Panorama City (2 page)

 

[
Hissing sound
.] When your mother, that was your mother, that was Carmen, when she sits in her chair all the air goes out through tiny holes in the stitching. Last night whenever she got up for the bathroom, which was often, you push on her bladder, she says you like to keep her moving, whenever she came back and sat in the chair, hissing snakes and punctured tires invaded my dreams, it was not restful sleep, I dreamed that the air was going out of my life. This afternoon I asked her to fetch from the house this cassette recorder and the only cassettes I own, both gifts from Scott Valdez of the Lighthouse Fellowship down in Panorama City, and at first it looked like the cassettes weren't going to work, but Felix the orderly showed us how to put medical tape over the tabs so we could record over them, he did only one, he crossed himself after, he said Carmen would have to do the rest, he couldn't be a party to recording over the word of God. Your mother laughed and said it would be the least of her sins, and Felix repeated that he didn't want to be involved. You'll be able to find the word of God anywhere if you're so inclined, Juan-George, hotel rooms for instance, just don't expect him to make sense. She's shaking her head at me now, the fluorescent lights are gleaming off her golden smile, or off some of her teeth, which are gold and some regular, she has nothing but tenderness in her eyes, your unluckiness in never meeting your father will be made up for by having her for a mother. She's still shaking her head at me, the smile is gone.

 

Dawn broke, I watched the house's shadow shrink toward me as the sun rose in the sky. The postman pulled up in a cloud of dust. Wilfredo drove his own truck with a postal service magnet on the side, the post office van gave him lumbar pain and motion sickness, especially on rural roads, his words. He drove up on the wrong side of the road and his arm was like a blimp delivering the mail from his window to the box, I mean his arm was fat but moved with fluidity. He kept his steering wheel almost flat like a bus driver to accommodate his belly. He was the busiest person I knew in Madera, driving around with mail to deliver and business to attend to, but he always made a point to take the time out to talk with me and your grandfather, usually he and I talked about bicycles, Wilfredo had been a champion bicycle racer before the glandular problems. I waved for him to stop a second and made my way over to the mailbox, I asked him if he knew anything about marking a grave, which didn't seem momentous but was probably the beginning of the end of my life as Mayor. He left the truck in the road with the door open, his seat was covered with a wood bead mat and the cushion underneath was like the edge of a pancake. I had seen him out of his truck only once, it was at a grocery store in town, he was in the produce section leaning on the lettuce fridge, sweating.

 

When Wilfredo walked his whole body moved from side to side like he was still pedaling for the championship. We went around to the back of the house. I had left the dirty shovel leaning against the wall, Wilfredo's eyes were glued to it, he avoided looking at the ground, he would only peek at the dirt for a second and then his eyes would go back to the shovel. He pulled a cloth out of his back pocket and wiped his forehead and upper lip and asked whether it had been an accident or natural causes. I told him how I had found your grandfather, I told him about the empty chair and the television, and your grandfather's body on the floor, and the lack of muscle tone. After which he seemed relieved, he said that an accidental death would have been a big problem. Even so he said that life was about to become more difficult for me, and he was sorry to have to be a part of that. I felt it in my guts, I didn't have the words for it, which is rare, I usually have the words for everything, I felt that Wilfredo and I were never going to talk about bicycles again.

 

Wilfredo said he had to get going, he was late on his route, he had to get the mail to people. I watched him walk back to his truck, his body twisting from side to side. I sat at the kitchen table and I noticed there were flies all over the fly strip, they had met their fates. I took down the fly strip. I opened the windows at the front of the house and the back of the house so flies could pass through unimpeded, though I didn't think of the word
unimpeded,
I hadn't yet met Paul Renfro who taught me that word. It struck me that Wilfredo had run away. He had run away like a child. Pay attention in school, Juan-George, anyone will tell you that's good advice, but they don't say that you should pay attention to your classmates most of all. How they act is how they will act when they grow up, only they'll be able to disguise it better, pay attention in school and you will be able to see through the disguises. Wilfredo had run away like a boy in the school yard, which surprised me when I realized it, he and your grandfather had always been friendly. I couldn't understand why Wilfredo wouldn't apply himself to the problem of marking your grandfather's grave in a dignified way. I pictured him on his route, delivering the mail, continuing on, but I couldn't picture it clearly, and when I can't picture something clearly I know it isn't going to come to pass.

The police had questions for me, which I answered truthfully, which is a fine strategy for talking to police, though it can confuse them. The big question of course was whether I had buried your grandfather in the yard, and when I said yes and showed them the disturbed earth, there were no more questions after that, everyone just looked at the ground, nobody knew what to do, that was the first time somebody used the word
mistake,
I told them there was no mistake, this had been in accord with your grandfather's wishes, but when the police all agree on something there's no convincing them otherwise. A scrawny policeman with a shaved head asked me to sit at the kitchen table while things got sorted out. Some flies had come in and buzzed around the kitchen, I couldn't blame them, the sun was blazing. I sat at the table and looked at your grandfather's Letter to the Editor still there in the corner of the room, still running through the typewriter, and I wondered what offenses the
Fresno Bee
had committed that day. I wondered too when everyone was going to leave so that I could ride my bicycle into Madera and find some work. I don't need to tell you that I can be a slow absorber, I've always been a slow absorber, but it's better than the opposite, your grandfather used to say, which is to be a quick absorber, or sucker. The police and authorities milled around the house, measuring things and talking out of earshot, none of them stood near me. Then Community Service Officer Mary, who wore a police uniform but wasn't exactly a police officer, her words, finally got fed up with all of this pussyfooting, also her words, and sat down across from me, she lay her palms flat on the kitchen table, like the way a psychic puts her hands on the table, of course I had never seen a psychic, I wouldn't meet a psychic until much later, Officer Mary looked at me with sympathetic eyes, I couldn't imagine her arresting anyone, maybe that was why she wasn't exactly a police officer, her shirt was too big, her shoulders drooped like her bones were soft.

 

Everyone has a different way of coping with death, her words. That made sense to me, everyone is different. Then her voice changed, she was quoting someone, she said that for this situation there were some general practices outlined in the law. She explained that despite the fact that my father, your grandfather, had been buried according to his wishes, despite the fact that it had been his wish to be buried on our piece of land next to his beloved hunting dogs Ajax and Atlas, despite the fact that what I had done seemed perfectly reasonable to her, even honorable, the authorities, the Madera City and Madera County authorities, had decided that the method and location of burial were not satisfactory. By then everyone had gathered, they stood around the kitchen, they tried to look like they weren't listening but they were listening. Mary explained that because of general practices outlined in the law, they were going to have to move my father, your grandfather, to one of the cemeteries in town. If it was up to her she would let him rest where he was, she didn't want to move him any more than I did, but it was not up to her, she hoped I could understand. I asked if I could first talk with whoever it was who did want to move him, whoever it was who wanted to unbury and rebury my father, I asked if I could talk to that person for just a moment. I scanned the room very deliberately, looking everyone in the eye, but no one stepped forward. She said that it wasn't like that, nobody really wanted to unbury him, if it was up to them they would just leave him be, her words. I suggested they should leave him be, then, and leave me be as well. I excused myself and stood and walked through the group of police and authorities, my hands joined behind my back, I climbed the stairs slowly, one after the other, I waited for someone to stop me but no one did. Everything is permitted until it isn't, your grandfather's words.

 

In my room, the shades were up, it was bright in there, I could see what a mess I'd made of my sheets, there was dirt everywhere, I couldn't bear to clean up, I didn't even remove my shoes, I crawled under the sheets, sheets dirty with the dirt of what should have been your grandfather's final resting place, and I covered myself, and I breathed my own air. Muffled voices rose through the floor, through my bed, through my pillow, to my ears, they were arguing, I couldn't make out the words. After a while the voices mellowed into regular talk and after another while the house was quiet. When I could no longer breathe my own air, I made a little vent at the side of the sheet and breathed the air in my room. I made the vent as small as I could, exposing only my mouth, but bringing my face close to the vent I could sense the light changing, the day's end approaching, time marching forward with no regard to anything, I did not want to see that, I wanted to see nothing, I only wanted to breathe and be left alone. Soon my stomach gurgled and growled, my stomach demanded I go downstairs, which I did, a hungry stomach is not to be ignored, it's the stomach that carries the feet, not as you would expect the other way around.

 

The light had gone orange, the light shot through the house from back to front, the sun was setting over town. It was cool downstairs, the house smelled like outside, like sour grapes and roasting almonds. I remembered I'd left everything open to let the flies pass through. I stepped into the kitchen and saw a figure in the corner, in the shadows, sitting at your grandfather's typewriter. I had not forgotten that he was dead but some part of my brain had put two and two together based on yesterday's picture
of the world, and so for an instant I thought it was him. Even after I knew it couldn't be him, it took me another little while to figure out it was Community Service Officer Mary. Her shoulders gave her away, her shoulders sloped down like she'd gotten tired of holding them up, even when she had sat down across from me, frustrated with all of the pussyfooters, her word, even then, when there had been an edge to her voice, her shoulders had a slope, her police shirt looked like it was slipping off a hanger. It was dark where she was sitting, the corner with the typewriter was hidden from the light shooting through the house, she must have been straining her eyes, she was bent over the typewriter. I said hello and she leaped from the chair, I apologized for surprising her. She apologized, too, she said that it had been a very long day, she hadn't been getting enough sleep. She said that everyone was concerned for my welfare now that I was alone, especially after what I had done, and they had asked for someone to stick around, and she had volunteered. I thanked her for her concern then explained that I was twenty-seven years old and could take care of myself, that I had taken care of my father all these years, all the years he had decided, or his body had decided, not to leave the house, that instead of taking care of two people I would now be taking care of only one, I was actually twice as safe as before. On the other hand, I told her, if she was in the mood to stick around I was always up for making a new friend. I went to the fridge and pulled open the door and there among the foodstuffs
was a plate wrapped in foil. I asked Mary if she was hungry and she looked long and hard at the plate then said no thanks. I pulled the foil off the plate, it was wet underneath, I dried it with a dish towel, I flattened it out on the countertop, folded it carefully, and put it back in the drawer for later. Mary stood in the center of the kitchen and watched, she didn't stand next to me at the counter, she didn't sit at the kitchen table, she stood at the center, which in the kitchen was nowhere, her badge hanging off her loose shirt like a bat hanging in a cave. I heated the lasagna in the microwave and divided it onto two plates. Mary said that your grandfather had left that food for me, it was too important for her to eat, she had no business eating it, she hadn't even known him, she was here only by happenstance. I told her what he always used to say, which was that meals were for sharing. We ate without talking for a while, then I said I was thinking of taking the radio out of the living room, we had a radio in there, it hardly ever got used, and moving it into the kitchen. I thought it would be nice to listen to music while cooking and eating, I like just about any kind of music, it's all interesting to me. Your grandfather had always objected to background music, he objected to music playing all day long, it bothered him deeply, I could never understand it, when he listened to music, which was not often, he sat in front of the radio and gave it all his attention, he looked at it like it was the television, he didn't do anything else. I was going to be alone now, changes were coming, there were going to be all sorts of changes around here, that's what I said. Mary brought her napkin up to her face, she brought it up higher than I expected, when someone is eating and they bring their napkin up to their face, you expect them to wipe their lips, or if they have a cold maybe wipe their nose, but you don't expect the napkin to keep going. She had bony little wrists, I couldn't imagine her pointing a gun at a criminal, she wiped her eyes, one at a time, straight across. I asked her if she was all right. She said she was, she said she'd had a long day, she'd also recently changed medications, nothing serious, but at the moment everything was right on the surface, her words.