Bulletproof Vest

by Maria Venegas

  “What?” I ask.

  “He’s been making the rounds in the cantinas of Valparaíso, saying that I’ve been taking road trips with the ministers, that I must be sleeping with them, and that the next time he sees me, he’s going to kill me.” She nods her head and frowns as if she’s already accepted her fate.

  “That’s crazy,” I say, looking up from my homework. “Why would he want to kill you?”

  “That’s why, because he’s crazy.”

  “It’s probably not true,” I say, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe her, that doesn’t want to believe her. “Who told you that?”

  “What do you mean, who told me?” she says, raising her voice, as if I just called her a liar. “Everyone has been calling—my mother, my sisters, my brother, everyone has been calling and telling me not to go back down to Mexico because your father has been saying that me and the hallelujahs have brainwashed his kids, turned them against him, and that the next time he sees me, he’s going to put his .45 to my forehead and send me to my God.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I say, thinking that even if she was sleeping with the ministers, that even if none of us wanted anything to do with him, what should he care? He’s the one that left us, went off and started a new family. By then we had heard that the woman he was living with had had a baby girl.

  “It’s amazing how far the devil will go,” she says, staring out beyond the moths that are still clinging to the glass, perhaps afraid to fly back into the darkness where they will be rendered temporarily blind.

  A few days later, I’m sitting in the same spot and reading The Grapes of Wrath for my English class, and I stumble upon a word or an image that conjures a desolate scene. I can practically see my father rising from the dust and aiming his gun at my mother’s forehead, the same way he used to aim it at my forehead when I was nine years old when, after the local bars had closed, he and his buddies came stumbling into the dark house. On the other side of my bedroom door, I lay in bed, fully dressed for school the next day because I hated having to change out of my warm pajamas in the brisk morning. I stared at the line of light under the door, listening to the noise coming from the living room.

  “¡Otra!” I heard my father yell over the blaring music. I knew how he sat, holding his cards close and scanning the others’ faces, looking for clues to the cards they held in their hands, though he never played for money. He also didn’t smoke, but the scent of cigarettes soon filled my room as I watched my goldfish swimming circles in his bowl. On those nights, even if I had to go pee, I held it. I scanned my bedroom, looking for anything that might hold eight ounces. I contemplated jumping out the window and peeing outside, even, just so that I wouldn’t have to step out into the living room. The record started skipping, and I knew that was my chance. One giant step and I was at the door, cracking it open. He was leaning over the consola, his back to me. I darted up the hall toward the bathroom. “Chuyita!” he yelled, and by the time I turned around, he was already stumbling toward me, his heavy hand landing on my back. “This one should have been a man,” he yelled as he walked me over to his two friends. They sat on the couch, red-eyed and grinning. “She’s got nerves of steel,” he said, flexing his arm. His friends chuckled as they watched him reach into the back of his pants, pull out his .45, and aim it at my forehead. Then there was silence. His friends weren’t laughing anymore.

  “Jose, put the gun away,” they said. “You’ve had too much to drink.” I stared down the barrel of the gun without flinching. I knew he wouldn’t pull the trigger. Not that night, or any of the other nights that he had tested my nerves. I knew that no matter how much he had had to drink, he must remember that I was his daughter. I shot him a smile and he exploded with pride.

  “Nerves of steel,” he yelled, punching his fist into the air, his two buddies laughing as if they’d been holding their breath for years. He grabbed the bottle of 1800 off the table, handed it to me, and gave me a nod. I took the heavy bottle with both hands and brought it to my lips. The sharp smell stung my nose. I held my breath, took a sip, and handed it back to him. He took a long pull, set down the bottle, and then shoved a twenty-dollar bill into the front pocket of my Jordache jeans, his eyes still gleaming.

  He had bought those jeans for me, and even back then, I knew that he had bought them to spite my mother. If she could have had it her way, my sisters and I would have worn nothing but long skirts and dresses like all the girls and women at her church. What if it was she staring into the barrel of his gun—would he pull the trigger then? The book is on the table in front of me and I realize that I’m eight pages into a new chapter and have no idea what I’ve just read. I push it aside, open one of my notebooks, and write him a letter.

  Hi Dad,

  We’ve heard about the rumors you’ve been spreading around town. How you have been saying that you’re going to kill our mother. What the hell is wrong with you? You were the one who created a mess for us, and what did you do? You ran away. You bought yourself a bulletproof vest and left, and what did you care if they had come and killed us in the middle of the night? You left us to fend for ourselves when we needed you most and now you’re threatening to kill the one parent that did stick around? I wish it had been you instead of Chemel. He was more of a father than you will ever be—you fucking coward.

  I sign my name, close the notebook, and go to bed, end up forgetting about the letter, as I never meant to send it. I was merely venting, putting on paper what I would have never said to his face. But that letter may have expressed something unspoken in my family, some deep sense of betrayal that we all felt, because a few weeks later, Sonia found the letter and sent it to him.

  He must have been shocked when he received it, must have ripped the envelope open the minute it was in his hands. It was written in English—a language he had never bothered to learn, and so he wouldn’t have understood a single word, though he must have recognized the signature: Maria Venegas. It was from one of his daughters, one of the two Marias, and perhaps a wave of joy rushed over him at the realization that one of his kids had thought of him. They may have refused to talk to him on the phone, but one of his daughters had taken the time to write him a letter. He found someone to translate it for him, and I imagine him sitting across from the translator, smiling with anticipation, watching as the person read the letter to themselves before relaying it to him, line for line, word for word—each syllable wiping the grin clear off his face.

  Not long after Sonia sent the letter, one of his sisters calls us, demanding to know who wrote the letter. He had called her sobbing, saying that his own kids wished him dead.

  “How dare you speak to your father like that? You have to respect him. He’s your father, for Christ’s sake,” she says. “Whoever wrote that letter better call him and apologize.”

  No one ever calls him, and years later, I find out that two of my sisters had written and sent him similar letters around the same time, though Mary had added that he ought to be ashamed of himself—carrying on as if he were a bachelor while she was the one footing the bills and making sure his kids had a roof over their heads and food on the table.

  * * *

  It’s Friday night and across the continent, high school football stadiums are lit up. The bleachers are packed with parents, teachers, and students all watching helmets collide on the open field, while stashed inside purses and coat pockets are bottles swiped from grocery store counters and parents’ liquor cabinets. It’s nearly halftime and across the field the stadium lights are merging into one continuous streak against the black sky. I definitely feel it now. I didn’t feel it earlier, when my friend Lisa and I were sitting in her car just up the street from here, in the church’s parking lot.

  “Do you feel anything?” Lisa asked.

  “No,” I said, and she reached under her seat for the bottle of rum, which had been nearly half full when she snuck it out of her house. She emptied the rest into our 7-Eleven Big Gulp cups. The heater blew on
our bare legs while we sang along to “Pictures of You” by The Cure and sucked our drinks down. Once we finished them, she had driven to the stadium, parked across the street, and now here we were, sitting in the bleachers, my blood coursing sedately in my veins.

  “Do I look green?” I ask Lisa. “I feel green,” I say. “Do I look green?” She glances at me and we both burst. She’s laughing so hard that her mascara is running in black streams down her cheeks.

  “What did you two drink?” Jeff, who’s in my history class, is sitting on the bleacher in front of us. We look at him, then at each other, and again we are doubling over. I’m laughing so hard that I’m afraid I might start crying.

  “Maybe we should leave,” Lisa says, gasping, even though she knows I can’t leave. She can leave if she wants to, but not me—I’m on probation for having missed a game. Two Fridays ago, my mother had dragged me into the city with her, to the wholesalers where she buys stock for the weekend. Afterward, I had gone to the store and helped her unpack and price everything, and I had not made it back in time for the game.

  If I miss another game now, I’ll be kicked off the drill team. I did the cheerleading thing for one season, and quickly realized that standing on the sidelines cheering for boys who could barely dribble across the court without being fouled was not for me. I knew that if my old “gang” could have seen me bouncing around and chanting “Be aggressive, b, e, aggressive,” they would have lost all respect for me. My sophomore year, I had tried out for the drill team instead. There was no cheering involved. We needed only to show up at the home games, perform a dance routine at half time, and then we were free to leave.

  Jeff is staring at us, and it feels like suddenly everyone is turning and looking in our direction, as if the entertainment is no longer out there on the field but right here in the stands. A horn blows in the distance, the players run off the field, and everyone jumps to their feet as the marching band begins to play. I stand up and sway slightly forward, manage to catch myself on Jeff’s shoulder, and follow Lisa as she makes her way out of the bleachers.

  “I can’t go out there,” she yells over the music when we make it to the grass. “I’ll wait for you in the car.” She turns and makes her way toward the opening in the chain-link fence. I watch her chestnut ponytail bouncing away, and I want to yell wait, please don’t go, I thought we were in this together, but she’s gone, and my legs are already carrying me toward the music. I join the rest of the drill team and we make our way around the track, the marching band booming behind us. The drums and horns sound like the tamborazo, like my father’s music, and the sound waves are echoing in my bones and making me want to cry out like a wild cock.

  The band takes their place in front of the bleachers, the drill team goes running out into the middle of the field, and I also run, not so much with them, as after them. I find my spot, stand behind the row of girls that are down on one knee. I hold my head down, and my pom-poms brush against my bare thighs while I wait for the cue. The music comes thundering across the field like a stampede of wild horses that instantly sends pom-poms punching into the air: and one and two and three and kick, and five and six and seven and punch, and one and two and turn and turn, and five and six and I’m behind. I can’t remember if I should be in the front or back row, so I stay where I am and focus on the girl standing in front of me, follow her lead. I notice how the other girls are flashing a smile for the crowd, while keeping one eye narrowed on me. Their arms go up and come down in unison as they move into the kick formation, and then I’m locked in, the two girls on either side of me are practically holding me up. A row of legs fans out, opening and closing like scissors, all those eyes watching the black miniskirts parting at the pleats, revealing the white inlay underneath.

  There are four blasts in the distance, and four rings of fire burst against the dark sky behind the bleachers, lighting up the faces in the stands. I almost expect to see my father sitting among them and shooting his gun into the air. The two girls on either side of me take a step forward, and leap into the air. I lose my balance, but manage to stop myself before hitting the ground. The fireworks keep going off, one after another, like gunshots—what a relief that he was gone, and gone for good.

  The other girls go running off the field and I follow them, my gaze already fixed on the exit, as I take two steps to the left, then three fast ones to the right. It feels like the ground itself is shifting under my feet. I go past the line at the concession stand, catching a whiff of popcorn, and then I’m going through the opening in the chain-link fence. Once I’m on the sidewalk, I scan the cars across the street, spot Lisa, and make my way toward her.

  “Maria.” I hear a man’s voice and my stomach plummets, because even before I turn around, I already know who it is. “Have you been drinking?” Mr. Johnson, the principal, is walking toward me.

  “Nope,” I say, struggling to stand up straight.

  “You’re not driving, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Who’s driving you home?”

  “Lisa,” I say.

  “Has she been drinking?”

  “Nope,” I say, and he lets me go.

  On Monday morning during announcements, after the football team is praised for their victory on Friday night and Julie Baldwin is congratulated for qualifying for state in cross country, there is a list of students who get called down to the office, and I’m one of them.

  “Does your mother know that you drink?” Mr. Johnson asks, when I take a seat in his office.

  “I don’t,” I say. Though I’ve been to bonfires and parties where other students are drinking, and I’ll have a beer here and there, I’ve never been drunk. “That was my first time,” I say, and I know by the way he’s looking at me that he’s thinking, sure, that’s what they all say.

  He explains that I’m not being kicked off the drill team, but I am being suspended from school for two weeks.

  “Two weeks?” I say, suddenly feeling scared. “But I’ll fall behind in my classes.”

  “You should have thought of that before,” he says, glancing out his window. “I’ll tell you what,” he says and leans forward. “If you enroll in a rehab program and can bring me proof of it, I’ll allow you to return to school after one week.”

  “Rehab?” I say, feeling like the filth of the earth. “I don’t need to go to rehab.”

  “It’s up to you,” he says. “Two weeks, or one plus rehab.”

  I agree to go to rehab. He tells me to have my mother call him after I’ve spoken with her. When I leave his office, I’m already plotting, devising a plan for how I’m going to deal with this. There’s no way I’m telling my mother—she doesn’t know I was ever a cheerleader, or that on Friday nights, when she thinks I’m at work, I’m out there prancing around in a polyester miniskirt for all those eyes to see. I had ended up applying at Kmart, and the best thing about having a part-time job, aside from having my own spending money, is that it provides me with an alibi. I decide that I’ll tell Sonia everything and have her call Mr. Johnson.

  The following day, I get ready for school and leave the house at the same time I always do, but instead of driving to school, I drive the brown Chevy Nova, which Salvador gave me when he moved to Pennsylvania, to the local library. The lot is empty and I pull up next to a green Dumpster. Inside, I find a quiet spot on the second floor, in a cubicle that’s next to a window. Within two days, I’ve already finished the reading and writing assignments for the week, and most of the extra credit. On the third day, I drive to the next town over, about thirty minutes away, to meet with a counselor. She gives me a form and a questionnaire to fill out.

  Why do you drink?

  How often do you drink?

  Do you ever drink alone?

  How many beers does it take to get you drunk?

  Do you drink when you feel sad?

  Is there a history of alcoholism in your family?

  I fill out the form and answer all of the questions as honestly as po
ssible. The counselor concludes that rehab would be a waste of my time, and says she’ll give Mr. Johnson a call.

  When I get home, later that day, my mother and Mary are sitting on the couch in the living room, waiting for me.

  “How was school today?” Mary asks when I come through the front door, and I know that they know, because no one ever asks me about school.

  “Fine,” I say, wondering how much they actually know. Do they only know about the drinking and the suspension, or do they also know about the box I keep stashed under my bed, the one with my pom-poms, sweater, and polyester miniskirt.

  “Where have you been all day?” my mother asks.

  “At the library,” I say.

  “Cómo no,” she says. “The studious young lady has been at the library all day.” She looks at me as if she wants to slap me, but I know she won’t because she has never laid a hand on me.

  “Your school’s principal called today,” Mary says. “And he said that you were so drunk at the football game on Friday night, that you could barely stand up straight.”

  “What a liar,” I say. “I only had one beer, and the only reason he knew I had been drinking is because he smelled my breath.”

  “You’re the liar,” my mother says, glaring at me. And I want to say, you’re right. I am a liar. I’m a liar because you have made me one. I had tried being honest, had tried asking for permission to go to a movie or the mall with my friends on Friday evenings, but I hadn’t even finished asking the question, when she was already shaking her head and saying, “No, no, señorita, no. A young lady has no business outside of her home after dark.” There was no reasoning with her. I knew that if I was going to have any sort of social life, lying was the only way. I gave up asking for permission, decided I would do what I wanted when I wanted and deal with the consequences. “This is great,” she says. “This is all we needed. For your father to leave so that you could pick up where he left off.”

  “If you think you’re going to live here and do whatever you want, then you can start paying for food and rent,” Mary says.