Because of the Sun

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  I don’t realize how much I’ve gotten used to the solitude of the desert until we enter Deming and everything seems too busy. People are going in and out of stores. Eating lunch. We stop at Walmart and Paulo leads the way, straight to the movies section.

  “You like movies?” I ask him.

  “You could say that.”

  He starts picking up this one and that one, telling me about the director and the plot of each. Telling me how popular movies tend to be violent because people like it, all the killing and things blowing up. “People get off on it. Violence. The fantasy of it.”

  I want to ask him what he means, but before I can make myself get the words out, he grabs a DVD from the shelf and says, “This is the one I was looking for. Come on, you want to get lunch?”

  I shrug and we end up at a place that smells like grilled meat and has walls painted Southwestern yellow and orange.

  “So…,” he says when we sit down. With us facing each other, I’m forced to look at his face, his light brown eyebrows and too-kind eyes. I try to think of something to say. But I feel unreal, like I’m still in the truck, the hot wind blowing over me, parts of me floating everywhere.

  “So,” I say back.

  “So…,” he says, smiling. Like we’re playing some sort of game.

  The waitress comes and takes our drink order and leaves too quickly.

  “So, what were you saying?” he asks. He laughs at his own joke and because I don’t, because I’m still wondering how I got here, he tells me he’s kidding.

  “I know,” I tell him.

  “You don’t laugh much, do you?”

  The waitress returns with our drinks and tosses two straws on the table.

  I shrug. I don’t know if I laugh a lot or not. I never thought about it. But then the image of the jackrabbit Shelly hit on the way home from the airport goes through my brain. It catches me off guard, that image from forever ago, and makes me laugh as I take a sip from my soda. It almost comes up through my nose.

  “What?” Paulo says as I cough.

  I shake my head.

  “Tell me.” His eyes are already laughing. He’s making it easy for me because he wants to laugh. But I don’t know if these are the kinds of thoughts you’re supposed to share with somebody.

  “You’ll think I’m a terrible person.” You’re a terrible daughter. That’s what she thought, isn’t it? And I was.

  And I thought she was a terrible mother. And she was.

  We were both terrible.

  I take another sip.

  “I won’t think you’re terrible,” he tells me. “I promise.”

  The waitress comes back, but we forgot to look at the menu, so she leaves again.

  Finally, I tell Paulo about the jackrabbit. I watch his face the whole time, the crease in his brow that warns me to stop because I’m telling the story badly and it sounds stupid as I continue. But I go on, trying to explain the break dancing until he holds up a hand and says, “Wow…”

  I don’t know what to say. But then he smiles. “I’m just kidding. I mean, it’s not as funny to me because it’s one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments, but I can see how it could be funny.”

  “Thanks,” I say. An uncomfortable heat crawls up my back and cheeks.

  “No, I mean it. Like, there was this time…” He stops and shakes his head. “This is a thousand times worse than your jackrabbit.”

  “Go on.” I want him to tell me.

  Finally, he wipes his hands on his jeans and leans forward. “Okay. So, it was years ago. There was this old lady, Doña Soledad, who used to live a couple of rows of trailers over. I never talked to her much, but she’d come visit my grandmother every now and then. She had a husband once, and a son who fell off a mountain when he was just a little boy.”

  The words tumble out of his mouth like nothing.

  “What?”

  “It’s a sad story, but that’s not the one I’m telling. God, I don’t know. This is going to sound horrible.”

  He takes a deep breath. “So, the husband died a couple of decades ago, and the boy…” He gestures with his hand like it was so far in the past, it’s not even relevant. “He died like fifty years ago and she’s lived alone in her trailer ever since. But the lady was strong. She would walk and walk. It was weird. And she always wore black, like the little viejitas from the old days: head-to-toe black, black mantilla on her head, rosary around her neck, the whole thing. Anyway, she was a good lady.”

  The way he tells it, I can picture the woman.

  “One day I start walking.” He leans back. “You know, maybe something here makes people do stuff like that, walk aimlessly.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I was really bored and I’m beyond where all the trailers are and I’m kicking rocks around and there’s kind of this little ditch on the side of the road that slopes down.”

  I nod, because I know exactly the spot he’s talking about.

  “And something, something, just makes me look over.” He pauses. “And that’s when I see her.”

  “Who?”

  “Doña Soledad.”

  “In the ditch?”

  He nods. “Yep, flat on her back, feet pointed to the sky, her body stiff and straight, and her hands folded on her stomach like she’s already in a coffin.”

  “No…”

  He nods, assuring me he’s telling me the truth. “Yes. She was just there and…” He hesitates.

  “What?” I ask him.

  “It was her face….”

  I imagine the old woman’s face, sad and cracked and brown like the bark of a tree. But maybe it was torn apart.

  “What about it?” I whisper, bracing myself for the picture he’s about to paint.

  But instead, a smile tugs at the corners of Paulo’s mouth. “Her face…” He looks down and I can see that he’s smiling, and he coughs like he’s trying to suppress laughter from making its way out. He shakes his head, clears his throat.

  “What about it?” I ask. “Tell me.”

  Just then the waitress returns.

  “You guys going to order something?” she says, putting some chips and salsa on the table. “Today?”

  Paulo orders a burger and I do the same, just because it’s easier, just to get back to the story.

  The waitress walks away and I look at him and wait.

  “Her face looked like the Joker’s,” he whispers. “You know, that weird smile? It was crazy-looking and frozen on her face. She looked just like him. I mean, just like him.”

  He clears his throat, but I can tell he still wants to laugh. “She’s this tiny little old lady I’ve seen forever and she’s sweet. Doña Soledad was good people, but she’s got this crazy Joker smile on her face and I started laughing. I knew I should be freaked out, but she’s looking at me like she’s laughing too. Like she’s thinking, Madre! What the hell just happened? I’m freaking dead! So all I can do is laugh.”

  “That’s horrible,” I tell him, but I can see the scene he’s describing. I can see it perfectly. And it almost does seem funny.

  “I know.” He tries to look serious, but laughs again and fiddles with his straw nervously. “She was nice.”

  Seeing Paulo try to control his laughter makes me smile. “I thought you hated people getting off on violence.”

  His laughter stops and he shrugs. “I do. But what happened to Doña Soledad, that’s not violence, that’s dying. That’s just life.”

  “Maybe,” I say, but something is starting to swirl in my head and an image of my backyard that day flashes through my mind.

  “Anyway, I know a ton of stories like that,” he says. “And stories so sad, you think you’ll break. You think they can’t be real….”

  I feel something in my chest swelling, so big and fast I’m afraid my chest might crack open suddenly.

  “But they are,” Paulo continues. “They’re real and they happened and, shit…they’re tragic, you know.” He searches my eyes, but I look away. “Even if people wan
t to pretend that kind of shit doesn’t happen. It does. Even if the rest of the world forgets the people it happens to. You know?”

  I can feel my breathing coming faster and I want to put my finger over my lips and whisper Shhhhhhhh.

  No, I want to put my hand over his mouth and tell him Don’t say another word. Not one more word. And when he looks at me with a crazy, confused expression, wondering what the hell I’m doing, I want him to see, to recognize how close to the truth he has come. Even if part of me doesn’t.

  I don’t say anything, though. The waitress brings the burgers and I pick up mine, take a bite, and chew, because then maybe I won’t scream. I look out the window and try to figure out how to keep my chest from cracking open and spilling everything out. Pieces of me.

  Paulo picks up his burger and eats and neither of us talks for a while.

  “Anyway,” he says finally. “That’s why I’m always watching movies. I’m going to tell those stories.”

  I take a drink from my soda. Paulo keeps his eyes on me as he eats.

  “I mean, I know what people think,” he says between bites. “When they see me working at the gas station, they think I’m just this Mexican kid headed nowhere. But I’m observing everyone, taking in everything, teaching myself everything I can about film because I’m going to tell the stories that people ignore. Make movies that make people think.” He taps a finger on the side of his head. “Make people really fucking think.”

  He stops suddenly. “Jesus, I’ve been talking about myself for the last ten minutes.” He laughs under his breath. “I mean, what about you?”

  I take a deep breath. “Me?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You. What are you thinking?”

  I don’t know about me anymore. I swirl a fry in ketchup, think about everything he’s said. “Sometimes,” I say, looking into his eyes, “sometimes it feels like I’ve been electrocuted.”

  He takes a sip of his drink. Doesn’t laugh. He nods. “Go on,” he says.

  “I feel the current running through me, to the very tips of my fingers, zapping everything inside, burning my scalp. And then, nothing. I think sometimes…life is violent,” I tell him.

  I see some sort of sadness and understanding in his face. His soft eyes get serious and he looks like he wants to ask me something, but he doesn’t.

  “Life is violent,” he says.

  I look out the window. I wonder what Meursault would think of all this.

  I try to eat, but my throat feels closed up. I think I’m going to cry and I don’t understand why. And I don’t want to. Not ever. So I stare at the cars driving by outside, but then Paulo gets my attention.

  “Hey,” he says, “hey…” I look at him. He puts his arms out and acts like a pulse of electricity is traveling from one arm to another and back again. He shakes his head like he’s in shock. I watch him and sort of laugh.

  He does the robot. And it’s pretty funny.

  I laugh harder.

  Then he’s putting his hands up to his face, saying, “Madre, Paulo! What happened! I’m freaking dead!” And then we’re both laughing, the faces of the Joker and a break-dancing rabbit running through our minds.

  Somehow laughing feels like crying, so I keep laughing.

  And when the bear appears, trying to distract me by pulling a Joker mask out from behind his back and over his face, then by twirling on his back and break-dancing, I ignore him. I keep my eyes on Paulo.

  But the bear leans against the wall and waits for us. Follows us around town. To the grocery store. To the tire place to check about a replacement. To deliver some tea leaves to some lady Paulo’s grandmother knows. He roars and trails behind us the whole time.

  I try to focus on what Paulo is saying. I nod and resist turning to look at the bear, resist running away.

  On the drive back to the desert, I hear him breathing, louder, until I look straight in the mirror at him in the backseat. Our eyes lock and he roars softly.

  Don’t forget me, he’s saying. You can’t forget me.

  It’s been fifty-five days since she died. This time I don’t tell Shelly.

  But I keep track because I’m weary of time. The way it goes too fast. Or not fast enough. I mark each day with a slash, just to make sense of it.

  Sometimes Paulo drives here after work and we watch movies. He tells me about them, hits pause every five minutes and explains too much, but I don’t mind. I like the sound of his voice. Sometimes I’m falling asleep and I can feel his grandmother squeeze my heart from far away. Sometimes I catch glimpses of Shelly’s face and I see Mom.

  Sometimes I think she’s come back for me.

  Sometimes Paulo is asking me about me, what I like, and I can’t answer him. I don’t remember. I can only remember what I hated.

  Today, Shelly put a pack of socks on my bed. And a T-shirt with the tags still on. It’s just socks, I tell myself, and a stupid T-shirt with a rock star who is probably aging and cursing at having his image go for $7.99 at Walmart.

  But something about the little stack on the neatly made bed I did not make myself moves me. I swallow the lump in my throat and know I should go knock on her door and thank her.

  But I pick up The Stranger and read.

  “Come watch a movie,” I hear after a while. It’s Shelly standing in my doorway, looking in but not entering.

  I look at her. She even stands like Mom.

  I put down the book. Meursault is on the beach; the sun beats down on him. Shelly waits until I say, “Okay,” and I dog-ear the page and get up.

  I head to the living room with the image of the beach and the sun and the sand and the water in my head. I can’t stop thinking of Meursault, standing there, his head exploding and hurting from the blinding sun. I know if he closes his eyes, he’ll see white-hot flames pulse through his mind instead. No relief if he opens his eyes. No relief when he closes them. The sun, just beating him up without punches, without knives, without guns, just its inescapable brightness and unbearable heat.

  I feel bad for leaving him there like that, to suffer until I get back, but that’s how I leave him. Then I picture Meursault and me, him at the beach, me in the desert, both of us walking under the assaulting sun. And I think it’s not fair how he can easily stay numb. I wonder if he’ll struggle to stay numb. I wonder if Paulo’s grandmother squeezes his heart.

  I walk down the dark hallway to the living room where Shelly waits, a bowl of popcorn in her hands.

  “You all right?” she asks as I squint at the brightness coming in through the windows.

  I shrug. “Just tired.”

  I sit down on the other side of the couch, leaving plenty of room between us.

  “I’ve picked out a couple of movies. You can choose,” she says, placing the bowl of popcorn on the center pillow and reaching down to grab a small stack of DVDs from the floor near her feet. I reach over and grab a handful of buttery popcorn.

  “Not much of a choice. They’re all old. Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption are the best ones. I picked up most of these from the dollar bin.”

  I look down at the pile and wonder where she dug them up from. I’ve been all over this house and never seen them.

  “We used to have videotapes,” Shelly says. She looks like she’s remembering something, but shrugs it away and holds up Shawshank.

  “This one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where are the videotapes?” I ask. The popcorn crunches in my mouth. A thin shell of a kernel jams itself between my teeth.

  “Gone. Those don’t hold up very well over time,” Shelly says, putting the DVD in.

  I’ve seen Shawshank tons of times since it’s one of those movies that’s always on television. But I don’t tell Shelly, because I don’t mind watching it again.

  Shelly sits next to me. “We used to watch movies together,” she says, not taking her eyes off the screen.

  I look over at her and I don’t know whether or not I want her to tell me more. I don’t know w
hether I want to know anything or everything. Or whether I’d even believe the things she might say. I haven’t caught her in any lies, but maybe she’d tell me about Mom when she wasn’t who I knew, the woman who stabbed me with sharp words, clobbered me with a heavy hand, hated me so much I could feel it.

  “Sometimes it was just the two of us, but other times we watched movies with our mom, your grandmother.” This time Shelly does look at me, and the expression on her face reminds me of the bear, the way he roars so I’ll notice him.

  A picture flashes in my head. I don’t recognize my mom. It’s somebody else, someone who watched movies with her sister and her mother. I wonder what her favorite movie was. I don’t want to know, I try not to ask, but the words come out. Shelly flinches only slightly, like some invisible hand just pinched her, and answers before I can tell her Stop! I made a mistake! I don’t want to know!

  “The Wizard of Oz,” she says. Her eyes want to stay hard, no-nonsense, but they betray her. Because in them I see a wave of love, of regret and memory. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. About your mom, our lives. I’ll be honest.”

  I return my gaze to the screen.

  She tries again. “One time…”

  I shake my head. No, no, all I want to know is the version of her that I already know. Mom’s face in anger, frustration, disappointment, apathy. Because that’s who she was. That’s who she was to me. I close my eyes, hope Shelly doesn’t go on.

  She doesn’t.

  We watch the movie and I let it fill my head and I wonder what it would be like to be locked up that way. I think of having four walls around me all the time, and I think that would make me crazy. But then I think, maybe there is some kind of messed-up comfort in those four walls, because out in the open, you’re vulnerable. Out in the open, there are bears.

  I’m thinking too much. A part of me wishes I were watching this with Paulo and all his talk about camera shots and angles and the meaning of every hidden thing directors put in movies.

  We watch Andy retch as he swims through a tunnel of feces to escape the prison during a thunderstorm.