Seeing Off the Johns (17 page)

“So you want me to just pretend—” Chon said loudly, sitting up like he was getting ready for a battle.

“Yes.” She cut him off. “I want you to just pretend. I want you to pretend like you don't feel what you feel and I don't feel what I feel. I want you to pretend I never kissed you, like you don't look at me the way you do. If I can pretend, then why can't you?”

“Because it's bullshit. Why should I lie to myself? Why should we lie? Because it's easier? That's bullshit. I have wanted to be with you for a really long time. And I knew I was probably never going to have a chance with you under normal circumstances, but I got the chance. I got to spend time with you, and I learned how much I really do like you—you, not what you look like or how popular you are. And, even crazier than anything else, you like me. So why not try? Why not get you a cheap piece of jewelry and give it to you, praying that you want it, that you'll want what it means?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Araceli said, her voice breaking. “Because it would just totally fuck up my whole world for the next three months, maybe? Everybody will talk.”

“They already talk,” Chon said.

“You don't understand what it's like,” she said.

“We've been hanging out all year,” he told her. “You don't understand. You're so used to everyone staring at you and paying attention to you that you don't notice it anymore. I'm used to being invisible, but I've gotten used to being seen. It wasn't easy and I don't like it, but I got used to it.”

They caught a red at the stoplight as they pulled into town. There was a car next to them, full of kids who were classmates of Chon and Araceli. Every single head in the car was turned toward them. Araceli Monsevais was crying and that guy she'd been
hanging out with lately seemed to have made it happen. They stared, their mouths dropped open

“Well, then, you don't know what it'll be like for me,” she said. “You can't say you know what it'll be like for me.”

The light turned green. Araceli peeled out, leaving the kids to cross through the intersection at a lazy, day-off-from-school pace, talking about what they'd seen, guessing what it could have meant, making up a handful of stories and arguing about which one was most likely to be true as they drove up and down Main until dinner time. Araceli pulled into the Pachanga parking lot. She parked the Suburban behind the store, catty-corner to the drive up window.

“I guess I just figured that however hard it would be on you, it would be easier because we would be together,” Chon told her.

He got out of the Suburban. In an attempt to not slam the passenger door in anger, he hadn't closed it properly. He opened it and shut it again. It was hot out. It reminded him that he was corporeal, not just a walking ball of feelings. His body, now with him again, felt weak. He wanted to drive home where he could get into bed to rest his hurting bones. He had left the necklace on the dashboard.

Araceli opened her door and stepped out.

“Your CD,” she said. “You forgot your CD.”

She climbed down from her seat and met him where he stood. She held out the gift. When he grabbed it from her with both hands, she kissed him. He looked down at her, searching her eyes for some indication of what it meant. Was she going to cry again? Was this the kind of kiss that signals the end of something that never was. Or was it the other, better, harder to define kind?

In her eyes, he found his answer. He wrapped his arms around her, and she held
onto him—looking up at him, trying to register all of the information that was being relayed and process all of the changes that would result from the look that they were sharing. It meant not only that they were together. It meant she was not alone. It was her fear—when she had considered being with Chon—that he would confuse the two, that he might feel that she was with him just to be with someone so she wasn't alone. But he showed her then that he knew the difference, he understood she wanted to be with him and that made whatever they would come to face in town small and manageable, almost even negligible. Almost.

“Wait,” she said.

She went to the Suburban, turned up the music, and grabbed his gift.

“Help me put this on,” she said. She handed him the box. He took the necklace out and unclasped it. She held up her hair and he fastened the thin gold chain behind her neck.

“It's beautiful,” she told him and took hold of him again.

He held her close and they danced, eyes closed, to Bob Schneider singing about the world exploding into love all around him. When the song ended, they kissed again, and then opened their eyes. There they were, back on Earth. In Greenton, in the Pachanga's makeshift employee parking lot. Of all the places to end up after coming back from a dream, they were there. But it felt better. It felt bearable. They would make it past the next three months and into whatever future lay beyond it.

Some of the houses in the southwest corner of Greenton were among the town's oldest structures, holdovers from earlier days. Their proximity to the railroad tracks was no coincidence. The town was built around those tracks, a station town where people from all over the southwest looking for a better life or for work cowboying or prospecting or roughnecking could get off to stretch their legs and maybe buy a pint of mash and maybe even look at the cactus and mesquite and scrub brush around them and then, for some reason unknown to their ancestors, decide to set up camp and make a go of the American dream.

As word got around about Greenton, about what it did and didn't have to offer, about how hard what little work there was would be, and about the rest of Southwest Texas, less and less people got off of the trains to stay. Less lines stopped over and Greenton had to move on to a new mode of economy. Shops and a town would no longer be sustained by rail station money. So the focus shifted to catering to the ranchers and oil men working the ranches and wells all around town. Feed shops and a general market popped up over on what is now Main Street. Those first shops and houses near the tracks, less than half a century after being created, began their course of running down.

As the bigger stores on Main drew people, a courthouse was built, then a school
and a church. Greenton became the town that ranch folk, along with the people they hired to tend to their land and their stock, went to for schooling and doctoring and worshiping. They bought feed and supplies there.

But more than utilitarian needs were met by a town-proper popping up from what had once been just a train station and desert brush before that. Greenton's southwest side served the ranch people with an escape. It was a place to go that wasn't fenced-in by wooden posts and, later, by barbed wire. It was a place for blowing off steam. Houses turned into beer joints and brothels, meant to serve thirsty and horny workers who hadn't seen hide nor hair of anything besides cattle and pigs and goats and other men they had come to hate passionately and irrationally just for co-existing in the same part of the world, for stinking up their bunkhouses, and for not being the people they had planned on spending their lives with.

Prohibition brought townspeople—who had previously stayed away from these dens of sin—for a drink and a dance and a cheap, discrete fuck. Then repeal made the district (a few streets, really) obsolete. Piety and hypocrisy's foggy hindsight made the Greentonites look at those streets in scorn and contempt. The highways Roosevelt paid the men in the area to build that would connect the country and fix the economy were the southwest side's death knell—highways that led to San Antonio and Laredo, to drive-in theaters and to affordable Ford cars, to Chevy pickups, and to rock'n'roll. Viggie Street headed out of town to Laredo on Highway 359. It was paved and striped and, by the end of the construction, cut Greenton in half. North of it were the schools and newer homes and, later, the car dealership and grocery store. South of it at Main was ‘downtown,' and the ‘Y.' But just west of there, where town had started at the railroad tracks, south of 359, was the bad side of a poor town. It was one- and two-room clapboard shotgun houses, a few of which still did not have indoor plumbing. It looked
like the death of something, but there was nothing to be mourned. It was just another victim of progress toward what Greenton became, which was not much. And so it was not anything worth missing.

On the Saturday after Valentine's Day, Chon woke up early and drove out to the last street in town. It was just up Viggie, the street where Chon lived, to Sigrid. He took a left on Sigrid, went over a set of railroad tracks to an unpaved red dirt road that led to the southwest side of town.

He drove slowly, barely putting his foot on the accelerator. Passing by the houses and trailer homes—parked, wheels flattened, on cement slabs in the middle of tiny, cheap, barren plots of land—Chon felt like he was in a different world. It was his world, or part of his world at least, but he did not see himself in the cracked paint and sagging frames of the houses in a neighborhood that sat, literally, around the block from his house.

He continued on the dirt road until it ended. When he got to the lot he was looking for, he was glad to see a certain Chevy conspicuously missing from its driveway. He pulled up to a garage, new and modern-looking compared to the buildings around it.

The roll-up doors were open, so he walked in. An old Pontiac rested, comatose if not cold dead, on the slick concrete floor of the garage. It was waiting to be cured, to be fixed and resurrected and given its wings back. There were big Craftsman chests full of tools that would be used in the Pontiac's operation. Chon looked up at the hoses that fed air from a compressor at the back of the workshop to the tools that now do the jobs that only muscle and sweat used to do. On the walls of the shop, there were posters advertising parts and tools, all shiny chrome, and some with short-shorted, car brand tank-topped women on them.

There was a small room in the corner of the shop. The thin wood door with the cheap plastic plate that read OFFICE on it was closed. Chon knocked. From the other side of the door, he heard loud, almost unhealthy-sounding snoring. It continued, uninterrupted by his knock. Chon knocked again, harder. The chainsaw buzz breathing continued. Chon considered leaving and coming back later, but then he ran the risk of Andres Mejia being in. He could only imagine what Andres would do if Chon came and asked him to risk his certification, his business, and a steep fine by breaking the law.

He gave the door a hard, open-palmed slam. There was a gasping sound—someone waking up and the shuffling of papers and the squeaks of an old desk chair. Goyo Mejia pulled the door open so fast that Post-it notes that had been stuck onto the wall behind him blew off.

“What the fuck, man?” he shouted. “Jesus Christ. You trying to give me a goddamn heart attack? What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” Chon said calmly, too quietly to be heard over Goyo's panting.

“What? What fucking time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” Chon said louder.

“Eight-thirty? What the fuck are you doing in my shop at eight-thirty?” Goyo had stopped moving around frantically. He put his palm over his eyes. He rubbed them slowly and tenderly.

“Sign says you guys open at eight,” Chon said.

“I know what the sign says,” Goyo said, getting up from his chair. “But it's Saturday.”

He walked out of the office and poured himself a cup of coffee from a pot that smelled fresh enough to Chon. Goyo nodded at the stack of Styrofoam cups next to the coffee maker. Chon shook his head no.

“C'mon, man. It's for the customers.”

Chon grabbed a cup and emptied two packets of sugar and a creamer into it before pouring the coffee in. He made a swirl of varied shades of brown with the stir-straw. He took a tongue-burning sip of it for want of something to do while Goyo stood staring into the space that separated the two of them.

“Eight-fucking-thirty,” Goyo said, not exactly under his breath, but with no trace of hostility directed at Chon, shaking his head as he walked out of the garage and toward Chon's car.

“So what seems to be the problem?” he asked Chon over his shoulder.

Chon was coming slowly out of the garage, holding the coffee with one hand and shielding his eyes from the morning sun with the other. He didn't hear the question. “I'm sorry, what was that?” he said. He blinked his eyes and moved his hand from his eyes. In spots and rays and sparkles, Goyo was revealed.

“I asked you—” Goyo said. His tone dropped off there. Goyo looked Chon up and down, as if working up an estimate in his head, “—what's the problem?”

Chon felt transparent. There was a look of knowing in Goyo's eyes, and Chon was forced to wonder if Goyo remembered that Chon had seen him drunk, sobbing, and bleeding on Main Street.

“With the car? What brings you to the shop today?”

“Oh, nothing. I just need to get it inspected,” Chon said.

“I know that. I saw the ticket on the windshield. But what's so wrong with it that you bring it here to me, on Saturday, at eight-thirty in the morning before anyone gets here?” Goyo leaned back on the hood of the car and crossed his arms.

“Nothing, really. The parking brake doesn't work and the passenger seat belt doesn't reel in,” Chon said.

Goyo's left eyebrow raised. He looked at Chon as if he was trying to divine if Chon was lying.

“Just the parking brake and the seat belt?” he asked.

“That's it,” Chon told him.

“Keys.”

Chon handed them over.

“Brake and seatbelt. Remember that you told me that.”

“The parking brake,” Chon corrected him.

Goyo looked at Chon across the roof of the car.

“Now, do you think I'd be getting in your damn car if the pedal brake didn't work?” He got in the car and drove away shaking his head.

Chon emptied his coffee in the grass. Steam rose from the ground. After a bit of time that seemed shorter than Chon would have expected it to be, Goyo drove past the garage and backed the Dodge-nasty in so quickly that Chon thought for sure he was going to hit one of the tool boxes or workbenches. It stopped with a rubber-peeling squeal of tires.

“Brakes work,” Goyo said getting out of the car. He clicked on the hazard lights and walked behind the car where Chon was standing. “Lights work too. So it's just the parking brake and the seatbelt.”

Chon nodded as Goyo turned off the lights and killed the engine. He walked back around the car to Chon. Tossing him the keys, he said, “She's not going to be riding shotgun, is she?”

Chon didn't understand the question. Goyo looked him hard in the eye. He pulled up a chrome stool with the Ford logo printed on its vinyl seat cover. He sat, feet propped on the bar around the stool's legs, his fingers drumming the seat underneath his crotch.

“Araceli, genius. Is Araceli going to be driving around in that death trap?”

Now Chon understood. He understood the question Goyo had asked him and he understood the way Goyo had looked at him outside, before.

“No, no. She…we…” Chon stopped and took a breath. “No. I just take it to work and school. I mean, I drop my brother off at school, that's about it.”

“I don't know your brother,” Goyo said. “I could give a shit if you drive him anywhere.”

“Araceli and I are never in this car. She always has her dad's truck whenever we go anywhere. This thing doesn't have air or heat.”

“If I give you a sticker, I better not see you driving Araceli in this heap of shit. I mean it,” Goyo said, still sitting feet on stool, but no longer drumming on the seat.

“We never take this car. Ever. I promise.” Chon spoke these words clearly and confidently, like he hadn't spoken any of his other words all morning.

“Good.” Goyo stood up. “If I see her in your car, I'll kick your ass.” He was standing right in front of Chon. Two feet separated them, but otherwise they were eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose. “I mean it. I just may fucking kill you.”

Chon nodded his head. “I promise she won't ride in this car.”

Goyo stood in front of Chon, staring anger at having already lost a brother and now also at the thought of losing a sister. If it didn't mean breaking his stare at Goyo—which would have meant losing a game that predates language—Chon would have looked at Goyo's hands to make sure he wasn't clutching a wrench or some other such bludgeon.

Goyo turned away and walked toward the office. “I'll get the sticker ready,” he said. “That'll be $100.”

It had cost Chon $80 the year before, but no one else would give him an inspection sticker on the sly—the repairs his car needed would cost four to five times that. He went to the Dodge-nasty and got his checkbook from the glove compartment.

*

Araceli got her acceptance letter to UT in late March.

In the six weeks of his relationship with her, Chon had received more attention—99% of it negative—than he ever had before in his life. It consisted mostly of dirty looks from girls and cruel befuddlement from boys. He knew that Araceli was having a rougher go of it. He was a nothing, a nobody, a dark horse no one knew was even in the race. She had an image to protect—her own and that of her dead boyfriend. Through it all, she answered the questions of
Why him?
with silence for those she didn't know well enough to give the
fuck you
she gave to everyone else. She did not once—though at times she really wanted to, she told Chon—mention that John, alive, had done her wrong.
He
had cheated on
her. He
had left
her
. Why tar his memory—the one held by his parents and friends, the one she herself wanted to keep, even the ideal held by the finger pointers and stone throwers who were so bent on denying her happiness? What good would it have done?

It occurred to Chon—who never told Araceli his revelation—that what she was running from when she left town the preceding summer was, in part, him. Or at least whoever would have come to fill the role of the thief of Greenton's crown jewel. She had stayed away to avoid complications like Chon, to avoid life in Greenton, which they were both learning wasn't real life. It was a world unto itself. No one outside the bounds of Greenton's 5.9 square miles or 4,498 citizens was scandalized by Araceli Monsevais having moved on from her loss. Greenton was a prescribed reality, and it was one that could be outrun.

So when Araceli received her letter of acceptance from UT with a scholarship package that meant she could get an education from the school for almost nothing, she drove
straight to the Pachanga to tell Chon the good news. She handed Chon the letter and jumped up and down in excitement across the counter from him. It was a Wednesday.

All Chon really read was the letterhead: the seal of the college on top with the words written on the header, underlined in burnt orange, “The University of Texas at Austin.” He caught sight of the word
Congratulations
, but he had not yet processed the word when Araceli hoisted herself over the counter and into Chon's arms. He pulled her over, her feet knocking down the barcode scanner that sat next to the register.