by Lucia Berlin
“Okay. She tosses her cigarette into the water. You can hear it hiss, as the waves are calm near the shore. The engines of the boat turn off with a shudder. Silently then, in the sound of the buoys and the gulls and the mournful long whistle of the boat they glide toward the berth in the harbor, banging softly against the tires on the dock. Mama smoothes down her collar and her hair. Smiling, she looks out at the crowd, searching for her husband. She has never before known such happiness.”
Sally is crying softly. “Pobrecita. Pobrecita,” she says. “If only I could have been able to speak to her. If I had let her know how much I loved her.”
Me … I have no mercy.
Carmen
Outside every drugstore in town there were dozens of old cars with kids fighting in the backseat. I would see their mothers inside Payless and Walgreens and Lee’s, but we didn’t greet each other. Even women I knew … we acted like we didn’t. We waited in line while the others bought terpin hydrate with codeine cough syrup and signed for it in a large awkward ledger. Sometimes we wrote our right names, sometimes made the names up. I could tell that, like me, they didn’t know which was worse to do. Sometimes I’d see the same women at four or five drugstores a day. Other wives or mothers of addicts. The pharmacists shared our complicity, never acting like they knew us from before. Except once a young one at Fourth Street Drugs called me back to the counter. I was terrified. I thought he was going to report me. He was really shy and blushed when he apologized for interfering in my affairs. He said he knew I was pregnant and he was worried about me buying so much cough syrup. It had a high alcohol content, he said, and it could be easy for me to become an alcoholic without realizing it. I didn’t say that it wasn’t for me. I said thanks, but I began to cry as I turned and ran out of the store, crying because I wanted Noodles to be clean when the baby came. “How come you’re crying, Mama? Mama’s crying!” Willie and Vincent were jumping around the backseat. “Sit down!” I reached around and whacked Willie on the head. “Sit down. I’m crying because I’m tired and you guys won’t be still.”
There had been a big bust in town and a bigger one in Culiacán, so there was no heroin in Albuquerque. Noodles at first had told me he would taper off on the cough syrup and stay clean, so he’d be clean when the baby came in two months. I knew he couldn’t. He’d never been so strung out before and now he had hurt his back at a construction job. At least he had disability.
He was on his knees, talking, had crawled to get the phone. I know, I know, I’ve been to the meetings. I’m sick too, an enabler, a co-addict. All I can say is I felt love, pity, tenderness for him. He was so thin, so sick. I would do anything for him not to hurt this way. I knelt down and put my arms around him. He hung up the phone.
“Fuck, Mona, they’ve busted Beto,” he said. He kissed me and held me, called the kids over and hugged them. “Hey, you guys, give your old man a hand, be my crutches to the bathroom.” When the boys left I went in and shut the door. He was shaking so bad I had to pour the cough syrup into his mouth. The smell made me retch. His sweat, his shit, the whole trailer smelled of rotten oranges from the syrup.
I fixed dinner for the boys and they watched Man from U.N.C.L.E. on TV. All the kids in school wore Levi’s and T-shirts except Willie. In third grade, and he wore black pants and a white shirt. His hair was combed like the blond guy on TV. The boys had bunk beds in a tiny room, Noodles and I slept in the other bedroom. I already had a bassinet at the foot of our bed, diapers and baby clothes in every spare nook. We owned two acres in Corrales, near the clear ditch, in a grove of cottonwoods. At first we had plans to start building our adobe house, plant vegetables, but just after we got the land Noodles got strung out again. Most of the time he was still working construction, but nothing had happened about the house and now winter was coming.
I made a cup of cocoa and went out on the step. “Noodles, come see!” But he didn’t answer. I heard the twist of another syrup cap. There was a gaudy splendid sunset. The vast Sandia Mountains were a deep pink, the rocks on the foothills red. Yellow cottonwoods blazed on the riverbank. A peach-colored moon was already rising. What’s the matter with me? I was crying again. I hate to see anything lovely by myself. Then he was there, kissing my neck and putting his arms around me.
“You know they are called the Sandias because they are shaped like watermelons.” “No,” I said, “it’s because of the color.” We had that argument on our first date, have repeated it a hundred times. He laughed and kissed me, sweet. He was fine now. That’s the lousy thing about drugs, I thought. They work. We sat there watching nighthawks sweep across the field.
“Noodles, don’t have any more terps. I’ll stash the rest of the bottles, give it to you just when you get sick. Okay?”
“Okay.” He wasn’t hearing me. “Beto was going to score in Juárez, from La Nacha. Mel is down there. He’ll test it. He can’t bring it. He can’t cross the border. I need you to go. You are the perfect person to do it. You’re Anglo, pregnant, sweet-looking. You look like a nice lady.”
I am a nice lady, I thought.
“You’ll fly to El Paso, take a cab over the border, and then fly back. No problem.”
I remembered waiting in the car outside the building where La Nacha lived, being afraid in that neighborhood.
“I’m the worst person to go. I can’t leave the kids. I can’t go to jail, Noodles.”
“You won’t go to jail. That’s the point. Connie’ll keep the kids. She knows you have family in El Paso. There could be an emergency. The kids would love to go to Connie’s.”
“What if narcs stop me, ask me what I’m doing there?”
“We still have Laura’s ID. It looks like you, maybe not so pretty but you’re both gueras with blue eyes. You’ll have a ratty piece of paper with ‘Lupe Vega’ scrawled on it and an address next door to Nacha’s. Say you’re looking for your maid, she hasn’t shown, she owes you money, something like that. Just act dumb, have them help you look for her.”
I finally agreed to go. He said Mel would be there and to watch him try it out. “You’ll know if it’s good.” Yes, I knew the look of a good rush. “Whatever you do, don’t leave Mel alone in the room. You leave alone, though, not even with Mel. Have your own cab come back for you in an hour. Don’t let them call you a cab.”
I got ready to go, called Connie and told her my uncle Gabe had died in El Paso, could she keep the kids for the night, maybe another day. Noodles gave me a thick envelope with money in it, taped closed. I packed a bag for the boys. They were happy to go. Connie’s six kids were like cousins. When I took them to the door Connie shooed them inside, came out onto the porch and hugged me. Her black hair was up in tin rollers, like a kabuki headdress. She wore cutoffs and a T-shirt, looked about fourteen.
“You don’t ever have to lie to me, Mona,” she said.
“Did you ever do this?”
“Yeah, lots of times. Not after I had children. You won’t do it again, I’ll bet. Take care. I’ll pray for you.”
* * *
It was still hot in El Paso. I walked across the sinking soft tarmac from the plane, smelling the dirt and sage I remembered from childhood. I told the cabdriver to take me to the bridge, but first drive around the alligator pond.
“Alligators? Them old alligators died off years ago. Still want to see the plaza?”
“Sure,” I said. I leaned back and watched the neighborhoods flash by. There were changes but as a kid I had skated over this whole city so many times that it seemed I knew every old house and tree. The baby was kicking and stretching. “You like my old hometown?”
“What’s that?” the cabdriver asked.
“Sorry, I was talking to my baby.”
He laughed. “Did he answer?”
I crossed the bridge. I was still happy just with the smells of woodfires and caliche dirt, chili, and the whiff of sulfur from the smelter. My friend Hope and I used to love to give smart answers when the border guards asked our nationality. Transylvan
ian, Mozambican.
“USA,” I said. Nobody seemed to notice me. Just in case, I didn’t take any of the cabs by the border but walked some more blocks. I ate some dulce de membrillo. Even as a kid I didn’t like it, but liked the idea that it came in a little balsa box and you used the lid for a spoon. I looked at all the silver jewelry and shell ashtrays and Don Quijotes until I made myself get into a cab and hand him the piece of paper with Lupe’s name and the wrong address. “Cuanto?”
“Twenty dollars.”
“Ten.”
“Bueno.” Then I could no longer pretend I wasn’t scared. He drove fast for a long time. I recognized the deserted street and the stucco building. He stopped a few doors down. In broken Spanish I asked him to be back in an hour. For twenty dollars. “Okay. Una hora.”
It was hard climbing the stairs to the fourth floor. I was big with the baby and my legs were swollen and sore. I caught my breath in sobs at each landing. My knees and hands were shaking. I knocked on the door of number 43, Mel opened it and I stumbled in.
“Hey, sweetheart, what’s happening?”
“Water, please.” I sat on a dirty vinyl sofa. He brought me a Diet Coke, wiped the top with his shirt, smiled. He was dirty, handsome, moved like a cheetah. A legend by now, escaping from jails, jumping bond. Armed and dangerous. He brought me a chair to put my feet up on, rubbed my ankles.
“Where is La Nacha?” The woman was never referred to just as Nacha. “The Nacha,” whatever that meant. She came in, dressed in a black man’s suit and a white shirt. She sat at a chair behind a desk. I couldn’t tell if she was a male transvestite or a woman trying to look like a man. She was dark, almost black, with a Mayan face, red-black lipstick and nail polish, dark glasses. Her hair was short, slick. She held a stubby hand out to Mel without looking at me. I handed him the money. I saw her count the money.
That’s when I got afraid, really afraid. I had thought I was getting drugs for Noodles. All I cared about was him not being sick. I had thought there was maybe a big wad of tens, twenties in the packet. There were thousands of dollars in La Nacha’s hand. He hadn’t just sent me to get shit for him. I was making a big, dangerous score. If they caught me it would be as a dealer, not a user. Who would take care of the boys? I hated Noodles.
Mel saw that I was shaking. I think I even gagged. He fished around in his pockets, came up with a blue pill. I shook my head. The baby.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. It’s just a Valium. You’ll mess that baby up worse if you don’t take it. Take it. Get it together! You hear me?”
I nodded. His scorn shook me. I was calm even before the pill worked.
“Noodles told you I was going to test the shit. If it’s good I’ll say so and you just take the balloon and leave. You know where to put it?” I knew but would never do that. What if it broke and got to the baby?
He was a devil, could read my mind. “If you don’t put it there I will. It’s not going to break. Your baby is all wrapped up in a drug-proof bag, safe against every evil of the outside world. Once he’s born, sugar, hey, that’s another story.”
Mel watched as La Nacha weighed the packet and nodded as she handed it to him. She had never looked at me. I watched Mel shoot up. Put cottons and water into a spoon, sprinkle a pinch of brown heroin into it, cook it. Tie up, hit a vein in his hand, blood backing up then plunge and the tie falling off as his face instantly stretched back. He was in a wind tunnel. Ghosts were flying him into another world. I had to pee, I had to throw up. “Where’s the bathroom?” La Nacha motioned to the door. I found the bathroom down the hall by the smell. When I got back I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to leave Mel alone. He was smiling. He handed me the condom, rolled up into a ball.
“Here you go, precious, you have a good trip. Go on now, put it away like a good girl.” I turned around and acted like I was shoving it inside myself but it was just inside my too-tight underpants. Outside, in the dark of the hall I moved it to my bra.
I took the steps slowly, like a drunk. It was dark, filthy.
At the second landing I heard the door open downstairs, noises from the street. Two young boys ran up the stairs. “Fíjate no más!” One of them pinned me to the wall, the other got my purse. Nothing was in it but loose bills, makeup. Everything else was in a pocket inside my jacket. He hit me.
“Let’s fuck her,” the other one said.
“How? You need a dick four feet long.”
“Turn her around, bato.”
Just as he hit me again a door opened and an old man came running down the stairs with a knife. The boys turned and ran back outside. “Are you well?” the man asked in English.
I nodded. I asked him to go with me. “I hope there is a taxi outside.”
“You wait here. If it’s there I’ll have him use the horn three times.”
Your mother did teach you to be a lady, I thought when I wondered about the etiquette. Should I offer him money? I didn’t. His toothless smile was sweet as he opened the taxi door for me.
“Adiós.”
* * *
I was nauseated on the little twin-engine plane to Albuquerque. I smelled like sweat and the couch and the pee-stained wall. I asked for an extra sandwich and nuts and milk.
“Eatin’ for two now!” the Texan across from me grinned.
I drove from the airport home. I’d get the boys after I had a shower. As I drove down the dirt road toward our trailer I could see Noodles in his pea jacket, pacing and smoking outside.
He looked desperate, didn’t even come to greet me. I followed him inside.
He sat at the edge of the bed. On the table his outfit was ready and waiting. “Let me see it.” I handed him the balloon. He opened the cupboard above the bed and put it on the tiny scale. He turned and slapped me hard across the face. He had never hit me before. I sat there, numb, next to him. “You left Mel alone with it. Didn’t you. Didn’t you.”
“There is enough there to have put me away for a long time,” I said.
“I told you not to leave him. What am I going to do now?”
“Call the police,” I said, and he slapped me again. This one I didn’t even feel. I got a strong contraction. Braxton-Hicks, I thought to myself. Whoever was Braxton-Hicks? I sat there, sweating, stinking of Juárez, and watched him pour the contents of the rubber into a film canister. He shook some onto the cottons in his spoon. I knew with a sick certainty that always if there were a choice between me and the boys or drugs, he’d go for the drugs.
Hot water gushed down my legs onto the carpet. “Noodles! My water is breaking! I have to go to the hospital.” But by then he had fixed. The spoon made a clink onto the table, his rubber tube fell from his arm. He leaned back against the pillow. “At least it’s good shit,” he whispered. I got another contraction. Strong. I tore off the filthy dress and sponged myself, put on a white huipil. Another contraction. I called 911. Noodles had nodded out. Should I leave him a note? Maybe he’d call the hospital when he woke. No. He would not think of me at all.
First thing he’d do, he’d shoot up what was left in the cottons, have another little taste. I tasted copper in my mouth. I slapped his face but he didn’t move.
I opened the can of heroin, holding it with a Kleenex. I poured a large amount into the spoon. I added a little water, then closed his beautiful hand around the can. There was another bad contraction. Blood and mucus were sliding down my legs. I put a sweater on, got my Medi-Cal card, and went outside to wait for the ambulance.
They took me straight to the delivery room. “The baby’s coming!” I said. The nurse took my Medi-Cal card, asked questions: phone, husband’s name, how many live births, what was my due date.
She examined me. “You’re totally dilated, the head is right here.”
Pains were coming one after another. She ran to get a doctor. While she was gone the baby was born, a little girl. Carmen. I leaned down and picked her up. I laid her, warm and steaming, on my stomach. We were alone in the quiet room. Then they came an
d wheeled us careening into the big lights. Somebody cut the cord and I heard the baby cry. An even worse pain as the placenta came out and then they were putting a mask over my face. “What are you doing? She is born!”
“The doctor is coming. You need an episiotomy.” They tied my hands down.
“Where is my baby? Where is she?” The nurse left the room. I was strapped to the sides of the bed. A doctor came in. “Please untie me.” He did and was so gentle I became frightened. “What is it?”
“She was born too early,” he said, “weighed only a few pounds. She didn’t live. I’m sorry.” He patted my arm, awkwardly, like patting a pillow. He was looking at my chart. “Is this your home number? Shall I call your husband?”
“No,” I said. “Nobody’s home.”
Silence
I started out quiet, living in mountain mining towns, moving too often to make a friend. I’d find me a tree or a room in an old deserted mill, to sit in silence.
My mother was usually reading or sleeping so I spoke mostly with my father. As soon as he got in the door or when he took me up into the mountains or down dark into the mines, I was talking nonstop.
Then he went overseas and we were in El Paso, Texas, where I went to Vilas school. In third grade I read well but I didn’t even know addition. Heavy brace on my crooked back. I was tall but still childlike. A changeling in this city, as if I’d been reared in the woods by mountain goats. I kept peeing in my pants, splashing until I refused to go to school or even speak to the principal.
My mother’s old high school teacher got me in as a scholarship student at the exclusive Radford School for Girls, two bus rides across El Paso. I still had all of the above problems but now I was also dressed like a ragamuffin. I lived in the slums and there was something particularly unacceptable about my hair.
I haven’t talked much about this school. I don’t mind telling people awful things if I can make them funny. It was never funny. Once at recess I took a drink from a garden hose and the teacher grabbed it from me, told me I was common.