The Jaguar's Children

by John Vaillant

  Mamá wears her hair in the same braids like those ladies on the Diego Rivera bags that the tourists used to buy, with ribbons woven in and tied together at the bottom. It is pretty, of course, but that is not why she does it. She does it so her hair won’t catch fire when she’s cooking. Mamá tried pants once, but Chinese bluejeans are not made for the Zapoteca body and Papá said they make her look like a pile of tires so now she is back to the skirt and apron and huipil. Most of the time there is no reason to wear shoes, but she has some little rubber ones. In the pueblos nothing is new but Pepsi bottles, plastic buckets and babies, and none of these stay new very long. When I was little, except for the Chevy Apache and some clothes, just about everything we owned or ate came out of the ground.

  Where I live, it is the truck that makes the difference between a slave and the free man. This is what my father always told me. The Chevy Apache was his pride, un clásico with the V-8 and four speeds. The engine sounded like river stones in a dump truck. Papá bought it before I was born when he was working up in Chihuahua for Don Serafín. It had holes in the back gate and Papá said they were made by bullets. On the windshield is the polarizado, the special band for blocking the sun, and this one says GON MAN. There is one photo from that time when the Apache was all black, and with its desert tires and long bed it looked to me like the Batmobile.

  You could always tell Papá’s truck from the others because it was covered over in dents like some crazy person beat it with a hammer. This was from the only time Papá drove into Texas. I was still a baby and there was some kind of storm up there. Papá was alone on the highway when it happened and he said there were balls of ice coming down the size of guayabas—oranges even. They came so many and so fast he didn’t know what was happening. The noise was incredible, he said, like thunder under your hat. He thought it was one of those warplanes Tío told us about and he was sure he was going to die. Together with all the dents, the windshield was cracked all over. When finally he was brave enough to come out, the sun was shining and near him in the grass was a dead coyote in a circle of smoking white ice balls. He drove straight home after that because in his mind it was an omen. Since then, he had bad dreams about it—sometimes it was the coyote lying there, sometimes it was him. He asked Mamá to see if the Bible mentioned such things with the frogs and locusts and hemorrhoids, but she said no, maybe it is a new punishment from God, special for Texas—for killing John F. Kennedy. My mother crosses herself whenever she hears his name because he was a Catholic also.

  Only once did Papá take me with him to Chihuahua. It was just before we left for el Norte and Papá was making a delivery for Don Serafín—peanuts and other things too, I think, but Papá did not talk about it because I was so young and because what matters is only the work. In the night that highway from Ciudad Chihuahua to Durango is full of trucks, nose to tail like a string of burros and driving so fast, 120 kilometers, sometimes more. No federales and the only way off is into the ditch. Everything is dark beyond the road—just the wide plain stretching away on every side, black like space and between the towns not a single light. It is dangerous and only the santos and virgins keep us alive. But even with hundreds of them they are still too busy—so hard to watch over everyone at once.

  And we are driving the peanuts—cacahuates. You must hear SpongeBob sing that song: ¡Soy un cacahuate!—Boom Bam Boom Bam—¡Eres un cacahuate!—Boom Bam Boom Bam—¡Todos somos CACAHUATES! And he is right. Out here we are all peanuts and SpongeBob sings it like he will die if he doesn’t—like a true Mexicano, like Vicente Fernández. Of course you know this song. It was my first ringtone.

  But this story here is from before the time of SpongeBob and celular—

  It is late and we are driving and Papá is so still and quiet he is like a statue of someone driving. But this is normal, he is used to driving all night. I have eaten so many peanuts I never want to see another and I am trying to sleep against the door when all of a sudden the brake lights are on in front and we are going from 100 to 10 like that. Flashers everywhere and mi padre is cursing. He doesn’t talk so much, but he curses con elocuencia. Many, many chingaos in all their different positions. So now everything is very slow in both directions and Papá pulls his head down into his neck, shoulders by his ears. He does this when he’s not happy and it makes him look like a turtle sulking, but I would never tell him this. “¿Qué chingado es esto?” he says. “¿Una chingada calenda?”

  There is a bend in the road and a rise in the land and on the other side a glowing. The sky is dark without the moon, but there is a light in the sky, big and orange like the sun is coming up early. Papá whistles and he pats the virgin on the dashboard—Juquila, por supuesto. “¿Qué es esto?” he says again. It is so slow now, like we are riding in an ox cart instead of the Apache, and when we finally get to the top of the rise we can see it. It is a fire—muy grande, como el infierno, and I wonder what can make such a fire like this. Most of the vehicles out here are panel trucks or vans with people, and these are not so big. But up there burning is something else, something enormous. Papá is holding the wheel tight with both hands and staring into the fire that is too bright to look at, and I am staring also because it is too bright not to look at. There are shapes in there—humans, black and thin, waving in the flames like puppets dancing. Monos in sombreros. After seeing this it is always how I imagine souls in Hell—in the dark by the side of a highway on an empty plain—el páramo despoblado—floating in fire. If it was Mexicanos writing the Old Testament, this is what it would look like.

  We can see now that it is a truck, a Kenworth by the cab on it, and all of it is on fire—the cab, the trailer, the wheels even—like it was made of dry sticks. Papá whistles and crosses himself. I know I must cross myself too, but I do not, I don’t know why because it is a habit with us—when you pass a cemetery, a church, a funeral, an accident, maybe a really pretty girl—for all these you will do it. It is a sign of respect and also for protection. But out here on this lonely road full of people, I have a feeling, a knowing, even though I am so young, that this will not protect me from such a disaster. It is too small an offering. I think about that moment sometimes—like now—and wonder if this is when God saw me turn away.

  Slowly, slowly we drive past, and Papá is right—it is a calenda, only this one is silent—no music or roquetas, no shouting or dancing. There is only the low sound of engines and the fire—so big it makes its own wind, pulling the world into itself and eating it alive, so hot it makes everything around it bend and twist and shimmer. The truck is melting over itself like wax, the grass around it is burned down to the dirt. Even the dirt is burning, and I can see the dark floating men better now. They are standing in a circle around it, heads tilted so their sombreros block the heat from their eyes. I don’t know how they stand it. When we pass, it is so hot I must close my window, so hot there is no smell, only the rushing wind racing up into the sky, sparks and stars together.

  After this is a minivan, facing the other direction and looking like a broken accordion. Nothing is moving there. There is no police or ambulance or bomberos, only the traffic stretching away forever with nowhere to go. But what could they do anyway? What can God do but watch, tilting His sombrero to shield His eyes?

  It happens every night, but how to mark a thing like this—este milagro oscuro that seems impossible and still it happens before your eyes? The families will come later and there will be crosses for sure. Maybe they will build a little capilla for candles and flowers, and it will be one more. If you rise up and look at Mexico from far away like an angel or a spaceman, you can see lines of crosses marching across the land—here and there capillas and then cemeteries and more crosses leading to more cemeteries and churches, basilicas, cathedrals and pyramids—in all directions across time. It is what binds the country together, this web of death and remembering. And who is the spider weaving this?

  Fri Apr 6—10:59

  With the days gone there is no time, and things I did not think o
f for years come back to me like yesterday. There is something outside now making sounds like the first time I carried a plastic bag. It was just after Papá and me got back from Chihuahua, and Mamá sent me to the tienda to buy some soap. There is a kind we use in the pueblo—Tepeyac—and it is the biggest soap you ever saw, like ten of your el Norte soaps, maybe because in Mexico there is so much dirt. It is a slow and lonely walk home when you’re five years old and the older children are in school and all the adults are working in the forest or the milpa, and when you’re alone there are so many things to be scared of. On that morning there was nothing to see but clouds hanging low over the metal rooftops and the leaves nodding and winking, shiny with the rain. Not even a stray dog did I have for company, only this giant golden soap in the plastic bag with its strange slippery weight, so different from a string bag or the basket. To give me courage I was swinging the soap around my head, hearing the bag rattle in the wind and I never heard such a noise before. Faster and faster I went until there were two tones together, a kind of growling, so I made a fierce face and imagined that sound was coming out of me and that my soap was a great stone and with it I can kill Goliath and knock down his house. But I was so young then, and what did I know about anything?

  Oye, AnniMac, I never talked to anyone like this before. Where I live, not a lot of people talk about the life inside because, really, who wants to know? It’s hard enough outside, right? Maybe there are some poets doing this, but who is listening? You try this in a mezcaleria and they will say, “¡Güey! What do you think this is, Neuróticos Anónimos? Have another chínguere and shut up.”

  It is a real place—yes, the mezcalería—but also Neuróticos Anónimos. One time in my first year of university, before I met Sofía, I went there myself, but when I was in the lobby, looking at their brochures, I felt like everyone walking by could see me in the window, and in my mind I heard them saying, “Will you look at that poor neurótico in there. He’s probably still a virgin.”

  Yes, well, there is no Virgens Anónimos in Mexico, and when I tried it in my mind I could not make myself to say, “Hello, my name is Héctor and I’m neurotic.” When I think such words I see only my father’s angry face saying, “Why is my only son such a woman?” In one of the brochures there was a question, and it was “How do you want to feel?” No one ever asked me this before, but in that moment I believe how I want to feel is like I’m buried to my balls in the hot little neurótica I hope to meet in Group. Of course I know they will not accept this answer, and I put the brochure back and for some reason I say to the receptionist who looks familiar like an old teacher or something, “I’m sorry, I have a medical condition so I am unable to answer all the questions.”

  Then I hurry out the door, but in my mind I hear her calling, “Don’t worry, Tito! Virginity is nothing to be ashamed of! There is now a cure!”

  I am not handsome like César, but I am handsome enough—that is not the problem. The problem is that in Oaxaca virgins are the most precious and desired of all God’s creatures so it is impossible to have only a girlfriend because with her comes all her posse—the mother, the sisters, the aunts and abuelas, the godmother and probably the brothers too—and all of them watching you like a family of hawks, thinking you’re a thief and a dog trying to steal from their princesa preciosa her one thing that can never be returned. And maybe they are right, but what if you don’t want to marry when you’re sixteen? And you don’t want to go with a puta? These are important questions, and for a young man they never stop being important.

  The first time I got an answer was from Sofía on the park bench on the Llano. She is Mixteca, born in the campo but living in el centro and also the first in her family to go to university. I did not notice her until last spring when, one day outside Customer Service class, someone said how burros and Nokia 1200s cost the same and she said, “But with the burro you cannot change the ringtone.” I looked at her in a different way after that. Behind her glasses she was prettier than I realized, and funnier. We had an ice cream on the Zócalo. She said she wanted to be a doctor, but her father is a waiter now and he said no, it is better to be a manager in a hotel. “It is better for me too,” I said, “because I would never meet you in medical school.”

  Everyone in Oaxaca lives with their family so the only way to be alone with a girl is outside. For this, Sofía and me would look for a quiet corner in a park, but there are so many of us looking that it can be hard to find your own bench sometimes. That afternoon on the Llano it was May and warm. There was a breeze blowing and it carried mist from the big fountain and with it the smell of meatsmoke and trees. Together the wind and water made a kind of whispering sound so everything else—the children playing, the band practicing, the traffic—all seemed far away and it felt like only the two of us there kissing. After some time she put her leg over mine with her backpack across her lap. It was a surprise for me the difference—her cool thigh and then that sudden heat around my fingers, hotter than her mouth—and this together with my tongue and hers, all moving in time—so close and fast we could believe for a little while it was really me in there.

  Both of us were walking funny when we left that place, and it was hard to look her in the eye. My lip was bleeding also and when she kissed me goodbye she noticed this and laughed and kissed me again. I could not be seen to walk her home from there because already she was late for vespers with her mother and sisters, but when she was gone I licked my fingers to remember and the taste of her together with my lip was something new and delicious and of course I wanted more.

  13

  Fri Apr 6—11:23

  It is so hot, but when I touch my neck, my forehead, there is no sweat there. And when I do this, touch myself, it makes a cold shock through my body so my hair stands up and I am covered in turkey skin. The thirst is making us sick and not only with the headache. Our brains and bodies do not work properly anymore. I can hear it when the others try to talk, like their tongues are too big for their mouths. All my life, if I was near to a sick person I could feel their fever coming into me, even across the room. That is how it is now—like a pressure growing, infecting me also and pushing me into the wall which is too hot to touch.

  His water. If César wakes up, who will have it?

  It is the devil’s question and I must not think about the answer.

  So many times I went with my abuelo to the Sunday market in Tlacolula. Always around noon Abuelo visited his friend at the juice stand there, in the arcade down the street from where they sell the wooden yokes for the oxen, next to the lady who sells the cheese and across from the escritora who writes letters for any campesino who needs one. Someone told me she charges extra for love letters and someone else told me they were free, but I never asked her because I can write my own. Every time I saw her she was sitting there in the same lady business suit that she bought up in Puebla a long time ago, with the same dusty typewriter she must have bought then also. Sometimes Abuelo tried to flirt with her, but she was, like they say, all business.

  At the juice stand Abuelo would order a polla in a tall glass. Abuelo’s friend, whose name is Pancho, would fill it to the top with red wine from a jug, then he’d take two eggs and crack them into the wine where they would float like a pair of chichis. Every time, Pancho would ask if he wants cinnamon on top and every time my abuelo would say, “You know I do, damn it,” so Pancho would sprinkle some on there and smile a little smile. Once, when I was about fourteen, Abuelo nodded at the two eggs staring up at him and made a hard-on with his forearm. “De chuppá chuppá” he said. “For strength.” Sometimes, if he was in a good mood, after selling all his corn or getting a deal on some turkey chicks, Abuelo would take up his glass and try to catch the eye of the escritora. If she looked his way, he would wink at her and suck down one of the eggs. She would stare at something far away then and press her skirt down close around her thighs.

  Always since I met Sofía I believed that it—la conchita—was a necessity, like air and water. But now
I know the truth, that it is only another luxury like happiness and love, and this makes me sad because what is a man, you know, without it—without this wanting? It is like being dead already. Now all I want is the water.

  Juquilita, virgencita llena de gracia, lo siento, mi madre morena y generosa. I am afraid you are too small for this trouble we are in, too far away.

  Pobre César. His water—the promise of it, it is hard to think of anything else.

  How can he be so cool when it is so hot in here?

  Fri Apr 6—11:57

  AnniMac, you are a gringa, no? With a name like that? What is your sign? I am Sagitario and I came exactly on the eighteenth of December, la Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude. This is why my name is so enormous—Héctor María de la Soledad Lázaro González. Soledad came here a long time ago by accident and stayed, and now she is the official virgin of Oaxaca. Down there, she is even more important than la Virgen de Guadalupe. My mother will only approach her on her knees. I did not come easy to my mother and because of this, and because my birthday is her feast day, Mamá always took me with her to la Basílica de la Soledad en el centro. I never liked going in there, but whenever we got close and I tried to run away Mamá would hiss through her teeth, “¡Diablito! You are her special servant. You owe your life to her—and mine too.” Then, if I did not stop pulling away and complaining, she would slap my face and squeeze my hand until I heard the bones inside my skin. But I would not cry.

  I am sorry about that now. I never had her same devotion for Soledad because I was never sure whose special servant I really was, the Virgin’s or my mother’s. I am the oldest in the family, but there were two others before me, both dead before I was born. Maybe in her mind I am not one son but three.