Read Online Rust by Julie Mars - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Julie Mars
Tags: General Fiction
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into anything he hadn’t chosen for himself, not causing any heartbreak for his parents. He was seventeen when Fernando died at twenty-two, stabbed to death in the state lockup in Santa Fe, where he was doing his second bid, this one for aggravated assault and armed robbery.
When his parents sat him down and gave him the news, Rico’s first reaction was overwhelming relief, though he never admitted that to anyone out loud. How could he explain that the relief he felt was for Fernando as much as for himself or anyone else. He knew his brother could never last the way he was—it could only get worse, no matter how much praying his mother did on her knees up at the old church in the badlands of Chimayo. Fernando used to mock Elena when she made her annual pilgrimage to that little chapel, which was famous all around the world for the miracles that somebody somewhere insisted had happened there.
“Score me some smack while you’re at it,” Fernando would taunt. “You’re heading to the heroin capital of New Mexico. More overdoses there than anywhere else in the whole state, right out the front door of that church whose holy red dirt you waste your time believing in.”
“I’m going to pray for you, Fernando,” Elena would respond, calmly. “I’m going to pray you find your way.”
“I know my way already. My way is money. My way is fucking as many women as I can and getting high. My way is the party way,” he would say, and to Rico it sounded as if he wanted to drive her into the corner of the room with his words and pound her with his strange fury. He had never actually hit her, never even threatened to, though the same could not be said about Fernando and his father, who went at it until they were both bloody. Teeth were loosened and noses were broken during their fights. But Manuel could not control his son, and after a while, he accepted that and politely asked him to move out and never come home again, and Fernando obliged. No one in the family had seen him for over two years when he died. They brought the body back to Albuquerque and had a funeral service with exactly three people in attendance. They buried him in a hastily purchased family plot in a cemetery near the Big-I, where I-40, going east and west, and I-25, going north and south, intersect. Elena had kept fresh flowers on his grave until she lost her vision and could no longer drive a car to get there.
So whenever she and Rico would be cruising down Bridge Boulevard on the way home from church on Sunday, and she would say, seemingly out of nowhere, “He was a nice little boy, Fernando, smart and cute. He changed overnight when he was around eleven or twelve. I don’t know what happened to him,” Rico would pretend he’d never heard it all before. He had no memories of his brother as a nice boy, though he had distinct memories of thanking God, whether there was one or not, each and every time Rosalita gave birth to a girl. Girls could be trouble and they could cause their share of pain, but very few could match the heartache imposed by a genuine bad boy—a bad son or brother.
Elena would mull over the points along the path to Fernando’s demise: the dangerous crowd he found or that found him, the drugs, the fighting, dropping out of Rio Grande High—which was something Rico had in common with his brother—the first prison sentence for dealing crystal meth. When she finished her litany, tears glistening in her eyes over the fact that her son had died at the hands of a man who was much worse than even he was, Rico always said the same thing, though he honestly didn’t think his mother found comfort in it or even remembered it, week to week. He said, “Elena, mi madre , I think it’s better to get killed than it is to kill someone, and we know he was heading in that direction. We know he would’ve got there, and this way he was saved from that.”
He meant it, too. Every time he saw the nightly news, which often featured a camera in
When his parents sat him down and gave him the news, Rico’s first reaction was overwhelming relief, though he never admitted that to anyone out loud. How could he explain that the relief he felt was for Fernando as much as for himself or anyone else. He knew his brother could never last the way he was—it could only get worse, no matter how much praying his mother did on her knees up at the old church in the badlands of Chimayo. Fernando used to mock Elena when she made her annual pilgrimage to that little chapel, which was famous all around the world for the miracles that somebody somewhere insisted had happened there.
“Score me some smack while you’re at it,” Fernando would taunt. “You’re heading to the heroin capital of New Mexico. More overdoses there than anywhere else in the whole state, right out the front door of that church whose holy red dirt you waste your time believing in.”
“I’m going to pray for you, Fernando,” Elena would respond, calmly. “I’m going to pray you find your way.”
“I know my way already. My way is money. My way is fucking as many women as I can and getting high. My way is the party way,” he would say, and to Rico it sounded as if he wanted to drive her into the corner of the room with his words and pound her with his strange fury. He had never actually hit her, never even threatened to, though the same could not be said about Fernando and his father, who went at it until they were both bloody. Teeth were loosened and noses were broken during their fights. But Manuel could not control his son, and after a while, he accepted that and politely asked him to move out and never come home again, and Fernando obliged. No one in the family had seen him for over two years when he died. They brought the body back to Albuquerque and had a funeral service with exactly three people in attendance. They buried him in a hastily purchased family plot in a cemetery near the Big-I, where I-40, going east and west, and I-25, going north and south, intersect. Elena had kept fresh flowers on his grave until she lost her vision and could no longer drive a car to get there.
So whenever she and Rico would be cruising down Bridge Boulevard on the way home from church on Sunday, and she would say, seemingly out of nowhere, “He was a nice little boy, Fernando, smart and cute. He changed overnight when he was around eleven or twelve. I don’t know what happened to him,” Rico would pretend he’d never heard it all before. He had no memories of his brother as a nice boy, though he had distinct memories of thanking God, whether there was one or not, each and every time Rosalita gave birth to a girl. Girls could be trouble and they could cause their share of pain, but very few could match the heartache imposed by a genuine bad boy—a bad son or brother.
Elena would mull over the points along the path to Fernando’s demise: the dangerous crowd he found or that found him, the drugs, the fighting, dropping out of Rio Grande High—which was something Rico had in common with his brother—the first prison sentence for dealing crystal meth. When she finished her litany, tears glistening in her eyes over the fact that her son had died at the hands of a man who was much worse than even he was, Rico always said the same thing, though he honestly didn’t think his mother found comfort in it or even remembered it, week to week. He said, “Elena, mi madre , I think it’s better to get killed than it is to kill someone, and we know he was heading in that direction. We know he would’ve got there, and this way he was saved from that.”
He meant it, too. Every time he saw the nightly news, which often featured a camera in
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