5 She said leave the high-level theology to the believers and added that Selena was, in a sense, all they had. That she could bear almost anything but if Selena were to turn blue and be taken that would convert her life into a minute-by-minute inferno and she would not endure it.
6 So it was fear, not logic or anything else, that ruled her troubled moments then. The fear was so great and occlusive that she felt herself converted into a little girl and you only reason with a little girl to a point.
7 He built and installed the cross and whether related or not the sickness passed Selena over and she remained the ruddy optimist her mother could not have lived without.
* * *
CUBAN in reference to the sandwich meant he too was Cuban right? She proposed this inductive assertion in between early bites of what really was a remarkable sandwich only to receive no reaction from her audience. She snapped her fingers near his face.
“Oh, sorry! Cuban? No, bite your tongue. But I know a good sandwich when I see one. And?”
“Truly remarkable. She remarked truly.”
He smiled.
“So where you from then?”
2 He said in detail where he was from and she felt strangely embarrassed when her turn followed and she had to say Wisconsin which just then sounded kind of cartoonish and made up.
3 This was Monday and every lunch that followed that week meant those two and that counter.
4 Polio was the reason for the limp.
5 She was full of all these theories too, this woman. That the U.S. would never actually land on the moon but the pressure to do so would become so great that the Government, it always felt like a capital G with her, would stage a pretend landing in some movie studio. That damn near every physical malady known to man was curable through the proper application of lemon juice and surely he could appreciate the great incentive the pharmaceutical companies had in keeping this fact from being widely disseminated.
6 He laughed so hard at these and other disclosures that more than once he feared she would think he had crossed over into ridicule but no danger of that as he was dealing with one of the world’s great fun people.
7 About himself he said little though not from lack of pressing on her part.
8 One of the many things she said was that he was so “cute, and nice, and harmless.”
9 He responded that “since what you say makes it true at least to you, I’m hoping it will make it true to me” and he said this because there was much harm he wished he’d never done.
10 He told her he thought orchids like the kind found where he was from were a kind of divine apology for the universe’s many harsh elements and she later brought him some which made him feel more than a little weird.
11 Not possible, she said, based on the visual evidence, that he had put that many years into life. And look at herself, which led to a brief detour into the subject of Nicole Grunderson and her like. He said, with a complete absence of flattery intent, that the difference between a woman—one who had lived, suffered, learned, wept, transitorily gained then lost, faced death, bowed from pressure, then been scarred by all that into steel — and a shiny girl was one of the great chasms in life and he’d let her deduce which was preferable. Me? Little more than scar tissue.
12 On the Friday she stayed right through to dinnertime at which point he declared he couldn’t bear even the sight of his own food anymore and so they walked the few blocks to a new Italian restaurant receiving mountainous praise though it turned out undeservedly so.
13 Afterwards she needed to reclaim the many blocks that had accumulated between the disappointing restaurant and her studio apartment not helped by a frigid air that moved in while they ate yet solely through the use of body language and in perfect synchronicity they decided to eschew the many available taxis and walk the space during which walk Marybeth felt completely and utterly protected and she and her protector slowly then quickly drew closer to each other until her really exceptionally lovely hand extended away from her body where he clasped it quickly as if trying to convince himself that his action had been reflexive and not the product of even minimal aforethought then those hands swung rhythmically as if winding the couple to their destination until stopping because they were there where Marybeth wondered aloud if he might not come up and maybe overcome his prejudice against tea but after starting to form assent he suddenly remembered himself and declined in a manner that in no way offended Marybeth who also wasn’t the least bit surprised by a demurral that seemed to inappositely build as the week and their intimacy progressed and also there was the matter of her early rise the next morning for that weekend thing they’d discussed so that from within a hug they agreed to resume whatever this was the following Monday.
14 He stood alone on the sidewalk. It was dark as the city was allowed to get. He stared intently at the window. The light came on. She was safe. He left.
* * *
LORD grant me the strength to decimate into dust your transgressing sons that such sensational cruelty will echo throughout the ages and discourage future transgressors into obedience.
2 This is the kind of illogic Manuel finds escaping his mouth as he grinds himself up the hill in what feels like at most half a body.
3 This is Skull Hill, so named because of the peculiar rock formation at its summit that creates the not just visual impression that a malevolent giant once died there then all but its skull decomposed into the form of a hill.
4 Thing about the hill is that it’s a lot steeper than it looked on approach and he now doubts very much that he will later descend it. Already he has fallen badly twice and each time a dispassionate observer would not have wagered he would rise again as he did.
5 At the top, it is rumored, is a mass grave. Almost certainly not true at the time of the rumors but probably so now.
6 He feels as if there couldn’t possibly be any blood left inside him but also the remarkable realization that he never really needed blood to begin with.
7 The disturbance caused by even silent people is unlike any other so he’s not even mildly surprised when he looks through some jungle and sees the goal he’s suffered for available like ripe fruit fallen from its tree.
8 He cannot see them but they must be there among the group. They are there because he left them alone and when he’s done what he came to do they will likely be alone again because right now to him his life means not next to nothing, goddamn less than nothing.
9 He will deliver it up sacrificially but they will walk away unharmed to resume their lives, his absence rightly weakening daily.
* * *
FIRST sign of trouble came from the human wailing not the sound of gunfire which one grew accustomed to coming from the jungle.
2 The church was close enough that although too late to prevent anything Manuel was able to arrive before any diminution in the screams.
3 For the irreligious, understand that there’s a moment in the Catholic service in which all present are asked to demonstrate peace towards each other usually in the form of a handshake although more is permitted within reason. Coincidentally or not this was the moment they burst in, every opening covered, barking contradictory orders that couldn’t possibly be complied with before bullets took apocalyptic flights through the still air, first disproportionately into the celebrant then randomly into the congregation where Luz smothered Selena in protection willing that all the world’s steel should be embedded in her body rather than reach her daughter’s innocence.
4 One could view the quickly dead as the lucky as dozens of others are forcibly pushed and pulled into the jungle as if tethered to guns still warm from their displays. These are the people whose physical lives have become so suddenly and dramatically constricted that they must retreat into a purely mental existence and it’s a torturous one for the reason that the worst part about a death sentence is the waiting in expectation. Luz and Selena are in this group and before it even seems possible timewise this group is in the jungle.