Tortuga

by Rudolfo Anaya

  So maybe destiny does hover over us, I said to myself, maybe Salomón’s cosmic kiss is another form or a part of that force, maybe Jerry’s path of the sun is the road to know your destiny. I thought and remembered that I had often felt a force directing my life. At first I thought it was God. The force would move, like the soft fanning of swirling wings, it would call to me, and it would lead me to see things I would otherwise have missed. There seemed to be a purpose behind the smallest incident. So maybe there was a reason for my stay at the hospital. But what was it? And who knew? Salomón knew. So I spoke to him about the afternoon Ramón’s father was killed on the Agua Negra ranch.

  A spring afternoon thundershower had just moved across the llano, leaving the earth cool and wet. Raindrops glittered on the mesquite bushes and on the snakeweed. A giant rainbow lit up the dark bank of clouds as they moved eastward. The rain had passed quickly, as it does on the open llano, coming suddenly without a groan, with the stillness, then the cool breeze, and then the quick deluge. It left a fresh silence in which meadowlarks called and mockingbirds answered them. Isolated raindrops still fell to the earth as I ran across the field toward Ramón’s home. Ramón’s father stood in the middle of the field he was plowing. Like me, he had not sought cover from the rain. We were drenching wet but happy because of the rain. I remember waving and running towards him to ask for Ramón. I ran on the damp, just-plowed furrows, feeling my shoes grow heavy with the red clay that stuck to them. I was only a few feet away from him when I heard my name called. I stopped and looked up in time to see the grey-flint clouds strike a flash of fire, then an angry, twisting snake flashed out of the dark clouds and thrashed its way violently into the wet earth. It was so close I could smell the fresh current of air it created, and I could see the blue sparks which sputtered alive. Ramón’s father saw it too. I saw him frown, as if he knew some wrong had been done and a small mistake was about to catch up with him. His movement away from the plow shook raindrops from his tanned face. One hand moved as if to caution me away. Fear clouded his eyes and he tried to turn so I wouldn’t see, but I was too close, I saw what I had never seen before in a man’s eyes. He lifted one foot from the wet clay, but he never brought it down. Suddenly the earth stood still, a breeze stirred like a rattlesnake about to strike, the sun glistened over the edges of the dark clouds and made the light so vivid and alive I thought I could touch it, like one touches water or fire. Then the snake-lightning which had disappeared into the wet ground reared out of the earth in a blinding flash of fire and blew Ramón’s father out of his shoes. He was dead when he hit the ground. He was dead before the scream could work loose from my frozen throat. The plow horses clawed frantically at the air, then bolted and ran. Now the fresh smell of earth after the rain was tinged with the odor of singed flesh, and my mouth grew sour with a sharp, metallic taste.

  Later they said the only trace of how death entered were the two small holes burned at the bottom of his feet, but I had seen him glow with the fire of the lightning … and for a long time I couldn’t forget the empty, mud-caked shoes. They said I had been lucky not to get hit.

  For the first time since I entered the hospital I was remembering the past, trying to isolate those times when my destiny had hovered over me like my guardian angel … I had escaped the train which severed Sabino’s leg the day we were laying pennies on the track … a thick tree had cushioned the fall from the river cliff the day we found Jason’s Indian dead … I turned at the sound which exploded in my ears like a cannon to see Joey’s surprised look, the smoking pistol on his lap, the bullet buried in the wall inches from my head … the nights in the streets, and the revolution which had swept around me like a fire on the llano, even the paralysis was a part of that, and still I was alive, for some purpose I was alive and my strength was growing day by day …

  “There must be a purpose to all this …” I said.

  “Yes!” Danny shouted triumphantly. “God’s will be done! Glory be, brother!”

  “Bull,” Sadsack scoffed, “you find it and I’ll believe it … but it’s got to be in black and white, none of this spiritual crap Danny’s into!”

  “Be careful,” Mike whispered, “find whatever you want to believe in, but don’t go getting any ideas the Old Man upstairs is personally interested in what happens to you … it could mean trouble for you, none for Him, cause either way He is or He ain’t, and it’s us that suffer. There’s only one rule: get out of here. Get out anyway you can, but get out!”

  “There must be a reason for all this!” Danny insisted. “The Bible says not a sparrow will fall—” and he turned and looked at his withered arm and groaned as if in pain.

  Somewhere Franco sang:

  And where have you been my crippled son

  And what have you seen my twisted, young one …

  “He doesn’t have the time to look over us!” Mike said emphatically. “If he did this goddamned mess would have been over long ago! We’re on our own! That’s all there is to it!”

  “He sends us signs …” Danny whimpered and looked at me. I shivered.

  “The only thing your arm means is you should quit playing with yourself!” Sadsack laughed.

  “It’s a sign!” Danny insisted and jumped up.

  “From who? Answer me that! From who? Is God a crazy scientist working up there in his laboratory, mixing up batches of little germs and spraying them on us to watch us jump? Or is he still experimenting with life, trying to make us better? What kind of sign is all this goddamned suffering?”

  “I don’t know,” Danny moaned. He twisted away and faced the wall. We were silent. No one knew the answer.

  Mike finally broke the silence. “Look, I’m not saying for sure He’s not up there, but if He is He just doesn’t have the time to watch this little, god-forsaken place! I mean there must be thousands of hospitals like this scattered around the world! Millions and millions of cripples, orphans, deformed rejects, each with his own private story to tell God, each with his own reason about his disease … And I don’t think God has the time to listen.”

  “The other theory is if he is everywhere, then he is us, and if he is us then we require no explanation. We simply are … and we happen to be here.”

  “Oh my … we are, just simply here, no reason …”

  “I think he doesn’t have the time to listen to us because he’s too busy playing pool,” Ronco suggested and winked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked.

  “I think the old man’s a pool shark, you see, and the way this universe got started was when God chalked up and broke for the first time. Of course the game was billiards at first, cause they only had four suns to play with, but the minute he rammed that first sun which was his cue ball into the others then everything exploded and all sorts of universes were born … of course the game became eight-ball after that because now the sky was full of worlds. Well, it was a big surprise to God and his opponent when the whole sky blew up and became more complicated. God just stood back and laughed, and he lit a cigar … when you see a falling star that’s just God lighting up his cigar … so he’s chalking up and looking across the table at his opponent—”

  “Wait a minute!” Danny interrupted, “Who’s the opponent? Who’s God playing pool with?” I looked sideways and saw that Danny was trembling. He was really afraid of the answer but he wanted it nevertheless. “Answer me dammit! Who?” he shouted.

  “Take it easy, Danny, let him finish the story,” Mike said. We were all interested in Ronco’s story.

  “Well, that’s all there is to it,” Ronco grinned. “It’s his opponent’s shot. The thing you have to remember is that shot was made at the beginning of the universe, and during all that time the balls have been exploding out across the table, settling into galaxies, universes, worlds which grew little plants on them then men like us … but for God and his opponent all that time has been only a few minutes, and they’re so big they can’t see us crawling around those little worlds tha
t serve their pool game … it’s just a game to them. They’re standing across the smoke-filled room from each other, eyeballing each other, trying to hustle each other. It’s big stakes they’re playing for up there, control of all space and time, not just us little piss ants on this world … God tried to set up a few rules to play the game, but if that other guy outshoots him then it’s the end, cause his opponent don’t care for rules … He just wants to bring everything crashing down!”

  “My, my,” Billy mumbled, “I never thought of it that way …”

  “You been reading too much science fiction, pardner,” Buck grinned. “Why everybody knows God’s not a city slicker, a pool hustler! Why he’s a cowboy, and all those stars are his cattle. And when he starts the round-up, watch out! There’s going to be hell to pay, he’s going to put his brand on everybody, rich or poor, saint or sinner, there’s going to be jangling of spurs for music and dust and turmoil … but God’s going to watch out for all his dogies, you bet. Yahoooo! And I’m going to be riding with him!” He tossed his hat in the air, and because he was sitting up he came close to tumbling off the bed.

  “Watch it!” Mike shouted. Buck balanced himself, put his hat back on and sat back in bed. He looked like a mummy with a cowboy hat on.

  “I think God’s an old guy just sitting on top of a mountain, all by himself, just watching us do our crazy things,” Mike said and made up a story for the occasion. “Once in a while he gets lonely and he comes down to earth to mess around … that’s where we get all these virgin births from. And as soon as he gets tired he hightails it back up the mountain to rest …”

  “He’s supposed to have everything he wants, right?” Sadsack asked, “so why should he come down?”

  “Ah, a beautiful woman can draw even God off the mountain,” Mike smiled. “Their little garden is what makes the world go around. Ask Tortuga … Ismelda’s got him ready to climb out of the bed and get it on!” They laughed.

  “Hey, Tortuga, what do you think of all these stories?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know or I wasn’t ready to answer. I knew I had prayed and there had been no answer, that faith in the old powers was as dry as dust. I knew I had to find something to hold on to, we all did, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. The hospital and the desert which surrounded it seemed to be hopeless, and beyond that the world I had known before the hospital seemed to have only pockets of love fighting against a huge machinery which crushed everything. Here, at least, there was Ismelda, and Salomón, Mike and the other kids, and the doctors who helped …

  “… You gotta remember, God doesn’t think like us.”

  “Oooh my—”

  “He doesn’t see good and evil the way we do … in fact he doesn’t care about things like that. He’s more interested in just running the universe …”

  “Then he doesn’t run our destiny?”

  “No. In fact, he’s busy enough trying to find his own destiny—”

  “He runs mine!” Danny shouted. He started shaking and scratching his arm furiously. “I don’t care what you say, but I know God runs my destiny! He tells me what to do! It’s like the story Salomón told about the visitors from outer space who came down a long time ago and wired all the peoples’ heads so they could control them! Well that’s how I feel about God! He planted a little radio in my brain and I can hear his signals from heaven! Glory be! Hell-a-loo-jah! Sometimes I hear ringing in my ears, and I stop whatever I’m doing and I answer, ‘Is that you God? Is that you?’”

  “Take it easy, Danny! Quiet down or you’ll get sick!” Mike grabbed him and tried to settle him down, but Danny squirmed like a fish to get free. White spittle formed at the edges of his twisted lips.

  “I’m his radio and he’s calling me!” Danny shouted, almost hysterical. “I will do his will! Come in, God! Come in! I hear you! Glory be! Glory be!” he shouted uncontrollably.

  Mike couldn’t hold him. So he hauled back and slapped him then pushed him against the bed and held him down.

  “Take it easy, Danny! Get hold of yourself!”

  Danny quit shouting. When he saw he couldn’t break Mike’s hold he relaxed and slid to the floor, whimpering crazily that he could hear God’s signals from heaven. “I can hear the ringing in my ears,” he cried.

  We were silent and he settled down. Then Ronco said, “Danny, you can’t believe everything you hear. You hear wild stories and you twist them up inside, you twist them to suit you. Don’t you realize, if things don’t make any sense then maybe they just don’t, but don’t go around trying to change them so they fit your thinking. That’s what’s getting you in trouble.” He turned to us. “Last year we saw a movie about atoms in science class, and this crazy teacher tried to tell us that there’s empty space between the electrons and the nucleus of the atom … he compared it to the space between the planets and the sun. So, he said, if all atoms are mostly empty space, then you should be able to walk through a wall by squeezing your atoms through the empty space, right? Well, it’s stupid, but not for Danny. He tried it. For a whole month he went around walking into walls. Broke his nose twice!”

  “The worst part of it was that he had all the other kids doing it too,” Mike added. “Man, once a weirdo starts believing in something watch out! They’re dangerous!”

  “Someday I will be able to walk through a wall, and nobody will see me,” Danny said and stood up. He was still trembling. He raised his withered arm and wiped his nose.

  “You okay?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah,” Danny answered and dusted his pants.

  “I didn’t mean to rough you up, but you were getting wild—”

  “I hear things,” Danny muttered.

  “Well, an atom ain’t space,” Buck said, “it’s just an electric buzz … that’s what you’re hearing, Danny, your own atoms buzzing with electricity.”

  “Could be,” Mike said, “everything’s made of electricity—”

  “Our bodies, our bones, our blood?”

  “Oh my.”

  “Sure, we’re just a walking battery, charged up with a positive and negative pole. When your battery runs down you get sick. Then you gotta charge it up, get the flow goin’ again—”

  “That’s what Tortuga’s doin’ with the mountain, gettin’ charged up, and with Ismelda and KC?”

  “Maybe … but you have to do it. You gotta find that opposite charge that will get you going. That’s what love is, attaching like a magnet!”

  “Híjola! I can believe that!” Ronco laughed, “I got a positive pole looking for a charge all the time! Last night I dreamed I was in a cathouse where all the mamasotas were big and fat and juicy!”

  “Ah, you’re making it up!” Sadsack interrupted.

  “I’m not making it up!” Ronco shot back, “It was a dream! It was real!”

  “Bull! Bet you played with yourself and now you wanna make a big story out of it!”

  “Isn’t that what we all do?” Buck grinned. “We make big stories out of little jack-offs!”

  We laughed and they went on arguing if dreams were real or not, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about my own dreams, dreams I couldn’t share with anyone. In the empty days and lonely nights that flowed over me like water I had sketched out the dreams of my destiny, and they all led to Ismelda’s door. She was the woman I had met in many forms since I arrived at the hospital, and in some strange yet unfathomable way she was all the women who had touched my past and forced me to become a man. My mother. The old goat woman who nursed me. The girls who shared their first holy communion with me … there was a power there which filled my fever, but which I couldn’t touch. Ismelda seemed to know something of that past, and she knew about the mountain.

  In my dreams we sat on the river bank and I sang to her. She smiled as the river gurgled past us. Her long, dark hair covered our naked bodies. Later I tried to remember the words of the song, but I couldn’t. I only knew it was a song of love. And when she came with Josefa to make the beds and mop t
he floors I wanted to tell her about my dream, but I couldn’t. She took good care of me, always giving of herself, never forcing what I could not yet offer. And that is why I was so bothered, because I had nothing to give in return. Sometimes when I wanted to explain my love a lump formed at my throat and when I shouted only angry screams came out.

  “What’s the matter?” Josefa asked me when we were alone, “Don’t you know she has fallen in love with you—”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “But you’re afraid,” she said, “well that’s natural. You are afraid to tell her you love her, because you feel you have nothing to give … well, for a girl like Ismelda that is not important for now … She knows you need time to get well, she realizes your wounds go deep, and just like the body builds scars and callouses around its cuts and sores so the soul must build an invisible shell in times of pain and loss … We know the acid of life burns deep and hot, my God, we have been here a long, long time, and we have been in all the wards—” She stopped suddenly and looked at me.

  “But you have to be careful,” she cautioned, “that you don’t shut yourself away forever. Ismelda’s love is not an acid, but a cool liquid which heals. Her love is like the curing water of the mountain and its magic can lift you out of that smelly shell of yours. She is a strong girl, that one, and sensitive. She’s got magic in her fingers, and she can help you break that shell you’re building, but you have to help her, you have to meet her halfway … otherwise, it’s no good.”

  I knew what Josefa said was true. Ismelda’s touch was magic on my paralyzed nerves. She rubbed my numb muscles every day with the ointment she said was made of goat fat and sweet herbs, and the massages soothed away the pain I felt after therapy. But I had nothing to give her in return, because my only drive was a selfish one, and that was to get out of the hospital as quickly as I could. Franco’s song interrupted my thoughts: