Stephen Blackburn

"The vivid characters who people Blackburn's 9 Tales of Life and Death refused to be contained within the confines of their short stories."

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"Preparing for a visit to Mexico, this odd collection of short stories with an energetic title caught my eye on the $2 shelf at a local bookstore. I picked it up, browsed at the title story, and found myself drawn into a difficult, often dismal life of an overweight and under-educated woman on a crowded Mexican bus.

This thin book, written by a middle-aged journalist and former cook, contains riveting tales of desperate folks seeking solace and satisfaction. Usually, they fail.

Stephen Blackburn, the author, brings great sensitivity to his portraits of Los Angeles nannies, Louisana cooks, lonely loners, Vietnam veterans, ambitious Boy Scouts, and Mexican women. People misperceive, take chances, make poor choices, find the courage to try something new, and fail again. The litany of personal tales of woe afflicting these fine folks ranges from betrayal, crime, and poverty to indecision, drug abuse, and abusive employers in this Steinbeckian collection.

...This collection of short stories certainly deserves a wider audience of readers - especially in community college classrooms and adult education centers. The costs of ignorance - emotional, physical, and financial - become extraordinarily clear in this compelling work."

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"Blackburn's truest skills as a craftsman lie in his third person narratives and believable dialog, which carries his stories rapidly forward. There's no vacuousness in any of these stories; rather than an abstract presentation of a moment in time, each work is an entire event, leaving the reader with a sense of satisfaction uncommon in short story collections."

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EXCERPT

Pagar por sustos. [El Salvador.] To buy on credit. [colloq.] Lit. "to pay for frights;" "to pay by fears."

"Agua, 'Paro!"

She could never resist his angel face even when he was grumpy. She worked hard to pronounce his name, but sometimes it still came out as Shuck. She got him a plastic tumbler of water and finally got him down for a nap, reading him the storybook he picked out. No matter what the book, he liked her made up Spanish version better than the real story. He was only just four but his room had as many books and toys as a store. And all the videos, too: Barney, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Wallace and Grommit, and There Goes a Monster Truck! and There Goes A Rocket! and every thing from Disney. There were so many. Still, Amparo couldn't resist buying him even more toys, so that he would have things from her. Often she would buy him some toy train he didn't have yet. Chuck never got tired of trains and he loved candy and he loved Amparo. She loved the bright, sunhaired little boy as much as if he was her own. When she would come to work in the mornings Chuck would shriek joyfully: "'Paro's home!" Sure, he was naughty sometimes but only in natural little boy ways that made her laugh when she told her friends Conchita and Alba about it later. Perhaps she loved him more since the belief began creeping up on her that she might never find a husband.

At the end of the story she closed the book and closed the blinds and kissed him on the forehead, and then she closed the door. He liked the ritual. She had to do it in the same order or he would get mad.

Just before she closed his door he spoke up softly,
"'Paro, we saw a wreck, didn't we?"

"An accident."

"A bad wreck?"

"Sí, Chico."

"What about those ladies?"

"I don't know, Baby."

"They got hurt?"

"Well, they took them to the hospital."

"That's where they fix people?"

"Yes."

"Did they fix the ladies?"

"Sometimes that takes a long time."

"What would happen if the truck ran into the 'nosserus instead of the ladies?"

"Close your eyes. Go to sleep." She shut the door. Puchica, what a day.

You're too American, Conchita always told her. Conchita said that it was one thing to speak your mind when you were just with the girls. There's plenty of time for giving him your opinions after the priest ties the knot and he doesn't have a choice.

Plenty of time. What about time for herself? She worked six days a week and didn't get home until eight most nights and then there was the studying for citizenship and reading her bible lessons, which truth be known, she skimped on far too often. Where were the hours for her to meet nice men, much less get to know them in the proper way?

One day while Amparo was still a girl and the war had just started happening, her mother passed by a neighbor's and heard the small children inside crying. It was a sad house because the mother had already disappeared and the father, who drank too much before, drank even more after his wife was gone. Some said she had been taken by the rich people's death squads and gang raped, then hacked to death with machetes like so many others. Others swore that she had gone north, to San Diego, California. Amparo's mother could not find the father, so she brought the three children to her own home, and although they could not afford it, Tata agreed to it for as long as it took to get one of the government agencies to look after them. One of the children was a cute little boy named Carlos.

Later, after the agency took the children, Amparo would see Carlos sometimes on her way to school. She would smile and they would chat. Well, she always did most of the talking. Although he was then only a few years older than Chuck was now, Carlos was quiet and diligent. He had already started working at a meatpacking plant. She liked to tease him because he was always serious and polite.

Amparo was tired. She needed to catch some sleep herself, but now found she could not lose herself that way. Not after what had happened. Okay, she would keep busy. She was hired only as a nanny, but she wound up cooking and cleaning and doing laundry just because she liked this family and couldn't stand it if things needed doing and didn't get done because that Tom Harrigan worked all the time and never did a damn thing around the house anyway and Chuck's mother Sarah was gone at her business until seven every night.

Still, Amparo felt very fortunate as she sorted whites from colors and started another load of laundry. Chuck's father Tom produced a top rated sitcom for ABC and his mother Sarah had her own movie prop shop that she had started eight years before with a partner. Sarah was almost like a friend. She would always trade information with Amparo about various actors. Her company had provided props for several of Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies. He was another good one. Sarah was making him a special prop one time and when she had to stretch the measuring tape all the way around his big chest his muscles were so big that she just had to tease him, so she stopped and said I have a problem with that. Arnold took a puff of his cigar and smiled. Deal with it, he said back to her, and shared a laugh with Sarah. That's the way she was. Sarah could have had all these autographed photographs of stars, but she didn't care about that type of thing. She came from a farm outside of Lawrence, Kansas. Amparo liked working for Sarah because she was generous, down to earth and liked to hear all the dirt from the nanny network. Of course the nanny network was not a true organization. It was just that the nannies who worked for movie people knew each other, and many of these women were from El Salvador, many of them illegals, like Alba. They worked for some of the most famous actors in the world and a lot of more powerful people who nobody outside of Hollywood ever heard of.

The most important thing Sarah Harrigan ever did for Amparo was to sponsor her green card petition. But the nicest thing Sarah ever did was when she cosigned on the papers so that Amparo could buy a completely new Toyota Celica by paying each month "an installment." This way Amparo was also establishing credit. To be in Los Angeles without credit was something many people did, yet Amparo was sharp, she listened and watched the way yanquis did things and realized that no credit meant you would probably not rise very far here. The stupid thing was that you had to have money to get credit. But if you had money you didn't need the credit! Still, she worked hard and was careful with her money, so to her it was okay if she had credit or no.

Amparo made a mental note to buy more detergent as the crammed the very last dish possible into the dishwasher and emptied the squeeze bottle into the door compartment and then shut the machine and started it. At first she meant to just pay cash for a cheap dependable used car, but Chuck's mother convinced her that she deserved something nice, and that it would be safer for when she drove Chuck around. This car was nothing compared to the Mazarattis or Jaguars or huge Lincoln Navigators racing along Wilshire or Century Park East, but it was nice, very nice for Amparo. She liked to be inside her shiny metallic green Toyota Celica, to smell the new smell of her tan vinyl upholstery. Even when Chuck spilled something or couldn't wait and peed, it wiped right off. You could wash it and it didn't smell bad, but it had stopped smelling new and lately smelled like soap and crackers. But that was all right. The Toyota made her feel like things were good. With this car it was just like one of the tv commercials said: she had freedom. She could take Chuck to any park or store. She could decide to go anywhere and get in and just go there. And when people saw her car, they had respect for her because they saw she had a new, nice car. Credit was one thing, but to be in this city without a car was to be a cripple. Sure there were the buses, but not enough, so that often you had wait a long time and sometimes the buses were full and would pass you by, and even when you did get on one you had to crowd in and stand the whole way. When did any Anglos ever take a bus? Only the ones who had to, the poor ones. Except for that one tv star who was a fanatic about the environment, and even he quit riding once an electric car came on the market that he could lease for $500 a month. Puchica! No, unless you had a car, and a decent one, you were nobody. She had learned that lesson quickly in the United States.

The season Amparo turned fifteen years old a flood swept through her village. People who had survived years of war died in the flood. It made you wonder. The river washed through her family's house. Her father had been at the newspaper working so her mother rescued Amparo's grandmother, who wouldn't let go of the television. Fortunately their house was built of cinderblocks and was sturdy.

One morning soon after, when the mud was still a foot thick in the house and a dirty water mark chest high on the walls and the muck had begun to smell like rotten eggs, which was better than the ripe corpses that still sped by in the river, Amparo and her sisters and brother had been almost ready to walk to school. All the schoolchildren had to wear uniforms, even though it was a state sponsored and not a Catholic school. She hated that uniform and had been arguing with her mother about having to wear it. They were ugly and scratchy and now smelled of mildew even though her mother had washed them. Mami was scolding her when the soldiers came into the house with their guns and smashed the tv and pulled Tata and Mami and her sister Graciela and brothers Tito and Nando and her and even Abuelita out of the house and shoved them all down to the swollen river. Her mother was crying. Her grandmother didn't understand what was happening. The soldiers yelled at her father and slapped him. They hated his small newspaper. Amparo watched a dead cow floating past on its side in the rapid current, seeming to dribble a flat football that had become trapped in the eddies of its stiff front legs. Tata was scared but brave and proud when they pointed their guns at him. Even when they pointed guns at Amparo and the rest of her family. Amparo was shivering because she didn't yet understand this was just a warning, and believing she was about to have her brains blown out, she prayed for Carlos to be well and to remember her sometimes. But a part of her inside was laughing to recall the look on the soldiers' faces when floodwater gushed out of the tv they smashed.

Amparo remembered something else she needed to do. Once a year, Sarah would decide to clean out her and Tom's closets and get rid of a lot of clothes, and she would let Amparo have her pick and then phone Goodwill take the rest. Amparo now picked through the stacks Sarah had made in the master bedroom. Perfectly good clothes. But these people always bought more, even when they already had plenty. It was just something to do. Amparo chose what she wanted and put them in boxes. Tomorrow she would ship the clothes to her brothers and sister or other family members to wear, give away or sell.

For now, Amparo lay down again and tried to sleep.

The monthly cost of the Toyota was a lot of money for her, and it was hard to have the money every month for when the note was due since she was always wiring part of her paycheck back to El Salvador to help her sister go to the university and for her family to bribe the guards so her father would not be maltreated. Because of the money Amparo sent, he at least had all the bare necessities in the prison and sometimes a comfort or two, and Amparo had never ever missed a car payment until this month but now she was late because the guards had demanded more money. Already she had to buy gasoline and some groceries with her Texaco credit card. She needed to talk to Chuck's mother about the car payment before the bank did.

Gradually Amparo started to drift off in the warmth of the California afternoon with the cool Pacific breeze caressing her and in her ears the pleasant whirrings of the washing machine, the dryer and the dishwasher and the slightly distant sounds of traffic and helicopters. Then, just as she fell asleep there was a screech of tires outside and though there was no thump at the end, she dreamed a thump and she saw again the two old ladies fly strangely through the air and tumble on the hard street.

Amparo awoke with a start.

When Alba answered the phone from the house where she was working that day, Amparo told her about how she had taken Chuck to the zoo for the first time and he was crazy about the rhinoceros he saw, such a strange creature, and couldn't stop talking about it even later at the pony ride in Los Feliz down near I-5. Amparo now pronounced it "Fee-less." Nobody in L.A. would know where you were talking about it you said it right. She meant to come right out and tell Alba about the accident first thing, but instead she told Alba how Chuck had been riding the pony, nearly slipping off the saddle, and she saw a man there wearing sunglasses and watching his own son riding a pony. He seemed like a man who really liked seeing his little boy have fun. Later when Amparo was getting Chuck down off his pony, the man was doing the same with his boy. Amparo had to say something.

"You know, you look a lot like John Travolta."

"That's because I am John Travolta."

"No!" she shook her head and hid her grin with her hand.

"Really, I am."

"You are just kidding me."

"No, I promise." He took off his sunglasses and smiled so she could see it really truly was John Travolta. He was so normal and without attitude that she had not believed it at first. Alba was gratifyingly impressed and she and Amparo began discussing the merits of various celebrities. Jessica Lange was another one who was regular. Once Amparo was helping a friend at a house where Jessica was a guest, and Jessica rolled up her sleeves and washed dishes right there with them. Oh, but there were some bitches Amparo could tell about. Like that one today. But Amparo also told about the good ones. That's why she had to tell her friend Alba about John Travolta. Though Amparo didn't believe in gossiping, she did believe in letting her other friends who were nannies know what potential employers were like. It was necessary. You never knew who you might end up working for. Over the years Amparo had avoided several bad employers who when they interviewed her treated her so nice, but afterwards she asked her friends and the others and they would tell her how those people really were. Chuck's mother called Amparo's friends the "Nanny Network." Amparo liked where she was now, five days a week with Chuck, babysitting other kids some nights and on weekends.

John Travolta. What a gentleman. And then to have Jack see such a thing. She thought he had been too short in his car seat to be able to catch sight of the broken figures. How much had he seen? Hardly anything, she prayed. Well, she had seen plenty when she was growing up hadn't she and it didn't ruin her. This was nothing. Yet Amparo realized she wasn't ready to tell Alba about the dead women. Later, not quite yet. It still made her shake to think about it. As Amparo had been driving Chuck home from the pony ride, back to the Miracle Mile district, she went along Los Feliz to where it bends around past Griffith Park and turns into Western and she drove down the hill there with Chuck chattering about the rhinoceros and pretending like a plastic train he had was a rhino and was smashing it into Buzz Lightyear and Amparo turned right on Hollywood Boulevard, the older, rundown stretch with vacant buildings, a porn shop, an Armenian boxing club and on down a row of Thai restaurants. At the crosswalk in front of this dilapidated hotel there was no stoplight so you had to watch out. And sure enough, Amparo had to brake for two elderly women who stepped out into the street strolling without even looking, their arms linked. In her rearview mirror, Amparo glimpsed the Mercedes SUV impatiently swerve, the woman driver on her cell phone. Before Amparo could think, the Mercedes accelerated past her and plowed into the two old women.

Afterwards, the beautiful blonde woman in the big Mercedes kept talking on her cell phone. Her face never changed. Or maybe she looked a little more anxious? ¿Que quiere decir — "Put out?" It was hard to tell; the sunglasses hid the woman's eyes. But her attitude was what made Amparo shake more than anything else.

Neighborhood people came running out and a man began screaming. Vagrants and other lost ones watched as some good samaritans knelt beside the women lying twisted and broken on the potholed street.

"What happened, Amparo?" Chuck had asked. He was straining, trying to see. Fortunately, he was too short to see much. But enough. "Was that noise the ladies?"

"An accident, Baby. That's all."

When the police arrived, they couldn't get the woman to come out of the big Mercedes. In fact, she tried to drive off and the angry police had to run their car in front of her to stop her. Both cars were on the wrong side of the street then, in front of a place strangely named St. Andrew's Liquor. It caused a big traffic jam.

They let Amparo stay close to Chuck in the Toyota while she told them exactly what she had seen. The police thanked her and took her phone number and let her take Chuck home. A tv news van had arrived and a couple of helicopters hovered loud overhead. A pretty lady ran over with a cameraman and they wanted to ask Amparo questions. She could have been on tv, but she didn't want Chuck to see any more, so she drove away and the the lady interviewed one of the derelicts. Amparo guessed it would be on the Channel 9 news that night.

All the way home Amparo had thought about the women and scarcely heard Chuck prattling. They looked foreign to her. Perhaps Russian. Probably Armenian. What a thing to come to a new country and die like that.

He worked hard for years and saved his money and grew to a tall, handsome youth. Shy as he was, one day Carlos stole a kiss from Amparo. She didn't mind. They secretly kissed many times after that, his tongue intertwining with hers until her knees couldn't hold her up. She couldn't even confess this to the priest. Even though she was five years older, Carlito solemnly vowed that he was going to marry her when he was a man.

Yet before he could do anything else, he told Amparo, he had to find his mother if she was alive. He journeyed by himself to the United States, to San Diego. He was gone so long, but Amparo waited.

Before Amparo became Chuck's nanny, one very famous couple had invited Amparo to interview about being their nanny — one of several. This couple had adopted five children and were going to get a nanny for each one. The young actor and his wife were both very beautiful and Amparo liked them and listened to all they had to say, but in the end she had to tell them No because they were forthright and explained to her that the marriage was simply for the public appearance. The actor was a maricón, and here in Hollywood that was nothing, but as a matter of business, it had to be kept secret from the outside world. Some of the nannies felt that the secret was so that the women who adored him would not be disappointed, but Sarah and Amparo talked it over and decided that the secret was really for fans who were men. The secret was so important that when one of those trashy tabloids that everybody likes to look at in the grocery found out and wrote about it, the couple took them to court. It didn't matter that in this case the tabloid had mostly told the truth. The couple had the most expensive lawyers, so in the end the court made the periodical print a retraction saying No it wasn't true what they printed about the actor being a maricón. Amparo believed that the young actor truly cared for his wife. No one knew for sure, but it was said the actress got paid a certain amount and probably got a movie role and for two years she was not allowed to see any other men, but after that, her contract let her, but only if no one found out about it. Amparo had a good reputation, that's why the couple asked for her, but she had to tell them No, because what they were doing was a sin. In reality, she liked them both, and personally, she didn't care, but the Church said it was an abomination in the eyes of God.

After the war she was still in school when a friend of her father escorted her on a trip to market, a man from the neighborhood who wore a thick gold chain, although the water didn't always run through the pipes of his house. This Señor _____ was very pious, always in church or at home reading the Bible. She didn't ask him to escort her, but there he was, walking respectfully a little ways behind her. When she stopped to see the new dress in the window of Fashions Mimi, he also stopped. Sometimes she stopped for no reason at all, just for the fun of making him stop as well. At the market she paused in the entrance by the pupusería, and looked back. Señor _____ paused, just as if he and she were linked and she smiled at him, he always seemed like a gentleman just tonguetied and she had decided to go talk with him when out of nowhere a guy rushed at him, snatched the gold chain and raced down the street. Very quickly Señor _____ pulled out a 9mm pistol and fired five or six times. The thief fell. It happened like an ordinary event so that it was over before she knew it.

Señor _____ went and stood over the guy and crossed himself. When he came back over to her he said We'll have to split up. This type are often in the hire of the police.

With that he left her. Amparo decided the crowded market would be just as good a place as any, but before she even had time to mix into the crowd, she heard tires squeal. Turning, she saw Señor _____ at the wheel of a car, speeding away up the street. Where did the car come from? Did he have it parked there all along, ready for a lightning getaway? Or did he steal it? Curious now, she wandered over to where the thief lay twitching on a spreading pool of viscous crimson and urine. In his hand Amparo could see the gold chain, clutched tightly as if he meant to take it with him to wherever he was going now. She never found out why Señor _____ did not take back his chain, but the next time she saw him, he had a gold chain around his neck. She often wondered if it was the same one.

The phone was ringing when Sarah got home and Amparo had her arms full of laundry. Sarah came grinning to Amparo with the portable. She smiled a lot and that was another reason Amparo liked working for her.

"It's for you."

"Who is it?" Amparo whispered, dropping the hot clean clothes on the couch to fold. She was suspicious of the mischief in Sarah's eyes.

"They didn't say, but I think it's your fan club."

Amparo took the phone and as Sarah left Amparo recalled she needed to ask her for an advance so she could pay the car payment. On the phone it was the Warner children. Often at night after Sarah got home, Amparo would go babysit the Warner children for an hour or so and sometimes all day on Saturday. Each of the three was on a different phone.

"Why did you quit?"

"I didn't quit."

"Mommy says you're not coming anymore."

"That you quit."

"I didn't quit."

"Then you'll come over tomorrow?"

"No. How is your arm Shawna?"

"It has a grody scab," said Jimmy.

"It does not," Erin said.

"At least she was brave enough to climb the tree," said Amparo.

There was this little scrape on the inside of Shawna's upper arm where she tried to hug the tree when she slipped and fell. Scarcely any bleeding. No broken bones. Just a lot of crying. You would have thought it was the end of the world to hear Mrs. Warner tell it. But what was the use of a beautiful, manicured yard if you never used it?

"When are you coming over, 'Paro?"

"Baby, I'm not no more. Allí no mas. Maybe I'll still see you sometime at the park."

"When?"

"We'll see."

"Por favor, 'Paro."

"Por favor! Por favor!"

"We'll be good and not let Shawna climb any trees."

"And maybe Jimmy won't wet his pants anymore."

"Shut up! I'll make Erin and Shawna clean up the whole every bit of the house for you, 'Paro."

"I don't think so, pee pee boy." Erin and Shawna giggled.

"'Paro!" He started crying.

"Hush you brats."

"It's your fault Shawna. You don't ever mind."

"Zip it. Chico, I don't care if your sister climbs. Or if any of you does. You're kids, that's what it's about. You just got to be a little careful."

"Then why are you leaving?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be around."

"Here?"

"No, Baby." She was going to miss these devils after all.

"Pretty please?"

"No."

"Mommy says you quit because you don't like us."

"She said that?" Puchica, that lady. "Look, I still love you Erin. And Jimmy and Shawna too, understand? You want to know why I'm not coming anymore? Because your mother is full of shit."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then three little giggles…