I FELT THE NEED to say good-bye to my parents and to my uncle Richard and cousin Eddie, plus friends, distant friends, and every kind soul I had met on the street. Then there was my track coach, Mr. Morales, who was just out of Fresno State and could run faster than any of his distance runners. Maybe I could find out where he lived and run over there. Until now, I never understood what "good-bye, adios, see you later, alligator" meant. I always assumed that I would go to school in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and things would be the same. Now I knew different.
I left Rachel's house, disturbed because my foot was gone and because I knew that in time—three days? four days?—I would disappear. I felt lighter—the wind picked up and, like it or not, I was tossed westward again back to downtown and the Fulton Mall. I peered into the boutique that I had visited earlier, and the girl—what's her name?—was still reading People en Español, a different issue, but still speeding along and taking in the fashions. There were no customers; she had to find ways to kill time. I guess she could think about how to prop up those drooping candles or put a little color back in those plastic flowers.
I straddled a splintery bench and listened to the spines of water splashing from a fountain. Sparrows flew through my ribs, and a pigeon the color of cement pecked at the sidewalk. I realized that I was neither hungry nor thirsty, and that the Mexicano pushing a paleta cart didn't draw me to his tinkling bell. Two children were hacking away at plates of peanut brittle. That sweet candy didn't tease me either.
In the distance, Saint John's Cathedral's mighty clock bonged one o'clock. Its single note absorbed all the sounds in the air, and then vanished. I felt a sadness for myself, but had to grin. I suddenly remembered Rachel. I could have followed her into the shower and got an eyeful. Chihuahua! To watch her undo one button after another, and step out of her pajamas. Sin vergüenza! Still, I wagged my head and told myself, You had your chance.
I brooded as my thoughts swung from the image of Rachel soaping her body to the image of my casket. I had a sense that my funeral was going to be at Saint Johns, where I was baptized, had my first holy communion, and was confirmed in my primo's hand-me-down suit. If I had not grown too tall, maybe I could be buried in that suit. No sense wasting money on clothes no one would see, I figured.
How many days does it take to dress the dead? I wondered. I buried my face in my hands and scrubbed my face. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare. Pitched in that darkness, I had to wonder about what follows death. Do we come back? Once you've lived, is that it? Does heaven exist? Hell with its thermostat turned all the way up? I shivered at the thought of always having to stay in a grave, your own private jail.
Enough, I told myself. Get those images out of your head!
I watched the few shoppers in the mall, none of them happy about what they had bought, and headed westward, my shoulders slumped. I walked painlessly through a train that was hauling new cars. Where was the train headed? Oakland? Sacramento? I considered hopping one and going and going until I was in Oregon or even Canada. But I hesitated. I followed its red light until it disappeared on the horizon.
Now that I was dead, I had to grow up. I had to confess my first real sin. My grandfather was buried at a cemetery on East Belmont, where the vineyards and orchards started. I took long, bouncing strides toward the cemetery. My grandfather had died six years ago, of cancer they told me, though it could have been anything because what did I know? At the time, I was eleven, a mocoso kid who just loved to play and eat candy. I was determined to repent to my grandfather about something I had stolen. It was a cigarette lighter, which I had snagged from his pants pocket and traded for ten dollars in dimes with a kid across the street.
I located Grandfathers grave immediately because I remembered that he had been buried near a diseased tree that had been cut down. I perched myself on the tree stump and said a little prayer over his flowerless grave. His headstone read simply: maria Jesús chavez, 1931–1997. A single rose was etched into its polished granite.
"Grandfather," I called. "Its me—Chuy."
A distant tree rustled an answer for him.
I swallowed.
"I stole your lighter," I confessed.
Somewhere a gardener was starting up a mower. "I also snagged some pennies, Grandpa."
The mower stopped, but a mower in the next cemetery started up. I floated off the tree stump.
"You probably knew that I took it," I added.
I clearly remembered going through his pocket and pulling out not only his cigarette lighter but also ten pennies dark as his work-weathered skin. I remembered running outside the house and meeting up with the neighbor kid—Jonathan Something-or-other. He liked the lighter so much that he went inside and stole two rolls of dimes worth ten dollars. He stole the dimes, I think, from his dad, but he lied and said they were his. All I remember was the weight of those rolls of dimes and how slowly I peeled the paper off like they were Life Savers. I bought candy for two weeks and ate it alone in a tree in my backyard.
Grandpa, I'm the one, I confessed in my heart. You know—the lighter, the pennies.
I recalled how Jonathan used the lighter to start a small fire in his backyard. We were both eleven, selfish beyond words, and guilty. How many candy bars smudged my dirty face?
"Grandpa," I whispered. "How is it down there?"
I smoothed the grass in front of his tombstone and told him that I was sorry and that I was dead and maybe I would be with him. If I could have cried hot, dime-sized tears, I would have. But what could I do but trace his name with my finger? I put my hands through his headstone and dipped my right arm all the way to my shoulder into the moist lawn. This scared me. I thought that I might touch his bony chest, shredded to almost nothing from years and years of rain.
"Ah, Grandpa," I sobbed. I could swear that I felt his hand tugging mine. Was Grandpa trying to bring me down?
I noticed at the next grave a bee trying to suck on an artificial flower. It seemed real, the flower. I floated over to an open grave. It was dark, and a few roots showed from the sides of the wall. I jumped into the grave and looked skyward, wondering if this is what the dead see for eternity. A bird flew past, then another.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa," I whispered. Dirt from the sides of the grave crumbled.
From the graveyard, I returned to town, pushing hard because the wind was blowing against my steps. It was getting dark. Some headlights of passing cars were on. And it was by this light that I noticed my other foot was gone, and a portion of my left hand, the one I had used to trace Grandfather's name.
Nah, I thought. I held up my hand as if it were something foreign to me.
I tightened my stomach and forced myself to continue. Wind or no wind, I was going to see my parents.
MOM AND DAD weren't home, though the living room and hallway lights were burning brightly. Were they leaving the lights on for me? Did they leave a plate of cookies and milk on the kitchen table? I went into the kitchen. Our cat, Samba, was cleaning herself on the table. If my mom had seen her, she would have glared at that ignorant cat and chased her from the house with an open palm. Samba gazed at me, her back leg in the air. The cat sensed me, and stood up, arched her back, and jumped off the table. She went over to her water bowl, but just stared.
Where were Mom and Dad? I wondered.
They were probably at mi abuela's house, breaking the news of my death not once but two or three times. Grandma was hard of hearing, even when she was hearing well! She was stubborn, just like my mom, and wouldn't listen, in either Spanish or English, to anyone if it was something she didn't want to hear. Poor Grandma was a mother of three sons. Two were already dead from the same car accident. These two sons—the uncles I hardly knew, except by their Christmas presents—had been returning home from a fishing trip in the Sierras and their car just went off the road. No explanation, no theory even. The car, the sheriffs wrote, plunged down a ravine.
The telephone started to ring and I watched it for fourteen rings until it stopped. Who was calling? Who was curious about my death, or should I say murder? Until then, it hadn't really occurred to me that I had been murdered. But three stab wounds in three places? What else could you call it?
I sat on the couch in the living room, then stood up with a jerk. I would have cried if I'd had tears inside me. Mom had brought out a dusty photo album. She had it turned to a page of pictures from when I was about eight. In one, I was sitting on Grandpa's rickety lap.
"No," I whispered.
In the photo, Grandpa's cigarette lighter was on the coffee table. Grandpa was caught off guard; his eyes were half closed. And me? I was looking at the lighter, not at the camera, and I could tell by my devilish eyes that I wanted badly to possess it. I had the look of greed.
"You were so bad," I muttered, shaking my head.
There were other photos of me at Disneyland. My face was all orange and my teeth, it seemed, were really huge in my face. I then spied the news clippings of my murder. There were three of them—one from our newspaper and the others, I suspected, brought over by family and friends of the family. The news clippings were already ragged.
Samba pranced into the living room and leaped onto the coffee table. I petted her with an invisible hand. I tickled her chin. When I blew my cold breath on her collar, she jumped away and hurried back into the kitchen.
I heard a car pull up in the driveway, and the living room brightened from the headlights that cut through the heavy curtains.
"They're home," I said to myself.
I brought my hands to my face. I cringed at having to observe my mother and father with their faces wet from the deep sorrow of their only son's death. I had seen Mom cry maybe three or four times, and my dad once. But that was when the Raiders had lost a playoff game that would have sent them to the Super Bowl. Dad was a funny dude. Crying over a football game! Maybe now I would see him crying a second time.
The key worked in the lock of the front door, and the door pushed open. My parents, followed by Uncle Richard and my mom's comadre, Carmen, entered with their faces lowered. They were ghosts themselves, white in spite of their Mexican-ness. They had stopped crying, but their eyes were red. Then others came in, some of them family, and a guy who worked with Dad. My primo Eddie followed, brushing his feet against the carpet. His eyes were red, too.
When the telephone began to ring, they all turned their heads. My mom pushed past Uncle Richard.
Nah, Mom, I thought. It's not me.
She answered the telephone. She listened, but didn't say anything until she hung up and then said to the crowd, to no one, really: "Mary's making a cake."
A cake for my funeral?
After I was buried, they were going to have a little gathering. There would be more than a cake, I realized, and a lot more crying than what was going on now. Carmen was dabbing her nose with a Kleenex. Carmen was always dabbing her nose with a Kleenex; her life's complaint was something about always having a cold. Maybe she had one now. Then again, she could be crying for my mom and dad, and me.
Uncle Richard went into and returned from my bedroom. He was holding up a couple of cross-country ribbons. All of them were second or third place. I was never good at track, just some lanky kid who ran for the fun of it. If I medalled, great. If I didn't, pues, I could at least get a T-shirt and a squeeze bottle for my Gatorade.
"Are these the ones?" Uncle Richard asked. He held up the ribbons like nooses.
My dad nodded his head.
The two examined the ribbons. Where was the neck that they hung from? Where was the body that brought them home?
"I can get them mounted." Uncle Richard rubbed the faces of the coin-shaped medals, and I wiped my forearm against my eyes. But no tears would spring up. I broke away from the two of them and went into the kitchen, where someone had plugged in the coffeepot. The brown liquid was slowly filling up the pot.
I can't believe it, I thought. I hadn't even lived long enough to drink coffee.
Then Mom appeared, pulling anxiously on Eddie's sleeve. Mom's tears were gone, and replaced by angry fire. It was the look she had on her face whenever I was bad and she'd step quickly into the bedroom for Dad's belt.
"I want you to do it!" she snapped.
Eddie looked away.
"Come on, mi'jo, you can do it."
Do what? I wondered.
"I can't—it's wrong," Eddie answered. He flapped his arms at his side.
My mom let her eyes fill with tears. She pouted and produced lines around her nose.
"It won't solve anything," Eddie explained vaguely, looking up and challenging Mom with a hard gaze.
When the first tear rolled down her cheek, Eddie turned and left the kitchen by the back door. Mom, sniffling, glared at the coffeepot as if she hated it for not brewing fast enough. She brought out a coffee cup and, strangely, a single tear fell into the cup. Coffee and tears, plus a single spoonful of sugar. It was going to be one of those evenings. I had to get out of there.
IT HAD BEEN an embarrassing year for football at our high school. By late October, we were 2–5 in our conference. Everyone, including our players—who hid their shame behind face masks—joked that our two wins came because the other team hadn't shown up. Luckily, basketball season was kicking in, and I was friends with some guys on the team—Jamal Baines, Jaime Rodriguez, Jonathan Koo, and Jared Mitchell. The four Js, I called them, and they called me Mr. Lean because I was a distance runner. There was not a pinch of baby fat on my body. God, if they could see me now! I was so skinny that you couldn't see me anymore!
On the court, my homie friends were fair, at best, and none of them was a starter. We were supposed to be good this year, or at least look suave because we had new uniforms. Maybe new jockstraps, too!
It was Saturday evening, and I knew that we would be playing an exhibition game against Sanger High. From my parents' home I strode, bounced, and flowed toward the high school. This took some effort because the wind worked against me. I almost gave up when I noticed my hands were gone, and one of my ankles, too. I was being erased right before my eyes!
"No," I murmured.
Unable to continue, I had to sit on a curb and bury my face in my arms. I tried not to picture my mom and dad, who in my mind were staring into their cups of coffee for an answer to my death. I was so mad at Yellow Shoes. I possessed the sudden urge to hurt him.
"How come me?" I cried. I knew some crackheads who needed to go. But why me? What trouble did I cause people? After a few minutes, I pulled myself together and continued toward school. I would see what I would miss—the start of basketball season.
Since it was an exhibition game, there weren't many spectators in the bleachers. There were cheerleaders and the band, and Coach Silva dressed in a black suit. He wasn't a bad guy, really, except I held it against him when he cut me off the squad. I wasn't tall enough. I couldn't make a layup, even with no pressure. So? I wanted badly to be with my friends, the four Js. I recalled how Coach pulled me aside and said, "Hey, track season's in two months, no?"
I scanned the bleachers. I recognized some of my classmates. I saw Jamal, Jaime, Jonathan, and Jared huddled around Coach. What would these dudes do except sit and chew their fingernails when the game began? I liked them a lot and was beginning to think of using the word love. Yeah, I loved my friends, whose eyes, I noticed, were red from crying. The skin under their eyes was dark. No doubt they had been up all night talking about me as they drove around Fresno, killing time.
Then I spotted a banner with my name on it. There were flowers pinned to the banner, and a lot of signatures and drawn hearts. Did people really like me? I wasn't exactly popular; then again, I wasn't exactly one of those nerdy souls that hug the hallways, looking down at their shoes as they shuffle from class to class. But flowers and hearts?
The clock read ten minutes before game time. Time was running out and, with it, my time on this planet, in this gym that was bright as a carnival.
I searched the meager crowd for Rachel, my would-be novia. But she wasn't the kind of person who went to football or basketball games. I looked for another girl that I liked, but she wasn't there, either. But there was my history teacher, Miss Escobedo, whom I'd had a crush on since I first saw her get out of her car in a short dress. Hers was the only class I really liked; that one and maybe English and lunch. Miss Escobedo was only twenty-five or so, and sweet.
"Dawg," I whined.
Miss Escobedo had her arm hooked in some guy's arm.
I sat in the bleachers next to Sara, a girl who had tried out for cheerleading. Like me with basketball, she didn't make it. But she was nice and had a nice smile, and used the word nice a lot when she talked. I got up when a friend of hers returned with a bag of popcorn.
"That's nice of you," Sara said, her face lit with happiness over the prospect of eating popcorn through the first half.
Her friend, too, had gone out for cheerleading. But she hadn't made it either.
"It's nice to see you," I breathed in Sara's ear.
Sara touched her ear.
"You can't do everything," I said, and left her side. I approached the vice principal, Mr. Laird. He was holding a clipboard and clicking his pen nervously. I would have reached over and touched the pen to make him stop, but my hands were long gone.
Coach Silva turned to Mr. Laird. He nodded his head.
Mr. Laird stood up, breathed in, and clicked the on-and-off switch of a handheld microphone.
"School," he began.
That single word echoed off the walls. Everyone grew quiet, even the visiting team. The mood became dark, as they were aware of what was going to be announced.
"School," he repeated. "Yesterday we lost one of our students in an unfortunate incident. It troubles me."
Mr. Laird did look troubled, looked like someone who had swallowed a dark cloud. I had always thought he was mean, but I could see that I had been wrong. His lower lip quivered as he held back from actually crying. I would have hated to have his job right then. A grown man crying in front of his school.
"May we have a minute of silence?" he asked. He scanned the gymnasium until everyone's head was bowed.
A kid I'd known since elementary school stood up, raising a trumpet to his mouth. I couldn't remember his name, but couldn't forget how a bully used to jack him up for his lunch money. And every day this kid—this trumpet player with thick glasses and more than his share of pimples—would bring out his money before the bully even asked. Now, years later, he was playing taps for me.
"Ah, man," I sobbed. When was the crying going to stop?
The kid from my childhood played beautifully. I felt terrible that I couldn't go back in time and try to beat up the bully for him. We could have done it together.
After the trumpet player lowered his trumpet, a last note hung in the air. Mr. Laird asked for silence and a moment of prayer. But I already knew silence. It occurred earlier when I stood before an open grave looking up at the October sky in midday.
Then the game started with an easy bucket for Sanger. That basket was followed by two more. With less than three minutes gone, Sanger was up 6–0.
Sapo luck, I complained silently as I remained an invisible spectator in the bleachers. I screamed: "Come on, dawgs—score!"