The Jaguar's Children (29 page)

 

Sun Apr 8—03:02

 

God is giving me one more day.

How do I know this?

When I am disappearing over and over again.

Everything is gone but the waiting. So I wait for my courage to come back because, in here, life and courage are the same. César—all of them—as close to me now as Odiseo in the café where all the laws are broken and no one seems to care, talking all at once but only about water. And you are water also—a cool and beautiful pool. I am swimming in the idea of you and it is keeping me alive. You and César and Abuelo are telling me to think the impossible thoughts, that all these bodies are only that. The throat is an empty hole, you say. The heart is a dry well. Alone in such a darkness I think you can lose your mind.

 

Sun Apr 8—03:51

 

Yes, it is me again. Because I am doing a difficult thing—searching for water. There is a lot of liquid in here and all of it is bad. I am only looking for the bottles. Looking—no, I cannot bear to look at them, I'm feeling around like a blind thing. My fingers are worms among the dead. The tongues are the worst—so big and hard it makes me gag. Most of the bottles are empty. Some have urine in them and I keep these because this is what a desperado must do. But God is smiling on me today. Or maybe it is you, because there is water. Sí, es un milagro. In a plastic bag tied under a lady's huipil—some people carry it this way. I can tell by the heavy sewing that she is the Maya from Chiapas. I remember her face because the last time I saw it she looked so frightened and it is hard to frighten those people.

It is wrong, I know, to put my hands where I put them to find that water. I remember from before, her chichis were big, but when I touch them now they are small, no bigger than the bag of water. This is what the thirst will do and I grow smaller also. Whispering to myself, to her, “Lo siento, hermana, pobrecita. Discúlpame, por favor.” There is only a little bit, but now it is my life, not hers, floating in that bag and I will make it last. Because something is choosing me to live and I have made this bargain. By keeping my pipe a secret I have done this. By taking César's water.

 

Sun Apr 8—04:10

 

The tank is filled with light—bright as a sun and everything burning. I see their blackened shapes with orange rings around them, mouths open wide and it's impossible to breathe. I am afraid to look at anyone because what if they look back. What if they know?

 

Sun Apr 8—04:32

 

I did not pour the Maya's water into a bottle but sucked it slowly from the bag, each time only enough to make my mouth wet. It lasted longer this way, and with that bag in my mouth and soft against my hands I did not feel so alone as before.

 

I live another day, or maybe just another hour. And I try to reach you one more time because this—these words are my machete, and these keys are my rosary, and as long as I am telling them I know I am not dead.

Sun Apr 8—04:43 to 12:47

 

My abuelo is here with his special stone, the one he found when he was plowing. Too old to have a name but heavy with a hole it. You hold it to the sun so the rays come through. Can you see this? Burning a hole into my head so you and God can see inside.

 

Tengo otra confesión.

I had a dream last night he reached into my mouth. I thought it was my own hand. I knew it was César only after—not by the sound he made because it was not the sound of a man but the sound of an animal—an animal choking on sand. His fingers were hard and his hand was clumsy, searching I think for something wet. I know because all of them were searching for this and I must have pity, but in that moment, in the dark, I was scared out of my mind. My mind is not working properly and I bit him. Without thinking, in my dream, I did this. It is wrong, I know, but it was like being a baby again—how they take without thinking. How they take like the world owes it to them. That is the kind of thirst I have. I could not stop myself, and I could not be stopped.

My tío tells me a drowning man will do like this—will climb over his own mother to only breathe. “I have seen it myself,” he says. “Once, in the Río Bravo.”

So hard to know now what is me and what is him. But it was there, in that moment of the taking that we crossed over.

 

These are messages coming down to you from the cross on the mountain. But you are safe there on the other side—and merciful, I hope, because I am needing some of this right now—

Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat—

Sí. Por favor. Amén. But how can one absolve—or punish—this? The body wanting to live? Only if life is breathing and nothing else am I alive. My mother would not know me now.
Chamaco
she called me—
Diablito
. Then she was just angry. Now it is a prophecy.

 

***

 

Dark and water everywhere. Water spirits coming in the night when it gets cold, coming into me with every breath. I can feel them all around me now, rolling down the walls, onto my hands, my tongue. They have been trying to tell me all this time—we are being made into something new. So we can travel through the pipe, and join the others.

It hurts so much to do this, to leave the body—cramps and cold and cracking open, bones too big for the skin.

 

***

 

Riding Tío's bicycle with Isabel following on a rope. We pass a man pulling a wagon with a white dog in it. Behind him is that silent viejo who lost a duel and also his hand so he must carry the basket balanced on his sombrero. And over there, in the field behind the school, a horse is walking with an egret, matching their steps like old compañeros in an old conversation. In the shadow of the church I see one brother sleeping in a wheelbarrow and the other sleeping on a shovel. And every year at Eastertime comes that same Nazareno with no shoes and no hat dragging his cross down the road going who knows where, passing again and again that same burro on the roadside with a circle of vultures on her like they are at the café drinking micheladas.

 

I knew all their names once, but not anymore.

 

***

 

I taste of blood and rust and dying. This mezcal is not agreeing with me. And that itching in my legs, deep in the bones—something is crawling around in there trying to get out and there is no way I can reach it. It is telling me to tear my skin apart and I am trying not to listen.

They are watching now, all of them, to see what I will do, but in their eyes instead of eyes are the little metal covers you see in the sidewalk saying
AGUA
. These are the signs telling you what is really important, medallions for the saints, por Santa Agua. Breathe her name over and over as I do now—
AGUA
—Agua—
agua
, and you will know the prayer of death and wanting—living and dying all in one small word—the One Word which is not a word at all but only a sound in the throat.

César is here next to me and his
AGUA
eyes are the old kind with stars on them. They are glowing red hot. I believe this is the sign of anger.

 

***

 

It is coming alive like the jungle in here. We are evaporating in a hot cloud and flies are everywhere, or maybe they were always here, waiting. Other things are coming too and for them it is a feast. But I have only thirst. I am shivering from the heat. The light in the pipe is one star in a black sky and someone is howling at it. Maybe you can hear me.

 

***

 

Señor Cacahuate, the peanut man, smiles in the corner with his stick and hat and funny eye. He is showing us the painting, the old one from church of the peanut truck with the words on the side—
LA TENTACIÓN MÁS GRANDE
. And up on the ceiling in that lonely cloud is the hand of God reaching down. All this time Señor Cacahuate reads the words “La Tentación Más Grande—La Tentación Más Grande,” over and over, until I understand that yes, the temptation is too great and this is why He takes the peanuts.

All but one—the one He does not want.

 

***

 

I am awake now and it is better, talking to you. When I get out I will show you my country—César's country. We can drive the Apache to the coast and see the frigate birds with scissor tails hang still in the air, the clouds racing by above them, and the secret spot south of Puerto where I saw the pelican king with his medallion. Even gringos saw it so it must be real, taking photos as he flew away, chain swinging. And maybe las tortugas. Two days it takes them to make love. I have seen this with my own eyes—just floating and floating like we had all the time—water and sky with only the two of us between. And the babies so sweet and small and sad—perfect in your hand. But into the ocean they must go, and there is nothing more sweet or small or sad than a baby tortuga facing the ocean for the first time.

 

All the others managed to get out, why not me?

 

***

 

Yes, I know. I can see you there. You're taller in person and even more beautiful. Is it the light or my eyes? Your hands and face just floating there. Are you here for the judgment? Are you looking for your son? I've said too much already. How did you get in?

The same way they got out. Everyone but me. And now I know why.

Yes, I traveled to the pyramid. I climbed the steps one by one. My feet were wet from the blood—the stones so slippery I had to use my own two hands, fingers in the cracks. I will never forget the sound—and that plane with all those faces in the windows, looking without seeing.

My ears are ringing—humming.

I can hear the organ grinder, but I can't see the monkey.

 

***

 

There is a page missing from the codex, but I have found it on this wall that wraps around us like the belly of an animal. In the place of words is a jaguar, and in the place of spots are drops of water saying in a thousand different ways, as clear as any voice, for everything that lives, water is the one true thing.

Someday this missing page will be painted where everyone can see it, and there, we will see ourselves reflected—

• a jaguar
  
• a water truck
  
• a loaf of bread
  
• a bag of seeds
  
• green shoots pushing through the ground
  
• small black birds escaping
  
• one last bird remaining
  
• a list of questions
  
• Was he too big, or the wrong shape?
  
• Was he too bad, or the wrong color?
  
• Is he waiting for something? Or someone?
  

And the corn that has been growing all this time.

 

***

 

Are you the thing you want most, or its opposite? If I want nothing more than water, is it because I am water? Or because I have none? If I want nothing more than love, is it because I am love? Do we always want more of what made us? Is what we are what we need?

Maybe I can give you these. Maybe this is why you've come. After all this time.

 

I understand now that all water is holy and that we are made to drink and to love another. I love you. I do. That is what these words are. But is it because you are here, a being in the universe receiving these messages? Or because I hope you are? Is it only because I want to be saved? And to be saved—to be permitted to live—to drink and to love—is what I want more than anything besides a pool of clear water. I know this question is a circle, a deep round pool, and I am drowning in the answer.

 

Whose white hands are these? I don't know.

Only that when she holds me the pain is not so much.

 

All things are mine since I am His

How can I keep from singing?

 

***

 

There is a breathing in the pipe. Is it you? When you are what I need now more than anything but water. And that same dry sound—the sound of dying. All my water deep inside me now. Only the pipe and what it says.

Its breath—coming and going, in and out. The tank alive now after all, full of us and what we are. A sound from deep in the throat.

Like some stories my abuelo told me.

It's on top of us. Hands. Feet. Paws. Soft pats and the scratching of claws so loud inside my skull. The itch in the bone I cannot reach. The blades in my back. More breathing in the pipe and the paws again, trying to get in—the sound the heart makes beating in the body—so close I can almost touch it. Claws and teeth, a stone blade catching on the bone.

What this creature is wanting.

Saying.

No. All of us are gone.

. . . in this world so much letting go.

Always and forever.

Ya terminé . . .

 

Ringing—

a ringing

a ringing in my ears

              but no answer

Partial transcript of an interview conducted by John Bernard (
Pima County Monitor
) with wildlife managers Ted Harvey and Calvin Wills, Arizona Game and Fish Department.

 

April 11, 2007

 

JB: So, how did you find them?

TH: Well, it wasn't us, it was A2—we call him Alvin—

CW: Rhymes with Calvin.

TH: He's our latest, must have just come across. We've only had a collar on this guy for about a week, trying to figure if he's a transient or if he's going to stay and make a go of it. The males are typically moving quite a bit so when they stop for more than a day it'll mean one of three things: he's sick, he's shot or he's made a kill. Only other possibility is he's found a mate, but that's not likely this far north. Hasn't been a female sighted in Arizona since the sixties—