Rag and Bone

by Michael Nava

  “I gotta go,” he said. “Nice meeting you. See you, Angelito.”

  “’Bye, John,” the boy said, distracted by the smell of food.

  I told Vicky, “You and Angelito eat. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Outside, the marine drizzle that moved into the city from the ocean at the beginning of the summer blurred the moon in the misty sky. The air was cool and damp. Leaned up against his truck, John shivered in his thin yellow shirt.

  “I thought your sister was your only family,” he said.

  I gave him an abbreviated version of Elena and Vicky.

  “Angelito could be your son,” he said when I finished. “He looks so much like you.”

  “I noticed,” I said. “You’re the one he liked. You must have been a good dad to your own son.”

  He shrugged. “I learned from my own dad. Mostly, you have to listen and try to hear what they’re really telling you and remember that, half the time, they don’t know themselves. You must be real happy to find out you got other family.”

  “That remains to be seen,” I said.

  He looked at me quizzically. “You’re not happy?”

  I couldn’t explain to him that my niece’s unfortunate resemblance to my own mother, combined with what I knew about her criminal history and the worry she had caused my sister, had seriously predisposed me against her. Instead, I offered a lame, “I don’t know what I feel at the moment, except sorry that Vicky chose tonight to show up.”

  He grinned. “We’ll have other nights, Henry. Don’t worry about that. Can I kiss you out here, or will your neighbors call the cops?”

  “Let them,” I said.

  I stood in the driveway watching the taillights of his truck disappear around the corner, and then reluctantly went back into my house. As I approached the dining room through the kitchen, I heard my niece tell her son, “Don’t talk back to me, Angel. You stay out of his way. And don’t let him get you alone.”

  I pushed through the swinging doors and said, “Hey.” From the look the boy threw me, I knew she had been warning him about me.

  After they finished their meal, Angelito cleaned up while Vicky and I went into my office to talk. She paused at the threshold of my office, looked in and stepped across warily. Unlike the rest of my house, furnished, as John said, with mismatched pieces bought on sale, this room was formal and deliberate. The walls were forest green; the bookshelves, the file cabinets and the long table I used as my desk were mahogany. On the wall above the black leather sofa was the usual collection of degrees and admissions to various courts, including the United States Supreme Court. My tall desk chair was of the same black leather. Since I never met clients at my house, the businesslike furnishings of the room were strictly for my own benefit; their conventional severity put me into work mode even if I stumbled in wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Josh had hated this room and told me he never entered it without expecting to be cross-examined. I could see it was having a similar effect on my niece. After overhearing her warning to her son, I felt a spiteful satisfaction at her discomfort, then felt ashamed of myself for it.

  “Sit down,” I said, as invitingly as I could. She perched at one end of the sofa like a small brown bird about to take flight. I sat down behind my desk. “I want to help you, Vicky, but I need to understand your situation.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked nervously.

  “You told your mother you were running from your husband, but then you told him where you were, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t, Uncle Henry.”

  I leaned forward. “Vicky, I’m not like my sister. I’ve been a criminal defense lawyer for twenty-five years and there isn’t much I haven’t heard about people and their problems. Why did you tell Pete where you were?”

  She stroked the cross that hung from her neck nervously, then said, “Brother Ramiro said I had to do what Jesus would do.”

  “Who’s Brother Ramiro?”

  “He was my pastor,” she said. “I went to his church on Mission Street. That’s where I was saved.”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with your husband.”

  She folded her hands together in her lap as if in prayer. “Brother Ramiro told me that a woman should be submissive to her husband. He said the man is like God in his family, the woman is his helpmate. He told me to talk to Pete and tell him the good news about Jesus, and the spirit of the Lord would make us a family again.”

  “From the bruise on your neck, I assume the message didn’t get through to Pete.”

  A tear coursed down her face. “It’s my fault. I’m weak. The Lord says love those who abuse you, if they strike one cheek, turn the other, but I remembered how much Pete hurt me and I was afraid, so I took Angel and ran away from my mother’s house back to Brother Ramiro. He told me to come here.”

  “Here? To me?”

  “No,” she said. “To the church down here where he studied to minister. He said they would take us in and protect us until I was strong and could face Pete, but it wasn’t where he said it was. We got lost and I was scared. We didn’t have any money, no place to go, so I came here. If you take us to the church, we won’t bother you anymore.”

  “You want me to help you find people who are going talk you into going back to a man who beat you and got you to use drugs and prostitute yourself?”

  “How did you know about—”

  “Your arrests? I pulled your rap sheet. Pete’s too. I saw the path you were on, Vicky, drugs, prostitution. Somehow you pulled yourself together the last time he went to prison. Are you going to throw all that away because some storefront preacher tells you your husband has a right to beat you up? Wasn’t the last time enough?”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “Jesus got me off drugs. Now He wants Pete and me and Angel to be a family, a Christian family. I know you’re not a Christian. I know what you are.”

  I heard the disgust in her voice, and it was as if I was thirteen again and my mother was chiding me for the stains my wet dreams had left on my sheets. It was all I could do not to throw her out of my house.

  “A homosexual? Unlike Elena, I don’t think I owe you anything and I don’t care whether you approve of me. And doesn’t your Bible tell you to remove the beam from your own eye before criticizing the mote in your neighbor’s? You’ve made a wreck of your life, Vicky. Let’s keep the conversation there.”

  “It was a mistake to come here,” she said, her eyes furious.

  “You didn’t come here for yourself,” I said. “You came here for Angel. Whatever you think of your mother and me, you know we can help him. Unless you want him to end up like Pete.”

  The anger went out of her and she deflated into the couch. I felt as if I’d kicked a kitten.

  “I’m sorry I raised my voice,” I said. “Elena said Angel is a special boy.”

  She nodded. “He is, Uncle, and I don’t want him to end up in a gang, selling drugs and getting himself killed before he’s a man.”

  In my gentlest voice, I said, “Then you have to dump Pete, because we both know drug addicts don’t change.”

  Again she nodded. “I know. What should I do?”

  “You and Angel are welcome to stay here and catch your breath. I’ll call Elena and she can come down and we’ll have a family meeting and figure out what’s best. Do you have any luggage?”

  “We hid our suitcase in the bushes outside.”

  “You better bring it in before it disappears.”

  “This is a rich neighborhood,” she said.

  “This is Los Angeles. Go get it, and when you come back, we’ll call your mother.”

  As she opened the door, I caught a glimpse of Angelito, who had, it seemed, been standing outside while we talked. His mother ushered him away, but he looked back. Our eyes met and I saw in his gaze a tiny ray of hopefulness.

  Elena was out, so we left a message. I showed my niece and nephew the guest room and bathroom, made sure they had clean sheets and towels, told
them to make themselves at home, and went back into my office where I made another call, to Edith Rosen, my psychologist friend. We talked for a long time about Vicky and Angelito, and she agreed to come to dinner the next evening to meet them. I was on my way to bed when the phone rang. I grabbed it, thinking it was Elena, but it was John. We finished the conversation we had started on the deck and I slept a lot better than I thought I would.

  Elena called at six-thirty the next morning. I got out of bed and remembered, just as I reached the door, to pull on a pair of pants and a T-shirt so as to spare my niece the shock of seeing me in my boxers. The door to the guest room was tightly shut, but I had the disquieting sense that they were awake in there. I picked up the phone in the kitchen.

  My sister exclaimed, “Henry, I’m sorry to be calling so early.”

  “That’s all right. I’m surprised you didn’t call last night.”

  “We were at a play and didn’t get home until after midnight. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to get your call. How are they?”

  “They seem fine,” I said. “Vicky and I didn’t exactly hit it off.”

  “What happened?”

  “We discussed religion,” I said, and gave her a synopsis of my conversation with my niece.

  Elena replied, choosing her words carefully, “I don’t have any sympathy for that kind of Christianity, but that church may have saved her life.”

  “The charlatan who runs the church is the one who encouraged her to call Pete,” I said. “You’re not suggesting we should turn her and Angel over to these fundies, are you?”

  “That’s her decision,” she said, “but the fact that she keeps coming back to us tells me she’s looking for an alternative. We have to offer her a substitute for what she’ll lose if she gives up her church.”

  “What alternative?”

  “A family, Henry.”

  After a moment, I said, “You were right about Angel. He’s extraordinary. I want to help him.”

  She said, “Well, that’s a start. I can’t get away until tomorrow evening, but I’ve already made a plane reservation.”

  We talked logistics for a couple of minutes and then I let her go.

  I went into the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee, and then came back out into the living room and stretched out on the sofa while it dripped. I closed my eyes and my head spun with fatigue. I struggled to stay awake, but the weight of my weariness dragged me into unconsciousness, sleep closing over me like water. When I opened my eyes, Angelito was standing in front of me, watching me as intently and as inscrutably as a cat. The room, which had been dim with the first light of morning, now blazed brightly around me. I heard the drone of the vacuum cleaner in the background.

  Angelito watched me rouse myself into a sitting position, then asked, “Are you dying?”

  “What?”

  “You look sick.”

  “I was sick but I’m getting better. What time is it, Angelito?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s a clock in the kitchen, could you check?”

  He withdrew a shade further into himself. “I don’t know how.”

  I was still emerging from sleep and it took me a moment to understand. “You can’t tell time?”

  “I know the names of all the presidents in order.”

  “You do? That’s impressive.”

  “Should I say them?”

  “Could you bring me my watch first? It’s sitting on the table beside my bed.”

  He looked at me as if I were making fun of him, but then he padded off, returning a moment later reverently carrying in the palm of his hand the heavy, gold-plated railroad pocketwatch that had belonged to my father and was the only thing of his that I owned. My mother had sent me the watch after he died, with a note reminding me that he had taught me to tell time on it. I had forgotten that, but I did remember watching covetously his nightly ritual of removing the watch from his pants pocket just before he went to bed and winding it for the next day.

  “Thanks,” I said when he reluctantly handed it over. It was past ten-thirty. I’d been asleep for four hours. “I learned how to tell time on this watch,” I told Angelito. “I could teach you, if you want me to.”

  “Okay,” he said neutrally, but his eyes were eager.

  I lay the watch on the coffee table between us. “You see the numbers that go around in a circle?” He nodded. “Those are the hours. There are twenty-four hours in a day—”

  “It only goes up to twelve,” he said suspiciously.

  “Every hour comes around twice, Angelito, once during the day and once at night. Right now it’s ten-thirty in the morning. In twelve hours, it will be ten-thirty at night.”

  He nodded and said, “Twelve times two is twenty-four,” but, after staring at the watch, “What’s the thirty?”

  Angel listened to my explanation of the workings of my father’s watch with the absorption that marks a deep intelligence, and when I finished, he repeated to me my explanation in a way that demonstrated he had understood it completely. Then he began asking questions about the mechanics of clocks that quickly exhausted my paltry knowledge, and I had to give him an intellectual IOU.

  “I want a watch like this,” he said when we finished the lesson.

  “It belonged to your great-grandfather, Angel. My dad. I inherited it from him after he died. I don’t have a son, so you’re next in line, kiddo.”

  He smiled. “I can have this when you die?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, but I’m not dying anytime soon.”

  “My mom said—” he exclaimed, then caught himself.

  “What did your mom say? You can tell me, I won’t be upset.”

  He weighed my credibility as carefully as a judge. “My mom says you’re a joto and probably have AIDS.”

  Jota was Spanish for the letter “J,” but in the vernacular, joto meant, essentially, faggot. To hear the word from him was like being stabbed, but I knew better than to be angry with him, so I calmly explained, “Joto is not a nice word, Angel. Please don’t use it again. I don’t have AIDS and I’m not dying.”

  “My mom’s friend Laura died. She got AIDS from a dirty needle.”

  “Does your mother use needles?”

  “No,” he said. His expression told me I had crossed a line.

  “You were going to tell me the names of the presidents. Remember?”

  The eager light slowly returned to his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Angel, que ’stas haciendo?” My niece sounded one breath short of panic. I looked up. She was standing at the doorway with the vacuum cleaner.

  “Nothing,” he said, sullenly.

  “I was teaching him to tell time. What are you doing with the vacuum?” I asked sharply.

  “I was cleaning your house,” she replied docilely.

  “Angel, let’s do the presidents later. I need to talk to your mom for a minute.”

  Without a word, he slipped out of the room.

  “You don’t have to clean my house,” I said, still angry at what she had told Angel about me.

  “I should do something to pay you back.”

  I got up and approached her, saying, “You can. Stop scaring Angel about me. I’m not going to hurt him.”

  “I know, Uncle,” she said meekly, but her eyes were defiant.

  “And I won’t hear the word joto in my house again. Or maricón or any other gutter words you’ve taught him to use about people like me and your mother. Remember something, Vicky, our blood flows through your veins. Whatever we are, you and Angel carry inside of you.”

  “Not that thing,” she spat.

  “I know you think homosexuality is a sin, but that’s because you’ve been taught by ignorant people. I’ve got to get dressed and do some work. Please put that vacuum away. You’re a guest here, not the maid.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” she said, but as soon as I turned my back, she started it up and vacuumed furiously for the next h
our.

  8.

  EDITH ARRIVED THAT EVENING with a bag of groceries, said to Vicky, “Will you help me with dinner, dear?” and disappeared with her into the kitchen.

  “You need a hand in there?” I shouted after her.

  “We’re fine, Henry,” Edith replied. “You men relax.”

  I smiled at my nephew. “Maybe we can catch some baseball on TV.”

  We burrowed into the couch. I turned on the tube and flipped through the channels until I found a Yankees-Indians game on cable. I listened with one ear to the murmur of conversation coming from the kitchen but was unable to make out more than a random word or two, so eventually I gave up and watched the game. Angel, meanwhile, had scooted across the couch until he was almost touching me. I put my arm around his shoulders. Without looking up, he wriggled up against me. The Yankee shortstop made a jump catch that ended the inning.

  “Wow, that was a beautiful catch. Who’s the short?”

  Angel, who’d been watching raptly, said incredulously, “Derek Jeter.”

  “I haven’t followed baseball since I was about your age, so I don’t know who any of the players are. Jeter’s good?”

  Turning his attention back to the game, Angel said, “He’s the best shortstop, except maybe Nomar Garciaparra. He plays for the Red Sox. I play short, too.”

  “When did you play baseball?”

  “When my dad was living with us, I played Little League.”

  “When was this?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Before he went back to jail.”

  He must have felt guilty about telling me as much as he had, because he pulled away from me. I asked him about some of the other Yankees and soon he was back at my side giving me a running commentary on the game. As he reeled off stats, I remembered how knowing a pitcher’s ERA or a batter’s RBI or what phrases like “no hitter” and “fielder’s choice” and “squeeze play” had made me feel when I was ten years old, like I belonged to the world of men. Listening to him reminded me that after baseball, another myth of men had captured my attention and introduced me to a world that had obsessed me as much as the major leagues, with a more lasting effect.