“OK.”
“And call me.”
“We’ll be back by the evening.”
“Call me anyway.”
“I left last night.”
“Again?”
Lizzie nodded. “I just can’t help myself. It comes so easily. And by the way, it’s a hell of an easy way to get to know a new town.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Doesn’t it scare you?”
“You always ask me that. And I keep telling you it isn’t scary at all. It’s exhilarating. I actually went into a bar last night.”
“You what?”
“I went into a bar.”
Maria Elena looked at her strangely.
“What’s that look on your face.”
“You leave your body to go into a bar?”
“Well, no. I left my body just to leave my body. It’s like climbing the mountain because it’s there.”
“But to go to a bar?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“Where was the bar?”
“In Juárez.”
“What was the name of the bar?”
“The Kentucky Club.”
“I know that place.”
“You been there?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. It used to be a joint where hotshots hung out in the forties. Elizabeth Edwards, what the hell were you doing there?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I was sitting in my room trying to relax, and suddenly I could read Jake’s mind just by thinking of him. I didn’t want to know—I didn’t want to eavesdrop, so I made myself think of something else. You know, it’s like I feel that I’m going to find your brother one of these days. I’m going to see him and I’m going to know him. He was in my dream—I’d know him anywhere—and that woman, that older Mexican woman—I’m going to find her, too—I just know it.”
“What are you going to do when you find them without a body?”
“Follow them. Find out where they live.”
“What if you stay too long outside your body. Aren’t you afraid your body will die?”
“I might die when I’m in it—then what would I do?”
“Don’t be flippant, Lizzie.”
Lizzie took out a cigarette from her purse and put it in her mouth. She smiled at Maria Elena.
“You have no willpower. I can’t believe you’re starting up again. It’s you and Jake—you both have addictive personalities.”
“Yeah, but we’re fun. And can we skip the lectures?”
Maria Elena laughed without wanting to.
“So anyway,” Lizzie said dramatically as she lit her cigarette, “I was lying on my bed and I felt, well, peaceful—that’s the word. And I knew I was going to float away, and I wanted to, so I just went with it. It’s like being with a man that you just can’t resist. Which reminds me, I haven’t been with a man for years.”
“Years, Lizzie?”
“Well, yes—over a year, anyway. That’s a long time. Which reminds me, did you know this town has a whopping streetwalking business.”
“It always has. It’s nice to know some things stay the same.”
“And a lot of them aren’t what they seem.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Transvestites.”
“Oh, there weren’t any in San Francisco?”
“Oh, it doesn’t offend me. I’m just, well, surprised. I thought the border would be much straighter.”
“No, not straighter, Lizzie, just more underground.”
“So I got tired of following these guys around. And I figured your brother wouldn’t be in a bar.”
“So how’d you wind up at the Kentucky Club?”
“Well, I just wanted to cross the border—and once I was there, I didn’t know where to go—so I liked the name of this place and I just went in.”
“Too bad you didn’t take your body along. You could have had a drink.”
“Very funny. I don’t drink in bars—just restaurants.”
“Oh, a classy dame, huh? So, did you see any men you liked?”
“That’s not why I went in there. You think I’d leave my body behind if I were scoping out men?”
“So what did you do in there?”
“Listened to people talk. It’s a fantasy—and I can live it. It’s amazing. I’m the fly on the wall everybody always wanted to be. I just listened to people talk. It’s amazing how much bullshit is tossed around in conversation. And you know what?” She puffed out some smoke through her nose. “You know what I felt?”
Maria Elena stared at her and shrugged.
“Compassion,” Lizzie said, underlining it with her voice. “I liked these people. I liked being one of them. And you know what else? I stopped a fight.”
“You what?”
“You want to know how I did it?”
“Can you intervene like that?”
“Well. I did. These two guys—friends—they were talking, then all of a sudden one of them got mad, and the other got mad, too. Pretty soon they’re yelling at each other, and the other guy threatens to kick his friend’s ass from Juárez to Austin. And I thought to myself, oh great, here I am about to witness a barroom brawl. And then I thought, ‘Lizzie do something.’ So I just whispered in his ear and told him everything was fine and told him his friend was a good friend. I willed him to hear it. He put his fists down. And he seemed calmer. And pretty soon they’re having another drink and laughing.”
“You intervened. Is that moral?”
“How is it immoral, Nena?”
“Well, are you supposed to be doing things like that? I mean, you’re not exactly a guardian angel—you’re just this woman who leaves her body at home when she goes out at—” Maria Elena stopped in mid-sentence. “Well why not? How would you like to do me a favor, Lizzie?”
“Like what?”
“Will you do it or not?”
“Not until you tell me what it is.”
“I’m your best friend in all the world.”
“Cut to the chase, Maria Elena.”
“How would you like to follow Jake and Eddie to Casas Grandes?”
“What?”
“Can you do it?”
“It’s not a question of can I do it—it’s a question of why should I do it.”
“Because I’m worried. What if something happens to them? Who would it hurt? All you have to do is follow them there and follow them back—just to make sure they’re safe.” “I can’t,” Lizzie said softly. “It’s just—”
Nena stared at her friend. “I know that look, Maria Elena. You have that I’m-really-hurt-and-offended expression on your face. Well wipe it off. I’m not sure I could pull it off. I’ve never been gone for more than a couple of hours. And even if I could, it’s not right. They’re big boys. There are things they have to do without you or me standing over them to make sure they don’t get hurt. If they get hurt, you have to deal with it.”
“Well, I’m sorry I asked.”
“Don’t be angry, Nena. Please don’t be angry.”
“Let me be angry,” she said. “It won’t last long.” She left Lizzie to finish her cigarette in peace.
6
DRIVING DOWN Interstate 10, Jake took the Juárez exit. He took his eyes off the road for a moment and stared down at Concordia Cemetery, the dead disturbed now by a freeway the locals called the spaghetti bowl. As the freeway curbed around, Juárez was straight ahead. It was so easy to get there, just get in the car, take an exit—Mexico—so easy, he thought. Joaquin would have had something to say about this landscape—he would have railed on about something, he was sure of it. He remembered how, sick as he was in his last days, Joaquin had been obsessed with denouncing the only two countries he’d ever known, ever lived in. “I hate Mexico,” he mumbled, “I hate the United States. I hate—”
“What?” Eddie asked.
“Nothing, I was just talking to myself.” Jake put a cigarette in his mouth but did not light it. He put it back in his pocket. “I
t’s funny to live in a town where the other half of it is in another country.”
Eddie nodded pensively. “I can’t get used to it—it’s—”
“It’s like living on the edge—”
“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing.”
“Sounds like something Joaquin would have said. You’re like him—in some ways, anyway. But you think too white.” His voice trailed off as if he had run out of breath.
Eddie knew instinctively when his brother did not want to discuss certain subjects—it was in his voice, his body moved as if he were waving away a mosquito. He was curious as to why his brother had never had a white lover, and always those remarks about white men as if he wasn’t one—or didn’t want to be one. Perhaps it was a peculiar form of self-loathing, a self-loathing he knew something about. Perhaps they would talk about it someday, but it would have to be on his brother’s terms. Eddie made a promise to himself that he would not let his older brother die without talking about these things, but today he could wait. After waiting so many years to find him again, Eddie could be patient. Today, he would respect his brother’s silences. Jake was private by nature, he thought, or perhaps by necessity.
“When you stop to think about it,” Jake said looking out the side window as he changed lanes, “we grew up on a border, too. I mean isn’t San Diego on the border?”
“Yeah, but what the hell did we know, Jake? All we knew was La Jolla. What the hell did we know about Mexico, about anything—even about our own damn country? Besides, San Diego isn’t literally on the border.”
“Actually, I went to Tijuana a lot in high school.”
“Yeah? What did you do there?”
“Get drunk mostly. Typical stupidities, I guess. I slept with a whore there once.”
“Really? Man or woman?”
“Not a man.”
Eddie looked at his brother curiously. “How was it?”
“Well, it was awful. It was one of those initiation rights between me and my jock buddies. She was nice to me—I remember that.” His voice faded away from Eddie as though he were trying to fit together some of the pieces from that part of his life.
“Did you have good friends in high school?”
Jake snickered at Eddie’s question. “Are you kidding? I hung out with morons. I always wondered why everybody wanted to be like them. The group I hung with, they used to pick on this one guy—and I used to pick on him, too. Funny thing, was, I didn’t get it. I didn’t get why it was supposed to be fun picking on this guy. He was very smart. We made him cry once. We followed him down the hall shouting “Faggot! Faggot! Faggot!” I sort of had a crush on him, and there I was yelling with the rest of them.” He shook his head. “And you know something? I think we jocks hated that guy because he didn’t admire us, and so we decided to ruin him. Isn’t that stupid, isn’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard?”
The sun was rising.
Eddie watched his brother as he spoke, and said nothing.
“Didn’t know I could talk so much, did you?” Jake said.
“I like it when you talk,” Eddie said.
They eased into a comfortable silence as they drove toward the border. It was early, five-thirty in the morning, and as they quietly entered Juarez, the Mexican border guard smiled and waved them through. “Even the smells are different,” Jake said. “You ever notice that we erase smells in the United States?”
“We like things nice and sanitized.”
“It’s what I’m beginning to like about this place, Eddie, it’s got rough edges. It’s gritty. In La Jolla we used to ship out all our trash—we made it invisible. El Paso feels like a more honest place.”
“Didn’t know you felt that way.”
“You think your big brother’s just a good-lookin’ airhead?”
Eddie laughed. “I don’t think you’re an airhead.”
“You just think I’m too angry to think.”
“Thai’s not true. I just don’t know you, that’s all. It takes time.”
Eddie looked at the map, and gave Jake directions toward the highway to Casas Grandes. Maria Elena had told them not to stray from her directions. “And come right back,” she’d said. “You two gringos are bound to get yourselves into trouble. Don’t act cocky. Try and be humble, and don’t act as if you have a lot of money. Act ordinary.” Eddie chuckled to himself.
“Whatcha laughing at?”
“Maria Elena. She told us to act ordinary.”
“Aren’t we ordinary?”
“Right. Just two ordinary men driving to Mexico to spread a young man’s ashes in the desert.”
Juarez was still quiet as they drove through the avenue that would turn into the freeway heading for Chihuahua. A lone cigarette vendor stood quietly at a corner as he smoked his own cigarette. As Jake stopped at the light, he signaled the man over. “Marlboro Lights,” he said, and then held up two fingers. “¿Cuánto?” he asked. “Uno cincuenta,” the man said as he handed Jake the two packs. Jake handed him two dollars and signaled for him to keep the change.
“I didn’t know you knew Spanish,” Eddie said.
“I don’t really. I know how to ask how much, I know how to ask for a bathroom, and I know how to order a beer. And I know how to introduce myself. J taught me—but that’s it. You?”
“Well, I listen to Nena and Lizzie carry on in Spanish and sometimes I can really follow them—then they take a right turn and I lose them.” He studied the map. He looked over at his brother and laughed, “Sometimes I still can’t believe I found you.”
Jake nodded. “Can I smoke?”
“Only if you share.”
“Didn’t know you smoke.”
“Every now and again. They’re good sometimes.”
“I could never be a pan-time smoker—either I do or I don’t—all or nothing. Guess I’m that way about a lot of things.” He took the pack from his pocket and tossed it at his brother. He tossed him some matches. Eddie lit a cigarette for each of them and handed one to Jake.
“Air,” Jake said.
“What?”
“Thai’s what gets me through the day. Being able to breathe. I can still breathe. I like breathing.”
“I want you to stay.” Eddie kept himself from uttering the words. His brother was nothing like his wife—he didn’t want to know everything he was thinking. He took a drag from the cigarette he was smoking. “Can I ask you a question, Jake?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Are you sad?”
“I’m sad about J—yeah I’m sad. I’ve been sadder. In some ways I’m happy, I guess. I’m not a happy man, Eddie—never have been. But the thing is, I’m not as sad as I used to be. I mean, I really like living with you and Nena and Lizzie. They’re terrific, you know? And Rose—well, with Rose it’s like a having a mother. You know, Joaquin had a lot of women friends—well, he had a lot of friends in general. Me, I never hung with women much. I wasn’t interested in them—not their bodies, not their minds, not anything. J used to say it was because of the way Mom was. Who the hell knows? He liked Freud, J did—armchair intellectual—like you, Eddie. Anyway, I thought these women would drive me crazy, but they don’t. They kind of make me happy. It feels real nice.”
Eddie nodded.
Jake took his eyes off the road, and smiled at his brother. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure—shoot.”
“What’s it like to be straight?”
“It’s the best.” He broke out laughing. “Nothing like it.”
“Be serious.”
“It’s a silly question. What if I asked you, ‘What’s it like to be gay?’ What would you say?”
“I’d say it sucks. It really sucks, Eddie. I hated it for a long time. And then I either got used to it, or stopped noticing that I hated it or stopped noticing that I hated myself. The only thing I really liked about being gay was the sex. The sex was great. I’ve had some great sex, Eddie. Better than you’ve had, I bet.”
“I’m
not willing to concede that point. I am willing to concede the fact that I’ve had less sex than you. A lot less.”
“Yeah, well, now it’s killing me.”
Eddie reached over and touched his brother on the shoulder, “Being straight isn’t so great, you know?”
“Yeah, well you never had to defend your sexuality, did you? I’ll bet you’ve walked a thousand sidewalks with Maria Elena next to you—and a thousand people looked at you and said ‘What a lovely couple.’ You think those people would’ve said the same thing about me and J? It sucks, Eddie. Straight people are so fucking superior.” Eddie listened to the anger in his voice. It made him sad, and yet he knew his anger was what had helped him to survive. “You know, something, Eddie? I didn’t have any straight friends—Joaquin had them—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too angry.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie mumbled, “it was a stupid thing for me to say—”
“I’m not mad at you, Eddie.”
“Maybe a little mad—why not?”
“Well, we were raped together, weren’t we? It’s made you different—different than most men.”
“Don’t give me so much credit.”
“I know what I see.” His lips stayed perfectly still. “But I’ll tell you something, Eddie, no straight guy ever messed with me. I lifted weights. I worked construction—the whole thing. I only got out of construction work because Joaquin put me through school. I had a friend I worked with, construction-worker type. He always wanted to know why I was with a Mexican. He was like a lot of guys I know—only hung with whiles. Funny thing, Joaquin was one of the first people I ever met who even cared if I had a mind—him and Tom.”
“The doctor?”
“Yeah. Anyway, it was my turn to put him through school—and then—well, he didn’t live long enough to finish. Funny thing about Joaquin, he grew up with nothing—not a goddamn thing—and this guy was happy. I don’t mean he didn’t get angry—he got angry plenty. But it was a good anger—not like mine. I needed to be with someone who wasn’t born cursing the fucking world. He never hated anybody comfortably. He never held grudges. He didn’t hate himself.”
“It’s a family thing,” Eddie said, “In our family, we were taught to hale ourselves.”
Carry Me Like Water Page 42
