The Tower of Il Serrohe (45 page)

Joe smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I still get si me siento infermo de vez en cuando. Especially those mornings after.”

Don didn’t smile. It wasn’t a fond memory, and he certainly didn’t give a shit what Joe was doing now or how often he got hung over. He went on in an attempt to push aside the resentment and guilt that was filling the confined, smelly room.

“
I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity. It’s too bad the family sold that little place. I’m renting it now. It’s quiet, peaceful, away from the ‘madding crowd.’ I could get myself cleaned up there; maybe do something productive besides grading papers.”

He studied the back of his hands. Already, even though he wasn’t yet middle-aged, he saw his own hands transforming into his father’s. For comparison, he looked across the table at the hands that held the beer can. The right hand smoothly brought it up to Joe’s lips for a long draught and back down to be cradled by both hands.

“
So, Dad, did you ever hear Teresa talk about any, uh, people, you know, people you didn’t know personally. Certain names that came up?”

“
She didn’t talk to me about shit, except to boss me. I just told you that.”

“
OK, when she was talking to mom or my aunties?”

Joe thought hard, the deep furrows on his forehead and the wrinkles that terraced his face and neck, making him look more ancient than the volcanic cliffs a few miles west in sight of this shack where he slowly played out what was left of his life.

“
You know, it’s funny you bring that up. Because I’m thinking there were these two… I don’t know, probably curanderas like her. I heard her talking to your mother one time. I was in the living room trying to will myself into being a piece of furniture, so I wouldn’t be so pissed about being left there with nothing to do while they were having this big ol’ argument in the kitchen. Rachel
was pregnant with you…”

“
Yeah? And…?”

“
Well, they were talking in Spanish so damned fast I could barely keep up. By that time I was already used to speaking English at work, and, at the time, I didn’t know some of the Espanol aniqua frases quelos viejitos usaben. But it was like Teresa was trying to tell Rachel something, I think about you even though you weren’t born yet. Some family thing or tradition, I don’t know.

“
No lo creó que estoy. I haven’t thought about it in nearly forty years. But it’s like I’m right there, now. My wife kept trying to get more out of Teresa, so she could understand what it was about.

“
I could tell Teresa didn’t want me to hear, she kept lowering her voice, then they would get all worked up and she would get loud for a while. There was mention, like I said, of these two women…”

“
Were their names, uh…”
Be careful don’t feed the old bastard too much or you’ll be creating a “false memory” in that worn-out, boozy brain—

But Joe went on without interruption. “There was something funny about their names, like they rhymed or had a similar sound… shit, what was it?” Joe rubbed his face, first with his left hand, then he let go of the beer can, and rubbed with both hands trying to erase the years and the fog.

“
O si! I’ll be damned! It was Pia and Pita! Nombres diveritidos para hermanas. Pita isn’t so unusual, but Pia? Now how did I remember that?” He took a fresh look at Don who was thunderstruck. “What the hell’s got you by the balls, kid?”

Don’s world was tilting and swaying like a tumbleweed ripped from a sand hill and launched into space by the dust devil from hell. He grabbed the table’s edge for support. He didn’t dare stand up, but he had to get out of there because the air was thicker than custard.

“
Son? ¿Que diablos?” Joe looked like he felt a rare sense of fatherhood gripping him. Maybe he was afraid Don, whose face had gone dead white, was going to have a heart attack right there on the floor of his shack.

Don struggled to push enough air to speak, but it was as if he had been slammed in the chest by a bull. No air in his lungs.

“
Jesus, Maria y Jose! What’s happening?” Joe cried.

Don reached out and gripped his father’s hands. “It’s OK, Dad. I guess I can’t hold my liquor like you. I just felt a wave of nausea. No big deal. So. Pia and Pita, huh? So, yeah, now I remember Auntie Lupita talking about them. They were great friends of great-grandma. I just couldn’t remember their names; funny names, like you said. Anyway, I’m tired. I’ve got a long day tomorrow—”

“
Tomorrow’s Saturday. You don’t go to that school tomorrow, do you?”

Great, now I don’t even know what day of the week it is. And I’m still on break; hell, the old man doesn’t know that. Just lie, like usual.

“
Uh, yeah, I’ve got a Saturday seminar… that’s a little discussion group with some advanced students. Once a month thing. So I need to be sober and not throwing up all over the place. Gotta go.”

Don stood, but the Earth tilted and whirled. He gripped the back of the chair and steeled himself to walk steadily out the door.

Trying to sound offhand, he said. “See you again, soon. Maybe during the day, while we’re both still sober.”

Don had nearly scared Joe sober right then; however, he managed to sound just as offhanded. “Sounds good, Don. Adios.”

Don made it to the Fairmont. He wanted to drop his head against the steering wheel and sleep it off, but no rest yet for the wicked. He started the car and backed slowly out, concentrating on getting back to the casita without having an accident, passing out, or seeing a cop.

Finally arriving, he again passed through the void without crashing the car into the side of the house. He stumbled into the Casita and flopped on the bed, unconscious before fully settling into the unforgiving mattress.

His last thought,
Good, no dammed bat waiting for me!

sixty seven

As Don slowly regained consciousness, he noticed a pleasant glow of sunlight defused through the simple white curtains of the north facing window. It felt good to lie there without thinking, taking in the simple delights of his senses. It was like being ten years old again, sleeping in on a summer’s morning with no school, no pressing chores, no reason to get up because his father was already off to work, and he had the day and the place to himself.

Then reality rushed in with a gut-wrenching kick of nausea. He flew to his feet, ran to the commode, and spewed out what little solid food he’d had yesterday. He sat on the floor, leaning over the toilet bowl catching his breath, waiting for the next wave to crash through his stomach.

This time it brought up a vile, brown liquid that seemed like it could corrode granite. Several minutes of struggling for air, drooling into the toilet, spitting more of the bile eating at his throat and the back of his mouth followed by another grand upchuck, left him devoid of any liquid or solids the entire length of his gut.

He stood up slowly, weak and woozy from dehydration, ribs sore from the violent heaving. Working his way to the tiny kitchen, he drank pleasant tasting water from the tap. He turned back around and regurgitated the water into the toilet. Observing the toilet was still relatively clean, he decided against flushing it for the sixth or seventh time.

Deciding discretion was the greater part of valor, he returned to his bed in spite of the taste of bile in his mouth and debilitating thirst. As he settled back down lying face up, eyes gently closed, there came a rustling from the far corner of the room.

“
Are you done?” the sibilant voice asked.

“
Oh, Jesus, when I thought I had you and that whole damned Valle crew out of my life!” Don didn’t invest the energy of opening his eyes or sitting up.

Silence was the response. But the presence remained. No chance this was an auditory hallucination.
No damned such luck!

“
Ok,” Don said with a pathetic sigh, hoping for sympathy.

“
You can continue to hope your nihilist philosophy will give you an out from this, but not yet, my friend.”

“
I’m not your damned friend. I’m a stupid-ass sucker and pawn in your mind games. And how do you know anything about nihilist philosophy?”

“
Remember, I travel in both valleys. I hunt at night here or
there
; as a result, I have time on my hands. So I hang around,” he emitted a wheezy chuckle at his own pun, “and I listen and I learn.”

“
Just cut the shit and say whatever it is you want to say. You probably already know about my little outburst yesterday before I made a bad exit from Il Mote.”

“
Know about it? I was there; discretely in a tree, of course. Although, earlier, I thought I had sent you north instead of south to Barbahill.
Your
mistake, I guess. ”

“
Of course. Meanwhile you lurk around keeping those damned leather wings of yours quiet, so I wouldn’t know I was off the wrong way, though at that point I didn’t give a shit.”

“
You have a lot of ‘shit’ on your mind this morning.”

“
Yeah, well, there’s a reason—oh shit!” Don jumped up, ran as straight as he could to the commode, slammed down the seat, and let loose with a torrent of diarrhea.

After a few minutes, thinking it was safe, he flushed the toilet and staggered back to the bed. “Sure you want to stay here with the stink?”

Nightwing fluttered his wings. “It’s OK, I can fan the air around me and remain fairly safe from toxic fumes, although I wouldn’t mind if you opened the window.”

“
It is our pleasure to serve,” said Don as he got up, worked his way along the wall to the window, and fell back into bed. “Maybe I’m done with both ends of my gut for now.”

“
One can only hope.”

It was comfortably silent for several seconds. Don had spent all his available energy. “So, get on with whatever you want to say.”

“
Thank you. I believe I need to complete something about Pia and Pita’s visit to Teresa right before they came up with the idea of transporting a storm from the Rio Grande Valley to Valle Abajo through the magnifying effect of the Portal. There were certain details I left out because… well, because I didn’t think you were ready for them.”

“
So, what are you? My mother? My therapist? ‘Let’s not tell the poor sucker more than he can bear?’ Give me a break!” Don started to sit up, but his body wasn’t able, and his equilibrium wouldn’t allow it. He plopped back down.

“
Dammit, you’ve got me. Go ahead.”

The bat rustled around again, letting go with one of the claws at the top of his left wing, which allowed him to swing down hanging by his right wing claw and turn to face Don—who was in repose like an Egyptian pharaoh’s mummy waiting for eternity.

“
Don, don’t be startled because I’m going to fly over near you so we can be eye to eye.”

“
Just what I wanted.” There was an uneasy silence. “Fine, come on over, just don’t land on my chest.”

Nightwing landed on a small table near the bed which held Don’s keys, wallet, and the contents of his pockets. Putting the tips of his wings down, he pushed himself up so he could look into Don’s face. Squinting, Don looked sideways in return.

“
You don’t look nearly as impressive here as you do over
there,
” Don muttered.

The bat tried to smile but it ended up looking more like a hungry grimace. “That’s the breaks. Here I can be unobtrusive as I go about my hunting—”

“
And sneaking around in other people’s business—”

“
As you say. Over there, even though we try not to get too deeply involved, the clans tend to look to us for some kind of… shall we say, guidance. We aren’t leaders, but it’s our fate to have advantages. Mostly in terms of intellect. What they don’t know about is our ability to travel here. They don’t even know about
here,
except for a few such as Raquela and now, apparently, Nersite.”

“
Is this what you want to talk about: your place in the universe?”

“
No. When I told the story of Pia and Pita’s visit to Teresa through the Portal and their hike to Peralta and so on, I held back certain details. I didn’t mention how they appeared to Teresa. When Teresa and, indeed, when you have traveled to Valle Abajo, you appear as they do. And everyone seems close to normal. Different, but normal.”

“
Well, the Barbamin seemed weird,” Don said with some effort.

“
Of course, but… so far, to you… they seem… I mean other than a primitive… shall we say…
style
everyone has, they could easily walk down the streets of Albuquerque without much notice. As far as you’ve noticed, that is.”

“
I’ve never heard you at a loss for words, leather wings,” Don sneered. “But, yeah, they are different from each other. They’re like all these different races and unique cultures. At least, compared to here. It’s as if in the Rio Grande valley we had a traditional Chinese culture living right next to an African village which was down the road from a Midwestern American city.”