Arcadio (4 page)

When the white book was handed to me I went with it to Eddy and said what is this book? The Bible said he. The word written down of God. Show me how to read it I said. Eddy was not courteous to do it and besides since he was
un ateo
atheist; but I said you are my friend how did you read who learned you how to read? And Eddy said what good did it do me?
Por
favor
Eddy I says, for your mother's sake. Her? said Eddy. Eddy was so bitter at everything. But he loved me and I give him the promise of tenderness, to touch me sometime because I knew how lonesome the pore Dwarft was and how he loved me, and because he could read. As a swap for reading out to me I let him handle me. Eddy was a hot little lonely Dwarft and I loved God and wanted to read his words. That was the bargain.

Our first lesson went sweet and I listened to the Dwarft read right out about the making of the world, of the moon and of the stars and waters. His little goose voice. He was surprising gentle when we studied reading together, surprising sweet and did have
la paciencia
. But he would not believe the stories of the book, he said. Why you hate God so much? I asked him. God is
posiblemente
a Dwarft, had you ever thought? Eddy Gonzales laughed so much and rolled like a clown and rocked his big head in his little hands and then stopped quiet and said, and maybe He is a half-man half-woman, and rolled and laughed and rocked his big head some more; and when he stopped I says, maybe. What's so fuckin funny?

At night when the Show was through and I was alone in my wagon with Junipero Perro the sweet white Mescan jumping dog, I told out from my
Biblia Blanca
as if I was areading it. I got
más y más
astounded, more and more. Junipero Perro was a very quiet
oyente
listener. God may be a white Mescan jumping dog, I says to him. And as the Show rode all day on the road toward another town, I told out from the white book like Eddy had read it to me. Sometimes I read out from it to my friends Eddy and Josie Ella in the chow tent, but of course not the old Shanks. Sometimes they intently listened, sometimes they was restless. I told them they could never set still like I had to in the Show. You jump and roll all over, I told Eddy the Dwarft, you don know about staying still; and you, I said, Josie Ella, you thrash and fling at your xylophone. I have to stay still, in the gazing stillness. Now let me read out and let me make some sound from my throat, for God's sake, I am not a
mudo
I have a tongue and can speak. But Eddy the Dwarft answered to me tell it in church I am an atheist why would I want to believe in a God that made a Dwarft with one of his hands like the fin of a fuckin fish? Well I says this is God's world and he hath made it, this white book has told me so and in Mescan so He made the Mescans too and He made the combinations and mixtures,
mestizos
of a dark and secret kind. Why not the Dwarfts? You got a better thing, said Eddy. Of
course
you can praise God and read out of the Bible. I drag my butt on the ground when I walk and have a fish's fin for a goddam hand. And my friend Josie Ella was
igualmente
not interested. She was a plain woman—when she took off the silvery wig—that sewed at night in the kitchen tent after the Show, drinking black coffee. She did not want to go to sleep for fear that her hands would harden. Besides she said Flora the lady cook that shared her wagon smelt of Irish potatoes. But once when she put too much brandy in the black coffee she told me that the reason she would not sleep was because she was afraid to die. She slept in cat sleeps in the kitchen sittin up. As long as I knew Josie Ella she had not finished somethin she was sewing on, she made so many mistakes and had to unravel. But she told us that she had to keep her hands movin all the time could not let them harden, for the xylophone of the Show; yet she made many a mistake and Shanks cursed at her and said twas because of all the black coffee and no sleep on her back, pore Josie Ella had her problems, too, like the rest of all of us.

Some of the wondrous things that I read out was about the big lions standing back from Daniel and did not bite or eat him, can you believe it,
amigo?
God sent an angel that shut the lions' mouths. The
feroz
lions was so impressed with the
angel
that they looked upon him with gentleness. Look there in the book and you will read it,
Oyente
, listener, you will see.
La Biblia dice que sí
. I said this to Emperor Colombo the “Lion Tamer” (ha! I have to laugh) that worked in the Show with old Heracles I told this wondrous story to him and Emperor Colombo said I don't give a shit. And oh of the proud King that ate grass for seven years. Says that his body was wet with dew of the grass and his hair grew long as eagle's feathers and his nails, the King's nails, was like birds' claws.
El rey orgulloso
, the proud King become a beast of the field and ate grass with the oxen, for his nasty pride. If you don believe me look in there, in
La Biblia
and you'll see it, what I'm tellin, you'll read it,
amigo, La Biblia dice que sí
. The Bible says so.
Pero
some do not believe. Unless, they say, I can see in his hands the print of the nails, I will not believe, see
los manos perforados con clavos
and put my finger into the print of the nails, I will not believe, and thrust my hand into his side, into
el costado perforado con lanzas
, with the swords his side was cut open, I will not believe (John 20:24). Well, then, behold my hands, says
Jesucristo;
reach out your finger and touch my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, he said in the book. Because you've seen me, now you believe. But blessed are they that have
not
seen and yet believe,
Mire los manos perforados con clavos, mire los pies perforados con clavos, mire el costado perforado con lanzas, mire el frente perforado con espinas. Mire el cuerpo de Jesucristo
. Here is the body of Jesus Christ.

And says that there was once upon a time a stranger that nobody knew come into a rich town and nobody would give him any
hospitalidad
, closed their door on him when he knocked and asked for hospitality.
Finalmente
some poor people that were thrown out by the rich and selfish town that would not give welcome to strange visitors,
por ultimo
these poor outcasts of the
barrio
took him in and give him shelter. And in the middle of the night twas a terrible earthquake and storm of fire and when the poor people run to where the strange guest was sleeping they saw that he was a beautiful
angel
and the
angel
said do not have fear but follow me out of this damned town of
inhospitalidad
which is going to be blown up and burned down because of its sin of
inhospitalidad
. And they followed out the
angel
from the town to the top of a hill and heard a great esplosion and turned and looked down upon the town burnin and blowin up to destruction. If you do not believe this story, look there, in the Bible, and you'll see it, what I'm tellin you, you'll read it. Be kind to strangers and take them in and do not turn away strangers who knock on your door and give them somethin to eat if they ask for it and give them shelter, they may be a very
angel. La Biblia, La Biblia Blanca dice que sí
. So
compadre, Oyente
, if anybody does not welcome you, turn and go away from them and shake the dust of their house and of their town and of them off your feet and go on your path to where you are agoin. This is what the Bible tells us.

And if I could tell one more, about the pool of water that the
angel
troubled and then it cured the affliction of the afflicted; but that a paralyzed man laid there by the pool for thirty-eight years waiting for this
angel
to move the waters, waitin for the movin of the water. Because he had no one to help him into the waters when they moved and others pushed in front of him, this paralyzed man never could get into the healing waters. When
Jesucristo
come and heard this man's story he told him to just forget trying to get into the water and just to get up and take his cot and walk and not wait on the water. The man did this and walked off with his cot, to his amazement. But the
policía
of the town arrested him for carrying his bed in the street on the Sabbath and then the man said but I've been paralyzed on this cot for thirty-eight years and today a man come and healed me up on my feet from this very damned cot. Who is this man? the
policía
asked, and the man said I don know, he left. Tell it to the judge, the
policía
said and led the once-paralyzed man on off, awalking, towards the judge. But then they saw a man acomin and it was the man and the once-paralyzed man said yonder he is that's the one, and when the
policía
asked the man if he was the one and he said yes and they said what is your name the man said
Jesucristo
, this man has been forgiven of his sins and now walks, let him alone. And to the man he said go on, now, you are free, and be of help to others. And finally to
la policía
he said the spirit heals but the letter killeth. I do not know esactly what that means but I get the gist. But you can read it in the book I'm tellin you about, this is what the Bible says,
La Biblia dice que sí
, that Eddy Gonzales the Mescan Dwarft learned me to tell out of, almost as if I was areading it.

NOW TO
GET
BACK TO
where I left off, to tell my mother's story as twas told by her to me on the night of my excape. Chupa said that she run away from my father Hombre crazy from his drunkenness and his mean violence on her. One night said she just run crazy out the door into the night, didn't know where, didn't care. My father tore her dress off her back trying to keep her but my mother Chupa run on. She run down the dark road and stopped by a pond and climbed up into a tree and curled in there to hide in the deep tree, and said she heard all night the terrible sobbing of the bullfrogs in the pond. Because she loved my
papá
Hombre, she said, and always would. He was a man nobody could ever leave, just get away from. I've never let him go in my heart but had to get away, big sonafobitch
cabrón
tearing me to pieces and biting at my neck like a big snake. I felt like a big snake had a hold of me, she told me. I ought to know what kind of a snake he was, I said. Maybe I'll tell you
my
story of him. Lived with him longer than you did. What else could I do? Chupa asked me from so deep in her throat I couldn't almost hear her.
Su
padre era un hombre bárbaro
, made you on me when was
loco
from uppers and beer. Where was it? I wanted to know. The room was in a Texas river town in a rayroad boardinghouse, I was a bride. That's where your father Hombre made you on me.
Loco
on me, a wonder I didn't get you in my throat. That's all he wanted from me, I begun soon to see that. Five years he punched babies into me and I didn't hold them in me, three babies I didn't hold from him before I run away. But you stayed, I kept you inside me. A lotta good it did me, I said, that you kept me inside of you, you left me, you didn't take me with you, I scowled her. Wished you didn't hold me like those other three you didn't keep inside you that was the way I felt a long long time
mi madre
but now I've changed, where have you been in all the long meantime since you kept me inside of you? Said she was in lots of towns, New Orleans, Shrevesport, El Paso, Memphis, Napa, California. I don wan hear the towns, I said. But what would two have done on the roads and in the towns if one could hardly make it—and one of them a little kid of five?
Mi
madre
esplained to me. How would I know? I shrugged.

Who are our kinfolks among the Mescans I asked
mi madre
who was your Mescan
madre
who was your
padre? Indios
she said and I said what is that what is an
Indio?
Old people of the race, said
mi madre. La Raza. Los Antiguos
that was told to me by
mi abuela
my old grandmother Lupe Luisa. Said
La Raza
the race
es muy antigua
. Would not die nobody could wipe them out, said
mi madre
. Once the whole
raza
was eaten up by coyotes. Next time a great huge wind blew all
La Raza
away, and then next rain of fire and next flood of great water. But we went on,
los Indios
. This is what my grandmother told me about us Mescans Chupa said. I do not know any more except that the
Españoles
Spaniards cut off the head of my grandmother's grandfather when my grandmother was a little girl and put it in a cage and hung it on the
plaza
. My mother's story made me feel very old and lost
perdido
is our word for it. Where are your mother and father, I asked Chupa. I do not know, she said.
Quién sabe? No me importa
. Would you like me to go with you to hunt for them? No, she said. What am I, I asked my mother.
Mestizo
, she told me. Mixed. Half and half. Are you
mestiza?
I asked Chupa
mi madre
. Pureblooded, she said. And do not ask more questions.

Because when
mi madre
Chupa run off
Papá
and I lived in a whorehouse over a Chinese restaurant by a dead river in Memphis, Tennessee,
China Boy
was name of it if you wan hear it, you wan hear it? Twas owned by a seventy-year-old fox name of Shuang Boy, not a bad man in hisself but a cutthroat woman dealer. Had the gist of sex like a hot fox, could deal in it as if twas canned tomatoes, was a crackerjack storekeeper, ace salesman of it—and I don mean canned tomatoes. That's somethin you cain't can. That's somethin you cain't can, or Shuang Boy would've, that Chinaman would've sold it in a can if could've. I was never sure what my
papá
did for Shuang Boy but I guess he was a kind of a strawboss of his women. My
papá
Hombre walked around naked with's can of beer in his hands is all I saw him do. I looked upon my father's nakedness. Whenever I asked him about
mi madre
he let go such a swearin that I'd hide under somethin until he cooled off. Then he'd say ‘Cadio ‘Cadio where have you gone? Commere you little sonofabitch, didn't mean to scare you away, commere I'll give you a ice-cold Coca-Cola, why you shiverin so? But all day I'd turn away from him and wouldn't say a word. I planned to run away, partly to be alone and to be away from him and partly to try and find my mother. But my
papá
had his good side to him and then he could be a sweet man, and gentle; blue man, though, blue and soft man when he wasn't drinkin. You wan hear it?
Mi padre
Hombre took me to buy me white shoes for Easter and took me to the vaudeville show at the
Memphis Sunshine
on a rainy Sunday afternoon where the bubblin colored lights bubbled in the Memphis rain, give me a feelin for runnin away to a place that would be like the colored bubbles in the rainy air of hot Memphis, Tennessee.