Let Their Spirits Dance

  “What do you mean, ‘too personal’?” I ask. “It’s the truth.”

  “Yes, but children are so susceptible. Remember the ones who got hit by the car two years ago? Kids are having nightmares to this day.”

  Ironically, the school is named for the Medal of Honor recipient Lance Corporal Jose Francisco “Pancho” Jimenez, U.S. Marine Corps. Jimenez was born in Mexico City on March 20, 1946. He came to the U.S. legally at the age of ten and was raised in Red Rock, Arizona. Later he attended high school in nearby Eloy. The large Chicano community surrounding the school voted unanimously for naming the school after the war hero, who was killed on August 28, 1969, in the vicinity of Quang Nam province. Jimenez single-handedly destroyed several of the enemy forces and silenced an anti-aircraft weapon. His heroic actions saved several members of his company. He was buried in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, and is the only Medal of Honor recipient of the Vietnam War who was born in Mexico.

  “Mr. H., who is this school named for?” I ask.

  “I realize all that. And that’s paying honor where honor is due. Of course that’s not saying your brother wasn’t a hero. Don’t misunderstand me, Teresa. We also have to consider Vietnamese students at the school.”

  “I have Li Ann Nguyen in my class.” My throat starts to ache. I’m surprised at the insane thoughts going through my mind. Little weasel. That’s what he looks like. An albino weasel who stayed home protesting the war when my brother was fighting in Vietnam to save his flabby ass! Calmate. Calm yourself. My fingers turn ice cold. I breathe in, holding the ambush of thoughts at bay. I shift in the chair. He looks pathetic, the little weasel. I’m a sucker for the underdog just like Jesse was.

  “Suppose I get support from Li Ann’s family. Would that make you feel better?”

  “It’s not what makes me feel better, Teresa. It’s what’s best for the children and their parents. We don’t want all-out war on the playground, no pun intended. Everything I say these days seems to bug somebody, no matter how I say it.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this!” I stand up. I notice the pencil stub stuck over one of Mr. H.’s ears. It looks stupid. It brings me back to the moment, dissipates the past, so I can talk to him without going for his throat. “There’s a pencil stuck on your ear.”

  “Oh thanks, Teresa. I was working on some bubble sheets. Deadlines—there’s so many deadlines! We just got through with state testing, and now they want us to restructure all the district tests. You wouldn’t be interested in working on the committee, would you?”

  “I was on the committee that made the ones they’re restructuring! A fine thank-you for all the work we did. But I guess they have to spend district money somehow before the year’s over.”

  I listen to angry voices in the next room. Shirley, the school secretary, walks in dragging one of the fourth-grade boys by the arm. I secretly thank God I’m not a fourth-grade teacher.

  “Oh, no, not Jason again!” says Mr. H., spilling coffee on his white slacks.

  “He was out fighting again at recess. Eric is in the nurse’s office. Jason gave him a whopper of a bloody nose.” Jason squirms out of Shirley’s grasp as I walk out. His reputation for notorious behavior is known throughout the district. Last year, teachers from other schools in the district pitched in and paid his mother’s rent so she wouldn’t move into their area. The fifth-grade teachers have already drawn straws to decide who will get Jason next year, and there are rumors that the loser is resigning. The other teachers are thinking of picketing to stop the resignation.

  I watch Mr. H. stick the pencil stub back on his ear. Keeping the assistant principal busy is another ploy used by the “ousting committee” to overwork Mr. H. More power to the “ousting committee” and Annie Get Your Guns!

  I walk out into the school office and see the huge glass cabinet with mementos of Pancho Jimenez. In one of them, he’s standing in a cowboy outfit with his mother, Basilia Jimenez Chagolla, and his younger sister, Maria del Pilar. He was the only son of his mother. His father was killed in an accident months before Pancho was born. Pancho could have received a deferment as a sole surviving son but refused to do so. There’s another picture showing President Nixon presenting Pancho’s mother with the Medal of Honor in 1970. Pancho’s gravesite in Mexico was not decorated with the headstone of a Medal of Honor recipient until many years later due to the unpopularity of the Vietnam War. Pictures of Arizona’s three other Medal of Honor recipients, Jay M. Vargas, Maj. U.S. Marine Corps, Nicky D. Bacon, Sgt. U.S. Army, and Oscar P. Austin, PFC U.S. Marine Corps, also hang on separate frames on the wall. A real uniting of Arizona’s best in Vietnam.

  Clara, the office assistant, hands me a pink telephone message as I walk up to the front desk. “Your husband, I mean your ex-husband-to-be, called an hour ago and said he needs to talk to you before you leave school.” I take the message, crumple it, and throw it in the trash. Instantly, I am filled with remorse as I watch Clara’s eyes glitter with anticipation of new gossip.

  “By the way, Teresa, do you want to be called Mrs. Alvarez, or Ms. Ramirez?” She puts an inflection on the word “Ms.” Clara reminds me of a vulture asking its dying victim if there are any last words.

  “Mrs. Alvarez for now. It would be too hard for the kids to try to call me anything else so late in the year. Next year I’ll use Ramirez.”

  “Must be hard. I mean the divorce and all…but I’m glad you made it back in one piece. I mean you look great…I guess what happened over the holidays was a real nightmare, maybe…” Her voice trails off as if she wants me to fill in the blanks.

  “Yeah, it was hard.” All of a sudden I feel tired. Tired of thinking about the divorce, Ray, Sandra, the kids, my mother, and now Jesse.

  Clara loves rumors, thrives on rumors. I read the words of the latest gossip on her face: Ray’s living with that hot little number he picked up at one of his gigs. Always a younger woman, ain’t that a damn shame, after all you’ve been through with him. What can you expect from men anyway? All she really says is, “I’m here if you need my help, Teresa.” Right. Help from the Rumor Queen.

  Two Doors Gospel ·

  My mother keeps Jesse’s medals hidden away in a cabinet where the ballerina with the purple sprinkles is frozen in a perfect pirouette. The ballerina has her own story to tell. We bought her from a descendant of Carlos Peña Arminderez, the patriarch of a band of gypsies who owned an empty field west of the railroad tracks. The gypsies never stayed very long anywhere. When they were gone for more than three years, the Black brothers of Two Doors Gospel Church thought that meant they had abandoned the property. Two Doors Gospel took over the land, claiming it as church property, until a city slicker from Buffalo came by flashing authentic-looking land deeds. He swore he was a direct descendant of Carlos Peña Arminderez and that the land belonged to him. He set up a store on the property and sold imported knickknacks of windup porcelain ballet dancers that spun around in glass containers filled with liquid sprinkles. He didn’t make any sales on the ballet dancers and reverted to selling beer until the Black brothers from Two Doors Gospel convinced him that the only door left for him, for all eternity, was the one leading to Hell. They preached so loud and so righteously and sang so many songs that the descendant of Carlos Peña Arminderez finally took off in the middle of the night, leaving all the ballet dancers behind. For the longest time, we had one of the figurines standing on a shelf my dad built. Every once in a while I would wind it up and turn it upside down to see the purple sprinkles float around the delicate ballet dancer. Years later, Mom transferred the ballerina to the glass cabinet she bought for Jesse’s medals at the secondhand store. The ballerina doesn’t dance anymore, but if you turn her glass container upside down the purple sprinkles float over her head and make you think she’s watching over Jesse’s medals.

  • IN THE SUMMER OF ’57, Brother Mel Jakes set up a big canvas tent on the field vacated by the Arminderez clan. I was nine and Jesse was twelve. Under Brother Jakes’s directi
on, the congregation sent evangelists in pairs to scour the neighborhood looking for sinners, mostly homeless people, to fill up the tent. The revival was a call to repentance, a time for the brothers to usher in candidates who might walk a few yards down the way and join the Two Doors Gospel Church after the revival was over. The tent was a circus attraction, except it had no man on the flying trapeze for the crowd to ooh and ahh. Instead, Brother Jakes told the crowd what would happen to pleasure-seekers who passed their time away looking for excitement while forgetting to prepare for life beyond the grave. The part about worms crawling out of dead people’s eyes stayed in my mind the night we went over to hear Brother Jakes preach.

  “It’s as easy as one, two, three to be free!” Brother Jakes shouted, sticking his fingers up in the air for emphasis. “There are two doors, two gates, and two pastures where yo’ all can end up. And some of yo’ all may already be penned up where you ain’t supposed to be! There ain’t no use trying to hide. Once you is in the wrong place there’s no way out!”

  Brother Jakes’s tent was off-limits to me and Jesse, because we were Catholic. We were supposed to be suspicious of tambourines and people who jumped around speaking gibberish and falling all over the place, but our curiosity got the best of us. On regular Sunday evening services, we spied on the congregation through the open windows. Jesse sometimes gave me a step up with his hands crossed one over the other so I could get a better look.

  Looking over the windowsill, I searched for Hanny, an enormous Black woman who lived next to Wong’s Market. Chong Wong’s backyard faced Hanny’s dilapidated shack. Chong Wong had secured it with a six-foot chain-link fence and his own brand of burglar alarm, his Doberman, General Custer. Chong Wong’s son, Willy, was one of Jesse’s best friends. Willy had read the history of the United States to his father, translating it into Chinese. Since Mr. Wong loved the part about General George Custer and how the Indians surrounded him at Little Big Horn, he named his Doberman General Custer. Neighbors asked daily, “How’s the General, Chong?” Chong Wong would answer, “He vely fine. Eat much meat, chase injuns all day!” Then he would laugh and show all his black teeth. I wondered why his teeth were black when all the rice they ate was white. His wife Xiu had gray teeth that never went all the way to black. I watched them sometimes, having dinner in the store, with their rice bowls poised right under their noses. They used the chopsticks like shovels, pushing the rice into their mouths a mile a minute. In between, they would talk Chinese that sounded like they were arguing with each other. Willy’s real name was Willard and he hated it. His father said he named him Willard because it sounded like the name of an American president. Willy’s parents made him wear suspenders, and none of the other kids wore suspenders. I felt sorry for Willy when I saw him wearing his older brother’s pants, held up by two red suspenders.

  The Wongs were fans of The Ed Sullivan Show and watched it every Sunday night. They loved to see Sammy Davis, Jr. perform and wanted Willy to imitate him. They bought Willy a suit with a fake carnation on the lapel. Willy sang into a broomstick microphone, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and all kinds of old-fashioned songs. Chong Wong and Xiu clapped for him, but his brothers and sisters only laughed. Willy told me later that the only good thing about the suit was that it covered up his suspenders. The Wongs finally gave up on Willy and said America would never accept a Chinese Sammy Davis, Jr.

  The Wongs saved some of their money in the bank, and some of it Willy said in the big walk-in refrigerator that kept their meat cold. “It’s a big secret,” Willy said. “Don’t tell anybody, Teresa.” I told him the refrigerator was a weird place to hide money. “My dad says if they break in they’ll take the meat and forget to look for money. That’s the Chinese way. Let them think they’re winning!”

  Willy did lots of things other Chinese guys didn’t do. He signed up for the Marines right after Jesse signed up for the Army, even though Chong Wong told him the Chinese had already been to Vietnam and nothing good had come of it. It was un escandalo, a scandal in their world when Willy signed up with the Marines. In America, the Chinese were known for using their brains, not their fists, to make a living, but Willy only wanted to be like one of the vatos from El Cielito. Chong Wong kept a picture of Willy in his Marine uniform at the cash register and never stopped saying, “Dis boy tink he Amelican. Dis boy find out in Vietnam, he vely Chinese!”

  On their way to Wong’s Market, neighbors could hear Hanny in her shack stomping and clapping out the old church melodies. The smell of cornbread baking and chicken frying issued from Hanny’s shack and made everybody’s mouth water. One day, I asked my mom what Hanny’s real name was, but she said that was all that had ever been given to her by her folks down South. For all I know, there’s a tombstone somewhere with HANNY written on it.

  Hanny always wore the same huge straw hat with ostrich feathers around the brim to church. I loved the graceful waving of the ostrich feathers and wanted to touch them, but Jesse said no. No matter how much Hanny clapped and stomped her feet, the ostrich feathers kept their own fluid movement around her face. I figured they had been plucked off an ostrich’s tail while it dug its head in the sand.

  “Bring them po’ Mexican chil’en in…Jeeesus loves them, too!” Hanny had seen me peering over the windowsill. She motioned us with her hand, and one of the brothers was kind enough to oblige her by bringing us in, except Jesse and I had already run off into the night. Running away from the Two Doors Gospel Church was like walking out of a real live movie screen into an empty theater. It took a few minutes to clear our heads of the rush and movement of the congregation.

  Jesse and I compared notes on what we had seen. One brother’s eyes were ready to pop when he cried out “Hallelujah!” and claimed that “the ol’ tempter has done left my soul.” The kids were dancing and hollering right along with the adults. The whole place was lit up, packed and swaying with sweaty bodies that leaped, jumped, danced, and lifted their hands up to an enormous bare cross. Jesse said the cross was bare because they couldn’t find one with a black Jesus.

  We got to see the congregation up close the night Mom went with our neighbor, Blanche Williams, to Brother Jakes’s revival services. Blanche had convinced Mom that the only way she would ever be rid of her migraine headaches was through the power of Jesus Christ. My mother tried to hide the pain of her headaches from my father, because she knew he had no patience for any pain except his own. Doña Carolina treated my mother’s migraines with yagaby leaves simmered into a tea. Willy Wong always said that in the Chinese world, Doña Carolina was the ying and Don Florencío was the yang of the neighborhood because they were male and female, old folks who knew lots of secrets. Don Florencío never recommended yagaby leaves for Mom. He said her problem was right in front of her face, and later I found out what he meant.

  The yagaby tea helped Mom but at times the fury of the headaches was so intense we ended up taking her to Dr. Camacho, who had a small office off skid row. The only remedy for her then was to get a shot that put her to sleep. Dr. Camacho gave shots for everything, for colds, flus, cuts, and even ingrown toenails. Mom slept for two days after the shot. Jesse and I made sure Priscilla had enough to eat and something to wear. We tiptoed around the house and closed all the curtains, because my mother’s eyes hurt when she looked out into the sun. There was a hole in the house when Mom got sick, right in the middle where she sang, cooked, and cleaned. The hole had power to suck me into itself and hold me prisoner. My dad never noticed it, but I could tell you exactly where it was and how I felt when I put my hands over it and didn’t feel the floor underneath.

  My parents were opposites in almost everything, which was probably why my mother got her migraines in the first place. Energy spun around her in circles as she tried to please my father. Sometimes the path of energy went right to her head like the picture of a muscle man I once saw, slugging away at a heavy weight and making it go all the way to TNT. The muscle man won the prize when the alarms went off and the red light
s were blinking. My mother won her migraine when she tried to get my father to stay away from Consuelo and couldn’t do it. Then she gave up and let all the energy fly up like electric sparks to her brain where it turned into a migraine.

  When my dad heard my mother was having “another one,” he came home from Consuelo’s house. Consuelo reminded me of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. Her limbs were stiff from the six children she had carried at her hip. The last two everyone knew were definitely Ramirezes. Consuelo walked like a wooden soldier with knees that never bent as they should. When my dad went over to Consuelo’s he said he was only going to visit his brother, Tío Ernie, who lived next door to her. When we saw him at Consuelo’s, he said it was because the poor woman had no one to fix her broken windows, seal her leaky pipes, and nail down the tar paper on her roof that the wind had lifted up at the corners.

  Consuelo’s house sloped down on one side, making one of the windows almost level with the ground. Her six kids used the window like a door. I wondered why they didn’t just put a doorknob and hinges on it.

  Her front yard looked like a cemetery of old cars, some with their hoods and doors missing. Her kids played in them. One time one of them was bitten by a black widow spider that made its home in the worn-out seats. Nana said Consuelo’s yard was puro yonkie, nothing but a pile of junk.

  “I’m going over to your Tío Ernie’s” were the words that started the strange energy in my mother. They started something in me and Jesse, too. One part of us said, “Get on your knees and beg him to stay,” the other part said, “Jump him.” It was as if he had just marched Consuelo into our kitchen and sat her at our table. There was nothing we could do but watch him go. Sometimes Tío Ernie would visit us. He was jolly and loud like a Santa Claus, but his eyes were shifty, and he couldn’t look Mom in the face, because he knew. He wanted everyone to think he was good, very good, giving us sticky candy suckers, but there was a bitterness to it all and a sense of life gone bad.