Cities of the Plain (12 page)

All of them belonged to somebody's grandfather, he said.

As he was going up Ju‡rez Avenue a shineboy spoke to him. Hey cowboy, he said.

Hey.

Better let me shine those boots for you.

All right.

He sat on a little folding campstool and put his boot on the shineboy's homemade wooden
box. The shineboy turned up the leg of his trousers and began to take out his rags and
brushes and tins of polish and lay them to hand.

You goin to see your girl?

Yeah.

I hope you werent goin up there with these boots.

I guess it's a good thing you hollered at me. She might of run me off.

The boy dusted off the boot with his rag and lathered it. When are you gettin married? he
said.

What makes you think I'm gettin married?

I dont know. You kind of got the look. Are you?

I dont know. Maybe.

Are you a cowboy sure enough?

Yep.

You work on a ranch?

Yeah. Small ranch. Estancia, you might say.

You like it?

Yeah. I like it.

He wiped off the boot and opened his can and began to slap polish onto the leather with
the stained fingers of his left hand.

It's hard work, aint it?

Yeah. Sometimes.

What if you could be somethin else?

I wouldnt be nothin else.

What if you could be anything in the world?

John Grady smiled. He shook his head.

Were you in the war?

No. I was too young.

My brother was too young but he lied about his age.

Was he American?

No. How old was he?

Sixteen.

I guess he was big for his age.

He was a big bullshitter for his age.

John Grady smiled.

The boy put the lid back on the tin and took out his brush.

They asked him if he was a pachuco. He said all the pachucos he knew of lived in El Paso.
He told em he didnt know any Mexican pachucos.

He brushed the boot. John Grady watched him.

Was he a pachuco?

Sure. Of course he was.

He brushed the boot and then chucked the brush back into the box and took out his cloth
and popped it and bent and began to rifle the cloth back and forth over the toe of the
boot.

He joined the marines. He got two purple hearts.

What about you?

What about me what.

What did you join.

He glanced up at John Grady. He whipped the cloth around the counter of the boot. I sure
didnt join no marines, he said.

What about the pachucos.

Nah.

You're not a pachuco?

Nah.

Are you a bullshitter?

Sure.

A big one?

Pretty big. Let me have the other foot.

What about the black around the edges?

I do that last. Dont worry about everything.

John Grady put his other foot on the box and turned up his trouserleg.

Appearance is important with women, the boy said. Dont think they dont look at your boots.

You got a girl?

Shit no.

You sound like you've had some bad experiences.

Who aint? You fool with em and that's the kind you'll have.

There'll be some sweet young thing nail you down one of these days.

I hope not.

How old are you?

Fourteen.

You lie about your age?

Yeah. Sure.

I guess if you admit it then it aint a lie.

The boy ceased rubbing in the polish for a moment and sat looking at the boot. Then he
began again.

If there's somethin I want to be a different way from what it is then that's how I say it
is. What's wrong with that?

I dont know.

Who else is goin to?

Nobody, I guess.

Nobody is right.

Is your brother married?

Which brother? I got three.

The one that was in the marines.

Yeah. He's married. They're all married.

If they're all married why did you ask which one?

The shineboy shook his head. Man, he said.

I guess you're the youngest.

No. I got a brother ten years old is married with three kids. Of course I'm the youngest.
What do you think?

Well maybe marriage runs in the family.

Marriage dont run in families. Anyway I'm an outlaw. Oveja negra. You speak spanish? Yeah.
I speak spanish.

Oveja negra. That's me.

Black sheep.

I know what it is.

I am too.

The boy looked up at him. He reached and got his brush from the box. Yeah? he said.

Yeah.

You dont look like no outlaw to me.

What does one look like?

Not like you.

He brushed the boot and put away the brush and got his cloth out and popped it. John Grady
watched him. What about you? What if you could be anything you wanted?

I'd be a cowboy.

Really?

The boy looked up at him with disgust. Shit no, he said. What's wrong with you? I'd be a
rico and lay around on my ass all day. What do you think?

What if you had to do something?

I dont know. Maybe be a airplane pilot.

Yeah?

Sure. I'd fly everywhere.

What would you do when you got there?

Fly somewhere else.

He finished polishing the boot and got out his bottle of blacking and began to paint the
heel and the edges of the sole with the swab.

Other boot, he said.

John Grady put his other foot up and the boy painted the edges. Then he put the swab back
in the bottle and screwed the cap shut and pitched the bottle into the box. You're done,
he said.

John Grady turned his cuffs back down and stood and reached into his pocket and took out a
coin and handed it to the boy.

Thanks.

He looked down at his boots. What do you think.

She might let you in the door. Where's your flowers at?

Flowers?

Sure. You're goin to need all the help you can get.

You're probably right.

I shouldnt even be tellin you this stuff.

Why not?

You'd be better off just to be put out of your misery. John Grady smiled. Where are you
from? he said.

Right here.

No you're not.

I grew up in California.

What are you doin over here? I like it over here.

Yeah? Yeah. You like shinin shoes? I like it all right.

You like the street.

Yeah. I dont like goin to school.

John Grady adjusted his hat and looked off up the street. He looked down at the boy. Well,
he said. I never much liked it myself.

Outlaws, the boy said.

Outlaws. I think maybe you're a bigger outlaw than me. I think you're right.

I'm just kind of gettin the hang of it.

You need any pointers come see me. I'll be happy to show you the ropes.

John Grady smiled. Okay, he said. I'll see you around. Adi—s, vaquero.

Adi—s, bolero.

The boy smiled and waved him on.

THE CRIADA STOOD behind her in the fulllength mirror, her mouth bristling with hairpins.
She looked at the girl in the mirror, so pale and so slender in her shift with her hair
piled atop her head. She looked at Josefina. Josefina stood to the side with one arm
crossed and her other elbow propped upon it, her fist to her chin. No, she said. No.

She shook her head and waved her hand as if to dismiss some outrage and the criada began
to withdraw the pins and combs from the girl's hair until the long black fall descended
again over her shoulders and her back. She took her brush and began again to brush the
girl's hair, following with the flat of her hand beneath, holding up the silky blackness
with each stroke and letting it fall again. Josefina came forward and took a silver
haircomb from the table and swept back the girl's hair along the side and held it there.
She studied the girl and she studied the girl in the mirror. The criada had stepped back
and stood holding the brush in both hands. She and Josefina studied the girl in the
mirror, the three of them in the yellow light of the tablelamp standing there within the
gilded plaster scrollwork of the mirror's frame like figures in an antique flemish
painting.

C—mo es, pues, said Josefina.

She was speaking to the girl but the girl did not answer.

Es m‡s joven. M‡s . . .

Inocente, said the girl.

The woman shrugged. Inocente pues, she said.

She studied the girl's face in the glass. No le gusta?

Est‡ bien, the girl whispered. Me gusta.

Bueno, said the woman. She let go her hair and placed the comb in the criada's hand. Bueno.

When she was gone the old woman put the comb back on the table and came forward with her
brush again. Bueno, she said. She shook her head and clucked her tongue.

No to preocupes, the girl said.

The old woman brushed her hair more fiercely. Bell’sima, she hissed. Bell’sima.

She assisted her with care. With solicitude. One by one the hooks and stays. Passing her
hands across the lilac velvet, cupping her breasts each in turn and adjusting the border
of the decolletage, pinning gown to undergarment. She brushed away bits of lint. She held
the girl by her waist and turned her like a toy and she knelt at her feet and fastened the
straps of her shoes. She rose and stood back.

Puedes caminar? she said.

No, said the girl.

No? Es mentira. Es una broma. No?

No, said the girl.

The criada made a shooing motion. The girl stepped archly about the room on the tall gold
spikes of the slippers.

Te mortifican? said the criada.

Claro.

She stood again before the mirror. The old woman stood behind her. When she blinked only
the one eye closed. So that she appeared to be winking in some suggestive complicity. She
brushed the gathered hair with her hand, she plucked the shoulders of the sleeves erect.

Como una princesa, she whispered.

Como una puta, said the girl.

The criada seized her by the arm. She hissed at her, her eye glaring in the lamplight. She
told her that she would marry a great rich man and live in a fine house and have beautiful
children. She told her that she had known many such cases.

QuiŽn? said the girl.

Muchas, hissed the criada. Muchas. Girls, she told her, with no such beauty as hers. Girls
with no such dignity or grace. The girl did not answer. She looked across the old woman's
shoulder into the eyes in the glass as if it were some sister there who weathered
stoically this beleaguerment of her hopes. Standing in the gaudy boudoir that was itself a
tawdry emulation of other rooms, other worlds. Regarding her own false arrogance in the
pierglass as if it were proof against the old woman's entreaties, the old woman's
promises. Standing like some maid in a fable spurning the offerings of the hag which do
conceal within them unspoken covenants of corruption. Claims that can never be quit,
estates forever entailed. She spoke to that girl standing in the glass and she said that
one could not know where it was that one had taken the path one was upon but only that one
was upon it.

Mande? said the criada. Cu‡l senda?

Cualquier senda. Esta senda. La senda que escoja.

But the old woman said that some have no choice. She said that for the poor any choice was
a gift with two faces.

She was kneeling in the floor repinning the hem of the dress. She'd taken the pins from
her mouth and now she laid them on the carpet and took them up one by one. The girl
watched her image in the glass. The old woman's gray head bowed at her feet. After a while
she said that there was always a choice, even if that choice were death.

Cielos, said the old woman. She blessed herself quickly and went on pinning.

When she entered the salon he was standing at the bar. The musicians were assembling their
pieces on the dais and tuning them and the few notes or chords sounded in the quiet of the
room as if some ceremony were at hand. Within the shadows of the niche beyond the dais
Tiburcio stood smoking, his fingers laced about the thin niellate ebony holder of his
cigarette. He looked at the girl and he looked toward the bar. He watched the boy turn and
pay and take up his glass and come down the broad stairs where the velvetcovered rope
railings led into the salon. He blew smoke slowly from his thin nostrils and then he
opened the door behind him. The brief light framed him in silhouette and his long thin
shadow fell briefly across the floor of the salon and then the door closed again as if he
had not been there at all.

Est‡ peligroso, she whispered.

C—mo?

Peligroso. She looked around the salon.

Ten’a que verte, he said.

He took her hands in his but she only looked in anguish toward the door where Tiburcio had
been standing. She took hold of his wrists and begged him to leave. A waiter glided forth
from the shadows.

Est‡s loco, she whispered. Loco.

Tienes raz—n.

She took his hand and rose. She turned and whispered to the waiter. John Grady rose and
put money in the waiter's hand and turned toward her.

Debemos irnos, she said. Estamos perdidos.

He said that he would not. He said that he would not do that again and that she must meet
him but she said that it was too dangerous. That now it was too dangerous. The music had
begun. A long low chord from the cello.

Me matar‡, she whispered.

QuiŽn?

She only shook her head.

QuiŽn, he said. QuiŽn to matar‡?

Eduardo.

Eduardo.

She nodded. S’, she said. Eduardo.

HE DREAMT THAT NIGHT of things he'd heard and that were so although she'd never spoke of
them. In a room so cold his breath smoked and where the corrugated steel walls were hung
with bunting and a scaffolding covered with cheap red carpet rose in tiers for the folding
slatwood chairs of the spectators. A raw wooden stage trimmed like a fairground float and
BX cable running to a boom overhead made from galvanized iron pipe that held floodlights
covered each in cellophanes of red and green and blue. Curtains of calendered velour in
loops as red as blood.