by John Rechy
“Do you know what we call nuns?” he asked her in an intimate whisper, his lips tickling her ear, or had his tongue dabbed them?
“Those women who wear wingy hats and black dresses?” She had seen some when they visited the city. Very strange.
“Yes. We call them the brides of Christ,” he told her. “Of him.” He pointed to the almost-nude figure.
“The brides of—?” She looked up at the body at the head of the altar. “His wives?”
“Yes.”
“He is so handsome,” Sylvia sighed. “Just look at those ridges on his stomach.”
“Feel mine.”
Until he placed her hand on his own abdominals, Sylvia hadn’t realized that Armando had raised his shirt to allow her to touch his bare, tensed stomach. “Girls don’t have these,” he informed her, “but they have these,” and his fingers cupped her breasts. She didn’t push his hand away because she felt enraptured by the awesome atmosphere of the Catholic church, and her feelings had bunched into one that was exciting.
He drove her to the same spot they had gone to their first time out, off the main road, onto a dirt road, among clusters of trees and the sweet scents of orange blossoms.
He jumped out of the car, nodding at her to follow.
“Maybe this is where the hidden river ran,” he said to her. “Isn’t it romantic?”
It was, the thought of being out there, alone, where a river had once meandered, leaving smatterings of wild flowers and then disappearing. Oh, yes, that was romantic—and so were Armando’s hot tonguing kisses, so exciting. Were they? She tested, pushing back with her own tongue. She withdrew it. She wasn’t sure what she felt. She leaned back. His hand explored between her legs. She thought of closing them tight—yes!—but didn’t. She would allow this for only a few more moments. Longer? When he opened his pants and pointed his erect thing at her, she felt frightened and was about to pull away. Then it was that fragments of Eulah’s warnings against sins of the flesh raided her mind.
“Yea, ole Satan makes it feel good—so gooood,” Eulah quivered and moaned in Sylvia’s mind. “Lust! Wicked pleasures! Seduced flesh! Lust, flesh, pleasures, flesh, pleasure, pleasure … makes it feel so gooood—so goooood—so damned goooooood!”
“How did it feel to lose your virginity to a Chicano vato like me?” Armando asked her afterwards, buckling his pants, giving his belt a flip of the tip.
She didn’t tell him that, yes, it felt good, especially because of Eulah’s words echoing encouragement. Nor did she tell him that she was considering becoming a Catholic as a result of their visits to the colorful church. Not a nun, no. Their drab garments would spook her. She could easily become, though, a devotee of the gorgeous virgin and the almost-naked man.
“Well?” he waited proudly for her answer.
“What?” She had forgotten what he had asked, so delirious had she become at the prospect of her newfound devotion, another step away from Eulah.
“I said, How did it feel to lose your virginity to a Chicano vato loco like me?” He frowned at her forgetfulness.
She remained silent, hoping that she was blushing, although she knew she wasn’t.
Another afternoon, among the same green cluster, it all felt even better to Sylvia Love when she lost her virginity again (again goaded by Eulah’s feverish warnings). That’s how Armando made her feel when, afterwards, as he shined the buckle of his belt with his spit-moistened handkerchief and gave the tip of his belt an extra flip before looping it, when he asked her, again, “How did it feel to lose your virginity to a Chicano vato loco?”
Her sassy spirit sparked. She heard herself answer him. “Wonderful. Did it feel wonderful for you, too—to lose your virginity to a white girl?”
He sulked all the way back to the city, where he dropped her off in the business section—farther than before. On her way home, Sylvia wondered what Armando’s reaction would have been if she had told him that she might be part Mexican herself.
When she passed Eulah and her Bible that had become an appendage, Sylvia allowed herself to pause triumphantly smiling near the woman who would soon have no power over her at all. None.
She remained friendly enough with Armando, talking at school, even flirting for others to see, but that was all. Soon, she saw him in his car with one of the blonde girls who had once called out to him, “Hey, sexy Chicano.” He coughed and coughed to call attention to the fact.
She didn’t have to pretend she didn’t care. She was too young—and he was too silly—to carry on seriously with anyone. Besides, her goal of winning the beauty title occupied her increasingly. She began to walk as if she was carrying a book on her head.
8
How Sylvia Love became Miss Rio Escondido. The full horror at the Miss Alamito Beauty Pageant.
It was by default that Sylvia became Miss Rio Escondido. No one else competed. She was sure the reason was that all the other girls, both the white ones and the Mexican Americans, knew she would triumph, hands-down, and so they had decided it was wiser not even to compete.
Another factor for the default might lie in the fact that in Rio Escondido, there were many Baptists, Catholics, and, of course, the Pentecostals—and they all variously denounced “sins of the flesh,” although it seemed to Sylvia that no one did so more passionately than her mother.
Mayor Gonzales, his face redder than usual, honored Sylvia with the beauty title during lunch in the best coffee shop in the City, The Lone Star Café. She didn’t mind being given the great title without fanfare—at this stage, anyway—because news of it might jolt Eulah out of her religious trance. The Mayor was proud to be seen with such a pretty girl, lowering his voice to whisper ordinary matters so that others in the café might suspect him of speaking intimacies. What he was telling her was that the City of Rio Escondido would proudly support all necessary expenses involved in her travel to the City of Lariat, Texas, where all contestants from the sprawling Alamito County would gather. He was so sure of the generous procedure—and no need for her to mention it to anyone else—no one—that he took money out of his wallet and presented it to her. She rewarded him with a spectacular smile and a kiss on the cheek.
“A kiss!” he exclaimed loudly for everyone to note. “This beautiful girl gave me a kiss!” After Sylvia left, he retained his hand on the exact place where she had kissed him, storing it.
When Sylvia missed her period, she decided that telling Armando, at least now, might complicate matters. Nothing would show before the crucial crowning.
The day before she would leave Rio Escondido to participate in the Miss Alamito County, she went early to the Catholic church. Her head covered with her own scarf this time, she knelt before her favorite statue, the most beautiful, the most alluring, the one who might, herself, be a candidate for the title of Miss America, the Most Holy Virgin Mother Mary, the mother of the sensational, almost-naked man on the cross.
“If I win Miss America”—she saw no reason to pray for the lesser title coming up—“I’ll place my crown at your feet,” she promised. She made a sign across her chest, the way Armando had. She rose—and then knelt hastily again and added, “And please don’t let me be pregnant.”
For years, Eulah had hounded Sylvia about attending “youth camp retreats.” That’s where she told her mother, who managed an approving nod without breaking her trance, that she would be going for the next few days.
Other contestants gathered for the Miss Alamito County Beauty Pageant at Lariat were atwitter with excitement when Sylvia joined them at the dusty motel where they stayed. She didn’t like the bouncy girls—not a single other Mexican American among them. All of them seemed to resemble each other, with stiff hairdos, most often blonde, and bright teeth, curvy bodies, permanent smiles, and real or pretended Texas drawls. Sylvia decided she would be more sophisticated than the others—friendly, yes, but aloof. “Just who do you think you are?” one of the giggly girls asked her. “I think I am Sylvia Love,” she answered, and truly felt that s
he was finally herself, now that she was so far away, in so many ways, from Eulah Love. At last!
One particular contestant, Miss Canutillo, annoyed her because she told all the girls that they were the prettiest and should win, probably because she had given up on the title herself and was hoping to be named Miss Congeniality. Still, there was much excitement in sitting around the motel pool and being ogled and snap shot by the local newspaper. There was the further excitement of being groomed, fitted, told how to walk—all this by an effeminate man and a masculine woman.
“Walk as if you’re carrying a book on your head,” the man instructed. “I already do,” Sylvia informed.
“The good Book, the Bible—that’s what I imagine I’m carrying on my head,” Miss Canutillo offered, “and the Lord will be our guide, God bless.”
Responding to a chill at the memory of Eulah in her vine-choked house thinking her daughter was at revival retreat camp, Sylvia Love did not even try to muffle a groan at Miss Canutillo’s sticky declamation, a loud groan which was rewarded with a throaty hoot from the masculine woman and a secret—to one side of his hip—thumbs-up from the man, and a puckered frown from Miss Canutillo.
“What will you do for your talent performance?” a severely serious older man wearing a red bow tie and writing on a pad asked Sylvia as she and the others stood on a small high-school stage.
“Talent?”
“Yes. Exactly like for the Miss America Contest,” the man emphasized the importance of this phase, huffily. “Do you dance, act, sing? What?”
“I sing,” Sylvia said.
“What are you waiting for?”
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me …
It was her own voice! Her voice was singing the song the black woman had sung long ago, the song she had rehearsed so often in her mind.
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was blind but now I see. …
In a sweet, lovely voice she sang the words, slowly, giving them her own meaning, making it her own song, tinged the words at first with the sadness of her past, and then with the hope of her future. The girls fluttering about her paused to listen.
“Good!” the stern man said.
The night of the pageant arrived, an appropriately starry Texas night when even the seasonal Texas wind was hushed in awe of the proceedings.
Then it was as if time had whipped itself up, existed only in flurries for Sylvia Love. During one of those flurries she was walking in her luminous white gown along the small stage—alone, all eyes on her!—nervous and praying that she wouldn’t perspire before the judges: two stern men and one smiling (at her? Sylvia wondered)—and one woman, all out of shape, seated in the front row of the full auditorium.
Another flurry! The interview! Miss Canutillo had just answered what she would ask for if she had three wishes: “That everyone heed the Lord’s word … To serve the Lord with my body and soul … To spread the Lord’s word.” Sylvia longed to elbow her when she walked past her as if she was hoping for a halo instead of a crown.
“And you, Miss Love, what would be your three wishes?”
“That there be no meanness in the world,” Sylvia answered without an intervening pause. She thought, But before that, I wish Eulah would stay out of my life!
“And?”
She didn’t have to think; she said: “That no one would ever be mean to anyone.”
“And your third wish?”
Sylvia straightened up proudly and said, “That all meanness would vanish from the world”—and to herself she added: that Eulah would shut up and not push me around with her damn hideous Bible and that I’ll be free of her forever!
Another flurry—the talent phase. Although, the day before, she had managed to sing the wondrous song, she was certain that, this time, the borrowed words would stop flowing, turn into gasps, stick in her throat. She would have to spit them out. She closed her eyes and evoked the black woman who had sung the song that distant time, remembered how she had looked up, how she had held her hands, out, up. She did the same. Her voice became firmer, stronger, and soon she didn’t have to rely on the memory; the words of the song, propelled by hope, were coming from her, only her.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me. …
As she sang the words she cherished most—“my fears relieved … hope … a life of joy and peace,” her voice gained strength, and rose, firm, serene.
Applause! More than anyone else had received.
Another flurry—and she was waiting in the wings in her bathing suit, white so that her skin glowed golden.
“Miss Rio Escondido, Sylvia Love!” announced a slick dark-haired man. Feeling a series of trembles of ecstasy as she heard her name called out for the most important phase—yes, yes, yes, this was real, the beginning of a new life—Sylvia Love made her way past the twenty or so other contestants, including Miss Canutillo, who whispered, “Oh, you’re the prettiest, Miss El Rio, that’s why you’re going to win.”
Sylvia had taken only a few steps onto the stage when she heard a commotion behind her. She didn’t turn to look. That would compromise her walk before the panel of judges—had she heard a murmur of admiration when she appeared on the stage? She did not turn to look back even when she heard a terrifying voice screech:
“I command you in the Lord’s name to let me through!”
Sylvia had to glance back then, to make sure she was wrong, that the voice did not belong to—
Eulah Love.
Eulah was scuffling offstage with the attendants, and with some of the heftier beauty contestants, who had joined spiritedly in trying to subdue the raging woman.
Walk faster? Run? Sylvia considered her dour choices. She stopped, frozen.
Wresting herself free of hands grabbing her, Eulah rushed onstage with her black Bible in one hand and an ominous white bundle in the other. “Woe to allow your body to be exposed!” she screamed at Sylvia. “Shame, shame, shame, shame on you, and shame on your exposed body, shame! This is my curse on you! Unhappiness will follow you, forever, for your sins!” Unfurled, the bundle she carried became a sheet, and she flung it over Sylvia, covering her.
Gasps from the audience, then scattered muffled bursts of laughter.
Trying to throw off the sheet, Sylvia shouted at the raging woman, “Get away from me, you awful woman!”
Titters and giggles erupted into more laughter, loud laughter, growing laughter.
Sylvia managed to thrust off the sheet, but it wrapped about her feet. When she attempted to resume her graceful walk—head up, shoulders squared, one foot before the other, not straight ahead—she stumbled, fell, heard new waves of uncontrolled laughter. She rose and tumbled down again, rose, and fell again, the sheet clinging to her feet, wrapping about her legs. Then she heard, like a knife slashing, the gleeful shriek of Miss Canutillo: “Hallelujah! The haughty bitch is out!”
Sylvia ran offstage doing what she had sworn she would never do at a beauty pageant. She cried.
9
The beginning of the aftermath.
How Eulah found out about the pageant, and how she managed to reach the site of the competition in time to do what she did, would remain a mystery to Sylvia, as would her mother.
Soon after, as she stood in front of the mirror admiring her gorgeous body, the memory of Eulah’s ranting made her turn away abruptly, and she pulled up her blouse to cover her breasts. No! She forced back her defiance and pride. She lowered her blouse, and she faced her reflection, boldly. So much for Eulah Love’s silly curse!
CHAPTER TWO
1
A return to the time of Lyle’s birth. A prediction altered into a new prophecy.
Sylvia Love fell into a deep sleep and woke startled—today? yesterday? tomorrow?—having forgotten that she had given birth. Scrutinizing the bundle beside her, she discovered what it was—her baby, a boy, now nuzzling too cozily against her breasts.
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Clarita, who had remained in the room with her beautiful young friend, still pondered how she could possibly have gone wrong in her prediction that the child was dead inside the womb. After all, she, a proud, sturdy middle-aged Mexican woman with one cloudy eye that underscored her spiritual powers—“my deer eye,” she called the smoky eye—had done everything right. With a rosary wound around two fingers, she had tapped three times about the young woman’s swollen belly, placed her ear against the swelling—all while saying two Hail Marys and one Our Father, in Spanish. The result—silence—led to her pronouncement: “Be thankful, my beautiful friend, that this child died in your womb, because he was about to start weeping when I listened, and when a child weeps inside his mother”—the Mexican midwife had made a sign of the cross—“that means he will have a troubled life!”
Now, with the strange bundle of pink flesh beside her and the little mouth seeking her nipple, Sylvia ventured: “Does his being born alive after all mean he’ll have a happy life?”
“Yes!” Clarita adjusted her prediction further. “He’ll have a happy life because he overcame the stillness I heard in your womb. He’s going to grow up to be un doctor famoso.” She pondered further. “A specialist.” She peered over the child. “He’ll be muy guapo—very handsome”—she closed her eyes, to allow a full vision—“a very handsome heart specialist.” Satisfied with her clarification, she sat near Sylvia in the comfortable chair she had lugged in from her own room, and she fell into one of her instant dozes.
Sylvia had winced at Clarita’s last words—“a very handsome heart specialist”—which struck at her own heart and loosed memories of Lyle Clemens the First, a handsome heartbreaker. Her thoughts couldn’t linger on that memory, even if she had wanted them to because she was startled, not by Clarita’s sudden jerking awake—that was also familiar—but by her sudden words.
“I suppose—” Clarita’s eyes shot open after a severe nod of her head. Staring at Sylvia as if for the first time, she said, her voice throbbing with lament, “I suppose I didn’t rush you quick enough to the hills!” She shook her head, shedding a lingering daze, and she added, “Ay, Dios mío. Damned if I wasn’t back there again.”
