by Arturo Islas
By then, rumors about the circumstances of his death had reached them. The newspapers had run front page articles about the incident, and she and the others in the family who loved him had filled in the details for themselves. “The family,” as usual—more concerned with its pride than with justice—had begun to lie to itself about the truth.
Lena was a scandal to the family because she ran around with the “low class” Mexicans in her high school. She was not a good student like Yerma or her cousin Miguel Chico, whom she judged “goody-goodies.” To Lena being young meant having fun and she enjoyed herself in ways that horrified her father’s sisters and would have shocked Mama Chona had she known. Lena helped organize a club of Mexican girls called “Las Rucas,” and they sponsored dances which the pachucos attended faithfully. Lena became very popular with them for she had a good voice and the bands that played for the dances regularly asked her to sing.
In all these activities, Felix defended her strongly against the objections of Jesus Maria, Eduviges, and Miguel Grande. Her uncle, unlike her aunts, was worried about her physical safety and not her virtue. “I’m safer with them than with the gringos,” she told him. She did not speak to her aunts, and when family occasions demanded that they be together, Lena put on more makeup than usual and wore the shortest, tightest skirt she could find. Later, her father would make his wife Angie laugh by imitating the looks on his sisters’ faces as they tried not to notice Lena’s appearance.
The hypocrisy of the family enraged her, and when she began to realize that the sexual implications of her father’s murder were going to keep them from strongly pursuing justice, she took matters into her own hands. Angie was the only member of the family Lena respected in those days, but she was unapproachable, refusing to listen to anything that soiled the memory of her husband. On the day of Felix’s funeral Lena stopped trying to talk her mother into avenging his death. Throwing the clods of dirt into his grave, Angie paused and said distinctly for all to hear, “Felix, I want you to rest in peace. You’ve suffered enough.” After that, Lena went directly to Miguel Grande.
“Tio, I want to know what happened. And I want you to tell me the truth.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes, I do, God damn it. And if you don’t tell me, I’ll find out on my own and cause as much trouble as I can.”
She was seventeen and possessed a toughness that Miguel found attractive in women. She was short for her age, her breasts too large, her legs skinny, her complexion too dark, but she moved with Lola’s grace. “All right,” he said, “I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to like it, and I don’t want you to repeat any of this to your mother.”
Lena wept throughout, especially when she remembered her father’s gentle nature, but she wept without knowing it, and when she looked at Miguel as he finished his story, she was surprised that her face was wet. “I wish I was a man,” she said immediately. “I’d kill that little son of a bitch.” Her vehemence astonished Miguel who had thought of her as just another of Felix’s spoiled brats, and he was not prepared for the tone of her next question.
“What do you think of all this, Tio?” She asked with a child’s wonder that almost broke him.
He resorted to his official line, “I don’t care what my brother did. I loved the hell out of him.”
When Miguel thought about his brother after all the facts were known, he felt ashamed and frustrated. He had never been able to understand Felix’s obsession and did not want to. The thought of touching another man in those ways disgusted him, and his knowledge that Felix enjoyed doing such things had created a barrier between them that neither ever made the effort to overcome.
When they were children Felix enjoyed behaving like a clown, putting on his mother’s straw hat, mincing and dancing about in ways that made even Miguel laugh. As they grew older, Felix’s behavior embarrassed Miguel Grande, and he hoped that the stigma of being jotos would not reach past his brother.
An assistant from the DA’s office came to escort them, even though Miguel Grande had been to that office many times. The formality reminded Lena that her uncle had not been allowed near the place where her father’s murderer was being kept in custody. The attorney shook hands with Miguel Grande in a broad, friendly manner and nodded politely toward Lena. She sat down facing him as he explained how the evidence convincingly showed that her father was in fact “excuse me, ma’am” a homosexual and that he had seduced other men, some of whom were willing to testify during a jury trial. The attorney thought it useless to subject the family to the shame and embarrassment of such an investigation. The young soldier had acted in “self-defense and understandably,” given the circumstances, and there was no reason to prosecute him. He had already been transferred to another base.
Lena knew her opinion meant nothing, for she was a minor. She waited for her uncle to raise the obvious objections, to express the deep rage she felt at such injustice. Miguel Grande remained silent. He was as helpless as she, and in her ignorance she decided that his love for her father was without conviction, and that once again the family pride had led him to humiliate himself before men who did not give a damn about people like them. She was stunned. Had she been permitted to say anything, she told Miguel Chico many years later—after she had moved to California and could talk about it—she would have asked two questions. “What is the name of the son of a bitch who killed my father? I’ll kill him myself since you men can’t think about anything but your balls.” And to the district attorney: “How many times have you sucked a cock, you prissy fool, or gotten some whore to suck yours?”
As Miguel Grande drove her home, Lena looked at him with different eyes and said to no one in particular, “God, what a family.” He said nothing but felt some shame which was tempered by the knowledge that when she grew older she would understand and forgive him. In the police car outside her father’s house, they talked.
“Will you tell your mother, brother, and sister about the DA’s decision?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Will you try not to think about it any more, Lena, for your father’s sake?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“I’m very, very sorry, Lena.”
She faced him. “Tell it to the judge, you fucking hypocrite.” She slammed the door and ran into the house. A few months later she was glad to find out that he had not been selected chief, thinking it might force him to understand what life was really like for “low class” Mexicans in the land that guaranteed justice under the law for all.
* * *
When Miguel Grande told his oldest son that he was in love with his mother’s best friend and did not know what to do about it, they were sitting in the study of Miguel Chico’s home in San Francisco. For the first time Miguel Chico felt that his father was talking to him as an equal, and that sense, more than the distraught man before him, made him respond with some patience.
The phone calls from the desert had begun earlier in the week, and he had been annoyed that his own schedule had to be adjusted to accommodate the stupidities of his father. He was in the prudish period of his life; the operation that would change everything was a few years away.
“Mickie, I’m coming to see you. Do you think you can spare the time?” His father’s voice lacked its usual sarcastic edge, a shift Miguel Chico caught immediately.
“Sure, Dad. When do you think you’ll get here?”
“Well, Nina wants to fly up there and meet us. Your mother, Lola, and I will drive up in the middle of the week.”
“I’ll be here. Just phone when you’re within two or three hours of getting into the City.”
“All right son. I sure appreciate it.”
His father only called him “son” in that tone when he wanted to discuss a serious matter, and Miguel Chico could tell that something was very wrong. He knew that everyone except his mother was aware of the affair between Lola and his father but he didn’t understand why his godmother was coming too. He considered the possibiliti
es without worry or involvement. His father’s antics had long since stopped affecting him directly except when he was with his family during the holidays. The old childhood feelings were then dredged up and he had to be alone for several days after his return to the West Coast. To recover, to rid himself of the desert, he walked on the beach or in the fog.
His curiosity about his parents was purely intellectual now, and it amused him perversely to see his father caught between the two women in his life. Clearly, he had not yet told Juanita about the affair or she would not be driving out with them. Even his mother’s masochistic streak was not that wide—or if it was, she too had been buried by that desert. He spent the week waiting for them. Nina arrived first. He met her at the airport and they were able to talk as she was preparing dinner for the two of them before the others came.
“There’s something wrong with your father,” she began. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No, I don’t, Nina. You see them all the time. If you don’t know, who does? When I phone them, he asks me if I’m angry with them and tells me dirty jokes. Mother tells me who has died and who is getting married or having kids.”
It pained him to play this cat and mouse game with his godmother. Ordinarily they were able to talk with candor and mutual curiosity, even if they did not agree. Now they were forced into evasive tactics, and disgust for his father began seeping into Miguel Chico’s voice; already he felt himself assuming the son’s role of blaming the father for the wretchedness of the world.
“Well,” Nina said, “he’s been acting very strange lately, and it’s driving your mother crazy.”
Miguel looked at his godmother. Her hair was salt and peppery, her eyes watery in a disturbing way he did not remember. Still, they were as alert as ever, and he now saw the mark of obstinacy in her jaw as an emblem of survival. The last time they had spent time alone together was a year after Antony’s death. The slackness of her expression then as he helped her set tile in the bathroom of the house Ernesto had built in the old neighborhood had bothered him. Miguel Chico could not understand why they had moved next door to the house Tony had loved and begged them not to leave, the house where he had lived most of his life. It was, he thought, another sign of the Catholic guilt and desire for punishment that plagued his parents’ generation and from which there seemed no escape. In his arrogance, Miguel believed he was finding ways out of it through his university education. He had not yet had time to combine learning with experience, however, and he still felt himself superior to those who had brought him up and loved him.
“What do you mean ‘strange’? What is he doing? Does it have anything to do with Felix? That really tore him apart, you know. And when he didn’t get chief of the department, he lost a lot of faith in himself and what he’s believed in all his life about this country. I’d be acting ‘strange’ about all that myself, Nina. Anybody would.”
“This is different.”
“How?” Miguel noticed how carefully Nina was watching his face as she spoke.
“A few months ago he broke out in hives, and when your mother wanted to rub ointment on them he accused her of having caused them and told her not to touch him. She was so upset that she came over right away to tell me, even though she didn’t want to drag me into it. You know how protective she’s always been of his big fat ego.”
“So? He was nervous and upset about all that’s been going on in that godawful town for the past few years. If I lived there, I’d have a permanent case of hives. I used to get rashes all the time as a kid, remember?”
“I’m serious, Mickie. This is different. Let me tell you the rest. After the hives went away, he started rolling up the bedspread and putting it between them. Your mother didn’t know what was happening, and she was afraid to say anything. Every time she tried, he found fault with what she said, no matter what. She’s been a nervous wreck for two months. What do you think of that?”
“What does Lola think of it?” Miguel looked blankly at his godmother. She faltered.
“Oh, you know. She never says anything.” There was a long silence. Fine, spicy aromas were reaching them from the kitchen.
Miguel sensed that she knew what all of them had known for a long time and had come to protect her sister, to be on hand if something happened during the visit. His childhood adoration for her returned in a rush. Despite her stubborn nature, which was formidable and for which she had paid dearly, discretion and compassion were great forces in her soul. He felt anger toward Tony for having drowned himself.
“Nina,” he decided to be direct. “It’s very simple and you know it. Everybody knows it. Guilt has caught up with him, and he can’t stand it any more.”
She beamed. “You’re a wise child,” she said as she embraced him. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.” Leading him to the meal she had prepared, she added in a confiding tone, “After dinner I want to tell you about the spirits. You’ll never believe what I’ve seen.”
“Right,” he said.
“Don’t make fun, Mickie. You just won’t allow yourself to see how psychic you are.”
Now, faced with an uncontrollably weeping father, Miguel Chico didn’t feel very psychic. He could only look on his father’s pain in an abstract way, and he knew enough not to touch him. Years before, helping him pack in the middle of the night for his journey to Los Angeles to attend his brother Armando’s funeral, Miguel Chico had attempted to comfort his father. It was the first time he had seen Miguel Grande cry and, still a child, he had reached out to him.
“Don’t do that,” his father had said, pushing him away. “Men don’t do that with each other. Let me cry by myself. Go away.”
The rebuff had hurt him and he had remembered the lesson. There was some vindictiveness in the impersonal tone he now used.
“What’s the matter, Dad?”
“I’m in love with Lola, and I have to tell your mother about it.”
“Don’t you think she knows already?”
“Maybe, but not from me, and I have to tell her.”
“Why? What will change if you do?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t stand the way things are now. It’s getting to me pretty bad.”
“Won’t telling her make it worse? Unless you’re going to tell her that you’re leaving her to marry Lola. Is that what you want to do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t decide. I love them both so much. I want them to be one person.”
“Well, they’re not. And you’ve got to decide.”
His father’s tears continued in steady lines down his face, but the ugly, choking sounds had subsided. “I can’t make up my mind. You are your mother’s favorite. How do you feel about my leaving her and marrying Lola?”
“Make the decision first and then ask me.”
Above them, in the living room, they could hear the sounds of the women. Miguel Chico was struck with a strong desire to know what they were talking about.
“Can they hear us?” his father asked, panic-stricken.
The look on Miguel Grande’s face made his son hate him more than ever. “Don’t worry,” he said angrily, “they can’t hear anything.”
Then Miguel Chico did not know what to say. He had always felt that his father disliked him for being too delicate, too effeminate. Miguel Grande had consistently refused to acknowledge that his son’s feelings and needs might be different from his own, and he had thus failed to help the boy understand life. Because he had not looked at himself or others truly, the son could see no way of helping him now. Miguel Chico did not want the responsibility of his father’s guilt; he had guilts enough of his own.
“What does Lola say about your leaving her best friend?” Miguel Chico began to feel the exhilaration of cruelty, of being able to injure as one has felt injured.
He carefully avoided saying “mother,” knowing the very word would rekindle his father’s jealousy over Juanita’s deep and abiding love for her son. Years ago, upon learning of the Oedipus complex, Miguel Chico
had savored the intuitive knowledge that his father was no rival for his mother’s affections. It was clear to both mother and son that Miguel Grande at his most brutal could not break into their intricately woven web of feeling for each other.
His father’s greatest strategic error in the losing battle to take precedence over his son in Juanita’s esteem had occurred in the ninth year of their marriage. Many children were dying of polio, and he had refused to let Juanita take Miguel Chico, then eight, to the doctor.
“He’s only being a brat,” Miguel Grande said to her. “I overheard him on the phone saying he was pretending to be sick so that he wouldn’t have to go to school.”
“He loves school,” Juanita replied. “I’m going to call the doctor for an appointment.”
“I’m the head of this family, and you’re not calling anybody. I won’t have you spoil him any more. You’ve already taken him away from me.”
Juanita did not understand her husband, but she obeyed him. During the following weekend, Miguel Chico complained of backaches and a strange fatigue. Awakening from a nap, he experienced a moment of horror because it was growing darker rather than lighter outside. He wandered into the kitchen to ask about it. “It’s five in the afternoon, not five in the morning, Mickie,” his mother said. “How do you feel?” He did not answer but instead looked out at the darkness of the late September dusk, recognizing the same sense of doom and fear he had felt when Maria told him about the end of the world.
The following morning he got up and dressed for school, but he could not bend over to tie his shoes. Juanita tied them for him. He went to school but could not concentrate. At lunchtime his mother phoned from work and told him to take a bus downtown and meet her at the doctor’s office as soon as school was out. A stranger carried him off the bus and to the doctor’s office before Juanita arrived.
Until she was told that only his leg was affected and that he would have a slight limp for the rest of his life, Juanita thought her son was going to die. “It’s all your fault,” she said to her husband.