“You gonna clean it?” asked Ruby, smiling, and hoping Angel would, because Ruby hated to clean the corn, and Angel knew this, and was always happy to clean it. “We need more masa soon,” Ruby added, pinching another dollop of masa from the blue bowl to her side. Angel nodded, and said yes, yes, she knew this, and then took a knife and slit the burlap sack, and several kernels fell on the dusty kitchen tiles.
“¿Quieres que haga mole mañana?” Angel asked as she loaded generous heaps of corn into a large colander.
“Sure. Turkey?” asked Ruby. Lucy understood both words. Mole and el pravo. She hoped Angel would make mole; it would be a pleasant change from the tamales and the enchiladas.
“Sí, sí. ¿Crees que Manuel matará el pavo?” Angel put the colander into the sink under running water, stirring the kernels and removing the chaffs that still remained.
“Sure,” Ruby giggled, smiling, “Él mataría muchos pavos para ti, pero quizás tengas que pagarle.”
“Lucy,” Ruby said, “I told her she would have to pay to have Manuel kill turkeys for her. He would kill turkeys for me for free.”
Lucy took the roasted tomatoes and garlic from the fire.
“¿Cómo puedo pagar?” Angel scowled, her teeth clenched underneath her fat cheeks, and skittered her fingers through the corn.
Ruby took a tortilla off the griddle, then hiked up her skirt, and shook her ass, and danced a little dance, her muscular brown thighs exposed, while her bare feet glided over the tiles.
“Eres puta estúpida,” Angel said. “Le preguntas sobre el pavo. Yo hago el mole.”
“Yes,” squealed Ruby, grinding her hips, “Yo quiero preguntarle. I want to ask Manuel many things.”
Angel indignantly filled a large kettle with water. She lugged the heavy kettle to the stove and lit the burner with a match, turning it to high. Then she grabbed a handful of lime from a small tin bowl on a shelf above the stove, and sprinkled the lime in the pot. “No mate al mío.” she huffed, mixing the lime into the water with her fingers. “El mío me mataría él si yo le jugara con Manuel.”
“Ohhh, ohhh,” Ruby laughed, dancing, and twirling. “Ella tiene un marido, Lucy. ¿Oh, oh, y dónde ésta este magnifico marido? ¿Y por qué no te mantuvo fuera de la cárcel?”
Angel checked the fire under the pot and ignored Ruby, fueling Ruby’s streak of delightful torment. The last of the masa had been used and Ruby took the empty bowl to the sink.
“I wonder, Lucy,” Ruby said, “where this magnificent husband of Angel’s is? And why he didn’t get her out of jail.”
“Ruby, you’re cruel,” said Lucy, who had been smashing the peppers and tomatoes in a stone metate. “Leave her alone about her husband.”
“He never comes to see her,” she said, repeating it tersely for Angel, whose face fell. The water began to boil and Angel dumped several scoops of corn into the limewater, stirring it with a wooden spoon, and skimming off the kernels that floated. After it had boiled for a few minutes, she removed the heavy pot and poured the corn into the colander in the sink.
“If he were so great he would get her out of here,” and she repeated it again in Spanish and tossed her head of wild hair indignantly. “Y él traería sus niños a verla,” she said.
“El no puede siempre,” Angel defended, running water over the corn and rubbing it gently through her hands to remove the yellow hulls. She liked the sour smell of lime and corn, but would rather be fixing it at home with her children, than here, listening to Ruby be cruel about her children. And it hurt her that she couldn’t see her children. It did indeed. But it didn’t matter now, she thought, it only mattered that she could go home soon and see her babies and clean corn at home. That would be better, she thought quietly, inside her head, and just for a moment. Angel had no idea why Ruby was cruel, but Angel never let Ruby’s thoughts into her own; she kept Ruby’s thoughts outside, letting them scatter like spilled corn. Angel’s concern for her husband was simple and pure. No questions about his conduct had ever raised themselves to her, and when Ruby fussed about such things they could not find their way to her because they did not exist in her mind. They existed only for Ruby, and we can suspect the reason had had much to do with living with Jose Perez; he had embedded a decided suspicion in her nature and fostered its growth. Then as suddenly as Ruby had been cruel, she turned and put her arms around Angel’s big waist as she stood at the sink, and clasped them under her breasts and kissed the back of her head, and Angel smiled and forgot. The teasing was over. When the corn was white and clean, she shook the water out of the colander and put the corn on the pine table in front of the fireplace. Ruby clamped the grinder to the end of the table and said she would grind if Angel would load the corn. Angel scooped a handful of shiny white kernels into the grinder, and Ruby leaned into the handle with both hands, turning. The smell of sweet corn filled the kitchen. Angel dropped more corn into the grinder. She had been in jail only four months, not two years like Ruby. And she would go home soon, she was quite certain. Ruby would be there for a long time yet, so Angel always forgave Ruby’s anger and discontent and teasing. Angel had been accused of stealing from a woman she kept house for, but it was uncertain as to what she had stolen. There was nothing missing. But somehow, Angel had been transferred from the small jail to this bigger one because of some misunderstanding regarding the paper work. Angel herself did not understand, and to think of it confused her greatly; she simply did her chores and waited for her release. She scooped more corn and watched Ruby grind, admiring her lean muscular arms.
“Quieres hacerlo,” she laughed to Angel, knowing Angel hated grinding.
“Hazlo,” said Angel.
“Siempre lo hago,” complained Ruby.
Lucy had mixed the crushed tomatoes and peppers together in a ceramic crock. She tasted the salsa, added chopped cilantro and tasted again. She took a spoonful to Ruby and let her taste.
“Not bad, gringa,” she said, and then nodding to Angel, “bueno, bueno.”
Things were different for Ruby since Lucy had come. Ruby would not have spoken of it, nor could she verbalize the change; she didn’t even think it. She felt it with her body, and her body informed her attitude. It was partly the expectation of birth, and partly because Lucy was a foreigner; her arrival infused the woman with a certain excitement; the slow pace of life was charged with a new vitality. What Ruby found irresistible was that she had become a teacher; Lucy’s eagerness infused Ruby, and that infused Angel, and Angel infused another, and little volts of excitement rippled from one woman to the next like a current of electricity. The voltage sustained itself because the women’s own energy had taken over. They showed off their culinary skills invigorating the cuisine, each woman offering to contribute special dishes for the evening meal. Special tamales and enchiladas and rice. So the routine became infused with a subtle competitive spirit that prodded each woman to make the most of her skills. Because of it, the days tingled with vitality.
“I’d make you do this,” said Ruby. “But you got a baby.”
“I’ll help,” said Lucy, thinking she was really tired, and might like a siesta, but it was too early so she might as well grind corn.
“No. No you won’t,” said Ruby. “I don’t need your help.” A bead of sweat had formed on her brow and she eyed the kettle full of corn without comment.
Angel put more corn in the grinder, smiling. She hadn’t understood a word.
Lucy turned uncomfortably in bed, squishing a pillow underneath her leg so it would rest and not fall awkwardly against the mattress. Her tummy sweated against the sheet with its lump of baby stuck inside her like a barnacle. The air around her was still humid. She twisted wondering when sleep might come. Okay sleep, you can come to Lucy now, she thought, come on little sleepers, Lucy’s tired, anytime, like this baby punching inside, you can come, too, baby, baby. Oh, baby, no, just wait, she thought. Don’t come now, wait a bit. Maybe we’ll be home. Maybe. She reassured herself, again, trying to think herself out of
the situation, imagining home, but she kept seeing bricks, walls and walls of adobe bricks leading into a maze, and she turned again opening her eyes to the dark ceiling. During the day the chores helped her pass the hours, the minutes, the seconds that ticked like bombs ready to detonate. During the days she had wakefulness that led her through the minutes, each chore like an island that linked one moment to the next, and that link formed a sense of continuity, and the continuity was linked to the distinctiveness of the chores: things that must be done in the living of a day. A comfort arose from this string of habitual activities and the comfort of activity allowed her mind the freedom to rise out of habit. But at night she had nothing. Not even the habit of sleep. The nights held the tremor of silence, the moment between a beat, a hollow half a second that echoed along the empty tile hallways and resonated in the small sparse rooms. This was the night’s language and it spoke of sleepless women without their men, turning uncomfortably in small beds, pulling at wayward blankets, scooting closer to the emptiness with sudden cries of terror.
“Are you up?” asked Ruby, appearing at the open door.
“No, but I can’t sleep. Come.” Lucy sat up, half-way, and straightened her white cotton nightgown. She was glad to have the company to break the habit of night.
“I can’t sleep, too. Too hot, maybe, eh.”
“That and the baby.”
“Too hot for the baby. You wanna cigarette?’
“No thanks.”
“Baby don’t like smoke?” Ruby knew Lucy didn’t smoke but she always asked the question because she knew the English.
“No. He hates it.”
“Me too.” Ruby lit the Camel, then wiped a small bit of tobacco from her lip.
“Will they ever let you go home?” Lucy asked.
“This is home now.”
“What about your house? You want to go home, Ruby?”
“I don’t know gringa. I don’t know.”
“You could go back.”
“Only if they let me out.” Ruby laughed and smoked again. “It’s okay. There’s always food here.”
“I want to go home for the baby, Ruby. How long have I been here now?” Lucy rubbed her hand over her lump of stomach.
“Two months, gringa.”
“Already?” She struggled to a sitting position and slipped on the turquoise chenille robe her mother had sent from California.
“Yes, gringa, already.” Ruby laughed. “You should sleep. That baby’s gonna keep you up lots and lots.”
“You too.”
“Me it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because. That’s all.”
“You want to play?”
“Now?”
“Sure. We might as well,” said Lucy. Ruby took another drag as she walked across the room. “Just take my shawl off the table.”
Ruby took the shawl and put it on the bed, and picked up the blue Monopoly box from the chair. Lucy stood awkwardly, having grown enormous, and automatically put her hand on her stomach.
“I won last time, you know.” Ruby blew a smoke ring, and opened the box.
“But you cheated.”
“Never. I never cheat.”
“I feel lucky, Ruby. You sure you aren’t getting sleepy?”
“Come here, gringa. I’m gonna beat your ass in Monopoly.” Lucy sat down and Ruby counted out the money.
A plucked turkey was on the pine table when Angel shuffled into the kitchen early the next morning. She was pleased. There would be mole! She patted the turkey on the chest, as she scooted by in her thin bedroom slippers. Then she gathered kindling from the wood box and stacked the splinters of pine against the back of the adobe fireplace. She crumpled some paper, and squished it under the wood. Then she picked a few pine needles from the wood box and scattered them over the wood. She lit a snap of flame in the morning, and the crackling sound warmed her even before the heat of the fire. Angel rose earlier than most, out of habit, and she liked the quiet of the morning while the others slept. This slip of time seemed to her an advantage, even here, in this jail, the advantage of more time to complete the chores offered by the day. She had promised Lucy a mole, and had not yet been able to make one because there had been no chocolate. Firma Louise had finally put in the order, and it had come two days ago with the corn and the beans and the rice. Angel sat for a moment, her imagination focused on the mole and the great task before her. The ingredients had taken some time to gather, and then there was the grocery order that had gotten lost, and the week no chocolate came. But that was all past now. Of course, they would never think of eating mole today. The flavor would not be set until tomorrow; the chiles, the coriander, the cinnamon, and the nuts all needed time and slow cooking for the flavor to fuse. Today was for preparation; tomorrow they would dine. Angel gathered the chiles: the mulattos, the anchos, the chipotles, and then placed the turkey in the sink to soak with a sprinkling of salt. She wiped off the table and placed a bowl and cast-iron skillet on it. With a small knife she snipped off the stems of each chile, scraped out the seeds, and carefully pulled away the stringy inside veins. Then she tore them in pieces and set them aside as Lucy came in.
“¿Es éste mole?” Lucy asked.
“Sí, sí. Mole.” Angel nodded and then proudly pointed to each chile.
“Este es un ancho …” and making sure that Lucy understood, and went on, “… y mulatos y pasillas y chipotles.”
“Todos son distintos.”
“Sí, sí,” Angel excitedly shook her head.
“A turkey,” she exclaimed seeing the bird in the sink for the first time. “¿De dónde salió este pavo, Angel?”
“No sé,” she shrugged her shoulders and Lucy laughed and did an awkward little dance, imitating Ruby, with a little grind of her hips, which was ludicrous because of her large stomach, and the women broke into peals of laughter. Ruby came in and saw the last thrust of Lucy’s belly and guessed they were laughing about her, and she laughed too, and patted the turkey on the chest, splashing salty water onto the floor.
“Empezaré los chiles ahora,” said Angel. “Luego podemos hacer el desayuno y después hacer el mole.”
“Hay café?” asked Ruby.
“No, no café,” said Angel.
“I’ll make some,” said Lucy, starting for the coffee maker.
Angel set a lump of lard in the frying pan and placed it on the stove, lighting the burner, and waited for the oil to get hot. Then she placed several pieces of chile in the lard, frying them to a nut brown. She placed them in a large bowl and fried some more. The chiles made the air sting, and Lucy had to leave the kitchen while Angel finished the job and then poured boiling water over the chiles. She dropped a small plate in the bowl to keep the chiles submerged while they soaked. The women made breakfast for the rest of the inmates, warming tortillas and cooking scrambled eggs and chiles. Lucy made baking powder biscuits and everyone liked them, but she was having trouble finding any satisfaction on this morning. She couldn’t put a reason on her mood, but she felt antagonistic as if she were at war with herself. The gloom settled over the kitchen, but she snatched it back, quickly, and sheepishly, trying to garnish some excitement from Angel.
“I can’t wait for you two to meet my mother,” she said.
“When,” asked Ruby. “When will we do this?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know now. She should have been here,” said Lucy recognizing the weight of depression and frustration that was sinking around her. “She has a business. She makes and sells bikinis. So maybe she can’t come.” The words seemed incredible as Lucy said them, and she realized they couldn’t be true. Mary Pointer was working right now to effect Lucy’s release; Lucy was certain of this. The woman was unstoppable when it came to her children. But Lucy wanted her mother now! She was tired of waiting. She was tired of being patient. She was tired of jail. She was tired of being fat and pregnant. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be skinny. She wanted to put something on besides u
gly blue smocks. She wanted to sleep on a good mattress. One complete night’s sleep. She definitely wanted that. Maybe even some mascara, or some new foundation, or anything, anything, at all that might be different and new and normal. God, this was jail, she thought, jail, oh, if she could only sleep she would be better, she thought, tiredly. She felt the baby kick inside her, as if to say she could have no rest. Attention was all she was allotted; she must pay attention, to this minute and the next, and the next.
In each moment she would have a chore, like a destination, a habit to fill with action, a routine to satisfy the habit. And then when that baby came, when the little kicking feet showed themselves, the baby would create an entire new world of habit to attend to. A life of habit reforming itself. She wanted to talk to Gary. Or Maggie. Or Hank. She wanted to kill Jackson Swackhammer. She wanted anything but this minute. This jail minute. She wanted a hamburger and French fries. She wanted a Coke. God, she thought, I don’t even eat hamburgers anymore, surely not here, but even there I don’t eat hamburgers. How could I want a stupid hamburger and greasy French fries? Yuk, I don’t want those things so what on earth is the matter with me? She wanted to understand all the words, not just some of them; she wanted to learn something more than she already knew. Lucy wanted to say what she wanted to say in the right language; she wanted people to listen to the right words she said as she said them. But so often they only listened to the wrong words; they heard what they wanted to hear. They weren’t good listeners. Listen! Listen! Stop! Look! Listen! She wanted a brief uninterrupted sequence of pure solid communication. She wanted a connection. A jolt. A volt. She wanted to link the little insignificant chores into one significant monumental task. Just for today. Just to break the thrum of habit droning in on her. She wanted too much, it seems, far too much. But make no mistake that she wanted it, and that this was not the end of wanting. And wanting was more than wishing. Wanting was like desire. It had a destination. A form to attend it. A wish was too wishy. The will wasn’t in wishing, but will lived in wanting. The will was the essence of wanting. The want and the will of it were one. She sighed and looked at the adobe bricks. They had begun to look like bars. She wanted out of the dusty rooms that rose, walling her in, surrounding her, telling her not to go. No. She was in jail. No one could hear her. There were no listeners here. Just translators. And they didn’t always get the message. What message? The SOS. Three dots and a dash. The code. The mode. There was no escape. Not today. The line was dead. She would have to want herself out of it; or will herself into the want of escape. Escape had nothing to do with habit but the smashing of them; she would have to scale the adobe walls, dig through the earth of herself, just to begin the outward journey. Are you listening?
The Orange Blossom Express Page 20