ICARUS

The cathedral bells are pealing eleven. When I was writing my column, I would go to the Herald attired in a sports shirt, slacks and polished loafers. But those who knew me during my halcyon days as a sports reporter would encounter a more familiar figure as I have returned to the guayabera, jeans and tennis shoes of my youth. I'm not quite as shaggy as nature has sheared me of my thick, curly locks. I am no longer disturbed by my change in circumstances. The article which informed the public that I would no longer be writing my column in order to open the bureau in Matamoros fooled no one. I had been defrocked, debunked and demoted. I had enough of a competitive spirit to react pessimistically to my defeat, but the hurt passed quickly. Perhaps I should have ended this relationship many years ago. My mind is no longer littered with scraps of information that I kept collecting in order to write my commentaries. I have a memory of Iliana, César and Octavvio playing monopoly. I'm outside smoking a joint and looking through the window at the three of them smiling and laughing. How did I know that we would never survive together? I had become so hardened to Iliana that nothing could soften my feelings toward her. We are forever separated, two orbs spinning further and further apart and deeper and deeper into the black hole of forgetfulness. I maintain that eternity is the last image we hold before losing consciousness forever. I don't want Iliana, César and Octavio to be that last thought. I fear that Fabiola will be that final thought and I'll be filled with the insupportable anguish that she will be fucking someone shortly after my ashes are sprinkled in the Rio Grande although I have a more dramatic departure planned for myself barring a sudden exit. I don't advocate a quick death. Too much is left unresolved. I want the time a fatal illness concedes in order to tie up loose ends. Once I reach my accords, I plan to hire a pilot to fly me thousands of feet above the Gulf of Mexico and hundreds of miles from the coast. With family and friends accompanying me on the final journey, we will snack on salami, cheese and crackers, washing the munchies down with a red. Then we will share a joint as the food settles in our bellies. At the appropriate moment, I will disrobe and wrap myself in a large coat so I can withstand the cold. After hugs and kisses, I will pronounce my last words, open the hatch, wave adiós and launch myself into the unknown. Rather than rising from earth, my death will plunge me back toward my beloved orb. As the air warms, I will rid myself of the coat and twirl nakedly through the air. I will hit the water with a splat. Much like the famous painting of Icarus falling out of the sky but nobody noticing as the world goes about its daily business, I will disappear without a trace. I may coat myself in blood so that my body will attract the attention of a school of famished sharks who will consume me, my physical remains reduced to fish poop. No one appreciates the prompt passage of time until more than a half century has elapsed in the blink of an eye. How is it possible that my daughter has been dead for 15 years and I haven't visited her grave in five? It was a smothering August day when I carried her tiny casket and laid her in the ground, the first Tamaulipas from my parents' generation to their grandchildren's generation who had died. How is it possible that Iliana and I had three children together and those 20 years have vanished? How is it possible that Fabiola and I have been together seven years and together have brought a son into the world? When I'm in a melancholy mood, I drive west along Military Highway past the frame structure that once was Iliana's and my home, and pay homage with a nod of my head to the wild olive that we planted in memory of our dead daughter. Much like I've never had a great desire for anything materialistic, which must be the compensation for my carnal cravings, I didn't want to buy the house. I am not a handy-man. My father followed baseball, football, basketball and boxing. Sitting on his lap as a child and scanning the sports pages as he searched for the scores, I gained an abiding appreciation for athletics that succors me to this day, but I have never mastered wielding a screwdriver or stringing a fishing pole because my father never taught me. He had no interest in those skills. I prefer paying the rent and not caring if the roof leaks or termites infest the woodwork. Iliana, however, kept pressuring me for something permanent because she couldn't accept wasting rent money. I spotted a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house sitting on a knoll surrounded by trees near the Rio Grande for $50,000. We bought it. Iliana restored the modest structure to an enviable abode with wood-stained floors and a fresh coat of paint inside and out--a white house trimmed in green with an array of flowers and bushes adding color everywhere. We didn't have much difficulty selling the property for a profit, which we divided evenly. Iliana put her heart and soul into that deficient structure. The subsequent owners have uprooted most the plants and the paint peels away in long strips, but the lonely wild olive still stands. While my daughter has been reduced to a petite skeleton, the tree has grown to a sturdy height whose branches move to the traffic whisking past. Where are my boys? I left their mother and they left me. Each day I feel like the dying soldiers lying abandoned on the battlefield moaning with their last breaths, "Mother! Mother!" Where are my boys? Where are my boys? Iliana warned me before our parting, "You will regret this decision. You cannot live without your boys." And she was right. But she has been a good mother. I am thankful for her love for our sons. Everyone tells me that they are good boys. Much like I have become resigned to the reality that my own death will be sooner rather than later, I have become resigned to the reality that I have lost a part of them forever. I may have lost all of them forever. When I would come home from work in that other existence, they would hide. "Where are my boys?" I would shout as I walked with heavy step throughout the house. "Where are my boys?" And they would giggle and I would find them inside a closet or under a bed. "Where are my boys? Where are my boys?" I shout as I wander down endless halls. And nobody answers.