by Obed Silva
3
It’d been almost four years since I’d last been in Chihuahua and saw my father. He’d been drinking terribly even then. He was consuming at least five thirty-two-ounce caguamas of Carta Blanca per day, and when he had the money for it, the occasional fix of cocaine. But beer, more than anything, had become something my father was incapable of living without.
In the mornings when I’d get out of bed I’d find him standing at the kitchen table before a cooling breakfast already sipping beer from a frosty glass mug he’d stored in the freezer the night before. I remember being sprawled out on the living room couch one morning and watching him act out this ritual. He’d be wearing only a pair of faded black briefs. Wrapped in the rays of the sun that flooded in through the kitchen window, he would, in a matter of minutes, sip one, then two, then three, then four mugs of beer before finally sitting down to have his now cold morning meal: a couple of scrambled eggs mixed in with yesterday’s dry frijoles and just as dry corn tortillas. That morning, the wet sound of the food being smashed and squished inside his mouth made me squirm with disgust; and every time he swallowed, the thought of the masticated food making its way down into his beer-filled stomach made my own bowels churn and my body quiver. Yet I never once turned my eyes away. I watched my father until he cleared his plate and then moved on to finish the rest of his caguama. Like a voyeur who keeps still for fear of being discovered, I spied my father as he stood back up, wrapped his stubby hand around the caguama’s thick form, lifted it, then turned it on its head until most of the sparkling yellow fluid smoothly streamed into the mug, rising quickly to the brim, pushing up a cloud of white foam. Eventually the stream became a drip and my father, twisting his wrist downward, shook the bottle violently up and down to make sure that every last drop of the golden elixir found its way into the mug. My father wasn’t wasteful. Then came the gulp. One was all it took. In seconds the mug was empty; only scattered islands of foam remained lingering on the mug’s inner surface. My father could’ve been a fucking magician the way he’d make all the beer disappear so quickly, so effortlessly. Good morning, world, I’m ready for you, bring on all you’ve got, you can’t hurt me anymore. I could hear his heart sing as he brought down the mug from his lips back onto the table while letting out a long hiss through the hole in his mouth where teeth eight and nine once were. Then—for a moment—there was silence. For a few seconds my father stood at the table staring down at the empty bottle around which his hand was still tightly wrapped. Other than his exposed stomach, which seemed to be a living creature all its own because of the way it would puff out and then get sucked back in, no other part of his body moved. As I watched this scene stop time, I too continued to keep completely still for fear that if I did or said anything I might interrupt something big, something fucking enormous, something that would change the course of history. So, eager to know what that fucking enormous something was, I focused solely on my father’s face and everything else around it seemed to melt away: the stained white refrigerator; the dirty brown cabinets with unhinged doors filled with cups and plates and old cereal boxes and cans of food; the greasy stove with missing knobs and just as greasy pots and pans piled on top of it; the counter and sink next to it cluttered with more grimy pots and pans and plates and cups and silverware; the crooked steel faucet from which silent drops of water fell; the aluminum dining table littered with even more dirty plates and cups, empty plastic two-liter bottles of soda, empty caguamas, including the one my father still could not let go of; the table’s three matching aluminum chairs, one of which had a bent backrest; and even the dirty brown tile floor and the yellowy stained white walls and ceiling, all turned into one big blur in which only my father’s face made sense, in which only his face had form. His face held something secret and I wanted to know what that something was. I wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know why my father was the way he was and why I hated him so fucking much but couldn’t have him any other way. But more than anything I wanted to know why at that moment he was unable to remove his hand from that fucking bottle or turn his eyes away from it. Had he fallen in love? Or was he wishing the bottle farewell once and for all? I focused harder to try to break through his dead expression and see what he saw; but before I could, my father turned to me and said: “¿Qué onda, hijo? Do you want to eat? The breakfast is good, real good.”
And that was it. I blinked and everything was clear again. I could see his hand releasing the bottle and moving up to his mouth to wipe his lips; and I could also see the entire kitchen again with him now at the center of it looking right at me with a casual sense of being. He was perfect, and everything became normal, everything the same. Only now the sun was brighter and my father cooler than ever; nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. And I quickly forgot what it was I’d been staring at, what it was I’d been searching for, and all I could say to the absurd man was:
“No, güey, I’m not hungry yet. Thank you, anyway. You’re too good to me.”
* * *
I ask everyone to step out of the funeral parlor before I enter. I want to be alone with my father. I don’t know how I’m going to react when I see him, and I don’t want anyone watching me. I also don’t want anyone putting their arms around me or touching me anymore; or telling me that he’d been a good man and that he was also now in a better place. I don’t want to hear any of it because none of it is true. It’s all fantasy: procedural, fake; and I want to face the dead man with nothing but the truth I’m carrying in my gut and heart.
There I am, at the back of the room, fighting off the oppressive smell of jasmine and staring at the small casket a few feet away that contains my father. He hadn’t been a tall man, about five feet five inches on his best days; but from where I’m standing, the casket seems even smaller than that. That shit don’t look real, I’m thinking. Looks like a fucking toy. But I know that I have to roll up to it and view the body inside before all the eyes clinging to me from the doorway eventually make their way in and begin putting hands on me and spitting sympathetic nothings into my ears.
* * *
“I didn’t come to see you, I came to see my brothers!”
I said this to my father the last time I was in Chihuahua, during an argument we were having over his drinking. The days when I’d come to Chihuahua because I yearned to see him were long dead. I no longer ran to his side or jumped for his arms, and not because my crippled body wouldn’t allow me to, or because at twenty-six you just don’t do shit like that anymore, but because my heart no longer had a pulse for it. That eternal flame that every son and daughter has burning inside their hearts for their father had been put out some time back, extinguished by some sickening image of the drunk it couldn’t bear to see. “If it wasn’t for my brothers,” I told him, “I wouldn’t be here. Fuck no, not to see you at least.” I had to let my father know exactly how I felt and where I stood. Something inside me had exploded and given birth to hate. I cursed him and denied him, and not once during the entire argument did I ever refer to him as pa’, papá, jefe, and especially not padre. I no longer felt like his son, nor did I want to be his son. He could’ve died then for all I cared.
The reality of my father being an alcoholic had become unbearable. I had become tired of always fighting with him and telling him to straighten out and do something for his family. I’d become tired of wanting to destroy him. “If you want to drink and kill yourself, then do it. I don’t give a shit anymore— not about you or about anything you do. Just don’t bother us with your shit.” I spoke these words to his face.
* * *
I’d taken to calling my father güey, a term that evolved from the word buey, Spanish for ox. Originally, the term buey was used to refer to the husband of an unfaithful wife. The horns of the bull were emblematic of the wife’s adultery and were said to loom over the head of the woeful husband, who, unlike those around him, was unable to see the horns, just like he was unable to see that his wife was tumbling in the hills with another man. Thu
s the townspeople of an older Mexico grew fond of making the cruel remarks: “Le pusieron los cuernos” and “Lo hicieron buey,” whenever they came across a man afflicted by the calamity of having an adulterous beloved. The closest we have to this in English is the term cuckold, which finds its origins in the Old French word for cuckoo: cocu. The female of this bird—the cuckoo—was known for laying its eggs in the nests of other birds and gained the reputation of being unfaithful to her mate. Consequently, the French of the Old World would say that the husband of a straying wife was cucuault. Later the term would make its way into Middle English as cokewold. In “The Miller’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales, for example, Chaucer writes: “Who hath no wyf, he is no cokewold.” And though cuckoos do not have horns, horns have always been associated with cuckoldry. Thus the cuckolded man is no different than el buey who walks around with horns he cannot see looming over his head.
But I digress. Because my father was no buey and he was no cuckold. He was in fact, just a güey: a fool, a ridiculous man. This, in its simplest form, is what güey has come to mean. Among the more lowly folk of Mexico, güey is often used as a less-than-formal term of address. In English you might hear someone, most likely a male teen, refer to his friend as fool. “Hey, fool!” he might call out to his comrade insouciantly, without malice; and in turn the comrade might respond: “What’s up, fool. What troubles thee?” There is no harm in such a greeting. The same goes with the word güey. But like the word fool, which can also be used to insult someone, so too can the word güey. And because of this, güey is a term that a son should never use to address his beloved papá.
* * *
I was ten when I first referred to my father as güey. It happened during one of those summers when my mother would send me to Chihuahua for my vacation. I’d been spending the day with my tíos José, Chuy, and Juanito (three of my mother’s four brothers) at their home watching them build a brick wall around the backyard. Around midday, when they took a break for lunch, I joined them for bean burritos and Cokes on the front stoop of the house. My tíos were cool, real suave dudes. As they munched they tossed around jokes and stories about adventure and female conquest, more specifically about the neighbors’ two daughters, a couple of pale and homely looking Mennonites with whom the three claimed to have had their way at one time or another, each claiming to have taken the virginity of one of the girls at some point. Even I, at my young age, was intelligent enough to realize that one of them had to be lying since there were only two girls and three of them. But each swore that it was he who’d done the deed, who’d slimed the panties of one of these otherwise virtuous creatures who lived by the word of God. None, however, on account of the girls being twins, could say with certainty which girl he had in fact devirginized, which in a way worked to defuse the argument. Whatever the case, and regardless of who’d been telling the truth and who’d been lying, talking about these girls made them laugh and giggle and slap hands. With less enthusiasm and fewer body gestures, they also talked about how they were progressing in their work building the wall. There were times when they’d point to what was great about the wall and times when they’d point to what was not so great about it and shake their heads in disappointment. Other times they’d bring me into the discussion and ask what I thought about the wall and about the neighbors’ daughters. They’d mostly laugh and go wild over the magnificent shit I said. This made me feel like I fit right in with them—real cool, like I was a real suave dude, too. And every time they referred to a male in one of their jokes or stories, they used the term güey. They threw it around like bolo at a Mexican wedding. Sometimes they’d even address one another as güey. This being the case, and me being the naive and wickedly amenable little gamin that I was, I began to softly utter the word beneath my breath and quickly took to liking it. It tasted something fresh on my tongue, new. And the more I uttered it, the more I grew in spirit and manhood. I could feel my little balls growing and I couldn’t wait to use the word freely, out in the open, in front of my tíos. I’d be great in their eyes. They’d get a real kick out of hearing the word shooting forth from my sloppy mouth: “What a great kid this kid; he catches on quick; he’s just like us.” I imagined them giving me manly nudges on my chest and chin and high-fiving me. The scene played out in my head as concretely as the brick wall that was taking form before us.
It didn’t take long for the perfect opportunity to present itself. My tío José, who has always been of a devilish mind, and who’d been sitting the farthest from me on a pile of red bricks and cement sacks, asked me: “Obed, ¿no extrañas a tu papá?” to which I gaudily replied: “And why would I miss that güey?” I’d done it! I’d shot the word right out of my bean burrito–filled mouth and into the dry Chihuahua air for my three suave tíos to hear. Without a snag my “güey” made its way right into their powdered-cement-dust-filled ears like red jalapeño peppers up their culos, causing them to let out a collective explosion of cacophonous laughter. Confused, chaotic shrieks came from their mouths as they clutched their pansas and kicked out their feet like fighting cocks. I didn’t feel like that suave little vato I’d been earlier when they’d laughed at my silly wisdom. Instead, a sharp shiver shot up my spine, paralyzing me with ache and fear. The sound was ugly. It pounded in my brain like the bells of Notre-Dame in the brain of Quasimodo. Suddenly, I wanted my tíos to stop, to shut their mouths and swallow their laughter, which felt like a big hand gripping my neck and cutting off my air. I wanted everything to go back to the way things were only moments earlier. Suddenly, from some feet behind me, I heard a voice say: “¿Qué onda, hijo? Why do you call me güey? Soy tu papá.” His words met my heart with the crashing force of a bowling ball hitting the floor. I immediately realized my mistake, my childish blunder. My innocence had been taken for a ride and I’d walked right into the trap these three Lady Macbeths had set for me. Even if my tío José had not been expecting me to call my father güey, he had been expecting me to say that I didn’t miss him, my father, who everyone but I had noticed was making his way to our circle, and this would have hurt nonetheless—even if not as much as hearing me call him güey. And now, feeling small and alone, I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that I had to turn to face my father. And when I did, he was already wrapping his arms around my paralyzed body; his lips were already finding a place at the base of my forehead, providing me with the sense of security for which, at that moment, my whole being had been desperately yearning.
Meanwhile, my tíos kept laughing crazily. And it hurt. I felt it choking me. And I wanted to get away from the awful sin I’d committed against the man who loved me unconditionally. I didn’t know what to say to him, and by the way he pressed me against his body to protect me from my culeros tíos’ awful laughter, I could sense that my father didn’t expect me to say anything. In the security of his arms, with my ear listening to the heavy beat of his heart, I felt like a little culero myself, and small, very, very small. I’d called my father güey practically to his face, offending his paternal spirit. And still, my father offered me a smile and his arms. I didn’t mean it, Papá, really, I didn’t, I wanted to say to him. I don’t even know what the stupid word means.
4
It’s easy to escape into the bottle, to say fuck the world and all its problems—nothing to it. I got drunk last night for the first time after having returned from Chihuahua only a week ago. And this morning when I woke up with a hangover, the first thing I thought of doing was drinking again.
It was Sunday and I had nothing to do. I mean, there’s always something to do—as my mother likes to say—you just have to get off your ass and do it. But I didn’t. I didn’t do whatever there was to be done because from the moment I awoke yester-morning all I could think of was how good it’d feel to have an ice-cold beer. So at about three in the afternoon, after arriving home from basketball practice (yes, wheelchair-people play basketball, too), I showered, dressed, and rolled my ass down the block to the friendly neighborhood liquor store. I w
anted a thirty-two-ounce in memoriam of my father, a mean caguama to take down just for him. And not just any caguama, but a Carta Blanca, the same kind my father drank, Chihuahua’s premium beer for the poorest motherfucker around. I thought I was a lucky guy when I saw it through the cooler’s glass door. “Now would you look at that,” I said as I reached up for it. “A real Carta Blanca caguama. Thanks, jefe, you must be watching out for your dear ol’ son.” I really thought that it’d been my father’s doing; that somehow he’d put that Carta Blanca caguama there for me, like he now had some kind of magical power dead people get. “I’m going to drink it just for you, ya veras! We’re gonna get real fucked-up today!”
At home I opened the garage door, sat on the La-Z-Boy facing the street, threw on some real cool borracho-time Mexican corridos, popped open the caguama with the bottom end of a Bic lighter, put its cool mouth to my lips, and began to drink. I could’ve been a commercial for misery the way I sat there with my happy-go-lucky face and Kool-Aid smile after that initial drink, for it instantly took away all the stress and pain that I’d been feeling and made me feel merrily alive again, real firme-like—even Jesus could’ve made me feel no better.
