Freedom is a celebration ‹ Literary Hub

The following is from Alejandro Puyana’s Freedom is a celebrationPuyana, who came to the United States from Venezuela at age 26, received his MFA from the University of Texas' Michener Center for Writers. His work has appeared in Tin House, American Short Stories, The American Scholar, and elsewhere, and his story “Hands of Dirty Children” was reprinted in Best American Short StoriesHe lives in Austin, Texas with his wife (writer Brittani Sonnenberg) and daughter.

Eloy felt warm. Like he did when he curled up tight in the blanket and laid his head on his mother's lap while she read him stories. Like he did when he ran from third base to home plate and his friends all clapped him on the shoulder. It was as if someone had taken all of those feelings and compressed them into two red dots, one in his stomach, one a few inches from his bony spine.

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Everything moved slowly, everything sounded far away. He could hear his mother screaming, but it was as if the noise was sluggish and didn't quite reach him. He couldn't read her face, had never seen her move like that before: her eyes moist and bouncing, as if she was searching for something important that was lost; her chest rising and falling as fast as his own had after she ran up the barrio stairs with his friend Wili. When she finally reached him, hugging him and holding him, he felt her vibrate as if her whole body was a heart. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. An earthquake with each beat.

His mother carried him outside and his madrina shouted: “Jacinto, the child has been shot!”

His neighbor took him from his mother, turned him over, and lifted up his shirt. It made a wet sound as it came away from his skin.

“El plomo went out the back,” said Jacinto. “That's good.”

“Viejo, what do you think?” said his madrina.

“The bullet isn't in there – the doctors don't have to look for it – but he's bleeding heavily. We don't have much time. Magali, get me some towels from the house.”

His mother ran to the rancho and Don Jacinto quickly took him and his mother to the Honda. Eloy loved that motorcycle so much. He would sit with Don Jacinto after school and help him work on it. That's where he had learned most of his curse words. Hija de su gran puta was used for the motorcycle in general when it wouldn't start. But there was also the coño e' su madre carburetor, the pendejo clutch, the brakes de mierda and the engine of los cojones. When his mother wasn't there, Eloy was allowed to jump on the motorcycle and pretend to drive it. Jacinto brought his radio and they listened to the baseball games together while Eloy made vroom Noises from inside the big helmet.

His mother ran back to them with the towels. Jacinto, who was sitting astride the motorcycle, struggled with the ignition. “Hija de su gran puta,” he muttered.

Eloy's mother picked him up and squeezed him between Jacinto's back and her body.

“Señora Magali,” said Jacinto, “have María apply pressure where the bullet went in and out.”

At first it didn't hurt, he just felt something leaving him, like when he was little and peed in bed.

“Mujer, listen,” Magali said to his mother. “Go to Vargas Hospital. They treat gunshot wounds best there. Stop at nothing, do you hear?”

Don Jacinto was still struggling with the bike, one kick after another, to no avail.

Magali now applied more pressure to Eloy and held his mother's hands with hers. “There, María. Hold the towels like this.”

Then a sharp pain shot from Eloy's belly, half of it down to his toes, the other half to his head. He screamed loudly and shrilly, and his mother kissed him on the head while the pain radiated outward, through his mother and his madrina and Don Jacinto, through la hija de su gran puta, through Don Jacinto's green ferns, through the million ranchos and the million bullets that flew through them, through Cotiza and down the mountain.

Finally, the Honda sputtered to life – the mechanical whirring seemed to echo inside – and his madrina placed the helmet on his mother’s head.

*

María wrapped her arms around Don Jacinto's waist, squeezing Eloy's thin body between them. The blood pooled and soaked the towels he held to his stomach and back. Every bump in the road squeezed her shirt like a wet mop. The blood was warm, but the rest of Eloy was cold, although she could still feel his small torso expanding against her with the effort of his breathing.

On the hectic ride downhill, she caught glimpses of the neighborhood. The further downhill they went, the more solid the buildings became. There were real walls that could stop bullets, bright colors, barred windows, porches and balconies. Every concrete block, every metal door exuded dignity. Yet it was a different neighborhood today: the shops were closed, the porches of the houses empty, the squares and basketball courts lifeless. People marched downhill in small groups, dressed as if for battle. They carried sticks, baseball bats and the occasional pistol. They wore Chavista clothing, berets and red shirts, and sang and chanted as they walked down the hill to protect the president.

María held Don Jacinto tightly and pressed Eloy between them.

Don Jacinto struggled to navigate the ever-growing crowds heading toward the presidential palace. They were the opposite of those on television who had been calling for Chávez's resignation, deposition, or death. This was the other side. “¡UH, AH, CHÁVEZ NO SE VA! ¡UH, AH, CHÁVEZ NO SE VA!” they chanted defiantly over the crowds on the television screen. María wished the protesters would go away and let them pass unhindered.

Then the motorcycle squeaked, the rear wheel skidded, and somehow Don Jacinto managed to stop in front of a burning barricade without throwing the three of them off. People were throwing things into the fire: rubber tires, pieces of wood. A blue plastic desk where Eloy was sitting in class flew into the pyre. A line of men carried things from a kindergarten—chairs and tables—and two others pushed a bookshelf into the flames, from which the books fell like teeth from a rotting mouth. A short, hairy man hurled a chalkboard still written on in chalk. Everything, sacred or not, was fuel for the fire. The thick, black smoke vomited into the gray sky. Through the rubble, María could see the gathering of men in blue uniforms on the other side—the municipal police, who were supposed to protect the anti-Chávez demonstrators.

“Get out, Señora María,” Jacinto said. “I can't get through here. Let me talk to some people… let's see how we get to Vargas Hospital.”

On a normal day, it would have been just a few minutes longer, but her path was blocked. María laid Eloy on the ground and pressed against his stomach. He was now unconscious, but still breathing. With her free hand, María clutched her necklace, the black jet carved into a fist that had belonged to her mother and had seen them both go through so much. She quietly asked her mother for help.

Don Jacinto was arguing with some masked men. All of them were brandishing weapons – baseball bats and oxidized rebar – and two boys were gathering rocks and piling them on top of each other while other masked men, with T-shirts wrapped over their noses and mouths, were throwing the rocks over the barricade and at the police with the skill of years of sandlot baseball experience.

Don Jacinto turned away from the men to go back to the motorcycle, and it seemed as if he was moving in slow motion. He wore old pants, almost black, with oil stains, and a white T-shirt that was now almost dark red. It was as if she had never looked at him, not before he wore Eloy's life on his clothes. He was tall, his skin the color of coffee with too much milk in it, and he was bald, but he still had enough white hair to comb some long strands over his bald spot. He was a strong, old man, fibrous, with wiry muscles, stubble on his cheeks, and calloused hands. He was kind, she knew that. He was a good man. He tried to protect her.

“Vámonos,” he said. “We can't get through here on bicycles. We have to walk.” He carefully lifted Eloy from the sidewalk, as if he were already dead, and walked into an alley littered with rubble and debris.

María couldn't stop coughing. Neither could Don Jacinto, whose cough was deeper, raspy and smelled of tobacco. The smoke from the barricade mixed with tear gas made her eyes water and itch. But she didn't hear Eloy coughing as he lay on Jacinto's shoulder, and it frightened her. She walked behind them, clutching the azabache necklace. As she came out of the alley, she saw the policemen on the other side of the barricade. They wore black helmets and big shields, shotguns and tear gas launchers, buzzing around each other in a disorderly manner like wasps around a nest. One of the men, whose body was half obscured by clouds of tear gas, noticed her.

“Hey. Hey!” he shouted. “Stop, Coño!” Flanked by two other men, the policeman ran toward them with his shotgun raised. María and Jacinto froze. For once, only Eloy seemed to move, his small body twitching to life.

“What do you have there? Drop it!” the policeman shouted at Jacinto.

The glitter of the shotgun’s metal hypnotized María.

“I can't!” Don Jacinto shouted back. “It's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy!” he cried, sobbing, his left arm raised, his right still holding Eloy.

The officer flipped up his visor and then tilted his head like a curious dog. He lowered his weapon. He gestured with his hand for the other officers to do the same. “It's a child,” he said, running toward them.

“My son was shot,” said María. “Please. We need help.”

“Come with me,” said the policeman, trying to take Eloy off Jacinto’s shoulder.

Jacinto stepped back.

“Okay,” the man said. “Calm down. It's okay, you can carry him. I have a car two minutes away. Let's take your boy to the hospital.”

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Out of Freedom is a celebration by Alejandro Puyana. Used with permission of publisher Little, Brown and Company. Copyright © 2024 Alejandro Puyana.