“Tlaca xoxouhcayotl,” Fulgencio mouthed slowly, his eyes drifting upward from the ground and refocusing on Brother William’s.
“It means you are free.” Brother William smiled knowingly.
Twenty-Seven
With the knowledge that la maldición was finally broken, Fulgencio initially felt an enormous sense of relief and self-understanding. He now believed that if life—and Carolina—granted him a second chance at love, it would be within his power to fight those dark instincts when they reared their monstrous heads. All Fulgencio needed to do was wait for that opportunity. Religiously, he read the obituaries every morning in his drugstore. And, mercifully, only a handful of years later, Miguel Rodriguez Esparza succumbed to the consequences of his debauched lifestyle, perishing of liver cancer.
The way was paved for Fulgencio to try again. But, as he realized after his first meeting with Carolina, there were no guarantees that she would cooperate with his unwavering dream.
***
His knuckle chiseled at the front door of her dead father’s house in the crisp, cool noon of a winter day.
About a week had passed since their meeting in the funereal parlor of the house, since he commenced to comprehend the full measure of his youthful and ignorant idiocy. That week seemed more like a lifetime slowly ticking by on the drugstore wall clock as he mentally replayed Carolina’s words, agonizing over the fact that he had squandered the better part of his life due to a misunderstanding.
Enrique “El Papabote” LaMarque lurched into the drugstore that week with Fulgencio’s repaired steering wheel clutched between his hands and held out in front of him. To Fulgencio, he looked like an overgrown child pretending to drive.
From their row of metal chairs lined against the paneled wall, Eleodoro the Cabrito Man and El Gordo Jimenez waved at El Papabote. El Primo Loco Gustavo jumped to his feet in his hyperanimated fashion, greeting El Papabote and helping him with the wheel.
“Señor LaMarque!” Fulgencio smiled, “It’s always a pleasure!”
The wizened old man—grizzled with white stubble on his chin and cropped, white hair on his head—smiled, refusing to hand the wheel over to El Primo Loco. His mechanized voice labored forth from a synthesized voice box in his shredded throat, heavy gasps punctuating his halting phrases.
“Ramirez,” El Papabote said. “Your wheel is fixed. ¡Mira!” He brandished it out proudly, a trophy of shattered plastic pasted back together with superglue in the old man’s garage.
“I knew you could do it!” Fulgencio beamed, taking it delicately from his withered and spotted hands.
“Well, you know. I’ve always been good at fixing things,” El Papabote recited to the synchronized nods of the metal chair gallery. “That’s what I used to do . . . before the cancer came.” The peanut gallery silently mouthed his words in unison.
El Papabote slowly lowered his tired frame onto the empty metal chair next to El Gordo Jimenez as Fulgencio Ramirez admired the pastiche steering wheel.
“Chotay!” Fulgencio called toward the back of the store as his henchman emerged. “Look what Mr. LaMarque has brought us. Please install this so I can get back on the road.”
“No problem, boss,” El Chotay said, taking the wheel gently from his hands and vanishing into the shadows.
“¿Donde esta la troca?” El Papabote robot-wheezed, his metal chair creaking in rhythm with his mechanized gasps.
“Oh, the truck’s out back in the alley. I had it towed over here.”
“How have you been getting to work?” El Papabote asked.
“Well, Cipriano has been driving me to the bridge every morning, and from there I just walk. I think I’ve lost a few pounds this week,” he said, patting his stomach.
“So, you’re in better shape for love now,” El Papabote remarked.
“I’m not sure, Mr. LaMarque,” Fulgencio leaned forward on the high pharmacy counter, gazing down upon his court of jesters. “After what happened last time, I’m not so sure I should visit her again.”
“You have to, m’ijo!” El Papabote became agitated as the tempo of his mechanized breathing accelerated. “That’s why I worked so hard on your steering wheel, so you could get yourself over to that young woman. It’s your destiny. Now, you must steer your way there!” He pretended to turn an invisible steering wheel in midair.
“Maybe I should wait a little longer,” Fulgencio pondered. “Let her calm down. I feel so stupid. Like it was all my fault.”
“It was your fault, m’ijo. So, now it’s your obligación to fix it,” the old man gasped. “¡Canta, Fulgencio! Sing your heart out while you still have the voice to do it with.” The mechanical box in his throat crackled with emotion.
“You’re right, Mr. LaMarque,” Fulgencio affirmed. “I must seek Carolina’s forgiveness and love.”
Fulgencio grabbed his hat and stormed out the back door, leaving his minions in the shadows of the drugstore, lulled by the soothing rhythms of the ticking clock and the gasping of El Papabote LaMarque.
The ramshackle truck clamored through the cracked streets of La Frontera as he made his way to Carolina’s house. He wore a khaki overcoat and matching Stetson over a navy blue Western suit with a bolo tie. The repaired steering wheel threatened to crumble in his thick and heavy hands as his hazel eyes surveyed the scenery. Boarded-up shops and gutted movie theaters littered the landscape of what had been a thriving downtown when he returned from Austin in the red Corvette, back in the summer of ’63. How the years had passed. Time had passed them by, both him and his God-forsaken hometown. The years filled with bitter song and strange women. El Pedregal in the late ’70s. And then the slow muting of his song. He had come to sing less and less often. But when he did, the words still pierced the air like knives and the emotion shot straight through the hearts of his audience. Now, so many years later, he could only hope that his voice could warm her heart, melt its icy core, and earn him a chance at forgiveness and love. At least the maldición was behind him. He could finally be a new and improved version of himself.
As the door swung open beyond the echo of his knocking, his voice took to the air, singing the words of “Sin Ti,” speaking of the futility of living without her love.
Unmoved, Carolina maintained a stoic visage, her eyes as static as a doll’s, her porcelain face unyielding, but she at least allowed him into the chilly and dark foyer.
As she guided him toward the formal sitting room, he said, “Carolina, why don’t we just sit in the kitchen and talk?” He would feel more comfortable there. He didn’t want to be distracted by the elusive patterns in the Oriental rug on the living room floor. He didn’t want to sit on the absent plastic of the sofas of his youth. He didn’t wish to recollect the revelation of his last visit in that room, the overwhelming tide of his wrongdoing as her heels clicked up the stairs.