EL PARAGUAS
I used to run outside when it rained and get so wet it didn’t seem like it was raining anymore. I’d run to the back of our neighborhood where there were trails I thought led somewhere. And by the time I came back, I’d be soaked. Mom would rip my clothes off right there in the middle of the kitchen, all mad because she hadn’t even known I’d snuck out through our bedroom window.
There was one time Estrella was at the kitchen table drawing or coloring or doing whatever she was doing with paper and scissors. She made a purse out of red construction paper and it opened up like an accordion with a yellow tassel glued at the end. I told her it was pretty, but only a cunt would wear it. Mom turned and looked at me like if I’d dropped a glass. She was wringing my shorts and I was standing there in my underwear, dripping.
“What did you say?” she asked. “Do you know what that means?” I shrugged, but before I dropped my shoulders she slapped me across the face. Not on my cheek but on the side of my eye. I stared at her and she stared at me, like if we were bad actresses in a telenovela.
Papi came into the kitchen, “¿Qué chingado está pasando?” Estrella had scissors in her hand with the ends pointing up, her mouth was half-open. I didn’t know what to do with them looking at me, so I ran out the door and through the yard. I pushed my hair out of my face because I was drowning in it and all I could taste was rain. I heard Papi scream, “¡Luz! Ven, mija.” But I kept running. I was seven I think, and it was the first time Mom ever hit me.
I could see her face as I ran, the way she looked at me after she hit me. And it didn’t hurt and it didn’t matter. It was how she looked at me. Like if she knew she was wrong and didn’t want me to know it. I couldn’t understand what her problem was. People said it at school. I was a cunt. She was a cunt. My teacher at school was a cunt. It was like saying pinche or pendejo. Like when she’d call Papi un hijo de puta. There was no reason to slap me just because of a word.
Now it’s raining outside and it makes me think of everything that happened because of my hands and these stupid cunt fingers. I could blame them for everything, no? Because if I didn’t have fingers or hands maybe none of this would’ve ever happened.
EL CATRIN
Papi would come home from work with black stains on his shirt. I remember him washing his hands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing his knuckles in front of the window. He stopped doing it after awhile and I got used to his hands looking like he’d been working under the hood of a car.
He came home one day wearing a smile that looked like he’d been given an award. He’d been given a promotion as Managing Director of Inventory Planning, which sounded a lot better than steelworker. Mom told us later, when she was tucking us in, that he was going to be assigned to the second floor with a window in his office. The next morning we were going shopping to buy him a suit and a briefcase.
There was one time before then when Papi was watching TV and Mom and Estrella had gone to the supermarket. It was just the two of us and I asked him what he would’ve wanted to be if he would’ve gone to school. He said he wanted to be a painter. Not of houses, but an artist. In the garage, there was a painting of his of a waterfall between two mountains and two deer. When we’d clean the garage or take down Christmas decorations from the attic, I’d stare at it. And I never could believe Papi had painted it because it looked so professional.
He was in the dressing room at Mervyns trying on a navy blue suit for his new promotion and it was like he’d stepped out of a movie. “Where’s the sombrero?” I asked. I wanted him to sing. I wanted him to do a two-step. I extended my arms and said, “¡Ay! Te ves muy caballero.” Estrella brought him ties of different colors and told him how smart he looked. He’d put them on as he wiggled his toes under his socks, then stood in front of the mirror wearing his silly smile. Our faces would peek out from the sides of his back checking to see what a Managing Director looked like.
We didn’t mention anything about the promotion to the Silvas that weekend. We went to misa, ate lunch, played Lotería, then drove home. Papi kept grabbing a section of the newspaper that night even though he’d already looked through it. He’d walk to the garage and come back again. Before I went to bed I gave him a hug.
“¿Qué?” he said. “You never do that.”
When I got home from school the following day, Mom called.
“He didn’t get it,” she said. Just like that. Like if he’d forgotten to pick up cereal on his way home.
“What?”
“He didn’t get it, Luz.”
She was on the other side of the interstate helping someone put together a piñata for a posada. She wasn’t getting home until later and said it didn’t work out because they changed their minds. Maybe it was his English. She didn’t know. “Just be nice. Don’t say anything. Act normal.” I hung up knowing that at any minute he’d walk through the door, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought of going to Tencha’s to help her with the tamales she had to make, but I went to my room instead. When he came home I pretended to be asleep.
That weekend when we played Lotería with the Silvas, Papi did something he’d never done before. When you call the cards you sing the riddles. That’s what makes it different from bingo. It’s not as easy as calling out numbers because in Lotería you have to figure out el dicho to figure out the image. Either that or keep your eyes on the cards being thrown by the dealer. But the faster the riddles, the faster the game.
Papi got up and dealt the cards. At first his voice was off-key, and you could tell he was nervous. But he got stronger the more we played.
¡Don Ferruco en la alameda, su bastón quería tirar!
—(El Catrin)
¡Para el sol y para el agua!—(El Paraguas)
¡El que con la cola pica, le dan una paliza!—(El Alacrán)
Los dichos. Everyone knows them from church fairs and parties. But there’s some that people make up for fun. Like La Sirena. Tío Fernando would whistle when she was called because she’s topless, and Pancho Silva, who normally dealt the cards, would say, “¡La encuerada para el Tío Fernando!” And for El Venado, he’d sing, “¡Lo que el Tío José mata cada fin de semana!” Because Papi liked to go hunting.
But the day Papi dealt, I hadn’t known he knew the riddles because I’d never heard him deal, just like I’d never known he wanted to be a painter.
He started singing los dichos and they sounded like songs he’d learned from when he was a boy. I couldn’t keep up with the game because he was singing so fast, so loud. Pancho kept bringing him beers, making him louder. And when I saw him next to Papi I thought, he’s no movie star. He’s no Pedro Infante. But look at Papi! He’s handsome. He’s good-looking. With his chin up and his voice loud. He’s a movie star. I sat there and looked at him and I didn’t even try to play the game, because I couldn’t. I couldn’t keep up. So I started to clap, in my head, softly at first, then louder and louder until someone called out: ¡Lotería!
EL BARRIL
You could say I looked Indian and she looked gringa. At school the teachers would ask Estrella if she was Spanish, like from Spain, because of her eyes. “Are they hazel?” Every time I caught her telling teachers she was Spanish I’d walk up to her in the hallway, between classes, with my finger in her face and say, “¡Hey! ¡Te llamas Castillo!” But real Mexican and in front of everyone.
Estrella lived in Reynosa for two years after she was born, before moving to the States. Then I arrived, the natural-born out of all of us, which is weird because I’m the one who looks more Mexican.
We used to visit Buelo Fermín and Tío Carlos in Reynosa during the summer, but there we had to speak in Spanish. The only place I could speak comfortably was in my head. We’d sit with Buelo Fermín in his kitchen and nod our heads, and when Estrella would say something I’d wait for her to trip over a sentence. She never spoke Spanish at home so I thought she’d make mistakes. But she spoke like everyone else, smooth and easy.
I understood everyone but
was too shy to say anything because I didn’t want to sound stupid. I’d lose my words if I spoke. When Buelo Fermín asked me a question, I’d answer him in English. Then he’d throw his shoulders back. He’d point to me and say with his eyes half shut, “No te olvides de dónde vienes.”
Like if I would forget.
But still, I wouldn’t speak to him in Spanish. And so in Reynosa, I was the one who never opened her mouth. If Buelo Fermín spoke to me in Spanish, I’d speak to him in English. It seemed fair. I never paid attention to him anyway. Most of the time I looked at his bruised toes sticking out of his chanclas.
The girls we played with in Reynosa were our age. They liked to run to the market down the block and come back with fruit smothered in lime juice and cayenne pepper. And when I saw them I joined them. Sometimes we’d spray each other with a hose from someone’s backyard or sit on the sidewalk and draw shapes on the pavement with chalk. We’d make sounds between us that didn’t even make sense: ¡Aye! ¡Onda! ¡Bofos! And if they wanted to play chase, I’d run after them. If they wanted to play cards, I’d deal. If they wanted to kick a ball, I’d kick it so far they’d disappear around the block before finding it.
One girl had a barrel in her backyard filled with water and there was a game we played where we’d stand around it and dodge torpedoes with our hands. It was dumb, but whoever’s turn it was would splash someone and by the end we were all soaked and laughing. Estrella would look at me like if I were some wet dog and say, “You’re gonna get it when Mom sees you.”
But I’d roll my eyes and say, “No English, remember?”
We’d go to church by the plaza de San Pedro and Papi and Mom would say hi to everyone who still remembered them, because Reynosa was where they first met.
When it happened, Mom had walked into a bakery where Papi was working and ordered galletas de boda. When he told me the story he said she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He thought she was American because of how light her skin was, or from Venezuela. Anywhere but Reynosa. He gave her a box of cookies and told her there was a really good movie playing at el cine. But she didn’t respond, not at first, and so he gave her another box of cookies. And that’s when she smiled, with the second box.
He introduced himself: José Antonio, señorita. Un placer. He bowed and grabbed her hand and kissed it.
Jose Antonio Castillo.
Then she smiled and said, “Cristina. Me llamo Cristina.”
EL APACHE
Somos iguales, mama,” Tencha says to me. “We don’t do anything but follow our hearts.”
But sometimes she’s grumpy, and I wonder if it’s because she’s not following her own. Or if it’s because she’s never been married or because her hair is gray and she doesn’t color it. Whenever I get close to her I notice the whiskers on her chin. But when she looks at me I can see how much she loves me. She calls me her life, su vida. She hasn’t found a man to spend her life with and deep down I think she’s lonely, even though she says she doesn’t need anyone to make her happy.
Mom used to say she didn’t get along with Tencha. She couldn’t figure out why and there was no good reason, but they just didn’t see eye to eye. And that’s why Estrella argued with Tencha all the time. She liked acting like she was white and I think it bothered Tencha. She had dark skin like me and Papi, and she reminded Estrella that even though she wasn’t dark she was still Mexican. Estrella would tell me how much she hated her and call her una pinche gorda. Una india, like those women in the streets selling baskets and bracelets.
Tencha would speak softer to her after that. Because of course it hurt her feelings. How can you call someone fat and not expect them to get hurt? Her eyes would get red and she’d explain to Estrella that she thought her manners were not like those of a young lady. But Estrella wouldn’t listen. Later in our room she’d tell me how funny it was when Tencha got all serious, and that’s when I wanted to hit her.
There’ve been times when Tencha’s called my name and I haven’t felt like going to her. But I go to her anyway, and she’s sitting on the couch with her arms open, like she’s ready to squeeze the life out of me. “Mira quién es,” she says. Then I’m covered in her. We sway back and forth, back and forth like on a boat, and she says again, “Mira quién es, mira quién está conmigo.”
EL TAMBOR
The throbbing went through my arms and down my legs and through my veins and back up again into my chest. We had come back from Reynosa a few weeks earlier and Memo had already blown up his hand. I was sitting in front of the television. Papi yanked me away from the couch and dragged me by my hair into the kitchen with his veins coming out from around his nose. You would think Memo wouldn’t have said anything, but maybe he did, maybe it slipped. Maybe Tío Carlos told Papi I’d given Memo a blow job. But I didn’t. I didn’t put anything in my mouth. I touched him and that was it.
Sometimes the bones in my hand beat from the inside like they did that night and I can remember the moment it broke, when Papi told me to bang my hand against the wall, like in Nosotros los pobres, after Pedro Infante slaps Chachita across the face. He bangs his hand against the wall until it bleeds, until it breaks, and she screams, “¡No! ¡No, Papi! ¡No hagas eso!”
“¡Fuerte!” Papi yelled. “¡Dale chingasos!”
He stood over me and everything looked like it was behind water. Mom ran into the kitchen from the hallway, kind of dumb, not knowing what to do or what was going on. Estrella ran to our room looking at me from the doorway before she turned the corner. Mom tried to stop Papi from grabbing my arm but he pushed her away and started saying what I’d done. He screamed that I’d grabbed su pinche cosa. He looked at me and yelled, “¿Y qué hiciste?” He wanted me to say it. He wanted me to confess. “What did you do? ¿Qué hiciste?” He called me putita. “Is that what you are? ¿Una putita? ¿Eh? Pégale, chingada madre. ¡Ándale!” He screamed that I jacked him off, my own cousin, my own hand. Seven fucking years old! And I had to learn a lesson. “¡Pégale! ¡Ándale!” He grabbed my elbow and banged my hand against the wall. Mom stepped in between us but he slapped her so hard she fell over the counter. We were standing next to the backdoor and the steps that went down to the backyard. I remember the wind coming in making the screen door hit against the frame. Papi pushed me against the wall, and when I stood up he pushed me again toward the door. I fell down the stairs and caught myself on the concrete outside. That’s when I noticed my hand dangling from my wrist like an animal hanging off a branch. I grabbed it with my other hand, trying to hold it up. Mom ran out holding her face, and I could see Estrella peeking from our bedroom window that looked out into the backyard. Papi, grabbing his hair with his fists, didn’t look like himself anymore.
We got in the truck and drove to the hospital next to the highway. But the throbbing didn’t stop and I could hear the beating in my ears. It didn’t stop in the waiting room or when the doctor looked at it, or when they wrapped it and told us to come back the following day so they could fix it. It didn’t stop until later, much later, after I closed my eyes and passed out from whatever they gave me to kill the pain.
LA SIRENA
Whenever La Sirena was called, I’d look at her above the water with her arms down by her side and her long, wavy hair, wishing I was her. Not because she was pretty or grown-up but because wherever she lived nothing and no one could touch her and she could swim wherever she wanted.
I waited until everyone was inside, always at night when they were sitting on the couch watching late-night television at Tencha’s house. She lived a block away from us. I’d wrap two towels around my legs and overlap them to cover my feet, then tie string from my ankles to my knees before rolling into her pool from the shallow end. It was a shitty pool that came with the house she rented, but it was five feet deep and enough to get lost in. The towels would soften around my legs and the extra material that fell over my feet would feel like the fins from a goldfish. I’d wiggle from one side of the pool to the other, humming a song with m
y eyes wide open, not knowing whether I was crying or not because I was underwater, and I’d dare myself to stay there for as long as I could.
EL BORRACHO
None of us knew how to play instruments. I took guitar lessons for a year but quit because my teacher smelled like tomato soup. Estrella liked to sing but when she’d open her mouth Papi said there was no use in trying because she didn’t have a good ear. Mom would sing Rocío Durcal when she was cleaning the house or making dinner, and sometimes Papi would join her, singing the part of Juan Gabriel in “Déjame vivir.” Together they’d sing, moving their shoulders and blowing kisses at each other—¡Así es que déjame y vete ya!
Loteria Page 3