La Bóveda

Nonfiction

Dimitri Ramirez

Papa Carlos held his cream fedora as he stood outside El Dorado Airport. The wet heat teased his skin like an old friend. A wool rag sopped his cheeks. When the Jeep eased into view, he let out a thirty-year sigh; to get in was to surrender to the past. But La Virginia always knew he'd be back.

The Andes stretched for eight hours as Papa Carlos sat silently, deaf to the moan of the highway. I imagine the thoughts harassed his mind all the way down; Mamá and Amparito, trapped in temporary graves. Maybe after this they’d forgive him for running. He kept his arms crossed as hairy mountains dipped and soared in his periphery. When they arrived in La Virginia, the driver tugged his shirt and he awoke.

Papa Carlos always talks about the dogs first, skinny dogs that marched like gangs down the dirt road, as well as the giant men who dug ores through the river, their shoulders tall like the mountains behind them.

When the Jeep pulled away, a group of shirtless boys approached, laughing. Dirt caked their skin; their shorts were cut from jeans—the sight of a white man in a button down and khakis was just too much.

The church was the head of the town, tall and clean, surrounded by shacks. On the steps sat a priest, his arm around a young woman doused in makeup. Papa Carlos waved, pretending the woman wasn’t there.

“Hello Father, my name is Carlos Ramirez. I don’t mean to bother you, but may I share something that’s very dear to me?” 

The priest ran his hand down the girl’s scalp, nodding.

 “I come from New York, but I grew up in La Virginia. My mother and sister passed away here, Father.” He stepped closer. “I would like to, well, pick them up, so to speak.” 

The hellish sun burned hotter on their necks, and the priest snickered. His voice scraped like cement, “You came all the way to this shithole to pick up a bag of bones?” 

Papa Carlos didn’t answer and kept his hands together. The woman whispered to the priest, her blue lips puckering. He smiled, exposing his wretched teeth.

“My child, today is the Lord’s day, so I’m very busy. Please come back tomorrow.” 

Before they could leave, Papa Carlos grabbed the priest’s arm. “I forgot to mention that I would like to donate their empty bóvedas to the church!” 

The Priest slipped his hand from the woman’s and blessed himself. “My child, why didn’t you say so?”

Behind the church was a cemetery the size of a backyard. In the corner, a mossy hut of stone rotted next to a chipped Madonna. Papa Carlos was struck by this statue, so common and ordinary. He wondered—was it too much trouble to clean the rot from her body?

Inside the hut, the stone walls breathed petrichor. The priest ran his finger across dusty epitaphs. “Ramirez!” he said, and jammed the key into the hole.

A cloud of dust burped from the casket. Inside, a skull draped in shiny red hair rolled off a mess of bones. In the other tomb, white socks bagged over skinny feet, but no skull. Mamá and Amparito. They haven’t aged well, Papa Carlos might’ve said, not realizing how inappropriate the joke would’ve been. I wouldn’t blame him though—There are no right words when presented with a pile of your mother and sister. I imagine before his mind could look away, the image surged through his body and cut his heart, only to be, just seconds later, smothered under last week's boxing match, or the dust in his throat, or the church’s peeling paintjob.

The priest scooped the remains into two black garbage bags and handed them to Papa Carlos. “Thank you, Father,” he said.

As he walked to the bus stop, a gang of skinny dogs prowled from behind, eyeing the bags while the shirtless boys egged them on. “Gringo for dinner!” they chanted while Papa Carlos swung the bags at the dogs. “Eat shit! That’s my mother!” They chased him to the bus stop, where the driver would have to join the standoff.

When Papa Carlos climbed up the cathedral steps in Pereira, he could finally breathe. The sun now hid behind the Andes, and the sky, swirls of lavender and honey, cooled the air. The bags felt lighter, too, and for a moment he forgot about their contents. He lowered them to the ground and stretched high, preparing to send his family to their eternal home. But when he jerked the door latch, the dull thud of wood-on-wood was felt in his spine. The church was closed. 

“Ah. Ay yai yai,” he said, looking at the crinkled black bags.The nearest motel, which had as much ambiance as an operating room, had to do. The room consisted of a bed tossed in the corner under a headboard of prison rails. He plopped down the bags and stared at them from across the room. He imagined dumping them on the bed and putting them back together, though he feared mixing them up. The bones could only be processed logically, a task to be completed, not felt. But perhaps the armor of his mind was wearing thin.

This part of the story is always just, “I slept in the room with the bones,” but I know he didn’t sleep that night. I imagine he’d keep staring, picturing his mother, her arms not much fuller than the bones, coughing with grey skin. He'd recall, on Mother’s day, being the only boy in the ninth grade who wore a white rose, while the other boys wore red ones. He’d recall, after running to America, a mound of Amparito’s unanswered letters under his bed. Looking at the crumpled paper, he’d pray: stop being a coward and leave your drunk husband. But she was gone before he had the guts to tell her personally.

While this is my own addition to the story, I believe he was cornered that night, pinned against the wall as the past he’s tried so hard to destroy breathes in his face. Perhaps he believed that, by neglecting his heart, he was fulfilling his duty as a man; a breadwinning punching bag that need not be checked on—but the true man is hiding within a callus. And while I could beat him on the head with that, the truth is Papa Carlos was taught no other way. 

At six in the morning, Papa Carlos rose from the musty bed. Outside, he trudged through pillows of white fog, the bags swinging at his sides. A spire tore through the mist—there was the cathedral, exactly where he had left it. 

Bone by bone, Papa Carlos and the priest placed Mamá and Amparito into black wooden boxes. Soon, they’d be dust, resting in glass. I imagine he gazed down at the bones, smiling this time. Perhaps his brain still nudged him to look away, but in his heart he realized that these bones can’t hurt him.

In reality, Papa Carlos has little to say about his trip to La Virginia. Through a series of curt interviews, this is my interpretation of what he might have thought in those moments. But whatever did happen in that room, not even he knows, as it’s pushed down and locked away.

I imagine, in the future, sitting with Papa Carlos, making him tell the story for the one hundredth time. He’d get to the end, and, instead of trailing off, he’d say, “You know, I actually didn’t sleep too well that night.”