Do They Know I'm Running? (2 page)

“Hey!” Her rough hands locked at his nape and she tugged at his shoulder-length hair. “Where’d you go?”

He shook off the memory, busted. “Sorry, I—”

“You’ll make an old lady self-conscious.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Oh please.”

“I mean it. Really—”

She cut him off with another kiss, lingering, a nibble here and there, a swipe with her tongue. Refocused, he reached down, probed gently with his fingers, parting the feathery lips to get at the warmth inside, already moist. She moaned, a deep soft purr from the back of her throat, encouraging him, guiding him. He’d been such a wack lover when they’d met, all the usual young slob faults—the selfishness, the fumbling, the rush. Except for two girls he’d met at gigs, his pre-Mariko love life had been limited to pumping the muscle and wishful thinking, and the two exceptions had been disasters of opposite kind, the one girl just lying there in sweet-natured panic, the other thrashing around in such unconvincing bliss he’d almost stopped mid-fuck to ask if she was having a seizure. Mariko had taught him to relax, focus, think of it as dancing. Not the best analogy, perhaps, musicians being such clueless dancers, but he’d come around.

She said, “I want you inside.”

“So quick?”

“I didn’t say quick. I said inside.”

She guided him in. As always, he shuddered—so perfect, that feeling, like finding home.

“Just that,” she whispered. “Don’t move. Okay?”

She hooked her legs around his, locking their bodies tight, nuzzling her hips against his before returning to her kisses, deeper now. Another moan, this one longer, rose in the pit of her throat, followed by a tremor quivering up her spine.

Despite himself, Roque’s eye strayed toward the bedside clock. Three forty-five now. Soon Tío Faustino would be out of bed, getting ready to leave for the Port of Oakland where he worked hauling drayage. Tía Lucha would be preparing breakfast
and getting ready for her shift at Food 4 Less. Godo would be stirring too, if he’d slept at all.

Drawing back his glance, his eyes met hers. She broke off the kiss, unwrapped her legs. “I know you have to go.”

“It’s just, you know—”

She cupped his face in her palm. “It’s all right.”

Godo was his half brother, back from the war. He spent his nights lurching around in bed, popping painkillers and antidepressants, chasing them with beer, unable to muster more than a few minutes’ sleep at a time. Better the insomnia, though, than the nightmares. It was why Roque couldn’t share the room anymore. No telling who or what Godo might mistake him for when he bolted awake, screaming.

“Sorry,” he said, thinking: You’re saying that a lot.

“Don’t be.” She brushed his face with her fingers. “It’s been lovely. It always is, Rocky.”

It was one way she teased him, mispronouncing his name.

“Roque,” he corrected, his part of the bit. “Rhymes with O.J.”

“Yes. How sad for you.”

He lowered his head, touched his brow to hers. “I love you.”

She turned her face away. “I told you—”

“I mean it.”

“What difference does it make what you
mean?”
Like that, the mood turned, as it did on occasion. Too often, actually, and more and more of late. “How many times—”

“Fine. Okay.”

He pulled away and gathered his clothes from the floor, threw on his sweatshirt, stood up to tug on his jeans, sat back down to lace his high-tops. You’re acting your age, he thought, unable to stop himself, at the same time wondering if he really did mean it: I love you. Maybe he was just raising the stakes, he wasn’t sure.

To his back, a whisper: “Roque?”

He wanted her to reach out, touch him, say it: I love you too.
Or just: I’m sorry. But neither the caress nor the words came. He launched up and crossed the room, kicking several tea candles across the floor like little tin pucks.

Wood-plank shelves faced each other down the dark hallway, stacked with unfired pots, bowls, vases: Mariko Detwiler, Fine Ceramics. The clay smelled cold and damp and it made him think of fresh graves and with that another song lyric teased its way up from memory:
The house is dark and my thoughts are cold
.

He thumped down the porch steps, the fog cool on his skin, the air dank from the nearby wetlands. Lingering beneath the chinaberry tree in the dark front yard, he watched as the hall light came on and her silhouette materialized in the doorway. Timidly he ventured a farewell wave. She did not wave back.

CINCHING THE HOOD OF HIS SWEATSHIRT TIGHT, HE BEGAN TO RUN.
Craftsman bungalows lined the block, some tricked out like minor museums, others sagging with neglect. At the bottom of the hill he skirted a thicket of blood-red madrone and turned onto the river road where he had the gravel berm to himself, dodging waist-high thistle. The solitude gave him space to think.

He knew what the
chambrosos
would say, it was all because he was an orphan—the sloppy lust for cougar poon, the pissy sulk upon leaving, even the musical gunslinger ego bit to soothe his pride. And sure, from as early as he could remember he’d sensed an absence at the center of things. Her name was Graciela, she came to the States a Salvadoran refugee, pregnant with her first child, a boy. Three years later she was dead, a massive hemorrhage within hours of delivering her second son. And so there they were, Godofredo and Roque, two American brothers, a toddler and an infant—different fathers, both absent; same mother, now dead.

They got taken in by their spinster aunt, Lucha, also a refugee. Roque knew zip about his old man and what he knew of
his mother came from a handful of faded snapshots and Tía Lucha’s tales, not all of them kind. He came to think of his mother the way some people regard an obscure and troubling saint.
Mi madre descabellada
, the unholy martyr.

As for Godo, he’d never forgotten what it was like: three years old, slow to English, wary of strangers, possessive of his mother who one day went to the hospital and never came back—and for what? Some little shit weasel of a brother.

THE SIGN AT THE STREET READ “HUNTINGTON VILLAGE,” THOUGH NO
one could tell you who Huntington was: a trailer park, home to several dozen Salvadoran families, as well as Hondurans, Guatemaltecos, the inescapable Mexicans, even a few Pacific Islanders. The streets were gravel and the shade sparse, no laundry hut, no playground, no management on the premises. Here and there, a brave patch of grass. He lived in a single-wide with Godo and Tía Lucha and Tío Faustino, his aunt’s
marido
. She was no longer a spinster.

It was temporary, their living here, so Tía said, just until she and Tío Faustino could reestablish some credit. It wasn’t really their fault, of course, losing the house—a crooked mortgage broker, a Mexican no less, had slipped an extra loan into escrow, more than a hundred Latino victims in the scam. It would take years and lawyers and more money thrown to the wind before any of that resolved. Meanwhile they lived as best they could, crammed into six hundred square feet, Tía and Tío, Roque and Godo.

Passing the gravel bed near the gate that served as parking, Roque noticed that Tío Faustino’s rig was gone. That meant it was already four—Tío had left for the Port of Oakland, to get in the queue for container pickup. Roque redoubled his pace until he could make out the random tinny carillon of Tía Lucha’s wind chime swinging from the doorstep awning.

Pulling up outside the trailer, he tugged his key from his jean pocket and slipped it in the lock, opening the door as quietly as he could, only to find his aunt waiting in the kitchenette, sitting at the table in her plaid robe, sipping Nescafé.

“You’re up already,” he said clumsily.

She responded using Spanish, peering over the edge of her cup.—
Is it your turn to be the problem around here?
Her eyes were sad and proud and blasted from exhaustion, her hair lying tangled across her birdlike shoulders. Her face was narrow and dark, weathered, an
indígena
face; shortly she would slather on pancake to lighten its complexion in preparation for a day at the cash register.

Roque went to the fridge, saw a can of guava nectar and another of 7UP, his weakness, picked the latter and popped the lid, all to avoid an answer.

—
I don’t expect you to be a virgin. Your mother named you for a poet, it’s your privilege to act like an idiot. You’re using protection, yes? Please tell me that much
.

“It’s not your problem,” he replied in English, a way to assert his distance. It was one of those ironies, how the older ones praised the new country but stuck to the old country’s tongue.

—
Not today, but when the baby arrives and you have no clue if it’s really yours?

“It’s not an issue, okay?”

She cocked her head, studying him.—
You’re telling me she’s a boy?

He rolled his eyes, put down his can and ambled over to the table. Agony aunt, he thought. He’d read the phrase in a book recently and thought instantly of Tía Lucha. Leaning down, he kissed her graying black hair, the texture of stitching thread, a smell like almonds, some dollar-a-bottle shampoo.

He switched to Spanish.—
We’ll pretend you never said that
.

On the shelf behind her, Salvadoran
sorpresas
, little clay tableaus made in Ilobasco, shared space with skeletal Day of the
Dead figurines. He’d often celebrated El Día de los Muertos with her, it was why he’d never felt singled out for misery despite his mother’s death. He learned not to take it personally. Sorrow was inescapable, a condition, not a punishment.

—
We’ll pretend because it’s not true, or because you’re ashamed?

—
Don’t make me angry, Tía
.

—
So it’s a girl
.

—
A woman
.

—
And she’s not pregnant
.

—
She can’t get pregnant
.

Tía Lucha studied him like he was suggesting something impossible, or infernal.—
She told you that?

—
Can we change the subject?

—
Oh Roque, don’t be a fool, women lie, especially about that
.

—
Tía …

—
And then they come and tell you, “I can’t believe it, it’s a miracle, a blessing from God.” How old is this woman?

Roque turned to head back toward his brother’s bedroom.—
I’ll check in on Godo
.

She closed her eyes and rubbed the lids.—
Don’t wake him, please
.

Acidly, Roque thought: Godo asleep? Now that would be a miracle.

He sometimes wondered if being parentless wasn’t a blessing in disguise. It gave him a kind of freedom from the usual attachments that seemed to hold others back. Life would be more fluid for him because love and desire and ambition would be a question of choice, not obligation. And yet, if that were true, how would he keep from merely drifting? Wasn’t that what love and respect were about, providing gravity? Otherwise there was just loneliness.

The oven door stood slightly ajar; an aromatic warmth greeted him as he bent down to peer inside. Two plates covered with napkins rested on the middle rack.

—
One of these for me?

—
You know it is
.

Using a dish towel, he pulled out one plate. Beneath the napkin, he found his breakfast: pureed black beans with cream, fried plantains and yucca, corn tortillas.

He joined her at the table with his plate, wondering how angry she would get if he added some peanut butter. He’d been known to plow through an entire jar in a single sitting, until she told him that if he didn’t stop he’d end up in emergency with a bowel blockage. Even as he stole a glance at the open oven door, secretly craving the other plate, Godo’s share, he pictured the jar of crunchy in the fridge. He was ravenous. Sex did that to him.

Tía Lucha glanced back toward the bedrooms to the rear.—
Your brother. No matter what I do, no matter what I say …
Hand to her mouth, eyes spent.—
Nothing gets better. Another miserable night
.

Not glancing up from his plate, Roque said:—
Don’t worry, Tía. I’ll take care of it from here
.

WHAT THE WHOLE THING GETS DOWN TO, GODO THOUGHT, HEAD
tilted back, draining the last few drips from the can—the trick to it, as it were, the pissy little secret no one wants you to know? He crushed the empty and tossed it onto the floor where it clattered among the others, then belched, backhanding his scarred lips to wipe them dry. Figure it out,
cabrón:
The whole thing gets down to knowing which guilt you can live with.

He sat propped on pillows in the mangled bed, his altar to insomnia, the bedside lamp still burning. Soon daybreak would smear the curtains with its buttery gray light. He shuddered. Strange, fearing the night, lying awake with the room all lit up like you’re some sniveling bed wetter, only to dread the dawn.