Fragile Beasts (54 page)

“Prob’ly.”

“What are you looking at?”

He extends a finger toward the house.

“That window there. The paint’s flaking on the trim. Don’t know why. It’s the only one. Thought I should take care of it.”

“You?” I wonder. “Don’t be silly. We can hire someone. You shouldn’t be climbing that high at your age.”

He doesn’t look at me and his expression doesn’t change. I can’t tell if I’ve offended him.

“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing at my age. Like waking up in the morning. But I’m still doing ’em.”

He chews and chews and contemplates the window further.

“If it’d make you feel better,” he tells me, “I’ll get someone else to do it. You’re the boss.”

I glance at him again. His face remains neutral.

We both continue to stare up at the window.

“It’s a beautiful house,” I state.

He squints at me.

“Yep. It is.”

“I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent agonizing over what would become of this land and this house if something were to happen to me. I don’t have any children to pass it on to, and I can’t stand the thought of giving it to Cameron since I know he would never appreciate it; yet the thought of it being sold to strangers is horrifying to me. But just recently, the answer became so obvious to me, I couldn’t believe I never saw it before.”

He nods and turns and spits into the gravel.

“My mother used to say old age was the loosening of the bonds of the flesh that make us cling to false hopes. She said getting old wasn’t about the decay of our earthly bodies but about the deliverance of our souls to a place where we could finally see earthly matters clearly and make our peace with them before becoming one with the natural world.”

“Your mother said that?” I ask, rather impressed.

“Yep.”

“She was a wise and eloquent woman.”

“Yep.”

He retrieves his cap and puts it back on his head with a tug at the bill.

“Afternoon, Miss Jack.”

“Good afternoon, Jerry.”

I go inside and think about sitting down in the parlor to rest but decide to drag myself upstairs for a nap instead.

I don’t realize until I’m standing in my room that I forgot to take off my coat and shoes. Kyle’s scarf is still tied around my head.

Suddenly, I can’t perform even these simple acts. I’m overcome with an exhaustion that tugs at me like an undertow. A moment of green silence passes as I’m submerged in calm water and my body begins to dissolve like sugar.

I’m falling in slow motion, the way everything happens underwater. My arms are suspended next to me, but I’m not holding them up. I watch them curiously, wondering how they can feel so light. Now my legs are rising, too. I see the tips of my shoes.

Then suddenly I hit bottom with a bump. I come bursting back to the
surface, gasping for breath, while the hypnotic liquid falls away from me in a shower of lacy droplets.

I’m sitting on the edge of my bed. My heart is racing too fast. My lungs ache. I lie down very slowly.

I wonder if I should be afraid, but before I can fully explore this thought, my head fills with a wonderful memory I haven’t recalled for ages.

We were at Carmen’s finca, and Manuel was putting a young calf through her paces to see if she was worthy of being released into the fields to mate and produce champion bulls or if she would be sent to the slaughterhouse for meat. This was a traditional way of testing stock for quality and also for bullfighters to practice their technique.

Carmen and El Gato were both there watching along with Manuel’s sister, Maria Antonia, her husband and son, Juan Manuel, and a group of Carmen’s rich friends.

We stood on one side of the whitewashed practice ring while a group of sunburned, fierce-eyed men wearing tweed caps and dusty breeches smelling of tobacco and wood smoke stood on the opposite side. These were the ranch hands and bullfighting professionals who had come to see for free a little of the magic other people would be paying to see at a corrida a few days away.

Manuel had just finished his session to a round of appreciative applause and walked over to us, leaving the bewildered, conquered calf standing in the middle of the ring breathing heavily.

He was in his usual practice garb of high skintight pants, leather boots, and a white button-down shirt beneath an old cocoa brown sweater.

He was smiling, relaxed and happy with himself. He came straight to me for a kiss, and I breathed in the earthy scent of him and thought of the leisurely lunch and the delicious siesta we’d be having soon.

Upon seeing his famous uncle so close, little Juani held out his arms and began chanting, “Tío, Tío, quiero torear.”

Manuel’s smile broadened, and he put his muleta under one arm and reached out for the boy. A panicked look came across Maria’s face, but there was nothing she could do. Everyone else had started laughing and clapping.

He took the child, a miniature of himself with big dark eyes and thick black hair, hefted him onto his right hip, and walked back into the ring where he made a few casual passes with his cape. The cow charged and Juani squealed.

I think I feel something lying next to me, but I’m too tired to open my eyes. I’m sinking again back into the cool, quiet green, only this time it presses uncomfortably against my chest.

I reach down and stroke the cat’s fur. I still have the presence of mind to know I don’t allow him in my house. I wonder why. It seems silly to me now. He burrows closer and begins purring.

With my memory interrupted, my thoughts drift to the words of Jerry’s mother, and I think I can actually feel the loosening of my bonds of flesh. All the pain I’ve known is unimportant now. All I feel is love.

Manuel lowers his nephew but he’s no longer Juani; he’s Rafael. The little calf grazes his little legs on one of her passes. He shrieks with delight, and I smile.

In the midst of the small crowd leaning against the fence is Luis. So young. So controlled and contained yet so generous. The boy who would save me.

I see the flutter of the cape, too, and I run toward it as any toro bravo would … with joy.

O
ur stuff is packed. It didn’t take long. A few suitcases and a couple boxes sit out here in the hall along with the smashed chrome antlers off Dad’s truck grill.

For the time being, Klint and I are going to stay with Bill. Cam Jack didn’t waste any time kicking us out. The very day Miss Jack died he told us we had to leave.

Luis got furious. I’d never seen him confront Mr. Jack before. Even so, he remained polite. He explained in a low, controlled voice that we couldn’t be expected to leave immediately. We would have to make plans. There was plenty of room in the house. It wouldn’t hurt anyone if we remained a few days. Plus he had many household arrangements to make.

I realized as he was talking that he included himself in the “we,” and I understood in a flash that Mr. Jack had kicked him out, too. Luis, to him, was the hired help, and he’d been fired the moment Miss Jack took her last breath.

Mr. Jack said we could stay until the funeral and the reading of the will. At that point, the house would be legally his and we would have to go. Luis thanked him, then the minute he left the room, he began ranting toward the heavens in Spanish; but then his eyes suddenly filled with tears and he excused himself and rushed from the room.

At least I know Mom can’t make us live with her anymore. Miss Jack was made our legal guardian and she explained to Klint and me that we don’t ever have to see Mom again if we don’t want to.

It’s been almost five months since Klint tried to kill himself, and we haven’t heard anything from her or anything more about her plans to move back here. We also haven’t heard anything about Krystal.

I finished her fairy painting but never got around to sending it to her before all hell broke loose. It’s sitting here on top of the boxes along with Dad’s antlers. Someday I’m going to find her and give it to her. It’s one of my goals.

I check my reflection in one of Miss Jack’s mirrors. I had to buy a new suit. In one year, I outgrew the one I wore to Dad’s funeral.

It’s black, the way it’s supposed to be, but I wouldn’t compromise on the tie. I picked out a colorful one with a mosaic pattern that reminds me of Miss Jack’s candles.

I hear Klint trudging up the stairs. He comes around the corner.

“You ready to go? Luis is looking for us.”

We stare at each other in our suits, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing. We’re both remembering the last time we put them on.

It’s only been a year between the two funerals, but I’ve done a lifetime of growing up. I wish I could hug Klint. It’s the same wish I had the night Dad died. Seeing him now, I’m filled with the same need I had then to take him in my arms just to know he’s really here and to feel his arms around me just to know I’m really here, too.

He’s done a lot of healing, but he still can’t handle physical contact. Mom took that away from him.

Luis is waiting along with Mr. B, who’s sitting at the bottom of the stairs cleaning his face with a big orange paw.

He’s had the run of the house ever since Luis found him curled up next to Miss Jack with her hand resting on him after she had passed away.

Animals are supposed to sense things better than people, and I think he was the only one of us who knew she was dying. He went to her that day to give her comfort. Luis agrees. That’s why his status has been elevated.

Mr. B seems to understand. He has an even more superior slink to his walk and glint in his golden eyes than he used to, and he hardly wants to go outside at all anymore. He’s taken to lying on Miss Jack’s favorite chair in the parlor and spends most of his time there. At one point, Klint suggested maybe Miss Jack’s soul passed into Mr. B when she died.

Luis said that was nonsense, but I notice he now crosses himself every time he walks by the cat.

“It’s time to go,” Luis says when he sees us. “Klint, do you mind driving? I don’t want to take the Mercedes.”

“You want to go in the truck?” Klint asks.

“Yes.”

He shrugs.

“Sure.”

Luis leads us outside. He’s dressed entirely in black, including his shirt and tie, but has a splash of scarlet on his chest where the tip of a red handkerchief sticks out of his breast pocket.

I don’t know what Luis is going to do now that Miss Jack is gone. Maybe he’ll go back to Spain. I’ll miss him, but I’m not worried about him. It may be selfish, but I’ve been too worried about my own situation to give much thought to anybody else.

Klint will be moving away to college next summer. He’s had a lot of offers. He still hasn’t signed his letter of intent, but all the schools he’s favoring are far away from here.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.

We’re probably a funny sight, the three of us crammed into the cab of a truck, pulling up to the biggest church in Centresburg where tons of expensive cars line the street and fill the parking lot.

I don’t know where all these people are coming from. We lived with Miss Jack for a year, and outside of her family and Bert Shulman, she never had any visitors or left the house to visit someone else.

I guess she was famous, in a way, and I’ve heard funerals for the rich attract all kinds of people who didn’t know them very well. They come as much for the spectacle as they do to pay their respects.

I ask Luis about it, and he says she knew many people and she touched many lives.

We’re running a little late, and we have to park a couple blocks away. As we’re walking up to the church, I wonder again at Miss Jack’s insistence that she have her memorial service here and not in a funeral home the way my dad did. When Luis told me this the other day, I was kind of confused.

I know she wasn’t religious, and she never went to church. But now that I’m standing before the massive gray stone building with its impressive red doors and jewel-colored windows and angels carved into its façade, I think I get it.

I can’t imagine Miss Jack’s farewell to this life taking place among beige carpet, folding chairs, and fluorescent lighting.

She didn’t choose this church for its spiritual advantages but for its grandeur.

Tyler and his parents are the first people I see who I recognize. During the last few games of the state championship series, we always sat in front of the Mann clan, and Miss Jack got to be pretty friendly with them. I think she was fascinated by the size of their family and their obliviousness to the fact that they should be troubled by it.

Tyler sees us, too, and waves. Klint starts off in his direction, but Luis takes me by the arm to stop me.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he says.

I search the faces of the whispering people in their somber clothes filing into the church and try to guess who Luis means.

A few remain outside, hiding themselves in shadows, having a last cigarette before the service starts.

One of these men stands out. He is obviously foreign, but I can’t define why. He’s not dressed any differently than the others. He’s not different physically. Our left fielder, Matt Martelli, is just as dark-skinned and dark-haired. They could be brothers except this guy is much better-looking.

It might be the way he’s smoking. Americans smoke guiltily or defiantly. He’s doing it casually and elegantly, leaning against the wrought-iron railing on the stone steps in a patch of clean fall sunshine that’s been filtered through the remaining bright orange leaves of a shedding tree.

I’m right in my choice. When he sees Luis, he drops his cigarette, crushes it with the tip of his glossy black leather shoe, and flicks it off the step behind some bushes.

He walks toward us with his shoulders back, chin up, eyes forward, and I realize what sets him apart from everyone else here is his composure.

“Kyle, this is Rafael Carmona.” Luis introduces us. “He is the grandson of Manuel’s sister, Maria Antonia.”

Rafael extends his hand to me.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“You’ve heard about me?”