Don Ramón

Almost 20 years have passed since my grandfather Julio died, and I still keep vivid memories of that restless, lively, passionate, methodical mind. They say he "had a temper" when he was young, but the one I knew was the hardworking old man, the inventor, the fixer of everything, who in his workshop turned old things into useful ones. The alchemist. The one who made me slingshots out of tree branches so I could play. The one who soldered with tin, who taught me to use the grinding wheel and to make little cans out of oil tins. The one who built me my first tin toolbox and made me promise that his old machines would pass into my hands when he died. The one who walked to my school to see me and took me to buy scrap metal at the Sunday flea market, yesterday's newspaper under his arm and his Parker pen in his guayabera. The one who collected adding machines, locks and Popular Mechanics magazines, and taught me to appreciate the beauty of old things. "Nothing is made the way it used to be anymore." The one who practiced calligraphy at night and noted everything down by hand. The one who taught me to ease my dust allergy by smelling cane liquor and to make eggnog with a fork. From whom I learned to prepare carpenter's glue, to plane wood, to repair electric showers, to make mysteriously useful liquids out of muriatic acid. The one who told me what borax was for and who passed on to me, without knowing it, the love for steam locomotives that I still carry… The one who saw in me the likeness of the son he missed.

A storyteller, his anecdotes always held a touch of magic. His exploits from the railroad days, when he won the typing contest, when he dressed up as a ghost, when he was a telegraph operator, when he built his soda-pop factory out of nothing, when he set up the power-plant business in town, when he slept with his revolver under the pillow to guard the house in the mountains. His ventures were adventure stories to me. A joke-teller, his laughter at 6 in the morning watching Tres Patines. His conversation after the afternoon snack. He was the only person I ever knew who drank strong coffee in order to sleep. I picked up his habit of melting a sliver of butter into hot coffee.

I didn't know how to honor, at the time, everything he left me. I don't like death. But weeks after his passing, the tribute came from someone close to me who, deeply moved, shared with me a piece written in honor of his memory. I read it only once. I noticed the characters' names had been changed and assumed a kind of camouflage of emotions. It was only fitting. I never read it again, yet I remembered it clearly until today, almost 20 years later, when I said to them "you must still have that thing you wrote somewhere," and as if it had been written yesterday, they sent it to me that very instant. They had kept it there forever. Thank you, Muoi.

—–

DON RAMÓN

by Muoi Tran

Don Ramon, I saw you. I saw your eyes looking at the ceiling. The light was dim in your room, and there was a strong smell of puro and herbal honey tea. There you were, reclining lazily on a bed of pillows. Ready to take a long nap after you grew bored with your faded book, pages torn from routine.

But I saw your pinched nerves under the blanket. And the yellow blood under your skin that betrayed the truth of immobility. I saw your eyes beneath the clouds, looking up only, waiting. Not bearing to look straight ahead at us or inwardly at yourself.

*****
“Go to the kitchen, Luisito,” Tia Rosa yelled in a whisper. “You know your

Grandfather Ramon can’t drink anything.”
“But I’m thirsty,” Luisito said again. “He can’t hear us. Grandfather doesn’t know

that I’m thirsty.”
“Keep the light on,” Tia Rosa said. “He is afraid of the dark. Let’s keep the light on

for my beloved Father. Let’s keep him company.”
After we fell like dominoes, heavy limbs criss-crossing one another, you didn’t dare

to blink. The artificial light didn’t fool you, Don Ramon. The neighbors’ kids were silent. The darkness from outside penetrated.

“Take his left hand,” Tia Rosa said. “It’s the one that works.”

You did not let go of whatever was in its clutches. You grabbed onto us for dear life, your life, one that was slipping out from under you and through us. We pulled our hands away. Your eyes began to weep single drops. But your hand gripped. You wanted life. We could not give you ours.

“Scream if he stops breathing,” Tia Rosa said. “I’m tired and I need to rest. I’m the only person here who is with him night and day, every day. I have to take care of everything. Tia Berta does not even call. She doesn’t send a dime.”

Your breathing made a funny sound. In and out. In and out. Our mouths feed us, quench our thirst and allow us to speak our minds. Your mouth, Don Ramon, was denied of all three functions. But it gave you air. In and out, in and out. We continued to talk and to laugh because we heard your breathing.

*****
Forgive us if we stared sometimes. Forgive us if we asked you questions you could

not answer. Forgive us if we talked about ourselves in loud voices and about you in tiny ones. Between tears and laughter, we turned to you.

“Remember how Don Ramon always walked with his eyes down, looking for discarded keys and other metallic objects?”

“Remember that lamp that Don Ramon built out of the broken antenna? Ha! It’s telescopic.”

“That was Don Ramon. Our Grandfather. My Father.” Look up now, Don Ramon. Look up now.