Into the Beautiful North(89)

Mary-Jo looked at her. She nodded. She gave Nayeli a small hug.

“Good luck,” she said.

Nayeli got out.

“Gracias,” she said, unable to say more.

Miss Mary-Jo waved her fingers and grinned and spun a quick U-turn and drove back into town. Nayeli stood and watched her go. She had the address in her hand. She breathed deeply and turned and started to walk.



She squinted at the doors of the little houses. Some of the people here had statues of geese in their yards, and they had dressed these geese in long skirts and bonnets, or in overalls. Nayeli didn’t understand what the goose thing was all about. She apparently missed the address, too, because she ended up at a dead end. A barrier ran between two cottonwoods, and beyond it, a little green tractor sliced the mud of a field into curls of deep chocolate, as if God’s own birthday cake were on the platter. Beyond the field, old highway 57 carried its endless stream of big trucks. Maybe she’d have a big black chocolate cake with her father when they celebrated.

She turned back and started walking the other way, watching for the number.

Was he there? Did he share a house with other men? Was he well? Surely he would laugh when he saw her. He would hurry to her and lift her in the air and spin around like he did when she was small. He would smell of Old Spice and his whiskers would prickle her face and she would cry, ?Papá!

What would she tell him? Where would she begin? With Irma’s election? With Yul Brynner? She laughed out loud. ?Ay, Tía Irma! Yul Brynner! She put her hand over her mouth—she didn’t want people thinking she was a madwoman. She snorted.

The trip, the Border Patrol, the dump… it had all been worth it. Just to take her father home. Just to see her mother’s face. She bounced on her sore feet.

She passed the cross street and walked on. A big new pickup stopped behind her at the cross and made a left turn. She could hear the music beating from the cab as it drove up behind her then passed slowly. Some accordion banda music. Crazy norte?o cowboy music.

The truck was a fat-bottom Dodge, electric blue. It had four wheels in back, and a bright silver toolbox in the bed. Twin aerials waved in the air. On one, the US flag, and on the other, the Mexican flag. Nayeli laughed again: in the darkened back window of the cab, there was a white cartoon of a bad boy peeing.

The big truck banged up into a driveway and shut down. The music snapped off. The door opened and a pudgy woman in yellow stretch pants crawled out of the passenger’s side. She reached into the back—there were more seats back there. She unbuckled a toddler from a car seat and hefted him onto her hip. Nayeli could hear her voice but not what she was saying. She hurried, hoping to ask her if she knew Papá.

The driver got out on his side. He slammed the door and came around to the woman’s side. He wore a straw cowboy hat and boots and tight jeans. Nayeli stopped where she was.

Don Pepe.

“?Papá?” she murmured.

He had gotten fatter. His butt was round and his belly hung over his big belt buckle. He threw his arm around the woman and hugged her, turned her toward the house. He unlocked the door as Nayeli stared. He took off his hat and laughed at something the woman said and accepted a kiss on the mouth from her and smacked her bottom as she yelped and skipped inside. He briefly scanned the neighborhood—his eyes passed right over Nayeli—before stepping inside and slamming the door.

The street was silent. Not many birds at all, and the ones that were there weren’t singing, just making desolate little cheeping noises. She could hear the tractor, of course. She could hear the engine of the big pickup truck ticking as it cooled.

And then, all she could hear was the sound of her soles and her breathing as she sprinted away.



Nayeli ran to the end of the block, to the barrier that ended the street. She jumped over it and ran out into the plowed field. The man on the tractor ignored her, as if he saw women in the rows every day. She shook, she gasped, she shouted as loud as she could.

“FATHER!” she wailed.

Over and over.

There were no words to begin to describe what she felt.

After an hour, she stepped back over the barrier. She walked down the street. She turned up Don Pepe’s driveway. She could hear the baby inside, crying. She reached into her back pocket, withdrew the postcard. She smoothed it carefully. She tucked it under his windshield wiper. Nayeli walked away.





Chapter Thirty-five



The van was dead. They abandoned it in the parking lot. Miss Mary-Jo drove them to the Trailways station.

They pulled out of the lot and drove south, across the river.

“You would have never found the station,” said Mary-Jo.

“Gracias,” Nayeli replied.

A sign promised: TUESDAYS TACO NIGHT.

They beheld a small trailer park. A building offered smoked fish. They drove toward the Economy Inn.

“What are you going to tell your mother?” Mary-Jo asked. “About your dad?”

“Nothing. He was gone.”

WELCOME TO YOUR HOME ON THE ROAD.

“I am so sorry,” Mary-Jo said.

SCHLITZ. THE CAPTAIN’S PUB. BUDWEISER.

“Here we are.”

She followed them into the lobby. It doubled as the bus station.

Three men turned and stared. Ancient paneling. Cement steps. The smell of old men and old smoke and old breath.