Money

I wrote this short story while visiting a small town in Mexico in the 1990s, after spending a couple of hours in the town square crossed by people from different walks of life, when it occurred to me that everyone was preoccupied with the same thing.

Juan Jesús leaves his mother on the corner and pushes his two sisters, Angelita and Guadalupe, across the street to the Parroquia, the pink eighteenth-century church said to be built from a picture. The bells of the church facing the Jardin are quiet, but in three minutes they will start up again, marking eleven-fifteen. The girls, six and seven, are carrying brightly patterned dolls which they will sell. Their hair is long and braided with ribbons. “Ándale!” says Juan Jesús, giving them one final shove. Sell a lot!

His mother has settled on the curb with her youngest sleeping in her rebozo. The shawl is a deep blue and contrasts sharply with the green of her skirt. With her head bowed, she searches inside her plastic sack and pulls out rough wool cloth, a needle, and yellow thread. Later, when the girls run out, she will have new dolls ready. She leans against the wall of the museum into which many will pass that day, with any luck, and begins her sewing.

Juan Jesús stretches, rubs his eyes sleepily, and crosses toward the Jardin, the center of the town. The town is old, colonial, filled with red, brown, and ochre buildings, rich Mexicans, rich Americans, and the poor. The walk from the town’s outskirts took longer than usual. That stupid mangy old dog kept him up all night, but Juan Jesús holds his head back and his chin forward.

The stones of the Jardin are clean, freshly swept, and only a few people sit on the curly wrought-iron benches. Juan Jesús is thin, his hair unevenly spiked into a crew cut, and his face and hands are steak with dirt. But he is nine and his eyes are clear, hazel and white. He wears a T-shirt passed on by his brother, Cheo, who left for Mexico City. It says, “Baby, You Can Drive My Car,” but Juan Jesús knows only one word in English.

“Money,” he says. His hand is outstretched toward Susan, who perches, fingers twitching, on the edge of a bench facing the Parroquia. She has long legs, is blonde, elderly, and her face is folded in sun-drenched wrinkles from too many days abroad.

Susan breathes sharply and clutches her purse. She wasn’t sure about coming to Mexico—the horror stories of the beggars, the dirt, the germs. But Mexico was the only sunny place her husband Danny could afford. Now she knows he also figured it was cheaper than alimony. In her hand is a letter, crumpled, moist. It was written in a hurry. In Danny’s familiar scrawl it says, “I think it’s best you stay on for a while longer. Enjoy yourself.” A check fell out when she opened the envelope.

She was only supposed to be gone a month, to give her and Danny a chance to reassess their thirty-five-year marriage. She didn’t see it coming, not even after the late nights, the furtive glances, the mumbled excuses. She flaps her hand, turns her face, tightens her lip. Danny isn’t going to get away with it. She’s taking his money, booking a flight. Yes, she’s going to surprise the bastard at home. Juan Jesús shrugs yawns, moves on.

Cesar, Roberto, and Paolo straddle a bench. They wear their hair slicked back and leather jackets open to the waist. “Watch out,” says Roberto. “Lupe’ll make you marry her, you’ll see.” He sports a thin mustache and strokes it like a benevolent pet owner.

Paolo’s chin disappears into his collar. “Not my fault. She said she was using something.” HIs mother is going to kill him, and his father. Maybe he won’t tell them; he’ll run away. His mouth turns dry. What about money? And Lupe … will she find him?

Cesar drags on a cigarette, passes it to Paolo. His hands reach behind his head; he closes his eyes and smiles contentedly. He just got a job at the ironworks and will finally be able to pay rent to his aunt. God knows, she needs the money.

“Quinientos,” says Juan Jesús holding out his hand.

“Ay, niño,” says Cesar and hands him a coin. “Go.” He leans back, crosses his arm over his narrow chest. Thanks to God. It was only through the kindness of Paolo’s cousin that he got fixed up at the ironworks. He already knows how to fashion the legs of tables. Maybe soon they’ll show him how to hammer into shape chairs, gates, windows. “I’ll be good enough to become the foreman,” he thinks, “give the orders myself. Then no one can tell me what to do.”

“Mira.” Roberto’s voice is low. All three necks crane toward two women in their thirties who sit with their purple and pink backpacks beside them. The men hang loose, nudging and shoving each other, wishing their black leather looked sleek in the hot sun.

Teresa and Julie don’t notice the “heys,” the whistling, the sharp blowing between the teeth, the ay, mamis from the men slouching on the bench next to them. They are planning their trip to Oaxaca. Teresa wears an Afro, Julie a Jewfro.

“What do you think? Train or bus?” Julie hunches over the guidebook. The tortoiseshell arm of her glasses is loose and wavers expectantly.

“I don’t know,” answers Teresa. The last time she decided, they ended up on a second-class bus for five hours and Julie cried because there was no toilet. Julie never cried before this trip, the vacation that was supposed to celebrate their first anniversary. Now it’s nothing but tears. Teresa’s voice is sharp. “Do we have enough for a plane?”

Teresa glares at Julie. Julie glares at Teresa. Teresa has more money, but Julie has el problema. Juan Jesús approaches. "Money." Teresa looks up, startled. Then she smiles. "Si, si, naturalmente." She reaches for her backpack. Juan Jesús sees from the slant of her eyes she feels sorry for him. He has met her kind before, the kind who feels bad she has more money than him. She hands him one peso. He gazes at his open palm, waits. She laughs uncomfortably and forks over another one. Sixty American cents in all.

Juan Jesús nods and moves away.

"It's not my fault," Julie says, tears lacing her voice. "You never told me it was going to be so hard. If I have to get on another bus I'm going to . . . I swear . . ."

Her voice is drowned by the church bells that are chiming one-thirty. Teresa’s eyes fix on a young girl across the street who totters on high heels toward the Jardin, gripping an ice cream. As she passes the front of the church the girl shakes her head at the old woman selling milagros, religious miracles. Maybe I should buy a milagro myself, thinks Teresa. Something's got to get me out of this mess. Then she sighs and rubs her hands hard over her eyes.

After Chela has found a bench, having safely missed breaking her ankle and losing her ice cream on those idiotic cracks in the cobblestones, she turns her gaze upward. There are two wooden doors on the face of the Parroquia, a third of the way up to the towering, jagged-edged steeples. They are mysterious, odd. “Do they lead anywhere?” she wonders, taking another small bite of her ice cream. She has come from Los Angeles to the town where she was born. Her grandmother stayed here, died, and left the house empty. “No way am I coming back to live in this shithole.” She frowns. “They can do what they want.” She hardly remembers her childhood in her grandmother’s house. Her parents emigrated first and waited until she was seven before they sent for her. “It’s not my fault Papa lost his job.”

Juan Jesús is confused. Chela’s hair is permed, her eyes shielded by sunglasses, her legs clean-shaven. But she has full lips and the thin, short body of Mexican girls. He holds out his hand. “Quinientos,” he says.

Chela glowers. “Get the hell away from me.”

At the corner of the square, Rigoberta clucks her tongue, watching the young girl who is scowling so fiercely at the beggar boy. Rigoberta slips her calculator back into her pocket and flicks her hair out of her eyes. She’s in real estate, resting between clients. The little boy squinting up into the face of the girl twists her heart, just like when Pablito, her nephew-in-law, runs to her, arms thrown wide, ready for a kiss. At least Pablito’s fate isn’t this. But still, he doesn’t have a chance, the child of her sister-in-law who is only a child herself. Her husband’s sister refuses Rigoberta’s help, tells her not to interfere.

“I don’t care, I’m going to do something to help that boy. She’s ruining his life. I’ll talk to Sergio tonight. He has to help. Pablito’s his nephew.”

Juan Jesús feels her stare and approaches. “Quinientos.”

Rigoberta lays a hand on his shoulder. “Poor thing, why are you not at school?” Then she thinks, “Ay, what a stupid question.” His family needs the money, or they won’t eat. Juan Jesús looks away, chews on his lip. He blinks, takes her money, and sidles away.

Juan Jesús picks at the hole in his sleeve. Then he reaches down and picks up a stone. Those dumb kids in the blue and white uniforms who cross the Jardin twice a day, what do they know? Just because they get to fool around, swing a school bag at a friend, laugh, play, so what?

A dog, head to the ground, searches for food, her brown fur coated in dust. She slinks past the boy with a stone in hand, ready to hurl. Then the dog with no name jackknifes and skulks away, her body bent with long years of dodging stones. She saw only one stone and took a chance. She learned long ago that only one stone in the hand means she might be hit; two means she will be.

The taco stands have set up across the street and the smell of chicken and frying tortillas settles under Juan Jesús’s nose. There is a sharp pang in his stomach. Maybe if he cadges one more coin, runs fast enough, he can buy a refresco at the far corner without his mother catching him.

 He holds out his hand to a woman whose face is puckered and drawn. “Money.”

Bronwyn smoothes two gloved hands over her skirt. “What?” She cranes her neck at the church, checks the iron hands of the clock anxiously. Miguel is late. She doesn't catch the eye of the man on the next bench who has been staring at her ever since she sat down. She doesn't know that his name is Federico or how badly he wants to talk to her.

"Money," Juan Jesús says again, fingers outstretched.

She shakes her head, brows furrowed. "I'm sorry, I . . ." The church bells ring three times. She looks up again. Miguel promised he wouldn't be late. Not this time, not after she'd almost left him. They met in London, England; she moved here to be close. And here it was, a quarter after one already. Juan Jesús tries again. "Money," he repeats louder.

When she still looks puzzled, he shouts, "Dinero. Din-er-o."

"Oh," she says, hand exploring her soft leather handbag. She draws out a five-peso coin. "¡Aqui tiene!" She smiles brightly, opens her compact case, reapplies her ruby-red lipstick. This is his last chance, she thinks. Then it's hasta la vista, baby. Miguel promised he would get away—his wife was going to visit her sister today, and he would cry illness. Bronwyn doesn't understand. He knows how much she’s given up to be here. Miguel's eyes were full of tears when he said he loved her that day at the airport in London, that last, that final day they were supposed to be apart. So where was he?

Bronwyn twists the flower in her wide-brimmed hat and searches the street.

In his haste to the refresco stand, Juan Jesús stumbles into a small boy dressed in a sailor suit who is admiring the colorful plastic balls hanging from a vendor’s hand. Loreto is tugging the silk sleeve of a woman who towers above him. “Mami,” he says, “buy me one.” Lydia smiles indulgently and turns toward Carlos, her husband and Loreto’s father.

Juan Jesús feels a hand strong and fleshy on his shoulder. His head jerks back; his heart pounds. Carlos’s face is thick, full-bearded, and his eyes crinkle.

“Niño,” says Carlos, scrutinizing him. “Where are you running so fast?” He and his family live in Mexico City where Carlos moved after growing up in East Los Angeles and they are visiting the town where Carlos grew up. Carlos was one of the lucky ones. A fancy private school gave him a scholarship and he went into international relations. Now he’s rich, successful, and the look of fear and want in Juan Jesús’s face pains him. “Come sit with us. I want to talk to you.”

“Carlos,” says Lydia frowning.

“Mami,” cries Loreto, “I want one!”

Juan Jesús shifts his eyes, pulls away. “No puedo,” he mumbles. I can’t.

Carlos charts the beggar boy’s rapid progress across the square. His son Loreto is screaming and kicking his ankle. Carlos shakes his head; he closes his eyes. Lydia sees him and rests her finger on her chin for a moment. Then she reaches for his hand. “Okay, let’s do it.” She laughs uncomfortably. “It’s just with the new house… never enough …”

Carlos smiles at her gratefully, squeezes her, takes a breath. “A foundation won’t go to waste, it’ll help kids who deserve it, maybe like that little boy there …”

Lydia gives him a wan smile—they often do want the same things after all—and Carlos reaches for coins, buys the ball for Loreto. With Carlos’s solicitous arm around Lydia’s waist, his hand in Loreto’s, they move to a bench where they will rest a few minutes before returning to Carlos’s mother’s house with arms full of purchases they have yet to buy.

His fingers burning from the five-peso coin, the refresco stand seconds away, Juan Jesús feels a sudden chill on his back. He spins around and sees his mother studying him from across the street. He ducks, freezes, then heads back to the benches. 

Federico moves closer to Bronwyn, the woman who lifts her head so anxiously to check the clock. He licks his lips, coughs, is just about to make his move when he feels her long sigh. A man in a blue suit is running toward her, wiping his forehead with a large white handkerchief. Federico inches back as the man plops down out of breath, and his shoulders slump. He was hoping to talk to the pretty woman with the red lips. Federico wears wide-bottomed polyester pants, a tight white shirt, and his eyes were fixed on Bronwyn while she had been waiting, his hands playing with the peeling paint of the bench. There are so many things he wants; his fingers tap, tap, tap. He was hoping maybe she would let him talk to her. He wants to meet an American, practice his English, get a job, get married, buy a house, have children, get out of this hellhole. He could have been somebody, if only he hadn’t been such an idiot and dropped out of school. Now it’s too late. No going back. 

He hears the man’s smooth tones. “I’m sorry, honey. I got held up.”

Federico’s arms tingle as the woman’s icy voice assaults the air. “Again? I’m getting sick of this. Why did you tell me to come?”

Bronwyn is gripping the man’s fingers, her knuckles white and shiny. She releases her breath, long minutes tick by on the church clock, and her face sets. “You have to choose. Me or her.” His eyes shift to the church, the street, the taco stand on the corner. She stares at him. She can hear her breath, tight, wavering, feel her heart throbbing against the backrest of the bench. She releases his fingers—her hands are sweating, shaking, but she lets them go one by one. Then she stands, smoothes down her dress, walks away.

Federico sees the man jerk back. The man wasn’t expecting this. His eyebrows are raised high, his mouth open, face flushed. Then the man checks the clock, gasps loudly and bolts in the opposite direction.

Federico shakes his head. “What a waste,” he thinks, running his palms on the polyester pants.

Juan Jesús looks Federico over, says nothing, holds out his hand. Federico stares into his eyes, squints. Then he raises his hands, says quietly, “But chico, I need money, too.”

Juan Jesús blushes and his eyes glaze over.

Only sometimes does a man look at Juan Jesús like Federico does. Fingers tight and twisted in his pockets, Juan Jesús leans against the dusty red wall encircling the Jardin, a deep shadow passing over his face. His gaze avoids the church and the corner so he won’t see how his sisters are doing, or his mother. They don’t belong to him, not right now. Not even though he is the only man left in the family, until the baby grows up. Maybe he can run away, find Cheo in Mexico City … 

But his competition is coming, a thirteen-year-old boy in size twelve leather boots, a brightly striped bandanna around his head, a guitar in his hand. Juan Jesús frowns, rises.

Xavier has chosen his moment, when there is a row of American women lined up on a bench. He holds the guitar high and strums loudly. The instrument is out of tune but it doesn’t matter: he doesn’t know how to play. He sings his heart out off-key, out of rhythm, rolls his r’s, guttaralizes his j’s.

“Ow,” says Liza. The women are here for three weeks, studying at the art school which overcharge for very little, but what the hell, it’s a tourist town and the instruction’s in English. They have each paid two thousand dollars, all-inclusive. Deb laughs and pretends to block the noise from her ears with her hands.

After three stanzas, Xavier shelves the guitar under an arm, slips a hand into his pocket and the other out. His head is cocked and his voice sexy, low.

Joyce laughs, hands him a coin. Ann and Deb watch and follow suit. Joyce can afford it, but the other two don’t want to look cheap. It’s been the same at all the restaurants, and Deb and Ann are down to their last dollars. Ann’s voice is tinny, shrill as she applauds the boy’s courage. She, too, is tone deaf.

When Juan Jesús approaches, it is too late and the women avert their eyes.

Like that’s it, thinks Juan Jesús, scowling. Like three pesos is all they have in the world.

A swirl of wind picks up and whips tiny particles of dust into the air. Juan Jesús sneezes and rubs his eyes. The late afternoon rays of the sun pour onto the Parroquia, washing the pink stone orange, rose, red, lilac, violet. The bells are chiming loudly, competing with the arrival of the black crows that are winging their way to the flat-topped trees of the Jardin.

His sister Angelita runs to Juan Jesús’s side, Guadalupe stumbling behind. The dolls are gone and they are yelling in excitement. “Come on, Mami says we can stop, she wants us to come over!” They pull on him laughing and screaming and he falls over. He tries to grimace and push them off–he is too old; he’s the man in the family after all–but their hands are grabbing at his stomach, his ribs, under his arms, and he rolls up, screaming with laughter.

When they are done, Juan Jesús jumps to his feet, wipes his nose with his sleeve and follows his sisters across the street. They pass Bronwyn, who is standing in front of the church, searching the square with fast blinking eyes. She moves a hand to her face, her lips working silently.

Juan Jesús’s mother is stacking the last of the dolls into her plastic sack. The baby is suckling her breast. Her daughters help her to her feet. Against the crows’ boisterous farewell to the day and the sky a deep shape of indigo, Juan Jesús reaches into his pockets and grasps the bronze and silver coins he has collected. He twirls them between his short fingers, lowers his eyes, bows his head. Does he have enough? Will his mother be pleased? Tonight will they sleep with their bellies full?