The Tortilla Curtain

by T. C. Boyle

  Kyra always took long strides, even in heels—it was her natural gait. Delaney told her he found it sexy because it made her sway over her hips in an exaggerated way, but she’d never thought a thing about it—she’d always been athletic, a tomboy really, and she couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t in a hurry. She went round the north side of the house first, striding over the flagstone path as if she were almost running, her head swiveling back and forth to take in every least detail. It wasn’t till she turned the comer to the back of the house that she saw it, and even then she thought it was some trick of the light.

  She stopped as if she’d been jerked on a leash. She was bewildered at first, then outraged, and finally just plain frightened. There, scrawled across the side of the house in six-foot-high spray-painted letters, was a message for her. Black paint, slick with the falling light, ten looping letters in Spanish:

  PINCHE PUTA

  The sun was distant, a molten speck in the sky, but hot for all that. Delaney was out back of the community center, where he’d been working on his paddleball game, one-on-one with the wall. He was sitting on the back steps, a sweat-beaded Diet Coke in hand, when he became aware of the murmur of voices coming from somewhere inside the room behind him. The shades were drawn, but the window was open a crack, and as the sun flared out from the windows and the inevitable turkey vulture rode the unflagging currents high overhead, the murmur became two distinct and discrete voices, and he realized he was listening to Jack Jr. and an unknown companion engage in the deep philosophic reflections of a torpid late-summer adolescent afternoon.

  “Cal State, huh?” Jack Jr. said.

  “Yup. Best I could do—with my grades.” A snigger. A double snigger.

  “Think you can handle Northridge? I mean, I hear it’s like Little Mexico or something.”

  “Yup. That’s right. Fuckin’ Little Mexico all the way. But you know what the bright side is?”

  “What?”

  “Mexican chicks.”

  “Get out of here.”

  A pause. Slurping sounds. A suppressed belch.

  “No shit, man—they give killer head.”

  “Get out of here.”

  Another pause, long, reflective. “Only one thing you got to worry about—”

  “What’s that?”

  “The ten-pounds-a-year rule.”

  A tentative laugh, uncertain of itself, but game. “Yeah?”

  “At sixteen”—slurp, pause—“they’re killers, but from then on, every year they gain ten pounds till they wind up looking like the Pillsbury Dough Boy with a suntan—and who wants to stick your dick in something like that, even their mouth?”

  Delaney stood. This was the punch line and it was accompanied by a virtuosic duet of sniggers. Jesus, he thought, and his legs felt heavy suddenly. This was Jack’s kid. A kid who should know better, a kid with all the advantages, raised right here in Arroyo Blanco. Delaney was moving now, shaking the starch out of his legs, slapping the paddle aimlessly against his thigh. But then, maybe that was the problem, and his next thought was for Jordan: was that the way he was going to turn out? He knew the answer before he’d formulated the question. Of course it was, and there was nothing Kyra or Delaney or anybody else could do about it. That’s what he’d tried to tell Kyra over this wall business—it might keep them out, but look what it keeps in. It was poisonous. The whole place was poisonous, the whole state. He wished he’d stayed in New York.

  He felt depressed and out of sorts as he made his way through the familiar streets, the Vias and Calles and Avenidas of this, his exclusive private community in the hills, composed entirely of Spanish Mission-style homes with orange tile roofs, where the children grew into bigots, the incomes swelled and the property values rose disproportionately. It was four in the afternoon and he didn’t know what to do with himself. Jordan was at his grandmother’s still and Kyra had called to say she’d be home late, after which she’d be going over to Erna Jardine’s to get on the phone and sell her neighbors a wall, so Delaney would be on his own. But Delaney didn’t want to be on his own. That’s why he’d got married again; that’s why he’d been eager to take Jordan on, and the dogs, and all the joys and responsibilities of domestic life. He’d been on his own for eight years after he divorced his first wife, and that had been enough for him. What he really wanted, and he’d been after Kyra about it for the past year at least, was for her to have a baby, but she wouldn’t hear of it—there was always another house to show, another listing, another deal to close. Yes. Sure. And here he was, on his own.

  He’d just turned onto Robles, head down, oblivious to the heat, reflecting bitterly that he wouldn’t even have the dogs to keep him company, when he became aware that someone was calling out his name. He swung round to see a tall, vigorous and vaguely familiar-looking man striding up the pavement toward him. “Delaney Mossbacher?” the man said, holding out his hand.

  Delaney took the hand. But for the two of them, the street was deserted, held in the grip of that distant molten sun.

  “We haven’t met,” the man said, “—I’m Todd Sweet?—but I saw you at the meeting—the one over the gate thing awhile back?—and I thought I’d introduce myself. I hear you do a column for one of the nature magazines.”

  Delaney tried to work his face into a smile. The meeting? And then it hit him: this was the athlete with the willowy wife, the man who’d spoken out with such conviction against the gate. “Oh yes, sure,” he said vaguely; mortified to be in the presence of anyone who’d seen him waving that bloody dog’s appendage, and then, realizing that this wasn’t exactly an appropriate response, he added, “Wide Open Spaces.”

  The man was grinning, beaming at him as if they’d just signed the contract for a deal that would make them both rich. He was wearing a silk sport shirt in a tiger-stripe pattern, pressed slacks and sandals, and though it was a hundred and two degrees, he showed no trace of discomfort, not even a bead of sweat at his temples. He looked both earnest and hip, a jazz musician crossed with a Bible salesman. “Listen, Delaney,” he said, dropping his voice confidentially though there was no one within a hundred yards of them, no one visible at all, in fact, not in the sun-blistered expanse of the front yards or behind the drawn shades of the darkened windows, “I’m sure you’re aware of what our friend Jack Jardine has in store for us—”

  Our friend. Delaney couldn’t help but catch the ironic emphasis. But yes, Jack was his friend, though they didn’t always see eye-to-eye on the issues, and he felt defensive suddenly.

  “Well, I just thought, being a naturalist—and a writer, a fine, persuasive one, I’m sure—that you might oppose what’s going on here. It’s coming down to a vote at next Wednesday’s meeting, and I’m going house-to-house to try to talk people out of it—me and my wife, that is, we’re both going around. I mean, isn’t the gate bad enough? Isn’t this supposed to be a democracy we’re living in, with public spaces and public access?”

  “I agree,” Delaney said quickly. “Couldn’t agree more. The idea of a wall is completely and utterly offensive and it’s not going to be cheap, that’s for sure.”

  “No—and that’s what I’m emphasizing with these people. Nobody wants to see their assessment go up, right?” If he’d been beaming a moment ago, Todd Sweet looked positively reverential now. It was a look Delaney knew well, a California look, composed in equal parts of candor, awe and dazzlement, and it usually presaged the asking of a small favor or a tiny little loan. “Look,” Todd Sweet said finally, “I wonder if I might stop by your place tonight and maybe we could write something up, together, I mean—I hate to say it, but I’m no writer—”

  And then something came over Delaney—right there in the street, under the sun—a slow wash of shame and fear, a bitter stinging chemical seepage that carried with it the recollection of the Mexican in the bushes, the stolen car, Sunny DiMandia, Jim Shirley, the Metro section and all the rest. He had a vision then of all the starving hordes lined up at the border, of the cri
minals and gangbangers in their ghettos, of the whole world a ghetto and no end to it, and he felt the pendulum swing back at him. There would be war in his living room if he actively opposed this wall, war with his wife and with Jack and his triumvirate of Cherrystone, Shirley and Flood. Was he willing to risk that? Did the wall really matter all that much?

  Todd Sweet was studying his face, the eyes harder now, more penetrating, the mask slipping. “If it’s too much trouble,” he said, “I mean, if you want to live in a walled city like something out of ‘The Masque of the Red Death,’ that’s your prerogative, but I just assumed...” He trailed off, a thin petulant edge to his voice.

  “No, no, that’s not the problem,” Delaney said, and why shouldn’t he defy Kyra and Jack and stand up for what he believed in? But then he saw that phantom car again, the one with the rumbling speakers and impenetrable windows, and he hesitated. “Look,” he said, “I’ll call you,” and turned to walk away.

  “Seven-one-three, two-two-eight-zero,” Todd Sweet called at his back, but he wasn’t listening, his mind gone numb with ambivalence. He went on up the block, barely registering the world spread out before him, glum, dogless, on his own. Nothing was moving. The sun was everything. And then he turned into his own street, Piñon Drive, and saw that life existed after all: another figure was drifting across that static landscape in the blast of late-summer heat. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to be the bipedal figure of a man, slipping through the heat haze like an illusion, legs scissoring the light. The man had a white cloth shoulder bag slung over one arm, Delaney saw as he came closer, and he was crossing the Cherrystones’ lawn with the lingering insouciant stride of the trespasser—which is what he must have been, since Delaney knew for a fact that the Cherrystones had gone to Santa Monica and wouldn’t be back till seven. And then Delaney came closer still, and noticed something else, something that struck him with the force of a blow: the man was Mexican. “Hey,” Delaney called out, quickening his stride now, “can I help you?”

  The man looked startled, looked guilty—caught in the act—and he just stood there on the lawn and let Delaney come up to him. And now the second surprise: Delaney knew him, he was sure he did. It took him a minute, something missing from the composite, but then, even without the baseball cap, Delaney recognized him: this was the hiker, the illegal camper, the man who’d soured the first half of one of the worst days of Delaney’s life. And even then, even in that moment of recognition, the net widened suddenly: didn’t Kyra say that the man who’d threatened her at the Da Ros place was wearing a Padres cap turned backwards? The man just stood there, guarding his satchel. He didn’t look away from Delaney’s gaze, and he didn’t respond.

  “I said, can I help you?”

  “Help me?” he echoed, and his face broke into a grin. He winked an eye. “Sure,” he said, “sure, hombre, you can help me.” And then: “What’s happening, man?”

  Delaney was hot. He was uncomfortable. He was aggravated. The man stood a good three or four inches taller than he did and he was letting Delaney know just how unimpressed he was—he was mocking him, bearding Delaney right there in his own community, right there on his own street. Camping in the state park was one thing, but this was something else altogether. And what was in the satchel and why had he been crossing the Cherrystones’ lawn when the Cherrystones weren’t at home?

  “I want to know what you think you’re doing here,” Delaney demanded, eyeing the satchel and imagining the Cherrystones’ silverware in there, their VCR, Selda’s jewelry. “This is private property. You don’t belong here.”

  The man looked right through him. He was bored. Delaney was nothing, a minor annoyance, a gnat buzzing round his face.

  “I’m talking to you,” Delaney said, and before he could think, he had hold of the man’s forearm, just above the wrist.

  The tan eyes looked down at Delaney’s hand, then up into his face. There was nothing in those eyes but contempt. With a sudden violent jerk, the man whipped his arm free, gathered himself up and spat scornfully between Delaney’s feet. “I got these flies,” he said, and he was almost shouting it.

  Delaney was riding the crest of the moment, trembling, angry, ready for anything. The man was a thief, a liar, the stinking occupant of a stinking sleeping bag in the state forest, a trespasser, a polluter, a Mexican. “Don’t give me that shit!” Delaney roared. “I’m calling the police. I know what you’re doing up here, I know who you are, you’re not fooling anybody.” Delaney looked round him for support, for a car, a child on a bike, Todd Sweet, anyone, but the street was deserted.

  The Mexican’s expression had changed. The mocking grin was gone now, replaced by something harder, infinitely harder. He’s got a knife, Delaney thought, a gun, and he went cold all over when the man reached into the satchel, so keyed up he was ready to spring at him, tackle him, fight to the death... but then he was staring into a flat white sheet of Xerox paper crawling with print. “Flies,” the man spat at him. “I deliver these flies.”

  Delaney took a step back, so devastated he couldn’t speak—what was happening to him, what was he becoming?—and the man shoved the flier into his hand and stalked away across the lawn. He watched, stupefied, as the Mexican headed up the street, carrying his shoulders with rage and indignation, watched as he strode up to Delaney’s own house and inserted a flier in the slit between the screen door and the white wooden doorframe. Then, finally, Delaney looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand. A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE ARROYO BLANCO ESTATES PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, it read in block letters across the top. And then, beneath it: “I urge all of you to attend Wednesday’s meeting on an issue vital to the security and well-being of us all ...”

  7

  THE FIRST FIFTEEN MINUTES WERE NOTHING. AMÉRICA never asked herself what she was doing sitting on that concrete wall out front of the post office building in Canoga Park, never gave it a thought. She was exhausted, her feet ached, she felt hot and sleepy and a little nauseous, and she just sat there in a kind of trance and let the rich stew of the city simmer around her. It was amazing, all this life. The sidewalks weren’t crowded, not in the way she’d expected, not like in the market in Cuernavaca or even Tepoztlán, but there was a steady flow of people going about their business as if it were the most natural thing in the world to live here. People were walking dogs, riding bicycles, pushing babies in strollers, carrying groceries in big paper sacks cradled to their chests; they were smoking, chatting, laughing, tilting back their heads to drink from red-white-and-blue cans of Pepsi that said “Uh-huh!” on the label.

  As tired as she was, as tentative and unsettled, she couldn’t help being fascinated by the spectacle—and by the women especially. She watched them covertly, women her own age and maybe a little older, dressed like gringas in high heels and stockings, watched to see what they were wearing and how they did their hair and makeup. There were older women too, in rebozos and colorless dresses, niños hurtling by on skateboards, workingmen ambling past in groups of three or four, their eyes fixed on some distant unattainable vision way out ahead of them in the haze of the endless boulevard. And the traffic—it wasn’t like the traffic on the canyon road at all. Here it moved in a stately slow procession from light to light, every kind of car imaginable, from low-riders to Jaguars to battered old Fords and Chevies and VW buses and tiny silver cars that flashed by like fishes schooling in the sea. After all those weeks of deprivation, those weeks when she had nothing to look at but leaves and more leaves, the city was like a movie playing before her eyes.

  The second fifteen minutes were no problem either, though there was more of an edge to them, a hard hot little prick of anxiety that underscored the passing of each separate sixty-second interval. Where is Cándido? was a thought that began to intrude on her consciousness, and its variant, What’s keeping him? Still, she was glad to be there sitting on that wall, glad to be out of that nightmare of leaves, and she was content, or nearly content. The people were amus
ing. The cars were brilliant. If she wasn’t feeling nauseous and if her feet weren’t blistered and if she knew where she was going to sleep tonight and if she had something to chew on—anything, a slice of bread, a cold tortilla—this waiting would be nothing, nothing at all.

  There was a clock in the window of the appliance-repair shop across the way, and as the big illuminated pointer began to intrude on the third quarter of the hour, she realized that her nausea had begun to feature the brief powerful constrictions of hunger. She looked down at her feet and saw that they were swollen against the straps of her sandals (which she’d loosened twice already), and suddenly she felt so tired she wanted to lie back on the hard concrete wall and close her eyes, just for a minute. But she couldn’t do that, of course—that’s what bums did, street people, vagos, mendigos. Still, the thought of it, of lying back for just a minute, made her see the bed then, the promissory bed at the chicano’s aunt’s house, and that made her think of Cándido, and where was he?

  During the final quarter hour a man in stained clothes appeared out of nowhere and sat beside her on the wall. He was old, with a goat’s beard and eyes that jumped out at her from behind a pair of glasses held together with a piece of frayed black tape. She smelled him before she turned round and saw him there, not twelve inches from her. She’d been watching two girls in jeans and heels, with black lingerie tops and hair starched up high with spray, and suddenly the wind shifted and she thought she was back in the dump at Tijuana. The old man reeked of urine, vomit, his own shit, and his clothes—three or four shirts and a long coat and what looked to be at least two pairs of pants—were as saturated in natural oils as a plantain in a frying pan. He didn’t look at her, didn’t speak to her, though he was holding a conversation with someone only he could see, his voice falling. away to nothing and then cresting like a wave, his Spanish so twisted and his dialect so odd she could only pick up snatches of a phrase here and there. He seemed to be talking to his mother—to the memory of his mother, the ghost, the faint outline of her pressed into the eidetic plate of his brain—and there was a real urgency in the garbled message he had for her. His voice went on and on. América edged away. By the time the illuminated pointer touched the hour, he was gone.