opened his door, and stood in the doorway a moment assessing the day. The view from this one opening into his room was a view like many another in Milagro. A well housing in the front dirt yard, a rusty 1949 Oldsmobile with bullet holes across the windshield sinking on its rims nearby, big yellow tumbleweed skeletons scattered among a few sunflowers, then the raggedy cottonwoods along the creekbed across the road and the majestic snowcapped Midnight Mountains beyond.
The old man coughed, scratched his balls, snagged a coffeepot with one arthritic paw, and shuffled over to the hand-dug well. Letting the bucket drop slowly to the water thirty feet below, he only a quarter filled it, then slowly, resting after each tug, pulled the bucket up and tipped some water into the coffeepot, which he carried back and set atop the heater.
Next, he proceeded cautiously around his dwelling to the backyard outhouse. And while he camped there with the door open so he could watch the turquoise-silver bluebirds flying about his crumbling farmhouse, he also slowly and shakily, though in the end expertly, rolled a cigarette and lit it, contentedly puffing away as he crapped.
After that, Amarante creaked around to his room again and made a cup of instant coffee, poured some brandy into it, and for almost an hour, while the day began, he sat on a white stump next to his front door, bathed in the early sharp sunlight, letting his eyes go bleary as he sipped the piping hot, spiked coffee and rolled and smoked another cigarette. During this time he talked to himself about his wife, his childrenâthose still living and others dead and gone. He also carried on long, intricate, nonsensical dialogues with his good friend Tranquilino Jeantete, and with God, a number of devils, a few saints, and the Virgin Mary. And another thing during this quiet breakfast time: he had the habit of remembering scenes, moods, geography, little momentsâmemory blipsâthat had occurred yesterday or maybe fifty years ago. And so he would picture green fields full of confused and immobile meadowlarks during a late May snowstorm; or he would recall the way lightning had exploded jaggedly all around the Chamisaville drive-in theater when his daughter Sally had taken him to a John Wayne movie fifteen years ago; or maybe he would see his wife, Betita, straining, holding his hands, turning purple and howling with her legs spread wide, crushing his hands (she broke his finger once) during the birth of a child.â¦
And on this morning, as on other recent mornings after he had put on his thick-lensed eyeglasses, Amarante also observed Joe Mondragón several fields away, irrigating his bean plants.
The old man watched Joeâs work with interest, with a certain feeling of pride, even with a kind of reverence. Amarante had been born on Milagroâs west side, in this same house when it was intact; he had worked the fields that now lay fallow about him, and someday he would die on the west side, in his room, or from a heart attack while splitting wood, or maybe he would freeze to death in a ditch some sparkling winter night on his way back from the Frontier Barâbut whatever, Amarante had stuck with the west side through all the thick shit and all the thin shit, saying good-bye to his neighbors one by one while refusing to budge himself, until he had wound up alone with the swallows and the bluebirds and the crumbling houses whose rooms were full of tumbleweeds. Then here, suddenly, was a stubborn, ornery little bastard who had decided to put some life back into the west side. And as Joe Mondragónâs bean plants started to grow, Amarante fixed his eyes on that patch of green, feeling excited and warm and a lot less lonely, too.
It hadnât taken long, though, for Amarante to realize that Joeâs beansprouts were really going to stir up something in Milagro.
And so on this morning Amarante had a special plan. Spending less time than usual on the
The old man coughed, scratched his balls, snagged a coffeepot with one arthritic paw, and shuffled over to the hand-dug well. Letting the bucket drop slowly to the water thirty feet below, he only a quarter filled it, then slowly, resting after each tug, pulled the bucket up and tipped some water into the coffeepot, which he carried back and set atop the heater.
Next, he proceeded cautiously around his dwelling to the backyard outhouse. And while he camped there with the door open so he could watch the turquoise-silver bluebirds flying about his crumbling farmhouse, he also slowly and shakily, though in the end expertly, rolled a cigarette and lit it, contentedly puffing away as he crapped.
After that, Amarante creaked around to his room again and made a cup of instant coffee, poured some brandy into it, and for almost an hour, while the day began, he sat on a white stump next to his front door, bathed in the early sharp sunlight, letting his eyes go bleary as he sipped the piping hot, spiked coffee and rolled and smoked another cigarette. During this time he talked to himself about his wife, his childrenâthose still living and others dead and gone. He also carried on long, intricate, nonsensical dialogues with his good friend Tranquilino Jeantete, and with God, a number of devils, a few saints, and the Virgin Mary. And another thing during this quiet breakfast time: he had the habit of remembering scenes, moods, geography, little momentsâmemory blipsâthat had occurred yesterday or maybe fifty years ago. And so he would picture green fields full of confused and immobile meadowlarks during a late May snowstorm; or he would recall the way lightning had exploded jaggedly all around the Chamisaville drive-in theater when his daughter Sally had taken him to a John Wayne movie fifteen years ago; or maybe he would see his wife, Betita, straining, holding his hands, turning purple and howling with her legs spread wide, crushing his hands (she broke his finger once) during the birth of a child.â¦
And on this morning, as on other recent mornings after he had put on his thick-lensed eyeglasses, Amarante also observed Joe Mondragón several fields away, irrigating his bean plants.
The old man watched Joeâs work with interest, with a certain feeling of pride, even with a kind of reverence. Amarante had been born on Milagroâs west side, in this same house when it was intact; he had worked the fields that now lay fallow about him, and someday he would die on the west side, in his room, or from a heart attack while splitting wood, or maybe he would freeze to death in a ditch some sparkling winter night on his way back from the Frontier Barâbut whatever, Amarante had stuck with the west side through all the thick shit and all the thin shit, saying good-bye to his neighbors one by one while refusing to budge himself, until he had wound up alone with the swallows and the bluebirds and the crumbling houses whose rooms were full of tumbleweeds. Then here, suddenly, was a stubborn, ornery little bastard who had decided to put some life back into the west side. And as Joe Mondragónâs bean plants started to grow, Amarante fixed his eyes on that patch of green, feeling excited and warm and a lot less lonely, too.
It hadnât taken long, though, for Amarante to realize that Joeâs beansprouts were really going to stir up something in Milagro.
And so on this morning Amarante had a special plan. Spending less time than usual on the
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