The Standard Grand

by Jay Baron Nicorvo

  A visitation by Papí, at a rinkydink airport, it was absurd. She was becoming her mamí. She breathed deeply, her mouth at the cracked window, drawing cold, clean mountain air far into her. She needed to run, needed reminding that each new assignment felt this way at the start—the same fears. She’d overcome them in Mexico. But those fears arose in a place she felt at home, felt warm. Here in the icy, unknown Northeast, she needed to hear a familiar voice. She called her mamí.

  * * *

  By the time Smith pulled up to the Liberty post office, Milt seemed—mostly, strangely—recovered, the color returned to his face.

  “Need to run in, get my mail,” he told her, “back in a quick,” and he was, standing at the driver-side door, telling her to slide over.

  He climbed in behind the wheel with a thick stack of envelopes dusted with snowflakes, sat with a hrumpf and walked his knobby fingers through the stack—bill, bill, junk, bill, bill. As he sorted, every piece seemed to go into the same pile, until he stopped at one with a slickly styled return address: SW&B.

  He set the oversized envelope in his lap and hefted the other mail, some falling to the floor. She picked them up: Wickes Arborists. Bank of America. Chase. Wells Fargo. The State Assembly of New York. Lependorf & Associates. As she handed them over, he shoved them into a grocery bag dangling from the center console. He held the SW&B envelope to the snowy daylight.

  He dug into the pocket on the door, stuck his hand in the cup holder. He opened the glove box. “Here, hold this.” He handed her his holstered .45, heavy as hell.

  She drew it out, and he paused, studied her, saying, “Aiming your gun at me’s one thing, go aiming my gun at me, you’re in for it,” before he resumed tossing the van. The semi-automatic pistol was older than she was but beautifully maintained. The technology was far more advanced than her throwback pepperbox. She asked, “What you looking for?”

  “Reading glasses.”

  “What you need read?”

  He looked at her and squinted his muddy eyes. “Don’t know if I can trust you with what I have here.” He fanned himself with the big envelope. “But if I’m going to expect you to trust me, it’s incumbent on me to first show you trust, so I’m gonna take a chance. You’ve taken a chance on me.”

  She nodded.

  “What I’m gonna tell you goes in the vault, understand? You make no mention to the others. Don’t want them riled. At this point, I’m reasonably certain nothing’ll come of it.” He held out the envelope.

  When she reached for it, he pulled it away saying, “Not one word.”

  She leaned over and snatched the envelope. Tore into it. Inside was a page-long cover letter. The paper felt as thick and durable as cotton-bond cash. Paper-clipped to a hokey brochure, pictures of women in hardhats, smiling men with tool belts who hadn’t broken a sweat. She read, “Dear Mr. Wright:

  “With a focus on small to medium-sized projects between $5 million and $25 million—lot of money—we are capable of delivering developments in all phases of construction, including new installations, retrofits and maintenance.

  “We began expanding our presence in the late 1990s, experiencing success in the areas of customer products and building services. Now as a wholly owned subsidy—”

  “Subsidiary?”

  “Yeah, subsidiary, sorry—SW&B continues to support our clients while also building our resume—I mean résumé—in other industries.

  “SW&B has developed a diverse list of clients since the company first started in 1987. Year I was born. Today, many of its clients are Fortune 500 companies that cover hospitality and heavy industry. We have done business in 33 states and have completed more than 280 heavy industrial projects—can I stop now? Goes on for another paragraph. What’s all this about?”

  “What’s the name at the bottom?”

  “Evangelína Canek.”

  “Let me see that.” She handed it to him and he studied the postage through narrowed eyes. “Stamps,” he said, “not metered mail. Not postmarked. Probably bribed the postman to put it straight in my box.”

  “What’s this about? They use all those words but never say nothing.”

  “Tell me something, Specialist Smith. Why’d you enlist?”

  “Serve my country.”

  “That’s what you tell yourself once you’re in. I’m asking why’d you enlist.”

  “Get away from my daddy.”

  “Get away from Daddy. That’s something gets you in the door. Once you’re there, they don’t take no. Once there’s no escape, and they’re screaming in your ear, serve my country starts making sense. Start wanting to give your all for the good ol’ US of A. Maybe that gets you through the first year or two. After year three, four, six? By the time you’ve done your service, you come out feeling owed. Owed a job. Owed insurance. Owed disability. Want to be compensated for your time served. You’ve risked your life, on multiple tours. Now it’s time to collect. I should know,” Milt said. “Felt me the same damn way. Felt it even stronger, cause I was drafted. But then you get out. Looky here, no jobs. VA’s giving you a hard time about benefits. You’re owed, but they don’t make it easy to collect. Lot of hoops, some on fire. Makes you mad. That attitude—I’m owed—is ruinous. At the Standard, we try to be at least self-sufficient.”

  “I can do that.”

  “See,” he said—leading her one way only to yank her the other—“thing is, self-sufficiency aint enough. You know, you’re an 88-mike, motor transport operator. Remaining neutral gets you nowhere, doesn’t get this country anywhere, doesn’t get humanity anywhere. You got to keep it in drive. Get a move on. Status quo don’t cut it. Got to be better than that. Must be more than self-sufficient, have a little left over, to give to your brother, your child, your neighbor, and not just because you’re gonna be old and infirm someday and are gonna need an assist, but because the world as we know it will unwind if you don’t. The Standard’s a company. We pull together but not because we have to. You got a choice. You pull cause you want or you scat. That’s it. The spiel.”

  “Sounds scripted.”

  “Scripture’s more like it.”

  “Gospel of Wright?”

  “Been honing it ten years. Most vets climb in this here van for the trip upstate with me’re lucky not to be headed to Sing Sing or Wallkill, but you are a captive audience.”

  “Why’d you start it?”

  “Long story.”

  “Come on,” she said. “I told you why I enlisted, now your turn.”

  “Should rest my voice.”

  “Scratchy as it is, you don’t seem to mind the sound of it.”

  “I can take a hint.”

  * * *

  The phone rang four, five times, and just before the machine was set to pick up, Mamí answered, “Ba’ax ka wa’alik?”

  The familiar sound of her Maya, the wet clicks and soft pops like water boiling in terra-cotta over an open fire, nearly brought Evangelína to tears, and yet, in Spanish, Evangelína responded, “Mamí, answer the phone in English.”

  “Bix a beel?”

  Evangelína loved this greeting, despite her mamí’s obstinacy, which was Evangelína’s obstinacy. How’s your road? If Evangelína ever married, she’d be ts’okan u beel, which meant finish her (wife’s) road. She answered, “Ma’alob, Na’.” Fine, Mother—that about exhausted her command of her mamí’s mother tongue.

  “Dios bo’otik.” God pays.

  Evangelína replied in English, “The devil pays better.” She added, “It’s freezing up here, Mamí. Hace frío.” The older Mamí got, the more time she spent in Maya, which had no word for yes. If you asked a Maya, Is it cold? the reply will come as a rephrasing of the question, It’s cold. Maya assumed you had all the time in the world. “Were you awake?”

  In Spanish, Mamí said, “I was outside. Feeding the aluxo’ob.”

  This word, aluxo’ob, had no Spanish equivalent. The nearest Evangelína could get was duende, supernatural forces in the form of goblins,
or bush spirits, but it was more than that. In English, she said, “Mamí, must you always act like a superstitious old Indian?”

  In Spanish, Mamí said, “Your ancestors were ajaw. Your relatives fought alongside Zapata. Don’t forget your revolutionary blood.”

  “You’ve been watching reruns of Aló Presidente again.”

  “Don’t get smart.”

  “If Bizzy knew Chávez was on the TV in my house even for a minute, never mind eight uninterrupted hours, I’d be talking to you from the unemployment line.”

  “I know that not to be true.”

  “Mamí, when Chávez nationalized the oil projects in the Orinoco belt, he put us out of business in Venezuela.”

  “Chávez is us.”

  “Chávez is loco, and dying.”

  “He thinks Estados Unidos is the cause.”

  “His Cuban cigars are the cause. Aluxo’ob. What on earth are you feeding them?”

  “We have ants. I’m enticing them out of the house.”

  Evangelína couldn’t help but laugh, which was progress. There was a time when her mamí’s superstitions made her cry, or scream. Mamí’s spirituality, like her politics, was a crazy-quilt. Ancestors weren’t more important than ants; ancestors were ants. Never mind how they’d managed to march up to Texas from the Yucatán. The guayacán bowls—holding the jellied papaya seeds that drew the ants to the maize—told the weather of the ancestors. The wood grain delineated not just their years but, if you looked closely, her mamí would admonish, you’d see the seasons they lived through and how long a drought lasted, yada yada, nada y nada, exhausting Evangelína with her infinity in everything.

  A howl came through the phone. The sound of Mamí’s copper kettle—dented, a dull green patina over it. Mamí had brought the kettle with her from Quintana Roo; it, too, was aluxo’ob, the ghostly voice of Chichí, Mamí’s mamí.

  “Ants,” Evangelína said after listening to Mamí fix her saffron tea, the tinkle of the spoon as she stirred in honey. “Call the exterminator.”

  “Your boss—ch’akat beh—invited me to lunch.” He’s a forked road. “This errand he has you on, it means you won’t be home for Día de los Difuntos?”

  “It’s important work, work that’ll keep me here awhile, unless I close a deal in record time, which isn’t seeming likely.”

  There was another silence, and in it Evangelína heard a strange clicking. She thought it was the engine cut off and cooling, but there was more to it. The sound was glorious, the shattering of a million minuscule bells blown from glass. She strained to hear it. And then she saw it—snow! On the windshield. The crystalline flakes bursting as they landed. Amplified by the kayak strapped to the roof. Her eyes welled up. “It’s snowing, Mamí.”

  “I’ve never seen snow.”

  “It’s beautiful. It has a sound.”

  Mamí sipped.

  “Did you tell Bizzy you’d have lunch with him?”

  “I told him I was an old widow who can date anyone she wants.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did. I tell him that every time he calls.”

  “How many times did he call?”

  Mamí sipped.

  “Mamí?”

  “You work very hard, Evangelína.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re gone a lot.”

  “Mamí.”

  “We go to dinner occasionally.”

  “Mamí! He’s my boss! He was Papí’s boss!”

  “He speaks beautiful Spanish. We go to his country club. He has Edith’s blessing.”

  “Here I thought the last time you saw him was ages ago, at Papí’s funeral. Don’t you blame him for Papí’s melanoma?”

  “I blame the sun.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m … shocked, Mamí. Not appalled, that’ll come later.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Stop talking about it like it’s an affair, hija. It’s a friendship, an old one. Older than you. I’m his charity case. We talk a great deal about your father. He likes to hear stories about the Yucatán. He can be a tremendous bore, but if you tell him to quiet, he quiets. He’s well-trained by his wife.” They fell silent, and Mamí said she should go, she had the bougainvillea to contend with.

  “Be careful.”

  “They’re just thorns.”

  “I’m talking about Bizzy.”

  “I don’t have to worry about his feelings. He’s not my boss or my husband.”

  “Mamí, when you see him, do me a favor?”

  Mamí sipped.

  “If he asks about me, tell him you haven’t heard from me.”

  “Is everything okay, Evangelína?”

  “I should go too. Tak saamal, Na’.” Until tomorrow, Mother.

  “Ya,” Mamí said and hung up. Ya was Maya for love, a root word that could also mean pain, sickness, or a wound.

  * * *

  “After Ada died,” Milt said, “her father followed close on her heels. I was in a bad way for a long while. Lost two decades to drink, depression. All but checked out. My father-in-law left me the family business. Was no business, and no family, left. Felt responsible for Ada’s death. Was living like a hermit. Nothing to keep me company but my animals. News of 9/11 reached me a week late. After, I went to my wife’s lawyer—”

  “One who killed her?”

  “Killed her?”

  “In the car accident. I was paying attention.”

  He went quiet again. This time didn’t seem by choice. He stared at the snowy highway rounding the bend of a foothill. When he didn’t come to, she prodded: “You went to her lawyer…”

  His look—pleading, confused—opened her up like a boiled peanut.

  She welled with affection. She also felt shamed; his deep love for his dead wife made her feelings for Travis seem shallow. She reached and gave Milt’s forearm a pat. Awkward, clumsy. When that didn’t do it, she pinched him, and hard.

  He swerved the van in the snow. “Damn, girl.” He sniffed, hacked into his fist, and rubbed his forearm. “You nip like my alpaca.” Then he told her: “After 9/11, some folks went looking for revenge. They’d call it justice. Me, I pulled the other direction. Wanted forgiveness, make peace, more with myself than anyone else. Owed something to my wife, her memory. Thought to turn the Standard into a shelter for vets the way my father-in-law made it a haven for Jews. Knew me a couple guys, Nam vets, not guys I served with just hardluck guys I met on trips to the VA in the city. The Standard was collapsing all around me. I needed help and these guys wanted to get far away from Ground Zero. We worked out a deal. They sign over a portion of their disability to go to overhead, room and board, I give them a place to stay, work to do. Thought, if I can keep at it, maybe it’ll be around long enough for vets of newer foreign wars. Had no idea we’d be getting into a situation that was two Vietnams at once. If I had the manpower, and the money, maybe a grant writer or two, I could put up a couple hundred hurting vets. Cause when these boys’re done—”

  “And girls.”

  “Took me two decades after discharge to get right. Not all right, mind you, but right enough to make a second go at making some contribution.” He looked away from the road, nodded at her. “This time’s different, different from my time, hell, maybe different from any time.” He turned back to the road. “Cause now it aint only the men coming home from war needing help. It’s the women. There’s progress for you.”

  After a silence, he told her they were almost home. He wasn’t bunking her with the other vets. She’d get a room of her own. “You begin feeling comfortable enough that you want to make the jump to the library—in fall and winter, everyone sleeps together—”

  “Excepting you.”

  “Except me. That’s right.”

  They were on a back road that was a series of steep switchbacks. She asked, “What’re those tipped over drums?”

  “Barrels of sandy salt. Once the sn
ow starts to stick, switchbacks’re damn near impossible to get up. This here snowfall’s supposed to last for days, so get ready to be snowbound. Crazy what’s become of the weather. Okay,” he said, “we’re here.”

  There was no sign at the front entrance. They turned past a leaning guard house, empty and covered in No Trespassing postings. Milt drove up the crumbling drive. On either side stood two stone-and-mortar columns. Spanning them was rusty iron, simply wrought, spelling out: FREIZEIT MACHT FREI.

  “German,” Milt said. “Means leisure frees.”

  They drove toward a tower rising to the tops of the towering white pines. She counted floors, nine. The rundown cylinder was Cape Canaveral meets Hotel California. It was funny, a vision of the future left behind.

  “Standard Tower,” he told her. “It’s starting to Pisa.”

  Next came a castle that looked covered in camo netting. She asked, “FOB Camelot?”

  “Masada,” he said, “the old armory.”

  She craned her neck to see it from the far side as they drove by and came into an architectural hodgepodge stretching on for a few village blocks. It was like the main street of a tiny town that never figured out where it was, in time or space.

  “Underground passages link most of these buildings,” Milt said. “Used to connect all the kitchens, laundry facilities, and storage areas so the staff could move about and wouldn’t be in the elements. More importantly, so they wouldn’t be seen. Those passages are mostly off limits. They were reinforced ages ago, and we don’t trust them.”

  “And that’s where you sleep.”

  “Right.”

  “And all this is yours.”

  “What’s left of it.”

  “Why’d it go under?”

  “Haven’t you seen Dirty Dancing?” He pointed. “Buildings were built in each decade, as the resort expanded. Development came to a halt right around 1970. Beginning of the end,” he said. “I arrived shortly thereafter. That block of a building like a Soviet dormitory there, erected in the fifties, that’s Esther House. Now the cold-weather barracks. Library’s in there, where everyone beds down. You’re free to borrow any books, just make sure to note it in the log. Over that hill, which was once a ski run, that’s where you’ll find the Alpine village. That’s where we muster and take meals. The company should be gathering ranks. That’s where we’re headed.”