The Madonnas of Echo Park (29 page)

As they walk away, she waves Maria's hand at me, which entangles the balloon again. Instead of untangling it, Angie kneels down and shouts at Maria about her carelessness, her voice loud enough for me to hear over the din of the crowd. Maria shakes her head no, dabbing tears from her eyes, inhaling her sobs in large gulps. Angie scolds Maria as they blend into an anonymous crowd on the corner of Sunset Boulevard, the balloon a drifting, floating violet drop on the horizon that dissolves into the fixed background, a small detail on a massive landscape painting.

The Ferris wheel's lights snap on, etching fluid red and yellow neon circles in the sky. A quicksilver group of bodies congeal around me, eager for a closer look. It's a tense, excited crowd, open to the possibility of both happiness and joy at partying late into the night, or disappointment and anger at being turned away from an overcrowded gathering. In the air are the smells of baked breads and skunk, belligerent shouting into cell phones and parents disciplining overstimulated children, raucous laughter and lovers recounting their day's banal events to each other in exaggerated tones of excitement, a fierce blend of Spanish, Chinese, and English speakers vying to be the loudest.

Angie's question—no place like home, right?—sticks in my head. Is this still my home? Do I even belong here anymore? My exhaustion tricks me into seeing old faces amid these strangers. Boys I went to school with that I liked, or who may have liked me, now men with faces like sun-dried apricots. There's Lorenzo bargaining with a game operator for another batch of plastic rings to toss. Crazy Mac cuts a swath with his boys in tow through the crowd to the Budweiser booth. A
trabajador
around my father's age wanders around in a circle carrying a large yellow mallet. Vince is walking hand in hand with a
woman who could be my mother save for the confidence and poise she stands with. But none of them see me, and they probably aren't the people I think they are; everyone's too lost in their own thoughts. Walking around the lake, searching piles of garbage for Blackjack, I'm back to being a stranger in my own neighborhood, in my own home.

I'm standing by a carpet of blossoming lotus flowers when I see a body floating toward the fountains. It drifts facedown like a crumpled leaf, its sleeves and upper body visible, its hands and legs submerged. A second body, this one with a fur collar, spins in a lazy circle behind it, again without hands or legs. Then a third one, a peacoat. Dozens of coats, like broken starfish floating out across the water, flutter into the lake from a red Japanese footbridge and drift into a misty wall of fountain spray. They twist and swirl as they fall, their arms flapping like wings about to take flight.

The Coat Queen stands on the middle of the bridge wearing the coat I gave her, several large boxes by her side. Nodding her head, in conversation with no one I can see, she dumps another coat over the railing.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I don't need these anymore.”

“My coat worked? You're warm at last?”

“No,” she says, “it did not work.” She drops another coat over the bridge, and it plops onto the water, a plush suede lily pad.

“I . . . I don't understand. You're wearing my coat.”

“It's not your coat that worked,” she says.

“Then why you are throwing these away?”

“Aurora Esperanza,” she says.
“¿No crees en milagros?”

A coarse, hungry tongue laps at my fingers. A wet nose burrows itself in my palm. I crouch down and hug Blackjack, who jumps onto my shoulders, licking my ears and neck, and buries his head in my armpit. Grabbing his leash, I attach it to his collar, and lead him off the bridge.

Underneath the shadow of the Ferris wheel, on an uncrowded part of Echo Park Avenue appears a hunched man with brown hair down to his shoulders, a malnourished beard, wearing a shabby linen suit and the same shoes I saw sticking out of the Lord's shack. A weird, glossy fuzziness fleshes out the edges of his body, an aura of what must be Ferris wheel light that gives him a dazzling carbonated glow. He looks like the cardboard cutout that stands next to amusement park rides, telling you how big children must be before they can ride. Beside him are the teenage boy I spoke to and three men, larger, older, and more intimidating in appearance.

“I'm not here to cause trouble,” the Lord says.

Sensing my discomfort, Blackjack pulls the leash taut. “I have to get home,” I say. “Please let me by.”

“He's not ready to go home with you yet,” the Lord says. “I must take care of him until you're ready.”

“I don't believe in you,” I say. “Stay away from my dog.”

“He's not your dog,” the Lord says.

“And you don't belong here,” the teenage boy says. “You're not foolin' nobody. You don't belong here.”

“Leave me alone,” I say and take several tightrope steps back.

“I can't let you leave here with him,” the Lord says.

His men move on me. Blackjack's confused, growling at the approaching men but making no effort to run away. One of the men lunges for the leash, and I jerk it back, choking Blackjack, who yelps. Another man tries to snap my free arm away from the leash to knock me off balance. I scratch his forearm, drawing blood. A third man rushes at my arms while the boy wrestles the leash from my hands. He yanks the butt of his pistol from his pants, revealing the taped-up grip of a coiled dog leash. He fastens it to Blackjack's collar and leads him, without struggle or complaint, to the Lord.

I'm overwhelmed with a new and conflicting sensation of protectiveness for Blackjack. I flail against the boy and the men gripping
my forearms, stomping on their feet while the third man leans down and tries to grab my legs. I kick him in the jaw with the foot whose ankle I twisted and hear a meaty snap. The man I scratched grabs my free leg and tries to wrestle it underneath his arm. They're taking away my mother's dog by dragging me to the ground, each man trying to suffocate my body by throwing his weight on top of me. I can feel their breath on my neck, their sweat on my legs and forearms. I shout for someone, anyone, to help me, but the crowd is applauding the fireworks, fleeting gardens of fiery pink, green, and red blossoms booming and shaking the ground.

Four men grab my arms and legs, tearing at parts of my body, trying to pull me to the ground—but I am still standing.

“My dog!” I scream. “Give me back my dog!”

The Lord says, “He's not your dog yet.” Then he disappears into the crowd.

I lunge in his direction by grinding both my feet into two of the men's shins and, leaning my weight forward, trip the men off balance. The five of us wobble like a top losing momentum and then, in one tangled heap, slam onto the ground. I wriggle out from under the teenage boy, who has fallen on my lower back, and crawl on my hands and knees up a grassy hill, rising to my feet to the roar of
oohs
! and
ahhs
!, the crowd entranced with the pyrotechnic display.

Blackjack's being led into a doggy crate in a large white van. I pump my legs in time to Crazy Mac's rhythmic chants, which I hear in my head, running, then running faster, feel the satisfying solidness of pavement slapping under my feet and the wind rushing through my hair, a thrill I haven't experienced in years, running faster, a euphoria that keeps me running, down the street as the van pulls away, out of reach, running to the opposite side of the lake, where a man is striding through the crowd, oblivious to his presence, their heads craned to see the fireworks reach their crescendo, a cataclysmic barrage of seismic booms and blinding flashes that light
up the fan-shaped geysers and the lake underneath. The man's salt-sprinkled black hair is coiffed in a fifties-style pompadour, his silky Egyptian blue shirt glitters under a shower of mist, and his jeans are cuffed atop a pair of expensive-looking boots. He walks up to the curb and disalarms his Porsche, a glistening metallic silver.

He mouths the words, “You belong.”

This is the color of my faith.

Morrissey stands up on the car's doorframe, aware that I and I alone see him and know who he is, and waves, a gesture neither dismissive nor inviting but a simple acknowledgment that we have made contact in this brief moment that doesn't need to be shared or verified by anyone else. It's a beautiful secret, which is rare as so many secrets in my life are ugly, and it fills me with an overwhelming sense of peace and accomplishment as I close my eyes and pass out on the lawn of Echo Park Lake.

The next morning, under a hangover sky, I kick my way off the corduroy side of my mother's couch and thump onto a cold linoleum floor. My face is scored from the corduroy, and my ankle's wrapped in an Ace bandage. I limp to the dining room table, where Vince is drinking tea with lemon from a cracked coffee mug.

“How you doing this morning?” he asks, monotone.

I'm unsure how much to share with Vince. How much does he know? If he wrapped the bandage around my ankle, he must know enough, but how much comfort should I expect from him? I'm in a lot of pain, but does he want a daughter today, or an acquaintance? I decide to play it somewhere in the middle.

“What time is it?”

“It's Monday. You've been out solid for almost twelve hours,” Vince says.

“Shit, I need to get out of here,” I say. “I could use a ride. I don't think I can drive.”

His shoulders stiffen up. He takes his cup to the sink, turns on the water full blast, and washes it out. “You should call a cab. I'll pay for it.”

“Forty dollars to get across town?” I say. “I'd rather walk on my one good foot.”

“I'm really busy today, Aurora,” he says, reverting to my name. Vince is back in “detached” mode, which always follows when he sleeps with my mother. When I was younger, this first confused me, then made me cry, then angry, then exhausted, and now accepting. There's nothing left here for me to do or say except to say good-bye.

“Where's Momma?” I ask.

“Outside,” he says.

She's sitting on the porch with her own mug of tea, Blackjack resting at her feet. He's licking her fingers clean of wet dog chow, which she dips her hand into from a bowl and nurses under his mouth.

“Vince is going to bail again,” I say, sitting by my mother's side.

“He's a good man,” she says.

“Of course he's a good man,” I say. “But he's still going to take off.”

“You don't know that,” she says.

I watch Blackjack nurse from my mother's fingers. “When did he show up?”

“Last night, after the festival,” my mother says.

“How did you find him?”

“Jesús brought him over,” she says.

“Jesús?”

“Yeah, Jesús. You know, the Lord?”

“His name's Jesús? That's why they call him the Lord? He's . . . real?” I ask.

“Of course he is,” she says.

“But . . . what did he want with the dog?”

“What did he want? He's the trainer.”

“A dog trainer? But Vince said those things about the Lord . . .”

“I told Vince he shouldn't tease you. Jesús lives out in a field all
by himself, and everyone around here makes up these crazy stories about him. He's not crazy. He needs a big space to train his dogs. This neighborhood's getting too crowded for the hermits. They're turning his land into condos. Anyway, he was part of the surprise. I may be leaving town for a while.”

“Where? And why?”

“Vince's thinking about San Diego, and I'm thinking I might join him. I can't take Blackjack with me. This is his home. I was going to give him to you, but I needed someone to train him to be a calmer dog.”

“Mom, I told you, I don't—”

“Like him. Right, got that. But I don't trust anyone else. And I thought if he calmed down, you'd meet him halfway.”

I dip my hand in the wet dog chow and hold my fingers under Blackjack's mouth. “Why didn't you tell me any of this yesterday?”

“The dog got out. Didn't make sense to tell you anything if he didn't come back.”

“Christ, Mom,” I say. “Those men tried to beat me up.”

“They thought you were trying to steal the dog. They protect what's theirs.”

“I do, too,” I say, defensive.

“Yo vi, yo vi.
Vince came running over when he saw the scuffle, caught you when you ran after their van and passed out. It took four men to drag you down,” my mother says, her voice cracking with a hint of pride. “I didn't know you cared about the dog that much.”

“I care because he's
your
dog, Mom.”

“Was
my dog.”

“Does Vince know you're going with him?”

“He knows he can't live without me for long.”

“Mom, maybe you should let Vince live on his own for a while,” I say. “I need you here. Blackjack needs you.”

“You two took care of yourselves yesterday.”

“I can't take care of a dog. I wouldn't know where to begin.”

“You could start with a walk,” my mother says.

“A
walk,
” I say and laugh until the pain in my ankle makes me wince. My mother stands up and stretches, her body firm and taut, like that of the woman I saw Vince talking to last night. It
was
my mother.

“How about a game of fetch?” I say, picking up a yellow chewed up Frisbee in my mother's front yard and tossing it. Blackjack scampers over, eager to play.

“You want to play fetch with us, Momma? Up in Elysian Park?” I ask, my voice cracking. I want nothing more in this moment than for her to join us, to choose me over Vince.

She sees the confident grip I have on Blackjack's leash and shrugs her shoulders. “I'm too old to chase things that don't belong to me,” she says.

I leave the Frisbee on the steps and walk Blackjack to Elysian Park. On the way there, we make a brief detour to a
mercado
where, many years ago, a young girl was shot and killed while dancing on a corner. Blackjack sniffs at the remnants of a shrine attached to the back of a squat utility box that is to this day replenished every few weeks with fresh flowers, candles, drawings of the Virgin Mary, and a mosaic of Xerox copies of a group photograph of mothers and their young girls, standing and crouching in two neat rows, everyone following the rules except Mother and me. I take out Lorenzo's sticker roll and spell out
ALMA
on the utility box in rows of sparkly stars and hearts, the only graffiti “tag” I've ever drawn.