Luis Alberto Urrea - The Water Museum

She turned sixteen that week. At a three o’clock showing of The Dark Knight, she slipped her hand over the edge of the armrest and tangled her fingers in mine.

This time, when she left, Pope allowed us one minute alone in his garage room. I kissed her. It was awkward. Delicious. Her hand went to my face and held it. She got in Cuca’s car and cried as they drove away.

“You fucker,” Popo said.

* * *

She didn’t Facebook. Amapola didn’t even email. Calling from Nogales was out of the question, even though her dad could have afforded it. When I asked Pope about his father’s business, he told me they ran a duty-free import/export company based on each side of the border, in the two Nogaleses. Whatever. I just wanted to talk to Amapola. So I got stamps and envelopes. I was thinking, what is this, like, 1980 or something? But I wrote to her, and she wrote to me. I never thought about how instant messages or email couldn’t hold perfume, or have lip prints on the paper. You could Skype naked images to each other all night long, but Amapola had me hooked with each new scent in the envelope. She put her hair in the envelopes. It was more powerful than anything I’d experienced before. Maybe it was voodoo.

At Easter, Cuca and her Lebanese hubby flew to St. Thomas for a holiday. Pope was gigging a lot, and he was seeing three of four strippers. I’ll admit, he was hitting the sauce too much — he’d come home wasted and ricochet around the bathroom, banging into the fixtures like a pinball. I thought he’d break his neck on the toilet or the bathtub. He said the old man had been putting pressure on him — I had no idea how or what he wanted of Pope. He wanted the rock and roll foolishness to end, that’s for sure.

“You have no idea!” Pope would say, tequila stink on his breath. “If you only knew what they were really like. You can’t begin to guess.” But, you know, all boys who wear eyeliner and pay for full-sleeve tats say the same thing. Don’t nobody understand the troubles they’ve seen. I just thought Pope was caught up in being our Nikki Sixx. We were heading for fame, world tours. I thought.

Somehow, Pope managed to get Amapola there at the house for a few days. And there she was, all smiles. Dressed in black. Looking witchy and magical. Pope had a date with a girl named Demitasse. Can you believe that? Because she had small breasts or something. She danced at a high-end club that catered to men who knew words like “Demitasse.” She had little silver vials full of “stardust,” that’s all I really knew. It all left Pope staggering and blind, and that was what I needed to find time alone with my beloved.

We tried to watch a movie, but our hands crept toward each other. Which led to kissing. And once we kissed, we no longer cared what was on the TV. I freed her nipple from the lace — it was pink and swollen, like a little candy. I thought it would be brown. What did I know about Mexican girls? She pushed me away when I got on top of her, and she moved my hand away gently when it slipped up her thigh.

Pope came home walking sideways. I had no idea what time it was. I don’t know how he got home. My pants were wet all down my left leg from hours of writhing with her. I knew I should be embarrassed but I didn’t care. When Pope slurred, “My dad’s in town,” I didn’t even pay attention. He went to Cuca’s piano in the living room and tried to play some of “Tommy.” Then there was a silence that grew long. We looked in there and he was asleep on the floor, under the piano.

“Shh,” Amapola said. And “Wait here for me.” She kissed my mouth, bit my lip.

When she came back down, she wore a nightgown that drifted around her legs and belly like fog. I knelt at her feet and ran my hands up her legs. She turned aside just as my hands crossed the midpoint of her thighs, and my palms slid up over her hip bones. She had taken off her panties. I put my mouth to her navel. I could smell her through the thin material.

“Do you love me?” she whispered, fingers tangled in my hair.

“Anything. You and me.” I wasn’t even thinking. “Us.”

She yanked my hair.

“Do,” she said. “You. Love me?”

Yank. It hurt.

“Yes!” I said. “Okay! Jesus! I love you!”

We went upstairs.

* * *

“Get up! Get up! Get the fuck up!” Popo was saying, ripping off the sheets. “Now! Now! Now!”

Amapola covered herself and rolled away with a small cry. Light was blasting through the windows. I thought he was going to beat my ass for sleeping with her. But he was in a panic.

“Get dressed. Dude — get dressed now!”

“What? What?”

“My dad.”

He put his fists to his head.

“Oh shit. My dad!”

She started to cry.

I was in my white boxers in the middle of the room.

“Guys,” I said. “Guys! Is there some trouble here?”

Amapola dragged the sheet off the bed and ran, wrapped, into the bathroom.

“You got no idea,” Pope said. “Get dressed.”

We were in the car in ten minutes. We sped out of the foothills and across town. Phoenix always looks empty to me when it’s hot, like one of those sci-fi movies where all the people are dead and gone and some vampires or zombies are hiding in the vacant condos, waiting for night. The streets are too wide, and they reflect the heat like a Teflon cooking pan. Pigeons might explode into flame just flying across the street to escape the melting city bus. Pope was saying, “Just don’t say nothing. Just show respect. It’ll be okay. Right, sis?”

She was in the backseat.

“Don’t talk back,” she said. “Just listen. You can take it.”

“Yeah,” Pope said. “You can take it. You better take it. That’s the only way he’ll respect you.”

My head was spinning.

Apparently, the old man had come to town to see Pope and meet me, but Pope, that asshole, had been so wasted he forgot. But it was worse than that. The old man had waited at a fancy restaurant. For both of us. You didn’t keep Big Pop waiting.

You see, he had found my letters. He had rushed north to try to avert the inevitable. And now he was seething, they said, because Pope’s maricón best friend wasn’t queer at all, and was working his mojo on the sweet pea. My scalp still hurt from her savage hair-pulling. I looked back at her. Man, she was as fresh as a sea breeze. I started to smile.

“Ain’t no joke,” Pope announced.

* * *

“Look,” he said. “It won’t seem like it at first, but Pops will do anything for my sister. Anything. She controls him, man. So keep cool.”

When we got there, Pope said, “The bistro.” I had never seen it before, not really traveling in the circles that liked French food or ate at “bistros.” Pops was standing outside. He was a slender man, balding. Clean-shaven. Only about five-seven. He wore aviator glasses, that kind that turn dark in the sun. They were deep gray over his eyes. He was standing with a Mexican in a soldier’s uniform. The Mexican was over six feet tall and had a good gut on him.

The old man and the soldier stared at me. I wanted to laugh. That’s it? I mean, really? A little skinny bald guy? I was invincible with love.

Poppa turned and entered the bistro without a word. Pope and Amapola followed, holding hands. The stout soldier dude just eyeballed me and walked in. I was left alone on the sidewalk. I followed.

They were already sitting. It was ice-cold. I tried not to stare at Amapola’s nipples. But I noticed her pops looking at them. And then the soldier. Pops told her, “Tápate, cabrona.” She had brought a little sweater with her, and now I knew why. She primly draped herself.

“Dad…,” said Pope.

“Shut it,” his father said.

The eyeglasses had become only half-dark. You could almost see his eyes.