He was much smaller than he used to be. His hair was thin and wispy, although to our genetic credit he still had hair on his crown at the age of ninety-one. His brows were thick and gray, spread out across his forehead like the tattered ends of an old broom. The old man’s blue eyes still looked alert. They say it’s a trick that people who forget pull to make themselves seem involved.
I walked my grandfather around the block. He was slow, on the verge of wheelchair-bound. I wondered if he was ever tall, like his male offspring, and their male offspring. We took small steps to the nearest corner. Beyond it, there was a large park where I played fronton as a child and drank agave juice. We could not cross the street. I was told, like I was a child again. I held his hand to guide him and we continued around the raised corner concrete.
He was focused. The intensity in his gaze made him seem determined, and angry. I could not tell if it drained his soul just to walk. His hand was brown leather from decades of work as a laborer and farmer. He was almost never outside anymore. The sun was burned into him. My grandfather suffered a stroke just last year. My name came to him instantly when he first saw me.
“Victor!”
My aunts cried. I don’t know many aunts I have. Over ten, perhaps. And nearly as many uncles. He worked hard, fucked hard, drank hard, beat hard. He was a little old man, an aged human being, and I walked him around the block.
The houses were colorful, spared from the planned neighborhood propaganda. Pink, maroon, green, blue, beige, brown, brick. Stucco, tile, oil, water, charcoal. Dirty in places, clean in others. Falling apart and brand new units reaching up to the sky. Some had a tree in front, if there was space. Most were packed in side to side like sardines with a courtyard in the middle of each one. Spanish influence in our houses and blood.
Some people recognized him.
“Don Juan! ¿Que tal?”
He mumbled greetings and continued. He looked at no one, stopped only when I tugged his hand. Along the way, at the third side of the trapezoid, we saw a stack of tortillas on a window sill.
“Me hablan,” he said, and looked at the stack. I heard nothing but cars driving along the asphalt.
“¿Y que dicen?”
“Nada.”
I didn’t hear his hoarse voice again. We drifted, step by step, back to the house. He was guided into a chair and asked if he enjoyed the walk. His eyes were cast down toward the yellow tiles.