The Tattooed Soldier Read Free Page B

strangely reassuring to hear their voices, to know that the people who camped here went about their lives like anybody else. He could easily have heard the same squalid dialogue in the building he had just been evicted from. Vicki and the men in the tent laughed together, a rich, human laughter. They sounded happy. But no. What a silly thing to say. How could they be happy ? That was a word for birthdays and weddings. The bride and groom looked happy when they left the church.
    Antonio had spent a lifetime turning away from all that was ugly and unpredictable, and yet here he was right in the middle of it. He was sleeping on dirt, exposed to everything, protected by nothing. He was already beginning to feel nostalgic for the yellowing walls and rusty locks of the apartment he had left just a few hours ago. When he rolled over, trying to sleep, his lips touched the soil, grains of earth sticking to his tongue until he spat them out. The taste was not unpleasant. It reminded him of eating dirt, something he must have done when he was less than two, a memory older than words.
    *   *   *
    Morning came and the sky was a canopy of whiteness, soft and pale, the diffuse light of dreams. What time was it? Five, six o’clock? Antonio had not slept one minute. His mouth was dry and his eyes ached and stung. José Juan was already up, exploring the lot; Antonio could hear him scratching about in the patches of dirt and weeds. Suddenly he was standing over Antonio, his thick eyebrows arched high in an expression of childlike wonder. José Juan had the almond-shaped eyes and curly black hair of an Arab, which was why Antonio sometimes called him moro.
    â€œAre you awake?” José Juan asked.
    â€œWhat do you think, moro ? Of course I am. Who could sleep here?”
    â€œGood. I want to show you something. I found something really neat. No me lo vas a creer. ”
    Antonio rose to his feet reluctantly, his back heavy and sore from the night spent on the ground. A car droned by on Beaudry Avenue, and a phlegmy cough sounded from one of the tents. Otherwise the lots were quiet; everyone, it appeared, was still asleep. José Juan walked across the lot where they had slept and stood in a flat patch of red dirt.
    â€œLook,” he said, spreading his arms wide to celebrate his discovery. “There’s a floor here. Tile. It used to be a kitchen. This was somebody’s house.”
    For a moment Antonio thought that José Juan was trying to make some sort of joke, but then he saw a narrow path of bricks leading to a set of concrete steps. A little farther on were the ruins of a driveway.
    â€œSee?” José Juan said. “A family, a rich family used to live here.” He walked around the empty property tracing squares and rectangles, the geometry of a home that had been demolished many years ago.
    â€œRight here, this was their garden. That was their garage.” José Juan jumped a few steps to his left. “Over here was the bedroom. And see this? These bricks? This had to be the fireplace. See? A fireplace to sit by when it’s cold, like it is now. A nice hot fire to keep warm. Can you see it? Can you?”
    Antonio looked at the land around him. There was the green hill, with perhaps a dozen tents and shacks perched on its muddy earth. Underneath these ephemeral structures were the ruins of a lost community, a forgotten neighborhood built with brick and cement. On the hill, and on the flat plain that extended from its base, he could see a grid of city streets, blocks of land cut in rectangles and bordered with sidewalks, asphalt avenues with iron manhole covers for the sewers. Dozens and dozens of concrete stairs led from the streets to what used to be front lawns. In all, Antonio counted more than forty demolished lots, a whole section of the city leveled to an expanse of wild grasses.
    Only the palm trees had survived the disaster that swept through this place: tall,