Big Angel cast a fretful glance back at Little Angel, then took the detour east.
The fruit market was in a warren of old buildings surrounding a parking lot. The ground floors of these edifices housed soup counters and tortilla shops, candy sellers and taco stands. And, of course, fruit. Fruit of all kinds. Watermelons and lemons. Papayas and mangos. Bananas, stalks of sugar cane. And vegetables: eggplants like dinosaur eggs, jicama, chiles. The parking area was clogged with trucks at all hours and hustling men with rags tied on their heads, moving produce. The blacktop was sticky with a centimeter-thick coat of ancient fruit mashed and sunbaked and remashed over the years. And in the far corner, to Big Angel’s horror: a bird vendor.
“Madre, no,” he said.
She marched away.
“Are we in trouble, Angel?” the kid asked.
“I think maybe so,” Big Angel replied in English.
“A green parrot, young man,” she said to the bird seller as she fished a few colorful pesos out of her pocketbook. “If you would be so kind. Un periquito bien mancito.”
“What did she say?” Little Angel said to his brother.
“Tame,” Big Angel said. “Mother wants a tame parrot.” He lit a Pall Mall and started to slouch as if the sun were melting him.
The helpful fellow produced a blinking little green parrot that sat astride his finger mildly and turned its head in every direction, observing the activity all around them. He climbed upon América’s extended finger and fluffed his feathers. Big Angel puffed his cigarette and observed. Mother handed the man his money and began to compliment the bird in the faux-sweet baby talk all Mexican women used to delight babies and small dogs.
“Ay qué guapo el periquito! Ay, mira nomás qué bonito!”
The little bird grew proud and stuck out its chest and preened vainly.
As she spoke, Mother reached into her purse and produced a small bottle with an eyedropper on top.
The brothers nudged each other.
She unscrewed the cap with one hand, fingers working like a spider. She squeezed the bulb atop the dropper and lifted it. They saw it was full of clear liquid.
She tapped the parrot’s bill. “Andale, pajarito,” she cooed. “Abre el pico, mi rey.” The parrot opened its beak, and she delivered four drops into it. “Tequila,” she noted, screwing the cap back on the bottle.
The three gathered males watched as if hypnotized.
The bird swayed. He wobbled his head. He lay his head over. The bird was wasted.
She laid it in her free hand, where it might have snored on its back. She reached again into her infernal pocketbook and produced a sheet of newspaper. Little Angel would for some reason remember that it featured jai alai scores. And she laid the sheet on the seller’s bench and the drunk parrot upon it. With both hands, she then wrapped the bird tightly, forming a paper cone. Tail in the pointy end, green head sticking out of the open wider end, like a parrot sno-cone.
Mother América retrieved the cone and, with a self-satisfied flourish, astounded them all by pulling open the neckline of her sensible blue dress. She took the somnolent bird and inserted it into her cleavage. Big Angel had never noticed his mother’s endowment before. Suddenly, she seemed to be blessed with an expanse of pillowy flesh. And she tucked the parrot into that cleavage, adjusting herself as it sank from view, finishing the operation by using her thumb on its head to get it well positioned in the shadows.
She adjusted her bust and said, “Let’s go to San Diego, boys!”
* * *
The border in those days was different. No huge wall. No drones, no infrared towers. What awaited the de La Cruz family was a raggedy line of wooden booths manned by Immigration and Customs agents sitting on stools in the heat, bored to despair as they breathed limitless clouds of car exhaust, and more cynical every day as every single driver said, “No, I don’t have liquor in my trunk!”
Big Angel pulled up in his Rambler.
“Be calm,” he said. Mother beside him with her pocketbook in her lap. Little Angel in back, toying with his Baby Bobby matchbook to distract himself from his absolute terror that they were about to go to federal prison for life. Gangster Grandma seemed as serene as a Tibetan monk.
All Big Angel could see of the agent was his belly. It was a good belly. It floated outside Big Angel’s window. It turned away once, as the agent eyed the following vehicle. Then swung back.
“Papeles, amigo?” the voice said.
“Yes, sir,” Big Angel replied. “Green card.” He held up his magic ticket to the USA.
The agent bent down, and a red face appeared. He glared at América. “Papeles?”
She held up her passport. “Pasaporte.”
The red face swung back to Little Angel. “How ’bout you, bud?”
“U.S. citizen,” he cried.
The agent patted the top of the car and rose, his belly back in the window. Little Angel was afraid the big man would yank out his pistola and blast them all.
“Okay,” the belly said. It started to turn away. “Have a nice day.”
Which is when the parrot awoke. The belly was three-quarters of the way turned when the parrot announced its displeasure. “Qwock!” it screamed.
The belly froze.
“Kwee-yock!”
The belly turned back to them and stopped. Big Angel stared straight ahead, his jaw muscles furiously rippling in his cheek.
“Yeeeeek!”
The agent’s big red face lowered itself to the window and gawked.
Mother América turned to him with the blandest expression on her face. “Isn’t that strange?” she said. “I wonder what it could be?”
And then her bustline began to move. The agent’s eyes bugged out. Suddenly, with further mutterings and screeches, the parrot wriggled out of her cleavage, its head rotating as it appeared.
“How interesting,” Mother América said.
The angry and hungover parrot burst forth and cursed them, then leapt out the open window and flew away. All of them—government agent, Mexican nationals, and the U.S. citizen in the back seat—watched it flutter north, across the border.
Las Mañanitas
The women came back in and began to wrestle Big Angel into his chair.
“Forgive me,” he said as they wheeled him away.
Little Angel caught up to him. “It doesn’t matter, hermano,” he said.
“It matters.”
Minnie rolled Big Angel away and parked him in the kitchen. She rushed out to the yard to collect partiers.
Big Angel grinned through the pain of crossing his arms behind his head so he could strike a nonchalant pose. “It’s funny, Carnal. I used to starve, you know? I used to want to eat all the time. And when we got here to this country, I ate. All the time. I got fat! That’s why Perla started to call me Flaco. Funny.”
Little Angel could see Minnie’s shadow on the patio.
“Pero sabes qué?” Big Angel said. “Now I am starving again. I hate to eat. I eat to feed the cancer. The pills make me sick. My stomach hurts all the time. But I dream of food. Like I’m ten again. Really. I never dream about making love, but I dream about carnitas and tortillas.”
Minnie’s shadow moved away.
“Well…okay. I dream about sex all the time,” he admitted. “These are the great thoughts of Miguel Angel. Pig meat in a tortilla. And nalgas. For when you write a book about me.”
“I should.”
“You should, yes.”
“Pinche Angel,” Little Angel said.
“Take me outside,” Big Angel said. “I don’t want to do it in here.”
Little Angel maneuvered him to the big door.
“I was always tremendous,” Big Angel announced.
“Let’s go.”
“Tell me,” Big Angel continued, ignoring him. “Pato said my father cooked for you. Yes? What was his best dish?”
“Chili.”
“Chili? Like gringo chili?” Big Angel was appalled.
>
“I called it heart-attack chili.”
“Más. Detalles, por favor.” He wanted the details.
“He started with a pan and lots of oil,” Little Angel said. “He diced and fried red onions. Fried them till they turned clear. Then he poured in a bag of rice.”
“Rice!”
“He fried the rice and put in tomatoes and garlic. Fried that till it was clear too, then poured in water and tomato sauce.”
“Spanish rice.”
“Right. That would simmer, and he’d get another pan.”
“Ah.” Big Angel was flushed. It was as if he were hearing a pornographic yarn.
“He chopped more onions, then diced and fried five pork chops.”
Minnie came back in. “Daddy!”
Big Angel held up a finger. Pointed at a chair. She sighed and sat down. He nodded for his brother to continue.
“Once the chops were cooked, and the Spanish rice was done—you had to pour water in over and over and let it boil away—he put beans and all those other ingredients in a pot. Refried beans. But wait. That wasn’t all. After that, he chopped up a pound of Monterey Jack cheese.”
“No,” said Angel.
“No,” said Minnie.
“Oh yes. And peppers. Then he stirred the whole thing for an hour. Until the cheese had vanished into the cement. You couldn’t eat more than a couple of forkfuls, honestly. Except him. He could eat a huge plate. And the next day, he ate it cold. He put it on toast, in tortillas, ate it right from the pot.”
Big Angel clapped his hands. “Mija,” he said to Minnie. “That was your grandfather. Un hombre tremendo!”
The brothers basked in love for their dad.
“Recess is over, boys,” she said. She gestured, and they rolled.
“Forgive me,” Big Angel said.
“You do the same,” Little Angel replied.
Into the yard.
“Hey,” Little Angel called. “What’s in the box you gave me?” He gestured back toward the bedroom.
“It’s what I was going to give you that day,” said Big Angel. “That Christmas.”
Minnie rolled him away.
“Go look.”
Little Angel wasn’t going to open the box. To hell with Miguel Angel. To hell with all of this. He opened the box. Inside, a signed first edition of Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep.
The people in the backyard started to cheer.
* * *
8:30 p.m.
Little Angel stood at the back of the crowd, clinging to the shadows by the kitchen door. The revelers had diminished in number. Pato was snoring on the couch inside. Some of the ladies had laid their coats over him. His cell phone, unheeded, pinged over and over with texts from Manila.
Gauzy scarves of cloud slipped across the moon. Dog barks echoed in the canyons. Little Angel listened to the crickets like a haiku poet, reaching out to them as if they were lovers whispering hope.
Big Angel was tinier than ever, sitting in his chair, gazing at these looming people. Lalo was sprawled in the lawn chair beside his Pops. His head lolled, and he sometimes lifted his chin and sneered and then let it drop again. Big Angel stared at his son with the inscrutable grin burning on his face.
Lalo opened his eyes and stared at his father. He let out a cry. “Daddy!” He started to weep.
“What, mijo?”
“Daddy, I’m so sorry for what I done.”
Big Angel reached as far as he could. “Whatsa matter, mijo? Come here.”
Lalo leaned over and put his face against his father’s bird chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Big Angel murmured.
“I been so bad.”
“You are a good boy, Lalo. You are my good boy.” Big Angel kissed the top of his son’s head, and Lalo fell back into his squealing aluminum seat. “Hey,” Big Angel said. “I like your tattoo.”
Really? Little Angel thought. It’s over? This is it? Everything ends like this? He didn’t want it to be over. Not like this. Wasn’t there supposed to be some climax? What novel, what opera, ended in birthday wishes and an early sleep? He knew if the party ended, his brother would be gone. He leaned on the wall and crossed his arms. His eyes stung.
The women came out of the kitchen, bearing the cakes. Minnie, Perla, Gloriosa, and Lupita. Four candles blazing: a wax seven and zero on each cake. Great uproar, applause. Children and little dogs jumped around Big Angel’s wheelchair as the cakes approached. He folded his hands over his belly. Was his head bobbing?
The women put the big cakes on one of the folding tables, and Minnie wheeled her father to the table. He looked around at the partiers with a wry little eyebrow lift, leaned forward in his wheelchair, drew in a great rattling breath, and blew out one of the candles. It took four tries before he got them all out. Then Big Angel fell back breathlessly as they applauded him. Perla fussed over him as if he’d just won a 5K foot race.
And the spirit moved. Of course it did—any birthday party had a “Happy Birthday” song. Any Mexican birthday party had the Mexican birthday song, “Las Mañanitas.” There was no obvious signal, but the whole bunch started singing as one.
Estas son las mañanitas
que cantaba el Rey David
las muchachas bonitas
se las cantamos así.
They moved toward him, tidal, as if the moon drew them. Closer and tighter. A whirl, a protection of bodies. Big Angel vanished from sight in the center of the flood.
And they threw their heads back and sang.
Despierta, Angel, despierta,
mira que ya amaneció,
ya los pajaritos cantan
la luna ya se metió.
But it was apparently not loud enough for them. They started over, unleashing gusts like Little Angel had never heard. They roared, they shouted, they launched operatic and mariachi voices, and they lost notes in sobs halfway through the lines.
Little Angel hung back, standing in the music, watching his brother. He had never really heard the rest of the song, yet everybody there seemed to know it.
Qué linda está la mañana
en que vengo a saludarte
venimos todos con gusto
y placer a felicitarte.
They went on and on, and when they finished singing, they applauded hard and long and kept clapping as they parted, and Little Angel could see him again. They clapped and whistled until Big Angel lifted his hands like a spent boxer and clutched them over his head and shook them and mouthed, Gracias. He actually had tears in his eyes. The sparkle of them pierced everyone like needles.
Little Angel put his hand over his own eyes.
* * *
Big Angel was staring at his brother. He didn’t want Little Angel to know he was feeling sorry for him. He ate some cake.
So that’s it, Big Angel thought. He had got what he wanted. And now it was over. Everything. Over. He had thought it would be more, hadn’t he? Pinche Angel. He chuckled at himself. He had thought he would be healed.
He couldn’t find his father’s or his mother’s ghosts in the crowd, so he watched his little brother. He couldn’t take his eyes off him. Poor Little Angel, he thought. He had no idea what life was going to do to him. He wouldn’t find it in books.
La Minnie over there. Lalo slumping around—he wished Lalo would stand up like a soldier like he used to. La Gloriosa was somewhere. He could feel her even when he couldn’t see her. She was sacred and didn’t know it. When her wings unfurled, they would be wide and dark, almost black, and she would fly above all the flames when the world ended. And there was his poor Flaca. Cleaning the kitchen. He had failed his wife as well. If there were a chance to renegotiate with God, he would lobby for more delight for Perla. Maybe Dave could swing one last novena. Or tell him what prayer might move God.
But.
No.
He shook his head. Too late, baby. Estamos jodidos. He and God already had that talk. By golly. Tonight was the deal he’d made at th
e end of it all. Goddamn it—sorry, God. They never warned you to never make a deal with God.
Every man dies with secrets. Big Angel was certain a happy man was a man who died with the worst things safely hidden. A life was a long struggle to come to terms with things and to keep some things from others. This was his deepest secret, and it wasn’t even a sin. He just didn’t want anybody to know he couldn’t get off the floor.
“Oh yeah,” he said out loud. “You put me on my knees.”
He was in a time bubble—the party rumbled around him, but he was not there. He was back in his room a few months ago. There had been much carrying on in his house that day. It was, ironically, he thought, a Sunday. Just like today.
Dave had just left after eating all the food in the kitchen and wheeling him back to bed and tucking him in. Kids and dogs and Lalo and everyone outside, yelling. Why, he remembered thinking, is everybody yelling all the time? Laughing and shouting. He wanted some water, but nobody could hear him. He felt around and couldn’t find his cell phone on the bed.
“Hey!” he called, his voice muffled and reedy. “Minnie!”
He smacked the mattress. It was time for his pills. He scrabbled around on his bedside table, popped open one bottle, and gulped his pill with a mouthful of flat, warm Coke. It made him want to throw up. But where was the other bottle? It was definitely time for two pills.
He looked around. Oh great. The bottle was up on top of the dresser a few feet from his bed. What asshole put it there? He’d scold somebody for that.
“Hey!” He reached for it, but he knew damn well he couldn’t reach that far. “Help me, pues!”
Nothing.
He cursed and fussed and knew—he knew perfectly well—that somebody would wander down the hall when they remembered him. Somebody would bring him water. Somebody would fetch his pills for him. But he wanted what he wanted when he wanted it.
He gritted his teeth, put one skinny, blotched leg down, and winced when the cold floor sent a long needle of pain up his calf. Right from the ball of his foot to his knee. “Ching!” he muttered. He braced himself with his left arm and reached with his right, and his free foot hovered in the air above the floor; he knew that was a tactical error. The geometry was way off, and as soon as his braced arm started to jackhammer from the strain of holding him up, and just as he reached across that immense gap between mattress and plywood dresser with his other hand, and just as the pain of the cold went ahead and shot up into his balls, he fell.