The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue

by Manuel Munoz

  “Tía,” she said, interrupting her, only to realize that Tía Sara had already started sobbing. She listened to her tears over the static in the line. “Tía,” she said again, hoping her aunt would collect herself.

  “Pray with me,” Tía Sara told her, sniffling, and she could almost hear the pages of her old Bible turning in her lap, the big Bible with the red dye across the top. “Please pray with me, pray that Sergio knows this is a house of love.”

  “He knows that, Tía,” she said, sighing. “I’ll bring him home.”

  “Please, Celi. You remember, don’t you? From Primer Corintios. Recite with me,” she pleaded. “You remember. ‘Love is patient . . .’”

  “Love is kind,” she had to say, because Tía Sara had paused, her tears on the brink of starting again, and Cecilia could not bear to hear them. She knew what was behind them, every time Tía Sara wept like this: the agony of having made the wrong decision years and years ago, having left Tío Nico, having separated the children as they did, the troubles with Sergio only pointing to her failure.

  “It always protects,” her aunt recited softly. “It always trusts.”

  Even from the bank of telephones, Cecilia could hear the bus approaching, the chug of its engine from down the street. “It’s here,” she told her aunt, who was still reciting. “I have to go, Tía. Sergio’s here.” She hung up the receiver with Tía Sara still in midprayer and rushed over to the doors. The bus had pulled up alongside the curb, its brakes tightening and releasing in a hiss, exhausted. The man inched closer to the front of the bus, waiting for the door to pop open, while behind the bus’s tinted windows, silhouettes rose from their seats and gathered in single file to disembark.

  The driver got out first, an older man like Tío Nico, his face framed by giant glasses, a graying mustache. He came down lithely, a vigor in his step, and stood at the bus’s foothold, his arm extended out at the man who stood waiting for Sergio, as if to bar him from approaching. He was letting the passengers exit, and they came forth in a steady stream — men just like the ones Cecilia had seen years and years ago, still coming, still arriving with nothing on them but a wallet of emergency money. They stepped off one by one, and whenever a woman prepared to descend, the old driver extended his hand graciously to her, then helped the children she was inevitably towing along. The sidewalk gradually became crowded, the passengers pushing back even the man waiting for Sergio. There was luggage in the bins of the bus’s underbelly. There were cars coming now, out of nowhere, waiting across the street, people coming out of them and collecting their long-awaited arrivals. There was something disarming about all the activity, such a sudden cacophony of voices, and it made Cecilia feel safe. She stepped out of the lobby to the loud sighing of the bus in idle, of cigarettes being lit in relief, keeping her eyes on the line of silhouettes still on the bus. Taxis pulled up as if summoned, and the cabmen opened their doors and waved people over, crying out, “Anywhere! Anywhere! Five bucks!”

  She saw Sergio, her cousin, her brother, step down out of the bus, a grocery sack under his arm. There were clothes in that sack — there had to be. That was how Tía Sara had run off in the initial days, stuffing what she could into a large paper bag and dragging Sergio with her. How ridiculous, Cecilia thought immediately, how it must have signaled that the gesture was nothing but dramatics and flourish. It was all for show, all for presenting to the waiting relative who offered the warm bed: this was all they could take with them, all they had time to bring.

  But just as she was about to raise her hand to Sergio and wave him over, to get him in the car and admonish him — just a little bit — for such unnecessary worry, Sergio saw the man waiting for him, and the look on Sergio’s face sank into terror. He began to push his way past some of the other passengers, but the man rushed at Sergio and caught him by the shoulder, enveloping him, his face scowling.

  “You little fucker — you think I didn’t know you’d come here?” The man hit Sergio hard against the back of his head, his palm flat and backed by the force of his rolling shoulders, and Sergio’s hands reached up to feel the spot, to ward off another blow. His hands were working on reflex, Cecilia knew, and he let out a shocked grunt that caught the attention of everyone surrounding them. The women with their children brought the little hands closer, not knowing what to do because their luggage was still in the underbelly of the bus. The men did nothing but watch.

  “Sergio!” she called out, moving to them, but the man hit him again and Sergio dropped the grocery bag. One of the passengers absently picked it up and held it out to Sergio, as if ignoring what was actually happening.

  “Celi,” Sergio said, finally seeing her. “Just stay out of it.” Tears had started in his eyes, and he took the grocery sack from the passenger who held it out to him. The man grasped him gruffly by the arm, hand gripped right under Sergio’s armpit, lifting him past the other passengers, heading toward the black car. Cecilia started after them.

  “Didn’t you fucking hear him?” the man called back at her. “Stay out of it, you fucking bitch!” he shouted, so loud, as if signaling the men from the bus not to interfere, and they made no motion to help Cecilia.

  “Llame a la policía,” one of the women whispered, so quiet.

  He shoved Sergio into the passenger seat. Cecilia stood looking on, unable to move, and she began to cry, watching Sergio wide eyed in the car, his head hanging down. “Sergio!” she called out, and the same woman spoke up again, her voice more insistent: the police, the police. But it was happening too fast for her. Sergio made no motion to get out of the car and run — to what? — even as the man slammed the passenger door and walked around to the other side. He turned around to glare at her, keeping his eyes unblinking and stern as he started the car, and then he drove off, speeding down the street.

  The passengers around Cecilia stared at her indecision. The women with children rushed to get their luggage, looking impatiently for their rides, and Cecilia knew what they were thinking. The escalation of arguments, the return of that man, maybe a gun and shots being fired. Hadn’t they all seen stories like that? Hadn’t they all witnessed what men could do when love was denied? Hadn’t they all recognized a man’s way of loving, of loving what he could not have? The men from the bus began to walk away, uninterested, and Cecilia silently cursed them through her tears, cursed how ineffectual they were, how their bravado was held in reserve when it really mattered.

  The sidewalk was emptying. The old driver lowered the doors to the luggage bins, gently bringing them back into place. Cecilia watched him because she did not know what else to do. The taxis began to drive away with passengers inside, and some of the people turned to look at her through the back windows as she stood there. The sidewalk would be bare soon, and she knew better than to be standing there alone. There was nothing left to do.

  The bus driver came over to her. The wrinkles in his face softened him, as did his gray mustache and thick glasses. Faded and clouded like the panes of the clerk’s booth, the plastic lenses were from a state-aid program, Cecilia knew, the frames old and well worn, but the man had been careful with them. He blinked hard at Cecilia, as if he were having difficulty seeing through to her.

  “You okay, mujercita?” he asked, blinking at her as if hoping she would say yes.

  “I’m fine,” she answered.

  “They did the same thing in Bakersfield. But that was in the afternoon, so there was a police officer.” He kept staring at her, waiting for her to respond, but Cecilia had nothing left to say.

  “Thank you,” she said absently, for lack of anything else.

  “It’s not like the old days,” the old driver said. “People used to be a lot more civilized. People never acted like this.”

  He turned and eased up onto the first step of the bus. He finally strained, showing his age, the effects of the long drive. “So sorry,” he said, turning briefly, and then he closed the door and started up the bus. He pulled it away and headed down the street, leaving the
front of the station quiet again.

  She had to go now, before it became late, before the sidewalk was completely bare of people. She would have to tell Tío Nico, find a way to inspire some kind of sympathy for his own son. She would have to ask him to call Tía Sara to find out what they could do. Tía Sara would not cry in front of Tío Nico. Tía Sara would put up a front of resilience, and Cecilia counted on that.

  Walking back to the car, holding her keys, she saw the glow of the Crest Theater over in the distance, its neon faint over the empty parking lots. Impossible, Cecilia thought, not after all these years. It could not be. It had to be a church occupying the old dusty seats. It had to be a real estate agency lighting the place in an attempt to promote the building. Not a movie, not even a Spanish-language film these days.

  Instead of heading in the direction of the highway, Cecilia drove the other way, toward the theater, just to see, though it would take her deeper into downtown Fresno. The neon shone brighter as she approached it, not one letter unlit in the theater’s name, scrawled across the facade. But the booth was empty and dark; there was no one there.

  She idled the car at the intersection facing the theater, and she saw herself being led out of the place by Tía Sara those many years ago. She had begun crying in the middle of the movie, at what had happened to the woman with the long black hair. The two thugs had barged into the room, and one of them closed the door. The other had clapped a hand over the woman’s mouth when she began to scream. The men in the back of the theater whistled louder, the woman’s large nipples purple in close-up, her legs straining to balance on her high heels. The single washbasin had a purpose then — one of the men turned the faucet, and there was a squeaky rush of water. They shouted questions at her, demanding again to know where her lover had gone, and when she wouldn’t answer, the sink full now, the two men grabbed her head, her hand reaching up, as if by instinct, to stop them. As she was bent over the sink, breasts dangling, the backs of her thighs stretched in full view, the men in the theater cheered louder: “¡Eso!” ¡Right there! “¡Eso!” The two thugs had begun drowning the woman wearing the pink panties, and that was when Cecilia had rushed from her seat and bolted toward the lobby, the doors with the leather padding and small windows of light showing her the way out.

  At twenty-three, Cecilia had not seen death personally. It had never made its presence known, not in the flesh, not in the immediacy of her everyday life. Her parents' death had come only as news, something told to her many days after it had happened, as cold and clinical as the insurance claims she filed at work. She knew now that she still underestimated the fragility of life, that all (and everything) it meant was absence. But how did she know, back then when she was so young, that absence sprang from the spilling of blood? That absence began with a blow to the head, the rupture of skin, the throated cry, the body moving of its own accord, making some last gesture — it was the last she saw of the woman in the pink panties, her arm uselessly fending off the thugs, the men in the back row still cheering.

  The intersection was deserted and Cecilia turned the car, suddenly frightened, suddenly fearful of not making it home. She checked the locks on the doors. Even after the bare spaces of downtown Fresno, she would have to travel thirty miles of dark, lonely roads, once she left the city, before she made it back into the safe arms of Tío Nico, who was still a comfort no matter what he thought of Sergio. Still, she knew, the terrified look in Sergio’s eyes belied a choice: he realized what had happened, how his plan had failed. That man without a name had a way of loving, his way of loving what he could not have, and it was not her place to say sorry. Sergio had stayed in the passenger seat, waiting for the man to drive him away, and her heart had to embrace Sergio’s decision. It was like that woman’s hand, her last desperate gesture: her body refused, gave way only by fighting, but her heart found its own conclusion, and it knew there would be no lover to come back and save it.

  Fresno receded into a shimmering line in her rearview mirror. The February night was broken only by her headlights, but all around her were the dark fields where so many terrible things had happened to so many people. She would be home soon, crying into her uncle’s shoulder, but now Cecilia wished, somehow, that it would be Tía Sara. Those many years ago, in the grace of the cine’s lobby, away from the pain on the screen, Tía Sara had bent down on one knee, bringing her in, holding her against her silk dress and the gentle scent of powder on her neck. The ladies who were lined up to use the bathroom looked on and nodded their heads in sympathy. Cecilia wailed terribly, unable to find enough consolation in Tía Sara’s arms. The woman behind the counter came over with a fresh ice cream cone, holding it wrapped in a little paper napkin. The ladies kept looking on; some came over with tissues, with hard candy, their high heels sinking quietly into the carpet, so gentle.

  WHEN YOU COME INTO YOUR KINGDOM

  DRIVING HIS CAR ON his way to work, windows sealed against the heat that was already building, Santiago remembers the coast. It’s easy to remember, here in the dry stretch of the Valley during the summer days, below the sky that isn’t as blue as it used to be — such haze — along the length of Highway 99 nearing the interchange to the new 41 and a clog of cars. If you drive south, away from Fresno, toward even flatter, drier country, you’ll soon reach the Grapevine or Kettleman City, the escape hatches.

  Santiago remembers the coast, thinks of it, its pull and pleasure. He provides: he has taken his family out of the Valley numerous times, past the rush of interior Los Angeles and then over to the coast. He knows very few who can leave for pleasure’s sake. Very few who look at travel as necessity, as escape, and he has long stopped trying to convince his co-workers at the warehouse that a weekend away is not really an extravagance. Santiago knows how they think: his co-workers calculate the price of gas, fast-food stops, tickets to Disneyland, parking, some quick way to stop their kids from crying in the gift shops. But that isn’t how Santiago provides; that isn’t how he treats his family.

  Santiago stays away from the theme parks and instead takes his family for a day’s stay at a hotel along the coast, that and nothing more. A hotel stretching into the sky, a pool down below with guests lounging, the Pacific close enough to shudder the palm trees. The rules for his two kids are simple: swim or sun or read or listen to music or go back inside the hotel room and watch TV, but never complain of boredom. Hotels — even out-of-the-way hotels — are sanctuaries, full of businesspeople, high heels clicking, rolling suitcases, dark oak doors, elegant restaurants with cloth napkins, elevators with charming bell dings. Years ago, when the kids were much younger, Santiago insisted they fit their toys into their small suitcases, nothing dragging behind them, nothing to upset the order, no crying, no pestering. No matter which hotel they ended up staying in, the ambience was always the same, the travelers — in a sense — always the same, and he wanted nothing to upset that order.

  It is summer, deep in July, and in the evenings when he gets home from work, Santiago flips on the television and waits for the weather forecast. Such boredom for the forecaster: always in the hundreds, always the Valley map shown in red, searing like an aching bone deep in the arm of California. Down at the coast, though, the colors are a cooler orange and yellow.

  It is summer and it’s been months since the coast. February, in fact. This Tuesday morning, on his way to work, while the traffic at the new interchange slows, Santiago is trying to remember. Drivers don’t know what to do these days, after so much construction and with so many new ways to get to the other side of Fresno. The traffic stops altogether; he will be late. He thinks of the last hotel they went to, back in February, the tall hotel that nearly kissed the shoreline, the pool deck built next to a small pier, the bobbing of little boats. The room on the eighth floor, the door opening out to a breezeway, and his wife marveling at their luck — an oceanfront view! — the kids hunching over the balcony and pointing at the pool deck, grabbing their towels, and rushing down. Santiago had yelled out to the kids that
they would be there soon and not to run, but he had held his wife back from following them and stood with Luisa in the open door of their room — a door with forest green paint and a diamond-shaped placard with the number 806 in brass, lounge chairs placed conveniently outside the door, the walls lemon colored. He kissed his wife, held her for a moment, and she smiled back at him — it had been a very long time since he had seen that look on Luisa’s face — and then they gathered their own things to go to the pool. Santiago remembers that long breezeway, the row of doors on one side, then the wide expanse of the ocean on the other. He remembers thinking that later in the evening, it would be nice to sit with his Luisa on the breezeway and watch the fog roll in, gathering itself together way out in the distance to make its way onshore.

  By the time Santiago pulls into the dirt parking lot of the warehouse, there are only two slots left and he’s twenty minutes late. Though it’s just past seven in the morning, the long rolling doors have already been pulled open and a freight truck sits with its side belly open to a forklift. The school district’s work trucks stand side by side on the opposite end of the lot, face-forward, but so far none of them has left for the day. The groundskeeping for the school lasts all year, but summer brings the major overhauls: painting, repairing light fixtures, leaky pipes, and outdoor water fountains, replacing broken windows, waxing floors, fixing lockers. Start time is seven because of the heat, with a half-hour lunch and a quit time of two thirty. From the warehouse doors, he sees Carrasco smoking a cigarette, his clipboard tucked under his armpit.

  “Hey, Salinas, another day,” Carrasco tells him as he makes his way to the doors. “When are you taking some time off?”