Before the End, After the Beginning Read online

  Praise for Before the End, After the Beginning:

  “Where are we when we are before the end yet after the beginning? We are in the midst of life, where everything happens. Before the end and after the beginning, one celebrates a perfect sixth birthday, looks for a job, has an affair, remembers old girlfriends, suffers a stroke. These are the moments Dagoberto Gilb describes in his elegiac third story collection.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “The situations [in these stories] are part of the everyday, normal struggle to keep one’s head above water and one’s heart sane. Dagoberto Gilb writes about these matters in a mature and subtle manner.”

  Alan Cheuse, NPR, All Things Considered

  “Stark, realistic, and told in mostly gritty matter-of-fact prose . . . Gilb portrays his characters simply and powerfully, without apology; even his unnamed characters represent the plight of not only every working-class Mexicano but Everyman.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Accessible and resonant . . . such true, human stories.”

  —San Antonio Express-News

  “[Gilb] is in fine form . . . He’s simply telling good stories: of men who are both Mexican and American, who are cultured and uncouth, who look at wealth from the outside and, occasionally, from within . . . They are formed outside themselves, but they are not finished yet.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Of their surfaces, these are quirky, confronting, intense, often darkly funny stories—worth it for that alone. But from underneath, Gilb unearths a sense of profound human longing and a dream of harmony which (the stories make perfecly clear) could be reached no other way.”

  —Richard Ford

  “[A] master storyteller . . . There is so much substance to Gilb’s tales.”

  —Texas Observer

  “Read these stories one at a time—they are as fun as they are phantasmagorical . . . [A] marvelous collection.”

  —Latino Magazine

  “Prose that is as sudden as it is meditative . . . These ten stories, which take us from the exploitation of undocumented workers to an uncomfortable hotel encounter with ex-thugs, place Gilb’s talent for rendering the mundane into myth on ful display.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Gilb is arguably the most critically acclaimed Mexican American author writing today. . . . A marvelous book by one of the country’s best story writers, period.”

  —ZYZZYVA

  “Don’t dare put Gilb’s writing in any category. He’s as fine at the lyrical as he is at the vernacular. And his subject is as universal as it can get: the mystery of existence . . . Triumphantly, Gilb built this book. It’s masterful, bottom to top.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “Dagoberto Gilb’s remarkable new fiction collection . . . captures the lives of the kind of people who are seldom depicted in fiction.”

  —High Country News

  “Poignant . . . Gilb writes masterfully, displaying his talent for powerful storytelling. One thing is for certain and that is readers will absorb these characters and empathize and remember them. Before the End, After the Beginning is a short book but will leave an impression for a long time.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “Like [Raymond] Carver, Gilb focuses his stories on working-class men . . . Though the men in these stories have common concerns, each feels distinct and alive.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “The collection as a whole will stay with you long after you are done.”

  —The Washington Independent Review of Books

  “[Gilb] has more power than ever in addressing the conditions and contradictions of being split across cultures, and reminds us that every American, native or immigrant, is the product of a society that must learn to share or risk losing its founding graces.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Dagoberto Gilb’s mission in Before the End, After the Beginning is not to dazzle and amaze, but to implode myths and misconceptions, to expose us to forgotten and subterranean characters in constant transition and exile; characters inured to injury and pain, heartbreak and woe—yet who never jettison hope for a better life, nor a future uncertain, yet still very much possible. These Chicano dreamers are lovelorn and love-tossed, broken-yet-healing, but most of all, on the road to recovery from an America that shuts its eyes and ears at their very existence. Gilb shows us that every man, woman, and child is a citizen of hope, succors the birthright of love and freedom in their hearts, and sin fronteras, can, and will, emerge victorious. Make no mistake about it, by the end of Before the End, After the Beginning, you will be dazzled. And amazed.”

  —ZZ Packer

  Before the End,

  After the Beginning

  Also by Dagoberto Gilb:

  The Flowers

  Gritos

  Woodcuts of Women

  The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña

  The Magic of Blood

  Hecho en Tejas (editor)

  Before the End,

  After the

  Beginning

  Dagoberto Gilb

  Grove Press

  New York

  Copyright © 2011 by Dagoberto Gilb

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in

  any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including

  information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages

  in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book

  or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is

  prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and

  do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted

  materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or

  all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

  or [email protected].

  “please, thank you” and “Willows Village” were first published in Harper’s

  “Uncle Rock” was first published in The New Yorker

  “Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch” was first published in The Threepenny Review

  “The Last Time I Saw Junior” was first published in The Boston Review

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9414-5

  Grove Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  841 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  morning, sun

  then night, the moon

  a wind blows, listen

  open a window, a door

  go on

  Contents

  please, thank you

  The Last Time I Saw Junior

  Willows Village

  His Birthday

  Uncle Rock

  Cheap

  Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch

  Blessing

  To Document

  Hacia Teotitlán

  Before the End,

  After the Beginning

  PLEASE, THA
NK YOU

  at first, their people came and went. my children or the few close friends who worried about me dying, they came and stayed some too. im talking about staff people. nurses? not all of them. or they all werent schooled as nurses, years of classes, even if they act like they are or even do what nurses do. they do something every hour. if i try to say something, they start asking the same questions. what is your name? what is the date? where were you born? like that. or sometimes, como te llamas? que es la fecha de hoy? like im from mexico and just crossed, not american like them. im from here! ill bet my familys been here longer than yours! i was semper fi, cabron, and then i was an ironworker for ten years, were you? always, always has made me so mad, even if i dont say it out loud to these people here. i was cooperative the first few times, but then i just wanted to be given answers to what i was asking. like, am i going to get better? or worse? i didnt like them ignoring me, or acting as if what i said was not important. even if it wasnt. i knew what they were thinking. i was someone who didnt matter, who didnt count much. in the large, i know its true. i am a name, just another, one they think is foreign even, when there are so many hurting. but then, so what? i accept it always, in my life, but now too? it makes me mad.

  so i started not answering, ignoring them back, or yelling at them. maybe yelling is what i was doing in my mind. maybe muttering under my breath is what i did. like, oh fuck off. what would yelling at them do for me? i practically couldnt move. so sometimes i did answer but lied, made up names and places. just said anything to shut down the questions.

  every hour or few they would wake me up. i was dazed because i was messed up, but as much, i finally realized, because i didnt sleep enough. i wanted them to stop, and they kept coming at me in my haze. strangers with no names who just ignored what i tried to say who would say my name off a sheet. at night i became scared even, like my thoughts were exposed, like these people would be mad if anything wasnt exactly what they wanted. night that is early, early morning. nobody can really be feeling good to be awake, to be alive, then. not one of these workers. and i cant see their faces. i dont believe they look at mine. they dont care. i am weak, and everyone is bigger, stronger, tougher than me. they take blood or pull my body around. they turn on a light when it is supposed to be sleeptime dark. what does it matter what i think or feel? nobody sees this work they do, and i am just meat, a carcass. if i kick them with the one leg that can, will i at least be more wild tasting meat?

  a few days like this i am so tired i can barely function. hard to think where i am and what happened to me. i dream but nothing familiar to my own history. one of them comes in and is telling me something. words as blurry as sight. i cant tell if it is kind or hostile but i am being shoved around, like i am doing something wrong, something bad. my body seems to be on something that i dont feel and i dont care but they care and act like i should too and they throw it on me. an arm with a hand, a third arm and hand, not from my body. no, it is mine. or was. i recognize it but it is inanimate, lifeless. i touch it with my other hand, pick it up. i was lying on my own arm. this hand. my hand and fingers. i know them. i knew them. im shocked. my own arm?

  i am glad to be moving from intensive care. id say i counted the days but i dont know how many. my children are here to help me. i trust them. i wish they could stay, back me, protect me. its how it is now. i feel so small, and they are big, life-size, as big as them, unlike me. they are not weak. i dont trust these hospital people but i know i cant say too much. its hard to say much anyway. i dont want to say anything to my children either because they are doing so much already, and i dont want to worry them, or, worse, i am afraid they will think its me.

  you werent making sense, my daughter says. they couldnt understand you.

  i lied to them. they werent listening to me.

  daddy, im telling you, you werent making sense. you couldnt talk.

  it wasnt that, i say. besides, i know i made sense. i still have a brain.

  but your speech was bad, she says. its better now. sometimes you said things that nobody could follow. or you said things that were wrong.

  wrong?

  once you said you were born in new mexico. another time you said argentina.

  i lived in new mexico for a while.

  you said you were born there.

  ive never been to argentina. i would never go there. a bunch of gringos. i said argentina?

  one time they asked and you said you were born there. you said the year was 1994.

  when did i say that?

  when they asked.

  maybe i got confused.

  thats what i mean.

  i hate argentina.

  you said it.

  i didnt want to answer their stupid questions. i started saying anything because i didnt care. thats why i gave a wrong name too.

  it was that strange name, daddy. harry? . . . i dont even know what last name you said now, but it was odd. we all wanted to laugh.

  truth is, harry was a name i didnt know. ive never known a person with the name harry. harry anything. ive never met a harry, dont even know what kind of name it is, where a harry would come from. and i dont remember giving the dates or saying new mexico either. definitely not argentina. but it doesnt change anything. this is how they beat you down, and they make money. im meat to them, i know it. im nothing, im nobody. just nothing else is possible for me to do and im not going to do nothing. im not not saying something.

  it isnt that i dont want to jump and hop around and be wide-eyed sparkly. if i could, i would dance for everyone. though i really didnt feel like any of it, even if i dont say so. i cant, much as i wont admit it out loud. any moving much is hard for me. i used to be strong. just the other day! just the other day, a couple of weeks ago. now, now these people come into my room. my room is more my bed. a modern bed that moves up and down with a control.

  i cant find it, i say. i couldnt even buzz you.

  she looked around the edges of the bed, under and in the sheet knotted around me. she found it under me, behind my right shoulder. had to leave a big impression in my skin, deep enough to cast a souvenir pewter model.

  i couldnt even feel it? i say. how is that possible?

  its okay, mr sanchez. you have it now.

  her name is stephanie. shes mexican, mexican american. has that happy pocha kind of name. i remember the era, just the other day, when those educated lefties of ours named their children after aztec deities. my daughter we named gloria, my wifes choice. my son was joe, like my own dad and my suegro both.

  but youre all good now, she says cheerfully. do you need anything? maybe youd like to take a shower?

  i dont think i can stand up, i say. and with all this added weight, probably cant.

  you probably havent gained weight, mr sanchez. and youre not fat.

  i meant all the dirt on me, the layers of it with several coats of laying around sweat.

  i could help you in the shower.

  shes like sixty pounds and four foot tall. the other day i wouldve had to use binoculars to see her if i were on my two legs. from the bed, she almost seems full size.

  i dont know.

  i wouldnt look at you. id just stand there outside the curtain.

  i meant i dont think you can handle me. your size, my size.

  of course i can. i thought you were embarrassed.

  embarrassed? hell, im proud when im naked.

  mr sanchez, youre such a joker. i thought it was because im a girl.

  normally id like it better because youre a girl. i dont feel too normal is all.

  if you change your mind, she says, stephanie-like, sleepy and positive both.

  its a good idea, this shower. and after i think about it, decide i will. but stephanie doesnt come back. now its scott, the other one who comes sometimes. there are quite a few of these em
ployees. scott is the one who is confused like its three in the morning, not afternoon. he repeats things. for example, he says thank you even when it should be a tense there! or a relieved finally its done, or maybe he has to change the sheets, or dump the urine in the piss bottle, and always when hes leaving he cant believe he has this job and isnt still in the army.

  he brings over the wheelchair. i roll and squirm and push myself to sit in it like its any chair to take a seat in. i land hard, as though the side that barely moves has petrified into heavy rock on the bottom and drags me down faster than i want.

  thank you, says scott.

  no problem, i say. the problem is standing up. the problem is not standing up. the problem is slipping off my clothes, even when its a tshirt and gym shorts. the problem is holding soap and washing when i bobble like im in a torrent of winds blowing into me from all cardinal directions. and im even sitting in a yellow plastic chair, a toilet seat throne. it is pounding to feel the water against me. it feels so good to get clean.

  i cant reach the button that means enough. i talk. i cannot talk loud enough without screaming, which i wont.

  i hear, is everything okay, mr sanchez?

  i say i am done. i cant yell.

  i hear, when youre ready, ill be there.

  im ready, i say. hes not hearing me. finally i can turn off the water with my left hand. i just wait there, trying to figure a way to reach the help button. i try to lean and get it with my left hand, but it is a little behind me too. stand? try to stand? i lift off with my left leg and groan and there i am, standing! but i feel like a golf ball balanced on a plate. the tile wall isnt that close. not sure what to do, i begin careful movements. turn a little, turn a little, a little more, like a first time rock climber. i reach for the button and miss. the second shot is a hit though, i think, but no apparent buzz ring anything from the button. i push it again and again. im expert at punching it, could do it for many many minutes if i can stand much longer. i am there naked and wet, and i feel lost and pathetic because i cant do much besides this.