Ernesto-Charlie Morgan
Ernesto
By Charlie Morgan
“Falfurias. Twenty-five miles. Glad to see that. Just seems to get longer every time we come to see Mama. Gawd, I dread this visit, though. Mama’s never been sick a day in her life and after stayin’ all week in the hospital, and all them tests, man, she sure sounded wore out.”
“Well hon we’ve been lucky so far, thank God. And she’ll be getting all her strength back soon enough. She’s always been a strong woman; she will be now. So, don’t you worry so much.”
“Josh, Liyah, y’all hold it down back there. Josh, quit teasin’ your sister and both y’all findya a place to sit. Apart from each other if you can’t quit fightin’.”
“He started it Daddy, he won’t gimme my book back.”
“I did not, she said I could look at it and I’m not through.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did. Daddy she did say I could look at it.”
“Janie, calm ‘em down please. We’re close to Mama’s and we sure don’t need ‘em acting up when we get there.”
“I know, I know. They’ll be settled down by that time. Hon, we started early I remind you. It’s been four hours and only two pee stops, I think they’re doing pretty good. Did you kids hear your Daddy? You both better do as you’re told. Besides we’ll be at Grammy’s in just a few minutes and I told you she’s not feeling very good. So, both of you can just start right now with getting out of that streak you’re in. Hear me?”
“By the way I’m gonna run up and see Ernesto real quick when we get there. I’ll invite him to supper, if Mama hasn’t already.”
“Fine. I’ll take the kids in and we’ll see Grammy while you’re up there. And Liyah, you can show her what you did in kindergarten this week.”
“Big school, Mother, big school. Remember?”
“Yeah, you’re right sugar. Anyway, what I mean iiiss I know she’d love to see the work you’re doing there! And Josh, you can tell her about your first year, I know she’ll wanna know about that. And I know you can’t wait to show her your new computer gameboy, or whatever the heck you call it. Oh, hon, tell Ernesto hi for me…if he decides not to come down to supper.”
Another half-dozen miles and we arrive at the forked path that separates their two houses, of the six that make up Esperanza Hills—what I call Mama’s place. The kids immediately pile out and race to Grammy’s with Janie in tow. She looks back over her shoulder at me for a moment and right then the sun catches her hair ablaze with light. I feel myself smiling without thinking and she smiles back, suddenly radiant, holy. How did I end up so lucky as to be married to Janie, I can’t help wondering. She turns away and the moment passes, but all the way to Ernesto’s door I feel light, giddy, free.
There are seventy-nine steps from Mama’s house up the hill to Ernesto’s, seventy-nine crudely man-made steps and none of them placed the same distance apart.
Ernesto took just enough time to place the cross-ties down and then retire to the dank, and smoke-filled cabin—to fiddle at his latest inscrutable project, most of which made even God scratch His head in wonder. An example being the craftily misaligned staircase which was just one of the jobs Ernesto did for Mama that she used to justify giving him a break in the rent. But for him it was art, or certainly something less tangible than being just a staircase.
It’s been fourteen years since Ernesto arrived at Mama’s place and I s’pose you could say I’m the better for it, even though it took me nearly all of these past years to recognize just how much. Men and puppies! It takes six weeks for puppies to open their eyes and it takes men about thirty years, if they ever manage it.
He’s always been pleasant, cordial. Always has an easy smile. But a dictionary or thesaurus couldn’t define him. He’s puzzling as the Revelation chapter in the King James Bible. Somewhat handy, or at least never shy, with a saw, hammer and nails, though inept with a ruler, but he’s never afraid to get dirty. He’ll spend long hours patiently worrying over the same task a half dozen times without even eating before letting drop the bones of that project and moving on to the next skeleton in the graveyard. I don’t mean to be overly moody, I only say graveyard because his ideas aren’t so much new as they were resurrected and reassembled from old bits and pieces—harmless Frankensteins of ideas made from feathers and springs, wire and clay and wood and even discarded copies of Reader’s Digest.
But he’s more than a tinkerer or a modern alchemist of objects. At the town hall—for more than a decade he’ s been insisting (and railing) on a plan to build a planetarium for the high school and another scheme to convert the local electricity plant to windpower—he always refers to himself as a self-styled loco politico, and in the third person, no less. “That Ernesto, what a wild man! And what a thorn in the town’s paw, and his way with words! Now, he’s a loco politico if ever I saw one, and I’ve seen a few,” he’d tell me with winking, watery eyes dripping mischief and his hair full of rich tobacco smells.
The townspeople are meaner and more straightforward. They just call him half-crazy.
Back on Mama’s land he’s quieter, sometimes nearly serene or else he’s sun-dazed. He’s a photograper but not a painter, an exotic chef, an off-key but enthusiastic baritone, a flower-gardener. Mostly, though, I see him as a writer of short stories. And as if to accompany himself in any of his daily ventures he’s a veritable symphony of human noises—if he isn’t belching, wheezing, or snorting, he’s humming some hundreds-years old Vivaldi aria.
Crisp as lightning yet softer than candlewax, Ernesto stands out even from the weird friends Mama’s taken under her armpit over the years, as big a mix of drifters and artists and lost souls as you would ever find—mostly men but also those few women who are unable to realize they are the captains of their own lives. And in this stew is the big inscrutable potato of Ernesto, who along with the others, teeter right on the very edge of normal existence but seemingly never able to cross over into it.
In my thoughts I often see Ernesto epitomizing Thoreau’s man who is ‘marching to the beat of a different drummer.’ Mama’s always said he’s a man of character—a man of his word. And, like Mama, he’s never judgemental of those of us who are also stranded here in the wasteland, or flatland, so to speak.
Some of them come for a season, others for years; most don’t return. But Mama’s a magnet, with her strong arms, flabby with age, and her chiseled face of intensely focused caring, she’s a lighthouse for wanderers desperate for rest. So, without really wanting to, but, without not wanting to either, she draws them in from all around these parts and all over everywhere. Draws them in though few can rarely stay in her orbit. Seems just as she really begins to get along with them and settle in with them, she finds they’ve packed their seabags again, sometimes with a goodbye, frequently without. Ernesto breaks the rules there, too. He’s been living in that old cabin for more than three president’s terms.
I count out the steps on my way up to see Ernesto, something I always do when I come to visit Mama. I can still see that step number forty-five (going up) needs some work, but it has since he put it down that hot summer day three years ago. I’m sure Mama’s told him, and equally, I’m sure, Ernesto’ll get to it in time—his time.
Ernesto’s cabin looks somewhat dark for the late-morning sun to be so brightly shining and I figure since it’s nearly noon, surely he’ll be awake. I’m right and at my light tapping on the jamb he opens the door. Cold air hits me hard and I can tell he’s already got his air conditioner fighting its battle with the Texas summer. He gives me his contagious face-wide grin. As if commanded, I smile right back. “Mi nino, mi compadre,” he bellows and slings open the screen door hollering, “Welcome! Welcome!”
I stick out my hand. He looks at it, turns his head with a twitch and a grin, opening his arms. “No hand shakes for me! Would a father not hug his own son?”
Amused by him as usual I say, “mi amigo, mi vato grande!” And I hug the big man back. I smell the aroma of his cigars, cigarettes, pipe and sweat as they envelope me with a world-nostalgic smell and I’m transported back through the many years I’ve smelled that same smell from the same man.
“How good to see you, young one. How’s the family? Janie? Su nina y nino? And your work?” He booms, partly in English and Spanish. “Seinte te, seinte te, por favor. And tell me what has been going on with you since I last saw you. Maybe June? July?”
I nod, “June, I think, Ernesto. How’ve things been with you? What’ve you been doin’?”
He pats his plump belly. “Eating! What you think, amigo? Your mama can make a man fat with her good cooking, no?”
I laugh at his demeanor and remember one of the many reasons why I like him. I can see why Mama thinks he’s special.
“Ernesto, there’s no easy way to tell you this but I’ve got to. Ah, Ernesto …” and he interrupts me by looking for a light for his pipe. For this I need his full attention. Finding a match and lighting it he returns his gaze to me and rolls his hand for me to continue.
“Mama’s dyin’.”
He pauses, stunned, turns his head and walks a few steps to the kitchen window, looks out. Not saying a word he gazes down into the sink, shakes his head and turns back to me with disbelief plainly showing. “Artema, dying?” I nod. He keeps his stare, puffs his pipe and never blinks, “how do you know? What from? Tell me, boy, tell me!” His booming voice quavers, unsure of itself.
From just inside the door I say to him, “Thyroid cancer’s all I know Ernesto. That’s all the doctors say. Oh, they assure me and her that it’s not immediately dangerous, that’s the words they use. Still, I’m lookin’ at it like it’s cancer. An’ that’s enough to worry me.”
“But your mama, boy, she’s strong like a mountain. How can she be dying?” he rasps, rather weakly for a man of his size and stature. I know he doesn’t want an answer from me because he’s looking upward. He poses this question past his ceiling, past his roof, past the clouds. “Por Dios, Artema, por Dios.” he murmurs. And the words trail off. He returns his gaze to me and smiles a weak but loving smile. “I love your mama, boy. You know that. I really love her!” He sniffs, busying himself with relighting his pipe, which has already gone out.
Leaning against the door-jamb, I look into his face and see what he means. He means that he loves her, not in the friendly way, but in a husband-wife kind of way. I’m cloaked in a feeling that kicks me like a 12 gauge shotgun. He has loved her, probably all these years and I always saw him as just an eccentric left-wing Jack Kerouac-type writer that cared for Mama like he did all his friends. But no! Ernesto’s in love with Mama and for all anyone knows she’s in love with him.
I feel like a schoolboy out for the summer. Strangely, I feel relieved, happy for Ernesto. And Mama.
“Tell me more, m’boy, I need to know. What can I do? Does she know? How long does she have? Are you here because of that? Tell me, boy, please.”
I rattle off some of the same information the doctors’ve told me and it seems to be falling short of his hearing. He’s just choosing to stare at one of Mama’s paintings on his wall, a painting of boys and girls on a playground. But I know he hears me. Finally, he turns to me and after repeating everything I’ve just told him, and asks again. “Does she know?”
“Yeah, she’s the one that told me. She didn’t want you to know. She said you’d worry and asked me to talk to the doctor with her.”
“What should I do?” While refilling his pipe, which is more something for him to do than the pipe needing filling, as tobacco falls over the sides of the pipe-bowl. He watches it fall to the floor, his grimace and scrunched expression now return to me.
“Hell, Ernesto I’m her son. I’m not you. What do you want to do?”
“Well, did she have you come and tell me?”
I shake my head no, “as a matter of fact Ernesto, she’s gonna to tell you herself but she’s waitin’ ‘til she gets enough nerve—she knows how you are about death and dyin’. I mean she just said that you’re pretty weird about it. You know death and dyin’. Anyway, I decided to tell you because y’all been neighbors for fourteen years and I know you’re good friends. Now, though, I’m realizin’ that y’all were neighbors and more.”
Ernesto re-lights his pipe. “Yeah, my boy, you could say that. Oh, we started out as friends, but sometime over the last so-many years I just fell in love with her. Don’t ask me how or why. I always figured God had willed it. Well, except for your daddy’s death, I mean. I don’t think God willed him to die just so I could love your mother, but you know what I mean, don’t you son?”
I nod my understanding.
“As far as Mama’s concerned I came up here to chat with you about old times and she doesn’t expect me to tell you. I expect she’ll tell you when she’s through dealin’ with the shock herself.”
Ernesto moves slightly to shift his weight and momentarily ponder whether to sit in his writing chair or his recliner; he chooses neither and instead gives a hitch to his belt and shrugs, mumbles a slightly audible “chinggg oww,” gives me a forlorn look repeating again, “Artema, dying.
Chinggg oww!” I nod and hurt for the old, big man who is just inches away from crying like a newborn.
There isn’t room to say anything in this audience with silence.
Finally, I say, “Look, Ernesto, why don’t you come to supper tonight. It’ll be just us: Mama, me, Janie and Josh and Liyah. They wouldn’t consider it a trip to Mama’s if they don’t get to see you. And they haven’t seen you since March. They smile every time me and Janie talk about you. And I’d love for you to see ‘em now, Josh’s six and Liyah’s four and quite a little prince and princess, they are.”
Ernesto nods and with a halfway smile and winking, “I’ll try, m’boy, I’ll try.”
He grabs me up like he did when I was seventeen and hugs me. Pushes me back at arm’s length, holds me by the biceps. “Yeah! Muy bein! Muy bein! Mama should be proud of you. I know I am.” He releases his grip and I slowly realize how long I’ve been up here talking with him and that I hadn’t really spoken to Mama, except to wave on my way up here to see Ernesto when we pulled into the driveway. Ernesto’s always my first stop.
When I’m at step thirteen (going up) or sixty-six (going down) I can see Mama waiting on the porch and it causes me to quit my obsessive game of counting and dividing and multiplying and instead I meet her gaze. “Mama!” I yell across the yard and an old fence. “When you gonna get this ugly old fence fixed?” Knowing she’s been wanting me to do it but according to her ‘I never come home anymore.’
She softly smiles, not as big a smile as I’d expect with my joke about the fence, but rather she gives me a mother-loving-a-small-boy smile. About ten yards away she half-whispers, “you been up to Ernesto’s place?”
“Yessum, and it’s still seventy-nine steps up there.”
“What were you doing up there so long?” with a tilted head and furrowed brow.
“What’d you mean? I’s talking to Ernesto. What’d you think I’s doing?” I grin.
“That could be,” and tosses her head back to get the wind-blown hair out of her eyes and adds, “And …”
“And …” I say, unsure of her questioning, “I just visited with him and asked him down for supper.”
“Son, that’s not too funny. You should be careful how you tease,” she states somberly but softly. I look into her deep corneas, “what’d you mean, Mama?”
She looks at me and says she needs to talk to me and just like somebody telling an ethnic joke, she looks around for Janie and the kids and after seeing no one, motions for me to come closer. “Son, I haven’t written or called but I need to tell you something about Ernesto.”
Rubbing her face in both hands she sighs and softly says, “oh, there’s only one way to say this son. He died. His heart just gave out Dr. Green said. He died last week. And I had to take an oath, one that he was always serious about. He made me swear that when he died he would have no funeral service…of any kind. He was adamant. He wanted to be cremated and even then he wanted no service, no mourning. I spread his ashes over his place and the rest I pitched into the wind. Just as he wished. And I knew that you and Janie were coming in a few weeks and figured I’d tell y’all then. You know you’d want to come and do the usual funeralizing kind-of-thing, and I knew of all the things, he didn’t want that. So, I decided I’d tell you and Janie next time y’all came, just like he said. Forgive both of us, or me anyway. I was trying to respect his last wishes.”
Fighting back tears, she looks up at me like a pup that’s just been scolded and shrugs her shoulders into the bottom of her neck as if to say, ‘what else could I do?’
Stunned, I stand there. Silent like Kawliga the wooden Indian and with nearly as many options, I reach for her and we stand there breast to breast. She squeezes, I squeeze.
“Mama,” I say after a lifetime of moments. “I don’t know how to tell you this but I saw him today, just a few minutes ago. He talked to me. And, I talked to him. He asked about the kids. He told me how he’d fallen in love with you. Everything! I mean we talked. So, he can’t be dead?”
She smiles through her tears. “Oh, that old toot, I know his spirit’s still here because he lets me know it.” She turns and walks to the fence-line in the corner of the yard, leans on the corner post. Her look back at me tells me to follow her. We both stare off in the direction of Ernesto’s place, lost in silent, humble reverie for our friend.
“Mama I swear I talked to him. I swear,” as uncertainity creeps in.
“Weird! Weird!” I sputter, still confused. I was never, and I’m not now one to see flying saucers or UFOs or Martians and I hadn’t considered myself one to talk to the dead. But, he’s as alive to me today as he was dead to the coroner and the county.
“How long was I up there?”
“More important than how long, my son: did you go in his cabin? Did you move anything? His pipes? His cigars? His anything?
“No maam, I just knocked and he came to the door.”
“Well, at least you didn’t disturb anything,” she sighs somewhat contentedly.
“Mama’s it true? Were y’all more than…compadres?” Uncertain if I want to know the truth, or any of the truth.
Mothers have a way of knowing. And she could foresee the Pandora’s box I was coming close to opening so she motions for me to sit down on the ground beside her, as she folds her skirt under her and sits cross-legged in the ankle high Johnson grass. “Son, there’s no mystery here about our friendship.”
After a few minutes of thought-gathering she continues, “We were acquaintances, then friends, then three years after your father’s death we began to see each other in a social way.” Her eyes meet mine and she’s not through. “We never disrespected your father. Your father and I were in love and nothing’ll ever change that. Ernesto just happened to be another soul mate that God loaned me while I’m here on earth, just like you, Janie and the kids. Just like your father, though, he was special.”
Mama’s love’s always been wider and longer than the Nile, so I don’t feel cheated. Quite the opposite. I’m proud that Mama’s been blessed with Dad and Ernesto as fellow dream-caravaners on the road of life.
While the air’s still pregnant with thoughts of Ernesto, Dad, Life and Death, I ask, “Mama did he know about your cancer? Have you been to the cabin since he died?”
“No, I didn’t get a chance to tell him. He came to see me while I was in the hospital having tests run and he died a few days later. With me still in the hospital! Pissed me off!” and she laughed a gallows-laugh. “And I’ve only been up there twice since. Each time I feel him. I know he’s there—well, his spirit is anyway. It’s sort of a cold feeling, you know. I get it especially near his kitchen window. I know he used to stand there a lot and stare out over that low valley. He said that’s where he found inspiration for life and his short stories.”
“Yeah, know what you mean. Cold. Yeah. I felt the coldest when he hugged me.”
Mama looks up, wipes most of the tears away and grins. “When he hugged you?”
“Yeah, when he hugged me,” I repeat and notice how strange it sounds.
Mama nods and squeezes my hand, “know what you mean, son, I know what you mean.”
Her words are nearly muffled by the noise of four little fast-running feet as Josh and Liyah jump on both Mama and me and roll over us until we’re all face deep in the cool grass. Both of them laughing like school kids. Janie soon joins us.
Mama’s tears are joined by her laughter as all of us roister about together whle the sun is standing high above Esperanza Hills.
Copyright C. 2008 Charlie Morgan