Thirteen Heavens

by Mark Fishman

  Five painted plaster mariachi figurines, dressed in elegant black suits trimmed with white, gold belt buckles, ties the color of the Mexican flag, and sombreros, not the old-style mariachis, white pants and shirts and huaraches, but plaster figurines with skulls for faces, each playing an instrument, except the singer, his arms at his sides, Rubén Arenal thinking of Mariachi Tapatío when he’d bought them, Mexico’s premiere mariachi, the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, from Tecolotlán in Jalisco, to the south, with the leader José Marmolejo Ramírez, El hombre de la eterna sonrisa, “The man of the perpetual smile,” playing vihuela, a five-string guitar, and the others, certainly Jesús Salazar, trumpet, Gabriel Arias, after a drinking binge, sober and playing guitarrón, and Amador Santiago on violin, and there were still others in Mariachi Tapatío, a musician playing Spanish guitar, another playing a second violin, and a guitarra de golpe virtuoso, but in his collection, with their skeleton’s faces, there weren’t enough figurines, standing in a semi-circle on a low table, to make up all of Mariachi Tapatío, so it couldn’t have been them, but Rubén Arenal hearing Mariachi Tapatío, and it wasn’t his figurines, now a couple of singers’ voices, always a singer to carry him away, it was Mariachi Tapatío, Rubén Arenal imagining the music, but it was really playing, he could hear it, a song drifting in through the open window, radio station XEB or XEQ, he wasn’t paying attention to what day, month, or year it was, or it was his heart playing it back to him, and Rocket, they’re singing a canción tapatía, “De mañana en adelante,” “From Tomorrow Onward,” it’s my song for right now, but music changes like the hours, I can count on it, Rubén Arenal shutting his eyes, a wave of sadness, he was in love but couldn’t find her, obstructed in his search for a woman resembling La Pascualita, hoping one day she might find him, and then another kind of sadness, and anger, too, his friend’s son, Coyuco, missing, probably dead, and Rocket, to himself, dead and buried you can bet on it, it’s a fact sure as I’m standing here right now, and with his eyes still shut, Rubén Arenal, knowing his way from memory, no blind fingers reaching for the corner of a table jutting out, a wayward chair or lamp, walking straight to one of two wooden chairs with wicker seats, not as comfortable now as they’d been when he bought them, sagging wicker seats, loose strands, but his eyes didn’t notice, they were still closed, and his body weighed so much from sorrow that he was afraid the chair he’d sat on wouldn’t support him, tapping his fingers to the rhythm of “De mañana en adelante” on his knees, licking his lips without saliva to moisten them, remembering a chayote in his tiny refrigerator, opening his eyes, a little hope for Rubén Arenal as long as he didn’t think of La Pascualita, or Ernesto, Guadalupe, Coyuco, and Rocket, at least not until I’ve quenched my thirst with a chayote, a pear-shaped tropical fruit tasting like cucumber sitting in his refrigerator in the company of some jalapeños, cheese and butter, Rubén Arenal opening the refrigerator door, taking out the fruit and weighing it in his hand, still full of plenty of liquid inside, a hand reaching for a knife, peeling a chayote, seasoning it with salt, the heat from the sun having forced him to sweat almost all the salt out of his body, and a thirst, Rubén Arenal was as thirsty as the earth in a drought, and he ate the flavorful cucumberlike fruit with delight.

  Rubén Arenal, slices of chayote melting in his mouth, resting his back against the edge of the table, a rough wooden table in the center of the kitchen area, part of his studio, Rubén Arenal facing the refrigerator, and a few shelves with spices and canned soup, and Rocket, time to think, not time to dream, wondering if Ernesto, sitting in the Ford F-150 pickup he’d lent him—Rubén Arenal, always a mind like a steel trap, and a voice in his head repeating from memory because he’d got the directions down pat—Rubén Arenal wondering if Ernesto had already merged onto Mexico 40D/Carretera Durango-Gómez Palacio to Mexico 49/Carretera Entronque La Chicharrona-Cuencamé and Zacatecas, continuing on Mexico 49/Carretera San Luis Potosí-Entronque Arcinas and San Luis Potosí, heading toward Mexico 57/Carretera Querétaro- San Luis Potosí and Querétaro de Arteaga, and there was still Mexico 57D and Mexico ahead of him, then Mexico 95D toward Taxco Cuota/Iguala Cuota and Guerrero, Ernesto was taking Mexico 95/Carretera Taxco-Iguala into Iguala, and Rocket, not arriving in Iguala now but before nightfall, at least an eighteen-hour drive if he isn’t speeding, and more if he stops on the way, but he’s in my Ford Lobo, not that rustbucket, the Renault 8, my pickup’ll get him there in one piece, and at the same time and in two different places, Rubén Arenal and Ernesto, the two of them hearing “Hay un momento,” a song by José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval, he was singing with Mariachi Tacalitlán, the RCA recording, “Hay un momento,” “There Is A Time,” Rubén Arenal believing in this correspondence in nature, or in time of occurrence, listening with his best friend to “Hay un momento,” far from each other, but a synchronous listening, and Rocket, a lucky moment, we need it, Rubén Arenal and Ernesto, two faithful friends with the same song at the same time, and Rocket, no matter how you may resist believing it at first, and Ernesto Cisneros, sitting behind the wheel, por más de lo que de pronto se le resista creerlo, as much as he’s reluctant to believe it, Rubén Arenal and his best friend, another sentence, together, said in different places at the same instant, and Rocket, my heart is tired of suffering, and Ernesto Cisneros, mi corazón cansado de sufrir, both of them listening to a song by José Alfredo Jiménez, the road was a long one no matter where they were taking it, a man driving a pickup, a Ford F-150 Lobo, the other, leaning against a long sturdy table serving as work bench and dining table, the last slice of chayote melting in his mouth, Rubén Arenal rinsing his hands under the flow of water in the sink, while the shade of La Pascualita strolled through his mind just as he’d seen her walking with her mother at night in a neighborhood not far away from his own.

  Ernesto Cisneros Fuentes, named after Ernesto Cisneros Salcedo, the football midfielder born in Guadalajara in 1940, Ernesto and a happy coincidence provided by Ernesto’s father’s first apellido, a kind of wonder, a local reaction of interest and excitement, and Ernesto Cisneros, a man to be proud of, both of them, Ernesto driving Rubén Arenal’s truck on the way to Iguala, a knot in his stomach, looking at vehicles moving on a public highway with eyes that were empty, no tears, a blank stare at the ribbon of the road, Ernesto heading for Iguala de la Independencia, cruising on Federal Highway 95, almost sixty-seven miles from Chilpancingo, the capital city of the state of Guerrero, and while he was driving, as if his mind had a mind of its own, Ernesto and Rubén Arenal, together, at the same time but in different places, hearing “Hay un momento,” one here one there, Rubén Arenal, his back against the edge of a rough wooden table in the kitchen of his studio, while Ernesto was gripping the wheel of the Ford F-150 Lobo, Ernesto and Rubén Arenal, together, listening to a song by José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval, who was singing with Mariachi Tacalitlán, the RCA recording, “Hay un momento,” “There Is A Time,” Ernesto believing in this correspondence in nature, or in time of occurrence, listening with his best friend to “Hay un momento,” a bit of synchronous listening, he was sure of it, even though they were far from each other, and Ernesto Cisneros, how we hear what we hear is a mystery, but that’s a pleasant riddle, and then Coyuco, about my son, that’s another thing, damned life, right now life’s an open sore, and I’ll keep seeing his face in the faces of others if I don’t find him, and Lupita, too, I had to leave her at home because there’s nothing she can do right now but cry, and weeping won’t get us any closer to knowing anything, only wrenching our guts, that’s all, just take a look at these hands holding the steering wheel, they’d be trembling if I didn’t have to keep the truck on the road, and it isn’t my Ford Lobo, so much the better, or I’d drive it straight into an abutment, or a tree, because this life, like I said, right now this life’s an open sore, an agonizing wound, you can’t see it, it’s here—Ernesto taking a hand off the steering wheel and tapping his chest with an index finger—at least the life we’ve got, me and my wife, we’re two, man and woman, and
in this, a fucking nightmare, we’re two but we’re one, if you get what I’m saying, the thing that’s happened to Coyuco’s ripped a hole in both of us big enough to drive this truck through, it’s a hole you can’t see, like I was saying, but it’s right where it counts, tearing us in two, even though we’re one, Lupita and me, and there’s Rubén Arenal, I call him Rocket, because he’s faster than a speeding bullet, mind and body, so let me tell you something, as his sister, Luz Elena, would say, with respect to the pottery he makes, a skilled pair of hands, studying near Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, a fourteenth- to fifteenth-century prehistoric settlement, a big deal in the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the Paquimé culture, beginning around the year 700, people living in small semi-subterranean houses built on the banks of the Piedras Verdes River, San Pedro, and San Miguel, each joining Río Casas Grandes, you can see it on a map, and Paquimé, now a ruin 350 kilometers northwest of Chihuahua, Paquimé, a pre-Hispanic settlement with a population of about three thousand five hundred, you can count them on dozens of hands, shaman-priests in the driver’s seat in Paquimé, and their pottery, the pottery of Paquimé, shamanic spiritual journeys portrayed on Chihuahuan polychrome vessels, that’s what they’re called, Chihuahuan polychromes, red-and-black-painted ceramics on a light tan-to-brown paste or slip, vessels from the Medio period, AD 1200-1450, like an Escondida Polychrome jar with light tan yellow paste, meandering red elements, black design elements, a jar with a low rounded shoulder and sub-conoidal neck tapering to a direct rim, black on white and red decorations featuring a meander band, a kind of decorative border, like those found on Tonto Polychrome, it’s a pottery type, yes, Tonto, I know it’s hard to believe, that’s what I thought when I first read it, somebody’s got a sense of humor and it isn’t me, not now, never again, because as I see it, shamans travel between the spirit world and the world of the mundane, they’re liminal people, “at the thresholds of form, forever betwixt and between,” in the words of Barbara Myerhoff, and they speak with the supernatural through ritual and ecstatic trances, so now I’m on the road to Iguala to find my son, our son, Lupita’s and mine, our Coyuco, but I can’t afford a trance, I’m driving, and it’s a journey between the living and the dead, too—God forgive me—we’re on one side, he’s on the other, the earthly world, material, temporal, and the spirit world, who’s speaking to who in Iguala de la Independencia? and how? a megaphone won’t get you there, but I’d never tell Lupita a thing like that, not now, not ever, because there’s always a chance we’ll find him, and find him alive, that’s why Rocket, giving me the keys to his F-150, he’s given us a little hope in a hopeless situation, and not using my Renault 8, a car he calls a rust bucket, but it’s our car, Lupita’s and mine, she drives it whenever she wants, I don’t care where she’s going, not a long distance, okay, Rocket’s right, I don’t think it’d hold up, it’s a rust bucket, but it’s our rust bucket, and we drive it whenever we’ve got somewhere to go, not too far, but within a certain radius, a specified distance from a center in all directions, and now a voice, I can hear it, a voice asking, and you, where are you going? that voice’s logic speaking, and I don’t want to answer, sorry, nobody’s home, and back to Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, with Rocket’s skilled pair of hands, studying not far from the ruins of Casas Grandes, you don’t know him, but he’s my friend, Rocket learning to use the coil method, and scraping pots with a hacksaw blade to shape them, an inverted flowerpot sagger covered in cottonwood bark, then setting it on fire, the Mata Ortiz way, that’s what he told me when he got back to Chihuahua, more than eight hundred thousand souls, our city in the north of Mexico, south of New Mexico and west of Texas, and there, you can always find someone if you’re looking for him, me and Rocket, Rocket and me, we never lost touch, not since we were kids, and that’s what I’m praying for, Coyuco and me, me and Coyuco, finding each other, bringing him home, and me not finding a corpse, either, but our son, alive and in one piece, not chopped up and burned on a grill like a steak, or locked up somewhere without food or water, our son, Lupita’s and mine, our Coyuco, and take a look at this cuervo tamaulipeco, a Tamaulipas crow, he’s flown over from Matamoros in Tamaulipas just to be with me, a companion, or he’s from General Bravo, a town of around five thousand in the state of Nuevo León, northeast of the city of General Terán, General Bravo, it used to be called Rancho del Toro in the late eighteenth century, well, my cuervo tamaulipeco, wherever you’ve come from you’re welcome, take a seat, there’s plenty of room, and now back in Paquimé, its polychrome vessels, illustrated by likenesses of humans, male and female, and owls, badgers, snakes, fish, lizards, and other creatures, too, shamans throwing off their clothes, getting rid of their facial markings, disconnecting from the worldly world, shaking it off to begin their journey, a journey starting in the everyday, run-of-the-mill—you can imagine how it was by knowing how it is today—because that’s where they lived, where we all live, our routines, the here and now, you might say, and off they go to an ethereal, mystical place, nothing I’ve ever known, shamans kneeling and smoking a pipe, tobacco laced with datura or peyote, losing their identity with the shedding of their clothes, transforming into supernatural beings, horned and wearing a headdress, macawheaded, and flying shamans, birds are common guardian animals among shamans—magic is as magic does—plenty of bird imagery, and tobacco, I guess they were getting high, a physiological and biochemical reaction from nicotine intoxication, and narcotic alkaloids, loaded on pipes, cigarettes and cigars, in a trance, making them see flashes of movement they interpreted as birds, tiny shooting stars the size of fists, the birds and the horned and plumed serpents guiding the shaman through his journey, helping him bring back critical information—I wouldn’t mind a little critical information on Coyuco’s whereabouts—the outward expression of interior inspiration, the dreamer reciting his dreams, helping the shaman perform tasks while in the spirit world, a whole landscape of voluptuous peaks fills my eyes as I speak, maybe you think I’m talking to myself, my cuervo tamaulipeco, but you’re listening, too, my warm-blooded tutelary friend, you’re no shrimp, how big are you? not a pajarito, fourteen inches long? I don’t have a tape measure on me, sleek, handsome, with glossy dark, bluish plumage, a slender and black beak, black legs and feet—arm candy if I could get you to stand on my arm—and you’re croaking like a frog, a Tamaulipas crow, a few things to say, balancing on the edge of the open passenger window of Rubén Arenal’s truck, a low croaking sound, and Ernesto Cisneros, make yourself comfortable, here, next to me—Ernesto patting the empty place on the bench of a standard cab—and the Tamaulipas crow, hopping into the cab, a soft-voiced gar-lik, looking past the dash out the windshield at the highway, and Ernesto Cisneros, as I get closer to Iguala, a few miles, I’ll have a Delicados or Fiesta, or a cigarette out of Rocket’s pack of Faros, there isn’t a pipe in sight, a little dancing, and then I’ll leave my headdress in the F-150, and right before your eyes, my cuervo tamaulipeco, I’ll change into a macaw-headed man with tail feathers, pound signs my chest, a transformed human, that’s what it means, those pound signs, or small circles with dots on my legs or stomach, a bit like a shaman on a Ramos Polychrome, and you’ll join me on my journey, señor Cuervo Tamaulipeco, a tip of the hat, a sombrero, a broad-brimmed felt hat if it’s cold, showing me the way, helping me out, and another gar-lik from the Tamaulipas crow, cocking his head, looking at Ernesto as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand, he couldn’t reach for the handkerchief and keep his hands on the wheel, a safe driver, Ernesto, especially in somebody else’s truck, then Ernesto hearing the footsteps of the approaching voice, not always a good omen, and Ernesto Cisneros, a little bit of Xipe Toltec, the Flayed Lord, God of the West, of newly planted seed, and sacrificial pain, with the eagle down of sacrifice decorating his robe, shut your eyes and you can see it, sometimes I look at myself with loathing and it’s enough to make me break down—because of my guilt for Coyuco’s disappearance, parents are as parents think, my cuervo tamaulipeco—and th
e approaching voice, and Ernesto Cisneros, before you say another word, voice, I know you’re there, whoever you are, so let’s switch on the radio, or I’ll play something in my head, a little music to take me away from you, and my pain, plenty of suffering, who needs your dirty tricks, truth or no truth, but a little music, how about “La voz de mi madre,” by Los Alegres de Terán, Eugenio Abrego and Tomás Ortíz, who started playing together in General Terán, in Nuevo León—you remember, it’s not far from the town of General Bravo—Los Alegres de Terán, Coyuco loves them, Coyuco and Irma, his fiancée, Irma and Coyuco listening to David Záizar, Juan Lopez, and to the guitar of Antonio Bribiesca, the guitar of Augusto “Guty” Alejandro Cárdenas Pinelo, his canción yucateca, and to Juanita and María Mendoza, “Corrido de Juan Vásquez,” Hermanos Bañuelos, “Marijuana, la Soldadera,” Luis Pérez Meza, “Corrido de Juan Carrasco,” Trío Los Aguilillas, “Valentín Mancera,” Hermanos Yáñez, “Julián del Real,” Lupe Martínez and Pedro Rocha, “Rendición de Pancho Villa,” Conjunto Tamaulipas, “Amador Maldonado,” Hernández and Sifuentes, “Benito Canales”—songs of the Mexican Revolution, I can remember them all—and as often as they could, once a day, usually at night, Coyuco and Irma, playing a recording of “Refugio Solano” by Dueto Sandoval, words that made an impression on them, a song about a rebel, during the cristero revolt after 1926, and the name of his mother, my wife, Lupita’s name in the song, bueno, our Coyuco, un hijo ejemplar, always respect for his mother, and I’ll recite a verse from “Refugio Solano,” Y el lunes por la mañana, / como a las diez, más temprano: / hubo un combate sangriento / con la gente de Solano. / Sí Lupita, trae tu mano, “On Monday morning, / a little before ten, / there was a bloody encounter / with Solano’s forces. / Yes, Lupita, give me your hand,” and near the end, another verse, beautiful and sad, Le dieron el primer tiro, / se le iba arrancando el alma, / –Arrímate el botellón, / regálame un vaso de agua.– / Sí Lupita, bien du mi alma, “They shot him the first time / and his soul was leaving him. / ‘Bring the jug closer and / give me a glass of water.’ / Yes, Lupita, soul of my soul,” so Coyuco and Irma, together, all kinds of music, listening to the radio, and recordings, I’ll speak in the present when I speak of him, but right now, Los Alegres de Terán, “La voz de mi madre,” a little música norteña, “My Mother’s Voice,” a version two minutes and forty-eight seconds long, long enough to wipe the worries from my mind, and no tears, I won’t see the road if I’m crying, Ernesto focusing on the highway signs, and Ernesto Cisneros, now there’s Mexico 95D, right here, and before you know it, Taxco Cuota/Iguala Cuota, and Guerrero, then it’s Mexico 95/Carretera Taxco-Iguala into Iguala.