Nueve
In the dark mist of my dreams I saw my brothers. The three dark figures silently beckoned me to follow them. They led me over the goat path, across the bridge, to the house of the sinful women. We walked across the well- worn path in silence. The door to Rosie’s house opened and I caught a glimpse of the women who lived there. There was smoke in the air, sweet from the fragrance of perfume, and there was laughing. My brothers pointed for me to enter.
A young woman laughed gaily. She bowed and the soft flesh of her breasts hung loose and curved like cow udders.
When my mother washed her long, black hair she tucked in the collar of her blouse and I could see her shoulders and the pink flesh of her throat.
The water wet her blouse and the thin cotton fabric clung around the curve of her breasts.
No! I shouted in my dream, I cannot enter, I cannot think those thoughts.
I am to be a priest.
My brothers laughed and pushed me aside. Do not enter, I cried. It is written on the waters of the river that you shall lose your souls to hell if you enter!
Bah! Eugene scowled, you beat your breast like a holy-roller, but you too will find your way here. You are a Márez! he shouted and entered.
Even priests are men, León smiled, and every man is delivered of woman, and must be fulfilled by a woman. And he entered.
Andrew, I begged to the last figure, do not enter.
Andrew laughed. He paused at the gaily lit door and said, I will make a deal with you my little brother, I will wait and not enter until you lose your innocence.
But innocence is forever, I cried.
You are innocent when you do not know, my mother cried, but already you know too much about the flesh and blood of the Márez men.
You are innocent until you understand, the priest of the church said, and you will understand good and evil when the communion is placed in your mouth and God fills your body.
Oh, where is the innocence I must never lose, I cried into the bleak landscape in which I found myself. And in the swirling smoke a flash of lightning struck and out of the thunder a dark figure stepped forth. It was Ultima, and she pointed west, west to Las Pasturas, the land of my birth.
She spoke. There in the land of the dancing plains and rolling hills, there in the land which is the eagle’s by day and the owl’s by night is innocence.
There where the lonely wind of the llano sang to the lovers’ feat of your birth, there in those hills is your innocence.
But that was long ago, I called. I sought more answers, but she was gone, evaporated into a loud noise.
I opened my eyes and heard the commotion downstairs.
“We have to go! We have to go!” an excited voice called. It was Eugene.
I jumped to the door and peeked into the kitchen. My mother was crying. “But why?” my father asked. “You can find work here. I can get you on
a highway crew until summer, then we can—”
“We don’t want to work on the highway!” Eugene exploded. They were arguing about leaving and he was carrying the brunt of the argument. I thought he must be drunk to talk to my father like that. My father was small and thin compared to my brothers, but he was strong. I knew he could still break any one of them in two if he wanted.
But he was not mad. He knew he was losing them, and he shrunk back. “Eugenio!” my mother pleaded. “Watch your language! Do not defy
your father!”
Now it was my brother’s turn to shrink back. Eugene mumbled an apology. They knew that it was within the power of the father to curse his sons, and ay! a curse laid on a disobedient son or daughter was irrevocable. I knew the stories of many bad sons and daughters who had angered their parents to the point of the disowning curse. Ay, those poor children had met the very devil himself or the earth had opened in their path and swallowed them. In any case the cursed children were never heard of again.
I saw my mother make the sign of the cross, and I too prayed for Eugene.
“What is it you want?” my mother sobbed. “You have been gone so long, and now that you have just returned you want to leave again—”
“And what about California,” my father sighed.
“We don’t want to make you sad, mamá.” León went to her and put his arm around her. “We just want to live our own lives.”
“We don’t want to go to California,” Eugene said emphatically. “We just want to be on our own, move to Santa Fe and work—”
“You are forsaking me,” my mother cried afresh.
“There will be no one left to help me move west—” my father whispered, and it seemed that a great load was placed on his shoulders.
“We are not forsaking you, mamá,” Andrew said. “We are men now, mamá,” Gene said.
“Ay, Márez men,” she said stoically and turned to my father. “The Márez blood draws them away from home and parents, Gabriel,” she said. My father looked at her then bowed his head. The same wandering blood in his veins was in his sons. The restlessness of his blood had destroyed his dream, defeated him. He understood that now. It was very sad to see.
“You still have Tony,” León said.
“Thanks be to God,” my mother said, but there was no joy in her voice. In the morning León and Eugene were gone, but Andrew remained.
They had talked long into the night, and finally he had given up the idea of going with them. I think he did not like to follow their ways, and he wanted to please my mother. Then too he had been offered a job at Allen’s Food Market and so the urge for adventure did not pull him away. I was glad. I had always felt close to Andrew, and if I had to lose two of my brothers I was glad Andrew was not one of them.
That morning I walked to school with Andrew. “Why didn’t you go with León and Gene?” I asked.
“Ah, I got a job here, start today. So I figure I can do as well here as they do up in Vegas.”
“Will you miss them?” “Sure.”
“I will too—”
“And I’ve been thinking a lot about finishing school—” he said.
“School?”
“Sure,” he smiled, “why, you think I’m too old?”
“No,” I said. I lied. I could not imagine this figure of my dreams in school.
“Sure,” he went on, “I only had a few credits to go before León, Gene and me signed up—if there’s one thing I learned in the army, it’s that the guy with an education gets ahead. So I work and get some classes out of the way, get my diploma—”
We walked in silence. It was good what he said about learning. It made me feel good that I put so much effort into it.
“Do you have a girl?” I asked.
He looked at me sternly and I thought he was going to be mad. Then he smiled and said, “Ay chango, you ask too many questions! No I don’t have a girl. Girls are only trouble when a man is young and wanting to get ahead. A girl wants to get married right away—”
“How will you get ahead?” I asked. “Will you become a farmer?” “No,” he chuckled.
“Will you become a priest?” I held my breath.
He laughed. Then he stopped, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Look, Tony, I know what you’re thinking about. You’re thinking about mamá and papá, you’re thinking of their wishes—but it’s too late for us, Tony. León, Gene, me, we can’t become farmers or priests, we can’t even go to California with papá like he wants.”
“Why?” I asked.
“We just can’t,” he grimaced. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because the war made men out of us too fast, maybe it’s because their dreams were never real to begin with—I guess if anyone is going to fit into their dreams it’s going to have to be you, Tony. Just don’t grow up too fast,” he added.
I thought about what he said as we walked to the bridge. I wondered if I would grow up too fast, I yearned for knowledge and understanding and yet I wondered if it would make me lose my dreams. Andrew said it was up to me, and I wanted to be a good son, but the dreams of my mother were opposite the wishes of my father. She wanted a priest to watch over the farmers of the valley; he wanted a son to travel with him to the vineyards of California.
Oh, it was hard to grow up. I hoped that in a few years the taking of the first holy communion would bring me understanding.
“Race you across the bridge!” Andrew shouted. In a spurt we were off and running. We were halfway across when we heard the clobbering of hooves on the pavement and turned to catch a glimpse of the Vitamin Kid bearing down on us.
“Let’s go!” Andrew urged me, and although I could keep up with Andrew we did not have enough wind to outdistance the Kid. The steady clippity-clop grew louder, the frothy smell of just-chewed weeds filled the air, and the Kid passed us by.
“Toni-eeee the giant killer—” he smiled and whizzed by. “Never beat him!” Andrew gasped at the end of the bridge. “Nobody, can, beat, him,” I panted hard.
“I swear, he sleeps, under the bridge!” Andrew laughed. “Why did he, call you, the giant killer—”
“I don’t know,” I nodded. I thought of my brothers as giants. Now two were gone.
“Crazy little bastard!” Andrew nodded. His face was red from running and his eyes full of tears. “Someday you will beat him, Tony. Some day you will beat us all—” He waved and went off to work.
I did not feel that I could ever beat the Vitamin Kid, but Andrew must have had a reason for saying that. I looked across the bridge and Samuel was starting across. I waited for him and we walked to school together.
“Samuel,” I asked, “where does the Kid live?”
“The Kid is my brother,” Samuel said softly. I did not know if he was kidding or not, but we never talked about it again.
That year we waited for the world to end. Each day the rumor spread farther and wider until all the kids were looking at the calendar and waiting for the day. “It’ll be in fire,” one would say, “it’ll be in water,” another would argue. “It’s in the Bible, my father said.” The days grew heavy and ominous. Nobody seemed to know except the kids that the world was coming to an end. During recess we gathered in the playground and talked about it. We talked about the signs we had seen; Bones even said he had talked to people from a ship from space. We looked at the clouds and waited. We prayed. Fear grew. Then the day came, and was gone, and it was
kind of disappointing that the world didn’t end. Then everybody just said, “See, I told you so.”
And that year Bones had a wild fit and busted Willie’s head open with a big jar of paste. It was too bad because after that not too many of us ate the sweet-tasting paste.
That year a pissing contest was held behind the schoolhouse, and Horse won, but the principal found out about it and all the pissers in the contest got spanked.
George got to burping in class. He could burp anytime he wanted to. He would just go “Auggghk!” Then he could do variations with it. “Augggh- pah-pah-pop!” He would do it in girls’ ears and get socked every time. But he didn’t mind, he was kinda crazy, like Bones.
And that year I learned to read and write. Miss Maestas was very pleased with me. On the last day of school she handed out report cards to the other kids, but when it came to me she took me to the principal’s office. He explained to me that I was a little older than the other kids in first grade and that my progress had been very good. Miss Maestas beamed. So instead of passing me from first to second he was passing me from first to third.
“What do you think of that?” he smiled.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. I was very happy. My mother would be proud of me, and that meant that next year I would be in the same grade as the rest of the gang.
“Your mother will be very pleased,” Miss Maestas said. She kissed my cheek.
“Yes,” I said.
The principal handed me my report card and a piece of paper. “That will explain everything to your parents,” he said. He shook my hand, like man to man, and he said, “Good luck.”
There was magic in the letters, and I had been eager to learn the secret. “Thank you, sir,” I said.
The rest of the day we were like goats held by hobbles. At the end of the day some of the mothers planned a party for our class, but I did not feel like staying because I still felt apart from them. And my mother would not be there. I thanked Miss Maestas for her help, and when the last bell rang I ran home. The freedom of the summer raced with my footsteps as I worked my way through the sweaty, swarming mob of kids.
“School is over! School is over!” was on every tongue. The buses honked nervously for their kids. I waved and the farm kids waved back. We would see each other next fall. By the see-saws a fight had started, but I didn’t want to waste time watching it.
“Whaggggggh!” The cry split the air. The vatos from Los Jaros ran by. I raced after them but cut off at Allen’s, past the Longhorn Saloon, cut past Rosie’s and to the bridge.
I started across the bridge, and it was the first time I ever remember talking to it. I sang a song in my mind. Oh beautiful bridge, I cross you and leave the town, I cross towards the llano! I climb the hill, I race over the goat path, and I am home! I did not feel it was a silly song, I only felt happy.
“Toni-eeeeee…” hoof beats clattered on the concrete and the hatchet face of the Kid passed me by.
“Pass?”
“Yeah!” And he was gone. At the far end of the bridge he passed Samuel. “Samuel!” I called. He turned and waited for me. “I passed, did you?”
“Oh yes,” he smiled, “those teachers keep passing us right along,” he said. Samuel was only in the third grade, but he always seemed wise and old when he talked, kind of like my grandfather.
“But I passed to the third grade, next year I’ll be in class with you!” I bragged.
“Good,” he said, “let’s go fishing.” “Now?”
“Sure.”
Usually I only thought of fishing on weekends, but it was true that school was over. The first runoff was just subsiding in the river. There should be a lot of hungry catfish waiting for us.
“No line,” I said.
“I have some,” he said.
I thought of my mother. I always went straight home after school, but today I had something to celebrate. I was growing up and becoming a man and suddenly I realized that I could make decisions.
“Sure,” I said. We turned right towards the railroad bridge. I never came up this way. Farther up were the cliffs where Jasón’s Indian lived. We
passed under the dark shadow of the gigantic railroad bridge.
“There is evil here,” Samuel said. He pointed to a clear plastic balloon beside the path. I did not know why that was evil.
“Heeee-heee-haaaah-haaaaaagh!” Frightening, wild laughter filled the air. I froze in my tracks. I thought that surely here in the dark shadow of this bridge la Llorna lurked.
“Ay!” I cried. I must have jumped because Samuel put his hand on my shoulder and smiled. He pointed up. I looked up at the black girders of the huge bridge and saw a figure scamper precariously from perch to perch. I thought it was the Kid.
“Is he crazy?” I asked Samuel.
Samuel only smiled. “He is my brother,” he answered. He led me out of the shadow of the bridge and far away from it. We walked to the bank of the river where Samuel had some line and hooks hidden. We cut some tamarisk branches for poles and dug worms for bait.
“You fish a lot?” I asked.
“I have always been a fisherman,” he answered, “as long as I can remember—”
“You fish,” he said.
“Yes. I learned to fish with my brothers when I was very little. Then they went to war and I couldn’t fish anymore. Then Ultima came—” I paused.
“I know,” he said.
“So last summer I fished. Sometimes with Jasón.” “You have a lot to learn—”
“Yes,” I answered.
The afternoon sun was warm on the sand. The muddy waters after-the- flood churned listlessly south, and out of the deep hole by the rock in front of us the catfish came. They were biting good for the first fishing of summer. We caught plenty of channel catfish and a few small yellow- bellies.
“Have you ever fished for the carp of the river?”
The river was full of big, brown carp. It was called the River of the Carp. Everybody knew it was bad luck to fish for the big carp that the summer floods washed downstream. After every flood, when the swirling
angry waters of the river subsided, the big fish could be seen fighting their way back upstream. It had always been so.
The waters would subside very fast and in places the water would be so low that, as the carp swam back upstream, the backs of the fish would raise a furrow in the water. Sometimes the townspeople came to stand on the bridge and watch the struggle as the carp splashed their way back to the pools from which the flood had uprooted them. Some of the town kids, not knowing it was bad luck to catch the carp, would scoop them out of the low waters and toss the fish upon the sand bars. There the poor carp would flop until they dried out and died, then later the crows would swoop down and eat them.
Some people in town would even buy the carp for a nickel and eat the fish! That was very bad. Why, I did not know.
It was a beautiful sight to behold, the struggle of the carp to regain his abode before the river dried to a trickle and trapped him in strange pools of water. What was beautiful about it was that you knew that against all the odds some of the carp made it back and raised their families, because every year the drama was repeated.
“No,” I answered, “I do not fish for carp. It is bad luck.” “Do you know why?” he asked and raised an eyebrow.
“No,” I said and held my breath. I felt I sat on the banks of an undiscovered river whose churning, muddied waters carried many secrets.
“I will tell you a story,” Samuel said after a long silence, “a story that was told to my father by Jasón’s Indian—”
I listened breathlessly. The lapping of the water was like the tide of time sounding on my soul.
“A long time ago, when the earth was young and only wandering tribes touched the virgin grasslands and drank from the pure streams, a strange people came to this land. They were sent to this valley by their gods. They had wandered lost for many years but never had they given up faith in their gods, and so they were finally rewarded. This fertile valley was to be their home. There were plenty of animals to eat, strange trees that bore sweet fruit, sweet water to drink and for their fields of maíz—”
“Were they Indians?” I asked when he paused.
“They were the people,” he answered simply and went on. “There was only one thing that was withheld from them, and that was the fish called the
carp. This fish made his home in the waters of the river, and he was sacred to the gods. For a long time the people were happy. Then came the forty years of the sun-without-rain, and crops withered and died, the game was killed, and the people went hungry. To stay alive they finally caught the carp of the river and ate them.”
I shivered. I had never heard a story like this one. It was getting late and I thought of my mother.
“The gods were very angry. They were going to kill all of the people for their sin. But one kind god who truly loved the people argued against it, and the other gods were so moved by his love that they relented from killing the people. Instead, they turned the people into carp and made them live forever in the waters of the river—”
The setting sun glistened on the brown waters of the river and turned them to bronze.
“It is a sin to catch them,” Samuel said, “it is a worse offense to eat them. They are a part of the people.” He pointed towards the middle of the river where two huge back fins rose out of the water and splashed upstream.
“And if you eat one,” I whispered, “you might be punished like they were punished.”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said. He rose and took my fishing line. “Is that all the story?” I asked.
He divided the catfish we had caught and gave me my share on a small string. “No, there is more,” he said. He glanced around as if to make sure we were alone. “Do you know about the golden carp?” he asked in a whisper.
“No,” I shook my head.
“When the gods had turned the people into carp, the one kind god who loved the people grew very sad. The river was full of dangers to the new fish. So he went to the other gods and told them that he chose to be turned into a carp and swim in the river where he could take care of his people.
The gods agreed. But because he was a god they made him very big and colored him the color of gold. And they made him the lord of all the waters of the valley.”
“The golden carp,” I said to myself, “a new god?” I could not believe this strange story, and yet I could not disbelieve Samuel. “Is the golden carp still here?”
“Yes,” Samuel answered. His voice was strong with faith. It made me shiver, not because it was cold but because the roots of everything I had ever believed in seemed shaken. If the golden carp was a god, who was the man on the cross? The Virgin? Was my mother praying to the wrong God?
“Where?” I wanted to know.
“It is very late,” Samuel said. “You have learned a lot today. This summer Cico will find you and take you to the golden carp—” And with a swish of branches he disappeared into the dusk.
“Samuel!” I called. Only silence. I had heard Cico’s name mentioned before. He was a town boy, but he didn’t hang out with them. They said he spent all his time along the river, fishing. I turned homeward in the gathering dusk, full of wonder at the strange story Samuel had told me.
“Toni-eeee!” someone called. I broke into a run and didn’t stop until I got home.
When I got home my mother was very angry with me. I had never been late before. “¡Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! I have been crazy with worry about you!” she cried. I showed her my promotion and her feelings changed quickly. “Grande, Deborah, Theresa! Come quick! Tony had been promoted two grades! Oh I knew he would be a man of learning, maybe a priest!” She crossed herself and sobbed as she held me tightly.
Ultima was very happy too. “This one learns as much in one day as most do in a year,” she smiled. I wondered if she knew about the golden carp.
“We must pray to the Virgin,” my mother said, and although Deborah objected, saying nobody prayed for a grade promotion, my mother gathered us around the Virgin’s altar.
My father arrived home late from work and was hungry. We were still praying and supper was late. He was angry.
