Names on a Map

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  He stared at his father’s nodding head and wondered about

  the price of caskets, about fussing over what the dead would wear, about who should carry the body to the grave, and who should say a few words at the funeral and all the other minute details that seemed to matter so much. Their parents spoke of these things as if it were all so normal. He poured himself a cup of coffee, then sat at the table. “Why can’t you be buried without clothes?” He hadn’t actually meant to say anything. His question just spilled out of him.

  “Because it’s an open casket? You want the entire world to see your grandmother naked?”

  Gustavo shrugged. “Guess not.” He was sorry for having

  said anything. He was always saying the wrong things around

  his father.

  He noticed the look his mother shot his father.

  “Are you going to work?” The question was an offering.

  Gustavo nodded.

  “Tell Mr. Ortega you’ll need to take off Wednesday after-

  noon, and Thursday. You might as well ask him for Friday too.”

  298 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p Gustavo nodded. “He won’t mind.”

  His father nodded back at him.

  His mother reached over and combed his hair out of his

  eyes. “You know, sometimes, when you nod, you look just like

  Octavio.”

  Gustavo looked across at his father and smiled. “I think she

  just tried to give me a compliment.”

  Octavio grinned, tentative at first, then broke out into a

  smile.

  Lourdes softly tapped Gustavo on the shoulder. “You’ll be late for work.”

  g us t avo

  You have come to work.

  Like a million people in the world, men and women and chil-

  dren, like them, you come to your place of employment. You do

  your work for the few dollars they pay you. This is how the world works. It does not stop because you have lost a grandmother. It does not stop because your world is in turmoil. It does not stop because there is a riot in your heart. It does not stop because you have been drafted and are left in a wasteland of indecision. It does not matter that in your head you are somewhere else. It does not matter that you are not really here in this garage that smells of putty and paint.

  You are not here. You are not really here.

  You think that your mother and Xochil are right. You cannot

  live in chaos. But there is a trick to pretending. You used to be good at that.

  You see your arms and hands and fingers working on the

  300 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p fender of the car. You see your hands banging out a dent with

  a rubber hammer. But nothing feels real. And you think for a

  second that living is not real. It is a fiction. And death, that is not real, either. That is an even greater fiction. And order? That is the greatest fiction of all. Chaos is the only thing in the world that is real. You wonder why you think these things. Maybe you think

  them because you wish them to be true. If everything is a fiction, then nothing can matter. And if nothing can matter, then your

  life and what you decide to do with it does not matter either. If there is only chaos, then you can give up.

  But you think about the wolf in your sister’s poem. The wolf

  does not give up.

  Mr. Ortega comes over to speak to you. You tell him that

  your grandmother has died. Even then, your words feel hollow

  and empty. He nods his head when you tell him. He is hungry to hear the story, so you tell him as much as you know. You pretend you were there, though you were not. You know the story because your sister has told you everything that you missed. So you tell him what you know. He listens carefully and when he speaks, his words to you are soft and kind and he tells you that you do not need to work today and that you should take a week off. You must pay the dead with your time.

  You want to tell him that you are mourning for many things

  and that a week is nothing, but instead you nod and tell him that it is good to work. You tell him it is good for your grief. You tell him that you will take some days later in the week.

  And then, you don’t know why, but you tell him that you have

  received your letter.

  He nods. “You will look handsome in a uniform. Like my

  son.” He is proud of you. He is happy that you have become one of them.

  You nod back at him. You try to picture yourself in that uni-

  form. Even now, you wonder if you will go to war. If you go, they

  g us t avo l 301

  will all approve. Your father will approve. All the men in the city where you live will approve. They will all love you. You want to be loved. You do not want to be despised or hated. You do not

  want that.

  You have been having a ceaseless argument with yourself for

  many months now. You have talked ceaselessly about these things with your friends. You have worn a black armband as a protest to this war, but in your quietest moments, you are not sure of what you think. You are not sure as to what the right thing is. There are moments when you tell yourself that you will go. That is what you must do. You will go and get your orders. You will go to boot camp. You will spend thirteen weeks preparing for war. Then you will go and fight. You will go with men who are perfect strangers and they will become your brothers. Isn’t that what the Bible says—that all men are your brothers? You will turn your back on them, these, your brothers?

  You work.

  All day. You work.

  You work as you have never worked. You think of your sister’s

  words, of how it is impossible to live in the chaos. You think of your sister’s poem again, and you think of her wolf and you see her wolf chewing off its own leg. And you wonder what good a

  wolf is without one of its legs. How long will that wolf survive?

  What good is a wounded wolf who limps on three legs?

  What good is a man without a country?

  What good is a man with a country?

  Every time you ask yourself a question, you have no answer.

  But then another question rises up in your head. This is chaos—

  questions floating in your mind, questions that have no answers.

  Mr. Ortega stops you and says, “You are working like a crazy

  man.”

  You nod and you hear yourself tell him that men work instead

  of cry.

  302 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p He nods and you hear him say, “You will make a fine soldier.”

  You hate him for his words, but you hide your hate. And you

  see yourself smiling at him. And he thinks you are grateful for the compliment.

  At the end of the day, you are drenched in sweat.

  Mr. Ortega hands you a clean towel for you to dry yourself off.

  And you think of your mother handing you a towel two nights

  ago. And you think of how you became a child that night. But

  you think it is time for you to become a man.

  It is time.

  You take the towel from Mr. Ortega. He has been very kind

  to you today. And you are oddly moved by his kindness. Every-

  one in the world is capable of such kindness. And maybe every-

  one is both kind and cruel—and you—like everyone else in the

  world—you, you will hover between kindness and cruelty all the days of your life.

  And you think that perhaps it would make no difference at

  all whether you went to war or not. It will not matter in the end.

  That is what you think. And so you are making yourself suffer

  for nothing.

  This is what you tell yourself: It does not matter what you

  decide. Escape is not possible. In the end, you will always be a child of war.
<
br />   lourde s . g us t avo.

  His mother was sitting in the car in front of Benny’s Body Shop when he walked out into the street. She honked the horn and

  waved at him. He walked up to the car, opened the door, and slid onto the seat. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I was going to catch the bus.”

  “I know. I was running some errands and thought—” she

  stopped.

  “Thought what?”

  “I thought we should have a talk.”

  “A talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “About what?”

  She took the letter out of her purse. “About this.” She handed him the folded up letter.

  304 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p He took it, stared at it, then shoved it in his pants pocket.

  “Does Dad know?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t think that’s my job, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Gustavo, are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you should.”

  “He won’t think it’s a bad thing that I got drafted.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just a wild guess.”

  “Don’t be a wise guy.”

  “Mom, this is the guy who handed me a gun when I was ten.

  This is guy who said, ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ This is the guy who, when I told him that I didn’t think a rifle was beautiful, told me I didn’t understand anything about the aesthetics of being a man.”

  “He told you that? What a strange thing to say.”

  “I had to look up the word, aesthetics. I spent months trying to figure out what the hell he was trying to say to me. He always talked to me like I was an adult. You know, I don’t know what I would have done without Xochil. She always translated my father to me. Just like you always had to translate me to him.”

  “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”

  “That’s Xochil. She has a lot of theories about things. Look,

  I’m sorry about me and Dad.”

  “It’s not all your fault.”

  “Well, it’s half my fault, isn’t it, Mom?” He took out his pack of cigarettes, then fingered the pack nervously. “I don’t know if I can talk about this—”

  “You tried to talk about it once before. Only I didn’t let you.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay. I didn’t want to talk about it because it

  lourde s . g us t avo. l 305

  was too hard. And it is too hard. But, Gustavo, we can’t just

  pretend.”

  “Xochil told me that you said that sometimes we have to pre-

  tend that everything’s normal because we can’t live in the chaos.”

  “Well, sometimes I’m full of it.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re not full of it, Mom.”

  “Don’t idealize your mother. I’m just a human being.”

  “You idealize your children all the time.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “All the time. Especially me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Can we get out of this car so I can smoke?”

  She started the engine. “Why don’t we take a drive?”

  “What are we doing in a cemetery?”

  “I wanted to see your grandmother’s plot. It should be right

  next to your grandfather’s.” She opened the car door and stepped out. Gustavo followed her as she wandered through the rows of

  gravestones, her eyes searching. She turned and nodded at Gus-

  tavo. “You can smoke if you want. I don’t think the dead will

  mind.”

  “You’re in a strange mood.”

  “Am I?”

  “You know, Xochil’s a lot like you.”

  “Maybe she is.” She pointed to a gravestone. “Over there.”

  They walked toward the spot, then stood in front of Enrique

  Espejo’s grave. “Your grandfather had a good life. You want to know something about your grandfather? He ran. He ran away

  from the revolution. He had to decide. And he decided to leave.

  He decided to come here. He left Mexico. He wasn’t thrown out.

  He made a choice. Was that a bad thing, Gustavo?”

  306 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t either.”

  They stood for a long time saying nothing. “Amor, you can’t be afraid of deciding.”

  “You think that’s what I’m afraid of ?”

  “No. I think you know what you should do. But I also think

  you’re afraid of hurting the people you love.”

  “You’ve always given me too much credit, Mom.”

  “All of this, amor, it’s not your fault. Not any of it. Don’t punish yourself like that.”

  “Okay.”

  She nodded back at him. “I’ll take okay. Okay will do just

  fine.” She stared down at her father-in-law’s gravestone. “And one more thing. I don’t want you in living in a cemetery.”

  “People don’t live in cemeteries, Mom.”

  She placed her hand on his shoulder. “You catch on fast.”

  adam . the dead .

  Da Nang, Vietnam, September 19, 1967

  H e wasn’t supposed to die. He was just wounded. Patsy said so.

  “Blood don’t mean you’ll die.” That’s what he said. Fucking Patsy.

  What did he know?

  Motherfuckers.

  You had a bad feeling about this. You had that same feeling the day they hit Salvi. You hate these feelings. You hate them.

  You try to think of your mother lighting candles in a church.

  But motherfuckers, did they have to hit Bill?

  “Don’t be thinking shit. I know you’re thinking shit. Don’t be doin’ that.”

  He looked up at Whit. “You don’t know what I’m fucking

  thinking.”

  “Look, it fucking happens. That’s what we came here for.”

  “Don’t give me that shit. He was a fucking good man.”

  “Yup and we all fucking liked him. And so fucking what?”

  “He has kids.”

  308 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p

  “Look. He was a lifer. This was it for him. Being a fucking

  Marine. That’s what he loved.”

  “Yeah, well, it sucks.”

  “He was thirty, man.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? Fucking thirty ain’t

  old.”

  “Some guys get shot up at nineteen. Thirty’s fucking old if you ask me. Look, he got shot up, bad. That fucking bouncing Betty got him good. Did you want him to hang around like Salvi?”

  “Don’t talk shit about Salvi. He’s home. He’s alive.”

  “I’m not so fucking sure.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Salvi, I don’t fucking think— Look, never mind what I fuck -

  ing think. Look, tonight, you and me, we go to the beach. I scored me some good shit. And, ooooh, baby, it ain’t raining today. You can see a piece of sky. Shit, it almost looks like Tucson. C’mon, almost looks like fucking Tucson. C’mon. I’ll buy you a beer. Buy you two—then we can head to the beach.”

  “I’m on duty this evening.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not on duty right now.”

  “Yeah, sure. A beer. A walk on the fucking beach.”

  “Enjoy, baby. We’re heading back out in three days.”

  “I’m gonna be fucking ready this time. Camera’s gonna be fuck -

  ing ready.” He remembered the day they got hit, the whole damned world spinning around, and the rain had been nothing more than a
mist, and how calm he was, calm as he’d ever been, and he’d

  seen them, at least three of them. He’d seen them go down. It had seemed just like it was supposed to be. If there’d been more, he’d have gunned them down too. Every fucking one of them. But, God, after the shooting, there was only the sound of Salvi screaming.

  “Camera, hey, hey, fucking stay with me.” Whit snapped his

  fingers in front of his face. “Stay with me, buddy. Don’t fucking go away like that.”

  lourde s

  Gustavo smoked a cigarette before we left the cemetery.

  I let him drive the car. He loved to drive. I’d always hated

  cars.

  We didn’t say a word. He was thinking. As Xochil would have

  it, he was translating our conversation.

  I had so many questions to ask him. And yet, what good were

  all my questions? I’d said too much already. He already knew

  what I thought—even before our conversation. Just as he knew

  what his father thought, what his sister thought—even what

  Charlie thought. He knew what he felt about the war. He knew

  the consequences of fighting in a war he did not believe in just as he knew the consequences of leaving the country. Or perhaps he could only guess at those consequences.

  I could have made it easier on everyone if I had just decided to drag him all the way to Mexico City and lock him in my cousin’s house. It would not have been so hard for me to leave the country

  310 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p along with my son. Maybe Octavio was right after all —I was an ingrate. But if I had to make a choice between a country and my son, then I would choose my son. Gustavo was right about that

  too. I did idealize my children. I thought they were all beautiful enough to save. All of them. Especially Gustavo.

  I prayed he’d leave. I wanted to beg him. But I did none of

  those things—and would not do it.

  There were no maps for him. There were no directions.

  I knew that if he chose to enter the military, it would be for all the wrong reasons. Was that a crime? Was that a sin? Hundreds, thousands of young men were doing just that. Why should my

  son be any different? And yet he knew he had a choice. And that was the difference between him and a thousand other boys his

  age. He could imagine something beyond the piece of paper that a government had sent to him.