The Dog Fighter (12 page)

For all my walking I never learned the names of the streets in Canción. I came to know them by memorizing the crumbling walls or holes in sidewalks. Or if there were sidewalks at all. I knew the windows covered with iron shutters or where there were cacti along the windowsills. The creaks certain windmills made during the evening winds. I followed memories of signs advertising cigarettes or cola or the names of cantinas and cafés and restaurants. I walked repeating the names of things in English that I knew. Wall. Pared. Window. Ventana. Door. Puerta. Door. In this way I navigated myself around Canción.

One night late when I was returning to the dentists compound I recognized Ramón and Vargas walking some distance ahead of me. I thought about calling to them but the two dog fighters were with Elías the doorman and a handsome young businessman whose name I came to know as Rodríguez. The four men were drunk and from how they walked I knew somehow they were not on their way home. I slowed wondering if they knew where I lived. Wondering if they were walking to the compound for me. But then not even the poet knew where I lived. I was nervous some. Although I was not working I was swimming every morning and evening and doing sit ups and push ups to stay strong. But still I did not want to fight. The anger for this was leaving my body. I had spent much time thinking of her or practicing my English. I was relieved when they passed the compound door and continued on toward the large square. I decided to follow them.

The four young men walked north through the plaza empty at this late hour but decorated some with tissue for Christmas. At the center of the square under a palm frond roof was a miniature Nativity scene. The plaster figures painted each year and each year more paint chipped from their faces. A finger missing on the hand of one of the wise men. Baby Jesus a pale childrens doll wrapped in a light blue blanket. The cantinas and cafés were closed for the night. The tables and chairs stacked. The moon almost full. The light of this on the dark stones silver blue. Dressed in black laughing high laughs like demons the young men passed through shadows and light. Rodríguez knocked over a plaster mule. Elías kicked up some of the palm fronds onto the crib. The four of them laughing at this.

They continued down from the plaza. In the streetlight I could see that their hair was shiny with grease. Their shoes made noise on the stones unlike my huaraches. They turned west. Some ways down the block they stopped at a gate in a metal fence that surrounded an abandoned church. Narrow rectangular openings lined the long tall stone walls. The four men stopped before the gate and then it opened some and they disappeared in the shadows. I did not follow farther.

 

O
n the Sunday before my second fight the poet and I relaxed on a shaded knoll across the open square from the cathedral. The poet rolled cigarettes with papers I had bought him while studying the old women dressed in black. Admiring their walks from behind. The women huddled in small groups in the middle of the square or holding each other by the arms they climbed the steps to hear mass in the cool of the cathedral. Laughter chased children playing a game of tag. They circled a group of men with combed hair and mustaches waxed. When the small bells tolled from high above the massive wood doors pigeons in the cupolas and alcoves tore over the plaza in a wash of flapping wings. Their wide shadow flickering over the sand colored stones. The poet lit his cigarette. The plaza emptied for mass.

There is much praying in Mexico. I said to the poet.

I hope you do not fight dogs like you think. He answered me. I will miss having you around to appreciate my stories.

Whenever there was something on my mind and I told the poet of it he was always quick to laugh. But he was also very good at making me think with his questions. He could be very patient with me in this. I never lied to the poet or pretended to know more than I did. Nothing escaped his eyes. And with his talking my mind came alive in ways only my grandfather had accomplished. But this was much different. And better.

Do you read the Bible much? I asked the poet then.

Only the parts I needed to to know that it was not for me.

Which parts were those?

Most of them. But I do enjoy all the contradictions. I think they are a good way to understand God.

The plaza was still and empty but full of sun. I heard the men and women in the cathedral singing.

Do you pray?

I come here each Sunday. The poet answered. To be with Him but not to ask for anything.

Is that why we did not go in?

The poet lit his cigarette from the end of one he had been smoking.

I like for God to know that I am here. Entiendes? But I do not believe in the forgiveness that they ask for inside. I know my sins and I can admit them without going in there. Out here is where I make my sins and out here is where I live with them. God does not need to forgive me for my sins. We forgive each other. You and me. The poet picked a fleck of tobacco from his lower lip. Listen carefully. He said. God is indeed a jealous God. He cannot bear to see. That we had rather not with Him. But with each other play.

That is one of my better poems. The poet reached under his arm and removed a pebble that had been uncomfortable where he was lying on his side. God is nothing but an excuse to them. He waved his hand over the plaza. This sun. This knoll with some shade and the smell of the salt from the sea. This is more than any priest can tell me about God. This is what I answer to.

I told the poet then that I disagreed. That I did not think that it was wrong for people to need a place to pray together. That not everyone was able to think as he did.

No. You are right dog fighter. But this is a small game I play with God. I am always wanting Him to walk out and He is wanting me to walk in.

Early that evening the poet and I walked into the hills near the abandoned mine where the view of Canción was very impressive. In the mountains beyond this place the road that was under construction at this time was a light colored brushstroke on the dark hillsides. The road from Canción went west before heading north to where we could not see it the mountains were so steep. On Sundays the men were not working and the great machines used for grading and cutting into those rocky hillsides were still like sleeping metal beasts. During the weekdays in Canción now and then I heard blasting in the hills. Men who came to work on the hotel but were turned away for one reason or another went to work on this road.

El fin de Canción. The poet called the roads. The end of this forgotten city.

I worked on the roads in Chihuahua. I said then. From Chihuahua to Ciudad Juárez.

For the mines?

Yes.

During the war I read about these roads. The poet said. The Americans wanting a new one each day it seemed.

I wanted to tell him then of how I had stood by as the faces of mountains were destroyed. Witnessed entire villages told to move because some men with some instruments said to move. Thousands of sunburned ears gone deaf from the blasting of boulders into pebbles. But I did not have the words then and the poet was always an imposing figure.

Roads in Baja will be very slow to stretch the length of this peninsula. He said. Before a man went from spring to spring. In this way from Tijuana to Guerrero Negro. Ciudad Constitución to El Arco at Cabo San Lucas.

I learned from the poet that during the war access to the copper and gypsum mines in Baja was greatly desired by the United States. A road was paved as far south as San Quentin. But along this bandidos struck with machetes and rifles whose ends were filed to cut like knives. This upset the American investors very much. The Mexican businessmen also. But for many Mexicans it was something of a quiet and often not so quiet pride.

But here. In the south. The poet continued. A truck with a flat tire or one stuck in the sand will leave a man to die of thirst before he comes to any water but that of the salt of the sea or the ocean. You leave Canción and you find bones in the middle of these roads delicate as chalk in a landscape watered by the sun. Shaded only by vulture wings. This road they are working on. It will not connect us to anywhere for many years to come.

How will Cantana bring the tourists? I asked.

Airplane. The poet said softly. He threw his cigarette to the ground and looked quietly where it lay smoldering.

The uneven roads were good footpaths for the poet. But as the sun set he had some difficulty walking with his eyes not the best from years of reading in shadows. His vulgar talk and nasty smile made me forget sometimes that he was just more than sixty years old. His mind so young and alive. We passed the abandoned mine the metal roof of which was light in that coming dark. The poet did not speak to save his breath for his smoking as we walked. Many times I lent him my arm.

Did I ever tell you about my time in el Bajío? The poet said. I worked on the railroads there just before la Revolución. I met a girl whose father I worked for. Melones hasta aquí. And she had pretty eyes. When I looked into them. The poet laughed. This girl. Her father was a drunk. He left out pliers and wrenches and hammers on the kitchen table whenever I came to take her on a walk. I had no place to sleep and I washed in a river. But I was a hard worker and he respected this. But he was right to have those tools out to intimidate me. When he fell asleep drunk and after her mother went to sleep this girl would sneak out of her window to meet me. I talked her into doing this on those walks we took. Late at night I waited behind a low mud wall throwing stones at trees. Fence posts. Cats. This girl had the most beautiful neck. I would kiss it for hours. For so long because it was the only thing she would allow me to do to her. I would make those pretty eyes roll back like pearls in that moonlight.

But the old poet never shared stories of his family. The women he mentioned all were in stories like this. In his talk I knew the poet was very lonely. Much more than me.

I am convinced that the hillsides are the most beautiful poems. The poet said when we were resting on several large stones the men working on the road had pushed to the side. These mountains here have seen almost as much change as a square of dirt during a rainstorm. He sighed smoke. Rolling a cigarette with one already between his lips. I read poems every night. They compare women to a flower. To a breeze. I cannot tolerate these poems. We have done much to these hills. And only more will be done in the future. Our landscape is not of trees and forests and deserts but hotels and tourists and their cameras and airplanes. We are as far west as this part of the world can be you know. And instead of it ending it just rolls back on itself. It refuses to stay old even when old is just fine. Look at me. He laughed lighting the fresh cigarette. I am a perfect example of how wonderful old things can be. Baja has never been Mexico and it is not the United States. It is becoming a bastard child of both and no longer its own. The businessmen want the tourists to spend their money. And those of us who are not the businessmen allow this. Maybe I am just jealous that none of the money ends up in my pockets.

He laughed then but I knew that he was testing me. From the hills the work on the hotel seemed insignificant. But the sight of it growing taller than the buildings below higher even than the cathedral upset the poet. I understood that when he spoke in this way it was best not to interrupt him.

And I am not even Catholic! He yelled pointing to the towers of the cathedral. But so few complain about the height of this hotel. What this means to their religion. Not when the businessmen promise them money. Only the priests maybe are more corrupt. For centuries they have answered only to wealth. Bleeding the poor they have fooled.

For all the time I was friends with the poet we never spoke of my work on the hotel. It was a difficult struggle. The work it brought to Canción. The money it might bring to those who lived farther and farther from the plaza mayor in canvas tents and mud jacales. The poet knew I was ashamed to speak of why I had come to Canción now that he and I were friends. Most of the time talk of the hotel dissolved the poets words into grunts and gestures. And for a poet I think this is the most beautiful and difficult thing.

Dark was coming and I had not yet swum to ready myself for the fighting the next night. I rubbed my hands on my cotton pant legs thinking the poet would recognize that I was ready to move on.

Do you pray dog fighter? He asked me then.

Sometimes.

You understand that God is not for sometimes?

He is also not for everyone. I answered.

Bueno. The poet smiled at me but not so that his teeth showed. Then taking his cigarette to his mouth he said. But remember that there is a time when everyone will turn to God. And it is wrong to do this if you have said wrong things of Him. Especially saying that He does not exist. Because He does. God is a beautiful thing. The best poem we have. You do not want to say bad things about Him. This way when your time comes to turn to Him you will not look like some fool. The old poet paused. And do not lie. He said. Lies exhaust me.

We came down from the hills and into the hard packed streets. Then onto the cart and hoof polished stones nearing the large square. Here we passed a small girl struggling beneath an accordion. With her arms wrapped awkwardly around the instrument her tiny fingers pressed the worn keys as she began to sing. A boy skipped from person to person accepting coins that plinked at the bottom of a tin can above the music sharply. Wind came through dusty palm leaves softening the sound of the poets raspy breathing. Our shadows intertwined against the drawn shutters of the buildings we passed. The boy moved quickly to those walking toward the plaza. When he turned from the poet he bumped into my leg and fell onto the ground. The coins clattered over the stones. The sister collapsed the accordion. I offered my hand to the small boy but he jumped to his feet and hurried after the coins. A band of poor children that had been lurking in the shadows dove into the street but the sister snapped them back with hard vulgar words. The poet laughed smoke. The eyes of the boy shone white in fear of my size.