The First Rule of Punk

by Celia C. Pérez

  The walls behind the counter were covered with wooden animal masks and bright tin suns, moons, and skeletons. So many skeletons.

  Then I saw something super familiar: cardboard record sleeves decorating a different wall. I got excited because there were some punky eighties-looking bands. Mixed in with them were fifties rock-and-roll singers with greased pompadours, and Mexican singers with big mustaches and bigger hats. I moved closer to get a better look at the album covers. I recognized a few of them as people Mom listened to sometimes.

  When I walked back to our table, Mom was talking to the woman who had greeted us.

  “Ana, this is my daughter, María Luisa,” Mom said.

  I plopped down on a big, velvety orange-and-red pillow.

  “Malú,” I said. “Hi.”

  I tried not to stare at her pink hair and tattoos. She looked like she might be Mexican, but I had never seen another Mexican punk.

  “Mrs. Hidalgo owns the coffee shop,” Mom said. “And guess what. She’s Señora Oralia’s daughter. You know, from our building?”

  “What a small world, right? I grew up in that building,” Mrs. Hidalgo said. “Your mother tells me you’re at JGP Middle School.”

  I gave her a puzzled look.

  “That’s what we call it sometimes, JGP, for José Guadalupe Posada, or just Posada.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I see.”

  “My son is going into the seventh grade too,” she went on. “He’s not here today, but you should meet him. Ask around for José Hidalgo, okay? He’s hard to miss.”

  She winked at me and pulled an order pad out of her apron pocket. I nodded even though I could not see myself asking around for someone I didn’t know.

  “Now let me get your order so you ladies can eat already. I hope you’re okay with vegetarian food.”

  “Vegetarian is great,” I said.

  “I highly recommend the Soyrizo breakfast tacos,” Mrs. Hidalgo said. “We make our own.”

  “Is there cilantro in it?” I asked suspiciously.

  “No cilantro,” Mrs. Hidalgo said. “We can sprinkle some on top if you’d like.”

  Mom laughed. “I think she’ll pass.”

  “Got it,” Mrs. Hidalgo said with a nod. I felt myself blushing, hoping Mrs. Hidalgo didn’t think it was weird that I didn’t want cilantro.

  “And a coffee, please,” I said.

  “I’ll have coffee too,” Mom said, closing her menu. “And the yogurt and granola, thanks.”

  Mrs. Hidalgo jotted down our order then tucked her pencil into her apron pocket.

  “Don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything, Magaly,” she said.

  Mom smiled and thanked her. Once Mrs. Hidalgo was out of earshot, Mom shook her head.

  “Vegetarian Mexicans,” she said. “I’ll never understand that.”

  “Don’t be so closed-minded, Mom,” I said.

  “Point taken.” Mom sipped her water. “This is great, right? We’ve met some nice people. Maybe even a new school friend?”

  I slumped back against the wall and picked at my black nail polish.

  “You should find José at school,” Mom said. “It’ll be good for you to have someone to hang out with.”

  “Thanks for the concern,” I said. “And do you think you could stop introducing me as María Luisa?”

  “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “You know what I mean, Mom,” I said. “It’s bad enough I have to be here at all without people calling me María Luisa, too.”

  “Malú, I can’t imagine it feels good to be angry or annoyed about everything all the time,” Mom said.

  “How would you feel if you were me? If you were moved a thousand miles away from home? Against your will.”

  “Chicago isn’t a thousand miles away from Gainesville,” Mom replied.

  “You’re right. I looked it up,” I said. “It’s one thousand and fifty miles away. That’s practically at the end of the Earth.”

  “Ay, Malú, you’re so dramatic.”

  A young guy stopped at our table and placed a mug in front of each of us. I brought the steaming coffee to my face and took a careful sip. It tasted earthy and sweet, like cinnamon and piloncillo. The last time I visited my abuela, she had a big cone of piloncillo that we’d chip off into our coffee to sweeten it.

  “Seriously,” I said. “If I were a sailor back in Columbus’s day, I’d be afraid we were going to drop off into an abyss and be eaten by a giant sea serpent.”

  “For your information, Columbus knew the world was round,” Mom said. “He just thought it was smaller than it is.”

  I shot Mom the iciest look I could give. She had a habit of turning everything into a learning opportunity.

  Our food arrived, and I inspected my Soyrizo for signs of cilantro, my culinary archnemesis, just in case.

  “All clear?” Mom asked.

  I nodded and took a bite.

  “It’s a big deal to be offered this visiting professor fellowship,” Mom said. “And it’s not forever, so let’s make the best of our time here.”

  “You make it sound like that’s really easy,” I said.

  Mom closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.

  “I can assure you that being a grump about it is only going to make things harder,” she said. “Give it a chance, Malú. You might actually like Chicago.”

  “What’s to like about moving to a strange place?” I said. “I don’t know anyone here.”

  “You’ll make friends and do things here just like you would back home.”

  Of course. Wasn’t that what adults were supposed to say?

  “You’ll figure it out,” Mom said. “I hope you’ll at least try, for your own sake and for my sanity. No more sulking, okay?” She gave my braid a little tug.

  Sometimes I wondered if Mom even remembered what it’s like to be a kid.

  “How is that soy chorizo?”

  “It’s Soyrizo,” I said. “Animal-free and delicious.”

  Mom closed her eyes and took another a deep breath, but this time a small smile crept onto her lips.

  That night I tried not to think about school starting the next day. It wasn’t easy, especially when my phone buzzed with a text from Dad wishing me luck. I decided to distract myself by doodling.

  I dug the little yellow box of worry dolls out of my bag and dumped them onto the desktop. Worrying about stuff is so not punk, Malú. But I grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote down my worries anyway.

  When I was done, I gathered the worry dolls and crawled under the ugly flower print comforter. I didn’t really believe that six tiny stick figures had magical powers that could take away my worries. Still, I lifted my pillow and lined them up in a row underneath. I turned off the light and climbed into bed. Then I buried my face into the pillow so that Mom wouldn’t hear me crying.

  Chapter 5

  When my alarm went off the next morning, I hid under the comforter. My eyes felt dry from crying. They stung like when I’d been at the beach all day and gotten too much salt water in them.

  Mom knocked on the door and poked her head in.

  “We may not have much in the fridge, but we have coffee,” she said, triumphantly holding up a package of beans from Calaca. “You want?”

  “I need,” I said, peeking out at her.

  “I’ll do some grocery shopping today,” Mom said. “We can pick up something to eat on the way to school.”

  “Can I walk to school alone?”

  “Walk alone? No way,” Mom said.

  “Please,” I said. “It’s not like I’ll get lost.”

  “I know, but it’s your first day. I want to see you off.”

  “Fine, whatever.” I kicked the heavy comforter to the floor.

  “Great, I’m
excited too,” Mom said. “Coffee in ten minutes.”

  I rolled my eyes and dragged myself out of bed.

  I unpacked a bag until I found my green jeans. I put on my favorite Blondie T-shirt and my silver-sequined Chuck Taylors.

  Dad gave me the sneakers last year after I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In the movie version Dorothy wears ruby slippers, but in the book she wears silver shoes that she takes off the Wicked Witch of the East when the house lands on her and kills her. It’s not until the end of the story that Dorothy learns she can wish on the shoes to take her back home to Kansas. I’d been wearing them for a week now, but they seemed to have lost their magic, because no matter how many times I closed my eyes and clicked my heels, I was still in Chicago. Never back home.

  A hole had grown on the sole of one shoe where the rubber had worn away. Nothing a little duct tape can’t fix. I found my roll and did a quick patch job, stretching a strip of tape across the bottom of my shoe and over the sides.

  In the bathroom, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and made a face when I remembered one of Dad’s favorite jokes.

  “You got your Mexican from Mom and your punk from me,” he’d say.

  I had the Mexican going on for sure: brown skin and thick brown hair that was lighter than Mom’s but darker than Dad’s and that I usually wore in two braids. I had Mom’s dark eyes too. My punk, on the other hand, was terribly lacking.

  I washed my face and braided my hair like I did every morning. Before I left the bathroom, I noticed Mom’s makeup bag on the counter and got an idea. I dug around until I found a black eyeliner pencil. I opened the cap and squinted closely at the tip, unsure where to start, then set it gently against the inside corner of my eye and drew up, tracing my eyelid to the top. I imagined that I was coloring inside the lines of a coloring book, but the pencil was waxy and smudgy and an eye is nothing like a flat sheet of paper.

  My hand trembled as I moved the pencil closer. I did my best not to poke myself. There’s nothing punk about an eye injury. Unless it happened in a mosh pit, of course.

  As I drew what I hoped looked like wing tips, I thought about the singer with the dark, dramatic eyes on the album cover at Spins & Needles. That was the look I was going for. I found the glittery black eye shadow Mom had used last Halloween and swiped some over each eyelid. I filled my lips with the darkest lipstick I could find to finish the look.

  In the end, the cat eyes were crooked and my eyelids felt sticky and heavy, but I definitely looked a little more punk.

  “Coffee’s poured,” Mom called from the kitchen.

  “Coming,” I said, stuffing everything back into her makeup bag.

  I headed to the kitchen, where Mom leaned against the counter, writing out a grocery list. As I grabbed the mug of coffee Mom had placed on the table for me, I noticed my fingers were covered in glitter and eyeliner. I wiped them across my jeans.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  She looked up, pen in hand, and stared at my face for a few seconds.

  “Ohhh no,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “What is it, Mom?” I asked, like there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

  “What it is, is that you are not going to school looking like that.”

  “What’s wrong with how I look?”

  Mom gave me a get-serious stare. “Do you really need a rundown?” she asked. “You’re twelve years old, for starters.”

  “Almost thirteen,” I said.

  “Semantics. You’re twelve, señorita.”

  “Please, Mom,” I said. “Pleeease.”

  “It’s your first day at a new school,” she said. “Is this really the impression you want to make on people who don’t know anything about you?”

  “It’s just makeup.”

  “If you’re interested in wearing makeup, I can teach you how to apply it properly,” Mom said. “Like una señorita.”

  I thought about the singer on the album cover and wondered who taught her how to apply makeup.

  “I think it looks cool,” I said. “I was going for a different look.”

  “Well, in that case, you succeeded. You look like Nosferatu.”

  “Who’s Nosferatu?”

  “A creepy vampire,” Mom said. “Look him up.”

  “You’re so mean,” I said.

  Mom’s eyes trailed down to my torn jeans and beat-up, duct-taped sneakers.

  “When I was your age, I couldn’t even afford to buy new clothes,” she said. “I just don’t get it. You look like una huerfanita.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “Una huerfanita,” Mom repeated. “An orphan.”

  “I do not look like an orphan,” I said, picturing Oliver Twist asking for more porridge.

  Mom attempted to stick a finger through a hole on the side of my jeans.

  I jumped out of her reach. “Mom!”

  She stared at me with a frown on her face.

  “Please?” I said. “Can I just do this one thing?”

  “You’ll never ask for anything else again, right?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Mom stared at me for a few more uncomfortably long seconds.

  “I can’t imagine they allow seventh graders to come to school made up like that,” she said. “And it’s going to take forever to wash that off.”

  I could see in Mom’s face that she wasn’t happy about it, but I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Is that a yes?” I asked.

  “This isn’t a yes,” Mom said. “This is a go-ahead-and-learn-the-hard-way, Malú.”

  “Yes!” I whooped.

  “If I get a call from school about it being distracting, this nonsense is over,” she said, wagging a finger. “You hear me?”

  “Why would this be distracting?” I asked, batting my sticky eyelashes.

  Mom sighed and stuffed her list into her purse.

  I couldn’t believe she had actually agreed to let me go to school wearing makeup.

  “Vámonos, creature of the night,” she said, shaking her head.

  Chapter 6

  Finding homeroom was easy. Walking into it was a little harder. I stalled a bit, looking at my schedule and then at the number next to the door. It was definitely the right room, and I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever. As soon as I stepped through the doorway, it felt like all eyes turned to me.

  “It’s a little early for Halloween,” someone called out.

  A few kids sitting in the back of the room burst into laughter.

  Ms. Hernandez, the homeroom teacher according to my schedule, stared at me for a few seconds too long before waving me in.

  “Yes,” she said, searching her desktop for something. “I may need to talk to you, but go ahead and sit for now while I get through roll call.”

  My stomach twisted like a pretzel. Why would she need to talk to me? Please don’t let it be about my makeup. I scanned the room and hurried to the first empty seat I saw. I’d barely slinked down into my chair when the girl sitting across the aisle spoke to me.

  “You’re new, right?” she asked, chewing on the candy necklace she wore.

  “Um, yeah,” I said.

  “What’s up with your makeup?”

  I got the same feeling inside as when Mom would start in on me about my clothes. Like I had to get ready for battle. I knew the girl wasn’t just curious; she was judging me.

  “What’s up with yours?” I asked. The words spilled out before I realized it was not only rude but a pointless retort, since she didn’t appear to wear anything but lip gloss.

  “María Luisa O’Neill-Morales?” Ms. Hernandez called, looking around the room.

  I cringed at the sound of my name and raised my hand.

  “Ms. Hernandez,” I said. “You can call me Malú.”
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  She nodded and marked something on her attendance sheet.

  “What kind of name is that anyway?” the girl asked. “It’s weird.”

  She said it loud enough for the kids around us to hear. She said it like there was something wrong with my name. Like there was something wrong with me.

  “Don’t you mean unusual?” the girl in front of her said, and giggled. She wore a candy necklace too.

  “Sorry, yeah, that’s what I meant,” she said. “What are you? You’re not Mexican, right?”

  What are you? I was used to getting some version of that question, especially when people heard my name. I wasn’t always sure how to answer. Sometimes it just seemed easier to blurt out what Mom calls my pie chart: half Mexican, half fill-in-the-blank with the names of a bunch of different European countries. I didn’t think this girl would care much about my pie chart.

  She looked at me, waiting, daring me to say something. I had the feeling that no matter what I said, she wasn’t going to like it.

  “I’m half Mexican,” I said.

  “Half Mexican, huh? Psssh.” It sounded like gas escaping from a bottle of soda.

  She looked at me from head to toe then turned back to her friend, swinging her long curls in the process. She and her friend could have been twins. They both had dark glossy hair that hung down their backs, and their bangs were straightened and hair sprayed.

  I pulled my notebook out of my bag and wrote down some ideas for a new zine. I tried to imagine that I was in a bubble that could protect me from this new place and this girl. Like the one Glinda the Good Witch travels inside.

  “Selena Ramirez,” Ms. Hernandez called out.

  The girl who had been talking to me raised her hand without turning away from her friend. They huddled together and giggled. I knew what they were laughing about because every so often the other girl, the one who answered to Diana during roll call, looked over and made eye contact.

  “Malú, could you please come here?” Ms. Hernandez asked. My bubble burst.

  I slid out of my chair and heard Selena and Diana whisper ooooohhh as I passed by.