Carry Me Like Water

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  Mundo took a bow and snapped his fingers. He skipped down the steps. “You want to read it to him?” Diego wrote.

  “Nah, Diego, what’s wrong with you? That’s not my job, man, that’s your job. Just hand him the note and let the bastard get a good look at your handwriting. His teeth are gonna drop to the damn floor. That smile of his is gonna disappear off the face of the city—forever, man. It’s gonna be great—it’s gonna be so damn great! I hate that guy.”

  “Will you be there when I show it to him, just in case he gets violent or something?”

  “Man, I wouldn’t miss It, Diego. That good-for-nothin’, spineless, dickless pig once had a friend of mine thrown in jail. If he even looks at you wrong, I’ll jump him and tear a new asshole in him.”

  “Don’t hit him, Mundo—promise me you won’t hit him. I don’t like that. Just keep an eye on him, that’s all. I got another friend of mine who’s going to be there. Her name’s Luz, and she says she wouldn’t miss seeing this for the world. Just get there around ten or so at Vicky’s, I’m going in just like always, and he never comes in until later. Just be there around ten, that’s all.”

  Mundo smiled as he read Diego’s handwriting. “I’ll be there, you bet. But who’s this Luz that’s gonna show?”

  “She’s an old friend. Remember, I told you all about her?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, “that crazy maid that talks a lot and puts men down. I thought you said she was in Chicago?”

  “She’s back, and we’re even going to be roommates. She’s going to find us a place, and we’re going to move in together.”

  “Man, Diego, you got yourself a sugar mama.”

  Diego laughed. “It’s not like that. We’re both tired of living alone, that’s all. And besides that, it’s cheaper. And if you ever need a place to stay, you can always come over to our place. It’s going to be a real nice apartment—maybe even a house—not like I have now. It’s going to be real nice. Just wait, you’ll see, a kitchen and everything.”

  Monday, at ten o’clock, Luz and Mundo showed up at Vicky’s, both of them wearing smiles. There were only a few customers lingering from a late breakfast, Diego sat them at a table right next to the bar. “Best seats in the house,” he wrote.

  Luz laughed and looked the place over.

  “Luz,” Diego wrote, “this is Mundo. He’s my friend.”

  Luz lit a cigarette and looked Mundo over. She smiled politely.

  “I hear you and Diego are gonna be living together.”

  Luz nodded, but did not attempt to make conversation with him. She disliked him on sight. He was too much like a lot of men she’d known—too much like her first husband.

  “You got an extra cigarette, esa?”

  Luz handed him a cigarette. “Don’t call me ‘esa,’” she said. “I don’t like that. I’m old enough to be your mother. I got sons big enough to kick your ass, so just have a little respect.”

  She looked at Diego. “Since when have you started hanging around with gang members? Look at that tattoo—people like him wear those things like medals.”

  “He’s a nice guy, Luz. Don’t be rude.”

  She took the note and shook her head. “You really are a pendejo, my Diego. Just look at him.” She looked directly into Mundo’s eyes. “I know lots of pinches like this guy.”

  “Look, esa, I don’t have to take any of your shit, got it? Diego here, he’s all right—he saved my ass. We help each other out, just like you’re supposed to do, got that? I don’t want no trouble with his friends.”

  “Be nice, Luz,” Diego wrote.

  She made a face at his note. “My first husband was just like your friend here. He used to strut around the streets like he owned them. He left me with two sons when somebody blew him away.”

  “Look, esa, I’m not your pinche husband. Whatever that clown did to you, it’s not my fault. I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”

  Diego brought them a cup of coffee. “It’s on the house,” he smiled.

  Luz clapped her hands as she read his note. “Ay, Dieguito, you do have a sense of humor.” She looked across the table and met Mundo’s eyes. “I bet you use those black eyes to crawl into a lot of skirts.”

  Mundo smiled.

  Luz smiled back at him. “I’m going to be nice to you. I don’t like you, but I’ll try and be nice to you for Diego.”

  “Look, esa,” Mundo stared back, “I won’t mess with you. I swear it.”

  “And don’t call me ‘esa.’ My name is Luz.”

  He nodded. “Doña Luz.” He laughed.

  Luz looked around the room and puffed on her cigarette. She motioned to Diego and pointed at the bar a few feet away. “He’s here, Dieguito.”

  Diego froze. He took a deep breath and felt his heart pounding. He thought it would leap from his chest and fly away like the pigeons at San Jacinto Plaza. “Maybe I should forget about it, and just walk out,” he wrote. He put the note on the table.

  “No, man,” Mundo said. “Go up to him and flatten his ass.” He looked at Luz. “Dona Luz and me, we’ll be right here watching the whole thing. Show him what you got, Diego. Stay coot—real cool.”

  He looked over at his employer. “Ten years,” he thought.

  “Move, Diego,” his boss said, “you still haven’t mopped the floors.” His eyes caught Luz’s face—and he smiled at her. “He’s getting a little lazy,” he told her. His eyes looked her over carefully. He didn’t notice Mundo sitting across from her. “You’ve never been in here before, have you?”

  “No,” she smiled at him, “but this place has a reputation. All my friends tell me that Diego is the best waiter in town—the best cook, too. If it wasn’t for him, all your customers would leave—at least that’s what I hear.” She grinned at him and winked.

  He smiled back at her.

  Diego walked up to him and handed him the neatly folded note. “What’s this?” he asked. He opened the note and began reading it.

  Diego, Mundo, and Luz watched him closely. His face turned red as he finished reading the note. He wadded it up in a fist. “You ungrateful pig!” he yelled. His contorted face wrinkled up with his anger. Diego’s eyes opened wide, and he fell his heart pounding faster than a hummingbird’s wings. He thought it was going to pound himself into powder. His boss grabbed a dirty, wet towel from the bar and threw it at Diego. Diego caught it as if he were intercepting a football and threw it back at him without thinking. His eyes opened wide as the wet towel hit his boss’s chest. He felt as though he were somebody else; felt as if he was no longer the same man, the man who had worked in this dark place for ten years. His boss reached over the bar and grabbed him by the collar. “Nobody does me like that. I’m going to break both your fucking hands, and you’ll never write another note again.” Diego felt the breath pressing against his face like a hot iron.

  Mundo leapt from his chair and threw a closed fist at Diego’s boss. He stared up at Mundo, dazed, and fell back against the wall breaking the glasses behind him. He shook his head and wiped his bleeding lip, clenched his jaw and then raised his fist.

  Luz got up from her chair and walked in front of him. “Look, you pinche, you swing that fist and you’re a dead man.” She stuck her chin out and pointed directly ai his face. “You like the ladies, don’t you? Well, you move one inch and you’ll never make love to another woman again.”

  Diego’s boss stared at the trio in front of him. He looked at Mundo, then Luz, then Diego—then looked toward the telephone.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Luz said.

  His faced turned white.

  Luz winked at him. “You look like you could use a drink, Gonzalo. Your name’s Gonzalo, isn’t it?” He nodded his head slowly.

  Mundo looked over at Diego. “Pour the man a drink, Diego. On the house.”

  Diego walked over to the other side of the bar and poured his boss a drink. Luz and Mundo looked at each other and smiled while Mundo poured Gonzalo some tequila. Diego stopped, smil
ed, and took out three more glasses, and poured them all a drink. “This one’s on me,” he wrote. He took out a five-dollar bill and placed it on the bar. They raised their glasses, all of them except Gonzalo.

  “Won’t you have a drink with us?” Luz asked. “Have a drink with us, you pinche.”

  “Fuck you,” he shouted.

  “Ah man,” Mundo said, “Doña Luz asked you real nice, Gonzalo. C’mon, have a drink. A little shot to settle your nerves.”

  Gonzalo raised his glass and they all drank. “I spit on all you bastards,” he said. He looked at Diego. “I give you a job and this is what you do to me?”

  Diego looked at his pad and wrote: “It takes more than three dollars an hour to buy someone’s loyalty. My lawyer will be in touch.” He smiled at Luz and Mundo then added to the note: “Rot—I hope you rot in this place.” Luz and Mundo laughed as he put the finishing touches to his note. He shoved it in front of Gonzalo who tried to ignore it.

  “Read it,” Mundo ordered. “The man is trying to communicate with you.”

  Gonzalo stared at the note and read it.

  “Read it aloud.”

  Diego watched his lips as he read it. He handed his apron to Gonzalo and stretched out his arms as if he were about to fly. He walked out from behind the bar on Luz’s arm. They walked out of Vicky’s windowless bar, and stepped out into the streets of the city. If I had a voice, Diego thought to himself, I would howl in the streets, I would howl “I’m free, I’m free.”

  5

  August 24, 1993

  Leaving my body has become an addiction. I keep wanting to leave it forever. I ask myself if it isn’t a death wish. I wonder. I used to feel desperate like this every time I fell in love with a man—and it never worked out. Why did I always need a man’s approval so desperately? It’s not that I ever let them know how I felt—not that it mattered. I was addicted to men until Salvador gave me his gift. Ever since that day, I’ve felt very free of them—and I don’t really miss them. I used to look at them all the time, always staring at them wondering what they were like. Men and cigarettes—it was as if they went together. And both were bad for me. But they were such exhilarating habits. Funny thing about addictions, you fall completely in love with them—that’s part of the problem.

  But now this thing with leaving my body—it’s scary. What am I supposed to do? I get up in the morning and all I can think of is leaving my body. I keep hoping it will grow old in time—but it hasn’t grown old at all. It’s like being a god or an angel—except that I’m not sure I believe in either of those things. I don’t know what I believe in—I just know I can leave my body. And that I like traveling as if I were nothing but light. I used to think that the only ecstasy I’d ever know was the ecstasy I felt when I was with a man. I never thought I’d ever feel anything that approached joy. But this is joy. This is really joy.

  And yet I’ve seen so much misery since I’ve arrived here. Maria Elena told me there was poverty here—I didn’t know how much of it there’d be. Last week, I read in the newspaper about a bleeding icon in Juarez. A man held up a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that had suddenly begun to bleed. A miracle, he said. The reporter had asked him why it was bleeding. “Because he feels our pain,” the man had said. I wanted to see that man. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to read his mind and understand what he felt. The newspaper named the colonia where the man lived. I asked Nena what a colonia was. She told me it was a district—like The Castro or The Mission in San Francisco. That same afternoon, I left my body to find that man and his bleeding Sacred Heart. It’s so easy to cross the border without a body. It should be this easy for everybody—that’s what I thought. Why not? Why the hell not? Somehow, the place where the man lived was easy to find. The man lived in a colonia with no electricity and no running water. Already, they had built a shrine for the bleeding heart of Jesus. There was a line for miles, and all of the pilgrims were poor, all of them obviously from the same neighborhood. And there were groups of people dressed in different garbs dancing in front of the bleeding heart. A group of men had evidently butchered a hog and were cooking portions of it over an open fire. Vendors were selling food and brooms and rosaries. I was moved because there was an innocence about them that I simply do not understand. At the end of the twentieth century, some still believed. But it angered me because I wanted them to make a revolution. They lived so close to such wealth and had nothing. In this neighborhood alone there were thousands of them. I went home reluctantly. I told Maria Elena what I had seen, what I had done. “Take me there,” she said, “I want to go.” And later she added, “It’s good that you take your body there, too.”

  And so we found ourselves in that neighborhood again. I felt odd and conspicuous. Maria Elena and I are both Mexicans by blood, and both of us speak the language. But kneeling among the pilgrims, I was nothing more than a gringa. I know nothing of Mexico—nothing of poverty. The poverty didn’t scare Maria Elena—probably because she’d known it. It just doesn’t scare her. She went there as a pilgrim. I went there as a tourist. Maria Elena and I. as alike as we are, sometimes reside in different worlds. She tells me I’m holy. I tell her I don’t like that category of thinking. She smites. I smile. Sometimes, all we can do is smile.

  “You can’t take off to Mexico just like that.” There was a mother’s tone in Maria Elena’s voice. Eddie could taste the resentment on his tongue as he heard her response to his and Jake’s plans to go to Casas Grandes. He was surprised at her response. He was even surprised at the taste at the base of his tongue.

  “You’re not speaking to little Jake, you know,” Eddie said softly. He played with his coffee cup nervously. “I don’t see a problem.”

  “Do you know where Casas Grandes is?”

  “I looked on a map, damnit.” The voice was no longer soft.

  “And do you have your permit to travel in Mexico?”

  “I didn’t know we needed a permit.”

  “Eddie, they’re a sovereign country—just like the U.S.”

  “You’re being arrogant and snotty, wife.”

  “You’re being arrogant and snotty. And don’t call me ‘wife.’ I hate that.” She picked up the baby who was wide awake and chewing on his hand. “Such a good baby,” she said to him. The baby smiled, “Handsome boy, rey de mi vida.”

  Eddie listened to the lilt in her voice. Sometimes, he found her irritating. “We were having a discussion,” he said. “I hate when you interrupt our conversations and pick him up. He’s getting too big anyway.” He bit his lip.

  “Babies should be held,” she said evenly, “and nobody ever gets too big to be held.” She handed the baby to him. “Here, you hold him.” She stepped back and looked at them. “Handsome men,” she said. She smiled at her husband. “It’s not that I’m against the idea of you and Jake going to Mexico—it’s just that you don’t know crap about traveling in a foreign country.”

  “Oh, and you’re an expert on Mexico.”

  “At least I’ve been there. At least I know the language. I don’t know everything—but I know something. Something, Eddie. This is the first time you’ve even been out of California—”

  “So what? It’s a big state.”

  “So what? So is Texas.”

  “Texas sucks,” he wanted to say. “I know enough,” he said slowly, not quite softly.

  “Yeah, well I know how to get to Casas Grandes. I also know you need a permit to travel into Mexico. Do you, Eddie?”

  “What’s bugging you, Nena.”

  “What’s bugging me is that you think you can go to Mexico at the drop of a hat—and you’re right, you can. And here we are, planning to build a goddamn wall on the border to keep “them” out. Did you read that in the paper? Did you read that? ‘Operation Keep Them Out’—”

  “It isn’t called ‘Operation Keep Them Out’—”

  “Well, it should be. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Why are we fighting about t
his, Nena? I agree with you. Jake agrees with you. You heard us discussing it last night. We’re as disgusted as you are. So why are you mad at us?” The baby’s peace seemed disturbed. At first, he made a few grunts, then broke out into a full cry. “See, you made him cry.”

  “He just needs to be changed. I know my son’s grunts. Your turn to change him. And you didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go?”

  “Oh, so that’s it,” he said as he placed his son on the counter. He felt the diaper. “You’re right—he does need to be changed. Hand me a diaper, will you?”

  She walked into the utility room and returned with a clean diaper and some baby powder, “I want to go, too,” she said. “You didn’t even ask.”

  Eddie said nothing, pretending to concentrate totally on changing his son’s diaper.

  “Is it a brother thing?” she asked.

  Eddie nodded. “Don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad.”

  “OK,” she said, trying to soften her voice, “I’ll try not to feel left out. I’ll take you to get your permits this afternoon. That way you can drive straight through in the morning.”

  “You’re a good sport,” he said.

  “I want my brother, too,” she said. “And I haven’t even started to search—”

  “Nena, we’ve been here less than a month. We’re not even finished working on the house.”

  “Starting Monday, I’m going to begin looking. He can’t be far.” What if he’s dead, she thought, what if he’s moved? She took the newly changed baby in her arms and rocked him slowly. She looked up at Eddie. “You and Jake be careful, OK? Sometimes a cop wants a bribe—sometimes they stop you. Don’t get holier than thou. Jake won’t—but you will. Just give the man a ten—and drive, OK?”