Sunland: A Novel

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• • 191 • • Weeks passed, monsoon season came to an end, and the stone birdbath in the yard dried. The Santa Cruz River was less a river and more a dusty coyote footpath. I managed to fix the car stereo but couldn’t find any interesting tapes at Goodwill. There was no reason, anyway, to drive long distances. Mona and I fell into routines : her apartment one night, the casita the next. Nana surprised everyone with her speech therapy progress. Now, when she talked, it sounded like she had only one marble in her mouth. The fall brought cooler weather, but some days the warm distances shimmered as though vapor rose off the earth. One night, as the sun was setting, I drove up Craycroft, stunned by the houses. I rarely visited these hidden neighborhoods, hitched up on the hills as they were. The homes were so nice that my first reaction was to scream out, each so lovely, each perfectly arranged in the natural environment as though watched over by the gods. Shadows moved sideways across the Catalinas, making the mountainside appear purple and ribbed. I drove slowly through the neighborhood. Each cactus looked placed here by a divine hand. Another night, I decided to play bingo at the American Legion Hall. Nana and Bubba had once liked to play bingo here, but now it was mostly the homeless. The homeless looked so tan. Alejandro had installed a new exhibit in his front yard. And I’d been waiting to tell him how much I loved his latest creation. What he had accomplished was a bright miracle. The gunslingers had been removed and now there were two large feet in front of his house. They were cut from marble and ended at the ankles. It was unclear to me where he’d found such inspiration . Anyone driving past saw two marble feet, the toes unattached. Two big marble feet, and what lovely, generous dimensions. i felt tired-eyed late in the afternoon. And I was convinced someone had stolen Nana’s mole. For eighty-nine years she’d had a dark mole on her jaw. And now, somehow , it was gone. Someone had nicked it. Was there a surgeon wandering the halls with a scalpel, removing suspicious-looking moles? I questioned the charge nurse at the nursing station, but she was occupied with afternoon med charts and too busy to listen. The building’s speech therapist was also behind the desk, writing on a clipboard, trying her damnedest to ignore my interrogation. I approached her about the missing mole. She returned a look, as though I was speaking an unknown language, which only fueled my sense of persecution. 29 • • 192 • • It was help-an-old-fogey day at the building at the end. The helpers were teenage boys from the neighborhood “at-risk” youth home. A battered yellow school bus had dumped them for the day. The kids ran around wearing specially made T-shirts—homies have heart—and they were driving everyone but the residents insane, asking how they could help, what could they do, who needed what and when. They behaved more like overachievers than at-risk youth. I watched three of them wander around passing out fresh sugar skull cookies and dead bread. It was clear the residents adored the attention. They perked up and scraped their fingers over their dentures . Warsaw commanded the operation from behind a plastic table in an activity room. A laminated volunteer captain badge hung over his i ♥ john wayne T-shirt. I watched him hand assignment sheets to the kids. He gave them maps of the building. The kids raced from the room, through halls smelling of flour and sugar, in search of their assigned resident. When I returned to Nana’s room, she was gone. Toilet paper fluttered from the bedposts. Either Nana had taught herself how to toilet-paper her room or one of the young visitors had exacted this prank. I tracked her to an alcove, where two nurses were quizzing her about “Frank.” I saw one clutching an autographed copy of Sunspots. Nana’s story had made the paper’s cover. There was still all this business—still!—about her supposed friendship with “Frank.” Bunny Vallance had outdone herself. “Did he smell of Agua Lavanda?” one nurse asked my grandmother. “That was his favorite cologne. I read about it.” “Better,” Nana said. “Was he a gentleman?” the other nurse asked. “Oh, was he,” she said. I watched Nana...