Dodger Blue Will Fill Your Soul by Bryan Allen Fierro

Author:Bryan Allen Fierro
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780816534470
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

LAS PALMAS BALLROOM

Alma lay next to her son Robert in his bed to see the yard as he did. His view included a large mound of dirt that grew steadily throughout the summer, her heavily dented Chevy Malibu in the driveway, and the bus stop for the elementary school. There was not much movement in Robert’s day except early in the morning when the kids gathered and called each other shitheads. They’d sometimes fight in the late afternoons. She imagined Robert sliding on the loosened gravel and fighting with the Hernandez brothers. Bruising from a punch and not the pressure sores his thirty-year-old body endured from simply lying in one spot for too long.

Alma heard Carl’s boot heels tapping on the metal screen door. “Prima, where are you?”

“We’re in the back room.” Alma sat up and finished washing Robert’s hair over an empty basin in the bedroom. “I am cleaning Roberto.” She covered her son with a dry towel and removed the tape that covered his tracheotomy, which caused him to spasm.

Alma waved Carl away as he walked into the room. “Back up so I can put Robert back on his vent.”

Carl lifted Robert into his wheelchair. Alma opened a sterile package with new tracheotomy hardware inside. Her hands were damp, and it made it difficult to pull the gloves around her bony fingers. She applied lubricant to the breathing tube’s tip and tilted its end ninety degrees into the hole in Robert’s neck, then twisted downward into position, always careful to avoid the ribbed cartilage the nurse had told Alma she could poke right through if she wasn’t careful. That she would certainly know if she had.

“Cough, mijo.” Alma lifted her finger off the catheter that activated the suction. “Again.” Robert coughed again. A collection of clear phlegm lined the basin, which pleased Alma. She detached the suction unit and wiped the rounded opening that the nurse had called the obturator. She secured the tube with the inflated cuff at its end, which caused Robert to pull back. The Velcro neck strap was worn and took Alma several tries to get the two ends to stick together behind his neck. And with the same ease as the flip in her tortillas, she attached Robert to his ventilator.

Carl watched from across the room. “You can do that in the dark, Alma.”

“I’ve been taking care of a sick boy too long.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen. There’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”

“Pour some coffee.” Alma looked to the floor at the pea gravel Carl had stamped out on the carpet. “And clean all that up.” Alma gathered the used breathing tube, the suction, and guide wires, and placed them in a red bag the size of a pillowcase marked Biohazard. The black horned symbol on its side resembled the devil. She winced every time she opened its end. She took off the sterile gloves and blew away the fine baby powder from the creases in her palms. Alma exercised Robert’s arms and legs, measuring his range and the amount of lost muscle.

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