Nadie se lleva lo que tiene.
Nobody takes with him what he owns.
Traveling on my own today, I drive directly to Esequiel’s. Since I’ve returned from my travels, I’ve heard he’s doing poorly, and I want to see firsthand what that means.
It’s a blazing-hot day. Cicadas buzz in the piñón trees along the dusty road. The horses in Esequiel’s corrals doze in the midday sun, crowding in the shade of a juniper, head to tail. I arrive at Esequiel’s house and hurry to the door, carrying with me a case of bottled water for him (he will only drink bottled water now) and a case of Bud Light for Ralph and Loyola, who I know are worn and worried from caring for Esequiel.
I tiptoe into the kitchen and set down my cargo, noticing candles burning on the table beside everyday kitchen-table items. Above the table hangs a porcelain portrait of Jesus and a framed print of a duck in flight. Another candle flickers in Esequiel’s room, next to a bottle of aspirin and prescription drugs on his dresser. The candles impress me as ominous portents. Through the doorway to the living room, I see Ralph sleeping soundly on the couch. The television drones, an inane game show.
Loyola is bent over Eseqiel in his room. His skeletal figure rises like a feather in her hands as she lifts and turns him. He lets out a groan, and his head rolls toward me. I wave weakly, stunned at the decline in his health. He seems not to see me when I enter the room. Loyola asks if I can stay with him for a while and takes her leave for a much-needed break. I sit by the bed and hold Esequiel’s hand.
“Gracias por venir.—Thanks for coming,” he says, recognizing me and tightly gripping my hand. His voice comes out in a whisper. I notice a small plastic bag pinned to his pajama top, inside it a tiny, twisted root. I ask what it is. “Oshá,” Esequiel mumbles, referring to the wild celery plant long used in New Mexico for curing all kinds of illness. “Me ayuda.—It helps me.”
After long moments of silence, Esequiel begins talking. I can barely hear or understand him. He talks and talks, hoarsely, asking for water now and then, his voice reminding me all too clearly of the squeaky tones of my grandma’s voice when she braved out her final days. Esequiel rambles on about his life, a nonstop monologue that barely rises in volume above the sound of the TV in the other room.
The host of the game show says, “For one thousand dollars, the final question: What is an arroyo?”
Esequiel chatters on: “Trabajaba hasta las seis de la mañana y luego llegué a la casa para ayudar a los niños en preparar para la escuela, pero dijo mi papá, ‘¿Por qué apuras tanto a regresar cada mañana? Yo puedo cuidar a los niños bien.’ Pero yo quería regresar a ver a mis hijos . . .—I worked until six in the morning and then arrived home to help the kids get ready for school, but my father said to me, ‘Why do you rush home every morning? I can take care of the kids just fine.’ But I wanted to come back to see my kids . . .”
Esequiel goes on to tell a story about a horseback ride he took as a kid, up into the barrancas on the north side of the valley, when somehow he lost his horse and had to walk a very long distance to get home. Then he’s on to another memory of his father and another childhood adventure. I sit and nod and squeeze Esequiel’s hand. Finally he dozes off. The house is quiet, save for the ongoing jabber from the TV that sits above the drum-turned-coffee-table made from a cottonwood log. I wander around the house. Now both Ralph and Loyola are asleep in the living room. On the wall above Loyola hangs a portrait of her long-dead mother and a Matachín palma, while above Ralph there are a Matachín corona and an array of cloth dolls representing the various Matachines characters.
A fan whirs, but the heat is oppressive. I sit at the kitchen table for a while, then walk out and around the house and nearby property, taking pictures of a ’55 Chevy Impala, a Cadillac from the ’60s, Loyola’s ’75 Cougar (which Esequiel bought for her when she was graduating from high school), the Oldsmobile, the crumbling shed, a set of battered folding chairs—and checking back now and then to see if anyone is awake.
I’m behind the ramshackle structure that serves as a home for Esequiel’s son Lorenzo when I’m startled by a loud shout: “¡Qué anda haciendo aquí, cabrón! ¡Vete, vete! ¡Quítate de aquí!—What are you doing around here, f——er! Go on, go on! Get out of here!” I jump from looking through my tripod-mounted camera to find Lorenzo behind me, approaching rapidly and aggressively. The thoughts flash through my mind, “Ya me anda la lumbre a los aparejos—The fire is up to my pack saddles” (meaning trouble is just about to catch up with me) and “Aquí me metí en camisa de once varas—I got myself in a shirt eleven varas long” (or, I got myself into trouble I don’t know how to get out of).
I realize that Lorenzo doesn’t know who I am, and I call out, “Lorenzo! It’s me!” It takes a few repetitions before he hears me and stops in his tracks, but his anger is not assuaged.
“You know, man, you’re welcome around here, because we know your gente and my dad likes you and all that, but you just can’t go sneaking around, especially back here. See that house on the hill? Those people there, they’ll kill you if they see you out there. You never know what could happen. It’s like Alice in Wonderland, man, the things that can happen. You’re walking along and all of a sudden, things can get real weird, real heavy.”
“Ya más claro no canta el gallo.—The rooster can’t crow any more clearly,” I say to myself. It’s obvious I shouldn’t snoop around here.
I apologize and promise not to wander back there anymore—and Lorenzo offers me a beer and invites me in his house. It’s another Bud, but at least it’s not a Light. We duck low through the doorway into his humble abode, a remodeled outbuilding recently fitted with plumbing and electricity. The roof is made of layers of corrugated metal. Lorenzo, wearing pecheras (overalls) with no shirt underneath, is still visibly shaken from the start I gave him. He gradually calms down as he shows me around the two rooms, but we can’t stay inside long. The heat is too much, and we exit to sit in the shade outside. Eventually, Loyola comes out of Esequiel’s house, rubbing her eyes. It’s early evening.
“We’re gonna get Dad ready and see if we can take him out for a ride,” she says, pointing to the electrically powered wheelchair parked in the kitchen. Ralph stirs, and together he and Loyola dress Esequiel in a warm flannel shirt, sweatpants, socks, and slippers. Esequiel grabs from the table a flat cap like one a golfer would wear and sets it awkwardly on his head; it must be a gift from the hospice nurses who visit him. I’m struck by the contrast of his attire now, hanging on his shriveled frame, with the jeans, boots, black cowboy hat, and work jacket he wore when first I met him. That outfit, and his proud, erect stance, once so defined his character. I hear in my mind the dicho grandma used for a man showing his age: “Ya la espiga va para abajo.—The spike of wheat is starting to bend down.”
Loyola and Ralph lift Esequiel and place him gently in the chair. He lets out a groan but settles in. The small kitchen proves a difficult space for maneuvering the four-wheeled device. Ralph tells me how he and Loyola found this out yesterday, when Ralph leaned over Esequiel and pushed the lever to engage the motor and drive the chair forward. The small nudge he gave the control was just a little too much. The chair took off and in a split second rocketed across the kitchen and slammed into the door jam. As Ralph tells it, Esequiel bounced like a rag doll but somehow stayed in the chair. Ralph, Loyola, and I double over with laughter as Ralph recounts the incident. Esequiel manages a wan smile.
We’re able to just barely squeeze the chair through the door and out into the yard. The device moves easily, tank-like, over the uneven dirt of the yard and out the farm gate. Loyola asks which way Esequiel wants to go, and he gestures to the north, up the long driveway. He takes control of the chair, manipulating the little joystick with one hand, and bumps along in the cooling evening air, glancing this way and that at a place he’s known all his life. It’s a stark contrast to see him driving the little motorized chair past his old truck, a massive and powerful machine he once commanded. The heavy adobes he stacked there, the heavy cottonwood rounds he cut and manhandled into the cab, the farm gate he hung—all these things bear testament to Esequiel’s former strength and energy, now drained.
Esequiel stops in front of Don Benigno’s house.
“¿Allí nació, no?—You were born there, right?” I ask.
He nods and gazes at the house for a moment, then turns back down the driveway toward his own home, his garrulous manner stilled.
On the way back, a whimpering and whining sound draws our attention. I investigate and discover a litter of eight pit bull puppies beneath a defunct Chevy Impala in a thicket beside the driveway. I’m bending low to lure them out when a gruff voice barks out, “Hey! You gonna pay me for taking pictures of my dogs?!”
I jump around to find myself face to face with a stout, clean-shaven man in a ragged, stained T-shirt, his baseball hat on backward and a cigarette hanging from his lips. I grin and come out with, “If I make any money, maybe.” And then, pointing toward the puppies: “Where’s the mama?”
“She’s around here somewhere,” he says, extending his hand and letting out a friendly laugh.
“I’m Alonzo. Esequiel’s son. But don’t take my picture! I just came from work.”
I introduce myself, and we chat about the dogs—he plans to sell the puppies—as we proceed back down the driveway in procession, Esequiel leading silently in his chair. Sadly, the sight brings to mind a dicho, “Ya no dura los truenos de mayo.—He won’t last through May’s thunder,” meaning he won’t last long.
Back at home, Esequiel returns to bed, and the vigil resumes. A van pulls up, and two women emerge, Liliana and Lurdie, cousins of Esequiel’s. They’ve come to take a shift at sitting with him. Alonzo heads home, while Ralph and Loyola take a short break to check on their house next door. Liliana and Lurdie and I sit under the portal in the warm twilight and visit.
Lurdie’s name is a shortening of Librada. I tell her my great-great-aunt was named Librada, but people called her Libradita or Mama Lita. “Who was your aunt?” she asks, and we’re off on the conversation about who is related to whom. It’s a long talk that leads down many pathways. Our pedigrees don’t intersect, but we do discover I knew Liliana’s deceased husband, Cecilio, who used to sell produce at the Farmers Market in Española. I have a photo of him I promise to bring her someday.
I pull out a box of the pictures I’ve been taking, and they’re amused to see so many Chimayosos they know. Lurdie identifies one of the men at the biker party as Sam Vigil, although she calls him Samito. I’ve been trying to locate Sam so I can give him a picture, but I haven’t found his house. She offers to take it to him. Then I ask if I can take their photos to add to the collection, and they laugh loudly but don’t protest when I begin shooting in the near darkness. Every once in a while, one of the women goes inside to check on Esequiel. He’s sleeping deeply. When I look at the array of prescription bottles on the kitchen table and reflect on Esequiel’s wracked body, I can’t help but think, “Es peor el remedio que la enfermedad.—The remedy is worse than the illness.” Esequiel is too weak to open his eyes or talk, and I don’t even try to address him.
In a while, Ralph returns and hands me a beer, and Loyola joins us. Ralph sits on a low bench under the portal. The glow from their cigarettes sparks light in the gloom. It’s going to be a long night. It’s a good thing I brought a full case of beer.
Son de la misma caballada.
They are from the same herd of horses. (They are of the same clique or political party.)
Son pájaros de la misma pluma.
They are birds of a feather. (Said of two people who are similar in all aspects.)
Tanto va el cántaro al agua hasta que se rompe.
The pitcher makes so many trips to get water, it finally breaks. (Said when a person plays too much with fire and finally gets burned.)
Tiene más entradas que salidas.
He has more entries than exits. (Said of someone who thinks he is very smart, but isn’t.)
Tanto peca él que agarra la pata como él que mata la vaca.
He who takes the leg sins as much as he who kills the cow. (The accomplice to a crime is just as guilty as the criminal, no matter how small a part he plays.)
Un árbol que crece torcido nunca su rama endereza.
A tree that grows up crooked never straightens its branches. (Early mistakes are not easily corrected.)
Viejo retobado, muchacho malcriado.
Mean old man, disrespectful boy. (Character is determined at an early age.)
Ya no suena ni truena.
He no longer makes noise or thunder. (He is old and feeble, or he is no longer popular.)