Oscar Casares Page 11

  Marcelo scooped load after load of moist dirt. He tried not to think about what he was doing. The rain from two nights earlier had softened the ground, and he was grateful this made the digging a little easier. At least it wasn’t too hot yet. His work would be done in no time, then he’d have the rest of the day free. He could wash the car or change the oil. He could take Olivia out to lunch and get her out of the house.

  He stopped digging after a while and sat on the back porch steps. The hole looked deep enough to bury the dog, but something didn’t feel right. What he had done to the animal only seemed crueler when he looked at the dead body. He felt that he owed Sanchez and his kid more than just a hole in the ground. He thought about it for a few minutes and decided to build a box for the dog. He looked around the cuar-tito and under the house, but he didn’t have enough wood to make anything the animal would fit in. What he did have was a stack of cardboard boxes that Olivia had saved. He sliced the two largest ones with his buck knife and used some duct tape to hold them together. So the box wouldn’t bend in the middle when he lowered it, he placed a piece of plywood on the bottom. He laid the animal on top of some old blankets and its splotched tongue flopped out. After he closed the dog’s mouth, he sealed the top of the box with duct tape.

  Marcelo hung his work shirt on the porch railing and began digging a larger hole. For the box to fit, he figured the grave needed to be at least five feet long and three feet wide. The sun had come out from behind the clouds and made the morning hot. Each shovelload felt a little heavier than the last. His back would hurt later. He had good reasons for burying the dog in his backyard, but he also knew he could never stand before Sanchez and his boy and tell them what had happened. He tried to console himself with the fact that he had built a box for the dog. It wasn’t anything fancy, but in a small way it helped relieve his guilt. After a while he stepped into the hole and shoveled the dirt around him. The last time he’d worked this hard was when his father had passed away and, in order to save some money, he and his brothers dug the grave themselves. There were two shovels and five brothers. They took turns: two brothers working, two brothers resting in the shade, one brother telling stories about their father’s life. They talked about how their father had lived on both sides of the river, but he’d always called it el Río Bravo. He used to say his biggest mistake in life was allowing his sons to be born Americans. He wanted everyone to know he was puro mexicano and had no desire to change. Specific instructions had been left for his body to be taken to the ranchito outside of Matamoros where his parents and his grandparents were buried. Marcelo thought about how different he was from this man. What would his father have done about the dog? Right or wrong, he always seemed sure of what he did. Marcelo had tried to live his father’s life, but now it felt as if he were standing in the middle of a river trying to stretch his arms and touch both sides. No matter what he did, he’d never reach far enough.

  He had been working for a couple of hours when he heard Olivia calling him from the back porch. His undershirt was drenched with sweat and he felt as if he’d been digging all day. Marcelo put down the shovel to find out what she needed, but he couldn’t see her over the edge of the grave. He realized then that he’d dug a lot deeper than he needed to.

  Don’t Believe Anything He Tells You

  Jerry Fuentes

  Here’s a piece of advice for you: If a guy named Jerry Fuentes comes knocking at your front door trying to sell you something, tell him you’re not interested and then lock the door.

  Jerry Fuentes is my cousin and he’s a salesman. He might tell you he’s something else, use a different word to describe what he does, but what he is is a salesman. And if you’re not careful, he’ll sell you something you had no intention of buying, never needed, and will probably regret for a long time after he and his cheap cologne have left your house. I know, because it happened to me.

  “Hey, primo, how’s it going?” he said, standing at my front door one day.

  I hate it when he calls me primo. He calls everybody primo, even guys who aren’t his cousins or related to him in any way. A few years ago, he moved to San Antonio and was working as a sports promoter. That’s what he told the whole family. He had business cards with his beeper number and a slogan that said JERRY FUENTES—YOUR PERSONAL SPORTS PROMOTER. Jerry’s got the connections, man, his brother Gabe kept saying. So Anna and I drove up to watch the Spurs play the Bulls, and there was Jerry out in front of the Alamodome, scalping tickets. He set us up all right, but the tickets weren’t cheap. Then when we were walking into the building we heard Jerry go, “Hey, primo.” We turned around and he was talking to a Chinese guy.

  That day Jerry came over, he walked into the house and sat right down in my La-Z-Boy. It was probably still warm from me sitting there, flipping through the TV channels. That was the first time Jerry had ever come by, but it looked like he’d been sitting in that chair for years. He looked relaxed, like he owned the place almost. He was wearing a light green sports coat with a pair of slacks that had sharp creases. The top button of his dress shirt was undone and some chest hairs were sticking out.

  We didn’t see each other in those days, except at weddings and funerals. Not that we saw each other that much when we were growing up. Jerry’s ten years older than me, but now that we’re both getting older, the difference in our ages doesn’t feel that huge. He has more hair than I do and I think he uses hair spray. He’s in shape for a guy in his forties, but I’m sure he’s never done what you’d call hard work. Either way, staying young has helped him out with the women. I have to hand it to him there. Jerry’s never been married and he always has a little movida on the side. Sometimes I wish I had done more of that when I had the chance. But that was part of the trouble at his last job. He was selling frozen steaks, door-to-door, for Archer Meats and spending a little too much time with some of the Valley housewives. Then there was more trouble when the supervisor figured out that Jerry was using the company meat to feed everybody who showed up at his pachan-gas. Jerry argued with him that each and every one of those steaks was an investment for the company and would, in time, be turned into a profit, which was one of his bigger lies, but it just goes to show you the guy has little or no respect for what’s not his. That’s why it wasn’t any big surprise to see him sitting all comfortable in my chair.

  Before Jerry could say anything, I told him I was on my way to pick up Anna, so I only had a few minutes. Really, she wasn’t getting off for another hour, but I figured it was probably a good idea to have an excuse in case he was here on business. Anna works at a small accounting office close to the stadium. She does bookkeeping, taxes, and filing for the man who owns the business. Her hours are nine to five, Monday through Friday, except during tax season, when she has to go in on the weekends. She’s good with numbers and handles all the money in our house. Payday comes and I hand her the check. I tell her, As long as you don’t run off to Las Vegas, I don’t care what you do with the money. Not that I’m rich or anything. That isn’t going to happen working at the bridge. I’ve been there eight years so far. As long as there’s a bridge to Mexico, I have a job. That’s how I like to think about it. Good, dependable work. I think that’s what Anna likes the most about me. Especially the “dependable” part. I’ve thought about applying for the Border Patrol, but Anna thinks it’s dangerous work. She likes to tell me that we don’t need the money, that we’re already rich in other ways. I won the lottery when I married you, she likes to say. Sometimes Anna has a nice way of putting things, but the truth is I haven’t been feeling like such a rich guy lately.

  I had the late shift at the bridge that night. I’d been home all day, working around the house. I spent some time reading the Herald and washed the car about eleven o’clock. After lunch, I took a nap and then watched an Andy Griffith rerun. It had been quiet all afternoon until Jerry knocked on my door.

  “So what’s up, Jerry?” I asked, bracing myself for what might be coming.

  He said, “It�
�s about the future. Do you ever think about the future?”

  “Yeah, I guess. As much as the next guy.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but I knew he didn’t come over to compare horoscopes. He was looking over at a wedding picture sittting on top of the TV set.

  “How long you been married now, primo?”

  “Almost six years.” It was a stupid question to ask me, since he’d been at the wedding and knew damn well how long it had been. He was just trying to soften me up for something.

  “Six years?” he said. “It’s time to start thinking about having some little Georges, no?”

  “Maybe. We haven’t really talked about it.”

  We had talked about it, but it wasn’t any of Jerry’s business. Anna and I had decided to wait a couple of years. It was a mutual decision, but you could say I encouraged it. What’s the rush? I told her.

  “That’s great, George. You have a beautiful wife.” He kept looking at the wedding picture while he was saying this. It was almost as if I wasn’t in the room and he was talking to himself. I looked over at the picture and thought Anna did look kind of nice. Sometimes you can overlook these things.

  I started remembering the last time I saw Jerry at the bridge. He had pulled up in his red Firebird with this pretty girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty, maybe twenty-two at the most. She was young enough to be a student at the college, if that tells you anything. Anyway, Jerry looked drunk, and his right hand was resting between the girl’s skinny legs. She was wearing a black miniskirt and a white shirt that I think was see-through, but I couldn’t tell for sure, so I won’t guarantee you. Her long brown hair came over her shoulders, and she wore a necklace with a gold cross that reached way down into her shirt—probably a lot further down than I should have been looking. She had on maroon lipstick that made her lips look like she was getting ready to kiss you even when she wasn’t. Jerry smiled when he saw me staring at his girl a little too long. Then he turned to her and said, Say hello, Monica. The girl giggled, looked up at me, and said, Hello, Monica. Then Jerry laughed and reached into the ashtray to pull out a bunch of change for the toll. Later, primo, he said. His tires screeched a little as he took off. When I counted the coins he was a dime short.

  Jerry was now leaning forward in my chair and looking at me. He was quiet for a few seconds. Trying to find inspiration for what he was about to tell me, I guess. His hands were together, and it actually seemed that he might have something honest to say.

  “Do you ever think of what might happen to Anna if, God forbid, something were to happen to you?” he finally said.

  So now I’m wondering, What the hell does Jerry know that I don’t? Is there some disease in our family nobody ever told me about, and now he’s here to tell me I have six months to live? And why Jerry? I can think of a dozen other relatives I’d rather hear it from.

  “The reason I ask you about the future is that I’m now a pre-arranger for Buena Vista.” He reached over and handed me a brochure.

  I’d only been to two funerals at Buena Vista. The first time was for my grandmother and the second time for my grandfather. Jerry was there because they were his grandmother and grandfather, too. Both times the long procession bounced its way along the bumpy road in front of the project homes and then turned into the cemetery before it got to Highway 77. My grandparents died a few years ago, but listening to Jerry tell me he was a “pre-arranger,” I started getting the same heavy feeling in my chest I had when they lowered the caskets. I sat back and opened the brochure, except I’m not sure why. The thought of death is not something I’m comfortable with. It never has been. I only went to those funerals because my family wouldn’t have let me live it down if I hadn’t gone. And when I think about it, the only reason I even let Jerry in the house and didn’t throw him out was the fact that he was family.

  “Jerry, I’m only thirty-three,” I said after a while. “I think I have some time before I have to think about these kinds of things.”

  “That’s what you would think,” he said. “That’s what everybody thinks.”

  He was shaking his head. I could tell he was disappointed with me.

  “Remember Pete Hernandez? You think the cancer thought he was too young? And what about that twenty-six-year-old guy in the paper yesterday? Poor guy hit his head in the shower and woke up dead in the morning, next to his wife.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Nobody likes to think about these things, primo. Aren’t you the kind of husband that would want Anna taken care of in a time like this?” He was saying it with his head tilted to the right. His hair was sitting perfectly still, even with the ceiling fan on high.

  “Sure.”

  What else was I going to say? No, I don’t want her taken care of? I knew that was one of Jerry’s salesman questions, where the customer didn’t have a choice but to agree with him. These questions of his always made me feel dumb, which was just one more reason to hate the guy.

  “I know what you’re thinking, primo. You’re thinking that this is going to be expensive.”

  It wasn’t anything like what I was thinking, but I let him go on. My mind was on the idea of Anna dying and me being alive. When my grandmother died, she left my grandfather behind. They’d been married sixty-five years. About a month after they buried her, my grandfather drove his truck fifty miles an hour, head-on, into a palm tree and was dead long before the ambulance showed up. I always thought he did it on purpose, so he could be with my grandmother. I considered it true love. And as much as I cared for Anna, I didn’t know if I could do the same for her.

  “Well, that’s why I’m here,” Jerry said. “I came up with a plan to make it affordable for you. It has to do with both you and Anna buying the services and burial space, side by side. That way I know I can get you a discount.” He said it like I should be thanking him already, maybe pulling out my checkbook and signing up right there and then.

  “The other thing is, you don’t have to pay for it all right now. I can set you up on a five-year plan, ten-year, whatever. It’s just like buying a house. You pay off a little every month until, before you know it, it’s all taken care of.”

  But it wasn’t anything like buying a house. I’d be dead.

  And there’d be no kitchen, no bedroom, no bathroom, no driveway, no garage, no yard. Nothing. Just a coffin and a lot of dirt all around me is what there’d be.

  “This way you won’t have to worry later. N’hombre, primo, believe me, you don’t want to be thinking about these sorts of things if, God forbid, Anna happens to pass before you do.” He crossed himself as he said this. It seemed like the idea of Anna dying before me was sadder to him.

  I opened the brochure again and looked at the different models of coffins. Some of the fancier ones had a nice shine to them like a polished-up lowrider. The cheaper ones were made of a dark wood and didn’t look so comfortable. They also didn’t look like they would last as long as the polished ones. I wondered which one Anna would pick out for me, if it were her decision and not mine. She’d probably go with something middle-of-the-road. Not too expensive, not too cheap. But dependable. It had to be dependable. Then I thought about the one suit I owned and how I’d worn it to every family wedding for the past few years. Is that really how I wanted everybody to see me for the last time? Not that any of these things would matter in the end, but it did get me thinking.

  “Primo, I don’t want you to say a word. I want you to talk about it with your beautiful wife, and then tell me what you’ve decided. Remember, I can make this plan work for you.”

  We stood up at the same time, and he opened his arms to give me an abrazo. He held me tight for a few seconds, patting me on the back over and over again. I felt like I was at a funeral for somebody who had died young and unexpectedly.

  If it hadn’t been for Anna, that would’ve been the end of all the pre-arrangement talk.

  “Jerry called,” she said. She woke up to tell me this. I had come home from
work and we were lying in bed with the lights off. “He told me how you were interested in making the pre-arrangements. He said he wanted to know how I felt about it and if there were any questions he could help me with.”

  “I never said I was interested.”

  “That’s not what he said. And anyway, it sounds like a good idea.”

  Anna never saw the problems in Jerry that I did. She thought he meant well, and all he needed was a wife who understood him and could straighten him out. Once, she even tried to set Jerry up with one of her single girlfriends. Like he needed help finding a date.

  “What’s a good idea?” I said.

  “Being prepared, it’s a good idea. You know what happened to my mother.”

  I knew what happened with her mother—I just never understood it. One day she was fine, the next day she had cancer. The doctors couldn’t do anything for her. It happened that quick. And because she had never made “arrangements,” she ended up being buried on the other side of the cemetery from where Anna’s father was buried. It meant something to Anna that they be together, side by side. I never understood what the big deal was. I didn’t see the point of being in the ground dead next to someone else who was dead. To me, dead was dead.

  “Don’t you want to be together…you know, when it’s that time?” Anna turned to look at me.

  Hearing her question made me think of Jerry’s questions. I started feeling that she might have picked it up from his phone call, or maybe he’d coached her on what to say to me, to get me to say yes.

  “Listen, to start with, Jerry made that up. I’m not interested. He’s just trying to get his commission, and he’s using us to get it. Don’t believe him. Don’t believe anything he tells you.”

  Anna was quiet for a few seconds, and then she moved a little closer. “He told me you might say that, but it was only because you’re afraid of dying and losing me.”