Perdido

by Rick Collignon

  Will dragged air into his lungs, which made his ribs hurt. He shook his hand to get rid of the burning sensation that ran up to his wrist. “How could you just do that?” he said.

  “Thank you, Felipe,” Lisa said, and she put her hand on Will’s arm. “Let’s go home.”

  Will undressed slowly in the bathroom. Steam from the hot water running in the tub had clouded up the mirror, which was, he thought, just as well. When he had first glanced in the mirror, he found that he looked like something that had lain on the highway for days.

  He worked his pants off and felt a little better. The only real injuries he could see were a swelling around his knee, a few scrapes, but not much more than that. Things got worse when he pulled off his shirt. There were no cuts, but the flesh from his hips to just under his arms had become one massive bruise. He thought that his whole body would soon look like Rudy’s arm.

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Lisa answered it and he heard her say hello over and over loudly. After a long pause, she slammed the phone down. She came to the bathroom doorway and stood there looking at him. Then she closed her eyes and stayed like that for a long time.

  When she opened them, she looked older to Will. Her face was drawn, and there was a dullness in her eyes.

  “Sometimes,” she said so softly that he could barely hear her words, “I know in my soul that you are not for me, Will.” She stood there a little longer and then turned and walked away. Even with the noise of the water running, Will could hear her close the front door as she left the house.

  Telesfor Ruiz once told Will that when he was a young man, the priest in this village was named Father Joseph. A large man of German descent, he had been priest in Guadalupe for as long as anyone could remember. One spring, after a harsh winter, Father Joseph asked the people to assist him in making repairs to the church, which had stood for nearly two hundred years. If work was not done soon, Father Joseph said, the church would collapse in on itself, and then mass would have to be held in the fields with the animals. Surely a thing no one in Guadalupe would wish for.

  Although the church walls had been built thick and sturdy and layers upon layers of mud plaster had strengthened them, the foundation was only loose stones, and over the years the walls had buckled with the weight. The roof, too, leaked badly, and the latillas between the vigas on the high ceiling had become water stained and in places rotted. Inside the church was always the odor of old wood and dampness.

  On the day work was to begin, many men came to help, and their wives and daughters also came with platters of food. The day, Telesfor had said, smelled of lilacs and beans and garlic. Immense buttresses of adobe were built at each corner of the church to hold the walls in place. Nichos were carved into them, and everything was covered with a plaster mixed with straw and sand so that the building looked as though it grew from the earth.

  On the day work was to begin on the roof, Telesfor came to the church at dawn, and he and Father Joseph set the ladder against the eave. Telesfor began to remove the wood shingles, which were worn from decades of wind and moisture to the thickness of paper. Father Joseph, who had felt poorly since winter and had lost much weight, rested on the peak of the roof and looked out over the village.

  When Telesfor had cleared a large area, he lay down to peer between the boards into the attic space below him. The sun shone through in many places, and the air inside was a maze of floating dust. Beneath that, lying on top of the church ceiling, were the white bones of three men. Telesfor called out, and Father Joseph came and knelt beside him. Both could see how these three men had once lain down together side by side and how their hands, which were now no more than gray sticks, rested upon each other. Scattered about them everywhere were the small skeletons of thousands of birds.

  The day Telesfor Ruiz told him this story, Will had walked to Telesfor’s house late in the day. He had been in Guadalupe only a few months and knew no one but his neighbor. Telesfor told him that evening that he now slept poorly at night and always dreamed. He said that he had grown so old that only those who were dead were in his dreams.

  Will had asked Telesfor whether anyone in Guadalupe had known who the men in the church attic were or how they had come to be in such a place. Telesfor said that it was a story he only knew the end of and that one could think too much or not at all about such things.

  When Elena woke in the morning, she was alone in bed, and she could hear Felipe talking on the phone in the next room. She lay there on her back with her legs sprawled out and her eyes half open, listening to her husband. When she heard him say, “Bueno. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” her eyes opened fully and she threw the blanket aside and got out of bed.

  Felipe had just picked up his lunchbox and was about to leave for work when Elena walked into the kitchen. Her hair was not yet brushed and was tangled about her face from sleep. She was wearing a robe that covered little of her body, and Felipe’s first thought when he saw her was that his wife was beautiful. The second thought came after he saw the expression on her face, and it was that he wished he had already left the house.

  “Where are you going?” Elena asked him in a low voice so as to not wake her sleeping children.

  “I’m going to work,” Felipe said in a loud whisper. “Where else would I be going?”

  “With who?”

  Felipe opened and closed his mouth. It occurred to him that his wife had a way of always saying what she thought, and he wished, not for the first time, that she had been born mute. “Rudy’s going to help me,” he said finally.

  “And what about Will? Have you talked to him about this?”

  “Do you think he can even walk this morning?”

  “You know that’s not what I asked,” Elena said, and she pulled the robe together, covering her breasts, which now made little difference to Felipe. “I asked if you talked to him.”

  “No,” Felipe said. “I didn’t want to disturb him,” which was only half true. Felipe thought a conversation with Will after what had happened at the baseball field would be awkward and embarrassing and not something he wished to face this morning. He had planned on driving Will’s truck back to his house quietly and then riding with Rudy to work, where he could forget about all this for a few hours.

  “You and Will have worked a long time together for you to do this to him.”

  “Me?” Felipe said loudly, wondering how his wife could so easily and with only a few words drive him to the edge of a cliff. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “That’s right,” Elena said, “you’re not. And if you wake the children …”

  “All right. All right,” Felipe said in a harsh whisper. “I’ll drive his truck back and if he’s up, I’ll talk to him. If not, I’ll look in his window and see if he’s still breathing.”

  “Good,” Elena said, and she smiled. “And after that, call me so Lisa doesn’t worry all day.”

  “Lisa?”

  Just after Felipe had come home the night before, Lisa had driven up in her small car and stormed into the house. Her eyes were red and her face was swollen, and beneath all that Felipe had seen an anger he thought could go anywhere. He had gone to bed immediately, leaving her and Elena in the kitchen drinking wine coolers. He had fallen asleep hearing Lisa’s voice and was startled awake once when she threw her glass against the wall, which was also the wall beside his bed.

  Felipe looked at his wife. There was a soft expression on her face now, and she was still smiling. “What does Lisa care?” he said. “She hates Will.”

  “So?” Elena said.

  Will slept for thirty-six hours. He slept poorly in a state that was not quite sleep but only bordered it, getting out of bed just once. And even then, it took such effort merely to climb from the bed and he was in so much pain that he thought if he were to die, it would not be something that concerned him. He had made his way slowly to the kitchen and drunk from the tap. Then he had filled a small pot with water and dropped a cup into it. He had stood by the sink f
or a moment as if lost in his own house. Then he had taken the Lady from the wall and carried all these things back to his bedroom. He put the water on the floor beside the bed and stood the Lady on the windowsill. The room was dark, and when he finally eased back into bed, all he could see was the small figure standing by the open window.

  In his mind, he told the Lady that he knew she was here to protect the health of this house and those who lived here and that she had done a rotten job of it. He told her that possibly his judgment had been poor the last few days, and while it was true he kept her in a hole in his wall where there were spiders, still he didn’t feel that he should be beaten and kicked in front of the entire village for things like this. He said that he would give her one more chance. If she failed, he would use her for fire in the stove, where she wouldn’t throw enough heat for a pot of coffee. Sometime later, Will dreamed that he woke and it was light. Two faces that looked a great deal like Felipe and Rudy were staring in the window at him, but when the Lady looked back at them, they left without speaking. Will remembered nothing else, and when he woke again, it was the next day, and although most of what he felt upon waking was pain, he was also starving.

  He spent the morning eating. His face was still swollen, and his ribs and chest hurt if he breathed too deeply. The pain in his body was no longer feverish but had settled into a stiffness that made his movements slow and deliberate. The door to the house stood open, letting sun and a light breeze into the kitchen. Will had lost a day and he knew there were things he should be doing, but he couldn’t think what they were. He sat at the table looking at the two empty plates that had held his breakfast: five eggs with chile, a half pound of bacon, two tortillas and three pieces of toast. He had eaten a little too much for his first meal in two days, and all he really wanted to do was go back to bed.

  He walked to the doorway and lit a cigarette. He could see his truck parked not far from the house and realized that Felipe must have driven it over while he slept. The leaves of the cottonwood moved in the breeze, and it seemed to Will that their color was a soft shade lighter, as though even in July they had begun to think of autumn. He brought the cigarette to his mouth and took another shallow breath full of smoke.

  Lisa would be waiting tables at the café. Will could see her, her face dark and her hair pulled loose in places. He wondered what was going on in her mind, and then he remembered her last words to him. He thought that his life had twisted to some other place in just a few days, and he no longer knew where he was. He dropped his cigarette and ground it out. He took a few steps away from the house and then kept on walking.

  Telesfor Ruiz’s house sat in weeds now. The windows were boarded up with plywood, and the door had been nailed shut from the inside. The shed where Telesfor’s father had stored his wood and where the santos had once stood looking out over fields of snow had fallen in on itself. Where Telesfor had grown a small garden, there was only sagebrush and tall grass.

  Will hadn’t been here in years. He could see that most of the roofing paper had blown off the house. The rest was pitted and torn, and the exposed wooden slats were weathered gray and black and were warping free from the nails. Plaster had fallen away from the walls in large chunks. Will thought that Telesfor’s house was crumbling from the outside, while inside there was no light and nothing changed.

  Will walked under the portal, where there was shade, and lowered himself to the ground. He stretched out his legs and leaned against the wall. He could feel the adobe cool against his back. Foothills were all around him here, and rising above them were mountains. Dark spruce and aspen climbed the slopes. Will closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He thought that Telesfor had been dead for years and that he did not even know where the old man was buried or anything about his relatives, other than those who had come before him. It seemed to Will that all that was left of Telesfor Ruiz were whispers only he heard. He thought it was possible that all he had left now in Guadalupe were ghosts, and although that wasn’t so bad, he knew it wasn’t enough. It came to him that if he didn’t leave this place, he might become lost here by himself.

  Sixteen

  LISA KNEW THAT IT was at least noon, if not later, and that she shouldn’t still be in bed, a place she liked only to sleep or to be with someone else. Not to lie there as she had since early morning, sweating from the heat beneath her great-grandmother’s bedspread and thinking about things that made her want to cry or go crazy. To make things worse, her mother had knocked on the door earlier and yelled out to her daughter that she had been too long alone in her trailer. Lisa was too old to worry her mother like this, she said, and besides, didn’t she know when she’d been blessed with good luck? This didn’t make Lisa feel any better. Lying in bed, she had closed her eyes and told her mother not to worry and that she would come out soon.

  Lisa’s mother had never cared for Will. When they were in each other’s company, they seldom spoke, a thing, Lisa knew, that was not Will’s fault. But as soon as he was gone, her mother would not shut up about him. It seemed as if, from the moment her mother had learned of Will’s existence in Lisa’s life, even the simplest words, such as “How are you this morning, hija?” would somehow lead to Will.

  Lisa’s mother didn’t like how Will was always so quiet around her, or how he looked at her daughter when he thought no one was watching. She also didn’t like that when he walked into her house, he seemed too tall for the ceiling. She thought his truck was too old and ugly and made too much noise. She didn’t like that the house he lived in had once belonged to Marcello Rael, whose cows had one night long ago escaped their pasture and roamed Guadalupe eating clothes that had been left out and trampling gardens and even killing a dog belonging to Fred Ramirez, a thing, Lisa’s mother had said in a hushed voice, that cows were not known to do. She said that Will’s name sounded flat in the mouth like a stone and that if she ever had a daughter whose name was Lisa Sawyer, she would die of shame. And besides all that, this man had no family.

  Lisa would listen to these things while cooking with her mother or cleaning up around the house and think that she never had much luck with men. It didn’t matter that this was often her own fault, it was still true. She knew in her heart that she had found something with Will, but she didn’t know what it was. It bothered her that what she had found always seemed to do something stupid and probably always would, but she also knew that this was something she didn’t want to lose.

  Lisa flung off the blanket and sat up with her legs off the bed. In front of her on the floor was a mob of Saint Francises, and all of them looked back at her. For the first time, she realized that although it was true they were all saints, it was also true that they were all men who lived in her bedroom. It occurred to her that maybe she should be wearing more than what she had on, which was nothing, and then she thought that they had seen her this way for a long time. If they weren’t used to it by now, it was their problem. She looked down at them and smiled.

  “I think,” she said with her breath, “we’ll do something today.” She swung her legs back and forth, thinking that first she would walk to her mother’s house and have coffee. Then she would take a long, hot bath. She would not rush things, but do them slowly. She stood up and stretched, naked in the sun coming in the window.

  “We’ve left him alone with himself for too long,” she said out loud, “and who can tell what goes through his mind then?”

  Will drove his truck through the village. Beside him on the seat was a brown paper bag, and in the bed of the pickup in plastic bags were most of his clothes and his bedding, his rifle, a few pots and pans, and some things that had once belonged to his father. The rest of his things he’d left in the house, not even caring whether he saw them again. He drove by Juan Martínez, who was on his tractor, and both of them automatically raised a hand. It was late afternoon and Will figured that after he was finished with what he was going to do, he’d drive south until he was too tired to go any farther and the next morning would keep on driv
ing. He thought that the name Guadalajara had a nice sound to it, although he had no idea where it was. He knew it was south of here and that if he aimed his truck that way, anything could happen.

  Will turned off the highway and onto the gravel road that would take him up the canyon. A little way up he saw Flavio Montoya, a man growing old, leaning against his shovel in the middle of his alfalfa field. He was wearing a baseball cap and rubber boots that were muddy and came to his knees. As Will drove by, Flavio, without looking at him, raised his chin in a wave. Felipe had once told Will that a long time ago, Flavio Montoya’s dead grandparents had come back to haunt him because as a child, Flavio had killed his grandmother’s favorite chicken. At the time, Will had nodded his head and smiled and said nothing because he thought anything else Felipe might say would lead to a place that made even less sense. Now he thought it was possible the entire village was touched with a strain of insanity and that even if it weren’t, who would want to live somewhere where people came back from the dead because of a chicken?

  A mile later, Will came to the faded red flatbed abandoned at the end of Ray Pacheco’s drive. He downshifted and then stopped at the entrance. He could see Ray’s house a quarter of a mile off the road. The only vehicle parked in front of it was Ray’s pickup. Will took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it. Then, trying not to think about what he was doing, he swung off the road and drove to Ray’s house.

  A small girl came to the door. She didn’t open it but stood just inside the house staring out at Will through the screen. Her hair was long and black and brushed smooth, and her skin was dark. All Will could really see of her face was eyes. She wore a white dress that had pictures of baby animals stenciled all over it. On her shoulder, Will could see an animal that looked like something he had never seen before.

  “Is your tía home?” he asked.