I'm not going to be reading from Holy Days,
I'm going to be reading from a new novel that
will be coming out next year.
It's called Bruto.
It's about a retired soccer manager from Spain,
recently widowed, recently retired unexpectedly,
recently immigrated to the United States,
and recently remarried to a woman half his age as well.
So this is his story.
Because it's the Poetry Center, I'd
also like to read a poem, which is
the epigraph for this book by Miguel Hernández.
It's a very short poem.
Body over body, land over land, wind over wind.
Ode to Joy.
No cures, only remedies.
That's what I told Ines last night while I ran water
over the cut on her palm.
I said it again as I applied the ointment.
Same with the bandages, same with the gauze.
We're falling asleep when I heard her whispering to herself,
no cures, she repeated, only remedies.
She woke me up a few hours later to ask
if she was going to be OK.
Your hand will heal itself, I said, all we need to do is wait.
I slept OK.
No dreams except for the song that got
stuck in my head yesterday evening--
the song that was playing inside the town's only pharmacy.
Ode to Joy.
No, nothing memorable came to me while I slept.
No past lovers, no childhood friends, no work,
no missed flights, no emergency, no plagues,
only the same old melody.
I still can't get rid of it.
Even with the sun coming in, these birds outside screaming,
the mountain wind pushing the tall trees.
Fine, the song will leave on its own.
Early June, but cold as usual, even under all these covers.
A weekday, Tuesday maybe, or Wednesday.
Ines got up at dawn, I know that.
She left a mess--
dried blood on her two pillows, and more on the heavy blanket
she keeps to herself.
Ines, I say.
Nothing.
Ines, I call.
Not a sound.
The gauze must have unraveled in her sleep.
The three butterfly bandages must have come loose.
It's not her fault. It's not mine, either.
Ines is always rolling around in the night, humming and mumbling,
dreaming of god knows what.
Other lives, probably some better, some worse.
Another man, maybe.
A man her age.
Fine.
Her dreams, however great and terrible they must be,
are her business.
Same goes for everyone else.
I let my dreams come and go.
Old promises, death threats, betrayals.
They all like to stop by.
They stick around for a few minutes, and then they're gone.
Every other night, the dirt road that helped me leave home
takes me back that same way.
Every morning, too, like now.
All must come, all must go.
Floods and droughts, they take turns.
A person only has two jobs, pretty much--
wise up and hang on.
That's it.
I've wised up, I've hung on.
To what exactly?
To dear life, I guess.
These sheets need to be replaced, of course.
The blanket, too.
We'll buy new ones, the same exact ones.
Gray flannel, green stripes.
They'll be on the front porch by noon.
I'll order them when I get up--
soon, not yet.
10 more minutes here.
I'm tired.
I'm used to sleeping better.
All my life I've slept well.
If I drift off again, so be it.
Whenever I end up getting out of bed, the first thing I'll do
is place the order, if Ines hasn't already.
I'll buy three sets of each, the same exact colors.
That way, we'll be ready when the time comes
to change the bedding again.
Easy, simple, no problem.
Everything can be replaced-- these sheets, this blanket,
this bed, this house.
Every person can be replaced, too-- people hate hearing that.
They hate knowing it, probably because it's true.
People hate lots of things.
Ines, for example.
I don't like blood, not at all, but she really hates it.
Until last night, I no idea how much.
The way she ran into the kitchen screaming and sobbing,
I was sure she'd lost a finger.
Poor Ines.
Her hands shook as I opened her fists
to clean the cut across her palm.
A long, straight, shallow line.
I've never seen her so scared.
I would have taken her to get stitches
if she hadn't begged me not to.
I can still hear her-- you promise, Carlos?
You promise?
Ines is funny-- fear of needles, fear of mold, fear of swimming,
but no problem marrying a man like me
for money-- freshly widowed, and twice her age.
No qualms about volunteering on the crisis hotlines,
saving the lives of suicidal strangers for free.
And no nerves about spending every afternoon with a horse 10
times her size, either.
The horse is why she got hurt.
Ines was cleaning her beloved animal's hooves
when he kicked her left hand away.
The hoof knife made the slice, but it
was his fault. Fucking Polvo.
That gray Cartujano cost me a fortune,
then he tried to kill my wife.
The horse wasn't my idea, I never go near him.
Ines wanted him.
She chose him.
His dumbass name, too.
She chose it over the English version--
Dust.
I guess Polvo does sound better.
Most horse names are stupid, of course.
Sun Tzu, Spartacus, Magna Carta, Oligarchy.
Polvo is a better name than all of those, obviously.
It's Ines's mediocre Spanish that gets under my skin.
She gets Polvo's name wrong, and mine, even her own.
My English isn't great, I know that,
but I like to think I'm aware of my limitations.
According to Ines, I have a keener sense for the shortcoming
of others, especially hers.
That's what she said to me last week.
I am what I am, I said.
And what's that, she asked.
A brute, I said.
Maybe you're right, she said.
We left the conversation, the argument at that.
Ines hates when I call myself a brute--
whether I'm trying to be honest or funny.
I usually try my best to be both.
Honesty without humor gets people killed,
humor without honesty gets people nowhere.
Bruto is my real name, pretty much.
The world has called me Bruto for 30 years--
half of my life, more.
Everyone calls me that, everyone but Ines.
Laura gave me that name.
She was a journalist when I met her.
Soon after, she became my wife.
Bruto, she'd say.
Laura has been dead three years, and I can still hear her voice.
Always will, I'm sure.
Sometimes it comes when I'm awake, other times when
I'm asleep, or now, in this strange space between the two.
Or when I talk to Elisa.
She's just like her mother, for the most part--
same face, same voice, same quiet ways.
My eyes.
Laura died alone in the best hospital in Madrid
when her lungs failed her completely.
I was only a few kilometers away,
trapped in a two-story penthouse we'd shared for decades.
Ines was across the Atlantic, trapped
in an apartment in Bogota, doing homework
while she waited for a miracle.
I begged the hospital to make an exception and let me visit.
They refused.
I offered them a lot of money, but the law was the law.
The plague was everywhere.
In Spain, we dropped like flies.
Laura's sudden death was one of thousands.
Millions, really.
Every now and then when I'm very tired, or half asleep,
or a little drunk, I lose the plot.
Instead of saying Ines, I say Laura.
Ines doesn't get angry when this happens, just depressed.
Thank god.
I'm sorry, I say.
I mean it.
I understand, Ines says.
This, of course, is a lie.
The truth is, Ines will only understand me
when I'm dead and gone.
She's not in denial about my mortality.
The opposite.
Ines is more locked in on my death than I am.
Locked in.
She's always reminded me that I could die any day now
if I don't take better care of myself.
She's not wrong, I guess, technically speaking,
but my doctor told me otherwise.
He said, you're doing pretty good.
He recommended more exercise, less wine and no cigars,
but said my body was holding up well for 57.
Everything's working, he said, just keep moving.
I've got 20 years left, probably.
30, if I'm lucky, 50 if I'm not.
Thousands of days to do god knows what-- pass the time,
I guess.
Ski in the winter, watch football, visit the town diner,
attend the occasional fire.
Shoot pool, sleep in, take naps.
Our marriage isn't incredible, but it's
going better than Ines realizes.
I know what she'd hoped for, but I'm not sure what she expected.
We get along, we have sex, I've been faithful.
No children so far-- not yet, anyway.
Ines wants them.
She hasn't brought it up for a few months,
but she's made it clear she wants at least one together.
We'll see what happens.
God knows I don't need another child, I already have Elisa.
Maybe I should have a second one.
I don't have a great excuse not to.
Money isn't a problem.
I'd lose sleep, that's for sure.
But I guess I do have the time.
I could hold the baby, love it, drive it around, take it places.
Make it laugh, teach it what I know.
Clean it, feed it, grow it until it's
strong and smart, or weak and dull, or drunk and crazy,
or mediocre and ungrateful.
Capable of severe highs and lows, good and bad grades,
fatal accidents and near misses.
A boy, maybe.
That'd be great.
Or not.
My father was 45 when my mother had me,
and I ended up hating his guts.
He loved me in his own way, but he hated me first.
I don't want that.
There's no need for all that.
A child isn't a solution, it's just another person, that's all.
A stranger that looks like you and sounds
like you and thinks like you.
I don't know.
Maybe it could all go well, maybe everything
will be fucking terrific.
I won't get in their way.
I never do.
All I do, all I've ever done is mind my own business.
The thing is, I'll age quickly.
That would be Ines' biggest problem,
and that would be the kid's biggest problem, too,
if they ever even make it into this world.
Old age is ugly.
Sickness and deafness, and appointments and wheelchairs,
and opinions.
A bunch of pain and bullshit, that's what's coming my way.
All that, and then good night forever.
And then what?
Elisa and Ines split the money, of course.
There's plenty.
Then they'll find ways to be sort of happy,
or give in to misery, or fall somewhere
in the middle, most likely.
Marry, have kids, remarry, buy houses, take trips.
Whatever this family looks like down the line,
odds are I'll disappear from memory eventually.
If I'm lucky, I'll become an anecdote.
Maybe my ancestors will gather here, in this house,
at this table for lunch in the year 2100.
Maybe someone will mention that the house
had belonged to a football manager in the family.
Born and raised in some abandoned village in Spain.
Was he any good, someone will ask.
He was OK, someone else might say.
Good, not the best, controversial.
They'll pull me up on the internet using my name
and epithet.
Carlos Mora, Bruto.
Either should get the job done.
Then they'll pass around a few television stills
from the thousands of matches I managed.
My curly black hair a mess, my arms crossed, my face sour.
Accurate portraits of my younger self, to be fair.
A man Laura once described as handsome enough.
Maybe they'll be able to tell what's lying
beneath those photographs.
The sincerity, the desperation.
I'm sure someone will.
It only takes one person to understand you, really,
even if you're already long dead.
I put my pain to good use back then
when I coached, even if football is nothing more than a child's
game.
I always have.
Since I was born, the only difference between myself
and most of the other boys was that I
had some common sense and some conviction to go along with it.
That, and all the bitterness necessary to forge my way
through that horrible industry.
Degenerates, for the most part.
Liars, frauds.
I was born into it in a way--
not football.
I had no connections there-- no plugs, no backdoors.
What I was born into was my nature, my hot blood.
That's what's carried me forward.
That's what served me best.
Terrible, too, at times, but there's
no question it's given me everything,
even if it's taken plenty.
Nothing is free.
Every day has its cost-- every decision, every word.
Life, like football, is a simple game.
You are what you are, you do what you do,
you get what you get.
No one gets it all, and most people don't get much.
My father, for example.
I didn't choose him, and he didn't give me shit.
Neither did my mother, whoever she is or was.
No brothers, no sisters.
The land I was born in, the land I was raised in
was its own kind of heaven, and its own kind of hell.
A ghost town, really.
Fucking Pioz.
One hundred idiots and me.
Ours was a cold house made of stone,
surrounded by 10 acres of dry hills and grape rows.
The middle of nowhere, pretty much.
The edge of La Mancha.
My father loved to hear himself tell me,
someday all this will be yours.
I didn't want it.
I didn't give a shit about his vineyard or his cheap grapes,
or his bad wine.
Staying put was never an option.
Every now and then, Ines tries to use her degrees in psychology
to, as she puts it, get to the heart of the matter.
What does your inner child want most, she asks.
The truth is, my inner child already got what he wanted.
He got a career in football, a few trophies, a beautiful wife,
a good daughter and money.
He was-- I was big.
A few drops of blood on the bedroom rug,
a few more in the bathroom tile, and a single dot
on the toilet seat.
Jesus Christ.
I'm following my doctor's orders,
and sitting down to piss.
It's essential for the bladder to empty completely, he said,
especially at your age.
Fine, I told him.
I don't mind sitting.
I whistle "Ode to Joy" as I make my doctor proud,
just as Mozart intended.
Or Beethoven, or whoever it was that went
deaf and kept on composing anyway.
I guess it doesn't really matter who did what.
300 years later, and the song still lives, here on my toilet.
Was the guy deaf when the song came to him?
How deaf?
Completely?
I don't know.
Who cares.
I think it was Beethoven, the crazy looking one.
I think the song was his fault. Ines, I say.
No answer.
The house is still.
She's probably in her office.
Maybe she's with Polvo.
I hear nothing except for the birds, and the ceiling fan,
and the ice forming in the freezer,
and my bullshit tinnitus.
No coffee in the pot, no dishes in the sink.
Only one car in the garage.
Ines must have gone out for something.
Breakfast, maybe.
Coffee.
I could use both, that's for sure.
I'll sit here in the kitchen.
I'll wait patiently, as always.
For Ines, for the day.
Through this big window, I watched the trees rock
back and forth.
When we first moved in, Ines was sitting right here next to me
when she said, isn't it nice to see the wind?
The cut is on her off-hand.
She should be able to live like she usually does, pretty much.
No note on the fridge, no text message either.
Good morning, I type.
How are you?
Ines is usually quick to respond.
She's always on her phone.
Elisa's always on her phone, too,
but she takes her time to get back to me.
She usually responds the next day.
Sometimes it takes her three or four.
Every now and then she forgets, or refuses to answer at all.
Just this past Christmas, she spent hours of the holiday
on her phone.
I remember wanting to point it out to her, the fact
that she'd been ignoring me.
The younger me probably would have said it without thinking.
Instead, I said to myself, someday she'll get it.
She'll regret it, too.
That's how I let it go.
It was an OK Christmas.
We spent here in Sisters, our second since moving to Oregon.
Elisa brought her girlfriend-- partner.
That's the term they use.
When I say girlfriend, Elisa makes a point to correct me.
Ines also loves to jump on my mistake, as usual.
Excuse me, I say, partner.
Her name is Kate.
I like her.
I love her.
I really do.
The lesbian thing doesn't bother me at all.
She and Elisa get along well.
They're both very similar, like best friends that
are in love with each other.
I guess that's the ideal situation.
They're both vegetarians, or vegans.
I don't remember exactly.
Oat milk, tofu.
Sometimes they walk in the woods, looking for mushrooms.
They brought a bag full of chanterelles
for Christmas-- a very special gift, apparently.
We fried them in a pan with some olive oil and garlic,
and the truth is, they were incredible.
Elisa and Kate live together in a three bedroom house
I'm happy to help pay for.
A few months ago, they adopted a fat chihuahua named Pepita--
a little dog I still haven't met.
I'll meet her soon, I'm sure.
Maybe they'll make the drive for Father's Day next weekend.
They have the time to make it work.
If they want to come, they will.
They aren't exactly busy people-- none of us are.
As graduate students, Elisa and Kate
received some money from the State University in Eugene.
Otherwise, they don't work.
The whole move out to Oregon took shape
when Elisa decided to pursue a graduate degree.
More school, I asked.
Not really, she said.
I'll be teaching them writing.
Writing what, I asked.
Elisa said she wasn't sure.
That was fine by me.
She could write whatever her heart desired.
So long as she's alive and happy, I'll be happy, too.
That's what I told her, right here at this kitchen table.
I also reminded her I'd pay for everything.
Thanks, I think she said.
Something short and cold like that.
Elisa is similar to Ines in that way.
She thinks our relationship isn't as strong as it really is.
She doesn't understand that I'm the only person
on the face of the Earth that really wants what's
best for her, no matter what.
That I'm the only person who knows and understands and loves
her, and expects nothing in return.
Fine.
Maybe she'll realize the truth soon.
I hope she does before it's too late, for her sake.
There's time, though, probably God
knows it moves slowly out here in the mountains.
Ines and I decided to follow Elisa out West,
but we didn't want to be too close, either.
The town of Sisters was Ines' choice.
She learned about it on the internet-- a blog post, I think.
I had input too, of course, but my requirements were simple--
peace, quiet, and a mountain to ski.
That's all you care about, Ines asked.
That's it, I said.
We both got what we wanted--
I got my peace, my quiet, and a ski mountain
with some of the best snow in the hemisphere.
Ines got a nice big house, a new car, a new horse, and a path
to go riding-- a path that leads to many others.
Some paved, some not.
Our life here is a private one.
The previous owner was a tech investor from California.
He built the house with the vision
that he and his children and his grandchildren
would all be happy together forever.
Turned out they didn't use the place at all.
I never met him.
I never spoke to him either.
Through his realtor, he offered to include
pretty much everything inside the house
for a reasonable price.
Ines had imagined a parade of interior decoration,
but the price for the full turnkey was too good to pass up.
It's easier, I said.
Cheaper.
Since then, Ines has changed some of the furniture out.
Lamp by lamp, side table by side table, armchair by armchair.
She'll get what she wants.
Recently, she said she wanted to paint the walls a more
natural shade of white.
They're too bright, she said.
I said, we'll see.
Neither of us have made much use of the tech man's toys.
We've never touched the climbing ropes, the carabiners,
or crash pads.
The kayaks and paddleboards belong to the spiders.
The game room has a pool table.
Sometimes I play-- alone, mostly, against myself.
The tech man even left behind some woodworking tools.
Kate inherited those.
She saw them in the garage when she came for Christmas.
All excited, she asked me what I used them for.
I'll never use that shit in my life, I told her.
You can take them.
She said it was the best Christmas
present she'd ever gotten.
She promised she'd make something for me--
a mailbox or a birdhouse, but I haven't received anything yet.
Maybe she'll bring something for Father's Day.
I know her dad passed away a few years ago.
She's more than welcome to celebrate with Elisa, Ines
and I, if she wants.
She can bring the gift then.
Not that I need it.
I have everything and more.
Too much, really.
This house is too big.
A bunch of vacant space without any real purpose.
Empty beds, empty drawers, dusty bedrooms
for hypothetical children, hypothetical grandchildren,
and miserable in-laws who, if they ever were invited,
would find 20 different ways to complain.
The view's what I enjoy.
The house faces west.
At night, I see some of the brightest stars of my life.
Every day, I wake up to the sun shining on the Cascade Range.
The Three Sisters, black and volcanic, and dormant.
One of them in particular--
I forget which-- ready and waiting to erupt.
When it does explode, I might be here,
sitting at this kitchen table.
Front row seats to the grand finale.
Any day now, an earthquake will hit somewhere
in the nearby Pacific, starting a wave
that will decimate the Coast.
The truth is, this land in Central Oregon
is just like my part of Spain.
This was Spain, too, of course.
Not very long ago, either.
New Spain.
Sometimes dizzy from sleep or wine,
I feel like I'm back on my father's vineyard in La Mancha,
in Pioz.
Here, many disasters are natural--
eruptions, tsunami, wildfire.
In Spain, our disasters are mostly man-made.
Like most of us, I'm a descendant of war,
my father's lineage wrought with piety and politics.
War was what they knew best.
Growing up, some of the country's scars
were plain to see.
Palaces and ruins, Franco and the corrupt king.
Others remained hidden.
By the time I'd been born, the graveyards
had been veiled by tall grasses and scant open fields.
Wars everywhere-- always has been.
Now I know just about anything can go wrong.
Disaster is both sudden and slow.
It belongs as much to man as it does to nature.
Disease, for example, cost Laura her life.
I blame my neighbors, I blame the economists,
I blame the presidents, I blame the Earth.
I'll never understand it, this world.
I think I hate it.
I've loved a few people, that's about it.
A few have loved me back.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]