Drowning Tucson (49 page)

While her arms were wrapped around Pancho Villa’s torso, Rainbow felt the strength of the man, and she couldn’t deny how much she wished this dead soldier in front of her were still alive. She wanted to be held by a strong man just one more time. She missed the way her grandfather had held her every night. The way Brightstar had held her in the tunnels.

And even though she hated every person who’d ignored her for the last two days, even though she absolutely despised the manager for banning her from the Congress and the bartender for turning her in, she still longed for someone to notice her and tell her she was beautiful. She would happily forgive any of the men who’d hurt her, right now, even the guy who had humiliated her in front of the fountain. Even him. If only one person would just utter the words my little pomegranate. But everyone had gone on about their day, returning to their offices and mumbling about that crazy drunk hooker out by the fountain who’d cracked up and convinced herself she was attractive enough to score businessmen in broad daylight, right in front of their coworkers.

She heard the crack of thunder and looked up. Off in the distance she was sure she saw storm clouds forming and she thought thank god. It’s finally going to happen. Now. Just in time. But she didn’t move from where she was, staring at the sky and thirsty for something to drink, sitting atop the statue of Pancho Villa, her arms wrapped around his body, high above the scurrying crowds of flustered people who jostled and shoved in an effort to return home as quickly as possible now that a storm was coming and the work day was finally over, worn out completely from a long day at the office, and now, looking up at the sky, Rainbow hugged the strong, thick torso of Pancho Villa and wished she could just leave too, that he would grab his horse’s reins with both hands, turn his head to the side, and tell her to hold on as he spurred the horse and it leaped down from its pedestal and raced past Tucson’s houses and barbershops and liquor stores, whose lines of patrons were
just now beginning to form with men returning from laboring all day in the orchards east of the city or on the roofs of homes being erected in the foothills, the barbershops filled with men who weren’t necessarily in need of a haircut but who simply didn’t feel ready to return home to the wives and the children or the empty houses and the TVs and the same news they could get at the barbershop or the liquor store or the bar, she wanted to gallop full speed past the men returning from the fields who ducked into alleys and changed clothes, hoping to make it to the next job busing tables for the dinner rush downtown, changing their clothing as they walked, hopping on one leg while they pulled off dirty jeans and then on the other leg while they pulled on white slacks and then jogging up the block tying their apron strings behind them, too busy to take notice of her and Pancho Villa streaking past them down the road and out into the desert, past the homes where dinners sat waiting on the table and the kids played in the backyard, ignoring the food smells and knowing better than to ask for even a scrap before Dad got home because the cardinal rule of dinnertime is that there is no eating until Dad is seated at the head of the table and Mom has placed the pots on the potholders in the middle of the table and removed the lids, but since Rainbow had no meal waiting for her and only now remembered she hadn’t eaten so much as a crust of bread in the past two days, she rested her head on the statue’s back and wept—hoping for a miracle, praying she would open her eyes and they would be galloping through the desert, leaving behind Tucson’s rancheros and whorehouses and bootleggers and drug smugglers and crooked cops, outrunning them all, the banks and the hotels and the courthouse, the parks and tunnels and Miracle Mile and the Congress, the red evil eyes of the tower that had tortured her for so long, though she could never articulate how, couldn’t ever place the reason why each time she passed beneath the eyes resting atop Tucson’s tallest structure she shivered and crossed herself, the eyes that never closed but watched over the city, burning bright even beneath the blinding light of the desert sun, blinking and mocking the people passing beneath them, eyes on all four corners, gazing out to the farthest reaches of Tucson—the San Xavier Mission to the south, Gate’s Pass to the west, the resorts and ranches to the north, the forest of saguaros to
the east—taking note of every action no matter how insignificant or how well hidden, even now the eyes watched as Rainbow wished fiercely for a new life, furrowing her brow and clenching her teeth with all of her strength, wishing it would all wash away, her short life that had been woeful and incomplete, the shunned Rainbow sitting atop the statue while crowds of people passed below, the very same people ignoring her as they always had, unless they had a sexual appetite they longed for her to quench, all of them ignored Rainbow, who only wanted the same things they did—a marriage, boundless love, children to rear, money to travel the world—clutching Pancho Villa with all of her strength, willing him to live again, willing him to rescue her, to race off into the desert and away from here, hugging herself to the bronze statue and surveying the land below, gazing at the awful beauty of the city that had been at once cruel and forgiving, the city that took her in when everyone else had abandoned her, peering past the homes and businesses and thinking my god, from here you can almost see the end of the desert, if only we could leave this place, looking to the west where the Santa Cruz ran the length of the city and thinking yes, we might head in that direction, toward the ocean and California, the land of dreams, yes, we could ride there in a matter of days and start all over, me and Pancho Villa, then staring south toward the interstate where semis sped by on their way to places she had never seen, towns she’d never visited, and over to the east she saw the Congress, her old home, not a door was open to her so why shouldn’t she just leave and escape the flood up here on this horse, tall enough to keep her safe, to forage through the flooding streets of Tucson, because she refused to witness the end of a damned city, instead she clutched the statue and begged for it to take off running, but the only response was the gurgling of bile and liquor that had been eating into the lining of her empty stomach, and Rainbow suddenly grew nostalgic for her former home beneath the mall, which had housed her and Brightstar faithfully for those few months and sheltered her from the very people she now wanted to escape forever, she just had to get away, if only the horse would go, if only it would just hop down and run then we could go back to the tunnels and Pancho Villa could take care of me, avenge me with his six-shooter, show those gangs what a real man is
like, and Rainbow felt oddly proud of this man in front of her, as if he had already avenged her, as if he too understood how badly she needed to escape and had agreed to it, that he would be her husband, yes, she’d finally found the perfect groom, she understood that this was her prince right here in front of her, a sombrero and some bullets, a strong horse, and the ability to survive in the desert, he had been here all along, oh how many times had she passed him by, ignoring the patient man who watched her come and go and yet still waited, Pancho Villa, who had always loved her and seen her beauty, patiently waiting for Rainbow to climb up behind him and join him as his wife, no paper gown needed, no wedding plans envelope, there would be no smiling guests and no need for a father to give her away, no ceremony was necessary because her entire life had been the ceremony, a slow walk down the aisle that began the day Rainbow was born, the day Marísol Delgado died in her sleep and began dreaming the end of Tucson, no ceremony was necessary because he too wanted to start a new life and raise a big healthy family, but even if he didn’t want to start a family that would be okay, either way her life here was done, though she did want to perform one final task with Pancho Villa’s gun, to shoot out the red lights that never stopped staring, to shoot out each one and blind the building once and for all, that’s all she wanted to do and then they could leave for good, she and her husband, her Panchito—she stroked the hair cascading beneath the brim of his hat—we’ll leave and the flood will come and one day years from now our great-great grandchildren can read all about this drowned city, and maybe people will come to visit the tunnels where she’d once lived, sheltered from the world above, all that spray-paint on cement, and if they deciphered it maybe it would tell the story of Tucson in its final days, and suddenly she grew ashamed of herself for not having written everything down, for not scratching the story of Tucson’s demise into the walls of her underground home, a permanent parchment that would hold her words until some distant day centuries from now when scientists could analyze her scrawled tale of visions and the evil tower, years from now, when the floodwaters finally receded, leaving behind a muddy surface as pure and rejuvenated as the moon, a fresh start, another chance for humanity to start over—she sat behind her
husband with a heavy heart, thinking if I just had a pen and some paper I’d jot down the essence of the story, the horrors in the desert and the wasteland of humanity, Miracle Mile, the underground tunnels, my dead grandfather, my missing mother, the children who played in the park, the gangs, the rape that almost killed me, the education I received from all of it, it all came together, the many lovers she’d had and the countless men she’d never had, the men who abused her, the men who proclaimed their love for her in the throes of passion on the sweat-soaked sheets of her bed on the Mile, the men who told her, in confidence, about the misery of their lives while they lay panting next to Rainbow after they’d mercilessly thrust themselves into her, pounding out their frustrations and disappointments between the welcoming legs of Rainbow, the men who ignored her in her final two days of living, she would gladly write their stories someday, then toss the sheets to the wind, if only Pancho Villa would grab those reins and ride, save me and take me away from here. Please, please, just spur your horse on. I want to feel the wind blowing through my hair. I want to be pretty again. I want to start over. Just jump down from this pedestal and let’s ride. She whispered to his back, Pancho, my love, let’s leave this horrible city. Let’s make it happen. Yes, any minute now it would happen. It was only a matter of time. She could wait. It was okay.

So Rainbow waited.