On the Other Side of the Bridge (17 page)

“No, sir. I was just asking …”

“I ain't stupid. Like I said, I made a lot of bad decisions, but that wasn't one of them.”

“What about your family? Were you married? Do you have children?”

“Yeah, I got a wife and a daughter somewhere, but I ain't seen them in years.”

“What about your job? What kind of work did you do?”

Moses paused for a moment, as if he was probing his mind for a forgotten memory. “I worked at a furniture store warehouse,” he said. “Made a good living out of it, too.”

“Did you lose your job 'cause of your drinking?”

“Naw. The place shut down and everybody got laid off. But it was the drink that kept me from finding more work.” Moses looked up at the sky. The clouds had begun to grow dark and thick. “We'd better go inside before it starts to rain.”

“Inside? Where?” Lonnie asked, looking around Catfish Creek.

“C'mon, I'll show you.”

Moses led him down to the edge of the water. Then they crossed over to the other side by stepping on large stones. They walked up a grassy hill and went through an opening in the underbrush, which looked like a long tunnel.

When they reached the end, Lonnie saw a white stone building with a wooden arched doorway, like those in storybook houses. It struck him odd that in all the times he had been to Catfish Creek, he had never noticed the building.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Welcome to the Hold, kid,” Moses said. “You wanted to know where I live. Well, this is it.” He opened the door, and a strong odor, like the smell of wet newspapers mixed with the stench of urine and feces wafted out. “Yeah, I know. It takes some getting used to,” he added, when he saw the look on Lonnie's face.

Inside the Hold, dozens of haggard-looking homeless men, women and children wandered about, moaning and wailing, like unrepentant sinners condemned to hell. The building, empty of furniture, was littered with old mattresses, cardboard boxes and shopping carts. A gray patch of light, filled with dancing dust particles, seeped from a small window high above a wall. The only other source of light came from a metal barrel at the end of the room, crowned with flames. Several men stood around it, tossing pieces of wood inside the barrel to keep the fire going.

From the darkness, an old man with no legs rolled toward them on a wheelchair. He wore a camouflage cap and a camouflage jacket. Two plastic American flags were duct-taped to the back of his wheelchair.

“We got us a visitor, J.D.,” Moses told him. “I don't know what his name is, though.”

“That's okay,” the old man said to Lonnie. “He don't know my name, either.”

“But he just called you J.D.”

“J.D.'s short for John Doe,” the old man answered with a cackle, followed by a hacking cough.

“So what's your real name?”

“It don't matter. I've gone by so many names that one's just as good as the other.”

“I've seen you before,” Lonnie told him. “On Sterling Boulevard. You wheel yourself up and down the sidewalk, holding a sign that says HOMELESS VIETNAM VET.”

Moses laughed. “J.D. ain't no Vietnam vet. He ain't never even been in the military.”

J.D. certainly looked like a military veteran—a veteran who had fallen on hard times.

“Diabetes ate up my legs,” J.D. confessed. “But folks are more likely to give me money if they think I lost them in the war than if I tell them the truth.”

“So in other words, you're just conning people into giving you money,” Lonnie said bluntly.

“What are you? A Polly Pureheart?” J.D. coughed again, then spat a greenish loogie on the floor. “You think I panhandle 'cause I'm trying to get rich off other folks? 'Cause I like it? Let me tell you something, sonny boy. You don't go through life doing only the things you wanna do. You do whatever you gotta do to survive, whether you like it or not, you understand? It's just something that's gotta be did.”

A booming clap of thunder rattled the walls, followed by a
pat-pat-pat-pat
striking the roof.

J.D. cocked his head. “Sounds like it's starting to shoot rain. C'mon, let's go to the other side where the roof don't leak.”

Moses took the handles of J.D.'s wheelchair and pushed him across the room while Lonnie walked behind them.

All of a sudden, a hand reached out from the shadows and grabbed his arm. A Mexican woman, wrapped in a black shawl, cried out desperately, “
Ayúdanos, por favor. Mis hijos tienen mucha hambre
. Please help us. My children are very hungry.”

Tugging himself away, Lonnie said, “
Lo siento, pero no tengo dinero
. I'm sorry, but I don't have any money.”

More hands reached out and yanked at his clothes—tiny hands with razor-sharp claws. “
¡Hambre! ¡Hambre! ¡Hambre!
Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!”

Lonnie looked down and saw a pack of little kids, no older than four or five. Their jaws snapped open as they
tried to sink their pointy fangs into him.
“¡Hambre! ¡Hambre! ¡Hambre!
”

“J.D.! Moses! Help!” Lonnie screamed, but they had disappeared into the darkness.

“¡Hambre! ¡Hambre! ¡Hambre!”

The little monsters dragged him down to the floor and crawled on top of him, biting and clawing at his face, his arms and his body.

Lonnie opened his eyes. He sat up in his bed. No, it wasn't his bed. Where was he?

His dad's snoring brought him back to reality. They were in a room at a place called the Twin Oaks Motel, and Lonnie was lying on the double bed next to his dad's.

He got up to use the restroom, and then returned to bed, no longer sleepy.

The week after Thanksgiving, he and his dad moved their possessions from their house to a public storage shed that was too small to hold everything, but it was all they could afford. Whatever didn't fit—a couch, Lonnie's bedroom furniture, the china cabinet and the dining room set—was divided between Joe and Mario, who squeezed them inside their garages. Lonnie and his dad spent their last night at the house sleeping on the floor.

The following day, Lonnie's dad picked him up from school and drove him to their new residence, a white stone building with brown trim. The paint was peeling off in places, and the roof looked as if it was about to cave in. The motel parking lot was cratered with pot holes, and Lonnie's dad had to drive carefully to avoid them.

He had chosen the Twin Oaks Motel because it was the least ratty place he could find for the price. Lonnie hated to have seen what the other motels his dad scouted out looked like.

Although the outside appeared as if it was ready for demolition, their room was surprisingly decent. It had two double beds, a dresser with a TV sitting on top, a nightstand, a table with two chairs, a small fridge and a microwave. But it wasn't home. It would never be home.

“We're just gonna stay here for a few days, that's all,” Lonnie's dad said. “I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Until you find a job,” Lonnie said critically.

“Look, buddy, I know you're mad at me, and I guess you got a right to be. But I ain't doing this on purpose. This is the best I can do right now, so don't knock it, okay? Things are gonna get better. You just have to be patient.”

“I'll try not to hold my breath waiting,” Lonnie muttered and walked out the door.

He was sick of him. Lonnie didn't know what his dad's problem was. He had been out of work for almost a year. Surely he could have found something by now. Anything! Lonnie had begun to wonder if his dad was really trying to find a job. Or could it be that he didn't want to work. Maybe he was just plain lazy.

Lonnie's mother used to think so. She would constantly nag her husband because he wouldn't help clean the house.

“I'm not your slave, Richard. A marriage is a partnership, and you need to do your share of the work around here.”

“I do my share. More than my share. You think trucking's easy? Try it for a week, and see if you still think I don't do my share of the work.”

“I'm talking about housework, Richard.”

“That's your responsibility. I don't do women's work.”

The motel didn't have a lobby, only a small office with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign on the door. Next to the office door was a counter with a bullet-proof glass window and a small arched opening where transactions were conducted.

Around the corner of the building, a green sign with white lettering was screwed onto the wall, listing the Twin Oaks Motel rules:

NO TRESPASSING

NO LOITERING

NO WEAPONS

NO PROSTITUTION

NO DRUG DEALING

NO PUBLIC ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

If Cousin Rita was to see the sign, Lonnie could imagine her saying, “Oh, my
gatos
!”

If his mother knew where they were now living, he could picture her turning to his dad and saying, “My God, Richard. What have you done?”

W
HEN THEY LIVED IN THEIR HOUSE
, Lonnie could hole up in his room for hours, doing his homework, watching TV, listening to music or talking on the phone. But in their cramped motel room, where they had been staying for the past two weeks, there was no place he could be alone, except for a tiny bathroom he had to share with his dad.

Concentrating on his studies was almost impossible because his dad had the TV on all the time. He would lie on top of his bed, drinking beer, while Lonnie sat at the table, trying to get his assignments done.

Since they didn't have a stove or a regular oven, their meals consisted mainly of sandwiches and microwaveable foods. On occasion, Lonnie's dad would send him to the nearby Taco Bell or McDonald's to pick up something for them to eat.

At one time, Lonnie couldn't wait for school to end. As soon as classes let out, he would hurry out of the building and race home. Now, Wyatt Middle School had become his only place of refuge, and he dreaded having to be picked up from there, only to be driven back to the hell-hole known as the Twin Oaks Motel.

Axel told Lonnie he had seen a FOR RENT sign in front of his house and wanted to know why he hadn't mentioned that they had moved.

“We decided to move, that's all.”

“Oh, yeah. Lots of sad memories there, right?” Axel said sympathetically.

“I guess you could say that.”

“So where are you living now?”

“It's kind of far,” Lonnie said. “Listen, I'd rather not talk about it 'cause our place is out of district, and I don't want the office to find out where we live, or they might make me transfer to another school in the middle of the year.”

“Gotcha, man. I won't say anything.”

Christmas break was coming up, which worried Lonnie because it meant that he would be spending every minute of each day in the motel room with his dad, like prison inmates, with nothing to do.

Hate is too strong a word for how Lonnie felt toward his dad. He didn't hate him, but he did hate what he was doing to them with the choices he was making.

A perfect solution dangled within his grasp. His dad could still swallow his pride and admit to his family that they needed help. Then they could move to Abilene and live with his parents in their four-bedroom house. They could each have their own room, and Lonnie could go to school with his cousins, while his dad looked for a job, either in Abilene or in nearby towns, like Eastland or Ranger. But each time Lonnie brought up the idea, his dad shot it down.

With each passing day, Lonnie's resentment toward him continued to grow. His dad had become a fat, pathetic man, always stinking of beer and body odor. He hadn't shaved for weeks, and his hair had grown down to his shoulders. No wonder he couldn't find a job. If Lonnie was the boss of a company, he wouldn't hire him, either.

He recalled a phone conversation he once heard between his mother and his grandma Salinas in which his mother was complaining about her husband.

“We're drifting apart, Mami. Richard acts like he's still in high school, and sometimes I feel as if I'm raising two kids instead of one.”

Lonnie now understood what she had been going through. He used to think his dad was real cool. His dad would say a lot of stupid, silly things that would make Lonnie's mother groan, but they always cracked Lonnie up. Whenever his dad ran errands, he would invite Lonnie to go with him, and he loved to tag along.

They shared common interests: horror movies, TV shows, comic books and sports. His dad had taught him how to play the guitar, and even though Lonnie wasn't good at it, his dad made him feel as if he was the best musician in the world.

Looking back, Lonnie realized that the reason his dad had been so much fun to be with was because he had turned over all parental responsibilities to his wife. He had been more interested in being Lonnie's buddy than a dad. But if God had intended for him to be his buddy, he would have made him his age.

What Lonnie needed was a parent who would look after him, who would make sure he was well-taken care of. Yet somewhere along the way, their roles had been reversed. Lonnie had become the dad, and his dad had become the irresponsible, unmotivated, thirteen-year-old.

They weren't living; they simply existed. They were like zombies, wandering around aimlessly. Without purpose. Without promise. Without hope.

More than once, Lonnie considered calling his grandparents Rodríguez to make them aware of their situation.
Yet, despite their living conditions, he couldn't betray his dad. He couldn't go behind his back. His dad had gotten them into this mess, and one way or another, he was going to have to get them out of it.

Hoping to find something that would bring him comfort, Lonnie leafed through a Gideon's Bible he found in the nightstand drawer in their motel room. He thought about church. As much as he hated going there, he had begun to miss it. It may have been merely his desire to escape from his one-room prison cell, but Lonnie felt an urge to return to Mrs. Finley's Sunday school class. And after Sunday school, he would sit in the sanctuary during the preaching and not sneak off to Catfish Creek.