by Jon Pineda
Then another scuffle.
Something inside had possessed the younger brother. Welled up like a curse. Settled in his mouth and split his tongue, a fury. A fire stoked. His tongue burned with words he had never said before, but which he knew were reserved for only the most uncontrollable moments of anger.
Exequiel was mad at his brother. He didn’t know why. Then he did. Paul was leaving. It reminded him that he, Exequiel, had nowhere he could go.
Exequiel did not soften his words as he pushed on his brother, flailing with elbows. Fighting for the ball between them. Their father lost within the cloth.
“Let go,” Paul said, suddenly serious.
His smile had faded.
“You let go,” Exequiel said.
He continued to charge forward, wrapped up as he was in his brother’s arms. He wanted to hurry up and be free. He didn’t care for other things in this life, like his brother did. Other things were dreams. He wanted what was here, what was real.
Paul complaining plenty of times about the way things were. Paul wanting to go elsewhere, beyond the only place he and Exequiel had ever known together. Northward. Where land shifted out of itself and into other forms. Dreams filled with concrete.
“Mama, I will send money. I will build a huge house and bring you and Mano there to live.”
How many times had Exequiel heard this plea? It felt like a plea, to hear his brother repeat it like vespers. And with the same capacity their mother released such prayers in the town’s chapel. Too many to name, but always these repeated lines. A prayer ending with a miniscule flame being lit and that flame’s life watched briefly, until it disappeared within itself.
Exequiel had, at first, been excited to hear his brother say he would send him back a stitched-leather ball. The echoing remnants of this promise burned inside the boy’s desire to overcome his brother. Exequiel wanted to show him he would not back down.
Paul stood still.
“Mano, you need to calm down.”
“You need to calm down,” Exequiel said.
He had resorted to throwing full-on punches. Stepping into each one. Paul just stood there. He wouldn’t bring up his guard.
Whatever lingering guilt Paul felt accounted for more than he realized. He had not known what had kept him from leaving the night before. But now he knew. His little brother was making sure of it.
Exequiel had forgotten about the ball entirely, but when he pushed back on his brother, their legs tangled. The cloth ball had found its way between them again. As if trying to break the two brothers up.
Then Exequiel screamed.
Paul knew he had not hit him, but still, he threw his hands up. Exequiel immediately reached for the ground and hobbled over to the side of the empty street. He grabbed his ankle and fell into the grass. Glass, slender as a finishing nail, had lodged in the boy’s foot. He waited for the blood, but it did not appear.
“It hurts,” he said to Paul, and without saying a word, his brother took the lifted leg and searched for a wound that he could not readily see.
There, in the callous padding of his younger brother’s heel, Paul found where the glass had entered. If it were a compass needle, it would have been pointing north. Paul lightly brushed away more of the dirt and could see that it was, in fact, a substantial piece of glass. He pushed on it, expecting Exequiel to scream again, but to his surprise, his younger brother just looked at him.
“You don’t feel that?” Paul said.
“I do.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“It does.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Exequiel said.
“It will get infected,” Paul said.
Exequiel nodded and stood up, keeping his weight off his injured foot. Paul wanted to carry him back home, but Exequiel only leaned against him. He hopped back, wincing as he did, but he made no noise. He would not let on that it was painful.
The two did not wake up their mother. Paul found a pair of bent tweezers that were used for a number of jobs. Since there was no blood on his brother’s foot, Paul decided these would suffice and positioned his fingers to push on the spot again, until the glass sliver poked out. With the tweezers, he grabbed the end of the glass and pulled slowly, intent on keeping this most fragile piece intact. But Paul’s hands started to shake before the sliver could be removed all the way. The last fragment would have to be dug out. This digging is what brought forth the blood.
Finally, Exequiel prayed aloud.
Later, the echo of such shaking, the nervousness, would remind Exequiel of his brother’s inability to be who it was Exequiel desperately needed. Their father, they had somehow taken his memory and hidden it inside a game. Now Paul was leaving, and with him went the endless memories they had fought over.
When the ache rang forth again, it was in the bones of the ankle above the same foot, the very one newly shattered by the old man Nestor’s boots. He had kicked at Exequiel as if the boy were trying to keep the ball away from him. And how could Exequiel explain why, despite his mind going blank, he felt a small amount of gratitude for the bitter release?
When Exequiel woke, he felt nothing this time.
Part of the darkness lay in his throat. His head suddenly jolted back. The gag had been removed. There was a strange feeling now, though, as the entirety of the moment came back—like a bucket being lifted, smacking against the stones of a well, and the cold water spilling out and glazing the walls, some of the water falling but the majority continuing on upward, rope tightening in its weave, the excess water in the fibers wringing out as the bucket emerges into the feckless light of day—he screamed inside his head.
This is what saved him.
He had not uttered so much as one whimper. He had wanted to do more than that. He wanted to unhinge his jaw so that he could dump out the contents of his pain. So that the pain would pour forth unyieldingly.
The leg of the chair had long been removed from inside his shoulder, where it had pushed all the way through and endlessly twisted as if searching inside him for some truth. This gesture repeated until he had passed out. Now the wound was a mouth taking in air for him, as the scream continued in his head.
His wrists were still bound with twine, but one of the men had forgotten to secure his body. Exequiel sat up. He could see the bulky shadows of the men as they slept on their sides. They were little mountains of ash and smolder, mudslides all of them.
Exequiel turned onto his stomach. He nearly passed out from the bright light of his wounds, but he inched up, trying to stand. He immediately fell. His foot had been damaged, but the pain was only another version of light as his mind was gripped by only one thought now: a path.
The men continued on in their dreaming.
. . . .
How far had he gone before he felt he could go no further?
His breathing betrayed him. It was not easily stifled, especially as he had to drag his newly broken foot behind him. Each jut in the path sent a bolt through him. It caused his chest to shudder in the one place that most needed to be kept still. The bolts exited his body over and again from this one wound.
He fell.
He stood up and tried to go on, but could not.
When he fell again, he wasn’t sure if he had fallen. He thought perhaps he had reached the river and that the ground had given up, as he had given up. The pain he had felt after waking, the immensity of it, had transformed within him. It was teasing him. He lay on the ground that could have been the surface of the river and floated.
Are you awake? What are you doing, Mano?
He thought he heard his brother Paul calling for him from the other side of the river. The same words came to him. He raised his head slightly, though it was through a great amount of pain that he raised himself up on his elbows and tried to look. Was it the light now filling the edges of the distant trees that made him think, just briefly, that his brother had come back to him, and not only that,
but also with the gift of something bought and not handmade? Was it a stitched-leather ball that he juggled with his feet, the ball stalling in the air longer than seemed possible?
The ball across the river was held aloft in the new falling light. Then it dropped and rose erratically. He saw that it wasn’t a ball at all, just as his brother became a tree bending. The blur of the ball was a butterfly. It landed on his shoulder. The light touch of it nearly made him pass out. Then he did.
That morning Vin and some of the other boys went looking for Exequiel. When they found him, they were so scared that they didn’t think about anything other than grabbing their friend’s body and dragging him as best they could across a slower-moving section of the river, where they had crossed initially. It hadn’t taken long, given that there were more than a handful of them to carry Exequiel back to town.
They found Vin’s grandfather, who in an earlier version of his life had been a medical student. The old man, seeing the boy’s condition, covered his own mouth as if to hold the breath inside just a little longer. He remembered why he had given up his dream of becoming a doctor. Though his own parents had been deceased for longer than this boy had been alive, the old man could not shake the feeling that he had not only let his father down by flunking out of university, but he had, in essence, let this boy down as well.
“Abuelo?” Vin said.
“Give me a second,” his grandfather said.
The other boys were restless. They scooted around and switched positions. Their entire reason for being, up until that very moment, had been to look inward and summon strength they knew they normally didn’t possess, and now having done so, they felt entitled by having overcome their limitations. Everyone else needed to rise above his own constraints.
The old man, for one, needed to be doing something, but each time Vin addressed his grandfather, the old man just said, “Give me a second,” and the other boys could not understand why the old man was saying something like this. Couldn’t he see that seconds were not things that they could touch, that could be doled out?
The deliberations were cut short by Vin’s grandmother, who entered the house and dropped the large woven basket she had been carrying. Fruits rolled onto the floor and dispersed in all directions. She immediately asked Vin’s grandfather what had happened. The old man only sat down next to the wounded boy and did not respond.
The other boys paused in their unasked questions.
The old man held his own head in his hands. They felt sorry for this old man, though they didn’t know why exactly. Vin explained things quickly to his grandmother, as best he could, and his grandmother ordered the boys to lift their friend off the floor and carry him to her bed.
They were then to gather fresh water. Vin was to start a fire. Why hadn’t anyone thought to stop the bleeding, or at the very least, cover the wound from the flies? Some blood had pooled on the floor and left a dark oval. Vin’s grandfather did not stir until his wife came back over to where he was punishing himself and asked, “What are you doing?”
Exequiel opened his eyes. Vin yelled for his grandmother.
“Did you hear us talking about you?” the old woman asked Exequiel.
The boy glanced at her but did not speak.
Vin’s grandfather walked up beside her. Exequiel’s eyes widened.
“What is it?” the old man said. “Did I scare you? I can tell you that it is you who gave us a fright. I was not prepared to see what it was you wanted to show me. I was not prepared, and now I know I need to think on this. Maybe for the rest of my life I will be thinking about this day.”
The old man walked to the other side of the room and sat down in a chair and leaned over. The chair creaked as he gazed at the floor.
“Don’t mind him,” the old woman said, but Exequiel had stopped listening. He was already thinking about el más allá and the butterfly that had found him dying and had flown him back to his life.
seven
February 12, 200–
In regards to: Exequiel X. Guzman
DOC#331VA-77XX
Honorable Members of the Parole Board
Virginia Department of Corrections
P.O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261
Dear Honorable Members of the Parole Board:
My name is Mario Guzman, and for three years, I have served as a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia. I am the nephew of Exequiel Guzman DOC#331VA-77XX, and I am writing to you on his behalf.
It is my hope that after reviewing his record as an inmate, both his completion of numerous behavioral health programs, as well as his garnering a GED and an associate’s degree, you will find that he has exhibited a commitment toward bettering himself as an individual. In addition, my family and I are willing to provide him with all the support he will need to succeed.
I know my uncle has expressed deep regret for his past actions. Or at least, I feel he has. I don’t know anymore, actually. Can I be honest with you for a minute? There is nothing he needs to prove to you. Any of you people. I’m serious. It’s sickening, really, this process.
Your sole expectation seems to be that we build the case he is no longer a threat to society. That is truly fucked up. What if he was never a threat to begin with? What if this all started from a mistake that bloomed into where we are now?
Would it help to know that I used to wait for her? All I wanted was a chance to tell her something. I didn’t know what, exactly, but that didn’t matter to me then. I would sit near the far corner of the backyard, on the other side of their fence, hidden there, and sometimes they would let her out and I would crouch down and watch her, waiting. I didn’t feel terrible doing so.
Often she gathered small flowers, even dandelions, and as she did, she would sing to herself a kind of gibberish. I could never make out the words, if they were even words. I don’t care what anyone says, she was happy. But a different kind of happy. I saw it for myself. When I think about happiness now, I think of those moments of her singing to herself.
I’m sure you’re wondering if I ever had the chance to speak to her. Once, she wandered over to the corner where I was. It was almost evening. I felt like her mother was going to call her in at any moment, so I knew now would have to be my chance.
I stood up.
Maybe I startled her. I think I startled myself more. I was going to say it, whatever it was. The words, I guess. I swear I was going to say them. But my throat burned, the words glowing like embers.
I realized I was crying. I was trying to speak but nothing would come out. She, on the other hand, was patient with me. Maybe she was confused. She waited for me to say something. I don’t want to say I found this confusion comforting, even though I did. It made it easier that she didn’t know. That she would never know.
There, I said it.
I hope you can understand why I’m not sending this to you.
There is no you.
Respectfully,
Mario Guzman, M.D.
The neighbor’s cat, a gray tabby, had a sizeable piece out of its left ear. It pawed at the glass again. Mario could hear its claws click and then catch on the frame of the sliding door. He knew he should never have started feeding it when he had.
“Shoot him,” she said.
He could smell her breath. Ancient and sweet, like figs. Her lips were still colored from the wine. He pushed gently on her chin, trying to close her mouth, and she made a face, as if the touch alone had hurt. She turned onto her side.
“It’s a girl, by the way,” he said.
She said nothing.
Mario climbed out of bed and stood there, his nakedness held by the dim light. He stretched before reaching for his boxers. For the first time in a long time, he had nothing to do for the day.
“Make coffee,” she said.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
Just outside his bedroom were the den and the patio door. The Eliz
abeth River. The cat, wide-eyed, was tapping on the glass. It looked as if it had trapped a fly and was now about to kill it properly.
“I’m not happy with you,” he said, sliding the door open. The cat cocked its head. It sniffed at the air like a dog. When the cat entered the house, it did so slowly, almost begrudgingly.
In the kitchen, the cat rubbed its body along the trash can. Back and forth, like a bow across a string, the grating noise almost building into a note.
“I smell it too,” he said. He wiped at his eyes.
A plastic container held the remnants of lump crabmeat; the rest of the dried pieces were stuck along the inside of the trash bag. His last girlfriend, Tammy, had been so meticulous. The container would have gone through the dishwasher at least once, and then into the recycling bin.
On a shelf in the refrigerator, Mario found the wrapped plate. The last crab cake. The cat wove in and out between his legs. He pulled off the plastic wrap and set the plate down.
“You want to hear something funny, Queequeg?”
The cat made raspy noises as it chewed. It stared at the floor as if concentrating. The coffee pot was just finishing.
“Who are you talking to?” Janet said.
She wore one of his shirts, buttoned halfway. Her tangled black hair was pulled to one side. She had brought her chunky glasses this time, had smuggled them in her small purse. She looked like a librarian who had just survived a tornado.
“What?” she said. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said. He reached down to pet the cat. It hissed at him. He didn’t move, waiting for the wet sandpaper of its tongue.
She stepped around them both to get to the coffee. “You take cream and sugar, right?” She searched for the container of sugar.
He didn’t answer her.
On the side of the refrigerator was a hanging calendar. He saw his uncle’s name, a penciled-in X, and the time they had planned to meet written carefully underneath.
