by Gayl Jones
Oh, those are people you don’t know and don’t want to know, said the woman who still deny being a guerrilla lawyer.
Ain’t he, though.
Ain’t he from Minnesota or somewhere? Farmer’s boy. I mean, man. I mean he’s a man, but you know what I mean. Acts like a southern gentleman, though, but with a northern accent. Well, not the white southern gentleman type of southern gentleman. We’ve got our own southern gentlemen. Don’t mean you’s gotta take nobody’s shit. Some people think being a gentleman mean you gotta take people’s shit. Them’s the sorta people I like, that don’t take other people’s foolishness. I mean, he takes Catherine’s foolishness, but that’s love. Cathy ain’t take nobody’s foolishness.
’Cept she wants everybody to take her foolishness. I know a lot of peoples who’s like that. I guess I’m like that myself. Course nobody ever thinks that their foolishness is foolishness. I make my foolishness rational, like everybody else.
When she say that, I start thinking about that Big Sweet in Zora Neale Hurston’s book. Ain’t it say something about her not taking other people’s foolishness. Seem like it say something about her not taking other people’s foolishness. Or being a lady, say the other woman. Let me tell you about Lady Day. . . . That’s the kinda lady I’m talking about.
I loves Lady Day, I says. Sometimes I plays Lady Day music in my restaurant. Other times I plays Mexican and bordertown music. Sometimes I plays jazz, I means them musician jazz, not them jazz singers singing jazz.
Maria knows he’s a Sacerdote. Yes, padre, she says. Yes, but I would like to do more for the Sanctuary, padre. Yes, padre. I understand what you are saying, padre. Thank you, padre. I am pleased that you like the dolls I make. Ah, yes, I name him Journal, you know. You say that is not her true name? I think she say Journal, I name him Journal. No, padre, I do not want to name him Pedro. And do they do the Argentinean tango. Do they tango like the Argentineans tango? Yes, padre. But I’m not from Argentina, padre, I’m from Mexico. And what if I ask Maria? But he say I shouldn’t ask Maria. If she translate for them, then maybe she don’t want people to know it. Sacerdote Guerrero and he could be like them Sacerdotes Guerreros that Delgadina talks about. Warrior-priests because in some of those Mexican nations they would have them, priests and warrior and wise men. Sagaz. When Delgadina wanted to buy that native Indian jewelry, she was talking about how it looked like what the warrior priests usedta wear. And I guess they had warrior priestesses too. She rented a Land-Rover and took me and Miguelita with her. She didn’t want to go in my truck, and Miguelita didn’t want to ride in it, so Delgadina rented a Land-Rover and we went to Santa Fe. I didn’t think Mr. Delgado would let Miguelita go to Santa Fe. I don’t know why I thought that. That she’d ask him and he’d say no she couldn’t come with us to Santa Fe. But Delgadina wanted to see the Loretto Chapel and the miraculous staircase that was supposed to be built from a miracle, and then she wanted to go to all the art galleries on Canyon Road. I think her ex-husband exhibited in some of those galleries. If she found any of his work she didn’t point them out to Miguelita or me. We didn’t go to all the hundred galleries, but we went to a good many of them galleries, even Miguelita. Then we all bought some of that Native American jewelry. That wasn’t sold in the galleries. The Native Americans lined one of those streets, and all the jewelry had to have something to verify that they was authentic. Delgadina said a lot of they so-called crafts was better than a lot of the art she’d seen in the galleries. Then she said a lot of other things about the rules that them Native Americans had to abide when making they jewelry. That it had to all be handmade and made by themselves in they own houses, and it couldn’t be made in no factories. Miguelita she ain’t say nothing, she just go around with us to the different galleries and the different Native American jewelers. She ain’t say nothing till we go to one of them restaurants. It a Mexican restaurant, but it ain’t no cantina.
We orders different Mexican foods, but to tell y’all the truth I wanted some French toast. They’s got French toast on the menu, but I don’t want to be no fool to go into a Mexican restaurant and orders French toast.
We got us Indian jewelry and you tried to find your husband’s art, I says. What else us going to do?
Don’t you like New Mexico? asked Delgadina.
I likes New Mexico. But seem like you spent all us time looking for your husband’s art.
I didn’t say I was looking for my husband’s art. I said he usedta exhibit on Canyon Road. I like art galleries.
Yeah, but you wanted to go to every one of them galleries.
She’s still in love, said Miguelita.
You don’t know what I am, said Delgadina.
Well, we’ve got ourselves some valuable acquisitions, said Miguelita, eating her refried beans.
Yeah, this is fantastic, said Delgadina about some of her jewelry. It makes me look like a warrior-priestess.
I thought they just had warrior-priests, I said.
Well, where there are priests there are priestesses, she said. They might call ’em nuns, though. They don’t call ’em priestesses anymore.
One must not scorn love, said Miguelita.
We’re not scorning love, said Delgadina.
One must not scorn love, said Miguelita.
When we returned to South Texas, Delgadina took Miguelita to the cantina and then we went to her apartment. She went to her bookshelf and started thumbing through some of the pages.
I knew I heard that, I knew I heard that, she said, opening one of the books. She showed me something that she herself had underlined in one of Freud’s books on dreams. “One must not scorn love as a curative power for delusion,” it said.
That’s Freud she were quoting, I said.
I don’t know if she was quoting him, said Delgadina. I don’t know if she knew she was quoting him, but I knew I heard that. Or maybe it’s something her psychiatrist told her, quoting Freud.
I’m surprised that Mr. Delgado let her come with us to New Mexico, I says.
She just crazy, Mosquito.
She ain’t say what she mean by that. Maybe she mean that even though Miguelita crazy don’t mean she ain’t supposed to have no rights and privileges. And Mr. Delgado must know that Delgadina protective towards her. Ain’t I told y’all who they is? I be wanting to talk about New Mexico, but once Delgadina get that Freud, she start to reading him. I turns on the television whilst she reads Freud. Then she underlines something and shows it to me. One forgets nothing without a secret reason or a hidden motive, it say. I ain’t know why she show that line to me. Maybe it just a line she herself like and want to show it to me, or maybe she think it got something to do with me myself. Anyway I watches television while she reads Freud.
But then, in the basement of that house, amongst them refugees, them womens that I been holding a conversation with goes upstairs to the bathroom or to look for Ray or Alvarado or the other Ray and then I’m standing by myself. I’m thinking ’bout Ray and Maria and Maria baby and Delgadina and Miguelita and Mr. Delgado and I’m listening to them other Sanctuary workers, but I don’t go over and join none of them others. I wish I had asked them women about them code words, though. I’m wondering what them code words of Ray’s is ’cause ain’t nobody told me nothing about no code words, though I guess all secret societies got they code words, but they’s Mexicans, Haitians and assorted other refugees crowded in the basement of this farmhouse. They’s talking about a bam, but this ain’t a bam. It one of them large-type basements with them pipes running along the walls and ceilings, but them pipes kinda remind you of that modern art. Most of the refugees are huddled against the wall, mostly silent, though sometimes you can hear snippets of some of them languages: French, Dutch, Spanish, them Creoles, Hindi, Chinese, some of them African languages, I guess that Swahili, maybe Hausa and Ibo. They ain’t all migrant workers and peasants and shit, a lot of them supposed to be schoolteachers and engineers and even architects and shit. The Sanctuary movement workers is in the inn
er circle of the room, talking shit, as Delgadina would say, except but I can’t make hide nor hair of the shit they’re talking, except the gossip-type shit. I ain’t know none of them people talking. Then the two women, the one denied being a guerrilla lawyer and the other woman, come back downstairs, but they don’t come back where I am but stand talking to each other, but I can still hear their conversation. Delgadina call some of that type of conversation polemics and political debate, but I likes hearing every type of conversation myself. Lotta times, though, they says that type of conversations don’t belong in stories. I always wonders about that, ’cause people has them types of conversations, even them intellectual debates. Even Delgadina has intellectual debates. She says, though, I ain’t heard no true intellectual debates, ’cause she ain’t yet had the opportunity to debate with true intellectuals, ’cause ain’t many of them that frequents her cantina. Delgadina say one time somebody introduced her to some people as the Chicana bartender-intellectual except she didn’t know whether they were joking or not. One of them is talking about smoking something called kif, something from North Africa, but most of them is talking politics or martial arts.
I were expecting to find a lot of revolutionary slogans on the basement wall but there ain’t. Ain’t no revolutionary slogans and no revolutionary posters either. I guess because if this place is raided or some shit by them immigration authorities they don’t want them to find no revolutionary slogans. A nationalist and a revolutionary’s not the same thing or doesn’t have to be the same thing, I hear the woman in the peacock skirt say. When I first seen her, I thought it were Delgadina but it ain’t. I be thinking they at least have some revolutionary art or posters on the wall, though. But like I said, them Sanctuary movement workers is in the inner circle of the room, talking shit, even that metaphysical shit. Most of them refugees they be looking like they don’t understand hide nor hair of the shit either; I don’t mean to say shit. Excuse my French. And some of them refugee workers they be looking like they trying to outrefugee the refugees in the way they be dressing, in them tom dungarees and do-rags and shit, and these ain’t even college girls. Trying to play the peasants and the exotic types. One of them even nibbling on that kinda bread they call peasant bread.
There aren’t any generals here, say the one nibbling on that peasant bread. I think it called peasant bread; it called either peasant bread or Indian bread. That peacock-skirt-wearing woman in them guaraches. Though Ray comes the closest to being a general. If we got anybody that comes close to being a general that’s Ray.
Anyway, like I was saying, I think every government’s a kakitocracy of sorts—is it kakitocracy?—you know, ruled by the most unprincipled people. She’s apolitical herself, but I guess even apolitical people can have political opinions . . . Some of them Sanctuary workers drinking Coca-Cola and some of them drinking that chamomile tea and some of them other herbal-type teas, ’cause one of them come offering me some of that herbal tea. Most of them refugees they be drinking that Coca-Cola ’cause they know what that Coca-Cola is. They got them this television commercial where this refugee don’t understand English but he understand Coca-Cola, like it a universal language. I guess it a universal language, ’cause I don’t see none of them refugees drinking that chamomile tea and none of that other herbal tea. Some of them Sanctuary workers looks like they workers for the State Department and others of them, like I said, wearing them blue jeans and them do-rags. One of them Sanctuary worker looks kinda familiar, then I realizes she one of them people I seen at one of them craft festival that make pottery and stain glass butterflies and even stain glass octopus with them suction cups except they ain’t real suction cups, they’s stained glass suction cups and she make a lotta different animals out of that stain glass.
I seen that stain glass artist before, ’cause Delgadina she be interested in that stain glass and be asking that woman how you become a stain glass artist and whether they’s any courses you can take to become a stain glass artist, and that woman be talking about how she cut the glass into these different shapes first, and then she stain the glass, and then she glue the glass to make these different animals and a lot of them exotic-type animals ’cause she got them stain glass kangaroos and platypus and koala bears and kingfishers, and then Delgadina she be asking the woman where her studio is ’cause the woman she got a studio like a real artist. And then they even be talking to each other in Spanish ’cause this woman like has been to Mexico or something to study pre-Columbian art or some shit, ’cause Delgadina she be saying she can see the pre-Columbian influence in that stain glass and shit, and they be talking about it like it real art, and Delgadina buy one of them stain glass butterfly ’cause that her favorite animal. The woman she be saying her favorite, though, is her stain glass spider monkey. And then they be talking about something they call border art which supposed to be different artist conceptions of the idea of the border. And the woman she look kinda like one of them kingfisher her ownself, you know them kingfisher birds, ’cause she a little blond woman and her hair kinda look like the feathers of a kingfisher bird and she got them stain glass objects hanging all around her booth and look like wind chimes. And I be studying that octopus and be wondering how she can make stain glass look like it real suction cups.
What’s border art? I be asking Delgadina, while we walking along through the maze of craft booths, and she carrying her stain glass butterfly and I’m carrying a handmade broom. Occasionally she stop in front of some of them other craft booth, especially them leather crafts and them craft jewelry. There’s a girl there selling them slave bracelet and biker jewelry that she handmade herself, but it ain’t that Miguelita. Kinda remind me of that Miguelita ’cept these is handmade slave bracelets and biker jewelry, and Miguelita would buy hers from one of them jewelry wholesalers in New Mexico and then resell them. This one be saying her slave bracelets and biker jewelry is handmade and like art and be telling me I’d look good in one of them slave bracelets and Delgadina she would look good in that biker jewelry. And then there’s a Native American got his spears and shields and turquoise-type jewelry. He one of them Navajo ’cause Delgadina say some of them symbols on them shields is Navajo symbols.
You know, different artists from both sides of the border, their response to the idea of the border, the real border and the border of the mind. But border art can be anything, it can be a painting or sculpture or music or even a story. You can even write a novel and call that border art. Anything that uses the real border or the border as metaphor is border art. But the concept of border art don’t just have to be the Mexican-American border, though, it can be any country that has a border with another country.
That woman she a Chicana or a gringa? I be thinking, as Delgadina tries on some of that biker jewelry, then she try on the slave bracelet. I don’t try on none of that shit myself. I’m holding that handmade broom and still thinking ’bout that stain glass octopus, and wondering whether that woman a Chicana or a gringa, and thinking maybe she a blond Chicana, ’cause they got them blond Chicanas. Or maybe she like that friend of Delgadina’s in Houston she be telling me about, telling me how this woman friend of hers in Houston always be wearing her a blond wig ’cause people treats her better when she got on that blond wig and don’t know that she Chicana, like that Turkish movie Delgadina and me seen take place in Germany and this Turk be treated like shit when they know he a Turk, then when he bleach his hair blond to look like one of them Aryans they be treating him like a gentleman, and then when we come out of the movie Delgadina start telling me all about that girlfriend of hers in Houston who would do the same thing, put on that blond wig so’s that people could treat her like a lady. So when I first seen that stain glass artist I be thinking that that Delgadina girlfriend from Houston and maybe she decided to bleach her own hair blond instead of wearing them wigs.
When she hand the slave bracelet back to that woman ’cause it too expensive and we come away from that booth, I be asking her whether that stain glass artist
a Chicana or a gringa.
A gringa. But not all gringas are gringas. Gringoism a state of mind.
Like the border a state of mind.
Exactly.
Except the border ain’t a state of mind, I be saying.
Exactly.
I be thinking that stain glass artist kinda remind me of Miguelita, though I knows she ain’t Miguelita.
Abyssinian, she says she’s Abyssinian from Abyssinia. As crazy as a loon, the woman in the peacock skirt is saying. She takes a map out of her skirt pocket. Where’s Abyssinia? I can’t find Abyssinia on this map. What language do they speak in Abyssinia? Oh, she must mean Ethiopia. Abyssinia didn’t that usedta be the name for Ethiopia.
I’m still standing there waiting to find out which refugees I’m supposed to drive and where. One of the men sitting at this little gambling table offers me a chair so I sit down. I call it a gambling table ’cause they’s several of them Sanctuary workers sitting at it playing chess. They’s dressed like working-class men but they’s playing chess and don’t sound like no working-class men:
They’re not revolutionaries, they’re pedagogues. Anyway, they were attempting to overthrow the government. . . . Not a coup a putsch. . . . Who’s the greenling?
We call them greenlings, the new Sanctuary workers, the one who offers me the seat explains, then he moves one of his chess pieces. Coup or putsch, he’s still gotta find a job here. Ray thinks he can become an independent contractor doing topiary work. Before the revolution, he was a student in astronomy, studying galactic noise or intergalactic noise. . . . He moves another chess piece, then looks around at the refugees. It’s all about the American dream, man. . . . I don’t think America’s ever been Al’s dream, though. . . . We’re all Americans, they’re just the other Americans. . . . Or we’re the other Americans. He’s a chameleon, though, that Ray. He says he can go anywhere in the world and they think he’s one of them. He was telling me about New Guinea. . . . Thinks she’s the Grand Panjandrum.