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part 2 of the story
The Wind Chime

George R. Justice

    Rosa slept on the padded bench behind the kitchen table. At night we tacked up a sheet between the living room and kitchen to add privacy, then took it down in the morning. Field expediency Mamma called it, making do with what you got. After a while it just became part of our ritual. And though the size of the trailer was better suited for one, I was never envious of more space. It was something that just never seemed worthy of wanting. Mamma, though, had the jaunt and oomph of a filly, her desire always open to the dream of deeper and wider spaces.
    “Sometimes,” she said, “I just want to run till I’m breathless. Like I was fourteen again. Like when there was joy to my thinking and no tin box like this to close me in, no walls or gates or fences in my way. Just me and the wind to blow me about.”
    It was the stuff of life that so often got in the way of what Mamma would have; what so often tried her. But it was the stuff of resilience that kept her from ever giving in, that filled her with necessity and the will to war against things like the space we didn’t have and the starkness that lay in wait for those like Rosa. I never fully understood Mamma, much less the complexity of her spirit, except to know that she lit up every room she ever walked into. Hers was an imprint with pulse and breath, one jumped with life, all which helped to fill the void left by Daddy. And though Mamma’s heart continually burned for open roads, mainly what was out and away from the Wind Chime and our squeeze of a box, she held to it for the lack of anything else. For me, though, our trailer was enough, the thing that anchored us, kept us locked to the Wind Chime’s never-ending tide of surprises and to the ebb and flow of our own becoming.

    Maybe it was our imagination, but in the days after, Harlingen’s Sheriff’s Department seemed to make its way through the Wind Chime about as frequent as those north bound trains. They came in their big fat sedans and at a crawl, in low gear, easing over our dirt tracks without raising the slightest dust. Up one lane and down the next looking for what was beyond the law.
    “They’re protecting us,” Mamma would say, smiling and waving to them like a schoolgirl. She had perfected mockery to an art form. Not so surprising, they always waved back, even stopped now and again to ask if everything was awright. But given how Mamma squeezed into her form-fit jeans, I figured it was more about their shameless appetites than any good they could do for the sheriff’s department. They were pretty-boy dandies for the most part, fixed with all-American manners and smiles. And on the occasions that they stepped from their cruisers, they did it with a kind of authoritative flex, their gait ginger-like so as not to, God forbid, interrupt the shine on their shoes.
    “Howdy, Ma’am.” Gentility and chivalry oozed from them like the Rio Grande after an all-day rain.
    “Howdy, yr’self, officer.” Mamma was always as unabashed as they hoped she would be. It was her purpose to get them headed off in another direction, to help them forget, at least for the moment, what it was they had come all the way out here for in the first place. Reverie was not without its audaciousness.
    To their credit, their visits never exceeded what was customary. They were careful about that. There were simply too many eyes to be anything other than discreet. Still, it didn’t prevent them from going through an assortment of postures and a cache of altogether cheesy cameos, all for the attention of Mamma. I always saw them as holdovers from the old west, complete with the same grist and grizzle it takes to subjugate the hardest down to the sweetest. But then they were all too aware of the game they played and the sway they held. Theirs was a hand that begged to be played much the same as hounds beg to hunt. It was their duty as much as their desire to be as adored as adorned, and to leave an indelible mark on all who would enable them ... right down to their goodbyes, as soliloquized as a ride off into the sunset, and often scratching down their name and number and saying something like ‘It would be a comfort to hear from you (meaning Mamma), to know that all is well.’ The glint in their eyes was never meant to be disguised, and was, by and large, as matched as the sun sparkling off their badges. Then, with full bearing (as much as their fitted pantaloons would allow) make work out of easing themselves back into their sedans and back into low gear; back into checking for all that ran against the grain.
    We howled with laughter each time the sedans rolled beyond earshot, Rosa more out of relief than what Mamma conjured up in flirtation. What we shared with Rosa was a joy beyond the restrictions of language. And although there was something very real about the excitement of hiding Rosa—of breaking the law—there was also something very tangible to how we felt about her, something that made the risk worthwhile. Mamma and I knew with each passing day that Rosa’s time with us was borrowed at best; that we needed to help get her to Arkansas and to the brothers who awaited her, and that we needed to do it sooner than later.

    After bringing us the angel food cake, Wendel came by every day: in the morning, in the afternoon, at dusk. It made no difference. He would show up at any time and with the oddest things in hand: an uncommon piece of bark or some odd-shaped stone; a tree toad, a shiny trinket, an ornate or brightly colored piece of glass. Once, he came with a pot of coffee and once with a caterpillar crawling in between his fingers. He was insistent, needing to show Rosa these extravagances. The last time he came he was clutching a fist full of wildflowers. He stood with his head nearly touching our ceiling and with the corners of his grin stretched nearly to his ears. At first he motioned them toward Mamma, a gesture obviously meant for her inspection only, a way of giving her a closer look before pulling them back up tight to his chest. Finally, and with a sudden thrust, he extended them toward Rosa. For the longest time, Rosa just stood there, frozen, staring at the rush of colors, her look clear and in concert with the rich gold patina of her skin. After a very long and awkward silence, she said Gracias through a far-away smile. Wendel was all but transfixed in the trailer’s insufficient light, maybe because he took up so much of it, but for the first time in days he was without the benefit of his new voice or anything resembling it. He looked off into nowhere and bared his teeth as if he wouldn’t refuse a drink if one were offered. Sweat drops beaded with a vengeance across his forehead. “Scuse me,” he said swiping at them with his shirtsleeve, “I sweat a lot.” He looked for our understanding. Mamma translated for Rosa, which failed to alter her look of confoundedness, which I’m sure Wendel took as enchantment. Then it was back to silence, each of us standing too close and waiting for the right words to come. Finally, Mamma offered Wendel a cup of coffee. He accepted it right off, but then in the next second, and in one giant step, swung his hulking frame out the door and into the yard. He waved a big hand as he walked away, his breath as ponderous as his footsteps. “Well,” Mamma said, giving me a raised eyebrow, “One way ’r t’other, I suspect a change is acomin’.”

    In his bare feet, Wendel was about a foot taller than Mamma and me, and about a foot and a half taller than Rosa. Mamma was rangy, wiry, mostly knees and elbows, and stained with the same auburn hair and freckles that she passed on to me. Rosa was more flesh than bone, framed with shadow-black hair and with skin the color of caramel, what could be likened to my favorite topping down at Baskin & Robins. But they were as alike inside as sisters, continually sharing bits and pieces of their lives, talking in and around and over one another despite what barriers the language presented and with what looked like complete understanding. I felt a genuine kinship with Rosa, though we spoke only by way of smiles and gestures and little things we did with our eyes. But it was the nights I’d hear her crying, soft and muffled into her pillow, which made me know she was far from where she wanted to be. We tried, Mamma and me, as best we could, to add hope to her state of affairs, things we hoped would keep us from waking up and finding her gone. But it was in the midst of Wendel’s presence (shy as it was) that hope began to take on a spirit of renewal, that Rosa’s hesitant gestures and air of submission began to blossom into a thing slightly more animated and transcending barriers of language and culture.

    For the time, things stayed pretty much the same except for school being out for the summer and me staying with Rosa instead of Sheila Gay while Mamma worked at the Whistle Stop. But then Wendel, all of a sudden, took to shying away, but just a little. Mamma said it was because of the repeated chastening from Sheila Gay, afraid that his frequent presence would bring undo attention. Still, he sauntered by, daring Sheila Gay’s wrath, even if it was just to give a fleeting glimpse through our window. Then there were the reminders he left on our stoop: one time a bird’s nest no bigger than a teacup; one time a red bandana wrapped around a Moon Pie, and one time something teeny-tiny he had whittled from a piece of oak. To me it looked like a dog. Rosa thought it was a burro. Mamma said it didn’t matter if it was a plug of Beechnut so long as it held regards. And in her estimation, it did.
    By the end of the third week, Sheila Gay became more and more unsure about all of it, about all of us, and went about with a look that said so. Finally, in a puff and a rage, she came waddling at a clip in her blue floral muumuu. She gave our door a single knock, nothing intended to trigger an invitation, but simply to let us know she was coming in. “This has gone on long enough,” she said without any sort of introduction. “My nerves can’t stand it another minute. Sheriff knows there’s sumpin’ up. Dep’ties crawlin’ awl over the place. They’s just too many eyes ’round here that’s lookin’ to cause trouble. And trouble is what I don’t need. They could close this whole place down and that would put us all on the street. Now she’s just gotta go. Don’t care what you have to do or who has to do it so long as she’s gone. Now that’s all there is to it and about it.” She had worked herself into a vivid crimson and fanned her face with an open hand. “Lord, I think I’m gonna stroke out.” And in a dash she was gone, her big blue muumuu wafting in the south Texas breeze like some giant flag unfurled at a homecoming parade.

    “Wendel,” Mamma said from her place on the couch, “you’re out there knocking like you got good sense. I hope I ain’t wrong.” Wendel said nothing, just stared in through the screen door and pulled a harmonica out of his shirt pocket. The look on his face said he was a one-man band and free for the asking. Mamma sat without moving. “What you plan on doin’ with that thang?” she asked. He gave her a twisted smile and about five seconds worth of Going Up Cripple Creek, rousing and blue grassy. “Huhhhh,” droned Mamma, raising herself up and stepping to the door. “You’re just full of surprises, ain’t you,” she said, folding her arms across her chest and cocking herself against the doorjamb.
    Wendel was unmoved, just leaned back and raised his head toward the stars. “Pretty night,” he said.
     “Wendel  ... Rosa’s not here,” Mamma said. She waited while he digested her words then said, “She’s elsewhere right now.”
    After a moment, Wendel straightened himself, sucked in a big breath of night air then let it out like a tire going flat. He looked at Mamma like she was sending him off to bed without supper then without a word stepped off toward the Blue Goose.

    It was near midnight when the screen door creaked. It was Rosa. But then there was Hector Rios and his wife, Halina, neighbors to the rear of us, tiptoeing close behind. Without as much as a whisper and in the half-light of the TV, they huddled together, frozen, as if waiting for some sort of divine intervention to move them. Mamma came out of the bedroom with a look of relief. It was evident she was expecting them, and for the next twenty minutes they sat bunched around the kitchen table talking fast and in low tones and with concern cut deep in their faces. That was right before the fourth of July, just before the Border Patrol and the Sheriff’s Department hid themselves in the high grass around Wendel’s bus and took down a dozen or so illegals as they called them (those without visas or green cards) as they jumped from the train; right about the time I began to suspect that Mamma and I might be living in a house of cards, and that maybe there was more to those Texas dandies than what they let us believe.
    For days after, Wendel kept to himself, closed up behind the long double doors of the Blue Goose. What little we saw of him was withered and tired looking, enough to keep us at bay and from wading through the high grass to knock at his door even when we needed him. Mamma said he had himself a good case of melancholy. She said she told him it might be best if he kept his distance for awhile what with Rosa’s situation and the sheriff’s deputies coming and going at all hours; and then with Sheila Gay being on the warpath, it just made sense not to bring any more attention on us than necessary.
    Whatever it was, Wendel struck a sad manner to where even Sheila Gay took to leaving him alone. He stayed that way upwards to a week or better, then one morning came out full of muscle and began removing the discarded junk and debris from the knee-high grass around his bus. In a huge heap near the railroad tracks is where he piled it. Everything from fallen branches, splintered pieces of lumber, shipping pallets, empty paint cans, truck tires, old mattresses, liquor bottles, plastic jugs, broken toys, hubcaps, lawn chairs and everything else that was beyond the hope of reclamation. Then one dawn when the wind was next to nothing, he doused it all with gasoline and set it ablaze. The size and intensity of the flames were spectacular against the early morning sky, enough that its embers exploded like Roman candles through the jungle grass surrounding the bus. One after another they came, each a little hotter and faster than the last, and each flashing into flame. In a frenzy, Wendel went to stomping and beating and trying to stay ahead of what was rapidly becoming a fire out of control. Next thing we knew, neighbors came running with hoes and rakes and shovels, anything they could lay their hands on. Mamma and I beat the flames with blankets, flailing with all we were worth and trying to stay out of its way at the same time. All the while it swelled and grew and worked its way closer to the bus. At the last minute, Wendel unhooked the Blue Goose’s propane tanks and ran them a good fifty yards down the track. By this time the mile-high smoke had brought the fire department, the rescue squad, the local police and the sheriff’s department in a testimonial of sirens and testosterone, but not before the back end of the Blue Goose began to gape and twist and come apart. By the time the fire department doused it inside and out, its back end was a rendering of soot and char, more black than blue. Across the way, Wendel’s mountain of junk and debris smoldered under a blanket of water, the fractured skeleton of an aluminum ladder and a set of old bed springs as charred reminders.
    I was confident that I would have the best show and tell of the day when school started again, despite having nothing actually to show. The last thing I remember was Sheila Gay in a bulldog stance holding onto a $100 fine for allowing burning without a permit and Wendel standing hangdog under her gaze. I knew deep down that if she had (just for a moment) been big enough and strong enough she would have rung Wendel’s neck like a barnyard chicken. I never doubted that she got her $100 back and then some.
    For the next several days Wendel washed and scrubbed everything on that school bus he could reach. By the middle of the fourth day, he had her stretched, bent, and jacked back into place; hammered and caulked, bolted and glued to where he wanted her, to where she would once again keep out the weather and varmints and anyone not invited ... all that any sane person could ask for. And by the end of the fifth day, she was once again navy blue.

    The sheriff’s department continued to come around at the oddest times. Sometimes we wouldn’t see them for long stretches. Other times they’d come two and three times a day. Mamma reckoned they were trying to surprise us and I reckoned she was more right than wrong. Though one of them in particular—a tall, sandy-haired football type by the name of Remy Rhodes—began coming in between times, off-duty times. First time he came, he was in cowboy boots and jeans, sporting a rodeo buckle and smelling like Aqua Velva. He was downright cautious in his movement, slow and graceful and with a smile as big and bright as a brand-new dime.
    “Well, Remy, I declare,” said Mamma. “What a surprise.”
    “Myrldeen,” Remy said with a jaw-breaking grin and doffing his pearl-colored Stetson.
    “The Whistle Stop’s been a mite darker without your big shiny badge lately. You can be such a stranger.”
    “Been working graveyard,” he said, his grin so big it looked painful. “Keeping the night streets safe from all them booger men.”
    “Well I was wonderin’ who to thank,” said Mamma, her manner oozing with the same ruby red that glossed from her lips.
    “I hope you don’t mind me stopping by,” he said, his words measured and spaced and as thick as night clouds. “I was just passing and thought I’d give you a howdy.”
    “Oh, it’s quite alright,” Mamma said. “Though I’m sorry I can’t ask you in.” I could almost see the starch come out of Remy’s jeans. “I have company,” she added, then left it at that.
    “Oh ...,” he said as though she had come upside his head. He rolled his cowboy hat back and forth in his hands and scratched around in the sand with the toe of his boot. “Well, I’ll see you at the Whistle Stop no doubt.”
    “No doubt,” Mamma said. Reme donned his hat with precision and tugged gently at its brim. “I’m there tomorrow,” she said. It was the right ending to a very short visit, their smiles warming the space between them, sure signs that I’d see more of Remy in the days ahead.

    There was a pattern to Hector Rios’ coming and going: always in stealth and always with a scratch on the screen door, never a knock. He was a small man, Hector was, and wiry, with a humble manner and a worried look. He was dark, extra so, from his work in the sun, and wore a straw cowboy hat day and night; the kind that looked like it was from the toy department at Walmart. Hector was cautious, if nothing else, but with a slight agitation that caused him to talk faster than he needed to, as if he tried to relay every single bit of information in one single breath. It was about every other night that he brought new ideas about how Rosa might get to Arkansas, with various scenarios as to how others had done it, though careful to leave out the inherent risks. But for all his good intensions, things remained unchanged and Rosa remained caged and in our care despite the ongoing threats Sheila Gay heaped on us. When Rosa finally dropped the bombshell that she was three months pregnant, Sheila Gay broke down, crying and caterwauling how she knew this was going to be the death of us all. With Hector not being able to help with Rosa’s getaway as we hoped he would and with Rosa starting to show; with the sheriff’s deputies cruising at all hours of the day and Reme showing his face too often of a night, I figured Sheila Gay wasn’t all that far off the mark.

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