Amigoland (18 page)

“You should write it down,” she said, “so it stays with you.”

He looked up at her and then at his brother.

“It was nothing that important, just something about when the Indians were attacking them.” He slurped up another spoonful.
“And anyway, nobody wants to know what an old man remembers.”

“Come on and say it,” Don Celestino told him. “We’ve been waiting to hear what you would come up with for the next chapter.”

“So you can make fun? No, I prefer to stay with my mouth shut.”

“Go on, we want to hear what more you remember.”

“I prefer to keep it to myself.” He stirred his soup without looking up.

“And if you forget it later?” she asked.

He hadn’t considered this. The girl had a point: so much had slipped away from him once. What’s to say it wouldn’t happen
again? This afternoon he could lie down for his nap and wake up to find his memory had been erased completely or smeared to
the point of being indistinguishable, like some of the names in his address book. At least if he told it to the girl — Socorro
— she could hold on to it for him and tell him later, if he couldn’t remember it himself.

“He told me a circus had already traveled through most of Mexico when it arrived in the north and stopped in Linares, before
they planned to travel over to this side of the river. All of the families from around there went to see this circus. None
of them had ever in their lives seen a bear or an elephant or whatever else they had brought in the circus. It wasn’t like
those fancy circuses they have today. This one was just a man who came to town with a few wagons full of animals nobody had
ever seen. He stopped the wagons in an open field close to a river that passed through one side of town. I think it was in
the fall when this took place, but it could’ve also been the spring, or the summer. But maybe not the spring because they
would have been busy in the fields.” He stopped to rub the back of his neck, then shook his head. “He told me when it was
that it happened, only I forgot that part even before my mind turned to cheese. What I remember was, the circus man had brought
out the bear tied to a thick rope, but with so many people crowded around and Papá Grande only seven years old, he could barely
see what the animal was doing. His brother was younger and could see even less, but then their father had the good idea to
put Papá Grande up on his back so he could be higher. And their uncle did the same with the little brother. Now that he was
higher, Papá Grande could see the bear standing on a block of wood and then standing on one paw, then on the other. The bear
did more tricks, but by then Papá Grande didn’t see them because something had caught his eye. Off in the distance, past the
field and away from the river, he could see some horses. They were still more than half a mile away when he spotted them.
At first he thought they were just horses, but when they got closer, he could see men on the horses and that these men were
Indians.”

The old man scratched at the crown of his head. “He never said exactly how many of them — but I guess maybe twenty or more,
enough that he should have told his father or his uncle. Maybe he thought the Indians and horses were part of the circus,
because he only kept watching them get closer and closer without opening his mouth. If he had, maybe it would have turned
out different.”

“Maybe he was scared,” Socorro said.

“Not as much as when they grabbed his uncle, the one they scalped — it could have been his uncle they scalped first or maybe
it was the circus man — I have trouble remembering which one they got hold of first. But it was with all the confusion that
he got separated from his mother and his little brother, since she must have been trying to hide him somewhere. Then Papá
Grande saw when the first arrow hit his father. That was the other part I remembered, how they killed him.” The old man stopped
to point down to exactly where. “Right to the bladder was where the arrow got him and how he bled to death. This is the man
who would be our great-grandfather.”

The waitress refilled Don Fidencio’s coffee cup, and he took his time adding the Sweet’N Low and then the creamer. Though
his brother and Socorro had finished with their meals, he was only halfway through his bowl of menudo.

“So then to the bladder?” Don Celestino asked.

“Yes, down there to the bladder.”

“And you are sure he said it was there, nowhere else?”

“That was the way Papá Grande remembered it, to the bladder.” The old man used his butter knife to show him where again.

His brother only halfway nodded.

“What?”

“No, nothing.”

“No, nothing what?”

“It just seems like a curious place for the arrow to hit him, that’s all.”

“And what is so curious about it? The bladder is a part of the body, every man has one. The Indian could have hit him anywhere
— in the stomach, in the heart, in the kidneys — but he hit him in the bladder, like I just said.”

“Not the appendix?”

Don Fidencio set the butter knife back on the table. “Already I told you what I remembered, the way he told it to me that
last time. When I was there, not you.”

“I think you might be confused with that one part,” Don Celestino said. “How would he know where exactly the arrow got him,
that it was exactly in the bladder, if he was only seven years old? At that age, what could he know about a man’s bladder?”

“He knew enough just seeing where the arrow was sticking out of his father.”

“And that was the only arrow that got him?”

“Maybe it wasn’t the only arrow,” Don Fidencio said. “I said an arrow to the bladder killed him — that’s all I said. Who cares
how many or where the others went? You think Papá Grande sat there counting the arrows that were sticking out of his father,
writing it down, so that later you might believe the story?”

“I was only saying it seemed strange that the arrow would hit him right there.”

“Go talk to the Indians about that — they were the ones who did it.”

“Which Indians?”

“The Indians that attacked the circus,” the old man snapped. “Now who is the one that can’t remember things?”

“He means what kind,” Socorro said.

“Just Indians, the kind that ride horses and shoot arrows, what more do you want me to tell you? All I know is the army had
been trying to kill them off or send them to the north, but over here they were also trying to get rid of them. Nobody wanted
them around.”

“But which ones? Comanche, Apache…” Don Celestino tried to remember others, but they weren’t coming to him right then. “How
can you say, ‘Just Indians’?”

“I can say whatever I want.” He took a sip of his coffee. “The thing is, you’re always against me. Only because I know more
about our grandfather and where he came from, more than some people.”

“Yes, Fidencio Rosales, the one who knows everything there is to know, even how much I cared about our grandfather.”

“If for real you cared, you would at least take me to see the ranchito. It wouldn’t matter that you refused to believe what
happened, you would still take me.”

“Again with your ideas?” Don Celestino leaned back against the booth.

“You said we could go one of these days, you said it, that I remember.”

“And tell me how you expect to go in your condition?”

“You make more out of it than it is,” he said, and kicked at the walker. “I use this thing only because those women stole
my canes. If not, I would be walking fine, same as always, same as I did for forty-two years, and then they couldn’t keep
me locked up. Against my wishes, they have me there.”

“And if you get tired?”

“Then I rest, like I do now. Being tired is not going to kill me. Ya, I would’ve been dead for years if that was all it took.
And anyway, this is just for a couple of days. We could leave in the morning and be there by the afternoon and start looking
for the ranchito. And only for a day if you wanted, coming back the next day or the one after that, if we needed to rest.”

“If you needed to rest, not me,” his brother said.

“What I mean to say is that however it turns out, it wouldn’t take so long. Just for a few days to go there and back, so that
way you could get back to your house.”

Don Celestino thought about how he had just flipped the calendar to a new month, March, then reviewed each day, comparing
it to February and January, and tried to fill in as many squares as possible —
take trash can out to curb, buy groceries, pay utility bill, check air-conditioner filter.
He looked at his brother and for just a second he imagined what the calendar might look like with a big
X
across at least a couple of those days.

“But still, all that way to see a ranchito?”

“I checked and it was only four or five hours by bus,” Socorro said. “If it was me, I would think it was a short trip. And
then on the way back maybe you and your brother would have one less thing to argue about.”

Don Celestino turned as if he’d forgotten she was sitting next to him in the booth.

“You wanted to go?”

“Maybe, if somebody invited me.”

T
he trip, as it turned out, was shorter than any of them had imagined. At dinnertime Don Fidencio happened to mention it to
The Gringo With The Ugly Finger and The One With The Worried Face, who in turn mentioned it to The One With The Flat Face,
who in turn mentioned it to The One With The Big Ones, who in turn mentioned it over the phone to Amalia, who then called
her father to say she wasn’t going to let him take a trip to someplace that probably didn’t exist anymore, if it ever did.
She reminded him several times, as if he might have forgotten, that she was his legal guardian now. And it didn’t matter how much he complained or who he wanted to call a son of a bitch or who he wanted to say was to blame
for all this — the fact that he was being taken care of as if he were an invalid, the fact that they kept making him take
so many pills, the fact that they thought he needed more assistance when he needed less, less, less, the fact that they had
stolen his canes only to make it look like he did need more assistance, the fact that because of all this she was now claiming
that he was too weak to be going anywhere — because he still wasn’t going anywhere. Don Fidencio tried to explain that the
trip wouldn’t take so long, a couple of days at most, but she wasn’t listening. No was no. He finally slammed the phone down,
then called her back two more times, but only so he could do it again.

Later he called his brother and this time went ahead and left the news on his answering machine (calling back three times
because the woman on the recording kept cutting him off before he could spit out all the details). And no, there was no reason
to call him back. What was there to talk about? She said it herself, he was too old to be going on trips. She left word with
the people in charge of the prison. “The One Already Halfway Dead does not have permission to leave the building, not even
for just a couple of days.” For nothing.

He spent the rest of that day and the next morning in his room, taking his meals in bed, and came out the next afternoon only
when he needed to go outside to smoke. Four of The Turtles had gathered near the large window inside the recreation room,
hoping to see the grackles that poked around in the grass. The Turtle With The Fedora knocked on the window to get his attention.
When he turned, she motioned for him to move away, find someplace else for his vices, not in the one area reserved for the
poor little birds. Don Fidencio stared back at The Turtle With The Fedora with the same lifeless stare he had given the grackles.
Then he stood up, steadying his hunched-over body, and without using his walker shuffled over to the window. He reached into
his pocket for his cigarettes, drew one out, tapped the end of it on the back of his splotchy hand, then steadily guided it
to his waiting lips. It took a few clicks on the lighter before he could make his thumb hold down the tiny lever that kept
the flame going. The Turtle With The Fedora looked over her shoulder and said something to The Turtles gathered around her,
all of whom shook their heads in unison. She was turning back toward the window when the old man blew a cloud of smoke toward
her face.

The Turtles filed out in their wheelchairs, one by one, just as Don Celestino walked through the recreation room to get to
the patio. Near the corner of the back fence, one of the male grackles had hopped onto a rotting stump and was using its beak
to poke around inside, as if it had found something to eat, a termite or some other insect. Two of the other grackles came
to investigate, but the larger one scared them off by flapping its wings.

“They let you smoke out here?” Don Celestino asked.

His brother shrugged, then scooted over to one side of the stone bench. “And why not?”

“You need to take care of your health.”

“For what, if this is where they send you when you are ready to die?”

“Just because she said no this time doesn’t mean anything. Maybe later she could change her mind.”

“You mean when I get a little older?” Don Fidencio drew from his cigarette and cocked his head back to exhale. “No, she just
wants me to stay here with all the other strangers who are waiting for their next home.” He used his chin to motion toward
the ground in case there was any doubt in his brother’s mind where this next place might be.

Don Fidencio tapped his cigarette, and the ashes floated onto the patio and then off into the yard. A one-legged grackle was
hopping in lopsided circles, carelessly drawing itself closer and closer to the bench, as if it sensed that the old man was
preoccupied at the moment.

“What if we went somewhere else that was closer?” Don Celestino asked. “I was thinking we could drive over to Reynosa, see
where you went for your first haircut, maybe the shop is still there.”

“Ya, I told you that she said no!” he said, then kicked the ashtray canister and sent it rolling into the grass. The gimpy
bird hopped along until it was able to lift off and flutter to the top of the wooden fence.