Oscar Casares Read online

  Lincoln Park was at the end of the block. It looked more like a long, skinny island than it did a park. The palm trees were one of the few things that stood out when the resaca flooded. The water usually took a couple of weeks to go back down to its normal level, which was more than enough time for all the mosquitoes to show up.

  He crossed the small bridge over the resaca. The park was empty at that hour. He climbed the wooden fort that the little kids played on during the day. This was also the fort where Mando and Bony convinced a couple of girls to come hang out with them one night. The guys were sixteen, the girls were fifteen. Bony scored two bottles of strawberry wine and they took turns going down the slide. After a while, Mando and his girl went for a long walk. Bony stayed with his girl in the fort, where she let him do everything but go inside her.

  He took the monkey out of the plastic bag and set it next to him. From where he was sitting on the fort, Bony could see most of the park. If you played basketball here, you had to be a fast runner or the ball was going to be rolling into the water every game. This was the court where Bony first got his shot down. Next to the basket were the picnic tables that filled up fast on the weekends. You could forget barbecuing here unless you started setting up way before noon. If they were having a lowrider show in the park, you’d be lucky to find a place to sit.

  By the water fountains was where Bony had stopped a guy named Javier Ortiz. The girl Mando had been with that night in the park was Javier’s old girlfriend, and now Javier was saying he was going to jump Mando.

  “I heard you were talking shit about Mando.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “You got a problem with Mando, you got a problem with me.”

  “No, man, I don’t have no problems with you,” Javier said. “It’s cool.”

  “I think you do, puto. And I think I’m going to kick your ass,” Bony said.

  And then he did.

  Bony looked down and saw that flies were buzzing around the monkey’s head and landing on its nose. He shooed them away with his hand, but they kept coming back. Looking at the long whiskers on the monkey’s cheeks, the deep lines around its eyes, made him want to find out where the head had come from. Bony thought about calling the zoo and asking them if they were missing any monkeys, but then he figured that if a monkey had been kidnapped, they might be tracing the phone calls and he’d get blamed for the whole thing. He didn’t need that kind of trouble.

  He walked back to the house remembering all the monkeys he’d seen on TV or at the movies, but none of them looked like his monkey. He thought how weird it was that he’d never seen one like this before. When he made it home, he put the monkey in the truck and drove out of the neighborhood. He passed the park and headed down International, in the direction of the library. Pink Floyd was on the stereo and the woofers were maxed out enough for people to feel the vibrations two cars over. The monkey was riding shotgun.

  The library parking lot was full, so Bony had to circle around a few times to find a spot. He left the monkey on the floor mat, where people couldn’t see it. As soon as he felt how cold it was inside the library, he wished he’d worn long pants. The encyclopedias were on a short bookcase close to the entrance. He sat in a chair and read about the differences between monkeys and apes. The most interesting part was how much they were related to humans. He’d never been completely comfortable with that idea, but at the same time he didn’t know what to make of the story of Adam and Eve and a talking snake. Even if he did believe people came from monkeys, he had to ask where the monkeys came from.

  The encyclopedia had a life-size picture of a gorilla’s hand. Bony placed his own hand on top of the gorilla’s hand, and although his was a lot smaller, they did match. The encyclopedia had pictures of more monkeys and apes than he ever knew existed, but he couldn’t find a picture that looked exactly like his monkey’s head. He finally spotted one in a book called Monkeys of the New World. In the picture, the black monkey was standing on a tree branch picking fruit. It was a spider monkey, from Ecuador. Bony read about what they ate, how long they lived, how they took care of their babies. He even checked out a picture of two spider monkeys having sex, which he didn’t look at for too long because he didn’t want the library lady walking by and thinking he was some weirdo.

  He put the monkey back on the passenger seat as he drove home. Now that Bony had learned something about the monkey, he wanted to name it. The first thing that popped into his mind was to call it Spider Man because he kind of liked the guy in the comics. He thought about naming it Blackie, but he knew that was dumb. Zorro was kind of a cool name, but there was already a black dog on his street named Zorro. He couldn’t remember Tarzan’s monkey’s name, or that might have worked. Then he tried to think of a name in Spanish, but the only name he came up with was the easiest, Chango. He hadn’t liked it when his parents used the word because they only used it to say it was a dead chango. But the more he thought about it, it fit. He liked the way it sounded when he said it to himself: Chango, Chango, Chango. Ese Chango. Bony and Chango.

  Bony stopped at the Jiffy-Mart and bought a twelve-pack. It was three o’clock by the time he stopped in front of the house. His mother and Mrs. Rivas were standing next to the palm tree. Mrs. Rivas held a small plastic bottle upside down and squirted water on the ground. Bony placed Chango on the floor mat and grabbed the beer as he stepped out of the truck.

  “Agua bendita,” Mrs. Rivas said as he walked up.

  He stepped back when he realized it really was holy water.

  “¿Dónde está el chango, Bony?” she asked.

  “What chango?”

  “I already told Mrs. Rivas what you found,” his mother said. “She says somebody’s trying to put a curse on our house, maybe on my business.”

  “No they’re not, it’s just a monkey’s head. What’s the big deal?”

  “¿Qué crees, Bony?” Mrs. Rivas said. “Eh, you think God opened the heavens and dropped that chango’s head in your yard so you could tell him your jokes? No, mi’jo, that’s the work of brujas.”

  “That’s crazy. There’s no brujas.”

  “Listen to her, Bony.” His mother held his arm.

  “You think brujas are like you see them on the television, flying around on brooms, but that’s not the way it is. You don’t know. ¿Tú qué sabes? They shop at the mall, eat at Luby’s, go to bailes and dance cumbias. Brujas are everywhere, Bony, probably in this neighborhood.”

  The old lady looked down the street and then back at Bony.

  “Go ask Mrs. Molina, on the next block. Ask her what happened to her mother. Andale, she’ll tell you how somebody threw a dead snake in her mother’s yard, y la pobre mujer, she stepped on it barefoot. The very next morning her skin started falling off. I wouldn’t lie to you, Bony, her skin. Until there was nothing left of the woman. Tell me that’s not the work of brujas.”

  “¿Ya ves? You’re bringing curses into my house.”

  “Now tell us where you put that chango’s head,” Mrs. Rivas said.

  “We already checked in your room, mi’jo,” his mother said.

  “You what?”

  “Your mother was worried about the curses.”

  “He wasn’t hurting anybody.”

  “Tell us where it is, Bony,” Mrs. Rivas said.

  “I threw him away already.”

  “Where, Bony?” his mother said.

  “In the trash, behind the Jiffy-Mart.”

  “Are you telling your mother the truth, Bony?” Mrs. Rivas said.

  “Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  Mrs. Rivas and his mother looked at each other. Bony walked to the porch and leaned back in the lawn chair. It was just another afternoon in the neighborhood. After a few minutes Mrs. Rivas drove away.

  “Más vale que me estés diciendo la verdad, Bony,” his mother said. “I better not see that monkey in my house again.”

  Bony shook his head. “Don’t worry.”

 
; She walked into the house and let the screen door slam shut.

  Bony stayed on the porch. Across the street, Mando’s kid was riding his tricycle through the front yard. It was quiet in the neighborhood. Bony cracked open his first beer. The can was sweating in his hand and down onto the porch. He took a drink and kicked back. He wasn’t going to let anybody take Chango.

  Except for walking inside to grab a piece of leftover chicken, Bony sat on the porch for the rest of the afternoon. He thought his mother might be watching him through the window and he didn’t want to make her suspicious. The beer was cold. What more did he need, right?

  His parents ate dinner at seven, but Bony stayed outside on the porch. He went in later and microwaved what was left of the tacos they’d had for dinner. His father was in the kitchen cleaning his work shoes. The patent leather was shiny and Bony kept looking at his own reflection.

  “You drink too much,” his father said.

  “So what?”

  “So what? This isn’t a cantina, where you can get pedo and stare at somebody’s shoes. What’s wrong with you?”

  Bony didn’t answer and took another bite of his taco.

  “Your mother says you’re sad because we made you throw away the chango.”

  “I’m not sad.”

  “You look sad.”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “Are you thinking about what kind of job you’re going to look for tomorrow?”

  “Not really.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  After Bony was done eating, he drank another beer and watched a baseball game on TV. He hated baseball, but he was waiting for his parents to go to sleep, which they finally did a little after ten. He grabbed Chango from the truck and put him under the small palm tree. The moon was almost full and its glow filled the yard with light. Bony brought out his lawn chair, just like old times. There was half a can of beer left, which he placed next to Chango. He could see himself doing this every night. His parents never had to find out. Maybe one of these nights when they were away from the house, he and Chango would cook out in the backyard. Some fajitas, some chicken, some beer. It’d be badass. People would be walking by and going, “¿Qué onda, Bony?” And he’d be like, “Aquí nomás. Just cooking out, man.” And they’d walk away thinking the dude knew how to do it right.

  It was after midnight when Bony put away the lawn chair and carried Chango back to the truck. He didn’t want to risk taking him inside the house and his parents finding out. Earlier he’d left a crack at the top of the windows, but now he rolled them up in case there was rain. He locked the truck and went inside the house.

  He tried to relax in bed and enjoy what was left of his beer buzz. Tomorrow he’d figure out what to do with Chango. Maybe his mother would forget about what Mrs. Rivas had said. His father might be okay with him keeping Chango if he went out and found a job. Bony thought anything could happen. He might even fall asleep and turn into a monkey overnight, and then his parents would have to keep him and Chango.

  It felt like he’d only been asleep for five minutes when he heard a fire engine driving through the front yard. He sat up in bed and realized it was already morning and the siren was really the alarm on his truck. His father was standing next to the truck with his hands cupped over his ears. Bony’s mother walked towards the house when he opened the front door. He deactivated the alarm and then locked the truck again before his father could open the door.

  “¡Ya lo vi, Bony!” his mother said. “I knew you were lying. ¡Güerco embustero! ¡Ahora verás!”

  “What? He’s not even close to the house.”

  “Bony, you knew what I meant.”

  “Ya fue mucho,” his father said. “I’m going to call the city to come pick up the chango and take it away.” He walked inside the house and grabbed the phone.

  “I’ll keep him somewhere else,” Bony said.

  His father shook his head and opened the phone book.

  “What if I get a job?”

  “It’s too late, Bony.” His father dialed a number.

  Bony finished getting dressed and went to his truck. He drove out of the neighborhood, not sure where he was going exactly. Chango sat in the passenger seat, smiling as usual. Bony rolled down the windows and listened to the wind. There wasn’t that much traffic on International that early in the morning. He drove past Southmost Road and slowed down for the flashing yellow light in front of la Porter, his old high school, so he wouldn’t get pulled over by a cop. When he was on the other side of Four Corners, he stopped at a convenience store. A carton of orange juice and a package of cinnamon rolls were what he needed right now. Jumping out of bed so fast had made him feel extra crudo.

  The orange juice came with little chunks of ice, the way he liked it, but he had to be careful not to get the steering wheel sticky while he was driving and eating the cinnamon rolls. It felt like a road trip is what it felt like. They could drive anywhere they wanted to, Corpus, San Antonio, Houston, anywhere. He and Mando had always talked about someday taking a trip to see the Dallas Cowboys play. If he had more than two dollars in his pocket, he might have taken off right then. Instead, he turned down 511 and drove around the edge of town. There were a couple of new subdivisions, but it was still mainly farmland out there. Back in high school, Bony used to like to party and then go cruising. He remembered driving on this road alone one night and almost hitting a cow that was standing in the middle of the road. It came out of nowhere. He blinked and there it was, staring into the headlights. Bony had to swerve to miss it and then swerve back onto the road so he wouldn’t hit a telephone pole. It could’ve easily been his time to go, but it wasn’t. And now here he was with Chango.

  He drove around for the rest of the morning and tried to come up with a plan. They traveled down Paredes, Coffeeport Road, Fourteenth Street, 802, Central, and Boca Chica. Going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. People were in a hurry to get places, but Bony and Chango were taking their time. On Palm Boulevard, they passed the big, expensive houses with trimmed lawns and then turned left at the first light. They drove another block and stopped in a parking lot across the street from the zoo.

  Bony turned off the engine and listened for the animal sounds. He had to wait for a couple of school buses to turn the corner before it was quiet. All he could hear were the birds on the phone lines and a dog barking in the distance. He hadn’t been to the zoo in years, but he was almost sure the monkeys were on a little island on the other side of the tall fence. Bony tried to imagine how he would’ve escaped if he were a monkey. Chango probably had it planned out months ahead of time, knew when the zoo people left at night, knew the perfect time to make a break for it. Chango was looking for something more than what he was going to find on that little island. Nobody could blame him for that.

  Fifteen minutes went by before Bony started up the truck again. He was pulling out of the parking lot when he heard the monkey calls from the other side of the street. He looked at Chango, but Chango kept looking straight ahead.

  They drove back to the neighborhood. Bony passed by his street and saw a city truck parked in front of the house. He drove on until he was on the other side of Lincoln Park. Two old men were sitting in a station wagon by the entrance. They were drinking beer and listening to a ranchera station. Bony parked a few spaces away from their car. He put Chango inside the plastic bag. The old men were laughing hard like one of the men had told the other a funny joke. They happened to look up at Bony as he was getting out of the truck, and the man in the driver’s seat nodded hello to him. Bony nodded back to him and walked into the park with Chango.

  He crossed a short bridge and stepped down to the canal. He took Chango out of the bag and sat by the edge of the water. The resaca that surrounded the park ended up here and then dropped off a small concrete waterfall. Bony and Mando had learned to fish in this canal. They used a couple of branches, some fishing line, hooks, and bread that Bony had taken from his mother’s kitchen. Beginner’s
luck, that’s what Mando called it when Bony caught a shiner that first afternoon. He called it luck whenever Bony beat him at something. In a lot of ways, he was lucky that he’d found Chango. How many guys could say they’d found a monkey’s head in their front yard? He’d probably never find anything like this again. He was sure that if Chango were a guy they’d be camaradas. Same thing would go if Bony were a monkey. They’d be hanging out in the jungle, swinging from trees, eating bananas. They’d be putting the moves on all the changuitas, doing it monkey-style. He would miss his truck, but then what would he need it for in the jungle? It’s not like there was anywhere to go cruising. And if he were a monkey, nobody would be hassling him to be something else. He’d be a monkey. He wouldn’t have to go to school, or work, or file for unemployment. And something else: monkeys were always together. He and Chango would be friends until they were viejitos, all wrinkled and hunched over and walking from tree to tree because they were too old to be swinging. They’d be hanging out forever. “Right?” Bony said. “Right?” It took a second before he realized that he was talking to himself.

  The water was browner and greener than he remembered it. A tire had washed up on the other side of the canal. An army boot floated and got stuck on some lily pads. He broke a dead branch into four pieces and pitched them into the water one at a time. When he ran out of branches and twigs, he threw pebbles. Time was passing slowly and he was avoiding doing what he had to do. Bony skipped a few more rocks across the water. He wished people would leave him alone, let him live his own life. If he drank, it was because he wanted to drink. If he stayed at home without a real job, it was because he wasn’t ready for that yet. There wasn’t anybody who understood him. He and Chango were hanging out. His mother and father didn’t know what they were saying. His mother let herself be talked into crazy ideas by Mrs. Rivas. People were always talking at him and telling him how he should live. Sometimes he listened, but most times he didn’t. He was just living. That’s the best explanation he could give. Living. Bony leaned over and held Chango a couple of inches above the water. It was the last thing in the world that he wanted to do, but he let go.