Avenue of Mysteries - Page 11

"At least it isn't a glass day--I don't like glass days," Lupe was saying to Diablo, or she was just talking to herself.

When Diablo was around, you never heard any growling from Dirty White--not even a whimper from the coward, Juan Diego was thinking. "He's not a coward! He's a puppy!" Lupe shouted to her brother. Then she went on and on (to herself) about the brand of water pistol Rivera had retrieved from the basurero--something about the "feeble squirter mechanism."

The dump boss and Juan Diego watched Lupe run into the shack; no doubt she was putting the newfound squirt gun with her collection.

El jefe had been checking the propane tank outside the kids' shack; he was always checking it to be sure it wasn't leaking, but this morning he was checking to see how full or near-empty the tank was. Rivera checked this by lifting the tank to see how heavy it was.

Juan Diego had often wondered on what basis the dump boss had decided that he was probably not Juan Diego's father. It was true they looked nothing alike, but--as in Lupe's case--Juan Diego looked so much like his mother that the boy doubted he could possibly resemble any father.

"Just hope that you resemble Rivera in his kindness," Brother Pepe had told Juan Diego during the delivery of one bunch of books or another. (Juan Diego had been fishing for what Pepe might have known or heard about the boy's most likely father.)

Whenever Juan Diego had asked el jefe why he'd put himself in the probably-not category, the dump boss always smiled and said he was "probably not smart enough" to be the dump reader's dad.

Juan Diego, who'd been watching Rivera lift the propane tank (a full tank was very heavy), suddenly said: "One day, jefe, I'll be strong enough to lift the propane tank--even a full one." (This was about as close as the dump reader could come to telling Rivera that he wished and hoped the dump boss was his father.)

"We should go," was all Rivera said, climbing into the cab of his truck.

"You still haven't fixed your side-view mirror," Juan Diego told el jefe.

Lupe was babbling about something as she ran to the truck, the shack's screen door slapping shut behind her. The pistol-shot sound of that closing screen door had no effect on the vultures hunched over the dead dog in the road; there were four vultures at work now, and not one of them flinched.

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nbsp; Rivera had learned not to tease Lupe by making vulgar jokes about the water pistols. One time, Rivera had said: "You kids are so crazy about those squirt guns--people will think you're practicing artificial insemination."

The phrase had long been used in medical circles, but the dump kids had first heard of it from a science fiction novel saved from burning. Lupe had been disgusted. When she heard el jefe mention artificial insemination, Lupe had erupted in a fury of preteen indignation; she was eleven or twelve at the time.

"Lupe says she knows what artificial insemination is--she thinks it's gross," Juan Diego had translated for his sister.

"Lupe doesn't know what artificial insemination is," the dump boss had insisted, but he looked anxiously at the indignant girl. Who knew what the dump reader might have read to her? el jefe thought. Even as a little girl, Lupe had been strongly opposed but attentive to everything indecent or obscene.

There was more moral outrage (of an unintelligible kind) expressed by Lupe. All Juan Diego said was: "Yes, she does. Would you like her to describe artificial insemination to you?"

"No, no!" Rivera had cried. "I was just kidding! Okay, the water pistols are nothing but squirt guns. Let's leave it at that."

But Lupe wouldn't stop babbling. "She says you're always thinking about sex," Juan Diego had interpreted for Rivera.

"Not always!" Rivera had exclaimed. "I try not to think about sex around you two."

Lupe went on and on. She'd been stamping her feet--her boots were too big; she'd found them in the dump. Her stomping had turned into an impromptu dance--including a pirouette--as she berated Rivera.

"She says it's pathetic to disapprove of prostitutes while you still hang out with prostitutes," Juan Diego was explaining.

"Okay, okay!" Rivera had shouted, throwing up his muscular arms. "The water pistols, the squirt guns, are just toys--nobody's getting pregnant with them! Whatever you say."

Lupe had stopped dancing; she kept pointing to her upper lip while she pouted at Rivera.

"What now? What is this--sign language?" Rivera had asked Juan Diego.

"Lupe says you'll never get a girlfriend who isn't a prostitute--not with that stupid-looking mustache," the boy had told him.

"Lupe says, Lupe says," Rivera had muttered, but the dark-eyed girl continued to stare at him--all the while tracing the contours of a nonexistent mustache on her smooth upper lip.

Another time, Lupe had told Juan Diego: "Rivera is too ugly to be your father."

"El jefe isn't ugly inside," the boy had answered her.

"He has mostly good thoughts, except about women," Lupe said.

Tags: John Irving Fiction
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