cares for her chicks, even though the hawk of war has flown away. My father was happy and full of life, regenerated by talk of the coming summer and moving to California. And I was busy at school, driven by the desire to make mine the magic of letters and numbers. I struggled and stumbled, but with the help of Miss Maestas I began to unravel the mystery of the letters.
Miss Maestas sent a note to my mother telling her that I was progressing very well, and my mother was happy that a man of learning was once again to be delivered to the Lunas.
Ocho
The lime-green of spring came one night and touched the river trees. Dark buds appeared on branches, and it seemed that the same sleeping sap that fed them began to churn through my brothers. I sensed their restlessness, and I began to understand why the blood of spring is called the bad blood. It was bad not because it brought growth, that was good, but because it raised from dark interiors the restless, wild urges that lay sleeping all winter. It revealed hidden desires to the light of the new warm sun.
My brothers had spent the winter sleeping during the day and in town at night. They were like turgid animals who did things mechanically. I saw them only in the evening when they rose to clean up and eat. Then they were gone. I heard in whispers that they were wasting their service money in the back room of the Eight Ball Pool Hall. My mother worried about them almost as much as she had when they were at war, but she said nothing. As long as they were back she was happy.
My father increased his pleas that they plan a future with him in California, but they only nodded. They did not hear their father. They were like lost men who went and came and said nothing.
I thought that perhaps it was their way of forgetting the war, because we knew the war-sickness was in them. León had shown the sickness most. Sometimes at night he howled and cried like a wild animal…
And I remembered Lupito at the river…
Then my mother had to go to him and hold him like a baby until he could sleep again. It wasn’t until he began to have long talks with Ultima and she gave him a remedy that he got better. His eyes were still sad, as they had always been, but there was a gleam of hope for the future in them and he could rest nights. So I thought perhaps they were all sick with the war and trying to forget it.
But with spring they became more restless. The money they had mustered out with was gone, and they had signed notes in town and gotten into trouble. It made my mother sad, and it slowly killed my father’s dream. One warm afternoon while I fed the rabbits they talked, and I listened.
“We have to get the hell out’a here,” Eugene said nervously, “this hick town is killing me!” Although he was the youngest he had always been the leader.
“Yeah. It’s hell to have seen half the world then come back to this,” León nodded across the river to the small town of Guadalupe. He always took his cues from Gene even though he was the oldest of the three.
“It’s that Márez blood itching,” Andrew laughed. Andrew listened to them, but he would not necessarily be led by Gene. Andrew liked to be his own man.
It was true, I thought, it is the Márez blood in us that touches us with the urge to wander. Like the restless, seeking sea.
“I don’t care what it is, Andy!” Eugene shot back. “I just feel tied down here! I can’t breathe!”
“And papá is still talking about California,” León said dreamily.
“That’s a bunch of bullshit!” Gene spit. “He knows damn well mamá would never move—”
“And that we won’t go with him,” Andrew finished.
Eugene scowled. “That’s right! We won’t! He doesn’t realize we’re grown men now. Hell, we fought a war! He had his time to run around, now he’s getting old, and he still has the kids to think about. Why should we be tied down to him?”
Andrew and León looked at Gene and they knew he was speaking the truth. The war had changed them. Now they needed to lead their own lives.
“Yeah,” Andrew said softly.
“It’s either California, or going to work on the highway with him—” León