Journalism dressed up as literature is usually neither. I especially dislike the “mostly” true story that tells you not just what everyone did but what they were thinking. This kind of intimate peek into the rich mystery of another mind is usually facile or phony. Most writers hardly know what’s going on in their own minds.
Say Ray by Ron Jones is an exception. Maybe because Jones has worked so long with handicapped and emotionally disturbed people, he’s able to describe the mind and world of one of them with particular vividness. Maybe because Jones is such a compassionate writer, he’s able to give us Ray as he is — including the indignities, the pain, the confusion — without making him seem ugly and pathetic. What emerges is a portrait of someone fully human, courageous, heroic even.
Since 1978, Jones has been physical education director at San Francisco’s Recreation Center for the Handicapped, where he works with more than 1,000 physically and mentally disturbed children and adults, and where he met the real Ray.
Say Ray is based on Ray’s almost unbelievable but true story.
A twenty-three-year-old retarded “incompetent,” Ray lived on welfare in a board-and-care home in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. His father was dead and his stepmother refused any responsibility for his care.
Unable to “write his address, read a road sign, or give change for a dollar bill,” he wandered the streets of San Francisco by day. The home he returned to at night was run by a “Mrs. Burr,” who paid more attention to her dogs than to the boarders in her care.
When Ray inherited $25,000 from his father’s estate, he was spirited away by Mrs. Burr’s stepson, John Henry Butler. He took Ray to Mexico, where they lived together in a trailer park. Butler spent Ray’s money and then abandoned him. Much of the book is about Ray’s ordeal in trying to survive, and making his way back to San Francisco almost entirely on his own.
We’re thankful to the author for permission to reprint these excerpts from Say Ray. We’ve published Ron Jones’ writing before: “There Is No School on the Sixth Floor” [Issue 45] emerged from his experience at a psychiatric ward in which emotionally disturbed teenagers and juvenile delinquents joined in a unique therapeutic adventure; “We Killed Them” [Issue 59] was the moving story of the handicapped basketball team he coaches. “We never lose, but then we always cheat,” he says.
He has published most of his books from his home in San Francisco. Bantam originally published Say Ray, but pulled it off the shelves after only three weeks. If you’d like the complete book, send $3 to Ron Jones at 1201 Stanyan Street, San Francisco, California 94117.
— Ed.
Ray Martinez loved the swings in Children’s Playground. In fact, one particular swing. It was a strange sight, Ray Martinez being the age he was — a grown man, twenty-three years old. Slouched in the web seat of his favorite swing. Gently moving back and forth. His tennis shoes tapping the ground like toe shoes of a ballet dancer. Back and forth. For hours he would sit in the swing, prancing forward and back.
Each swaying movement was accompanied by the soft groan of chain against metal rings and an even softer humming from Ray. He was always humming the same song. It sounded like Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.” Or maybe “Happy Birthday.” It was hard to tell. His mouth held a perpetual smile. And his eyes were hooded by an always-present baseball cap. A black and orange cap with the San Francisco giants in script.
Ray Martinez is a man you have probably met, particularly if you live in San Francisco. Maybe you’ve passed him on the street — that man who seemed a little unkempt. Who didn’t look like he belonged to anything. Or was going any place in particular. Who walked with his arms wrapped around his body, as if he were holding himself together. Kept getting in people’s way. His shirt soiled. Probably drunk. When he smiled at you, you looked away. Was he dangerous? you wondered. Surely unpredictable and useless. Sick, maybe. And stupid.
If you met him on a bus, he was sitting in the front. Always in the front, close to the driver. Holding a transfer as if it were a flag. Smiling. Talking gibberish to everyone who lurched down the aisle. Why doesn’t he get his teeth fixed? He could be handsome. In a way, he looks like some movie star. Like Marlon Brando, maybe, in that film with Karl Malden as the sheriff. Yes, that’s it; he looks like Marlon Brando — kind of a Mexican Marlon Brando. It’s those talking eyes and long sideburns. Funny, he’s the only one on the bus who tries to be friendly.
You can also find Ray walking down Market Street on San Francisco’s theater row, facing the life-size billboard of Sean Connery or ogling the naked promises of a skin flick. Or you can find him on the park bench across from the Washington Street Bar and Grill, sitting with his head propped in both hands, murmuring some ancient prayer. And he is the man on the swing in Golden Gate Park’s Children’s Playground.
Of all “Ray’s places” in San Francisco, the swing in the park is his favorite. “His” swing is the one closest to the merry-go-round, and it faces the cement fountain. From “his” swing, Ray can listen to the wheezing calliope of the merry-go-round and watch the children play in the sand.
Ray enjoys children. Mostly because they talk to him when their parents aren’t looking. And they like it when Ray brings a handful of water from the drinking faucet so they can make sand cookies and doughnuts. If the parents that circle the sandbox would let him, Ray would gladly bring the children all the handfuls of water they wanted. But of course parents don’t like this bedraggled man who leaves his pants open while playing with their children. They worry out loud that he’s a pervert or a child molester. After all, no other adults try to talk with their children. He must be crazy — bringing them water in his hands. They warn Ray to stay away, or they’ll tell the police.
So Ray sits in his swing and enjoys the gentle movement and the sight of his friends playing in the sand. No one yells at him when he sits on the swing. And he keeps his secret. It started months ago. In the morning, he places paper cups filled with water on the ledge of the sandbox. The children are the only ones who know it’s a gift from the man on the swing. And the only ones who notice that the man on the swing is smiling.
Swinging in the same place, the same way, for hours at a time allowed Ray to vanish. I mean you simply forgot he was there. He became part of the scenery. Like the cement benches, the pond, the slide — Ray was uneventful. And eventually unnoticed. In a way, it was a form of human camouflage. This blending in. Never speaking out. Always following the same routine. Sitting in the swing. Like a human timepiece. Moving forward and back. Almost invisible.
For Ray, and for most of us, life is as regular and predictable as swinging in the park. Oh, there might be rough spots and struggles. And sometimes we seem to evolve and change. But for the most part we live in an orderly place without Cinderella miracles, divine interventions, or magnificent adventures. We simply disappear.
When a person has the courage to struggle out of this normal order and begins to make a radical change in his life — when he refuses to vanish — he deserves attention. And sometimes admiration. The story you are about to read is a true story about a number of amazing changes in the life of the man on the swing.
Ideas — the pictures of how the world works — come to Ray not as a consequence of some questioning, dream, or orderly assembly but as happy mistakes. Unwanted surprises. Missed connections and unexplained pain. One moment people smile at you and want to spend time with you. The next they scowl and close their door. People like your music. Then they hate it. It feels good to take your shoes off. Everyone else seems to like wearing shoes. Orange Muni buses run by your house. Some stop at the corner. Others roar past. There are tiny Christmas lights framing your window, not in other windows. Not in any other window in Mrs. Burr’s house. Or any house on the block. They have been there forever, and they don’t work.
Unable to explain this world of surprise, Ray finds solace in things that repeat. The radio is Ray’s best friend. “KSFO in San Francisco.” The same voice every day. The same news. And baseball’s “Bye-bye, baby!” That’s what Lon Simons — he’s the sportscaster — says every time the Giants get a home run, and that’s great. Always exciting. Everybody likes baseball. And The Brady Bunch. They’re on TV. Mr. Brady and Mrs. Brady, and they each have four — or is it three? — children. And they love each other. If Ray could be somebody, he’d probably choose Mrs. Brady, because she’s pretty. And she repeats herself. Like Lon Simons of the Giants. Ray can predict what he’s going to say and do. He even memorizes some of the things he says. Of course this makes Ray feel good. And of course it confuses the people around him. They talk about the weather or Nixon’s troubles while Ray answers with a quotation from The Brady Bunch or a Giant statistic.
Because “change” has no meaning for Ray, the radio and TV substitute for the comfort of familiarity. They are always “on.” There when you want them. The changing route number on a bus or the changing days of the month or changing how one might travel to work are without meaning for Ray. They have no place in his experience. Ray’s world has no history or extension. And his daily routines are the only things that connect these things and make sense out of them. For Ray, time is the moment he is in. Place is a room and the daily routine tied to that room.
Ray once tried to master part of this confusion by scratching a mark on his arm with a ball-point pen every time he shaved. These were “his days.” Soon his arm was filled with marks. He was proud of the calendar. Finally, he couldn’t hold in the pleasure of the secret any longer. Had to show it to someone. See their delight in his work. Maybe get a prize like on television.
Ray Martinez is a man you have probably met, particularly if you live in San Francisco. Maybe you’ve passed him on the street — that man who seemed a little unkempt. Who didn’t look like he belonged to anything. Or was going any place in particular. Who walked with his arms wrapped around his body, if he were holding himself together. . . . Was he dangerous? you wondered. Surely unpredictable and useless. Sick, maybe. And stupid.
When he rolled up his sleeve, Mrs. Burr screamed. Thought he was on drugs. Scrubbed the arm till it was raw and bleeding. Satisfied that the railroad of lines were pen tracks, she removed the villain pen from his top drawer. “Never use something like this again,” she commanded. “You want to kill yourself? Sticking yourself like that, stupid, just plain stupid! What am I to do with you? Just how am I always supposed to be watching you? You’re going to kill yourself one of these days or drive me to an early grave — scaring me like that!”
The top drawer of Ray’s dresser contained Ray’s most personal treasures. So Mrs. Burr shouldn’t have taken the pen. It was his. Besides, the pen didn’t do anything bad. After she’d gone back downstairs to her television, Ray opened and angrily closed the drawer. Listening for the roll of the pen and the thump of his radio. The rolling noise was gone. He slammed the drawer shut and then ripped it out. Banged the drawer shut. Pulled it open. Slammed it. Mrs. Burr yelled, “Stop that noise, Ray Martinez, stop it this instant!” Ray opened the drawer and violently closed it with a crash. Mrs. Burr was still yelling. “I’m going to count to three, only once. I’m starting to count. . . .”
Ray looked inside the drawer, trying to calm himself. He couldn’t make any more noise. Or John Henry would be up, and Mrs. Burr’s voice had that crazy, wild sound. That’s better. Ray was feeling better, looking into the drawer. He could get another pen. That’s what he would do. And put it right there, up front so he could see it, and it would roll when he opened and closed the drawer. And everything would be back where it’s supposed to be. The pen and his pocket watch with the broken stem. And his radio.
Ray arranged the top drawer every night. The radio next to the watch. And against the side of the drawer the “important papers” bound together by a rubber band. And way back of the drawer a black jewel box. A miniature ballet dancer turned in a crippled pirouette as Ray lifted the lid to the jewel box and inspected its wealth. There were extra D batteries next to a Muni transfer, a note pad full of lines and circles, and the prize pearl necklace he’d found one day at the Ferry Building. But the real treasure was way back in the drawer under the box. No one knew he had this — not even Mrs. Burr.
Ray carefully removed the tattered magazine cover. Unfolded it. Pressed it out on the top of the bureau. Moved his fingers over the image of Elvis Presley getting the FBI badge from President Nixon. Ray studied Elvis, then looked at himself in the mirror. They were look-alikes.
Ray’s top drawer was much like his life. His routine. Ray had his daily places and friends to see. This was what he called his work. “You know, I’ve got this job to see my friends, ’cause if I don’t, you see, they won’t be there.” So his work was the same each day regardless of the weather or his physical condition or if he were a millionaire.
Early each morning Ray left Mrs. Burr’s on Steiner Street and walked two blocks to Haight Street. Each morning went like this: on Haight Street, he stopped to say good morning to Letty. Letty owned and operated Woolrite’s Stationery and Fabric Store. She was always doing the morning sweeping of the street and talking about how the neighborhood was going to recover after the drug scene. “All those boarded-up stores, you’ll see, are going to come to life,” she’d say. Ray always agreed. On occasions, Letty would let him sweep while she stood there glaring up and down the street with her hands on her hips — like the mayor of a bombed-out city.
Farther down the street, Ray lingered at the window of the Donut Shop. A tall skinny man with a ponytail peered with equal intensity from his perch on a stool inside. The glass played its usual early-morning trick. Both men strained to see the other but saw their own reflection. Ray laughed at the sight of Elvis Presley with a ponytail. And the man inside studied the reflection of an ex-Digger and trumpet player for the Mime Troupe suddenly wearing the pompadour wave of dear Elvis. Both men shook their heads as they did every morning. Harold came out of the store and with a ready grin handed Ray a doughnut. It was Ray’s favorite kind. Old-fashioned chocolate. He bowed in appreciation. A practiced ritual. And Harold gave his customary “Take care, Elvis.” Ray waved good-bye, and Harold saluted with a fist in the air. Ray imitated the fisted salute. Harold smiled. Ray liked to see smiles.
The end of Haight Street spilled down Hippie Hill into Golden Gate Park. Ray quickened his pace, anticipating the comfortable openness of the Children’s Playground. The morning sun glanced off the red stone castle that had been built as a place for mothers to nurse their children. With the morning sunlight, crenelated carvings came to life. Parapets and carved creatures opened their stone eyes. The pounding drums and tambourine chatter gave way to calliope whistles and grunts as the merry-go-round called to the children. Crystals of light spun in the air as ornamental stallions, lions, and zebras began their never-ending pursuit. Each time he passed, the lion lifted his paw and winked.
A sweeping curve of sun-warmed benches faced the carousel and the stone fortress. This is where Raymond sat in the morning with his friends, the Rogers. They would be in their usual place at the end of their usual bench, wearing their glow knit caps, enjoying the comfort of this hollow, with the merry-go-round slowly turning and the children always stopping to say hello, only to be dragged away by nervous parents. This was their place, had been for as long as anyone could remember. This was the place of swings, painted horses, and Ray’s friend Jake.
Jake was a police horse. Everyone knew Jake. The hippies, the children, the merchants, everyone. Jake was a giant with warm mirror eyes crowned by great curved lashes. The sound of his leather harness squeaked with the movement of each metaled hoof. Ray talked to and petted Jake like this every morning. “Hello, horse, it’s me, Raymond Martinez. You want to give me a ride, like Elvis Presley, horse?” The officer sitting astride Jake shook his head sideways. It didn’t matter. Ray wasn’t talking to the policeman; he was talking to Jake. “Hello, horse,” Ray whispered. “Willie Mays hit six hundred and forty-six home runs against Cincinnati in one game, Larry over there he listens to games like me.” Ray chuckled. He was about to tell Jake the joke he played on the horse every day. “Do you like ice cream?” Ray laughed at his own joke. Then he pulled from his pocket a half-eaten doughnut. Jake was waiting for the doughnut.
Ray opened his hand flat, showing the chocolate treat. Jake’s tongue was wet and effective. One slap of the tongue around the metal bit and the doughnut was gone. Jake tossed his head back in appreciation. He liked chocolate doughnuts. Ray took this as a nod good-bye. Ray looked up at the policeman. He admired that bright badge. Elvis Presley has a badge like that. And a horse. Someday he’d ride a horse and get a badge. Maybe. He knew a lot about horses. What they eat and what they like. He’d take good care of his horse.
A harmonic waltz carried the winking lion on its course and graced the movement of children at play and the clopping sound of Jake prancing over to the bocci-ball courts. It was a good place, this sunny corner of the park. If you closed your eyes, you could hear children laughing and shouting. Ray liked that sound. It was like the clanking of a cable-car bell.
There were other places Ray visited each day. The Ferry Building. The bathroom at Glide Memorial Church. The fountain at city hall. Each place had its daily opera of greetings and farewells between friends.
[Ray is asked by his friend Letty, head of the merchants’ association, to dress up as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and lead a parade of children down Haight Street for a neighborhood Christmas party.]
Letty was pushing Ray toward the door, complaining, “Don’t forget to pass out these candy canes along the way, here, take this basket, Ed will give you some more at the entrance to the park — are you all right in there, can you see?” Ray walked straight into a display rack of Paper Mate pens. And when he turned around and tried to bend over, his antler karate-chopped the side of the cash register. The money drawer sprang open, sending a shiver through Letty. “All right, all right, everything is all right, let’s just get you on your way, no, no, don’t pick up anything, everything is all right.”
Everything was not all right. Letty gave Ray a final push out the doorway. Ray was standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk. He tilted the monstrous head in an attempt to see. Ray swiveled his head up the street and down. There were no children to be seen. Not a parent. Much less a parade.
Letty yelled from inside the store. “Go on, the children will follow you. . . .” Ray nodded and started off down the street. Perhaps the children were waiting for him. Maybe at the Donut Shop. Each step set the top-heavy headpiece and antlers gyrating. The rolling combined with the intense concentration needed to see made Ray seasick. He couldn’t get sick. Not now. This was an important job. Letty has asked him to be the reindeer. Lead the parade. For all the merchants and children. Perspiration welled into Ray’s eyes. It made them sting. Ray swept his mitten upward to wipe his eyes. The swinging hand clumped into the side of the papier-mache head. Once again, Ray couldn’t see.
“Hey, you, are you the holy reindeer?” Ray turned toward the question, tilted the head slightly, and blinked his eyes. “Far out, I mean, right here, like this is the moment of my life and the answer is yes, I will follow you, wherever. . . .” Ray scanned the face of a red-cheeked girl. She must have been about fourteen. She sprinkled a handful of sparkling dust into the air and curtsied. Ray lost her. She’d dropped below the rim of his vision. When he looked downward, he saw her bare feet, then, above that, a long white lacy dress, and then an innocent face graced by a halo of mistletoe. Her face was aglow with streaks of color. Stars and moons painted around her eyes caused her features to blend with the psychedelic posters that pulsated behind her.
Ideas — the pictures of how the world works — come to Ray not as a consequence of some questioning, dream, or orderly assembly but as happy mistakes. Unwanted surprises. Missed connections and unexplained pain.
Ray waved a greeting with a mitten. “Hello,” he said cheerfully. The sound reverberated inside the hollow mask. The girl in the lace dress returned the greeting by dancing gaily around the pink reindeer. Ray couldn’t follow her Isadora movements. He saw a hand, then a swirl of a skirt and snowlike crystals falling all about him.
This color and flashing movement followed him down the street. Farther up the block, two winos lunged at him from their doorway homes. They crashed clumsily into Ray and his bride. Candy canes went every way. Ray clutched the now half-empty basket in both mittens, like a fullback covering a football, and started running. The bouncing headpiece jolted against his shoulder. The street ahead of him flickered like the chase scene in a silent movie. Ray closed his eyes and ran. He stumbled over a curb and knocked over a newspaper rack. Glanced off a telephone pole. Still he ran, clutching the basket. He was afraid to stop or take off the headpiece. Afraid to stop. Make Letty angry.
At the corner of Haight and Stanyan, Ray felt himself being handled to a stop. Hands pushed at him, grabbed at his tail, patted his mittens. Ray squinted out the tiny opening. He was surrounded by children. They were jumping up and down with excitement, yelling greetings to Rudolph, asking for candy. The embrace of children cushioned and slowed Ray. The place where the parade was to end became the place where the parade began.
Through his eye slots, Ray saw smiling parents, bashful babies, and frenzied children. It was strange. Ray seemed to see clearly. It was as if the beauty of what he saw determined the clarity of his vision. Ray was happy. Children squeezed his hand. Wanted to walk with him. He saw their look of wonderment. Heard their peals of delight. Children spun in the air like tops. Younger eyes played tag with the reindeer’s gaze. They looked first away and then quickly returned to confirm that this apparition was real. Ray tilted his head in greeting. Small faces smiled and looked away to continue the game. The parents were smiling, too, and talking to the reindeer with the red nose. “Hello, Rudolph, is that you, Ed, how’s it feel in there, great job — cute little tail you have there. . . .”
The rush of families waded across Stanyan Street, pushing and pulling at the reindeer with the wobbling horns and bushy tail. The group entered the park, singing. At first, Ray couldn’t decipher what everyone was voicing, but in time it became clear. He joined in. Lifting his feet extra high. Bobbing his body to the cadence.
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer Had a very shiny nose, And if you ever saw it, You would even say it glows. All of the other reindeer. . . .
The singing parade swirled past the congo drummers and the sad voyagers using the park as their temporary home. Draping their sleeping bags and blankets around them, they stood and officially greeted the parade like royalty reviewing a passing army. They were glad to share the park with brothers and sisters of Santana and Joplin. Children of the Grateful Dead. In automatic fashion, they followed the procession.
At the meadow next to the playground, merchants dressed in Santa Claus caps and white beards directed the throng to the puppet stage. Small children were guided to places close to the stage. Older children and adults closed in behind them. The crowd was still serenading itself. Only a group of laughing parents had broken out in a boisterous version of “Jingle Bells.”
In all of this, Ray was turned first one way, then another. He had become completely exhausted by the insistence of the parents, with their Polaroids, asking for just one more pose. He could no longer hold his arms up and steady the wobbly head. The sour taste of morning Cheerios rose in his throat, flooding the back of his mouth. He swallowed vomit down. Then fought its next upsurge. He spun about blindly. Following the pull of children’s hands and the prodding of adult voices for just one more picture before the puppet show started. He was desperately thirsty but dared not remove the mask. His legs were shaking. Still he continued, determined not to disappoint the children or Letty, who had told him to lead the parade. It did not occur to Ray that the parade was over or that he could sit down or duck into the puppet tent. He was obeying a request that had no end.
So as the puppet show and cabaret entertainment ended, Ray spontaneously moved to please an unseen child or invisible adult. He waved and bowed. Shook hands. Danced. Fought to keep balance while older children chased around him and pulled his tail. Stood as still as possible as urine ran down his inner pants leg and soaked into his clothing. Curled his toes to keep the flopping slippers attached to his feet. And tried to clean his sticky mittens by rubbing them against a tree. Ray did everything in his power to follow a simple request.
Several hours had passed before Raymond realized that the crowd was finally drifting home. San Francisco’s winter fog was clearing the park of revelers. It billowed up from the ocean like a vaporous wave, covering first the sky, then the earth itself. The Christmas party had been over for quite a while. The stage, with its rainbow banners and wreaths of evergreen, disappeared. The balloon salesman in the elf suit had followed his balloons toward the Panhandle and a cup of warm soup given by the Diggers. The children, with their ringing voices and clicking white shoes, were nowhere in sight. Wisps of fog shrouded Ray in comforting coolness. He tilted the headpiece and let the dampness rush into the steamy mask. He stuck out his tongue in a doglike pant. Glad for the relief. He bent over, trying to gain strength and decide what to do next. No one had told him exactly what to do. He was to lead the parade and be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but for how long? And what to do after all the people were gone and it was dark?
Ray couldn’t decide. The one thing he was sure about was keeping on the costume and waiting for Letty. Surely she would come and tell him when his job was over. To pass the time, he went over to his favorite bench next to the merry-go-round. And then to the swings. It was early evening, and the only people in the park were curling into sleeping bags or scurrying for the lighted avenues. The gray blanket of fog was now giving way to the darkness. As if to stay on center stage for a few more moments, the fog swirled insistently around the ornamental lamps, gathering and reflecting particles of light, holding off the end of day.
Ray swung back and forth. He sang “Love Me Tender” to himself as he crisscrossed the wet air. Closing his eyes, he felt antlers sagging back and forth with each thrust of the swing. Then he stopped singing. And listened for the steady clank of the swing. Clank, clank, clank.
The fog surrounded the solitary figure with a delicate embroidery. Trees of green evaporated into gray and then melted out of sight. The carousel’s bright colors and dancing zebras faded. A pink reindeer on his swing was hidden by the white gloves of this wet magician. But it was darkness that performed the final fusing of light, the ultimate illusion. Then all that remained was a repeated sound. Clank, clank, clank.
The noise of the swing drew more than the night. Ray still couldn’t see out of the mask, but he knew someone was approaching. Perhaps it was Letty. He slowed the swing by dragging his feet. Before it stopped, someone from behind grabbed Raymond by the neck and yanked him to the ground. The tanbark cushioned Ray’s fall but not the rain of fists that plowed into his stomach and groin. Ray tried to curl up, but someone kicked the head of the costume as if it were a football. The force of the blows sent the head flying off Ray’s shoulders. Which meant that Ray could see. There were four or five of them. Men with letter jackets. Fraternity brothers on a romp through Hippie Land. They were laughing. Throwing beer cans at the crumpled reindeer.
“Look at this, this ain’t no hippie, it’s a reindeer!” “Let’s cut off his ears!” Raymond smelled armpits and the sour breath of beer.
One of the drunks took a pair of scissors from a back pocket and snapped them over Ray’s face. “There’s no hair, man, look, he’s a greaser — hey, greaser, what you doin’ in Hippie Land wearin’ that — he must be a hippie — hell, cut off somethin’ — that’s what we’re here for!” At that, the gang yelled something, and each one flashed a pair of scissors into the cold air.
Enjoying their torment, they cut off the cottonball buttons that held up the reindeer suit. They laughed and shouted with each severed button. Then they wrenched the top of the suit over Ray’s shoulders and started to pull the costume off his hips. When they saw that Raymond was wearing a set of clothes under the costume, they snapped their scissors with gleeful anticipation. Then they realized something else. And all together they reeled back from their prey. Ray’s pants were soaked in urine and reeked from a bowel movement. The clean-cut middle-class attackers stiffened in pain. “Oh, hey, I can’t handle this, this guy stinks — what’s with this guy — you a basket case or something?” Unwilling to dirty their hands, the notorious S Gang was content to stomp their victim. They kicked a writhing and sobbing Raymond until the thumps produced a hollow moan. Content that they had saved the world for clean living and the American Way, they raced off to find other long-haired aliens and reindeer.
Ray’s body squeezed open and closed like an accordion. Each movement brought a spasm of pain. A dull cry. Each breath fought its way to his lungs and then retreated in a bloody cough. Worried about the buttons, Ray spread out his arms and spread the puffs of cotton toward the gaping front of his costume. He slowly placed each cotton button into his pants pocket. Each change of position started a new ache.
Ray carefully removed the tattered magazine cover. Unfolded it. Pressed it out on the top of the bureau. Moved his fingers over the image of Elvis Presley getting an FBI badge from President Nixon. Ray studied Elvis, then looked at himself in the mirror. They were look-alikes.
Pinning the costume with a clenched fist, Raymond reached for the papier-mache head. He traced the nose and puffy cheeks with his fingertips. Then followed the contour of each felt antler. And the bulge of the huge eyes. Everything seemed intact. He was happy. Nothing serious had happened to the costume. He lifted the awkward headpiece and stuck his head into the opening. The papier-mache ball settled onto his shoulders. Now the tiny eyeholes were partly closed with dirt. It didn’t matter. With one arm, Raymond pulled himself back onto the canvas seat of the swing. And gave a gentle push with his feet. He swung suspended in the night air. Waiting for another simple request. Waiting to be helpful. To do what is right. To be liked.
Clank.
Clank.
Clank.
Mrs. Burr didn’t move as Ray walked down the hallway tunnel to the stairs. She didn’t raise a hand. Or scold. Or inquire. It was Butler’s job to take care of the clients, and he was out someplace. As Ray passed, she followed him with one squidlike eye, then returned her attention to the start of the late-night movie.
Hurt and worried, Ray entered his room. His bruises were swelling, and his head throbbed. But the cut-off buttons drew his greatest concern. He didn’t know what to do with the costume. And the buttons were cut off. He tried holding them in place on the front of the suit, but they didn’t adhere as he hoped they might. The buttons — that was the big problem. Letty had given him the suit, and the buttons were off. What would she say and do? Raymond had been bad! Hurt the costume. Raymond was bad!
Ray knew what he had to do when he was bad. He’d done what he had to do over and over. God told him what to do. It was God’s will. A priest dressed in a black robe had taken Ray’s hand and told him about the fourteen stations of the cross. And the suffering of Jesus for our sins. Jesus carrying the cross. The veil. And the soldier that would not break the legs of Jesus. Nailing Jesus. Driving spikes through the palm of his hand. It was Ray’s fault they nailed Jesus to the cross. And being bad, you had to suffer. There were candles to light. And Raymond put his hand into the fire. For Jesus. To be good. To do what was right. Suffer for Jesus. Take his place on the cross. Feel his pain. The nails driven into outstretched hands.
Ray had been bad, causing Jesus to die. He had killed Jesus. And he had been bad losing the buttons. They wouldn’t go back on. Ray felt terrible. He didn’t want to be bad. But he was bad. The priest said so. Then Ray had put his hand in the fire to show his love for Jesus, and the priest said he had given penance for all our sins. Shown his love for Jesus. Shared the pain of Jesus on the cross.
Ray’s chant of sin and penitence repeated itself over and over, as it had done since he was a young child attending his first lenten service. Ray reached under his bed and found the can of Sterno and the box of matches hidden there.
Ray placed the Sterno can on his bureau. Then slowly tore each match from its protective cover and arranged them into a pyre in the center of the Sterno. Suddenly, Ray realized he was wearing mittens. He stripped them off but didn’t know where to put them. He tried stuffing them into his pants pocket. They didn’t fit. Opening the top drawer, Ray surveyed his things — that was not the spot for his mittens. Pacing the room, Ray found just the right place. He carefully folded the mittens and shoved the pink mound under his bed in the space reserved for his matches.
Returning to the Sterno can, Ray struck a match and ignited the fuel. A bright orange flame licked at the oxygen and turned a hot blue. Ray put his hand high above the flame, feeling the escaping heat. He rocked back and forth on his heels. His face contorted. Eyes closing, Ray plunged his open palm into the blade of the flame. The seared skin released a pungent smell. Ray yelled in pain and yanked his hand free. He crumpled to the floor below the flame, clutching his blistered hand and crying, “I’m bad. Bad. I should kill myself. . . .”
[After he finds out about Ray’s inheritance, John Henry Butler kidnaps him and takes him to Mexico, where they live together for several months. One day, Butler drives into a gas station and tells Ray to get out and ask for a map. When Ray — dressed in his San Francisco Giants baseball cap, a bathing suit, and tennis shoes — comes back, Butler is gone.]
Ray stood on the curb at the gas station. Watching. Waiting. Surely Butler would come back. Ray felt the hot sun against his back in the morning. And squinted into its afternoon brilliance. Only a few cars took this road. A bus passed going one way in the middle of the day and returned past him late at night. He was warm during the day and freezing at night. Still, he waited.
The gas station owner was a man without teeth, without hair, and without shoes. The only thing that clung to him was the grease that made his hands look like huge black spiders. This man with black hands left for home at midday and returned to work in the early evening. Opened the station and closed it. Turned on the lights. Turned them off. He and Ray often looked at each other but said nothing.
Ray scratched the hard, crusty ground with a stick. The scratching gave the stick a sharp point. Lizards crawled across his lines and scampered away to wherever lizards went. Ray wondered where that was. Several large buzzards began to slowly circle above the place where Ray stood. Watching the bird’s lazy flight made Ray dizzy. Sweat caked the corners of his mouth. It gave his tongue the flat taste of dust. Insects searching for moisture and a place to lay their eggs stung his underarms and crotch.
By shuffling his feet, Ray could erase the clay lines. Then he cut more lines with his stick. The point of the stick was alive and warm to the touch. And the marking in the dirt reminded Ray of his pen and the marks he’d made on his arm. He tried to make as many slashes as he could. That way he might summon an angry Mrs. Burr or John Henry. Angry was better than nothing. His skin itched, and he was hungry; but he was afraid to leave. Afraid that he’d miss Butler. He looked at the map. Folded it and stuffed it into his bathing suit pocket. Took it out again. Wondered if he had gotten the wrong map.
Discomfort caused by overfull bowels and bladder had to be fought. Ray rocked on one leg, then another. Sat down on the curb. Stood up. Walked a few paces to a signboard. Then back. Watching the road. Waiting. Waiting for the sight of the pickup.
The welcome cool of early evening deepened into a chill. His body shook, and his breath turned into an icy cloud. One car passed. And the blue and white bus.
With the morning light, Ray watched and waited for the sun. It touched the mountains. Then crept downward, lighting the tops of telephone poles. Finally, the warmth of the sun fell earthward. It angled through the cactus and roadside sign, then splintered and cascaded across the roadway. The air became warm, full of light and flying things. Ray felt surrounded by their soft humming. A humming of insects on the move. Plants turning to the sun. Seeds in flight. Morning dew evaporating, billowing upward. The ground drying and pulling tight.
A piece of ribbon lay trapped on a thistle. Pink ribbon shiny in the morning light. It felt soft, winding around one finger. Then another. It felt good against his lips. He stuffed the ribbon in his pocket with the folded map.
Ray sat down, feeling warmed and comfortable. He propped his head against the road sign. Frightened that he might fall asleep, he jabbed his hand with burrs of the thistle. He watched a trickle of blood dry in his hand and vanish beneath a coating of red dirt. Closed his eyes for just a moment and then jolted awake. He had wet his pants. Ray stood up, brushing at the stain on the bathing suit. His checkered suit turned a rusty color as the urine and clay mixed. He was ashamed. Knew Mrs. Burr would be angry. He rubbed the pants until they were dry. The stain wouldn’t come off. Ray wished he had something more to wear than his bathing suit and baseball cap.
The black vultures, once circling overhead, were now on the ground and strutting around him. Their claws and pointed beak frightened Ray. He kicked at the birds, but they only sauntered away in a semicircle or flopped a few steps with their awkward wings. They kept looking at him. Ray peered down the road. There was a white line. Butler would find him and take care of these birds.
The sun dimmed. And shadows moved across the copper-red earth and rolled past him. They reminded him of the animals on the merry-go-round, only these animals slipped flat across the ground and changed shape. Ray put his hat back on and tried to catch a moving shadow with his hand; it went right through him. He tried again. His own shadow was easier to find. It held still. Then, just as he moved, it jumped with him. His stamping foot set off a cloud of dust. “Where is he?” His mind jolted a fearful message. Ray stamped the ground, hoping Butler would hear the thumps. And come upstairs and get angry at him. “I’m here!” Ray cried as loud as he could. “I’m here! I’m here! I have the map like you asked!”
The station operator, hearing the yelling, finally approached Ray. He had been standing in the same place for three nights and two days. The station operator told Ray to walk down the road three miles to a police station and ask for help. He told Ray in the best way he could that he would tell his friend where he had gone. Ray watched the man intently, watched the direction in which he pointed, and saw the three fingers and then the fingers walking. The man scratched a star in the dirt and pointed again. Ray paced back and forth while the station operator left and returned. The operator gave Ray a warm Coca-Cola. When the drink was finished, the gas station man grinned. He had no teeth. The man with no teeth took Ray by the hand and started walking in the direction he had pointed. Ray kept looking, looking over his shoulder at his standing place — looking for a returning pickup.
[Ray finds his way back to the trailer park where he and Butler had lived, but someone else is in their trailer now. He finds a place to stay in a cement storm drain. “The concrete was warm during the day and held some of this heat into the night. If he sat curled in a ball, he could keep his feet from falling in the stagnant water in the bottom of the drain.”]
Dogs barked in the trailer camp. Ray Martinez scraped the inside of an overturned garbage can and threw a rock at the marauders. The salty crust of the can tasted good. His mouth watered at the touch of any food.
This was the first stop on Ray’s daily circuit. Each garbage can was inspected for any scrap of meat, spoiled fruit, or container that might hold a drop of food. Tea that was thrown away could be gathered and licked. Fruit and vegetable peelings could be chewed. The dogs competed for these tasty morsels. They had to be shoved away with a stick or rock.
The next stop on Ray’s round was the bathhouse in the center of the trailer camp. Here Ray took off his clothes and bathed, with one hand splashing water on his sores and blisters. His feet needed the most care. Ray had lost his shoes. Or else someone had taken them. His feet gradually hardened. Now only a few blisters contained a milky pus. And Ray had found that washing and drying his feet with the husk of a tortilla made his feet feel better.
Ray put his hat back on and tried to catch a moving shadow with his hand; it went right through him. He tried again. His own shadow was easier to find. It held still. Then, just as he moved, it jumped with him. His stamping foot set off a cloud of dust.
After his bath, Ray liked to go to the edge of the park where the women do washing. This washing water came out of a single faucet that was far from the septic tank seepage at the bathhouse. So the water was cleaner here than in the bathhouse. The women soaked the clothing in tubs, then wrung it out and beat it against the flat rocks that surrounded the fountain. Children played within eyesight of their parents. They loved to run and kick a ball. And they let Ray join in. He played baseball. Ran to real or imaginary bases. The children were playing football and tag. It didn’t matter. Everyone had fun.
The children called Ray Maliche Mariana, the name of a woman known as Llorana — the Crying Lady. Ray carried a fate similar to the real Maliche Mariana. She was an Indian woman who translated for Cortes and guided him to the Aztec capital. Then bore his child. Seeing the child was part white, she killed it and now lives in eternal grief. She is without a homeland, like this Raymond Martinez, who befriended the gringo Butler and then was left to eat out of garbage cans and cry in the night.
In the afternoon, when the breath of the middle day began to move the sun, Ray climbed to his secret place. It was a large mound of rocks on a plateau above the trailer camp. Here it was quiet, and here he could talk to himself. Mostly this talk was of baseball and Elvis. Ray still couldn’t remember how many home runs Willie Mays hit, but he was getting close. He would talk out loud, giving pieces of the puzzle to the wind — hoping the missing numbers would somehow fall in place. He repeated this ritual each day — sitting facing the pile of rocks and speaking in a deliberate voice, telling the rocks: “Willie Mays hit . . . home runs. Willie Mays hit . . . home runs. Willie Mays hit . . . against Cincinnati. Willie Mays hit . . . against Cincinnati, home runs against Cincinnati.” The rocks never answered. But sitting and telling them, well, it felt good.
Each day Ray would leave this place of rocks and cross in the twilight to his home in the culvert. He was always hungry. He often thought of ice cream and chocolate and beer. His nightly trek to the culvert didn’t allow for any contact with the trailer-park residents. Raymond was afraid of being screamed at, and the chickens and dogs became nighttime beasts.
So each night he scurried to his cement cave. Each night he inspected his things. There were some new things Raymond had acquired. A coffee can with a wire handle was used to hold water. Each night he dipped the can into the seepage in the bottom of the cement casing. Then mixed food scraps he saved from scrounging in the garbage cans with leaves and a handful of dirt. He boiled this concoction as his evening meal. Ray was good at making a fire. He had found a box of matches. There were four matches left in the box.
[In his secret place, on top of the rocks, Ray makes a fire one night and stands facing the flames. Lonely for home, for Mrs. Burr and his friends the Rogers, for walking down Haight Street and getting a doughnut for Jake, and swinging in the park, and listening to the Giants, he decides he has to try to get back. “Nothing here can know his hurt or respond to his needs. . . . Flames cracked and jumped into the night. Sparks swirled in the turbulent wind. Ray felt the hot blast against his entire body. . . . Ray was sobbing when he cuffed both hands around his mouth like a bullhorn and yelled in a final yell. ‘Thank you for everything but I’m leaving now — goodbye, goodbye now. I’m going home.’ ”]
Ray had walked for days, but Uruapan was the first city in his path. There were so many people. Moving so quickly. So many distractions. Walking on the highway, Ray had only to contend with passing trucks and the villages that clung to its edge. For the most part, Ray’s journey had been foot in front of foot. This was something he could do. His mind had chased ghosts, but his feet had only one path to follow. Now that path broke up into a maze of cross streets.
Ray set off through the labyrinthine city. He felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness. Time blurred. Night turned to day turned to night. Streets seemed to suddenly tilt skyward or spill downward. Details faded. Ray realized he was walking in a circle. For how long, he couldn’t tell. When he had eaten last, he couldn’t remember. He knew he had to get something to eat soon, or he would not wake from one of his sleeping bouts.
Ray’s only familiar comfort in the alien, baffling city was the movie theater and its poster of James Bond. James Bond reminded Ray of home. He stood in front of the theater, and for a moment he was on Haight Street, waiting for the show. Saturday matinee. And the Giants. Elvis Presley. Ray wondered if this was as close as he would ever get to San Francisco, and his friends. Then Ray had an idea. A wonderful idea! Ray looked at the theater. People were leaving. Of course! How easy, a way to eat, and eat regularly. Ray smiled and ticked the side of his head to signify great thinking.
Ray watched as people flooded from the theater into the night air. Then he staggered against the flow. Children slid by him. Older people gave him room to pass. Ray squeezed his way inside. It was now empty. He stood quietly in front of the silver screen. The theater air was heavy with the odor of cigarette smoke and the sweet scent of popcorn. Ray giggled, pleased. He could feed himself.
Ray got on his hands and knees and crawled down an empty row of chairs. He wormed along the floor, hungrily scooping sticky globs of candy and pieces of popcorn into his mouth. Having snaked the length of several rows, Ray stopped and sprawled face down against a wad of bubble gum. His pulse throbbed, and his chest hurt. He felt sick. But couldn’t stop eating. Ray squirmed the length of the entire room, gorging on popcorn and unfinished Coca-Cola before he was noticed.
The theater manager had followed Ray’s progress down the row with some suspicion and worry. Could it be a huge rat? The manager hollered in Spanish. “Rat, rat, get out, this is not your place, it’s mine!” Ray bumped his head on the aisle chair and then tangled himself in a sticky mess before straightening up to meet the person whose voice had broken into Ray’s meal. Ray stood up, still popping into his mouth pieces of popcorn that had clung to his clothing. “Oh, señor,” the manager spoke in animated Spanish. “Get out! You must get out, this is not your place, it’s mine!”
Ray motioned to his mouth. He tried to smile, but when he opened his mouth, all that showed was a glob of half-eaten popcorn and melted Jujyfruits. The chewing gum that Ray had crawled through, now clung to him like a pink spider web. That did it! The manager had seen too many horror films. “Get out! Get out!” he screamed, his arms flailing wildly. Ray tried desperately to swallow. His gulping noises only served to heighten the manager’s terror. He rushed to the lobby of the theater. Ray followed in a slow loping gait. Chewing with each gallop. Tugging at the threads of gum.
In the lobby Ray was confronted by the manager and his mini-skirted ticket taker. The manager shouted something to the girl, and she scampered out of the theater. Ray once again tried to speak, but his words froze. The manager yelling and frantically waving a broom over his head. The old man gestured for Ray to leave. Then swung the broom downward. Its spines scratched across Ray’s face. Ray didn’t know what to do. To run. Grab the broom from the old man. Or wait. The manager was now frantic. His assailant wouldn’t move. He hit Ray again and again. Swinging the broom like a bat, he battered Ray in the stomach. And in the throat.
Ray doubled over, then bolted upright. Nausea surged up through him. His body wrenched in a seizure that spewed vomit into the air. Waving the broom over his head, the manager backed up in disgust. Then aimed the broom handle at Ray’s head.
From the pit of his soul Ray let out a yell. Its piercing cry scared both men. With the broom hanging over his head like a guillotine, Ray screamed, “Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me, or I’ll kill you!”
Ray had never spoken in his own defense. Or felt rage toward another person. Or even been angry. Now this. This shivering hatred. “Stop hitting me!” There was wonderment mixed with desperate hunger and physical pain. The wonderment was actually talking back. Not hiding. Not accepting abuse. Not pretending.
The manager cleavered the broomstick down on Ray’s head. The stick cracked and splintered. Ray reached above his head, grabbed the broken broom handle, and charged the now-quivering old man. Hovering above him, Ray shouted, “Old man, stop hitting me!” The manager crawled into a corner, with Ray following and standing above him. “Old man, stop hitting me!” Ray repeated. The old man shook his head in agreement.
Then Ray dropped the broken broom handle and dashed into the plaza. His head streamed blood, and felt he would pass out.
Ray tried desperately to pay attention to what he was seeing. To find some road, some way, out of this place and get back to San Francisco. He propped his eyes open with his fingers, fearing that if they shut he would never see again. He would surely die.
The plaza was alive with people. It was like a merry-go-round. Only this was not the carousel that Ray yearned to see. There was no winking lion. And the people on these benches did not wear glow knit caps. Feed the pigeons like Mrs. Rogers. Or listen to the Giants. And there was no Jake. Ray wanted to tell his joke to Jake and give him a doughnut. But everything in this place was strange. Words clattered like small-arms fire. Walls painted with slogans that made no sense. No one to talk to. Or walk to the laundromat with. He couldn’t visit Letty and sweep the street for her or be the parade reindeer.
Ray had never spoken in his own defense. Or felt rage toward another person. Or even been angry. Now this. This shivering hatred. “Stop hitting me!”
Ray stared at the plaza of Uruapan. Only instead of seeing the old couples and children at play, he saw swirling colored lights like in his room — Mrs. Burr riding an orange shantung sofa, eating a candy cane. Elvis Presley waved and turned his back. The carousel was a pink birthday cake. Ray began a slow stoic walk away from the lighted park. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Or why. He retreated to the comfort of memories.
Mother said they were just late. I put the candles on all by myself. Mother helped a little. She said they were just late. Mother made a pink cake. She was beautiful. Pink cake with white frosting. “Don’t touch. Don’t touch the cake Raymond,” that’s what she said. It’s a birthday cake for Raymond. I put the candles on the top. Nine candles.
Willie Mays was going to come to my birthday party. Willie Mays hit . . . home runs. Mother let me set the table and look out the window. I watched the cars. Friends were going to come to my house from school and little Sam from next door. They were all coming to my party. I talked to Willie Mays on the radio. I watched out the window. Little Sam said Willie Mays can’t come to my birthday.
Mother said they were just late. I put the party hats at each place. She let me wear a red hat. Count the days that’s all I wanted to do with the pen. Letty gave me the pen. It was new, didn’t work too good, though. Mother wrote names on the hats. Little Sam had a red hat, a red hat like mine. His name was on it. I watched out the window till I had to go to the bathroom. Mother made me wear my new pants with suspenders. I couldn’t get off the suspenders. Mother walked around the table. Everything was pretty, the colored paper and hats and little baskets of candy. Mother was crying, crying behind the refrigerator door.
She said people would come next year. We would have a party for just the two of us. Mother put on a blue hat. I helped her put away the plates. The candy went into a big cereal bowl. I got a piece. She put the party hats in the trash bag under the sink. We lit all the candles and Mother held me but she couldn’t sing happy birthday. It was all right. She died. It’s all right. That she couldn’t sing happy birthday.
Ray traced detail after detail. He pushed harder and harder, the events became bright with color and then began to change. Became different. Became more than pictures. Spiral thoughts moving like a corkscrew broke the layers of memory and moved images into the realm of understanding.
No one knows where I keep my Elvis Presley photograph. In the back of the drawer. That’s right. Way in the back where no one can find it. And the pen it goes up front, right here! Letty gave me the pen. She said for my birthday. Counting the days until my birthday party that’s all I wanted to do. And show Mrs. Burr that I could be good. I did it by marks with the pen, right here. She took the pen away but it belongs in the front of the drawer so it makes noise rolling back and forth. It was my birthday present, the pen.
Ray had lived a life without cause and effect. He’d felt the bombardment of events but never perceived that someone named Raymond might consciously cause something to happen. That was now beginning to change. Change when he stood before the fire he’d made on the place of rocks. Change when he’d said goodbye and walked away from that trailer camp. Change when he’d wrenched the broom handle from the theater manager. Now even his memories were changing. In every respect, this journey was far more frightening and dangerous.
The pen belongs right in front of the drawer so I can see it and it will roll around. I like that noise. It’s like singing happy birthday — happy birthday dear Raymond happy birthday to me. Rolling back and forth. Mrs. Burr doesn’t like noise. Turn down that radio she says. I’m going to count to three. She opened the door and took my pen and radio. The radio, I didn’t have it on.
She shouldn’t have taken my pen and Larry’s radio. Larry’s radio wasn’t on. I was playing and singing. No one sang happy birthday to me. Mrs. Burr doesn’t like noise, that’s what she says, turn down that radio. It’s all right, Willie Mays wasn’t on the radio, I told her that. She doesn’t like noise!
On Sunday morning, Ray Martinez walked into the National Park of Uruapan. At first, just for a second, Ray thought he had entered San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The same great palms and ferns. And the tea-room pagodas perched above the tropical forest were like those in the Japanese Tea Garden. But then he saw the difference: here it was incredibly watery. The pathways were great flat stones with sreamlets gliding between each step. And moisture oozed down the green slate side of volcanic walls. Water shot from the mouths of Tonalpoulqui’s gods. And the river Cupatitzio gorged its way through the heart of the park.
In a sunny corner of the park Ray found a playground with swings. He sat in a web seat. It felt good to sway back and forth. Listen to the clank of the chain. That familiar noise from those hours in San Francisco’s Children’s Playground. Clank. Clank. Clank. The park was filling with families coming from church — men in their dark slacks and loose white shirts; women in straight skirts and raven-winged shawls. Children skipping ahead, always ahead. The men softly whistling. Delicate trills for a raven’s ear.
Ray swung back and forth and watched. How nice it would be to stay here in this park. It was beautiful. A good place. But it wasn’t home. There were no friends here. Ray pushed with his feet, giving the swing greater flight. Once back home some kids dared him to do a loop. Swing so hard that he would sail up and over the crossbar. No one had ever done a complete circle loop on the park swings. He could do it if he tried, the kids had told him. Ray kicked harder. The air felt good rushing into his open mouth and combing his hair. He leaned back, tucked his legs as the swing curved downward, and then at the low point he jutted them forward, propelling himself higher into the air.
Swooping back and forth, Ray knew something important was happening. His mind was a trellis of thoughts. New images came and went with each thrust of the swing. The brushing of a child’s hand against my arm. A birthday song that no one sang. An old lady with a red thread in her blouse. Back and forth.
The taste of a hot dog with mustard. Willie Mays in center field. Ice cream shouldn’t melt. They could have told me, they didn’t want me.
Mother burned her finger on the birthday candle, it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s not your fault. I got to be the reindeer and lead the parade, all the children played tag with their eyes, hide-and-seek, peekaboo, with me, their friend, they liked me.
I can do a loop. Yes, I can. You want to see a loop. I’m not a dummy. Dummy. Dummy. I don’t like that. Why call me a dummy, that hurts me, calling me a dummy. My mother doesn’t like it, she’s dead. She said my friends were coming, they were just late, to put the hats on the table. She said they were just late but I watched and watched and nobody came. Nobody came to my birthday party, they said they would. They called me dummy dummy. I’m not a dummy, I can do a loop, nobody can do a loop. Ray roared higher.
There were other images and ideas just outside his reach. Ray knew they were there. He had seen them before. Now they were here. Waiting for his touch. Prejudice. Friendship. Hostility. Freedom. Intimacy. Life with a woman, a child. Trust. Love. All waited to be held and tested. Hatred. Anger. Generosity. Kindness. All waited to connect with the happenings in Ray’s life and make them no longer random. Ray’s gaze crisscrossed the sky, afraid and elated. Glad to be alive. Afraid of life.
The swing reached the peak of its arc — it hung for a second, tempting gravity, then jerked violently earthward. Ray hung on for dear life. The metal poles supporting the swing lifted off the ground as Ray’s momentum dragged them upward. Ray feared it was all going to topple over. Then the legs settled back, and Ray squeezed the chains so his swing could slow down. Soon he settled into a gentle curve. There was no longer any impulse to do a loop. Ray coasted a while. Then dragged his feet to stop the swing. Took a deep breath. And looked at the cobalt sky and the bar that crossed it.
Ray began to cry. It was a cry unlike any he had ever known before. Physical pain was not making him cry. And it was not for joy, either. He was not crying for what he was missing but for what he understood for the first time. Crying at the wonder of being alive. And liking himself. Crying from the heart. It was as if his soul suddenly took flight, like his tears. Tears stumbled from his eyes, held back, then sobbed loose. Freed. Flooding his mind with gladness. And confusion.
Through this veil of fear and celebration Ray felt someone approach the swing. He remembered that feeling — that night in Golden Gate Park, when he wore the reindeer costume and couldn’t see. He could still hear the sound of the swing and the sound of the men coming. Ray gripped the chains, pinched his eyes shut, and tucked his head into his chest. Ray felt his body tremble. Someone stood in front of him. Stood over him. Spoke to him. Ray couldn’t make out what the person said. Then he realized the words were English. He prayed that the voice would speak again and also go away.
He heard the slow clank of the swing. Maybe it was the swing that made this noise or a truck or his own fearful imagination. When he heard the voice for a second time, Ray thought it was God speaking. God speaking to him. Yet he didn’t know what God meant. The voice repeated itself for the third time. Ray whispered the words to himself. “I am a dentist,” and thought out loud — “God is a dentist?”
The person standing in front of Ray laughed. “I am Navarro Alejaudie Ildefonso, a dentist — what can I do for you?” Ray shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to do. To trust this stranger and speak with him or to run. Ray tried to run, but his feet didn’t respond to his intention. He sat in the swing, petrified by indecision and fear and confusion. The dentist continued to speak.
“My wife and I, and our children, we are here every Sunday, and I looked at you and I seemed to think you were crying, are you well?”
Ray had lived a life without cause and effect. He’d felt the bombardment of events but never perceived that someone named Raymond might consciously cause something to happen. That was now beginning to change.
Ray enjoyed listening to the dentist. It was nice to hear his friendliness and concern. It had been so long since anyone had spoken to him that way. He wanted desperately to speak back. Ray peeked at the dentist. He was short and balding and wore wire-frame glasses that seemed to want to fall from his face. The man caught the attention of a woman sitting on a bench not far away. His shoulders hunched, and he threw both hands palm up in an “I don’t know” gesture. The woman beckoned for him to return to the bench. But the dentist wasn’t ready yet; he shook his head. Then, in a soft voice, he asked Ray, “Are you lost?”
Ray shook his head fervently no. It was easier to be alone. He wanted to be left alone. To solve his own problems. Return to his home.
The dentist persisted. “What are you doing here?” The question frightened Ray. Perhaps this man was a policeman. Would he take him to jail? Ray began to perspire. He felt his hands slip against the links of the chain. And his heart drummed out of control. The last time Ray tried to talk to anyone on the swing in the park, they kicked him and tried to take the buttons.
The dentist turned and spoke loud enough for both the woman on the bench and Ray to hear. “Do you know the National Park is right here? Do you like to go with us to visit the park?” The woman on the bench shook her head no. The dentist waited for Ray’s answer. When Ray couldn’t speak, the dentist, in resignation, asked a final, “Do you like to go with us to visit the park? Do you have a name?”
Ray’s mind raced back and forth. He wanted to talk to this stranger, but he just couldn’t. It would be better to stay silent. His head turned side to side.
The cold solder of fear was closing his mind, binding his heart into stillness. Ray held onto the chains of the swing. Unwilling to let go. He saw the disappointment in the dentist’s eyes. Saw the dentist slowly turn and walk away.
Astonishing both himself and the dentist. Ray shouted in a shrill voice, “My name is Raymond Martinez and I live in San Francisco!”
The dentist froze. Then turned toward Ray, a soft smile on his face. His eyes dancing, he put his hands together as if in prayer and responded. “I know, I had this vision. Looking at you on the swing I saw Jesus, the face of Jesus crying.”
[With the dentist’s help, and the assistance of two welfare workers who had taken an interest in his case, Ray gets back to the U.S. “The Ray who returned to San Francisco was simply not the same person who had been classified ‘incompetent’ by the state of California and decreed by his church to be ‘without reason.’ He was no longer dependent on others for his everyday needs. On his own, in a strange place, he had learned to survive and take care of himself.” Although his finances were placed under the supervision of the public guardian’s office and he was assigned a board-and-care home, Ray decided to support himself and live with people of his own choosing. He got a job. He married and had a child. Eventually, after twenty years of welfare dependency, he won the right to be legally responsible for himself.]
© Copyright 1984 Ron Jones
