Dorothea Dreams (Heirloom Books) (13 page)

Right away the meeting went sour. It was like a jinx, Roberto thought. His mother had only agreed to let Mr. Escobar use her living room because he was Mina’s godfather and because Father Leo was supposed to come. But Father Leo had an emergency call on Thomas Street, and only about seven people showed up anyhow. Now Jake Maestas was saying they couldn’t really get started until something else got straight first.

Which turned out to be something about Pete Archuletta. Everybody sat crowded into the little front room, looking at Pete. He was not the kind of guy who went to meetings anyhow. He was usually out of work, got into fights a lot, and disappeared for days at a time, nobody knew where or what for.

Jake said, “What’s this construction outfit that gave you this new plastering job, Pete?”

Pete stared back at him. He had plaster dust in his hair still. “J & K Builders, and I been working there almost three months now. Why?”

“Because in Santa Fe we looked up J & K Builders, and the same guys that run that company are on the board of Valley Reconstruction.”

“Valley Reconstruction?” Pete said loudly. “What’s that?”

“You should know,” Mr. Escobar said. “You sold your house to them five months ago. And they’re the ones that’s trying to buy all the places on the street, dirt-cheap, through this ‘inspector.’”

Pete Archuletta stood up. He wasn’t very tall, but he had the reputation of being a mean fighter. Roberto avoided his mother’s anxious eyes and moved closer to the kitchen door. He could see the knives hanging over the sink. His stomach throbbed faintly with tension.

“Who says I sold my house?” Pete Archuletta said.

Rudolfo Escobar, who was little and round and bald, said in the same dry voice, “The papers are on file. The sale is recorded, Pete. It’s a matter of public record.”

Archuletta’s face went dark with a flush of anger. “What the hell gives anybody the right to stick their goddamn nose into my business? It’s my own business if I want to go and sell my own house!”

Mr. Vallejo said harshly from the wicker chair in the corner where he sat, “Sure. And all of a sudden along comes a nice job for you so now you can afford those fancy boots you’re wearing, and that’s your business too. I think they gave you the job to keep your mouth shut. Nobody’s heard till now that you sold your place, Pete, the place you’re still living in. Nobody’s heard you asking around for a new place to move to — have they?” Heads shook, there were negative murmurs around the room. “Maybe that is other people’s business. Why are you trying to keep the sale a secret?”

Archuletta glared around at them all, his thumbs stuck into his belt. He took up a lot of space in the crowded room.

“These buyers offered me good money and I took it, that’s all. A job comes along, I take that too. None of it’s anybody’s concern but mine, you hear? And if I want to take my time finding a new place, that’s nothing to do with anybody else either. I don’t have to stand here and listen to a lot of goddamn accusations. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to have done that’s hurt anybody.”

Roberto put his own sweating hands into his pockets. His mom would have a fit if there was a fight here and things got busted — lamps, pictures, anything. He wasn’t so scared for himself, not really. He’d been working out with Martín Maestas, lifting weights in the yard. Too bad Mina wasn’t here now. She’d see if it was all a lot of nothing.

Mrs. Ruiz said, “Sit down, Pete, don’t run away.”

Archuletta began fiercely, “Listen,
mujer—”

Old Mr. Garduño banged on the floor with the tip of his cane. He said in his husky voice, “I guess I better say this before anybody else does. I was the first one to jump on the young men for closing the street. That’s because I sold my place last month. This ‘inspector’ is supposed to come around here with some papers and some money for me. I didn’t want anybody stopping him from delivering. I sold to those same people, Valley Reconstruction.”

Wow, Roberto thought, how did they get him to sell? Mr. Garduño was a mean and stubborn old man, not a pushover. Roberto had grown up to the sounds of Mr. Garduño’s kids yelling when he whipped them with his belt.

Mr. Lopez said to Mr. Garduño, “But you’ve lived here all your life, Tomaso. Why sell to anybody? Where will you go?”

“I’m getting too old to live by myself,” Mr. Garduño said. He shifted his twisted hands on the head of his cane. “You need a lot of money to get into a decent home for old people.”

“A home!” Mrs. Ruiz cried. “But what about your relatives, your kids!”

“Don’t tell me about them,” the old man snapped, “I wouldn’t live with any of those bums.”

Mrs. Ruiz — pug-nosed, hair combed high on her head — gave Mr. Garduño a look of outrage. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “You’d go to one of those old people’s places? Why not ask your neighbors to come in and help once in a while? People would do it, if they knew you needed help. You don’t have to leave the street.”

Mr. Garduño shook his head. “There maybe won’t be any people here, not people I know, and I’ve got no special love for Pinto Street. It’s just a place I live. Besides, I’d rather pay money to professionals. That way you know what you’re getting.” He gave a hitch to the crease of his faded pants. “The thing of it is, I feel like I’ve been had by those bastards. They’re paying me chicken-feed compared to what they can make off this street if they buy up the whole thing and rebuild. They’re giving me a goddamn tip.”

Pete Archuletta, who had slowly sunk back into his seat, said angrily, “You can feel like a fool if you want, Garduño. I got a good price for my place.”

“You think so?” Mr. Garduño looked him in the eye. “Well, I got twenty-two thousand for mine, half down and half when I vacate.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Mr. Ortega said, “For that shack? I just put on a new porch and a new water heater, and they only offered me seventeen-fifty!”

Mrs., Ruiz stared from face to face. “My God,” she said, “how many people on this street have already sold out?” Her sister, anxious-looking herself, patted Mrs. Ruiz’s arm.

Mr. Escobar said, “I don’t think we should talk any more about this with Pete here. Anything we decide, he’ll just run and tell these Valley Reconstruction people.”

“That’s right, he’s a spy,” Mrs. Ruiz said. “Get out, spy. Nobody wants you here.”

Everybody stared at Pete Archuletta. Oh shit he’s going to fight, Roberto thought. The Maestas brothers thought so too: they stood up. Roberto saw his mother lean over to whisper anxiously to Mr. Escobar. Roberto avoided looking at his mother. His mouth was dry. Nerves. Pete would have a knife on him, maybe worse. He was only one guy, but even one knife can do a lot of damage. I’m ready, he thought. I can’t leave it all to the Maestas, this is my house, my Mom’s place. I’m ready.

Pete shrugged contemptuously. “I don’t stay where I’m not wanted,” he said. “You could all learn a lesson from that.” He stomped out, slamming the front door behind him.

“All right,” Jake Maestas said, when everybody had settled back down again, “we need to think about what we can do to save our street. If just a few of us refuse to sell, whatever these sharks have already bought up won’t be worth a damn to them. Can you imagine some fancy Anglo family paying a hundred thousand dollars to come live next to the Ortegas’ place, or Tom Chavez with his goats?”

People laughed, nervous laughs.

Roberto chewed his thumbnail and tuned out the talk. He felt jittery and let-down, getting ready for a brawl like that and then ending up with nothing but more damn talk. He looked admiringly at Martín Maestas’s strong chest and shoulders under the tight t-shirt and he wondered if maybe Martín might go for a little trip to the offices of this J & K Builders company. No spray-paint cans, either. Crowbars, maybe a pick-axe and some sledge-hammers, bash the place apart.

Somebody had to do something besides talk.

Blanca and her mother got back from the clinic and found Father Leo waiting on the porch. While the two adults sat in the front room to talk, Blanca made lemonade in the kitchen. From here she could listen to what they had to say.

After the stiff greetings and vague comments on the weather, Father Leo got down to what was bothering him: that stupid meeting, of course. It really bugged Blanca that she’d missed that, being sick and all. The asthma made her miss out on everything interesting.

The priest had a pleasing, mellow voice that Blanca liked. To look at he was nothing much: a small, quiet man with a perpetually worried look that didn’t say a whole lot for the comfort he got from the faith he represented. People respected him as a dutiful and concerned priest, though Blanca had heard elderly neighbors sigh over the loss of old Father Diego to a different parish.

Father Leo came seldom to the Cantu house, maybe because when he did, he always ended up lecturing Mom. Blanca’s mother had sworn not to go to church ever again until Blanca’s asthma went away. She sent her kids, of course, but she stayed home herself. She said God had loaded her with more trouble than was fair, and she would not be argued out of it. Father Leo was no match for her. Blanca took pride in this.

Today he was complaining, in that sad, roundabout way he had, how the people Mr. Escobar had asked over here had carried on their meeting without their priest’s presence and even had decided things, things having to do with a wedding that he himself was going to perform, without asking him. Cecilia Baca was getting married, and everybody was going to go to the party afterward in the big field across the street, next to the new YMCA construction. Pinto Street Protection had decided to use the amplifying equipment of the party’s band to talk to everybody about the problem of the fake inspections and the land-grab that was going on.

“It’s not suitable,” the priest was saying. “I’m very disappointed by what happened here in my absence, Mrs. Cantu, and I’m trying to communicate that to everyone who came. We have other ways to handle this problem. Our political people, the city government —”

Blanca knew the answers. Great-uncle Tilo and Mr. Escobar had been chewing it over together practically every night on the porch since the meeting. The politicals weren’t interested, they said; they couldn’t be trusted; they didn’t have the clout. The city government had already said they would “look into” the question of the false inspections, but everybody knew what that meant: the round-file, the waste-basket. And the man in Santa Fe had kept Mr. Escobar and Jake waiting for two hours and then only made the same kind of promises.

She whacked the can-opener on the countertop; the thing stuck all the time. There, done: the container came open. Now she had to shave the frozen plug of lemonade to be able to fit it into the neck of the bottle.

She heard Father Leo shift his ground. He didn’t approve of some of the membership of the Protection society. He didn’t approve, to be exact, of the Maestas brothers, and he was unhappy to see Roberto Cantu hanging around with them. They were older, ex-convicts, trouble-makers. They would drag Roberto into trouble with them.

Mom protested that she couldn’t get Roberto to listen to her any more, he was too big.

Well, the priest said sadly, he was not surprised to hear that. “You must realize that in a household where the mother avoids her church and its authority in her own life, the children lose their respect not only for that church but for all authority, including their own mother’s.”

Here they go, Blanca thought. Nothing would be said that she had not heard a dozen times before. She licked up a dollop of the frozen concentrate that had slid down the side of the mixing-bottle. The sharp, icy taste made her shiver delightedly. She vigorously shook the bottle. Each time she stopped to uncap it and stir the contents with a spoon, she could hear the argument proceeding.

“Make a promise, Mrs. Cantu, promise something to God if He would mercifully decide to lift the burden of Blanca’s sickness. Think of that young man who promised to walk to Santa Fe if his wife at last conceived a child. God heard, and now that young man has a beautiful daughter and the pleasure of showing our Heavenly Father his gratitude.”

The low voice of Blanca’s mother: “I made my promise, Father, when my Eddie went into the marines, and you see what came out of that.”

Blanca’s father had been killed in an incident on the border between North and South Korea. Probably Mom didn’t even remember him any more, she just had these habits of thinking and talking about him. Blanca didn’t remember. Beto sometimes pretended that he did, which Blanca was sure was just an act. Beto could be such a jerk. Mina did remember, but wouldn’t talk about it.