Linda’s Monument
(c) Copywrited Diana Corpus Garza 2004
Published in The Gallery - University of Texas-Pan American Literary Magazine, 2004-2005
This is dedicated to my brother Arnaldo Corpus - who is alive and well and living in Palmhurst, Texas. Pieces of this story were taken from my experiences growing up.
Linda picked up the small brush with one hand and squeezed some paint on her palette with the other. She didn’t want to help her sister Marie make party favors for Marie’s approaching quinceñera. She just couldn’t get excited about doing that. It had been a long time since Linda felt excited about anything. No one could understand Linda’s unhappiness, not even Linda herself. Linda dreaded having to find an escort for the event, too. Everyone said she was beautiful and she always attracted handsome men, but Linda just wasn’t interested in anything about them. It didn’t matter to Linda. All she knew was something was missing. She didn’t understand the feeling but it happened every year. It was that time again.
“What’s that you’re painting, Linda?” her sister Marie asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Linda answered. “It’s still a work in progress.”
“Hmph! It looks like an old building.”
“Could be….” Linda responded. Her face studied the painting as she stepped back to view the canvas from an angle.
Linda closed one eye and squinted out the other. “It’s supposed to be a monument.”
“A monument?” Marie exclaimed. “Well, maybe… Nah, it’s not a monument.”
Linda had been inspired to paint by something she had heard while waiting in line for the bus earlier that day. “Memories fade, but memories that cut deep into the heart become monuments in stone,” someone had said. Linda was always picking up snippets from other people’s lives.
“You know it looks like that old shed behind our old home on Mayberry Street?” Marie said. “The one I see in those old pictures.”
“You’ve seen pictures of the old shed?” Linda asked.
“Well, yeah, you know the picture with you in your band uniform.” Marie responded. “You’re standing in front of the shed. Your painting looks a lot like it.”
Linda froze. “When was this, Marie?” She knew most of the pictures had been destroyed.
“I don’t know.” Marie answered rather annoyed at Linda. “I found it stuck between two pictures when I was changing your last picture for a more current one. You know the one in the purple frame. Geez lighten up.”
Linda realized she overreacted and tried to cover her abrupt behavior.
“You really think it looks like the old shed?” Linda tried to compose herself without being obvious. She stopped for a moment and then spoke softly. “You know it does a little. I hadn’t thought about that old shed in the back yard in a long time.” The thought that it looked like the old shed stirred up old feelings.
“How long has it been?” asked Marie.
Linda turned and looked at her.
“Gee, it’s been a while. You must have been two years old. I was almost 15 or so when Mom and Dad moved us to Corpus Christi. I’d forgotten all about it”
“Why did we move away, anyway?”
Linda wanted to answer. Staying in Mission had been too painful, she wanted to say, but she hesitated. Why bring up old news? Marie was too young to remember.
Linda looked at the canvas from yet another angle.
She thought about her childhood home and how she loved the way she could climb the branches of the old Spanish olive tree to the roof of the garage and then step up to the pitched roof of the house. She could see old Mayberry’s barn and the canal where her brother used to swim. One day, he came home with the Chicken Pox. Mother said it was from swimming in the canal water. Linda didn’t believe that was true, but everyone in the neighborhood stayed away from the canal for years for fear of contracting the disease. How silly people are, she thought. She couldn’t remember the canal ever being filled with water after that. Marie hadn’t been born yet.
Linda thought of her brother and her sitting on the rooftop watching cars drive by. They used the rooftop to try out their brand new, handmade negasuras (slingshots) they had made out of discarded inner tube tires. It had been a short-lived adventure after having mistakenly shot at a passing police car they had chosen for a target.
Linda closed her eyes and pictured the view from the rooftop. They sat up there for hours looking out until the sun went down. She could see the backyard where the old shed stood. So many wonderful moments took place within the walls of that shed: laughter, disappointment, triumph and sometimes fear, moments that had changed her heart forever.
She thought about the time her mother locked Gil and her out of the house for staying out too late in the evening. Linda sighed and spoke out loud, “He quelled my tears and fears,” another snippet she had collected.
“Whom are you talking to?” Marie asked.
Linda stared at Marie for a long time. Marie was busy making little flower bouquets for her Quinceneras. She didn’t know if she should say anything to Marie. No one had spoken of Gil that she could remember. It was a family taboo to speak of Gil to Marie. It was taboo for anyone to speak of Gil. Marie didn’t even know she had a brother. Linda’s mind wandered back to Gil and that night out in the shed.
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of you,” Gil said.
Linda was hungry and frightened, but Gil guided her down the brick pathway into the old shed.
“Here,” he said. “You can lie down in here.” He fixed a make shift bed with the curtains that once decorated their bedroom window, placing them in one of the compartments of a shipping crate.
“Just for tonight, try not to think about food,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll think of something.” He tucked Linda in and stood watch by the door.
Linda had fallen asleep long before she heard her mother come looking for them in the shed.
Gil knew mother would come, Linda thought. Mother never spoke a word but it didn’t matter. She led us back to the house, down the brick path in silence, her silhouette casting a shadow ahead of us. Linda remembered the moment. Mother was the angriest I had ever seen her, she remembered, but I didn’t care, my eyes were on my brother. I never looked at my brother the same, she recalled. He was my hero, forever the standard by which I measured all men.
Growing up with Gil was so much fun, she thought. He was always with me or was I always with him? He was there when I first learned about love, too. Well, maybe it was lust, she chuckled, but it was Gil who had provided young male bodies for her to ogle at? It sounded so decadent.
She had just turned 13, and Gil, 18. The old shed was transformed into a gym of sorts. Gil and his friends had emptied cans of lard and made then into weights by filling them with cement, placing old broom sticks for the connecting bar. They had placed charts on the wall with their names on them to track their progress, names like Mando, Robert, Eliseo, and David.
Linda wasn’t allowed inside the old shed. She remembered Gil yelling at her to “Keep Out!” She still managed to peek through the cracks. She could see their young, muscled bodies glistening with sweat. It would have helped if they kept the door open but this was a secret society. Girls were not allowed. Linda loved watching the sweat roll down their arms and muscle-rippled chests.
Gil told her she was not to associate with those boys. They seemed nice enough but Gil had been adamant. She obeyed. She trusted Gil to tell her what kind of boys to like? “I’ll explain it to you when you get older,” he said.
Linda let out a deep sigh but didn’t utter a word. Such wonderful memories, she thought, all neatly tucked away deep in her heart.
She stared at the painting.
“Hey, you never answered my question,” Marie said nudging Linda on the arm.
“You’re right, Marie,” Linda finally said. “It was nothing.”
“I see you’re not going to give me an answer,” Marie looked at Linda. “I gotta go. It’s time to go pick up my dress for my party. I’ll be right back. Okay?”
Linda shrugged her shoulders; happy to see she wouldn’t have to answer right away. “Okay,” she answered and quickly looked away.
At that moment it dawned on her. Gil never explained to her about boys, what to look for or whom to choose. She had been waiting all this time for Gil to tell her. Alone with her painting, Linda stood facing the canvas, tears welling in her eyes. She missed her brother. “Why did you go?” she asked out loud.
She knew the answer. It played like an old record in her head.
“I have to serve my country,” he had told her. “But I promise I’ll be back and I’ll tell you all about boys and who I think will be great for you. And don’t forget, we’ll go to the movies like we’ve done every Sunday afternoon.”
Gil kept half his promise. He arrived on a Sunday afternoon in a box draped with the American flag.
It had been so hard. Mom and Dad could hardly stand to be around all the memories, that‘s why we moved away. Away from everything and anyone who reminded them of their loss.
It’s time, Linda thought. No more silent monuments. She picked up the brush and began painting over the face of the canvas. Marie walked in with her white gown draped over her right arm.
“Hey, what did you do with the painting of the old shed?” Marie asked. “I liked it.”
Linda smiled, put down her brush and helped Marie with her dress.
“Here, sit down with me for a minute,” Linda told Marie. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“What about?” Marie asked.
“About someone,” Linda said. “Someone very special.”