The Genealogies: Chapter 7, "Time and Coffee Spoons", Part One

There were never enough hours in the day, Jessica thought. Planning the party, running around, buying food and storing it at his mother’s house, sending out invitations, getting Carlos to take him out on a hike for a good portion of the day, enlisting Lexie to help get everything together, along with his mother, of course, Femi always being more than happy to help for Marcelo’s sake. She didn’t think that Eufemia liked her much, maybe because she was a gringa, maybe because she didn’t speak Spanish, maybe because she and Marcelo weren’t married and if they weren’t married it must be her fault, mustn’t it? There must be some defect, some deficiency in her that would keep Marcelo from marrying her. He deserved a wife by now, didn’t he, and not some modern concubine? Or maybe she was just projecting. Truthfully, she was accustomed to mothers loving her, and Eufemia, while she didn’t make her feel unwelcome or unwanted, had a reserve about her. She wasn’t loud and boisterous with her in the same way she was with her children and others. Again, it was probably just the language—her high-school Spanish was useless, and Eufemia’s English was enough to get her through days at the store, but not much more. Still, she tried, and she made sure to include Eufemia in everything, even the preparation of a birthday dinner.

During slow times at the hospital she called different caterers, getting prices, menus, delivery times. She quickly realized it would be much cheaper and easier for her to do it herself, have a big barbecue, carne asada and chicken, a keg of beer, chips and salsa. Mamá would of course oversee the rice and black beans, Lexie would be in charge of the salad, Maria of the beer. She’d never done anything like this for him, plan a party just for him. They’d had numerous dinners at their apartment, and they always took each other out for their birthdays. But this was different. Marcelo had attached a certain significance to turning thirty-three. “Jesus had saved the world by the time he was 33, Alexander had conquered the known world by my age, and I haven’t even written a fucking novel.” It wasn’t quite Caesar’s lament, but Marcelo didn’t see a late blooming in his future, either. Partly he said that to get a rise out of Jessica with his semi-blasphemy, but, mostly, he felt it. He bemoaned that he had no accomplishments to point to, other than a college degree and a general level of financial solvency. His abortive attempts at writing had fizzled out again—something he didn’t tell Maria, his confidante in matters artistic, but something Jessica noticed gradually, as he spent less and less time at the computer at night, more time in front of the television, until he virtually ignored the computer, going on it for brief moments, enough to get bored and sulk off to bed to recommence the day’s cycle. She would peek in while he was at the desk, hoping that he would have some document open, but it was never so. He had grown more morose as September approached, snapping at her more and more frequently, which elicited the inevitable retorts from her, until there was a level of frostiness between them; it wasn’t outright war, they weren’t quite on the verge of a separation, but a scrim of coldness enfolded them. She didn’t like it; she knew it would just get worse as he sank into his despondency, and she tried to dispel it the only way she knew how, by trying to change the atmosphere, by bringing in family and friends, by throwing a party. No one can stay mad during a party, right?

The day of the party Jessica, Lexie, and Maria repaired to Eufemia’s house, where it was to be held, Jessica and Marcelo’s apartment being non-conducive to a large barbecue. Jessica had planned well. The meat was marinating and stacked in the refrigerator, the beer would be delivered shortly, party streamers and decorations had been put up the night before by Lexie and Mamá—and Marcelo had been denied visitation rights to the house by Jessica’s industrious ruse of dinner and a movie and then a long night celebrating his birthday early. Everything was set. The guest list was varied yet not overly-large: close family, workmates, the assorted group of friends Marcelo had collected in his travels from college to work, a couple of friends from the bar they frequented. She invited only her own friends who were also Marcelo’s, not wanting the party to become a free-for-all, a party just to have a party, or a party that was really hers, not his. This was Marcelo’s day, and she was determined to see it through, to make it, if not memorable, at least pleasant, a nightlong escape from all the ordinariness that seemed to weigh down on him.

“Ay, hace tanto calor. I could use that keg right about now.” Lexie patted at her chest with a paper towel.

“Look in the fridge, hon—I brought us some drinks.”

Sure enough there they were, six gleaming cold Coronas, only lacking limes to make them perfect. Lexie quickly popped one open, taking a long swig as Mamá watched her, hiding her disappointment with a well-practiced mask of neutrality.

“Thanks, mami, that really hit it.”

Of all Marcelo’s family, Jessica felt most at ease with Lexie. She surmised that Lexie had that effect on everyone, but, regardless, she appreciated it. There was something accepting in her, without conditions, that Jessica had only experienced with her father. Even with Marcelo she felt a reluctance, a silent, miniscule vacuum that separated them. He was distant, and his efforts to decrease the distance only made the gap more obvious. She didn’t know where it came from, its cause, its provenance. Over the years she had come to accede to it, allowing it as a presence in their relationship, if only because she loved him so much, and it was a small enough price to pay. Lexie, though, was a true friend, who had folded her into her own life, not merely as Marcelo’s adjunct.

Maria was another matter. She knew she and Marcelo had been friends forever, for long before she had stumbled into his life. There was a prior loyalty there, and she would never think of making him break it. But still. She always felt unfavorably compared to Maria, as if the love Marcelo and Maria shared was somehow more unique, stronger, even greater than his love for her, or hers for him. She felt herself to be in an exhausting, unwinnable competition with someone who didn’t have to be there for him every day, who could flounce in and out of his life, like a favored aunt bringing presents and trips to the zoo, while she had to deal with the returns and stomachaches from too much candy. It was unfair, but she kept silent, because she wouldn’t want Marcelo to interfere in her friendships. She just wished that she felt more highly rated, somehow more honored. But, she loved him, and she knew he loved her. No one sticks around through all the bad times if not for love, does one?

The afternoon wore on, and guests began arriving as instructed, everyone rushing to get to Mamá’s house before 4 p.m., by which time the brothers should’ve been done with their hike, Marcelo have gone home and showered, and then headed down to Inglewood for what he had assumed would be a mere birthday dinner with the family. By that time everyone should’ve been in place, ready to pounce and yell “Surprise!”

In the kitchen a pot boiled with black beans; rice steamed in the cooker. Assorted friends and family milled about, drinking beers out of plastic cups. Maria hadn’t stinted on the beer, or at least only half stinted, getting a keg of Corona and a keg of Budweiser, those staples of barbecues for their cheapness and innocuous taste. Marcelo’s coworkers were there, and Gloria, Anna and Tio Roberto chatted with Jessica, Tia Evelina buttonholed her sister in the kitchen, Shawn and Steven, college friends of Marcelo’s, huddled outside smoking with their girlfriends, a couple friends from Marcelo’s hiking club on hand, all in all an odd assortment of people, mirroring the fractured nature of Marcelo’s life, his life consisting of sets of discrete groupings, work here, college there, hobbies in another place, family circling all around. He had never mastered the trick of weaving his disparate groups of friends all together, unifying them into a satisfying whole, so he found himself separated into different persons, shifting depending on the coterie surrounding him; basically himself, really, but with variations, slight tweaks to accommodate whatever person he was with. He always tried to be accommodating in everything.

Jessica looked around at the houseful of people and felt satisfied. It would be a great party for Marcelo. He needed it, the light heft of his accumulating years weighing down on him more than usual. She’d given him his birthday gift—a free massage from his favorite masseuse—over breakfast, as was traditional, because they always received two birthday gifts, one in the morning, and one after they had celebrated in the evening. She had promised him a night out dancing, after his supposed dinner at Mamá’s. And probably the following weekend she would take him out dancing; but tonight she wanted him surrounded by love and well-wishing. She glanced at her watch, and it had inched past 4 o’clock.

***

Marcelo had been told that Mamá would be making a heaping pot-full of tasajo for his birthday, something he could never pass up. He didn’t know what it was he liked so much about tasajo. It was just jerked beef in a tomato and onion sauce, stringy strips of meat cooked until they formed a pulpy sort of mass. But he had always loved it. He had grown up being a picky eater, not liking most foods, distrusting their tastes and textures. It wasn’t until he had become an adult that he began to break out of his self-imposed culinary ghetto. But tasajo—which wasn’t even a Cuban dish—had always been one thing his mother could count on him eating. Sometimes Mamá made it twice a week just so that she wouldn’t have to worry about him eating, much to the annoyance of the rest of the household. Papá was of the old school, holding that a child should not dictate the family’s menu. But Mamá had been worn down by heavy experience, and knew better than to try and force Marcelo to eat something he did not wish to eat. His food taboos had been legendary. Nothing green, except for lettuce, and that only occasionally. Practically no vegetables of any kind, except tomatoes, which, he soon discovered, were fruits. No roots like yucca and potatoes, unless, of course, the potatoes were French fries or tater tots. Not until high school did he force himself to eat that most Cuban of staples, the black bean, and that only under teasing from his cousin Anna. He had his few favorite foods, and a fear gripped him to not stray from the safe path they marked out. He hadn’t even tried pizza until he was seven—but oh how that first taste of pizza stuck in his memory, the garlicky smell of it, the grease dripping off the doughy slice onto the wax paper enfolding it and then onto his shirt, the first tart surprise of the tomato sauce as it scalded the roof of his mouth. Even at thirty-three—thirty-three! aging faster than he thought—he could still summon up that first flavor, that initiatory bite, and call up memories that whirled around it: how the day that he had his first pizza the family was moving into the building that would be his home until the day they moved to L.A.; how his father’s sister lived in the apartment one floor down from them and how he spent the day there, waiting out the move; how the building, with its courtyard fronted by two other buildings, seemed so grand and old to his young eyes. Everything came back crystalline, wrapping him up in lost time.

Thank goodness that a cool spell, a break from the summer’s heat coincided with the birthday plans. It was the luck of climatology that it had proven to be a temperate week, topped by a perfect Sunday for hiking. One who believed in such things could see it as orchestrated by divine providence, and Jessica was the sort who believed in a divinity pervading all things.

Hiking was the perfect antidote to whatever ailed Marcelo. He usually went off by himself, and was quite surprised when Carlos invited him, not thinking him the hiking type. Carlos convinced him that he wanted to start hiking, and that since Marcelo was more or less expert at it, that he wanted him along as he started on the new activity. At least once a month Marcelo would lace up his hiking boots, pack a bag, tell Jessie where he’d be hiking and roughly what time he would return, and head off for the mountains, usually heading north, sometimes driving as far as Santa Barbara and tramp in the mountains surrounding it. Unlike in northern California, the hiking trails of the south were almost always abandoned. If he took a day off during the week and packed off to Malibu Canyon, he often had the park to himself, or seemingly so, encountering perhaps two or three other hikers during his walk. When he went into true wilderness—Los Padres or Angeles or San Bernardino—he felt as if he were the first man to traverse the terrain, transported back 12,000 years before humans made it that far down the coast. Whatever problems he had evaporated for the time that he hiked—the smells of the forest filling his lungs, the soft mossy undergrowth padding his feet, animals peering at him just beyond his peripheral vision. Some would think it a somewhat sad and solitary pursuit—he had friends that never went anywhere by themselves, afraid what others might think of them if they were at a bar alone, or at a table for one in a restaurant. Marcelo never felt alone when he went hiking. He felt connected to the landscape, to the flora and fauna, to the feet that had trodden the paths before him, for thousands of years.

Carlos and Marcelo had an odd relationship. When children, there was the usual antagonism of children. Marcelo still remembered the neck-grabbing Carlos loved to perform on him when picking him up from school, or the related neck-pinching like Mr. Spock on Star Trek when the parents weren’t looking. He had resented Carlos for years because of that, thinking him mean and bullying, and maybe he was. Carlos wasn’t the model big brother growing up, lost in resentments and slights like all first children once another one comes along. Carlos was a much better brother to Lexie, but by then he was older, and had gotten used to the idea of another sibling; he didn’t pass on the Cain and Abel paradigm to the next iteration. So Carlos and Marcelo maintained a cool cordiality during most of their adolescent and young adult lives. They effected a reconciliation after Papá died, drawing closer as they comforted Mamá in her grief. That was also around the time, or soon after, when Marcelo and Elizabeth were falling apart, and Carlos and Brigit’s love seemed to wax and flower, sprouting new buds of devotion and conviviality. When shambles threatened his personal life, Marcelo always retreated into family, re-establishing bonds that he had allowed to fray, knowing that there, at least, was unconditional security. Carlos was the opposite. When things began to disintegrate between him and Brigit, he withdrew from family, hid from friends, lost himself in work and Allison Flor, as if afraid that if he confided his fears, they would be given a corporeality, they would ground themselves in soil and shoot. Marcelo knew something was wrong, even before Mamá, who could always tell when her children were troubled. She just assumed that Carlos was awash in the pleasures of his family. It was just natural that he spent more time with them and less with her, even though it hurt. But Marcelo knew. The times they talked, fewer and fewer, he smelled the old resentments of childhood, suppressed, tamped down, but there, transmuted into something adult and melancholy. He let Carlos be, though, and allowed him his own pace in seeking resolution. He knew, in time, he would need it. And now, on Marcelo’s thirty-third birthday, they were in a new place, accepting each other as adults in an almost welcoming manner.

As they had driven back from the hike, the coast road doing slightly better than its normal late-summer/early-autumn crawl, they had the air conditioning on and the classic rock station blaring “Baba O’Reilly.” All in all it had been a pleasant enough day. The hike had served its purpose, putting Marcelo in a much better state of mind than before he had set out on it. Marcelo realized that he had become a true Californian the first time he had ventured out on a hike, finally imbibing the nature that surrounded the urban space of Los Angeles, taking advantage of the fact that a short car trip away was an entire world to which he would’ve never had access had he continued to live his life in New York, aside from occasional excursions to Central Park. After the first hike, just after he had gotten his first car, he had realized the L.A., for all its faults—and he was quick to point them out—had a special air about it. He could go on a hike in the Santa Monicas in the morning and finish it off with a drink at a beach bar on the way back home. In fact, he had tried to get Carlos to stop at a particular place for a nightcap of sorts, but Carlos, heeding Jessie’s admonition, had deftly parried the suggestion, reminding him of dinner, and that neither of them would have time to shower if they dallied at every watering hole lining PCH. Although somewhat disappointed, he knew he had a commitment, and thus didn’t press the issue. “Next time, though,” he said, “next time we’ll stop in at a little hole in the wall that I know—oh, there, we passed it!—and have a couple of beers. Brothers should go out to a bar and have a couple of beers. It’s very bonding.” He said it merely because he knew Carlos was not much of a drinker, not like himself, a tippler of some renown, though not to excess, or at least not often. There were very few things that Marcelo loved more than to take his accustomed seat at his accustomed bar, order a beer or a cocktail—more often a cocktail, sometimes a glass of wine—casually glance at whatever sport was on the television, and while away a couple of hours, not drinking to the point of drunkenness, but to the point where, much like hiking, everything seemed more genial, sociable, even vivacious. He would head home in a much better frame of mind, and the day’s disappointments wouldn’t seem so important, weighted as they had been with the regrets of things not done, of opportunities not come along. Life went on, and the bar had a place for him, and things didn’t seem so bad after a Tom Collins or a glass of pinot noir. He would never drink at home, unless it was with dinner; he was, in all senses, a social drinker. Carlos could join him and have a soda if he wanted; it was the companionship that he sought, the friendship to share with his brother.

Marcelo sank into the bucket leather seats. The SUV was a relic from more prosperous days for Carlos, back when he didn’t have a mortgage and child support payments. Of course he didn’t mind supporting Allison Flor, but, really, between Brigit and Todd they made 10 times what he did. Still, the thought of Todd helping support his daughter made him uneasy; more than uneasy, really; made him turn into the worst kind of father, possessive, jealous, bitter, angry at his jezebel of a wife. He wasn’t proud when he made that descent. Allison Flor’s utter guilelessness eased him out of those moods.

“I’m having dinner with Brigit next weekend.”

“I think it’s great you two maintain a semblance of family, for Allie’s sake.”

“Yeah. Great.”

“You disagree?”

“I was thinking of having a barbecue at my house. Invite you guys over.”

Marcelo paused. “Is that a good idea? I’m thinking about Mom here.”

“It’s been two years.”

“It’ll never be long enough.”

“And Brigit still treats her the same as she always did.”

“It’ll still never be long enough.”

Carlos sighed. “I just need some support. It’s so hard being alone with just her and Allison. It seems so—false.”

Marcelo stretched and nodded. “I never really understood it, myself. But, then again, I’m just an uncle, not a father. I mean, you know, it’s not like Jessie would have visitation rights with Allie if we were to break up.”

Carlos pursed his lips. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

“Saying what?”

“If me and Jessie were to break up. You’ve been saying that a lot lately, casually, just sort of dropping it in.”

“I haven’t.”

“Oh, yes you have. Lexie mentioned it as well.”

“I find it comforting that my siblings discuss me behind my back.”

“You should. It means we’re concerned.”

“Why can’t we ever talk about serious topics? Hmm? War and peace, arts and letters?”

“Because you’re by far the intellectual of the family. We’d just plod on behind your trail of thoughts. So, instead, we discuss the everyday things of life. You know, happiness.”

“Happiness. There’s a topic.”

Carlos gunned the engine and switched lanes in a practiced, balletic L.A. motion, where you pull ahead and in front of another car, doing 80, never breaking, barely glancing back to ensure you’re not making a gross miscalculation.

“Say I wasn’t happy,” Marcelo began. “And say I knew why I wasn’t happy. Say that it slapped me one day, all unawares. Shouldn’t I do something about it?”

“If that’s true, you’re luckier than most. I didn’t know I was unhappy until I was served the divorce papers.”

“I knew.”

“Again, you’re the special one of the family.”

Marcelo sighed, aping drama.

“Is it really just one thing that makes you unhappy?”

Marcelo didn’t answer. He looked out the window, asphalt eaten up by the vehicle’s enormous tires, strip malls and car-dealerships whizzing by in uniformity, the sky that crystalline cobalt blue you can seem to get only out West, on the ever more frequent days when smog wasn’t choking the sky. He wasn’t ignoring Carlos’ question. He was delving into himself, turning it over in his mind, thinking the different angles by which he could attack it, giving as complete an answer as he could. Truthfully, it was something that had perplexed him the closer his birthday arrived. He tried to configure happiness, like he would configure a software package. If he could just get the perfect baud rate, the fastest DSL or cable modem, the quickest T1 conduit, happiness would come flooding in. There had to be a thing, some sort of device that would bring it.

“I guess I should be grateful. I have a job. I have a car. I have an apartment. I have a girlfriend that against all reason is fond of me. I could have it worse. Like those there homeless people that wander around downtown all day, every day. I could be disheveled, smelly, hopeless. I’m not. That’s something.” He shuddered. He had a visceral aversion to the homeless, and that fact loaded him with an awful guilt. He used to be much more liberal. He supposed he still was, if only in a desultory manner. He wished he could do something to help, but it just weighed him with futility.

He recalled a recent episode: As he stood at the bus stop, waiting for the bus that would take him to Chinatown for a dim-sum lunch, an elderly, grizzled man shuffled along the street. He wore a high, gray afro, and his beard bushed around his face. Oddly, though, he wasn’t as unkempt as he could’ve been. He wore pants that were a bit too short, exposing his white socks, but the pants were clean, and his shoes, if not buffed to a Financial District shine, were at least not worn, and in good condition. He wore a shirt and a sports jacket of some indeterminate age, but again clean and not foul-seeming. Over it all he was draped with a black, leather trench coat, or at least it looked like leather, arranged on him so that he appeared like an extra who had wandered off-set from some B-grade 70s blaxploitation film. He was saying something, but many years’ experience had taught Marcelo to tune him out, not pay attention, ignore him, and for Jesus’ sake make no eye contact, in no way acknowledge the man, admit no possibility of commonality. He had grown so tired of the homeless. First growing up in New York, then seemingly swarming in Westwood and Santa Monica and Venice, just teeming and thick. And they were so much worse downtown, their locus, their base of operations, the homeless, the castoffs, the mildly mad and thoroughly deranged, all tramping up and down the streets of the central district, sometimes asking for money, often ambling blankly, off in whatever worlds drugs or lack of drugs created for them.

The man paced back and forth, in front of the waiting commuters. “I just want you folks to know,” he said, “that I’m not here to beg for money. I’m not some bum like those that accost you every day. No sir, no ma’am, I’m an entertainer. I’m going to entertain you. If, in your estimation, I succeed in entertaining you, and you deem it worthy, I will gladly accept donations. If not, it’ll be enough for me to have made your day a little brighter as you go about your business.” Marcelo, almost against his will, listened to him, breaking his rule, paying attention. No, no, don’t encourage him. But he found himself leaning towards the man, cocking an ear, attending. The man planted himself now, no longer pacing, gathering himself. “My first selection, ladies and gentlemen, is in honor of our masters.” He began to hum, and clap his hands rhythmically, and Marcelo, out of the corner of his eye, saw him tapping his right foot in time to the beat. Then he began to sing.


Homeless Man’s Song

No more shall we fight their battles,
No more shall we go to war,
O, let the high and mighty slaughter one another.
We will wage their wars no more.
NO MORE WAR!

No more shall we make munitions,
No more guns and poison gas;
O, let the high and mighty slaughter one another.
No more for the working class.
NO MORE WAR!

No more shall we serve as targets,
No more slay our fellow men.
O let the high and mighty slaughter one another.
We'll not go to war again.
NO MORE WAR!
No more shall we shout their slogans,
No more: now that we're awake.
O let the high and mighty slaughter one another.
Let them taste the hell they make.
NO MORE WAR!

Marcelo had to admit that the singer gave a very spirited rendition. He sung in a throaty, raspy vibrato, curling his voice around each word, phrasing it as if he had been a professional singer in a previous life, or at least a devoted amateur. And Marcelo found himself drawn to him, admiring this hoary old tramp, planting himself on the sidewalk and baring himself for people who wanted nothing more than for him to disappear. Marcelo reached into his bag, looking for his wallet, wanting to reward the man for his efforts. Just at that moment, however, his bus pulled up, and as quickly as the impulse had seized him, it left, and he scampered onto the coach, but not before he heard the man wish all the boarding commuters a safe trip and a good day.

Carlos spoke, quietly, “You can’t compare your happiness to someone else’s misfortune, or someone else’s good fortune, or judge it like that. You’ll either never measure up, or you’ll just let a situation that’s making you miserable float along because there could be worse alternatives.”

“Well, who’s the special one of the family now?”

“I’m just saying.”

“It’s probably just my birthday. It’s hard turning a third of a century.”

“I wish I was a third of a century still. Things were much simpler back then.”

“Don’t they always seem so?”

Carlos reminded Marcelo of the tasajo birthday dinner. Marcelo fished out his phone and contacted Jessie. Jessie informed him that she was already at Eufemia’s house, and that Lexie was there as well, helping his mother, all waiting for him (all this done outside on the front porch so as to not give away the presence of a party). Marcelo shrugged into the phone, not sure what to make of this slap-dash, low-key birthday celebration, but it somehow suited him, so he wasn’t going to argue against it. He told her he’d be there as soon as he could shower, and hung up the mobile. The brothers chatted off and on the rest of the ride, but mostly they drove in silence, letting the music fill the cabin, the landscape shifting around them.