Dreams Of McAllen...

"Father expected a good deal of God. He didn't actually accuse God of inefficiency, but when he prayed his tone was loud and angry, like that of a dissatisfied guest in a carelessly managed hotel..." - Clarence Day, God and My Father

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

McALLEN, Texas - Manuel Torres had lived his life to the bone by the time he died that year, for the Torres family a year that became one to be most cherished and one to be damned. The old man had died while reaching down for a sun-baked water hose he used to water a jungle of unkempt plants in his weed-filled backyard. Sara Torres had passed five years earlier and the old man had never recovered from the loss of his loyal wife. They had been inseparable, through the good times and the bad, mostly bad.

And now his son, Hector, had come to the old, frame home that sat flanked by two craggy mesquite trees on the poor side of town to gather some of his father's belongings. The old man had lived a spartan life during his last few years, choosing to talk to birds that flew into his backyard and loose dogs he'd see when on his morning walks. He didn't talk much to anyone else, and his longest conversations usually came when Hector or his daughter Sofia stopped-in to check on him. They always found him sitting on the ancient rocking chair out on the front porch, his face not changing even as they walked up the sidewalk. There, at his feet, they'd see the old dog leash once the property of his dog, Paco, a German Shepherd who'd died the same year his wife had fallen to breast cancer.

"You okay, old man?" Hector would ask his dad.

A slow nod, the creaky rocking chair still moving on the porch's aging wooden floor.

"Brought you some milk and bread..."

An arm rose and Hector grabbed at his father's outstretched hand. It felt of brittle bone, skin barley discernible in the shake. Looking at it, Hector thought it looked too much like a rubber hose shriveling by the day, like a stem on a rose that was about to go from semi-fresh to a full-out rotting. You could see the small blue veins under a splattering of age spots, but barely. Hector cleared his throat while his father rocked and stared ahead. There was nothing moving up and down the street, no dogs or people walking by, no delivery trucks, nothing. What the old man stared at only he knew. Perhaps it was some little, insignificant thing grabbing his attention, like the falling chain-link fence across the street, or the same neighbor's rusting mailbox or maybe it was something way beyond that.

"Take your medicine?"

A shaky pointing to the floor, to a plastic container alongside his old shoe. Two of them, in fact.

"Well, I've gotta get going, Dad..."

Three-four measured nods, something to be offered as agreement. Minimal energy, some thought given to the words. Hector bent down to kiss his father on the forehead. The old man managed the tiniest of smiles, all I can give you, boy, all I've got left.

"Kids send their love. You know that, right?"

One last nod and then a soft-gargling of sorts that stood for, "I know they do..."

"I love you, Dad. Gotta run..."

The old man inhaled deeply, but said nothing.

Hector walked toward the droopy fence gate and then on to his shiny pickup...

- 30 -