Amigoland

26

Now he sat in a plastic chair with a Carta Blanca beer logo against the backrest. His brother and the girl had helped him get to the little café and bought him a bottle of water so he could take his medicines while they went to buy the tickets. Don Fidencio’s job was to keep an eye on his plastic bag with the medicines and his brother’s leather pouch that had his insulin, making sure nobody ran off with them.
Dust swirled through the open doors at either end of the central station. Down the middle of the lobby, a young man, maybe only as tall as his dust broom, plowed the never-ending trash, which included receipts, cigarette butts, and candy wrappers that people preferred to toss on the floor rather than into one of the nearby trash cans. Where the old man sat, the space was lined with a tiny convenience store that appeared to sell only frozen treats and sex magazines, a pharmacy offering minor travel remedies along with an assortment of salty snacks, an open-sided café serving quick meals already under the heat lamps, and, just beyond the front doors, a counter where a porter would store luggage for a small hourly fee. On the opposite side, the eight bus counters, each with its own set of uniformed attendants, stretched the length of the lobby. So far his brother and the girl had stopped at three of the counters.
When he turned back, a barefoot little boy was standing next to the table. Several dime-size patches blotted his thick crew cut. A smear of yellowed mocos had dried under his nose.
“Buy my Chiclets, sir,” the boy said, extending a grubby hand with several packets of fluorescent-colored gum.
“No,” the old man answered.
“Buy my Chiclets, please, sir.” He tilted his head to one side.
Don Fidencio lifted a finger and wagged it at the boy.
“Come on, sir, buy my Chiclets.”
“I don’t want any Chiclets.”
Don Fidencio looked back across the lobby. His brother and the girl were talking to an attendant behind one of the counters.
“Buy my Chiclets, sir.”
“Are you one of those little deaf boys? I told you, ‘No Chiclets.’ ”
The little boy stared back for a second. “Are you blind?” “Do I look blind to you?”
“You wear those dark glasses,” the little boy replied. “The same as Macario The Blind Man wears.”
“I’m not blind. Now go, leave me alone.”
“People say Macario is not blind, but they still call him Macario The Blind Man, and the other people who don’t know give him money.”
“These are called sunglasses,” Don Fidencio said.
“But we’re inside, where the sun never comes out.” “Leave me alone already.”
“Buy my Chiclets.”
“I have no money.”
“But, sir, the Chiclets cost nothing, only four pesos.”
“Go away.”
“Then I will give them to you for two pesos.”
“Already I said no.”
“But why?”
“Finally,” Don Celestino said, walking up to the table. “None of them have direct service to Linares. We had to buy tickets to Ciudad Victoria, and from there we can make the connection.”
Don Fidencio spread his legs so he could begin to stand up. “I was thinking I was going to spend the day here, sleeping in this bus station.”
“You made a friend?” Socorro said.
“Please, lady, buy my Chiclets.” The boy tilted his head to one side.
“Ignore him. If not, he’ll follow us all over Mexico,” said Don Fidencio.
“What flavors do you have?” She bent down to look at the packets.
“All the best ones,” the little boy answered, opening his carton the whole way.
She plucked out four packets, two white and two purple, then handed him the money. The little boy thanked her and ran off.
Don Fidencio shook his head. “I never would have bought from that boy.”
“I know,” Socorro replied, “but you got your Chiclets anyway.” She pulled open his shirt pocket and deposited the four packets.
Don Celestino helped him get to his feet before grabbing the plastic bag and his pouch. They were halfway to the terminal when Socorro stopped to look back.
“Your walker, Don Fidencio.”
His brother rushed over to get it for him.
“Leave it,” the old man said. “I can make my way without it.” He continued to hobble along, his body leaning forward as if the walker were still in front of him.
“And if you fall?” Don Celestino moved the frame toward him.
“How’s that going to happen, sitting inside a bus station?” he said. “You two are worse than those women at the prison. I could walk fine before they left me with this thing.”
“What if you use the walker just for now and later I go buy you a new cane?” Socorro said.
“And where are you going to find a cane?”
“Anywhere, on the street or at the mercado, then you can have a brand-new one.”
The old man considered the girl’s words.
“Then I can use just the cane and no more walker?”
“Yes, just the cane, no more with the walker,” Don Celestino said.
“And how do I know you won’t make me use it again later?”
“We can give it to somebody or throw it away if you want.”
The old man leaned his weight back on the walker. “This better not be a lie,” he said, “just to fool an old man.”
Don Celestino held open the glass door, and his brother shuffled down the narrow hallway. A large glassed-in bulletin board covered the section of the wall that travelers were most likely to see upon arriving at this northern border. Pushing the walker in a straight line required too much of the old man’s attention for him to read any of the notices or catch a glimpse of the black-and-white photos of dead bodies strewn across the scrubland, one revealing only her face inside the unzipped body bag. Up ahead he could make out a sign directing them to their next stop, INMIGRACIóN.
A digital clock was blinking in one corner of the small, dark office. Through a missing section of the blinds, Don Celestino could make out the desk and chair where somebody should have been sitting.
“The security guard says they have different hours every day,” Socorro said as she walked up. “That we need to wait a few minutes, but if they left for lunch, it could also be later this afternoon.”
“And our papers to travel?”
Socorro answered with only a shrug.
Don Fidencio used the walker to steady himself as he stood up from one of the plastic chairs in the terminal. “I can just imagine if when I was still working we had opened the post office only when we felt like it.”
“Where are you going?” his brother asked.
“I need to go make water, or do I need to ask your permission?” He pushed the walker ahead of him, taking one heavy step after another, as though he had one more acre to plow before the sun went down.
Don Celestino caught up with him as he was parking the walker to one side of the stairs. “You’re going to kill yourself going up there.”
“And tell me what choice I have,” Don Fidencio answered, then pointed back in the direction of the corded-off elevator. “You want me to have an accident?”
He took a deep breath and, with his brother at his side, started climbing. There were eight steps between the ground floor and the first landing, and from there the staircase turned right and there was no telling how many more steps there were to the second floor. In between, a framed portrait of the Virgen de Guadalupe, adorned with a cluster of flickering candles and a display of plastic flowers set on a metal shelf, hung from the wall just above the landing. Below the shelf, a rusty padlock secured the collection box. Normally people about to travel to a nearby ranchito or as far away as Tuxtla Gutiérrez would stop to ask the Virgen for providence on their journey, to keep their ailing mother alive until they were able to arrive, to keep the bus driver awake and alert, to keep any bandits from trying to stop the bus in the middle of the night, or just to keep the porters from searching through their modest packages for any valuables. But Don Fidencio asked her only to provide him with enough strength to make it up the remaining three steps to the landing, then the next flight, all of this without losing his balance and toppling backward down the steps, particularly because he could see himself getting entangled with his guide, who would most likely land on top of him, and then for sure he would crack open his old melon.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Don Celestino said as they reached the landing.
The old man looked at him and then up at the Virgen’s compassionate eyes. If he hadn’t already asked her for so much, he would beg her to find something else for his brother to do; if he was going to fall, he preferred to do this unaccompanied. Instead, he leaned against the railing with both hands and tried to gather the strength he needed for the remaining eight steps.
After more than a minute of standing there and people having to step around them, Don Celestino grabbed him by the elbow. “Ready?”
The old man yanked his arm away, again counted the steps leading to the second floor, and began climbing. He took the first three steps without thinking about them too much, simply lifting his right leg, pulling up his weaker leg to the same step, then repeating. His brother followed closely behind, ready to help should he need it. This time Don Fidencio kept his head down and focused on the motion of his legs and feet. He gripped the railing tighter when a young boy chased his sister up the stairs and they both brushed up against him. It was only a matter of time before he fell over: if his legs didn’t give out on him, it would be on account of these people allowing their children to run loose like farm animals.
When they reached the second floor, Don Fidencio pushed open the glass door and then paused. He looked at his brother, standing next to him now. He knew there had to be a reason they had climbed all the way up the stairs. The girl, they had left downstairs, with the walker and the plastic bag full of medicines. The concession stand was downstairs. The guards were downstairs. The immigration office with no immigration officer was downstairs. He remembered it was urgent, whatever it was that had forced him up here. Why else risk his life climbing the stairs? A young man with white jeans and matching cowboy boots was walking toward him. He flapped his hands, then patted them dry on the sides of his jeans.
“And now what are you waiting for?” Don Celestino asked.
“I was just catching my breath.”
“You want me to go the rest of the way with you?”
“So I can use the toilet?” he said. “No, I can go alone.”
“Are you sure?” He was still holding him by the arm.
“For what, you want to take it out for me?”
His brother released him, and the old man continued down the hall. If he knew anything about his body, the urge to relieve himself would return momentarily; it always did. That merciless pecan or peach seed, whatever it was, would see to it.
A middle-aged woman wearing a green smock sat on a bar stool just behind the turnstile that led into the men’s and women’s restrooms. Her dark bangs hung in an uneven line that reached almost low enough to hide her furrowed brow. From her expression, it seemed something bitter had lodged itself between her molars. On the turnstile sat a cigar box where she kept her large bills, some of which stuck out along the edges. In front of the box stood a set of tiny columns made up of centavos and a few smaller pesos that a sly hand would be less likely to want to make off with. Hanging from the turnstile, a cardboard sign announced the DOS PESOS entry fee.
“Buenos días,” Don Fidencio said.
“Buenas tardes,” the woman corrected him.
He glanced at his watch and smiled at her.
“You wanted to use the services?”
“Only to freshen up a little before the long bus ride.”
She tapped on the cardboard sign.
“Even to go in and just to turn around and come back out?” He twirled a finger in the air to show her how quick he would be.
“If all you want to do is turn around, that you can do right here, for free.”
“But to go inside?”
Again, she pointed to the sign. “Maybe you can’t see with those glasses.”
A short, tubby man in a dark tie brushed up against him.
“Go ahead.” She dropped the pesos into the slot, and the man pushed through the turnstile.
“And him?”
“He works downstairs,” she said. “Are you just going to stand there, in everyone’s way?”
Don Fidencio swayed a bit as he tried to keep his balance.
“I have a need to be here.”
“And tell me, who doesn’t have a need to be here?”
After looking at her for a few seconds and realizing he would have to irrigate the front of the turnstile before this sour woman would allow him to pass, he turned to go back and borrow some money from his brother.
Socorro was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when they finally made it back down. She held on to the walker and had set the plastic bag and leather pouch inside the wire basket.
“We need to hurry. Already they started boarding.”
“And the papers?” Don Celestino asked.
“The guard says you can get them when the bus stops at the first checkpoint.”
Don Celestino took his pouch from the basket and they walked toward the security post that led out to the buses. The same clean-shaven guard Socorro had spoken to earlier signaled for them to move on through security since they had no real luggage to speak of. The driver stood near the bus door, waiting for the last few passengers. The dark shade of his suit and tie matched the blazer and short skirt worn by the young attendant. She tore Don Celestino’s tickets in half and handed him three small plastic bags, each filled with a snack and a bottle of purified water. Socorro packed everything into her own bag as she boarded the bus.
Don Fidencio was still trying to figure out how to get the walker through the narrow entrance. He had tried twice and each time the frame collided with the sides.
“That, we need to fold up and store down below, with the luggage,” Don Celestino said. “Give it to me so I can hand it to the boy.” The porter was squatting near the middle of the bus, rearranging the last packages to go into the luggage compartment.
Don Fidencio ignored him, though, as if by his waiting a little longer, the entrance might widen or the walker shrink in size.
His brother tapped him on the shoulder. “You should go find your seat, and I’ll take care of storing it.”
“I can give it to him by myself,” the old man snapped. “You think I need your help for everything, like a little baby? Leave me and go sit with the girl.”
Don Celestino stared at his brother for a moment, then boarded the bus. A tall man, holding a briefcase in one hand and a large pillow in the other, sat in the front seat. Behind him, a younger man with a long blondish ponytail sat in the aisle seat, while his guitar case sat upright in the window seat. A couple of rows back, an elderly woman held her granddaughter, who was resting her head on the old woman’s lap. Across from them, a gaunt man kept his hand on his wife’s very pregnant belly. None of these people or any of the other passengers so much as looked up as Don Celestino was making his way toward the middle of the bus.
“And your brother?” Socorro asked.
“He was giving his walker to the boy so he could store it underneath.”
“They already closed the space,” she said, leaning over again to glance out the window.
They both turned when they heard the driver let out a moan as he removed his jacket and placed it on a wire hanger inside his compartment. Once he was seated, he spent a few seconds stroking the bristles of his mustache in the rearview mirror, then pulled the lever to close the door. Don Celestino started for the front of the bus, but he had to slow down for a woman in the aisle who was stuffing her bag into the luggage rack.
“Wait,” Socorro called out. “I see him now.”
Don Fidencio was walking toward the front, steadying himself with one hand against the side of the bus. The driver opened the door and stood up to help him climb the three high steps, each one more arduous than the last. Once at the top, the old man grabbed hold of the luggage rack and staggered forward until he reached his seat.
Don Celestino turned to look over his seat back. “I thought you were giving it to the boy. What took you so long?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “Why do I have to give you a report?”
The driver closed the door again. After he had cleaned his yellow-tinted aviator glasses, he inserted a videocassette into the VCR, and several monitors dropped down from the luggage rack. A pretty female attendant, dressed the same as the real-life attendant outside, only this one with light-brown hair and with not as dark a complexion, appeared on the screen to explain all the luxury features on Omnibuses de México, including a quiet and relaxing ride, roomy seats that reclined to the passengers’ comfort, a wide selection of feature films that were sure to entertain, and, of course, the cleanest rest-rooms. The image of the pretty attendant segued to footage of the bus coasting through the Mexican countryside.
When the video ended, the driver took a final look at the instrument panel and crossed himself, then dug a finger into his tight collar and pulled out a thin gold necklace with a San Cristóbal pendant, which he gently kissed before stuffing it back in his shirt. The porter squeegeed the windshield one last time, then signaled thumbs-up when he was done, but the driver was more interested in waving good-bye to the young attendant. After she gave him the same cursory smile she gave to every other driver of Omnibuses de México, he slid the gearshift into reverse. The bus glided backward only a couple of inches before the back wheels lurched up and then down again with a harsh grinding sound. The driver slammed on the brakes, jerking all the passengers forward and then back into their seats. A few seconds later the porter dragged out a flattened metal frame with three plastic wheels still dangling from it, the fourth rolling aimlessly through the parking lot. Socorro and Don Celestino glanced over their seats, but the old man was already leaning back with his eyes closed, about to take his first peaceful nap in some time.