Oscar and Pablo

I used the term Magical Realism a few posts ago in describing The Big Green Bird, but it didn't really apply to that story. It does apply to this one. (And E.V. Yunq / Ed Vega, if you're out there, this is for you with thanks.)


Oscar and Pablo: A Scene

Oscar Echiveria was already dead when Pablo arrived.

The snow was high, over Pablo’s shins, and it was a heavy snow making it hard to walk through. Pablo saw his grandfather seated on the passenger side of the pick up and he saw the pick up in the ditch, a plowed mound of snow drifting high over the right front fender.

The call had come to his house an hour ago. Is your Papa there? Your brother? It’s about your grandfather. He’s off the road, up past the tracks on Bonham road. In a ditch.
The caller, a neighbor, if a person living a mile away is a neighbor, didn’t mention that he thought Oscar was probably drunk. He didn’t need to.

Pablo put on his boots and his sister’s wool scarf and started walking. At ten years old it hadn’t occurred to him to call someone else, a wrecker or the police. One didn’t call the police about family things. He walked, planning nothing more complicated than rubbing snow in Grandfather’s face and then driving home with him. Pablo could drive the pick up. Or they would walk.

From a hundred yards away he waved but grandfather didn’t wave back and Pablo worried that it might take more than a face full of snow. From twenty yards away he saw how far the truck was inclined and knew there would be no driving. He clambered into the driver’s door and saw that grandfather’s head was bleeding. Or rather, it had been bleeding. It wasn’t bleeding now. The blood was still and made a flat patch across his forehead. He pressed an ear to grandfather’s chest and heard nothing. He scooted back over behind the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, over the hood and into the featureless bank of snow.

“It is very bright,” said Grandfather Oscar.

“Yes,” said Pablo. “Like a white sheet.”

“Bright like the white sand back home. Do you remember? The white sand with the sunlight right in your face. It was bright like this.”

“You’re dead now, Grandfather?”

“Yes. It seems I am quite dead now.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Dying? No, the dying didn’t hurt. I think the big bump that broke my head hurt, but it was a quick hurt. The dying part was not so hard. You don’t know about whiskey, but it was like a first big shot of whiskey. A pleasant hot feeling and then a slow warm feeling and then the brain, it seems to take a big breath. And then I was dead. No, it didn’t hurt.”

“Good.” Pablo stretched his arm and handled the gearshift lever. He had driven this truck before. But he wouldn’t drive it today. It was too far in the ditch. And also, his Papa might think he had been driving and gone off the road and killed Grandfather.

“Did you see Jesus yet?” asked Pablo.

“No. Not Jesus. Not God either. Not yet.”

Pablo didn’t want to ask if Grandfather had seen the devil, so he didn’t ask that. He did ask, “How is it that we are talking and you are dead?”

Oscar Echiveria shrugged. “I don’t know. I remember that my great aunt Maria came to visit after she died.”

“She was a ghost? You’re a ghost?”

“No. I don’t think so. I think it’s maybe like a watch after the batteries die. Sometimes just for no reason they tick again for a little while. I think I have a few ticks left in me.”

They sat without speaking for a while. The January sun lowered. No cars came.

“You are cold,” said Oscar. “You should go. No one is coming this way.”

“I would stay with you,” said Pablo.

“I know you would. You’re a good boy. But you should go. Tell your papa or your brother about the phone call. It might be best not to tell them that you were here. They might be angry with me for bringing you out in the cold. Just tell them about the call you got. They will come and take care of me.”

Pablo pushed the driver’s door open and stepped back into the snow. “You’ll visit me later?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Oscar. “Maybe. If I have some ticks left.”