CARS

Rodrigo Haro

My dad had a white car. He also drove a deep blue and gray station wagon. My sister drove a black Ford, four-door sedan.

“Do you want to buy it?” she asked.

“We’ll see,” I answered her.

“I’m going to buy a truck,” she said.

A couple of months later (lo and behold), she bought a blue Trailblazer.

When we were little, my dad honked the horn. My sister and I ran outside and saw my dad in his new station wagon. It shined and shimmered. He parked it across the street on the curb. My dad stepped up to the house door and told my mom “Mirá el carró.” My mom stared. My sister and I were on the porch, too.  

Is it ours? I thought.

“Vé,” she told me.

I walked to my dad across the street. I said hi to him standing tall over the station wagon. My mom sat in the front seat. My mom knew this was temporary. My dad was elated (most of the time he was stoic, or even-keeled). We drove through the Southeast side of Chicago. The car smelled like fresh paint. My dad kept playing with the lock, making the button go up and down. I kept rotating the window crank to open and close my door. I took an orange kids’ motion sickness pill. I threw it out the window and it landed on my mom’s lap in the passenger’s seat.

“Mirá,” my mom told my dad, picking up the pill.

My dad stayed silent and still. My mom had made a wrong choice with her voice. I stayed silent. We stopped the car at Calumet Park in South Chicago.  We stayed around a tree.

“Estó le pusieron a nuestro Señor,” my dad said touching the thorns.

I understood. He was emulating His life. I stared at the tree. I touched the thorns briefly. I ran after my dad and mom.  On the beach, my dad skipped rocks. He picked his rocks and threw them effortlessly.

“Esta no esta mál,” he said as he picked a rock. My dad threw the rock, it skipped on the surface of the lake. He was standing more than twenty feet from shore.  I watched his force. I tried to emulate. I grabbed the nearest rock I saw. I threw and it barely went far.

I was eight. I stared at Lake Michigan. The rock sank. I grabbed a smooth brown rock. It reached the edge of the shore. I grabbed another sharp, silver one. It spun in the air and crashed on the waves. Years later, I learned how to skip rocks on a beach in Rogers Park. I called the light under, over and around the rock. The rock skipped three times. I kept praying. I saw one, two, three girls appear on the beach with me.

I miss my dad. I miss his laugh and smile. I miss the way he threw me up in the air and caught me when I came down. The exhilaration of being in the air, seeing the floor, then being caught was immeasurable. I miss his mustache. I miss the way his crisp, clean-white apron looked behind a white shirt. I miss the restaurant sign outdoors that swung back and forth with the wind. I miss the flashing lights around the border of the sign. I miss his food. I miss the way he looked up while standing in the kitchen.  I miss his lettuce, cut thinly. I miss the way he put a can of beer in my mouth at age five. I was sitting on his lap. It tasted warm, mild, and bitter.

He stayed quiet in the car. We were driving to get food. I told him things, judged him, and asked him why he treated my mom that way. I was eleven.

He took me to church soon after. He talked to the priest first, then me. I miss his grace. I miss the house, the restaurant, the building, and our home. My dad had a blue station wagon. He parked in front.

He knocked and told my mom, “Come look at the car,” in Spanish.

“Yo no voy a salír con él,” she said. We went out ten minutes later.

The station wagon looked new, shiny. It smelled of leather and paint. My dad kissed my mom. We drove through South Chicago like a family. My dad passed away from a heart attack. He was alone in his apartment. My mom, may the Lord forgive her, wished him ill.

I saw my dad behind the wheel at an intersection (or someone like him.) My mom and I were coming back from CVS. He stared into my eyes behind the wheel. He smiled. I was eleven. She said no. He gave me a guitar before he left. The last time I saw him was that day in the street.

The restaurant sign reading Las Brasas hung outside. The restaurant had a walk-in freezer in the basement. He had an immense amount of food, meat, and produce. He had cups, spoons, knives, knife sharpeners, and machetes. He slammed down his machete cutting meat and looked up after every hit. My dad wore a mustache. While shaving the razor would make a noise like leaves. Later in life, he delivered pizzas in his station wagon. I was in his car once, helping deliver. I ate free pizza when he said to grab some.

I was in his car, steering it around a bend. He said, “I’m not the one steering.” I was in his car after a visit to his apartment. He was shaving. He allowed me to stay with him for a day.

My mom used to sit with the neighbor on her front steps. My mom would lift my shirt, exposing my back and say, “Look at the line of hair going down his spine. His dad has the same line.”

I never understood. Her physical touch and exposure were unneeded.

My mom always told my dad to do something with the property.

“Leave it to Rodrigo,” she used to say.

My dad looked straight ahead.

“Or burn it down for insurance,” my mom would reiterate while walking the sidewalk.

My dad never did any of those things. The building was eventually torn down. My mom used to tell me, “I met him on the way home.” They met on that same sidewalk a decade or more later. I keep being like my dad. He will not be forgotten. May He Rest in Peace.

Rodrigo Haro was born in Chicago. He has a BA in English from Northern Illinois University. He has been published, or is forthcoming, in The Vehicle, Grassroots Literary Arts Journal, The Trillium, Cardinal Arts Journal, and SEEDS: The Literary Arts Journal at NEIU. He has independently published four novels and two short story collections. His latest novel is Illinois. He is a graduate student in the MA in English program (with a concentration in creative writing) at Eastern Illinois University. His fiction can be read at conejoview.blogspot.com.