Then she’d give him the new, improved scene. I’m always better the second time around. He tried doing that, replaying the scene,
56 l t h e d a y t h e w a r c a m e then stopped himself. The second time around he would be the
same. He couldn’t help himself. Or maybe he didn’t want to be
any other way than the way he was. Which made no sense. It
made no sense at all.
But did she always have to be right? Well, most of the time,
she was right. About most things. She was. She connected dots between ideas, knew how to construct arguments, had been a
champion debater in high school and in their house, could write logical essays, could control words, could even write poetry—
though she never showed her poetry to anyone. Not even to him.
Once, he’d caught her writing one—a poem—and had tried to
make her read it to him. She’d gotten angry. It’s mine. Can’t anything just be mine? Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Lately they’d been fighting more. He hated that. You shouldn’t fight with your sister. She’s rare and beautiful. That’s was what his mother had told him. He’d written it down somewhere. Rare and
beautiful. But she was stubborn and she could be mean when she wanted to be.
And maybe she was right most of the time, but did that mean
he was always wrong?
He thought of the battle that had been raging outside his
window when he woke. A thing can be beautiful and mean at the same time. For example, birds.
For example, Xochil.
xo ch i l
I don’t care what he says.
I don’t care what he thinks.
I don’t care. I don’t—
Once, at school, she had watched her brother play tetherball.
She remembered thinking that she was the ball and he was the
rope. What was a tetherball without the rope? It made her angry that she thought those things. And so later, she asked him, Do you wish sometimes we weren’t twins? And just for a second, she could see the hurt on his face—just before he turned himself to stone, just before he hid behind those dark eyes.
But he could never hide. Not from her.
But the reverse was also true. She always felt he could see right through her—though he couldn’t. There were so many things he
didn’t know, couldn’t even fathom about her. And yet somehow
he knew everything that mattered.
58 l t h e d a y t h e w a r c a m e They did keep secrets from each other. They had to. It was one of the strategies of survival. They had to prove they were separate, individuals, independent. Do you wish sometimes we weren’t twins?
That hurt on his face. She couldn’t stand that look. But she couldn’t repent from the thought. And he’d felt the same way. She knew
that. Just because he never said it didn’t mean he never thought it.
Being a twin. That complicated everything. Every damn thing
became a negotiation. Every single damn thing. It was as if she could never see herself without thinking of what he would think, what he would see. When she saw a boy she liked, she wound up
wondering if Gustavo would approve. Half the time, Gustavo
didn’t even care or notice. Once she saw a boy on the street and whispered to her brother, “I think he’s beautiful.” He shrugged.
“Really?” He seemed surprised and he watched the boy, trying to see what she saw. He shrugged again. “Should I talk to him?” He shrugged again. “Why not?” He wasn’t interested in running her life. He wasn’t. But his voice and his eyes were inside her. Was that his fault? She wanted to exorcise him, cast him out.
A twin could be a demon.
Jack Evans. Gustavo disapproved. No, that word was inexact,
incorrect, wrong. Disapprovel was a parental word. I can’t stand his fucking guts. That was more than disapproval.
But she half hated Jack too—and probably for the same reasons.
“He’s just another predictable gringo.” That’s what Gustavo
had said. But he’d been angry.
“But you’ve been friends forever.”
“We were just kids who liked playing baseball. I don’t play
baseball anymore.”
“But you still play basketball.”
“And we’re never on the same side.”
“You’re just mad at him.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, he’s just another predictable gringo. Ever heard him talk about Mexicans?”
xo ch i l l 59
“He doesn’t mean those things.”
“You know what he means? Do you? Look, you can be his
friend if you want.”
So Jack and Gustavo had stayed friends—for a little longer
anyway. Everything normal. And then that day, when he’d kissed her—she’d kissed him back. And things between Jack and Gustavo started to go to hell. It didn’t have anything to do with her.
She knew that. They had their own friendship. She wasn’t re-
sponsible for that. He’s just another predictable gringo. She tried translating what that meant. It meant he fell in step, didn’t color outside the lines. It meant he’d never smoke a joint. It meant he never disagreed with his teachers, always said yes sir when his father asked him to do something. It meant he’d never wear his hair long. It meant he was a straight arrow. That’s what it meant.
Gustavo didn’t suffer people like Jack Evans. He didn’t have it in him. And she wasn’t so different from her brother. She didn’t give people like him the time of day. Not most of the time. Why was Jack Evans the exception?
Didn’t a part of her hate herself for what she felt for him?
Was she angry with Gustavo? Or was she angry with herself ?
God, Xochil, you always have to do this—have this discussion with yourself. Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it! Can’t you just let yourself like a guy? Any guy? Can’t you just do that?
Okay. Go back. Rewind the tape. Play it over. . . .
Gustavo walks away from the car, lights his cigarette. She gets out of the car, follows him. “Gustavo, I think I might love him.”
He looks at her. “ You’re wrong about him.”
She looks back at him. “Then let me be wrong.”
She smiles at him.
He smiles back. “Okay then, be wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
a b e
A week before I left for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in
San Diego, I ran into Conrad García. The guy was walking out
of the Circle K, a pack of Marlboros in his hand. He wasn’t with Gustavo. He and Gustavo, they were pretty tight, always hanging out. I didn’t have anything against Conrad. Okay, so he was Mr.
Pacifist. Yeah, yeah, I rolled my eyes at the guy. We all did. He was harmless.
He smiled at me and said, “I heard you’re going into the Army.”
Everybody in Sunset Heights knew everything about everybody.
“Army?” I said. “C’mon, man, don’t talk to me about the fuck-
ing army. I’m gonna be a Marine.”
He nodded, then smiled. “Marine,” he said. “Sorry. Look, just
take care of yourself.” He had this really soft look in his eyes.
Look, I knew why everybody’s mom and dad liked Conrad Gar-
cía. Even my dad, who said pacifists were cowards looking for an intellectual excuse, even my dad liked Conrad.
a b e l 61
“I enlisted,” I said.
He nodded. He shook my hand. The guy was a gentleman,
I’ll give him that.
I looked right at him. “You don’t like soldiers, do you?” I
don’t know why the fuck I asked him that. I mean, I didn’t re-
ally want to get into it with him. Why was I picking shit with a pacifist?
“Soldiers are
just people,” he said.
“Yeah, sure. And you like people, so soldiers are cool.”
“Look,” he said, “I just wish I lived in a world where we didn’t need soldiers.” That’s what he said.
“Well, that’s not the world we live in, buddy,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So, Conrad, are you gonna enlist?” I knew I was being an
asshole.
He looked straight at me. “No.” That no was hard as a brick.
“What if they take you anyway?”
“They won’t.”
“You hate us all, don’t you?”
He lit a cigarette. “No,” he said, “I don’t. But the possibility exists that it’s you. Maybe it’s you, Abe. Maybe you hate me.”
He was right. I did fucking hate him. But it didn’t feel good.
Shit, sometimes, nothing feels good. He offered me a cigarette.
I took it.
We sort of walked together for a while. We didn’t say any-
thing. And then he asked me. “Are you afraid?”
“Nah,” I said, “I’m not afraid.”
“I don’t mean about going to war, I mean, aren’t you afraid of what war will turn you into?”
“It’ll turn me into a man.”
“Life will do that on its own.”
I don’t think I really understood what the hell he was asking
me. The thing about Conrad was that he was born old. I mean
62 l t h e d a y t h e w a r c a m e it. I don’t think he was ever young. Always thinking. Not like the rest of us.
“War does things to a man,” he said. “My uncle. He was never
the same after Korea.”
I nodded. We just kept walking. “Thanks for the cigarette,”
I said finally. I wanted to say something else. But I didn’t know what.
“Sure,” he said. Then he looked at me. “You really want to go
to Nam?”
“Yeah,” I said.
He nodded. He lit another cigarette. That guy could smoke.
“Come back alive, will you?”
We sort of smiled at each other. That Conrad, you know, he
could make anyone smile.
After that, I went walking around. You know, just running
some things through my head. I got to thinking that Conrad was wrong about being a pacifist. You know, sometimes you had to
stand up to evil. You just had to do it. You can’t go around letting people beat the crap out of you and stand around and do nothing.
I was no expert on what was going on in Vietnam. But I knew
there was a fight and I knew whose side I was on. Maybe that was my politics. Pretty basic, I know, but that’s the way I felt.
Politics? Fuck, what was that? Eighteen-year-old men don’t
know shit about politics. Guys like Gustavo and Conrad, they
got themselves politics when they were sixteen. But it was just a game for them. You know, head games. But for me, it wasn’t a game. This was real. My country was fighting a war. Look, I was no Jack Evans. I didn’t have his purity. But if you don’t belong to your country, where do you belong? Jack and I, we were on the
same side. Gustavo and Conrad, I don’t think either one of them understood what it meant to love a country. Any country. To me, that was the saddest thing in the whole fucking world.
g us t avo
To take a car, bent and mangled in an accident—then make it
appear as if that accident had never happened. That was an art.
He liked the idea of his job, sometimes even imagined the ac-
cident, the sound, the crunching, the look of terror on the driver, and, afterward, having survived with minor injuries, the look
of disgust —shit!— the impatience of waiting for the tow truck.
Sure, he liked his job, the pounding, the sanding, the smooth-
ing, the shine of the new paint. Sometimes you had to be rough, mean, pound like hell. Sometimes you had to be gentle. After
the pounding, there was the thin layer of putty. Not too much—
just enough. And when the putty dried, the sanding until it was smooth as ice cream. That’s what Mr. Ortega liked to say. “Like ice cream at Dairy Queen.” Sometimes, when he ran his hand on
the smooth surface, he didn’t think of ice cream. He thought of girls. He thought of their bodies.
At first, Mr. Ortega had told him he was too slow. “I don’t
64 l t h e d a y t h e w a r c a m e like lazy,” he said. But after a few weeks, Mr. Ortega had been impressed. “A good worker.” A compliment. Work. That’s what
made you a man. From an old world, Mr. Ortega. He knew his
business, the sort of man who was overly proud of what he did.
Compensating for what he didn’t have, for his bad English, for the poverty he had been born into. A good man, fair, honest, but a complainer. And rigid like his own father—though they had
come from different Mexicos. Certainly they had taken different sides in their views on the revolution.
They liked each other well enough, the two of them. Not that
he and Mr. Ortega were natural friends. “Listen, Gustavo, cut
your hair.” He would smile when he said it, but it was a command not a question.
“Girls like long hair.”
“But not good girls. Not the kind you marry.”
“Who wants to marry?”
“When you find the right one—then you’ll cut your hair.”
“Maybe.”
“No. No maybes. Girls don’t like it when your hair is prettier than theirs.”
They laughed, smiled at each other, enjoyed the banter—but
underneath, there was the knowledge that they could be enemies, turn on each other. Though for now there was a laugh, a smile, both of them shaking their heads, both of them knowing that
there was no true understanding.
Things got worse when the discussion turned to music. Mr.
Ortega listened stubbornly to a Mexican station, hour after hour, day after day—nothing but rancheras and mariachis and trios
singing ballads from the thirties and forties. Sometimes, when he’d leave on an errand, Gustavo would find an FM station, and he would nod and sing along with the Stones and the Doors and
the Beatles, but Mr. Ortega would return, changing the station and grumbling, “It’s shit!”
g us t avo l 65
“No,” Gustavo would answer, “it’s just the Beatles.”
“They’re not even American.”
“Neither are rancheras.”
“The Beatles are shit,” Mr. Ortega would repeat—then turn
up the volume on his rancheras.
Work was what they had in common.
One day, Gustavo had shown up wearing a black armband.
Mr. Ortega had pointed at his arm and asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s a protest.”
“What are you protesting?”
“The war.”
“You don’t know anything.”
Gustavo looked away.
“If you wear that thing tomorrow, you’re fired.”
“Okay,” Gustavo said. Nothing on his face.
“Your father? He lets you wear that?”
“My father doesn’t own me.”
“You disrespect your father?”
“Maybe my father disrespects me.”
“Maybe I should fire you.”
“When I don’t do my job, fire me.”
That’s where they left it.
“That’s good. Nice touch. Very good hands.”
Gustavo looked up from his work and grinned at Mr. Ortega.
“I got good hair and I got good hands.”
Mr. Ortega laughed. “Mrs. Rubio will be pleased. To please
her, that’s not easy.”
Gustavo nodded.
“Time to close.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, sir.”
66 l t h e d a y t h e w a r c a m e
“That’s better. Respect. Remember.” Mr. Ortega shook his
head. Sometimes, he just wanted to talk. About anything. Gus-
tavo watched him as he took out his wallet and fished out a picture. “My oldest,” he said.
Gustavo stared at the picture of the dark-skinned man. The
uniform made him look even younger than he was—like he
should still be in high school. “How old is he?”
“Nineteen next month.”
Gustavo could see the pride in Mr. Ortega’s face. He wanted
to say something, but didn’t know what. “He looks like you,” he said finally, though there wasn’t much of a resemblance.
“No. He looks like his mother.”
Gustavo shrugged. “Does he like the army?”
“He doesn’t complain. He’s a man now.”
“Where’s he stationed?”
“Vietnam. He’s serving his country.”
“That’s good.”
Mr. Ortega smiled. “He cut his hair.”
Gustavo let himself laugh. “The army’s like a good woman.”
Mr. Ortega laughed too.
Gustavo handed the picture back to him.
“His mother worries,” he said.
“And you? You worry?”
“Worries are for women.”
“You never worry?”
“I worry about food on the table, and money to pay for it.”
Gustavo nodded.
“And you, Gustavo? Have you gotten your letter?”
“Not yet.”
“It will come. Your armband won’t protect you.” Mr. Ortega
smiled and ran his hand against the side of his hair and made a buzzing sound.
adam
Da Nang, Vietnam, September 16, 1967
Him. The soldier. The grunt. You know why they call you
fucking grunts? Cuz when you fucking put on those backpacks, you grunt like you’re taking a fucking dump. That’s fucking why.
The soldier, he is photographing a bird as it lands in a small clearing. He snaps a photo of a medic stepping out into the
clearing. The soldier, Adam, is happy with his photograph. He
Names on a Map Page 6