“An acolyte!” the Iowan repeated. “This boy speaks English remarkably well!” Edward said to Brother Pepe.
“Sí, remarkably,” Pepe answered.
“But perhaps the pain has made him delirious,” the new missionary suggested. Brother Pepe didn’t think Juan Diego’s pain had anything to do with it; Pepe had heard the boy’s Guadalupe rant before.
“For a dump kid, he is milagroso,” was how Brother Pepe put it—miraculous. “He reads better than our students, and remember — he’s self-taught.”
“Yes, I know — that’s amazing. Self-taught!” Señor Eduardo cried.
“And God knows how and where he learned his English — not only in the basurero,” Pepe said. “The boy’s been hanging out with hippies and draft dodgers — an enterprising boy!”
“But everything ends up in the basurero,” Juan Diego managed to say, between waves of pain. “Even books in English.” He’d stopped looking for those two women mourners; Juan Diego thought his pain meant he wouldn’t see them, because he wasn’t dying.
“I’m not riding with caterpillar lip,” Lupe was saying. “I want to ride with the parrot man.”
“We want to ride in the pickup part, with Diablo,” Juan Diego told Rivera.
“Sí,” the dump boss said, sighing; he knew when he’d been rejected.
“Is the dog friendly?” Señor Eduardo asked Brother Pepe.
“I’ll follow you, in the VW,” Pepe replied. “If you are torn to pieces, I can be a witness — make recommendations to the higher-ups, on behalf of your eventual sainthood.”
“I was being serious,” said Edward Bonshaw.
“So was I, Edward — sorry, Eduardo—so was I,” Pepe replied.
Just as Rivera had settled the injured boy in Lupe’s lap, in the bed of the pickup, the two old priests arrived on the scene. Edward Bonshaw had braced himself against the truck’s spare tire — the children between him and Diablo, who viewed the new missionary with suspicion, a perpetual tear oozing from the dog’s lidless left eye.
“What is happening here, Pepe?” Father Octavio asked. “Did someone faint or have a heart attack?”
“It’s those dump kids,” Father Alfonso said, frowning. “One could smell that garbage truck from the Hereafter.”
“What is Esperanza praying for now?” Father Octavio asked Pepe, because the cleaning woman’s keening voice could be heard from the Hereafter, too — or at least from as far away as the sidewalk in front of the Jesuit temple.
“Juan Diego was run over by Rivera’s truck,” Brother Pepe began. “The boy was brought here for a miracle, but our two virgins failed to deliver.”
“They’re on their way to Dr. Vargas, I presume,” Father Alfonso said, “but why is there a gringo with them?” The two priests were wrinkling their unusually sensitive and frequently condemning noses — not only at the garbage truck, but at the gringo with the Polynesian parrots on his tasteless tent of a shirt.
“Don’t tell me Rivera ran over a tourist, too,” Father Octavio said.
“That’s the man we’ve all been waiting for,” Brother Pepe told the priests, with an impish smile. “That is Edward Bonshaw, from Iowa — our new teacher.” It was on the tip of Pepe’s tongue to tell them that Señor Eduardo was un milagrero — a miracle monger — but Pepe restrained himself as best he could. Brother Pepe wanted Father Octavio and Father Alfonso to discover Edward Bonshaw for themselves. The way Pepe put it was calculated to provoke these two oh-so-conservative priests, but he was careful to mention the miracle subject in only the most offhand manner. “Señor Eduardo es bastante milagroso,” was how Pepe put it. “Señor Eduardo is somewhat miraculous.”
“Señor Eduardo,” Father Octavio repeated.
“Miraculous!” Father Alfonso exclaimed, with distaste. These two old priests did not use the milagroso word lightly.
“Oh, you’ll see — you’ll see,” Brother Pepe said innocently.
“Does the American have other shirts, Pepe?” Father Octavio asked.
“Ones that fit him?” Father Alfonso added.
“Sí, lots more shirts — all Hawaiian!” Pepe replied. “And I think they’re all a little big for him, because he’s lost a lot of weight.”
“Why? Is he dying?” Father Octavio asked. The losing-weight part was no more appealing to Father Octavio and Father Alfonso than the hideous Hawaiian shirt; the two old priests were almost as overweight as Brother Pepe.
“Is he — that is, dying?” Father Alfonso asked Brother Pepe.
“Not that I know of,” Pepe replied, trying to repress his impish smile a little. “In fact, Edward seems very healthy — and most eager to be of use.”
“Of use,” Father Octavio repeated, as if this were a death sentence. “How utilitarian.”
“Mercy,” Father Alfonso said.
“I’m following them,” Brother Pepe told the priests; he was waddling hurriedly to his dusty red VW Beetle. “In case anything happens.”
“Mercy,” Father Octavio echoed.
“Leave it to the Americans, to make themselves of use,” Father Alfonso said.
Rivera’s truck was pulling away from the curb, and Brother Pepe followed it into the traffic. Ahead of him, he could see Juan Diego’s little face, held protectively in his strange sister’s small hands. Diablo had once again put his forepaws on the pickup’s toolbox; the wind blew the dog’s unmatched ears away from his face — both the normal one and the ear that was missing a jagged-edged, triangular piece. But it was Edward Bonshaw who captured and held Brother Pepe’s attention.
“Look at him,” Lupe had said to Juan Diego. “At him, at the gringo — the parrot man!”
What Brother Pepe saw in Edward Bonshaw was a man who looked like he belonged—like a man who had never felt at home, but who’d suddenly found his place in the scheme of things.
Brother Pepe didn’t know if he was excited or afraid, or both; he saw now that Señor Eduardo was truly a man with a purpose.
It was the way Juan Diego felt in his dream — the way you feel when you know everything has changed, and that this moment heralds the rest of your life.
“Hello?” a young woman’s voice was saying on the phone, which Juan Diego only now realized he held in his hand.
“Hello,” the writer, who’d been fast asleep, said; only now was he aware of his throbbing erection.
“Hi, it’s me—it’s Dorothy,” the young woman said. “You’re alone, aren’t you? My mother isn’t with you, is she?”
8. Two Condoms
What can you believe about a fiction writer’s dreams? In his dreams, obviously, Juan Diego felt free to imagine what Brother Pepe was thinking and feeling. But in whose point of view were Juan Diego’s dreams? (Not in Pepe’s.)
Juan Diego would have been happy to talk about this, and about other aspects of his resurgent dream life, though it seemed to him that now was not the time. Dorothy was playing with his penis; as the novelist had observed, the young woman brought to this postcoital play the same unwavering scrutiny she tended to bring to her cell phone and laptop. And Juan Diego wasn’t much inclined to male fantasies, not even as a fiction writer.