In Perfect Light

  You tell yourself you hate me. Why not? Rich gringo rides in on his well-bred, paid-for, expensive white horse and saves poor Mexican boy. I’d hate me, too. I’m everything you never got to be. Deep down you know you’re smarter. I know that, too. The accidents of birth—I wind up rich, and you wind up with what? We wind up living in the same neighborhoods we were raised in. You spit on all of this.

  I’d like, someday, for you to call me friend. I mean to earn that office. Grace, she taught me that. Whatever office that we hold, we’d damn well better earn it.

  We can’t applaud what he did. That’s how the DA put it. So who’s applauding? This isn’t a play. Andrés is not a vigilante. He wasn’t trying to prove a point. He wasn’t making public policy. He went crazy. Did you ever think about what made him crazy? Prosecutors make me fuckin’ nuts. They want the same ending to every story—crime and punishment. They spin such easy plots.

  I spoke to Al Mendoza. Andrés just went off on this guy. I’ve thought and thought about it. Andrés isn’t a bad guy. He’s not. Whatever this guy, Hart, did to him, it was bad. That’s what I think.

  And Mr. Hart, you could have saved yourself. You could’ve called the cops. No cops, you kept repeating, no cops. So what’s the deal? You could’ve saved yourself. You could’ve driven to a hospital. You could’ve gone to a doctor. You went to college. LSU. And then to Yale. There was alcohol in your system. You went home, got drunk. Scotch, the bottle half empty in your new apartment. And then you died. Some would say that you committed suicide. You could be alive today. You hurt Andrés. I’ll find out how. You bet your dead ass I will.

  Still Life of Freedom

  They called his name. Segovia, Andrés. They looked at his wrists, studied his number and the miniature photo on his bracelet, looked at him, nodded. They opened the door, then motioned for him to follow. The correctional officer offered a token of recognition—“So someone sprung you.” Andrés accepted the token by nodding.

  As they waited for the elevator, he stood behind the stripe on the floor. He stared at the number six on the elevator doors. No shackles today. No handcuffs. He was leaving. No need for that kind of insurance. When the elevator door opened, a new arrival stepped out, shackled and cuffed and a look on his face that said, If I could break out, I’d fucking kill you. Andrés did not look away from the man’s sneer.

  On the second floor, he stood in a short line at the same place where he’d picked up his blanket and orange jumper. The friendly black man who looked like he could break any man in half smiled and handed him a basket with his clothes and personal belongings. “Good luck,” he said. Andrés nodded back. Sure. Luck. Yeah.

  They led him down the hall. There was a counter with a clerk who was busy looking over some paperwork. “You can change in there,” he said, pointing at the stalls. The doors were cut at the top and the bottom. The only things the doors hid were the midsection of his body. Jails weren’t meant for delicate men who needed privacy. He took the basket filled with his clothes and personal stuff into one of the stalls. He stepped out of his orange jumper and put on his own clothes quickly. It was good. To wear his own shirt. His own pair of pants. His own socks. His own pair of shoes. He took in his own smell as he put on his shirt.

  At the counter, they cut his bracelet off, signed him out.

  A man his own age led him to the front doors. They did not speak.

  Dave was there. Waiting. He smiled, then handed him a pair of sunglasses. “You’ll need these,” he said. “You look a little thin.”

  “I haven’t been hungry.”

  He pushed the door open, the blinding sun slapping his face. Even with the pair of sunglasses Dave had given him, he could hardly see. He stood for a moment and looked around, letting his eyes adjust.

  “I’ll take you to breakfast,” Dave said. He pointed as they walked down the sidewalk. “I’m parked on Campbell.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’ll take you back home.”

  “How am I going to pay the fucking rent? I’m sure Garcia’s fired me by now.”

  “I’ve paid your rent.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “I want to help.”

  “I don’t like being charity case number seventy-nine.”

  “Seventy-nine? My list doesn’t go up that high.” He shook his head. “Did the thought ever occur to you that I might care about you? People are allowed to care about each other.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to care about me.”

  “Let me clue you in on something, Andrés. Just because you hate yourself doesn’t mean that I have to hate you.”

  “Fuck you, Dave.”

  “Go to school. Registration starts in two weeks. By the time May rolls around, you’ll have two semesters under your belt. Trial should start just about that time.” Dave pointed at his car. “I’m parked over there.” He smiled. “Look, I’m happy to pay your rent until we come to trial. You don’t even have to fucking thank me.”

  “Good. I’m not the grateful type.” As he stood in front of Dave’s car, he took off his sunglasses. He closed his eyes and let the sun hit him in the face. He took a deep breath as he stood in the morning heat, his face looking upward, his face shining in the rays of the sun. He felt the tears rolling down his face.

  Dave was good enough to say nothing.

  Timing and Order in the Universe

  Andrés Segovia is looking up at the morning sky. Tears are streaming from his eyes. He wants to live in this sun all the days of his life. He is suddenly afraid of spending years and years in prison. Perhaps he deserves to be punished. But in this one second of clarity, he wants to become that old word he heard long ago. Emancipated. He is thinking that he will never be worthy of that word.

  Father Enrique Fuentes, pastor of San Ignacio Catholic Church, is blessing the casket of an eight-year-old girl named Angela Gonzalez. He is sad for his church and for his people. These people have nothing. And after today, they have even less. The people who live here, most of them live for better days.

  The church is filled to capacity. All the news stations have a reporter present. Angela will be headlines for yet another day. Politicians have sprinkled themselves among the congregation—two county commissioners, three members of the city council, two judges who are running for reelection.

  Among those present is Mister Delgado. He could not keep himself away. Liz had lectured him the night before about attending a stranger’s funerals. “It’s not a zoo, Mister. It’s not a show.”

  “I know, Liz.” But he is there. His presence is sincere. After mass, he will stop in and visit Vicente. He will hold him tight, then go back to work.

  Maybe Everything

  Would Be All Right

  Where are we going?”

  “To our new house.”

  Ileana squealed. One of those squeals only a five-year-old could manage. One of those infectious squeals that made everyone who heard it happy. “A house! A house!”

  Everyone in the car laughed. “Can we go for a picnic, Mando?” she jumped up from the back seat and threw her arms around Mando’s neck as he drove.

  Andrés smiled. Maybe everything would be all right. Mando looked handsome in a nice shirt. He was different. He remembered that his dad was always yelling at Mando and telling him he was too fucking irresponsible and that he’d never amount to anything. But maybe his father had been wrong. He seemed responsible now, and old, like a father—because that’s what he was, now, their father. And maybe he’d saved lots of money. Maybe they would all be happy. And maybe his mother and father were happy, too, because they’d found their way to heaven—because of his mother’s light. The light the angel gave her.

  “Does Mrs. Fernandez know you came to take us to our new house?”

  “Yes. I told her.” Andrés knew his brother was lying. Sometimes you couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. But sometimes you could.

  “Why weren’t they there to say good-bye, Mando? Don’t
they like us? I thought they liked us.” Andrés thought Ileana always asked the right questions.

  “Of course they do. They just had some important business.”

  “Will they come to visit us in our new house?”

  “Yeah,” Mando said, lighting a cigarette.

  Ileana looked at Andrés and laughed. “He’s just like Dad, isn’t he, Andy?”

  Andrés nodded. “Sure,” he said, “like Dad.”

  Yolie lit a cigarette, too. She turned on the radio. She and Mando started singing along with the song. They were happy, emancipated. So this had been their plan. He knew they had been planning this since the night of his parent’s funeral. Planning and planning. And so they were happy, because their plan was working. Yolie turned around and smiled at Ileana and at Andrés. She saw the look on Andrés’s face. The apprehension. “Are you worried about your bike?”

  What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen to us?

  “‘Everything’s gonna be just fine, Andy.’ That’s what Yolie said. And then she added, ‘You look like you could use a cigarette,’ ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘Mom wouldn’t like it.’ She laughed, and then she looked at me. And then she said, ‘Don’t ever tell me what Mom would or would not like—not ever again.’ She was hard as stone. And I hated her. I think I still hate her. Though in between then and now, I loved her. I would have done anything for her. And I did. I did everything she asked.” Andrés played with the cigarette he was holding. He put it back in his pack. “Have you ever smoked?”

  “Yes. Sure. I used to smoke.”

  “You don’t sound sorry.”

  “I’m not sorry. I smoked. I liked it. I quit.” It wasn’t necessary to tell him she was currently backsliding.

  “How long did you smoke?”

  “Three or four years—I can’t remember exactly. Maybe a little more.”

  “I started smoking when I was thirteen.” He looked at his cigarettes. “My oldest friends.” He laughed. “How’d you quit?”

  “They weren’t good for me. It’s a sort of self-hatred, isn’t it?”

  “I never looked at it that way. It’s a way of coping.”

  “It’s a way of not coping. Name one problem a cigarette’s ever solved.”

  “Maybe they’ve stopped some men from killing someone.”

  “I don’t think so. I think a lot of men smoke a cigarette after they’ve killed someone. Probably smoked one right before.”

  “Okay. So maybe it’s just an addiction.”

  “So why don’t you quit?”

  “Because I’ll explode.”

  “Maybe you’ll explode anyway.”

  “Of course, you fucking know I have exploded, don’t you?”

  She didn’t smile, didn’t frown. “I guess I do,” she said. Calm as a breeze.

  “Are you afraid of me?” He knew she wasn’t.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “When we’re afraid of someone, that means we think they might hurt us. You won’t hurt me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re not a saint, Andrés. But you’re not the devil, either. You won’t hurt me.”

  “You know, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I do—hurt you, I mean?”

  “I’ll scream.”

  They both smiled. He was ashamed of himself for the silly game he was playing. He took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it.

  He looked beautiful with a cigarette in his mouth. It was an aesthetic Grace had always appreciated. She looked at her blank pad. She wouldn’t write. Not today. He’d told her he didn’t mind if she took notes, but he wasn’t telling the truth. He minded like hell. “Did you ever see the Fernandezes again?”

  “No.”

  “Did they ever try and find you?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, I think they did.” He paused to search through the clutter in his mind. Sometimes he felt his mind was like a room filled with a stack of newspapers, and his whole life was there—but he never knew where to find the information he needed. “Yes,” he said finally, “they tried to find us. I found that out later. I don’t remember when exactly.”

  “Have you ever looked for them?”

  “Once I went to their house. They weren’t home. I sat there for a while, outside the house.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, ten years ago. I was sixteen. I was going to be placed in a foster home at the time.”

  “Why didn’t you go back?”

  “After what we’d done?”

  “You didn’t do anything, Andrés.”

  “I didn’t run away from Mando or Yolie, did I?”

  “You were ten when they took you.”

  “And I knew what we were doing was wrong.”

  “So it’s your fault, then?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just said I couldn’t go back to the Fernandezes after the way we’d played them.”

  “So you never saw them again, either of them?”

  “Mrs. Fernandez—she went to my trial. Every day, she was there.”

  “Trial? I don’t see anything in your files about a trial.”

  “There wouldn’t be a record of that. I was a minor. I was tried in juvenile court. And I was acquitted. Or maybe not acquitted, but found not guilty. Or maybe the charges were dropped. I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I didn’t care what happened. Dave cared. All I knew was that somehow he got me off.”

  “Maybe Dave got you off because you were innocent.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So the only reason you were let off was because you had a good lawyer?”

  “Something like that.”

  She nodded, then looked at him. She wanted him to know he might be wrong. She’d decided that Andrés Segovia was incapable of believing he had any virtues. “I think your lawyer had something to work with—if you want to know what I think.”

  “You don’t even know what I did.”

  “No. I don’t.” She decided now wasn’t the time for this particular conversation. Not today. “Did you ever talk to Mrs. Fernandez ever again?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I was too ashamed.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I went to Mr. Fernandez’s funeral.”

  “When did he die?”

  “Six months ago.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I read it in the obituary section.”

  “Do you normally read the obituaries?”

  “No. People your age, they read them.”

  She smiled. In acknowledgment of his joke.

  He smiled back. He looked like a summer morning when he smiled, exactly like a summer morning. She was certain no one had ever told him that. “So how’d you happen to see his name in the obituaries?”

  “This guy at work. His name’s Al. He was going to cut out the obituary of someone he knew. And there it was—Mr. Fernandez’s picture.”

  “So you went to the funeral.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you talk to Mrs. Fernandez?”

  “No.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she recognize who you were?”

  “Sure. I don’t know. I didn’t go up to her or anything. But our eyes met, and I thought that—I don’t know.”

  “And that was all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our eyes met. Maybe she did know. I thought about my bike.”

  “You think she still has it?”

  “She probably got rid of it a long time ago. I think she fell in love with us, though. With all of us. I think we hurt her.”

  “It wasn’t you who hurt her.”

  “You weren’t there.”

  Grace
nodded. “Are you tired?”

  “Not really.”

  “You want to go on?”

  “Sure. But can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “How well do you know Dave?”

  “Why is that important?”

  “It probably isn’t. But I think you know him pretty well.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t know. I just think you do. When he gave me your card. It seemed like—he must know you. He seemed so—”

  “So what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think if you really want to know, then you should ask him.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that.”

  “Good.”

  He liked the way she handled herself. “Good.”

  They crossed the Santa Fe Bridge into Juárez, the smell of exhaust all around them from the line of cars streaming from one city into the next. There were men and women and boys his age selling things, holding things up for the whole world to see, candy, curios, crucifixes, buy this, buy this. Maybe some of these boys had lost their parents, too. Maybe he’d wind up like them, selling things on the streets. Somehow, Andrés had sensed that their new house was going to be in Juárez, just as he knew that the Fernandezes knew nothing about any of this—just as he knew he would never see his bicycle again. He kept quiet. It was better not to say anything. And what was there to say, anyway? He was ten. He wasn’t emancipated.

  Mando bought two packs of cigarettes from a vendor, one for him and one for Yolie. Andrés had only been to Juárez with his father, and they’d always walked across the bridge on foot. He’d always liked it here, in Juárez. He liked the smells and the way people talked and the busy streets, with people walking, and his father had told him it was more civilized to walk to places than to drive, and his father had explained the word civilized that day, and he was remembering all these things as they drove into Juárez. All the smells reminded him of his father, of how things had been. He remembered how he’d gotten haircuts here and how his dad always bought vanilla for his mother and corn tortillas that melted in his mouth and tasted like Mexico. That’s what his mother had told him, that Mexico tasted of maíz and the hands of the women who’d made tortillas for a thousand years. And remembering all these things made Andrés as sad as he had ever been. For a long time, he had tried not to think about his mom and dad, but now, on the Santa Fe Bridge, all he could think of was that they were dead.