Arcadio (13 page)

My pore father Hombre was a Texas man, white not brown
como
like
mi madre
and he was borned around here by this river that once was. Since you have asked for
noticias de mi padre
or have you? cain't remember, Hombre is the Texas part of me, the one-half of my
mestizo
that my mother called it. Twas
mi madre
Chupa give me the Mescan as you will remember and lots of it, more than the Texas that my father Hombre give me. In my searching I come upon a man looked like my father. Twas in a tomato shed outside of Jacksonville Texas in the tomato season in East Texas, broiling August. Nothin like a ripe tomato of the fields in the sun of East Texas in the month of August. Twas not my father, but told me where to find a man said might answer to me.

Twas in a roomin house, then, that the man was, down in Houston, that this man in the tomato shed said might answer to me,
comprendes
you understand. If you are ahuntin somebody this is the way you have to hunt. So twas on Congress Avenue back behind the rayroad by the bayou, back in there, that I found him. How could this man answer I wondered because he was so drunk, sitting in a rocking chair with a blanket wrapped around him. Are you named Hombre? I said. No answer. Hombre? I called. No words. Hombre! I shouted. And the answer came, who are you looking for? Hombre, I said; my father. Where is your mother, he asked me. She run away again and I am again hunting for her. I would help you search for her but I cain't walk, knees still healing, said he and he pulled off the blanket and showed me the ugly knees. There was no more of Hombre after his knees. My God I said. Right said Hombre it was your God, twas certainly not mine, that took my two good legs, one day I'll tell you how. Oh I've eaten my bread in the sweat of my face. Can you buy me just a little shortdog of Red, I need me some wine. Hombre, my father! I cried. Sugarboy! Sugarboy! my father wept and hugged me to him.
Cuidado
I said, watch it. I was sure he was my father for I was familiar with that old grabbing hand, knew the feel of that old hand. And besides, how else could he have known my name. You never told me that you loved me, said my father. Well I never did I says to him, but guess I really never thought I did, but guess I always did, I says, and guess I do. And then my father Hombre grabbed aholt of me and hugged me and cried and I held him back just a little bit and said don't try anything funny like you used to. May the Lord Jesus Christ strike me dead if ever I was to lay one hand on you again, my father says. O.K. I says. And we hugged together and both cried. I have been hunting everywhere for you, Hombre said. But I was hunting for you, keeping out an eye everywhere, I said, what is this world where everbody is huntin for everbody and cain't seem to find them. Oh I looked everywhere, Hombre said. How could you look everywhere without any legs, with only two sore knees that haven't even healed. Well I looked before God took my legs, Hombre explained. My God I said what is this world.

Told me that he fell on the rayroad and train run over his legs but I believe it twas a woman got his legs. Everthing that happened to Hombre was a woman, you wan hear? I believe it twas a woman got Hombre's legs at the knees so he couldn't get away from her no more, so that he couldn't get on his knees over any other woman. Bet it didn't bother your long member, I said to him, that you made me with, like you used to tell me over and over. Wan see what made you, you used to ask me, wasn't God made you, was this, you used to tell me. Bet the rayroad didn't bother that, did it? I hope you will forgive me, Hombre my father said. Has been the curse of my existence, said, reaching for it. Don't reach for it, I said: I cain't speak in the Texas way my father spoke, I am too much Mescan from my mother Chupa to do that, but this is what my father Hombre said. I could see that he was worse than ever. With his great long member that had worn him down and made him tired and old and crippled without legs and sore scabbed knees that he couldn't get up on over a woman. But you sold me to the Chinaman I told him. We needed the money, he said. Hombre was still a sinful man of flesh, never known anybody like him, lived for his flesh, even with's two legs amissing, still an old flesh fiend. He was the sinful part of me, all my sin had come from that hell member that hung down from him. My joy and fear comes from
mi madre
, my sin of flesh comes from this man. I had to get that straight with him forevermore. See what I'm saying? he said. Three-legged man. See what I'm tellin you? Well I don wan hear that member talk again, I said; anyway it's whiskey talking, I said; get the tongue of that shortdog out of my ear, don wan hear whiskey talkin. It's wine, said Hombre. Red. Well bottle's got a tongue I don wan speaking into my ear, I says. Makes me think of Julius Hohensteckel, foul-mouthed individual once I knew, said Hombre. With's foul mouth pulled around under his left ear by a palsy—heard tell that it's the left ear the Devil whispers to us in—Julius Hohensteckel whispered to himself into his ear like a phone, his head was receiving the dirtiest things you could think of. Julius Hohensteckel had spoken so many foul words Lord one day just grabbed aholt of's mouth and pulled it around up under his ear and left it there for his lifetime. Buried him that way, mouth up under his left ear, ‘s widow Roberta Hohensteckel asked the funeral home if twas any way could set his mouth back where it used to be so that he would look the way he used to be, in iz casket; funeral director said cain't, impossible for a funeral director to do; said, Miz Hohensteckel is too tricky to work with, working with the mouth of a corpse is very tricky, ‘slike trying to work the hole in somethin, how can you get aholt of a hole, can you feature that? the funeral director told the grievin widow Roberta Hohensteckel; he'd a said that to me I'd a told him to go work with iz own hole, smart-mouthed cocksucker talkin like that to a pore widow; and anyway, he said, people in the town wouldn't know who it was lyin in the casket, come to know his face so familiar with that lipless hole working and hissing up under the big flapped earlobe, said. The human mouth my ass! cried my father Hombre. Didn't stop Julius's dirty language one bit, his foul words went on apourin into his own ear, just beat his helpless eardrum with fucks and shits, whispered into his big bald windy head like a keg; plug iz ear or gag iz mouth, didn't matter, was always one open hole awaitin, if you plugged em both, ear hole and mouth hole, that brain blowin dirty words around probly would've tried to use iz bunghole to get em out. Julius Hohensteckel's brain boiled out foul words, spewed them into iz mouth and iz mouth spurted em into iz brain again. Like a fountain, I says. Saw one onct in a convent outside San Antonio where I hunted for word of my mother, fountain sprayed up same water over and over again, was its own beginning, comin from nowhere but itself, suck it in spit it out suck it in, over and over again, into itself, out of itself, bringin itself back to itself, dead water. I hate things like that, I said. What I was sayin, said my father Hombre, was not no convent what I was talkin about was Julius Hohensteckel with's mouth up under iz ear. Give himself his own ear. Could rim iz tongue into iz brain, said with iz tongue could feel iz brains, bunched like a cluster of grapes, said my father Hombre. My God I said, what an abnormality. Was a pervert said my father, I despise fuckin perverts. Who am I, I said to myself, who was Julius Hohensteckel who is this man before me what is this life? I'm gettin crazy I could go crazy. And I was going to get crazy and mad with my father like I used to and my old self was comin back and I was afraid I would get a streak going like I used to and that I would push him over to the ground, without any legs. All connected to my old wildness, wildness of words and wildness of feelings; and oh my
Jesucristo
many times wildness of deeds because sometimes in those old days with my father Hombre when I would get a streak I didn't give one flyin fuck.
Comprendes?
You wan hear?

Hombre told me that he just let his member lead him through his life day after day, was like a dog on a rope, said, old dog, been at me since I was nine years old, don know why I don jus cut it off and be shut of it. Why don you put it on the rayroad tracks and let the train cut it off way you said your legs was, I thought to myself, old flesh fiend. Pullin at me like an old dog, my father kept on, how could a man ignore a thing like that, wasn't no powder puff I'll tell you that, how'd anybody like to have a crowbar shove up between their legs all the time, big piece of iron between their legs all the time, like to drove me crazy, big crowbar. This is what Hombre told me cain't say it exactly like he said, you know, in's East Texas talkin, but that's what Hombre said. Hombre still scared me some, with's crazy orange wine eye when he got like that, don know what he would do to me, you wan hear, but I was ready to kill him if he tried some monkey business and if he showed himself to me, if he made me look upon his nakedness, the sin of Noah in Genesis 9 in the White Bible.

Said when he found me gone that day back in Shuang Boy's, he just let me go he did not send no posse after me, he just let me go. Where is Shuang Boy? I asked my father. Dead, my father answered. Of natural causes. What about
China Boy?
I asked. All to pieces, said my father.
China Boy
fell to pieces when Johna pushed the Chinaman down the stairs. But you said Shuang Boy died of natural causes, I said. Did, my father said, twas only natural somebody would kill an old crooked sonofabitch cocksucker rat like Shuang Boy.

Who is taking care of you without any legs, I says. Nobody but a woman named Johna, says Hombre. You mean Juana, I says. Johna, she says Johna, Hombre said. O.K. I says, where's Johna? And he says she'll come around directly, and sure enough there come Johna at that time. My God I says to myself that's Johna one of the
China Boy
women, the one, if I remember correctly, that first took me down with her, that taught it to me. Johna, I said, gazing at her, how is my father doin, thank you for taking care of my father. How you doin, said Johna, where you been we hunted everwhere for you. Everbody huntin for everbody, I says. And nobody finding anybody, or stayin for very long when they do, I says. You haven't changed much, said Johna, bet you just like you always was, and her eyes went down to my groins. Well my father has changed very much I said to Johna, my God one third of him is missing since I last saw him. His best part is still here, says she. Would I know anything else but what he's been tellin me ever since I arrived, I says. I didn't say to her how much she'd changed, my God,
una trucha vieja
, an old trout, she was of a reddish hair and swollen-looking mouth and had old dog's-ear breasts and a pair of dirty beads on and under her old dress was her blue thighs, spread a little and I saw between them, I saw her put out herself a little, old dog's mouth hangin, twas as natural for her to put out herself as twas for anybody else to lift their foot. Now I could see that Johna was there to do more than just to take care of
mi
padre
, I saw what they was doing—Hombre was doing exactly what Shuang Boy had done those years ago that I told you about, you wan hear, Hombre was sellin old Johna like Shuang Boy did. Old three-legged flesh fiend, I saw no hope for him, my own father. Nor for Johna, but I didn't care, for she was not no blood of mine although I guess I did have a little soft feeling for her due to the early days of my going down with her first of all ever in my life with any woman, this was the first woman and you know what that feeling can be,
comprendes?
You wan hear? But I saw no help for my member-crazy father.

It was before my father that I opened up
La Biblia Blanca
and tried to read out to him, but he could not hear. He drank his Red and touched his big old member and mumbled words I could not hear to his long member and twas like another person he was amumbling to. Shades of the
China Boy
. When I requested him please not to do that he say don't you have no respect for what made you? Old dog. No, I says, you have not changed you are the same, got no memory except memory of flesh and lust memory you are cursed by your member. And only God and
Jesucristo
knows how much I hate to think of those old days and you the way you was, and that old Chinaman rat that sold myself to men and women before I could get a holt of myself and made me a fiend of the flesh—like you—until I run away and almost died with the suffering of
Jesucristo
until my own salvation come to me through the Father and Son in
La Biblia Blanca
. You are saying too much to me, Hombre said, for an old long-dicked stump-kneed man and belly full of Red. Johna go get me another shortdog or somebody go get it. I remember Sugarboy when you never slept or even eat much, just
fucked
, said the old three-legged fiend, said the poor lost
esclavo
slave to his own member, you couldn't get enough of any of it, says Hombre, never slept or even eat much, just
fucked
. My father growled that word, it was the sound of a dog,
feroz
, and
demonio
and you will please to forgive the word from my mouth but I say what my damned father said. I saw that terrible picture again before me, that
figura
, of us, that beast
feroz
of hair and flesh hunching and ahunching and ahunching and ahunching.
Chingada!
I cried. Whored! And I run upon my father and was ready to choke him blue and push him over to the ground. But God held me back and I said I forgive you, Hombre, dick-poisoned
padre
, dick-sick Hombre, I turn you over to God and
Jesucristo
, Father and Son, do you hear me, I forgive you. Johna gazed at me with old eyes of a serpent and put out herself a little to me and showed a little more of it to me. I held my
Biblia
against my heart that was beating so hard could have knocked open the doors of St. Paul's prison that he excaped out of in a basket or who was that, was that St. Peter, or when an angel come with a key and opened the prison door; or was it an earthquake—so many stories in
La Biblia Blanca
, cain't get em straight—was it an earthquake that shook the prison and shook open the doors of the prison and broke off chains of the prisoners. And the jailer woke up and saw the prison shook open and tried to kill himself with his sword because he thought that the prisoners had excaped but Pablo Paul called out jailer do not kill yourself, because we are all here.
No
te hagas ningún mal, pués todos estamos aquí
. We have not excaped. And then
el carcelero
the jailer come arunnin and fell down at Pablo's feet and said
que debo hacer para ser salvo?
What do I have to do to be saved? And Pablo answered believe in
Jesucristo
and you shall be saved. And so Pablo baptized the jailer and all his family.