SOLEDAD
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"My aunt's ranch is just out of town. You'll like my aunt she makes everyone feel welcome."
"Maybe I'll just drop you off and get some miles in while there's still light."
"Suit yourself but visitors are a luxury so if you don't at least say hello, they'll have me explaining for hours why you sped off without a word to them."
The rural lane turned into gravel. If visitors were a luxury, his aunt was living like royalty. About a dozen pickup trucks and cars were parked at various angles in and around the front of her house. "It doesn't look like they'll miss me," I volunteered.
"C'mon. What are you afraid of?"
Nothing like a direct challenge to make one conform to another's wishes. We moved along the side of the house to the backyard.
It's always the kids that you notice first. Their arms and legs in a flurry of motion along the perimeters of the main group. Then you see the older adults dressed in ranch clothes. A cowboy hat here or there sitting at the tables. Then you hear the clank of the horseshoes. Then you see someone come forward and then another.
"How you been, Cuz? What brings you up to see us?"
Someone else asked, "How'd you get up here?"
Eddie introduced me. I got about half the names, Richard and Javier and Susie and Estrella and Maricella and Daniel and Beth and Steven and even fewer of the faces matched with the names. Although everyone was pleasant, I got the feeling something had been carried on the breeze ahead of us.
"Eddie, you look good for a desperado." The secret was pressuring to escape.
"How far away are the cops? They'll never take us alive, uh Eddie?"
His aunt came out and wholloped him with a roll of paper towels. It was not a friendly whollop. "You're not a very good son. Leaving your mother like that." She was scowling at him. If she raised her voice a notch, she'd be shrieking.
If Ed had thought that bringing me into the picnic would keep away the foul weather, he was evidently in err. The clouds were beginning to hover over him. He looked feebly for shelter. His aunt was so close she could have easily reached out and tweeked his ear, "Your sister called me and told me all about it. Santana will be phoning here. I want you to tell him everything, understand?"
Eddie's head was cast downward in deference and he nodded meekly.
"Now get something to eat and wait for Santana's call." As she moved away it was as if she let go of his ear.
Eddie's chest had been stoved in, shrinking him in stature. Few things are more pathetic than a kicked dog. We sat at a table with a fellow about my age, maybe a little younger but around my age, he was Ed's older cousin, the son of the aunt whose backyard we were sitting in; a younger fellow about Eddie's age; and a couple of fellows in-between our ages. One of the first inquiries among men is concerning occupation or as it was put to me, "We know what Eddie's into, what's your profession?" I found out the man my age worked for a seed company and had worked there many years. I presumed from his carriage he had worked his way into a position of responsibility. One of the younger guys was working for a bank and another was a contractor of some sort. I didn't catch what the other was doing. The man in banking perked up when I mentioned I worked in computers. He was managing databases and evidently quite proud of his work.
The oldest cousin said, "How's biz? When you gonna come over and help me pour that drive?"
"Our contract's been extended at Soledad. I'm lucky to get a day free. The way thing's been going I might make a career out there. Javier, didn't you take the guard test?"
"Don't know the results but they're hiring like crazy."
Santana called in and Eddie got up to take his call. Later I learned about the legendary Santana. Santana is in his mid-fifties so what took place was many years earlier. He was two years into a local college making progress towards a degree by way of a football scholarship when he was arrested for statutory rape of a white high school girl. When the baby was born the authorities discovered, as Santana had said they would, that it wasn't his kid but the product of a union with the white boyfriend of the girl. The girl confessed to making up the story. But by that time Santana had lost the season and he'd lost his scholarship and his chance at a degree. However, he'd learned to handle things. He knew when to push and when to stroke. He knew how to get an audience with the person who could assist in the matter whether it was a city official or a marketing V.P. or a D.A. Levitating your manila folder from a stack of manila folders is the great trick in dealing with institutions. And apparently Santana was a sleight of hand artist. In another time, in another family, he'd be known as the "fixer". In this family, he was simply known as "Santana" and everyone knew what that meant.
"How did you meet up with Eddie?" the oldest cousin asked.
I explained where I was headed and where I found Eddie and I realized that my disassociation with him elevated my position in their company. There was a list of deviants and weirdos they could have imagined me to be among. And he, as a fugitive, was likely to take up with one on the list.
The conversation turned to sports. The older cousin had a kid in high school playing ball and he was at a camp working on fundamentals. "I saw your boy the other day, man, he has buffed up some, he lifting?"
"Every day," his father answered.
"He taking any supplements?"
"You mean like protein and vitamins. Yeh, but it's hard to say how much that affects him, he eats so damn much anyway."
"I heard a lot of the guys his age are into 'roids now to bulk up."
"Like that homerun-hitting baseball stuff."
"Yeh, and worse."
One of the little girls who was about 5 or 6, came to nestle against her father all the while looking at me.
"I know they get tested for all sorts of substances."
"How's your brother doing? Why didn't he come today?"
"He's not doing so good. He hates the school where he's at. It's got no after school programs, no social life of any kind. The school is so poverty-ridden, he has to share his textbooks. He's one angry dude."
One of the other cousins turned to me. "The poor kid got busted for having an aspirin on him. They threw him out of his school. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance, I guess."
"Zero tolerance means zero intelligence," the brother said. No one disputed the claim, nor confirmed it. The drug war had become a raison 'd etat, once in place there was no political capital in dislodging it. As soon as a politician raised the possibility that the war was a failure and a truce advisable, he would spend the rest of his campaign explaining that he wasn't in favor of every American man, women, and child becoming a drug addict. Drug users are not usually recognized as the kind of political support a politician needs to get elected but prison guards, pharmaceutical companies, law enforcement agencies, and right wing moralists are.
"How's my godson doing?"
"He seems to like his new teacher but we've already been called in for a conference. They want to put him on Ritlin. I guess half the class is on the stuff."
"He's only in first grade."
"They say it will improve his learning."
Someone finally took note of the little girl's presence. "Look at her flirt with the blue eyes. Figures."
"Don't mind him," the elder cousin said to me. "His wife ran off with an Anglo and he hasn't gotten over her."
"I am over her. I've got plenty of girls I'm seeing. Probably getting more than all of you combined."
"OOOhhh," Everyone was laughing at him and he looked to be bothered. I knew that liquor can serve as a catalyst to harden family tempers and since we all had beers in our hands and I was the outsider, I wasn't feeling completely safe.
"I know exactly what you mean," I said, "My wife ran off with an Anglo too. The floozie." I toned down the language since the little girl was still there staring at me.
"Next time maybe you'll marry a nice Mexican girl." The speaker corrected himself, "I mean Tempesto, not you," he said looking at me and everyone thought that quite funny.
It was a source of amusement for us. But poor Tempesto was obviously pained. Who knows what their marriage had been like? When a spouse runs out unexpectedly it usually has a lot more to do with something going on with the runner, something inside the person that is being acted out, than it does with the one left behind. I wanted to tell him what my years had taught me but not being a family member, I wasn't in a position to emit wisdom so I had to let Tempesto beat himself up over the one thing he couldn't change even though it most likely had nothing to do with her leaving, that he wasn't an Anglo.
Eddie came back to sit with us. He looked neither relieved nor discouraged. "Eddie, we heard your ex hitched up with an Arab. She can't seem to win for losing, can she? The government is rounding Arabs up and deporting them."
"I don't know where you heard that bullshit."
"It's true. Don't even tell anyone they got them, they just ship them off to one of those Arab oil countries."
"She's not going with any Arab." Eddie was emphatic.
"Even so, you tell her to hitch up with a Mexican. At least when he gets deported he can walk back home."
They all had a good laugh at that.
"Speaking of wetbacks," the youngest person was pointing at the table next to us. I seemed to be the only one who cringed at the term. I confess to the typical liberal reaction. The immigrant family sits at Eddie's family table and eats the family's food but the term "wetback" comes easy to their tongue. I wouldn't think of using the term. Or having the dark skinned foreigners at my table.
They had the look of the Indians from south of the border, very dark complected, small and stocky. They sat at their own table curled up together. You got the feeling that for any of them to leave the safety of the group would be a big venture. Yet, they'd already taken as hazardous a journey as one could imagine, a distance outside their country, their culture, and their language.
"Pablo," the cousin called out. "Habla usted 'Hola' a mi cousin y el amigo."
The man smiled.
"Doesn't understand a word of English. How he got this far heaven knows. Came up from Columbia. All of them, the wife and all those kids."
"Why? Just for the work?"
"He's a good worker alright. He has a story about his family being murdered. Father, mother, brothers and sisters, everyone from grandparents to three-year-olds. Wiped out by the government looking for guerrillas or drug cartels or commies or anything that moved."
"So he doesn't have a green card?"
"Sure he's got a green card. He's got a social security card and a driver's license. Probably has an American Express Gold Card." We all laughed.
"His story is entirely possible. Killed everyone probably with the help of the CIA." It was a female's voice intruding into our bastion.
"Oh no, here we go again."
"U.S. imperial policy has been designed to keep the peasant population in poverty and fear. Name a Central American or South American country that hasn't been impoverished by U.S. policies. Our government has never seen a right wing dictator it wouldn't consort with."
"The big bad white man pissing all over the little brown man."
"Since when aren't the policies of the U.S. racist?"
"Don't preach to me muchachita con chile lingua. I marched with Ruben. I was there when they killed him."
"And that's the last time the barrio spoke as one voice."
"Don't kid yourself, the barrio has never spoken as one voice. The barrio, as you call it, doesn't want revolution, they want CD's. They don't know Che Chevara only Michael Jordan. They don't want to go to a demonstration, they want to go to the mall. And I'm right in line with them. Get even by getting even is my motto. Have you seen my truck, got every option available. Someone wants one like it, let them work for it."
"Unless we mobilize we will never be anything but peasants and cannon fodder for the rich."
"Muchacha, haven't you noticed? Don't you read the census statistics? We're taking back the state. I'm doing my share. Why don't you try it? Find a man and have some babies, maybe you won't be so goddamn frustrated."
She didn't reply but she didn't go away either.
"Well Eddie, your mom lose her house yet?" Another cousin joined us.
Eddie snapped, "She's not going to lose her house."
"Didn't you put it up for bail."
"No. I'm not out on bail. I wasn't arrested."
"I know your cousin is in jail."
"You know more than me. If they arrested him, that's not my fault. That's the cops' problem."
"Any Mex will do, they don't care if it's the right one or not." It was the girl speaking again. Since everyone was looking at Eddie I took a good look at the girl. She carried her head straight and her shoulders rigid, it was a carriage that was hard to get a fix on in years. Was she older than she looked, or mature beyond her years? I guessed at late twenties to late thirties. She wasn't remarkably beautiful but her political passion made her highly desirable to me. No matter how good a political discourse I can throw up on the wall, and I have been around long enough to make a sticky ball of the mess that is at the heart of American politics, women like her sense something in me. They sense the utter unseriousness of my character. Try as I might, and I tried in my youthful days, I am not a believer nor a good enough deceiver at believing to flick their switch.
"The poor kid's on his own till Santana gets there."
"The homeboys will help him out," one of the younger cousins said.
"They won't help him out, they'll keep him in. Jail is the one place where being a Mexican has value. The more in jail, the more power they have collectively. The way I heard it they arrested him thinking he was you. And they're threatening to take your mom's house because they found drugs in it."
"They aren't going to take her house."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that. I've seen auctions for all sorts of stuff, cars and boats and properties. They take first and ask questions later. I read about a guy who had everything he owns scarfed up by the local cops and then he had to prove he wasn't a drug dealer to get it back. Catch was, he didn't have enough money left to get a lawyer to get him into the courts. It looks to me like the cops are doing quite a business in the drug trade."
"Santana told me they can't take it. It wasn't paid for with drug money."
No one seemed to want to contradict Santana but the doubt showed on Eddie's face.
Everyone had gone home leaving Eddie's aunt, Eddie, me, and Eddie's pretty political cousin to finish cleaning up. I knew I should have begged out earlier but partly because I didn't want to eat and run, partly because I wanted to help with the cleanup, and mostly because Eddie's cousin started to talk to me, I stayed on past a reasonable time to cut out. My chance to get rid of Eddie faded the more I focused on his pretty cousin. I was now faced with the prospect of staying the night and giving Eddie a ride up to his cousin's house in the morning. I couldn't tell if Eddie's female cousin had any interest in me mainly because she was so earnest. I couldn't get her to giggle and without that confirmation I felt I was twisting in the wind like a brightly colored piņata ready for the blow. We threw out the last of the paper plates and fed the dog some choice pieces and the pretty cousin slipped out the door.
From out in the front came the sound of an engine turning over but not firing up. Eddie poked his head through the door. "It's not going to start," he shouted, "you're going to drain the battery."
A small jolt of optimism hit my lightning rod. She might not be leaving. She was driving a 70's era VW bug. It struck me as an appropriate vehicle for her.
"Is it always hard to start?" I asked as the three of us circled the back end of the little car.
She raised the tail piece that covered the engine and the metal made the sound of a giant pie tin.
"Can't you get yourself a real car?" Eddie prodded.
She didn't answer and for a moment I felt protective of her. She was out there alone in the little metal egg while all around her the big heavy behemoths threatened.
She shone a flashlight on the cold black figure in front of us. "Is this right?" She lifted a wire dangling across the chest of the engine.
"That looks suspiciously like a coil wire. Mine use to pop off every now and then. You probably hit a rut as you pulled up into the yard. Eddie, you have any pliers?"
"I do," and she clanked around behind the front seat and brought out a bundle that held a pair of pliers among several screwdrivers and a couple of crescent wrenches. Altogether a fairly useless toolbox but one that probably gave her comfort.
I gently squeezed the clasp and then pushed it onto the terminal on the coil. "OK, give it a start."
It only took a turn before the engine caught. She rolled down her window, stuck out her pretty arm and let her hand lightly fly and then she switched on the lights, put it in gear and pulled away down the gravel road. I was disappointed she left without a thankyou hug or a goodbye kiss or even a handshake that lingered in my palm. Obviously, she wasn't attracted to me. Maybe she was a lesbian. Lesbians are sometimes drawn to political movements. I laughed at myself. Isn't that perfect? She didn't want me so she had to be a lesbian. What heterosexual woman wouldn't be thrilled to be near me? Hell, I thought, I don't even care to be near me and I'm stuck with me. Well, if you are a lesbian, pretty cousin, I hope you find someone who makes you happy. I caught sight of the dim tail lights in the distance, an unmistakable VW characteristic, old wires. Wires too old to carry enough juice to make the lights go bright.
Eddie and I went back into the house to sit with his aunt in the kitchen and count the squares on the table cloth. In the center of the table there was a detective novel spread open and laid flat to mark the reader's place. I recognized the title as the ballyhooed newest entry in a succession of crime mysteries. As Rallio once told me, "You waste a generation and no one wants to read about it, but bump off one person and you've got a bestseller."
The aunt leaned over and touched Eddie's arm, "Eddie, none of us have forgotten what you did for your uncle. You got him the medicine that no one else would get for him. You made his last days bearable."
Eddie shrugged, "He was my uncle."
"Si Eduardo, y tu madre esta mi hermosilla. I don't want anything to happen to her."
One more time, I thought to myself, I'll try to make tracks. I brought up the idea of leaving. "Nonsense," his aunt said, "It's much too late. You can stay on the couch tonight and get up early and be off." She wiped her finger on the table. "Pests. They're all over." The ant was rolled up into a ball then delivered into the trash. "California is one big hormiquero. Every house is built on one. Instead of the bear on the flag they should have put a giant ant on it. They're everywhere." She shook her head in scorn.
"You could spray. That would take care of them."
"Sounds like your uncle. He got one of those ... what do you call them ... exterminador."
"Yeh, exterminators."
"Si. And what do they do? They spray those chemicals on everything. Poisoned one of the cats. Fixed it so we couldn't eat a crop of tomatoes. It was a horrible smell. And the people to the north of us, they're gone now, moved out 4 or was it 5 years ago, four I think. Nice people but not too practical. They had an organic garden and the chemicals made them very mad. Then you know what happened?" She was looking at me waiting for an answer.
I shook my head so she wouldn't have to wait any longer.
"The ants came back. And there was more of them. So we called the spray back. What do they say? You didn't let us spray enough. My husband was all for more but I'd had enough. They said you tied one of our hands behind our back. So what does that mean? They want to drive all our neighbors away, kill all our cats?"
She paused and then started again. "You men are smart in so many things but you have no perspective. They're only little pests."
I liked her and would have liked her a lot more if she had let me have some sleep. I was comfortable enough on the couch in the den but she stayed up all night watching late night TV in the living room. I laid there in a semi-conscious state dozing to the light blue glare. The all night vampire hucksters were selling red pills and purple pills and blue pills. A voice kept saying, "Ask your doctor" and if the phone number of one was handy, I'd have called him up for a somnambulant potion that would put either me or the aunt to rest.
We got up early.
The morning mirror startled me. I had the dreams of a young man but the face in the mirror was an old man and it took some time before I recognized him.