LUZ FOUND a small, perfect house on Prospect Street in Sunset Heights. The place was old and in need of paint, but the walls were strong, and it was a real house with a porch and a backyard where Mexican primroses grew wild. “It has lots of windows,” Luz told Diego, “and we’ll always have plenty of sun. No dark houses.”
Diego inspected the house for the tenth time that day. “I like it,” he wrote, “it feels right. Everything is just right,” He sat on an old couch in the living room and watched the light coming through the curtainless windows. He stared at the worn wooden floors and thought of his mother. He thought she would have liked this house. He lit a cigarette. Luz walked into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee and sat across from Diego in an old chair.
“It’s just perfect,” Diego wrote.
“Not perfect, Dieguito.”
“You don’t like the house?”
“I’m not talking about the damned house, mi amor. The house is the best—the very best. The house just needs a few plants—I’m good with plants, I can make a dead plant come to life, Diego, but it’s not the house I’m talking about. I’m talking about something else.”
Diego looked at her, shrugged his shoulders and stuck his hands out.
“You really want to know?”
“You’re going to tell me anyway.” He showed her the note and laughed.
“We’ve been living together for two weeks and already you’re accusing me of talking too much. I don’t talk too much—well, only compared to you—I just like to communicate.”
“I’m not accusing you. I was just playing—just a joke. Can’t we joke? Tell me, what’s not perfect? Tell me, I want to know.”
She looked at him. “Do you believe in dreams?”
“I already told you, Luz. Didn’t I tell you about my dreams and Mary and about my dreams with my mother in them, and how I remembered how my mother was killed in that car accident?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, “you told me. Poor Mary. I know I never liked her, but I never wanted that to happen to her. Pendeja that she was, she couldn’t help it. God forgive her for claiming she was the Virgin, but she didn’t deserve to die like that. Do you think the pinche migra had something to do with her murder?”
Diego looked at her and shook his head. “No. And I don’t think you think so either. The migra isn’t responsible for everything, They’re not criminals.”
“Pendejo,” she said, “of course they’re criminals. You think because they wear a uniform they’re not criminals?”
“OK,” he wrote, “they’re criminals.”
“You think I’m a pendeja, Dieguito? You’re agreeing with me just so I’ll shut up. Don’t start acting like a man just because we’re living together.”
“I AM A MAN,” he wrote. He held up the note like a banner.
“You know what I mean, Diego. Don’t start acting like Mundo. There’s enough of those already. God knows they’ve burned half the women in this damned city with their smoldering eyes and their pinche attitudes. You don’t need to start acting like that, Dieguito.”
“What does Mundo have to do with dreams? Mundo doesn’t believe in dreams.”
“I knew it,” she said. She clapped her hands with satisfaction. “Men like that don’t believe in anything but a woman’s body.” She looked at him carefully. “Do you really believe in dreams? Because if you don’t, I’m not going to tell you about the ones I’ve been having. If you laugh at me, Dieguito, I’ll send you back to work at Vicky’s.”
“I won’t laugh,” Diego wrote. “You should know better than that. Don’t insult me.”
She nodded. “God is punishing me, my Diego. Ever since I’ve come back from Chicago, I’ve been having dreams. There’s a man who comes to me. I’m always sitting at the bridge in my dream, and I’m watching the people just like we used to do on Saturdays. And the man comes up to me. I feel like I know him, and he just looks at me. His eyes are even softer than yours, Dieguito. He sticks out his hand like a beggar. I try to hand him money, and he won’t take it. He throws the money into the river and then I feel like a whore. I wake up feeling bad, Diego, And all day, I think about it. Even this week, since going back to work, I think about it all the time. And I’ve finally figured it out. All of a sudden, I remembered something I’d forgotten. I’m such a pendeja, sometimes. The man who keeps coming to me will keep coming until I give him what he wants. He’s not like most men—he’s not looking for sex, and he’s not looking for a meal either, and he’s not looking for a job or for money. He doesn’t have that look like that at all. His hunger is for something else. In the last dream something different happened. He turned the brown river to pure blue. It looked like the sky, my Diego, just like the morning sky. I swear it, it looked so real. And his open palm was right in front of me. And this morning it came to me—I remembered—just like you remembered about your mother. Dreams do that, Diego.” She paused and drank from her cup of coffee. “It’s good coffee,” she said.
“Remembered what?” Diego wrote.
“I remembered about the time my first son was sick, I don’t remember very much, only that he was just a baby and he had a fever and was very sick. He was burning up, so hot, Dieguito. I went to church and I told God that if he let my son live I would go on a pilgrimage to Cristo Rey. Well, Dieguito, pendeja that I am I forgot about my promise. My son got well, and I never paid God what I owed him. And now He wants me to pay up. I have to pay back what I owe.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to climb the mountain.”
“Which mountain?”
“Pendejo! Which mountain do you think? Cristo Rey.”
“If you wait until October, you can go on the annual pilgrimage. They go every year. The bishop goes, too. Sometimes even more than one bishop is there—I’ve never been, but I’ve read about it in the paper. Hundreds of people go, hundreds of pilgrims, and they have a Mass at the foot of the statue. We can go in October, Luz, and I’ll go with you.”
Luz read Diego’s note and shook her head. “No, my Diego, God won’t wait. He’s waited long enough. Dreams have their way, and I can’t wait that long. I have to go now—as soon as possible.”
“But they say it’s dangerous. It’s much better to go with a lot of people. What if something happens to us?”
“You think God is going to let something happen to us if we’re climbing his mountain to pray?”
“I don’t think the robbers are going to ask God why we’re there. I don’t think they’re going to ask us either.”
“Look, Diego, what are you talking about? The robbers? What kind of books have you been reading? We don’t have anything worth stealing, anyway. Don’t be a pendejo.”
“What if they kill us?”
Luz shook her head and laughed. “We’ll take Mundo with us if that will make you feel better. It will be good for that guy to go on a pilgrimage. Maybe God will cure him.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything, Dieguito. You told me yourself that you found him in a garbage can. You think he couldn’t use some changes in his life? He can’t live like that forever, mi amor: You want him to live like he does for the rest of his life?”
“If he wants to, why not? It’s his life, Luz.”
She shook her head in disgust at Diego’s cleanly written words. “Why not? Diego, his life isn’t as simple as it seems. My first husband lived exactly like Mundo—and he was found dead on the streets of Juárez—drunk and dead. You want that for Mundo?” She lit a cigarette. “Yes, I think Mundo should go with us.”
“Can he bring his friends?”
“His friends will ruin everything. Those gang members, Dieguito, are not good for each other. When they’re by themselves, they’re almost human, but when they’re with each other, they turn into animals—like packs of wolves looking for fights or women in heat. Animals, Diego, they act like animals around each other.”
“I like them,” Diego wrote. “They were great at Mary’s funeral. You should have seen them, Luz, and they didn’t act like animals.”
“Ay, Dieguito, you think everybody’s nice, don’t you? That’s a real problem, don’t you know?”