Names on a Map

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  As I walked away, he yelled my name. I looked back at him and

  he said, “I don’t think you’ll go.”

  “Why not?” I yelled back.

  “Because you can’t,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re a good Catholic boy. Like me.”

  “Yeah sure,” I yelled.

  He smiled. “You won’t go.”

  And I smiled back and yelled, “Well, what if I do go, will you still love me?” It was supposed to be a joke.

  And then he yelled back, “I’ll always love you. Don’t care if

  you go or not.” It was just like him to say something like that.

  It was just like him to say something to break your heart—just when you thought it was already broken and couldn’t be broken

  again.

  When I was walking home, I wondered how a guy like Con-

  rad survived in the world. A good Catholic boy? What did that

  mean, to be Catholic? Did it mean it was okay to kill strange des-

  286 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p ert lizards and homeless alley cats? Did it mean you didn’t have to be literal about the sixth commandment? Maybe not killing was

  just supposed to be a metaphor.

  Xochil loved metaphors.

  Maybe I was too literal about things. God, I didn’t know

  anything anymore. I did know one thing—the Catholic Church

  didn’t deserve Conrad García. I’ll always love you. My heart was breaking and my hands were trembling. I thought of the cat

  again. And then it hit me. I was just like that cat. The stones were coming at me from every direction. I was crippled. Unable to move, all I could do was claw and hiss, and hope it would be enough to scare off my attackers.

  Shit. No one was afraid of Gustavo Espejo.

  lourde s

  R esurrection spits on my grief.

  Lourdes half smiled at the words she’d written in her journal.

  She didn’t remember writing the words—but there they were,

  condemning her. She shrugged—but wasn’t it true? Resurrection

  did spit on her grief. She wanted to hold on to her sorrow for a moment longer. Before she let it go. She was entitled to it, had earned it, and she refused to let a beautiful theology rob her of the only piece of Rosario she had left.

  She shut her journal—then opened it again, and placed Gus-

  tavo’s draft notice as a marker to her last entry.

  She would have to find some time to speak to him. But what

  exactly was she going to tell him?

  Ever since that day in the kitchen, when she’d taken off his

  black armband, she’d been thinking of the things she should have said to him. “I’ll wash it for you,” that’s what she’d said. What a thing to say. What an inane and banal thing to say. Before that

  288 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p day, it had all seemed almost like a game, so innocent, his black armbands, his long discussions with Conrad and Xochil and his

  other friends, his strong feelings against the war—and then suddenly the innocence had gone out of everything.

  She had shrunk from the task of being a mother. She had run.

  She would have to say something to him, something that mat-

  tered. She thought of Octavio, thought of what Octavio would

  say, Octavo, who believed in the rightness and the goodness of the cause of his adopted nation. Octavio, who believed that war was essentially a noble thing, Octavio, who somehow inexplicably believed that wars cleansed the world like a good rain and it was our duty to sacrifice our treasures and our sons and saw the whole matter as resembling the story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son at the altar of God.

  What if her son went to war? What if her son was killed, God

  and Country receiving the body he’d offered to them? What of

  that? She pictured her husband receiving the news of the death of their son, killed in action. She tried to picture the look on his face. With all the sincerity in his heart—and without a hint of irony—he would be proud and praise Gustavo’s bravery, Gustavo, his son who had made the supreme sacrifice. He would think it

  was all too beautiful, what he gave. That’s what Octavio would think. That’s exactly what he would think.

  She hated Octavio’s sincerity because she could not fight it.

  How could she fight him, her husband, she who did not believe

  in the cause—she who had raised a son who also did not believe in the cause?

  Resurrection was not the only thing that spit on her grief.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee and checked the roast in

  the oven.

  What could she tell Gustavo that he did not already know?

  xo ch i l

  I’ve always tried to imagine what Conrad and Gustavo were

  talking about that Sunday morning. The war, I think—an easy

  guess. They always talked about the war. When they weren’t talking about the war, they were talking about the causes of poverty.

  They were odd and strange and lovely in that way. But that Sunday morning, I am certain they talked about the war.

  They were discussing their options. That’s how it was. Gustavo telling Conrad he’d been drafted, Conrad talking about how his application for C.O. status was going. Conrad trying to convince him to apply for C.O. status. Gustavo resisting: “It’s too late for that.” And Gustavo would’ve been right. It was too late for that.

  I see them walking. Conrad loved to walk. Just like me. So

  I see them walking the streets of Sunset Heights, Conrad mov-

  ing his hands, Gustavo smoking, Gustavo forcing a cigarette on Conrad, who takes it and smokes it. After that, my imagination fails me.

  290 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p At first, I didn’t understand why Gustavo didn’t follow Conrad’s lead. But he had one thing in common with his friend—he

  was incapable of being dishonest. Conrad could never kill. He

  didn’t have it in him. He had the moral fiber, the sensibility, and the discipline of a systematic philosopher ingrained in him. He was also brave. People didn’t think of Conrad as being brave, but he was. He was unbearably, heartbreakingly brave.

  But it was more complicated for Gustavo. Once, we were

  walking under the bridge toward the Sunset Grocery Store.

  Three guys were beating up on someone. When we got closer,

  we could see that it was Conrad. Conrad wasn’t fighting back.

  Of course he wasn’t. He was just taking it. I think that made

  them madder. I think they were trying to force him to fight

  back. It was a mean game for them. And then they started kick-

  ing the crap out of him. Gustavo didn’t even think. In an instant, he was on them. I saw what he could do, what he had inside him.

  He was strong and his rage made him terrifying. He was brutal

  in a fight, agile, had all the right instincts. They ran—all three of them. But he caught up with one of them and dragged him

  back to where Conrad was lying on the ground. At that point,

  I’d placed Conrad’s head on my lap and was trying to ask him

  where it hurt. But Gustavo had this guy by the collar and was

  barking commands at him. “Say you’re sorry, you bastard.” The

  guy was trembling, but Gustavo didn’t seem to notice—and he

  certainly didn’t show any signs of mercy. “Say you’re sorry or I’ll break you’re fucking jaw.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “What’s your name?”

  The guy started to cry. “Jorge,” he whispered. “Jorge Gandara.”

  Gustavo shoved him away—like he was flicking an ant off

  his arm.

  And then another side of him appeared. He got down on his

  knees and t
ook Conrad’s hand and squeezed it. Are you okay? Are

  xo ch i l l 291

  you okay? He kept rocking him and rocking him. I thought he was going to cry—but he didn’t.

  We wrapped ourselves around Conrad, became his crutches,

  and slowly took him home, not far, not far at all. Gustavo insist-ed on going to the hospital with him. Two broken ribs, stitches across his brow.

  Gustavo refused to leave the hospital.

  Gustavo was good. Not pure. But good. Complicated. “That

  was brave, what you did.” I told him that at the hospital.

  “I only did it because of Conrad.”

  “You might have done the same thing if it was someone else.

  You might have done it if it was a perfect stranger.”

  “Don’t give me so much credit.”

  He was too hard on himself. That was his problem, of course.

  He expected excellence from himself. And he could never live up to his own standards. He knew himself too well. He knew he had something violent and mean and ugly inside him. He was terri-fied of that side of himself—hated that side of himself, couldn’t bear it. My brother, he couldn’t take the road that Conrad took.

  It would have been a lie.

  That Sunday, when we were driving back from Mass, I told my

  mom, “Teach me the secret to your mashed potatoes.” I was in

  the back of the car, but I could tell my father was smiling.

  My mom turned around. “Where did that come from?”

  “I want to learn. And I wanted to make Dad smile.”

  That’s when my dad laughed. And for no reason, we all broke

  out laughing. For no reason—except that we needed to laugh.

  When we went into the house, we didn’t change into our casual

  clothes. After Sunday afternoon dinner, the relatives would return for another round of rituals. My father read Gustavo’s note—he’d left it on his chair. He didn’t register any particular emotion, but I don’t think he was angry. He liked Conrad, considered him to be

  292 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p a responsible and reliable young man. Somehow, my father could see past Conrad’s politics, a politics he deplored.

  When Monsignor La Pieta arrived, he and my father went

  into the living room. He was our guest for dinner that Sunday

  as he had been on countless occasions. But today, there was also business to conduct—helping my parents arrange for my grandmother’s funeral. Monsignor La Pieta and my grandmother had

  become intimate friends over the years. Like her, he had left

  Mexico sometime during the revolution and it was obvious her

  death pained him. I liked seeing that shadow of pain wash over the old monsignor’s face—it made him seem less severe. It made him seem more like a human being instead of a dispenser of sacraments and sermons.

  My mother and I went to the kitchen. She’d left a roast in the oven, and she began teaching me how to make her mashed potatoes. There were secrets to making everything—even mashed

  potatoes.

  Charlie was on the front steps waiting for Gustavo. If my

  younger brother’s life had a title, it would be just that: Waiting for Gustavo.

  Just as I was peeling the potatoes, I heard Gustavo and Char-

  lie. They were laughing about something. They came into the

  kitchen.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “I came to watch you cook.”

  “You think that’s funny?”

  “No. But it’s like a lunar eclipse. When it’s happening, you

  just don’t want to miss it.”

  My mother laughed.

  I tried not to.

  “Are we having biscuits?”

  Charlie, he was Mr. Biscuit. He loved them, loved popping

  the rolled carton of precut, prefabricated biscuits and placing

  xo ch i l l 293

  them carefully on a cookie sheet and putting them in the oven. It was a ritual with him. It made him feel American, I think.

  It was a quiet Sunday, that’s what I remember, a Sunday filled with our ordinary familial traditions. Quiet and nice and normal.

  Gustavo helped my mother set the table—an event that hap-

  pened as often as I helped cook. And when we sat down to eat,

  not once throughout the entire meal did Monsignor La Pieta

  give Gustavo a hard time about his lack of attention to his religious duties. It was hard for him, I know, but my father must have said something to him during their conversation. The only reason the old priest would’ve held back was as a favor to my

  father. He had always believed that Gustavo was on his way to

  being one of Satan’s minions.

  Gustavo sat across from me. We tossed knowing looks at each

  other, waiting for a grenade to go off. Charlie listened intently to my parents’ memories of my grandmother as they spoke with the

  monsignor. My mother was serene and composed and radiant and

  it dawned on me that she was in the prime of her life—and that she would never be more beautiful. My father had always looked like a lean boxer, and at that moment, he looked weathered. If he had been a piece of furniture, someone might have dusted him

  off. Even so, he, too, had his own kind of loveliness.

  Sometime during dessert, my father smiled at Gustavo and

  asked, “How’s Conrad?”

  “He’s fine. He goes to the eight o’clock Mass.” It was Gus-

  tavo’s way of making a joke.

  My father nodded. “He’s a good Catholic boy.”

  Monsignor La Pieta said nothing.

  Late that afternoon, before he left, the monsignor took Gus-

  tavo aside and said something to him. Gustavo nodded as he listened. It wasn’t a lecture—something else was happening. When

  the old priest finished talking, he embraced my brother and held him. I have always believed that my father had something to do

  294 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p with the tender scene I witnessed that afternoon. It was my father’s way of apologizing to his son. Through a proxy, of course.

  The world had always used proxies to do its business. Wasn’t that what the war in Vietnam was all about?

  Gustavo and Charlie and I washed the dishes. Charlie started the game. He’d never started the game. “The best movie ever made

  in the history of the world.” He almost whispered it as he dried a dish and began a stack. I smiled.

  Gustavo smiled too. “Bonnie and Clyde, ” he said.

  Charlie shook his head.

  “The Great Dictator?”

  On the Sunday after my grandmother died, there were no

  shots fired in our house. There was only peace.

  g us t avo

  He unfolded the letter and stared at Xochil’s typewritten note: Gustavo—

  I know you get mad at me because I never let you see my

  work. Well, it’s mine. And you understand that everyone has

  to have something that’s just theirs. That’s hard in this house.

  But I wanted to give you these lines from a poem I’m working

  on. I hope you like them—and if you don’t, then just shut up

  about it:

  I want to wake and scream, and scream

  again—clear all the litter in my lungs.

  I want to look up at the blue

  and in that quiet, quiet place,

  296 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p I want to listen to my heart as it breaks.

  I want to kneel down and wail like a wolf

  forced to chew off his leg to free himself

  from the trap.

  I want to listen

  to your words. I want to listen

  and listen to your voice and put

  your words in a cup—and drink them,

  drink th
em down. I want.

  That’s all I have for now. Well, I have more, but it’s not finished. It’s a poem for you. But it’s for me too.

  I just wanted you to see it.

  I’m off to school early even though I didn’t lift a book all

  weekend. I have an eight o’clock class, and I thought I might as well go. It will help me not to think about all the other things I have in my head.

  You know what Mom told me last night? She said some-

  times you just have to pretend that everything’s all right, even if it’s not. “You can’t live in chaos. You can’t live in your head. You have to live in the world.” Living in the world, there’s a thought.

  We’re fighting a losing battle in this house. My theory about

  this family is that we are all addicted to living in our heads. So the plan for today is not to live in my head. “Don’t live in chaos.”

  That’s the plan. Dad’s blessed rage for order isn’t all bad, is it?

  Okay, okay, so maybe it’s just another kind of insanity.

  Xochil

  He smiled to himself. He liked the idea of screaming. He

  liked the idea of the wolf that would do anything to free himself from the trap. He liked the idea of drinking down each other’s words—which is exactly what he and Xochil had always done.

  Mostly, he liked all that wanting.

  g us t avo l 297

  And as for living in the chaos—he wasn’t sure about that.

  He looked over at Charlie’s bed. He was gone. Like Xochil,

  he’d gone to school. As usual, they were both way ahead of him.

  He would go to work. He would take a car and make it look

  like it had never been in an accident. Today, he would pretend.

  He wished to the God he didn’t believe in that the chaos was only in his head.

  His mother and father were discussing the details of his grandmother’s funeral when he walked into the kitchen. His father

  looked up at him and nodded—then he looked back down at

  the list he had written on his yellow pad. He looked across at his mother. “You pick the casket.”

  His mother nodded. “I’ll take Sofia with me. I’ll let her pick the dress.”