The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (34 page)

ROOT KNOWS HOW heavy the body is. Never mind spirits or ghosts. He knows how heavy the body is as it falls—falls so slowly the mass and weight of it pulls everything down in slow motion. He has dreams of the heaviness, of falling forever and ever. His arms slam against the mattress. He wakes in a sweat. He knows what they told him. How much of his brain came away with the crushed skull. How doctors fucked up with the steel plate. “One in ten” had been the odds they quoted his mother during the fever.

The world had pulled away and left him lying in white, puffy clouds. He could look down and look through the clouds. He might have been in a jet airliner except for the silence. He could look down through layers of clouds and see himself lying in the hospital bed connected to the machines. He lies in the bed with his eyes closed. It is difficult to recognize the visitors who come and stand at the foot of the hospital bed since he can see only the tops of heads. He can always tell which one his mother is. But he does not remember seeing the top of her head more than a few times. The therapist asks if they are cumulus clouds. Root hates the sounds he makes. He can hear the correct sound of the words inside his head, but his mouth doesn’t make the sounds clearly anymore. Words are groans or choking sounds. Does the tongue actually move or is it like the feet and toes, which feel as if they are moving, but when he watches in the mirror above the bed, they are motionless, white as candle wax. Even before the accident, Root had never trusted mirrors on ceilings. The first time he saw mirrors on the ceiling had been with Lecha in the deluxe suite at the Marilyn Motel. When he saw Lecha’s back, the cheeks of her wide brown ass spreading over his skinny white legs, Root had realized that mirrors do not show what really is. So he had bellowed at the physical therapist, young, blond, and enthusiastic, when she told him he could see for himself in the mirror his toes were not moving. He could not tell her mirrors on ceilings do not show the truth because he could not even say
yes
or
no.
In the ceiling mirror of the Marilyn Motel, Lecha appeared to sit on someone he had not recognized,
a teenage boy much whiter and shorter than himself, flexing his feet in rhythm with Lecha’s slow, smooth rocking on top. The face Root had seen over Lecha’s left shoulder should have been his, but was not. Just as now the bellows and grunts should have been words, but were not.

He had awakened after five months. He had no memory of what had happened. He thought he might have some idea of a past life with a family, but he did not feel sure. The nurse who came into the room said that she had just been transferred to that ward, but she would see that someone came who could tell him what had happened. A car had turned in front of his motorcycle. Later his mother had filled in all the details. They were fresh in her mind, she said, because she had just been talking to their lawyer. The company insuring the car and driver had made a generous offer. The car had turned in front of him where Miracle Mile intersected Ft. Lowell Road. Root thought it was funny it had happened next to the graveyard. As kids they had joked about riding their bikes past the cemetery after basketball practice in late November when it was nearly dark. They had joked about what might happen to you passing a graveyard after dark, or even in broad daylight—three-thirty in the afternoon—the time his accident had occurred. Ghosts might hop into a wagon or onto a motorcycle.

Root stands up. Calabazas has been pulling thistle burrs from the burro’s fetlocks. He knows Root has something to tell him, but it takes Root time to get it out. Root stares at the tall hollyhocks blooming near the sagging clothesline. He finds something to focus on so he doesn’t have to watch the face of the person listening; so he doesn’t have to watch their difficulty understanding his words. Root concentrates on the intensity of the colors of the blossoms—the reds that are dark as wine, garnets, even blood. Root feels sweat break out across his shoulders. It soaks his T-shirt. It runs like ants from his armpits down his ribs. He tells Calabazas about the men who’ve come. Not Mexicans, but foreigners who are very short and very dark and speak strange Spanish. They say they’ve come from El Salvador.

Calabazas is staring at the little donkeys bunched in the shady corner of the corral. He is still calculating the weight of one ghost. Somewhere near five hundred pounds. “How did they find you?”

Root shakes his head. “They say they were told to find me to reach you.” Elaborate precautions had to be taken against narcs and others. Calabazas takes a last, hard suck from the cigarette and throws the butt hard against the ground. He doesn’t like strangers looking for him. “Tell me more.” Root shrugs his shoulders. “Brand-new leisure suits—sort
of tan colored. All identical. Everything—white plastic belts, white loafers. Blue shirts. Bad haircuts.” Calabazas chews the end of his thumb but says nothing. Root decides Calabazas is ready for the best part. “They pulled up to my place in an old Volkswagen with Sonora plates. They each carried a blue suitcase. Brand-new powder-blue Samsonite.” Calabazas draws himself up straight, and looks Root in the eyes. “What?” “Samsonite.” Usually Calabazas understands his speech much better than anyone except maybe Lecha. Root frowns and tries to repeat the word very slowly, straining to control every single sound. “Samson-ite—it’s the brand-name luggage.” Calabazas doesn’t always understand English. It wasn’t just Root’s slurring of the words. There seemed to be days when Calabazas didn’t understand English at all. There was no explanation.

Root sees Calabazas still doesn’t understand him. Root used to cry in the hospital from the frustration of all that he wanted to say and all the sounds he could not form. The light-blue Samsonite suitcase each man carried is important. It reveals something, although Root is not sure exactly what. He knows that if Calabazas can only understand what he is saying, he will be able to interpret the meaning of the identical blue suitcases. “What do they want?” “To talk to you.” Calabazas remembers what Samsonite is. “What do they carry in these suitcases?” Root shrugs his shoulders, and Calabazas grunts. The men aren’t showing anything unless it’s to Calabazas. “How many?” Calabazas acts as if he can’t remember if Root has already told him or not. Root holds up four fingers. The sun is high enough to make the mule corral hot. Root feels the sweat sticking his T-shirt to his belly and his back. This talk about ghosts in wagons and strangers with blue suitcases looking for Calabazas has left Root tired and hungry. He follows Calabazas out of the corral. Calabazas walks away from him without saying any more and crosses the bare, smooth-packed adobe of the yard to the back door of the old house. Calabazas is lost in calculating all the angles, as he himself might put it, all the ways to figure these Salvadorians with new Samsonite luggage.

Root is ready for a cold beer. Maybe Carlos wants to drive out to the Stage Coach. Calabazas calls Carlos “Mosca.” Carlos claims he has no idea why the boss calls him that. Root calls him Fly. Carlos says that doesn’t bother him because in English
fly
can also mean the zipper, the opening, the crotch, and this suits him perfectly, Carlos likes to say. Carlos is related to Calabazas’s wife. Mosca mostly does what Root does, except Mosca’s customers live on the South Side. They don’t talk
much. Root has no curiosity about the Fly’s life. Root figures Mosca’s life is a lot like his own. Mosca talks a lot sometimes, depending on what drugs he’s on. Other times he doesn’t say anything. Root tries sometimes to figure out why he and Fly get along, but it is no use. Root knows a question like that has never crossed Fly’s mind. When they go out together, it is usually to places where there is little need to talk, only to watch and to listen. They like the Stage Coach because there is always a stripper on stage and they can watch the bikers play pool.

Mosca comes out the back door of the old house blinking rapidly until he can get his dark glasses on. The deep, dark blue of the lenses is one of his trademarks. Maybe that’s where Calabazas got the nickname. Mosca is short and wiry. His head and the blue lenses of the sunglasses are a little too large for his body. Root can feel the cocaine ten feet away. The cocaine acts like a fuel for a system of electric turbines located deep inside the human body. Electricity from chemical reactions crackles and sizzles through the bloodstream. Root can look over the top of his head. “The horse races,” Mosca announces, patting his pockets to indicate he had some deliveries to make there. Root nods his head and realizes he is grinning. Because Mosca is so damn happy and even the buzzing of the cocaine in him is strangly in tune with the sound of the cicadas in the giant tamarisk trees in Calabazas’s yard. They will buy two six-packs on the way. Mosca estimates the distance from where they stand to the big four-wheel-drive truck Mosca is so proud of. “I’ll race you,” Mosca says. He is the only person who acknowledges Root’s disabilities. Mosca finds Root’s brain damage fascinating.

Mosca challenges Root to physical contests he figures Root can’t win. “Because I like to win. I like to win against you. It feels just as good. Don’t ask me why.” Mosca likes to say that he doesn’t believe cripples should be given special favors. Mosca parks his big, black, four-wheel-drive Chevy in spaces painted with wheelchair symbols and marked with handicapped signs. Mosca laughs. “You are not handicapped if it is easy for you to get around. Special parking places make it too easy,” Mosca said.

Mosca knows horses. He sneers at what he sees in the paddock where the trainers saddle for the next race. You are betting on whether the trainer has shot the horse too full of crank and it keels over dead on the backstretch. You are betting on which runt jockey fucks up the deal and bumps his nag into the number everyone is betting. “Mosca.” “The Fly.” At the track Root sees another way the nickname might have come. Mosca is getting the numbers. He never bothers to look at the
horses. He flits through the crowd. Root waits, leaning against the fence by the finish-line rail. The horses seem to float when they run. Hooves barely touch the surface of the track. Their eyes shine hot. They are lighter than their bodies. Root had stopped growing after the accident. The part of the brain sending those chemical messages was gone. It was better that way. Less hulk to drag around. Root had learned how to walk again after three months. He might have blamed the accident for the size of his cock if he had not seen the size of his father’s and his brothers’. None of them would have won any prizes.

ENTRY NUMBERS and the odds flash across the tote board in the center of the racetrack. Root is fascinated with the foam between the horses’ hind legs. The lather on their necks. Mosca is beside him now, watching the board. “Look out for the ones that sweat too much. . . . No, no, that one isn’t sweating at all. That’s an OD. . . . No, man; these are horses, remember?” He shows Root a number so that no one standing close can see. “It’s this one. You want me to put fifty dollars on it for you?” Before Root can say anything, Mosca is gone, headed for the WIN window. A man in a white linen suit steps in line behind Mosca. All he needs is the panama hat. Root sees he’s carrying something in his left hand, hidden inside a
Racing Form.
He says something to Mosca as he turns away from the window with the yellow tickets. Root imagines something familiar about the face. Italian or maybe Jewish. Root asks, but Mosca keeps his eyes on the horses loading into the starting gates on the far side of the track. “He’s got a couple of horses, that’s all. Personal pleasure. Strictly amateur,” Mosca says. Root wants to see the face again, the face of a man who has nothing better to do than watch his horses run and snort what he buys from Mosca. But the man in the white linen suit is gone. Root tries to imagine the car he drives and the women he fucks. All “white linen” quality throughout his life, Root figures, then turns in time to get hit with dirt flying off the hooves as their horse finishes first.

Mosca reappears long enough to count out the money. Odds were
only five to one, but a couple of hundred is okay for standing around drinking cold beer and watching the people. Root drifts away from the fence. He likes to watch the trainers and jockeys saddle the big horses. A few of the owners are there. Root likes to try to figure out why they own racehorses. He understands how people spend money on sex, cars, and clothes; and of course, drugs. But Root wonders what it is about the horses. The owners don’t ride them. Most of the owners don’t even watch the horses run except for the big races at the big tracks. But what were these horses, and what was this track doing in Tucson? Then there was the man in the white linen suit with the two gorgeous fillies, horses with class. Those horses were only pasing through, to be graded for better tracks. The fillies were led from the paddock to join the other entries parading in front of the grandstand. Root looked for the owner’s name on the racing program, but saw the fillies were listed as the property of a private investment group. Half of the horses on the program were listed that way. Tax shelters: strings of nags running on two-bit tracks. The more horses that got hurt or just lay down and died, the more money people made.