“If I go,” he finally said, “I will never come back.”
“Sit. Down. Carnal,” Big Angel said.
Slowly, he sat.
“You already left us forever,” his brother said. “I had to die to bring you home.” Big Angel started taking his pills. Noisy little gulps of tamarind juice. “I destroyed my own family,” the patriarch said.
Little Angel tried to tune it out. He didn’t want to listen. But he did. What more was there? What more could anyone take with them at the end of the day?
Big Angel started into it all. Braulio. Chentebent—that part of the narrative carefully redacted. Struggles with his mother. At last, from parts unknown, El Yndio entered the family ring.
“I never understood Yndio, Carnal. I was…bad to him. I was trying to be a father for the first time, but who did I have to copy? Our father. I was trying to be him. And goddamn it, I am not him. Sorry, God.
“All that trouble between us. Why did I never learn to say I was sorry? What is wrong with me?
“Do not answer that, cabrón.
“We were strong males, Yndio and me. We fought for Perla’s love—I see that. He must have thought I was an invader. Taking over his perfect world. I thought he was a spoiled little bastard. Mama’s boy.
“And, you know, he was strange.
“I know you gave him those records. That crazy music. You, cabrón, it was you! No, it’s okay, Carnal. I understand everything. Yndio wanted to be famous. He wanted to be a star. I told him he was crazy. Acting? Singing? What? Long hair? What kind of man did that? Men earned money and made a home with a good woman and had babies. Men were serious. That’s what I thought. I told him to be an accountant. Don’t laugh. An accountant, or maybe manage a 7-Eleven.
“He said, ‘What about Grandpa? Playing piano all night!’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But that’s like a hobby. After his real work is done.’ Yndio was furious. ‘My life is not a hobby!’ he said, and he knocked over his chair when he left the room. So dramatic.
“And then he moved away for good. I don’t even know where he lived. He had those tattoos, and he dressed all in white. That hair. My father didn’t like that. Our father. They didn’t get along.
“Well, a year later, Yndio got a job, singing at a nightclub! In Hillcrest! Not far from Dad’s place—that Rip Room, where he played piano. A place called Lips.
“He gave us an invitation. What did we know? I made Perla go. It was Perla and Dad and me. We got all dressed up. It was our boy’s first big performance. No, listen! Yes, sure—strange people there. But I thought, you know—they’re like you. Crazy hippie people. Gringos. Lipstick on boys, I don’t know—leather. Stop laughing. We had drinks. Perla was scared of all the crazy people. I think this was why our father had a stroke. It’s not funny.
“Yes—Yndio came out on stage. His new name was Blackie Angel. Another pinche Angel! He came out from behind this silver curtain. As Cher. He was in some kind of bikini bottom, and he had chi-chis! This is not funny. He had makeup and feathers in his hair, and he was singing Cher songs! He came up to our father and humped him! Jajaja! Ah, cabrón! Papá just sat there, sipping his drink. Like nothing happened. Yndio rubbing his crotch on Father’s shoulder. Then Yndio turned around and shook his nalgas at us. It was worse than Mamá and the parrot! And then he grabbed his chi-chis. I knew what he was doing. He squeezed them and pointed them at us. He was shooting milk all over us in his mind. Carnal! He was washing us out the door.
“Poor Perla kept staring at his panties. She grabbed her heart and shouted, ‘Where is his pee-pee! He lost his pee-pee!’ Yndio leaned over and whispered in his mother’s ear, ‘I tucked it in, Ma.’
“Stop it! You’re making me laugh.”
* * *
The next day, Big Angel had found his father dead on the bathroom floor.
“Heart attack. You knew that. But now you know why.”
Big Angel was so somber, Little Angel couldn’t help himself. “Didn’t Dad like Cher?” he said.
They bent over laughing, though Big Angel cursed him and said, “Not funny!”
“Kinda funny.”
Big Angel hit him with a pillow. Winded, he took another sip of his tamarind, then put his glass down. He was smiling insanely, leering, his feverish eyes like dartboard targets. Filled with fury.
“Carnal,” said Little Angel, wiping his eyes, “that is the best story I ever heard.”
“I tried to be good to my boy.”
All Little Angel could do was nod; he didn’t want to start laughing again.
“Tell me,” Big Angel said. “Did I do anything good in your life?”
“You gave me the books.” It was instantaneous.
“Yes. All the books—that was pretty good. I gave you good ones.”
“And bad ones.”
“True. But all books are good, man. Imagine no books.”
“I still have them.”
“Ah. Bueno. But what was the best thing I ever did? Aside from giving you books?”
Little Angel rubbed his eyes with his palms and ran his hands over his forehead to smooth his hair back. “Well,” he said. “You called me one morning and told me to get ready because you were coming for me. And to tell my mom I’d be gone all day. It was mysterious. It’s not like you came for me all the time. You wouldn’t tell me why, but you told me to bring a coat. So you showed up in a while. You had La Minnie with you. She was just a little kid. And we drove off. You had ham-and-cheese sandwiches.”
“On bolillos!” Big Angel said.
“Right. Ham and cheese on bolillos with chiles and mayo. And Mexican Pepsis.”
“Mexican’s better.”
“And we drove east, to the mountains. It had snowed up there. Living in San Diego, we never saw snow. So you said, ‘We are going to make a snowball.’”
“And we did!”
“That’s what we did. Yep. There was about an inch of snow. We got out of the car and scraped up some and threw it at Minnie. She started crying. Then we got back in the car and drove home.”
They laughed some more.
“Yes,” Big Angel said. “Good. Now tell me the worst thing I ever did.”
“Come on.”
“Tell me, Brother. Was it the beach?”
“No.”
“What?”
“It was the year Dad died. We had nothing. I know, I know—it didn’t match your suffering, blah, blah, blah. And we had nothing. No car, no money. No food. Kind of a theme, isn’t it? And it was Christmas, and Mom didn’t know how we’d afford presents or a Christmas dinner. And you called. That was your thing, I guess. Surprise phone calls.”
Big Angel sighed. “I know.”
“You said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing. I am your big brother.’”
“Yes, I know.”
“‘I am the patriarch.’”
“Yes.”
“You said, ‘We will come for you Christmas morning.’ You fucking said you’d treat us to a huge Mexican Christmas fiesta. Family.”
“Yes.”
“‘Don’t buy a ham,’ you said. ‘Don’t worry. Perla is making the best feast you ever ate.’ And Mom cried. She was so relieved.”
“I am sorry.”
“No, wait. You wanted it, so here it comes. You never showed up. We got up and played Christmas music all morning and drank coffee and promised each other we’d give presents next year. Yeah? And you never came.”
“I am so sorry.”
“We had some bread in the house, so we ate some toast. Marmalade—Mom always had marmalade. She thought she was French. I hate marmalade. It wasn’t much, but we were saving room, we told each other, for Perla’s great meal. And when five o’clock came around, I finally called. I was like, ‘When are you coming?’ Do you know what you said?”
“Yes. I said I was too busy to come get you.”
“You said that it was too much trouble to come get us.”
Big Angel sat staring at the wall. “What did you do???
?
“I dug in the couch. I shook out my bank. I raided Mom’s purse. Then I walked a mile to 7-Eleven and bought a little canned ham and a can of corn. Jesus! How Dickensian.”
“Thank you,” Big Angel said. “For telling me.”
“Ancient history.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s all right. You’re a good man.”
“I am a bad man.”
Little Angel turned to him. “I forgive you.”
Big Angel sobbed once.
“Hey! Look at how many people love you. Look at everybody you have helped.”
“Men who do good deeds only wish to atone for their sins.”
Minnie came in, followed by Perla. “Why are you crying, Daddy?”
He picked at his blanket and avoided her eyes.
“Mi amor,” Perla said. “Are you done fighting?”
“Who won?” Minnie asked.
Both men raised their hands.
“Ya es hora!” Perla said. “Let’s get cake.”
“Time for the cake, Daddy.”
He put up a trembling hand. “Just a minute.” Yust.
“Flaco,” Perla said.
“Flaca—un minuto, sí?”
The women reluctantly exited the room.
Big Angel struggled upright from his pillows. “I did worse,” he said. “I have so much filth in my past.”
“Stop.”
“I snuck into your house with MaryLú. You were in kindergarten. Papá and your mother were working. We broke all her jewelry with a hammer.”
“What?”
“And then we cut up your mother’s nice clothes with scissors.”
Little Angel’s mouth hung open.
“We left it all for her to find.”
“You—”
“Yes. And Papá had silver dimes and quarters in cigar tubes. I took them.”
“I—”
“Tell me how good a man I am now.”
Parrot
The brothers lay side by side, shuffling through so many memories. So many imperfect scenes. It felt as though they had opened a box of old photographs, each of the pictures torn and tattered. But for all their lives, they had hoarded one perfect memory. One joyous, inappropriate memory that they kept as their own secret like a holy relic. Now seemed the moment they needed it most.
“Remember the parrot?”
It was decades ago. Big Angel had been in possession of his green card for only six months, and he was already exhausted. Being American was like getting a good shellacking—whatever that meant. He’d heard it, and it sounded right for how he was feeling. These people did things all day long. They were frantic. They ate lunch in their cars and never had a siesta. They even went to church in their cars. Or on their TVs. And they were making him embarrassed about being Mexican. It was creeping into his mind. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He was self-conscious about everything. His pants were cheap and outmoded. His posture was somehow slack and not heroic like the mad posture of the marching gringos. He hung his head too much. He wore white socks.
He was turning gray inside. Like boiled meat, he thought. He could not find energy in himself and had taken to drinking black coffee all day. Until his stomach felt sour and his abdomen sloshed nauseatingly as he walked. But he never walked. He sped among herds of cars up and down the endless ribbons of California highways, cursing and chain-smoking. For that was his other vice: Pall Malls. Like his father. But consumed at an industrial pace. Smoked quickly, and the next butt lit from the glowing cherry at the end of his previous butt. He even tried to hold his smokes like Americans did. He held them between his thumb and middle finger. He’d seen Esteep McQueen do it in a movie. And he used that infamous F-U finger to flick the spent cigarette away like a shot rocket.
And he was ashamed of his father. What a beaner. Making believe he was some piano master on Ed Sullivan. Moved away to white suburbs up north of the border. Living with neighbors named Wally and Ralph and Ginny and Floyd. White faces turning red every time he drove up there. He was pretty sure of that. His father had married a woman from Indiana named Betty, for God’s sake. And that little brother. Riding his Stingray bike around in dirt lots and jumping it off cardboard ramps like some pudgy daredevil. Stole his name.
And now this ghastly development. Once a month, Mother deigned to cross the border for her regular inspection of her children’s lives. Angel had to drive down there in his Rambler and collect her. He was the eldest—it was his job. But he and his mother…It was complicated. He hated these visits. And he had lost his taste for Tijuana. It was all embarrassing. Mamá América. Who would name somebody América but Mexicans?
And his damned father had gotten it into his head that “Little” Angel was too much of an Americano. He was so gringofied that he needed regular doses of Mexico to save his soul. So somehow Big Angel had to first drive all the way north to Clairemont to pick up the kid. Double hell. An hour on I-5, going nowhere. The kid somehow thought his big brother would love stopping at Winchell’s Donuts every time to buy him chocolate donuts. Not really, he wanted to say. But he remembered those many Saturdays watching the kid’s lonesome fantasy life with his stupid television shows and his comic books.
Father would drive down in a day or two to collect Little Angel. He didn’t fool Big Angel one bit. Big Angel knew his father too well. He was coming down every month to sniff around at Mother. He could not believe that he was denied. He could not abide the thought that he could not creep into her bloomers once again, at will, and enjoy what he had once enjoyed whenever he wanted. And to her credit, Mother stayed in her back bedroom or went to César’s house instead of dealing with him.
Big Angel lit his fresh cigarette with the end of the previous one and shot that butt out into the air as if trying to light a brush fire along the road. He steered with his knees as he engaged in this complex operation.
* * *
Tijuana then was not anything like the modern technological mecca it has become. No fancy discos or IMAX cinemas. No river channel. No art scene or microbreweries or cafés serving French roasts. There were donkeys spray-painted with zebra stripes that made Little Angel ridiculously happy, though. They still lurked on certain corners, wearing sombreros and withstanding tourists taking selfies. Years later, it seemed the only constants in Tijuana were the Border Patrol and the burros.
They entered and immediately descended into the murky funk of the Tijuana River—a broad muck-choked alley beneath rattling wooden bridges. On either side of the road, the notorious slum called Cartolandia. Now, eradicated. Then, an expanse of hovels made of scrap and tarps and cartons.
Big Angel paid no attention to any of it. He was trying to formulate his plan of attack. How would he take charge in the USA? He had a family to run.
They pulled up before Mother’s yellow house perched on the edge of a dirt hill, overlooking some dusty park and, in the distance, Cine Reforma, where sometimes Little Angel conned his brother into suffering through Mexican vampire and Mil Máscaras vs. various monsters movies. The top of Mother’s wall was glittering with embedded shards of shattered Pepsi bottles to shred the arms of imagined gangsters hoping to creep in and steal her underwear.
She was in her room, packing and repacking her overnight bag. Vicks VapoRub was the main commodity she smuggled across the border. And in the living room, the green parrot raised psychotic maelstroms of noise in its domed cage. Everybody in La Paz owned a green parrot. They all had names. They had named this bird after themselves: Periquito de La Cruz. Big Angel thought: He’s hardly a “little parrot.” That bird was fat. It would announce its presence all day with the monomania of unbridled ego. “Periquito, periquito, periquito Cruz!” This last delivered in a screech that rang in Big Angel’s ears.
“Shut up,” Big Angel said. He would have lit up another smoke right then, but his mother forbade cigarettes in the house. And then Little Angel. Fifth graders being almost as smart as parrots. He joined in, shouting
at the parrot.
“Cruz!”
“Cruz!”
“Cruz!”
“Cruz!”
Fortunately, Mamá América came forth and observed the scene. “Ah, the bird,” she said.
“Mother,” said Big Angel. “Let’s go.” He was eager to escape before the two idiots started their duet again.
“Son,” she said. “Have you noticed there are no parrots on the other side?” El otro lado—the other side.
He said he hadn’t noticed.
“All those Mexicans, and no green parrots.”
“Gringos like canaries.”
“I have a parakeet,” Little Angel offered, to be helpful. “He’s called Peppy.”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I think I will start a business.”
Oh no, Big Angel thought. These old women with their negocios. These women would find things to sell, or they would sew something, or they would cook tamales. Big Angel’s favorite definition of Mexican was “Out of nothing, food.”
“I will import parrots to the Mexicans in exile. Pay a few pesos here, sell them for a hundred times what I paid.”
Big Angel grabbed her bag. “Sorry, Madre. But, no. This is illegal. You are not allowed to carry parrots into the United States.”
Both brothers should have taken note.
“We shall see” is all she said.
* * *
Long before they got to the border crossing, Mother spoke again. “Take me to the fruit market.”
“You can’t take fruit either, Mother.”
“Who said anything about fruit?”