Luis Alberto Urrea - The Water Museum

Joey turned back, worrying about Freddie Filgate. He didn’t have the heart to see Sherri now. He put in the buds. A young man don’t mean nothin’ in the world today.

* * *

The yard went down the slope of the canyon in seven terraces. Freddie had lime trees, orange trees, and lemon trees down there. One ill banana. The slopes below were crowded with ice plant. Freddie called it “pickle weed” and said it stopped wildfires.

At the top, Mrs. Filgate had her roses. Joey didn’t know a thing about roses. All she told him was to trim the branches. He was trying to snip away with the little shears, and the thorns were doing a number on his fingers. Freddie ambled out of the house with a glass of lemonade.

“Willie,” he said. “You need to hydrate.”

“Thank you, Freddie.”

“Cut those twigs at an angle, son. Not straight across. Roses are oblique in personality, Willie. They like things angled.”

Joey smiled. Freddie was a trip.

He snipped.

“Like that?”

“Now you’re cooking, Willie. Cooking with gasoline.”

Freddie smacked his big hands together. They sounded soft and dusty. White as paper. Freddie’s little straw hat had a green plastic insert in its brim and cast colored light down on half his face. His glasses were about nine inches thick. He had hearing aids in his ears. One of them whistled and squealed. He shuffled around in slippers, his big old man pants tucked up to his ribs.

“God is great,” Freddie Filgate said.

“Can I ask you something?” said Joey, carefully snipping the rose branches. He didn’t have any gloves. He was thinking: OW, and FUCK, and BITCH as the thorns poked his fingers. But he would never say those words in front of Freddie.

“Ask away, ask away,” said Freddie, waving a hand as he stared out at the canyon.

“Ah, hmm,” muttered Joey. “I was wondering how old you are. If that ain’t rude.”

He gulped his lemonade.

“Rude! Oh my! Saying ‘ain’t’ in educated company is what’s rude, Willie!” Freddie chuckled in his whispery way. “I am ninety-two and a half. But who’s counting? Heard an owl last night, Willie. Apache Indians consider that a sign of death. But I’m not ready for that yet. Not by a long shot!”

“And Mrs.?”

“She is in the springtime of her life. A blushing and dewy sixty-one.”

Freddie smiled at Joey, and Joey smiled at Freddie.

He took Joey’s glass and walked back toward the house.

“Bologna on onion buns. Mustard. Sound good? Finish up and join me,” he called. “It’s almost dinnertime.”

Joey snipped branches and worried about Butchie and sucked tiny beads of blood off his fingers.

* * *

Freddie kept it burning hot inside. Joey figured it was an old guy thing — that and the musty smell. It smelled like mildew and Mentholatum and potpourri. He slipped out to the kitchen and peeked out the front window. No Big Black yet. What if the old dude don’t tell you where the good stuff is, Butchie? Shit, Jo-Jo, old men break real easy.

Freddie cut the onion buns in quarters and put potato chips beside each sandwich. He did everything neatly. The whole house was squared away. “Mrs. Filgate says I would use a spirit level to make sure the Christmas tree is straight every year, but she won’t let me,” Freddie had told him.

Joey sat down. The plates were plastic. The sandwiches were thin. That had to be another old guy thing — not eating much.

“Let us give thanks, Willie.”

Joey put his elbows on the table and folded his hands in front of his face. He didn’t know anything about prayers, but he liked that Freddie did.

“Sweet Lord,” Freddie said. “We come together in fellowship and gratitude. Thank you for this day, for this food, and for this life. May we make the most of them. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.”

“Um,” Joey said. He was listening for that big engine outside.

“Through the teeth and over the gums, look out belly, here it comes,” said Freddie.

Joey laughed. Every time he heard a car, he stopped chewing. “Good one, Freddie,” he said.

Dusk was turning the upper edges of the windows slightly maroon.

Freddie said, “Are you a man of faith, Willie?”

“Faith?”

“Are you a praying man?”

Joey was already done with his sandwich. He scarfed up the rest of his chips and reached for the bag. “Not,” he said, “really.”

“Because I notice you didn’t say grace.”

Joey got up and looked out the window. He got a pitcher down from the cabinet and filled it with water. Got a red Kool-Aid and some sugar and stirred it in. The Filgates had plastic glasses with Mexican colors painted around the rims.

“Ice, Freddie?” he said.

“Oh, no. Ice is a little too strong for me.”

Joey brought the glasses to the table, collected the plastic plates, and took them to the sink. Quick glance. SHIT! There was Big Black, pulled over to the curb across the street. He could see the two idiots in the front seat, masses of shadow like big piles of spoiling meat.

Freddie had bits of chip stuck to his lips. He slurped his red drink. Joey handed him a napkin. His hands were shaking.

“I didn’t get no church or nothin’,” he said. “Didn’t really, you know, learn to pray. Much.”

“Ah, Willie,” Freddie sighed.

Butchie couldn’t get in if Joey just ignored him. The doors were locked tight. But he imagined the Visigoths putting their big boots to the wood until it broke. Then what?

“You see, son,” Freddie was saying. “You don’t need a church to pray. Why, we are the church. Yes sir. You and I. Right here! Isn’t that wonderful?”

Joey was staring at Freddie, his mind racing.

“I never studied up on that,” he said.

He went to wash the plates and the glasses and keep an eye on Big Black. It was almost dark. Butchie had turned on the inner light, and Joey could see him tossing snacks over the seat to his hounds. Suddenly, Butchie turned his head and stared back at Joey. Backlit, his face was buried in shadow.

Freddie appeared with a carved wooden dove. “Look here,” he said. “I whittled it myself. How about you take that to your momma?”

WTF, Freddie. Seriously.

“Holy Spirit,” Freddie said, as if imparting some great secret.

Big Black’s door opened. Butchie got out, walked around, shook his leg. Stood with his hands on his hips, staring. He pointed at Joey. Got back in and slammed the car door.

“Willie, come,” said Freddie. Joey went back to the table where Freddie was sitting. He pulled his mom’s cell phone out of his pocket and set it down beside the dove. Freddie said, “I pray, son. Every day. And now that my time is short, God has rewarded me with visions.”

“Visions, Freddie?”

“I was shown the meaning of life, Willie. I was on my knees in that very corner, and the walls peeled back and angels were before me.”

“Right here on Cowley Way?” said Joey.

Screw Butchie — that dick.

“The street was gone, Willie. What was before me? Nothing but light.”

Freddie patted the table as if it were his favorite pet — as if the table could feel his touch.

“And God showed me. This table is not made of wood. This table is made of light.”

Joey fingered the celly. Mrs. Filgate would be home in an hour. And then?

“Atoms, electrons. Yes?” Joey nodded while Freddie continued. “At base, pure energy. Pure…light. And we are made of it. Everything is made of them. Let there be light. And there was light. Every one of us, even the least of us, is a creature of mere light, Willie. Light. Oh, amen. Can you say ‘amen’?”

“Amen,” said Joey.

He went to the bathroom and flipped open the phone and linked to the police station and said, “There’s some, like, crooks casing houses on Cowley Way. I think they’re going to rip off this old man named Freddie Filgate. We’re really worried.” He gave the address. “They’re sitting outside in a black Charger. Hurry.”