Let Their Spirits Dance (14 page)

“Don't cuss, mijo!” my mother says.

The redhead stands up. “I'm sorry, I didn't know this was so disturbing. I had no…”

“It's OK, Miss Red Hair,” my mother says. “My mijito got his prayer answered in Heaven, and we're leaving for the Vietnam Wall in a few days.”

There are tears in the redhead's eyes. “My cousin died in Vietnam. He was like a brother to me—Robert O'Connor, 1969.” Paul walks away without another word.

“Was he Irish?” I ask her.

“Yes.”

“So was my grandfather, William James O'Brien, my mom's dad.”

“God bless you, pobrecita,” my mother says. “We'll touch his name, too.” The redhead walks out crying into a Kleenex, followed by the cameraman, who unplugs his camera and thanks my mother for the interview.

 

• O
N THE SIX O'CLOCK NEWS
that night we saw a head shot of Mom and the redhead, the front of the house, and neighbors around the Channel 5 van. We heard the part about the money, nothing about la
manda or El Santo Niño. No surprise to me. We heard the redhead we found out was named Holly Stevens tell the audience that the Ramirezes, family of the deceased Vietnam vet Sgt. Jesse A. Ramirez, were on their way to the Vietnam Wall, made possible by a huge blunder made by the Veterans Administration in 1968. The government's mistake is the Ramirezes' good fortune, she said. Miracles can and do happen even in this day and age, she added, smiling big into the camera.

T
he next day Espi and I drive up to the old house on East Canterbury, the house Ray and I lived in for over fifteen years. It's better than the apartments we lived in the first few years of our marriage, not counting the duplex Ray invested in with his friend Steve. Steve's nothing but a con artist. Ray knew it but never admitted it, even when Steve ran off with the rent money and ended the campaign against roaches in the duplex by leaving all the fumigating solution in Ray's pick-up. “I guess he never finished the job,” Ray told me. “Never finished? He never got started, you idiot! He took you for everything you had!” Ray says Steve's one hell of a drummer, and he still lets him drum out beats for Latin Blast. If it were me, I'd have exchanged his beloved drums for the fumigating solution.

“I'm glad I don't have to worry about your brother's business investments anymore, Espi. We almost lost the house because he owed so much on the duplex.”

“Amen to that.”

I double-check the carport to make sure Ray's pick-up is gone.

“We bought the house because I liked that tree.” I'm pointing to the huge carob tree that engulfs the front yard. The tree is an evergreen sprouting dark green leaves year-round. The tree won't produce the sphere-shaped carob nut until spring, when the hard nut bursts from its brown shell and falls to the ground, untouched. I've never known anyone
who harvested the carob nut. It's not like pecans or piñones. The nuts fall everywhere, casting a strong, sticky smell that borders on the unbearable on summer evenings when the heat of the day, like invisible waves, rises from the asphalt streets. All you do is rake up the mess under the tree. If you love trees like I do, you run your hand over the gnarled trunk, amazed at the tree's dark, green beauty and pungent smell.

This year the yard is a dismal yellow, the grass has gone unwatered. The FOR SALE sign is hanging out, inches from the sidewalk, announcing to the neighborhood that the marriage between Ray and Teresa Alvarez is over. Everybody knew it before the sign went up. It looks sad, the sign. I glance at it once coming in and once going out.

Inside, the house is desolate. Most of the furniture is in storage, leaving only the pieces Ray and Cisco will need until the house sells: the couch, TV, kitchen table, chairs, bedroom furniture, and a desk in Cisco's room. We're here to look at the girls' room to calculate how much furniture we should move to Mom's.

“Look at this mess, Espi! Your brother must be crazier than I thought. How does he expect to sell the house? And now we're leaving for the Wall. It'll take at least two weeks for me to get back and start cleaning up.”

“You know how men are, anything is OK for them. They have no sense of the right thing to do. I'll help you when you get back. Just think this is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to your family. Jesse's reaching for you from the Vietnam Wall!”

“Or my mother's reaching for him…or they're both reaching for each other. Either way, it'll be a long trip, you know how we are as a family. We only get together for Mom's sake.” I'm standing in the dark hallway. It feels like I'm in a confessional. “I can't ever go back to your brother, Espi, not after the whole thing with Sandra.”

“It must be hard for you. I don't know why my brother got mixed up with her. I'm glad Tommy doesn't run around.”

“Tommy? I can't imagine it! Remember when he and Manuel joined the choir at St. Anthony's just to be close to us?” We both laugh, remembering how Yolanda Escalante, the organist, scolded them for being off-key. Yolanda couldn't get rid of them, because they were the only boys in the choir and we needed their voices. We both get quiet.

“You OK?”

“Yeah. What can I say? All these memories all over the place. I don't know how much more I can take, Espi. But, I'll tell you the truth about
Sandra. I don't think she started the problems between me and your brother.”

“Then why did you fight her? I can't believe you went that far. You might even end up with a prison record!”

“Don't get dramatic. I fought her because she was laughing at me—no shame, just like Consuelo, you remember, Dad's mistress? But I think everything started before that, Sandra's just the last thing that happened. Ray and I hardly talked anymore. He wanted to watch baseball on TV and live on beer and peanuts when he wasn't working. A far cry from the man who got involved with the Brown Berets when they came to Phoenix. Ray was an activist, don't you remember, Espi? He went to Denver in '69 when los Chicanos proposed El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. They were saying we had a history. We were descendants of the Aztec nation, but we were different, too. We were a people searching for our own mythical land, our own Atlantis. Then I don't know what happened to Ray. He just quit. He wouldn't go with us to the Chicano Moratorium in East L.A. He said we were crazy.”

“We
were
crazy in those days, Teresa. We could have gotten ourselves killed. I still can't forget that reporter the L.A. sheriff killed—Ruben Salazar. They murdered him in cold blood!”

“Don't even remind me. It makes my blood boil.”

“I still have nightmares over it.”

“Maybe you've got a form of PTSD, Espi—you know, posttraumatic stress disorder. You can suffer for years over some trauma that's happened in your life. Now, I'm wondering if Ray didn't have PTSD. I read about it. Lots of guys who served in Vietnam suffer from it. They live the war out in different ways and it doesn't end for them until they come to terms with what's happened to them. Ray never told me one thing about Vietnam, even though I asked him lots of times. The war was so brutal, then coming back here was just as bad with people blaming them for the whole thing. Now that I think of it, Ray might have been going through depression, but you know your brother, he never wanted anybody to help him.”

Pictures are all over the walls as we walk into the family room.

“I told the girls to take all these pictures down and pack them in newspapers.”

We browse around looking at the pictures. There's Elsa and Julio sitting with Marisol in front of a fireplace, last year's Christmas photo. Elsa's petite, a little elf. Her thin hair hangs down around her shoulders.

My life was gray inside when Elsa was born in early '71. Nothing had color. Losing Jesse did that to me. Made me a blank sheet. I held Elsa and it was better for me, feeling flesh and blood, a little heart pounding through her lumpy chest. She was beautiful and always smelled of the fabric softener I used for her baby clothes. She was pink like her blankets and slept on my chest many nights curled in between my breasts, making them squirt milk when they were full.

“Look, there's Priscilla with Angelo and Michael.” Espi's pointing to a photo of Priscilla, Angelo, and Michael at Disneyland. “Michael's such a brainy kid.”

“He's a real
Jeopardy
candidate. He's in a special school in Scottsdale, the only Chicano kid from the Southside over in rich man's land.”

“More power to him. I wonder what he'll be when he grows up.”

“Ask him. He'll tell you. You'll feel like you're talking to a university professor.”

“Wish I had a kid like that!”

“Really? Some people are scared of kids like that. Paul can't stand him, his own son! They get into arguments all the time.”

Espi's staring at a photo of Paul. “It must be hard for Paul, having a brother like Jesse who did everything right. Jesse was your mother's favorite, for sure.”

“I don't know about that. Paul's the baby, and you know how moms feel about their babies. Mom loves us all. I don't think she ever made a distinction between us, but then again, if you ask Paul, he'll tell you Jesse was Mom's favorite.”

Espi's voice and mine bounce off the half-empty rooms. It's like we're walking in La Cueva del Diablo, not the house I used to live in. The angel with the flaming sword found something wanting and is sealing the place up. There's a sore spot inside my chest I can't reach. I open the door to the girls' bedroom and stare blankly at their twin beds, stripped of blankets and sheets. The twins' identities split off in amazing directions, just like Priscilla's and mine did. Lilly is all sports, She made varsity basketball in her freshman year. Her body is supple and strong. She winces at wearing jewelry and dresses. Her hairdo is nothing more than a short bob. She's more Priscilla's daughter than mine.

Lisa is me all over again. Her nose is always in a book, memorizing poetry, reading the latest authors. She's in drama, auditioning for Squanto's wife this year, and last year for the lead female in
Tom Sawyer
. She's almost plump. I'm hoping she won't have a weight problem
like some of her cousins, who weigh in at 200, if they were to tell the truth.

“I'll leave the chest of drawers and come back for the dresser. They've got beds at Mom's, so we'll have to put the beds in storage. The girls would hate it if I sold them. And look at all these clothes still hanging in the closet. Most of it they never wear. I'm gonna bag it all and give it to the Goodwill.”

I glance into my old bedroom as we walk by. Ray wouldn't bring Sandra here, not now anyway. Maybe later when he gets a place of his own. I glance at the bed. The pillows are lying on top of each other. The comforter's in a heap in the middle of the bed. The bed's been pushed up against the wall, instead of being centered in the middle of the room like Ray used to like it. I'm looking at the bed of a woman I don't remember anymore. Was it really me in bed with Ray? When? I can't even remember the smell of us together that made me catch my breath when we were first married.

There was a warm, sacred part of Ray, a hand that held mine all night when I cried for Jesse. It was warm blood I felt when I pressed my fingers gently on the artery in Ray's neck. It was something I had wanted to do for Jesse, to feel for his pulse. I felt Ray's heartbeat over and over again to make up for not hearing Jesse's.

Walking down the hallway, I hear Cisco's stereo playing in his room. He loves music and dancing like Ray. Names for his CDs are unpronounceable to me, 2-Pac, Aaliyah, Ice Cube, Bone Thugs, Jodeci, Lighter Shade of Brown, Snoop Doggy Dog, and the only one that makes any sense to me, Gloria Estefan.

“Are you awake? Cisco?” I'm knocking on his door; after a few seconds he opens.

“Oh, hi, Mom. I didn't know you were here.” He's half-asleep, running his hand through his thick mop of hair that ends in a ponytail when he combs it out. Cisco's taller than me by several inches, and so handsome I don't want to take my eyes off his face. He's got several girls on his trail. He's half Ray, half Tata O'Brien. His lean, muscular body is light cream. He wears a small gold earring on his left ear that I like but Ray hates. He's standing in his boxers, rubbing his eyes.

“What's up, Mom? Are we ready to get on the road?”

“Not yet! Your nana wants me to invite Gates and Willy and there's a hundred other things to do. I'm just checking around to see what needs to be done here. Espi's with me.”

“I'll be up in a little while. I've got wrestling practice.”

I'm already down the hall on my way to the kitchen. The stove is greasy. Food stains, multicolored blotches, show up on the stainless steel surface. The floor looks like somebody tried to mop it and missed a few spots. The trash can's overstuffed with beer cans. I make a mental note to tell Ray to hire someone to clean up the place. I open one of the cabinets in the kitchen and find two tiny silver spoons that belonged to the girls when they were babies, a baby shower gift.

“OK, Espi, we can go. I found what I'm looking for.” I'm holding up the silver spoons.

“That? That's what you came here for?”

“No, but that's all the energy I have left for right now. Just enough to pack these little silver spoons into my purse. I might even take them to the Wall. They leave all kinds of things there.”

I'm surprised at my tears, at how fast they pool at the corners of my eyes, as I put the silver spoons into my purse. Espi's not surprised, she saw them coming before I did.

 

• O
N OUR WAY
back to Mom's I point my Honda toward the river bottom, deciding, suddenly, to follow the road that leads to La Cueva del Diablo and Don Florencío's old shack.

“Where are we going?” asks Espi.

“Just cruising down to Don Florencío's old shack. I want to see how things have changed.”

“Things have changed for the worst. What do you expect, a brand-new tract of homes? Most of it is a landfill now. Homeless people, that's all we'll find there. Who knows if they won't jump us and go off with the car.”

“They're homeless, Espi, not criminals!”

I glance at Espi next to me. Everything's changed, not just the landscape. She's lost weight, her hair is dyed, smoothed back behind her ears. Her nose used to remind me of a small brown doorknob. Now it looks rounder, flatter. She doesn't have that devil-may-care attitude in her eyes anymore. They're serious looking with worry lines at the corners.

“What did you see in that old man, Teresa? He was so strange.”

“He was strange to us because we don't know who we are. He knew who he was and he knew one other thing, too. He knew Jesse wasn't coming back before I told him what Jesse said to me the day he left.”

“How?”

“He was a tlachisqui of the Mexicas—that's us. He interpreted the invisible world for them.”

“What did I tell you? He was a curandero, maybe from the dark side.”

“Never! That old man never hurt a fly. If anything he was a dreamer, a visionary who followed the old ways to the letter. He even spoke Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. People don't know that the word
Chicano
is an Aztec word, except it was spelled with an
x
instead of a
ch
. His ancestors split from the Aztec nation centuries ago because they didn't believe in human sacrifice. He made his way north to search for Aztlán, which is how he ended up in Arizona.”