Río understood the hesitance, which wasn’t only about sparing his own feelings. After decades upon decades of his people living and growing in Auraria, the nice folks of Denver felt threatened by the largely Chicano neighborhood. Mayor McNichols went so far as to call it blighted. The tight-knit community didn’t even know that the Urban Renewal Authority had moved to build a college over their homes until the notices went out about having to move. His dad had been a part of ARO, the group of Aurarian residents that opposed the displacement. Now that the hammer had firmly driven the nail into the coffin, David probably didn’t want to set foot on the land he’d fought to keep.
“When did they ask you?”
David’s lips tightened. “This morning.”
“At church?” Heat boiled in Río’s chest. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, thinking about the box in his closet and Paloma’s picture on the altar. “Take it.” This was the opening he needed. “I’ll help.”
Río helped load the dinged blue Chevy pickup truck in the morning, sky gray with early dawn, late October air cold and dry. With their house on the corner of Lipan and Twelfth, he could see both the Lincoln Park Homes and the park itself, a scrappy piece of land with wide, bare cottonwoods and a swimming pool. The housing project he liked less, rows and rows of identical brick buildings. Square, no character, just darker brick for trim, chain-link fences to mark off brown yards, clotheslines that got so heavy they bowed out.
They took Mariposa Street up through Westside, crossed Colfax, and met the fenced-off stretch of land they once called home. After some waiting, cross-referencing with foremen, and finagling around chawed-up streets, they met with the white man who’d recruited Río’s father over the weekend.
It wasn’t too surprising that his dad got tapped for this. Wasn’t that what they always did? Take, and then have the people they’d taken from build? His father was a decently well-known carpenter, his business having branched into restoration jobs around Denver. With his light skin, straight hair, and first name, he was white-passing enough to be accepted into spaces other Chicanos weren’t. The last name De Santos sometimes confused people, but often, those who didn’t speak Spanish pronounced it DiSantis, which lead to conclusions about David being Italian.
Río didn’t have that kind of advantage. He stayed in the Chevy while his dad took a jaunt beyond the fenced-off section that protected stolen homes from the rest of the construction. Gates within gates.
He looked through the truck’s back window, heart clenching. They’d taken down the businesses and houses in sections, but now he could see all of the neighborhood was flush with the ground, piles of bricks and rubble scattered for miles. His eyes landed on what the vultures considered historic enough to reuse. St. Cajetan’s and its rounded Spanish façade, stained glass peeking over screened-in fence. He read the name Tivoli lettered on the smokestack of the brewery, followed St. Elizabeth’s tall spire to her gleaming gold cross. Immanuel Episcopal paled in comparison, Río barely able to see the peak of its roof past the frames for the new campus buildings. He hadn’t spent much time around that church, but now he longed to see its rough pink and gray stone face.
These four buildings would become shells, guts ripped out for revitalization. Again, Río thought about the word Mayor McNichols used to describe his neighborhood. Blighted. How was this repurposing of scavenged parts better?
David patted the hood of the Chevy, Río swiveling back to see the white man in his early forties wander off in the direction of the building frames, blue hard hat bobbing, cream-colored button-up tucked into khakis. Río opened the car door as his father pulled on his tool belt. Río’s feet hit rocky ground with battered brown work boots.
“We’re gonna measure.” David pointed at the pad of paper tucked under the passenger dashboard. Río grabbed it and slipped a ballpoint pen behind his ear. He followed his dad past the fence blocking off the Ninth Street houses. Thirteen Victorians on either side of a dug-up street, including Casa Mayan where he’d washed dishes during high school. Groussman Grocery stood on the corner, white stone balusters intact. Río still didn’t understand exactly how this part of the neighborhood got saved. Something about an anonymous donation to an organization calling itself Historic Denver. Fundraising, negotiations with the city, he’d kept up with the effort only in passing. Every time he heard about it, all he could picture were blue eyes seeing value in the homes of his neighborhood once everyone who loved them was gone.
David waved him over from the porch of number 1015. In the gray morning light its squared, hipped green roof and yellow brick walls looked sickly.
The rest of the day whirled by. A flurry of measurements, trips to the lumber mill, sawing, drilling, and hammering. Having stayed up most of the night patching a skirt and blouse in the attic, by the time his father ended their workday, Río was going cross-eyed. The only things he continued to pay close attention to were the entry and exit points to the construction site, the paths leading to the Ninth Street and St. Cajetan fences, and the width of the chains that looped them closed. For how contested the displacement had been, there was barely any security during the day. Come evening, he didn’t see anyone guarding the site after one of the workers rolled back the gate and padlocked it shut.
“Gotta make one more stop.” David rolled down his visor, blocking the lowering sun from his face as he drove.
Río closed his eyes, trying to rest. He planned to be up all night. He nodded off at the first stoplight heading back into the Westside, barely registering the truck being placed into park and his dad stepping out.
Maybe it took ten minutes, maybe thirty, but when David hopped back into the truck, Río felt something was different. He blinked, rubbed his brow, realized they were on Santa Fe outside Flores by Torres. Up and down the street, kids in costumes were already making their rounds, little vaqueros, ballerinas, and skeletons trying to get the best Halloween candy before the sun blinked out.
And in his dad’s lap sat trimmed marigolds wrapped in brown paper, one red rose amid the gold pom-pom blooms.
“I talked the foreman into paying me up front.” David pulled the rose free. Taking his pocketknife to the thorns, he shed them one by one, his face soft as he worked. “I knew you were missing these for tomorrow.” He slid the cempasuchitl into Río’s lap, small plastic bag of copal caught between the flowers.
Río’s voice caught. He’d always known his dad wasn’t like everyone else, that he was his own kind of family man.
“You can wear your hair however long you want, wear any clothes you want, see anybody you want.” He pulled Río’s face into his large, rough hand, undid the tight knot of hair at the nape of Río’s neck. “I’ve known a long time. Paloma helped me understand.” He tucked the rose behind Río’s ear, let heavy hair hide the stem. “There is nothing you can do that will make me turn my back on you.”
Río’s whole body sank into David, spilled sobs into his chest.
“What do you want me to call you? Dime quien eres.”
Río told her father about her plan on the drive home. David listened, hands at ten and two, nodding as he thought things over once he parked the Chevy outside the house. She was surprised when he offered himself as lookout, that he believed her without flinching. Her dad and Paloma were close, but it wasn’t until this moment that Río understood how deep their bond was.
He helped her string the marigolds like beads, insisting they work on the garland in the living room while her mom, sister, and brothers prepared tamales at the dining table, stack of corn husks toppling over. Vicente Fernández and Lola Beltrán warbled through the radio while arroz rojo steamed on the stove, replenishing the household aroma of garlic, onion and chilies. David explained that Esther had wanted to make this food after last night’s fight. That she and the children spent all day moving Aunt Rosa and Río’s cousins into their other sister’s house on the Northside.