Chris McCormick - Desert Boys

This wasn’t untrue. But she was implying I didn’t love her enough, or something more insidious. Maybe she could sense I wasn’t my real self around her, whatever that is, and that I could fake it for only so long without bursting at the seams. I decided to say nothing.

“When I visited home a few years after I’d moved here,” she said, “everybody told me I changed. I was talking different, they said, walking different, taking my coffee different. I didn’t think so, but that’s what everybody back home told me.”

I said, “The traffic’s starting to move, so that’s good.”

“I’ve been watching the way you are,” she continued. “Now I understand what they meant. They meant I had become an American. And now I can say you’ve changed, too. You have become a different kind of boy.”

“And what kind of boy is that?” I asked, feigning boredom. I spent most of the important moments in my life feigning boredom.

“I guess you can’t help becoming the places you go,” she said. “I think of you now as a San Francisco boy.”

* * *

Teresa and my mother hugged like long-lost sisters, one apologizing into the other’s hair for being so late.

“This traffic is unbe liev able!”

“I thought I told you not to make anything,” Teresa said, taking the boreg and placing it on a little side table, a safe distance from the dining area, where I could smell the homemade tamales waiting for us.

We followed our noses to the table, where Watts’s father, Seth, had already taken a seat. “Welcome,” he said in his jowly, graveled voice. He didn’t stand. He was an enormous man with thick brown sideburns, which he stroked and tugged at in an anxious display of impatience. Clearly he was ready for everyone to sit down and eat; when he twisted open a two-liter bottle of Coke, he released its hiss like a starting gun.

“Lena,” Teresa said to my mom once we’d all taken a seat, “I’m sorry again your husband couldn’t join us.”

“Me, too, Teresa,” said my mom. Because of their accents, they pronounced each other’s names better than Americans could, and therefore did so as often as possible. Lay-na, not Lee-na. Teh-reh-sa, not Tuh-reesa. “I’m disappointed, too, Teresa, and so is he.”

“I’m not,” said Seth, scooping beans onto his plate. “More for us, right?”

Teresa asked everybody to hold hands while she said grace. As a nonbeliever, I always dreaded these exhibitions of group prayer — I feared my disbelief was palpable. Seth, who had to put down the tortillas he’d just peeled from the basket, was the only other person who didn’t seem eager to join hands. But we did: I was sitting between my mother and Watts, and held on to them while Teresa spoke. We bowed our heads and closed our eyes.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” came the chorus. Even from me.

I reached for a tortilla, but Teresa said, “Daniel, would you like to—?”

Then Watts repeated the prayer in Spanish — I knew this only when he got to the cognate for “Christ.” I caught Seth rolling his eyes. We chorused again, and this time I paid special attention to the big man, the only one of us not to say “Amen.” He started to eat.

I, too, reached for the food, but my mother asked if it wouldn’t be too much if she said a prayer in her native tongue, as well. Teresa said, “That would be great,” and we chained our hands together a third time. This time I let out a little laugh-groan, and Seth gave me a wink.

When we finally released hands, Teresa said, “I hate to say it, but Seth has some work to deal with tonight, too, so he’ll be leaving us early. It’ll just be the mothers and sons.”

“I’ve got employees coming in and out,” Seth explained, grabbing two tamales at once with his bare hand. “We got a lot of paperwork to do with them. When you’re in the landscaping business, you’ve got to deal with a lot of forged documents. Some of these guys, it’s my fourth or fifth time checking their information, because the government’s been cracking down, and you can’t be too careful. See, back in the day, when people like my grandparents were coming in from Wales, when Teresa’s parents brought her up here as a kid, when Lena here was coming in from — where was it, again? Romania? — people got in line and waited their turn. Not anymore. People think it’s a racial thing, but it’s really not. It’s generational.”

Teresa sneezed thunderously, startling everyone. After blessing her, my mom took the opportunity to change the conversation by asking Watts how he felt to have his old friend back in town.

“It’s cool,” Watts said. “I’m just glad he came back even though he’s kind of outgrown this place.”

“You say that like it’s a compliment,” Seth said between chews. “But look at it this way. That truck of yours, Danner, was given to you when I got too big to fit inside. I upgraded to a bigger truck, and on paper, that looks like I’m doing pretty well for myself. But really what it means is, I’m obese and on the freaking verge of death.” He laughed, wiping his mouth. Teresa clicked her tongue, and Seth put his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m going, I’m going,” he said. Then he stood, shoving back his chair to make room. He apologized for dominating the conversation. “Hate to leave you guys,” he said, “but yo tengo mucho trabajo. ” The accent was so awful, I thought he was playing it up.

“The food is so delicious,” my mom said once he was gone. “You know, Mexican food is so different from Armenian cuisine. Everything in Armenian cuisine — even the heavy stuff — is just lighter. ”

“Well,” Teresa said, “flavor does tend to make things heavier.…”

While they debated, Watts leaned over to me and said, “How’s it been, being back?”

“Fine,” I said. “Didn’t do much this trip. I went to that rally on the Boulevard today, and that’s about all.”

“The American Popularity Party,” Watts said. Apparently, his dad was a member. “What did I miss?”

“Well,” I said, “I saw Roxanne.”

Teresa dinged her glass with a knife. “Boys. Lena and I want to make a toast.”

The two women filled their glasses with wine and gave us — underage, as we were — a tiny splash each. “It’s a special occasion,” Teresa reasoned. “And it’s bad luck,” my mom added, “to make a toast with an empty glass.”

The four of us raised our wine.

“To you boys,” Teresa said.

“And to your long, great friendship,” added my mom.

“We’re so proud of you both. In only one generation, look at our great boys in this country.”

“And we can’t wait to see what your futures hold. What your own sons and daughters, who won’t be the children of immigrants, will be able to do.”

“And also to Robert—”

“Who we all wish could be here with us tonight, but he’s making us safer.”

“And we’re praying for him, to keep him safe, too.”

“And for all of you boys. We’re so proud.”

“Salud.”

“Abrés.”

We clinked glasses to loyalty and sacrifice, though nobody said so, exactly. Karinger’s name had been breathed into the room, though, like grace in another language, and I regretted avoiding his sister at the rally. She had always been kind to me. If I earned her trust again, I thought, I could eventually regain her brother’s. I’d see her again. Next time, I thought, I’d catch her eye and walk over to her—

“What?” I said. Watts had been saying something to me.

“Was she with a guy?”