Read Dead Boys for Free Online Page B

I love her hair. I have always loved her hair.
    “Maybe over in Glendale,” she says.
    “How about farther? How about the mountains? Completely the hell away from here.”
    “Don’t be a joker.”
    “Baby, I’m serious. It’s time.”
    She turns to kiss me. Her wet hands on my face smell of potatoes and dirt. She’s Cuban, brown and smooth-skinned. Her parents begged her not to marry me. They had a friend of the family lined up, a medical student, but she was as stubborn then as she is now.
    “Okay, the mountains,” she says.
    “The mountains.”
    We rest against each other for a second, then she laughs and pushes me away. “Ahh, you’re crazy. I brought some quizzes home to correct. Go check on Sam and let me work.”
    I pause in the doorway and watch as she sits at the table and takes up her pen. The curtains billow in the window behind her and dance in the evening breeze, and the shadows of the refrigerator and the toaster grow longer and cooler by the minute. She rests her forehead in her hand and smiles, and I finally understand why people are so afraid of dying. I want to be with her forever.
    “P API,” SAM SAYS . “Hey, Papi, look.”
    I jerk back out of a deep and dreamless catnap, and the sudden return of sight stings my eyes. One minute I was contemplating the brittle droop of the fronds of the palm tree outside our living room window, and the next I was gone. Even when I’m not working I’m tired all the time.
    “Papi!”
    Sam is almost five. He told me last week that he wants to be a doctor when he grows up so he can fix broken hearts. This evening he’s busy pulling apart his collection of action figures and recombining the pieces to create new forms of life. He slides one across the coffee table for me to look at.
    “This is the man who found out he was a robot,” he explains. “He watched in the mirror and took off his face, and there was a robot head underneath. Now he drinks oil and is very, very sad. He gets mad sometimes and breaks things.”
    “Does he have any friends?” I ask.
    Sam purses his lips, thinking. “He’s too scary and too sad. He cries too much. If he had some money, he would buy a new head, but he doesn’t.”
    “How much would a new head cost?”
    “Around ten dollars, I think.”
    “Here,” I say, pretending to hand the little man something. “Here’s ten dollars. Go buy yourself a new head.”
    “He can’t hear you,” Sam says. “He’s got robot ears, too.”
    S AM SPLASHES IN his inflatable wading pool while I set up the grill and start the briquettes. Some of the people who live in the other bungalows in our complex are cooking outside, too, and we wave at each other across the courtyard all of our doors open onto. There’s plenty of shade now. The sun is low on the horizon, coating every leaf of every tree with honey, and the birds are deep into their happy hour. The air is filled with raucous screeches as they swarm a freshly seeded patch of lawn.
    “Look, Papi.”
    Sam lies on his stomach and drops his face beneath the water. Bubbles fizz around his head. He rises and waits for my smile and nod, then goes under again. One of the neighbors turns on a radio, and Mexican music competes with the chatter of the birds. When we move to the mountains, I’ll build our house myself. One of those wooden dome jobbies you can order plans for, kind of a futuristic log cabin kind of a thing. I picture myself sawing boards and pounding nails. It seems entirely possible.
    We eat on the porch, citronella candles pushing back the bugs and the darkening night. Burgers, Maria’s fries, and a salad of avocados and sliced ripe tomatoes dressed with oil and vinegar and lots of pepper. Sam’s damp hair clings to his forehead, and the towel Maria dried him with is still draped around his shoulders. Maria scolds him when he burps, but then I burp, too. She wrinkles her nose in disgust and pours more iced tea. The birds have quieted, and in the distance there is the