Ej Viejo

Toma 69 T. L. Toma Ej Viejo The first time Quinto Montenegro fell down the well he was drunk on mango wine. He staggered out into the day and smacked into the charred remains of the jeep. Quinto cursed, stumbling the other way, until he was at the lip of the well and then pitching into it. It hadn't rained for months and the well was dry. When he fell, he hit hard. Quinto twice tried to crawl out of the well, but his boots were old, the soles slick with age. Finally he lay in the well and watched the day fade into night. Quinto lay on his back and watched a small shard of moon work its way along the mouth of the well. The next morning two companeros heard his cries and fished him from the hole. And this is when Quinto Montenegro saw the truck pull up to the Morales house. The camioneta looked almost new; the tires still had their treads. A young couple emerged from the cab. He was tall and pale and fat, with thick eyeglasses. She was small, though full in the hips and breasts, and very dark. The couple moved through the Morales house, opening and closing windows. Most mornings the man rose early and drove off in the truck. He returned at dusk. The woman swept the floor, hung curtains along the windows, carried water from the river. Every day for a week Quinto sat at his window and napped, waking to the changes overtaking the Morales house. He watched the woman as she passed back and forth in front of her window. He watched as she pulled her hair back, as she bent to retrieve something from the floor. He saw her ankles and calves as she stepped on a chair to reach high along the wall. Her arms were the color of the coffee bean. Quinto was dozing one afternoon when he heard a knock. He blinked through the heat. The sweat clung to his skin. The light was blinding when he opened the door, the sun low and shooting directly over her shoulder and into his face. She stuck out her hand. "Rosario Cuinado, con mucho gusto. My husband and I have moved into the Morales place. Hector is not here, and I am trying to move the pila." Quinto took her hand. It was cool and dry. His 70 the minnesota review own hand felt moist, clammy. He fought the urge to scratch himself. "The pila is very heavy," she went on, "and—" "Quinto Montenegro, a la orden," he replied. Quinto followed her up the path. Her hips swung wide from side to side. He paused at her open door. "Hijo de puta," he muttered. Along one wall stretched a bed with posts of polished rosewood. It was covered by a red blanket of rich wool. A large mahogany bureau towered on his left. Enormous pots, the glaze from the kiln still fresh and unscarred, sat in a group on the floor. Open boxes spilling cartons of cigarettes, spools of thread, and packs of gum filled a corner. The hearth had been swept and scrubbed until the stone glinted. "My husband is in business," Rosario explained. She pointed to the pila. It lay on its side in a corner. Quinto stepped carefully through the room. He struggled to right the large concrete basin. The sweat lined his ribs. "Will you have some fresco?" she asked when he was finished. "I've just made some pitaya." "Pitaya," Quinto said now. "I like pitaya very much." The next day Quinto helped Rosario move a trunk filled with clothes to one corner, and the day after that he helped her fell a tree that was dying from the heat. On the day he dug out two bullets that had lodged in the north wall of the Morales house, she brought him inside and set a bottle of rum in front of him. "Limes?" she asked. He watched as she cut a lime into four sections. She filled his glass and squeezed the green fruit over its mouth. Quinto drank two glasses very quickly. "Hector will be home soon...