He Forgot to Say Goodbye Read online

  For Gabriela and Adrian

  (two very seriously beautiful people)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are always people to thank after a book has been written. After all, no author can claim to have written a book without help. I thank Bobby and Lee Byrd and all the good people at Cinco Puntos Press who encouraged me to become a writer of books for young adults. I thank all the young people in my life who have come in many forms and have always been a great blessing and who have continually reminded me that adults do not have a monopoly on the word “hurt.”

  I thank all my students who keep language astonishingly alive and who constantly keep me on the lookout for new ways of seeing the world. I thank my father, dead four years now. I thank him for the ways in which he was present and for the ways in which he was absent—and thank him especially for the ways in which he continues to shape my imagination. I thank my mom who reads all my books and who I’m sure wonders where I came from. Without her steadfast love, I would not have become a writer.

  I thank my agent, Patty Moosbrugger, who is a credit to her profession. I do not know where my career would be without her. I thank my editor, David Gale, for his careful reading of my work, for his professional, respectful and gracious manner—and for the great faith he placed in this novel.

  Finally, I thank my wife, Patricia, who has graced my life with her voice, her laughter, and her steadfast love.

  HE FORGOT TO SAY GOODBYE

  Someday I’ll be a father. A real father. And I’ll make sure all my kids know everything about me, so they won’t have to go around guessing who the hell I am. I mean, a son or a daughter should know who their father is. And not just the superficial crap like his name or what he does or what he looks like but who he really is. I’ve lived my whole life guessing. Guessing makes a kid tired and old. I don’t want my kids to be old and tired. I want them to be happy.

  —Ramiro Lopez

  Sometimes the idea of being a father enters my head. I’m not exactly in love with the idea. I mean, what would I do? You know what I’d do? I’d just hang out with my kid—that’s what I’d do. I’d read to him. I’d just hold him and kiss him and hold his hand. And when he was old, and I didn’t touch him anymore, it wouldn’t matter. Because every time he looked at me, he’d remember how it was when he was a boy. And the memory would be seriously beautiful. And we would be father and son.

  —Jake Upthegrove

  ONE

  Me, Ramiro Lopez

  My mom says I need to stop and think about things. I think about things all the effen time. Think and think and think. You know, it’s not like all that thinking has gotten me places.

  Him

  Sometimes I think of him. And when I do, I start to draw a picture. Not a real picture. I’m not an artist, not even close. I just draw this picture in my head.

  Of him.

  My dad.

  It’s easier for me to draw a picture of what he looks like than to imagine his voice. I mean, I don’t know what he would sound like. He would use a lot of Spanish. But his voice, I don’t know, I just don’t know what words he’d use. He’d be angry, but that would just make him normal. A lot of fathers are like that—especially fathers who’ve gone away. I think of their anger as a wind. And that wind took them away. From me. And all the others like me.

  So I draw a picture in my head. Of him. Not of his voice but of his face. He has dark eyes and thick, wavy hair that was once really black—really black. But now his hair is more white than black because that’s how it goes when men get older. Their hair begins to get old too. That’s the way it is and there’s nothing we can do about it. And he has lines on his face, more from working out in the sun than from laughing. He doesn’t like to laugh. He looks tired because he’s had to work so hard. With his body, not with his mind, not like a teacher or a doctor or an insurance guy or a computer geek. You know, like construction. Working in construction—it makes you old and tired. It kills your body because you have to work out in the sun every day, in the heat, in the cold, every day. It’s not like working out in a gym and hanging out with other jocks that have nothing better to do than to muscle up—it’s not like that. If you work with your mind, then working with your body is just a hobby. But if you work with your body, then, well, your only hobby is to rest.

  “Your body is nothing but a money machine.” That’s what Uncle Rudy says. “That’s the way it is. We’re all just prostitutes.” My aunt hit him when he said that and told me not to pay any attention to him.

  But listen, when you work in construction, your body is the car and the road and the destination. No, no, I’m getting all tangled up in my own words. That’s not right. Look, I don’t agree with Uncle Rudy. I get the part about using your body to make money. But the body’s not a machine. When you work with your body every day of your life, well, your body’s more like a punching bag—it gets hit all the time. All day. Every day. And it’s never going to stop. Not ever. I know. I hear men talk—and they say things about their tired bodies, things like: “Ya estoy pa la patada.” Mexican working guys, they talk like that. My dad’s one of those guys. I know. He didn’t go to college or anything like that. He didn’t even graduate from high school. My Tía Lisa told me that once. She likes to tell me things I’m not supposed to know.

  In the picture I’ve drawn in my head, my dad looks sad. Tired and sad and maybe mad, too. Definitely mad as hell. That’s not a good combination. You don’t see the anger in his body or his face. But if you look into his dark eyes, that’s where you see all the anger—they’re like a bomb about to go off. You can almost hear the tick tick tick.

  Yeah, he’s mad as hell.

  Mad at the world.

  Mad at himself.

  Mad at my mom.

  Mad because he was born a poor Mexican. Mad because he never finished high school. Mad because he got a rotten deal. He thinks the world cheated him. And maybe the world did cheat him. But I don’t think he helped himself out. I mean, my Uncle Rudy says, “If you know a man’s gonna cheat you, then why the hell are you lending him twenty bucks?” No, I don’t think my dad helped himself out. See, the way I picture him, he has so much anger in his eyes, that he’s half-blind. He can’t see straight. He can’t see the leaves on a tree. He can’t see the fact that some dogs know how to smile. That’s what happens. When you get too angry you can’t see the world anymore.

  My dad, he looks down at the ground more than he looks up at the sky. It’s like he doesn’t even notice the birds anymore. He’s just looking down at things that crawl. That’s how I draw him—his eyes never looking up.

  He’s crooked now. He’s all dented up. He’s a car that’s been on the road too long. Too many accidents. The paint’s all peeled off.

  He used to be handsome. Real, real handsome. Girls used to look at him, praying he’d look back. And his walk was like a dance. I guess we always want our dads to be handsome just like we want our moms to be beautiful. But now I’m thinking he’s changed and he’s more than just an ordinary handsome guy. Now he has the most interesting face in the world. Maybe interesting is better than handsome. But interesting doesn’t mean happy, and I mean he looks beat-up as an old, chained-up dog. And disappointed, as if somehow a part of him is missing. Me. It’s me that’s missing. He’s thinking of me and he’s missing me, and sometimes he looks out at the sky and whispers my name and tries to imagine me just like I’m imagining him.

  Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s not as if I really know what he looks like because I’ve never seen him. My mother once said he was beautiful. “He was like an ocean—beautiful to look at.” The way she said that, right then she looked soft as a cloud. And then all of a sudden s
he turned real hard. “I almost drowned in that ocean.” I knew she wasn’t about to go near another man ever again. All men had become oceans she might drown in.

  Once, when we’d gone to my cousin’s wedding, my mom looked at me and said. “I ripped up all our wedding pictures—and then I burned them.” She looked at me like maybe she was sorry she’d blurted that out, and she gave me a look like I wasn’t supposed to be asking her any questions about him. Him. I don’t think she blurted out that piece of information to be mean. I think sometimes our minds get so full of something that we just have to empty them out. I think that’s what happened to her. Sure. That’s a good theory. I mean, she sounded so mad when she said that. Really, really mad. Not mad at me, but mad at the way things had turned out—and well, sad, too. It’s as if some of my dad’s anger and some of his sadness rubbed off on my mother every time he touched her. And I know she carries his face somewhere inside her (and for all I know, somewhere in her purse). I mean, you can’t rip up all the pictures you carry in your head. You can’t. Even if you want to. I think sometimes she cries for him. But she doesn’t cry in front of me or my little brother. My little brother, Tito, wasn’t even born when he left. He was still inside her. And I was almost two.

  I sometimes try to imagine him on the day he left. I see him packing all his clothes. I see him looking around the room—trying to figure out what else he should pack in his suitcase. Maybe he thinks he should stay, but he knows he has to go. I picture him with a confused look on his face and I picture my mother sitting in the kitchen. Saying nothing. Just waiting. Waiting for him to leave so she can have herself a good cry. I wonder if he said good-bye to us and said something to us, you know, like fathers do, talk to their sons, tell them things. Important things like I’ll miss you, I’ll think of you every day, I’ll come back, you’ll see, I’ll come back, and don’t ever forget that I love you, hijito de mi vida. I don’t know. Maybe he just left. Maybe he didn’t say a damn thing.

  My dad must have held me in his arms when I was a baby. He must have kissed me like I see other fathers kiss their babies. He must have done that.

  His breath might have smelled of cigarettes and garlic.

  His breath might have smelled like cilantro.

  His breath might have smelled like too much anger and work.

  But there might have been something sweet on his breath. He might have taken me to the grocery store or to wash his car at the H & H or taken me for a ride to get ice cream at the 31 Flavors, and he probably took me to the El Paso Zoo and to the swimming pool at Memorial Park and to Western Playland and to get empanadas at Gussie’s and to get tacos at Chico’s—places like that. He might have taken me to watch the Diablos play baseball or to a Miners football game. He might have. Just because I don’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

  Me, Jake Upthegrove

  All I’m trying to do is talk to you. Are you listening? See, the thing is, I don’t think you are listening. Okay, see, we have a problem. You don’t think I want to talk and I don’t think you want to listen.

  Me

  (Jake Upthegrove)

  “Hey, Upthegrove! Someday you’ll be sent up the river.” That was the first joke I ever heard about my last name. I don’t even remember who said it, and back then I didn’t even know what the expression “being sent up the river” meant. I was five years old. Okay, it was supposed to be a joke—but I just didn’t get it. All I remember was that some guy was barking a joke at me. I mean, c’mon, let’s get down to it, people are like dogs. Let me tell you something, if a dog acts like a dog, well, that’s a beautiful thing. That’s very cool. I can dig that. I can really dig that. But if a human being acts like a dog, well, that’s not a beautiful thing. Definitely not cool.

  Another time, a girl in second grade called me “Up the Street.” Got a real laugh out of that one. I mean, I was so destroyed. And if that wasn’t enough, the next day she accosted me with “Down the Road.” That girl was real stand-up material. There’s something about my name that people just can’t leave alone. It’s like a kitty they have to pet or a shoe they just have to try on. People always fall into calling me by my last name. It feels like I’ve always been in the Army. Everybody’s a drill sergeant. And me, I’m permanently assigned to be in boot camp all my life. Okay, look, maybe that doesn’t qualify as abuse but it doesn’t qualify as affection either. People just destroy me.

  When I was a freshman in high school, I got into my first fistfight. “Hey Upthegrove!” Some guy was yelling my name. I turned around and there in front of me was this guy named Tom. Hated him, that guy. I mean guys like that really destroy me. He was one of those kinds of dudes that dressed down in ratty clothes, torn T-shirts, ripped jeans, and had tattoos all over the place. He liked to make out like he was poor and lived in a tough neighborhood. But who the hell could afford that kind of body art if you weren’t fucking rich?

  “Upthegrove!” he taunted, singing my name like it was a piece of wadded-up paper he was swatting around in the air. “Upthegrove,” he sang, “what kind of shit name is that?” I turned around, my fist closed tight, and pounded him right in the face. Didn’t even know I was going to do that.

  When I pulled back my fist, I could see blood pouring from Tom’s face. Blood is more real than any tattoo, I’ll tell you that. It sort of scared me at first—but then the thought came to me that he wasn’t exactly going to die on me. Maybe his nose was broken or something—but he was going to be just fine. See, in situations like this, it’s always best to take the long view of things. In the short term he was bleeding and hurting. In the long term he was going to be just fine.

  So, there’s Tom holding his bloody nose and looking like maybe he was going to cry, and there was red all over his ratty shirt. I wasn’t about to let go, though, no sir, I was in this and I was going for all the marbles, so I just looked at him and said, “Fuck you. And fuck your rich dad, and fuck your expensive tattoos, and fuck your rich bitch of a dog.” I don’t know why I said that. I mean, I don’t think dogs know anything about being rich or poor and I have a soft spot for dogs, especially girl dogs because they don’t go around screwing up the world and they tend to be loyal and sweet, and the part about his dad, maybe I should have left that out—I mean, I’m not exactly living in squalor. On the other hand, his father didn’t get to be where he was by being the world’s nicest guy—so maybe I was glad I’d dragged him into the whole discussion. Not that any of this qualified as a discussion.

  Anyway, not a second later, his loyal, boot-licking, dumb-ass sidekick, John, jumped in swinging. I mean, the guy was ready to party. His fists were a pair of shoes on a dance floor—and me, well, I was the dance floor. I’ll spare you all the pretty details. It was over quick. That was the good part. I had to have stitches above my left eye, and I don’t think my lower left rib will ever be the same. And believe me, I saw stars—the big dipper, the little dipper, and some constellations I didn’t even know existed. Stars. Shit. I mean, can you dig that? I suppose I should thank the guy for showing me a universe I didn’t know existed.

  That was my first and last fight. The one thing I learned on that day was that I was better at using words than using my fists. Live and learn, you know? I mean, even if you can’t dig the fact that I popped a guy right in the nose, you can dig the fact that I learned something.

  I was in deep trouble at home and at school. We’re talking seriously deep trouble. Profoundly deep trouble. No video games. No television. No movies. No going out. No allowance. No reading e-mails, no downloading music, no hanging out with people I liked. No leaving the house without being accompanied by an adult. I told my mom I didn’t think she qualified as an adult. I got in even deeper. She looked right at me and said, “That’s it. Your life is ruined.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Wow. Ruined. I’m so destroyed.”

  “I hate that expression,” she said. “I wish you’d stop using it.”

  “Okay,” I said, “Make a list, okay? Just list al
l the expressions I use that you wish I’d stop using. I’ll take the list, read it over, and take it under advisement.”

  She pointed her finger—which meant I should go to my room. She walked in behind me and confiscated my iPod and took away my laptop.

  So there I was, alone, with no electronic devices to comfort me. For a whole month.

  Well, at least I read all those books I was supposed to be reading. I didn’t mind. And then there was the whole thing of talking to counselors and my mother asking me for days at a time, “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know you could wind up in jail? And you don’t even know Spanish.” I tried to keep from rolling my eyes. See, I actually do speak some Spanish, and I’m always translating for her—her (my mother, the woman who just told me that I didn’t speak Spanish)—when she wants Rosario, our housekeeper, to do this and that. This fact was apparently lost on her. But see, the point here is that my mom happens to believe that jails are full of Mexicans who don’t speak English. She has these ideas—though sometimes the things she says don’t actually qualify as ideas. She destroys me.

  And then I smiled and said, “Hey, Mom, they have special sections in jails for gringos.” And then she gives me this look—that don’t-interrupt-me-don’t-mock-me-have-some-respect look. She patted her chest (her favorite gesture) and finally said, “You’re very glib.”

  I decided it was best to just zip it up. And my mom, just as she stopped patting her chest, she let it rip, and she’s going on and on about rights and responsibilities and I swear her little lecture even had something in it about the Constitution—and my stepfather is shaking his head but also trying to calm my mother down and trying to smile at me—and he has this stupefied look on his face like a fish who’s caught in a net, all pained and confused—poor guy, and he keeps telling me that this is not easy for him and I want to tell him that really the whole thing has nothing to do with him, but I don’t say anything because, well, I’m already in a helluva lot of trouble, and the truth of the matter is that I just don’t see things their way. They weren’t even there when I decided to rearrange Tom’s nose. I mean, what did they have to go on except hearsay?