But if I heard cumbia, especially Selena, then I’d start dancing. When we were at wedding receptions everyone on the dance floor would stand back in a circle and cheer me on. At home I’d turn up the volume and make up dances in the middle of the living room with the coffee table pushed against the wall. I’d drag Estrella from the kitchen and ask her to be my partner, but she said she couldn’t because she had two left feet. She was either flipping through magazines or writing notes to her friends.
There was a movie about a girl who wanted to be a dancer and I learned the solo that came at the end. I ran to the front yard wanting to do the gymnastic moves, but then I was too chicken to try them, even on the grass.
When Papi sang in the backyard I’d dance to whatever song he sang. He’d be a little drunk under the light of the porch, and for every four sips he took, I took one. I’d put on one of Mom’s aprons too big for me and grab it with my hands, then throw it back and to the sides like a flamenco dancer, like Lola Flores. I’d mouth the words. “¡Otra, hombre!” the way she does and Papi would laugh because I was acting grown-up, pretending to be Lola Flores with my lips pushed together. None of the neighbors cared about the noise. On one side there was an old couple short as midgets and partly deaf, so it didn’t matter. And on the other side there was a younger couple without any kids. I caught the lady who lived there peeking at us from a window one night, but she didn’t say anything. Maybe she liked the music. Maybe she was mouthing the words. We were all Mexican in Magnolia Park.
Papi and I sang and danced until I got dizzy. Then later, in bed, in some dream, I’d be black and white, all grown-up with brown hair and big lips, dancing in the middle of all these men and women watching me, playing their instruments, guitars, accordions, and trumpets, singing, “¡Olé! ¡Olé!” And my hands would be on my hips and my chest would be out. My lips pushed together like Lola Flores.
EL ARPA
They used to pinch me when I’d say something wrong. Not a bad word, not a maldición. Just a word that came before another, one that turned something into either a woman or a man. La something or El something. As if the moon weren’t Romeo one night and Juliet another.
They’d pinch me if I called something a boy instead of a girl, or the other way around. Why is it la mano instead of el mano? I can think of Papi’s hands and think they’re masculine, then think of Mom’s and think they’re feminine. If we were talking about the hands of a clock it could go either way. The hands of a clock could be bi.
Once I asked Estrella what a bisexual was and she glared at me like if I’d asked her if she’d ever kissed a boy. “Where did you hear about bisexuals?” she asked. “Where did you?” I asked. “From Angélica, she told me Luis Miguel is bisexual. That he spends time with women in front of cameras but at night in hotel rooms he spends time with hombres.” “What!” “Yeah,” she said. “He’s gay!”
“But you just said he’s bisexual.”
Why isn’t a harp female? I’ve only seen the one in Lotería. Every time we play on Sundays at Buelita Fe’s house they give me a chance to deal, and so when it comes I throw it down on the table and call it out with confidence, “¡La Arpa!” But Estrella laughs at me, and then everyone else does too.
“Why is everyone laughing?”
Papi says to me, as if he’s my guidance counselor, “El arpa, mija. Not La arpa.”
“How are you supposed to know?” I ask them.
They say the same thing all the time, that if a word ends in “a” it’s probably a feminine word. And if it ends in anything else it’s masculine. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes a word that ends in “a” is masculine, and other times, it’s feminine. How am I supposed to know what is woman and what is man simply by the arrangement of letters? It’s like at school when they teach you the rules of how to speak, then later teach you how to break those rules. Like you can’t say, “Look what the cat drug in.” You say, “Look what the cat dragged in.” Stupid verbs, stupid rules. But the point you’re trying to make is there, right there in front of you as you stand and stare at it. Pointing. La luna. El luna.
The moon!
LA MUERTE
I didn’t go to breakfast today so by nine-thirty there was a knock on the door. I didn’t answer but the door opened and Julia’s head popped in. “What are you doing?” she asked. “What does it look like I’m doing, pendeja?” That’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I was at my desk with the Lotería deck in front of me and La Muerte turned over. My journal was tucked under my mattress, but I was trying to think of what to write. I turned to her and opened my hands, like if to say, “What the hell do you think?”
Then she closed the door.
After the bones shattered I had a cast on my arm for about a month and a half. I was supposed to cover it with a plastic bag when I showered, and I did, but it got wet anyway, and when it dried it itched and so I pulled the cotton out from inside.
When the doctor, Dr. Roberto, took it off he said it had never happened before. He asked me if I took care of it the way I was supposed to. I told him, yes, I’d taken care of it the way I was supposed to. He threw his clipboard on the counter and picked it up and threw it down again. My wrist was dislocated. He’d put it back in place when he’d put the cast on but now it was too late. I hadn’t taken care of it the way I was supposed to and there was no way to fix it. I was just going to have to live with a dislocated wrist. He said all of this to Mom, not me, even though I was standing right there next to her.
I grew a lot of hair on my arm during the time I had the cast on. Once it came off my skin was white. But I was happy I didn’t have it on anymore. The first thing I did was grab a pen and write my name. To make sure I could write at least. I looked at him and said it was fine. I didn’t care if it was dislocated.
I wanted to leave, but Dr. Roberto started talking to Mom. So I went to the waiting room and there were those children’s magazines, Highlights, with the games in the back where you have to find hidden objects in a picture. I did all of them, and when I was done they were still talking in the hallway. I heard laughter. When I looked over she was standing up straight and pulling her shirt down so it’d look ironed. In the car I asked her what they were talking about.
“I think I just got a job.”
The way she said it, maybe it was her face, maybe it was how excited she seemed. She hadn’t had a job. It wasn’t that she couldn’t speak English. She spoke fine, better than Papi, but it never came up, her having a job. Now she was going to work for Dr. Roberto, the man who said I didn’t take care of my wrist the way I was supposed to.
“How did he know you needed a job?” We were listening to María Castro on the radio. I remember because I thought Mom looked like her, the way she was driving, her back off the seat, leaning forward. She looked like María Castro. She said they were talking and she mentioned that she didn’t have a job, and now on top of the house bills she had to pay medical expenses. That’s when he offered. He told her she could clean his house.
“Did he give it to you at the beginning or at the end?”
“What do you mean give?”
“After you were laughing or before?”
“What do you mean laughing, Luz?”
“I saw you laughing. I heard you.”
“He told me right before I left. He gave me his number and said I could start next week.”
“You’re going every day?”
“Not every day. Maybe three times a week.”
“Where does he live?”
“Somewhere on the south side, past the highway. He said he has a garden and doesn’t have time to take care of it.”
“A garden?”
“Yes, Luz, a garden!”
There was a hat she never wore on the floor of the passenger side, made of white straw with a blue ribbon around it. I grabbed it and put it on, pulled the top down over my eyes and thought of Dr. Roberto’s “garden.” I could see Mom clipping whatever bushes and plants he had. The sun
beating down on her skin. The droplets of sweat sliding down her face. And Dr. Roberto calling her from the back door, “Cristina, come inside. Take a break. Have a cold drink with me.” Mom turning around, her back straight, looking like María Castro.
EL MELÓN
Papi would go hunting on weekends and ask me if I wanted to go with him. He’d grab the rifle from under his mattress, where he kept it, and take me to the backyard so I could practice. “Hold it like this,” he’d say, with his right arm wrapped around it. He’d point to the melons on a stump against the fence at the far end of the backyard and say, “Shoot like if it were the head of something you hate.”
The rifle was too big. When I’d wrap my arms around it Estrella would stare at me like if I were a jackass. But eventually I found my way, which wasn’t the way I was supposed to do it. Instead of holding it with my arms I tried holding it against my body. But when I pulled the trigger the force knocked me down. And when I put my cheek against the butt, so that I could look at the pointer and center my aim on a melon against the fence, it’d knock me down. My cheek would puff up like if I’d been punched, and Papi would laugh and help me up, telling me to try again. “Ándale, otra vez.”
I had to keep my legs open. That’s what it was.
“Keep your elbows up también,” he said. But the rifle would slip out when I did that. It was too heavy, and the only way I could do it was if I held it against my body, so that it’d become a part of me. I had to push into it. And when I figured that out, all of a sudden those melons exploded. The pins and needles in my fingers were nothing compared with being knocked down. I learned to lean into it and not pull away. Pushing into it is what kept me from getting hurt.
But there you go. That’s how it is.
LA PALMA
My arms and legs were open like a star facing the sun. That’s how I used to lie under the tree when Mom was cleaning the house and Papi was either working on the truck or mowing the yard. Back then my hair was long, down to my waist, and for some reason, the bangs around my face were always curly like a bad perm. I’d try to comb it after I came out of the shower, but when it dried it would bunch up. So I just let it run wild and do whatever it wanted. Estrella would comb it down and I’d have to use my neck muscles to keep my head straight. Mom said I should let it be, that maybe when I got older it would unravel. Maybe when I got older I wouldn’t seem all over the place. “I’m not all over the place,” I’d tell her. But she said I was. She’d say sometimes I was easy because I was quiet, but sometimes I wasn’t because I wanted attention. And if no one gave me attention I’d keep bothering them until they’d listen. Muy cabezona, she’d say, like your father. Stubborn as a mule.
But whatever.
EL BANDOLÓN
Mom used to say Pancho Silva had a good ear but I remember them the size of waffle fries. His voice sounded rough and broken, and if he started telling us a story it would take him forever to shut up. Like when he’d tell us about Pedro Infante or how someone discovered him as an actor in Mexico City. He was drinking at a bar in the middle of the day taking a break from a job at a creamery. A woman in a red suit with a bun over her head the size of a pomegranate noticed him. She told him he looked like Pedro Infante, that the similarity was remarkable. Even the build was the same.
From then on Pancho started working as Pedro Infante’s double.
But then Pedro died. He was in a plane crash, somewhere in the mountains, and it took them a long time to find the pieces of the plane because they were lost under trees. The search patrol never found the metal plate that was inside Pedro’s head from a previous surgery. So of course, people think he’s still alive, hiding in a cave somewhere. Life as a movie star was too much for him. The story of the plane crash was a way to be left alone.
Pancho said Pedro would visit him in Magnolia Park in the middle of the night, and he’d tell him that he was living in a small town outside of Puerto Vallarta. They’d sit on the porch and talk in the dark and strum the strings of a guitar until morning, then Pedro would say good-bye and tiptoe out through the front gate.
None of us believed him.
Gastón would ask, “Really, Pancho? Pedro Infante was here last night and you didn’t take a picture?” He explained why taking a picture would’ve been a bad idea. If someone found out Pedro was alive and in Magnolia Park his cover would’ve been blown. It’d be on the cover of a magazine like National Enquirer.
“Cállate ya, Papa,” Tío Daniel would say, and Pancho would storm out waving his hands in the air. He’d go to the back patio where his barbecue pit was, because that’s where he went to calm himself. Tío Daniel would say he was losing his mind, already at sixty-eight years old, and he felt sorry for him.
LA CALAVERA
Estrella was in the kitchen with Mom:
“I could have two tiers on both sides, all white with stairs and the tiara on top, but not on the cake. I want it next to the music box.” “You want the music to be playing the whole time?” “Yeah, the whole time.” “And if no one can hear it?” “Maybe we could put a small microphone somewhere?”
I was in the living room with Papi, watching, but not really watching, the news. We weren’t talking to each other. I can’t remember why, but I think it was because we had gone hunting the day before and my wrist was sore from pulling the trigger. When I complained about my wrist and fingers he always thought I was throwing it in his face, because of the accident. But I wasn’t throwing it in his face. It was true, sometimes it was hard to move my fingers, especially my thumb, because it felt stuck.
From nowhere a smell came inside the house, a horrible smell, like something had died. Papi and I turned our heads and looked out the window because it was coming from there.
Estrella and Mom came into the living room with their faces all twisted.
Papi said a pinche perro must’ve died. He got up and walked to the window.
“It’s true. It smells like something died,” I said.
All four of us went to the windowsill, shoulder to shoulder, and looked out, like if the bad smell was riding a horse and we wanted to see it pass. Like if we wanted to point to it and say, “Look! ¡Allí esta!” Then it would make sense. Because it’d be something we could see.
But then, ¡Bofos! It was gone.
Our heads were out the window and all we could smell was the ordinary air. We looked like dogs ourselves with our noses out, sniffing and trying to find that horrible stink. It was the weirdest thing.
Papi sat back down and grabbed the remote. Mom and Estrella went back to the kitchen and Estrella continued planning her Quinceañera. It was four years away, but already she was planning on becoming a young lady.
LA BOTA
There was one day people from church were supposed to come over for lunch. Mom had been cutting tomatoes and browning meat, making rice. I thought we were going to skip breakfast because of the small plates filled with diced onions and cilantro. “When are they coming?” I asked. She shrugged and said, “They’ll come when they come.” But she said it like if there was something she wasn’t telling me.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No, I’m fine!” she said.
“Then why are you wearing those shoes?” I said. “You wear those only when you dress up.”
“We’re having company. Okay? Is that all right with you?”
But company never came. The diced onions dried up and the meat got cold. We sat on the couch like if we were waiting for the dentist. When we got hungry we had Frosted Flakes even though there was food on the table, and then around three we had tacos while Mom started to clean. She kept walking in front of the television, picking up the junk mail lying around, while the three of us just sat there, not helping. She asked Papi to mow the lawn but he said he’d do it later.
“Mom?” I said.
“What?”
“Te quiero.”
She walked to the kitchen and kept cleaning, putting things away acting like she didn�
��t hear me, then grabbed her purse and said she’d forgotten to do a few rooms at Dr. Roberto’s house. She might as well do them, she said. Then she was gone. Papi stood up and watched her from the window get in her car and leave. He stood with his hands on his hips.
“She didn’t change her shoes?” I said.
“What?”
“Her boots. She’s didn’t change her boots.”
And he acted like he didn’t hear me.
EL CAZO
Julia says the same thing every time, about Papi and the family and needing to know more so they can help him. In a few days the district attorney will make a decision, so if there’s anything I want to tell them I should tell them now. “Luz? Do you feel like talking?”
I walked away from her and came to my desk and flipped the top card to see what dicho I’d make up next.
Write it down, mama. Échale ganas.
Yesterday, a black dress was on the door when I woke up.
I hadn’t fallen asleep until three because I stayed up writing. Usually by ten in the morning I’m either in the common room watching game shows or flipping through a book. Sometimes I watch Mexican films on Univision. Mom would’ve probably wanted me to read Spanish books, but I’ve never liked them. When I’ve tried to read one I get to the bottom of a page and don’t even know what I’m reading.
Tencha said the funeral would be at La Iglesia de San Miguel, and afterward we’d go to the cemetery near Pasadena Mall. They’re taking Estrella back to Mexico to bury her there, and so going to the cemetery is just pretend. She had to call Buelo Fermín in Reynosa because she didn’t have enough money, and he told her that there was a spot for Estrella in Mexico, planned a long time ago. There’s a spot for me too.
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