Gun Love

by Jennifer Clement

  Are we going to see Ray?

  Yes, of course, she said. We’re meeting up with Ray in Laredo. Did I forget to tell you? I guess I forgot to tell you. He called me last night. I knew he would. The most he can be away from me is three days and then he gets to feeling lost.

  This was the first time Corazón had mentioned we were going to see Ray.

  Corazón turned toward me.

  Bend your head forward, she said. These are for you.

  I leaned toward her and she placed the pearls around my neck and then carefully closed the antique gold clasp.

  You’ll look beautiful wearing these pearls at Selena’s grave, she said.

  We’re going to Laredo? I asked,

  Yes, after Corpus Christi, after we visit Selena.

  Corazón leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. Sing me a song, Pearl, she said. I’ve missed hearing you sing.

  As the bus drove away from my fourteen years of living in a car outside a trailer park and three weeks of living in a house in foster care, I understood my legacy. My mother had not only taught me about manners and told me about her silver-spoon-cinnamon-toast childhood, she’d also given me a trust fund of feelings. What I only understood after she’d been killed, is she’d also had empathy for objects.

  The pearls around my neck were lamenting the sea.

  33

  The last words Leo said to me were, How can I miss you if you don’t go away?

  When he said those words my mother’s voice inside me said, Pearl, sweetheart, this boy’s to keep. He speaks like a song lyric.

  I knew that those words—How can I miss you if you don’t go away—were just the foster-kid motto. It could be embroidered on a pillow or printed on a T-shirt.

  The drive took thirty-eight hours and thirty minutes and we had three transfers. The bus took us along the round northern cusp of the Gulf of Mexico. We had to go through the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to get from Florida to Texas.

  In the two seats in front of us there was a married couple. I’d heard the man tell the driver they were on their honeymoon.

  The bride’s gardenia perfume surrounded us and she was like a piece of a garden in the dull, stale air. The newlyweds brought leaves and light and land, the light, lemon-sweet land, into the bus.

  From my seat I could see the tops of their heads as they moved around, leaning into each other. Sometimes, if I pressed my face close against the window, I could see them reflected in their window. They held hands, kissed, and fed each other apple slices they had in a large, square Tupperware container. Love between them was to feed the other like a mother bird. At times their conversation reached me in bits and pieces.

  The husband said, You still have rice in your hair. Don’t shake it out.

  Thanks to my love for Leo, when I watched people love on each other, I knew I was going to give myself nothing but trouble. My ache for him was going to make me track him down again no matter what.

  On the bus, Corazón told me she’d come to the United States from Mexico ten years ago. She was from a small village in the state of Guerrero, about an hour away from Acapulco, called Eden. Ray was twenty years older than Corazón and came from Nuevo Laredo.

  The first time I met Ray, Corazón said, I was only a girl. I was nine years old or maybe eight. He worked with my father importing and exporting from the USA. He always brought me candy M&M’s, the yellow ones, or boxes of Hershey’s kisses. I got married at age seventeen. My wedding was real. My cake was a seven-story-high cake. I had two bands play and a mariachi. We had a cockfight too. And you should know there are no divorced women in my town. There are only widows. This is the way men know they need to behave good.

  I looked at Corazón’s hands. Why don’t you wear wedding rings? I asked.

  Ay, Pearlita, you know, I flushed them down the toilet. I got so angry with Ray. I was so, so furious. I flushed those rings down the toilet.

  Corazón held out her hand and touched the place where her rings should have been.

  You can ask any plumber, she said. They all know that toilets are full of wedding rings.

  Why doesn’t Ray ever speak to me? I asked.

  It’s because he can’t speak English and Ray’s not going to open his mouth for people to laugh at him.

  On the Greyhound bus I looked out the window at the landscape of trucks, cars, and signs. In the window’s reflection I could see the pearls around my neck reflected in the pane. They were both cool and warm against my skin. Often, to my left, the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico would shine beyond the black asphalt and trees.

  You know everyone is jealous of Mexico, Corazón said.

  What do you mean?

  Because the asteroid fell there from space. It’s thanks to Mexico that there’re no dinosaurs. So, you see, if it was not for Mexico, there’d be no human beings.

  I reached into the pocket of my jacket and took out a pack of Twinkies. I tore open the pack with my teeth and offered one of the two yellow cakes to Corazón.

  Thanks, she said, and took one cake out of the wrapper. Where did you get the Twinkies?

  I stole them from the shop at the bus station.

  You steal from shops?

  Well, this is almost the first time but I’ve been stealing cigarettes from people for ages.

  Corazón said, On this trip, we’re going to stop in Mobile, Alabama, to pick up some extra bags. Ray has organized this.

  What for?

  Don’t worry about anything, Corazón said. Some man will be meeting us there. Then we’ll go visit Selena’s grave and, after this, we’re going on to Laredo to meet up with Ray.

  I broke the Twinkie in two and licked the cream filling out of the center before eating the spongy cake.

  Where’s Ray waiting for us?

  At a hotel. We’ll take a taxi from the bus station to the hotel in Laredo.

  When Corazón wasn’t talking to me, or sleeping, she was texting Ray on her phone. Every now and then she’d turn to me and tell me what Ray had said.

  Ray says it’s four duffel bags we have to pick up in Mobile, she said.

  Ray says he’s buying me some flowers, she said.

  Ray says we shouldn’t talk to any strangers, she said.

  Did Ray know you came to get me? I asked.

  Of course, bebe. Ray knows everything. He knows you’re just a little creature and I wasn’t going to leave you behind with your mama so killed now. He lets me have anything I want. I told him you’re going to be my baby.

  On the bus Corazón talked about her town in Mexico. She’d never spoken about her home when we were together in her trailer. The movement of the bus made her feel she was on her way there.

  As I sat beside her, taking in the faint smell of diesel and the old-air-conditioning-Greyhound-bus air, Corazón told me that her town was one hour away from the coast and from the port of Acapulco.

  We don’t just let anybody come to our town, Corazón said. You have to have an invitation to visit. If you just drive in there, you’ll get killed.

  Corazón said that her town had three churches and one of them was covered in gold leaf and even had paintings that were copies of old paintings that were in Mexico City’s main cathedral. The altar had candlesticks made of solid gold. In the center of the church, behind the altar, there was a copy of the painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

  Well, Corazón said, it’s supposed to be a copy. Some people say it is the real original cloth, the tilma, and that the one everyone goes to visit in Mexico City’s Basilica is a copy. I’ve been told, in secret of course, that someone in my town paid three million dollars in cash for her.

  Do you think so?

  In our town we know how to love God, Corazón said. So, it could be true. That Virgin of Guadalupe looks real to me.

&nb
sp; What makes her look real?

  Five armed men guard her at all times and you have to ask the priest if you want to see her close up. He gives out the permission.

  Then she must be real. Why would they guard a fake like that?

  Okay, okay, yes, yes, she’s the real one. I’m not supposed to tell. She’s even protected behind bulletproof glass.

  34

  When the bus stopped at the town of Pensacola, before leaving the state of Florida, a woman got on the bus and I understood who she was. My mother’s voice said, It’s happening.

  I felt the woman’s presence before I saw her. I felt her step on the three-step stairway leading up into the bus. Then she appeared at the end of the aisle and slowly walked toward us.

  I looked at her and knew the woman fed the birds every morning. She knew when it’s going to rain. Too much was expected of her.

  The woman was about sixty years old and very beautiful. She had dark brown eyes and gray, braided hair. The two long strands reached her waist. She probably had not cut her hair in decades. The woman was dressed in a black, long sleeved T-shirt and long, black skirt. She had a tattoo on her left hand, which extended out onto her fingers and disappeared under her sleeve. The inking was vines and flowers.

  She sat right in the seat across from us so Corazón and the woman only had the narrow aisle between them.

  When Corazón began to talk to her, I looked out the window but listened to every word.

  Where are you from? Corazón asked.

  The woman said she came from tideless water muck land and that she had swamp ways because she grew up in the Glades.

  She said there was a moon for everything, even for murder, and that she came from a place where all a human being needed was tobacco, coffee, sugar, salt, and matches.

  Oh, well, yes, Corazón answered, and then looked down at her hands and kept quiet. She knew she’d opened the door to a crazy.

  After a few minutes the woman leaned over and asked, So who’s the little girl? Huh?

  She’s my daughter, Corazón said.

  She doesn’t look like she belongs to you, the woman said. What are you? A Mexican, right?

  Yes, I’m Mexican, Corazón answered.

  I believe you.

  Don’t believe me then.

  I said I believe you.

  Okay, Corazón said.

  In Florida, the woman said, we know never to dip your feet in river water. We’re a place of big rain, big wind, big thunder, big hates, she said. In Florida you need to look sharp at what you say. Be careful, predators look for the lonely, sad child.

  She’s safe with me, Corazón said, and placed her hand in my hand.

  Then the woman looked right at me and said, Little girl, move at the speed of knots, water velocity, not land velocity.

  I listened.

  She said, I want to be worthy of death. And this can only happen if we put aside the fear, the fear of the living, of living the careful life. Don’t be too careful. We just happen to be stardust.

  I listened.

  When the bus approached Mobile, Alabama, there was a general commotion as people stood and pulled down their bags from the racks above the seats.

  The woman continued to talk.

  We’re just stardust, the woman repeated. Have you heard of Halley’s Comet? Do you know about that? It’s coming back. Watch the sky. It will be here in 2061 and how old will you be then? Or will you be dead?

  I’ll be dead, Corazón answered. You can bet on it.

  I watched the young husband and wife in the seats in front of us stand up to leave. They’d been asleep for the past couple of hours. The scent of fields and pastures and grassy hills left with them.

  This is my stop, the woman said.

  She stood and leaned way over Corazón to get close to me.

  You, she said, and pointed her finger right at me.

  Her finger was inked with a slender ivy vine that started at her nail and worked up her finger, hand, and arm.

  You, she said again, and almost poked me in the face. You know the songs, don’t you? I can hear them. You sure like a little fuck song, don’t you?

  Then the woman moved away, waved her tattooed hand at us, and walked down the aisle, off the bus, and into the city. I knew she was my goodbye-to-Florida oracle.

  Who was that woman? What was that all about? Corazón asked. I really should not talk to strangers. I could be talking to the devil.

  She was an Indian.

  In the old days they didn’t know as much about the devil as we know now, Corazón said. She smelled like vinegar.

  She was a real Indian ghost, I said.

  She smelled like vinegar. That’s the smell of heroin. I know that smell, Corazón said.

  Then she sat up straight in her seat and quickly patted both her cheeks with her hands. I couldn’t tell if it was a gesture of comfort or punishment.

  Or, you know, maybe it wasn’t the devil or an Indian. That woman could have been an undercover cop looking for you, Corazón said. Listen to me, I could go to jail for kidnapping you out of that foster house. There could be one of those real Amber Alerts by now. Maybe none of this was such a good idea. Ray always says my Mexican logic is too Mexican.

  Nobody’s looking for me. I don’t even have a birth certificate.

  So did your mother ever tell you, you know, who your father was?

  No, she never told me. All I know is he was a schoolteacher.

  Yes, that’s right. He’d have gone to jail for rape, you know. Your mother was an underage kid.

  I don’t know.

  So, you really liked that Indian woman. I could tell, Corazón said. But I figured it out in one second. She’s buying and selling like everyone, practically everyone on this bus.

  What do you mean?

  Heroin. She was hoping I’d sell her some tar. She was trying to figure us out, but she didn’t know what to think of you. I know these people. After she went to the bathroom, she was nodding. She was really gooching—that’s the word.

  I don’t know, I said.

  Well, I do know, Corazón said. In my town in Mexico, well outside town, we grow the poppies. You walk on the hillsides covered with those beautiful red flowers and you know only one thing for sure: God forgot to give that flower a smell.

  35

  In Mobile, Corazón and I also got off the bus with the other passengers as we had to transfer to another bus. It was a four-hour wait. We sat on the burgundy-colored metal chairs facing the bathrooms. I looked up at the ceiling fans or watched people coming in and out while Corazón bought us some Life Savers and Cokes.

  Everything had been planned. Corazón and I sat in the station and, only five minutes before our bus was leaving for Corpus Christi, two men walked into the bus station. They each carried two large and very long black duffel bags.

  Corazón greeted both men. She knew them. I didn’t recognize the Mexican, but I knew the other man because he sometimes drove the trucks that dropped off the garbage at our dump behind the trailer park. He was tall and skinny and his white skin was deeply sunburned red. He had on a short-sleeve T-shirt and I even recognized the mermaid tattoo on his right arm. I remembered seeing him talk to Ray at the dump when Ray was out looking for newspapers.

  As I looked at his face I could smell the bitter rotten oranges from the dump. The man didn’t recognize me with my newly dyed black hair. I wasn’t going to shake up the kaleidoscope of his memory.

  The two men helped Corazón get the bags and store them in the luggage compartment under the bus. We also had my duffel bag and Corazón’s suitcase, which they helped to place beside the new bags.

  I saw the Mexican say some words to the bus driver and give him a yellow envelope. Then the two men turned and left. They didn’t even say goodbye to Corazón.


  We showed our bus tickets to the conductor and got back on the bus.

  Now at last I’m on my way to Selena’s grave, Corazón said. This is the day I’ve been waiting for.

  Yes.

  As we moved down the highway, Corazón was a jukebox of Selena’s songs.

  I leaned against the window and looked out.

  As soon as I began to feel a little drowsy the guns were there. My empathy malady for objects was blooming as we moved down the highway above hundreds of crimes.

  In the belly of the Greyhound bus there was a Smith & Wesson M&P assault rifle, DPMS Panther Arms assault rifle, Smith & Wesson handgun, Llama handgun, Glock pistol, Smith & Wesson pistol, Taurus pistol, Del-Ton assault rifle, .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, .45-caliber Glock, Beretta pistol, Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol, Remington shotgun, Bushmaster XM-15 rifle, .22-caliber Savage Mark II rifle, Springfield Armory semiautomatic handgun, Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle, Remington shotgun, Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, FN Herstal pistol, Beretta 92 FS 9mm pistol, and a Beretta PX4 Storm pistol.

  I could feel the guns under me and their presence entered the bus along with the vehicle’s exhaust fumes. Back at the trailer, I’d watched Corazón clean them and I’d most likely helped her tag almost every one.

  And I could hear the song like an anthem: I have a hard time missing you baby, with my pistol in your mouth. Just roll your pretty eyes if you intend to stay.

  There was a day when a deer, a white-tailed deer, made the mistake of wandering into our trailer park. When April May and I came home from school, the dead deer was lying on the ground, right in front of her trailer. Blood oozed out of its body. The mammal lay on its side and its eyes were closed. It was pockmarked with dozens of holes. April May’s father had killed the animal.

  It only came to visit, April May said. It would have left in a little while.

  She said this with sadness. In our world of reptiles and amphibians the doe held too much beauty to be on our land.