Tortuga (15 page)

“Did Steel get sick?” somebody asked.

“Yeah. Got a really bad cold, but he's okay now. Saw him going rounds yesterday.”

“Best bones doc this place ever had!”

“You bet.”

“He don't say much, but he knows—”

“What about the newspaper story?” somebody asked.

“That's all there is to it,” someone answered. “The Director says he doesn't know why Jerry ran away. He told the papers Jerry had everything he needed right here: beads to work with, good food, the best medical care in the world. Everything!”

“Ah what does he know! He never comes out of his office! I saw him once and the guy looks like someone that's dead! The Committee hires him to direct this place, but he don't give a damn about us. Sometimes I don't think the Committee gives a damn! Damn old biddies, hired just cause they're friends of the governor, come here once a year and poke around! What do they know? Nothing. They don't know nothing … and they don't really give a damn!”

Maybe it was true that they didn't care, and thinking about Jerry didn't help the mood; we were quiet for awhile, then Mike said, “Jerry left us something, he left us his sign—”

“Where?” one of the smaller kids cried.

“On Tortuga's shell,” Mike gestured with his chin.

They drew close and looked at the outline of Jerry's hand on my cast. Híjola, they whispered. It was his sign. He had been here. We had known him for awhile, now he was gone. But it was important that he had left his mark, like so many others before him had scribbled their names on the sand of the desert. Mike took a pen and wrote ‘Algo es algo, dijo el diablo' under the outline of the hand. Ronco drew a screaming eagle. Other scratches and names appeared as the kids signed my cast.

“He's going to be a walking story!” someone exclaimed.

“But he can't walk!”

“Yeah, but it won't be long till he'll be able! I heard KC say he's the best worker she ever had. Then he'll tell them Jerry's story, and the story of anybody else who ever ran away from this madhouse.”

“Tell 'em mine!” Danny interrupted and looked at me. “I've run away more times than anybody else!”

“Ah, Danny, all you do is go to the movies in town. They always know where to pick you up!”

“Nobody's ever run farther than Juanito Faraway,” Mike said. “Jerry made me think about him, except Juanito made it—”

“Yeah boy,” Ronco nodded and smiled. “He was from a pueblo up north, a place in the mountains—”

“I'd like to go north,” Sadsack groaned, “see some green mountains with real trees, get out of this damned desert that boils in the summer and freezes in the winter—Hey! Maybe we could write Juanito and go see him! Maybe we could go hunting and fishing with him!”

“How in the hell are we ever goin' go huntin' wrapped up like Christmas packages as we are! How in the hell can you climb a mountain in a wheelchair, stupid!” Buck shouted. We looked at him. We knew he was nervous because of what had happened to Jerry. “I'd like to see you try to climb a mountain, or anyone of us! Did you ever see a goddamned cripple on a mountain? Fishin' and huntin' and havin' fun? No! No you haven't! And you never will, cause there's just some places we'll never be able to go!” He looked at us, realized he was shouting and turned to face the wall.

“I was just thinking out loud,” Sadsack frowned.

We were quiet. I thought about the green mountains to the north and the foamy streams that cut down rocky canyons. Once we could have fished there, and chased deer up and down the mountain side, but like Buck said, the mountains were hard on cripples. I looked at Tortuga. Gray clouds washed across the empty desert and threatened more snow, but they were dry clouds. They would bring no moisture to Tortuga. There were no green, towering pines on the side of the old mountain, only the slag of old lava, granite boulders and the brittle grass and chamisa which clung to the harsh shell. Ismelda had told me that a huge, old gnarled juniper grew at the top of the mountain, and that there was a small meadow with grass. I wondered how she knew.

“Tell me about Juanito,” I heard myself say.

“Juanito really missed his pueblo and he was always homesick,” Mike said. “He kept looking at the calendar and telling us about the feast day he didn't want to miss. There was going to be dancing, races, clowns, lots of food and women, so one night he slipped out of here, went down to the bus depot and crawled into the luggage compartment of a bus headed north. He didn't know he got on an express bus. He fell asleep and never got out of that luggage place until the bus reached some small town in Montana. That's when they found him.”

“Eeeeho la! Imagine us in Montana!” Ronco cried.

“Hot dog!” Buck yahooed, “there's good rodeos up there!”

“Maybe my arm would get better there,” Danny said wistfully.

“And there's lots of mountains, green mountains,” Sadsack moaned.

“When they found him they asked him what his name was and where he came from and Juanito pointed to show them he'd come a long ways and said ‘Juanito, faraway' and they thought his name was Juanito Faraway and that's what they called him. They took care of him till they found out where he belonged and shipped him back here. But in the meantime their Chamber of Commerce came up with the bright idea of celebrating Juanito Faraway Frontier Day every year. So they drummed up a rodeo, Indian dances, fiddling contests, jeep races over the mountains and they made a fortune with it. They even have a Juanito Faraway museum! Juanito's crutches are there, and a picture of the Greyhound bus he rode up north. Now it's an annual attraction. Tourists go from all over the country. The little town that wasn't even on the map is now a city, and everybody makes a living from celebrating Juanito's day. Can you imagine that?”

We couldn't, but we laughed. Sadsack peered from behind a comic and said, “When I run away it's going to be farther than that!”

“How far?”

“It's not going to be anyplace you know about, brother. There won't be any wheelchairs or crutches or braces there. The sun will always be shining, and there will be lots of green grass and trees, and lots of food to eat, plenty of booze to drink, and nothing to do but play around with the women, who wear nothing but thin little skirts, like they did in Greek times—”

“There ain't no such place!” Danny protested.

“There is if I say there is!” Sadsack responded. “Why can't there be a place where there aren't any twisted bodies, no polio, no diseases, no cripples in dark alleys! Why can't there be a place where nobody has to work, and there's fruit on the trees, and the grass is always green, and everybody just spends their time making love, all day long, just making love …”

“Yeah, why not?” someone said, and some of us shut our eyes and imagined that paradise. Then Pee Wee, a small kid without arms and only stumps for legs, pushed his coaster into the room and said it was dinner time … And when I saw him I cursed Sadsack's dream and hated myself for letting it creep into the reality of the ward.

That night the ward was quiet. We listened quietly to Franco's sad lyrics.

They say a man should never cry

But when I saw your surgery knife

My heart stopped
,

And my blood ran cold …

Now I don't know
…
how long

I can go onnnn
,

Cause it keeps right on a'hurtin'

Since you sliced …

“He's in a bad mood tonight,” Mike said, “sounds like he's cruising the halls and looking for Steel. He blames Steel for losing his legs, but there was nothing Steel could do. The disease was eating away the legs, something in the blood, nothing he could do to save the legs.…”

10

What did he tell you? one of the boys asked.

He told me a story about the beginning …

How does it go?

Let him tell it, I said, and Salomón continued his story:

I have spent most of my life on the wide beach … the beach which stretches into the dry and empty desert. I was drawn there to observe the sea turtles, those giant parasite-encrusted creatures which come lumbering out of the dark waters to lay their eggs in the warm sand. And I asked myself, what cosmic force draws them from the safety of the water to plant their eggs in the dangerous sunlight?

What force drives them to infuse their germ of life into the earth? And why am I the observer on the beach?

A drama unfolds. A drama which has no beginning and no end. The seasons swirl like changing sea clouds and the centuries are like the lapping of waves at my feet. I wait patiently. The sea breeze trembles, the ocean opens like a woman giving birth, and the giant turtles, slime and sea-weed clinging to them, come trudging out of the sea to deposit their eggs. Prehistoric creatures, some as old as the earth itself, some old enough to remember when the desert was an ocean, their home—giants of the sea, reptilian heads shining with sea water, eyes covered with the cataracts of time, sniffing the wind, blinking at the bright sun, feeling already the tremor of danger which the black sun brings to them
.

What is that spot of light that burns so bright? they seem to ask, and why does it throb like the cell of light in my dark blood? Giant flippers dig the wet sand. The day burns on. The eggs drop in the nests, new forms which begin in the milky liquid of transformation eons ago, in the sea, in the darkness, guided only by one lonely cell which reflects the light of the sun
.

Weeks later the sun breaks over the empty dunes in time to illuminate the beginning of the race. Again the breeze trembles with life; overhead birds cry; shadows race across the sand. The shells crack and break
,
squirming life breaks free to meet the electric acid of life, to breathe the air, to be blinded by the roaring sun. Some dark instinct fills them with the foreboding of death that greets all life. A horn sounds long and mournful. There is safety only in the water! The race begins! The just-born turtles scramble across the wide beach to reach the safety of the water!

I watch dispassionately. The putrid smell of the egg shells invades the clean ocean air. The slimy, blind turtles fill the quiet beach with their squeals. Some struggle so hard to start their journey that they cave in the walls of sand and are suffocated in their own nests. For them the flight was short-lived. Those that escape the prison of the egg and the incubating sand begin their race for the sea. Overhead the burning sun drives fear into their hearts and drives them towards the safe, dark waters. There is no pause to look around, no curiousity about life on the beach … they do not see me watching them …

For miles and miles across the sands the fledgling turtles swarm across the beach, smelling out the water, blindly dashing towards the waiting sea
.

They are driven by fear. Death stalks the beach. Suddenly there are shadows on the sand, loud, piercing screams fill the air! And the buzzards strike. Sharp beaks foul with lice and yellow mucous and downy feathers rip at the young turtles and tear at the soft limbs. The talons and beaks of the first enemy are deadly. There is carnage on the beach
.

But the way is long and full of light, Tortuga, and it reveals life even in the buzzard's maggot stomach. That is why I watch without interference. Death squeals mix with the thrashing of wings and the shrill cries of the birds … fate is blind. Is it the strong or the crafty which survive the onslaught? Or is it those driven by fear of the blinding light?

The ocean heaves. The tide is going out. Safety now lies farther away. The race continues across the wide beach. Other enemies strike. Giant ghost crabs reach from beneath the sand and drag the little turtles down … another feast? Yes, there is a glimmer of hope even in turtle blood. At least I feel there is, else why would I watch the race? And why do I look on so indifferently?

Those which survive are attacked by the rock lizards, distant cousins of an ancient brotherhood, rough-scaled monsters who scramble to make a meal of turtle meat. Again the cries fill the air, shrill cries which turn my blood cold … What is more terrifying than your own kind turning on you?

The earth itself plots destruction! The receding tide has left long stretches of mud, quagmires which suck the little turtles down! Those that can't break free are imprisoned forever when the relentless sun hardens the mud. Still, some cross that wasteland of muck, driven by the acid which burns their soft skins, driven by the light burning in their blood! The sea calls them! While overhead, in the green-palm sky, a new danger threatens! Swift birds of prey swoop down and finish the job the buzzards started. They turn over the small turtles and stab the soft undersides. The yellow pee of death wets the sand …

A very few survive the dangers of the beach. They stumble forward, gasping for life, needing the water … And now the most ironic enemy appears on the beach. New hoards of mother turtles are coming out of the sea to begin the cycle of spawning. Full of eggs and blind to the drama before them they crush their own children into the sand, and some, hungry from their journey to the beach, pick up the squirming young and make a meal of the future they themselves deposited … It makes me shiver, Tortuga … Is the light so dim that we don't recognize ourselves on that wide beach? Is the sun setting on this game of life?

My body trembles in the evening breeze. The day is ending. The sun is red as it drops into the sea. A few stragglers reach the tide and are gathered into the white arms of the sea. I feel a sigh settle in my blood. I am alone, and I feel very old … old and powerless. I watch the few young turtles who disappear into the immense, lapping water. The cycle is complete … the sucking ocean washes them away. But now the sea itself is a new enemy … and to return to it is to return to live with the ghosts of the past … to live in the sea-darkness. That is not our path, Tortuga, that is not our way. If there is any hope it lies on the path of the sun. That one glimmering cell of light which floats in our dark blood must become a sun … it must shine on new worlds …