Chapter 8, Down Side Up
Javier stood there and watched her go. He never said I love you. Never told her that he needed her help. Never told her that she was right about Cuba; had been for years. Susie and Katey's boyfriend went after her, but he knew that she wouldn't be found until she wanted to be. He walked home slowly, and passed the graveyard where his father's tombstone was.
When he was seventeen his father was taken away by Batista's police. They had been eating dinner one night, and they had just come.
Flashback.
The tiny apartment was full of noise and food. Javier was in his and Carlos's room, listening to music on his newly purchased victrola, which he had bought with money from his new job as a waiter. He was trying to dance, trying to think of moves to impress his new girlfriend Danielle with. Papa was in the living room, reading and calling for Javier to turn the damn music down, it was so loud that the people upstairs were banging on their floor to get him to turn it down.
Mama was in the kitchen with Chabe, and was trying to make dinner while corralling a two-year old. And Carlos was…wherever he went at night. After he turned twenty-one he never seemed to never come home anymore. He was always out with his friends and no, Javier couldn't come, he was too young and they didn't want him. Besides, they would just be talking about politics anyway, why did he want to come? He was always floating around humming and thinking about girls and his stupid dancing which he wasn't even very good at anyway.
When the boys were younger they were friends, only four years apart, the inseparable Suarez brothers. Always playing tricks on neighbors and putting pen ink in their older sister Maria's tea so that her teeth would turn blue and her dates wouldn't want to kiss her. But now Carlos had other things on his mind. And he didn't want to have to explain everything to his naïve younger brother.
When Javier, Mama, Papa and Chabe sat down for dinner, nobody talked about Carlos's absence, even though he had promised to be home that night for dinner. Mama had even made his favorite desert as an incentive, but apparently he was too busy.
"The chicken is good Mara." Papa said. Mama smiled; she always loved having her cooking complimented.
When they heard booming knocks on the door, Javier got up to answer it, sure that it was just Carlos, because he had forgotten his key again. (They always kept the doors to the apartment locked now, things were getting dangerous, what with Batista's spies everywhere.)
"Carlos stop interrupting dinner," Javier called though the door as he twisted the handle. "You were supposed to be home for dinner…" but it wasn't his brother. Two policeman pushed the door open, knocking the scrawny boy into his father's bookshelf. He cracked his head against the stone of the hard floor, and then everything went black.
By the time he woke up, his mother was sobbing in a chair by the stove; Carlos was home and was storming around screaming and Chabe was flitting around her mother's chair on the verge of tears, unsure of what was happening.
Everything was explained to Javier when he poked his brother on the shoulder and he started screaming at him, why did he let them in, why?
All he could say was that he was sorry over and over again, and that he thought it was him and that he didn't know.
Javier, now more than the scrawny boy who loved dancing was walking along the rows of tombstones. Right after the funeral he would come here a lot, to think or try to tell Papa that he was sorry he had let the men in that night, that he blamed himself for his father's death. That he knew if he had only asked who it was and told the men no, no Suarez here, two houses down, maybe everything would have been fine.
But then Rafael appeared and Carlos was gone, hiding somewhere and Mama was working and he had to look after his toddler sister and infant nephew.
But now what am I? It's been seven years but I'm still scrawny…I dance too much and I'm always thinking about girls…(a girl. Just Katey.) but I still am the man of the family, and everything I've believed in has gone wrong. Everything.
He sat down in front of his father's tombstone and folded his hands in his lap.
(This is in Spanish, but I wrote it in English for readers.)
"Hi, Dad. Sorry I haven't been here in a while. I've been busy, but that's no excuse. Remember the girl I told you about? Katey? The beautiful American that I fell in love with? She's back. And I don't know what to do. You would know what to do, wouldn't you? You always knew what to do. I wish you could tell me what to do, because I just don't know. I think I--"
he was cut off by a noise on the other side of the graveyard and he jumped a foot. People weren't allowed to go to the graveyard at night and usually didn't, that was why he liked it. He moved his head to try to see what the noise was. He stood up when he heard what sounded like the rustling of a woman's dress. Whomever it was was cursing to themselves, and they sounded familiar.
"Katey?"
"Yes?"
Just then a bright light shone on both their faces.
"Freeze! Both of you!" A policemen yelled. Javier had forgotten about the police.