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By Richard Z. Santos
Lorenzo kept staring at the tiny fleck of dried cheese on the tine of his fork. He could picture the fork shoveling in one last bite of migas or stabbing an American-cheese covered potato cube. Then it was thrown into a dishwasher where the oily cheese held fast and dried to a solid. Since leaving San Antonio ten years ago he’d stopped eating food like that, but every time he came back home it oozed back into his veins.
This diner was old enough to morph from greasy spoon into local classic. It was his father’s favorite restaurant and the site of many reunion lunches. Oh, finally sixteen! Off to college already? What’d you graduate with? Moving to the east coast, why?
Lorenzo cursed himself for showing up on time.
Then, there he was. Alejandro spotted Lorenzo in a booth near the back and lifted his chin in recognition. A casual flick. ‘Sup. As if it hadn’t been a decade.
Lunch wasn’t Lorenzo’s idea. Best case scenario was a quick lunch livened by his fiancé, Alina, joining them for a slice of pie. Worst case was his father demonstrating that, after all these years, he was still the self-aggrandizing, narcissist who had driven away three wives and counting.
Neither he nor Alina had big families, a fact that Lorenzo loved. But Alina sought out distant cousins on Facebook and through ancestry sites. They were getting married in Washington, DC, but she’d wanted to invite Alejandro to the wedding. Lorenzo balked. “It’s been ten years. I don’t have anything to say to him.” He insisted he wasn’t mad at his father. She smiled and said, “Then try.”
They’d reach a compromise: lunch and then Alina would join for desert and they’d invite him together if the conversation went well.
Alejandro stopped to shake hands with slick guys in suits and gold watches—a fan club. Being a minor San Antonio literary celebrity meant you were always recognized in diners.
“Sorry, traffic.” Alejandro rolled his eyes. “They’ve been digging up all these streets, you know? Makes it hard to get around.”
Alejandro placed a book and a manila file folder on the vinyl tablecloth. Lorenzo pushed himself up on one leg for an awkward, not-quite-standing handshake. The orange carpet and laminate wood paneling of the diner hadn’t changed, but his father seemed older, more tired than last time.
“Friends of yours?” He nodded towards the other booth.
“Ah, just some old farts.” Alejandro waved them off. “They know the books.”
The waitress came back over. She had long, straight black hair and a Tejana’s round face. This look was so common in San Antonio, but Lorenzo never saw people like this in Washington, DC.
“You eat?” Alejandro pointed at Lorenzo.
“I’m still good with coffee for now, but you should get something.”
“Really? You used to be crazy about these biscuits.”
“I’ll get something later.”
His father raised his eyebrows at the waitress like he was ordering for a ten-year-old. “Just a coffee, I guess.”
Lorenzo pulled a napkin out of the dispenser and placed it in front of himself. He had forgotten to show the cheese fossil to the the waitress.
“You really, really used to devour these biscuits,” Alejandro repeated.
“Yeah? I don’t remember.”
“We used to come on the weekends because they know me here.” Alejandro made it sound like an old family tradition. “Anyway, how long you in town?” Alejandro asked.
I’m getting married—Lorenzo almost blurted it out, but they were still starting the conversation, warming up.
“I head back next week.”
“I haven’t heard from you in a while, Renz.”
“I told you I was in town.”
“You emailed me yesterday.” His father smiled. “So, you seeing someone?”
“Sorry, I’ve been really busy. Things just sort of slip away.”
“Still in D.C., right?”
“Yeah, I like it there.”
“Too cold for me,” Alejandro said.
“All you need is a good jacket.”
He nodded as if Lorenzo had spoken a great truth. Alejandro pulled a soft-pack of cigarettes from his shirt’s breast pocket and set it next to his coffee cup. He tapped the pack of cigarettes with one finger.
The waitress returned with coffee. Alejandro made a point of reading her name tag and slowly speaking her name out loud—Mónica.
“Mónica, you remember me, right? I was here this morning. For breakfast?”
She grinned pleasantly enough but didn’t respond.
“Did you maybe find a lighter in that booth over there? The booth with those, well, very dark-pigmented people?”
Alejandro pointed across the diner to a black couple. Lorenzo’s mouth dropped open and the waitress quickly raised her eyebrows.
“Uh, no,” she managed to say. “No, I don’t think so.”
“My lighter must have slipped out of my pocket this morning. Could you go ask if they found it? Maybe put it in their pocket? It’s green, plastic.”
“I didn’t find a lighter.”
“Could you ask, though? Green, plastic. You were my waitress, remember? I left a tip.”
Lorenzo spoke up. “She’ll keep her eye out for it, I bet.”
“Well,” Alejandro said. “It couldn’t be anywhere else, and Mónica appears to have the time.”
Lorenzo worried the white, cracked handle of his mug, trying to avoid the waitress’s glare. Dark pigmented people made them sound diseased. Maybe his father was trying to be funny. His books had all fought against historical racism and the white myths of Texas. She’d walk away, and Alejandro would say he was testing her, proving that people are complicit in everyday racism.
Mónica shifted her weight, slowly spun around on one foot and approached the couple. They glanced up from their food, squeezed their eyebrows together and shook their heads. Mónica turned and walked into the kitchen without a glance at their table.
Alejandro smirked like they had been flirting.
“Well, I bet they have it. It just couldn’t be anywhere else. She’s pretty though, nice brown eyes. You should take her out. I’m sure you could, a waitress?”
“Why’d you say that?” Lorenzo asked.
“You should ask for her number.”
“About that couple, why’d you say that?”
Alejandro picked up his pack of cigarettes and then put them back down.
“What do you mean, Renz?” He sounded as if Lorenzo’s question was the offensive part.
“You called them ‘dark.’”
“Yeah, well.” He lowered his voice and shrugged his shoulders. “Aren’t they?”
“You can’t say that, Dad.”
The word slipped out, he wouldn’t say it again, but it was too late. Dad. It stood on the table, bright, shining and familial, impossible to ignore. Alejandro smiled, pleased.
Lorenzo was flustered. “You’re dark-skinned. I’m dark-skinned.”
“Oh, who knows what words to use.” Alejandro sipped his coffee and glanced over at his fan club booth. “It was a good lighter. You don’t smoke, do you?”
“Sorry,” Lorenzo said.
“It’s a nasty habit,” Alejandro agreed.
Lorenzo sipped his coffee, which tasted like burnt popcorn. As a teenager, Lorenzo had become angry. He blamed his father for the divorce, he resented him for staying away, and he hated him for not helping with child support. Still, for years, Lorenzo would pick up the phone when his father called and make plans to meet him here. His father wrote books, told great stories, and seemed to know everyone. It had impressed Lorenzo long ago.
Mónica came back out of the kitchen but avoided their table. Couldn’t blame her. What would Alina think of him?
His father took a sip of water then smiled. It was the kind of smile Lorenzo used to think was meant for him but was actually meant for whatever story he was about to tell.
“I have exciting news for you, Renz. I’ve done a lot more research into the family since I’ve seen you.” Alejandro pulled the manila file folder and book in front of him. “So, get ready for this. One of your great-great grandmothers, Angelita Villa, remember that name?”
Lorenzo shook his head. He wasn’t ready to move past the racist comment, but his father had already forgotten the moment.
“Well,” his father continued, “she married a man who died shortly after their only son was born. Their child was my grandfather, your great-grandfather who you never met, but who I’ve told you about.”
“Right.” Lorenzo looked to the door for Alina.
“Now, I just found out that Angelita Villa re-married, in 1900, to a man named Santiago Jimenez. The wedding was downtown, here, at San Fernando Cathedral. I did some research into Santiago. His father was named Francisco Jimenez, and Francisco’s father was Damacio Jimenez.”
Alejandro’s eyebrows shot up and carved deep folds into his forehead. This brought out the wrinkles around his eyes. It was supposed to be a smile, but his skin looked loose and creviced like an old leather jacket. Lorenzo rubbed his own cheek, hoping not to feel the same meaty flesh.
“Okay.”
“You don’t remember the name Damacio Jimenez?” Alejandro asked.
“No.”
“Damacio was one of the Tejanos who died defending the Alamo. You get it?” His father leaned forward and ticked out his fingers one by one. “Your great-great-great-great-grandfather died at the Alamo.”
Alejandro opened the book he’d brought and thrust it forward. An old diner receipt had been used to mark the page, and it fluttered onto Lorenzo’s lap. The page showed an etching of a tall, young man with almond eyes, black, curly hair and an unruffled, blue military tunic. The man was stoically, nearly impassively, pointing a sword in front of him, legs braced, as the Mexican army swarmed over the walls. Corpses lay at his feet. The Mexican soldiers were crude, swarthy stereotypes, but Damacio was light-skinned and regal. Behind him was the familiar curved-m of the Alamo.
“You’re related,” Alejandro said.
Lorenzo placed the book on the table and then lifted his cup. “Not by blood.”
“Well, yes, Damacio’s son married into the family.” Alejandro’s finger tapped the picture. “But he fought at the Alamo.”
“You hate the Alamo,” Lorenzo said.
“In middle school we watched a documentary you were in,” Lorenzo said. “You said the white settlers were lunatics, terrorists.”
The documentary had shown Alejandro stalking in front of the Alamo. “People treat these rebels like they were saints,” Alejandro had said. “But they were racist, illiterates. Their delusional, modern-day defenders worship a history they don’t understand. The myths aren’t real.”
“I was a kid,” Lorenzo continued. “It embarrassed the hell out of me, but my teacher said you were telling the real truth, doing something that would be remembered. He said that in front of the whole class.”
In that one moment, sitting in history class, Lorenzo had felt love, or at least respect, for his father. For a few years, that memory served as forgiveness for his father’s absence. Rewriting history took time, effort, and no one, not even Lorenzo, could expect Alejandro to also have time to be a father.
Alejandro kept his hand on the open book. Lorenzo could tell he didn’t understand—that story sounded like one more fan letter.
The waitress returned. “Ready to eat?”
“No, we’re leaving, can we pay now?”Alejandrothrust five dollars into her hand and waved her away.
“We’re leaving?” Lorenzo asked. Alina was supposed to be there in five minutes. She’d be on time.
Alejandro opened the folder, pulled out thick paper and placed them on top of the book with an almost-religious care. It was a handwritten family tree.
“This is for you. It includes Damacio. His name is on the Alamo monument. We can see it, right now, then go into the cathedral where Angelita was married.”
The family tree in front of Lorenzo showed a clean and orderly line from himself back through the years to Damacio. One name bracketed between two other names, bracketed between two more. A thin line leaving out everyone who didn’t fit this narrative. Alejandro’shandwriting was lurid, near-calligraphy. The first sheet held Lorenzo’s name and a blank line for his future wife.
Perhaps because of that particular, unseen connection between lovers, he raised his eyes to the window just as Alina pulled into the parking lot.
Part of the reason Alina wanted to meet his father so badly was that she didn’t have old family stories. Lorenzo appreciated her freedom, her lightness. She couldn’t meet his father. She’d be charmed by Alejandro’s knack for making the most everyday occurrence sound momentous because it happened long ago. Lorenzo imagined Alina’s name next to his own and in front of Alejandro’s on the family tree. Her name would be so Russian and angular next to their ancient, palatial Spanish names. She’d be buried by waves of ancestors swarming towards them; their children would be buried—bound to a past long gone and listening to Alejandro’s useless tales.
“You’ve spent your life saying the Alamo defenders weren’t heroes,” Lorenzo said.
“Sure, I still believe all that. But this is impressive.” Alejandro placed the family tree back into the folder and handed it to Lorenzo. He picked up the book and looked at Damacio, his eyes sparking. “It’s history. I don’t excuse it, but these people were doing what they thought they needed to do.”
The waitress brought their change and cleared their cups, leaving the table bare.
“What do you say, Renz?”
Lorenzo placed the folder on the table in front of him. He wouldn’t go anywhere with him and he wouldn’t introduce Alejandro to his fiancé. Maybe, Lorenzo supposed, he was supposed to have witnessed or intervened in his father’s slow slide into racism and the shedding off of his ideals—the only thing Alejandro ever had. Maybe sons were supposed to go through this. But his father had set this pattern twenty years earlier, and now Lorenzo could see his father with too much clarity.
“Go ahead,” Lorenzo said. “I’ll meet you at the Alamo. I have a conference call. A work thing. It’ll just take an hour.”
“You sure? I can wait here while you’re on the call.”
Alina walked into the restaurant, and Lorenzo slid over in the booth so she couldn’t see him behind his father.
“No, no, go ahead. I’ll see you in front of the Alamo. An hour tops. Thanks for the family tree. I do think it’s interesting.”
Lorenzo’s voice was flat and toneless—it sounded heavy in his ears. Alina would have been hurt by his indifference, but Alejandro didn’t recognize it.
“Okay,” Alejandro said. “Maybe after we can go by the Sons and Daughters of the Alamo headquarters. I’m trying to get them to add us to the official list of descendants.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
Alejandro slid out of the booth and stood next to the table. “I’ll see you soon. I still want to hear more about what’s going on with you.”
He lingered, Lorenzo remained seated and shook his hand. When Alejandro passed Alina, he turned back and glanced at her appreciatively. Her blonde hair was cut short and boyish, above her ears. Her cheekbones were high and sharp, and her blue eyes were spaced far apart. She didn’t look like the waitress, or anyone else in San Antonio. Alina didn’t seem to notice Alejandro—he was just another paunchy, balding guy with dark skin.
She leaned down and kissed Lorenzo on the mouth, slow and deep. While she sat down across from him, Lorenzo put the genealogy folder on the booth next to him.
Alina noticed his movement. “What’s all that?”
“Nothing. Papers someone left. I’ll leave it just in case they come back.”
“Where’s your father?” she asked.
“How was traffic?”
“Fine, I guess.” She looked around, excited. “So?”
“I told you this was a bad idea.”
She looked pained. “What happened?”
“It’s okay. Really. He was here, but he had to go. Something about leaving town for a book he’s writing.” Lorenzo waved Mónica back over. “I’m starving, you want some food?”
She reached over and placed her hand on his wrist.
“You’re not telling me something,” she said. “Did you have a fight?”
With his other hand, Lorenzo stuffed the folder between the cushion and the back of the booth for some other son of San Antonio to find. He lifted both hands into the air, slipping her off, and spread them in front of him. An old credit-card receipt with his father’s name on it remained, unnoticed on Lorenzo’s lap.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked. “We are completely free.”
Richard Z. Santos is a writer and teacher in Austin. His debut novel, Trust Me, was published by Arté Publico Press in March 2020. He is a Board Member of The National Book Critics Circle and served as one of the 2019 Nonfiction Judges for The Kirkus Prize. Recent work can be found in Texas Monthly, Kirkus Reviews, CrimeReads, and many more. In a previous career he worked for some of the nation’s top political campaigns, consulting firms, and labor unions. Follow him on Twitter @richardzsantos or visit his website at www.richardzsantos.com.