from the passenger seat. “That’s why there’s so much traffic.”
It’s easy to distinguish the locals from the norteños, the rusty trucks assembled with parts salvaged from junkyards amid the ones that gleam in the afternoon sun and have plates from Texas, California, Colorado, Arizona, and Illinois. A local truck has a blue truck bed that reads Toyota on the back and a gray hood with Jeep written across the front, while the norteños drive la troca del año—the latest model, even if it’s all a façade, purchased on credit, because once the holidays are over, the owners of those brand-new trucks will be returning to jobs busing tables, washing dishes, and mowing lawns in order to pay off those shiny trucks. But none of that matters now. It’s the holidays, it’s December, the one month out of the year that the norteños descend upon the narrow streets of this town with their trucks and fists full of dollar bills to spend on the músicos, at the horse races, the cockfights, and on women. It’s the one month they can live like kings. I know. This was my father’s routine.
“Does any of this look familiar?” my aunt asks.
“No,” I say.
“Really? Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“No, what are you going to remember? You were still young when you left this place.” She’s right. I have no memory of this place. It’s as though whatever came before that long, nauseating bus ride along the mountains had been nothing but a dream, and once I crossed over to the other side, even the memory of that dream vanished.
We clear a few speed bumps on the edge of town, and soon we’re driving down a two-lane road, the wind roaring in through the open windows and whipping my hair into my face as we go flying past a lumberyard, a yonke, and dried-out cornfields. We clear a slight curve and then we’re turning left onto a dirt road. Dust fills the cabin as we bounce along, driving over rocks, gullies, and a shallow river. A few cows grazing along the water’s edge look up and watch as we idle past. Martin takes my hand, shoots me a smile.
On the other side of the river, there is a slight hill, and a fifteen-foot adobe wall that appears to be melting runs the length of the hill, like a fort. Two dilapidated limestone pillars stand on either side of the entrance, and a few chickens scatter as we go through. There are doorways that lead to roofless rooms built into the wall, rooms in which the afternoon sunlight is pouring in like a golden liquid, rooms that lead to arched doorways that frame the distant mountain range, rooms with trees growing from their dirt floors and nopales sprouting from their thick adobe walls—nature reclaiming its territory.
“Now, does anything look familiar?” my aunt asks as we make our way past a small church with whitewashed walls, a large bell sitting in the tower above.
“Nothing,” I say. We drive by a few small houses, dogs come running out, barking as we go by, then retreat.
We pull up next to an old blue Chevy truck that looks exactly like the one my brother had driven down from Chicago when he left some seventeen years ago. I can’t believe this barren, dusty place is where he spent the last two years of his life. Three dogs come running at the car, barking at us.
“Don’t worry,” my aunt says, pushing the door open and shooing the dogs away. “They won’t bite.”
She and the others make their way across the dirt road toward a small L-shaped cinder-block house with a tin roof; Martin and I follow. A pile of chopped wood sits next to two eucalyptus trees in front of the courtyard wall, and a few chickens cluck about in the shade of the trees. Clotheslines are strung across the courtyard, and jeans hang upside down and inside out next to towels. One of the towels has a pink flamingo dipping its long stick-legs into an aqua-blue pond. I recognize that towel. It’s from the factory where my mother worked years ago.
His black cowboy boots and jeans are the first thing I see, the rest of him concealed behind the pink flamingo. He pushes the towel aside and makes his way toward us. He’s wearing a straw hat, a plaid shirt, and walks with a bit of a limp. His right shoulder seems to hang lower than his left. It looks like it fell out of the socket and was only partially put back in place. He’s thinner, seems somehow deflated. His gut is gone. I’ve heard he stopped drinking, maybe that’s why. Either way, Sonia warned him that if he drinks while we are here, we are leaving—that is the deal.
“Look who I brought you,” my aunt announces, stepping aside, as if my being here were her doing. The others move out of the way, like a curtain parting. He squints in the afternoon sun as if trying to recognize me. The skin above his eyes droops and rests on his thin eyelashes. His hazel eyes still have a tinge of green in them. He no longer has a beard, and the dimple on his chin is plainly visible—the same John Travolta dimple my brother had. He glances over at Martin, back at me, then at my aunt.
“Did you guys drive down here together?” he asks her.
“No,” she says. “We were at that mariscos place. You know, the one next to the bus station? And we were just finishing our meal when I see this girl and this gringo walk in and I kept staring at her and thinking, ‘I know that face, I know that face’ and, look at her, isn’t she Pascuala’s image in the flesh?” she says. “She’s darker than Pascuala, but that face. It’s the same face, isn’t it?”
He looks at me.
“When did you arrive?” he asks.
“A few days ago,” I say. “We’ve been in Zacatecas.”
Again he’s observing Martin, who takes this as his cue to deliver the one line he rehearsed on the three-hour bus ride.
“Hola,” Martin says, holding out his hand. “Me llamo es Martín.”
My father shakes his hand, his gaze wandering back toward me. We eye each other, as if we were perfectly matched in a duel, uncertain of who will have the nerve to make the first move. Hard to believe that after all these years there he is—alive and in the flesh. It’s like coming face-to-face with someone who’s returned from the dead.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” my aunt blurts out. “Will you two give each other a hug?” She gives my shoulder a slight nudge. I take a step toward him. He seems shorter, like gravity has taken him down a few notches, while I’ve grown a few inches. I reach for him and my chest recoils as my fingertips give his shoulder blades two taps. I’m vaguely aware of his hand on my lower back.
“Where is el baño?” Martin asks to no one in particular, and my cousins start laughing.
My aunt tells him to go out in the corral. Of course—there’s no bathroom. When I was a kid, I remember overhearing conversations about la luz y el agua, water and electricity, arriving at all the different ranches that sprawled from Valparaíso. La luz y el agua had arrived in San Martín, in Santana, in Las Cruces. La luz y el agua were like two long-awaited guests of honor—saints practically, one arrived streaming through pipes below and the other traveling on wires above, and sending lightbulbs shining, illuminating rooms that had only known the light of a kerosene lantern. Though they arrived in La Peña years ago, there’s still no bathroom—not even an outhouse.
Martin and I take turns going out to the corral. Adjacent to it is a huge roofless room with twenty-foot adobe walls. A few wooden beams j
ut out into the blue sky above. I find a spot behind a green metal trough and squat down. There is a pick and shovel leaning against the far wall, and a hole in the ground that is about six feet long and three feet deep. A crow swoops and lands on one of the beams, and while watching it ruffle its feathers, it dawns on me why while camping out with Abigail and the guys from Chico in the south of Spain, there was something so familiar about going outdoors.
Once I’m finished, I climb a set of wide limestone steps at the far end of the corral. They lead to a grassy plateau, and from here, I can do a three-sixty and see where the mountains meet the sky all the way around. The sky is so vast that I feel as though I’m on a different planet.
“What’s that hole in the corral for?” I ask my father when I return.
He explains that back when La Peña was an hacienda, what is now the corral used to be the church, and legend has it that there is gold buried somewhere between those four walls.
* * *
Later that night, after everyone has left, Martin and I are in the bedroom where we’ll be staying. It’s a large cinder-block room with high ceilings and a tin roof that rattles against the wooden beams each time the wind gusts. The wardrobe is filled with women’s clothing. I assume it belongs to the woman and girl who live with my father. They’re out of town visiting relatives in the sierra for the holidays.
The walls are covered with portraits of saints, including a large one of the Virgen de Guadalupe. A pink shower curtain hangs in the doorway that separates our room from the storage room and the rest of the house. At the foot of the doorway the year 1986 is etched. This must be the room my brother built. When would he have ever thought that he was building the room in which his wake would be held? No matter where I go, he always finds me. Even after I moved to Brooklyn he showed up at my front door one day. I took him by the hand and guided him around my neighborhood. We walked down to the East River and sat on the rock from where I watch the sunset. “Can you see me from the other side of the sun?” I asked, but when I turned around he was gone, had been pulled under by the turbid current.
I hoist my backpack onto the bed, next to Martin’s. We pull out extra layers—long johns, wool caps, socks, and sweaters. As soon as the sun went down, the temperature dropped—desert climate. A portrait of a Spanish conquistador hangs above the bed. It’s painted on red felt, and black feathers sprawl like spiders from the conqueror’s wide-brimmed hat. He has a black beard and mustache and his hand is resting on his sword. On his finger there is a ring with a red stone, which resembles a ring my father used to have.
“¿Se puede?” my father calls out from the storage room.
“Ey,” I say.
He comes in and stands in front of the curtain, watching us layer up.
“Make sure you shake out the blankets before going to bed,” he says. “Puede que ahí anden unos alacranes.” He scans the ceiling above, says that sometimes they fall off the wooden beams.
“There might be scorpions in the bed,” I say to Martin, hoisting my backpack off it.
“Are you serious?” He jumps off the bed, shakes his layers out.
“So, how long are you staying?” My father asks.
“We’re not sure,” I say, glancing over at Martin, who is busy throwing his clothes back into his backpack. “We might leave tomorrow.”
“¿Tan rápido?” he says. “So, if we’re going to go out to the ranch, we would have to go tomorrow morning.”
“Está bien,” I say. Earlier, he had told us about his ranch that sat at the top of the distant mountain range behind his house. It has two waterfalls, a freshwater spring, and three naturally formed slate pools; it’s where he keeps his cattle and the rest of his horses. He had said that if we wanted to go, we could make a day of it, pack a lunch, ride out on horses, and if Martin and I wanted to, we could take a dip in one of the pools. It sounded like an adventure, and Martin and I had decided we should go.
“But the thing is, we need to leave here by four or five in the morning. That way we can make it out there by about seven or eight, spend a bit of time, and hopefully be back here before the sun really starts biting,” he says, glancing back at me, at my backpack, at Martin who is now standing next to me holding his backpack. “I also need to go to San Martín and see about borrowing a horse. I only have two here in the stable. The others are all up at the ranch,” he says, crossing the room and unlocking the blue metal doors that lead out into the courtyard. “So the soonest we could go would be the day after tomorrow,” he says. But not to worry, because tomorrow, after he gets the borrowed horse squared away, he can take us to some hot springs that are nearby. We can have a hot bath, get to bed early, and set out to his ranch first thing the following morning. He pulls the door open and a blast of cold air fills the room, sends the braided garlic wreath that hangs above it swaying. “Whatever you guys decide is fine, just let me know,” he says, stepping out into the courtyard.
“So if we want to go out to the ranch, we might have to stay for two days,” I tell Martin.
“Whatever you want to do is fine with me,” he says. “Though, if we’re going to stay an extra day, I need to get into town, call my parents, buy some sunblock.”
“Here,” my father says, coming back in with two white plastic chairs. “If you keep your things on these, they should be fine.” He sets the chairs down in the middle of the room.
Martin and I place our backpacks on the chairs, and I explain to my father that if we’re going to stay an extra day, then we need to go into town in the morning and run a few errands.
“You guys can take my truck,” he says. “We can get up early, have some breakfast, and while you go run your errands, I’ll ride over to San Martín and see about borrowing a horse.”
* * *
The morning sunlight shines in through the blue metal bars of my father’s bedroom window. The wool blanket on his bed pricks me through my linen skirt. I shift my weight and springs creak beneath me. Next to his bed there are a blue vinyl car seat and a small end table that is littered with toiletries—a blue plastic razor, a toothbrush, toothpaste, scissors, a bottle of brilliantine, a sardine tin filled with black hair dye, and a black plastic comb next to it. The sound of plates and silverware hitting against the slate sink filters in from the courtyard. After breakfast, Martin volunteered to wash the dishes, saying that my pops and I had a lot of catching-up to do. On the wall above my father’s bed, a rifle hangs from a leather strap, which is slung over a rusty nail. A forest-green trunk sits in the far corner, and resting on top of it are his cowboy hats, each one inside a plastic cover.
A framed black-and-white photo of my father hangs above the dresser. In the photo he looks roughly twenty-seven and he’s wearing a large sombrero, a white button-down shirt, tapered black pants, and a holster with a gun slung from them. He’s mounted on a black horse that has a white mark on its forehead and one white foot. The photo looks like a throwback to a different era. There’s a part of me that wants to ask him if I can have it, but I decide against it. Assuming that if it’s the only photo of himself that he has on display, he must be quite proud of it. Next to his photo, there’s one of my brother. He’s standing outside in the corral next to his horse. The photo was probably taken soon after he arrived because in it he’s wearing the same outfit he wore when he left Chicago: a light-blue Windbreaker, jeans, and his white leather Nike sneakers—how I wish I had hugged him goodbye.
On the same wall there is an oil painting—a family portrait of sorts. My father’s face is on the upper-right-hand corner and the faces of Yesenia, Jorge, and Sonia radiate around his—immortalized in whatever top they wore to school on picture day the year before he left. I recognize the blue top Yesenia is wearing. It’s actually a dress that, at one point, had belonged to me. The clatter of silverware comes from the courtyard again and I get the urge to march out there and tell Martin we are leaving—fuck the hot springs, his ranch, and his dishes—let him wash his damn dirty dishes. The green metal door
that leads into the kitchen swings open and my father comes in carrying two glasses filled with water. He hands me one and sits on the vinyl car seat.
“Where did you have that painting made?” I ask, motioning toward his family portrait.
“In town,” he says, turning to look at it. “There’s an artist, several artists actually, and if you take them separate photos they can put them all together in a portrait for you.” He glances at me. “Why? Did you want to have one made?”
“No,” I say. “I was just curious.”
He studies the portrait for a while.
“Yesenia really changed a lot, huh?” he says. “The first time she came down here, I didn’t even recognize her.” He takes a sip of water. “She smokes a lot of mota, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” I say, though Sonia told me that he had called her once, saying that he was concerned about Yesenia. That someone needed to keep an eye on her, because she had just been in town and had been seen hanging around the carnival smoking joints with the local riffraff. “La Ovejita Perdida,” he had re-nicknamed her, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he realized that her being a little lost sheep might have something to do with his having left.
“And Pascuala?” he asks. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine,” I say, though I really want to say None of your business how she’s doing, as I feel he has no right to even breathe her name. “She’s in Chicago.”
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