El Baile

El Baile

Sean stopped running and bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He just finished a short sprint at the end of a long jog. His face was flushed and just a shade lighter than his red hair. Now that 50 years was in sight he was trying to hold on to his past while dumping some pounds.
Sean straightened up and began walking the last three blocks home. Wisps of cotton from the cottonwood trees, like restless spirits, floated in the hot breeze of June fitfully. The traffic on Rio Bravo Boulevard buzzed in his ears, and he thought he heard faint music, Spanish music.
He saw the viejito sitting on a stump on the corner ahead. Through the shimmering heat, distorting his sight, he saw a flash of color, bright yellow and green, in front of the old man. Then sweat stung his eyes, and he had to blink and wipe his face. When he looked again he saw only the viejito.
The viejito said “¿Como esta?” as Sean approached. His face was weathered with the arroyos of age and was the same brown color of the earth.
“How’s it going?” Sean asked in return.
“¿Caliente, no?” the viejito said.
“Oh yeah, it’s hot.”
“Lived here long?” the viejito asked.
“About five or six years now.”
“You don’t live where the other Anglos live, up in the heights?”
Sean looked carefully at the viejito before answering. “No, we couldn’t find anything we liked up there, not that we could afford anyway. Besides, we like it here in the South Valley. It’s more peaceful and quiet.”
“More and more Anglos are moving down here now,” the viejito said.
Sean wiped the sweat from his forehead and face, then asked, “Is there a problem with that?”
The viejito stood up quickly, “Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a fact.” He was thin and wiry.
After a pause he wiped his hands on his pants and said, “I’m sorry. I’m Tomás Gutiérrez.”
Sean took the hand and replied “Sean Murphy.”
“Irish, eh? I was taught by Irish nuns at Catholic school as a boy. That was a long time ago, no?” Tomás said with a laugh.
“For me too,” Sean said.
Tomás paused, then said, “Someone told me that the Irish don’t like being called ‘Anglo.’ Maybe I should apologize again.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Sean said. After a couple of seconds he continued awkwardly, “My grandparents came to the US at the turn of the century. My grandfather died before I was born, and my grandmother died while I was still a kid. I never really got to know her.” Sean paused. “I hardly remember what she looked like.”
“Oh,” Tomás said. “My family has been here since the Atrisco land grant. I was raised by my mother and abuelita after my father died.” Tomás looked to his right.
Sean followed his gaze to two small white crosses staked into the ground. A small wreath of red plastic flowers hung on each cross.
“What are those crosses for?” Sean asked.
Tomás paused for a second and sighed. “Two young girls were walking home from dance practice, and two gangs had a shoot out. The girls were in the way.”
“Damn gangs,” Sean said.
“The Anglos in the heights, they think it’s always been like this in the Valley—gangs shooting at each other over drugs and barrio loyalty. But it wasn’t always like this. Si, we always had the vatos of the neighborhood, and you could have called them gangs. Pero, they never killed anybody.”
“Sure,” Sean said. “My father grew up in an Irish neighborhood in New York. They didn’t like the Italians or Germans. Same thing.”
The veijito nodded. “Y the drugs. We always had the marijuanos—I even smoked a little myself when I was a kid—pero, the cocaine and heroin, the gangsters kill each other over it.”
“Yeah, and everybody’s got guns these days,” Sean said.
“Si, y now when an argument starts, everyone pulls out their guns first thing. No chingasos, just killing.” Tomás looked at the crosses again.
“Pero, everything changes, new people and new ways move in. Even the trees and the bosque have changed. Mira,” Tomás said pointing at the stump he had been sitting on, “when I was a kid, this was a beautiful cottonwood, y big.
“Cottonwood…that’s alamo in Spanish,” he said with a chuckle. I bet you thought an alamo was where John Wayne killed a bunch of Mexicans, no?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Sean admited, but he laughed also.
“Pero, this alamo died after getting hit by lightning twenty years ago. Not right away, but slow. Then they had to cut it down, so only this stump is left. Now, mira, mostly Siberian elms are growing where the cottonwoods grew. And the Russian olives and salt cedars. I don’t recognize the bosque anymore when I walk there.” He shook his head and sat back down on the stump.
Sean felt uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and wiped sweat off his face again. “Well, I’ve got to get going,” he said, then paused. “But maybe I’ll see you again later. I’d like to talk some more.”
“Bueno,” Tomás said with a slight wave of his hand. He rested his arms on his knees and looked to the ground.
Sean walked away, but before he got far he thought he heard music, Spanish music, through the din of traffic on Rio Bravo. He turned to look back at the viejito and saw him clapping his hands and tapping his right foot in time to the music. Before him danced two girls with dark faces and hair. They wore dresses of bright yellow and green, held the hems out with their small hands, and flourished them back and forth in time to the music.
Sean shivered in the heat.

End