A So-Called Vacation (24 page)

“But Don Pilo took them on R and R every year,” said Gus. Gabriel added that even with the cynicism of his adulthood he still saw him as nothing worse than a lethargic widower who, left with three energetic sons on his hands, had harnessed their hyperactivity.

Javier gestured with his chin toward the Borrado. “See, that's how I would have answered the guy if I had known about their childhood. I even said one time, ‘Just
stop whining and get a life, man.'” His gaze locked Gus's. “After all, what's past is past. Right,
primo
?”

“Unless it's prologue,” Gabriel muttered.

“What's that mean?” Gus asked him.

“I was just hoping that Dad did find out how they ended up.” He felt ashamed after he said it, even though it had been mostly for Gus's sake.

They watched the Borrado put a soft drink to his lips nervously.

“Look at him,” said Javier. “Like a bantam cock wetting his beak. Except this one's got no fight left in him. He's all tail feathers and hollow bones.”

“He must have crammed a lifetime of work in a few years.” Gabriel recalled the time in the field when the youngest brother had reminded him of a famished chick. Now he wondered how he had ever envied them. A moment later he added, “They never looked well, not even as kids …”

Javier dismissed his concern with a sharp click of his tongue. “Ah, nothing modern medicine can't cure.”

Javier said goodbye and headed for his rig, where the Borrado intercepted him. The two talked, but Gabriel only caught their gesticulations. At one point Javier pointed toward the funeral home and guided his attention to his cousins. The man looked his way, with a gaze that was both absolute and abstract, as if seeing them for the first time. Then and there Gabriel realized that all that time the Borrado had been staring at his cousin, not at him.

Twice Javier waved him a polite farewell and attempted to move on, but each time the man trailed him. He even pulled out his wallet and offered him money, but it was not until Javier tucked something shiny between the bills that he was able to walk away without being followed.

The Borrado waved goodbye with one hand and made an odd gesture with the other, pressing a fist to his lips as if he had touched a holy man. The movement was so mesmerizing that even after he retrieved his soft drink from the car's hood and took a gulp, Gabriel and Gus stayed glued to his every move.

The Borrado held up the bright, dollar-sized object Javier had given him and tried to tear through the bright foil with his teeth, but the cardboard backing proved too tough. He then held it tight while he pushed through the foil's blisters with his thumb. He cursed when the first pill fell on the asphalt, and when the second bright red heart dropped, Gabriel felt his own heart jump so quickly that he barely felt his brother nudge him hard on the ribs.

“Christ!” Gus whispered. “Remember, Gabi?”

Gabriel thought he had whispered back, until a second nudge startled him again.

“Remember, Gabi? Remember that time, in the strawberry field?”

“I remember, Gus,” he answered softly.

“It's identical. I mean, it's the same stuff. So then the guy's not really mental, right?”

“No. Not the way we thought, anyway.”

His brother, so close that Gabriel felt him shiver slightly, said, “This is so strange.”

Gabriel could only nod. After a moment he added, “It was one of his brothers we saw, though.”

“Still, it's like … what do they call it, bro?”

“Déjà vu.”

Gabriel could see once more the small red heart the other Borrado had dropped in the dirt on that distant afternoon. But what he found so odd was not how the scene had been repeated just now. The truly disturbing thing was how something so terrible could have taken
place long ago in that field, in broad daylight, and before their very eyes, and they had been oblivious to it. If anything, they had been envious.

By now the Borrado facing them had scooped up his own amphetamines in one quick move, yet it wasn't until his hand was halfway to his mouth for the second dose that he realized Gabriel was watching. With a slow sweep of his hand he slipped the remaining drugs in his shirt pocket and glanced around with a studied, nonchalant air.

Perhaps sensing that his dissimulation seemed unnatural, he began approaching them. But at that moment, Gus grabbed his younger brother and hurried to the funeral home.

When they reached the entrance, Gus stopped and said, “I had to get away from that guy. I don't want to deal with that stuff. Not now.”

“Me neither.”

Gus put his hands on his younger brother's shoulder and pushed down a bit, as if trying to plant him on that spot. “What I do want is to be alone with the old man for awhile.”

“I understand, Gus. I'll wait out here by the door.”

While he waited, Gabriel scanned the parking lot for the Borrado. He had just decided that the man had left when someone grazed his shoulder so unexpectedly that it made him startle. Gabriel looked behind him and to his left and found himself face to face with the Borrado. Gabriel was so surprised by the apparition that he could not even ask him where he had been all along.

Instead, staring at the small, assorted scabs on the man's forehead and hairline, Gabriel did all he could not to flinch. Now that the Borrado walked all day without the protection of his field sombrero, his complexion had
taken on a splotchy aspect. But his eyes remained the same—transparent.

He stammered a bit, as if conversation did not come easy, then he pointed to where Javier's truck had been. “My friend told me …”

“Javier. He's my cousin.”

The interruption threw the Borrado off somewhat, and he started a new round of stammering. But when he finally spoke again, his words were clear and steady. “He told me your father died. He said he worked with Mr. Woods.”

“Yes, he did.”

The Borrado extended his arm to offer his condolences. Gabriel was expecting the calloused, clammy hand he remembered from the time Don Pilo had introduced them in the fields. Instead it had the soft warmth of a child's hand.

“Your father seemed like a kind man,” said the Borrado.

Gabriel, not quite knowing what to say, almost answered, So did yours. But he caught the irony behind the innocuous reply just in time. He said instead, “I always thought your father was nice too.” He realized at once the raw, unintended truth behind the remark, but it was too late to take it back.

Afraid that the words might trigger one of the Borrado's diatribes, he tried to explain how they had met before, in California. When the Borrado didn't seem to remember, Gabriel said, “Then I ran into you again a few years ago. Outside Mr. Woods' garage, where my father worked.”

The Borrado remembered that occasion and, oddly, it seemed to trigger his recollection of the earlier encounter. “Oh, yes. We knew each other from Don Rafa's camp.”

A part of Gabriel wanted to continue the conversation, but another part felt the unease of walking on eggshells. “I have to check up on my brother,” he finally said. “He's inside.”

The Borrado nodded and started to back off a bit.

“Wait,” said Gabriel. He reached for his wallet and started to search for a five when he remembered his ten-dollar bill. “My father would have wanted you to have this.” He removed it carefully from its special compartment and offered it. “I carry it for good luck.” He didn't mention how he had come by it. He only said, almost as an apology, “Spend it before it falls apart.”

He didn't wait for the Borrado to thank him but instead opened the door and went in. For a moment he was convinced that the man had followed him inside, but when he looked back there was no one there.

Gabriel entered the chapel on the left and immediately saw Gus. His brother was still standing before his father's body, his arms clasped behind his back, as if he were guarding the coffin. An elderly couple stood silently a few feet away, waiting to pay their respects. Gabriel did not interrupt Gus either but rather waited a few minutes and then cautiously ventured outside again.

By now the Borrado had retreated to the shade of an enormous jacaranda where the hearses were parked. Gabriel watched him retrieve another heart from his shirt pocket and slip it in his mouth. Then he took such a deep, satisfying quaff from his soft drink that Gabriel almost envied his pleasure. For an instant, Gabriel thought he saw in those jaded eyes the momentary glimmer of a child's joy, or at least the closest that man would ever come to it.

Only Sons

The Quixote Cult

Rainbow's End