He stood by the buffet and plucked tamales from the pot with a dented pair of tongs. It was a teenager named Marco who had died. The driver was drunk probably when he hit the boy. It happened at three in the afternoon right by the Citadel Mall, and the driver kept on going and didn’t stop and the police were searching for his truck.
The young ones were the hardest. They were students, some of them, or newlyweds. They left babies behind and pretty wives who swayed beside the coffin. It was easier with the vets from his Korean War group. They were dropping every other week now, and people were sorry but they weren’t surprised. He looked around the room, at the high schoolers in their dress shirts and the parents who couldn’t be forty yet judging from their faces. All those funerals he’d gone to, for kids and old soldiers and mothers who died too young, and those grieving relatives who filled their plates but didn’t eat. He took it all in. He swallowed their sorrows whole, and sometimes he tried to cry but the tears didn’t come.
He found a chair in the back of the hall. They’d set up card tables near the front, and that’s where the family sat and the mother was weeping again and the other ladies gathered around her to rub her shoulders and stroke her wavy hair. They weren’t at the funeral hall this time and there’d be no graveside ceremony either, not with the snow still coming down and the ground harder than marble. They’d need jackhammers to break through. He balanced a paper plate across his knee, and another lady sat down beside him and fumbled in her purse. She pulled out a wrinkled Kleenex. She looked at him while she blew her nose. Loud as a trumpet the way she sounded. She eyed him like a bill collector, and for a moment he wanted to stand and leave.
“It’s a shame,” he said. He shifted in his chair. “Not even eighteen and he’s gone.”
“I was his teacher,” she said. “Three years I taught him piano.” She set her purse down.
He watched her fingers. They were long as a surgeon’s, but the knuckles were already beginning to show and they’d be knobby before she was old. They’d be crooked like his mother’s had been. That’s why she’d worn gloves every day, even in summertime. Thin white cotton ones with lace around the top, and he hadn’t gone to her funeral, but his sister told him that’s how she was buried, too. In her prettiest summer pair. “It’s a shame,” he said again.
“I taught him on the day he died.” She pulled another tissue from her pack. “I was running late. Three years and I was always on time and that Tuesday I was late.”
“Let’s hope they find the driver.” He poked around the tamale and found a stringy piece of pork.
“If I’d been on time that day, he’d be here still. He’d be home with his mother.”
“That’s not how things work,” he said. “If his time was up then it was up for sure, and it didn’t matter when your lesson ended.” The car would have found its way to him, he wanted to say. If not that one then another one and the ending would have been the same.
She looked at him, but kindly this time, and her eyes were pale as his Evelyn’s. “You look familiar. Are you a teacher from the school?”
“I’m retired,” he said. “On Thursdays I volunteer at the DAV.”
“I have a memory for faces.”
“You might have seen me at Safeway,” he said. “Every Wednesday I go for the coupons.” It was time to move to another chair. Time to leave and soak his feet because they were beginning to burn again. Another half hour and he’d be limping to his car, but he stayed where he was because he wanted to hear her voice some more. She was a music teacher, and he wanted her to sing.
She pointed over his shoulder at the streamers and balloons that hung from the ceiling tiles. “It’s strange having balloons at a funeral.”
“Maybe that’s how they do it down in Mexico. Maybe they like it festive,” he said. “I went to this funeral once where they had sparklers and firecrackers and a bar with champagne.”
He stopped then, and his cheeks went hot. It wasn’t right to talk about his hobby, how he went to funerals instead of visiting Evelyn, who lay alone in a private room. Just last year she’d stopped recognizing him and she loved another man in the unit anyway, a retired policeman who still had all his hair and he was as forgetful as she was, God help him. They were perfect together how they sat in their wheelchairs and held hands over the lunch table. Her pale eyes were clear again, and she laughed at all the old policeman’s jokes. It was easier going to funerals than visiting her, than reading paperback books or calling his sons, who didn’t want to hear from him and they were never home anyway. He went to funerals and comforted the mourners and ate their food, and when he came home the tightness was gone from his chest. He was contented again, and he sat in his kitchen and soaked his feet in Epsom salts to keep the sting away.
“I’m sorry. It sounds like you’ve lost a lot of friends.”
Even his ears were burning now. “I’ll be eighty next March.” He looked at the window, and the wind was blowing flakes sideways against the glass. It was cold as Korea outside but not as damp. All those nights along the reservoir and the sky was bright with flares, all light and no warmth, and almost sixty years later his legs were still wrecked from the cold and from the shoe pacs that had frozen and torn away his skin. “We’re dropping like leaves.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she said. “But look at Marco. There are no guarantees not even for the young.”
He looked at her hands again, at her ring finger. She wasn’t wearing any band, and his eyes moved up to her face and that’s when he saw the two hammered bands on a chain around her neck. He straightened up in his chair. He drew his shoulders back. “Are you married?” He asked the question without meaning to. He was watching those two yellow rings, and he needed to know.
“My husband died. It’s been four years.” She reached for the bands and clasped her hand around them.
She’d changed her hair since the funeral, he could see it now. She’d let it go to gray and her face was thinner and not as round, but even from the back of the funeral home he’d seen those eyes and he remembered them still. He felt a little queasy. His stomach rumbled, and he regretted eating the pork and especially those refried beans. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She tilted her head again. “What about you? I bet you’re a grandpa.”
He nodded. “Two sons and four grandsons I never see. They’re out in Wisconsin and too busy to visit.”
“Well maybe you should visit them.” She was smiling a little now. “If those folks at the DAV will cut you loose for a Thursday or two.” She got up and straightened out her skirt, brushing it with her palms. She went to the mother and crouched beside her chair. She stayed there for a long while and the mother began to rock again, but without sobbing this time or making any sound. The teacher stood back up. She set her hand on her hip and stared at him.
He needed to stop with the obituaries. Start up his trains again or the radio Evelyn had bought him years before. His antenna was still up though old Schneider next door fussed about how it took away his mountain view. I don’t want to see wires and metal, he’d say, I just want to see my Pikes Peak. They stopped talking after that and he let the weeds grow in the back alley just to spite Schneider and his wife, the chickweed in the spring and the carpetweed and curly dock in the summertime, and all the sprays and fertilizer they used couldn’t stop the spread.
She came back to him, carrying two cups of punch. “Just look how it’s coming down,” she said. “No wonder people get sad this time of year. They need those special lamps to remind them there’s a sun.”
“Nothing wrong with the cold.” He took a cup from her. “So long as you’ve got the right clothes for it.” His feet were starting to tingle now. He couldn’t feel his toes.
“I went to India once,” she said. “Everything was brighter there. The sky and the clothes and even the food. Three weeks and I didn’t see any gray.”
“I’ve been to Korea. That was enough for me.”
“My husband liked to trav
el. Every year we took a trip.”
He nodded. He remembered all the slides she’d had at the service, from India and Egypt, too, and even Vietnam. They were drinking from coconuts and swimming on beaches where soldiers had died forty years before, and the water looked beautiful, he had to agree. It was blue as Evelyn’s eyes.
“Even the funerals are bright there. The ladies wear colors and not black.” She drank from her cup. “And there are these mourners the family sometimes hires. Strangers who come to pay their last respects.” She smiled at him, and he was certain that she knew.
“I’d better be going,” he said. “I’m hobbling already.” He was distracted when he said good-bye, and he took the wrong way home. He took Academy which he never did because he didn’t like the traffic and the lights weren’t synchronized right. He was home already before he realized he’d never learned her name.
He filled his soaking tub right away. He poured the salts in and sat on his chair, and after a while the numbness turned to burning just like it did the first time he froze his feet. He looked at the phone and the curtains Evelyn had sewn years before for the narrow window above the kitchen sink. It’s no work doing the dishes when I can see the mountains, she always said. Those millionaires in Kissing Camels don’t have a better view. His sons were probably home already and watching their evening shows, and Evelyn was laughing with her policeman in the nursing home, and somewhere in the city the music teacher was thinking of India where it didn’t snow and the sky was never gray.
Slowly, slowly the feeling came back to his feet. The burning became a tingling, and he could move them now in the water. He reached for his towel. He reached across the table and saw his reflection in the dark window glass, and he cried.
Sidewinder
He walked the field beside his house with a shovel and a bucket. Today he was looking for Apache tears. The dirt was fine as powder, but it gave him trouble when he tried to dig. A little ways down and it was solid. It resisted even when he stepped on the shovel or when he used his pick. Sometimes he found mica or pieces of quartz, and he dropped them in his backpack. He’d look them up later in his book. Mr. Redding next door had given him a book about crystals and a small prospector’s pick. Don’t tell your stepdad where you got these, he said. I don’t want him getting mad. Mr. Redding knew rocks. He used to hunt for zircons up on the Gold Camp Road. He’d worked the mines before he enlisted, but now he was retired. He sat on his patio most days and drank coffee from an old green thermos.
It was July, and all those days without school blended one into the next. His mother wanted to sign him up for swimming lessons, or maybe drawing at the community center. He needs some structure, she said. Next month he’ll be eleven and he needs some other kids around, but he was relieved when she stopped talking about summer school or going over to the pool. Life was easier in the house when she let things go. And he wanted only his bucket anyway. A chance to work the dirt. There were Indians here once. They hunted buffalo and fought their battles, and maybe they left some arrowheads behind. You could buy them for three dollars at the rock store out by Ute Pass, but this summer he wanted to find his own.
He had a juice box today and a cold cream soda, but he didn’t stop to drink. In another few hours the clouds would come in, and she’d call him inside because of the thunder. It was dangerous in the field with all those power lines. A boy in Pueblo had gotten hit just standing under a tree. Don’t make me worry, she’d say. I’ve got enough on my mind, and she’d kiss his forehead and push the bangs out from his eyes. He stepped on the shovel with all his weight and gathered up the dirt, working through it with his fingers the way prospectors did. It was clumps mostly and bits of broken glass. Some of the glass was worn smooth like pebbles, and he kept the nicest pieces, the ones that were green or wavy with air bubbles.
He was almost done with his first pile. He was ready to make a new hole when he lifted up something smooth. He wiped away the dust, and it was no bigger than his thumbnail and shaped just like a tear. He held it up to the light. It looked like honey in the sun. He examined it for spiders inside or signs of ancient insects. He’d learned about amber in school. How it was magnetic if you rubbed it and how it had caught things as it dried. But this piece here wasn’t amber and it had nothing sealed inside. It was clear until he moved it, and then it flashed orange and brown.
The stone heated up as he worked. It felt like those hand warmers she gave him when he shoveled the neighbors’ walks. He moved it from pocket to pocket, and it didn’t cool, not even when he rested in the shade and drank his soda pop. All those days digging holes and sifting through the piles, and he finally had his Apache tear. It was prettier than the pictures in his book. It was gold and not just black, and sometimes it went milky before clearing up again. He took it with him when the storm clouds came and she called him from the door.
There were rules about how the table was set and when the shades were pulled. Dinner had to be ready at seven exactly, and if he talked before the meat was cut his mother had to shush him. Be quiet, Jesse, she’d say. Wait until we’ve eaten. His stepdad Russell didn’t like it when he talked at meals. He heard talk all day at the Toyota dealership, and at home he wanted quiet. He didn’t like it if the TV remote was on the coffee table instead of in the wicker basket or if the car was parked too close to his truck. Sometimes she parked it crooked, and he made her do it again.
She made spaghetti with meatballs, turkey because Russell didn’t eat beef. Red meat could stay inside you for years, he said. It really clogged you up. Pepper flakes were bad, too, because they made his eczema flare. Jesse was careful with his noodles. He didn’t want to spill any sauce. He watched his mother to make sure things were okay. He looked to see if her arms were covered. Russell didn’t like short sleeves not even in the summer. After dinner Russell would sit in front of the TV and maybe she’d have a little time. They could sit together in his room, and he’d show her the rock he’d found and how it was warm still from the sun.
His mom and Russell fought once he was back inside his room. It always began with something small. Maybe she left the dish brush on the countertop. Maybe she forgot to open all the mail. Russell was talking in his quiet voice. He never shouted, not even when he threw things against the wall. His mother talked and Russell was talking, too, and the conversation moved from room to room. Jesse sat on his bean bag chair and tried hard not to listen. He cupped the stone inside his palm, and it was getting warmer. She was standing in the hallway just outside his door. She went to the living room and Russell went, too, and that’s where she began to shout. Jesse held the stone tighter. She shouldn’t shout. She needed to be quiet, and he closed his eyes so she could hear his warning. “I don’t know what you want from me,” she was saying. “I’m doing everything I can.”
He knew what would happen next. The air had that black electrical feel. Jesse listened to the TV instead of his mother’s voice. He tried to make out the words. Mattresses were on sale, and now was the time to buy back-to-school clothes at JCPenney. The commercials sounded muffled through the walls of his room. They sounded like another language. He held that stone, and his mother was crying and it was hot inside his hand.
Mr. Redding grew snap peas every summer and pots with fat red and yellow tomatoes. He had hummingbird feeders on all his windows and seed tubes for the finches. His belly was enormous even with all the work he did in his yard. It looked hard like a basketball or a summer melon. Lean Cuisines for dinner, he’d say, and look how fat I am. He kept a jug with black tea brewing on the table. It sat there in the sun next to his coffee thermos, and when people came to visit he brought out ice cubes and sugar. Sometimes when Jesse came by he set out Nutter Butters, too, and cookies from a tin. Nothing homemade because Mrs. Redding had died without writing down her recipes.
Jesse was sunburnt from working the field. He picked at his nose which had started to peel. They sat together on the patio once the sun had gone below the trees. It was cool in Mr. Reddi
ng’s yard. The grape vines twisted on their wires, and they were sour as pickles those grapes. All skin and seeds, but Mr. Redding cut the clusters when they were ripe. He ate them with sugar and Jesse did, too, and they spit the seeds into a plastic cup. Jesse moved his chair closer to the table. The pavers had started to settle, and the patio was a little crooked. Jesse showed him the stone. He took it out of his pocket and laid it next to the pitcher. “I found an Apache tear,” he said. “Look how clear it is.”
Mr. Redding lifted it up and held it close to his face. He squinted like somebody aiming a gun. “That’s no Apache tear.” He turned it around in his fingers and felt it with his thumb. “It looks like a fire agate maybe or one of them yellow opals.”
Mr. Redding got up from his chair. His pants hung low around his belly, but he didn’t pull them up. He brought out his rock book. He whistled a little through his teeth, and Jesse stood beside him and looked at the pages, too.
“It’s a mystery,” Mr. Redding said. “You need somebody smarter than me to help you figure this one out.” It couldn’t be opals, he was saying. You have to go farther west for those. Up to Idaho where the lava used to flow or down to Mexico, and it couldn’t be fire agate either because they grow deep inside the bedrock. That’s some hard rock mining there. It takes heavy equipment to dig them up.
Jesse took the stone back. He knew what it was even if Mr. Redding didn’t. It was a teardrop. An Apache lady cried when she lost her boy in battle. She cried and left a crystal, and now it belonged to him.
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