Gums of spit rolled in her mouth and she pressed the corner of her apron to her lips. Petra ambled to the side of the house, her sandals clicking. Cookie and Perla looked up from the ant hole. She leaned a hand against the wall, heaved the breakfast that stuck like pasty glue until it finally erupted, scorching her throat and flying out of her mouth. The flies immediately began to buzz around her, and she kicked some dirt over the vomit. She would pray tonight, burn incense made of mustard seeds and corn and cachana. She had failed, failed the test. Petra went back to cleaning nopales. Not even sucking on a lemon wedge could eliminate the lingering bitterness in her mouth.
Estrella slept with her now. They slept like two hands pressed together in prayer. Under the roof of the bungalow, Petra thought of the lima bean in her, the bean floating in the night of her belly, bursting a root with each breath. Would the child be born without a mouth, would the poisons of the fields harden in its tiny little veins?
And the night became morning again and Estrella would awake counting the ticking of her own heart. The mother slept so close to her, Estrella could feel her breath suck in long warm streams of her air like a cat who steals away the breaths of a newborn.
—Perfecto, what are we gonna do? Estrella asked. She poured water in a bowl, cupped her hand and wet the brick limestone. She took hold of her crescent moon knife, pressed a palm on the sliver of steel and scraped long against the limestone until her knife glittered sharp in the lantern light.
Perfecto turned a bucket upside down and sat near the smoldering pit. He propped his bare foot on one knee. A Coca-Cola bottle boiled in a steel pot of water, and bounced like an egg. He sliced off the dry, white calluses of his heel with a buck knife leaving a tender boil on his foot exposed. He looked up to see Estrella rubbing the curve of her knife with a dishtowel. Moths fluttered around the lantern.
—Three weeks work with the two of us working, Perfecto replied, pushing his bifocals up the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand. The mother prayed in the house, her knees like puddles in the dark while the children slept. We can even resell the cedar shakes from the roof and keep the money.
A bonfire in the distant camp scraped the dark, the sparks of cinders rising. She tossed the dirty water out, placed the knife in her basket and lowered the kerosene of the lantern.
—Is the bottle ready? He asked, holding his toes. Estrella held the lantern up and leaned over the pit. She nodded, then placed the lantern down, and grabbed two rags and took hold of the boiling pot. She took it over to Perfecto.
—Alejo needs a doctor. She said, hoping he would understand and accept the barter.
—I thought it was your mama ... I thought she’d be the one, Perfecto replied, taken aback. Estrella’s face had a strange yellowish glow over the burning lantern light.
—Is she sicker, Perfecto?
—I’m not a doctor and neither are you.
—He can’t talk anymore. He loved to talk, Perfecto, don’t you see?
—And your mama?
—Why are you making me choose?
—Because it comes down to that.
—She knows.
—She knows what? Hand me those pliers, Perfecto said with authority. He pushed his bifocals up again. She handed him the long-nosed pliers, and they trembled in his hand as he plucked the bottle and shook out the remaining hot water. He held it near the fire to dry it off.
—We need the money. We need to tear the barn down before the Foreman gives the job to someone else, Estrella said.
Perfecto wrapped a rag around the base of the thick-glassed bottle. Now sterilized, he took the mouth of the bottle and pressed it over the boil.
—Puta madre, he grunted, as if the two words in-canted painkillers. He winced as the boil erupted, white and green and blood pus gushing into the bottle.
—You should have let Mama do that.
—I’m old enough, he replied, wincing again. I can take care of myself.
With the same rag she used to take the pot off the fire, Estrella pressed the tender sole of his foot. He pushed the bottle into the fire, and the wood sparked and cinders rose and the bottle blackened with soot immediately.
—Puta madre. The tire spun endlessly in the mud. Perfecto stood near the rear of the station wagon to watch. They were headed to the medical clinic, the muffler loud and vibrating on the unpaved road. A broken water pipe bubbled up and muddied a section of the road that Perfecto didn’t notice until the wagon’s back tire dipped and sunk into the deep chocolate mud. He raised his finger for Petra to gas it. Perfecto on his haunches now, studied the tire spinning.Puta madre!
—¿Y qué ganas hablando así? asked Petra through the driver side window. Petra punched the gas pedal again. The tire was buried up to the axle in mud and it spun like a treadmill. One by one the doors of the station wagon opened and they all stepped out except for Alejo. He lay on the worn carpet, wrapped in a cotton blanket in the back, above the trunk of tools and spare tire. It had happened before. The tire getting stuck in mud or sand was not new.
Except for the twins, who stood by the side of the road, the others pushed against the chrome dented bumper of the station wagon. Uno dos tres. Petra gunned the motor. Uno dos tres. When the wagon did not move, the children got to working: the boys collected piles of rocks, the girls twigs and branches. Perfecto opened the hatchback of the wagon. He did not want to disturb Alejo who could barely lift his chin up. But, in order to get the spade shovel, he had to slide Alejo’s feet over and pull open the door to the hidden trunk where a crumpled paper bag was shoved behind the red painted jack and crowbar. In order to do that, he had to lift Alejo’s callused sweaty feet. The way Alejo’s big toes inverted from ill-fitting shoes disturbed him. He removed the bag, closed the trapdoor, slid Alejo’s feet to their original position. Inside the bag were jumper cables, flashlight, oval of wire for the muffler, a roll of toilet paper, screwdrivers, a small-head hammer, and the garden spade shovel. He took the shovel, nervously rumpled the bag, and then banged the wagon door shut with unusual force.
Perfecto dug around the tire with the shovel, sweat causing his bifocals to slip down his nose, shaky from attempting to push the car.
—Perfecto Flores, Estrella said, tapping the top of his straw hat gently, Let me do it. You get behind the wheel. Without objecting, he relinquished the shovel and leaned against the hood of the wagon, struggling for breath. Petra began to unbutton the collar of his shirt, but Perfecto pushed her hand away from his throat.
The mud came up to the calves of her legs and she felt as if there wasn’t any solid earth to ground herself. Estrella dug and scooped and clawed the muddy soil around the tire until the hole was deep enough to pave with rocks. She thought of the young girl that Alejo had told her about, the one girl they found in the La Brea Tar Pits. They found her in a few bones. No details of her life were left behind, no piece of cloth, no ring, no doll. A few bits of bone displayed somewhere under a glass case and nothing else.
Estrella’s shoes were completely buried in the mud. She lined the rocks as she had seen Perfecto do before, embedding them like a cobblestone road, and then snapped the twigs in two, propped the sticks over the various sized stones to give the tire traction to barrel out. It took an hour to complete. Her hands were caked with gray dried mud, and although it was not the thing to do, she wiped her hands against her dress, then shook off the loose dirt. Estrella gave the signal and Perfecto revved the motor.
They stood by the side of the road and waited. Perfecto gunned the motor and the tire spun. Arnulfo crossed his fingers. The twins covered their ears. Alejo lifted his head up and looked through the splattered rear window while Petra held her breath because the black fumes of exhaust made her nauseous. But the tire only spun deeper into the hole, the rocks and twigs spitting from beneath, all of them watching as the tire spun and spun without moving an inch.
Four
The white trailer stuck out like partially buried bone in the middle of the vacant plot. The comp
act square windows facing the highway had foil taped to the framed sliding glass which deflected the sun. A small porch awning was held up by two hollow poles planted solidly in Folgers coffee cans filled with dried cement. Perfecto turned into the graveled drive. The gravel crushed and spit and the muffler trembled and Estrella leaned forward from the backseat, her head between the mother and Perfecto Flores to see the gas gauge bury the E, and Perfecto flicked a fingernail a few times to make sure the gauge wasn’t stuck. Perfecto parked between an orange and white ambulance, its rusty chassis propped up with mason bricks and a black Rambler with a white top. The tires of the ambulance were missing and Estrella sat back to think.
The station wagon knocked and pinged even after Perfecto removed the key from the ignition. He sat quietly in front of the white trailer, as if the mud and the tire and Alejo and Petra had squeezed his heart out and his tired bones wanted to sit behind the steering wheel for a moment, real quiet. He rubbed his eyes under his bifocals, waited for someone to do something. He had done his part. He got them there. The heat in the car immediately began to rise.
—¿Amá? Estrella asked. But the mother sat quietly, Perfecto’s straw hat on her lap. Estrella opened her door, and the rest followed.
They had been stuck on the road most of the afternoon, repaving, digging deeper into the soil to get the wagon out of the mud. Finally, by late afternoon, the mud had dried somewhat and the roadside dust rose as a truckload of piscadores returned to the camp in a blue pickup, its rattling panel wood boards jostling the men who rested their heads against its rhythm. The twins waved and cheered, and the piscadores jumped off the pickup to help. The driver moved closer to the wagon’s rear bumper while a few of the men stood like pall-bearers on either side of the wagon. They briefly glanced at Alejo wrapped in his blanket, one of them even tapping the window with a scraped knuckle, but once they saw him, they averted their glances, steadied their boots, determined not to look again. Uno dos tres, púshale.
Finally, by late afternoon, the wagon was freed to their relief. Perfecto shook hands. With one hand he pumped his gratitude while his other hand lightly slapped their shoulders, the dust rising, the men smiling. Petra crossed herself in gratitude then said thank you over and over like a string of repetitive prayers.
All this, just to arrive at a heap of aluminum foil and missing tires.
Perfecto held the pole of the awning. The cement was loose, the pole wobbly. He noted it.
The clinic smelled of strong disinfectant and bad plumbing. There were three folding chairs opposite the entrance. Estrella helped Alejo to one of them and his weight released a breath on the chair. Only the hum of a fan could be heard. The mother remarked that nobody was present and perhaps the clinic was closed, but Estrella replied the fan was still on and the door unlocked and the Rambler parked outside which meant that the clinic was open and Perfecto agreed with both of them. Above the chair was a poster of two frisky kittens romping. Alejo leaned his head back against the ball of yarn the kittens played with and closed his eyes.
The place was empty, but the fan in the corner continued to rotate, blowing a triangle of air in the room. A curtain rod needled in and out of a yellow cloth hanging limp at a window behind a desk which fluttered only momentarily when the air of the fan blasted it. Ricky peeked behind the curtain as the fan moved to another corner, then returned to blast him with warm air.
Perfecto slid his hand on the wood-panel wall, checked for a loose knob. He read the room for signs of disrepair so that he could barter his services for theirs. He knew by instinct, and he thought of a shellac paint job as he ran his big flattened palm against the flaking wood grain. The smell of bad plumbing. A toilet needing repairing, what else?
To the side of the desk were woodpressed counters which the twins immediately inspected. They tiptoed to reach eye level above the counter. There was a row of glass jars filled with flat tongue depressors that reminded them of fat ice cream sticks, gauze pads and cotton swabs on skinny wooden sticks that looked like the legs of ballet dancers in tan nylons and white shoes; thermometers in a glass tube and a big jar of cotton balls. Cookie picked up a rubber mallet that lay on a silver tray and Perla tattled on her.
The cotton balls in the jar looked too white, like imitation cotton to Petra. She noticed a scale near the desk much like the one used for measuring the weight of picked cotton. The scale reminded her how she’d wet the cotton or hid handsized rocks in the middle of her sack so that the scale tipped in her favor when the cotton was weighed. The scale predicted what she would be able to eat, the measurement of her work and the thought that she had to cheat for food made her resentful of any scale, including this one.
Perfecto removed his glasses and it was only then that he caught sight of his face in the silver towel dispenser and realized how dirty his face was because the space where his glasses had once been made him look as if he still wore goggles. He pulled a towel out, ran it under the tap, and wiped his face. He rubbed his eyes and his eyes watered and put his glasses back on to see himself. Old, so old.
Then they heard the jingling of keys.
A young woman emerged holding her purse and car keys. She looked both surprised and distraught. She had on a fresh coat of red lipstick, and the thick scent of carnation perfume made Estrella think she was there in the trailer all along, in the bathroom. The woman looked at her Timex wristwatch.
—What have we here?
—He’s real sick. Estrella pointed to Alejo. She became aware of her own appearance. Dirty face, fingernails lined with mud, her tennis shoes soiled, brown smears like coffee stains on her dress where she had cleaned her hands. The nurse’s white uniform and red lipstick and flood of carnations made her even more self-conscious. It amazed Estrella that some people never seemed to perspire while others like herself sweated gallons.
—Some people have all the luck, the nurse said, going to her desk. She checked her watch once more and paused for a moment. She took hold of the key and unlocked a bottom drawer and she slipped her purse in and closed it and opened a top drawer. She pulled out the stethoscope and placed it in her pocket. She sat down on a squeaking chair and ripped a fresh sheet of paper out of a tablet. From her pencil cup, next to the photographs of two smiling boys, she lifted a pen.
—He was named after his grandfather on his father’s side.
—Yes, but his last name.
—Hidalgo, like in Hidalgo County, Texas, Estrella lied.
—Is he a relative?
—¿Qué dice? asked Petra. To her, this clinic business was a racket. She felt uncomfortable and wished she had on her duck apron with the big pockets where she could hide her hands.
—She wants to know if he’s related to us. I think we should say yes.
—Claro, replied the mother. Tell her he’s my nephew.
—He’s her nephew.
—And this must be grandpa.
—He’s her husband, Estrella lied a second time.
—How long has Alex-hoes been sick?
—A few months.
—Just when I think it can’t get any hotter ... The nurse picked up the paper she had penciled, and fanned herself with it. The mother whispered a question to Estrella.
—How much will the doctor be? asked Estrella.
—What you see is what you get. The nurse flipped the calendar pages through the silver hoops above the desk blotter and checked dates. Dr. Martínez isn’t coming for another week. Now let’s take care of this sweet thing. Can you stand on the scale for me, can you ask him if he could stand on the scale for me?
—He’s the spelling bee champ of Hidalgo County. He understands English.
Petra imagined there were rocks in Alejo’s pockets. He dragged his bare feet as if the remaining flesh on his bones was too heavy and she couldn’t help but think of rocks in the cotton sacks of his bones, his eyes and stomach, his pockets, rocks.
Estrella helped Alejo. There was something unsettling about this whole affair to Estrella, but she
couldn’t stop long enough to figure out what it was. Alejo’s arm hooked over her neck and she almost had to drag him to the scale. She stumbled, slowed her pace even more. She felt like crying, an ache in her chest, just as she had felt a while back when she tried paving the rocks so carefully, worked so hard. But the tire resisted, Alejo’s body resisted, and she did not want to think what she was thinking now: God was mean and did not care and she was alone to fend for herself. She dragged Alejo’s weight against her, his hot breath on her cheek, his ribs like barren branches trembling in a winter night. All she wanted was to find a deep, dark quiet place like the barn to cry. That was due her. She deserved it. Things would get better after that, because they couldn’t get any worse.
The nurse moved the weights on the scale, jotted it down on the paper, pointed her pencil to the examination table, then slipped the pencil behind her ear. She helped Estrella with Alejo while Perfecto and Petra watched nervously from the sidelines, not wanting to transgress the medical protocol of the clinic.
The paper crumpled as Alejo lay down on the examination table. Estrella didn’t want him to feel like a slab of beef on butcher paper and so she ran the back of her knuckles against his cheek and he managed a smile until the nurse shooed her away. Estrella stood near the wall where the blood pressure machine was mounted.
—Why didn’t you bring him sooner? the nurse asked as she wrapped the Velcro cloth around his arm. Does your mama’s husband speak English? The question threw Estrella off and she remained silent.
—He doesn’t, whispered Alejo. His voice was reedy, cracking like dry mud. Then he felt as if someone had slugged him in the belly and he cradled himself.
—In that case, can we get everybody to the chairs except for this gal here.
Under the Feet of Jesus Page 10
