by Myriam Gurba
Buenoth diath.
Red and pink lasers flashed. I saw white faces. Blondes. Freckled shoulders. The girl with corkscrew curls was a redhead. Her body wasn’t liposuctioned. Like some of the others. A pair of collagened lips. Americans. Canadians. Spoiled Mexican brats. I got it. I was at a bored, jet setters’ hangout.
I followed Lupe to a table where German, Nito, and Raquel were already sitting. Raquel was smoking a long cigarette, like a Virginia Slim. She blew smoke out the side of her mouth, and as I plopped down beside, she looked at me like I was a pile of warm dog shit. I would’ve pitied her if she’d been nicer; she looked exactly like Nito, same long simian face. Her only redeeming attribute was her neck. It had grace, was swan-like. I thought, “That bitch would make a great ballerina; that mug won’t be noticeable from the cheap seats and being such a skeleton and all she could easily get tossed around by Prince Charming or whatever.”
“My love,” Lupe said to German, “will you bring me a coke?”
“I will!” I volunteered. I stuck my hand out. Lupe put money in it. I grabbed Lourdes, and we ran together to the bar. Leaning against its rattan counter, catching my breath, I asked her, “What should we get? For ourselves?”
“Screwdrivers!”
“Des-tor-nilla-dores?” I annunciated slow.
She nodded.
I faced the bartender and slapped down my bills. “Una Coca y dos destornilladores38!”
The guy fixed our drinks, slid them towards us, and made my change. We carried our glasses back to the table where everyone, including Lupe, had joined Raquel in a smoke. I remembered a TV public service announcement where a fetus floating in a uterus enjoyed a cigarette its mother was smoking.
Hah!
Lupe might as well have given the baby a drink, too. She was training it be a real swinger. I looked at Nito. He was tapping his cherry into an ashtray and pouting. His face looked so bitter it was lipless, and I turned, toasted Lourdes, and downed my screwdriver.
When her glass was empty, I mouthed, “Otra?”
She grinned.
Like ground squirrels, we darted back to the bar. “Dos desta-padores39!” I announced.
“Destornilladores?” the bartender corrected.
“Si!”
We scored our second round, carried it back to the table and pounded, pretending our beverages were just macho-sized shots. My pulse raced, and I could feel my T-zone getting oily. The DJ spun David Bowie. I took the ditty “Let’s Dance” as a sign. I turned to Nito.
“Want to dance?”
“I do not dance.”
I jumped out of my seat and walked to his side. “Why not?” I asked into his ear.
“Because… I cannot.”
I shrugged and grabbed Lourdes’ arm and dragged her to the middle of the dance floor. Making sure Nito had a good view of us, I got freaky with her. I moved stripperish, gyrating, and I got an urge to twirl, so I opened my arms and spun myself dizzy. A couple of Duran Duran songs played, and then Jordy, the four-year-old French rap artist with the existential hit “It’s Tough To Be A Baby” came on.
“Oh là là, bébé,” I shrieked, hopping up and down, “C’est dur d’être bébé40!”
Me and Lourdes were the only ones ballsy enough to get jiggy to the little frog’s song. Except for us, the dance floor was empty. To keep my courage up, I was going to need more vodka.
“Otra!” I screamed.
Lourdes nodded. We stumbled to the bar, and this time Lourdes slapped the counter. She slurred, “Dos destapatornilladores41!”
The drinks sloshed towards us and we scooped them up and stumbled back to our table. Sweat was soaking my bra and my crotch. I felt giddy. Lourdes’ knees were buckling as she walked. She struggled to keep her head up. It rolled left, then right, then backward, then forward. She was a broke rag doll.
Lourdes fell on the floor trying to get into her chair, and Lupe yelped, “My God! How many have you two had?”
I raised my right hand. My pinky finger, my ring finger, and my flip-off fingers unfurled, poised in the air.
“This is your last one!” Lupe warned.
Raquel looked at me like I was warmer, wetter dog shit, but Nito finally seemed intrigued. Plopping down on my chair, I placed my glass in front of me. With my hands behind my back, I lapped at the booze with my tongue. I was a dog drinking from a tiny dish, a fat kid at a pie-eating contest.
Lupe yawned. “I am tired,” she said. “I need to get to bed soon.”
“You heard your aunt!” German said to all of us. “It’s time to go!”
He and Lupe rose and headed for the doors and Raquel and Nito followed. Me and Lourdes staggered behind; walking like civilized Homo sapiens was too gymnastic a feat for us. We were the last to step out onto the sidewalk in front of the club. I felt the early morning coolness breath across my slimy skin. It gave me a yummy chill. I looked at Lourdes. She didn’t seem cold at all. Inspired by Ajijic’s toucan, she flapped her arms and hopped up and down.
“I can fly!” she screamed, “I can fly–”
I laughed and shoved her and she toppled, the Leaning Tower of Pisa leveled, Ka-Boom! Lourdes rolled on the concrete, giggling, and I straddled her, stuck my fingers in her gooey armpits, and tickled. Her giggling got hysterical and I felt her body writhing under me like an eel out of water and my face swooped down towards hers for a smooch and Lupe shouted, “Get off the ground this second!”
A strong hand yanked me off Lourdes and shoved me into the softly upholstered backseat of a sedan. In a daze, I turned to my left. Raquel. Ew. My head swiveled to the right. Nito. Hubba-hubba.
In English, channeling a dead Brooklynite’s accent, I bellowed, “Heya, Legs!”
My arm jumped into the air and landed on my cousin’s knee.
Squeeze.
Gravity pushed my hand up his thigh. My palm made contact with something hard.
Nito’s head eclipsed the front seat and his thin lips pressed to mine. An amateur tongue slithered into my mouth, advancing me from homo to hetero incest, and although the village of Chapala was encouraging the smashing of taboos, it wasn’t helping me wreck the one I’d come to destroy. I’d wanted to infiltrate a crippled boy’s pants, caress a deformed limb, feel up a gimp extremity, and Tiny Tim, he got to lick the insides of my cheeks and drizzle saliva all over my face while all I got was what? To cop an average Joe dick?
Veni? Vidi? Vici42? Not that night.
In La Casa’s driveway, Nito peeled himself off me, and like magic, I wound up in my favorite pajamas, tucked safe as houses between clean sheets. At noon, along with sharp sunrays streaming in through the bedroom windows, a heavyweight hangover woke me up. I slowly rolled to my left to look at Lourdes. Her eyes were shut, but she was definitely awake. I could tell cause she was doing that wince you do when it’s too painful to cry.
With remarkable sympathy for our conditions, Tia nursed us with trays of menudo43 and Squirt in bed. She made sure me and Lourdes sipped our lime soft drinks till they were gone, but then Tio started screaming, “Fe! Feee! Feeeeeeeee!”
She left before she could watch us eat our entrees, and the second she walked out of the room, I looked down at my bowl and decided what I was going to do with it. I frowned disapprovingly at the hominy grits floating in orange broth, entrails steaming like they’d just been ripped out of their animal owner, perhaps still capable of digestion. I would rather have eaten tentacles.
I eased myself out of bed, carried the disaster to the toilet, dumped it in and flushed. Why was it that the most unappetizing food known to the Mexican people was supposed to be the cure for la cruda44? It seemed like a menudo maker’s conspiracy. Sorry Tom, Dick, and Jose, another animal’s intestines weren’t going to languish in mine.
Before ordering us to put on our shades, get our things and climb back into the Lincoln, Tia forced me and Lourdes to down three Tylenols and an Alka-Seltzer. We felt a little more human after the drugging and we said bye to La Casa and carried our
stuff outside. On my way back past the birds of paradise, I wished for a cane. With one, I could spare my eyes and just shut them and let the tip of my baton do my seeing.
I slid into the backseat and Lourdes slid in beside me, and with her head on my shoulder, we shut our eyes and dreamt of absolutely nothing.
Somebody was grabbing my arm, shaking it. I opened my eyes. Chata. She looked excited.
“The phone was ringing!” she squealed. “I answered it. It’s Nito! He wants to talk to you!”
I snapped wide-awake and grinned and Chata led me into the house by the elbow, to the kitchen, where the phone receiver rested on the counter beside the fridge. I picked it up, put it to my ear. Chata watched.
“Bueno45?”
“Desiree?”
“Si?”
“It’s Nito.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I want to see you before you leave.”
“Tomorrow is my last day here.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. I have to help my father in the workshop, but afterwards, I’ll be there. At six o’clock.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Desiree.”
I hung up the phone.
“Nito is coming to see me tomorrow,” I said to Chata.
She looked impressed and kind of dizzy.
“Wow,” she said and it sounded funny, very, very Mexican.
At 5:55 the next night, Nito showed up on Fe’s doorstep.
I opened the door and found him wearing a long-sleeved purple t-shirt hoodie, tight red jeans, and black and white soccer shoes, soft soled, not cleats. He had his hair fixed into a sleek ponytail. Nito wiped his feet on the doormat.
“Hola,” he said.
“Buenas noches,” I answered but what I was really thinking was that in America, Nito would’ve been jumped for going out looking like that. “Homo-faggot!” his attackers would’ve yelled right before slamming a fist into his nose. “How’d you get that limp? That gerbil you tried shoving up your ass say no and bite your leg?”
Gee. It was weird. I stared straight at the tight red pants. I guessed shit that came off as totally gay back home came off as crazy/sexy/cool here.
Without even being invited in, Nito began dragging himself from the front door to the living room couch. I followed and noticed how he was trying to disguise his limp as an interesting but self-elected gait. He sat on the nearest pink love seat and I sat beside him.
From an archway, Fe watched the whole courtship, looking pleased as punch. Lico and me were keeping it in the family, not a bad Mexican tradition. Like royals, my people use incest to keep the wealth from spreading too thin. Fe turned and went to the kitchen and fast, she emerged with refreshments: a tray holding two lukewarm bottles of Squirt, glasses filled with ice cubes, a bottle opener. She set the tray down on the table in front of us and smiled.
“Disfruten46,” she said.
We nodded.
“Bueno…” She folded her hands together and turned and left the room.
Nito popped the bottles open and poured soft drinks for the both of us and then after asking me basic logistical crap like how old I was and where my hometown was and what my favorite band was, he commenced to drone for an hour about music, drugs and philosophy. The pendulum of the grandfather clock in the corner swung, telling time, distracting me. My skin crawled to the ticking and I curled and uncurled my toes to the sound and when my feet got tired I shifted the movement to my butt cheeks, tightening and untightening them. Finally, I fixed my eyes on the pendulum, as if staring at it long enough, willing it not to move, would make it stop. Chimes began to strike seven.
“How old are you?” I blurted out.
“Twenty.”
“Five years older than me.”
“Can I have a sip of your Squirt?”
I grabbed my half-empty bottle and thrust it at him.
“I’m sorry,” Nito apologized. “It’s just, I get very thirsty.”
“Here. Have the rest. Do you go to school?”
“No.”
“I go to school. What do you do?”
“I work with my father. In the workshop.”
“Jewelry?”
“Yes.” Nito pulled a crumpled sheet and pencil stub out of his jeans’ pocket. “I brought some paper so that we can exchange addresses. Here.” He handed it to me. “Write yours and I’ll write mine.”
We took turns scribbling, and Nito tore off the scrap with his info, holding it out for me to take. I took it.
“I’ll write you,” he promised, “at least once a week.” Nito swooped in, pushing his tongue down my throat, pulling away fast, panting. “I love you, Desiree,” he said.
With the back of my hand I wiped spit off my mouth. “Uh-huh. Me, too,” I mumbled.
Nito stood, his baboon face red and sheepish, and he limped out of the house.
Baby Che
My first month back home, I missed Mexico.
Like a bad, bad American, I romanticized my stay there, fetishizing the experience. On my bed, I sketched still lives of tropical fruits to the strains of mariachi records borrowed from my parents’ music collection. I braided my thick hair and crisscrossed it over my head in imitation of Frida Kahlo. Just to spite the September heat, I attended the first day of school in a new wool beret I’d bought from the army surplus with my allowance money.
Returning home, I’d had a little epiphany. I’d witnessed the inequities of the Mexican class system with my own eyes, and, consequently, had palmed Dad’s copy of The Communist Manifesto. Within hours of finishing it, I’d accepted its teachings as gospel. I knew, from the art hanging around our house, that the manifesto’s guiding principles had led so many of my compatriots–Diego Rivera, surely a bunch of other artists–and I’d be no exception. A long tradition mandated that as a Chicana I go through a red phase. And so I did.
Yet deep in the throes of my one-girl cult, a cult that worshipped the warped memory of “My Summer Spent in Guadalajara,” I never once stopped to consider how infatuation had me by the ’nads. I was so taken by my ethnic roots that I’d forgotten about my big mistake; I’d told a fucked-up Mexican kid I loved him. He believed me, and like Nito had promised, letters from him started showing up in my parents’ mailbox. Hope, passion, and lust fueled his pen, and I tried my best to respond although my Spanish writing was only slightly above googoo gaga, leche, agua47 level.
Damn, how the novelty of that correspondence wore off quick. What killed it? Let’s see! Hours wasted erasing mistakes, perhaps? Paper cuts from flipping back and forth in a crisp English-Spanish dictionary, hunting for the right words? Anxiety about accidentally writing something super dumb, making a mistake like the honky ass priest who used to do Spanish mass on Friday nights at our church?
That fool had thought the Friday night gig would be easy; all he had to do was read his translated note cards, but one night, he preached to us, his congregation of immigrants and immigrant spawn, that Jesus became “embarazado” through his actions. The polite people in the pews snickered. The rest of us rollicked. Oh sure, the word sounded like “embarrassed,” but it was a false cognate. “Embarazado” means “knocked the fuck up.” Talk about a straight up milagro48. Screw the loaves and the fishes, the miracle at Cana, good ol’ Lazarus rising from the dead. The white priest said Jesus was having a baby.
Blaze and Malice helped dampen my ardor for all things Mexican, too. Hanging out in my bedroom, going through my CD and tape collection, Blaze looked over at my record player and made a face. Vicente Fernandez, king of the rancheras49, spun on my turntable.
“What’s up with the wetback music?” Blaze asked.
I said nothing and everything, blushing, plucking the needle off the vinyl, sliding the LP back into its jacket, immediately rushing it back to my parents’ “lame” record collection.
A week later, changing into our P.E. uniforms in the locker room, Malice asked me, “Desiree, what’s up with the milkmaid hairdo?”
A jagge
d schism ripped through my heart, splitting it into halves. My coif didn’t read neo-subversive. It read Swiss Miss, Heidi, Girl of the Alps.
I reached up to scratch my forehead. My hairline felt warm, bumpy.
My beret was giving me hives. I was allergic to revolutionary chic.
When I got home that afternoon, I retired the hat to the back of my closet, and once my rash healed, I seriously considered not saying adios50 but buh-bye to the fantasy of “Mexico, mi tierra, mi patria… mi corazon51!”
As much as he loves Mexico, Dad talks a lot of crap about it. He once told me that during times of unrest, our people choose to follow larger than life leaders like they’re rock stars when what they should really be doing is thinking about how to make political change last.
“Take, Miguel Hidalgo,” he’d ranted and raved, “the supposed ‘father’ of the revolution. Or Morelos. Or the great Pancho Villa! Once the hero died, the whole movement they’d built up collapsed. Bam! Gone! It’s sad. Nobody in Mexico trusts in systems. Only charisma. They’ll sacrifice their lives for somebody’s magic or personality, but put their trust in an institution with longevity,” Dad turned smarmy as a mafioso, “fuggetaboutit!”
Now I was learning Dad’s lesson first hand. Without Inocencia’s hands or Nito’s leg as my Pole Stars, my one girl cult petered into nothing. I unraveled my braids and fixed my tresses back into a jagged ’do like Winona’s in Beetlejuice. I sketched bats and hypodermic needles instead of bananas and papayas and melons. In the bathroom, my pink razors were unsheathed once again and bloody zebra stripes reappeared on my forearms. With ease, I again assumed the mantle of a Ministry-listening, Boris Karloff-watching, clove-smoking, all-American teenybopper.
Of course, I scratched corresponding with my pen pal off my to-do list. This didn’t daunt him, though; Nito started phoning me. At first, his calls came once a week. That became twice, then thrice, then every other day. It made me feel sort of special that this guy who was practically on another continent always wanted to know what I was doing, but then again, it also bugged. Plus, by Turkey Day, Nito was dropping hints that he was planning on popping the big question.
