by Obed Silva
“For twenty years,” she says after taking a drink from the caguama, “I lived with your father, and for those twenty years I never stopped loving him, even in the moments after he’d hit me. Because that’s how your father was, a bad man, but my bad man, and I loved him, we all loved him—your brothers, your sister, your uncles, and even you. I know that you loved him even though you say you didn’t, and you know what, he loved you, too. He would always talk about you, to me, to your brothers and sister, to everyone. He was proud of you for being so smart, for accomplishing all your goals. When you graduated the first time he celebrated for a week straight, drinking and listening to music. I know that is not a good thing, but he would say that he was celebrating his son graduating college, and he would play ‘Hermoso Cariño’ a thousand times a day, and sometimes he would cry like a little boy. You are lucky, Obed. You are lucky because you never had to live with him. You are lucky for having a strong mother and for being like she is. Sometimes I used to wish that I could have been more like your mother and left your father the way she did. But where would I have gone? Where would I have taken my kids? They would have hated me if I had left your father. They all loved him too much. Look at how sad they are. Look at me. I have nothing but my kids, and you, and this caguama.”
She’s crying now, tears flooding her face, and snot bubbling at her nostrils. No more an in-between. The laughter is completely gone. But I can see that she’s happy, light and free. There’s a realization in her words. Epiphany. She no longer has to leave, run away with her kids. She looks up toward the blue sky and her tears rush to her ears and her heart says goodbye to Juan, and she takes another drink from her caguama.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Cokis,” I say to her. “Juan Silva’s not going to be coming home anymore.”
“I know. I know.”
* * *
I saw him hit her once. We were at a bar: me, my father, and her. We had gone there to see and hear Axcel sing. She was part of a small band and had been wanting me to come out and see her sing while I was in town. So here we were, drinking, smoking, and watching my sister perform in front of a small audience at a seedy bar on an otherwise uneventful Saturday night. There was a pool table there, and my father and I played a few games and drank and smoked while Cokis sat and drank at our table watching Axcel sing. We were having a great time, feeling merry. Then something changed. It came suddenly, like an unforeseen tsunami. My father and I had come back to the table to sit with Cokis and drink shots of tequila with her. Up to this point in the night we’d only been drinking beer, but I suggested we drink tequila to cheer and celebrate Axcel, who was doing a fine job of keeping the party going and everyone entertained with her lovely voice.
We have one round, then another, then another, then another, then another, all at my behest, then suddenly, as I was about to order another one from the waitress, I turn to my father and Cokis, and see my father’s forehead connecting with hers. The shock of it all paralyzes me. I’m staring at Cokis as blood is running down her face from an open gash on her forehead. My father is casually sitting back and taking a drink from his beer. I can’t hear anything even though I know Cokis is crying and Axcel is still singing, unaware of what has just happened. I’m now staring at my father, but he’s looking ahead, knowing that my eyes are on him. “¡Hijo de su puta madre!” I yell at him, and then roll over to Cokis. I grab a napkin from the neighboring table and hand it to her; she receives it with her bloody hands and places it over the gash, but it’s not enough. The blood keeps pouring out. I continue to yell at my father, asking him why he’d hit her, but he doesn’t answer. He pushes over the table, stands up, and yells at Cokis to stop crying. Now everyone in the bar has taken notice of what’s happening, even Axcel, whose voice has gone silent—the band has stopped playing. Cokis is bleeding profusely, I’m cursing at my father who’s cursing at Cokis, and there’s a flipped table on the floor. Three men walk up to us, wanting to know what’s going on. My father tells them to mind their business, and it escalates from there. Suddenly my father is fighting with all three of them and women are screaming. I see my father taking punches and I become engulfed with rage. I’m punching away at the men punching my father, while desperately trying to not fall out of my wheelchair. But they’re all too strong and I’m too disabled. They’re dragging my father toward the entrance as they continue pummeling him. I make one last attempt to defend him. I grab a bottle from the nearest table and break it over the back of the head of one of the men, at which point he turns to me and punches me on the right side of my face, knocking me out of my wheelchair. Cokis and Axcel run over to me and try to help me up, but I’m too drunk, too wild. There’s an uncontrollable blaze inside of me. Everything is out of my control. From the floor, I watch as the three men continue to beat my father and eventually drag him out of the bar. I shut my eyes and wish that I could kill those men for what they’re doing to him. When I open my eyes, Cokis’s blurry face is right there, looking at me through a stream of blood.
“Obed, ¿estás bien?” she asks, and instead of answering her question, I ask her, “Why did he hit you?”
“No se.”
* * *
I’m drained from being in the sun all day and still feeling hungover. Cokis offers me a drink from her caguama, but I say no. Then my tío Polo, who’s leaning against the hood of his car, offers me a drink from his pint of Hornitos tequila from which he’s just taken a drink, and I say no to that, too. I’m still feeling discomfort in my stomach, and I want nothing more than to take a shit. My guts feel full and dry. I also need to sleep. So after a few more minutes of watching my brothers mope and Cokis and Polo disappear into their bottles, I excuse myself and go to my room. At first, Cokis tries to stop me, begging me to stay, to drink with her, and telling me that others are on their way with more beer, that this is where la fiesta will be taking place, that this is where my father will be receiving his final despedida. I still refuse. I’m too tired and my body hurts.
In the room, before falling asleep, I think about my father and of how he’d fucked everything up, and I think of how much I already miss him and of how it would be nice to take a shit. I think of going to the bathroom and making another attempt at moving my bowels, but in the end I’m just too tired. My body aches all over, well, the part of it that I can feel, especially my back. But it feels good to finally be out of the sun and to be able to lie down on the bed and stretch. Soon, I’m fast asleep.
I sleep for nearly four hours. It’s dark out and not so fucking hot anymore when I wake up. And suddenly, I have the urge to do something, anything, to move around. I want to feel something pleasant. I think about Rocío and how nice it would be to see her. I also still want to take a shit, but I quickly decide to wait until morning to do that. I also want to change my clothes because my pants and shirt are wrinkled and shrouded in dust, but I also decide to do that in the morning. Fuck it, I’m already dressed. So when I get out of bed and into my wheelchair, all I do is take my shirt off, leaving on only my tank top.
* * *
Cokis was right, people were coming over. Almost every character that had stayed up drinking at the parlor the night before is now hanging out and drinking on the driveway and in front of the house. Music is playing loudly—rancheras and corridos. Seems more like a party for a birthday than a mournful gathering after a funeral. When I come out, everyone lets out a welcoming cheer. I smile and say hello. Quickly I’m offered a beer by my cousin Víctor-Manuel, who’s closest to the door. “Toma, güey, una cerveza,” he says, putting a beer in my hand. It’s already open. Aarón, Danny, Cokis, and some of my other cousins come and cheer with me as I take my first drink, and then, for a moment, the scene from the day before, when I first arrived at the parlor, is replayed, with different people coming up to me and hugging me and saying hello. I don’t like the attention, and once it’s over I quickly integrate myself into the party and drink away with everyone else.
I find myself talking to V�
�ctor-Manuel, my cousin Veronica, and my tía María. All three of them are sitting on the floor of the driveway with their backs against the house, and all three have a beer in their hand. I’m right across from them drinking my own beer. We’re laughing and cracking jokes when something catches my attention: My tía María’s two front top teeth are missing—eight and nine. What the fuck! I swear they were there last night. I’m squinting, looking closely at this black gap in her mouth, wondering if I’m already drunk. But I can’t be. I’ve barely started drinking. Then my tía María, noticing my confused face, says, “¿Qué paso, mijo? ¿Por qué me ve así?” I’m embarrassed to ask, but I can’t help it any longer, so after taking a moment to think of what to say, I come out with it. “Your top teeth,” I tell her, “they’re gone.” “No,” she says, “they’re not gone,” and in an instant, after she closes her mouth and opens it again, there they are, just like the night before. What the fuck! Now I’m really blown. And the three of them are laughing, holding up their beers. They’re in on the joke, and I’m struggling to figure it out. Then my tía closes and opens her mouth again, and again the teeth are gone. More laughter. Then there they are again. More laughter. And I finally get it. And I’m laughing, too. The fucking things are fake. Her real teeth are gone. These are attached to a retainer and are a temporary replacement. Somehow she’s been flipping them backward and then forward, making them disappear and then reappear. And all of a sudden I start thinking of my father and my tíos Mundo and Polo. I run my tongue over my own two front top teeth and think about the genetic possibilities, of the odds and where I fit in them.
* * *
The next day when I wake up with my front facing the ceiling, the first thing I do is run my tongue over my entire crown of upper teeth. Then I laugh at what I’m thinking. No, that shit’ll never happen to me. I take care of mine. I see my dentist every six months. She always notifies me when it’s time. The second thing I do is get up and go to the bathroom: complete relief! It is then that I know that all is going to be all right.
26
Ten years after my father’s death and the day I wrote down the first word of this story in a journal, I come to the end of this tale as a forty-year-old man. In eight years I will be the exact age my father was when he died. It’s taken me longer to write this book than it will take for me, from this moment on, to get to that point. And I have to ask myself: Am I the man that my father was? If I am, then I, too, will probably not make it past fifty; and if I am not, it won’t be alcohol that kills me.
* * *
I am two people.
I am the man who is the smart college professor who wears a tie and inspires his students, who by his mere presence shows them that they, too, can aspire to complete their degrees and live out their career goals. I am the man who gives inspirational talks about redemption and overcoming obstacles to large groups of young people at different college campuses and other institutions. I am the man who was pardoned by an immigration judge and allowed to remain in the United States. I am the man who paints, the man who writes. I am the man who is always smiling and seems to be unaffected by stress or even sorrow. I am the man who can tell you a thousand stories and make you fall in love with him. I am the man who can love you back with everything that he has. I am the man who cries during sad movies and cries even more when reading sad books. I am the man who is sensitive and caring. I am the man who is a good friend. I am the man whose friends and family members ask to be their best man or the godfather of their child. I am the man who is a brother, a nephew, a grandson, a cousin, and most importantly—I am the man who is the son of his mother.
But if I am that man, then I am also this man: I am the man who rolls up to the bar, has four double shots of whiskey within a couple of hours and then begins to slur his language. I am the drunk man. I am the drunk man at the bar who spills food all over his shirt because he has no sense of being. I am the drunk man who falls off his wheelchair in the street at midnight and has to be helped up by a total stranger. I am the drunk man who wakes up on the kitchen floor with piss all over his pants. I am the drunk man who gets a DUI after his pardon and is afraid to return to Mexico to visit his brothers because of it. I am the drunk man who lost his wife because he couldn’t stop drinking and betraying her love. I am the drunk man who has lost every woman he has ever loved because he loved drinking even more. I am the drunk man who drinks to not feel alone. I am the drunk man who drinks to not feel at all. I am the drunk man who drinks because he’s ashamed and then drinks to mask that shame. I am the drunk man who is always dying, dying, dying. I am the drunk man who is the son of his father. I am the drunk man.
Act 3
THE BEGINNING
EVEN THE DARKEST NIGHT WILL END AND THE SUN WILL RISE.
—Les Misérables (MUSICAL)
27
Around 9:30 p.m. she finished washing the last dish and told her brothers that it was time to go to sleep. Their father was in the bedroom and had gone to sleep an hour earlier. “Vamos,” she said to them in a motherly voice as she set two large knitted blankets on the concrete floor. Since their mother had run off with another man to el otro lado a couple of years before and their eldest sister had recently married and moved in with her husband, it was now up to her to look after her brothers and father. In an instant, she had become the woman of the house. “It’s time we all go to sleep,” she told the boys. “We can’t wake up our father. He’s tired and has to be up early to go to work tomorrow.”
For almost a year she had been committed to performing this nightly ritual: Once their father was sound asleep, she would clean the house with the help of her brothers, and then wash the dishes while the brothers talked among themselves by the living room window. And after she’d laid out the blankets and her brothers had sprawled out their skinny brown bodies over them, she’d walk to the restroom, which was located in the backyard away from the house. There she’d change into a long floral nightgown of different bright colors her mother had left behind. It meant a lot to her. Reminded her of her mother and of the urgency of the role she was now forced to fulfill. Once changed into the gown she would walk back to the living room to lie next to her brothers and finally go to sleep. This was what she was about to do when, on this night, at the moment that she was going to bend her knees to sit on the floor, there was a quiet tap on the window. Straightening herself back up, she paused for a second in the darkness of the room and wondered who it could be at the window at that time of night. There was another knock, and she thought about her father waking up. She’d grown protective of her father’s sleep. She knew how hard he worked for them and how much he needed his rest. So, not wanting the tapping to continue, she walked to the window and slightly pulled the curtain aside.
It was Juan, the seventeen-year-old boy she had been seeing for the last couple of weeks but with whom she had also broken off their relationship because he’d been pressuring her to sleep with him.
“What do you want?” she asked him in a whisper.
“I want to talk to you. Come out,” he said.
“No. I can’t. My brothers are asleep right here and my dad is asleep in his room. I don’t want to wake them.”
But he persisted. “Please. I just want to talk to you for a little bit. I’ll be quiet. I promise.” He wasn’t going to leave unless she did as he said, so she, very quietly, barefoot and in her mother’s nightgown, walked to the door, slowly unlocked it, and pulled it open. Nothing could have prepared her for what came next. She felt it on her stomach before she saw it. It was a small black pistol with his finger on the trigger. She froze in the doorway as a slight breeze blew through her hair and ruffled her gown. The flowers shook and her bare feet rooted themselves into the concrete floor beneath her.
* * *
She had fallen for his charm and handsomeness. And he’d talked sweet to her. At seventeen she had never had a boyfriend and thought that it couldn’t hurt to at least try him. So she accepted his invitations to the park, for a
walk around the neighborhood, for a soda, an ice cream. She liked him. He was charismatic and joyful. Until he wasn’t. A kiss led to another kiss and another kiss to a touch and a touch to more touching and more touching to him pressing his entire body on her and wrapping his hands tightly around her wrist while pressing his mouth on hers. He was suffocating her. Drowning her in his mad desire. She needed to breathe. She needed to free herself and run as far away as she could from him. And she did. She had seen him for who he really was, and she didn’t like it.
* * *
But he’d returned, armed with an idea. It had been growing in him since she had escaped his grasp, telling him that she didn’t want to see him again. Now it had taken full control of him and here he was, willing to pull the trigger if she didn’t do what he asked.
“Cállate,” he told her. “Don’t say a word, or I will shoot you.”
She didn’t make a sound, just turned to look at her brothers as they slept, unstirred by what was happening at the door of their house. She wanted to scream for help, for her dad to wake up. But nothing came out, only short huffs of desperate breath. It was her fault. She was the reason he was here. And it would be her fault if her father’s sleep was disrupted. He had to be up early for work.