Chapter 5
The bus was air-conditioned. Noribel gave Hector the window seat so he could watch the world go by. But for Hector, the breeze coining from the air—conditioning vent was too cold. It did not remind him of the breeze from the mountains. They sat silently and he began to think about his father and about Tablones.
There was that time when we went fishing at the river, he thought. Papa wanted me to learn how to fish because it was something one should know how to do if one wanted to eat free fish. That is how he had put it, free fish. I did not think it was free if it took all day to catch one or two, but he said that it was free because it was something enjoyable and thrilling, and when something that you enjoy brings you food, then it is free. We sat on a log with our two long poles slanted out over the water. The fishing was to start early; I remember he said that if you got there early, then you would be able to trick the fish easier because they will have just gotten out of bed. I know that he was saying this because I was young, but back then I believed everything that he said. We sat, and I watched him and followed his instructions and he laughed when I could not get the worm on the hook. I laughed too. We had food with us, and we ate a big lunch though I do not remember what we had. Papa had some wine. He had his cigars too, and I think that that was one time when I wished I liked the smell of cigars. I liked the smell of the wine. I could have drank some if I wanted to, and he always asked me if I wanted some, but I did not like the way it made him act sometimes, so I said no thank you. He shrugged as he always did and tipped the bottle back slow. It was Paco's wine and it was said to be the best in the village. Paco. Papa loved Paco so much he named the dog after him. That was before Paco went crazy on his own wine. Yes, that was long before. Hector watched the coast pass by his window on the bus as he thought about the past. There were other times when Hector went fishing with his father. He did not think about all the things they had done together years before when he was his father's companion in all things. He did not think about the one time when they had gone fishing just after Jesus had left for the first time. That was when his father had told him that he was always to stay in Tablones. It was not a discussion, it was something that was to happen because it was a way of life and because it was to be believed and not thought about after it had been said. The father and son sat on the same log that they had sat on many times before and they had their poles pointed in the same way that they had before and they had the same lunch that they had had every time they went fishing. Jose had finished his bottle of Paco's wine and was sitting on the sand, leaning against the log where Hector sat. It was later in the day, and Jesus had not been home in many months. Jose watched his son digging his toes in the sand. He began to miss his other son, and he felt he had to make sure that this one would not leave as the other one had.
"Hector," he said, "you are better at fishing and farming than your brother had been when he was your age. You are. Do you want to know why?" Hector said nothing. "I'll tell you why. Because you do not look at the stars and see things that are not there. You, like me, do not care what is in the sky as long as it is not a storm. Why worry about that, huh? But you are like me, my son. Yes, I knew when you were born that you would be like me, maybe better. You are already a very good fisherman. You are better than those other lazy boys in the field." He paused and looked at his pole and then decided he did not care if it moved or not. It was becoming more difficult to see, and the pole would begin to always look as though there was a fish on the line. "And that is a good thing, Hector. That you are not like those lazy boys that you see in the village at times when they should be working—that is good. No, no, I do not have to threaten my boy with a whipping to get him to obey me. He loves his father and stays with him and does not have to be told, he does what he sees his father do. Do you know what that means to me?"
"I think so." Hector watched his pole as he listened to his father's words. He had always been a little proud that he made his father happy every day simply by staying with him and working.
Jose pulled in his line slowly as though he were pulling it in for the last time that day and he was hoping that he could lure one last fish to follow his bait.
"I think you know,” he said. "You feel the way that I feel. You look like I did when I was your age. You are truly my son."
Hector had heard speeches like this before when his father had had too much wine with his friends in the village and he came home late and woke the whole family and took Hector outside for a walk. They had usually ended when Jose stopped walking and turned around. They would walk home together, but Hector knew that his father had ended the speech when he began to tremble as he had when his brother died. Hector watched his father pull in his line and he thought that he was done with the speech. But now Jose did not shake.
"You know what is wrong with Jesus?" he asked. "He is not one of us, that is what is wrong with him. But I will tell you something now that you must not ever tell your mother or your brother—Jesus did not hurt me as much as you might think when he left. No, not as much as you might think. And do you want to know why? I'll tell you: because I have you, Hector. That is why it did not hurt too much. Because I have you. And I'll tell you something else too. The day that you and I are not in this village together for a whole day is the day that one of us is dead. I know this because I know that you will never leave me." Jose stood facing his son. Neither moved for a long time. Hector finally looked up at his father and noticed that he looked like he was a hundred feet tall like a statue he had seen in a book once. He could not see his face, but he knew that his father was looking at him. Hector's line dipped three times. There was a fish on the other end, but neither the father nor the son took notice until the pole was pulled out of the sand and dragged into the water.
Hector did not care to remember that time when they fished. His father had scared him with his words, and he did not want to remember. He watched the coast and the coast towns and the cars go by from his window on the bus. He thought about Paco who had made the wine that had driven him crazy. He thought about the many times after he was crazy that people would go and spend time with him to make him feel better about being crazy and to keep him company. Jose was one of the men who had a key to the house that they locked from the outside so that Paco could not escape. He was not dangerous, but people feared him because he refused to wear clothes and because all he wanted to talk about was what would happen to those who refused to believe the truth. Jose said that it would be good for Hector to listen to Paco and consider his words. They went together one night to see the man who went crazy on his own wine and who could speak of nothing but the truth.
Jose walked ahead of his son and knocked on the door of the small house. "It is me," he said, "Jose. I have brought my son along to visit with you. May we come in?"
There was no answer for a long time, but finally they heard the man walk toward the door. They could hear that he had his face pressed up against the crack of the door, and he breathed heavily. "You have not brought your dog, have you?" he asked.
"No, I did not bring him," Jose said.
"Good. That dog of yours hates me."
Jose asked Paco to step away from the door so he could unlock it. They could hear the crazy man move away and slump onto the floor. They brought a lamp in with them because Paco did not have use for light. He had said this. He had said that you should not see if there is no light to see other than the sun. Hector followed his father, but he stopped short when the smell of the small, one room house hit him. Paco could not get out to go relieve himself, and the hole in the floor had filled long ago. Jose cursed himself for not bringing hay with him as he always did. He hung the lantern on a nail in the wall and asked Paco if it were okay for them to have a little light while they visited. He knew better than to be too kind to the crazy man though, as the last man to do so had received a severe bite to the ankle for, as Paco said, "treating a
man like a little girl." Since there were no chairs in the room, the two visitors stood over the naked man as he sat in the middle of the room where there was no human waste. Flies covered the floor. Paco himself had more flies on him than Hector had seen on dead animals. He sat with his legs crossed and his head down. "What is your name, boy?" he asked Hector. "His name is Hect..."
"I did not ask you, Jose!" he lifted his head and shouted.
Hector took a step back and swallowed so that he did not throw-up.
"I asked you what your silly little name was."
"I am Hector."
"And I am Paco the dog. Has your father told you? I see things as they really are. I am like a dog. Not your dog, Jose. I am the only one who can see. Do you hear me?"
"Yes," Hector said.
"Then let me tell you some of what goes on in the light that you cannot see in. I'll tell you. Yes, yes. Let me first tell you that everything that I say is true and that you cannot tell me it is not. Do not speak, even when I am done, and I will have told you the truth. Do not tell anyone what I have said because then you will want to discuss it and all the truth will be taken away because you will be tempted to doubt what before you believed. Listen to this. You are not a boy or a man or even a plant. You are...what is your name?"
"Hector."
"You are Hector. That is all that you are. You are nothing more. I am Paco the dog. That is all."
Paco started to cry, and that is when Jose knew it was time to go. He put the wine and the bag of raw vegetables on the floor in front of the crazy man and walked outside with his son. They did not discuss what Paco had said because they feared him and his words. Hector had often thought about the crazy man though, and riding the bus, he could not help thinking that he was right when he said that he was what his name was and that is all. Not my father's young hero, he thought, just Hector.
Noribel tried to rest on the bus. She enjoyed the air-conditioning and had paid extra to ride this bus. Even so, the bus had been cheap compared to what it would have cost if they wanted to ride in a cab. It made no difference to Hector, so she chose the bus and hoped that the air-conditioning would make him happy. He had not said much since they had left the restaurant, less than the little he usually said, and she worried that he may be having second thoughts. She did not want to go home: to do so, she thought, would be shameful. So she sat next to her man and rode in silence as he did. She did not bring a newspaper or magazine as some of the other riders had, so she sat, like Hector, and thought about the places she left behind. She had wanted to be a dancer when she was younger. Her mother had said that it was a good thing to become if a person showed promise early enough. And that is what they had her going to school for when she went to school in San Juan. She did show promise, but soon changed her mind and wanted to become a singer. Again, her mother brought her to a teacher in San Juan and she took classes for a month or two. She showed promise, then she decided she wanted to do something else. Noribel thought about this early time in her life as she rode with Hector on the bus and she smiled. She remembered how she watched her dress twirl in the mirror of the dance studio and how she sang a beautiful song in English while her teacher played the piano. Her mother was there too. She would sit and watch Noribel as she stretched or warmed up, and when she sang, her mother would listen closely with her head down, careful not to think of the singer as her daughter. She did not care what her daughter wanted to become, as long as she showed promise early on and was able to decide on one area of discipline before it was too late and she was too old to get a good start. Noribel could never decide. She did not regret this as she rode on the bus, but she did like to wonder what it would have been like had she been able to decide early enough and had she been one of the lucky ones that make it to the world stage. But that was before, she thought, and now I know that there is as much time as I want to find what I am going to be great at. Him too maybe. The bus stopped to let people off in Carolina. Hector and Noribel sat and watched the people they had rode with get off and go to wherever it was that they were going. Hector did not care where they were going. He sat with his hands crossed and his pava tilted back and he pretended he had always ridden the bus through this town and he was one of the people that no one would be shocked to see. And although in Carolina he would not be very far out of place, he would not look like the people he was about to see in San Juan.
The bus stopped two or three more times to let people off and some on before Hector saw the skyline of the city for the first time. He could remember seeing pictures of the city in one of his brother's books, but he had not imagined that the buildings would be so big and so numerous. The streets were becoming denser and denser the closer they came to the high buildings, and he began to feel as though he were entering a place to be feared—a new place where the people acted fast and killed and were vicious and profoundly evil. Noribel watched him look out the window and she could feel his arm tense more and more the closer they got. It was late afternoon and the people were returning from work. The crowds and the noise of the streets overcame him and he thought he was going to faint. It was too fast, too bright and cold. He began to think he was in a bad fever dream that would soon close over him and choke the life from his chest. Noribel put her arm around him and tried to get him to look at her. But he would not look at anything so long as he was in this angry monster that they called San Juan. Never had he felt so far from Tablones. Never had he wished that he was back in the field with his father like he wished when he was on the bus. Never before did he care to think of his father's warning about the day that they do not sleep in the same village and what that would mean. But I am alive, he said to himself. The bus stopped at the station and a crowd rushed for the door. Hector saw this and passed out.
People were getting on the bus and they saw Noribel trying to bring Hector back to life. Some shook their heads because they thought that the boy had taken drugs. Others looked away so as not to make the girl feel bad about her friend. The driver saw what was going on in the mirror, and he stood and looked back at them with an alarmed expression. Hector finally came to, but he was disoriented and he did not know where he was. The driver sat back in his seat.
Noribel lead Hector out into the street and then away quickly from the crowd at the station. He still did not look like he knew where he was or what he was doing there. She sat him down on a bench across the street from the station and began to feel that he was not going to make it. His face was pale and his eyes were glazed over and he kept swallowing and shaking. Noribel began to think that he did look like an addict. I have to find somewhere to bring him to his senses, she thought. She saw a taxi and waved him down. The street was packed with cars and people, and it was a long time until the car could reach the sidewalk. "Hector," she said, "we're going to ride in a car now; is that okay?" He nodded and she knew that he was getting better. She told the driver to take her to a hotel that she and her mother had stayed at when they came to the city. It was a good hotel and it did not cost too much to stay there this time of year. Hector began to look better and he watched the people and the cars of the city with less alarm. Maybe he did not like the air-conditioning, she thought. He has never felt it or the ride of a bus before, so maybe he will be better in a car even if it does cost more. She could not stop worrying about him though, and she watched him like a mother will watch her sick child.
Hector had still not said a word by the time that they were in their room at the hotel. They were not far from the resort district of the city, and Noribel felt that he would feel safe in a section of the city where there was not as much noise and not so many people on the street. Hector finally did relax when he lay on the bed. It was not like the bed that he had at home.
This one was twice the size. He lay across it the wrong way and closed his eyes. He bagan to think about how Noribel had checked them in as a married couple, and he did not know why she had do
ne this. He knew absolutely nothing about staying in a hotel. He had not even considered that they would sleep anywhere but outside the entire time; perhaps, the rest of their lives.
Noribel took off her dress and prepared to take a shower. She walked around in front of Hector and looked down at him and smiled.
"Would you like to take a shower with me, young man," she asked as she smiled at him.
"Take a what?" Hector asked.
"A shower. You know, like you take to get clean."
"You mean a bath."
"No, I mean a shower. Haven't you ever taken a shower before?"
Hector stared at her body and began to feel much less afraid. He longed for her like he did any time she was bold enough to stand before him naked.
"I have had baths, if that is what you mean." Noribel had not thought about how he had bathed, and because he had always smelled good, she took it for granted that ^" his house had a shower. Now, watching him struggle to understand what she was saying, she felt bad about questioning him. She walked into the bathroom and turned on the water.
"Why don't you come in here and I'll show you what a shower is. “
Hector followed her into the shower and learned what it was to take a shower when there is someone there to help you. He watched as she spread soap from a bottle all over her tan body. She had her eyes closed as she let the water run over her face and she opened them through the water and looked at him. He learned very quickly how to take a shower.
After they had showered, Noribel ordered dinner from the front desk as Hector slept. It was still not late in the evening, but the day had been very trying for the him, and he fell asleep easily as soon as he lay on the bed. Noribel did not want to take any more chances with him, so she turned the air-conditioning in the room down very low and closed the shades. When dinner came, Hector was not easily wakened. She felt bad about waking him, but she knew that he would have to eat if he was going to go back out into the crowded streets in the morning. The dinner was on a cart in the room and there was a great deal to eat. He will eat it all, she thought. He must eat like a horse to have such a healthy body. She looked at him sleeping and thought that he looked even better than the statues she had seen with her mother at the museum. His body is absolutely perfect, she thought. So perfect, I probably should not take him out in public too much. Who knows, he may see a — better looking girl than me looking at him and decide that he wants her instead. She smiled as she looked at his peaceful face and thought, no, he is too good of a little jibaro to do that to me. He will stay with me forever. Hector finally woke up and looked around the room. It did not take long for his eyes to wander away from Noribel and straight to the cart full of food. He ate everything that she did not want, and laid back down. "Now I feel better," he said. And with that he soon fell back into a long sleep.
Hector had a dream. He dreamt he was on his back and there was a strange ceremony being performed over him. The lights were dim, it was night, and he felt an urge to get up and run though he was not scared. The people around him wore masks of bright colors and menacing expressions. He watched them dance. A drum beat came from his left side and he knew without having to look that it was Jesus beating the drum. The beat alternated with the dance. Jesus appeared in front of him looking down with a smile. It was a kind smile though he still had the urge to run if he could decide to stand which he could not. Jesus was the beat and the standing smiler. He stood over him waving side to side with the beat of the drum that Hector knew Jesus was playing off to the left and behind the people who wore masks and danced. Jesus asked many questions, his voice rising at the end of each, but Hector could not understand what he was saying.
The drum beat louder with each successive question as Jesus' questions became more severe and his face less amiable. The clouds whirled around behind his head like the cloth of his mother's dress waved in the breeze, and the sun rose and fell in and out of the sky like it was being pulled up and down by the beat of the drum. Still Hector did not really want to run but he wanted to be with the others in the dance so he could be a part of the beat and see why the sun rose and fell and why the drum was being beat by Jesus who was standing Jesus in front and on top over head and asking question that could not be understood though it was clear that it was important that he answer them as quickly as possible so that the sun could go down to stay and so he could rise and join the dance. But he could not rise. Jesus asked: “What do you how do you why do you follow what you do?”
"Because you told me," Hector answered.
"When do thee where thee thee mind thee this?"
"Because it is right."
"Right?"
Jesus howled the word, right . It rang so loud that it stopped the dance and the beating of the drum and the sun stayed up high in the sky right over Jesus as he leaned down and stared at his brother .
"Right," Jesus said," is not right when you do not know day from night and when there is not time to run, it is then that you have begun. Follow? No! No and no and no again to you!"
Hector felt as though a rope had been cut that had held him for centuries. He jumped to his feet and took his brother by the neck and began to whip him around in circles. But his brother turned to a sheet of colored cloth that wave in the wind by a mother's tired feet. Jesus was back by the drum laughing. "You are dead," he said to Hector. "You are as dead as poor Paco who you left behind to be eaten by Paco the crazy man who called himself a dog because Papa gave him the dead dog in a bag when you were there and he gave him a bottle of wine to wash it down with. But you? No no...you are dead."
Hector woke in a sweat. He could not believe what he had heard Jesus say, and he thought he might be actually dead. He did not recognize his surroundings: for all he knew, from what he could see, there was no evidence that he had been asleep in his bed and there was no reference point around him to tell him that he was in a safe place and not in just another part of the dream that he was not sure was a dream, was not sure was over. He sat up in the bed breathing hard and looking for something in the room that would bring him back from where he was. The pava hung on the bedpost. It had not been in the dream. He felt around him and he felt Noribel. She had not been in the dream. He listened for the drums and watched for the rising and falling sun, and it was a long time before he could stop thinking about what his brother had said about Paco and the crazy man and the idea that he was dead. He did not know what dead was, so he could not be sure that he was not. But he did eventually fall back asleep as dreamers do when the images of what they have seen in the night fade back in the memory as easily and as smoothly as they had risen.
By morning Hector did not remember anything except that he had been awake for a short time in the night because he had had a dream about death. It does not matter now, he thought. He looked for Noribel who was in the shower again, this time alone, and he listened to the sounds of the early morning traffic outside his window. The traffic sounded loud to him, but, he thought, it is because I have never been in a place where there are a great many cars and trucks. Noribel called his name in an asking tone. I do not want to be wet yet, he thought. Right now I do not care how she looks with her hair over her face and the soap bubbles over her breasts and stomach. He stood and walked to the window and pushed the shade aside and watched the cars and people down below in the light of early morning.
Noribel knew that they could catch a bus at a stop two blocks from the hotel, and she planned to get a short breakfast for Hector before he would have to ride again. She did not know that he had no fear now that he had seen a night pass without harm coming to them. She did not know that he would only be scared of a thing, anything, only once, and then he would never fear that thing again. Once the danger had passed, in his mind, it was passed for good. He respected the power of the city, but now he felt he would be comfortable on a bus no matter where it took them. He felt ashamed of what had happened the day before at the en
d of the bus ride, and he tried to assure Noribel that it would not happen again. He brought up the subject at breakfast.
"I do not think that I will fall asleep again on the bus like I did yesterday," he said as he drank his coffee.
"I hope not," Noribel said.
"Well, maybe I was not used to the way people live here and
that is why I fell asleep as I did."
"I think it may have been that you are not used to the air-conditioning, that's all."
"Maybe. But it will not happen again, that much I do know. I feel much better now that we are together and we are on our way. "
"Yes. But I think we should get you some clothes so that you will feel more a part of the people you are going to see and meet. We'll get you some shoes too."
"Do you think I should wear shoes?" Hector asked. He did not expect the subject of shoes to come up, and he did not know how to take it. Well that will really be it, he thought. Then I really will be like Jesus. I'm glad Papa will not be there to see me put them on. He would probably spit in my pava.
They finished their breakfast talking about what they would get before they would begin the next part of their journey. It would take a few hours to get to Arecibo, and it was agreed that it would be best to enter that city with Hector dressed as a young student rather than a young farmer from the country. He made an attempt during the conversation to assure Noribel that he would repay her all the money that she spent on him, but she laughed and waved her hand and said that her money was his money and that they had agreed to share everything they had or would ever had when they had made plans to leave their homes. Hector felt very glad that she felt this way because he did not have any money nor had he ever. All that he had ever had was the ability to do what he was told to do by his father and to be content doing it. He laughed thinking about money.
The sun was not out when they got to the bus stop. Clouds and wind formed high arches in the sky overhead. Hector now carried a new bag with new clothes. His feet wore shoes for the first time. He wore long pants and a shirt that was made of a material he had never felt. He was not allowed to wear his hat though he kept it in his bag with the new clothes. I would probably have to tear it away from him as he slept Noribel thought as they sat on the bench waiting. If I hid it, he would search the rest of his life if it took that long. She smiled and shook her head. Jibaro. Hector sat bent over looking at his shoes and curling his toes around to feel them as much as he could. He felt like a child who gets to wear his father's suit ^^ for the first time, only different: his father never wore a suit, and it was certain that he would not like seeing his son in shoes. But during the day, at a time when he was not going to have any bad dreams, Hector could afford to feel good about something that would make his father feel bad. Yes, he thought, I will wear shoes if I want to. And it was there, at that moment, that Hector felt truly rebellious toward his father for the first time in his life. It came easy, and he did not look back on the though1'with regret. He was becoming free from what he had never had any reason to believe there should be freedom from. Liking his shoes and not caring what his father would think made him happy about the trip for the first time. He felt free and strong and happy, and he could not wait to see what there was to see in Arecibo.