15

DIEGO WALKED BACK toward the corner of Fifth and Oregon. By now, Crazy Eddie should be preaching, he thought. From two blocks away he could see Crazy Eddie’s hands flying in the air like pigeon’s wings. As he moved closer he could see the Bible in his hand, he could see the words come from his lips, lips that resembled Mary’s; “He has shown his might with his arm; he has scattered the proud in their conceit … The rich he has sent away empty.” His eyes flashed like firecrackers and the veins in his neck popped out making him look as if he were about to explode. “Do you hear me?” he yelled as he pointed at the sky, “Do you hear? He speaks to us. He gives us his word.”

The young cholos sitting across the street yelled things at him, and began throwing rocks. Diego caught sight of one of the boys’ lips as he was saying; “We don’t hear God, old man, all we hear is you. Shut up—shut the hell up!” The boys who sat next to him laughed.

But Eddie kept preaching. Diego turned to watch him as he lifted up his Bible: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel for he has come to his people and set them free.”

One of the cholos stepped up to him and began yelling in his face. Diego couldn’t see everything the cholo was saying, but he was able to read, “Shut the fuck up before someone locks you up for good.”

“And God will rescue me,” Crazy Eddie yelled back.

“And who’s gonna rescue us from you, old man? Who’s gonna set us free from all the pinche locos?”

Eddie shook his head and kept reading from the Bible. “Every valley shall be filled, every mountain shall be leveled …”

The young men sitting on the street corner shared a cigarette and passed it between themselves. Diego watched to see if anything else was going to happen. “Why doesn’t God level the migra or the fucking police?” one of them yelled. “Tell me why—tell me that!” The young man stared at Eddie and turned away from him. He said something to one of his friends, and for a long time they all sat there quietly. Diego stared at all of them: the five youths sharing a cigarette and sitting at last in silence, the people passing, and Crazy Eddie reading the Bible, He pulled out a dollar from his pocket and pulled at Eddie’s sleeve. Eddie stopped his reading and stared at him, “Here,” Diego wrote on his pad, “this is for you. I believe.” Crazy Eddie smiled and put the dollar in his pocket. He took a deep breath and began preaching again.

Diego began walking toward Sunset Heights. The day had grown too hot—the morning had melted away. As Diego approached his house, he saw what looked like the figure of an old woman: a shadow with a dress draped over a form. The form was sitting on the steps to his apartment house. As he walked closer he thought the woman was the landlord’s wife who often sunned herself—fully clothed—on the steps of the house. Moving closer, he realized the woman sitting on his steps was Luz. It was strange to see her sitting in front of his house since she had never once visited him in the few years that they had known each other, though she had always known exactly where he lived.

She saw Diego moving toward her; she waved her arms and appeared to yell something. Diego could see her Mayan lips move, but he was not close enough to guess what she had said. He motioned to her and pointed at his ear. She laughed—and as Diego moved up to where she was sitting he took out his pad and wrote: “So what brings you to my neighborhood? I thought you hated Sunset Heights.”

“I never said I hated Sunset Heights. It’s nice here, Diego.” He smiled to himself; she did not seem to remember saying how much she detested this neighborhood. “And what do you mean ‘what brings me here?’ I’m waiting for you, pendejo—what else would I be doing sitting on your front steps?”

Diego laughed and wrote: “Twice in one day, Luz! I don’t know if I can handle it!”

Luz smiled softly. “Twice in one day,” she repeated. “Well, good friends can see each other as often as they like. Don’t you agree, Dieguito?”

He nodded, but he knew Luz was not here simply to make small talk. There was something on her mind, something she wanted to talk about. “So,” Diego wrote, “are you here to take me to a late lunch?”

Luz looked at his pad and laughed. “No lunches, Dieguito, not today.” She stopped talking and was lost in her thoughts for a few moments. “Guess who I saw right after you left me at the bridge? Carlos. He says he’s going to Chicago, says he has a place to live with some people he knows, and he says he has someone who’s going to take him. He says maybe I should think about going with him.”

“Well,” Diego wrote, “are you thinking about going?” He stopped, then wrote: “What will you do in Chicago?”

“What the hell do I do here? I can be a maid anywhere, can’t I?”

“It seems like you want to go.”

She stared at Diego’s handwriting. She was quiet. “Give me one of your cigarettes.” Diego reached into his pocket, handed her one, put one in his own mouth, and lit both their cigarettes. Luz took a deep puff and exhaled the smoke slowly through her nose. “Ay, Dieguito, no se. I just don’t know. I’m tired of this city—I’m tired. I’m so damned tired I could lie down and die.”

“I thought when you got tired you only got madder.”

“God, Dieguito, you really are a pendejo. Do you believe everything I say?” She took another drag from her cigarette and said nothing. Both of them sat in the hot afternoon sun sweating and smoking their cigarettes. She grabbed Diego’s arm: “Diego,” she said slowly, “listen to me. Listen. There’s nothing in El Paso for me. My sons are gone, and neither of the bastards ever bother to write or send any money. Sometimes, I miss them—and I write to them, but nothing ever comes back. And you know something? They can go to hell along with everybody else. Malditos. Ungrateful pigs—that’s what I raised, and goddamnit, I don’t deserve to be treated like that. Diego, I want to go somewhere. Just somewhere, Dieguito.”

Diego laughed and touched her arm. She brushed her fingers against his hand.

“What do you think I should do?” she asked.

“I think you should go,” he wrote. “What the hell? If you don’t like it you can always come back. El Paso’s not going anywhere. What have you got to lose?”

She nodded. “And you, Diego? Why don’t you come with us?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’d lose my job.”

“Why don’t you tell that son of a bitch you work for to go straight to hell? Tell him to shove Vicky’s blue bar up his ass.”

“What would I do in Chicago?” “Same thing you do here—nothing.”

“Well then, I think I’ll stay.” He printed his letters firmly, stubbornly.

“You’re never going to get anywhere with that attitude, Diego.”

“It’s OK,” he wrote, “as soon as I was old enough to know I was alive, I knew I would never be going too far.”

Luz cackled. Diego could almost picture her laugh in the air. “You have a sense of humor, mi amor. Hold on to it.”

“A sense of humor?” Diego wrote, “Not really, Luz. It’s just that you laugh at everything.”

“You’re damn right, Diego. You learn to laugh at everything. People who cry are boring. There’s nothing more boring than someone who’s always crying.” She flipped her cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. As Diego watched her, he felt the urge to tell her to stay. He wanted to yell at her: “Stay where you belong. Who will I talk to on Saturdays?” She looked at him. “You know, Diego, I’m getting old—but I’m going to laugh until the end. If I stop laughing they’ll treat me like a cigarette butt.”

Diego nodded. He put his pen on his pad and asked: “So, when are you leaving for Chicago?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I have to think about it some more.”

“If you decide to go, come and say good-bye to me at Vicky’s.”

She took his pad away and wrote: “What am I going to do about you, my Diego?” She looked straight into Diego’s eyes and said, “If I’m not at the bridge next Saturday you’ll know I’ve gone with Carlos to Chicago.” She squeezed his hand. “Thanks for the cigarette, Diego.” She rose from the steps slowly and walked down the street. She wrapped herself in a black shawl even though it was too hot to be wearing one. He wanted to grab her and keep her from going. He wanted to scream at her: “Goddamnit, don’t go!” He wanted to hear himself yell it; he wanted to know what it was like to feel sounds coming out of himself, to feel the notes touch the insides of his throat like fingers.