From This Wicked Patch of Dust

Each an Island Adrift

117 Each an Island Adrift June 1986 As he drove down the Border Highway, Cuauhtémoc remembered the day when his oldest, Julia, had been born. An expressive, intelligent baby girl, Julia reminded him of his mother: they possessed the same brown-black eyes. Those eyes had practically healed the wound of his mother’s early death when he was ten years old. That Julia was not “Julia” anymore, but “Aliyah,” did not diminish that she had recently given birth to her own daughter. “Zahira” meant “luminous in the eyes of God.” Cuauhtémoc lifted his foot off the truck’s accelerator as he saw a group of Mexicanos sprinting across the highway. He glanced around: the migra was nowhere in sight, thank goodness. These poor bastards scurrying into the Ascarate neighborhood to evade the migra weren’t that different from whom he had been thirty years ago. Cuauhtémoc remembered the day Francisco had been born, how proud he had been that the Martínez name would continue, that he would have a son to help him. What if caring for these children had taken Pilar away from him and his needs? Wasn’t having a family fulfilling his destiny as a human being too? There were more pressures with a family, and more expenses, but also more joys, and Pilar had been a good mother. When Marcos graduated from the University of New Mexico two years ago, Cuauhtémoc could see the end in sight. Panchito needed another year, but was only going to UTEP part-time, which wasn’t that expensive. Julia was still attending classes in Maryland. Cuauhtémoc wasn’t sure when she would finish her undergraduate degree, but 118 she was not his responsibility anymore. Two weeks ago, at Ismael’s graduation, Cuauhtémoc was rapturous, not only because his youngest had graduated from the school of the Roosevelts and the Kennedys, but also because Mayello was finished with school. He and Pilar had painstakingly calculated their expenses over the past six months, in anticipation of Mayello’s graduation and their trip to Cambridge and the East Coast, and they knew they had enough. Sure, expenses would pop up. A new roof for the house. A replacement stove or refrigerator for a newly vacated apartment. Another “emergency loan” to Julia. Maybe even graduate school for his children. But at fiftyone years old, Cuauhtémoc would tell his bosses he was retiring today. His heart was tired, but he was elated. Cuauhtémoc told Manny Ramirez first. Manny didn’t seem terribly surprised and graciously congratulated Cuauhtémoc. “Well, viejo,” Manny said as he closed his office door, “you’re probably doing it the right way, before you start pissing in your pants. Look what happened to El Serio. Dead on his drafting stool. Never got to enjoy a day in the sun of his retirement. Nada. I heard his wife took up with a neighbor within the year. Pobre pendejo.” “I just want to spend time with Pilar and I can do that now. I’m more or less healthy. My kids are out of the house, except for Panchito. I have the money. We want to travel.” They had already been to Europe twice, which had astonished their neighbors in Barraca. In October, they would go to la Costa del Sol in Spain, and the following year perhaps to Israel and Egypt. Pilar wanted to see the Holy Land before she died. “How’s your diabetes?” “It’s under control. I take my insulin shots. I think in a way it made me think about the years I have left. A few quality years, maybe ten or so, and then who knows. Right now my family has everything they need. I don’t owe anybody anything. Why keep killing yourself? Mas y mas y mas. I’m not a gringo in that way.” 119 “Este pobre Preston Smith, he will die on his swivel chair,” Manny said, pointing with his eyes at the cofounder and principal owner of Morgan Smith and Sons, ensconced in a corner office of wall-windows composed of tiny, nearly invisible grid lines like transparent graph paper. “Doing one more deal. Making one more million. That’s how he is, and how he always will be. You should tell him yourself, just for the hell of it.” “Ándale pues.” “The cabrón is going to miss you...