My Abue fills my thoughts.
“Look for signs. Follow them.”
I look, but they do not come. “Go your way, Manuelito,” Abue says when we talk, “but seeking with your heart. Only then,” she says, “will magical things happen.”
So I keep trying to do this. I feel always now an unrest. Stronger than before. What is the path for me?
The Angels, it is an okay city, maybe even a great one. But here life is fast fast. Cars. Buses. Motorcycles. And cell phones cell phones cell phones. Everybody is connected, but I believe that nobody is. They just talk, but not to faces. It is all speed and brains numb from phones and advertisings. Toño says that some people count up every step they take. All day. Imagine! Instead of living, they count footsteps! Crazy beyond crazy! I remember what I thought when I first saw this place. That maybe this L.A. is another kind of beast—one that dazes you to death.
Almost any day the sky here is gray. Where are the wild blue sky acres? Where is the beauty? Everything is buildings. Freeways. Streets. Sidewalks of concrete. Where is the land?
The strangest thing. One day, near where we live, I come upon a plant of maíz. By itself. Alone. I am struck with wonder. Why have I never seen this one before? Suddenly I sense a great stillness. Like an angel passing.
This corn is struggling to grow through a crack in the sidewalk. It is stunted. Short. But it is green. In spite of drought, it holds out its arms with hope and waits for rain.
Each day after this, I visit the plant, bringing it water in a little bowl. I stop and stand beside it.
“Hola, Señor Maíz,” I say with respect. “I bring you water so that you will grow tall.” I hold out my arms like the plant of corn. I realize that we two are the same, struggling to survive in this place of cement where beauty is hiding hiding. Struggling where we cannot truly live, where we do not truly belong.
When I first see it, in my mind I place a circle of magic around the corn. Here, to this plant, is where I come to find my thoughts. Here I sit down inside the circle, a place of safety for me. And I think of what I will do for my life. On what path to place my feet. Passersby do not seem to notice a young man sitting beside a corn plant in the middle of a magic circle, seeking. Of course they do not. This is Los Angeles.
One night I dream of the corn plant. It is no longer growing in a city sidewalk, but instead sprouts up from a field near our pueblito. The plant grows fast—up up up—reaching higher and higher before my eyes. And it begins singing. Words I cannot make out, and yet I know their meaning. Taller taller it grows, to fantastic size, till its wide shadow shelters a small corn plot. Ours.
I wake from the dream and sit upright. Look for signs. Follow them. I hear Abue’s voice again. Out of the mist of this dream, one thing becomes clear clear. Dreams change. Once my dream was to be with Toño. No longer. All that has happened has led me to this moment. My mother dying, Toño leaving, The Beast journey, Señor Santos, Cejas, Serafina, Mr. James Ito with his field and bonsai. These things have pointed the way my heart has been seeking all along. There have been hints. But the small plant of corn, my deep heart knows, it is my true sign.
For some time I stay in bed without moving, in the absolute and holy stillness.
Long ago my Abue told me that within me I held all of the family dreams. I know now what she meant, that I should stay with them, to tend our little plot. Now—in the quiet, in the dark alone—I know what I will do. I will go home.
No border patrol will stop me from leaving. Probably they will give me a heavy shove to go. I come from People of Corn. I will return to my family and be happy again with the small things of life. I will do what Flores people have always done. Like my father and grandfather and all those before them I will walk behind an ox and plow the dirt and the dust will lift and shawl down upon me like a prayer, the dust, the very breath of the earth. I will tend our milpita and the maíz that it gives. I will be a tiller, a planter, a keeper of the land. Beneath both sun and rain, with my sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters I will labor. Sí, I Manuel Flores will become a farmer.
The absence-pain, it is hurting my heart already. To say goodbye to Mr. James Ito, that will be hard. But in his sage way he will understand. He has lost the field of his heart. He will want me to return to mine.
To break away from Toño is a different thing. How do you tell your brother that you are leaving, that you know you will never see him again? I begin to plan words in my mind. Do not miss me. Do not be sad. No matter how far away, I am here always by your side. Using Abue’s words I will say, Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you.
As I plan, a deep ache grows. Toño. It was a terrible struggle to reach him. It will be a harder struggle to let him go. How will I do this without breaking both of our hearts? Impossible. But how can I break them softly?
My words seem rough. Not good enough. I keep thinking, but I cannot make them come out right. I cannot sleep. Then, once as dawn approaches and the sun begins to turn the gray sky gold, I realize something. I need no words.
That afternoon, when Toño wakes up, I am waiting for him in the kitchen. From sleepy eyes he looks at me and I look back, long long. I stand up. I embrace my brother. And he knows.