Bless Me, Ultima (21 page)

“Horse!” Red answered.

“No! No! No!” Horse cried. We chased him down on the stage and knocked over a lot of the props, but we finally got the beautiful blue robe on him.

“Horse is a virgin!” Bones called.

“¡Aghhhhh! ¡Cabrón!” Horse started up the rope but we pulled him down.

“Horse! Horse!” Miss Violet tried to subdue him. “It’s only for a little while. And no one will know. Here.” She put a heavy veil on his head and tied it around his face so that it covered all except his eyes.

“¡Naggggggh!” Horse screamed. It was awful to hear him cry, like he was in pain.

“I’ll give you an A,” Miss Violet said in exasperation. That made Horse think. He had never gotten an A in anything in his life.

“An A,” he muttered, his large horse jaws working as he weighed the disgrace of his role for the grade. “Okay,” he said finally, “okay. But remember, you said an A!”

“I’ll be your witness,” Lloyd said from behind the cow.

“Horse is a virgin!” Bones sang, and Horse quit the job and we had to persuade him all over again.

“Bones is just jealous,” Red convinced him.

“Come down!” Miss Violet yelled at Bones.

“Gimme an A,” Bones growled.

“All right,” she agreed.

He thought awhile then yelled, “No, gimme two A’s!”

“Go to—” She stopped herself and said, “Stay up there. But if you fall and break your neck it’s not my fault!”

“You could be sued by his family for saying that,” Lloyd said. He wiped his mouth and the chocolate spread all over his face.

“I got to pee—” Abel groaned.

“Horse, kneel here.” Horse was to kneel by the manger and I stood at his side, with one hand on his shoulder. When I put my arm around his shoulder Horse’s lips sputtered and I thought he would bolt. His big horse-eyes looked up at me nervously. One of the cardboard donkeys kept tipping over and hitting Horse, this only served to make him more nervous. Some of the kids were stationed behind the cardboard animals to keep them up, and they giggled and kept looking around the edges at each other. They started a spit-wad game and that really made Miss Violet angry.

“Please behave!” she shouted. “Pleeeeeeee-z!” The Vitamin Kid had recovered and was running around the stage. She collared him and made him stand in one spot. “Kings here,” she said. I guess someone had put the robe on the Kid when he was knocked out, because otherwise no one could have held him long enough to slip the robe on.

“Does everybody have copies of the play?” Red shouted. “If you have to look at the lines, keep the script hidden so the audience doesn’t see—”

“I can seeeeee—” It was Bones. He leaned to look down at Florence’s copy of the play and almost fell off the rafter. We all gasped, but he recovered. Then he bragged, “Tarzuuuuuuun, king of the jungle!” And he started calling elephants like Tarzan does in the movie, “Aghhh-uhhhh-uhhhh-uhhhhhhhhh—”

“¡Cabrón!” “¡Chingada!” Everyone was laughing.

“Bones,” Miss Violet pleaded. I thought she was going to cry. “Please come down.”

“I ain’t no sissy!” he snarled.

“You know, I’m going to have to report you to the principal—”

Bones laughed. He had been spanked so many times by the principal that it didn’t mean anything anymore. They had become almost like friends, or like enemies that respected each other. Now when Bones was sent in for misbehaving he said the principal just made him sit. Then, Bones said, the principal very slowly lit a cigarette and smoked it, blowing rings of smoke in Bones’ face all the while. Bones liked it. I guess they both got a satisfaction out of it. When the cigarette was gone and its light crushed in the ashtray Bones was excused. Then Bones went back to the room and told the teacher he had really gotten it this time and he promised to be a good boy and not break any rules. But five minutes later he broke a rule, and of course he couldn’t help it because they said his brother who worked in the meat market had brought Bones up on raw meat.

“I ain’t got page five,” Abel cried. His face was red and he looked sick.

“You don’t need page five, your lines are on page two,” Red told him. He was very good about helping Miss Violet; I only wished I could help more. But the kids wouldn’t listen to me because I wasn’t big like Red, and besides, there I was stuck with my arm around Horse.

“Florence by the light—” Tall angelic Florence moved under the light bulb that was the star of the east. When the rest of the lights were turned off the light bulb behind Florence would be the only light. “Watch your head—”

“Everybody ready?” The three wise men were ready, Samuel, Florence, and the Kid. Horse and I were ready. The fellows holding up the cardboard animals were ready, and Red was ready.

“Here they come,” Miss Violet whispered. She stepped into the wings.

I glanced up and saw the screaming horde of first graders rushing down the aisle to sit in the front rows. The fourth and fifth graders sat behind them. Their teachers looked at the stage, shook their heads and left, closing the doors behind them. The audience was all ours.

“I got to pee,” Abel whispered.

“Shhhhhh,” Miss Violet coaxed, “everybody quiet.” She hit the light switch and the auditorium darkened. Only the star of the east shone on stage. Miss Violet whispered for Red to begin. He stepped to the center of the stage and began his narration.

“The First Christmas!” he announced loudly. He was a good reader.

“Hey, it’s Red!” someone in the audience shouted, and everybody giggled. I’m sure Red blushed, but he went on; he wasn’t ashamed of stuff like that.

“I got to—” Abel moaned.

Lloyd began to unwrap another Tootsie Roll and the cow he was holding teetered. “The cow’s moving,” someone in the first row whispered. Horse glanced nervously behind me. I was afraid he would run. He was trembling.

“—And they were led by the star of the east—” and here Red pointed to the light bulb. The kids went wild with laughter. “—So they journeyed that cold night until they came to the town of Bethlehem—”

“Abel peed!” Bones called from above. We turned and saw the light of the east reflecting off a golden pool at Abel’s feet. Abel looked relieved.

“¡Ah la veca!” “¡Puto!”

“How nasty,” Lloyd scoffed. He turned and spit a mouthful of chewed-up Tootsie Roll. It landed on Maxie, who was holding up a cardboard donkey behind us.

Maxie got up cleaning himself. The donkey toppled over. “¡Jodido!” He cursed Lloyd and shoved him. Lloyd fell over his cow.

“You could be sued for that,” he threatened from the floor.

“Boys! Boys!” Miss Violet called excitedly from the dark.

I felt Horse’s head tossing at the excitement. I clamped my arm down to hold him, and he bit my hand.

“¡Ay!”

“And there in a manger, they found the babe—” Red turned and nodded for me to speak.

“I am Joseph!” I said as loud as I could, trying to ignore the sting of the horse bite, “and this is the baby’s mother—”

“Damn you!” Horse cursed when I said that. He jumped up and let me have a hard fist in the face.

“It’s Horse!” the audience squealed. He had dropped his veil, and he stood there trembling, like a trapped animal.

“Horse the virgin!” Bones called.

“Boys, Bowoooo-oizz!” Miss Violet pleaded.

“—AndthethreekingsbroughtgiftstotheChristchild—” Red was reading very fast to try to get through the play, because everything was really falling apart on stage.

The audience wasn’t helping either, because they kept shouting, “Is that you, Horse?” or “Is that you, Tony?”

The Kid stepped up with the first gift. “I bring, I bring—” He looked at his script but he couldn’t read.

“Incense,” I whispered.

“¿Qué?”

“Incense,” I repeated. Miss Violet had rearranged Horse’s robe and pushed him back to kneel by me. My eyes were watering from his blow.

“In-sense,” the Kid said and he threw the crayon box we were using for incense right into the manger and busted the doll’s head again. The round head just rolled out into the center of the stage near where Red stood and he looked down at it with a puzzled expression on his face.

Then the Kid stepped back and slipped on Abel’s pee. He tried to get up and run, but that only made it worse. He kept slipping and getting up, and slipping and getting up, and all the while the audience had gone wild with laughter and hysteria.

“Andthesecondwisemanbroughtmyrrh!” Red shouted above the din.

“Meerrrr, merrrrda, ¡mierda!” Bones cried like a monkey.

“I bring myra,” Samuel said.

“Myra!” someone in the audience shouted, and all the fifth graders turned to look at a girl named Myra. All of the boys said she sat on her wall at home after school and showed her panties to those that wanted to see.

“Hey, Horse!”

“¡Chingada!” the Horse said, working his teeth nervously. He stood up and I pushed and he knelt again.

The Kid was holding on to Abel, trying to regain his footing, and Abel just stood very straight and said, “I had to.”

“And the third wise man brought gold!” Red shouted triumphantly. We were nearing the end.

Florence stepped forward, bowed low and handed an empty cigar box to Horse. “For the virgin,” he grinned.

“¡Cabrón!” The Horse jumped up and shoved Florence across the stage, and at the same time a blood-curdling scream filled the air and Bones came sailing through the air and landed on Horse.

“For the verrrrrr-gin!” Bones cried.

Florence must have hit the light bulb as he went back because there was a pop and darkness as the light of the east went out.

“—And that’s how it was on the first Christmas!” I heard brave Red call out above the confusion and free-for-all on stage and the howling of the audience. And the bell rang and everybody ran out shouting, “Merry Christmas!” “Merry Christmas!” “¡Chingada!”

In a very few moments the auditorium was quiet. Only Red and I and Miss Violet remained on the stage. My ears were ringing, like when I stood under the railroad bridge while a train went by overhead. For the first time since we came in it was quiet in the auditorium. Overhead the wind began to blow. The blizzard had not died out.

“What a play,” Miss Violet laughed, “my Lord what a play!” She sat on a crate in the middle of the jumbled mess and laughed. Then she looked up at the empty beam and called, “Bones, come down!” Her voice echoed in the lonely auditorium. Red and I stood quietly by her.

“Shall we start putting the things away?” Red finally asked. Miss Violet looked up at us and nodded and smiled. We straightened up the stage as best we could. While we worked we felt the wind of the blizzard increase, and overhead the skylight of the auditorium grew dark with snow.

“I think that’s about all we can do,” Miss Violet said. “The storm seems to be getting worse—”

We put on our jackets, closed the auditorium door and walked down the big, empty hall. The janitor must have turned off the furnace, because there was no noise.

“This place is like a tomb,” Miss Violet shivered.

It was like a tomb; without the kids the schoolhouse was a giant, quiet tomb with the moaning wind crying around its edges. It was strange how everything had been so full of life and funny and in a way sad, and now everything was quiet. Our footsteps echoed in the hall.

I didn’t know how bad it was snowing until we reached the door. We looked out and saw a gray sheet of snow. It was falling so thick we could hardly see the street at the far end of the schoolground.

“I’ve never seen snow like this,” Red remarked. “It looks dark—”

It was true, the snow looked dark.

“Will you be able to get home all right, Tony?” Miss Violet asked. She was putting on her gloves.

“Yes,” I replied. “You?”

She smiled. “Red will walk with me,” she said. Red lived down by the Methodist church and Miss Violet lived just beyond, so they could walk together. Miss Violet was not married and I knew she lived with her mother in a house that had a high brick wall around it.

“Merry Christmas, Tony.” She bent down and kissed my cheek. “Take care of yourself—”

“See you, Tony,” Red called. I saw them lean and walk into the darkness of the storm.

“Merry Christmas!” I called after them, and in just seconds the two figures disappeared. The snow was so thick that it blurred my sight. I zipped my jacket and pulled it tight around me. I did not want to leave the alcove of the doorway. I did not want to struggle into the storm. I thought of home and my mother and Ultima, and I longed to be there in the warmth. It was not that I was afraid of the storm, I had seen the winter storms of the llano and I knew that if I was careful I would arrive home safely. I guess it was just the darkness of it that made me hesitate. I don’t know how long I stood there thinking.

Finally a cold shiver shook me from my thoughts. I leaned into the cold wind and ran towards the street. Once on Main I made my way along the protective sides of the buildings. All of the stores were brightly lighted, but there were few people in the streets. When people did come into view it seemed they were upon me suddenly, then they stumbled on and were lost in the wind-swept snow. Cars moved slowly up and down the street. It was hard to believe that it was only three in the afternoon; it seemed rather like the midnight of a long, dark night.

I turned at Allen’s Market and the blast of wind struck me in the face. There was no protection here. I thought of going into the store, but I remembered that Andrew hadn’t come to work. He was probably home, sleeping safe and warm.

I buried my head in my jacket and edged my way down the sides of the buildings. I was moving carefully, so as not to slip on the ice, when I passed the doors of the Longhorn Saloon. Suddenly the door of the bar crashed open and two giant figures came hurtling out. They bumped against me as they tumbled into the street, and sent me reeling against the wall. From there I watched the most savage fight I had ever seen.

“¡Te voy a matar, cabrón!” one of the men screamed, and I recognized the evil voice of Tenorio. My blood ran cold.

They tumbled into the snow like two drunken bears, kicking and striking at each other, and their cries and curses filled the air.