“No, Father,” Cipriano said. And then, unable to stop himself, he called out, “Nemecio, you’re the only one I got left to ask.”
But Nemecio only threw back an arm and shuffled his way down the church. He walked by the priest without a word and outside into an evening that was already dark.
Cipriano was sitting on the deck outside his Tia Lupita’s kitchen, smoking one of Genoveva’s cigarettes and staring straight ahead at nothing. A few feet off to one side, Tranquilino was slouched down in his own chair. His legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankles, and he was working on his third beer. Inside, Genoveva and Lupita were cooking quietly. And from further back in the house came the low drone of the television set that Genoveva’s son, Martin, was watching. Cipriano could smell the pots of chile simmering on the stove, along with the scent of garlic and fried meat. By now the counters would be filled with platters of enchiladas, bowls of salsa and plates stacked with warm tortillas.
There would be enough food to feed everyone who had come to the rosary. The only thing that had gone wrong was that no one had shown up. Not even Esperanza Garcia and her son Ruben. He heard the scraping of a pot being moved and then the clatter of a lid. He wondered why Genoveva didn’t just give it up and come outside. As for Lupita, she would keep on cooking until her legs ached, until she was too tired to roll out another tortilla. And tomorrow, as though nothing had happened, she would give the food away to the neighbors as if it were leftovers. Cipriano took a last drag off his cigarette and flicked it away into the grass.
“No one’s coming,” he said softly, his voice low enough that Lupita wouldn’t hear.
“I came,” Tranquilino said, shifting his legs. He raised his beer and took a drink. “You don’t care anyway, jodido,” he said. “You didn’t even want to go to the rosary.”
Although it was dark, Cipriano could see the apricot and cherry trees that grew along the ditch at the far edge of his aunt’s yard. It was the same ditch that wound through the valley all the way to Rufino’s. As a boy he had always wanted to walk it to his father’s house. “No, hijo,” Lupita would tell him, shaking her head, a sad look on her face. “It is too far and there are dogs. Maybe later I’ll take you to see Rufino. But for now, you stay with me.” And it would be that way until the day grew too late or he became busy with other things.
Cipriano reached down and picked up his beer. He wrapped both hands around it and held it on his lap. “I gave Nemecio a hard time at the rosary,” he said.
“Nemecio?” Tranquilino said, stirring in his chair. “Qué Nemecio?”
“Nemecio Archuleta,” Cipriano said. “The old man who picks up cans.”
Tranquilino grunted and fell quiet for a few seconds. The Nemecio Archuleta he knew was a sad old man who drank too much and picked up the garbage everyone threw out their car window. As far as he knew, the old man never bothered anyone. He didn’t know why Cipriano would choose to give someone like him a hard time. It would be like beating some dog that was old and toothless. Tranquilino uncrossed his legs and pushed up in his chair.
“Okay, jodido,” he said. “So tell me why you gave Nemecio Archuleta a hard time.” He thought that when Cipriano was done with what he had to say, he would finish his beer and go home. He would visit with his wife for a little while and maybe tell his girls a story before bed. From inside the house, he heard Genoveva’s voice and then the sound of Lupita laughing.
Enough light spilled out through the kitchen door that Cipriano could see the flat, dull gaze of Tranquilino’s bad eye. The lid was stuck half closed, and what you could see was the color of watered-down milk. Rumor had it that one night in a fit of rage, Tranquilino’s father had struck his son so hard that, like switching off a light, Tranquilino’s eye had died. But what Tranquilino told everyone was that it had been poisoned by a bad dream he’d had as a boy. What that dream was he never said, and which story was true Cipriano didn’t know. But seeing it now reminded him of Rufino lying dead on the floor, his head twisted, his mouth open as if caught in one last breath. Cipriano brought his beer to his mouth and took a long drink.
“Just before Rufino died,” he said, “he told me about a black man who once lived in this village.”
“Where?” Tranquilino asked, looking at Cipriano.
“I don’t know where. He didn’t tell me that. What he told me was that the man was a thief. He stole chickens and clothes off lines and whatever else he could find. And even so, most people left him alone. At least for a while they did.”
Cipriano eased his legs out straight and leaned back in the chair. Off in the distance, the mountains rose dark against the sky. Behind them was the soft glaze of a moon that had not yet risen. “One day,” he went on, “when Rufino and Nemecio were boys, they found this man hurt out on Perdido mesa. They’d been hunting rabbits and came across him just before dark. Rufino told me they were so scared they ran off and left him out there. Or he did anyway. What Nemecio did was make off with the man’s bag and then took what he wanted out of it.”
Tranquilino wasn’t sure what to say. He was having trouble picturing Rufino and Nemecio as boys, especially now with one of them dead and the other not much use for anything. On top of that, he had an uneasy feeling that he’d heard this story before. Maybe as a child. A story he’d once overheard and then forgotten.
“When did Rufino tell you this?” he asked.
“The same day he died.”
Tranquilino raised his beer and finished it. He tossed the empty can off to the side. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t sound right.”
“What doesn’t?” Cipriano said.
“All of it. This is a small village, jodido. This is a place you get born into. It’s not a place some black man would come to. Especially back then. And if he was stealing stuff he’d have been run out fast.” He leaned back in his chair. “Besides,” he went on, “if it was true, some of the viejos would still be talking about it. A black man here would be like an elephant. And no one would forget an elephant. Even if it came here a long time ago.” He glanced over at Cipriano. “Is this why you gave Nemecio a hard time?”
Cipriano stared at him for a moment, wondering why he bothered to tell Tranquilino anything. “I’m not talking about an elephant,” he said finally.
Tranquilino shrugged. “I’m just saying, jodido.”
“You knew Rufino,” Cipriano said. “He never told me anything about himself. So when I ask Nemecio why he thinks Rufino chose this one story to tell, Nemecio shuts up and says he’s got to leave. And then, when I tell him I don’t care what he took, he gets mad and starts saying how he never stole nothing from nobody.”
“So maybe he doesn’t like being called a thief. Or maybe he doesn’t know anything. Quién sabe, hombre? For all you know, Rufino got things all mixed up.”
“Maybe,” Cipriano said. “But I found the bag in Rufino’s shed.”
Tranquilino thought that by now his little girls would be in bed. They would almost be asleep and his wife would be straightening up the house and wondering where he was. He also thought that Cipriano’s story might go on for a while and that he should go get another beer. But he only crossed his legs and folded his hands on his stomach and stared across the yard at the fruit trees by the ditch. “What was in it?” he asked.
“Not much,” Cipriano said. “Some old clothes, cans of food, a blanket.” And a photograph, he thought, keeping that one thing to himself. “There was a letter in there, también. I threw it in the mail on my way to the rosary.”
“Why did you do that?” Genoveva asked. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Her hair was tied back and it made her features sharp and clear. She was holding three beers and smiling slightly. Behind her, Lupita was beginning to put the food into the refrigerator. Genoveva gave a beer to Tranquilino and one to Cipriano. Then she sat down on the deck between them.
“I would have opened it,” she said, sliding her knees up to her chest. “I would have opened it and read it. An
d then I would have thought about what to do.” She raised the beer to her mouth and drank, wondering why Cipriano had told this story to Tranquilino and not to her. “I don’t think I would have mailed it,” she said. “That would be like burying it again.”
“It wasn’t mine to open,” Cipriano said.
“That’s not why you mailed it,” Genoveva said. “You mailed it so that it would go away.”
“No,” Cipriano said. “I mailed it because it was something I could do.”
Genoveva shrugged. “You say that now,” she said.
Cipriano smiled. “You listened to everything, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What do you think?”
Genoveva could feel the two of them looking at her. She could feel the evening air cool on her face and on her bare legs. “I think,” she said, “that this is something Rufino gave to you on purpose. But I don’t know why.”
Obie Poole
My mama was born Ella Rose Poole. She come from panhandle country down in north Florida and how she end up here I dont know.
When I was a little boy Id sit on my mamas lap in the evenings and look out at the river with her. Her arms would be wrapped around my belly and her heart would beat strong and steady against my back. Some nights Id fall asleep on top of her and just before I did her hand would brush over the top of my head.
Obie shed whisper like it was a prayer she was saying. You my little boy Obie. When you grow up to be a fine strong man dont you ever forget that. You my little boy and your mama loves you.
My mama she worked across the river at the Cairo Slaughterhouse. What she did for twelve hours a day day in and day out was haul the stiff carcasses of dead cows and hogs and crippled horses out of railway cars. Shed string them up on hooks that took them down the line to get skinned and gutted and butchered. She worked with the only white man she ever knew. He come from a family that had cut him loose. My mama said his mind was so slow his talk was all gibberish and the grin on his face didnt mean a damn thing. Most of the men and some of the women in South Cairo worked that slaughterhouse. And those that didnt got stuck picking crops on outlying farms or fished the river for what they could catch.
That slaughterhouse was a big long building that run for five or six city blocks. No matter where you be in South Cairo there it was sitting flat and gray across the river. Plumes of smoke that stunk of burnt meat and hair would drift out of stacks and lay just above the water.
Every morning before dawn a barge would come pick up the men this side of the river. Sometimes Id walk down there with my mama and watch her float away. Though I never told nobody the sight of those men crowding up to her and the low hanging mist would send a scare through me. My mama was going to a place where a white man spit out gibberish and I thought she might never come back.
One September day my mama raked her hand pulling a milk cow out of one of those railway cars. The animals legs were wound with wire and the end of it bit down deep into the flat of my mamas hand. At the time she didnt give it no thought. But two weeks later she died of the blood poisoning.
It didnt take my mama long to die. Just a little bit. The neighbor ladies they came and looked after her. They kept her covered in damp cloths that her skin burned dry in no time. And they soothed her when she tossed and yelled out. Those days she lay sick I took to staying outside on the porch or playing runaway ball with those boys. And when she died the neighbor lady had to come find me and tell me the news. I was nine years old when this happen and to this day I can still see her walking up to me.
Obie Poole she say to me harsh like her hand grabbing hold of my arm. Your mama has passed away and here you are playing ball like you got no cares. She was a big woman and her fingers bit into my skin. Her eyes were all red and her face was swelled up. You hear me Obie Poole she say giving me a shake. Your mama has died and you got to come home.
I got taken in by Ollie Swans mother and thats where I stayed. After a while it seemed like I never had a mama but only a dream of one. And what family I had or cared for was those boys I played ball with. But I tell you a thing. After all these years sometimes when the trees full of wind or the crowd is on their feet yelling I catch the sound of my mamas voice. It comes from far away and then its gone. When I think about that I think she out there waiting. Waiting for the day she step out of nowhere and say Obie I come back for you. I come back for my little boy.
Four
The moment Rachael saw the letter lying inside Obie’s old beat-up mailbox she knew it was going to be trouble. It didn’t look like much sitting there, a dirty, yellowed envelope with a couple of stamps in the upper right-hand corner. The problem was that it shouldn’t have been there at all. In the years she’d been checking the old man’s mail, he’d never received anything as personal as a letter, just supermarket flyers and catalogs for things he couldn’t have cared less about. She thought that, like the cardboard box she’d found under his bed, it was one more trick Obie had played on her. Somehow he had managed to mail the letter to himself just before he died. But when she took it out and looked at it closer, she noticed the postmark and how different the handwriting was. The thinness of the paper made it seem as though it had been sent not just from another place, but from another time.
“What now, Obie?” Rachael muttered. She was standing in full sun. The air was warm and dead still. Down the road, the homeless man was making his way back to his place in the trees. He was bare from the waist up. His ribs were poking through his skin, and he was pushing a shopping cart stuffed full of plastic bags.
The last time she’d met him out on the road, he’d let loose with a string of obscenities until she’d bent over, picked up a rock and told him to go yell his head off somewhere else. Now, as he caught sight of her, he swung his cart off the road and through the ditch and bounced it out toward the woods by the river. When he disappeared into the trees, Rachael closed the mailbox and walked up the drive to the house. She took the steps up to the porch and sat down in Obie’s chair.
It was late in the afternoon. Wasps and hornets were flying slow and heavy under the roof eaves. The river was running full and smooth, a soft glaze of heat hung over it. With all the rain that spring, the flat grass had grown so wild that there wasn’t a sign of the paths she had cut so Obie could take his walks, just a wash of green that ran to the water’s edge.
Rachael laid the letter flat on her leg and rested her hand over it. From somewhere behind the trees, the homeless man started yelling and a flock of crows took off flying.Rachael sat quietly for a little while, staring off at the river. Then she picked up the letter.
The address read:
Obie Poole
General Delivery
South Cairo, Illinois
Close beside the two stamps, one new and one faded to almost nothing, the round postmark was dated a week or so ago. Imprinted in the middle of it were the words Guadalupe, New Mexico. On the back side was nothing but dirt stains and water marks.
“Well,” Rachael said softly. “Well, let’s see.” She slid her finger beneath the flap and tore open the envelope. She took out a small sheet of paper, unfolded it carefully and read what was written
Obie
I am coming home now.
I hope to find you there when I do.
Madewell
Sewell was cooking dinner when Rachael walked into the house, went to the kitchen table and sat down. “Hey,” he said, giving her a glance. “About time you got back.”
“Sewell,” she said, “we got to talk.” A sheen of sweat was on her forehead and her face was lit up.
Sewell picked up a wooden spoon and gave the onions a stir. He added a little salt, turned the stove down and, wiping his hands, went to the table. He sat down and stretched his legs out. “What’s new at Obie’s?” he asked. The last time it was her run-in with the homeless man, the time before that it was ceiling mold and before that it was something else. He’d thought that the old man dying would chan
ge things, but it seemed Obie Poole was in their life as much as ever.
“Obie got a letter, Sewell,” Rachael said, the words spilling out of her mouth. “A letter from him.”
“From who?”
“From my granddaddy.”
Sewell had never spent much time with Obie Poole. The old man hadn’t wanted him around, and he could sense that Rachael hadn’t either. He’d gone over a few times to fix a busted window a bird had flown into or replace blown shingles on the roof, but that had been about it. He’d pretty much stayed away and let Rachael and Obie have their time together. Not that it hadn’t bothered him. He didn’t like the stories the old man never quit telling or how upset she’d sometimes be after seeing him. But no matter how often Rachael complained about Obie Poole, Sewell knew that if he got between them, he’d be the one sent walking.
Sewell shifted his body and drew up his legs. The kitchen was full of the smell of onions, and the heat from the stove was making him sweat. “How could he get a letter from your granddaddy?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Rachael said. She was slipping the envelope back and forth between her fingers. “I opened the mailbox and there it was.”
“You got a letter from Obie, you mean,” Sewell said. “Some letter a neighbor sent after he was dead.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” she said, sliding the letter over to him. “Until I read it.” She sat back grinning across the table at him. “Go ahead,” she said. “Take a look at it.”
The moment Sewell picked up the envelope, he knew it wasn’t some trick the old man had played. Not only did it smell of mildew and rot, but with its pencil print and water stains it looked as though it had been sitting around for a hundred years. He realized that what Rachael had been waiting for all her life might be in this envelope.
Sewell pulled out the letter carefully and read it. And then he laid it down on the table. “This letter was written a long time ago,” he said.
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