A Ride to the Airport by Eve West Bessier

María de la Tierra Sagrada is a dirty town. Not because of pollution, occasional political scandals or a slightly sullied history, but because of the dark red soil that holds its people here. The holy dirt gets under fingernails, sifts through screened windows in summer and drags through doorways on boot soles in winter.

The town comes out from the sea like beach glass, shiny and opaque, washed and broken again and again, until even its back alleys are beautiful secrets. 

The old women here whisper the names of their youthful lovers as if a spell were cast by the very syllables of Jorge, Rafael, Eduardo. 

Manuel Alonso walks along the narrow beach, his bare feet within reach of each wave tip that laps at his toes like the tongue of a puppy. 

He has been every age on this sand. Skinny Manuelito running toward the ice cream vendor’s bell. Shy Mannie, reading novels while studying the boys playing soccer at the surf’s edge. Adolescent Manuel, standing under the mango trees with lovely Maria Consuela Alveréz, knowing a kiss was what Maria expected of him, but being able only to stare into her dark eyes. First she looked confused. Then she started to cry. 

Manuel’s later romantic endeavors did not turn out much better. He remained a bachelor all his life, focused on his work. His passion was pyrography. He burned into leather fantastical birds, lizards, vines and orchids. His work was precise and ornate. It sold well and he eventually owned his own leather shop. His customers said he had inherited his mother’s talent.

Manuel’s mother painted murals on the walls of his bedroom, thinking that their bright colors and whimsical creatures would distract him from the absence of his father and their poverty. Her elegant peacocks, their tail feathers painted with fine brush strokes, adorned the living room walls. Her jovial blue and red parrots lit up the small kitchen. 

His mother stopped painting when she became ill. She died two years later, when Manuel was twenty-one. He still lives in the little house with her murals, now faded to pastels. He keeps her paintbrushes wrapped in a cloth at the back of a dresser drawer. Her tubes of oil paint dried up long ago.

Under the bridge, where the river moves into the sea like a question mark, Manuel almost drowned at twenty-two. On that morning, during the hurricane named Sophia, he was swept away by an angry wave. He had wanted to be swept away, but then he’d held his breath longer than the patience of Death while drowning in sorrow.

Death took many lives that day but spared the inhabitants of María de la Tierra Sagrada, though a furious wind sent mangoes flying through the streets like bullets, hitting walls with yellow fury and smacking old Paco Gomez so hard in the forehead he passed out. A lucky thing for him, as he fell just in time to miss decapitation by the tin roof of his outhouse slicing through the air.

Manuel stares at the calm sea. Today, he is leaving them all behind. He is not leaving because he has grown tired of this small paradise in need of paint and maintenance, or because he no longer loves these dusty houses with their cacti-infested courtyards and sweltering bedchambers. He is leaving because a heart broken as many times as his own is a dark omen for the younger and untried. He is leaving because those who have broken his heart are all gone and there is no longer any reason to forgive. 

He will wait for the público at the north end of town. It will take him to the airport. He has told no one of his plan. They would think him crazy, but he is only an old man with a dream to see his mother’s country and let his tired bones rest there when he is gone. Death has been patient with him all these years but Manuel’s own patience has run dry.

He sits for a moment on the crumbling wall above the beach. The sea is peaceful. He places his old fedora on the wall beside him and leans down to brush the sand from his feet. He slips on his worn leather sandals with the peacock feather pattern on the straps. He replaces his hat and walks slowly up the hill to wait in the shade of the mango trees. 

He stands there alone at first, then a few others arrive. The butcher, Victor Itxaro and his wife, Alma. The teenaged Ignazio brothers, who lean against the tree trunks wearing cheap dark sunglasses. Hadria Fortuna, skinny and stubborn as a dried reed, who wobbles down the hill with her basket of woven cloth for market. Some say she is a witch because of the strong smell of bitter herbs that emanates from her old clothes and her wild white hair. 

The público comes down from the mountains. Its boxy pink shape moves along the switchbacks and the clatter of its diesel engine grows louder at each turn. The bus is late by nearly an hour. Manuel is not concerned. The flight he has booked will not be leaving until late afternoon. He plans to eat a simple meal at the airport’s cafeteria while waiting.

The público comes to a stop with a screech of brakes, a cloud of dust and a black plume of exhaust.  Its rusty doors groan open. Once the leaving passengers step off, those waiting ascend the rickety metal stairs. Manuel drops his coins into the slot of the fare box. Each one clangs like a bell. 

The Ignazio brothers plop into their seats. Hadria Fortuna shuffles down the aisle ahead of Manuel. She stops towards the back of the bus.

“You take the window,” she commands Manuel. “I do not like to see the world go by so fast.”

They settle into their seats. A feisty cumbia sputters through static from the small radio strapped to the front windshield beneath the rearview mirror. All the window mechanisms are broken and the windows are stuck open at various heights.

Manuel sits in the seat over the rear left tire and every pothole sends him up off the cushion for a moment before settling back down with a squeak from the springs. He wants to move to another seat but that requires asking Hadria Fortuna to get up. Not a pleasant prospect. Despite the relentless bouncing, Hadria has already fallen asleep, her head resting on the basket of rainbow woven cloth in her lap. She snores loudly and smells of talcum, sage, and the passing of years.

As the bus ascends into the mountains, there is a light morning mist. It feels refreshingly cool coming in through the opened windows and Manuel is grateful for it.

At every stop, the driver lets on a few more people. Two wrinkled campesinos. A shy girl with a black kitten, accompanied by her extraordinarily lovely mother. Two nuns in their black habits. Four schoolgirls in the plaid uniforms of San Ignacio. Soon the small bus rides heavy on its worn shocks. 

The airport lies in a wide valley on the other side of the mountains. The terminal is dingy with grimy windows. It hums with flies, smelling of fried onions and aftershave. In the waiting areas, the worn vinyl seats are repaired with duct tape over many tears in the cushions. 

Manuel has never taken a flight but the bus into the city departs from the airport terminal. He used to take that bus once a month to sell his handmade leather goods at the outdoor market. He has not gone in many years now. It is too difficult for his old hands to do the leather sewing. He sold his shop and lives on a government pension. 

Manuel pulls out a book, but it is impossible to keep a steady hand, the road is a washboard. The words jump around on the page and he is unable to connect them for meaning. He gives up and tucks his glasses back into his pocket. He closes his eyes and smells the wetness of leaves and the aroma of rotting guavas as he feels himself drift over the threshold between wakefulness and sleep.

The público turns abruptly to the left. Manuel jostles fully awake. If his memory serves him, the driver should have continued straight on the main road. 

Perhaps the driver knows a shorter route, or perhaps they will become lost. It doesn’t matter to Manuel. There are still many hours before he is at risk of missing his flight. Besides, he is far too old to argue with the driver, who has a bulldog tattoo on his bulging bicep.

Manuel gazes out of his open window. The foliage along the road is thick, lithe branches occasionally flick inside. He pulls the brim of his fedora over his eyes. The air is rich with the calls of tree frogs and birds as the público churns upwards. The road’s many tight turns are making him a bit queasy. He places his hat on his lap and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. 

Up in the mountains the vegetation is a tropical jungle. Bromeliads grow on the escarpment of reddish mud. The driver is singing loudly with the radio and swerving dangerously back and forth along the narrow road, not always staying on the correct side. 

Manuel feels slightly faint. He turns to talk with Hadria Fortuna, but she has become a mangy goat and her bearded chin is shaking as she laughs. 

“Look at you, Manuelito!” she says. “So much you have lost and so little to show for it. So little!” 

Hadria bites into the cloth in her basket and chews with great satisfaction as Manuel stares at the hair around her watery, pink eyes. She appears huge, towering above him. 

Manuel feels ashamed and looks at his feet. They are tiny. The tiny feet of a mouse.

“¡Madre de Dios!” he gasps.

Manuel scrambles to the top of his seat back and digs his sharp little mouse claws into the upholstery. From there he can see everything.

The bus sputters, threatening to stop, then lurches forward, sending the Ignazio brothers flying from their seats. As they cry out, their tanned, muscular bodies change into long-armed monkeys. They grab onto the baggage racks and swing over the heads of passengers. There is general mayhem until the driver’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.

“¡Amigos y amigas! Por favor, cálmese.”

The monkeys settle down up front and begin grooming each other. 

The old goat is now standing in the aisle, nibbling on the stuffing that protrudes from a seat cushion. 

Manuel no longer recognizes the road. The tires must be hugging the edge of a sheer cliff. From his perch, he can see across the aisle and out of the windows on the opposite side. The view is dizzying. 

He squeaks. The minuscule sound of his own voice frightens him.

The giggling schoolgirls turn into red and blue parrots. They squawk and fly out of a window, up into the foliage.

The bus is driving so close to the mud escarpment now that Manuel can smell the bromeliads and ferns, the raw fecundity of the moist soil. He wants to jump from the bus but is too afraid. 

Two campesinos a few rows ahead, shed their human forms to become silver snakes. They slither over their seat backs.

Manuel’s small mouse belly tightens. He is relieved when the snakes slip out of the window and up into the ferns. 

The driver smiles into the rearview mirror instead of watching the road as he transforms into a massive iguana. 

“Please fasten your seat belts,” he hisses.

There are no seatbelts and even if there were, what use would they be to a mouse?

As bus careens along the precipice, he hangs on to the upholstery and prays to the Virgin, or anyone who might be listening.

He can hear the transmission shift down to a lower gear. The road ahead disappears. The monkeys shout with glee as the bus pulls out into the blue sky, the front and rear tires spinning free in the air. 

Through the side window, Manuel sees the vast expanse of the valley thousands of feet below and the runways of the airport in the distance, like charcoal pencil marks on a field of pale green.

The two nuns in the front row turn into white doves. They fly through an open window with a flutter of feathers and a light chink as their rosary beads hit the metal window frame.

As the front of the bus tips downward, the goat slides on her furry butt in the aisle. Manuel falls from his perch and lands in Hadria’s basket of cloth. He burrows down into the soft darkness. 

Then, he hears a loud snap, like the sound of cloth in the wind. The bus swings in the opposite direction. Hadria’s basket is sent flying. Manuel squeals like a frightened child on an amusement park ride. 

He peeks out from the basket and sees the goat sliding the other way down the aisle past him. Just as everything in the baggage compartments begins to fall out, Hadria’s basket slides under a seat where Manuel is protected from being crushed. He burrows back into the folds.

There is no sound except a low creaking, like the timbers of an old boat at sea. The bus sways from side to side. Manuel’s stomach feels green and his mouth tastes sour, but he is too curious to stay hidden. He crawls out of the basket, scampers over the sticky floor and climbs back up to the top of a seat back.

The bus is drifting in the direction of the airport. Manuel jumps onto the narrow window sill and looks up. A huge white parachute has opened above. It is beautiful.

He weeps softly. They are mouse tears but they are his tears. 

“Querido Dios,” he whispers. “Por favor, don’t let me die a mouse.” 

His tiny body shivers. His whiskers brush against the glass pane, sending a creepy tingling through his face. He closes his eyes.

“I just want to be Manuelito again. I was so small my whole life. Let me make it up to you.”

He waits, keeping his eyes closed. 

When he opens them again, he looks up into the white arch of the parachute. It glows in the sunlight. 

The iguana’s shrill voice interrupts his reverie.

“Damas y caballeros, prepare for landing!”

The iguana guides the bus into position over a runway in a steep descent. 

Manuel falls down into the seat cushion below and holds onto the upholstery with all his might.

The ground reaches up to grab the bus which bounces violently several times before coming to an abrupt halt. 

There is a moment of quiet, a hush before the entire bus erupts into cheers.

Manuel’s high-pitched squeal ends as a low guttural sigh of relief.

He glances down and sees his shoes, with his feet inside. His old man’s feet. He touches his face. No more whiskers, just his own small mustache.

“Gracias,” he says softly.

The doors of the bus open with a moan demanding oil. The driver is back in his burly human body and sweat-stained shirt. The remaining passengers, those who did not leap, fly or crawl from the bus as animals, are all back in their human forms. They gather their belongings and head towards the front of the bus. 

Manuel thinks about the two campesinos who became snakes. Those old men are probably lying among the ferns, their mouths full of dirt. He hopes the two nuns who became doves were allowed to fly all the way to heaven. Why not, after all?

The shy girl with the black kitten wears a radiant smile. Her mother has tears running down her cheeks. Manuel offers her crying mother the clean white handkerchief from his breast pocket. She accepts it with a nod. 

The Ignazio brothers are up to their fidgety antics. The goat is once again Hadria Fortuna. Even for her, Manuel feels some fondness as she shuffles to the front mumbling.

He watches the motley crew walk over the tarmac towards the terminal. They will be taking the bus into the city. 

He reaches for his leather bag in the luggage bin. It is not there. He looks around and eventually finds it under the rear bench seat. He retrieves it and moves slowly to the front of the bus.

The driver smiles, his gruff exterior momentarily forgotten, his iguana skin a distant memory.

“Déjame ayudarte, viejo,” the driver says, getting out of his seat, and he cradles Manuel’s arm as they descend the rickety stairs.

Manuel walks across the hot tarmac and enters the terminal. It’s cool inside. He hardly recognizes the place. There are new seats in the waiting areas with shiny chrome frames and intact black vinyl. 

He sits down to regain some composure. The new seats are comfortable. When was the last time he smiled. He smiles. 

His elderly neighbor, Maria Fuentes, will need help harvesting her garden now that her grandson has moved to the city. Wild parrots come each morning to eat the sunflower seeds he leaves on the windowsill. They are always so happy to have those seeds. 

He thinks about what the goat said, that he has so little to show for his life. 

When he gets back home, Manuel decides, he will take his mother’s brushes from the dresser, buy some fresh oil paints and canvas and try his hand at painting.

His airline ticket is just a jumble of numbered codes, times of departure and arrival at a destination that now seems impossibly far away.

He grabs his bag and walks with determination towards the check-in area. 

There is no line, so he steps up to the counter.

“May I help you, señor?” a young woman with a short haircut asks.

Manuel looks into her serious eyes. 

“Death will have to wait,” he says.

The ticket agent looks at him as if she’s not sure he is in his right mind.

Manuel hands her his ticket. “You see, I have decided not to go. Is it possible to receive a refund?”

The agent scrutinizes the ticket. “No, señor, but you can use the airfare toward a new ticket for up to two years. Do you wish to cancel your flight today?”

“Sí, por favor.”

The agent punches information into her computer. She writes something on the ticket and returns it to him.

“Bring this to any travel agency or our ticket counter when you are ready to reschedule.” 

Manuel takes the cancelled ticket from her hand and places it back inside his bag.

He walks toward the airport’s cafeteria, feeling like a much younger man, and suddenly hungry.

The cafeteria has been replaced by a proper restaurant with tables and stately wooden chairs. He has the money for the suit he’d planned to wear. He no longer needs the suit. 

He sits at a small table by a tall window and reads the fancy menu. When the waiter arrives, Manuel orders a steak grilled with green peppers, some seasoned rice with avocado slices and a shot glass of expensive Herradura tequila. 

The tequila arrives first. 

Manuel raises his glass into the air. 

“¡Salud!” he says with glee, to no one in particular. 

Eve West Bessier writes fiction, essays and poetry. She is a poet laureate emerita of Silver City, New Mexico and of Davis, California. Eve was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to San Francisco with her mom at age seven. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Education. She worked in educational research for youth development. Her monthly blog, Write On! is hosted by Southwest Word Fiesta (swwordfiesta.org). Eve is a jazz vocalist, voice coach, avid hiker and nature photographer. Her writing is widely published and has received literary awards. Eve’s visionary novel is titled, New Rain. Her poetry collections are, Roots Music: Listening to Jazz, and Exposures: Tripod Poems. Find out more at: www.jazzpoeteve.com

3 September 2021