Perdido

by Rick Collignon

  “Qué kill me?” Rudy said and then he looked down at the ground. “My pig tried to eat me.”

  “They had a pig party Sunday,” Felipe said to Will. “But they waited until Sunday morning to kill the pig.”

  “We were all there,” Albert said, looking around. “Well, you weren’t there, Will. Neither was Felipe. But the rest of us.”

  “I came by later,” Felipe said. “After the tragedy,” and Juanito began laughing again.

  Albert smiled at Will. “This was Rudy’s pig we were going to butcher, and Rudy didn’t want this pig to see him have anything to do with it. So he’s out standing by the car, far enough away that he can see what’s happening but where the pig won’t recognize him. Everyone else is over by the house getting the fire ready. So me and Juanito let this pig out.”

  “How come you didn’t just shoot him in the pen?” Will asked.

  Rudy raised his head. “What?” he said. “And let the other pigs know what’s going to happen to them?” He shook his head. “Jodido Will,” he said.

  Will looked at Albert. “You didn’t have a rope around this pig?”

  “Hey,” Felipe said. “Listen to the story and be quiet.”

  “Who would think that this pig was like this?” Albert said. “So we open the gate, and we think this pig will wander out like any other pig, and when he does, Juanito will shoot him. But this pig doesn’t do that. This pig runs out like he’s waited his whole life for this day. He runs right at Rudy, who’s out in the driveway all sad because this is his favorite pig. When Rudy sees the pig running straight at him, he screams because he thinks Juanito will miss the pig and shoot him. So Rudy starts running around the side of the car. We think that the pig is going to run for freedom, that Rudy standing there is just an accident. But this pig takes off around the car fast, fast after Rudy. Rudy stops being scared of the gun and starts yelling, ’Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him.’”

  Will looked at Juanito. “I was laughing so hard,” Juanito said, “that I dropped the gun.”

  Albert went on, “When Rudy gets to the front of the car, he tries to climb up on the hood, and the pig catches up to him and jumps him from behind and bites his arm.”

  Will looked at Rudy, who was still looking at the ground, and then back at Albert. He felt a grin grab hold of his face. “You got to be kidding me,” he said.

  “I fed this fucking pig,” Rudy said, “since it was a little pigling.”

  “That must not be all you did to it,” Felipe said.

  Lloyd suddenly yelled from home plate that it was getting late and that he had better things to do.

  “Esperate, jodido,” Rudy yelled at him.

  “Just then,” Albert said, “my mother and my Tia Rose come out of the house, and they see Rudy screaming and hitting this pig in the head with his hat, and they can see that Rudy’s other arm is in the pig’s mouth. My mother yells for me to get the ax, and the pig, like he knows Spanish, suddenly lets go of Rudy’s arm and starts running. We had to shoot him way out in our neighbor’s field and carry him all the way back.”

  Rudy shook his head. He looked up at Will and held his arm up so Will could see the bandage. “Jodido pig,” he said.

  Felipe got to play right field alone. Albert put Will in center, and Rudy, even after all his whining, ended up on third. As Will and Felipe were walking out slowly under the sun, Will asked how bad Rudy’s arm really was. Felipe laughed and said, “Some punctures. Not real bad. His arm’s all blue, though. I think he wears the bandage as a memory to his pig.”

  Things didn’t get better for Rudy. The first batter for the lumberyard hit a screeching line drive down the third-base line that short-hopped Rudy and smacked him square on his bandaged arm. He threw his glove in the air, screamed, and dropped to the ground, squirming in the dirt. When he got back on his feet, he moved deep into left field and stood next to the outfielder, both of them talking while the lumberyard scored twelve runs in their half of the first inning.

  Will found what he thought was his beer between innings and sat down next to Felipe. Out past the outfield he could see Lisa’s vehicle stopped in the middle of the road. Mundo, shirtless, his back tanned a deep brown, was crouched down by the passenger window. After a few seconds, he rose and backed away slowly, still talking. Will could just catch the motion of Lisa’s hand waving from inside the car. She put the car in gear and swung around the field and parked beside his truck. He watched her climb out and get into Felipe’s truck with Elena.

  “Your friend’s here,” Felipe said.

  “I see her.”

  Felipe took a swallow of beer. “Not that one,” he said. “Back in the trees. Behind the backstop.”

  Lalo’s car was parked in the woods. The vehicle sat so low that the grass reached up to the front bumper. Alongside it and parked close was Jimmy’s truck. There were a couple of guys Will had never seen before between the two vehicles, watching the game and drinking. The windows of both vehicles were tinted so dark that Will couldn’t make out anything inside. Maybe some shadows, like limbs moving.

  “Who are those guys?” he asked.

  “Ray’s nephews. They’re not from here. They were at the rosary. They’ll be here until after the funeral.”

  “Doesn’t Ray have any relatives who are girls?” Will said.

  Felipe snorted and took another drink of beer. They watched Rudy hit a weak ground ball to Lawrence at first. Rudy didn’t even bother to run. He looked at Lawrence and dropped his bat and walked away mumbling.

  “I didn’t see those guys drive up,” Will said. “How long have they been here?”

  “When Albert was telling about the pig,” Felipe said. “You know, Will, we have enough players. Maybe you should walk around the field and get your truck and go home.”

  Will didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He thought he’d rather be here among so many people than at his house alone. “No,” he said. “It’s too nice an evening. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  Rudy sat down heavily on the other side of Will. He whistled out some air as if he’d just sprinted a mile. Will looked back at Lalo’s car. “This is a pretty small village,” he said, “to be hiding from someone all the time.”

  “Hiding from who?” Rudy said. “Those guys? Fuck those guys. Just because you killed their uncle doesn’t mean you have to worry.” A gurgling sound that Will recognized as a laugh came out of Rudy’s throat. He looked at the side of Rudy’s face.

  “I didn’t kill their uncle,” he said. “And I hope that damn pig had rabies.”

  Felipe stood in right field and watched the lumberyard hit the ball everywhere and then run around the bases like rabbits while his team fielded poorly and threw worse. He thought that not only was his team going to lose by an uncountable number of runs, but there was no game better than this one. What other game, he thought, allowed you to run sometimes and not at all at others. You didn’t have to knock anyone down, and every so often you got to hit a ball with a bat made out of wood. If you missed it, all that happened was you sat back down in the shade and popped open another can of beer. He watched Joe walk up to the plate and hit the ball hard on the ground to Juanito, who caught it by accident and then threw it in the dirt to Albert, who also caught it by accident and that was that.

  Felipe and Will walked off the field together, and Felipe could see that Will, who took the game too seriously and ran after the ball everywhere, was tiring.

  “This game is supposed to be fun,” Will said.

  “You run too much.”

  Will looked at Felipe. He noticed that even on such a warm evening, there wasn’t a bead of sweat on Felipe’s face. “What do you mean I run too much?” he said. “When the ball is hit over my head, I’m supposed to walk after it?”

  “Yes,” Felipe said. “You have to pace yourself.”

  Will didn’t say anything. He shook his head and turned and picked through the bats as if one were different from another. He looked across the field and co
uld see Elena and Lisa in the cab of Felipe’s truck. The two of them were talking quickly and laughing. Will could hear the kids by the creek, and how loud their voices were, and he knew they were all soaked with water and were all throwing things. Octaviano and Joe’s boy suddenly darted out from behind a parked vehicle and ran across the infield, and Joe, on the pitcher’s mound, waved them off with his glove. Back in the woods, Jimmy and Lalo and Lalo’s friend had gotten out of their vehicles and were standing with their two cousins, drinking and keeping their eyes only on Will.

  Felipe watched Will walk up to the plate. Then he looked down at the ground between his legs. He thought that sometimes it was no good to think anymore about anything, that there were things you could do and things you couldn’t, and that in the end there was only waiting. He moved the flat of his hand across the grass and wondered how with no rain the grass could feel damp on his skin. When he looked up, Will was in the batter’s box saying something to Joe, and behind him, Ray Pacheco’s nephews were walking together out of the shadows of the trees.

  The sound of Lloyd yelping behind Will made him turn around, and that was when he got hit. The blow caught his shoulder and the side of his head and flung him forward onto his hands and knees in front of home plate. The bat was on the ground not far from his face, and he could read the words etched in the wood. He reached for it and saw Joe still on the mound. Their eyes met, and then all Will could see around him were legs. “Hey,” he said in a whisper.

  He tried to get up and saw a leg pull back. The kick struck him on the side below his ribs, and instead of rising with the blow, he felt himself cave in, his body curling up. The leg pulled back and kicked again, the toe of the boot hitting hard into Will’s shoulder. Will tried to get back on his hands and knees, and someone on the other side of him swung his leg. A foot smacked the left side of Will’s face and there was a popping noise in his neck and his face went numb. He kept trying to move forward, his hands sliding along the ground. Noises came out of his mouth as if they belonged to someone else. He actually made it to a crouch once and stumbled a few steps before he was tripped up and landed hard in the dirt. He didn’t know how long it lasted. Five minutes, ten, forever. He got kicked endlessly, as though he weren’t quite human anymore. Limbs banging off his skull, his spine, tearing at his face.

  Will ended up on his butt, his right hand resting on third base. His index finger was bent at an awkward angle. The fingernail was half on and half off and rimmed in blood. The skin was scraped away from his forearm and not yet bleeding, as though his flesh had gone into shock and didn’t know how to respond. His body felt pumped up and numb, and as he tried to breathe, a stream of blood ran from his face and stained the front of his shirt. I’m hurt, he thought, and then he felt a soft rush of panic.

  He was suddenly grabbed from behind, under the arms, and pulled up enough that he backpedaled and fell on his butt. He hit hard again and flat, and the impact deflated his lungs and sent shock waves through his ribs. He tried to speak and saw blood spray out of his mouth. Will felt himself panic again, and he heard Felipe’s voice say, “Get up. Come on, Will, get up.” When Felipe tried to lift him once more, Will went with it and ended up standing, swaying, beside him.

  Will turned his head and looked at Felipe. He could see dirt on Felipe’s face. “How bad is it?” Will asked, and a drop of blood landed on Felipe’s cheek.

  “Squeeze your nose,” Felipe said. “With your fingers. Maybe it just looks bad.”

  Will brought his hand to his face, and when he squeezed both nostrils tight, so much blood clogged the back of his throat that he had to bend over and spit it out. When he straightened back up he could feel the muscles cramp across his chest.

  Lisa was standing beside Joe, and in front of them, Jimmy and Lalo and their cousins were moving around like cattle that didn’t want to be corralled. Elena ran past home plate to Octaviano and Joe’s son, who were huddled close together. Octaviano was crying with his mouth open and staring at Will as though Will were the thing that lived under his bed. The right fielder inched his way off the field toward the parked cars as if something embarrassing had happened and he thought it would be best just to leave.

  Lisa began yelling, or, Will thought, maybe she’d been yelling all along. “You pigs. Doing this in front of children. What kind of animals are you?”

  “Get out of here, Lisa,” Jimmy said, and Will wondered how his voice could be so calm. “This isn’t any of your business.”

  “When you do it in my face, it’s my business,” she shouted at him. “When you do a thing like this in front of little children, it is. Five of you. Five of you to do this.” She glanced at Will and then turned back to Jimmy. “I’m not moving from here, Jimmy.”

  Lalo walked up close to Joe and pointed his arm at Will. “I’ll take him,” he said. “Just me and him. I don’t need anyone else.”

  Joe pushed lightly on Lalo’s chest. “Give it up,” he said. “It’s all over now.”

  “He fucked up,” Jimmy said to Lisa.

  “So you don’t fuck up?”

  “You know what he did?”

  “So he’s stupid,” Lisa said. “So what? He didn’t deserve this. No one deserves this. When he gets better you can come and beat him up by yourself if that will make you feel good.”

  From beyond the outfield, Will could see Mundo’s truck moving forward. He drove across center field, the truck picking up speed. He pulled up close and jumped out of the cab. He moved quickly past his sister and up to Jimmy. He shoved Jimmy hard in the chest with the flat of his hand. “Don’t mess with my sister,” he said. Jimmy said something in Spanish, and Mundo pushed him again and said, “Don’t ever mess with my sister.”

  Jimmy and Mundo stared at each other for a few seconds until finally Jimmy’s body sagged slightly and he turned to Lalo. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’re done here.”

  Felipe helped Will walk off the field and eased him down in the shade. Lisa crouched in front of him. “You can let go of your nose now,” she said. “Someone give me something.” Will’s team seemed to be all around, and everyone looked at each other helplessly until Rudy finally undid his bandage and handed it to Lisa. She poured beer on it and wiped Will’s face gently. She looked up at Felipe, who was thinking that Will didn’t even look like Will anymore. “Maybe it’s not too bad,” she said.

  Felipe shrugged. “His nose is flatter,” he said.

  Lisa turned back to Will. “Let me see your teeth.” Will opened his mouth, and Lisa cocked her head and looked in. “They’re all there,” she said. “That’s good. Does this hurt?” She poked him hard in the side. Will grunted and felt a pain so intense he nearly fell over. “At least you can talk,” she said and stood up. “You sit here for a second and we’ll help you home.”

  Lisa went over to Elena and put her hands on the shoulders of the two kids. Will heard her say, “They were bad men, hijos, weren’t they?” Vehicles began pulling out from where they were parked and driving off slowly. Joe and Felipe were talking together out on the field. A few guys walked over to Will and told him to make sure he got some X-rays. That maybe he had a rib through a lung. Or maybe a brain concussion. That he had been kicked like a dead dog. Rudy sat down next to him and spent a moment studying the blue puncture marks on his arm. Then, without looking at Will, he said, “We were going to rally that inning, too.”

  Fifteen

  FELIPE AND LISA WALKED alongside Will in silence as he limped home. Octaviano ran ahead of them, kicking at the ground and sending up small clouds of dust. The sun had dipped below the tops of the cottonwoods, and although Will could see pockets of sun through the leaves, the old road he and Felipe and Lisa walked was shaded. The soft breeze on his face made him want to sit down in the grass and close his eyes and not have to make his body move.

  Just after being helped off the field and after Lisa had wiped the blood from his face, Will had felt a quiet sense of joy. He had thought that it was something to live through a thi
ng like this. But not much later, when he felt his body relax in pain, he realized that on this field so near his house, something worse than he even knew had happened.

  It seemed to Felipe that the walk to Will’s house was taking forever. It had been Elena’s idea that Will should walk home so his muscles would stay loose and not turn to cement. She had driven home in Felipe’s truck, and now Felipe walked beside Will in much the same way he had once walked with his grandfather after his grandfather’s third stroke, which had turned the old man’s legs into sticks and bent his back so that even standing was difficult. Felipe glanced over at Lisa, who was looking at the ground, and he wondered how it had come to be that the three of them were now uncomfortable in each other’s company.

  When they finally got to the turn to Will’s house, Felipe yelled for Octaviano to come back. He looked at Will. “You going to be okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Will said, and Felipe could see that one side of Will’s face was bruised and swollen. “I’ll be all right.”

  “It’s over now,” Felipe said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I know.”

  “Then I guess I’ll go home. Where are the keys to your truck?”

  “In it.”

  Felipe nodded his head slowly and then said, “Let me see your hand. No, not that one. The one with the crooked finger.”

  The three of them looked at Will’s hand and how the middle joint on his index finger was knotted up, pushing the top part of the finger out at an angle.

  “You going to leave it that way?” Felipe asked.

  Will moved the joint a fraction of an inch. “I don’t know,” he said. What he did know was that he didn’t want to think about anything right now. “Maybe if I soak it, it will slide back in place.”

  “Let me see it.” Felipe took Will’s hand, grabbed the finger, and pulled the joint back into place with a popping noise. “There,” he said.