Hernando
“Said quietly, the name lingers in your mouth like a candy-sized stone, impossible to swallow or spit out.”
AUGUST 5, 2025
It’s not skin, it’s leather, or rubber. Beaver fur. He doesn’t look like a man. He’s tough and brown like a tree. His hide glistens. Stretched taut like a horse, like a greyhound. His sharp eyes, two shards of glass swept away in a squall. A name with an echo, pronounced in a cave. A name of waves, an ungainly but powerful canoe over the water. Hernando.
Hernando, suddenly there, one of the group. They all look the same at first, rough clothes, hair stiffened by well water and cement, one of the team of builders here to fix the holes that let in the sky every time it rains, hailing down on the shop floor, on the merchandise.
Look at me, Hernando. I’m coming and going like an animal in heat, doing a mating dance, from the till to the blinds, leaving a trail of steam behind me.
Hernando like a fever, a sickness that consumes my body from out of nowhere. The name tossed into the air like a coin. Hernando, it weighs more than a kilo of nails, a whole bag of plumb leads. Said quietly, the name lingers in your mouth like a candy-sized stone, impossible to swallow or spit out, turning over endlessly, rattling against your teeth. Hernando, a flagstone scorched in the sun, his pores sweating glass fiber, gleaming with the glow only seen in very, very dark things.
Look at me, Hernando. I’m coming and going like an animal in heat, doing a mating dance, from the till to the blinds, leaving a trail of steam behind me. Down here with me, oppressed by the heat, are customers, travellers, drying their upper lips, men and women alike, the heat burns us all the same and we all have a mustache of sweat, some beads brighter than others. Up above are Hernando and the others, him and the others, the others are an indistinguishable mass, I don’t care about them. Against the sky, in the glare of the malicious sun. With each passing day, Hernando gets darker and more inscrutable, eyes to the floor, a nod of the head instead of good morning. Wish me good morning, Hernando, but the nod is all I get. His voice is stuck, it’s been chewed up by the mice, by the buzzards. He’s saving his greeting for something else, I say to myself and I get flustered to the point of hatred. Oh how I’d love to grab one of the big hooks, the ones for catfish and dorados, and dredge the words out of his mouth, the greeting Hernando never gave me, scarily quiet, so silent I want to squeeze him tight, to bite him just to see if he cries out.
Do you have any water? I go weak at the knees, a shiver runs through my whole body in solidarity. I’ve never heard his voice sound like that, but I recognize it just the same, Hernando, a new voice, one you haven’t used before. It’s as though you’ve only just learned to say water, to ask whether I have any, like you never practiced. The you cuts through me like a knife, sticks in my ribs, pokes a hole and lets out the air.
I tidy my hair among the boxes and rolls of wire, brushing it with my damp arm. A sigh, Yes, just a moment, I’ll get some from the back.
The path to the back is strewn with boxes, screws and spark plugs but now it’s a cool, green forest, holidays in the sierras, nothing but a breeze through the trees, none of this nasty heat. I bounce past the merchandise like a puppy, my heart in my mouth, empty glass in hand, swerving past obstacles, a fixed smile on my face, Behave, get a hold of yourself, you can’t let him see you like this.
You’re up there, I’m down here, with the customers, in this heat that wraps itself around us, licking at us, weighing us down.
Running the water until it cools down, filling the glass up to the rim and taking a sip so it won’t spill on the way. Where will you place your lips, Hernando? How can I make sure they touch in the same place?
My body here, my head out in the store, stuck to Hernando’s pants as he leans on the counter, straight as a beam, not touching anything with his woody hands. Ready to wait, waiting.
I watch you drinking the water I gave you, Hernando, like a gift. Quick as an animal, your teeth white against the glass, a hand in your hair, your bare armpit, the damp hair, your Adam’s apple bobbing, it sickens me a little but just the same, Hernando, I’d serve you glasses of water until nightfall, until winter, to see the cool stream flow through your body.
The glass on the counter, the armpit at its new angle, you’re not here any more, Hernando, I know that, you’re up there on the roof, with the others, removing sheets of metal, chipping away at the damp patch with the patience of birds, broiling slowly, dying of heat and effort, aging quickly, with the dust that gets into every fold of your body however much you wash.
Thank you, Ma’am.
You’re welcome, Hernando.
You’re up there, I’m down here, with the customers, in this heat that wraps itself around us, licking at us, weighing us down.
I can’t sleep because of you, Hernando. My body craves rest but no, my head won’t allow it, it doesn’t listen and when it’s exhausted, wrung out, I go to the kitchen with what strength I have left because daddy is asleep and the middle of the night is when I can do what I want, without being seen, without having to pretend. I plug in the fan, which we don’t use much so as not to waste electricity, it’s so expensive. I turn it on, sit in front of it and pull down my nightdress to let the air blow over my chest until it freezes and I feel as though I’ll never make it back from the cold. The skin on my nipples wrinkles up, Hernando, if only you could see me like this, my smooth skin out in the open, forty-something and no children. My thighs together, my belly flat.
Where did you get the courage, Hernando, when it was all done, when there was no more work to do, no more holes in the ceiling, to come looking for me, determined, sweeping in like a summer storm.
I try to think of something else and I can’t, there’s the leaky roof and you up there, Hernando, shirtless, a quiet comet mounting the sky, a gleaming apparition, brighter than the stars, and you wave down at me from on high, Good Evening Ma’am, with your dusty eyes. How cold this heat is, Hernando, it burns me so.
The repairs are nearly done. The sky doesn’t stream in any more, God could flood the earth again and not a drop would get through. You’ve drunk your water, Hernando, many times. So often I saw the water run over your soft tongue, more and more toasted, Hernando, more relaxed, beginning to look up from my feet until settling on my eyes. It was hard for me to hold your gaze at first but I managed. And from our shared gaze to fingers touching around the glass, electrocuting me like an animal, still, frozen until I was released from the trance by your, “Here it is back, thank you.” Hernando, Hot isn’t it? Not many customers today. Yes, that’s summer for you.
Where did you get the courage, Hernando, when it was all done, when there was no more work to do, no more holes in the ceiling, to come looking for me, determined, sweeping in like a summer storm. Where, Hernando, did you find the guts to come into the store, find it empty and go looking further inside, into the storeroom, to me, just out of the shower, dressed to go home.
Where did you get the courage to open the door to the little room in the back and find me pumping solvent into a can, kneeling down and filthy, my hair a mess, and pick me up in your arms just as I was? Hernando, what a mess, all that liquid spilling over the floor, the can tipped over, glugging out uncontrollably, like a drunk passed out on the ground. We improvised in the moment, the bag with the dirty clothes on the floor, the hurry, fumbling for buttons, tongue on tongue.
Tell me, Hernando, what I need to do to make you like me. Tell me something with your body, your voice, your eyes, whatever you want. What do I have to do? What do I have to say? Tell me, Hernando. Don’t make too much noise, but who’s going to hear us? Against the wall first, on top later, over the open drums, full of solvent, evaporating thinner. The liquid rises up to envelop me, making me dizzy. Does your head hurt too, Hernando? It’s the solvent. Your hand, more of a tool than a hand, covering my mouth, “Be quiet,” I will, yes, forgive me. It’s just that I’m scared, Hernando, if we stay here, if I keep asking you what to do, how to do this, asking for instructions like a bad student, cowardly, useless as I am, just the way you grabbed me, working, without fixing myself up, I’m afraid of stopping the irreversible, what I pleaded for so, so hard, for it to be us, not the thinner, not the solvent, the two of us melting into the air.
PHOTO: via Freepik
✺ Published in “Issue 31: Fiction” of The Dial
