by Jaime Cortez
“A man without a woman,” she said to the empty room as she ajaxed his hot plate for the next tenant, “is a sad animal. Sad. Don’t know how to take care of themselves. A wonder they can wipe their own culos.”
From behind the big willow tree that fronted the big house, my older sister, Sylvie, my older cousin, Cesar, my little cousin, Tiny, and I surveyed the cleaning with a vulture’s watchfulness. Clarita packed his radio, Sunday Stetson hat, coin jar, and a few other valuables into a box for safekeeping at her house. As soon as she left and padlocked the door, we circled around to the back of the big house. We studied the window. She hadn’t locked it, but there was a window lock latch that would make it impossible to open it all the way. Cesar punched through the rusted screen, and pried the window open with his jackknife. It only opened a few inches, but it was big enough for me to push Tiny through. Once inside, Tiny opened the latch. I opened the window wide, and we all climbed in. We went right to work, rooting around the room, hoping to find a spare dime under the bed, or matches, or comic books, or candy, or beef jerky, or maybe even cigarettes.
Sylvie opened the double doors of the rough-hewn wardrobe, and she and Cesar peered into the interior. They gasped simultaneously.
“Oooooooh! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” squealed Sylvie.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh my good God!” added Cesar. Together they dragged out a brown grocery bag filled to the top with nasty girl magazines. Jackpot! We swooped down on the bag, tearing it as we reached in to yank out nasty books. Each of us grabbed a handful and retreated from the others like wolves protecting their hunks of deer leg from the pack.
“Ooooooh,” I chanted from behind my copy of Cheri. “You can see her guts.” I turned the centerfold around so everyone could see the eviscerated blonde.
“Thass not her guts, stupid,” snarled Cesar. “Thass her pussy.” At thirteen, almost fourteen, Cesar was the oldest and our resident sexpert. Tiny, only seven, was as confused as I was.
“How come it’s all hairy?” she asked. Cesar had had enough.
“You’re a bonehead, Tiny! Get out of here! This isn’t for little kids.” Cesar shoved her toward the open window. Tiny became teary-eyed and pleaded her case.
“I was just asking how come iss all hairy. I let you in, so you can’t throw me out.”
“GET OUT, LITTLE BABY!” hollered Cesar.
“I’m gonna tell Mom,” she threatened, her voice quavering. “And she, an’ she, she’s gonna kick your ass.”
“All right, then,” Cesar agreed. “Shut up and don’t ask any more stupid questions.”
“I’m just asking how come it’s all hairy, that’s all.”
“Look, little baby,” said Sylvie. “When women grow up, they get hair. When you grow up, you’ll get hair there too.”
“No sir …”
“Yes sir. Matter of fact, your mom has hair down there. A big ol’ bush.”
“No sir. She wouldn’t have all that hair, would she?” asked Tiny.
“She has all kinds of hair,” asserted Sylvie. “Probably down to her knees. Like it or don’t.” The revelation was too much for Tiny. She began to wail.
“All right, that does it,” said Cesar. “You girls get outta here. We gotta take these books and put ’em someplace safe.”
“They’re not your books, you know,” countered Sylvie. “I was the one who opened the doors of the closet.”
“But I saw them first,” countered Cesar.
“But I touched them first. And Tiny got us inside, and Gordo got her through the window, so we found them together, and they’re everybody’s.”
“That’s fair. There are lots of nasty books. We can share,” I offered.
“God, what kind of sissy idea is that?” asked Cesar. “Don’t you get it, Gordo? What do the girls want them for? These books aren’t for girls, they’re for MEN!”
“You’re not MEN,” shrieked Sylvie. “You’re only BOYS, and the girls wanna look at the pictures too!” Teary-eyed Tiny nodded her head in agreement.
“These books belong to the boys,” Cesar proclaimed. “And we’re taking them.”
“Yeah, the boys,” I added, eager to redeem myself as a dutiful foot soldier in Cesar’s eyes.
Suddenly Sylvie grabbed an armful of magazines and made for the window. Cesar grabbed Sylvie by the pigtail and pulled her back into the room, and they began to struggle. Sylvie dropped the magazines, and the both of them slid on the glossy paper. Tiny and I entered the fray, and there ensued a tremendous ripping of paper, yanking of hair and centerfolds and opportunistic biting. The girls were scrappy, but they were no match for Cesar’s brutal rabbit punches and my size. In short order, we expelled them through the window and latched it behind them. For added effect, Cesar closed the curtains. Sylvie, with a bit of crumpled centerfold still in her clenched fist, rapped on the window with her knuckles.
“Open the window! Gordo, you know we should get to see them too!”
I panted for a moment, and I shouted back at her through the curtain. “These are for BOYS, Sylvie. Go find your own dirty books.”
“There aren’t any. So the boys have to share!!!” Cesar parted the curtains, stuck his face to the window, and brayed his evil laugh. Sylvie flipped him off with both hands, repeatedly stabbing the air with her middle finger for emphasis. Tiny tried to imitate the gesture but flipped us off with her ring finger instead, sending me and Cesar into paroxysms of laughter.
“We’ll be back, idiots!” shouted Sylvie. “And we’ll bring help!” Cesar and I collapsed on the floor, rolling around on our spoils like Scrooge McDuck writhing about in his vast vault of coins. Cesar humped the floor lasciviously, kissed the centerfolds, and laughed like the supervillian-in-training he was.
The giddiness passed, and Cesar and I organized the books into neat stacks and recounted the story of the battle, embellishing new details as we repeated the epic. An hour passed this way, with us flipping through the books, jumping on Primi’s creaky spring mattress, drinking his Coca-Colas, and drawing cars, dragons, and naked girls on paper bags. Cesar made a plan for the safe transport and safekeeping of the porn for our and only our use. He drilled me repeatedly about the plan. Looting a stack of porn was titillating, but the actual bodies on offer were ultimately uninteresting, almost embarrassing to behold. I felt ready to go home.
“I’m ready to go home, Cesar. I’m getting hungry.”
“You’re always hungry, fat ass.”
“Say what you want, but we need to get out of here. I’m going to check and see if they’re out there, okay?”
“Go ahead,” replied Cesar. I cautiously parted the curtains and peered into the encroaching twilight.
“Do you see the girls out there, Gordo?”
“Nope. I think they’re gone.”
“You know the plan, right?”
“Yes, Cesar. You only told me a hundred times.”
“If you know it so good,” said Cesar, “tell me.” I sighed and began reciting the plan.
“We fill that cardboard box with some of Head and Shoulders’s junk. I go out the window with the box and pretend it’s the books. I hide the box under the front porch stairs. The girls will see me and think they know our secret hiding place, but really they won’t, because matter of fact, you will have the real books in those pillowcases, and you’ll hide the books in the tractor barn and tomorrow we can look at the books all day after church.”
“Yesss,” he hissed, shaking his head. “They’ll never figure it out. It’s perfect.”
I slipped out of Primi’s window and Cesar handed me the box. I made a big show of pretending it was heavy with magazines. I scurried to the front of the big house, unlatching the little iron grill gate that led to the crawl space under the stairs. I pushed the box through the opening and squeezed in after it. As soon as I disappeared beneath the stairs, I heard running footsteps. Through a crack in the stairs, I saw Sylvie and Tiny. Had they seen me? Shit.
“Ooh, Tiny,” said Sylvie theatrically. “There’s something under the stairs. I think it’s an animal.”
“No, it’s not an animal. I think it’s Gor—”
“I think it’s a wild pig. We’d better lock it in before it eats Daddy’s tomato plants.” Before I could scramble out from under the stairs, Sylvie closed the latch on the iron grill. Sylvie peered through the metal grill and smiled as I struggled to force it open.
“Que feo! It’s one of those big fat wild pigs.” I tried kicking the gate but it only hurt my ankle.
“You better let me out!” I growled.
“Ooh, the pig is mad, but he better not get too mad, ‘cause Mami is right over there across the way in the kitchen and she’ll come out if he makes too much noise, and she’ll wanna know what you’re doing down there, and we’ll have to tell her all about the nasty books.” I glared at her through the grill. She smiled serenely.
“You boys think we’re stupid, but we’re not. Right now Fat Cookie is kicking Cesar’s ass and getting those books back.”
“Fat Cookie can’t beat Cesar up. He’s tough.”
“You think he’s the baddest, but he isn’t.” It was true. I had no retort. Sylvie sprinted toward the tractor barn. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples. I crouched beneath the porch for ten or perhaps thirty minutes. It is difficult to gauge that when you’re doing hard time. I sat there hoping there were no rats or trapdoor spiders or bob-cats or bears. Finally, Sylvie returned and, without ceremony, opened the latch. I sprang from the gate opening and tried twice to kick her, but she was way too fast for me. I jogged to the tractor barn, calling for Cesar. There I found him pinned, stomach down, underneath Fat Cookie, who was counting out loud, her fleshy lips slowly intoning each number.
“One hundred five. One hundred six. One hundred seven.”
Fat Cookie’s ambush had evidently been rough. Torn porno scraps were strewn about them. Cesar and Cookie were filthy from rolling around in the oily dirt of the tractor barn. Cookie had a little blood visible in her nostril. A long scratch ran across Cesar’s arm. His shirtsleeve was torn. Fat Cookie had twenty, thirty pounds on him. He never stood a chance. In the face of defeat, Cesar remained a defiant POW.
“Those magazines are for men!” said Cesar.
“Not anymore,” countered Fat Cookie. “I beat you fair and square for them, bozo. They’re ours now, and we’re taking them.”
“You girls are stupid,” said Cesar. “What do you wanna see naked girls for?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Now shut your trap and let me count to two hundred so I can finish your punishment and let you go.”
“Fuckers,” spit out Cesar.
“You guys are the fuckers,” said Fat Cookie. “If you had only shared, we would all have magazines and I wouldn’t have had to rack you up.” Cookie looked at me, saw me trying to figure out what to do.
“Gordo, you’re not stupid enough to think you can save this bozo, right? You know I’ll rub his face in the dirt if you take one step closer, right?” I didn’t say anything.
“You’d better get home, little boy. Or your buddy here is going to get it even worse.” I looked to Cesar. He motioned me away with his head. I walked home in the darkening gloom, marveling at the totality of our defeat.
For the next few days, the girls demonstrated how far in advance they were in the realm of psychological operations and manipulation. They led Cesar and me on a ranging series of dead-end excursions. We’d spy the girls gathering behind the chicken coops and moving on purposefully to some unlikely place like the garbage heap or the inside of the abandoned Chevy that rusted away on the edge of the fields. There they would huddle tightly and converse with their backs turned toward us, hiding their faces and gestures. Cesar and I would descend on them with an “AHA!” only to find them empty-handed.
“Looking for something?”
“None of your business, Sylvie.”
“Then why did you say ‘aha’?”
“Just because.”
“You’ll never guess where we hid them, Cesar. You know why? Because we’re smarter. We might wait fifty-seven hundred million days before we even look at ’em. We’re patient.” Mocking laughter lashed us as we retreated. Entire days passed, and we saw no signs of activity. I was rapidly losing morale and interest, but it had become a quest for Cesar.
“Gordo, I have a plan to get the books back.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Secret. But you gotta be in the plan or it doesn’t work.”
“What am I gonna do?”
“It’s a secret, stupid. You do what I tell you, no matter what. Will you obey?”
“Umm … okay.”
“First we gotta find Tiny.”
“I think I saw her over by the trailer.”
“Good. C’mon.”
As we approached, we heard Tiny holding court at an al fresco tea party in the garden near a worker trailer. Kneeling in the dust, she served up mud pies and tin cans of water to her motley collection of rescue dolls. With their missing arms, hollowed-out eye sockets, scalped hair, and mismatched clothes, the dolls seemed to have crawled out of some horrible toy apocalypse, but Tiny didn’t care. She was a stellar hostess, making chatty conversation with them and even serenading them with one of her patented fuck-up songs.
“Conjunction Junction, what’s your fuck shuh? Lookin at worse and raisins in closets. Conjunction Junction, how’s that fuck shuh? I got ants button or they get you pretty far.”
“Oh, Miss Kitty, you look so pretty today,” she fussed. “Would you like some more cake and tuna? How about some Dr Pepper?”
“Get her,” snapped Cesar. I pounced from behind the trailer and grabbed Tiny from behind. She squealed and squirmed to escape but quickly saw there was no hope. Cesar assumed the role of inquisitor.
“Tiny, where are the nasty books?”
“I don’ know,” she said.
“Don’t be stupid, Tiny. I know they told you to keep the secret, but you have to tell us, or we’ll make you suffer.”
Less convincingly now, she repeated her denial. WHAM! Cesar slapped her across the cheek. We were all silent for a moment, shocked at what had happened, trapped in the harsh unfolding of events that now seemed to be hurtling along with their own terrible momentum. Tiny opened her mouth wide. She was one of those delayed-howl kids who held their mouths open for eternities, sucking in great lungfuls of air before unleashing a deafening cry. Cesar raised his hand before her face.
“Shut up or I’ll hit you and harder this time.” Tiny whimpered and went silent.
“Cesar, this is bad,” I said. “Don’t hit her on the fa—”
“Shut up and stop being a pussy,” countered Cesar. “Tiny’s going to tell me where the books are. Aren’t you, Tiny? Where are they?”
“It … it … it …” she faltered.
“Where?!”
“It’s in the old refrigerator,” she sobbed. “Over by the ditch behind the big house.”
“Let her go. Next time, you don’t take boys’ stuff, Tiny.”
“Maybe we will,” she countered in a quavering voice. We were impressed by Tiny’s spunk but laughed anyway. We had broken her. The gods of war were with us again.
The nasty books were stuffed into the meat and vegetable bins of the abandoned refrigerator. They smelled weird now, and many of the pages had tears, oily dirt, and dusty footprints from the ambush in the tractor barn. Still, our joy was expansive as we repacked the storied booty into a burlap sack. We had only a few minutes to act before Tiny rounded up the girls and found us. We grabbed a shovel from the tractor barn on the way to the tomato field. There, we hid behind the mammoth wheel of a tractor and began digging.
“This plan is perfect, Gordo. They’ll never find our books now,” grunted Cesar as he shoveled.
“Yeah, perfect.” We buried the nasty books and headed back to the toolshed. On our way, the girls intercepted us
but said nothing. They stared at us, disgusted and silent. We retreated, checking behind us all the way for some unexpected maneuver. It was eerie, that silence, those glares. Nothing happened, but it felt like even the most extravagant acts of revenge were possible now.
At home that night, I showered and drank my nightcap, Pancho Pantera chocolate powder mixed with milk. But I could not sleep. In the bunk above mine, Sylvie lay silent. I knew she was awake. I felt her contempt radiating through the bottom of her bunk, searing me from the inside out like microwaves.
“You asleep?” I asked. She said nothing.
“I told Cesar it wasn’t cool to slap Tiny,” I offered. She said nothing. We laid like that. She wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t sleeping. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, enveloped in the malignant, suffocating quiet.
All the next day Sylvie maintained monastic silence. By dinner, Mom had become curious.
“Why are you two quiet?” asked Ma.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “We don’t feel like talking.”
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. If you’re not talking, something’s wrong.”
“I’m finished eating,” said Sylvie. “Can I go now, Mami?”
“Yes, but if something serious happened, you need to tell me.”
“No, nothing serious.” Sylvie retreated to our little bedroom and closed the door behind her.
“Do you want the rest of Sylvie’s chicken?” asked Ma.
“No thank you. I’m full.”
“I guess this is pretty serious,” said Ma.
“Just an argument,” I offered.
Our war had escalated and taken on its own momentum. I didn’t really care about the books anymore. I don’t know if anyone did. It was now a war for the victory of boys or girls—an excruciating binary to a sissy boy like me. The chess game was foreboding. I wanted to tell Sylvie where the books were, but that would show Cesar I wasn’t a real boy. Surely he would punish me, severing my tenuous connections to the world of boys. I would be exiled to the world of girls, and surely they would send me away too because I wasn’t one of them or even a good enough ally to them. Troubled for yet another night, I counted sheep in the dark. Then horses. Deep into a chicken count, I finally fell asleep.
