The Surf Guru Read online

  The crowd quiets as the white-haired monsignor walks slowly out of the police station and up the wood-plank steps that lead to the gallows. Swinging a censer, he chants San Humberto’s Creed in the old sacred tongue. He leads us all in the Gestures of the Sacred Bones. The Festival has begun.

  The mayor follows in the monsignor’s path, and then the chief of police and his two sergeants. El Gris emerges from the station and plods ahead, flanked by two officers who guide him forward. His hands are shackled behind his back. He does not look so fearsome now that they have shaved his head; he looks tired, spent. Still, the crowd gasps and ooohs and aaahs, just as they did when they saw Madalena—my wife—walk down the aisle of the cathedral in the emerald-green wedding dress Lars bought her.

  Vargas nudges me. “If I were in charge, I would not have cut off his hair,” he says. “His name no longer fits. What is he now? He is nothing.”

  El Gris is surrounded by policemen on the long scaffold. One of them is young Séptimo, who played with Ysela when they were children. There have been several nights when Séptimo has woken me up in the street and walked me home. He is kind and polite, not yet corrupted by age and money and other people.

  This is what I imagine: El Gris jumping down from the gallows, catching a pistol thrown to him by a comrade hidden within the crowd, then running to a ready horse, his gun blasting away and streaking the air with lead, the police awestruck and fumbling. A stray bullet ripping through both Lars and the monkey in his arms, and the two of them tumbling from the terrace and landing, twisted, in the dirt. The mare’s hoofbeats resonating in my chest as she speeds El Gris to safety outside the walls of our corrupted city.

  Perhaps I am the one who will throw him that gun.

  But El Gris makes no move to escape. He stands still while Séptimo, on the chief ’s command, tightens the noose around his neck. The mayor motions for quiet. “As San Humberto punished evil, so we punish evil in His name. Before you is the infamous outlaw El Gris. Countless people have tried to bring him to justice and have failed. But we have succeeded, we, the citizens of Ciudad San Humberto, especially our good friend Lars Jarlssen and the young and beautiful Ysela María Rivera de los Pozos.”

  Ysela? I think as the crowd roars approval. What have I missed?

  El Gris looks up at my daughter and fixes his eyes on her, as if he wants her to be the last thing he sees. It is possible that his lips move, but I cannot see clearly. As Séptimo reaches for the lever, Vargas squeezes his eyes shut. So do I. First there is silence. Then I hear the trapdoor slap and the rope jerk taut, and then the wood creaking as the bandit swings, dead, and the voices of the city rising all around me.

  Years ago, when Ysela was a little girl, I explained the Festival to her like this: First we impose justice as the Great Codex demands. After the hanging, we divide into four groups and wait at each of the gates for hyenas to be let in. At the sound of the gun, they run, and we run ahead of them. We act as their guides. We lead them to the dead man, and then we watch with joy from high above.

  Why?2

  It is symbolic.

  Symbolic?

  It is like we are the great saint and the hyenas are us. We lead them to justice, but we do so at great risk to ourselves. And we rejoice when they find it.

  Couldn’t they find the dead man themselves? she asked. Couldn’t they smell him?

  That is not the point, I said. Someday you will understand.

  We are gathered together in front of the west gate, waiting for the signal. Jugs of dragonfruit wine are passed through the crowd. People drink quickly, in equal parts celebration and fear. Someone says the rabid ones are behind the south gate this year. Someone else says no, they are here behind the west gate, Zorrillo himself told him so. There is still no sign of Rubén.

  I look down the road toward the square; though the sky has darkened, I believe I can make out the shape of El Gris’s body, swaying slightly at the end of the rope. I can hear the hyenas in their cages outside the gate, snarling, throwing themselves against the bars that confine them. I hear teeth on metal, and I realize that I am very frightened, frightened of the hyenas, of Lars, of the people around me. I am frightened that I will never see my son again, frightened that I will never again be a father to Ysela. I am becoming an old man and I am frightened of myself. The more I have learned, the more frightened I have become. The strength leaks from my tired, bruised legs. I drink a large mouthful from a jug but it does not wash away the fear. “I want to go home,” I tell Vargas. “I am too tired to run.”

  A pistol fires from behind the gate. “Too late,” Vargas shouts. He throws the jug aside, grabs my hand, and we run. The gate opens behind us, and I hear the clanks of cage doors and the hyenas’ snarls turning to whoops. The muscles in my legs stretch and burn. I do not look behind me. I keep my eyes forward. My view of the city bounces crazily as my feet pound the earth.

  Past the feed store, past the animal doctor’s, past the bakery, a quarter of the way there. Vargas and I have fallen behind the pack, and he pulls me along with him. The air is filled with dust and with the stink of dirty, murderous fur. My breaths are shallow and I feel like vomiting. I hear the hyenas behind me, front legs long, hind legs hort—ka-thup, ka-thup, ka-thup. Powerful jaws snapping. I have heard these sounds every year of my life. I do not want to hear them ever again.

  Past the tailor, past the barber, almost halfway. Vargas is nearly dragging me. I am holding him back—fat, panting Vargas. I am so tired. I need to stop and I do not care what is behind me. Then I wonder, Am I no better than Ayala, on his knees and begging to have his neck wrung? Oh, but this is different, so different. It is one thing to seek death; it is another simply to accept the inevitable, to embrace the fate that snaps at your heels. Everyone will be able to see how different it was. And even if they cannot, I know San Humberto will. He will understand.

  At the moment I let go of Vargas and try to plant my feet, I feel a prickly heat surge throughout my body. Just as quickly the warmth turns to ice. I think I feel myself dying.

  Vargas clamps his soft hand around my arm and pulls, hard. He turns his head, and I can see by his eyes that the hyenas are close, closer than they have ever been to him before. “Run!” he yells, his high voice sharp, commanding. Without thinking I take his hand again, but I do not know how much longer I can run.

  Just ahead is my stand. My stand. Where I have sold the fruit for every breakfast, every pie, every jar of jelly in this town for thirty years. In this town where people laugh at Lars’s jokes and forget where their berries come from. In this town where people come to do business with me after doing business with Lars. In this town where men pay to defile my daughter and then haggle with me over the price of figs.

  I feel a sharp pain in my side, and I imagine a scene as strange and vivid as one of my nightmares: Lars has shot me, and he is standing on the terrace, lowering his rifle and laughing as that damned monkey blows away the curl of smoke. “I am shot,” I say, without meaning to.

  “You have a cramp,” Vargas says. “Breathe!”

  Yes. Breathe, Manolo. Breathe. I close my eyes, shutting out the shaking city, and I concentrate on breathing—breathing in everything that is in the air, the good and the bad, the forgiveness and the dust and the stench and the ghosts of the dead, the love and the fear. We pass the stand and now I think about Ysela going there to tell me her good news, Ysela, my daughter who corrected her mother’s stone, my daughter who will be a schoolteacher, my daughter who somehow captured El Gris. The pain still burns my side, but I pass Vargas and now I am pulling him along with me.

  And we pass the cobbler’s and the cooper’s and the saddle maker’s stores, and I see in my mind how it happened: El Gris heard about the most beautiful woman in the land and knew he had to see her, so he came to our town—perhaps with his hair tucked under his hat—and found his way to Lars’s bar, and he told Lars he would pay many times the usual rate; he simply had to be with this beautiful Ysela, this angel of whom the
whole island speaks. And Lars took the money, of course he took the money, and he sent my daughter off with this criminal, and maybe she was scared at first but she knew what she had to do for everyone else, for the larger good, so she set aside her fear, and she whispered to one of the other girls to run and get the police, and she took El Gris into her room and kept him there—he thought he was taking her, but she was taking him—until the police knocked down the door. Of course Lars claimed credit but that was a lie; it was only Ysela who thought of something more important than money, Ysela, who has changed, repented, who now wants to surround herself with good people and to do good things, who wants to teach children to be moral and thoughtful. And while all of this may be a story I am making up, it is my story and she is my daughter and my legs are pumping and my body is strong and the bar and the cathedral flash past and then from four directions everyone converges in the square and heads for the ladders, and Vargas and I go up the side of the hotel, and we are all safe, away from the beasts below, our chests heaving as we catch our breath.

  The hyenas stop dead in front of the gallows, a pulsing mass of brown fur and coiled muscle. They hunch forward and eye the body swinging in the air. We watch them in the fire-light reverently, wordlessly. We will have the rest of the night to celebrate. We will drink and dance and laugh on the roofs all the way until sunrise, when Zorrillo and his riflemen will clear out the hyenas and make it safe to come down. But now, now it is time to watch.

  After the first hyena leaps onto the gallows and bites into a leg, the others fall into a frenzy, as if they had all shared the first taste of the dead. They swarm over the gallows, jaws snapping as they jump for their bounty. The body sways and jerks as the hyenas rip meat from bone. They knock each other over the side as they fight for the best pieces. They howl and laugh. We will all hear these sounds in our nightmares, and that, I realize, is one reason we do this.

  Lars watches from the edge of the hotel’s roof, leaning against the railing, surrounded by three young girls, his latest recruits, who comb his beard, brush dirt off his suit, rub his back. I think about approaching him and demanding compensation for his monkey’s theft, but then I spot Ysela standing with her friends across the square from us. I tell Vargas I will return and make my way around the perimeter, crossing between buildings on wooden planks and over the streets on the rope bridges, trying not to look down. I slip through the crowd and tap her on the shoulder. She faces me. Her friends tighten around her and look at me. The disgust in their gazes is obvious.

  “I am so sorry,” I whisper to her. “I am proud of what you have done and what you will do. I think you will be an excellent teacher.”

  I feel her warm breath in my ear as she whispers back, “San Humberto keep you well.” She smells like her mother, like the west wind that brings the winter rains. She kisses me on the cheek and turns back to her friends, who close ranks around her. Some of them are handsome young men. It occurs to me that she could be in love with one of them and I would not know. I do not belong here with her, with them. This saddens me, but the sadness is a new one, soft and muted, sweetly bearable. Ysela has her place, and I have mine. I cross back to the roof of the hotel and rejoin Vargas. He slaps my shoulder, and together we watch the scene below.

  A hyena creeps out on the crossbeam of the gallows and begins gnawing on the rope. “Ah,” Vargas says. “They figured it out more quickly this year.” When the bandit’s body falls, there is no sound of impact; it is caught in the air by a dozen snapping jaws and pulled apart. When there is nothing left but bones, the church bells ring. It is time to celebrate.

  I watch as people cluster around Lars, congratulating him for the capture of El Gris, fighting for position in his good graces. How can I expect them to do otherwise? He owns the town. This simply is a fact. Vargas and I stand by ourselves, still watching as the hyenas pace the square, licking their mouths, nosing at the dirt, gnawing bone, waiting for whatever it is that comes next. We remain quiet with each other. A light wind blows across the rooftops, cooling me through my wet shirt. It is a wind that promises a thunderstorm, a violent but merciful break in the weather, and I think of all the times I stood on a roof with Madalena and watched the sacrifice with her. When the church bells rang, she would make the Gestures of the Sacred Bones and begin to pray. Maybe it was just the bells ringing and the wind blowing through her hair and her lips forming the words of a prayer, but every time she did this, I thought, Bless the saint, she has never been more beautiful. For the first time I can remember her without anger. My feet throb, and I can feel the dampness of sweat in my boots. Is this is how anger drains away?

  Lars is waving his arms animatedly, telling his story for all those people, collecting handshakes and pats on the back. He draws a cigar out of his jacket pocket, and one of the young whores strikes a match for him. He wraps his hand around her skinny wrist and is guiding it toward his face when someone whistles—a fierce whistle that cuts right through the wind and chatter. Lars turns toward the whistle, like a man who assumes all whistles are meant for him.

  The apple hits him on the bridge of his nose, and I hear the crunch of bone. Lars recoils as if shot. Blood spills over his blond beard and streaks his white suit.

  “Did you see?” I say to Vargas. “My son has good aim.”

  Vargas smiles, more to himself than to me, and we watch as the people around Lars wheel around and back, around and back, scanning the dark, trying to figure out where that apple came from, wondering if there will be more.

  —after “Paradise” by Alejandro Escovedo

  Vikings

  We were almost out of money, so Trace went to steal us another bottle of something. We were celebrating. The holiday weekend was almost over, and the mechanic was due back in town the next morning. We’d finally be able to get back on the road.

  I sat on the rear bumper of the van and waited. Smoke from the fireworks still hung in the air. Biggest display in the Mojave, the posters had promised. Maybe it was, but we couldn’t tell. An hour before the show, the sky had curdled into a clump of fog. Fog, in the desert. First time in twenty years, someone said.

  I watched the smoke and fog mingle and roll in lazy waves in and out of the orange floodlight of the gas station. All around me were junked cars parked at crazy angles, cracked windshields and fallen bumpers shining in the greasy light. Buicks and Chevys and Pontiacs, all chrome and disappointment. The dirt was speckled with pieces of broken glass. Every breath tasted like gunpowder. We were still thousands of miles from Alaska.

  Trace was gone a long time, too long, and I wondered if he’d found a girl and gone off with her. That happened a lot. The last time was in Flagstaff, where he’d hooked up with a tequila-shooting girl who was wispy and tan and blonde, so good-looking that her red eyes and thick liquor-stink just made her seem game and fearless instead of sad. She told us she was from San Diego, on her way east to divinity school. At last call, I saw her lift her skirt and flash Trace her tiger-print panties, and they spent the night in her motel room. I slept in the van. “I don’t understand it,” he said the next day. “I’m a fucked-up-looking guy, but I always get the beautiful ones.” It was true. He was fucked-up-looking—short and puffy, with a half-closed eye and a nose that looked like it’d been hit with a bag of nickels—and he did always get the beautiful ones. And he always seemed genuinely surprised about it. You could tell him to shut up and enjoy his luck, but that never stopped him from wondering out loud.

  While I waited for Trace, I ran through the names of the places we’d drive through next: Tehachapi, Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Lodi, Red Bluff, Redding. I’d studied the map, knew the route by heart. I wanted to see all these towns in the rearview, feel them as beats in a rhythm of places passed by, a rhythm as steady and soothing as tires thrumming over pavement joints.

  When Trace came back to the van, he was carrying a baby wrapped in a threadbare beach towel. “Hey, Phil,” he said. “Look what I got.” He held it up like it was a carnival prize. Th
e baby’s eyes were shut, but it wrinkled its little fingers open and closed, so I knew it was alive.

  “Whose is that?” I said.

  “Someone gave it to me.”

  “Who?”

  “A woman. Outside the liquor store.”

  “People don’t just hand out babies,” I said.

  “This one did,” he said.

  “Take it back.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “She drove away.”

  “We have to find her,” I said. “People will think we stole it.”

  Trace carried the baby as we walked along the road into town. He hummed softly and rocked it in his arms. I kicked at the loose gravel. “The mother,” I said, “was she fat?” The other morning, in the taco place, I’d seen a fat woman chew up a quesadilla and dribble it into her baby’s mouth. Like she thought they were penguins or something. It was all I could do to keep my food down, watching. I wondered if this one might be the penguin baby. I didn’t want any baby, but I especially didn’t want that one.

  “No,” Trace said. “She was skinny. Like meth-skinny.”

  “Even so,” I said. “We have to get rid of it.”

  In the streetlight I could see the baby’s forehead and nose were bright red. The mother, whoever the hell she was, had let the kid get sunburned. Even I knew that was wrong. Still, the baby looked pretty happy. It wasn’t crying. As babies go, this one was pretty mellow.

  We sat on the curb in the liquor store parking lot and waited for the mother to come back. The baby slept in Trace’s arms. People walked by and looked at us suspiciously. No one recognized the baby. After a while the store owner banged on the glass and waved us away. I pointed to the baby, trying to explain, but the guy just shook his head and kept waving.