Names Above Houses

Manong Jose Remembers Fidelito’s First Fall

49 Manong Jose Remembers Fidelito’s First Fall He thinks he’s some sort of macaw standing on his roof, black and miraculous in his overcoat, always casing the sky. Years ago, he thought a young birch was a good climbing tree. Fidelito, while trying to climb one with weak branches, felt a high limb crack. The kid flew twelve feet from roof edge, sucking up space between his face and the ground so fast he became a single column of arms, legs, and hair. Now there’s something about his body when he slouches. It’s like the way you walk about when you brace yourself for a sadness without cause. Now I see he scans the periphery of trees, especially for thick ones with large palmate leaves. He thinks the young ones are cruel, the way they explode completely like that in air. ...