by Gayl Jones
Why you looking at me like that? he ask, then he turn that rap up just a little louder. I be trying to listen to see if there any of them dirty lyrics, but I don’t understand that rap. Maybe he be thinking my truck be bugged or something, so he want to play that rap for them that can’t decode it. Then he change to one of them jazz stations but keep the music kinda loud. Now I likes me that jazz. Sometimes them jazz lyrics is dirty, but when it is it that double entendre signifying dirty. ’Cause I remembers meeting this woman horn player, spliv like me in one of them jazz clubs in Houston. I buys her a drink and be telling her she the first woman I ever met that play a horn, and she be telling me I’m the first woman truck driver she ever met. She be saying a lot of people especially the mens tells her she plays horn like a man which supposed to mean she a real good horn player, like they be saying that Tina Turner sing like a man. That Tina don’t sing jazz, though, she sing that rock. Anyway, we be talking about the difference between high-minded and funky-butt jazz, me and that woman horn player. I thinks she call it funky-butt jazz or some shit. She say she play all kinds of jazz, though, play that intellectual type jazz and play that funky-butt-type jazz, can play jazz for the intellectuals and the common folk. I be telling her I really likes her jazz but I’m surprise she a woman.
Jazz ain’t got no gender, she be saying, or some shit like that. And she be saying she kinda surprised that the hicks in Texas likes jazz anyway. Don’t they like jazz everywhere? I be asking. Crazy broad, but I guess you gotta be kinda nuts to play good jazz. Maybe even great jazz. We be talking about jazz and then we be talking about glamour-town. That what she call Hollywood: Glamourtown. Then she improvise a tune she call “Glamour-town.” And I be telling her about me having me a boyfriend named Hollywood. And be telling her about my girlfriend out in Hollywood and how she usedta go with that John Henry Hollywood before I went with him. And she looks like she be jotting that name down in her head, like she didn’t know there could be a person named Hollywood.
’Cause I gotta get used to you not being no real padre, I says. They don’t got no laws about impersonating and personifying a padre, does they? He turn up that jazz a little louder, again like he maybe think that truck be bugged or something. It play that jazz that “Chitlin con Carne” the name of one of them tunes and I be thinking about Delgadina she be telling me about that Chitlin Con Came Mexican and I be telling her they’s a jazz tune called “Chitlin con Carne” and he probably named himself after that jazz tune, then there another jazz tune something by Bird and something called Lazy Bird and then I thinks something they call that third-stream music which suppose to blend classical music and jazz, or be classical music except but use that jazz improvisations, so I guess that why they call it that third-stream music and wonder what that first-stream music supposed to be, I guess that be classical, ’cause they be calling theyselves the first world. But the most versatile music is that jazz. Playing that jazz you supposed to be able to move freely in everywhich direction, or rather that jazz music supposed to be able to move freely in everywhich direction. What that that woman say about jazz, something about being free to be yourself? Another one of them prairie foxes. Prairie oyster, that’s what Delgadina advises for them hangovers. A raw egg in any liquid swallowed whole. And I be thinking she means a real oyster of the prairie. I be thinking that prairie oyster a real oyster of the prairie. I drink too much of that Bud Light and she be telling me I need one of them prairie oysters.
Is you is or is you ain’t my baby? someone is singing as we turns off the farm road onto the highway. A lot of that wild mustard along that highway, but ain’t the same border road I picked up that Maria on. Least I thinks they calls that wild mustard. Delgadina the natural historian know all them wild plants: wild ginger and wild vanilla and wild mustard. I guess they names them like that ’cause they supposed to smell like those things except but be wild. Delgadina she the natural historian. In them story she write she got all them plants and shit, be describing them plants and shit and cactus and what kind of cactus, if it a rattail cactus she be telling you it a rattail cactus and me I just be saying cactus, but she be saying in them stories you gotta have a lot of details, but all them cactus look alike to me, except she say that’s ’cause I ain’t from the Southwest, ’cause if I were from the Southwest I’d know them plants as well as she, and then she be describing them chicken and don’t just say chicken but tell you what kind of chicken they is, know a Cochin China chicken from one of them bantam rooster and she know all of them tree, be describing them cocobolo trees. And don’t just tell you the name of the cocobolo tree, but when she get through describing that cocobolo tree you think you know the cocobolo tree. ’Cept you gotta be in the tropics to find one of them cocobolo trees, ’cause they ain’t native to the Southwest. And she even know the plants and animals of the oceans and they names. They’s some cactus along the highway, some of that starvation food. I don’t know if it rattail cactus, though.
Who the woman in the kerchief and them knickerbockers? I asks. That your girlfriend?
What? He listening to that jazz. The jazz loud like I said, but he lean forward like he be trying to hear the jazz inside the jazz. He scratch he nose and look at me. Say what?
The woman in the do-rag and them knickerbockers. That your girlfriend?
I don’t have a girlfriend.
Your wife then? I asks, ’cause she look like what that Delgadina call wifable. I ain’t never heard nobody but Delgadina use that word wifable. Ain’t even in the dictionary, though they got wifehood and wifedom.
Nor wife either, he says, tugging on his mustache, then scratching it. I can see him out of the corner of my eye. She’s just one of the Sanctuary workers.
That’s ’cause they all thinks you a real padre. You have you plenty of girlfriends if they didn’t think you was no real padre. ’Cause that fellow that come to that costume party plenty of girls they be dancing with him ’cause they know he ain’t no real padre. Maybe some of them they be fantasizing about being the girlfriend of a real padre. Anyway, you hear all them stories in the tabloid even about them real padres. But even in the Middle Ages they usedta have tabloid stories like that. Except they didn’t call them tabloid stories. Except but they supposed to be celibate, them padres. But maybe that why some of them girls be fantasizing about them. We got anymore Chito Chitons to pick up on the way back to Texas City? Watching him scratching his mustache make me start itching. I scratch my side, then my chin, then my nose. Then put both hands back on the wheel.
No.
Someone called you the General. I heard one of them Sanctuary workers they be calling you the General. One of them say you the General. Woman in that peacock skirt, I think.
Oh, yeah?
So you the head honcho.
We ain’t really got a head honcho. We’re egalitarians. We don’t have a hierarchical type of group. It’s more like a mosaic, or a collective. I guess. More like a council of leaders, but anyone can lead or coordinate. Sometimes I coordinate the Sanctuary workers. Our decisions are made democratically. He take a small paperback book out of his pocket. Here’s another book on the Sanctuary movement that might interest you.
Thanks. I nods towards my glove compartment. He put it in my glove compartment. They’s some letters in there from Monkey Bread. I know he be glancing at them like he think they might be love letters, then he put the book in there on top of them letters. The new book is just called Sanctuary. You already recruited me, though. But for a organization so secretive as y’all’s, y’all got a lot of books about y’allself. Seem like if y’all such a secretive Sanctuary movement wouldn’t be all them books on y’all.
Like I said, we ain’t really the mainstream Sanctuary. The mainstream Sanctuary thinks that the more they’re known the safer they are. That’s why most sanctuaries declare themselves. We’re more like what they’d call the Nicodemuses of the movement. We don’t declare ourselves, though there are certain ways that we’re known to each other.
&n
bsp; Say what? What’s a Nicodemus?
The ones who believe the more secret we are the safer we are. In that handbook you’ll find a list of sanctuaries that declare themselves as sanctuaries, though. The immigration authorities know about them and occasionally decide to make a move on certain sanctuaries and certain Sanctuary workers, I suppose when it’s politically expedient and to set an example, I mean whenever there’s a new ruckus about immigration and our immigration policies.
Yeah, like now when I go to some of these warehouses to get my industrial detergents, you know, they be asking me to show them my green card, like they be thinking I don’t look American enough for them, and I be telling them I’m a citizen. Even one of your Sanctuary workers, she be thinking I’m a refugee. They didn’t use to be asking me to show my green card ’cept like you said when they’s a new ruckus about that immigration and shit. I just tell them I’m a citizen, show my license and my registration papers, I mean at them warehouses where I get my industrial detergents, ’cause I don’t want to make no ruckus and compromise y’all’s movement. One of them jokester fools be telling me that no true American be having them string of names like I got and be saying my real name must be Salvadora Natalia Juanita Hijo de Juan or some shit he made up. When I was up in Canada. I met this African that give me a African name that mean the beautiful one but fool that I am I didn’t write the name down, so I don’t remember what it is now. He just keep calling me that name, though, that mean the beautiful one. I mean, in his country and language, it mean the beautiful one. ’Cause I ain’t considered that much of a beauty in my own country and language, though mens have always found me kinda attractive and I’ve had my share of boyfriends. Except when I was little, I was kind of shy, though, you know, so I didn’t have any boyfriends till after high school. He a Portuguese African, the one name me the beautiful one, but I don’t think it in Portuguese, I think it in one of them African languages.
One of your boyfriends? He scratch his mustache and look out at them wild mustard. I think they wild mustard.
Naw. I met him in Canada at one of them trade fairs. Thought he was a Canuck, though he told me you ain’t supposed to call them Canadians Canucks. I overheard somebody calling them Canucks and thought it was just a name, you know. But I guess everybody they got names you ain’t supposed to call them.
There are a lot of African names that mean the beautiful one. He loosen his collar some more. I wonders if he one of them smooth-chest men or whether he got lotta hair on his chest. I thinks he gonna tell me some of them African names that mean the beautiful one but he don’t. Maybe he don’t know them neither. Maybe he just know of them African names but don’t know them. And I think he be surprised somebody be calling me the beautiful one too, but he ain’t.
So if you ain’t a padre what are you?
Usedta be a immigration agent, and then I realized I was on the wrong side.
That say love. Talking about that subversive love.
What do you mean?
I ain’t know what I mean. I think I overheard Delgadina one time says something about subversive love, or maybe read it in one of her books. I glances toward him and then back at the highway. Man on a Harley. Wonder if it’s one of them Softail Harleys. Man wearing one of them leather jackets got a peacock on it or a lyrebird. Funny with them birds, it’s always the male birds got all them beautiful feathers and be spreading them beautiful tailfeathers out when they courting. When people realizes they’s on the wrong side it’s always ’cause they fall in love with somebody that’s on the right side. Leastwise in the movies.
He laugh for a moment, then pull at his mustache. I’m still wondering if that one of them Softail Harleys. Starts to ask him if he know anything about them Harleys. Then I pictures him in his priest’s robes riding one of them Harleys. And then I pictures him as a lyrebird. And then I be wondering if he got that hair on he chest, he got that soft hair or that scratchy hair? That hair on he head it kinky and wavy, but I can’t tell if it soft. And I can’t tell if that mustache soft neither, though he still be pulling on it and combing it with his fingers. Actually, you’re right. Actually, I did fall in love with somebody on the right side.
She still in the States? I be thinking maybe she one of them other Sanctuary workers. But I thought most of them supposed to be citizens. Maybe some of them started out as refugees theyself, though, then when they become citizens they be helping the other refugees.
Naw. Deported. El Salvador. She lives in Mexico now, though. Mexico City.
I takes some beef jerky outa my shirt pocket and offers him some. He shake his head. I bites off a piece of it and puts the rest back in my shirt pocket.
That’s beef jerky, he comments. I thought you’s chewing tobacco.
Naw. Gotta have my beef jerky. So why ain’t you in Mexico City with her? I asks.
I did go down there to find her, but when I found her she was with another guy.
So that didn’t push you back to the wrong side?
One of them hitchhikers. Guy on the Harley pick up the hitchhiker, who climb onto the back of the Harley. Think it a girl hitchhiker. Maybe that the Harley’s softail. Girl with the nose ring. I’m sure that’s the same nose-ringed girl we seen in the restaurant.
Like in the movies, right? No, it didn’t. I’m not even sure it’s her that pushed me to the right side.
I bet that pushed on your buttons, though, didn’t it? Seeing her with some other guy? Or maybe seeing you pushed on her buttons. I don’t pick up me them hitchhikers. You don’t know if they might be mb and dtk.
Say what?
What my friend Delgadina call mad, bad, and dangerous to know. She say that the name of a play, though.
Isn’t that Lord Byron?
Delgadina just say that the name of a play.
I think it’s Lord Byron. Or Lord Byron quoting Lady Caroline. I think it’s Lord Byron quoting Lady Caroline.
I don’t know about that lord and lady, but Delgadina said it’s the name of a play. An Australian play. Or a Austrian play. Perhaps the playwright is quoting Lord Byron quoting Lady Caroline. They be talking about satire in her writing class at the Community Center, you know, so her teacher, she like be reading to them from this play by that title, some Australian play or Austrian play, but it sound more Australian than Austrian, though, ’cause them Australians they supposed to be a signifying people. Me I be wanting to know more about the original Australians, the aboriginals, but whenever they be having these documentaries on Australia, they be showing you the other Australians, or they be telling you about the aboriginals like that dreamtime, or they be interested in them Australian animals like them kangaroo and shit, I guess since you ain’t a real priest you don’t have to excuse my French, but they not having them speak for theyself, you know, the aboriginals, and be showing you them drawing on these caves and shit. Anyway, so since then we be sometimes pointing out different peoples, you know, that we thinks is mb and dtk. Oh, yeah? Course not everybody ranks as all three. And they’s even mad good peoples. But mad good peoples can also be dtk. She also be calling them by they Spanish name, though, she be calling them buenos locos or locos buenos. Her boss wife is kinda loca, we call her the crazy gringa, but she be calling her a buena loca, though. When he first married her, though, Delgadina be thinking she might be one of them dtks. But me I thinks everybody’s got a little of that in them, that dtk, otherwise they wouldn’t be human beings, you know. So how come you disguised yourself as a priest?
At first because a lot of the people trust me better, you know. . . .
’Cause most the people you work with from Catholic countries, I bet. ’Cause a lot of them Latin American countries they Catholic countries. But I seen them Hindu refugees and some of them Buddhabists, though.
Buddhist.
Buddhist. Didn’t I say Buddhist?
Naw, you said Buddhabist.
I mean Buddhist, ’cause one time Delgadina be talking about how she want to become a Buddhist ’cause I think
one of her favorite rock stars is a Buddhist, not a true and orthodox Buddhist I mean from the country of Buddhism, but one of them British Buddhists like in the sixties when a lot of them rock stars had they gurus and shit, you know. I think even Tina Turner a Buddhist, ain’t she? So Delgadina she be thinking of becoming a Buddhist or something. I be asking her who this Buddha. I know who the Buddha, but a lot of times I likes to know what Delgadina got to say about things. She say he a great teacher. She get these interests, you know, and be taking these courses at the Community Center and at the community colleges and shit to improve her mind, and I guess to improve us mind ’cause she be telling me all the same shit she be learning, not that it’s shit, you know, and then she be like interested in these mystics and prophets, you know. She even know about Sojourner Truth, you know. Know more about Sojourner Truth than I do, and I’m named after her.