Carry Me Like Water

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  He recognized the two couples who were his parents’ guests. He greeted them warmly. He smiled and glanced over at his parents. They smiled at him. “Where’s Jon-Jon?” he asked.

  “Your brother’s sick,” his mother said. “They called me from school, so I sent the car. When he got home, the poor thing was burning up.”

  “Maybe I should go up and see him,” Jacob said. He started toward the hallway. His mother stopped him.

  “He’s sleeping, dear. He really needs to rest. Maybe you should wait until tomorrow.” She looked over at one of her friends. “He’s a very devoted brother.”

  “Yes,” his father nodded.

  He didn’t like the tone in his parents’ voices.

  He was sorry Jon-Jon was not at dinner. Without him, the evening seemed endless. He tried to shut out the voices of the people who were sitting at the table. Something in the way they sat and ate and spoke betrayed the fact that they believed in only one thing: that the world belonged to them—that they were entitled to it, entitled to use it, to poison it, to dominate it. Their codes were easy to read. He knew he would not live his life like them, and as he sat there he was grateful he was gay—that separated him, set him apart, made him different from them. Their lives made him sick. Already he had inherited his parents’ contempt without even knowing it.

  As soon as dessert was brought out, Jacob asked to be excused. When his father allowed him to leave, he went directly to Jon-Jon’s room. He sat on his brother’s bed and turned on the tamp. He felt his brother’s forehead, then held one of his hands. Jon-Jon opened his eyes and smiled at his brother. “Hi, Jake,” he whispered.

  “Are you gonna be OK, Sport?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m just tired.”

  “You don’t have to talk—I just wanted to sit with you a while, that’s all.” Jacob placed his hand on his cheek. “I think you need to take another aspirin,” he said. He got up, took an aspirin from the medicine cabinet and made his brother drink it down with the orange juice that sat on the bookcase next to his bed. “Who brought you the orange juice?” he asked.

  “Esperanza. Do you like her, Jake?”

  “Yeah, she’s nice.

  “I like her, too.”

  “I bet she’s a nice mother.”

  Jacob nodded. Nicer than ours, he wanted to say.

  They sat in the quiet for what seemed to Jacob a long time. When he thought his brother was asleep again, he started to get up off the edge of the bed where he had been sitting.

  His brother tugged him back with his voice. “Jake …”

  Jake waited for his brother to continue—but he didn’t. “Did you need something, Jon-Jon?”

  His brother was silent for a while as if he were considering his words. “Jake, you think we could go and live with Esperanza? Do you think she’d let us live with her?”

  “Why do you wanna live with Esperanza, Sport?”

  Again, he paused and finally spoke. “Did Dad ever—I mean—did Dad—did Dad ever touch you?”

  Jacob didn’t need an explanation. He felt his heart begin pumping hard, adrenaline running through him like an arroyo in the desert after a thunderstorm. For an instant, he held the image of himself in front of his father—he was killing him with his bare fists. That bastard, that sonofabitch. Outwardly, he remained calm. His parents had taught him a great deal about pretending. He kept himself from trembling. He sat back down on the bed, and took his brother’s hand and held it tight. “Have you told anybody?” Jake asked.

  “I’m scared, Jake.”

  “Don’t be scared, Jon-Jon. Don’t be scared. I’ll protect you. I promise. Go to sleep, Sport—I’ll stay here tilt you’re asleep. Everything’s gonna be fine. I promise—everything’s gonna be fine.” When his brother fell asleep, he tiptoed out of the room. He heard his father’s laugh downstairs. They were in the study—he could tell. They always had drinks in the study. The sound of his father’s laugh made him crazy, he felt as if he were nothing more than anger—an anger so pure it made him fee! perfect. Then suddenly, his whole body trembled, and he could see his hands shaking in front of him. He grabbed his left wrist with his right hand as if that would stop the shaking, but the shaking was coming from a place far away from his hands. He found himself in front of the study. The French doors were open. His mother noticed him standing there. “Why, Jacob, you look white as a sheet—are you coming down with something, too?”

  Jacob stared at his mother.

  “Jacob?” she asked again.

  He could not make himself speak.

  “Jacob,” his father said, “your mother asked you a question?”

  And then he heard himself say it: “If you ever touch my brother again, I’ll kill you. He’s a boy, he’s a boy, don’t you know he’s just a boy? I swear if you ever touch him again, I’ll cut your balls off and stuff them down your throat.” He clenched his fists, and placed them in front of him as if he were in the ring. He began dancing around the study as if he were a boxer. “Pederast,” he yelled. “Pederast! I looked it up in the dictionary when I was nine. You’re a goddamned monster, Dad.”

  His father’s face turned white—as if his son had drained him of his blood.

  His mother jumped to his father’s defense. “Have you gone crazy, Jacob? After all we’ve done—and then you turn around and accuse your father of—you’re a monstrous ingrate.” She began to cry and shake.

  It was at that moment that something snapped in his body, and he no longer felt any loyalty to the people who stood before him, people who not only posed as his parents, but who posed as human beings. It was the way she had said “monstrous”—like an actress performing a role for an audience that could no longer sit quiet until the end of the play because the performance was insultingly unconvincing. He was free of them and their rules. He had walked down the stairs and into the study like a mindless robot, but suddenly, on hearing his mother’s voice, he had acquired a consciousness, and felt whole, felt he could control himself and everyone in that room. All of the fear that had surrounded his entire life disappeared completely. All this time he had been taught to pretend they were a family—but they were not a family, and he was no longer their possession. They were not honorable people and he would no longer pretend to honor them. They couldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t touch him. He would take Jon-Jon with him. He liked that he had an audience—he would expose his parents to their guests. “Mama, when I was ten, I told you what Dad was doing. You slapped me—and then slapped me again. You told me to shut up, you called me a liar. I’ll take that slap with me to the grave.” He looked at his father. “When I grew big enough to defend myself, you stopped coming into my room, you sonofabitch.” He looked around at his father’s guests. “I wonder what you people are like with your children?”

  “Shut up!” his father said. He felt his father’s hand across his cheek. He fell backward. Only the wall kept him from falling to the floor. He and his father stared at each other. “Why don’t you just admit that you’re the one who’s the pervert.” his father said. “We found all your magazines underneath your mattress. It’s disgusting.”

  “At least they’re pictures of men, Dad—not little boys.”

  His father took a step toward his son.

  “One more step, Dad—just one more step. I’ll kill you—I swear I will.”

  His father stood perfectly still.

  “I’m leaving tonight—and I’m taking Jon-Jon with me.”

  His mother stepped between them. She stood so close to Jacob that her face appeared disfigured, distorted, her breath beating him down. She started to speak. The two couples in the room moved toward the door.

  “Don’t leave, now,” Jacob said. “Why don’t you stay and see the real Marsh family in action. The guests paid no attention to him as they hurried out of the room.

  “You’re going to pay for this little episode,” his mother said. Her voice was as cold as it had always been, and though he had never lived in a plac
e where ice and snow were common, he felt he had been frozen by the shadow of his mother’s body. “Go ahead and leave—but you can forget about taking your brother. If you ever come near him, I’ll have you arrested for kidnapping. You’ll never see him again.” There was something absolute in her voice—but Jacob refused to let her see his panic. “I’ll find a way,” he yelled, “I’ll find a way to steal him from you. He’s mine! He’s mine!”

  “I want you out in half an hour. You can take your clothes, and anything else that’s in your room—and that’s all. You’re eighteen—you’re of age. Your father and I never want to see you again. If you ever try to see your brother, you’ll regret it.”

  Jacob stared long and hard into his mother’s face. He knew what she was like, knew she was capable of doing a great deal of damage. She knew enough people in power to get anything she wanted. He had seen her in action. He had no way of fighting her. He wondered which of his two parents was more deformed.

  “Can I say good-bye to him?”

  “No,” she said, “we can take care of everything.”

  “Just like you always have,” he said softly. He said nothing else. He walked to his room, packed the things he wanted, and stuffed them into his biggest suitcase. His parents stood at the door making sure he did not disturb his brother. They walked him down the stairs. No one said a word. When Jacob opened the front door, he turned around and faced his parents. He looked straight at his mother. “There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do. Mom.” He stared directly into her face, then slapped her across the face. She fell backward onto the floor. His father leapt at him. He wrestled him off, grabbed him by the collar and threw a punch at his face. When he drew his fist back, his father’s face was bleeding. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you,” he said. He slammed the door behind him. As he walked down the street, he wondered where he would

  The cops caught up with him in less than ten minutes.

  10

  THE SUN COVERED the city in a film of dust and sweat. Diego walked to the corner of Fifth and Oregon to watch Crazy Eddie preach. He wasn’t at his usual corner; it seemed unnatural to see the corner empty of Eddie’s waving arms. I’ll come back later, Diego thought. He walked up and down the streets, looking into the windows of stores filled with cheap clothing and people turning garments over in their hands. He imagined them thinking about the prices, trying to reach a decision about a certain article of clothing. Was it the right thing for the right price? Was the shirt really needed? Children were playing and running, and their faces were contorted in laughter. Some were crying. Mothers were chasing some of them, and Diego smiled at the awkward movements of women in heels chasing their agile offspring. Something about children trying to escape the grasp of adults made him want to laugh.

  He walked along and was happy among the crowds of people even though he didn’t know them. He did not have to know them to feel a part of them. Across the street, he caught sight of someone he thought he recognized. The woman stopped, spoke to herself, then crossed in the middle of the street without bothering to see if any cars were coming, A car slammed on its brakes and honked, the driver hanging out the window and cursing her. But she did not stop to acknowledge the upset driver nor his vehicle that had just come close to running her down.

  There’s that crazy gringa, Diego thought to himself, but it was an affectionate thought. Her skin was so pale his eyes hurt to look at her, and her blue eyes looked like a little girl’s. She talked to herself all the time—just like Diego, only Mary did it aloud. She wore piles and piles of clothing that were in various stages of decomposition and she smelled of pigeon shit, but she was nice most of the time, and she usually had the time to talk to Diego. But there were other times when she didn’t even recognize him—it all depended on what kind of day she was having. When she was having a good day, she remembered everything, remembered Diego and that he was deaf; when she was having a bad day, she remembered nothing, not even her own name. On those days she walked the streets and talked to herself like a drunk who had not seen a sober day in years. But when she was good she’d run up to Diego, hug him, and smile with a set of dentures she said she’d stolen from a nursing home. She always reminded Diego that she was the Virgin Mary, and that he should be good to her because of it. Luz hated her for her blasphemy, and would not go anywhere near her. “I’ll kill her if I gel too close to her,” she said, “She believes her own damned lies. And it’s all an act, anyway. Only men are stupid enough to pay any attention to her.” Diego had tried to convince her that whatever Mary was, she was not a liar. “Maybe she’s a little crazy,” Diego tried to explain, but Luz wouldn’t listen. “If you want to hang around garbage that’s your business, Diego, but remember she’s going to bring you trouble—and if you begin to smell like her just remember that garbage likes to spread its smell around.” Diego was sorry Luz felt that way, but he knew he would never change her mind, so he avoided mentioning Mary’s name in her presence.

  There was something very beautiful about Mary’s face, sensitive, verging on innocence—and yet it was very hard as if her very face had taken the brunt of the hits and slaps that her days of living had given her—the price for breathing. Something about her absorbed something of the air. She shines, Diego thought, like a puddle of water shining in the sun after a rainstorm.

  Mary considered herself one of a long line of successors to the original Virgin. Each generation had its particular reincarnation, and she had been chosen from before her birth. “In a former life,” she once told Diego, “I weren’t no virgin, but this time around I’ve hit the jackpot. I came back,” she smiled, “because there’s entirely too much sinning going on. Gets worse and worse. Seems like we’d learn, but we don’t, so I’m back to remind the earth. I’m just here to remind, that’s all.” Diego understood her logic—it was her way of connecting herself to the world, her way of belonging, her way of placing herself in the universe. She wasn’t so crazy, he thought.

  He watched her cross the street, and as she looked his way she flashed him a smile. She was having a good day: She remembered. She flipped him a finger and smiled. She ran up to him carrying a bag of clothes and hugged him.

  “Hey Juan, how you be?”

  Diego nodded.

  “Well, you look real good, honey, like a pig in shit. Ain’t you somethin’—and ain’t it nice today? Ain’t it nice?”

  Diego nodded and pointed at the noonday sun.

  “Yeah, sugar, shinin’ like Liz Taylor’s eyes.”

  Diego took out his pad and wrote: “Better than Liz Taylor’s eyes. That sun’s shining like Carlota’s jewels.”

  She read the pad much slower than Luz. “Well honey, I don’t know nothin’ about that lady’s jewels, but if you say so, Juan, then it must be so.”

  He laughed.

  “I like it when you laugh, Juan, makes you look like James Dean with them dimples and all. I mean it—such a handsome man. How come you ain’t married or nothin’? You like my outfit? I saw myself in the window this morning and I swear I looked to be the spittin’ image of Miss Kitty.”

  Diego nodded, though he had no idea who Miss Kitty was.

  She broke out laughing and suddenly grew serious. She wrinkled her nose and fought back the tears that seemed to come from nowhere. “Juan, oh, Juan honey, just makes me so sad. You know, Johnny, there just ain’t figurin’ people out. Some bastard man just told me I was an awful, wicked woman. Not in so many words, but I saw it, I saw it in his face. He treated me so bad like I was some cheap tramp. If I was a weak woman I’d have cried—I’d have burst into tears and bawled my eyes out—I’d have burst into tears like the second flood. But not me, honey, I ain’t weak; I didn’t cry. That bastard man, I tried to tell him, Juan, but he ain’t like you, no sir, he weren’t sweet and kind, and he weren’t no believer. I tried to tell him about me, about how I was the Virgin Mary and how Gabriel came to me and all, and I described his halo as bright as the sun on the water and his wings as strong as twe
nty eagles. But some people, sugar, they just don’t want to hear the truth—too hard to hear, I guess—just don’t want to. That awful man, may God strike him, that awful, awful, man. He looked at me like I was vile and evil and crazy. I could see it all in his eyes—you can see everything in people’s eyes, Johnny, I swear you can. And I could see in his eyes that he felt I was an abomination. Scared me so, those lies I saw in his eyes. I told him it was all there in the Bible, description of me and all.” Taking a deep breath, she put her scarred hands on her chest.

  Diego stared at her hands and looked back at her pale, quivering lips. Her lips were easy to read. Some lips were almost impossible, but Mary’s were easy. Luz said it was because she was a goddamned actress. “She knows damn well you’d sit and listen to everything she has to say. She’s crazy, but she’s not stupid.”

  Mary took her hands off her chest and touched Diego on the shoulder. “Do you know what that damned man did? He threw me a quarter—that’s right—a quarter! And I says to him, ‘You gonna toss the Virgin Mary a quarter? A quarter? You’d think a well-dressed Christian man like yourself would give the Virgin at least a dollar—maybe two.’ So he picked up his quarter and put it back in his pocket, and before I let that man get away I told him I knew for sure my son didn’t die for his sins, no way, no how. I picked myself up and walked away—yes, Juan, that’s just what I did.” Diego tried not to laugh and looked at her sympathetically, but despite himself he smiled crookedly.

  “Oh that smile, Johnny! Takes my breath away.”

  Diego wrote on his pad: “I’m sorry about how that man treated you, Mary, I really am, but what did you expect? He’s a man, isn’t he?”