I studied Dub’s profile and I wondered if there was anyone in the neighbourhood who wouldn’t have recognised Aunt Mary’s eldest boy.
‘She didn’t even kiss me goodnight,’ he said.
He had stayed for a while in the street, his bike engine idling. After a few minutes, he heard the sound of arguing from upstairs, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. It must have been loud to filter down into the street, to be audible over the sounds of Prosperidad even at that hour. He turned off the engine and made to get off the bike but the chauffeur pushed himself up slowly from the bonnet and took a step forward. They stayed like that only briefly, for soon enough the raised voices stopped and soft music started up. The chauffeur looked down at his watch and then pointedly at Dub, who started his engine and rode away into the night.
Dub fell quiet. Eventually he said, ‘I need your help, Jo-Jo.’ Jo-Jo. It sounded wrong when he said it. My eyes ran along the line of lights in the distance to where the last of them was swallowed up by blackness. I waited. I hadn’t been so enthralled by the ride to forget that he must have had a reason for bringing me here. ‘She won’t say if it’s mine or his.’ He picked up a pebble and flung it into the darkness. I listened to it clatter away over the boulders. When the sound of it had been lost altogether, Dub said, ‘You know the curandero? He’s a friend of yours, right?’ And I thought, Uncle Bee? What does he have to do with anything?
‘Sure I know him.’
‘If it’s his, she’ll never leave him. And if it’s mine … Joseph, I’m only nineteen.’ I leaned forward to pick at my sandals. I didn’t want him to say another word. When eventually he spoke again, his voice was uncharacteristically shrill, the timbre taut and unpleasant, like a blade ringing against a stone. ‘You could get me some herbs or something, right?’
I felt a knot form in my chest. I sat up straight and the abruptness of the movement made him turn to look at me. When I didn’t return his gaze he looked away again. He picked up another pebble and lobbed it into the night. I waited for the first strike, the second, the third, and as I listened, I thought how the sound of each impact lessened in strength even as it remained unchanged in character. The thought seemed so perfectly fitting at that moment that I smiled into the darkness and consequently sounded almost cheerful when I said, ‘But your mom …’
‘What about my Mom?’ he said testily.
‘I don’t know. What I meant was—’
‘I’ve thought a lot about it. I’ve thought about nothing else.’
‘What does she want?’
‘My mom?’
‘BabyLu.’ The wind pulled her name away from me as I spoke it.
‘I don’t know. She doesn’t know, I guess. It’s not like I get a lot of chances to talk to her.’ I shut my mouth hard at this and waited, relieved when he spoke again. ‘It’s such a mess, Joe.’ His voice in the darkness was desolate.
Your mess, I wanted to say.
‘You’ll help me won’t you?’ I felt the knot in my chest tighten. I didn’t answer, and after a moment he turned to look at me. ‘You have to help me.’
Still I hesitated, aware of his gaze. ‘Sure,’ I said at last.
He gripped my forearm gently, squeezed it before letting go. ‘I knew you would.’
Dub pushed his hands into his pockets, withdrew them again. He lit a cigarette, cupping his hands round the end of it for a long while until it caught. He smoked silently and when he’d finished it, he pushed the stub into a crevice in the rocks and lit another one straight away. His hands were trembling and, seeing it, I felt sorry for him. The knot in my chest felt heavy, like a stone. ‘Dub … ’ I started to say.
‘Sorry, Joe. I didn’t think.’ He held his cigarette packet out to me. I shook my head. He looked puzzled and put it away again, pushing himself up from the ground in the same movement. He was walking towards the bike before I’d even got to my feet. He started the engine as I reached him and waited, staring into the distance while I climbed on. My head was loud with thoughts and, later, I scarcely recalled the ride home, though I remember that we looped down to the beach and he pointed out a floating bar, its lights bobbing in the blackness.
America was asleep as I slipped across the kitchen. She stirred and turned over and I quickened my step till I was safe in my room. I sat on my bed, my back against the wall, and closed my eyes.
‘JeenPaulSarter. Aren’t you clever?’ I opened my eyes to find America leaning in the doorway, her finger poised at the centre of Guernica. ‘You want to tell me where you’ve just been?’
‘For a ride.’
‘I know that. Why?’
I looked blankly at her. Her eyes were lined and red. ‘Just for a ride.’
‘Just nothing. What trouble have you found now?’ I fought the urge to pull my blanket over my head and shut out the sight of her. She sat down at the table, looked around distastefully at the walls, the tiny, shaded window. She shifted round in the chair to keep the passageway in view. ‘Anyone else brings you trouble and it’ll be you that has to carry it. You understand what I mean?’ I closed my eyes again. ‘I’m just saying,’ she carried on. ‘Course you think you’re a man now.’
I slid down the wall till I was flat on my bed, studied the ceiling. I waited. America sniffed forcefully. She got up, making more noise, I thought, than seemed necessary. I watched from under my lashes as she pushed hard against the chair to stand, her other hand already reaching for the doorframe. She hesitated at the threshold and I thought she might have more to say but she cast a weary, ill-tempered eye over me and walked out.
I got to my feet. Usually my door remained open, my room being too small and claustrophobic a space to be shut inside. But now I closed it and as I did so, I heard America’s footsteps pause in the passageway at the sound before continuing into the kitchen.
A Badly Placed Urn
The hatch of the sari-sari store framed Missy Bukaykay’s face. A face which bore echoes of her daughter in the lines and angles that she’d handed down to her, but none of the beauty. Missy’s face had long since lost its plumpness, lost any trace of softness, if indeed it had ever possessed it. Her teeth were stained red with betel and in generally poor shape. Because she didn’t see me often and because she’d been so fond of my mother, she always smiled when we met and I, unable to pull my eyes away, bewitched by the inevitability of it, always looked straight at her mouth. She looked up now as I approached and grinned. I smiled back at her but I was disappointed that it should be her in the store hatch; I’d hoped for Uncle Bee, whose eyes were certainly less astute than his wife’s. ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ Missy’s gaze levelled with mine.
‘Had to run an errand.’ My voice came out husky, thick.
‘Mary Morelos asks you to skip school for errands?’
It was disconcerting to hear Aunt Mary’s name just then. ‘You won’t tell her?’ I said.
‘Sure I will. Next time I’m at the country club.’
I thrust my hands into my pockets and looked up and down the alley.
‘Ah!’ Missy leaned forward over the counter. ‘You can talk in the street or you want to come inside, Meester Bond?’ She rocked back on her stool, twitching a finger in the direction of the stoop.
I went round to the front of the shack. The door was open and the partitioning curtain had been drawn back to let the listless afternoon air circulate and provide Missy with a clear view of the front door. She watched me as I came in, raising an eyebrow as I closed the door behind me. Under her shrewd eyes, I moved awkwardly across the room to the stool she’d pulled out for me. I sat down heavily. Missy looked amused. She waited, her eyes on me as I gazed about at the shelves of jars, the vine-like strips of detergent sachets, the polished scales and brass weights. I studied her framed midwifery certificate, her delivery bag by the door. ‘You’ve come to borrow it for a movie premiere?’ she said.