Consumption (9 page)

To Javier, his second job wasn't like a job at all. He loved riding the paper route. It wasn't his bike,
unfortunately—his
boss, Terry, was letting him borrow it. For Javier, the route was relaxing and enjoyable. It allowed him time to stretch his legs and lungs from being cooped up in the factory all day. It allowed him time to think.

Today he was thinking about Mabel. He couldn't help it. He was smitten. He grinned at the use of the word. “Smitten.” He'd been making himself read a Jane Austen book (which, it had to be admitted, he quite liked) because he'd read her name on a list of the “greats” for authors, and he wanted to see what the fuss was about. He'd taken the book from the local library, as he did all his books, by sneaking it out, because without identification he didn't qualify for a card. He didn't count it as stealing because he always returned them. So far, in the Austen book, there were several characters smitten with a Mr. Darcy, although the lead girl was proving a lot harder to win over.

Javier mounted his bike, rolling up his left pants leg to keep it out of the spokes. He imagined himself as Mr. Darcy, trying to woo the reluctant Mabel.

He blushed. Gay! What was he thinking of. God, what a stupid hombre. If his friends back home could have heard him thinking this trash they would have beat the shit out of him.

He started his route, tossing the papers expertly onto the doorsteps, never missing. Not that anybody gave a shit. These weren't real papers, just a kind of buyer's guide with a bunch of junk ads that most people threw away. According to Terry, the last kid hadn't even bothered to deliver them, just tossed them in a dumpster, which was why he'd been fired.

Javier flung another bundle in a well-aimed arc. He had a perfect arm. One of his greatest regrets about not attending school was the missed chance to be on a sports team. He thought he'd make a hell of an athlete. His dad had always told him so. Told him that someday he'd teach Javier to ride like he did, maybe let him enter a few rodeos.

“But not for life,” his
padre
had said, pulling up his pants legs and showing Javier his beat-up legs, so bent and deformed from crookedly mended bones that they looked like broken sticks stuck back together with putty. “Life, it's for education. So that your legs, they don't look like mine.”

Javier stood up on the pedals of his bike, enjoying the whip of the wind against his face. No trouble with his legs here, not just yet. And the education would come. After Gabriela it would come.

Down the streets of Cavus he flew, his bike as much a part of him as his arm, the two of them moving as one through the town that was the first one in a long time to feel like home to him. But home was where you made it, that's what his mom always said. He agreed. Wasn't anything for free in this world, not even feeling like you had a home. You had to work for it, and Javier didn't just work, he busted his ass. Wasn't anyone, not even the cop from last night, going to stop him from giving his family a home.

He rounded the corner of Cinbar Street, flipping the last paper onto the porch of Mr. Harold Pimberton. He checked his watch. It was nearly nine o'clock now. Javier tucked his empty bag in front of him, in between the handlebars. The whole route finished in only fifty minutes. Record time.

Javier slowed down his peddling, letting his bike coast as he headed back to Terry's. He'd say bye, get his pay (always in cash and under the table), and go home to take his family to the Festival.

At Terry's, Javier dismounted and carried the empty paper satchel to the front door, where he knocked. The door immediately swung open, but to Javier's complete surprise, it was not Terry who opened it.

Javier's heart began to hammer. What was going on? Had he made a mistake? He spun around, quickly, looking to see if somehow he'd been stupid enough to get the wrong house. No. There was the big cottonwood in the front yard, same as ever. There, too, was the tacky mailbox, its cover painted to resemble a red cartoon car.

“Something the matter?” the figure from the door asked.

“You…I…” Javier tried to clear his throat but failed; it had gone dry. Around him the brilliant morning sun lit the world like a movie set.

The figure smiled, then stepped fully out onto the porch.

Mabel Joyce was dressed like he'd never seen her, wearing tight black shorts and a running shirt that stopped at her midriff. “Javier, isn't it? Javier, would you like to come in?”

His shyness immediately kicked in, and he began grasping for some kind of excuse, an apology at having disturbed her. But then he thought again of the Austen book, of Mr. Darcy. What would that guy do? He'd grow some balls, that was what.

Not trusting himself, Javier walked tremblingly up the steps toward the red glow of Mabel's hair and stepped into his boss's house.

“Just who I wanted to see.”

John and Erma were on their way back to Bunny's when the sheriff found them, their faces still sticky from the purple cows.

“Good God,” said Erma. “What have you done to our dog?”

Maxie bounded forward, tugging the leash out of Riley's hand. He let her go, throwing his hands up in the air. “Now, I won't be taking the blame for this one. That's all Anita's work.”

By the time Maxie reached them, the bow sagged over an eye. Erma watched as John gently bent to remove it, and thought again of the thing she wanted to tell him, the decision she'd made about trying again.

Behind them, the noise of the Festival crews carried over—a hammer, edging in the last beams for a craft booth; women, voices high with excitement, setting out their wares.

Riley grinned. “We don't have much else to get worked up about,” he explained.

In the daylight, Erma hardly recognized the man. He wasn't wearing his uniform, but instead a clean, pressed, red button-down shirt, well worn, with thin spots showing through at the elbows and a limp collar. With this he wore a pair of ubiquitous olive work pants that did not entirely match the top's style or color palette.
The typical bachelor,
Erma thought. He was younger than she'd originally guessed, probably just pushing fifty.

“Bunny update you on your car?” Riley asked.

“She said this afternoon,” John nodded. “We were checking out the Festival in the meantime.”

“Oh, it's a good little town,” Riley said, though something crossed his face as he said this, a hint of frown that flickered into being and then just as quickly disappeared.

“Are you going to the Festival?” Erma asked, wondering if either of them had said something that might have offended him.

“Sure,” he said.

“Will you go with anyone?”

“Usually I take my daughter. But she's with her mother this year. I guess maybe Bunny will put up with my company for the day.”

That must be it, Erma thought. The man was thinking of his daughter's absence. And she remembered what Riley had told her last night, that he had only just moved back to Cavus. Perhaps he had yet to reconnect with any old friends or make new ones. Moving anywhere was a lonely business, even if you had been there before.

“Actually,” she said, “we were planning on staying an extra day and hitting up the Festival ourselves. We'd be thrilled to have you accompany us, if you'd like.”

Riley gave her a funny look.

“I mean, I'm sure you've got your own things to do, and—”

“No,” said Riley. “That would be nice. It's just, I've got a little work to do today. We had…an incident.”

“What happened?” asked John.

“Nothing at all to worry about,” Riley said. “But I'll need to poke around some at the Festival, maybe run off on my own a bit to rub elbows, check a few details. Boring things like that, but if you can stand it, I'd be thrilled to go with you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” John said. Erma was once again amazed at her husband's good mood. Normally he would balk at having to spend time with a stranger.

“It's a beautiful town,” Riley said. “Just beautiful. I'd like to show somebody that.”

“Well, we're your folks,” John said. “And you won't need to do much convincing. Especially after the way you treated us when our car broke down.”

Riley seemed to have regained some of the bumbling good nature that Erma remembered from the night before. “It sounds like a heck of a day,” he said. “How about we pick up Bunny and get started with it?”

The three of them walked in amiable silence back to Bunny's house, Maxie loping along beside them. From Bunny's porch, they could hear the sound of singing inside. Riley grinned, raising his hand to knock. “She's got a lot of other talents,” he said.

Bunny appeared at the door, opening it for them with her hip as she wiped her wet hands on her apron. Before Erma could stop her, Maxie rushed forward, sensing her opportunity. Quickly, Bunny tried to shut the door, but it was too late. The dog bounded inside, pushing against the woman's legs.

“I'm so sorry,” Erma began, already beginning to make a joke of it in her mind. She turned to apologize, expecting the usual good grace of their hostess.

Instead, Bunny shrank back against the door, opened her mouth wide, and screamed.

Javier stared dumbfounded at the girl in front of him for a full minute before he finally found his voice.

“What are you doing here? Where's Terry?”

Mabel didn't answer either question. Instead, miracle of miracles, she took Javier's hand. “I've wanted to talk to you for such a long time, Javier.” She pulled him farther inside, and he felt a lump rise in his throat.

Un. Fucking. Real.

He did not hesitate as she led him down the hallway of the house.

“I didn't even know that you knew me,” he mumbled. “Who I was.”

“Oh, I knew.”

It felt like a dream, not just the one of last night, but one of the many times at night he'd felt Mabel's hands all over him, seen her stop talking to her friends on the street, only to approach him, to tell him she wanted him. Those were familiar dreams, but they were usually ones that he woke from and the only lasting effects were a sheet he had to stuff unnoticed into the wash. This, though…It was real. She was here, and she wanted him. But why was she in Terry's house? He couldn't make his mind work right, not with Mabel's hand in his own (her fucking hand!), but that was a question he couldn't shake. Javier hadn't even known Mabel knew who Terry was, not to mention it was nine o'clock in the goddamned morning.

And to add to the strange scene, there was the fact that he was seeing for the first time the place his boss called home. Terry'd never allowed him inside here before.

But Mabel led him on, and because it was Mabel and because he was Javier, he let her. Soon they were at a door. Mabel pushed it open to reveal Terry's bedroom.

Javier hesitated, hardly trusting himself to speak. “Are you sure Terry isn't here?” Mabel once again didn't answer, but this time she at least shook her head no. And it was good enough for Javier; there was no way he was going to fuck this one up. If his boss walked in on him and he lost his job, so be it.

When they crossed into the bedroom Javier could smell his boss everywhere, a mix of the sweet cologne the man wore and his sweat. The bed was just a mattress, uncovered, with a dirty gray comforter patterned with purple zigzags thrown across it. Mabel sat down on the bed, leaning back, and Javier cringed at the idea of her pretty skin, exposed at the midriff by her short shirt, touching it. Was this really happening? Fuck. It couldn't be. No way. She couldn't be here, he'd just gotten all kinds of worked up and maybe he was imagining it all. “Are you here?” he asked.

Mabel looked at him and smiled. “Excuse me?”

“I m-mean…” Javier stuttered. He felt beads of sweat popping out along his forehead. “Why are you here?” he finished.

She pulled her shirt over her head, and all the questions left him as he stared at the pink, pert nipples of her small breasts, and he realized that,
yes!
he was for the first time seeing
breasts!
Actual breasts! Mabel licked one of her fingers and then slowly lowered it to her nipple. She began circling it, and looked up at him.

“Come here,” she said.

And why was he hesitating? What the hell was wrong with him? He wanted her, that was for sure. Mr. Darcy wouldn't hesitate. But there was something not quite right. He'd thought she was a shy girl, but this…It wasn't how he'd imagined it, that was all. He'd never been with a girl before. He'd kissed one once, back in Oaxaca, but that had been kid stuff. Playacting. Nothing at all like this. This…

It's dirty,
his
madre
's voice suddenly leapt into his head.
I raised you to be a good boy,
mijo.
A good boy. This is sick. What if that was your sister?
Yes, but it wasn't, was it? Fuck. Was it so wrong to want a girl? So what if he didn't get to buy her the stupid flowers he'd wanted to, or take her on a corny date to the Pizza Hut and then to the drive-in, like he'd imagined. So what?

It's dirty.

Maybe it was, but he wanted her.

He could feel his cock stiffening embarrassingly against his jeans. He had an erection, and he saw that she knew it too because she was looking right at it. Staring at it. He blushed and took a step backward.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” he said.

“What's the matter?” asked Mabel, leaning even farther back on the cesspit of Terry's bed. “Don't you like me?”

“Of course I like you. I like you a lot.” Her finger stopped trailing its lazy circles around her breast and rested now, still and waiting. When he took yet another step backward, she dropped her hand and crumpled into herself. She bent over in a ball, her pretty red ponytail swinging forward to cover her face, and Javier saw her shoulders begin to shake as if she was crying.

Oh, shit! Way to go, asshole,
he told himself.
Now you've really fucked it up.
Tentatively, he took a step forward.

“Hey,” he said, holding a hand out toward her hunched-up figure like maybe she was a dog or other wounded creature instead of a girl. “Hey, come on, now. That's not it at all.”

He took another step forward. Mabel sniffed and pulled her knees in more tightly to her chest. “I do like you,” he tried again. “A lot. I think you're beautiful, actually. You just surprised me.”

The shoulders on the bed stopped their shaking, and Javier could see Mabel open her eyes from beneath the waterfall of ponytailed hair.

“You think I'm pretty?” she said.

“Hermosa,”
Javier said, feeling very silly saying it. Oh, God, he'd gotten her all wrong. Here she was crying, and it was obvious that she was just as clueless about this sort of stuff as he was. Obvious, too, that he'd embarrassed her just as much as she'd embarrassed him. He made his way over to the bed and sat down beside her.

Gently, he placed a hand on her back. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm just confused. Why are you here?”

She spun on him, and he saw her mouth open as she lunged for him. He turned his cheek and her teeth hit his chin instead of his mouth, where she'd been aiming to, what? Kiss him? Bite him?

“Mabel!” he said. “Why? You don't have to…” There was something on her chin. A red smear, like she'd buried her face in a bowl of cranberry sauce. The same consistency of cranberry sauce, too, the kind with nuts and celery in it like his mom sometimes made when they had their “Mexican Thanksgiving Day”; it was a big joke between them. They loved to—Mabel opened her mouth and ran a tongue down, down, down to her chin to lick away the sauce. Except, it didn't really look like cranberry sauce, did it?

“Where did you say Terry was?”

“Come here, Javier,” Mabel crooned. Her tongue snaked out again, faster this time, and Javier saw it fall not just to her chin but underneath it, curling unnaturally upward.

“I've got to go,” Javier said, and he walked backward, toward the living room. He was almost to the door, and Mabel still hadn't followed him. Good. He didn't know why he was scared all of a sudden, there was no reason to be…but he was.
You're going to regret this, cabrón,
he told himself.
Girl of your dreams practically falling all over you, and you run away like a little coño. Going to regret it, man
. Except he didn't think he was.

In the other room, he heard the creak of the bed as Mabel stood, and his feet hit something on the floor. He just caught himself, forced his left leg to buckle right instead of left to avoid crumpling, but the move spun him around, and he had to plant his hand on the floor to stop himself from face-planting into—
Holy fucking hell
. Javier sprang back. On the floor was more of the cranberry mess. No. Not cranberry. Too dark.

“What the fuck, man? What the fuck
is
this?”

Javier looked up just in time to see Mabel walking toward him from the bedroom. She was completely naked now. There was a large mole, brown and raised, the size of a quarter, between her breasts.

Mabel licked her lips, and all desire to laugh rushed out of him. Javier remembered the cat they used to have back in Oaxaca, a mangy old beast who'd lived outdoors more than indoors. But Javier had loved it. He'd watched it hunt in the alley behind their apartment, had seen it take down many a rat. The damned cat used to bring the carcasses to Javier, leave them on the floor as a present. He'd been good at catching them. Just crouched down low, waited for the rat to move. Only sometimes, as the cat crouched, the rat would see it. Something in the light, or the cat's movement, would give it away, and the rat would see it and then—this was what Javier could never
understand—then,
more often than not, the rat would
freeze.
It would hold perfectly still, as if sensing its imminent death, and rather than run, it would turn statue-like, as if hypnotized.

Waiting.

Waiting for its death.

In that instant as Mabel lowered herself to all fours, her elbows bent, her legs cocked out to impossible, bone-breaking ninety-degree angles like a fucking spider. As he saw her coming toward him, the image of that cat flashed before his eyes, and Javier understood that he was the fucking rat.

He turned and ran, slamming the front door behind him. He heard a screech of pain and a thud as something hit the door. For a minute, he almost considered opening the door to see if she was okay. It was crazy, he knew it was crazy, but she was just a girl, wasn't she? Maybe she was sick?

Then he remembered the cranberry sauce, and that was enough for him. Javier took off running down the street and did not stop until he reached his own front yard, over a mile away. There, he allowed his body to collapse, and his breath came in great, shaking gasps. He began to cry, sucking in the air like he was sucking in freedom. Or sanity.

Eventually, he worked his way to the front door, dragging himself past Mrs. Yubank's dresses flapping in the wind. Javier placed his hand on the doorknob and listened for the familiar sound of his sister's screeching, or his mother chattering away to Rosie with the sound of the TV.

There was only silence.

All he wanted was to see his family, to see his
madre
and his
hermosita
and forget whatever the fuck had just happened at Terry's house. Maybe he'd even eat a piece of Rosie's meatloaf to make her feel happy. All he wanted was to feel normal again.

To be home again.

Home.

He opened the door.