A Manual for Cleaning Women (42 page)

On weekends sometimes he’d take me to the dog track in Juárez, or to gambling games around town. I loved the races and was good at picking winners. The only time I liked going to card games was when he played with railroad men, in a caboose at the train yards. I climbed the ladder to the roof and watched all the trains coming in and going out, switching, coupling. It got to be that most of the card games were in the back of Chinese laundries. I’d sit in the front reading for hours while somewhere in back he played poker. The heat and the smell of cleaning solvent mixed with singed wool and sweat was nauseating. A few times he left out the back way and forgot me, so that only when the laundryman came to close up did he find me asleep in the chair. I’d have to go home, far, in the dark, and most of the time nobody would be there. Mamie took Sally to choir practice and to the Eastern Star and to make bandages for servicemen.

About once a month we’d go to a barbershop. A different one each time. He’d ask for a shave and a haircut. I’d sit on a chair reading
Argosy
while the barber cut his hair, just waiting for the shave part. Uncle John would be tilted way back in the chair and just as the barber was finishing the shave he’d ask, “Say, do you happen to have any eyedrops?” which they always did. The barber would stand over him and put drops in his eyes. The green glass eye would start spinning around and the barber would scream bloody murder. Then everybody’d laugh.

If only I had understood him half as much as he always understood me, I could have found out how he hurt, why he worked so hard to get laughs. He did make everybody laugh. We ate in cafés all over Juárez and El Paso that were like people’s houses. Just a lot of tables in one room of a regular house, with good food. Everybody knew him and the waitresses always laughed when he asked if it was warmed-over coffee.

“Oh, no!”

“Well, how’d you get it so hot?”

I could usually tell just how drunk he was, and if it was a lot I’d make some excuse and walk or ride the trolley home. One day though, I had been sleeping in the cab of the truck, woke after he got in and started off. We were on Rim Road going faster faster. He had a bottle between his thighs, was driving with his elbows as he counted the money he held in a fan over the steering wheel.

“Slow down!”

“I’m in the money, honey!”

“Slow down! Hold on to the wheel!”

The truck thumped, shuddered high up and then thumped down. Money flew all over the cab. I looked out the back window. A little boy was standing in the street, his arm bleeding. A collie was lying next to him, really bloody, trying to get up.

“Stop. Stop the truck. We have to go back. Uncle John!”

“I can’t!”

“Slow down. You have to turn around!” I was sobbing hysterically.

At home he reached across and opened my door. “You go on in.”

I don’t know if I stopped speaking to him. He never came home. Not that night, not for days, weeks, months. I prayed for him.

*   *   *

The war ended and my father came home. We moved to South America.

Uncle John ended up on skid row in Los Angeles, a really hopeless wino. Then he met Dora, who played trumpet in the Salvation Army band. She had him go into the shelter and have some soup and she talked to him. She said later that he made her laugh. They fell in love and were married and he never drank again. When I was older I went to visit them in Los Angeles. She was working as a riveter at Lockheed and he had an antique repair shop in his garage. They were maybe the sweetest two people I ever knew, sweet together, I mean. We went to Forest Lawn and the La Brea tar pits and the Grotto restaurant. Mostly I helped Uncle John in the shop, sanding furniture, polishing with the turpentine and linseed oil rag. We talked about life, told jokes. Neither of us ever mentioned El Paso. Of course by this time I had realized all the reasons why he couldn’t stop the truck, because by this time I was an alcoholic.

Mijito

I want to go home. When
mijito
Jesus falls asleep I think about home, my mamacita and my brothers and sisters. I try to remember all the trees and all the people in the village. I try to remember me because I was different then, before
tantas cosas que han pasado
. I had no idea. I didn’t know television or
drogas
or fear. I have been afraid since the minute I left the trip and the van and the men and running and even when Manolo met me I got more afraid because he wasn’t the same. I knew he loved me and when he held me it was like by the river, but he was changed, with fear in his gentle eyes. All of the United States was scary coming to Oakland. Cars in front of us, behind us, cars going the other way cars cars cars for sale and stores and stores and more cars. Even in our little room in Oakland where I’d wait for him the room was full of noise, not just the television but cars and buses and sirens and helicopters, men fighting and shooting and people yelling. The
mayates
frighten me and they stand in groups all down the street so I was afraid to go outside. Manolo was so strange I was afraid he didn’t want to marry me but he said, “Don’t be crazy, I love you
mi vida
.” I was happy but then he said, “Anyway you need to be legal so you can get welfare and food stamps.” We got married right away and that same day he took me to the welfare. I was sad. I wanted to maybe go to a park or have some wine, a little
luna de miel
party.

We lived in the Flamingo Motel on MacArthur. I was lonely. He was gone most of the time. He got mad at me for being so scared but he forgot how different it was here. We didn’t have inside bathrooms or lights at home. Even the television frightened me; it seemed so real. I wished we had a little house or room that I could make pretty and where I could cook for him. He would come with Kentucky Fry or Taco Bell or hamburgers. We ate breakfast every day in a little café and that was nice like in Mexico.

One day there was a banging on the door. I didn’t want to open it. The man said he was Ramón, Manolo’s uncle. He said Manolo was in jail. He was going to take me to talk to him. He made me pack up all my things and get in the car. I kept asking him, “Why? What happened? What did he do?”

“
No me jodes! C
á
llate
,” he told me. “
Mira
, I don’t know. He’ll tell you. All I know is you’ll be staying with us until he goes to court.”

We went into a big building and then in an elevator to the top floor. I had never been in an elevator. He talked to some police and then one took me through a door to a chair in front of a window. He pointed to a phone. Manolo came and sat down on the other side. He was thin and unshaven and his eyes were full of fear. He was shaking and pale. All he was wearing was some orange nightclothes. We sat there, looking at each other. He picked up a phone and pointed to me to pick up mine. It was my first telephone call. It didn’t sound like him but I could see him talking. I was so afraid. I can’t remember everything, except that he said he loved me and he was sorry. He said he would let Ramón know when he’d go to court. He hoped he’d come home to me then. But if he didn’t, to wait for him, my husband. Ramón and Lupe were
buena gente
, they would take care of me until he got out. They needed to take me to the welfare to change my address. “Don’t forget. I’m sorry,” he said in English. I had to think how you said it in Spanish.
Lo siento
. I feel it.

If only I had known. I should have told him I’d love him and wait for him always, that I loved him with all of my heart. I should have told him about our baby. But I was so worried and too frightened to talk into the phone so I just looked at him until the two policemen took him away.

In the car I asked Ramón what had happened, where did they take him? I kept asking him until he stopped his car and said how did he know, to shut up. My check and food stamps would go to them for feeding me and I’d need to take care of their kids. As soon as I could I had to get my own place and move out. I told him I was three months pregnant and he said, “Fuck a duck.” That’s the first English I said out loud. “Fuck a duck.”

*   *   *

Dr. Fritz should be here soon, so at least I can get some of these patients into rooms. He should have been here two hours ago, but as usual he added another surgery. He knows he has office hours Wednesdays. The waiting room is packed, babies screaming, children fighting. Karma and I’ll be lucky to get out of here by seven. She’s the office supervisor, what a job. The place is steamy and hot, reeking of dirty diapers and sweat, wet clothes. It’s raining of course, and most of these mothers have taken long bus rides to get here.

When I go out there I sort of cross my eyes, and when I call the patient’s name I smile at the mother or grandmother or foster care mom but I look at a third eye in their forehead. I learned this in Emergency. It’s the only way to work here, especially with all the crack babies and AIDS and cancer babies. Or the ones who will never grow up. If you look the parent in the eyes you will share it, confirm it, all the fear and exhaustion and pain. On the other hand once you get to know them, sometimes that’s all you can do, look into their eyes with the hope or sorrow you can’t express.

The first two are post-ops. I set out gloves and suture removers, gauze and tape, tell the mothers to undress the babies. It won’t be long. In the waiting room I call Jesus Romero.

A teenage mother walks toward me, her infant wrapped in a rebozo like in Mexico. The girl looks cowed, terrified. “
No inglés
,” she says.

In Spanish I tell her to take off everything but his diaper, ask her what is the matter.

She says, “
Pobre mijito
, he cries and cries all the time, he never stops.”

I weigh him, ask her his birth weight. Seven pounds. He is three months old, should be bigger by now.

“Did you take him for his shots?”

Yes, she went to La Clinica a few days ago. They said he has a hernia. She didn’t know babies needed shots. They gave him one and told her to come back next month but to come here right away.

Her name is Amelia. She is seventeen, had come from Michoacán to marry her sweetheart but now he is in Soledad prison. She lives with an uncle and aunt. She has no money to go back home. They don’t want her here and don’t like the baby because he cries all the time.

“Do you breast-feed him?”

“Yes, but I don’t think my milk is good. He wakes up and cries and cries.”

She holds him like a potato sack. The expression on her face says, “Where does this sack go?” It occurs to me that she has nobody to tell her anything at all.

“Do you know to change breasts? Start off each time with a different breast and let him drink a long time, then put him on the other breast for a while. But be sure and change. This way he gets more milk and your breasts make more milk. He may be falling asleep because he’s tired, not full. He also is probably crying because of the hernia. The doctor is very good. He’ll fix your baby.”

She seems to feel better. Hard to tell, she has what doctors call a “flat affect.”

“I have to go to the other patients. I’ll be back when the doctor comes.” She nods, resigned. She has that hopeless look you see on battered women. God forgive me, because I am a woman too, but when I see women with that look I want to slap them.

Dr. Fritz has come, is in the first room. No matter how long he makes the mothers wait, no matter how mad Karma and I get, when he is with a child we all forgive him. He is a healer. The best surgeon, he does more surgeries than the others combined. Of course they all say he is obsessive and egomaniacal. They can’t say he is not a fine surgeon though. He is famous, actually, was the doctor who risked his life to save the boy after the big earthquake.

The first two patients go quickly. I tell him there is a pre-op with no English in room 3, that I’d be right in. I clean the rooms and put more patients in. When I get to room 3 he is holding the baby, showing Amelia how to push the hernia in. The baby is smiling at him.

“Have Pat put him on the surgery schedule. Explain the pre-op and fasting carefully. Tell her to call if she can’t push it in when it pops out.” He hands her back the baby. “
Muy bonito
,” he says.

“Ask her how Jesus got the bruises on his arms. The ones you should have made note of.” He points to the marks on the underside of the baby’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him. When I ask her she looks frightened and surprised. “
No sé
.”

“She doesn’t know.”

“What do you think?”

“Seems to me that she’s…”

“I can’t believe you’re going to say what I think you are. I have calls to return. I’ll be in room one in ten minutes. I’ll need some dilators, an eight and a ten.”

He was right. I was going to say that she seemed a victim herself, and yes, I know what victims often do. I explain to her how important the surgery is, and the pre-op the day before. To call if the baby was sick or had a bad diaper rash. No milk three hours before the surgery. I get Pat to come set up a date with her and go over the instructions again.

I forget about her then until at least a month has gone by when for some reason it occurs to me she never brought the baby for a post-op. I asked Pat when the surgery was.

“Jesus Romero? That man is such a retard. No-show for the first surgery. Didn’t bother to call. I call her and she says she couldn’t get a ride. O-kay. So I tell her we’ll have a same-day pre-op, to come in really early for an exam and blood work, but that she has got to come. And hallelujah, she shows. But guess what?”

“She feeds the baby a half hour before surgery.”

“You got it. Fritz will be out of town so next slot I have is a month away.”

*   *   *

It was very bad living with them. I couldn’t wait until Manolo and I would be together. I gave them my check and food stamps. They gave me just a little money for things for me. I took care of Tina and Willie, but they didn’t speak Spanish, didn’t pay me any attention. Lupe hated having me there and Ramón was nice except when he got drunk he was always grabbing me or poking at me from behind. I was more afraid of Lupe than him so when I wasn’t working in the house, I just stayed in my little corner in the kitchen.