DIEGO THOUGHT ABOUT LUZ all week. He felt her breath in his room, smelled it; he dreamed her face fading away like smoke. At night he would stare at his pad and spell “Chicago.” C-H-I-C-A-G-O. It was a strange word and he thought the word looked Aztec, but he had gone to the public library and discovered that Chicago meant the place of bad smells. He wrote a note to himself: “Who wants to live in the place of bad smells?” He thought of sneaking over to the barrio to spray-paint a new sign on the walls: CHICAGO STINKS! VIVA JUÁREZ! He thought he might add: “Luz, don’t go. Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.” He almost ran to the door and down the stairs to buy the spray paint. He pictured himself spraying the letters on the wall; he could see his handwriting, large, angry. But he changed his mind because he felt he would be making a public beggar of himself. How would it look, him begging an older woman not to leave—how would it look?
Saturday morning he woke up, put on the coffee, and went to his desk and grabbed his suicide letter. He did not read it, but took it back to bed with him and held it. He tried not to think about Luz—she’ll be at the bridge, she’ll be there. He drank his coffee as dark and bitter as his room, and did not rise until the light of the morning shone through the window. He combed his hair in the mirror and looked at his face. He saw the lines coming out from under his skin, from somewhere deep within him. Soon my face will be a map, he thought, a map of crooked roads going nowhere like the steps. He read the newspaper from the day before. The printed words were all jumbled; he could make no sense of the sentences—they seemed to be knots on a string, knots he wanted to untie but somehow he felt his fingers were not gifted enough to undo them. He threw the newspaper down on the floor, lit a cigarette, and puffed on it furiously. He could feel the smoke in his throat and lungs. He puffed on his cigarette faster and faster as if he were trying to catch himself on fire. He lit one cigarette after another until his throat felt as though he had eaten ashes. He sat at his desk, took out a piece of paper and wrote: Luz, be at the bridge. Luz, be at the bridge. Be at the bridge.
At eight-thirty he thought it was time to take himself down to the river. He wanted to run all the way to the bridge, but he dressed himself slowly. He went up the steps that went nowhere, then back down. He walked through San Jacinto Plaza and noticed the Border Patrol eyeing him. Diego watched them watch him. He walked toward Sacred Heart Church making himself walk slowly, making himself count his own steps: one, two, fifty, one hundred. He walked into the church, dipped his hand into the holy water, and crossed himself. He lit a candle before the statue of St. Jude and whispered, “Luz, be at the bridge.” He made the sign of the cross, kissed the feet of the statue, genuflected, and inched himself out of the church heading toward the river. As he reached the top of the bridge where the flags were being tossed by the hot wind, he stared down at the river of mud. Today it was browner than usual and it was running fast, almost angry. He turned away and faced the place where Luz always sat. He opened his eyes. She wasn’t there. He walked up to the place where they first met, stared at the blank spot on the hard cement—and waited. He tried to concentrate on the people hanging around, the people walking toward El Paso, the people selling their goods. A small boy selling Chiclets came up to him; Diego handed him a quarter. He smiled at him, lit a cigarette, and waited. He knew she would not come.
At noon he walked back to Sacred Heart Church and blew out his candle. He kept going to the bridge every Saturday, and every Saturday he stared at the river, closed his eyes, watched the people—and waited. He did this for a few weeks until one day he stopped going. He stopped working on his suicide letter. Winter in El Paso came early that year.
About the same time Luz left, Mary disappeared. Diego looked for her on the streets but he could not find her. Crazy Eddie and his boss were the only two people he saw regularly and neither wanted to take the time to talk to him. Sometimes he tried to get Tencha, the fruit lady, to talk to him. She was kind, a good woman, but Diego knew his presence made her feel guilty because she could talk and he couldn’t. Some people were like that. She smiled a lot but she couldn’t bring herself to have a conversation with him. Diego stopped writing on his pad. He left his suicide note on top of his desk but he never touched it. He was tired of trying to think of the right words.
One morning he tried to throw his letter out the window, but before he could make himself let go of all the pages as he held them in the air, he pulled them back inside his room. He wadded up the pages, wadded them up into balls, and threw them against the wall. He stared at the white balls on the floor, picked them up, and smoothed them out with his hands. He put them back on his desk.
Mr. Arteago had left for the winter and didn’t turn on the heat. Diego’s apartment was so cold that he was glad to be in Vicky’s kitchen. One night it got so cold that Diego went out and bought a bottle of Jim Beam and got drunk. He jumped up and down on the floor and wished Mr. Arteago was home so it would drive him crazy. He lay there, took another drink, and laughed. He remembered Luz saying “People who cry are boring.” He lay on the floor and laughed to himself all winter.