Bulletproof Vest

by Maria Venegas

  * * *

  Money goes fast in New York—seems to evaporate right out of your pocket as you walk down the street. By the time September rolls around, I’m low on cash and getting a bit desperate. Though I’ve been checking Craigslist and The Village Voice every day and sending out résumés, I’m finding it a lot more difficult than I had expected to find a flexible part-time job that is willing to accommodate an aspiring actress. Abigail offers to get me a job at the art gallery where she works in Chelsea. She’s very knowledgeable when it comes to art, and she and the gallery owner have talked about expanding his gallery when she returns to Maine, and maybe even opening one in New York. I tell Abigail that if I still haven’t found a job by the end of the month, I’ll take her up on her offer.

  On September 11, my alarm goes off at 8:00 a.m., as it always does. I usually get up in the morning, go for a jog, and then stretch in the park on the river. I reach over, turn it off, and fall back asleep. About an hour later, it’s ringing again. I go to turn it off and realize it’s not my alarm but my cell. It’s one of my college friends calling from Florida.

  “Hey,” she says, when I answer. “Are you watching the news right now?”

  “No,” I say, “I was still sleeping. Why?”

  “Apparently two planes just crashed into the World Trade Center,” she says.

  “What?” I look out my window but can’t see anything. I tell her I’m walking down to the river and will call her back when I get there.

  Even before I reach the water, I can already see the dark cloud of smoke that’s billowing against the clear blue sky. There are a handful of people in the park when I arrive: Some Hasidic men stand in a semicircle, a group of Puerto Rican boys from the neighborhood sit huddled on the rocks, a few hipsters stand around, straddling their bicycles. Everyone watches the dark gray smoke that’s engulfing the upper half of both buildings as the helicopters hover near like giant dragonflies. It’s surreal, like watching a movie, except that the screen is gone. I sit on the rock from where we usually watch the sunset and think they must have already evacuated the buildings, and I wonder how exactly they’re going to put the flames out, imagining that they’ll have to pour water down from helicopters, or something like that. I try calling my friend in Florida back, but can’t get through. I try calling Martin, my sisters, my friends in Chicago, but the signal is busy, busy, busy. There’s no point in trying Josh or Abigail as they’re both out of town. I’m about to try my friend in Florida again when there is a collective gasp—everyone in the park seems to have inhaled in unison. I look up, and across the river, the first tower is crumbling, crashing down to earth like a giant wounded moth.

  “What the fuck! What the fuck!” One of the Puerto Rican boys jumps up and starts pacing.

  “This is all your fault,” a man in a flannel shirt with his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail yells, and points at the Hasidic men. “It’s because of you people,” he says before storming off. What a rude asshole, I think as I watch him go.

  “All those people. Oh my God, those poor people.” A Polish woman standing next to me is muttering under her breath, tears streaming down her face, and it’s only then that the magnitude of it all starts sinking in—the buildings hadn’t been evacuated.

  “Fuck this,” a different Puerto Rican boy says as he pushes himself off the rocks and walks away, his fists pumping on either side of him, the veins in his neck bursting under the skin, the fight trapped in his bones.

  A slew of text messages come through from Martin, from my sisters, from my friends, all back in Chicago: Get out of there. We’ll come get you. Leave! Come back to Chicago. Come back. Come back. The second building starts to crumble and I’m unable to rip my gaze from it as the sirens wail across the river, and it feels like it just might be the end of the world.

  In the days that follow, I wander through the deserted streets of Manhattan and spend hours in Union Square, where flowers and candles have flooded the park. Taped on walls and streetlamps are posters of missing persons, along with descriptions of what they were wearing when they left for work that morning and who they were—a devoted wife, a sister, a fiancé, a loving father, a brother—all the missing. They had walked out the door in the morning and had never returned. I know what the missing feel like.

  The one thing that begins to crystalize in the aftermath is that I’m not leaving New York—it doesn’t matter that we are on high alert, that another attack seems very likely—no matter what may come next, running away is not an option. I can practically hear my father’s voice: Even if you know you’re going to get your ass kicked, you stay and you fight like a man. I feel a deep sense of solidarity with the city—like having watched the buildings crumble somehow fused my backbone to its foundation. I feel like it’s my duty to stay.

  * * *

  “You should go see your pops,” Martin tells me when he comes to visit around Halloween, because for the first time since my father left, I have started talking about him, telling stories about him and how, when we had first arrived from Mexico, he used to take us trick-or-treating to the wealthy subdivisions, despite my mother’s protests, despite her claiming that Halloween was the devil’s holiday. And then around Christmas, he’d take us to every church that was holding a gift drive, and as we made the rounds, the camper of his truck slowly filled up with gifts that were tagged girl: ages 2–4, boy: ages 4–6, girl: ages 7–9. When I turned nine, he had bought me a pair of Jordache jeans; when I turned ten, he had bought me a ten-speed bicycle; and when I turned eleven, he had bought me a gold chain with a gold heart pendant, which I lost the very next day. I tell Martin how my father never bothered with names, because the minute he met someone, he made up a nickname for them. How he had warned me about never running away from a fight, and it was only now that I was beginning to understand all the implications of that warning.

  “Fuck him,” I say, though I know that if it weren’t for my father, I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to pick up and move to New York in the first place. He was the swagger in my stride, the reason why I had a don’t-fuck-with-me attitude, though it was also that same attitude that often got me in trouble, and could have easily gotten me killed on more than one occasion. Two summers ago, Martin and I had gone backpacking through Europe, and one night we had been hanging out in a square in London. There were some kids playing drums, and we were sitting and leaning into an iron gate near them, when a Middle Eastern–looking man had come up and started yelling at me. Until he started yelling, I hadn’t realized that my head was resting on his backpack, which was hanging from the gate. I tried explaining that I hadn’t seen his backpack, but the more I explained, the more he yelled, and a circle had begun to gather around us until he looked at me and scoffed. “Stupid American.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. If there was one thing I knew I wasn’t, it was a stupid American. I had seen those types, at the bistros in Paris, drinking and talking so loudly that I was embarrassed for them. I had been with those types at a national monument in Madrid, when they had broken out and started singing the American national anthem, oblivious to the glares they were getting from passersby. I may be American, and I may have done my share of stupid things, but I was not one of those stupid Americans.

  “What did you say?” He took two steps toward me. We were about the same height, and he got so close to my face that I could smell his stale breath.

  “Fuck.” I lifted my chin and looked him in the eye. “You.”

  He pushed me, and before I had a chance to react, Martin had him by the throat. Later, Martin would tell me that he was watching the whole thing, thinking, she can hold her own, but the minute the man touched me, it was over.

  “You’re right,” Martin says. “Fuck him. Don’t do it for him. Do it for yourself. You need to be the bigger person, ’cause he sure isn’t coming to New York anytime soon.”

  “I don’t know, it’s sort of dangerous down there,” I say. There’s a part of me that feels like if I were to go back
to Mexico, the ground itself might open up and swallow me alive.

  “I’ll go with you,” he says. “We can jet down for a quick trip over the holidays. Make a vacation out of it, stay in a nice hotel, rent a car, and drive out to see your pops on Christmas, just for the day. If we feel uncomfortable, we can leave whenever we want.” He takes my hand. “I think it would be really good for you to go see your old man, because one day, all the anger you have toward him is going to come out and guess who’s going to be on the receiving end of it?” he says, pointing at himself with his thumb.

  “That’s not true,” I say, though I know he’s right. If I don’t deal with my past, in the end, Martin will be the one who bears the brunt of it.

  “All’s I’m saying is that he’s the man who shaped you, for better or worse, and as long as he’s still alive, you should go see him,” he says, turning to face me. “You are such a sweet person, and the people you love, you would do anything for, give your right arm for a friend if you had to. But if anyone ever sidesteps you, as sweet as you are, you can be twice as vicious,” he says. “And I know that definitely doesn’t come from your mother.”

  * * *

  Finding a job in the city post–September 11 is virtually impossible, and by the time November rolls around I’ve barely enough money to cover my rent when I get an e-mail from Stephanie Goldstein. Stephanie and I had worked in the Apparel Center in Chicago for a few months after college. She had just graduated from Madison and we had hit it off, but then she had moved to L.A. with her boyfriend. In the e-mail she writes that she has just relocated to New York and is running a showroom for an L.A.-based designer who has sparked a craze in Hollywood with her super low-cut jeans, and she needs someone to help her in the showroom a few days a week.

  I go meet her the next day and start working the day after that, twice a week, mostly helping her with filing and making calls to buyers to set up appointments. The designer fits all the samples to her measurements, which happen to be my measurements, so whenever a buyer comes in to view the collection, I try on practically every pair of jeans for them. Business starts picking up and I’m offered full-time employment. I make them a proposition. I’ll forgo certain benefits, like paid vacations and health insurance, in exchange for the flexibility to go on auditions whenever they come up—no questions asked.

  They agree.

  Once I have enough money saved, I have new headshots made and start sending them out to agents and managers. I hear back from a very reputable manager, and a week later I go to her office on Fifty-third and Third.

  “Why New York?” she asks, puffing on a cigarette from across a glass-top coffee table. “Why not L.A?”

  “I want to be a working artist, not a celebrity,” I say, though I fantasize that someday I’ll make it big, so big that my father will turn on the television and recognize the face on the screen. Or that he’ll be driving along a desolate road in Mexico and will see my face on a billboard, and he’ll elbow his buddies and say, hey, look, that’s my daughter, and they’ll laugh at him and say, yeah, right, you old quack. If that girl is your daughter, why doesn’t she have your last name? I use an alias for my stage name. Same first name, but different last name, as if by replacing his name I might be able to sever any trace of his bloodline.

  The manager signs me, and soon I’m going on auditions and getting callbacks for independent films and shows on HBO.

  * * *

  “I told Dad that you’re coming,” Sonia says when she calls me early in December. “He’s excited, said to give him a call.” She gives me his cell number. The last time she had gone to see him she had set one up for him.

  I program the number into my cell under Dad, and whenever I scroll through the names and that three-letter word comes up, it stops me in my tracks. Dad. There he is, wedged between Cait and Dawn—Dad. It feels like a glitch, like a lie. No matter how many times I scroll past that three-letter word, I don’t call him. It’s been fourteen years since he packed up his truck and pulled out of our driveway in the dark hours of morning. Since I’ve waited this long to talk to him, I’ve decided to wait until we’re standing face-to-face.

  BOOK TWO

  16

  FAMILY PORTRAIT

  MARTIN AND I ARRIVE in Zacatecas a few days before Christmas. We check into a hotel, which has a sprawling courtyard that wraps around a water fountain. Plants in large clay pots line a wrought-iron staircase and balcony. Our room is on the second floor and has exposed wooden beams, terra-cotta tiles, and a terrace that overlooks the entire city of Zacatecas. In the distance a cable car carries tourists to El Cerro de la Bufa, the highest point in town. There is a larger-than-life-size statue of Pancho Villa mounted on a horse at the top of the cerro. I’ve heard stories of how one of my great-uncles fought in the Mexican Revolution alongside Villa, was one of his main generals, and I still remember the sense of pride I felt when I found out that my bloodline could be traced to the front lines of a revolution.

  “What did you get your pops for Christmas?” Martin asks, placing his suitcase on the bed.

  “Nothing,” I say. “That bastard should be happy I’m coming to see him at all.”

  “Okeydoke,” he says, pulling out a change of clothes. “Well, I bought him a flashlight. I’ll put both our names on it.” The flashlight is identical to one my father used to have and was rather proud of, saying that it was the same type of flashlight the police used. It’s black, made of heavy metal, and has a far-reaching adjustable beam.

  Two days later, we board a bus bound for Valparaíso at noon, and by three in the afternoon it’s pulling into the dusty parking lot. Martin and I grab our backpacks and make our way through the dimly lit corridor in the bus depot. At six foot two, with shoulder-length blond hair that is cut in messy angles, he stands out among all the cowboy hats. Two doors down from the depot, there is a seafood restaurant. We step inside, find an empty booth, and slide across the orange vinyl seats. The Formica tabletop is sticky to the touch. A black plastic mortar filled with pickled jalapeños and sliced carrots and onions sits in the center of the table. The waitress comes over and we order two Coronas—the local brew.

  “We made it,” Martin says, holding up his beer. We toast and with the first ice-cold sip I can already feel the three-hour bus ride and my hangover melting away. The night before, we had gone to La Mina, an old silver mine in Zacatecas that had been converted to a nightclub. The DJ spun a mix of music—everything from Michael Jackson to Maná, to the occasional corrido—my father’s music. When El Rey came on, the whole place started singing along and, though I knew the lyrics by heart, had memorized them during those long, sleepless nights, I did not join the massive sing-along. When the music stopped, a few men in cowboy hats standing near the bar had cried out like wild cocks and I almost expected to hear gunshots.

  I take another sip. Hard to believe that by this time tomorrow, my father and I will be face-to-face. The plan is to grab a bite, check into a hotel, shower, find an Internet café, and buy a few things, especially sunblock—Martin’s nose is already bright red. I notice how a woman sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant keeps glancing over at me. She whispers something to the people she’s with and they all turn and stare.

  “What’s wrong?” Martin asks.

  “Those people keep staring at me,” I say, thinking that maybe we should finish our beers and leave, but then the woman is making her way over to us.

  “¿Cómo te llamas?” she asks, when she reaches our table.

  “Maria de Jesus,” I say, stopping at my middle name, a buffer.

  “Maria de Jesus que?” she asks.

  “Maria de Jesus Venegas,” I say.

  “I knew it,” she practically yells. “You’re Jose’s daughter, aren’t you? No, no, no, I was sitting over there and kept thinking I know that face, I know that face. You probably have no idea who I am, but I never forget a face.” She smiles big. “I’m your father’s sister, your tía Esperanza,” she says, holding her a
rms out to me.

  “She’s my aunt,” I tell Martin as I slide out of the booth and give her a hug.

  “Mira no más,” she says, taking a step back. “You’re so tall! The last time I saw you, you were about this big.” She holds her hand at table level. “You must have been about three or four. How old were you when you left for the other side?”

  “Four,” I say.

  “Four? No, you wouldn’t remember me. You were too young, but that face. I never forget a face. You look just like your mother,” she says. “How is she? Your mamá?”

  “She’s fine,” I say. “She’s in Chicago.”

  “How is everyone doing over there?” she asks, eyeing Martin.

  “They’re fine.”

  “Is this your husband?”

  “No,” I say. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  She and Martin nod to each other.

  “We just got into town,” she says, still smiling. “We would have gone straight to your father’s, but we were starving and needed to use the bathroom.”

  “Where do you live?” I ask.

  “California. We’ve been in Fresnillo for a few days, but we’re going out to La Peña when we finish eating.” She glances back at Martin. “Have you guys been out to see your father yet?”

  “We just got into town,” I say. “We’re going to stay in a hotel and go out to his place tomorrow.”

  “A hotel?” she blurts out. “What do you need a hotel for? Your father’s place is right up the road,” she says. “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?”

  “I don’t know. About fourteen years?”

  “So you’re one of the last ones to come see him,” she says. “The last time we were down here”—she pauses, looks up at the ceiling—“who was it? Sonia? Roselia?” She looks back at me. “One of them was here,” she says. Over the past few years, all four of my sisters had been to see him. Sonia had been the first, had gone to see him while he was still in prison. She had shown up on the other side of the bars during visiting hours with her two boys, and he had not recognized her. Later, she told me that for the two hours she had been there, while her boys played with their Power Rangers figures on the cement floor, my father had sat across from her and cried the whole time. “Does he know you’re coming?” she asks.