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El Flamboyan Arde
By Garik Charneco
A hairy hand reached into the back seat of the car, in between the faded leather front seats, and snatched the book from Paco’s own grasp. “Que tu lees,” the father asked, holding the book to the Caribbean radiance that poured through the open window of the old, boxy Volvo station wagon. Sunlight shimmered off the foil decorated letters and highly-stylized star fighters on the cover. The father snorted and balanced the book over the cracked vinyl of the steering wheel. He took a sharp curve that took him off the main avenue and into one of the streets of the Trastalleres barrio. He barely missed a three legged dog that lay in the accumulated dust of the street gutter. Paco’s mother reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, guiding the car back to the center of the street while the three-legged dog hobbled over to the shade provided by the plastic waffle cone of the abandoned Tasty-Freeze.
“Be careful, Hector. You just almost hit that poor dog.” Mariela looked out the window and saw the dog sprawl on the warm concrete under the order window. “Poor thing.”
Hector dropped the book into his wife’s lap. He reached down, underneath his seat, and pulled an out opened can of Medalla beer. He finished off the drink, crushed the can against the door and tossed it into the back seat. The can clinked against the empty shells of the rest of the six pack he bought at the gas station in Ponce. “Don’t worry about that dog. Worry about your hijo.” Hector pointed at his wife’s crotch and the book nestled in between her legs. “Reading that shit. Will that make him a hombre?”
Mariela took her own look at the book and shrugged. “He is only nine, Hector. It’ll help him learn English.”
“Ingles? Why should he care about that? He doesn’t need that”
Mariela handed the book back to Paco, who grabbed it hesitantly and with a keen eye on his father. “Here you are, mi amor,” she said to Paco and then turned to look at her husband. “Well, it would be more than you know.”
Hector cleared his throat and took the next turn gentle. “He doesn’t need that.” Hector turned his entire head backwards and met Paco’s eyes. “Look out there and you’ll see what you have to learn.”
Paco just wanted his book back. The novel was just getting good and a gigantic space slugging match, complete with armored mechs, was brewing in the next chapter. His father no longer looked at him, but Paco still felt the urge to obey. He peered through the window.
Outside, it was 2:47pm. Groups of girls in powder yellow polo shirts and black-yellow plaid skirts grouped around, but each one still on their cell phone. Younger boys tried to slap each other with the flat seed pods of the playground’s flamboyan, which rippled in burst of green leaflets and grapefruit flesh colored blossoms. A cloud of dust emanated in the background, coming from the cinder block factory. Two older boys played basketball on the public court, where the backboard had two holes in it and the rim was without a net. The car slowed down and idled in front of the bodega, where old men in sky blue linen shirts, grimy trucker hats, and freshly ironed slacks played dominos, surrounded by green, frosted bottles of beer. Hector held his elbow out the car door and motioned to the men with his driving hand.
One of the men, his skin coffee-ground dark and his beard whiskers an off-white, held up his own coated beer and saluted the passing car.
Hector laughed and then honked the horn, scaring a flock of pigeons that fed on the brown sugar left out by the neighborhood kids. “Now, that is what I am talking about. Real guys just sitting, enjoying an early afternoon beer. You don’t need any English or books for that.”
Paco was about to open the book, but his father’s words cut through. Paco pressed his bookmark into the book’s spine and slid down his seat to the pile of trash in the bottom of the seat.
Hector goosed the car up the streets; a patchwork of cobblestone, old railcar tracks, cobblestones, and cement. “Anyway, we are almost at Vivi’s house. No need for more reading.”
* * *
The floorboards at Vivi’s were recently painted and free of the wooden slivers from Paco’s last visit to Mayaguez. Paco preferred the new, smooth floor to his great-aunt Vivi’s plastic-lined couches, but then he heard the rasping from underneath the house.
Vivi came out from the kitchen in the back of her two room house, holding a tray of deep fried plantains with the golden bananas clustered around a saucer of Puerto Rican special sauce. Vivi set the platter down on her mahogany coffee table next to a crowd of porcelain elephants, sad clowns, and cherubs. Vivi wore a charcoal gray dress with white trims along the arm holes. The dress reminded Paco of the burlap sacks of chicken feed Tio Felix kept for the cock-fighting roosters. The dress hung baggy over her bent 82 year old frame and exposed flabby pieces of skin, dangling from her under arms and calves. She was not fat, just wrinkle by enough time to make her appear swollen and unwieldy. She sat down and the sound of plastic scrunching against vinyl, drowned out her long sigh. She pointed to the plantains. “Made those just for your trip. When was the last time you cam from San Juan?”
Hector scooped out dollops of the mayonnaise and ketchup mixture with one of the flaccid plantains. Mariela looked at her husband with eyes that came together at the bridge of her nose and trembled with emotion. The eyes seemed to say, ‘Get that damn banana out of your mouth and look at my great aunt,’ but the message was lost on Hector
Mariela turned away from Hector, shaking her head so that the crop of her hair swayed over her forehead. “Too long, titi Vivi. I think it has been five months.” She looked back at Hector, seeking an answer, while he wiped his mouth with an embroidered kerchief. “Isn’t that right, Hector? Five months, no?
He stretched out in the chair, spreading his legs so his kneecaps looked like they would erupt from his jeans. “Yeah, five months or something like that.” He motioned to the kitchen, seeing straight through the curtain of wooden beads Vivi used for a door. “Got anything to drink, Vivi? It was quite the drive. There was some protest at the oil refinery down in Ponce. Had to stop while it quieted down.”
Vivi mentioned she might have some beer and got up to check. “And I’ll get a soda for Paco. Picked up some Kola Champagne at Franco’s when I bought the yemitas for Catalina’s christening.” The soft skid of Vivi’s worn slippers lingered in the air, even after she had slipped through the beaded curtain. When Mariela heard the sharp shuck of the refrigerator door, she threw Hector another glare. Paco didn’t see his mother’s lips move, but watched her Roman nose wriggle, the chestnuts irises of her eyes flicker in quick saccades and lips protrude. She spoke to Hector in the secret Puerto Rican facial tic language that Paco had not yet picked up. He knew the gist of the conversation, but only because his father had been in this situation so often, lying and searching for one more beer. There was anger, annoyance, and a bit of frustration.
Vivi came back from the kitchen holding two cans, one colorfully red and the other decorated with golden sprigs of wheat. Paco accepted the Kola Champagne and drank the sugary dark proto-soda while still clinging to his mother’s side. The sweat from his legs stuck to the plastic. Vivi looked at him and asked why he was on the couch. “Weren’t you all about the floor, hijo? I just had it smoothed. No more splinters.”
Paco looked down at a big, clustered knot in the wood. He heard the soft, but continuous, pitter-patter of feet. Sometimes he heard the clink of metal and soft breaths. Didn’t the adults hear it? Paco imagined that maybe El Cuco, the legendary baby-stealing Caribbean boogey man, had moved under Vivi’s house. Or maybe the Chupacabra, who his third-paternal cousin, Ruben, swore he’d saw outside the outlet mall in Canovanas. Paco cuddled next to his mother, reaching deep into a slight roll of fat on Mariela’s side, for security. He wondered whether the blood-hungry, red-eyed beast had made the 90 mile journey from the rainforest, just to move under Vivi’s house and torment him.
Hector noticed his son, burrowing himself back into his mother. He set down his beer and looked at Paco. “What is wrong with you? Que te pasa?”
Paco nuzzled into Mariela, feeling the slight tickle of a few raised liver spots through the cotton of her blouse. He didn’t glance at his father, but kept an eye on the floor, staring at the same, knotted swirl in the floorboard.
Hector tapped his heel against the floor. “You afraid of the floor! But c’mon, I has no more slivers. What is so bad about it, now?” He started to chuckle.
Paco clambered deeper against his mother and the skin on his legs squeaked and slipped against the couch’s plastic lining. “Leave him alone, Hector,” Mariela said before she heard the soft whine come from under her feet.
There was a gurgling sound, from when Hector stopped sipping at his beer. He leaned forward, tilting his head so his ear pointed to the floor. “What was that?”
Vivi turned around in her chair, her old hips still showing some speed, and grabbed a wooden broom handle that leaned against the wall. She slammed the floor boards with the broom handle, keeping a steady rhythm with her feet and calling out a roster of saint’s name. “Madre de Dios!” She looked up at Hector, as if asking for help. “This damn dog!” She put her head down and screamed at the floor, “Mira! Pee-wee, shut up !”
The whine stopped but Paco still heard the soft rattle of metal on metal. Mariela brushed her son’s head, whispering soft cooing noises to him, like the sounds mourning doves make. She whispered, “Mi amor,” before kissing Paco’s forehead and turning her gaze to Vivi. “Pee-Wee? Calixto’s dog?”
Hector grumbled and finished his beer. Paco perked up at the mention of his first maternal cousin, the artist who left the tin-roofs and pouring rain spouts of Mayaguez for the gallery scene in old San Juan. Vivi put the broomstick back against the wall. “The one and only,” she answered while balancing the rounded tip of the broom handle into one of the grooves in the wall.
Hector brought his legs together and put his arms against his side. He lost the casual, ‘give me another’ beer attitude and assumed an air of responsibility. Even in his blue jeans and white t-shirt he appeared fatherly by just sitting there in Vivi’s arm chair that had survived the hurricane George floods. “Why didn’t he just take that dog with him to old San Juan?” Mariela tried to quiet him, but Hector continued. “No, I am just saying that it is just him and that Ricardo guy in that apartment. With a rooftop apartment there is enough room for that dog. He keeps all those damn trees there.”
Paco crawled out from his mother’s side. “The ceibas trees,” he said, correcting his father.
Hector laughed and reached over for another fried plantain. He opened his legs again and shook the piece of fried fruit at Vivi while he spoke. “Mira, that is his cousin talking. You had to see what Paco was reading on the way here. Vivi. Some mierda with lasers, aliens and all that. I tell you, that is Calixto.”
Mariela jumped into the conversation. “Well, anyway, what is wrong with Pee-Wee?”
Vivi struggled to pick who to answer. She looked at Hector and Mariela in short glances before deciding. “I don’t know what is wrong with the dog. Your sister sent him over about a month ago and he had these horrible shakes and all this liquid, almost like pus, coming from his nose and, oh, was it horrible. I got some of the neighborhood boys to tie him down there, under the house, because he just spent all day shaking and whining.”
“Why would Luisa send the dog here,” asked Mariela while she petted Paco’s head, wondering if this was too much.
“He is a biter. He tried to bite Gabriel.” Vivi crossed her arms across her chest and the sacks of skin under her forearms jiggled. “You know how your cousin is always dropping off her kids at Luisa’s. It was bound for the dog to try and bite the baby one day. So they sent him over to me because you know how I am with animals.” She smiled and showed a mouth with one missing tooth and another colored completely black. Paco remembered the family stories of Vivi and all the strays she took in. The roosters with only one eye that she saved after the cock fights and the guinea-fowl she sheltered from hungry neighbors. Mariela returned the smile, but then Vivi hung her head low. “But I do not know what is wrong with Pee-Wee. Calixto is here for the weekend. I think he is going to take the dog to the vet school at the university and well,” she glanced at Paco, hesitating and cautious. “Well, so they can take a look at him.”
Everyone seemed content in the lie and Hector only grumbled about Calixto in Mayaguez. “What is he doing in town?” He glared at Mariela and Paco, asking in the same face code language, ‘Was it one of you?’
“He has an exhibition at the university. Just a few paintings.” Vivi got up from the chair and shuffled back to the kitchen. “Now, you must be hungry. I made this asopao really quick, so it’s a bit watery but the rice is still good.” From inside the kitchen, the noise of pot lids and bubbling stew wafted into the living room.
* * *
Vivi had a TV, a huge one, but no cable. She used it to watch the local news and to hold her collection of porcelain Buddha, sad clown, and dog figurines. Paco stared at the picture frames under the television stand and the faded photographs of the models Vivi never took out. Hector and Mariela were in the kitchen when the rusted deadbolt of Vivi’s front gate squeaks the arrival of someone. The adults peer out from the kitchen and notice how the visitor took their time, putting the deadbolt back in place. Mariela slid her fingers away from her coffee mug and asked Vivi, “Is it Luisa?”
Vivi shook her head, rubbing her grease soaked fingers on the towel she had over her shoulder.
Hector shrugged and sat in the wicker rocker in the kitchen. “Well here they come anyway so calm down.” Hector turned his head and saw the Paco’s back as the boy sat on the floor. “Nene, tell us who it is?”
Paco got up and when he moved, the dog under the floorboards gurgled and scratched at the weathered wood. Paco stood quiet for a second and did not notice Calixto come through the screen door.
Calixto wore a purple polo with a small neon green shark stitched across from the breast pocket. Under that he had a pair of yellow, pink, and green plaid shorts held together by a black leather belt with a simple gold colored buckle. His shoes were low-top canvas sneakers colored in the same algal green as the green in the plaid. His socks were plain white. Calixto was tall, skinny, and tanned from daily swims down at the Escambron beach in Old San Juan. His hair was cut in an unappealing flat top, his nose pronouncedly Roman, and all his angles primordially Puerto Rican with sharp and slender cuts that remind Paco of the Taino Indians he read about in school. Paco smiled at the sight of his cousin and embraced him, but only coming up past Calixto’s knees. Paco started telling him about a book he read and Calixto returned the smile, flashing glittering teeth and always half-giggling at Paco’s actions.
Vivi shuffled over and kissed Calixto while blessing him with every saint Paco had ever heard of. Mariela smiled and Hector just grimaced asking, “What you going to do with that dog”
Calixto answers, “That is why I came here,” but says it an articulate, halcyon Spanish that makes Paco think of rusty ceiling fans blowing cigarette smoke out an Old San Juan gallery.
Hector got up from the chair but did not leave the kitchen. “Well good. Take it back to Ricardo and see what you two can make of it. Pobre Vivi, having to watch over it while you were gone.” Mariela squeezed her husbands arm and tried to quiet him.
Calixto nodded to Vivi and thanked her for her help. “Don’t worry. I will take care of Pee-Wee.” Calixto turned on his heels and watched through the glare on Vivi’s TV, Hector sitting back down. After that, Calixto motioned to Paco, flicking his wrists so a leather bracelet studded with shark’s teeth jingled. Paco shot glances in between Calixto and his father, who argued with Mariela. With his parents busy Paco followed Calixto out the screen door and to the trapdoor that lead under the house.
Vivi had a giant poinsettia plant left over from a far gone Christmas that she allowed to grow in her yard. The plant’s dual colored leaves fanned over the trap door and Calixto made Paco hold onto a supple branch while he untwisted the wire hinges that kept the plank affixed to the latticework trim. He went in first but held the plank aside for Paco.
Under the floorboards of Vivi’s house there was a weather concrete circle with a metal spike drilled into the middle. The entire ground was soft dirt and there were pits and tracks where Pee-Wee frequented. Pee-Wee was tied by a metal link chain to the spike in the middle of the concrete circle. He moved in a circle around the spike, leaving a hair and drool lined moat around the center. A bowl of water sat at the center but there was no food.
Calixto came up to Pee-Wee, a wiry mutt that he called a Puerto Rican terrier whenever asked the breed, and pressed the shaking dog to his chest. Pee-Wee tired to shake his tail, a sandy brown paint brush capped by a smudge of white, when Calixto hugged him but he trembled as to make it seem like he was shaking of a blow. Calixto kissed the dog’s head and when he pulled away, a trail of frothy spit marred the purple of his shirt. Calixto looked at Paco and waved him over. “C’mon. He won’t bite you. He knows who you are.”
Paco only briefly remembered Pee-Wee, the slim and sturdy mutt, or Puerto Rican Terrier as Calixto called him, that Calixto rescued from a fight with a three-legged dog one day while fishing for cocolito crabs in the sewer. Paco had been younger, around four, when took that trip to Mayaguez for tio Carlos’s funeral and saw Pee-Wee in the backyard. The dog remained in Mayaguez, after Calixto grew up and sold enough paintings to buy a car and head to the capital. Pee-Wee remained fast and quirky while Calixto was gone, jumping from Paco’s lap to back door where he would chase the aging fighting cocks tio Carlo’s used to keep.
Paco watched Calixto let go of Pee-Wee and the dog scuttle to the floor and drag its face in the dirt. Paco crawled over to Pee-Wee and touched the dog’s rear leg. Pee-Wee did not notice and jumped up, flinging the metal chain into Paco’s stomach, and then ducking back down to the dirt. Pee-Wee lifted his head and dirt clung to his lips. Calixto grabbed the dog again and soothed it, petting its dry nose and saying, “Que caliente. Must be the fever.” Paco nodded and came over to Calixto, walking in a half crouch so his back rubbed the underside of the floorboards. This time when he touched the dog Pee-Wee did not jump but Paco felt the heat come from under his fur and the tick that made Pee-Wee’s jaws rock back and worth like if he were chewing gum. Calixto noticed this and put his nose to Pee-Wee’s. He asked, “Chewing gum, papa?” and then smiled his own canine smile. Calixto looked away from the dog and at his cousin. “Do you want to help me get him out of here and into the car.”
Paco nodded and listened while Calixto told him to hold Pee-Wee’s rear legs while he could scoop the dog up. Paco followed and held Pee-Wee by the knuckles of his rear paws while Calixto unfastened the collar and cradled the dog into his arms. “Go open the panel,” he said. Paco scrambled to the side and held the panel open while he watched his cousin wiggle out from under the house. Pee-Wee trembled even when with his owner but not as violently or suddenly as when under the house. Paco fastened the wooden panel back to Vivi’s house twisting the wires hard until they splintered the water-swelled wood. Calixto struggled with Vivi’s front gate and Paco came up to undo the deadbolt.
Calixto’s car, a cocoa brown boxy Japanese import, was parked right in front of Vivi’s house. He gave Paco the keys and made him open the rear door. After he put Pee-Wee in, over a pair of blankets lining the back seat, Paco closed the door. Calixto took the keys back from Paco and looked through the metal railings that blocked off Vivi’s porch. From inside there were no noises. Calixto looked at Paco and said, “You should come. You can hold Pee-Wee while I drive to the Vet school at the university.”
Paco played with the insides of his pockets, twirling a piece of lint in between his fingers. He also looked back into the house, but could not look above the soot lined cement outcropping of Vivi’s porch. Pee-Wee was holding his head to the rear window and still gumming away at a phantom piece of food. “What about papi and mami,” Paco asked.
Calixto shrugged and told him they would be back soon and that he really needed the help. “I need you to help hold Pee-Wee while I drive. It is a short drive but he could jump to the front and cause an accident.” He raised his head and cupped his hands around his mouth. He said to the railings, letting the wind carry his voice, “Vivi! We are going to take Pee-Wee to the Vet school.” He cracked open the door for Paco, keeping his body against the hinges for Pee-Wee could not get out. Paco got in and after finding the seat belt under the blankets called Pee-Wee. The dog put its head down and jerked over from one side of the car and stood over Paco, Pee-Wee’s legs sandwiching Paco’s lap. Paco put his arms up and over Pee-Wee’s stomach, so that his hands curled under the piano-key ribs. Calixto got in the car and when he fired the engine, Pee-Wee wriggled in Paco’s grip and pounded his legs so that his un-trimmed claws scratched Paco’s thighs. As the barrio passed by and Paco saw the same buildings again, this time empty, Pee-Wee trembled, gnawed, and snapped at every bump in the pitted road. Paco held on to the dog, feeling his own chest shake when Pee-Wee shook. Calixto drove slow and played a heavy drum laden track over the popping speakers. Calixto would look in the rear view mirror sometimes and tell Paco that he was doing good and that they were almost there. Paco tightened his grip around Pee-Wee and smooched the dog’s neck, whispering to it, Calmate. Calmate.
* * *
The gate to the university was a cement and iron archway lined with the yellow blossoms of the maga plant. No walls came out from the gate and anyone could simply walk around them and wander onto a greenhouse or practice field. Calixto took the car through the gate and then a gentle curve up a hill. Paco’s arms began to fall asleep but he had lulled Pee-Wee into his lap and the dog stayed there, trembling, but somewhat placid. The car stopped and when Paco looked out, he saw a pair of young men dressed in aqua colored shirts and pants standing next to a concrete building. Calixto got out of the car and yelled to the boys, saying that he had called ahead with, “El perro, Pee-Wee.”
When the boys began to walk over, Paco lifted the dog’s head and cupped his hands around the rear claws, so they wouldn’t scratch him when Pee-Wee got up. Calixto opened the door and grabbed Pee-Wee, pulling while Paco slowly titled the dog forward. The boys got there and one scratched into a clipboard. Paco wanted to get out but Calixto told him to wait there in the car. He said to not even bother to close the door; it would be that quick. Paco nodded and waited, already confirmed that this would be a one-way trip for Pee-Wee. That it would be what his mother called, La Ultima Paz and what they brought him books about at tio Carlos’s funeral. The books said you could see it all around, in the brown leaves on the ground and after a hurricane when there were no paloma sabaneras to coo you awake in the morning.
When Calixto came back out he was alone and the drool and hair on his body had been wiped away. He got into the car and snorted. He told Paco, “Thank you, primito.”
Paco saw the glimmer in his cousin’s eyes and wondered whether he would cry. Whether he should, but on the car ride back to Vivi’s he didn’t. But he said, “De nada” and all the niceties his mother had taught him but until that moment had carried no weight. Paco looked at his cousin one more time and then out the window, where they passed the school playground again. The flamboyan tree now seethed and shimmered to Paco’s eyes, some how more real and tangible as if lit by tropical forces unknown.
______________________
Junot Diaz has got nothing on me. Well, except that
Pulitzer Prize.
Peace!
