Michael McGuire
THE MAN WHO NEVER GAVE UP
Her father had, with the years, become a fixture of Pueblo Viejo. In fact, he had become, with his goings and comings, nearly invisible. Hump shouldered, intensely focused or, at least, preoccupied, he always seemed to know exactly where he was going. He never came to a stop, rarely paused, would return a mumbled word when a greeting was offered, but never lost his awareness of whatever it was, out there, in front, at the end of this street or that, or just around the next corner.
His daughter, who was not uneducated—she had been out and as, generally, only the broken do, returned to Pueblo Viejo—had, in the past, wondered if her father was looking for an honest man, for he did, sometimes, peer intently into one face or another. But no, that couldn’t be it, for Alexandra knew, she had to admit, that more than one man in Pueblo Viejo had, in her experience, if little more to offer, honesty. So, she concluded—it was a tentative conclusion, for she had seen enough of life to know that nothing, ever, was certain—that it had been those misspent years of his youth, standing, at fiestas, in the plaza with his buddies, gathered about a clear bottle of the good stuff, if not the best, placed upright on the paving stones and bent to, occasionally, by one young buck or the other, when he felt the need of upending it, only to replace it with care, if not reverence, at their collective feet.
Yes, Alexandra had known enough men who passed to their reward in their late forties or early fifties when, despite their years of relative, or even total, abstinence, the besotted nights caught up with them. Not her father. She, the last of innumerable offspring, had already left the striking years, the ones in which she turned men’s heads, behind, and still, her father went on, and on. There was not a skewed paving stone she could not step on or a high curb awaiting the floods that were sure, one day, to come, she could climb, without the knowledge that he had stepped or raised himself there before her.
He was, it would seem, immortal, in spite of the fact that so many of his generation, en paz descanse, had turned their backs on the bottle decades before, while he, no longer standing around one with his buddies while the señoritas circled, near, or at a distance, admiring with a flash of dark eyes, their, the young bucks, admirable self-possession, their cool, never did climb the wagon so many had climbed before him. With time, she too, as her friends must also have known, knew that the young men of Pueblo Viejo, as their fathers and their fathers’ fathers would come, in spite of their admirable poise, their equanimity, to nothing or, if they did, in fact, achieve something, that the years of youthful abandon would come up, softly, silently, behind, one dark night, to seize them by the hair.
Not her father. There must be something in his bones, in hers too she could only hope, that enabled him to go on, and on, crisscrossing their shared pueblo, never stopping, except to knock back a trago at one of his favorite stand-up bars, when she had slipped him the wherewithal to do so.
Alexandra was, as has been noted, the last of innumerable offspring, known and unknown. Her, their, mother had died relatively young, worn out, she supposed, by so much childbearing, so much nursing, so much care. Her brothers had, without exception, to seek their fortunes, headed north, over the wall or under the barbed wire, never to be heard from again. Her sisters had done whatever sisters do. They had made the best of a bad thing, marrying the men who hadn’t the balls for the border, and raised their own crop of ne’er-do-wells along with the occasional go-getter, as she herself, contemplated the years of abandonment, of utter and complete loneliness, coming up fast, oh so fast, quite easily remarked in a pueblo where everything seemed to move at about half the speed of the world around it.
But her father, having never been either one type or the other of young man, just went on and on, at times, it would appear, in the comfortable daze of the determined drinker, though also, at times, clear-eyed and clear-headed, in search of… God knew what. Once, though she knew, even then, she never would again, ask him what he was looking for, she did.
“Papá?”
“Hija?” answered her father, for he was always quick with an answer, so he could get it out of his way, she assumed, and resume his quest.
“What—oh what!—are you looking for? You have covered every centimeter, every millimeter, of Pueblo Viejo, you have looked around every corner, you have looked into every face. You must know that…” She hesitated to say this for she had learned, with the years, that if a person has only one thing, however unlikely or unreasonable, you shouldn’t take it away from him, but she did. “You must know it isn’t here. It just isn’t, papá. It isn’t, isn’t, there.”
Her father, hearing the words from her mouth, had looked deep into her eyes, perhaps asking, with his, though she hoped not, how she could be so insensitive—so cruel—as to ask such a question. He did open his mouth, but the words just hadn’t come.
He’d kissed her on the forehead then—sometimes she thought that, in a reversal of roles, he would like to rest his head against her chest, her breasts, as she folded her arms about him, though he never did—and turned to go. At the door he turned again and spoke in that low voice that was not actually begging, though it was humble enough. He even, sometimes, looked at the floor as the dreaded words tumbled out.
“I don’t suppose you could…”
But, today, she could and, when she could, she would. She retrieved her purse and, moments later, unclenched her fist to release a crumpled bill in his and, with that, he was gone.
ϖ
Leaving his remaining daughter, the one still in the parental house, empty-handed, with tears of love in her eyes, was not Salvador’s idea of the way to begin a day. But, it couldn’t be helped. He had places to go, places to be or, as the dog he didn’t have might say, places to sniff, places to pee. Today, he would not bother with the usual detours, the usual digressions, and head straight to el campo santo where, amid the headstones and the sepulchers, he would, in fact, pee, for his bladder was not what it used to be, not what it was when he was a young man and could piss three, even four, meters, in a beautiful arc which, catching the sunlight, might say: here is a man, a man to be reckoned with, a man meant for…
Well, never mind that. Better to have the pisser give out than the liver and, then, the heart, which had, without exception, been the experience of so many kindred spirits, ones he had, in the long-ago, stood about the priceless bottle with, in the plaza late of a fiesta night, as the awed señoritas circled—slowly, oh so slowly—kindred spirits, his buddies of nights, and days, gone by, now just hovering over so many headstones or clustered about the cheapest slot in the wall in back.
There. Now. He felt better. Time to put it away and head to the other side of his native pueblo, to stand a moment, or two, but not longer, in front of the cathedral, and nod at the old ladies who, no crazier than he, climbed the same steps to sit in the same pew, to intone the same gibberish day after day, but first, a man meant for…well, whatever it was…must pay his respects to the recently departed, the long gone, to the forgotten.
Salvador, standing before the remains of one or the other, raised the glass of the good stuff he didn’t have, shaken reverently, drop by drop, from the bottle that was not at his feet, and assured one and all that he, at least, had not forgotten. He could still see them, each one, as a young man, throbbing with life, with desires not to be denied, with, also, undeniable possibilities. Yes, and as he looked down now at one slight ridge, and then another, in worthless soil displaced by a box just the right size for a man, however worthy, who was never going anywhere, the faces he saw—so focused, so determined—might be those of his sons, for his own sons, long gone and never heard from, were, in fact, nearly forgotten, and he could not, no matter how hard he tried, bring their faces to mind.
Yes, these remains of men who would, if they’d been made of the same stuff he was, be his own age now and, therefore, unlikely to be his sons, were, even so, in a way, his sons, the ones who’d learned from him, who’d taken it to heart, that a man must look up, not into the rafters with the old ladies, but beyond, to that which must be done, for himself, for the others, for… Well, he would leave that thought, if not quite bury it, for there was no need to be grandiose about a man’s calling, which he only needs ears to hear and, when he hears it, eyes to show him the way.
On, yes, that is where a man must go, on, and on. Down this crumpled sidewalk. Up that curb, half a meter at its worst, built by hands stronger than his for the floods that had not come in his lifetime, yet were sure to, any day now. And today, he would not be alone, for he would take his buddies of the long-ago, his sons of today, every last one of them, with him.
“Juan, watch that curb,” he would mumble, “it’s higher than it looks,” or “José, watch those cobblestones, they’re uneven, they’re sinking, each at a different rate and there is no one, now, and never will be again, who knows how to lay them.”
Yes that was what he would mumble, more or less, not loud enough for a passerby to assume that Salvador had gone, finally, off his nut or, on the other hand, that he was simply praying, praying for us all. But Salvador would just be keeping his innumerable sons from an unsightly fall, for all to see, and not damnation, or whatever it is a man whose life has come to nothing must, for eternity, endure.
But Salvador is no longer standing in the cemetery, looking down. He is, as he was yesterday, and will be, as is his fate, tomorrow, on his way.
So he, and his unseen, and unheard—for his sons rarely respond to his cautionary asides—assemblage climb the steep streets to la presa, the reservoir so mindfully constructed, stone after stone, by men of vision only five or six generations back. Here he—and his sons—pause, respectfully, before one minor memorial or another to others of their own time who, after a long night standing about the bottle in the plaza and, with a little luck, fondling and being fondled by some señorita in a doorway, chose to take a late night swim in the cold, black waters, with little knowledge that it would be their last.
Yes, some of those who passed then, in the flower of their youth, only to be laid out on the very stones upon which they—unseen and unheard, of course—now stand, their features no longer soft and swollen, their bodies no longer running the cold black water, but strong and well-loved and so full of promise even their fathers could see it, for that is how Salvador has chosen to gather them, exactly as he was once, before he, no longer stooping to the bottle, bent to the quest he must never fail, for something, anything, he had long ago decided, is not done until it is done and done well.
ϖ
There are nights when Alexandra, lies alone in the house, in fact in the very bed, in which her young mother died, worn out with spreading her legs, with birthing sons and daughters, several of whom would be gone before she was. Alexandra lies awake for she knows her father is not home, not sleeping as is his wont now, fully clothed, on the worn out couch in the low-ceilinged room in which they sometimes gather, and she wonders, as she does often enough: is this it, the night, the immortal, who, a somewhat different man then, she supposes, engendered her, finally gives up the ghost he, so very nearly, now is?
Is this it, she wonders, the night she dresses for the cold and goes in search of him, on a quest so very like his own, over the same stones, up the same curbs, glancing, on a rather slim chance, in the cathedral, which is always open; climbing, the one way, to el campo santo in which he already has a slot reserved; or the other to la presa in which several of his buddies must have, once upon a time, decided enough is enough, to hell with this, or whatever it was they thought, or said, before they took the final plunge.
But, somehow, Alexandra knows, in her warm bed that, though the night wind has descended from la montaña, and is rounding the corners and sweeping the streets, if not for her fragile, miraculously long-lived father, then for someone, if there are any left, just like him; knows that he is still among the living, putting in another meter, or two, in the hope that, whatever it is, he will, somehow, stumble across it or, suddenly motionless, stand face to face before it, with just another step, or two, to go.
What she doesn’t know, of course, is that her father is not alone, that, though most of Pueblo Viejo is abed, perhaps in dread of a day of donkeywork yet to come; that the man who will never give up, is crossing their shared pueblo yet once more, with all the young men of his generation, still alight with their own incomparable futures, clustered about him, perhaps in envy of one who has proven so much more durable than they, perhaps a little shamefaced as they, with the somewhat depleted energies of the dead, struggle to keep up with him. Yes, what she doesn’t know is that he, with such company, is hardly as alone as she.
“How is your daughter, Salva?” asks one of his surrogate sons. “How is Alexandra?”
“Sleeping the sleep of the…” answers Salvador, who hardly knows how to finish the sentence since he takes his daughter, no longer young, somewhat for granted, since she’s warmed the house since birth, her birth,
except for the years away, of course, but then she’d come back and everything had been as it was before, the unmarried daughter taking the place of the wife, if not in all respects, the wife who’d died younger than the daughter was then, when she’d returned.
Now Alexandra warms her bed as she does the corn, squash, beans and, once a week, something more savory, grilled to perfection over the dead wood he sometimes carries home just to show his day of unending motion has not been entirely in vain. He has never pictured her lying awake, on those nights that call for one more circuit of Pueblo Viejo, wondering if her father has not been taken by one of those high curbs followed by a hard fall on the cobblestones, and still determined, till death do them part, she supposes, even if the years are coming up fast, and faster, for she is determined, though she has never put it into words, and never will, to provide a home for the man who lost his young wife, then his sons, one after the other as they headed north, and the daughters who found their own lives, somehow, in Pueblo Viejo, and almost never visit, at least they are never there at nightfall, the hour when even our memories abandon us, as she is, the daughter who loves her father more than she loves herself, for she was never made for the life of a very different woman, out there, clawing her way up, and no one had ever, ever—oddly, for she was attractive enough—dared to ask her hand in marriage.
Salvador and his entourage take another turn, and then another, if not one inquires exactly where, at this hour of the night, they might be headed, for they are determined to keep up, if stumbling a little now and then, with their more focused leader, now a generation, two, older than they, if still tireless, tireless, tireless…
“I don’t think I ever told you, Salva,” says the son right behind him, the son a little more verbal than the others, “but I once thought of proposing to her.”
“To who?” asks Salvador, whose mind is elsewhere.
“To your daughter. To Alexandra. Yes. It was just before she left. Her mind was full of all the things she was going to do, and not only for herself, for the world too, I think, though she always intended to return and so it must have been for…for us…for Pueblo Viejo, too.”
“What?” asks Salvador, out of the corner of his mouth, for his eyes must always be focused out there, in front.
“I don’t remember what, what she was going to do,” gasps his more verbal son, now young enough, really, to be his grandson. “I only know she wouldn’t stop talking. ‘Alexandra,’ I said, ‘I have something I want to say to you, something I want to ask,’ I said, struggling to keep up with her, then, as I am with you, now.”
“Well, so?” asks Salvador, in spite of himself, curious, wondering how, when and if and, if so, in what words his son, if now his grandson, popped the question to his daughter, who is now old enough to be, his long dead buddy’s, mother.
“Well, so,” the young man repeats. “I never did get it out. Before I knew it, we were at your door, the door of the house you still inhabit, with her. No. At the door, your door, she turned. There was something, something, I don’t know what, in her eyes. A moment passed then, a moment of silence, before she said ‘Salva,’ for my name is the same as yours as there are only so many names to go around in Pueblo Viejo, and some of us named Salvador by our mothers are called Salva and some of us are called Chava and I was called Salva just like you.”
“Yes… And then?” asks Salvador, over the other shoulder and a little impatiently, for he, in spite of his calling, and of the pace he maintained in answer to its call, always wants to hear the end of a story, so often the one story each man has to tell.
“And then. After she said ‘Salva’ with infinite patience, it seemed, but still in that lovely contralto of hers. And then. Nothing. She leaned forward. She kissed me. On the forehead. She turned. She raised the latch with her lovely thumb. She stepped in through that door she lives behind now and closed it, so softly, ever so softly, but not behind her, for I think she was peeking out with one eye even as she closed it.”
“And then?” asks Salvador, suddenly stopping, turning to face the teller of the tale, his son, who was only his buddy back then, about a generation—generations are short in Pueblo Viejo, for we breed young—before the scene occurred in which the question was, or was not, popped. Salvador stops, in fact, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it is only chance that all his buddies of yesteryear don’t crash into each other, ending up in a pile of, very nearly, still living flesh wherever they happen to be.
“And then,” says his son, his grandson, “I told you: and then nothing.”
Salva, the younger, has spoken to Salva, the elder, practically, since the elder has stopped so suddenly, so unexpectedly, nose to nose. Still Salvador, the elder Salva, has one more question.
“But there must have been something, some detail. No story ends like that. Night fell a little further, that night. The sun rose the next day, early enough, and, even before you trudged to your donkeywork, you had time enough to knock on her door, on my door, and…”
“Wait a minute,” says Salva, the younger, backing off a little, for the breath of the still living is never as sweet as that of the long dead. “There was something. Some detail.”
“Yes..?” asks Salvador, encouragingly, for the patience of the living never quite equals that of the dead. “Some detail,” he repeats the young man’s words.
“Only this. I never heard the bolt thrown. I stood there a moment. Longer. Lonely and lonelier. I put my ear to her door, your door. I listened and…”
“Nothing,” offers Salvador.
“No,” says Salva, the younger, hesitating to contradict the older, “there was something. I think I heard her breathing, yes breathing, and then—she must have turned and leaned back against the door, having second thoughts, I thought, about me—and then, I heard…”
“Yes..?”
“Her heart. I swear I heard, through her door, through yours, her heart.”
“Fine. That’s it,” says Salvador, turning away, the Salvador who has seen, and heard, so much more of the world than his buddy, his son, turning away to resume the quest that never ends, but turning suddenly, for he’s had a thought, back. “But that’s not the end of your story, is it, for then, the next day…”
A second here, a second of the silence that always falls between the living and the dead, before the young man answers.
“The next day she was gone.”
Here Salvador might jumble his own thoughts, trying to figure out the ages of the principal characters, if Salva, the younger might yet knock on Alexandra’s door for, if life has taught him anything it is that it is never, ever, too late but, somehow, tonight, it is just all too much to think about, for there are meters, maybe, even, kilometers yet to cover and his daughter may yet be lying awake, wondering if the house is warm enough, though she is sure she has left the embers glowing, wondering if the breakfast she plans will be sufficient for a man who must do what he has to do, what he must do, for he knows as, he supposes, she knows, that he is the man who never gave up, the one who never will.
Michael McGuire was born and raised and has lived in or near much of his life; he divides his time; his horse is nondescript, his dog is dead. Naturally, McGuire regrets not having passed his life in academia, for the alternative has proven somewhat varied, even unpredictable.