Mosquito

by Gayl Jones

  Cheech, I thought you was supposed to be in the play.

  Chica, my name’s Pedro Alfonso Bueno.

  Ruben Sierra’s La Raza Pura is a satire of the melting pot, Delgadina is saying. She wearing her favorite peacock skirt and one of them white blouses with lace on it.

  So some of the jokers in the audience, even Pedro Alfonso Bueno, start playing games with her like asking her what’s a satire, ’cause they kinda think that she was underestimating their own intelligence.

  One of them even say to her, Hey, Delgadina, why you underestimating our intelligence?

  But Delgadina actually think they didn’t know what a satire is, so she explain to them what a satire is. I ain’t gonna explain to y’all what no satire is. And those of you that don’t know what a satire is can ask Delgadina.

  So after she lectures about the play, we watching it. It’s a play with a lot of scenes, but the scenes melts one into the other, ’cause the whole way the play is made is like the theme of the play itself. I mean, the theme of the play itself is reflected in the way the play is made. And then they’s even reprinted Sierra’s stage notes, which explains that one scene should lead into the other as quickly and as honestly as possible. I be wondering how come he got that honestly in them stage notes and I be wondering how scenes can move honestly. ’Cause seem like honesty one of them words that people uses with people. But I guess scenes in a play can be honest.

  I got to tell y’all about that play, ’cause it’s about America. ’Cept it’s about the American myth, the American myth of race that say that they’s racial, cultural and social purity in America. Naw, that ain’t what it’s saying. It’s saying that the myth of racial, cultural and social purity is supposed to be the basis for prejudice in American society. I know all that ’cause I ain’t just seen the play or heard Delgadina’s lecture, but she let me read a article she wrote about it. She sent the article to one of them little literary magazines but they returned it back to her ’cause ain’t none of them heard of Rubén Sierra and didn’t consider him mainstream. Or maybe it was because her own article didn’t appeal to the mainstream. Or maybe they didn’t believe she was a true Chicana and might have accepted the article, even though it didn’t appeal to the mainstream, if they thought it was written by a true Chicana in the true language of what they considered to be the true language of Chicanoism.

  I got to tell y’all that the play by Rubén Sierra is a true play and ain’t the product of my own imagination. I ain’t sure whether Rubén Sierra would want me to converse with y’all about his play, though. Delgadina says I ain’t allowed to quote from it, ’cause you can’t just up and quote from a play without getting the permission of the author for the use of his or her Intellectual Property. However, she says it’s okay to tell folks about somebody’s play or your own interpretation of it.

  So anyway what the play got in it. It got a agency that call itself the All-Purpose Racial Agency which Delgadina say is somewhat reminiscent of Louis M. Valdez’s Honest Sancho’s Used Mexican Lot and Mexican Curio Shop in Los Vendidos. What the play is is a inventive satire that exaggerates the ironies of racial and ethnic prejudices. Delgadina refer to it as a hypothetical play but one based on the real world. It a experimental play in the way that it mixes the different scenes, that is it mix stage scenes with film and slides and video and soundtracks which Delgadina say reinforces, introduces, explains, or comments on the action. It a mingling of dramatization and statement, and Delgadina say it like most Third World plays—she use the words Third World, though I thinks they’s got another phrase for theyselves now. But she say it like most Third World plays in that it challenges us conception of dramatic form. There is also the sense, say Delgadina, I mean when she’s lecturing about that play, of the mingling of the “orature” in modern technological society with the “orature” in Chicano traditions. Course they’s a lot of people just come to see the play and ain’t want to hear Delgadina talk about the play, or intellectualize it. A lot of them is polite and listens, but then I hears others say things like agringada or whatever the Chicano word for that, which I think means they thinks ’cause she up there intellectualizing that play that she trying to act like a gringa. Edward Said has spoken of the “monocultural myth” of American society and this play debunks that myth. Written from the “Chicano perspective,” it is likewise universal in its inclusion of the whole of American culture in its nonconventional panorama. . . .

  Hey, Delgadina, I like you better when you’re tending bar. Let’s see the play, chica. . . .

  Yeah, but. . . .

  I’m in love with the Chicana girl. Come here, Delgadina, chica. Chica chica chica chica chica.

  He gets up and looks like he’s trying to do the rumba or the samba and starts making conversation, except it sounds like a poem:

  I went down to Argentina and all I learned was to tango.

  But it was the real tango.

  Rumba, rumba, rumba, rumba.

  Samba, samba, samba, samba

  I went down to Brazil and all I learned was to samba,

  But it was the real samba.

  Rumba, rumba, rumba, rumba.

  Samba, samba, samba, samba

  I come back to America to do the New York rumba,

  ’Cause I can’t go to Cuba and spend no American money,

  Rumba, rumba, rumba, rumba,

  Samba, samba, samba, samba

  This rumba ain’t the real one

  Chachachachacha

  So, anyway, Delgadina comes and sits with the guy who tells her he’s in love with her and they do something that looks like the tango, which I think is a part of the play, then they sits together and watches the play, and like I said they’s got these signs that reads ALL-PURPOSE RACIAL AGENCY, RENT-A-RACE. And then somebody distributes newsletters to everybody in the audience, and I think some of them Rent-a-Race advertisements is in them newsletters. Of course, it’s a confabulatory newsletter and ain’t a real newsletter, and you can’t really go to some of them places and rent yourself out as a model of the race. They’s even got a Samba in that newsletter that kinda look like myself. Then there’s a film and some musical pieces that accompanies the film. Then there’s different agents for the racial agency that appears onstage. I know what some of y’all thinking, that this is just a confabulatory play or the play written by Delgadina, but it ain’t, that Ruben Sierra a real Chicano playwright and his play a real Chicano play. I know a lot of them ain’t known to the general mainstream American audiences and I ain’t seen none of they plays on Broadway. Anyway, so there’s a scene between an Anglo boy and a Chicana girl that’s in love. I know y’all seen them types of scenes. I can’t quote y’all none of them words in that play, ’cause y’all got to see that play for y’allself. Plus Delgadina say you can’t just quote from anybody play, and even she herself had to write to the dramatist for permission to put on that play. I don’t even know whether I’m supposed to talk about that play or even tell y’all about the All-Purpose Racial Agency Rent-a-Race. ’Cept Delgadina say you can tell people about a play, but you just can’t quote from it without permission. What about them press releases and them manifestoes, I mean them that ain’t confabulatory? I gots to ask Delgadina. But somebody say something about how prejudice can be financially rewarding, except I heard Delgadina say that sometimes when prejudice ain’t financially rewarding they’s less of it, but then when it’s financially rewarding again they’s more of it. I guess like them talking about Mexico during the war. But I think it’s one of them advertisers in the play that says that. And then there’s also a Chicano boy in the play that is in love with a Anglo girl, and I’m wondering how come they ain’t no scenes where they’s Chicanos in love with each other. And I wants to say, Don’t let them Americans play you and make you think you’s just supposed to be in love with some Anglo girl, but then I realizes it just a play, and anyway can’t he be in love with who he want? ’Cause I ain’t sure myself whether he in love with her or he just being playe
d by that ideal of American womanhood, and what supposed to be beautiful? Anyway, they parents disapprove of they relationship. The Chicanos don’t want the Chicano boy to love no gringa and the gringos don’t want the gringa girl to love no Chicano. And the Chicano boy say how he usedta tell hisself that he wouldn’t marry nobody but a Chicana, but then he love that girl.

  Start the love, I hear one of them Chicanos say. And then I hear one of them say he don’t think that boy love that gringa girl neither he just think she high class ’cause she gringa. He think she high class, but that just a lie, he say, and make me think about that Elvis.

  That when Maria and Journal come in and Maria sits beside me with Journal. Journal climb into my lap for a little while during the play, then he climb back into Maria’s lap. Pedro Alfonso Bueno say something to Journal in Spanish. Journal look like he watching and understanding the play.

  Then on the stage they’s some more of them films and recordings that comment on the society and the couple, and then there’s a bigoted Gringa that comes to the ALL-PURPOSE RACIAL AGENCY because she’s giving a small dinner party for about 200 people and she don’t want anyone to think she prejudiced, so she comes to rent some Chicanos to attend her party, ’cept she don’t even call them by they names, she say. Your . . . people. So the agent for the All Purpose Racial Agency shows her a Linda chart to make sure they have exactly what she wants. So they’s got Tijerina Off White, Acapulco Gold, Chavez Beige, Fuentes Tan, Gonzalez Brown, Chicano Cream, Plain Old Brown. So this gringa woman she selects several from that Linda chart: that Acapulco Gold, that Gonzales Brown, and that Plain Old Brown. Then after the Linda selection, she got to select the type: so they brings her a number of different models. They’s Frito Bandito, the Jaime Bond Secret Agent, the Juan Frijole, they’s the Greaser type, and they’s the Vendido. So the agent characterizes them types: One will eat all the dip, another seduce all the women, another entertain with the guitar, then the peasant type will sit in the corner and make tortillas, and the Greaser will insult everyone at the party. Seem like them types is in everybody race. I’m kinda thinking I likes the Jaime Bond Secret Agent type myself, though I realizes he supposed to be a stereotype and ain’t just a type. And also the Gringa got the choice of not being too obvious about having herself a integrated guest list so’s she can have the Vendido model who “looks like a Anglo but smells like Messkin!” Can I quote that? So the Gringa, she decide on two them types, the Jaime Bond Secret Agent and the Vendido. She ask the agent to charge it to her BankAmericard and then the agent reminds her of the company’s motto. I ain’t going to tell y’all the company’s motto, ’cause I wants to persuade y’all to see that play for y’allself.

  Anyway, they’s more movie slides and more monologues and they’s Jenny, the gringa girl’s conversation with her parents about that Jorge business ’cause that the name of the Chicano. They’s satire in that play, but it’s also about real prejudice. But like I said y’all’s got to see that play for y’allself. And it also got something to say ’bout the Anglo justice system. Other scenes has got songs and poems in them.

  Then they’s this other scene that got a bar in it. Delgadina say that bar scene got to do with the relationship between economics and racism. But anyway this the bar scene: Jim who a Anglo and Carlos who a Chicano come into this bar. Jim buy them a beer and is charged forty cents for each beer. So anyway this friend of Jim’s say he don’t like spies, which he word for them Chicanos. I always thought that the word for Puerto Ricans, but he use that for them Chicanos. I guess it the word for anybody that spic Spanish. So while they’s having that conversation, a black—they didn’t call us African Americans when he wrote that play—enters and is charged forty-five cents for the same beer that Jim paid forty cents for. So Carlos says to the Black that he’ll buy him a beer. I ain’t know whether it Bud Light. So the bartender charges Carlos fifty cents for the same beer he charged the black forty-five cents for and Jim the gringo forty cents for. In the meantime, while that scene is going on the All-Purpose Racial Agency is still selling races, you know, ’cause it one of them parallel-type scenes, you know like they have in the movies, ’cept this a play. And they’s working on different slogans with various advertisers.

  MARTINEZ GET ANGLOCIZED. I think that one of them slogans. That plays makes everyone a object of satire, people of every race. It Jorge’s uncle who Delgadina refer to as the moral center of the play. He got something to say to Jorge and Jenny about love, ’cept I ain’t remember exactly what he say to them about love. ’Cause I be thinking he going to say something to them about politics and he come talking ’bout love. Maybe he say you’s got to love. I ain’t remember exactly what he say, I just know he wisdom got to do something with love. I know that’s what they call wisdom talk, ’cause every play got to have a scene where somebody talk that wisdom talk, ’cept the whole play itself wisdom talk. Then when the play ends they’s this taped dialogue and it ask. Well I ain’t gonna tell y’all what that taped dialogue ask, ’cause y’all’s got to see that play for y’allself. And like Delgadina say I can’t be quoting y’all all that play. I ain’t even sure whether Señor Rubén Sierra would want me to be telling y’all about his play. Delgadina say that that taped dialogue supposed to give what she call the essence of Chicanoism. And the essence of Chicanoism ain’t none of them stereotypes about the Chicano, it all of them good things that every group of people wants to think about theyselves. The gringo think he all them good things. But the essence of Chicanoism and probably the essence of everybody race all them good things. They is meaningful and sincere and proud and loving and what else? But like I say, you’s got to see that play for y’allself. A Chicano is a Americano. What I think that play mean by that is that what Delgadina call the archetypal model of the American—all them ideals that them Americans has of theyselves and the good people, I mean them white Americans ’cause we’s all American—is that that really the model of any race and not just them Anglos that appropriate all that goodness for theyselves.

  This play combines realistic, stock and hypothetical scenes to show that the monocultural or melting pot a myth of the American society. . . .

  So what the play saying, Delgadina?

  That we’re not made differently from anybody else.

  Is that what the play’s saying, Delgadina? I think you’re made different from all the Chicas I know. . . .

  I don’t, replied Delgadina.

  So what’s the play saying, Delgadina?

  About self-definition, self-identification, the need not to be afraid to be who you are, to be yourself, even in a multicultural and multiracial society . . . like the other play we saw, it’s about the need everyone has to define themselves and not to be defined by others, the need everyone has to tell his or her own stories. We Chicanos have to know ourselves, and to know each other, and to know others. It’s the same theme that other Third World peoples have, whether it’s presented in surrealistic or realistic or mythic or symbolic portrayals. Reality is always open to interpretation and imagination. This play explores both the Chicano’s inner nature and the nature of society. Even we have different and even conflicting conceptions of reality and human possibility. You remember that other play we saw, with the soldado, the one about the revolution that changed the role of Mexican women in Mexican society. There were not just soldados who followed their husbands and lovers which the Americanos want to tell you about, but also those who were revolutionary leaders themselves, like La Negra. . . . You know, I’d like us to put on that play by Estella Portilla, not La Negra, I mean one of Estella Portilla’s plays, so you vatos can see more plays from the Chicana perspective, Chicana writers who are not merely “camp followers” but leaders too, I mean leaders of the creative imagination, the revolutionary creative imagination. . . . We Chicanos must understand ourselves by any means necessary—legend, history, stories, plays. . . . All playwrights in some manner have the role of the vote, the seer, and the curandera or curandero, the healer, in our le
arning who we are and what is real and in recreating in us a sense of possibility. . . . I’d like us also to do one of Alurista’s plays, the great Alurista, there’s this mythopoetic play of his in which myth, history, metaphor, poetic image, imagination and reality occupy the same time and place. Some of you have read Alurista’s poetry, Nationchild Plumaroja and Floricantom, but this play, I think, is of epic dimensions. It’s both an assertion of the Mexican-American, the Chicano complex cultural identity, Spanish, Native American, even African, and a critique of Anglo-American manifest destiny and exploitation. . . .

  And we’ve got to put on another play by Valdez. . . . Does anybody know anything about the deer dance of the Yaqui? I need someone to choreograph. . . . And someone to play the Council of Elders. . . . And Quetzalcoatl. . . .

  And Pepsi-coatl and Coca-coatl. . . .

  Soy noble y sincero.

  But who are you, Delgadina?

  I’m who I am.

  I looks around and sees Maria and her baby Journal still in the audience. I goes back over and starts talking to them. I wants to introduce them to Delgadina, but I know that Delgadina, she be asking me all kindsa questions about them, and then I be telling her everything about them. I think Delgadina be asking me who they is anyway, but she don’t. Anyway, seem like everywhere Delgadina go, there’s some vaio trying to court her.

  THIS AIN’T NICODEMUS

  I think Maria’s there to see the play, but she ain’t. Or rather, that ain’t her true purpose of being there. She starts telling me ’bout her cousin being in jail and that they’s going to deport her. Course I thinks she just wants me to go with her to some local jail, but the next thing I know I’m lying to Delgadina telling her I got a job to transport some new industrial detergent across the country, then Maria and Journal and me gets in my truck and heads towards Middle America. I starts to ask Delgadina if she wants to go with us to Middle America, but Delgadina and that guy are standing in the hallway kissing, and Delgadina look like she was trying to teach him how to do the real rumba and not the New York style. I was still wondering how come he couldn’t go to Cuba. Then I remembered they was always changing them Cuban laws about Americans going to Cuba, and the new law was that you could go to Cuba but you couldn’t spend no money there. At first I thought that that was the same as saying you couldn’t go to Cuba, ’cause how could you go to Cuba and not be able to spend no money while you were there. Then I figured the people would have to change their American money for somebody else’s money, maybe German money, before they got into Cuba. Well, didn’t the poet say it was only American money that he couldn’t spend? I mean, the guy making poetry out of conversation.