Sparrows Falling from the Sky 3 страница

Dante and I looked at each other.

“I didn’t know you liked to fight, ” Dante said.

“I don’t really. Not really, ” I said.

“Yeah, ” Dante said. “You like to fight.”

“Maybe I do.” I said. “And I didn’t know you were a pacifist.”

“Maybe I’m not a pacifist. Maybe I just think you need a good reason to go around killing birds.” He searched my face. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to find there. “You’re good at tossing around bad words too.”

“Yeah, well, Dante, let’s not tell your mom.”

“We won’t tell yours either.”

I looked at him. “I have a theory about why moms are so strict.”

Dante almost smiled. “It’s because they love us, Ari.”

“That’s part of it. The other part of it is that they want us to stay boys forever.”

“Yeah, I think that would make my mom happy—if I was a boy forever.” Dante looked down at the dead bird. A few minutes ago, he’d been mad as hell. Now, he looked like he was going to cry.

“I’ve never seen you that mad, ” I said.

“I’ve never seen you that mad, either.”

We both knew that we were mad for different reasons.

For a moment, we just stood there looking down at the dead bird. “It’s just a little sparrow, ” he said. And then he started to cry.

I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there and watched him.

We walked back across the street and sat on his front porch. He tossed his tennis shoes across the street with all his might and anger. He wiped the tears from his face.

“Were you scared? ” he asked.

“No.”

“I was.”

“So? ”

And then we were quiet again. I hated the quiet. Finally I just asked a stupid question, “Why do birds exist, anyway? ”

He looked at me. “You don’t know? ”

“I guess I don’t.”

“Birds exist to teach us things about the sky.”

“You believe that? ”

“Yes.”

I wanted to tell him not to cry anymore, tell him that what those boys did to that bird didn’t matter. But I knew it did matter. It mattered to Dante. And, anyway, it didn’t do any good to tell him not to cry because he needed to cry. That’s the way he was.

And then he finally stopped. He took a deep breath and looked at me. “Will you help me bury the bird? ”

“Sure.”

We got a shovel from his father’s garage and walked to the park where the dead bird was lying on the grass. I picked up the bird with the shovel and carried it across the street, into Dante’s backyard. I dug a hole underneath a big oleander.

We put the bird in the hole and buried it.

Neither of us said a word.

Dante was crying again. And I felt mean because I didn’t feel like crying. I didn’t really feel anything for the bird. It was a bird. Maybe the bird didn’t deserve to get shot by some stupid kid whose idea of fun was shooting at things. But it was still just a bird.

I was harder than Dante. I think I’d tried to hide that hardness from him because I’d wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn’t hard.

We both stared at the bird’s grave. “Thanks, ” he said.

“Sure, ” I said.

I knew he wanted to be alone.

“Hey, ” I whispered, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We’ll go swimming, ” he said.

“Yeah, we’ll go swimming.”

There was a tear running down his cheek. It seemed like a river in the light of the setting sun.

I wondered what it was like, to be the kind of guy that cried over the death of a bird.

I waved bye. He waved bye back.

As I walked home, I thought about birds and the meaning of their existence. Dante had an answer. I didn’t. I didn’t have any idea as to why birds existed. I’d never even asked myself the question.

Dante’s answer made sense to me. If we studied birds, maybe we could learn to be free. I think that’s what he was saying. I had a philosopher’s name. What was my answer? Why didn’t I have an answer?

And why was it that some guys had tears in them and some had no tears at all? Different boys lived by different rules.

When I got home, I sat on my front porch.

I watched the sun set.

I felt alone, but not in a bad way. I really liked being alone. Maybe I liked it too much. Maybe my father was like that too.

I thought of Dante and wondered about him.

And it seemed to me that Dante’s face was a map of the world. A world without any darkness.

Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that?

Sparrows Falling from the Sky

When I was a boy, I used to wake up thinking that the world was ending.

One

THE MORNING AFTER WE BURIED THE SPARROW, I woke up on fire with a fever.

My muscles ached, my throat hurt, my head throbbed almost like a heart. I kept staring at my hands, almost believing they belonged to someone else. When I tried to get up, I had no balance, no equilibrium, and the room spun around and around. I tried to take a step, but my legs weren’t strong enough to carry my weight. I fell back on the bed, my clock radio crashing to the floor.

My mother appeared in my room and for some reason she didn’t seem real. “Mom? Mom? Is that you? ” I think I was yelling.

She was holding a question in her eyes. “Yes, ” she said. She seemed so serious.

“I fell, ” I said.

She said something—but I couldn’t translate what she was saying. Everything was so strange and I thought maybe I was dreaming, but her hand on my arm felt like a real touch. “You’re burning up, ” she said.

I felt her hands on my face.

I kept wondering where I was, so I asked her. “Where are we? ”

She held me for a moment. “Shhh.”

The world was so silent. There was a barrier between me and the world, and I thought for a moment that the world had never wanted me and now it was taking the opportunity to get rid of me.

I looked up and saw my mom standing in front of me, holding out two aspirin, a glass of water.

I sat up and reached for the pills and put them in my mouth. When I held the glass, I could see my hands trembling.

She put a thermometer under my tongue.

She studied the time on her watch, then pulled the thermometer out of my mouth.

“A hundred and four, ” she said. “We’ve got to break that fever.” She shook her head. “It’s all those germs at the pool.”

The world seemed closer for an instant. “It’s just a cold, ” I whispered. But it seemed like someone else was talking.

“I think you have the flu.”

But it’s summer. The words were on my tongue but I couldn’t say them. I couldn’t stop shivering. She placed another blanket over me.

Everything was spinning but when I closed my eyes, the room was motionless and dark.

And then the dreams came.

Birds were falling from the sky. Sparrows. Millions and millions of sparrows. They were falling like rain and they were hitting me as they fell and I had their blood all over me and I couldn’t find a place to protect myself. Their beaks were breaking my skin like arrows. And Buddy Holly’s plane was falling from the sky and I could hear Waylon Jennings singing “La Bamba.” I could hear Dante crying—and when I turned around to see where he was, I saw that he was holding Richie Valens’s limp body in his arms. And then the plane came falling down on us. All I saw was the shadow and the earth on fire.

And then the sky disappeared.

I must have been screaming, because my mom and dad were in the room. I was trembling and everything was soaked in my sweat. And then I realized that I was crying and I couldn’t make myself stop.

My dad picked me up and rocked me in the chair. I felt small and weak and I wanted to hold him back but I couldn’t because there wasn’t any strength in my arms, and I wanted to ask him if he had held me like this when I was a boy because I didn’t remember and why didn’t I remember. I started to think that maybe I was still dreaming, but my mother was changing the sheets on my bed so I knew that everything was real. Except me.

I think I was mumbling. My father held me tighter and whispered something, but not even his arms or his whispers could keep me from trembling. My mom dried my sweaty body with a towel and she and my dad changed me into a clean T-shirt and clean underwear. And then I said the strangest thing, “Don’t throw my T-shirt away. Dad gave it to me.” I knew I was crying, but I didn’t know why because I wasn’t the kind of guy who cried, and I thought that maybe it was someone else who was crying.

I could hear my father whisper, “Shhhh. It’s okay.” He laid me back down on the bed and my mother sat next to me and made me drink some water and take more aspirin.

I saw the look on my dad’s face and I knew he was worried. And I was sad that I had made him worry. I wondered if he had really held me and I wanted to tell him that I didn’t hate him, it was just that I didn’t understand him, didn’t understand who he was and I wanted to, I wanted so much to understand. My mother said something to my father in Spanish and he nodded. I was too tired to care about words in any language.

The world was so quiet.

I fell asleep—and the dreams came again. It was raining outside and there was thunder and lightning all around me. And I could see myself as I ran in the rain. I was looking for Dante and I was yelling because he was lost, “Dante! Come back! Come back! ” And then I wasn’t looking for Dante anymore, I was looking for my dad and I was yelling for him, “Dad! Dad! Where did you go? Where did you go? ”

When I woke again, I was soaked in my own sweat again.

My dad was sitting on my rocking chair, studying me.

My mom walked into the room. She looked at my father—then at me.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” I couldn’t make myself talk above a whisper.

My mother smiled and I thought she must have been really pretty when she was a girl. She helped me sit up. “Amor, you’re soaked. Why don’t you take a nice shower? ”

“I had nightmares.”

I leaned my head on her shoulder. I wanted the three of us to stay that way forever.

My dad helped me to the shower. I felt weak and washed out and when the warm water hit my body, I thought of my dreams... Dante, my dad. And I wondered what my dad looked like when he was my age. My mother had told me he was beautiful. I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.

When I went back to bed, my mom had changed the sheets again. “Your fever’s gone, ” she said. She gave me another glass of water. I didn’t want it but I drank all of it. I didn’t know how thirsty I’d been, and I asked her for more water.

My father was still there, sitting on my rocking chair.

We studied each other for a moment as I lay in bed.

“You were looking for me, ” he said.

I looked at him.

“In your dream. You were looking for me.”

“I’m always looking for you, ” I whispered.

Two

THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I WOKE, I THOUGHT I HAD died. I knew it wasn’t true—but the thought was there. Maybe a part of you died when you were sick. I don’t know.

My mom’s solution to my predicament was to make me drink gallons of water—one painful glass at a time.

I finally went on strike and refused to drink anymore. “My bladder’s turned into a water balloon that’s about to explode.”

“That’s good, ” she said, “You’re flushing your system out.”

“I’m done flushing, ” I said.

The water wasn’t the only thing I had to deal with. I had to deal with her chicken soup. Her chicken soup became my enemy.

The first bowl was incredible. I had never been that hungry. Not ever. She mostly gave me broth.

The soup returned the next day for lunch. That was okay too, because now I got all the chicken and the vegetables in the soup with warm corn tortillas and my mother’s sopa de arroz. But the soup came back in the form of an afternoon snack. And for dinner.

I was sick of water and chicken soup. I was sick of being sick. After four days in bed, I finally decided that it was time to move on.

I made an announcement to my mother. “I’m well.”

“You’re not, ” my mother said.

“I’m being held hostage.” That’s the first thing I said to my father when he came home from work.

He grinned at me.

“I’m fine now, Dad. I am.”

“You still look a little pale.”

“I need some sun.”

“Give it one more day, ” he said. “Then you can go out into the world and cause all the trouble you want.”

“Okay, ” I said. “But no more chicken soup.”

“That’s between you and your mother.”

He started to leave my room. He hesitated for a moment. He had his back to me. “Have you had any more bad dreams? ”

“I always have bad dreams, ” I said.

“Even when you’re not sick? ”

“Yeah.”

He stood at my doorway. He turned around and faced me. “Are you always lost? ”

“In most of them, yeah.”

“And are you always trying to find me? ”

“Mostly I think I’m trying to find me, Dad.” It was strange to talk to him about something real. But it scared me too. I wanted to keep talking, but I didn’t know exactly how to say what I was holding inside me. I looked down at the floor. Then I looked up at him and shrugged like no big deal.

“I’m sorry, ” he said. “I’m sorry I’m so far away.”

“It’s okay, ” I said.

“No, ” he said. “No, it’s not.” I think he was going to say something else, but he changed his mind. He turned and walked out of the room.

I kept staring down at the floor. And then I heard my father’s voice in the room again. “I have bad dreams too, Ari.”

I wanted to ask him if his dreams were about the war or about my brother. I wanted to ask him if he woke up as scared as me.

All I did was smile at him. He’d told me something about himself.

I was happy.

Three

I WAS ALLOWED TO WATCH TELEVISION. BUT I DISCOVERED something about myself. I didn’t really like television. I didn’t like it at all. I switched the TV off and found myself watching my mother as she sat at the kitchen table, looking over some of her old lesson plans.

“Mom? ”

She looked up at me. I tried to imagine my mother standing in front of her class. I wondered what the guys thought of her. I wondered how they saw her. I wondered if they liked her. Hated her? Respected her? I wondered if they knew she was a mother. I wondered if that mattered to them.

“What are you thinking? ”

“You like teaching? ”

“Yes, ” she said.

“Even when your students don’t care? ”

“I’ll tell you a secret. I’m not responsible for whether my students care or don’t care. That care has to come from them—not me.”

“Where does that leave you? ”

“No matter what, Ari, my job is to care.”

“Even when they don’t? ”

“Even when they don’t.”

“No matter what? ”

“No matter what.”

“Even if you teach kids like me, who think life is boring? ”

“That’s the way it is when you’re fifteen.”

“Just a phase, ” I said.

“Just a phase.” She laughed.

“You like fifteen-year-olds? ”

“Are you asking me if I like you, or are you asking me if I like my students? ”

“Both, I guess.”

“I adore you, Ari, you know I do.”

“Yeah, but you adore your students, too.”

“Are you jealous? ”

“Can I go outside? ” I could avoid questions as skillfully as she could.

“You can go out tomorrow.”

“I think you’re being a fascist.”

“That’s a big word, Ari.”

“Thanks to you, I know all about the different forms of government. Mussolini was a fascist. Franco was a fascist. And Dad says Reagan is a fascist.”

“Don’t take your father’s jokes too literally, Ari. All he’s saying is that he thinks President Reagan is too heavy-handed.”

“I know what he’s saying, Mom. Just like you know what I’m saying.”

“Well, it’s good to know that you think your mother is more than a form of government.”

“You kind of are, ” I said.

“I get your point, Ari. You’re still not going outside.”

There were days when I wished I had it in me to rebel against my mother’s rules.

“I just want to get out of here. I’m bored out of my skull.”

She got up from where she was sitting. She placed her hands on my face. “Hijo de mi vida, ” she said, “I’m sorry that you think I’m too strict on you. But I have my reasons. When you’re older—”

“You always say that. I’m fifteen. How old do I have to be? How old, Mom, before you think I’m smart enough to get it? I’m not a little boy.”

She took my hand and kissed it. “You are to me, ” she whispered. There were tears running down her cheeks. There was something I wasn’t getting. First Dante. Then me. And now my mom. Tears all over the damned place. Maybe tears were something you caught. Like the flu.

“It’s okay, Mom, ” I whispered. I smiled at her. I think I was hoping for a full explanation for her tears, but I was going to have to work to get it. “Are you okay? ” I said.

“Yes, ” she said, “I’m okay.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“I’m trying hard not to worry about you.”

“Why do you worry? I just had the flu.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What? ”

“What do you do when you leave the house? ”

“Stuff.”

“You don’t have any friends.” She started to place her hand over her mouth, then stopped herself.

I wanted to hate her for that accusation. “I don’t want any.”

She looked at me, almost as if I were a stranger.

“And how can I have friends if you don’t let me go outside? ”

I got one of her looks.

“I do have friends, Mom. I have school friends. And Dante. He’s my friend.”

“Yes, ” she said. “Dante.”

“Yes, ” I said. “Dante.”

“I’m glad for Dante, ” she said.

I nodded. “I’m okay, Mom. I’m just not the kind of guy—” I didn’t know what I was trying to say. “I’m just different.” I didn’t even know what I meant.

“You know what I think? ”

I didn’t want to know what she thought. I didn’t. But I was going to hear it anyway. “Sure, ” I said.

She ignored the attitude.

“I don’t think you know how loved you are.”

“I do know.”

She started to say something, but she changed her mind. “Ari, I just want you to be happy.”

I wanted to tell her that happy was hard for me. But I think she already knew that. “Well, ” I said, “I’m at that phase where I’m supposed to be miserable.”

That made her laugh.

We were okay.

“You think it would be all right if Dante came over? ”

Four

DANTE ANSWERED THE PHONE ON THE SECOND RING. “You haven’t been going to the pool.” He sounded mad.

“I’ve been in bed. I caught the flu. Mostly I’ve been sleeping, having really bad dreams, and eating chicken soup.”

“Fever? ”

“Yeah.”

“Achy bones? ”

“Yeah.”

“Night sweats? ”

“Yeah.”

“Bad stuff, ” he said. “What were your dreams about? ”

“I can’t talk about them.”

That seemed okay with him.

Fifteen minutes later, he showed up at my front door. I heard the doorbell. I could hear him talking to my mother. Dante never had any trouble starting up conversations. He was probably telling my mom his life story.

I heard him walking down the hall in his bare feet. And then there he was, standing at the doorway to my room, wearing a T-shirt that was so worn you could almost see through it, and a ratty pair of jeans with holes in them.

“Hi, ” he said. He was carrying a book of poems, a sketch pad, and some charcoal pencils.

“You forgot your shoes, ” I said.

“I donated them to the poor.”

“Guess the jeans are next.”

“Yeah.” We both laughed.

He studied me. “You look a little pale.”

“I still look more Mexican than you do.”

“Everybody looks more Mexican than I do. Pick it up with the people who handed me their genes.” There was something in his voice. The whole Mexican thing bothered him.

“Okay, okay.” I said. “Okay, okay” always meant it was time to change the subject. “So you brought your sketch pad.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to show me your drawings? ”

“Nope. I’m going to sketch you.”

“What if I don’t want to be sketched? ”

“How am I going to be an artist if I can’t practice? ”

“Don’t artists’ models get paid? ”

“Only the ones that are good-looking.”

“So I’m not good-looking? ”

Dante smiled. “Don’t be an asshole.” He seemed embarrassed. But not as embarrassed as I was.

I could feel myself turning red. Even guys with dark skinlike me could blush. “So you’re really going to be an artist? ”

“Absolutely.” He looked right at me. “You don’t believe me? ”

“I need evidence.”

He sat in my rocking chair. He studied me. “You still look sick.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe it’s your dreams.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t want to talk about my dreams.

“When I was a boy, I used to wake up thinking that the world was ending. I’d get up and look in the mirror and my eyes were sad.”

“You mean like mine.”

“Yeah.”

“My eyes are always sad.”

“The world isn’t ending, Ari.”

“Don’t be an asshole. Of course it’s not ending.”

“Then don’t be sad.”

“Sad, sad, sad, ” I said.

“Sad, sad, sad, ” he said.

We were both smiling, trying to hold in our laughter—but we just couldn’t do it. I was happy that he’d come over. Being sick made me feel fragile, like I might break. I didn’t like feeling like that. Laughing made me feel better.

“I want to draw you.”

“Can I stop you? ”

“You’re the one who said you needed evidence.”

He tossed me the book of poems he’d brought along. “Read it. You read. I’ll draw.” Then he got real quiet. His eyes started searching everything in the room: me, the bed, the blankets, the pillows, the light. I felt nervous and awkward and self-conscious and uncomfortable. And Dante’s eyes on me, well, I didn’t know if I liked that or didn’t like that. I just knew I felt naked. But there was something happening between Dante and his drawing pad that made me feel invisible. And that made me relax.

“Make me look good, ” I said.

“Read, ” he said. “Just read.”

It didn’t take long for me to forget Dante was drawing me. And I just read. I read and I read and I read. Sometimes I would glance over at him, but he was lost in his work. I returned to the book of poems. I read a line and tried to understand it: “from what we cannot hold the stars are made.” It was a beautiful thing to say, but I didn’t know what it meant. I fell asleep thinking what the line might mean.

When I woke, Dante was gone.

He hadn’t left any of the sketches that he’d done of me. But he did leave a sketch of my rocking chair. It was perfect. A rocking chair against the bare walls of my room. He’d captured the afternoon light streaming into the room, the way the shadows fell on the chair and gave it depth and made it appear as if it was something more than an inanimate object. There was something sad and solitary about the sketch and I wondered if that’s the way he saw the world or if that’s the way he saw my world.

I stared at the sketch for a long time. It scared me. Because there was something true about it.

I wondered where he’d learned to draw. I was suddenly jealous of him. He could swim, he could draw, he could talk to people. He read poetry and he liked himself. I wondered how that felt, to really like yourself. And I wondered why some people didn’t like themselves and others did. Maybe that’s just the way it was.

I looked at his drawing, then looked at my chair. That’s when I saw the note he’d left.

Ari,

I hope you like the sketch of your chair. I miss you at the pool. The lifeguards are jerks.

Dante

After dinner, I picked up the phone and called him.

“Why did you leave? ”

“You needed to rest.”

“I’m sorry I fell asleep.”

Then neither one of us said anything.

“I liked the sketch, ” I said.

“Why? ”

“Because it looks just like my chair.”

“Is that the only reason? ”

“It holds something, ” I said

“What? ”

“Emotion.”

“Tell me, ” Dante said.

“It’s sad. It’s sad and it’s lonely.”

“Like you, ” he said.

I hated that he saw who I was. “I’m not sad all the time, ” I said.

“I know, ” he said.

“Will you show me the others? ”

“No.”

“Why? ”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? ”

“For the same reason you can’t tell me about your dreams.”

Five

THE FLU DIDN’T SEEM TO WANT TO LET ME GO.

That night, the dreams came again. My brother. He was on the other side of the river. He was in Juá rez and I was in El Paso and we could see each other. And I yelled, “Bernardo, come over! ” and he shook his head. And then I thought he didn’t understand, so I yelled at him in Spanish. “Vente pa’aca, Bernardo! ” I thought that if I only knew the right words or spoke them in the right language, then he would cross the river. And come home. If only I knew the right words. If only I spoke the right language. And then my dad was there. He and my brother stared at each other and I couldn’t stand the look on their faces, because it seemed like there was the hurt of all the sons and all the fathers of the world. And the hurt was so deep that it was way beyond tears and so their faces were dry. And then the dream changed and my brother and father were gone. I was standing in the same place where my father had been standing, on the Juá rez side, and Dante was standing across from me. And he was shirtless and shoeless and I wanted to swim toward him but I couldn’t move. And then he said something to me in English and I couldn’t understand him. And I said something to him in Spanish, and he couldn’t understand me.

And I was so alone.

And then all the light was gone and Dante disappeared into the darkness.

I woke up and I felt lost.

I didn’t know where I was.

The fever was back. I thought that maybe nothing would ever be the same. But I knew it was just the fever. I fell asleep again. The sparrows were falling from the sky. And it was me who was killing them.

Six

DANTE CAME OVER TO VISIT. I KNEW I WASN’T A LOT of fun. He knew it too. It didn’t seem to matter.

“Do you want to talk? ”

“No, ” I said.

“Do you want me to go? ”

“No, ” I said.

He read poems to me. I thought about the sparrows falling from the sky. As I listened to Dante’s voice, I wondered what my brother would sound like. I wondered if he’d ever read a poem. My mind was full and crowded—falling sparrows, my brother’s ghost, Dante’s voice.

Dante finished reading a poem, then went looking for another.

“Aren’t you afraid of catching what I have? ” I said.

“No.”

“You’re not afraid? ”

“No.”

“You’re not afraid of anything.”

“I’m afraid of lots of things, Ari.”

I could have asked What? What are you afraid of? I don’t think he would have told me.

Seven

THE FEVER WAS GONE.

But the dreams stayed.

My father was in them. And my brother. And Dante. In my dreams. And sometimes my mother, too. I had this imagestuck in my mind. I was four and I was walking down the street, holding my brother’s hand. I wondered if it was a memory or a dream. Or a hope.

I lay around and thought about things. All the ordinary problems and mysteries of my life that mattered only to me. Not that thinking about things made me feel better. I decided that my junior year at Austin High School was going to suck. Dante went to Cathedral because they had a swim team. My mom and dad had wanted to send me to school there, but I’d refused. I didn’t want to go to an all-boy Catholic school. I’d insisted to myself and to my parents that all the boys there were rich. My mom argued that they gave scholarships to smart boys. I argued back that I wasn’t smart enough to get a scholarship. My mom argued back that they could afford to send me there. “I hate those boys! ” I’d begged my father not to send me there.

I never said anything to Dante about hating Cathedral boys. He didn’t have to know.

I thought about my mom’s accusation. “You don’t have any friends.”

I thought of my chair and how really it was a portrait of me.

I was a chair. I felt sadder than I’d ever felt.

I knew I wasn’t a boy anymore. But I still felt like a boy. Sort of. But there were other things I was starting to feel. Man things, I guess. Man loneliness was much bigger than boy loneliness. And I didn’t want to be treated like a boy anymore. I didn’t want to live in my parents’ world and I didn’t have a world of my own. In a strange way, my friendship with Dante had made me feel even more alone.