The Water Museum

by Luis Alberto Urrea

  “Do you think,” he had asked his old boss, “is an anti-immigrant thing?”

  Dexter Bower had glared at him with that hawkeye of his.

  “You’re asking me if they’re racists?” he demanded.

  Juan shrugged.

  Dexter scooted his chair back and said, “C’mere.”

  They stepped out the door onto 5th Street.

  “Main Street,” Dexter said. “USA.”

  “Sí.”

  “Two trucks and a Cadillac.”

  Juan, nodding.

  “This isn’t New York City, Juan. This is West Linden.”

  “Yes.”

  “You boys came in here and picked our crops. Then you knew a good thing when you saw it and started to settle. The migrant workers left guys and gals here like seeds. Am I right?”

  “You right, Jefe.”

  “And you made restaurants.”

  “We did. Good ones!”

  “Not arguing that, Juan,” Dexter said. “But we didn’t have but three restaurants in town. Now look.”

  He pointed all around him.

  Taquería Los Reyes. Across the street, Pedro’s Así Es Mi Tierra. Down the block, Araceli’s Cantina La Buena.

  “There’s nothin’ but tacos on this goddamn street, Juan! Pee-dro over there was the last one to move in and that just about tore it. Man, how many tacos do you expect a fellow to eat? The mayor has been begging McDonald’s to open a place here for a year just to eat a cheeseburger!”

  “Caray,” said Juan. “What do I do?”

  Dexter Bower, the sun on the sidewalk, offered wisdom:

  “Diversify.”

  * * *

  Dexter drove past the cemetery and turned his head away. He still couldn’t bear to look in there. Didn’t like catching himself counting the stones till he found hers. Didn’t like feeling guilty that he hadn’t left flowers lately. All flowers did was wilt and turn brown.

  A thousand miles of bright land swam around the road.

  He didn’t know what the hell people were talking about when they called Iowa dull. The fields were the deepest green and brightest gold on earth. The sky blew high with piles of electric clouds. And grackles and crows flew between cottonwoods and fence posts. He loved it, loved it like a girlfriend. From the bluffs on the Mississippi to the flat acres of tilled crops. He loved the barns and the silos and the old trucks and the horses drooping under shade trees and the watering holes. Sunflowers.

  He loved the road and the turtles sneaking across it from pond to pond and the boys riding their bikes down dirt lanes. And he loved West Linden—looked for the barbershop where his dad had had his hair cut and his son did too, looked at the green square with its old cannon, looked to see if the flag was at half-mast, looked to see if the bookstore was open. He was a little sweet on the widow McGinnis, but he was shy, didn’t know how long was long enough before he could go courting. But he bought lots of used detective paperbacks from her. He even tried one of her mocha lattes from time to time. Dessert in a cup. She always tried to put whipped cream on it. He guffawed and rattled over frost heaves slathered with tar stripes. Dexter went so far as to like the ridiculous cell tower somebody had built to look like an incongruous giant pine tree. He liked it that a tornado had never hit them yet.

  Well, the Mexicans had hit, that was true. But without them, he could not have afforded to keep farming. Now that most of them were gone—except for Juan and his busboys and wife—the Bower farm was in serious trouble. There were no kids around anymore to take up the slack, and even if there were, he couldn’t get them to bend to a hoe if he paid them three times what he paid the Mexies. When he gave away free pumpkins in October, the lazy sons of bitches didn’t even come out to pick their own. He had to pile them in the F-150 and give them away on the square.

  “Hell in a handbasket,” he muttered, as he parked in the diagonal slot in front of Juan’s Italian Cuisine—We Cook American.

  He stared at the window and shook his head.

  It said: ESPECIAL TODAY—ESPAGETI!

  Well, at least Juan was trying.

  * * *

  “What the hell is this?” Dexter said.

  “Jefe! Is espageti!”

  Dex looked at the generous pile of pasta and the thick red sauce. Mushrooms. That was good. Garlic bread (even though it was a Mexican bolillo). What baffled Dexter was the sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  He pointed at the plate and glared at Juan.

  “What?” said Juan.

  It sounded like Guah?

  “Eggs? In spaghetti?” Dexter demanded.

  “Claro!”

  “Who the hell eats eggs in spaghetti, is what I’m asking you.”

  Juan looked stricken.

  “Nosotros. Is my father’s recipe, pues.”

  He said receipt. The “p” was not silent.

  “Juan! The idea was to make real American Eye-talian food. This is… this is …Mexican spaghetti.”

  Juan sat.

  “This is very hard, Jefe.”

  Dexter tasted the food. It was weird. But, he had to admit, tasty. Eggs. ’Bout made him barf. He ate some more.

  Beto the busboy was watching soccer on a small TV near the register. Carmela, Juan’s vastly pregnant wife, sat sideways in a booth with her feet up, snoring softly. Across the room, Preacher Visser was digging into a plate. A good Presbyterian—he had done the funeral for the Bowers. His hat sat on the table.

  “Rev,” Dexter said.

  Visser waved with one hand and kept eating.

  “What are you having?” Dexter asked.

  “Chicken parm, with a glass of Chianti. Delicious.”

  “Early for wine,” Dex couldn’t help noting.

  “Good enough for Jesus,” the reverend replied.

  Juan grinned at Beto and said, “Mira este cabrón.” They laughed.

  Juan leaned across the table. “Jefe?” he whispered. “It’s Hungry Man. Microwave.” He raised his hands. “They don’ know the difference.”

  Dex was rankled.

  “Look here,” Dexter said. “I told you—you want Americans in here, make pizzas. And not like that tostada you made last time. Not—” he hissed so the pastor wouldn’t hear—“television dinners!”

  Juan sighed.

  “Pizzas,” he said, as if someone had just suggested something deeply heretical to a priest. He called them peeksas. “I would have to get an oven.”

  Beto ambled over and refilled the pastor’s glass.

  “Peeksas,” Juan continued. “I know, I know, Jefe. Peeksas and calzones.”

  “Meatball torpedo would be nice,” the rev said.

  “Submarine,” Dexter corrected.

  “Guah?” said Juan.

  “In Boston,” the rev announced, “we called them grinders.”

  “Qué?”

  Dexter made a what have I been sayin’ gesture.

  “Pizzas. Calzones. Get the oven. Take orders by phone. Make Beto deliver.”

  “I ain’t driving no delivery car,” Beto said and went back to his game.

  Calzones. He smirked. Gringos didn’t know that meant underpants.

  “If you won’t do it, Juan can give that fine job to a deserving white man!”

  “Now, Dex,” the rev chided him.

  Juan shook his head. “No like. You hurtin’ me now.”

  Dexter had just about had it with this happy horseshit and was thinking about driving back to his house and cracking a beer and to hell with it. There was a Deadliest Catch marathon on the dish. Not a Mexican in sight!

  “All right. I am sorry.”

  “Have beer,” Juan said.

  “Sí, sí.” Dex rubbed his forehead. “Cómo no?”

  * * *

  The three of them stood out on the sidewalk. Juan, Dexter Bower, and Preacher Visser—who had a plastic glass of wine in his mitt. Across the street, Pedro’s Velvet Dragon Chinese Restaurant seemed to be doing fair business. Better than Juan’s Italian.

 
; Dexter looked down at Araceli’s Mom’s Cantina. He had scolded her—“cantina” was not American in any way, and didn’t go with “Mom’s” no matter what language you were speaking. Christ on a waffle—these people were like children.

  Pinches gringos, Juan was thinking. Sangrones.

  Dex had told Araceli to call it Mom’s Café, damn it! He had bellowed, “I am just trying to help!” and all the staff at Mom’s had hidden in the kitchen and wondered why gringos shouted their heads off all the time. They thought that if you had an accent, you were deaf. If they just screamed their idiotic announcements at you, real-slow-too-just-to-get-the-p-o-i-n-t-across, you’d somehow understand them better.

  Just then, Arnie and Ina pulled up to the Velvet Dragon in their Buick Regal. Arnie waved across at Dexter and shouted, “Last month it was Mexican. Now it’s Chinese. Ain’t had Chinese in ages!”

  Dexter nodded expansively, so it could be seen from across the street. He was acting mayor and president of the Chamber of Commerce for the moment.

  “Ina,” he called.

  Ina steadied herself with one hand on the hood and proclaimed “Spring rolls” before they vanished inside.

  And now Dexter almost fell off the curb. He was looking down the block at Araceli’s joint. She had changed the sign, all right. It said MOM’S COFFEE.

  “What the hell is that?” Dexter cried.

  “A sign,” Juan explained mildly.

  “That’s wrong.”

  “No, Jefe. Is correct. A sign.”

  “The wording, man. The wording. It’s wrong.”

  “No. Is one hundred percent correct. We put in apostrophe and everything.”

  Visser patter Juan on the shoulder.

  Dexter shook his head.

  Juan said, “You tell us to never write in Spanish. But you made the mistake, Jefe. You said put ‘café.’ Pues ya sabes—‘café’ es espanish.”

  “No, no! ‘Café’ is not Spanish.”

  “It is.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  “Is too,” said Visser. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Oye, no mames,” Juan snapped, patience about evaporated. “Is coffee.”

  “No,” said Dexter. “Not in this context.”

  “Con qué?” said Juan.

  “Lookit—‘café’ means restaurant.”

  “Guah? Are you joking me right now?”

  Yoking.

  “A café is a fancy li’l restaurant,” Dexter explained. He huffed. He spit. “It’s French or something.”

  Juan cursed: “Cheezits krize! French is American now?”

  “Wel-l-l,” sputtered Dexter, forging ahead in a manly fashion, “it’s more American than Mexican.”

  Juan sighed.

  “You people, Jefe. You no make sense.” He shrugged. “We must go tell Araceli,” he said.

  They headed that way.

  Juan noted, “You language is for locos.”

  “You’re welcome to go back to Tollackee-packee and speak Mexican all damned day.”

  “Now, boys,” said the rev, sipping his wine.

  * * *

  Araceli was unfazed by the whole crisis.

  She had just heard that her sister, uncle, and nephew had made it safely to El Paso and were catching a Greyhound north. She was considering opening a liquor store. Maybe a bar, which is where her heart was. El Farolito, she was thinking. Or El Bar No Seas Burro. Araceli was always happy. But she was done with signs.

  “I can sell coffee,” she said. “The sign? No big deal.”

  “We need food. American food. Not coffee.” Dexter grabbed Visser’s glass and swallowed the dregs of the wine. “Grilled cheese. Chili dogs. What I wouldn’t give for a chili dog. Hell, there hasn’t been a decent hot dog in this town for months.”

  Araceli turned her huge eyes upon him and stroked his arm.

  “Pobrecito,” she cooed.

  She had plans for the Bower spread. As soon as she landed Old Man Dex, El Jefe. She could just imagine her new American kitchen at his place with some molcajetes and jarritos and a nice bright red ceramic crowing rooster statue and a tortilla press.

  “Pobre Deysterr. Estás tan cute!”

  She pinched his cheek and cracked him a cold Corona. He blushed. This is how she knew she had him hooked. She would make him fat and happy and would rub his feet.

  Dexter watched her bottom work the bright blue skirt like a couple of tractor motors under a tarp. Holy smokes, that was fine, right there. He drank.

  They were seated at a table. Dexter was thinking of them as The Three Amigos now—he, Juan, and Visser. Getting into the swing of things. Trying to apply the therapeutic concepts of the rev, who had given him some good sessions of the talking cure after the funeral. Bend like a reed in the wind, Visser had advised. The rigid break in strong wind, Dexter. Bend like the reeds. Bend like the grasses. Weather every storm.

  Dexter was bending his ass off—like a reed, he told himself. Evergreen. Forever spring. Shit.

  Araceli had created her first traditional turkey dinner. She was dying for them to sample this miraculous creation. Dexter didn’t think he could eat anything at this point. He was thinking chips and nacho cheese in front of the tube in his easy chair with the fat dog snoring and farting at his feet. He eyed Visser; the pastor seemed ready to eat any number of meals in a row. Juan simply looked miserable, rubbing his head.

  “Ay, mi cabeza,” he said.

  Visser dug around in his pocket and dropped a stone on the table. It clattered in front of Dexter. Dexter glanced down. “Arrowhead,” said Visser. “Found it in my garden.”

  “Yeah,” said Dexter. “Found a million of ’em on the farm. Used to plow ’em up all the time. Gave ’em to the boy.” He sipped his beer. “He glued ’em on a board. Got it…somewhere.”

  Juan fingered the arrowhead.

  “Wow,” he said. Somehow, he turned it into Spanish. Guau.

  Araceli delivered placemats and silverware and water to them. Then, with a flourish and a sly little wink at Dexter, she produced three plates piled with steaming turkey and deep purple beets and globs of cranberries and wads of orange sweet potatoes.

  “Ah,” said Dexter.

  “Ajua!” said Juan.

  Visser was already eating.

  But Araceli wasn’t done yet. She came from the kitchen bearing a Talavera pitcher that featured a primary color sun face smiling into the sad blue visage of a quarter moon. She came around the table and managed a deeply suggestive hip bump into Dexter’s shoulder with her good right hip.

  “Don’t forget the bes’ part!” she enthused.

  She bent over the table and proceeded to tip the pitcher over each plate and spill a thick white goo over everything. It covered the turkey and the yams and puddled all over each plate. Roughly the texture of heavy whipping cream. Dexter couldn’t, by God, tell what that was supposed to be.

  “What is that?” he asked. “Gravy?”

  Stung, Araceli backed away from the table and clutched the pitcher to her heart.

  “Is los mash potatoes!” she cried and ran to the kitchen in humiliation. They could hear her crying in there.

  Dexter rose.

  “God. Damn. It,” he announced. “Look here. This is my country. This is my country. We been here, working this land, forever. We made our lives here. We planted crops here. We had our children and—and we buried our loved ones here. Right here! Is it too goddamned much to ask that somebody pay the slightest fucking attention to our traditions and history and stop wrecking everything? Could you learn the language? Could you cook a simple meal that anybody from here would recognize as real food? Am I asking too much?”

  He was red in the face and shaking. He was embarrassed about the whole thing—ashamed of his comment to Araceli, ashamed to have shown his emotions, ashamed that he had tears in the corners of his eyes. Outbursts were simply not the West Linden way.

  Reverend Visser just stared at his own hands with his head bowed. Juan fin
gered the arrowhead, spun it around and around with one finger. He didn’t want to eat the goopy mash potatoes either. “Yeah, Jefe. That’s what Geronimo said.”

  Dexter stared at him. They heard Araceli blow her nose. Visser cleared his throat as if to speak, but apparently thought better of it. Juan spun the arrowhead, and Dexter wondered what tribe it had come from.

  He sat back down.

  He put his napkin in his lap.

  He took up his fork and his knife and he bent like a reed in the wind.

  “I expect you two,” he said, “to eat every bite.”

  The rest was silence.

  Twelve

  Welcome to

  the Water Museum

  Fat orange light squatted in the brown sky. It wasn’t like that every day—most days were stained-glass blue. But the dust and the smoke tended to hang there more and more. Old-timers told Billy they’d give a dollar to see a good old-fashioned gray sky full of rain. He rode his bike down County Road 120, no cars in sight. And no clouds. Somebody had painted Droughty Road on the signs. That was pretty funny, he thought. The corn and soybean fields were so toasted they were just dirt fields now. Billy couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a cow.

  Big white wind propellers turned slowly. The kids called them sunflowers. The towers reminded Billy of those crazy alien machines from War of the Worlds. He really liked that one. He and his boys would fight the windmill towers with BB guns and slingshots.

  The ground was crazed in crack patterns like in the westerns Pops loved, but the boys didn’t like those so much.

  Billy watched Pops out there in the field, standing between his pickup and the army water unit. Home from work early and working again, but as he pointed out every day—chores were never done. Pops trudged like a mule from job to job. Billy waved. Pops stood there staring at him, then waved back. At least that run of one-hundred-degree days had broken.

  A trio of helicopters chugged in the distance, going from east to west. Daily rounds, checking the last crops. They looked like crows, Pops liked to say. Later in the afternoon, they’d show up on the north side of the road, flying from west to east. Going back to base.