The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel Read online

  Ferro coiled the rubber body belt under the guest bed and got into the shower. As he was finishing with the hair drier, he heard Jamey’s Corvette pull into the parking space below the balcony doors. Before Jamey could unlock the downstairs door and reach the bedroom, Ferro was lying naked on his back, his penis swollen into a wide curve away from his belly. Jamey would call it a special treat, although they both knew that rubbing coke on the penis head slowed the ejaculations and kept Ferro going longer. Zeta had accused him once of having only his balls and dick to think with. He knew it was not true, but he also knew that before he had found Jamey, he had made mistakes that had not happened since. He imagined there was gradual buildup—secretions, fluids in his lower abdomen, and finally his crotch. The sensation had not changed since grade school when he was sent to the school chapel alone; perhaps it was to pray for aid in curbing his tongue. He did not remember the reason, only rows and rows of tiny votive candles in red glass. When he had leaned forward as he knelt, he had brushed against the pew ahead of him. He had been looking at the bare legs of the Jesus hanging from the cross. The pleasure he got from leaning closer and rubbing against the pew made him close his eyes. What he saw then was the spear the soldier stabbed into Jesus’ ribs and the gush of blood that had spurted. Ferro always imagined the soldier as large and handsome and reluctant to hurt Jesus, but some mightier force had given him orders. The older boys claimed hanged men died with penises erect or spurting liquid. Ferro realized the loincloth on Jesus had only been for the sake of good taste. When he closed his eyes, he imagined Jesus’ execution conducted in the nude. The last sign of life had left Jesus’ body in the same spasmodic jerks that Ferro saw his own penis make as he pulled it in the warm bathwater.

  Ferro left Jamey spread-eagle on the bed, facedown. Orgasm was such a relief he no longer felt the regret he had as a child who then had to kneel and confess a mortal sin. The only regret he felt was that he could not keep away from Jamey, that he had gone from seeing Jamey two nights a week, to seeing Jamey every night, and often in the late afternoon. Zeta was already complaining that the work was suffering. That Sonny Blue and his people were beginning to make inroads around town. They were selling more and they were selling it cheaper. “Mine is better,” Ferro had said sullenly. Zeta laughed. “We are not talking about sex acts,” she said. “We are talking about drugs. Down on the street they don’t know good. They know cheap. That’s all.”

  MOTHER

  AN HOUR AFTER Lecha had returned with the skinny blond girl, Ferro had cornered Zeta in her office. He had demanded to know why Zeta had not told him. What the fuck reason had that—that—thing for returning after all these years? He was shouting, but Zeta remained calm. She had a pencil and a stack of blank yellow paper on the desk in front of her. She was doodling interlocking squares in a pattern that reminded Ferro of his coffee-table book full of Greek statues.

  Ferro had learned when he was still very small never to let Zeta lock eyes with him. Because it was the eyes that gave the real meaning to any words she might have spoken. When Zeta had told Ferro that his mother had left him in Tucson because she could not be bothered with a tiny baby, her eyes had told him that she did not want him feeling sorry for himself. She did not believe anything teachers or psychologists might say about the ill effects of rejection upon the child. Her eyes said that what was good or necessary for white people was quite different for them.

  They had had great shouting fights after he was grown. But Ferro had always known that despite what he felt or what he wanted, Zeta knew a great deal more than he did. Ferro had come to understand this gradually. At first, before he understood, Ferro had studied and read his books, waiting for the day when the argument came and it was Ferro and not Zeta who had the definitive facts. When he would be able to tell her that he had tried X or Y or Z and that he knew which was best. But after he had finished college with a business degree and had been working for Zeta, it dawned on him that he was getting no closer to what she knew and how she knew.

  “How many times has your mother said she was coming back and then we don’t hear from her again for three years?” Although Ferro had taken a double shot of whiskey and a couple of lines of coke, he felt as if his heart would beat a path straight into his belly, taking both lungs with it. “Your mother,” as if Lecha were his fault or his invention. Ferro had wanted to yell back, “She’s your sister!” but he knew without saying the words that Zeta had him beaten right there. Every word Zeta had spoken was true. She seldom lied or exaggerated, while Lecha had many times announced returns or permanent changes and then had failed to appear or call again for years. Ferro had been furious at something inside himself that had been waiting for Lecha to return.

  At that moment, Ferro looked at Zeta and was stunned to see how much she looked like Lecha, although something running in the distance behind the voice inside him kept telling him it was only the whiskey and the drug. But he could see only Lecha, his mother—the one he had hated so fervently all these years. The mouth, the teeth, and the eyes—Ferro could feel the sweat sliding down the crack of his ass—but just when he thought he would not be able to hold off the shivering in his chest, he had seen the wide streaks of white in Zeta’s hair. He could see her big hands, big knuckles, dark brown from working with dusty “antiquities.” No long red nails, no gaudy fake emeralds like Lecha’s. Ferro took a deep breath. “You did it for her. You did it for you! It wasn’t for me!” Sweat had rolled down his forehead into his eyes, stinging and running tears down his cheeks. Zeta had not moved her eyes from his. She did not dispute Ferro. She had done it for herself. In spite of her sister, Ferro had got raised, and that was all that had mattered. Ferro whirled around blindly for the door. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” he screamed, and slammed the wrought-iron gate so hard the glass rattled in the windows.

  THE WEIGHT OF GHOSTS

  CALABAZAS IS IN THE CORRAL with his little mule and donkeys. He talks to them in a singsong voice. He has a bushel basket of overripe broccoli he picked up at the back door of the produce warehouse down the street. But in his pockets Calabazas has green crab apples he picked in the backyard. The little donkeys pin back their ears at each other and push to get closer to him. The spotted mule stands with its head shoved against Calabazas’s left shoulder. When the donkeys try to bite the spotted mule, Calabazas claps his hands and laughs.

  Root smiles when he sees Calabazas in the corral with his animals. Calabazas likes the old ways, the old tricks, best. But he won’t like it if Root doesn’t tell him about the Salvadorians. Root isn’t sure how to bring it up, but Calabazas is in one of his talking moods.

  “The story I like best,” Calabazas says as if he and Root have been exchanging stories all morning, “is about the old man riding his mule along the river.” Calabazas gestures in the direction of the Santa Cruz River, but Root thinks “sewage treatment” not “river” when he looks in that direction. Both are true. Tucson built its largest sewage treatment plant on the northwest side of the city, next to the river.

  Farther south, near the Mexican border, the Santa Cruz runs as clear as a mountain stream. The Yaqui people know the location of the sewage plant is no accident. Calabazas’s goats and little donkeys and livestock from the Yaqui barrio wander on city property surrounding the sewage plant. The Yaqui livestock fatten on the tall river grass and willows as they always have since the days before there was a city of Tucson to condemn Yaqui land.

  Root turns over a tin bucket and sits down to get comfortable. Because Calabazas is in one of his moods. “In those days there were witches up and down the Santa Cruz,” he begins. Root wishes he could talk as fast as he can think because he’d make a wisecrack about there being plenty of witches right now—teasing Calabazas, who has, from time to time, been accused of being a witch himself.

  “The sky above the riverbanks used to glow electric blue all night from the burning witches’ pots. Us kids stayed close to the house on those nights. Besides witches, we always had to be caref
ul of Yaqui ghosts. The ghosts are always traveling up and down the riverbanks searching for their loved ones. Because the Mexican soldiers slaughtered all of them. Babies, little children, old women. Yaquis who refused to acknowledge the Mexican government or to pay taxes on their land were rounded up and shot. The soldiers filled the arroyos with their bodies, and families never knew who had been murdered or who had escaped. Those ghosts can’t rest. Not even now.”

  Root raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes at Calabazas. Root has come to depend upon facial expressions because they don’t get caught then stuttered out of his mouth. “That’s right,” Calabazas continues, “and that’s what this old man riding his mule along the riverbank found out.” Calabazas stops to light up a cigarette. He always offers the pack to Root, who always shakes his head. “What do these ghosts want? They are still running away, thinking they are escaping the slaughter. They keep traveling, but at a much slower rate of speed than when they were alive. They are just now reaching Tucson as the water and the land are disappearing. Relatives already settled here had pleaded with them to flee Sonora sooner. Now the ghosts have come, and they want to know where the lake they were always hearing about has gone. The lake their brothers and cousins were bragging about. Plentiful fresh water in Tucson. Which is what the word tucson means in Papago.” Root nods, and Calabazas takes a couple of puffs from his cigarette.

  “This man had bought a little mule. One like mine. Everyone told him he didn’t want a little mule. His relatives. Relatives always tell you what they want.” Calabazas glances in the direction of the houses owned by his wife’s family as he says this. “All of them tried to talk him out of the little mule. They wanted him to buy something bigger. Maybe even a horse. Because it would be his money that was getting spent. Not theirs. But the man liked something about this little mule. He bought it from someone up at the village in Marana. They invited him to spend the night. But he was living alone, and he had a garden that needed care. He didn’t want to ask his relatives because the melons were getting ripe, and who could resist taking a few? So early in the afternoon the man got on the little mule he’d bought. This mule was the color of red dust. It had the sign of the cross down its spine, which was good luck too. So they went along, and the little red mule did very well. The old man was pleased because now the little mule would show all those relatives of his who didn’t approve of small mules. But right around sundown, the little mule started slowing down. They were near the Seven Mile crossing on the riverbank. Seven Mile crossing got its name because at the time it was seven miles from town. Not anymore. The interstate runs right by there. And there’s that striptease bar there.”

  Root nods. He wonders about Calabazas sometimes. All the different moods. Today he wants to talk about the old times. But tomorrow Calabazas might not say anything. For days at a time he might not speak to anyone—just point or gesture. If a deal had been made and a drop had been scheduled, then nothing happened. Customers got used to peculiarities dealing with Calabazas. Root and Mosca would have to carry on until Calabazas got a change in mood. As long as supplies hold out Root just keeps working the university neighborhood and Pima College, where it’s mostly college kids who want to score.

  “Well, this man began to think maybe what people had been saying against the small mule might be true after all. Maybe he had been cheated. It took the man all night just to get seven miles. The red mule went slower and slower. The mule started sweating. It lay down in the sand three times. The man was ready to turn around and go right back the next morning, to return the mule and get his money back. Of course he told everyone the next day. But the old-timers just laughed at him. ‘Don’t blame the mule. Why do you think they invited you to spend the night in Marana?’ The old-timers were really getting a kick out of the whole thing because this man had not believed in spirits and ghosts and things like that. So they said to him, ‘Why do you think they asked you to spend the night? Because ghosts can make a wagon heavier for the horses to pull. The ghosts pile into the wagon. They weigh twice or three times what they weighed in life. The body carries the weight of the soul all the life, but with the body gone, there’s nothing to hold the weight anymore.’ ”

  FALLING FOREVER

  ROOT KNOWS HOW heavy the body is. Never mind spirits or ghosts. He knows how heavy the body is as it falls—falls so slowly the mass and weight of it pulls everything down in slow motion. He has dreams of the heaviness, of falling forever and ever. His arms slam against the mattress. He wakes in a sweat. He knows what they told him. How much of his brain came away with the crushed skull. How doctors fucked up with the steel plate. “One in ten” had been the odds they quoted his mother during the fever.

  The world had pulled away and left him lying in white, puffy clouds. He could look down and look through the clouds. He might have been in a jet airliner except for the silence. He could look down through layers of clouds and see himself lying in the hospital bed connected to the machines. He lies in the bed with his eyes closed. It is difficult to recognize the visitors who come and stand at the foot of the hospital bed since he can see only the tops of heads. He can always tell which one his mother is. But he does not remember seeing the top of her head more than a few times. The therapist asks if they are cumulus clouds. Root hates the sounds he makes. He can hear the correct sound of the words inside his head, but his mouth doesn’t make the sounds clearly anymore. Words are groans or choking sounds. Does the tongue actually move or is it like the feet and toes, which feel as if they are moving, but when he watches in the mirror above the bed, they are motionless, white as candle wax. Even before the accident, Root had never trusted mirrors on ceilings. The first time he saw mirrors on the ceiling had been with Lecha in the deluxe suite at the Marilyn Motel. When he saw Lecha’s back, the cheeks of her wide brown ass spreading over his skinny white legs, Root had realized that mirrors do not show what really is. So he had bellowed at the physical therapist, young, blond, and enthusiastic, when she told him he could see for himself in the mirror his toes were not moving. He could not tell her mirrors on ceilings do not show the truth because he could not even say yes or no. In the ceiling mirror of the Marilyn Motel, Lecha appeared to sit on someone he had not recognized, a teenage boy much whiter and shorter than himself, flexing his feet in rhythm with Lecha’s slow, smooth rocking on top. The face Root had seen over Lecha’s left shoulder should have been his, but was not. Just as now the bellows and grunts should have been words, but were not.

  He had awakened after five months. He had no memory of what had happened. He thought he might have some idea of a past life with a family, but he did not feel sure. The nurse who came into the room said that she had just been transferred to that ward, but she would see that someone came who could tell him what had happened. A car had turned in front of his motorcycle. Later his mother had filled in all the details. They were fresh in her mind, she said, because she had just been talking to their lawyer. The company insuring the car and driver had made a generous offer. The car had turned in front of him where Miracle Mile intersected Ft. Lowell Road. Root thought it was funny it had happened next to the graveyard. As kids they had joked about riding their bikes past the cemetery after basketball practice in late November when it was nearly dark. They had joked about what might happen to you passing a graveyard after dark, or even in broad daylight—three-thirty in the afternoon—the time his accident had occurred. Ghosts might hop into a wagon or onto a motorcycle.

  Root stands up. Calabazas has been pulling thistle burrs from the burro’s fetlocks. He knows Root has something to tell him, but it takes Root time to get it out. Root stares at the tall hollyhocks blooming near the sagging clothesline. He finds something to focus on so he doesn’t have to watch the face of the person listening; so he doesn’t have to watch their difficulty understanding his words. Root concentrates on the intensity of the colors of the blossoms—the reds that are dark as wine, garnets, even blood. Root feels sweat break out across his shoulders. It soaks his
T-shirt. It runs like ants from his armpits down his ribs. He tells Calabazas about the men who’ve come. Not Mexicans, but foreigners who are very short and very dark and speak strange Spanish. They say they’ve come from El Salvador.

  Calabazas is staring at the little donkeys bunched in the shady corner of the corral. He is still calculating the weight of one ghost. Somewhere near five hundred pounds. “How did they find you?”

  Root shakes his head. “They say they were told to find me to reach you.” Elaborate precautions had to be taken against narcs and others. Calabazas takes a last, hard suck from the cigarette and throws the butt hard against the ground. He doesn’t like strangers looking for him. “Tell me more.” Root shrugs his shoulders. “Brand-new leisure suits—sort of tan colored. All identical. Everything—white plastic belts, white loafers. Blue shirts. Bad haircuts.” Calabazas chews the end of his thumb but says nothing. Root decides Calabazas is ready for the best part. “They pulled up to my place in an old Volkswagen with Sonora plates. They each carried a blue suitcase. Brand-new powder-blue Samsonite.” Calabazas draws himself up straight, and looks Root in the eyes. “What?” “Samsonite.” Usually Calabazas understands his speech much better than anyone except maybe Lecha. Root frowns and tries to repeat the word very slowly, straining to control every single sound. “Samson-ite—it’s the brand-name luggage.” Calabazas doesn’t always understand English. It wasn’t just Root’s slurring of the words. There seemed to be days when Calabazas didn’t understand English at all. There was no explanation.