In Perfect Light Read online

  It was very late when he heard Yolie come in. He could hear she was with someone. Homero, he thought. Yolie must have found him. He could hear them laughing and talking softly and he knew they were having sex and he didn’t want to hear. And when they were quiet, he fell asleep.

  When he woke up, there was a man sleeping in Yolie’s bed. And the man wasn’t Homero. He hated that he had to walk through her room to get to the kitchen. He hated the thought of Ileana waking up and seeing their older sister in bed with a stranger.

  He walked into the kitchen and sat there. He waited until Yolie and the man stirred. They said something to each other, then the man got dressed and left. He didn’t say anything to Andrés when he walked past him. Like he wasn’t even there. Andrés shook his head, then walked toward the doorway between Yolie’s room and the kitchen. He noticed that the man had left some money on the bed. He looked at Yolie and didn’t say anything.

  She didn’t say anything either.

  Homero came back a few days later. It went that way for a while. Homero would come and go. On the nights he didn’t come home, Ileana would say, “It’s not right, that he doesn’t come home.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Yolie didn’t seem concerned or worried. Almost like she didn’t care. “He helps us,” she said. “That’s all that matters.”

  After that, Yolie started going out. She would get dressed up and go out and she wouldn’t say anything to them, just that she would be out late. And then it became every night. Every, every night. And Homero never spent the night anymore, though sometimes he would come over during the day and he and Yolie would talk, but they would talk in whispers and send Andrés and Ileana out to the market or on some errand so they could talk. And sometimes Homero would come by in the evenings when Yolie was getting ready to go out, and they would go out together, but it wasn’t like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, not like that. It was more like they were working together. More like that. And Andrés thought there was something very wrong—but he didn’t quite know what. But he was starting to make up stories in his head about what was happening.

  One day, when Yolie was taking a shower, he found lots of money in her purse. Dollars—lots of ten-dollar bills. And he wondered where she was getting the money. So he decided to ask her what she did when she went out every night.

  She smiled at him. “I got a job waiting tables at a bar. Homero found the job for me. I make good money on tips.” That’s what she said. “You know what tips are?”

  Andrés nodded.

  Maybe she was telling the truth.

  It was hard to say, because he had become very suspicious. He was beginning to understand that no one ever told the truth.

  One day in February, it snowed. It snowed and snowed. That was the day a man showed up at the door. A man he’d never seen before. He wasn’t old. Maybe a little older than Mando. Andrés answered the door. He wanted to talk to Yolie. Andrés let him in.

  The man talked to Yolie, explained who he was. An old friend of Mando’s. He seemed nervous or scared or sad or confused or something. Something wasn’t right. And finally he just said, “Mando’s dead.”

  “What?” Yolie had this look on her face. “What?”

  “He was killed. In prison. He got in a fight with the wrong guy. He’s dead, Yolie.”

  Yolie began wailing and wailing. He didn’t know anyone could cry like that. A wind was coming from inside her. Andrés didn’t know what to do, so he just held her, and rocked and rocked her as if she was a baby, but nothing could stop her from crying. For hours and hours, she wailed and wailed like a strong spring wind, and finally Andrés got scared, and he didn’t know what to do because Yolie couldn’t stop crying, so he went next door to ask the women who lived there to come over. Well, they weren’t really women, Andrés knew that, they were really men, and Yolie had told him they were called transvestites, and she said they were nice and they shouldn’t be afraid of them. She had told him and Ileana to go to them if anything ever happened, because they would help them. And he thought Yolie was right about them, the transvestites, because even though it was strange that they dressed and acted like women, they were very nice. So he went to their door and knocked. One of them who called herself Silvia answered the door.

  “Yolie won’t stop crying,” Andrés explained. “My brother, Mando, he was killed in a fight in prison, and now Yolie won’t stop crying.”

  So Silvia went with him to his house, and she held Yolie in her arms, and she took a pill from her purse and gave one to Yolie and made her drink it. And Yolie calmed down and fell asleep. So Silvia went next door and got her friend, Amanda, who looked more like a real woman than Silvia because he was smaller—not like Silvia, who had big hands and big feet and big shoulders. They both came over and decided to make a caldo de rez. Because it was freezing outside—and so they made soup, and the soup was delicious, and Silvia and Amanda told Ileana and Andrés that they should always go to them if they needed anything. And when Yolie woke up, Silvia made her take a shower, and they combed her hair real nice, and they made her eat soup.

  Andrés was glad they were there. They knew exactly what to do. And he didn’t care if they were men pretending to be women. He liked them. And Ileana liked them, too.

  That night, Yolie didn’t go out. It was too cold, and she was too sad. And she cried all night. But not like before. Not like howls. Just sobs. Ordinary sobs.

  The next morning, she looked harder, like she was made of stone.

  Ileana and Andrés didn’t say anything to her. They knew she didn’t want them to.

  “Yolie was never the same.”

  “What changed?”

  “She was hollow after that. Empty. She just didn’t care. Not about us. Not about herself. Well, she still cared some for Ileana. I don’t know what she felt about me. Sometimes I thought she must have loved me very much. Other times, I think she hated me. Anyway, she didn’t give a damn about herself after that. She’d loved Mando so much. I understood that. Because that’s the way I felt about Ileana.”

  “Did you ever mourn your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone mourns in different ways. Yolie cried all day. All night. Then she locked him away in a part of herself no one would ever touch.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  He nodded. “When the snow melted, I ran. I ran and cried and cursed. That’s how I mourned him.” I’ve been mourning him all of my fucking life. He didn’t have to tell her that. She already knew.

  Timing and Order in the Universe

  Grace is reading an article in the newspaper. The article states that a human rights group is protesting the fact that so many child molesters are being released to the border area: “One activist angrily stated, ‘There is nothing to keep these men from venturing into Mexico. There is no protocol in place. These men are released to the border and perpetrating their crimes against the children of Juárez with impunity. It is like setting loose a big game hunter in the middle of a game preserve.’ Such views are overstated, says an official with the federal prison system. ‘Alarmist viewpoints do nothing to help develop a public policy that is in the best interests of the general public.’” Grace puts down the newspaper and thinks of Andrés Segovia. She thinks of Mister. She thinks to herself that she might have killed any man who would have ever touched her son. She looks at the crucifix hanging on her wall. For a moment, she understands that Christianity is an impossible religion. What does it mean to forgive?

  Dave is sitting in a musty attic in Louisiana. The space is dark and damp, and having lived in the desert all his life, he is uncomfortable with the unfamiliar smells. He has already decided that the South is too gothic for his tastes. He has decided that Rosemary Hart Benson is a tortured soul. She hates no one comfortably—a curse she no doubt acquired from her devout Catholic mother. That is what he has decided. “Take what
you want, and will you please throw the rest away.” He is looking through the third box—and it is here that he finds what he is looking for (though he did really know exactly what he might find). In this box, he finds photographs of boys. He does not know how many photographs there are—perhaps a hundred. Perhaps less than a hundred. In each photograph, a boy is sitting and looking at the camera. Some of them smile. Some of them look sad. Some of them have no expression at all. He looks at each photograph. The boys seem to range in age from seven or eight to fourteen. It’s difficult to tell. All the boys are clothed. And then he understands. He has taken a photograph of each boy before he touched him. They are, in the photographs of this sick and twisted soul, images of untouched boys. As he goes through each photograph, he wants to throw up. He wants to scream. He wants to curse. He takes a deep breath. This. This is what he came for. He knows there is a sad story behind each picture. He looks away, then continues to go through the photographs. He cannot turn back. He is here. He must finish. He keeps looking at the faces of the boys, and that is when he finds himself staring at a photograph of Andrés Segovia. At twelve, he was very much still a child. Some boys were already on their way to becoming men at twelve. But not this boy, perhaps the most beautiful boy he has ever seen. He is as sad as he is beautiful. He wants to hold Andrés in his arms and tell him no harm will come to him. But he knows that harm has already come. He hopes it has not come to stay.

  The Quiet Before the Storm

  It was odd, how already the house seemed empty without him. Mister pictured him growing into the bed he and Liz had bought for him. He pictured the house full of his photographs. One picture for every year—five, six, seven, eight…What would he look like as a man?

  He looked in the mirror. He wondered if a man’s body changed when he became a father. Sam had once told him that the shape of the human heart changed every time it loved someone. So the shape of the heart was always changing. If his heart had changed shape because of Vicente, then wasn’t it also true that his entire body had changed?

  But what did Sam know, anyway? He was no scientist. Just a romantic guy from the barrio who spent his entire life trying to figure out the meaning of things. Especially love. Sam was always trying to get at the root of the human heart. It was a thing with him. He was convinced that love wasn’t metaphysical. Well, perhaps metaphysical in part. But its roots were in the physical body, the mind or the heart or the flesh, which was more intelligent than most people believed. The body is intelligent. That’s what he had on a note that he tacked above his desk. Well, Sam was no dualist. Sex feels good. Why do you suppose that is, mi’jito? Sam always told him things like that—but he’d been too young to ask the right questions.

  Maybe the heart did change shape. And not just when it loved. When it was hurt. When it was angry. When it hated. When it remembered. When it yearned. When it mourned.

  Liz.

  Vicente.

  Grace.

  Sam.

  Heart.

  “You can take him home next week.”

  “It’s just Wednesday, Linda.”

  “Another week—that’s—”

  “An eternity.”

  “Relax.”

  “The Rubios need a little more time. It’s not too much to ask, Mister.”

  “No, it’s only right.”

  “They want to know if they can visit him.”

  “Of course.”

  “I think they’ve really fallen for this kid. Especially Mr. Rubio.”

  “They can visit any time they want.”

  “I think it would be a good idea if you called and told them that. I think it would be easier on them if you called.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You’re a good egg, Mister.”

  “Sure I am.” He laughed. A week. Not such a long time. Liz will be disappointed. He practiced saying, It’s only a week, Liz. Not so long.

  Andrés Segovia.

  That’s a Beautiful Name

  Andrés learned how to connect all the dots. It was like finding the Big and Little Dippers. Once you saw the constellations—once you found them—everything was perfectly clear. He knew now that Yolie worked for Homero. He would find men who would pay to sleep with his sister. He understood that, and he hated Homero for doing that to his sister, and he hated Yolie for letting it happen.

  One night, Homero came by. He said both he and Ileana should get dressed, make themselves look nice. So Yolie helped Ileana get dressed, and she looked so beautiful, and Andrés wore a nice shirt and Homero took them out to dinner, and it was nice to be taken out to dinner. They hadn’t been out to dinner for a long time. Not since their mother and father had died. Not since then. And Andrés and Ileana ate and ate. Like they’d never eaten before. And afterward, Homero took them to a place. He said it was a private club. But Andrés thought it was just a bar. He’d seen them from the outside, but he had never been in one. The club was quiet, and Homero told him and Ileana to sit at the bar, and he ordered a Coke for both of them—with cherries.

  Yolie was angry with him. “Why did you bring them in here?”

  “They have to begin learning. How many times have I told you that?”

  “They’re too young. Leave them alone.”

  Yolie told them to go home. “Go on,” she said. “Just go home.”

  Homero didn’t like it, that Yolie was sending them home.

  “Finish your Cokes,” he said. He didn’t say it in a nice way.

  “Take them home, Homero. Now!” Yolie was angry.

  “Callate, Puta,” that’s what he said. And he raised his arm like he was going to slap her. But he stopped himself. Yolie looked at him, and Andrés swore her eyes were knives and she was cutting him up like he was a piece of paper. And right then, at that moment, he loved Yolie, loved her with all his heart.

  Yolie nodded at them. “Go home,” she whispered.

  Andrés took Ileana’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go.” He wanted to hug Yolie and to kiss her and tell her that they should all go back. But he knew he would never go back to El Paso without her. So they were all stuck together now. No matter what happened.

  Stuck. Together.

  On their way home, off Calle Mariscal, he saw them. On a quiet street, Silvia and Amanda. They were standing at a doorway to a bar with a blinking neon light that read, “La Brisa.” They were laughing and smoking cigarettes and wearing high heels and red dresses. He waved at them. And they made a big fuss over him and kissed him and kissed Ileana and told them they were beautiful, and they wanted to know why they were out. “It’s not safe,” Silvia said. “Where’s Yolie?”

  “She’s with Homero,” Andrés said,

  “Ese hijo de la chingada,” Amanda said. “Your sister should keep away from that man.”

  “Shhh,” Silvia said. “Anyway, it’s too late for that. C’mon, let’s take you home. It’s not safe.”

  They walked Andrés and Ileana home, Silvia and Amanda, and Amanda whispered to him that he should keep away from Homero. Silvia gave Amanda a look, but she said if they ever needed them for anything, they could always go to La Brisa, and someone would know where to find them.

  “You trusted them?”

  “Sure I did. It’s funny, isn’t it? Two fake women were the most real things I encountered on those streets.” I might have even loved them.

  One night, when Yolie was out, Homero came by the house. Andrés was reading a book to Ileana. “That’s nice,” Homero said. But Andrés could see that Homero was a fake. Nothing real about his smile or his words. “Yolie won’t come home until very late,” Andrés said. He wanted Homero to leave.

  “I know. I just wanted to come by and visit you. Just to make sure the both of you were all right.”

  “We’re fine,” Andrés said. But he said it through his teeth.

  “Oh, so you bark like a dog?”

  “I bite like one, too,” Andrés said.

  “You have your sister’s fight.”

  “I
don’t want you to come here anymore,” Andrés said.

  “You’d have starved without me. Ask your sister, she’ll tell you. I own her. I own you, too.”

  “Get out,” Andrés said.

  Homero smiled, then nodded. He wasn’t angry, not really. Andrés knew Homero wasn’t afraid of him. Who could be afraid of a boy like him? He got up to leave. He put a ten-dollar bill on the table. “This is your first paycheck,” he said.

  “Take your money,” Andrés said.

  Homero smiled and walked out of the house.

  “I should’ve left. Right then and there, I should’ve left.”

  “But you couldn’t leave Yolie, could you?”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “So you hate yourself. For loving her.”

  “I’m not that virtuous. I was just afraid.”

  “Maybe you are virtuous. There’s a thought.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “I don’t know many men who aren’t threatened by transvestites.”

  “It’s not a virtue to trust good people. Transvestites don’t hurt anybody. Men who look normal, who dress normal, who talk normal, they hurt people. Homero was a well-dressed, more or less educated man. He looked like a man is supposed to look like. Big fucking deal. We should all be afraid of normal-looking men. Transvestites? They’re nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Knowing who to trust is a virtue, Andrés.”

  “You’re bound and determined to make me out to be a decent guy.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “You’d be better off selling shoes.”

  A few minutes after Homero left, there was another knock at the door. Andrés thought it was Homero again, but when he went to the door, his heart beating, he relaxed. It was Silvia. “I saw him come in here,” she said. “I don’t like it that he comes here when your sister’s not here. What did he want?” She was angry. She knew all about him. Andrés showed her the ten-dollar bill he’d left on the kitchen table. “He said it was our first paycheck.”