Before the End, After the Beginning

by Dagoberto Gilb

  On Saturday, Gabe and I drank a few beers, and I got back to Maggy’s tired and I fell right asleep. I woke up at around three in the morning and I was hungry. I didn’t want to treat her house like it was mine, so I never went into the refrigerator unless she said to. But I was hungry. I went downstairs and turned on those bright lights until I opened the refrigerator. There was light in it, so I could turn off the big ones. Then I looked inside. Impossible to know what was there because there was so much. Who ate so many pickles? I had never seen my aunt or Lorena eat one. And mustard jars. Who knew there were so many brands of mustard? Salsas in jars, so many, and I knew they would all be bad and I wondered if my aunt could eat them, too. I had to put things on the floor. I tried to be organized and quiet. So many things in foil that didn’t look like food. One thing could have been beef once upon a time, and there was maybe a chicken, though it was too small and it smelled wrong. There was some ham and I thought that would be it. I started looking inside plastic cartons and I found some chile that tasted real next to some tamales that were rock hard. And then I found a plastic container with wide noodles. They had a white sauce on them and they were really good, too, and so then I was putting things away when Lorena, in a huge T-shirt, scared me.

  “I wondered what that light was, so I had to wake up,” she said.

  “I was trying to be real quiet.”

  “You were, you were,” she said. “It was one of the ­reasons I decided to get up and look, because it was just a light.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t say that. Did you find anything in there? She has so much.”

  “Really, huh?”

  “It’s that she never eats. She takes a bite, and that’s it, in the fridge. But she wants everything anyway. What’d you find?”

  “Noodles.”

  “Oh, those are the ones she made. She bought that pasta machine. She said Jim likes pasta.” She shook her head and made a face. “And so she bought it and we made pasta one day. Like she’ll ever do it again. It is really good. We ate some right after she made it, or I did. I forgot it was there. I’m the one who saved it. I’m also the one she told to.”

  I was standing, not sure how to eat it, since now eating seemed to involve Lorena, but she read my mind.

  “With a fork, eat, stop thinking. She doesn’t remember it’s there, and she wouldn’t care if she did.”

  “It is good,” I said.

  “Fresh. Fresh cheeses too. Always the best at Maggy’s.”

  I poured a little chile on it.

  “That’s right, make it Mexican.” She leaned against me as though she always did.

  “What’re you, anyway?”

  “My dad’s Greek. He barely speaks English. My mom’s from Mexico, but she’s half Greek, too. She grew up in a restaurant in Mexico City, but came here for college and never left.”

  “Greek. I would’ve never thought of it.”

  “Let’s go sit. Bring your food.”

  She didn’t mean the table, she meant the den where there was a couch. I sat. She lit a candle and then sat more close to me than I would’ve expected. I really loved the chile, as much as the noodles, and I decided I’d eat all these noodles, so I poured it all over them. Lorena laughed at that.

  “How come you never come down and talk to me or watch television with me?”

  “I don’t know. It’s my aunt’s house.” She’d scooted closer, and it was impossible not to like it. “I’m married. My wife’s pregnant and we already have a daughter.”

  “I’m married, too,” she said. “I still love my asshole husband.”

  I ate. She got closer to me and then she was leaning against me. The candlelight jumped from wall to wall. I finished and put the container on the table in front of me. Lorena cuddled against me after that. I could feel her so warm and then I put my arm around her on her shoulder and she kissed my neck. It made me have goose bumps. Then she started kissing me more and moving into me and we were kissing and her T-shirt was so warm and I started feeling her under it, too, and it didn’t stop.

  Gabe started getting moody with me. He wanted to get to this other job the next weekend. I’d proudly sent money to both my mom and Suzie from the one we just finished because I was expecting more. We had another house come up, too, and a few more people had asked about our prices and availability. He was being something and he wouldn’t say why. I was starting to think. I didn’t even know where he lived, and he never once asked me about where I lived, where my aunt was, on which street. I only knew where his mom used to live. I told him more than he told me. I was a little worried, too, because I told him about Lorena right after that night and I wished I hadn’t. I don’t think he was shocked or disapproving or anything. But he had that on me. It was then that I noticed it was more than a bad day. Not me, but him being selfish, and I didn’t matter enough to get an explanation. He even left me alone for a long time and came back and no explanation for that, either. I was having to think what I would do if I didn’t have this work. He had the phone numbers. He had a truck. I was hoping that the man who wanted the next house would drop by and I could get the job on my own.

  “We’ve been kind of fighting, too,” Lorena said when I got back. Aunt Maggy wasn’t even there. “She drinks too much and she gets all bitchy.”

  “You drink a lot, too.”

  “Probably. But I don’t get all bossy at her like she does me. It’s not like her to go out alone. Usually she sends me on errands she doesn’t want to do. When she takes me with her shopping, she always buys me something pretty. Lately she acts like that makes her mad, like I’m asking her to. I’m not. I don’t care.”

  I was upset when I came in but Aunt Maggy was worse, like she was drinking the wine straight out of the bottle. It was like she was waiting for me to get here, even though I was so early.

  “I had to ask Lorena to leave,” she told me. “It is so disturbing.”

  “What happened?”

  “She said horrible and mean things to me. I am still so upset.” She drank from her wineglass.

  “Were you guys drinking when this happened?”

  “What do you mean by that?” She stood up. “I am not going to be criticized by you, too.” She had her wineglass in her hand, but she put it down in the kitchen and paced around.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s not what I meant.”

  She didn’t want to listen. I went up the stairs, into the pink bedroom. I sure didn’t want this. I didn’t even ask about dinner, even though I was starving. It was the first time she didn’t bring it up. I guess I was being punished. I would just go get something. I wanted to apologize, but I heard her go into her bedroom. She got on the phone, too. I was getting mad. Everything was making me mad. All these people had things, good jobs, everything. I was in the pink bedroom. I was thinking I should just go out. I was glad that Lorena was gone. That was a relief. I wanted to call Suzie. I wanted her to tell me she missed me and our baby was good. I wanted to talk to her about this work, about Gabe burning me. I couldn’t tell her though. I didn’t want to tell anybody, really, because I was embarrassed by how much trouble I was having. I didn’t imagine this. I could go back to El Paso. I could say I didn’t like it here. I didn’t really. All of it made me mad and I was tired of the driving and the gas money. I was going to tell Maggy what happened and would have.

  I went to a chain fast food place and I ate a chicken burger with jalapeños and fries and some bad iced tea. I called and I called that Gabe, but he didn’t pick up and he was not going to pick up. I couldn’t do anything, not one thing I could think of. I was thinking I would just go back to El Paso. I went back to the Willows Village. Aunt Maggy was around the corner from the kitchen and watching TV—I peeked around the corner and she never looked up, like she didn’t even hear me come back in, though I knew she did. I went up to t
he pink room and thought of watching TV too, and packing up my clothes, but instead I started looking at those photos she had everywhere, that I’d shoved under the bed and put in an empty doll box. Pictures of so many people I had never seen and not one of my family, of my mom or dad but especially my mom. My mom, who talked about Maggy all the time. Even if she was jealous of her, she admired her like a hero and envied her life. I wondered if I should tell my mom when I got back. So many photos of so many people and so many families and not one of our own family. Where did she get them all?

  Then I heard Maggy’s car go out of the garage, the automatic garage door opening and closing. Since her room looked over that driveway, I hurried to look out the window to make sure it was her. It was nighttime, it was dark, but she left a light on by the bed and that’s where I saw what I am sure nobody would ever see ever. It was a pile of bills, of money. Not one that was stacked, in anyway organized, but a crumpled pile. Each one crumpled in its own way, even, individually. And it was a big pile, big as a birthday cake—no, for a wedding. It was tall and it was wide. At first I just stared, even as I got closer to it. I didn’t want to disturb anything. Since it was close to the edge of the bed, I went to my knees like I was going to pray but only to get my eyes closer. It was dark. I wasn’t believing my eyes. They were hundred-dollar bills. I couldn’t imagine how many hundred-dollar bills there were. It was uncountable to me maybe because I was so nervous about being there and awed, both. I kept looking to see if there were other bills besides hundreds, and it did not seem like it, not one wasn’t. She could not know how many there were, it couldn’t be possible. Hundreds of hundreds. It was more like she’d had these in a grocery bag and dumped them all out onto the bed. I went ahead and picked one off, carefully, from the top. I couldn’t believe it was real, that anyone would have so many, and then like this. Then I was thinking. And I did it. I took five of them. Because she wouldn’t even know! And it didn’t look even a little different after I did. It would be like taking five pennies from a jar of them. Then I went to the pink room. At first I was throwing my stuff around and bumping things. I wanted to pack my suitcase. I already wanted to leave before, but I needed the money and if she had so much, well, come on! I don’t know how long I was more confused. I thought I shouldn’t run out, like I did this. That I should wait a day or two but tell her as soon as I could that I decided I had to go back home, it just wasn’t working out. Maybe the day after tomorrow. I don’t know how much time passed but I was afraid she would be back any minute. I couldn’t do it. I had uncrumpled them, but I crumpled three of them and rushed back in and . . . it looked no different with or without those. I hoped it would make me feel better and it did, a little. Now I had gas money, I told myself. Enough to drive back and so I wouldn’t have to borrow. The better feeling was for a few minutes, is all. So much I never did before Willows Village. I was trying to think smart. Because she wouldn’t know. She would never know.

  Then the automatic garage door was opening. It was done, there was no turning back. I closed the pink bedroom’s door and I turned on the TV and I sat on the bed like it was a couch. I wasn’t watching or listening to it, only for her, to hear her. I think I heard her in the kitchen. I think I heard her coming up the stairs. And then she knocked on the door. I got up and said come in at the same time.

  She didn’t say anything at first. “I know I have so many of those. Probably drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

  I was holding one of her dolls. I didn’t even realize. “It accidentally fell onto the bed from above and I guess I didn’t put it right back.” I tossed it back on the bed.

  “Well, it seems like you,” she joked.

  I nodded, more ashamed than embarrassed. I looked over at the doll like I shouldn’t have tossed it like I did.

  “I want to apologize to you,” Aunt Maggy said.

  “For what?”

  “Today. I was upset about Lorena.”

  “I understand. It makes sense. I’m sorry, too.”

  “Should I close this?” She was talking about the bedroom door.

  “I guess, yeah.”

  It was just about closed. “Oh,” she said, reopening it. “I think you have good news. A phone message. It was a man asking for Guillermo.”

  “That car dealer,” I said. “One of them.”

  “I think so. Do you know how to listen to the messages on the machine?”

  “I can figure it out.”

  “Goodnight then,” she said, and she closed the door.

  HIS BIRTHDAY

  There was traffic on his birthday. The Hollywood Freeway to downtown. His father got off and got back on going in the opposite direction and then on again saying he’d catch the 5 Freeway and then, when they got there, the ramp was closed for repair. His father wasn’t as loud as it was outside the open windows—cars and trucks and motorcycles, engines and tires, the gray city roar—but anyone could hear him say how he should have thought of this traffic before and that he shouldn’t have promised to go to the store so far away and that he couldn’t understand how people could live like this all the time. At home nothing was like here, he said. When he was small, he didn’t have toys like they have now, and he didn’t expect them. Maybe they should go somewhere else, his mother said, to any shopping center where a toy store was open. His father said she should have called around like people who used phones. She glared back at him, mad. The boy was six today. As they drove home his body slumped into the backseat.

  Then his father accelerated, said they were going, he said they’d go. It seemed his father drove faster. He made one turn, then another turn, and then the Glendale Freeway and the 5 Freeway. His father said today was his son’s birthday. Here, they were here. Now the boy was on his feet, hanging over the front seat between his parents. His mother was worried if something wasn’t right still. Was this right? Was he sure they shouldn’t turn back, or maybe they wouldn’t recognize it, or maybe they’d gone too far? Then his mother said wait, over there. There was a drawing of a giraffe on the building. Unless it was the zoo, she said. His father laughed at his mother. You’re the zoo, he said. No, you are, she said. His baby brother was excited and pointed, and his baby sister still slept. The boy controlled his body but not his smile. They were there! They parked in the oil-puddled lot and set up a collapsible stroller, the freeway howling beside them, and, pushing the thick glass doors, they went inside the store.

  It was at least twelve feet high with toys, a warehouse, more toys than all the days of childhood, all squeals and squeaks and putts, boys and girls running and whining, bouncing and rolling things. His father and his mother and the two boys and the baby sister were each twisting their necks and stopping, look at this, look at this. Get anything you want, his father told him, but he didn’t say but not for too much. He couldn’t talk about money on his son’s birthday, didn’t want to explain about paying bills, the other expenses, worries, how it was away from home. There’s so many things, the boy said, it’s so hard. Well, get what you want, that one you wanted. I just don’t know if it’s the best one, the boy said, and his father said oh yes it is, it’s the best one, and his father thought that the price was right, too, and he said it’s got 145 pieces and a big mountain, and tanks, and a landing craft to cross the river, and fighter planes. The boy wanted to know who the good guys were and who were the bad guys and how could you tell? His father shook his head, you just know. And the boy smiled and his father found a new unopened box almost as tall as the boy who glowed. They were all ready to go home but his mother wanted to buy some party plates and his brother had to get something so he didn’t cry, so they chose an $.87 package of horses and for his baby sister a soft, pink bracelet-like teething ring for $1.19. They stood in line to pay. There were long lines. The boy waited contentedly, but the other two could not and his mother took them away. The boy stared at his box, at the pictures, and his father stood there and waited with all
the other waiting people. When they got near the register, someone asked if it was always crowded like this, and a woman nodded, saying life in the big city. His father paid next, and the boy pulled the box off the counter, I want to carry it myself, and everyone in the family seemed as happy as him.

  At home, his mother stabbed six candles into the brown frosting. It was chocolate devil’s food with three white flowers and green leaves and white spiraled frosting, in longhand, Happy Birthday! She arranged the candles so there were five blue ones at each corner of an imaginary star and one yellow one in the middle. His father posed the boy next to the cake and took a picture, then she found some matches and lit the candles, and then his mother and father sang, only their voices, his father’s gruff, his mother’s soft, the baby girl in her arms, the younger boy, eyes wide open. It was overcast outside the window near this. The man next door who nagged and screamed at his wife was sweet-talking his dog, and there was a police helicopter swirling around and black-and-whites filling up the street behind them. A radio not so far away screamed a love song by Yolanda del Río. The father snapped a picture with a flash of the boy blowing out the candles. His mother brought out two more presents, each wrapped in paper that had been around the house, without ribbon or bows. She said, the little one’s from your brother and sister, the big one’s from your mami and papi. The little one was comics and the boy smiled, so happy, and he grabbed the other and ripped it open. It was a plastic sword, and now he was happy beyond words. His mother cut up the cake and his father scooped out ice cream and they all sat around quietly eating off the party plates. The radio outside wasn’t on. Instead they heard a police bullhorn mumbling on the street behind them. His father told the boy to wait a minute, he thought he had a couple of batteries. He loaded them in the black plastic handle of the sword, and then handed it to the boy. The six-year-old held it above his head with both hands and lit up the yellow plastic blade. Slicing the darkening air, his whole family admired him as he swirled in the center of the room, brave and fearless.