Pete had a thing for crooners. He liked Patsy Cline, and he liked Loretta Lynn. Women with deep voices and a sense of history, singing in low, round tones over plucked and syrupy steel guitars. Once, one of his mother’s brother’s father-in-law’s friends had stayed at their house in Oklahoma after blowing the engine of his new Impala on a cross-country trip, and while there, he’d told stories of meeting Patsy Cline back in Virginia. She’d been tough and funny. She’d called everybody Hoss, and drank like a man. Pete had taken an instant shine.
Joaquin was perfectly fine with Patsy Cline, in reality, but he was still angry about his father’s admiring tone when speaking of Pete, so he couldn’t find it in him to be kindly about his musical choice.
“We don’t have Patsy Cline on the list for tonight,” Joaquin said in an even ruder tone. He did not know that Pete hadn’t been told yet what they were going into the desert to do, so his statement didn’t make a lot of sense to Pete.
“That’s quite okay, sir,” Pete said with a smile. “I don’t only like Patsy Cline.”
Beatriz caught that sir in midair, like a bird, and studied it in her mind. For some, a sir in this situation might have been used for an equally rude effect, sarcastically spitting politeness at the party who had wronged them. For others, it might have been automatic, someone who said sir so often that it didn’t mean anything at all. For Pete, it was launched with deference. I’m no threat, that sir declared, with a peacekeeping smile. You’re still king of the castle. Antonia’s dogs were always fighting among one another, and the battles ended when one rolled onto its back to show it had no fight in it. That was Pete’s sir in this particular exchange. Beatriz found this unfair, as Pete had done nothing wrong, but also frustrating, as Pete would think Joaquin was always petulant, which was far from the truth.
The kindness made Joaquin crosser, because there’s nothing like knowing that you were just a heel to a nice person to make you even madder at them.
“What is it you want this truck for anyway, Oklahoma?” Joaquin asked.
Pete once again explained the moving-truck business. He added, hesitantly, “I was going to go into the army, but I’ve got a hole in my heart.”
There is a certain kind of wistfulness that spills out in our voices no matter how many dams we’ve put up, and only a real monster can hear it and not be moved. It came out in Pete’s words there, and Joaquin felt all of his hostility shrivel.
He said, “Don’t all men, Oklahoma?” and then he started to sing some Patsy Cline until Pete grinned. Beatriz smiled her private smile out the window, but Pete saw it in the reflection. Their fingers touched again, but this time it wasn’t an accident.
Joaquin broke off singing. “Did Marisita tell you why she wouldn’t do it tonight?”
“She just left a reply to my note that said ‘not tonight,’ ” Beatriz said.
Joaquin did not say what he was thinking, and did not have to. Beatriz was thinking it, too. No matter how good their show was tonight, it would not be what Daniel was truly hoping for.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Joaquin said. “Hey, we could have Oklahoma ask her for us.”
Just a few days ago, neither of them would have considered this a viable option. The unquestioning caution Antonia had expressed earlier had still run through their veins as well, back then, but things were different now. The true edges of the taboo were clearly more complex than they’d been taught. Both of them eyed Pete.
“Ask who what?” he replied.
“He doesn’t know about …” Beatriz told Joaquin. She tilted her head toward the back of the truck.
Joaquin was delighted. Any remaining resentment vanished, replaced by the anticipation of the reveal. “Oh.”
His enthusiasm filled the truck for the final few minutes of the journey. When Beatriz brought the truck to a stop, Pete craned his neck, trying and failing to glimpse what made this particular patch of wilderness their destination. He was even more bemused when Beatriz and Joaquin climbed out, Beatriz with the flashlight and Joaquin with a bottle of water. The driver’s side door hung open, and Pete looked out into that square of black night. He couldn’t see anything, but he could smell the foxy, bright scent of the cold desert. It was a restless and wild smell, and it made him feel restless and wild as well.
“Come on, we need your help,” Beatriz called.
Sliding from the truck, Pete felt his way around to the back, where the cousins were waiting.
Beatriz placed her hands upon the back of the truck. She was rarely boastful or excited, as the first required an interest in other people’s esteem, which she did not often have (much to the frustration of her mother), and the second often required an element of pleasant surprise or perception of an event as extraordinary, which she also did not often have, as most events were predictable if you were paying close enough attention. But she found in this case she was feeling both boastful and excited; she was shocked to discover that she was proud of the box truck’s contents, proud enough that instead of merely opening the door with a serene face, she had to think about keeping her face serene as she opened the door.
Beatriz drew open the back of the truck.
Pete was silent for a long moment.
“What do you think, Wyatt the Riot?” asked Joaquin.
Pete said, “Well, gosh.”
Back in Bicho Raro, Tony had finally managed to operate the radio Pete had secured for him. The largeness of his hands and the smallness of the radio had presented considerable difficulty, but success had eventually presented itself. Although he had not yet managed to tune it to a clear station, he was shocked by how comforting even the sound of static was. It was not yet music, but it was about to be.
He had felt unhinged since leaving Philadelphia, a feeling that had not improved with either a miracle or a good night’s sleep. But now, as music strove through the static, he felt something like normalcy.
Suddenly, a voice sprang from the speaker.
“Hola, hola, hola, this is Diablo Diablo, roping some of those radio waves to pull my wagon tonight. We’ve got a great show for you coming up. We’ve got the Cascades and some Lloyd Price and that sweet little number by the Del Vikings, and we’re also introducing two new features I think you’re going to love. We’ve got the Weather Story, our local news told in the form of two abuelas talking about the weather, and we’ve also got the Teen Story, which is just me reading entries from the old journal I found under my cousin’s mattress, one every night until he gets himself together and comes home to make me stop. Let’s go, children. It’s going to be a devil of a night.”
Tony let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding. Below him, Jennie the schoolteacher also let out a breath.
“Oh, hang me,” Tony said. “How long have you been there?”
“Oh, hang me,” Jennie replied. “How long have you been there?”
She pointed at the radio, but it was impossible to tell what she meant by such a gesture. Then she lifted her other arm to show that she had brought a bag of snacks that the two of them could share.
Tony’s mood shifted rapidly through annoyance at being interrupted to grudging acceptance of Jennie to hatred of eating in front of others.
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
“I’m not hungry,” Jennie said. So now it was two lies, since they were both hungry.
“Isn’t it late?” Tony asked.
“Isn’t it late?”
He relented. “Fine. Just sit down.”
Her face cleared and she sat cross-legged beside the radio. “Fine. Just sit down.” She shook some of the corn snacks out of the bag onto a napkin in front of her.
“Lady, you gotta fix that problem,” Tony said. She echoed his words again and then nodded in rueful agreement. “How’d you get that way, anyway? Don’t you have any words of your own?”
“How’d you get that way, anyway? Don’t you have any words of your own?” Jennie repeated. With a sigh, she handed a corn snack up to Tony, who accepted it but left it sitting in his palm.
Diablo Diablo’s program continued. His voice took on a more intimate tone. “Here’s a thing Jack Kerouac said: ‘What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?—it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.’ If you’re missing someone tonight, know that I, Diablo Diablo, am, too. It’s an enormous sky out there with a lot of stars above it and a lot of folks underneath it, and all of us, stars and human, are missing someone in the dark. But I, Diablo Diablo, think that if we’re all out there missing someone, that means that we’re all really together on that one note, aren’t we? So none of us are really alone as long as we’re lonely.”