He saw it in my face and put his arm around my shoulder and smiled.
Ollestad. It’s okay. No problemo.
What are we going to do?
I saw Papaya watching me and I realized my face was pinched, on the verge of tears. I buried my face in the crook of my elbow.
Tomorrow we’re going to leave, said Dad. Before you know it we’ll be in Vallarta with Grandma and Grandpa, surfin’ Sayulita. No sweat.
My face was buried in the crook of my elbow and I was shaking my head wildly. He rubbed my back and my dread turned to anger. Not only could we get kicked out of the village and who knows what else—end up starving in a Mexican jail—but I had ruined everything I had gained with Papaya by falling apart in front of her.
All eyes were on us, so I got myself together. I sat up straight and breathed evenly. Dad handed me a coconut. I drank it because I wanted to be agreeable, as if that would make our circumstances agreeable. My dad stood up and said he’d be right back.
Papaya collected the bowls from the kids and I avoided looking at her. No one spoke and it was somber around the fire. The vaqueros came out of the hut and each drank from a coconut, as was their custom.
Then my dad appeared with his guitar. I bristled. How could he be so stupid as to believe they wanted to hear him play and sing? The lying gringo! He sat down, fitting the guitar’s curve between his thighs and leaning over the instrument while he strummed flamenco. My arm lurched out to stop him, but it felt like a betrayal and I ended up only petting the air. My dad began to sing in Spanish and Ernesto hardened his eyes and studied my dad’s fingers. I stared at the pink fire-lit dirt and hoped it would end soon.
The song came to a fluttering close. Total silence. My embarrassment was amplified by the twinkle in my dad’s eye. The vaqueros looked fed up. I was ready to make a run for it and looked to my dad for a sign.
Impervious he curled around the guitar and began to strum anew.
Dad, I implored.
He ignored me and began to sing.
I leaned in closer.
Dad…
He closed his eyes and continued to sing in Spanish. That’s when I caught Papaya staring at my dad’s shoulder and neck. Drops of sweat percolated on his skin and glinted in the firelight. She slid her half-veiled eyes toward the fire seamlessly, as if they had been looking there all along. My dad was oblivious and he sang in a booming voice and I checked to make sure the vaqueros weren’t approaching. One of the elders joined in and the youngest vaquero looked bewildered.
At the end of the song everybody except the vaqueros clapped. I was astonished by what I had witnessed—my dad had taken the only thing he had, a guitar, and axed his way through adversity. I marveled at his spontaneity, his grace under pressure, the way he transformed the situation—bleak and irreversible—into something beautiful.
My dad sang a few more songs and near the end of the last one he stood up and trailed away toward our hut, his music fading with him. When he called out Buenos noches, I got up and went after him.
We rested on our blankets.
Is everything okay now? I said.
Yep, he said.
A rush of jealousy took me off guard. As awed as I was with Dad, suddenly I wanted to tell him that Papaya was bored—she ignored your fingers plucking the strings, your fancy Spanish lyrics, the sweat on your skin.
What? said my dad.
I didn’t say anything, I said—so bitterly that it made him ask if I was feeling okay.
I rolled away from him without responding. I couldn’t do the amazing things he could do. I could never have Papaya. For an instant I wondered if that was the real reason that the villagers were pissed off, that he had done something with Papaya. Imagine being so nimble, so charismatic, that there was nothing anyone would ever put past you. I rolled even farther away and slept on the dirt.
At dawn we scoped out the surf and it was clean. The waves were too small for my dad but he hooted after each ride anyway. He never gets bummed about things the way I do, I thought as we drifted on our boards waiting for a set wave. He always finds something cool, some little treasure. That’s why everyone—including girls—likes him.
I rode on the back of my dad’s saddle. He carried his guitar in one hand and I carried my suitcase. We followed Ernesto along the trail. All the mud had dried in slabs, burying the smaller plants here and there, and I thought we were pretty tough—as opposed to lucky—to have made it that day when we arrived in the storm. After five minutes of bouncing it felt like the suitcase was going to tug my arm out of the shoulder socket. I thought about Dad always seeing the beauty in things and instead of complaining I said,
Wow. So many kinds of green in the jungle.
Dad glanced back at me, more curious than impressed.
The tarp had dried in a messy crinkle. Mud encased all four wheels of the truck and the chassis was flush to the ground. The washing machine’s bulge made me realize that I had completely forgotten the original cause for our journey to Mexico.
Ernesto tied the horses to the bumper. My dad put the truck in neutral and Ernesto hawed the horses. Their great necks drove them forward. Haw. Haw. When the wheels cracked free they spit tiles of mud across the trail. Ho. Ho. The horses reared and stamped their feet.
The mechanic appeared, walking down the trail with a toolbox and a crowbar.
What’s that thing for? I said, pointing at the crowbar.
I don’t know, said my dad.
The mechanic wore a collared shirt and jeans and sandals and he spoke to Ernesto and my dad listened. The mechanic got under the truck and went to work. He chopped at the undercarriage with the crowbar and mud cakes sprayed out from under the truck. My dad handed tools to the mechanic and took them back from the mechanic. Every few minutes Ernesto rode up the trail to check the highway, worried about federales I guessed. I swatted mosquitoes and was careful not to complain.
An hour later my dad started the truck and drove it a few feet forward, then turned it off and got out. He peeled off several paper bills and the mechanic took them and said nothing and left. My dad put the guitar and my suitcase in the cabin and locked the door. He helped me onto the horse and we followed Ernesto back to the village.
It started to rain late in the afternoon so my dad went to talk to Ernesto about leaving sooner rather than later. I wondered where Papaya was and I walked up and down the dirt path saying Adios to the kids and their mothers, all the while looking for Papaya.
My dad returned on horseback led by the youngest vaquero. I handed my dad the surfboards and he set them across his lap. I got my foot in the stirrup and he helped me up. He waved and thanked everyone and they all waved back without speaking. I waved and hoped to spot Papaya. Nada. We trotted into the jungle and something squeezed my heart. I wondered if my dad had said good-bye to her secretly.
The rain was steady and weak and when we reached the truck the ground was beginning to soften. My dad spoke to the vaquero and he waited and my dad started the truck and drove forward. The tires only dimpled the ground. The traction was fine. My dad thanked the vaquero and he actually smiled and shook my dad’s hand. Then my dad’s horse followed the vaquero around a bend in the trail.
We have to wait until dark. Right? I said.
Yep.
We stood there and he handed me water and I chugged it down. My dad dug his toe into the softening dirt. There sneaked in the notion that if the rain got much harder we might get stuck again, and even if we made it onto the highway it would be hard to see. Then his head moved as if remembering something. He reached into his pocket.
She made this for you.
He handed me a puka-shell necklace. I slipped it over my head. The shells were cool on the back of my neck.
We stood under the drizzle and let the mist coat our faces.
When we came out of the jungle backward and jolted up the embankment and reversed onto the highway it was pitch-black beyond the headlight beams and raining hard. My dad rolled down t
he window and stuck his head out and we crept along slowly. At the first sharp turn in the road the slashing rain took the shape of a roadblock and I gasped and my dad hit the brakes.
God dang it, Ollestad.
Sorry, I said.
We went through a dark little town made of corrugated tin. An hour passed and there was nothing except the edges of the jungle and the rain splattering on the road. I finally relaxed.
We spent the night in Sayulita, sleeping in the truck. As the sun rose we entered Vallarta and my dad got a little tense. He slouched in his seat and his eyes shifted from side to side. I pretended not to notice. The truck chattered over the cobblestones and it was weird to see cement buildings, a soccer stadium, churches and shops. We crossed the bridge and I knew we were close.
My dad floored it up the steep cobblestone road to my grandparents’ house. The house clung to the hillside and overlooked the entire Vallarta bay. We parked in front of the open garage where the sign CASA NORMAN was screwed into the stone wall. My dad looked at me. He twisted his lips to one side.
Well that was quite a journey. Wasn’t it? he said.
I nodded.
Maybe we don’t want to scare Grandma and Grandpa, you know? he added.
He patted my leg. He looked in the rearview and brushed down his mustache with his fingers. He hadn’t shaved in days and his whiskers poked out, gray ones appearing.
You got some blond surfer hairs, I said, thinking I was awfully clever repeating back to him one of his own jokes.
He smiled and then Grandma came out of the house.
There was a lot of kissing and hugging and she was ecstatic about the new washing machine. My dad said it was no problemo and talked about my great tube rides. Grandma took a deep breath, put her hand on her chest and lifted onto her toes.
Oh my, she said.
Grandpa came home and kissed us all and he and my dad carried the washing machine up some stairs, grunting and groaning until they got the machine onto the deck above the garage and Grandpa hooked it up. Grandpa knew how to fix things because he used to be a telephone repairman. He could climb a pole faster than any other man in his unit, only missing one day of work in thirty years. Thinking of him shimmying up the pole reminded me that he was a great dancer like Dad. That’s how he had wooed Grandma, dazzling her with his waltz and swing moves. He married Grandma after her first husband left her with two kids—Uncle Joe and Aunt Charlotte. Grandpa was willing to take on a preformed family, which was rare in those days, said Grandma. Then my dad was born and, last, his sister Aunt Kristina.
We all went swimming, then after dinner we played a card game. Grandma asked me about my puka-shell necklace. Already what had happened seemed like a dream in another time long ago.
I found the shells where I got tubed, I said. Somebody strung them for me.
They sound like wonderful people, she said. That’s Mexico.
For dessert we had apples that had been brought down from California by one of the many visitors my grandparents took in each month. Dad bit into a worm and Grandma got excited.
Great, Norie. Now we know they’re organic, she said.
After the card game, Grandma wrote the Mexico Report, a monthly update sent to the entire family. But Bob Barrow and my mom said that it was the occasional letter by Grandpa that proved he should have been writing the report, and Al said that Grandpa’s letters reminded him of Hemingway.
It was a real luxury to sleep on a soft mattress that night. I slept in a separate room, hearing the bugs buzzing and the animals thrashing around, and I wasn’t scared at all.
My dad had arranged a special treat for me. We went to the airport the next day and Chris Rolloff, my friend who I surfed with at Topanga, stepped off the plane.
You bought him a ticket? I said.
Well you said you missed your friends.
Grandpa and Dad took us surfing every day, driving Grandpa’s orange jeep. In Sayulita Grandpa would order ostras from the only restaurant in the village while we waxed up the boards. The waiter would write down the order, take off his shirt and then drive his boat out to the rocky headland. When we came in from the surf the oysters would be waiting for us under the palapa.
Finally having a buddy of my own to surf and pal around with instead of my dad gave me a taste of what pure fun was like. There was no one pressing for more. I loved when Rolloff and I just hung out, sometimes letting good waves go by while we made up our own surfing lingo like tweak-mondo and hairball-McGulicutty.
One day we rode burros up to a waterfall and all four of us had a contest: who could swim under the waterfall and back the fastest. It was tricky because the current tried to sweep you into the boulders and tried to tow you into the rapids just below our pool. After Dad and Grandpa clearly let us boys win the contest, declaring a tie, Dad dove off the top of the waterfall. Grandpa spotted a deep hole in the pool for him to land in. I could tell that Rolloff thought my dad was the coolest guy in the world, and it made me proud. Too bad it only lasted a week, I thought when Rolloff boarded the plane home.
CHAPTER 17
FROM AN ELEVATED position above the crash site I could see Sandra and myself under the wing of the airplane.
We were fused together. An ice-clad heap. Frosted hair. Blue lips. It took me a while to understand that I was dreaming. I felt like I was swimming and swimming and swimming. Never reaching the top. Running out of oxygen. A last gulp of air trapped in my throat.
Yielding to the warm water I sank. A pebble landing softly on a cushioned floor. Safe. Comfortable. Warm at last.
I saw this as if from outside my body and finally realized I had to pull myself out of the sleep. Move your arm, lift your head, I told myself. I used all my strength but to no avail. Instead I waded in blobs of glue. Drunk and unable to coordinate my muscles. The feathery bottom was irresistible. Cozy and inviting.
No. Get up, I insisted.
I bucked. My lids cracked, then closed again under pneumatic pressure.
Now my fingers wiggled. They are wiggling. Or I just think they are—a dream within a dream within a dream. No they are wiggling. And then a vacuum of bliss drew me deep into a heated cave. I countered the seductive sleep by trying to move my fingers again.
One eye splintered open. Light. White. Cool. But dark warmth enveloped me once more. Mmm. Goodnight.
I ordered my fingers to spread. A pitchfork. Elbow unbend. Elbow unbend. Unbend!
My arm was reaching up. But it would hit the wing. I see from my elevated perch that I am only dreaming this. Reach, I urge. Punch the wing.
My fingers struck metal.
Pull open your eyelids. Use anything. I used my stomach muscles. My forehead muscles.
The lids peeled open and my hand banged against the metal roof. All was blurry and I lunged toward the light. Don’t close your fucking eyes, Ollestad.
My body corkscrewed as if wringing itself out. I was in the snow. My eyelids dipped and then ripped free of the last tugging webs of sleep. I saw the snow and the tree and the wing. It was darker now and that accentuated my panic—afternoon is here, next is night, no chance then.
The horror of having observed myself slipping away widened my focus, allowing my dad’s crumpled body, the pilot’s leaky brains, and the wound in Sandra’s forehead to assault me. I wanted to roll back under the wing and say good night to this cruel hell.
Fight through it, Ollestad, boomed a voice. Keep moving.
I shouted under the wing.
Get up!
Sandra did not flinch.
I reached under the wing and shook her violently.
Get up! You can’t sleep.
Norman?
Get up.
I’m tired, Norman. Very tired.
I know, but you can’t sleep. My dad said when you freeze to death you feel warm and then you fall asleep and never wake up.
Her head moved toward me and I saw that her eyes were wide open. She was staring at me but was focused somewhere else.
Big Norm is dead, she said.
The bad thoughts tried to get me. I lolled my head and arched my shoulders.
We have to go now, I said.
They’re coming.
They’re not coming.
She stared at me. I studied the wound caving in one side of her forehead by her hairline, her dislocated shoulder that made one arm dangle like a partially severed branch. She receded farther under the wing, as if to hide this from me, and her eyes dimmed and her face looked like a skull.
Sandra. We have to go, I said.
No.
I’m going, I said.
You can’t leave me here.
Then come on.
I waited. Scoped out the conditions. Heavy snow falling. Now there’s going to be a layer of snow dust over the ice. It’ll be really difficult to tell where the grippier snow is. Shit. How will we hold on? Especially Sandra.
I reached up and touched the branches sheltering me. Some of the branches were stiffer than others. I broke off two long stems, then snapped off as many twigs and needles as I could. My hands were frozen again and my dexterity was awkward.
We have to go now, I called to her.
I kneeled down to see under the wing. She was squirming, her good arm oaring her forward like a bird flopping along the ground dragging a broken limb.
Sandra emerged from under the wing. Her eyes lolled in their trenches and the skin around them strained as if trying to compose the landscape.
It’s icy, I said. Use this like an ice axe. Okay?
I illustrated by jabbing the stem into the snow and tugging on it.
I can’t use my arms, she said.
Use that arm.
I handed her the stem. She gripped it and held it up to her face like a baby pondering a toy she didn’t understand.
I’ll go below you. Use me to step on, I said. Stay right above me so I can stop you from sliding. Okay?
Fuckin’ hell.
Okay?
Your face is cut open, she said.
I touched my face. Felt around. Traced frozen blood over a gash in my chin. Another gash on my cheek.