Last Summer of the Death Warriors

by Francesco X Stork

  “If I had to choose, I’d take the one that we first saw back at the hospital.” He tried to remember her name, but the only name that came to mind was Julieta’s.

  “Oh, brother! Did you get a chance to talk to Marisol?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So?”

  “She called me an athlete.”

  “Get out of here!”

  “She wants me to help her with the kids. Giving them rides in this rickshaw thing.”

  “Really? That’s…good.”

  Pancho smiled inwardly. For a moment, he thought about being serious. The kid was sick. But Pancho was enjoying himself. It had been a while since he felt like he was having fun.

  “She wants me to go to the zoo with her.” He glanced sideways long enough to see D.Q. getting mortified.

  “Oh.” Then D.Q. whispered, “She didn’t say anything to me about the zoo.”

  Pancho folded his hands behind his head. “Yup. Maybe tomorrow. While you’re at the hospital getting your treatment.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Pancho waited as long as he could before he burst out laughing.

  “You shithead,” D.Q. said, catching on, embarrassed.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not her type. She likes smart guys like you.”

  “Why? Did she say anything? You need to tell me exactly what she said.”

  “She said it was a shame you were all skin and bones ’cause she liked a little muscle.”

  “Stop! Don’t fool around like that! What did she say?”

  Pancho told himself to stop joking around. D.Q. was getting too agitated. Any moment now, he could toss his cookies again. “All right.” There was something Marisol had said that sounded strange to him. Yes, now he remembered. “She said you were from another dimension.” He concentrated. “She said you were unusual but not weird.”

  “You’re still pulling my leg, right?”

  “No.”

  “She said I was from another dimension? What does that mean? Like from the Twilight Zone?”

  “I think she meant it in a good way.”

  “Tell me the context of how she said it.”

  “There wasn’t any contest to it. She just plain said it. She was admiring you. Like you knew stuff that most people don’t.” Then he remembered what he most wanted to remember. “She said she’d never met anyone with so much faith.”

  “She said that? Honestly? Those were her exact words?” D.Q. asked as he stood up.

  Pancho had never seen D.Q. so energetic. He looked like he was going to start jumping up and down on the bed any second now. “Yeah. Those were more or less her exact words.”

  “You sure she used the word ‘faith’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe she used the word ‘fate’ and you misunderstood. Maybe she said, ‘I never met anyone with so much fate,’ you know, F-A-T-E. If she said that, then that would mean something totally different.”

  Pancho was getting lost. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. She said, ‘I never met anyone with so much faith’ or maybe she said ‘such strong faith,’ I forget now. But it was ‘faith,’ however you spell it. That’s the word she said exactly. I told her I never heard you talk about faith.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then what did she say?”

  “She said she hadn’t either, but she could just tell anyhow.”

  “Oh, God.” D.Q. grabbed his head with his hands. Pancho couldn’t tell whether he was extremely happy or in extreme pain. “What else? Tell me what else.”

  “That’s about it. She showed me where the rickshaw is. Then she told me how to get to the gas station so I can put some air in the tires. Maybe I can find some oil for the chain too.”

  He watched D.Q. walk in front of him with his hand across his mouth and go into the bathroom. A few minutes later when he came out, his face and hair were wet. He might have poured water on his head or maybe he was sweating. He walked silently back to his bed, deep in thought, and sat down, leaning against the backboard. “Just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t have it.”

  “What?” Pancho had no idea what “it” was.

  “Faith.”

  “It don’t matter to me one way or another what you have.”

  “Faith can mean many things.”

  “No, it can’t.” The words were out of Pancho’s mouth fast, before he even realized he had said them.

  “What do you mean?” D.Q. seemed taken aback.

  Pancho searched for words to explain why he said what he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me. Try to tell me, please. What do you think faith is? Tell me.”

  Pancho spoke irritably, still fighting to find the right words. “Faith’s what makes you pray. It’s why people say the Rosary and light candles to Jesus and Mary and all those saints. It’s what you go to church for. It’s why you’re good when you want to be bad. It’s what you think is gonna happen to you after you die.” He exhaled, relieved that he could express what he had never considered before.

  D.Q. blinked a few times. He sat still. “The kind of faith I have is different. I’m not sure how.”

  Pancho stared at D.Q. in disbelief. He had never imagined that D.Q. would ever have trouble finding words. Then he said, “The girl already thinks you got faith. I don’t know whether she thinks you got the regular kind or your own kind.”

  D.Q. didn’t answer.

  “That’s good, right? If she said that, it means she’s given you some thought. Maybe she’ll give you more than that.” Pancho wanted to go back to the joking. A D.Q. who didn’t talk was making him more uncomfortable than a D.Q. who did.

  “Yes,” D.Q. said. “It’s good.”

  But if it was good, why didn’t D.Q. seem all that happy about it? The silence continued, so Pancho asked, “What did you and Marisol talk about the last time you were here?”

  It was the right question to ask. D.Q.’s face lit up again. “That’s just it. We talked about ordinary things. I told her about my life at St. Anthony’s. I told her I was in Albuquerque to get a second opinion on my illness to make sure that the treatment I would be getting in Las Cruces was the right one. I don’t think I was too depressing, as far as I can remember. That’s why what she said about me having strong faith is so significant, assuming you’re telling the truth, and I believe you are, because I don’t think you’re capable of making something like that up.” D.Q. grinned. Pancho wondered whether he had just been insulted. It was all right if he had been. It was good to hear D.Q. shoot off his mouth again. “So if we just talked about ordinary things and she thought I had strong faith or much faith, it means she felt something as we were talking, don’t you think?”

  “I think when you have the hots for someone, you end up fooling yourself into believing all kinds of things.”

  “Listen to you. I suppose you have lots of experience with women.”

  “I got enough.”

  “Pssh.” D.Q. waved his hand like he didn’t believe him.

  It was a true statement as far as Pancho was concerned. He didn’t say he had a lot of experience, he said he had enough. He thought of Julieta. He thought he was in love with her at certain moments during the night he spent with her. The next morning, the love was gone. That was his experience and that was enough. It was enough to know that when you want someone, you don’t think straight and you for sure take what the girl says to you and twist it up inside of you. “How long did you all talk for?” Pancho asked skeptically.

  “You’re looking at this the wrong way,” D.Q. countered. “It wasn’t what we talked about or how long we talked. It was the connection. Something happened. Whatever you want to call it, I came back to Albuquerque because of it and she recognized something in me because of it.”

  “She recognized you were mental.” Pancho poked his brow with his finger. D.Q. rolled his eyes.

  “Tell me again what she said about the other dimens
ion. You didn’t do a very thorough job reporting that part of the conversation.”

  “Let me think.” Pancho squinted. He scratched his head. Then he noticed that the cut along his chest was itching as well, a sign that it was healing. He saw Marisol’s face in his mind and found it pretty in a quiet way. He knew that D.Q. would treasure every word he said, and this filled him with the responsibility to be precise. He spoke very slowly and carefully. “She said that…that you were in another dimension. No, that you touched another dimension. She said touched. That it was like you were in touch with another dimension most people don’t see. But I don’t know whether she said ‘most people don’t see’ or ‘most people don’t feel.’ I don’t remember which exactly.”

  “You did great. Thank you. That was great. That was very helpful.”

  D.Q. was looking out the window again, away from Pancho. Even so, Pancho could tell there was a smile on his face. He knew D.Q. was imagining Marisol. The image of Marisol’s smooth, caramel-colored legs came to Pancho and he smiled as well. Then, out of nowhere, the image of D.Q.’s mother appeared. There was something that Marisol had said that reminded him of D.Q.’s mother, but what? Then he remembered. The mother had also said that D.Q. was unusual, that after the car accident, it was as if he had seen something while he was in the coma. It was funny how fast thoughts were suddenly coming to him. Now he remembered what Julieta had said about Rosa. She was special, like she didn’t belong in this world. The idea that D.Q. and Rosa were both special, maybe in similar ways, struck him as funny.

  He looked at D.Q. D.Q. was still gazing out the window, grinning to himself the way Rosa used to grin. The kid was thinking about what Marisol had said about him. He didn’t look all that special just then, Pancho thought. Just another kid in love.

  CHAPTER 21

  In the first four days of treatment, D.Q. went from bad to worse. The initial schedule had called for two four-day stretches of treatments with a three-day break, but it had to be modified to four two-day treatments with one day of rest in between. Dr. Melendez told D.Q. that if the side effects got too bad, they could reduce his daily dosages but increase the total number of treatments, but D.Q. would only agree to an additional day of rest.

  Pancho knew that D.Q. wanted the treatments over and done with. While they lasted, all he could do was hang on. Every day, he talked less and less, and what little talk he did was directed at physical necessities: drinking, eating, sleeping, and all the bathroom stuff. All the talk about Death Warriors had stopped. He still made an effort to crack a joke now and then and Pancho never heard him complain, but there was no doubt that the kid was in bad shape. The only thing that seemed to matter to him were the afternoon walks he took with Marisol, for which he appeared to save all his strength.

  Pancho went with him to the treatments in the mornings, then spent the afternoons giving rickshaw rides to the Casa Esperanza kids. He was supposed to take them around the block, but after a while he began to explore the surrounding streets. The kids didn’t complain. He could squeeze two of them in the rickshaw’s seat, but he preferred taking one at a time. The kids sat in the back and watched the scenery pass by. When they tried talking to him, he ignored them. They soon got the message that the ride was for looking and not talking.

  The first evening he was at Casa Esperanza, when everyone else had gone to sleep, Pancho had looked for and found a telephone book in the TV room. He counted five construction companies that had names ending in “and Sons.” He wrote the names down with their telephone numbers. That was the first step in his plan to find Bobby. The second step was to call each company and ask if a Bobby worked there to try to get his full name.

  On the third afternoon, Pancho found a giant white-and-red umbrella in a storage closet. It was almost the size of one of those picnic umbrellas that people back at the trailer park left up year-round. He sawed off one-quarter of the umbrella’s aluminum pole and then braced it to the side of the rickshaw with a steel clasp, so the passengers would always have shade regardless of what direction the rickshaw was traveling or the angle of the sun. People at Casa Esperanza, especially the mothers, seemed obsessed with the angle of the sun.

  When he finished rigging it up, he opened the umbrella. A gust of wind almost lifted the rickshaw off the ground. Pancho admired the umbrella and the precise positioning of the patch of shade. He picked up the hacksaw and the screwdriver from the sidewalk and put them back in the toolbox.

  “What is that? It looks like some kind of mushroom,” someone said behind him. It was a young man, a year or two older than him. He wore a button-down shirt as neat as a one-by-twelve piece of clean wood. “This must be Casa Esperanza,” the young man said.

  “Yeah,” Pancho answered. “This is it.”

  “You work here?” the young man asked.

  Pancho didn’t feel like explaining his situation, so he said yes. But then he thought that he did work at Casa Esperanza, as a matter of fact. He hadn’t seen any paycheck for the rickshawing or for keeping D.Q. company, but he worked all right.

  They heard a child cry. When they turned to look for the source of the sound, they saw Marisol, her back to them, bending to comfort Kelly. Kelly was one of Pancho’s most dependable rickshaw customers. Marisol was wearing her usual khaki shorts and white polo shirt.

  The young man said, staring at the bending Marisol, “That is one juicy piece of slender ass.”

  A ripple of irritation entered Pancho’s toes, pricked its way painfully through his body, and came out his mouth. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Excuse me?” Pancho said, mimicking. “What if that was my sister?”

  The young man narrowed his eyes, then recovered when he saw Pancho’s question was hypothetical. “She’d still be a nice piece of ass even if she were your sister.”

  “Pancho, can you help me?” It was Marisol calling him.

  “Is that Marisol?” the young man asked Pancho.

  “That would be her,” Pancho said. Marisol was coaxing Kelly toward the rickshaw.

  “That’s hot. I’m supposed to talk to her about a job,” the young man said. Pancho looked at his hungry eyes and then at Marisol. Was he missing something? Was Marisol more attractive than he gave her credit for? Had he lost the ability to notice a beautiful girl?

  Kelly and Marisol were now standing in front of them. Kelly was crying softly. The young man’s eyes were riveted, without shame, on Marisol’s breasts. How long had it been since he hit someone, Pancho wondered, and how long would he have to wait for another opportunity like this one? Not that he cared about Marisol, but it would be good to teach the guy some manners. He could tell Marisol was uncomfortable. “Kelly is afraid of the umbrella,” she said to Pancho.

  “I’ll put it down.” He moved toward the rickshaw.

  “Are you Marisol?” the young man broke in.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I’m Sal.” He stretched out a stiff right hand, which Marisol barely touched. “I’m applying for the live-in college student position in the fall. Laurie said I should come over today. I’m supposed to see her and talk to you.”

  “She’s inside,” Marisol said.

  “She said you’re the one I should really talk to since you pretty much run the place. It would be great to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Is there someplace private we can go?”

  It was a beautiful sight to see, the smile that appeared on Marisol’s face. Pancho thought that even if he lived a hundred years, he would always remember it. She could see slime up close and recognize it for what it was, and he liked that.

  “I’m busy now, as you can see.”

  “Come on, just show me around for ten minutes.”

  “I’m not the person to talk to, really.”

  “It sure looks to me as if you are.”

  “I’ll go inside and get Laurie,” Marisol said, still smiling. She knelt carefully on the ground to talk to Kelly. “Will you let Pancho
put you in the rickshaw and take you for a spin? He’ll let you touch the umbrella so you can see it’s nothing bad.”

  Kelly shook her head no.

  “No? Why not?”

  “You need to come with me the first time.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal.” Marisol straightened herself up.

  Sal tried again. “Listen, maybe you have a telephone number I can call later?”

  “I don’t think so,” Marisol said. Then to Kelly, “Just stay right here, I’ll be right back.”

  When she was halfway to the house, Pancho said to Sal, loud enough for Marisol to hear: “Hey, Sal, can I ask you a favor?” Everyone turned to look at him. He had put down the umbrella, and now the rickshaw separated him from the group. “Can you bring Kelly to this side? I need to tighten something here.”

  The front door to Casa Esperanza opened at just that moment and Laurie, the director, stepped out of the building. Pancho was the only one who saw her. Sal seemed bewildered by Pancho’s request. Kelly stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked toward Pancho.

  “Just bring her,” Pancho said to Sal. “You can do that, right?”

  Sal shot him a fuck you look, bent down, and grabbed the small girl by her shoulders. He picked her up as if he was showing off his strength. Kelly began to squirm and cry. Sal held her away from him and she wriggled out of his grasp and dropped straight down to the ground. Marisol and Laurie rushed toward her. Sal stood there motionless like the idiot he was. The women picked up and consoled the little girl. Pancho came over to the group and Kelly eased comfortably into his open arms. He gave Sal a kind of sexy wink as he took Kelly over to the rickshaw.

  Sal tried to recover. “Hi, you must be Laurie,” he said, stretching out his hand. When she didn’t take it, he said, “I’m Sal. I’m here for the college student live-in program. We spoke earlier.”

  “Glad to meet you,” she said, but there was no gladness in her voice. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Marisol!” Kelly was patting the space next to her on the passenger seat. Marisol got in without looking at Sal, who, Pancho saw, was still incredibly hoping for some kind of recognition from her.