But he wants Inez’s baby to be his own. Like an ascetic of the emotional heights he comes out of hiding to be drunk on love. Warmth becomes his instinct, tingle is his staple. He loves her. Old standards go to hell with the rest of the world. She’s a grandmother for chrissake. But she started young and recovered well with no stretch marks almost. And Inez is his. He sinks into it and doesn’t care, call it certain chemistry, the scent, the fit, the feel. The baggage.
One day he will flee; he knows this as some things are known. He plays along to avoid playing out. Soon they cannot ignore the belly between them. Inez knows this surely as she knew burros must be fed, eggs gathered, cows milked. She approaches the bulge lightly, laughingly asking what name he will want for his son.
“How do you know it’s a boy?”
“I have a feeling.” She offers a feel. “Look at these.”
She is a mistress of persuasion, even as he says, “It’s not mine.” She nods. “Why do you say it’s mine? You know it’s not. You know I know it’s not. I hope you know. I hope you don’t think I’m stupid.”
“No, no!” She waves away all chance of stupidity. “No, no—but … It is yours.” His turn to phooey. “No, no, por favor. It is the same soul, the same soul as it would be if the seed came from you.”
“That’s a good one.”
“You have never known faith. I give you faith. Why don’t you take it?”
“Faith won’t change facts.”
“What do you want?” She lays it on the table; the options are his. He wants a clean slate, abort and start over. But an abortion in the hills of Central Mexico could be scarce as gefilte fish. She reads him. “There are ways,” she says. He doesn’t press it, because it isn’t his to press. He refuses the control she wants him to take, because it would mean commitment, and she must know about that, too.
“I won’t tell you what to do, and I won’t be responsible for what you do.” He can’t tell her what to do, but he knows what she will do. She’s a mother with a baby in the oven in the practical world. She’ll do nothing, except for calling the baby his, practically pleading that he name the child, first name and last name, giving Tony Drury everything required for immortality. This is the problem of those few weeks; in a few days comes the lesser problem of those few weeks.
The sun and moon are due to cross.
Inez prepares for the Satanic shadow. She stays busy, explaining that the eclipse is also now a Christian event requiring heavy prayer, right living and plenty penitent pesos to shun the Devil on this unholy day of darkness. She says an eclispe is rife with fear, the Church’s tool.
“You sound like you don’t believe,” he says.
“Oh, no. I believe,” she says, because she’s Catholic, especially at Christmas and Easter, when it’s too hard to be odd woman out. But the dogma was crammed down her throat, and no matter how much ominus dominus sanctimonious perpendiculus the man in the robes delivers, it can’t kill the Indian. The Indian lives in the closet, she says; we will not forget the Indian way. We will resist the dogma and take back what was ours. He asks if he’s in the closet with the Indian.
“Yes!” she says; he is one of them, among them; she sees his truth. This as she preps for the eclipse according to church doctrine. Don’t worry, she says, tying two sticks in a cross and hanging it around her neck, over her fetus. The Devil loose in the world for the seven minutes that the moon covers the sun will be worse for pregnant females. She makes a cross for Anna Sylvia too, the pregnant burro, and she clears a place in the hen house, because livestock should be indoors undercover to prevent impregnation, because fucking animals to make strange babies is one big reason they call him the Devil. The guy will fuck anything.
She bides time, clinging to the Indian, devout to the church. He accepts this reminder that nothing is what it seems, and one day he’ll hit the road because exits remain constant down the line. Meanwhile, he and Inez prosper on the practical level, compounding their love by sharing a side of life too long gone.
His gift to her is simple: the rancho by virtue of connections. He isn’t a bad roommate or a bad date either. Her gift is simpler yet profound. She kills his doubt, no assessing allowed.
He’s a cosmopolitan horndog with his dick in the dirt but it ain’t so bad with a steady lay, three squares and a roof. With basics covered she points him in the inevitable direction, down to the dirt. Picking rocks out of a field breaks a sweat pronto, rendering unhappiness a luxury of the developed north. Free of cholera, typhus, dysentery, poverty and starvation, they are happy. They have each other. She shows him how to drink as a form of gratitude, as a toast to sundown. She shows him sexual communion as a release from a day of work. Inez can hardly believe the field nearest the house has lain fallow, its soil is so dark, so fertile and ready. Do you know what such a field can produce? He looks lost and says, “No. What?”
She is animate with giving, filling the gaps where a give will fit, where fatigue or uncertainty keeps him one step back. She fills in for him, picking up the pace of bending, picking, clearing, making things better.
The days pass quickly, working, eating, having sex, sleeping all night. Two beers and a shot of sauce in the evening are a tonic, leading to a pleasant altitude from which to see the day and know that no days have looked so full. He loves time with her.
A man removed from love expresses love most easily on the first few strokes of love, when the physical and the intangible lose their separation. One night he states his love while sliding exquisitely in and out of her, but exquisite love stops because third world women don’t require verbalization like developed women do. She absolves him of another gringo effort, the one using expression as a cure for doubt, spoken words as talisman against difficult spirits in the ether.
She laughs.
When they lie quietly he asks if they would be an old married couple now if they met twenty years ago and got along like this. She says no. Why not? Because love goes forward, not back; twenty years ago she was only nine, too young. She learned about love at twelve and loved her husband until he went away. Tony thinks the husband beat her. Tony thinks she killed her husband and the sweetness flowing forth is tangy by way of fermentation; that she too lives on the other side of where she’s been. Her eyes divulge her appetite. She could never feel that kind of love again and that’s good, she says, because it only led to trouble. What a woman.
Heidi comes down every few days to ransack provisions and share the wealth. Inez and Tony go regularly to town, which relieves the monotony of the field. They buy a harrow and a harness. Inez says people with burros are very lucky. He wonders who would wear the harness if not the burro. They harrow and plant corn, squash, beans, cukes, everything she can find, an acre of it. He wonders if rent is due on the first, late on the fifth, but along with not questioning who wears the harness or the why of life, he germinates, cracks the husk of his former self and reaches for the light. He feels good, stable, unsecure and grateful.
The eclipse in July is a banner day for the church. The moon and the Devil will cover the region in darkness and fear. Inez hides both burros in the chicken coop and hangs another cross outside for the brooding hens and another around her neck. She and Tony stay indoors from an hour before to an hour after. He wants to fuck. She calls him crazy and rattles in Spanish that the Devil can slip in there while they’re at it and squirt his devilish goo. Then what would they do? He drinks while she covers the windows and bars the door. So she isn’t perfect. What a relief. Their walk to town that afternoon is burroless and silent, like they met twenty years ago and have nothing left. She walks mechanically, eyes down.
In town she ducks into the church for some ad hominum dominum whominum minimum while he hits La Mexa for cocktails. He doesn’t mind and needs no discussion. She feels better after church, like his ex-wife used to feel after her pap smear and breast exam. The ex-wife hated doctors because they can’t be trusted and played with her unit way too much for science; she just knew it. But she fe
lt relieved, knowing what she needed to know.
He feels better too. And damaging as he believes the church to be, he also knows the sanctimonious bastard in the robe can only imagine the unit with envy. Oh, hell, maybe it’s too many cocktails. They’re good though, with new perspective, more comfort and less drive.
Inez views the gringos with the same marginal reverence as she views the church. She resents but believes. She knows intuitively the gringos are toxic but their power is real, and despite her union with dirt and sweat, she does want creature comfort. He thinks she could fit into washer/dryer reality in a New York minute with frost-free dreams, a self-cleaning oven and faith in material deliverance. But the gringo way is still foreign. She wants fluency in the dollarsphere. So she brushes and flosses as if clean teeth are a giant step northward.
Still, she is shy; there must be more to it. She comes into La Mexa after church but can’t stay. The Mexicans here are not from her class. Tony assures her: low class is good, not as good as high class but surely better than middle. Yet she fears the obvious difference.
Reasonably buzzed, he says, “Hey, it’s okay,” when it isn’t. She is surrounded by her betters and can’t stay, not as a guest. He insists, but she shuts him up, promising their son will come here one day and drink. Wha?
Well, it has a better ring to it than ninety thousand dollars for a college education. She keeps her courteous distance and says she’ll wait for him at her sister’s place. He complains that he already ordered her drink, and look, here it comes. She smiles, turns and walks out. He regrets her limitation and drinks her drink, but it tastes only cold and sour with certain recoil. Nor does it smooth the edges that are already dulled. Maybe it’s best that she left him to this vestige of former times.
“Excellent ass,” Cisco says.
Tony doesn’t mind, savoring a break in the new grind; Cisco is only an aging hippie barfly admiring the single aesthetic remaining. Other friends want to know what’s up. He tells them he cleared, harrowed and planted, he and Inez. Life now is mostly maintenance. He’s a novelty, gone away like he did, returning as a farmer with a new girlfriend who doesn’t look nearly as fat as she shows naked. Kensho sits nearby, a veteran now, serene and committed. “It sounds good,” he says. “I’d like to see what you did.” Tony nods and drinks. Kensho drinks and nods. The rest drink and nod and drink some more. Except for Whippet, who works the bar like a grizzled optimist on an old vein, up and back. She stops by Tony.
“It’s not nice to have so many girlfriends, is it? You’re not supposed to change so fast, are you?”
Suey leans back to call down the bar: “Yeah, what’s this shit with Heidi and Charles up in the dirt when we thought he was dead but he’s only up there fucking the dog with Jorge or whatever his name is because he thinks he’s a god or some shit? Jesus. What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” he says, wishing he hadn’t come here, knowing why he left. “I don’t know what that is. Love is strange, I guess. I don’t know.”
“You don’t waste time,” Cisco says. “Where’s the señorita’s sister?”
“Yeah, and what are all the goddamn bottles for?” Suey’s high-pitched, low-rent voice sounds like sitcom TV.
“I don’t know about bottles,” he softly says. He orders one for the road. The place picks up with more people, newcomers to the Mecca of self-discovery. They mingle freely with those already self-discovered.
A young man raises a pitcher and yells at Pancho, “Hey, Dude!” The young man is hungry for the cutting edge and so is Pancho.
Pancho ignores him because Rhonda exhales on a soft plea, “Otra vez por favor.” She sips shots at the end, apart from the knee-walking faction but working a thirst. Mashing her butt like it’s vile and used up, she says, “She came down for them.”
“Who came down for what?” Tony asks.
“Heidi. For plastic bottles, man,” Cisco says.
“But you never know why.” Rhonda says, lighting a new smoke on a new tune. “You never know why, and you never know when.”
“You ought to go up there,” he tells her. “It’s not hard to find.” She sips her whiskey. “Heidi did.”
“And look what she got,” Rhonda says.
“I can’t judge what people get around here. I’m still trying to figure out what they want.”
“How did she know he was up there? Ever think of that, Mr. Tony boy?”
He thought of it. She found him by accident. Or he let her know. Or she was doing him all along, and tracking was easy. What’s the difference? “What’s the difference? Things play out.” That’s all. But he’s thinking and it shows.
“She played you out. Does anything make a difference? Now you’re the crazy one, huh?”
“Why am I crazy, Rhonda? I’m getting along. I adapted. I explained this process to you before.”
A few heads turn. “You’re right as usual. But some men are easier to forget than others.” She kills her shot.
“Parry and thrust. Touché. You win again.” He needs another drink but not here. He smiles and swivels about.
She smokes. “Why do we do this?”
“We don’t have anything else to do.”
Pancho serves her new drink. “Him, too,” she says, ordering a peace drink for her marginal friend.
He swivels back. “Thanks, Rhonda. I don’t really think you should go up there.”
“Hey, thanks yourself,” she says, “I don’t think you should go up there either.” They toast friendship, and one for the road becomes another notch in another happy hour. He buys the next round. A bottle gets emptied. He tells Pancho to save it for Charles. They laugh. It’s simple, drunk again in community spirit, friends again with Rhonda. She still looks good.
He lays his eyes on her chest. “Rhonda,” he says.
“You’re not stupid,” she says. “Except now and then.”
“Just a thought.”
“Maybe another time.” She gathers her wits and her stuff and gives him a slow hug. “You’re not a bad guy, Tony, if you give yourself a chance.”
He watches her exit and makes a mental note to ask her how she holds together so well, late and drunk in a smoky, stinky dump like this. He ponders a Rhonda rematch once this impractical scene with Inez plays out, and makes a mental note to leave.
Because a practical man starts early and finishes early. Inez opens the door when he calls from the street at midnight. She leads him to a cornhusk bed, and they rustle the pitch-dark silence, bringing in the sheaves.
He slumbers. She holds him. He dreams of a niche filling in. The walk back is clear, the garden warm and rich.
XIV
Must Come Down
You can’t know how long you’ll last in a life so different from last month, or was it the month before? Like Tony Drury on a farm feeling fat and necessary, nurturing, weeding and pruning for growth. He watches plants grow, amazed at fundamentals. Inez tends the melons that can get you through a summer. She sweats like a ripe one at sunrise. He would measure happiness with another morning dew, but a Volkswagen rattles up the drive to the chicken coop. Kensho is the first visitor since the landlady.
He scans like God on the seventh day and nods as if it is good. He wants to garden. So three paths converge on a meditation of weeds and rocks until 90 proof sweat pours, and Tony sees that Kensho is better suited than he is to simple practicality. Why me? Why not him? “That’s bullshit,” he says aloud. The others laugh at old Tony, mumbling again. He smiles and bends back to it. He only challenges for truth. He’s the better match; he can leave any time. Kensho would jump into adobe love and blow another twenty years indentured to the mud. Tony Drury is saving his friend. He laughs now. They stare. Dirty and wet, he shakes his head. In a few hours he’ll hump Kensho’s rightful girlfriend, because he walked down a street one day and Kensho didn’t. He buffs two rows and feels better, because those in the dirt don’t worry like those who stay clean.
They knock off early and hit the tienda f
or a few beers, and Kensho stays for dinner. Plenty room at the rancho so he stays the night in quiet gratitude. Tony watches Inez watch Kensho, her eyes puzzled at the man heading out to the flagstones for the discomfort most available there. In awhile Inez proclaims the summit in whispers, as if sensitive to the needs of every man.
Breakfast is early, the morning clear again. Kensho says his Volkswagen can hold as much as a burro and cover the miles in no time. So if he has a list, he will fill it. Inez makes a list. He also wants to drive up the hill to see Heidi if he can find the way. Tony says it’s no cakewalk up there.
“I’m curious. She’s my friend.”
“No excuse required.”
“I won’t stay. I want to see … you know.”
“She likes it in her way. She thinks he plans to kill himself. It’s very melodramatic.”
“She’s wrapped up,” Kensho says with an air of knowing. “Charles will get tired and go away. He’s very strong. But she might need help.”
“He’s too strong to get tired. She goes for groceries and liquor. It’s the summer stock he always wanted to direct. Maybe you’re right. It’ll wear thin. He’ll be down soon. Nice pollo in the oven, some liquor by the fire.”
They walk outside. “I brought bottles,” Kensho says, showing his back seat full of plastic bottles.
“You’ll fit right in. Maybe you’ll like it. I didn’t. It’s dirty and mental and smells like shit.”
“Painful for you,” he says. “She’s your friend too.”
“I got the antidote.”
“Yes. You’re shameless like Charles.”
“Shameless? For what?”
Kensho cautiously smiles. “Love is hard to find.”
“Where are you looking?”
A cloud rolling down the road becomes a truck and comes up the drive. Heidi heads for the house. “Kensho. I’ll be right back.” Her pants hang like old skin, unsluffed.
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