Sun-kissed:
radioactive whispers through
licking tongues blue on fire,
grinning white ash and glowing gums,
molten lips pressed, consumed.
Orange of its desire:
C pearls succulent,
health encased in sheer tissues and
lacey webs, leathery skin and fragrant oils.
The myth of Columbus:
eyeing the interrupted flight
of a moth, crossing that orange globe,
its wings—miniature sails unfurled—
skirting the edge of its curved horizon,
making his case
for a round world.
The myth of discovery:
when we—a sun-kissed people—
were watching,
from the halls of Moctezuma,
from the seat of Atahualpa,
from the fires of Patagonia,
from the song of Guaraní,
awaiting the moth’s return,
searching for the great golden eyes painted
across its wings, singed irreparably, but
holding in those pupils the memory,
the sin of paradise lost,
transferred, absorbed, become
the language,
the Church,
the round world.
Mi casa es su casa.
Mi tierra es su tierra.
Mi mundo es su mundo.
Sun-kissed.
Orange of its desire.
Arcangel penned his poem on the back of an Ultimate Wrestling Championship flyer and gave it to Rafaela.
“But it’s written in English,” she queried, “except for—”
“Some things can’t be translated,” he answered.
“Is there a title?”
“Perhaps,” he answered. “It is for the boy who sleeps in your lap. His name?”
“Sol.”
For Sol, he wrote.
Perhaps hearing his name in his sleep, the child shifted uncomfortably, turned from his stomach but still reached to cling to a piece of Rafaela’s hair. Sweat glistened from his cheeks, red and mottled with the folds and buttons of his mother’s blouse. Rafaela fingered his small palm. He would have a long life. He would survive. But could she be sure?
Hot air billowed through the bus—a pumping furnace on wheels, with no respite from the sun that seemed to follow the vehicle interminably. Occasionally the pungent reek of urine flung itself from the bus toilet as did the stale odor of someone’s yawn. And the aisle was crammed with standing and crouching bodies, standing and crouching all the way to the border.
“Thank you.” Rafaela shifted the boy to one side, folded the paper, and tucked it into her pocket. “What is this championship?” she asked.
“A symbolic travesty at best,” the old man said seriously.
“Will you see it?”
“Yes. I am traveling for that very reason.” He had an elegant manner of speaking, contrary to his dress, his guaraches, the deepening tones of his skin.
“Then you are a poet?” she asked, fingering the flyer in her pocket.
“No not at all,” he waved his hand. “I am merely a character in a poem.”
Rafaela wondered about that, but said, “How long do you suppose we have been on this road?”
“It is hard to say.”
Rafaela wanted to know if the old man knew. She asked, “Have you noticed that the scenery has not changed after all these hours of travel? That wall for example,” she pointed at Rodriguez’s unfinished work, “is the same wall, the very wall that encloses the house where we live. But we should have passed it hours ago.”
“It would seem so, looking out these windows to either side of the road as you do. But you must look forward as does the driver. Otherwise, it is indeed tedious to see the same terrain hour after hour.”
“Perhaps you are right.” She looked back. The same eyes behind the same dark glasses behind the same smoked windows in a black Jaguar followed at the same distance. But beyond that, the road seemed to have accumulated more than simple traffic. A growing crowd of people walked along the shoulder. Some bore signs. Rafaela strained to read them: El Gran Mojado! Hero of the People! And behind them, an even stranger sight: A great church on wheels. Was it not the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe? And there, the pyramids! Indeed it was the great Zócalo of México City, Tenochtitlán swelling with its multitudes, slipping like a single beast across the landscape. And behind that, what more?
Rafaela turned around in excitement wanting to confirm this vision, but the old man had fallen asleep, oblivious.
Without warning of course, the bus came to a sudden stop. Only the bus driver, who as Arcangel suggested looked forward toward their destination, had recognized the restaurant/Pemex station marked by an enormous satellite dish at the top of the plateau. Rafaela looked back anxiously. The black Jaguar stopped too. Wilted passengers tumbled out the bus wearily wandering to the toilets or to the smell of barbecued chicken. Rafaela clutched Sol to her waist and followed Arcangel closely out of the bus. She had decided deliberately to follow Arcangel when she noticed that the old man would be descending the bus with his suitcase that enclosed the orange and its tangled line. Whether proximity to the orange would provide a measure of safety or the answer to some mystery, she did not know.
Looking back at the bus, Rafaela noticed the driver executing the transfer of mail bags from the luggage compartment. The bags were thrown unceremoniously through the doors of a postal truck. Beyond the truck, she could see in the distance the driver of the Jaguar stepping from his vehicle and walking toward the toilets. Indeed, he faced some difficulty getting to the door at all. For some reason his steps veered away, and he found himself ridiculously walking in circles. Rafaela, despite her fear, watched with amusement as the villain finally rushed off in frustration to a gnarled growth of cactus and unceremoniously unzipped himself.
With some relief, Rafaela followed Arcangel to a line for asada. She said hesitantly, “I know this is an odd request, but I wonder if you would take care of my son, I mean, in case anything should happen to me on this trip.”
“What are you worried about?” Arcangel queried the mother as he piled his plate of asada with radishes and green onions.
“I am not sure, but will you promise?”
“Yes, of course. Of course. If it will make you feel better. To be honest with you, I am very good with children,” he reassured her as if mothers made such requests every day.
They walked together with their plates of chicken and asada, salsa and tortillas. Arcangel put his large suitcase on the ground, and the three of them shared a seat on it. “You see, it’s very useful as furniture.”
Rafaela folded a soft tortilla around a tender piece of chicken for Sol and nodded. She saw the frustration in the face of the hungry villain who could not push his body past an invisible barrier. His confusion turned to anger. He ripped away his dark goggles as if they were the failed magic through which he had lost control of his world.
When they had finished their meal, Arcangel opened his suitcase and removed a small bundle slightly larger than his palm and wrapped in cloth. “Perhaps you will have use for this?” He handed it to Rafaela.
Rafaela pulled the cloth away, the long cotton wrapping uncovering a small pocketknife. Its silver handle was inlaid with turquoise and mother-of-pearl. “It’s very beautiful. I really couldn’t accept.”
But Arcangel wasn’t listening. He had also removed a stack of Ultimate Wrestling flyers from his suitcase which he passed out to the passengers and clients at the rest stop. Rafaela watched the tired nods of those who received the flyer change to excitement. Pretty soon people were toasting their Cokes and Tecate over the possibility of seeing the greatest fight the world would ever witness. Rafaela wondered about this; she had been away too long. How strange that a mere border could close the doors on the current events of one’s home. Everyone seemed to know this El Gran Mojado.
Rafaela, watching the villain imprisoned for whatever reason several hundred yards away, wrapped the pocketknife in its cloth, and stuffed it in her pocket. She looked wistfully south only to see Sol skipping aimlessly in that direction. “Sol!” she screamed in horror as the boy danced farther and farther away. She ran after him, but Sol thought it was a chasing game and zigzagged happily around and around the trunk of a sweeping palo verde. “Stop! Sol! Come back. No. No!” The boy scurried away.
Now the villain of the Jaguar watched for his chance. He crouched in the dust ready to snatch the boy, but Sol was suddenly stopped in his tracks by music and clapping. Arcangel was juggling the ears of corn, the orange, and various sizes of colored balls. Sol watched with fascination the menagerie of items flying from the old man’s hands and ran back north. But Rafaela had missed catching the boy in her frantic chase, skidding perilously south. The strong hand of the villain reached out and clutched her arm, covered her screams, pulled her away.
Arcangel employed Sol to put the juggled objects away in his suitcase one by one, gently nodding in Rafaela’s direction. The last object was the orange which Sol felt unable to relinquish for a long moment. Rafaela’s eyes pleaded from afar. Arcangel took the boy by the hand and stepped lightly into the bus.
Rafaela, forced into the body of the Jaguar, saw the delicate strand of line straggle with the old man and Sol into the bus and reassert itself through the bus and across the road. The bus’s motor gunned to a start, spitting behind it a gust of black smoke, and moved slowly away. And Rafaela saw the sun above following the bus in its interminable noontime, and with it went the sweltering afternoon, the listless evening, the warm dark night, the starry midnight, leaving behind a cruel dawn.