Dr. Brinkley's Tower (14 page)

— Now repeat after me, Francisco would say. —
I am very pleased to meet you.

— I am bery pliss to mit joo.

— Not quite, Francisco would explain in Spanish. — You're saying
b
instead of
v
and you're making your long vowels short. Try again.

— I am bery pliss to mit joo.

— Remember last week? When we studied the difference between the
b
and
v
sounds?

— Sí, Francisco. (blink)

— Then let's give it another go.

— I am bery plissed to mit joo.

Though this was frustrating, Francisco benefited from a high level of motivation: he had a sweetheart now. And while it was true that Violeta did not ask him for things, as most of the other chicas in town would have, it was still nice to bring her flowers purchased from Indio vendors who spent their days combing the desert for cactus blooms, or to buy her the occasional soft drink from the store of Fajardo Jimenez. They would then go walking through town, Francisco conscious of the leering, resentful glances being cast in his direction. He didn't care, for each afternoon the time would inevitably come when the day began to weaken over the western plains. At such moments it was as though the peaks of the distant sierras were lancing the sun, causing it to bleed molten colour across the skies.

In this passionate light, Francisco and Violeta would walk along a goat path forged during the revolution by women escaping the satanic demands of men with guns and no one to answer to. It meandered south past the old Spanish mission and continued well into the desert. After a kilometre or so, the path finally came over a rise and terminated in a long, sandy lee that, on a night when the clouds were full and the corona was operating at peak illumination, offered a brilliant kelp-green vista of the Coahuilan desert. It was a place of undeniable wonderment, the howls of roving coydogs providing an atmospheric soundtrack.

Since the end of the revolution, the spot had served a different, much more pleasing, purpose. It was here that the young of the town met for romantic assignations, away from
protective fathers and mothers worried that their daughters were about to make the same mistakes they had made at that age. Often, upon reaching the lee, Francisco and Violeta could see as many as a dozen couples, stretched along at ten-metre intervals, all embracing in the tarragon-hued starlight.

Francisco would then escort Violeta to an unoccupied spot well away from the others, and there they would loll amid sandy brambles and press against one another, a heated connectivity occurring between lips and mouths and hands and skin and hips and the sort of words spoken when only the present tense is relevant and desire is made tangible and matter converts to a fluid, glowing energy and the whole of the universe becomes simple and glorious and intended for the benefit of young people only.

Love, in other words, was in the air. There was something about the existence of the tower, its mammoth tip throbbing red, that enriched the blood, tantalized the flesh, and caused the hammocks of Corazón de la Fuente to bounce with a ferocity that had not been known during the libido-draining years of the revolution. The aging molinero, in love with Laura Velasquez, felt a sprightliness invade his body: there were times when he had to remind himself that he was eighty-eight years of age and not an infatuated teenager. The hacendero, too, found himself newly enraptured with his paramour, Madam Félix, so much so that at times he contemplated telling the whole village of their love. It was also known that Consuela Reyes, mother of Alfonso and Luis, had caught the eye of a carpenter from Rosita, who had visited on
the night that Radio XER went on the air and the skies began to shimmer with green light.

Even the cantina owner, Carlos Hernandez, long denied the physical expression of love, felt inspired by the town's collective ardour. Late one night he walked into the desert, his way lit by the rippling corona. There he extracted the money he kept in his safety box, which had grown exponentially since the explosion of gringo traffic to the town. He stuffed his savings into his jeans, returned to his home, and slept that night with his earnings hidden in his pillowcase. Margarita, who respected the invisible line between them, was none the wiser.

The following afternoon he saddled a neighbour's burro and headed towards the bridge, his pockets bulging with pesos and dollars. To anyone who asked, he claimed that he was heading to Del Río to investigate the possibility of buying a saloon mirror unmarred by pistol fire and the yellowing caused by time's passage. He passed the guard on the Mexican side of the border, who was dozing against the first post of the bridge railing, his hat pulled down over his brow. At the other side, a diminutive border guard in dark glasses emerged from his cabaña, only to begin a routine familiar to every Corazónite who needed to cross into America with dry clothing. The guard asked to see a passport. The cantina owner apologized and, in workable English, admitted that he did not have one. The guard said that was a problem. The cantina owner said he hoped it wasn't too big a problem. The guard said maybe there was something he could do. The cantina owner said it would be most appreciated. The guard offered to sell him a transit visa, though it would cost ten dollars.
Carlos countered that he was just a poor cantina owner. The exchange went on and on. Though both men were bored by the charade, neither knew any mechanism to avoid its time-honoured practice. In the end, the cantina owner successfully crossed into los Estados Unidos, his pocket lightened by exactly one dollar. The transit visa never manifested itself.

He rode towards the main street of Del Rio, Texas, which lay about a half-mile west of the international bridge. After leaving his burro tied to a hitching post next to a row of automobiles, he entered the town's department store, promptly left through the rear entrance, and doubled back until he reached the Stonewall Hotel, a plain, five-storey grey-brick building that was known for having the first and only elevator in the town of Del Rio. The building was fronted by a large rectangular lawn dotted with acacia shrubs. It was here that Dr. Brinkley's clinic operated from the top two floors. Out back, Carlos could hear the bleating of penned Toggenburg goats.

After a series of quick side-to-side glances, the cantina owner stepped into the elevator, his apprehension overcome by the novelty of this experience. He debarked on the fourth floor and found a door marked
Reception.
He removed his hat and entered a roomful of men hiding behind magazine covers. He then approached a receptionist seated at a desk towards one end of the room. She wore a denim shirt with a galaxy of stitching.

— Hello! she chirped.

— Hello, he answered, his
h
so overly compensated it sounded like a rushing of breath.

— Would you like to see one of the doctors?

The cantina owner nodded.

— Lovely, the woman said. — Now, what is your name?

— Carlos Hernandez.

She wrote this down. — As you can see, we're very busy today. Just take a seat, and one of our attendants will be with you in a moment.

The cantina owner squeezed between a fat, sweating man in a bowler hat and a skinny man wearing farmer's overalls. Neither so much as glanced at him, and the fat man refused to relinquish any of the armrest. The cantina owner sat with his arms tight to his body and surveyed the room, catching glimpses of stony, discomfited expressions, all peering at him above copies of the
Del Río Herald
or the
San Antonio Express-News.
He stood and picked up a tattered edition of the the
Houston Chronicle
from an end table, squeezed back into his seat, and, like the rest of the men in the room, pretended to read.

Time passed with an excruciating slowness.
Ay, caray,
he thought,
I'll develop a craving for tin cans and boot soles. In the morning I'll wake my neighbours with my bleating.
He grinned, albeit briefly, and then watched his thoughts grow suspicious and dark.
What do you think, pendejo? That they'll give you the best surgeon in the place? That you'll get Brinkley himself? Oh no, a poor Mexicano like you, with burro shit on your boots and a moustache worthy of Pancho Villa, you'll get the cutter with shaky hands and a hangover and a known antipathy towards those with bronze skin …

The more his thoughts swirled, the more uncomfortable he grew, till the moment came when he decided he was going to march out, fetch his neighbour's burro, and flee. He was just about to stand when a sobering hallucination alighted
on the pages of his paper. It was the face of his Margarita, and in this vision he saw something he had to confront each and every day: her depleted opinion of him, an opinion that seemed to diminish further with each week of matrimonial deprivation. It glistened in her newsprint eyes and oozed from every grey newspaper pore.

— Señor Hernandez?

The cantina owner's thoughts were vacuumed up through space and time. He closed the magazine on the disgruntled features of his wife. A young man wearing a green surgical gown was standing in the doorway. The cantina owner stood and followed the man down a hallway and into a small room. They sat.

— Bienvenido, said the attendant while reaching for a clipboard. — I'm going to ask you few questions.

— Sí.

— How long have you been suffering from impotence?

The cantina owner lowered his gaze. In México you would never ask a man to reveal something so disgraceful. — It has been a while, he confessed.

— And you are married?

— Sí.

— And for how long have you been married?

— Eleven years.

— So you haven't always had this problem?

Of course not, you offensive hijo de puta
, the cantina owner yearned to say. Instead he just shook his head, no.

— Do you have children?

Again he hung his head. There had been a time when he and Margarita had spent entire days in their large,
feather-mattressed bed, both of them laughing as the townsfolk pounded the locked doors of the cantina, yelling for chilled cerveza. Back then it had seemed as inevitable as the setting of the sun that they would have four, five, maybe even a half-dozen children.

— No, he answered. — We wanted to, but it never happened.

— I see. Tell me, was there some event that, mmm, triggered your impotence?

— I no understand.

— Was there … something that seemed to cause your problem?

The cantina owner thought of the leering, horrific face of the capitano, the contents of his stomach beginning to writhe. — No. It just started happening.

The young man wrote this down. — Tell me, Señor Hernandez, are you suffering from fatigue? From feeling tired all the time?

Finally, the cantina owner thought, a question that did not embarrass him. He nodded.

The young man smiled. — Of course, of course. I could have answered this question myself. And are there times when you find it difficult to go to the bathroom?

— Hmm, not …

— Of course there are. And I bet I don't even need to ask the next question. Are there times when you feel pain in the lower abdomen?

I am from México
, Carlos was tempted to answer.
I have lived through revolution, through famine, through locust plagues and drought. I feel pain everywhere, at all times, in places you don't know about.
Instead, he just said: — Sí.

The young man scribbled. — I am happy to say, Señor Hernandez, that you have a very simple problem, one experienced by many, many men, particularly during times of stress, and one that is completely treated by our Compound Operation. Do you know what this involves?

— I think so.

— It's very simple, the incision very small. All we do is take a culture made of extracted goat …

— Sí, sí, I know. When I can have it?

The man blinked at him as though surprised.

— When? Señor Hernandez, didn't you know? We pride ourselves on offering same-day service. With so many clients from out of town, we really have to, don't you think?

With that the attendant summoned a tiny Asiatic nurse with glasses so thick they rendered her eyes the size of avocado stones. The woman led the cantina owner down the hall, entering what was clearly a former hotel suite, a surgical cot in place of an actual bed. She instructed the cantina owner to lie down, lower his trousers to his knees, and pull his shirt up to the middle of his chest. Carlos relinquished the last shreds of his dignity, and when he next looked at the nurse, she was bearing a syringe. The cantina owner stiffened with fear, then felt a prick just above his pelvic bone.

— There you go, said the nurse. — Now you just wait here.

Again the cantina owner obliged, his genital region turning so numb that, after ten minutes or so, he could no longer feel it; it was as though the terrain existing between his upper thighs and navel had disappeared. As he waited, he looked around the room, a decision he immediately regretted. The wallpaper was peeling, the light fixture attached to the ceiling
directly above him was filled with dead flies, and the carpet had been mended in spots with electrical tape. He closed his eyes and shuddered, and was about to call off the whole operation when Dr. Brinkley himself came bursting into the room, his eyes shining behind his tortoiseshell frames.

— So it's true! he exclaimed in Spanish. — One of the nurses mentioned that one of Corazón's own was here for treatment, and I just had to come and see for myself. It's Señor Hernandez, is it?

— Sí, Francisco said, his face blooming into a grateful smile.

— Well, in that case, welcome! You are officially the first person of Mexican residence to have my world-famous Compound Operation. Not only am I going to do the procedure myself, I'll knock ten percent off the bill. In fact, you can tell your compadres over the border that the offer is open to any resident of Corazón de la Fuente. It's the least I can do for that town of yours. In fact, lately I've been thinking of doing something nice for your whole village, some sort of civic event … It must have been a real inconvenience, putting up with all that construction. All in good time, of course.