“No. But she is dead.”
They had nothing left to say to each other and when Kelly left they didn’t even exchange farewells. Ella closed the door behind Kelly. He knew he would never see her again. Paloma was the link between them, and now Paloma was gone.
Kelly wandered unmoored in the
Some of the crosses bore photographs or sprays of dried flowers. Others were marked with names, painted on or spelled out in adhesive letters. Still more were simply blank. Perhaps they stood for someone or perhaps they were just a reminder:
The ground was rocky and only patched here and there with hardy desert grass that could grow anywhere. No one allowed the crosses to be overgrown, though. Kelly took a step without thinking and then another and then he roved among the crosses as he wandered in the
He stood before a blank cross. “
If God listened, he did not answer. Not even a breeze stirred the field of crosses. Kelly wiped his face with the palms of his hands. When he pushed himself back to his feet, slate-colored dirt clung to him. He wished for a knife for carving or a marker so he could put Paloma’s name on the empty cross, but he had neither.
“She is dead,” Kelly tried, but the words felt wrong in his mouth. He dusted his hands, but the dust was like mud and it stuck to him like clumps. Instead he made fists and ground the dirt inside them.
Now the crosses themselves watched him. He walked fast to get away, through the field and back toward the bright stretch of worn-down dirt that was the road back to the city. Once he brushed one of the crosses. A sun- bleached piece of tape gave way and a whitened photograph fell facedown onto the ground. Kelly knelt to pick it up, but suddenly he didn’t want to touch it, because he
The bus could not come fast enough. He stood in the shade of a covered bench, apart from the girls and young women in their
A rushing sound of blood in his ears became the roar of a diesel bus engine. Kelly overpaid his fare. He stood instead of sitting and he felt like a zombie. The moving air through the open windows of the bus was not enough to cool him and he was bathed in sweat that reeked of shame. All of the women could smell it. Even the bus driver looked at him with disgust.
He left well before his stop and wandered the streets. He drank a soda he didn’t taste, ate a taco that settled in his stomach like shot. Everywhere people glared at him because they
It was insane.
SEVEN
“HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT my daughter?” Sevilla asked.
Kelly opened his eyes. He was mostly in the shade, but his legs were out in the sun and he leaned against a bare concrete wall in a narrow alley. A bus roared past on a street six feet away, churning dust and diesel smoke in its wake. Kelly’s head throbbed. He looked at his forearms automatically. The old scars were there, but no new marks.
When he moved, an empty tequila bottle toppled onto its side. Now Kelly recognized the taste in his mouth and the ugly pain behind his eyes that snaked back into his brain. He didn’t remember getting to this place or even the drinking, but it wasn’t a small bottle, either.
Getting to his feet was all right; Kelly used the wall for a brace. He straightened his shirt and ran a hand over his head. His hair was getting long and it felt greasy and gritty. Out on the sidewalk he recognized the street. Walking home would only be a matter of minutes. His wallet was still in his pocket and his watch was on his wrist. He couldn’t have been out overnight, Kelly thought, though it seemed like morning all over again.
When he reached his block he took the long way around so he wouldn’t have to walk past the pink telephone pole and the forest of flyers on it. He knew he wouldn’t see Paloma’s face there among the others, not yet, but he imagined it being there and that was bad enough. Going by, he might see a girl who looked similar enough to play tricks on his mind and Paloma would be there and he would have no choice but to imagine terrible things.
He went up the steps to his apartment and let himself in. It was hot. He opened the windows. A work-whistle sounded at the
A memory of Sevilla played at the edge of his mind while Kelly fixed himself breakfast. It was a dream, not the man himself, that Kelly remembered. They were in the alley passing the bottle like
“Have I ever told you about my daughter?”
Kelly ate without tasting anything that passed his lips. It was always this way now. He was aware of the chewing, the swallowing and then the sense of fullness in the belly that told him to stop, but it was all purely mechanical. Once he enjoyed food, especially when he was with Paloma or when he was cutting weight and couldn’t afford an ounce of bad fat to tip the scale. The dish and the fork went in the sink. He rinsed them and dried them and put them away.
Sitting on the couch was intolerable, even with the television on. Later, as the evening light turned yellow and red, he changed to sweats and a T-shirt and wrapped his hands. This was a meditation for him, the wrapping, and he found he could disconnect from everything while he did it. Wrapping was his rosary — the thumb, the wrist, the knuckles and between the fingers. Tighter and tighter, but not
He punched the heavy bag and ignored the buzz and bite of mosquitoes drawn by the odor of his sweat. The