Mosquito

by Gayl Jones

  Anyhow, she bought this handmade broom from one of them craft people and say it sweep better than them factory-made broom and even if it don’t sweep better than them factory-made broom, she just say she like them handmade brooms better. And she also bought some handmade Native American jewelry made of turquoise and a miniature tepee. She would like to buy her a full-size tepee, but say she ain’t got no room to put no full-size teepee in her little apartment, and she say it okay for her to have a tepee ’cause they’s as much Native American in her as Mexican, though she don’t like it that a lot of them gringos have got tepees and she say it’s popular among certain gringos to have tepees in their backyards. She say that a lot of them jewelry and tepees ain’t made by authentic Native Americans, anyway, but by gringos wanting to commercialize on that Nativism, and even Miguelita she says knows how to make tepees, or at least the gringo version of a tepee, though she say a lot of them’s got the conceit that they makes them tepees better or just as good as the native tepee makers, so she always like to buy her Native American arts and crafts at them craft festivals because then she can see that they’s authentic Native Americans that make them. Though not all Native Americans looks like Native Americans, or the stereotype of the Native American, and she’s even seen gringos that most people mistake for Native American, but she say she can always tell the true Native Americans. And she also wants to buy her one of them totem poles. You know them totem poles, ’cause she say she have always had a interest in that totemism, and she even be saying how my name Mosquito influence her to have a character in one of her stories for her writing class that have a totem in they name and a trickster too, ’cause she say a mosquito could be a trickster just like some of them other trickster animals, which is usually always the smallest animals, although she say she ain’t never heard about no trickster mosquito, though she ain’t exactly explained what she mean by that totemism and tricksterism in a name, plus Mosquito my nickname it ain’t my real name. But she be saying in some cultures women ain’t supposed to know that they totem is only men. I wonder if that star of Monkey Bread’s be calling them totem poles primitive and simplistic art, like she be calling that art of them aborigines. I wonder if she calling it primitive and simplistic because the art is primitive and simplistic or the way she see the art is primitive and simplistic. Except they’s some of them artists Delgadina says that deliberately cultivates the primitive, ’cause I be saying one of them artist can’t paint worth shit and if that art then anybody a artist and she be saying it because that artist a primitivist and be deliberately cultivating that primitivism but she do be saying in some of them so-called primitive cultures everybody a artist ’cause every culture got its idea or ideal of the artist and I be wondering how you can tell the difference between the artist that be deliberately cultivating the primitivism and the artist that can’t paint worth shit and then she let me read one of her art books and some article about some primitivist artist and be making him sound like he a real artist even though the painting don’t look like shit, but that supposed to be modern art and she be saying how she envy the modern artist because modernism ain’t triumphed as much in literature as it have in art. But, like I told you, Delgadina herself sometimes makes them art and craft and she know more about that primitivism, so if she say the artist a primitivist I figure she know what she talking about. She sculptures and she paints and embroiders blouses and I be wondering how come she don’t set up her a booth, ’cause her art and craft look about as good as the art and craft at them booth and certainly better than that primitivism. But she be saying they professional art and craft people even the primitivist and she a amateur. Then I still be wondering what a amateur is if her art and craft looks as good as them professional art and craft.

  Anyway, I’m sitting at a table with a Bud Light and the rest of the pretzels from the bar and rereading that letter from Monkey Bread, like I said. And then I’m rereading them stories again and wondering what sorta story I’d write if I were to write “Mosquito’s Story.” And then I’m thinking it would be a different story if I used any other of my different names, ’cause that’s how stories is. I ain’t thinking ’bout Delgadina or the bar, though, or even Monkey Bread or her star, or even that Tokyo, I’m thinking ’bout that Raymond and that African I met in Canada and that John Henry Hollywood, our John Henry Hollywood, Monkey Bread be calling him, and wondering if that little story about they imaginary marriage be a true story and wondering little bit ’bout my ex-husband. And then I’m thinking about that time Delgadina and me was playing this game—I’ll tell you about my ex-husband if you’ll tell me about yours. We was sitting at one of them umbrella’d tables outside a drive-in restaurant eating burgers and fries with salsa and Delgadina seen this guy with this woman and was just a-looking at him, you know. Looking like a fool actually. In fact I ain’t never seen that Delgadina looking foolish at no man like that, ’cause there’s plenty of good-looking men that come in that cantina, ’cause a lot of them Chicanos is good-looking at least by African-American standards. I’d just returned from that trade fair up in Canada and was telling her about Canada and starting to tell her about that African from Portuguese Africa and which movie star he kinda remind me of or which combination of movie stars when Delgadina seen this guy with this woman and like I said just start a-looking at him like a fool. And I seen plenty men in that cantina that’s just as handsome or handsomer. And I be thinking that ain’t Delgadina to be looking at a man like a fool no matter how handsome he is. Although I consider John Henry Hollywood and my ex-husband handsome men, I don’t believe that I’ve been a fool for handsome men either.

  What? I asks.

  Nothing, she say, picking up a french fry and dipping it in salsa. I be telling her about them new curly french fries, but these is ordinary french fries. He just looks like my ex-husband. I thought that was my ex-husband for a minute. He looks just like my ex-husband.

  And she be looking like she trying to hide from him behind her menu and then when she discover this ain’t her ex-husband at this umbrella’d table with his new woman she still be looking at them like she a fool, though she put her menu back on the table. A guy with one of them oversize mustaches. One of them bandito-style mustaches actually. But he don’t look exactly like no bandito. Not even one of them social banditos that Delgadina be telling me about, though in the American movies they’d probably have his type playing the rogue or the lover or the roguish lover. Look like he could be Juan Hollywood or whatever the Chicano name for Hollywood. Ain’t got the roguish look to me though, not even a rogue in love.

  Oh, yeah?

  But he were with some other woman, like I said—one of them blond Hispanic. You could tell she a Hispanic, but her hair blond as a gringa’s even them California gringas and look like it had been bleached more blond by the sun like them gringas on them California beaches. In fact, her hair blonder than Miguelita’s. And I guess by certain standards you could call her a beauty—shoulder-length blond hair, green, almond-shaped eyes, full lips (almost African lips, but they don’t call them African lips, they call them full lips), and she painted her top lip a little darker red than her bottom lip, which mighta been the style. Actually, her top lip look like the top of a valentine. In fact, they both got shoulder-length hair, the man and the woman, ’cause he the sorta actor-looking type, that Hollywood type, like I said, or the artist or musician type. Broad shoulders, though a little more rounded than Egyptian shoulders and them Valentino-type eyes, which ain’t to say I’m the Valentino generation, just that he the mold for that type, like them Hollywood blondes, like that Marilyn Monroe and them other Hollywood blondes the model for that other type, I mean the type that woman is. And she buxom, too, like them Hollywood blondes. And him he look like the kinda hero you see in them movies and even in them comic books, especially them heroes that’s molded on the Valentino type and maybe even that Superman molded on that Valentino type. She look like she a natural blonde. But then maybe she ain’t none of them blond Hisp
anics. Maybe he got himself a gringa like Mr. Delgado got him his Miguelita. They was talking so close to each other that they noses was touching. He’s got one of them Roman-type noses and her nose is slightly flattened, but it a upturned nose, which supposed to be the ideal gringa nose. Sitting at another one of them umbrella’d tables. He glance around lynx-eyed at Delgadina and me and then look back at his girlfriend. Them men with long hair always reminds me of wild goats, though.

  Tell you about my ex-husband if you’ll tell me about yours, she say, dipping another french fry in that salsa. She scratch the back of her head and then reach for another french fry.

  Course I don’t like talking about my ex-husband to anybody, even Delgadina, but I still says okay, ’cause I want to hear about her ex-husband, so she starts talking first. Dipping a french fry in that salsa every time she want to punctuate her sentence. And I were expecting for her to tell me that her ex-husband were some real macho abusive-type son-of-a-bitch, you know, one of them mb and dtk’s, hijo de puta types, but it turn out she were the abusive one. A real puta?

  Not physical abuse, she saying. Mental abuse. Talking ’bout being mad bad and dangerous to know. I was always accusing him of doing things he wasn’t doing. I knew he wasn’t doing ’em, but I just couldn’t stop myself from accusing him of doing ’em. I guess I wanted a divorce, you know, but didn’t have the sense enough to just say I want a divorce, so I guess I just kept accusing him of doing shit, you know. At least this psychologist told me that mighta been why, ’cause I went to this marriage counselor for a while. It was after we were divorced, though, that I went to this marriage counselor, who said that mighta been my strategy. She has this idea that a good marriage is like the comity of nations, you know. . . .

  The comedy of nations?

  Comity of nations. We have our commonality but recognize each other’s sovereignty at the same time. You know, for a harmonious marriage or some shit. I’m not really sure what the fool meant now, but I was impressed at the time. She’s the one told me about ginseng and ginkgo biloba. I’ve always been too easily impressed by intelligent women, though. Intelligent men you tend to take for granted. She’s writing this huge book on marriage, not one of those girlie pop psychology books they have on Oprah and Sally, but more of an intellectual sort. Sort of psychology and intellectual history of marriage. The comity of nations. That’s her metaphor for the good marriage. . . . She’s never been divorced. She’s a Greek Catholic. She looks kinda like a Chicana but she’s Greek. She’s got this novel she appears in, one of those romans a clef, you know. . . . I kept thinking we’d get back together, you know, my husband and I, but then I decided to move to Texas City. He’s still in Houston. He’s got a girlfriend, maybe several girlfriends. I felt like a caged bird, though, while we were husband and wife. And not one of them canaries neither.

  I try to picture her a caged bird and be thinking of them 1960s movies where they always got the womens dancing in cages. You know them 1960s movies they’s always womens dancing in cages. I don’t think you ever see men dancing in them cages, not even dancing in them cages with them women, though sometimes one of them drunken fools be trying to climb into one of them cages. And can’t imagine Delgadina to be seeking the advice of no marriage counselor either.

  You don’t remind me of nobody caged bird, I says. I pours some salsa on my burger and take a bite. It good salsa. Delgadina made some salsa once with that Hermitage wine. I think it Hermitage wine, some kinda French wine, and I be thinking that salsa be a international dish if you can make it with French wine, like Delgadina put roasted cactus on her pizza. Kinda taste like that salsa, ’cept I don’t think it got wine in it. This is pretty good salsa, ain’t it? And you don’t seem like the abusive sorta woman. You seem like the sorta woman not to take shit, but not the abusive sort. Course they’s men if you the sorta woman that don’t take shit considers that abuse.

  She dip a french fry in that salsa and nibble. She take a gander at that couple, you know they’s lovers, then back at me. Yeah, that’s today. But then I felt like a caged bird, you know. Mosquito. I was in my twenties anyhow and naive as shit. I had this friend usedta call me Butterfly Shoulders ’cause of my nerves, you know. She dip another french fry in that salsa and nibble. Now tell me about yours.

  I scrapes some of my french fries onto her plate. Muchas gracias, she say.

  You ain’t really told me about yours, I says.

  She stir a french fry in the salsa. What do you mean?

  You told me about yourself in relationship to yours. I dips a french fry in the salsa and pours some more salsa on my hamburger.

  Naw, you just wanna get outta telling me about your own. Where’d you meet?

  She already gobbled her french fries, even them new french fries I give her, and now grabbing more of my french fries, ’cause she know I don’t like them french fries that much anyhow. She start to order one of them taco instead of a hamburger, but she don’t really like them American-style tacos. She made me some of them Mexican-style tacos, authentic Mexican-style tacos, them soft tacos instead of them hard-shell tacos. Taco Bell-type tacos, she say, ain’t authentic Mexican tacos. But I guess American-style pizza ain’t authentic Italian pizza. I wonder if they got American-style Chinese food. Seem like I heard them Chinese makes Chinese food different for Americans than they does for theyselves to appeal to the American taste.

  The Derby, I says.

  Oh, yeah?

  The backside.

  Say what?

  I think they calls it the backside. It the part where the grooms and the people that takes care of the horses resides. Ain’t that called the backside? You know, a lot of them grooms sleep right inside the stable with them horses. They got they bunk beds set up right in the stable with them horses. The exercise people and trainers and shit. I remember hearing some of them talk, them exercise people and grooms and shit and it sounded like modern slavery, like them peach pickers in Georgia. I met me this woman who was like a peach picker in Georgia, said she had to escape from this place where she were picking peaches and sounded just like one of them fugitives back there in slavery times. But them grooms they sleep right inside the stables with them horses. I used to think that them people that traveled with them horses had theyselves a glamorous job, but it sounded like slavery times.

  He a groom? But she looking at them lovers. I glances at them. Monkey Bread be talking about me having a pigeon for romance. I think that Delgadina got more of a pigeon for romance than me. Lovers. Them perfect-type lovers. Like I say, them movie lovers, even them television movie lovers, them mini-series lovers. I always prefers them lovers that comes on them talk shows, though, ’cause they more interesting.

  Naw. He’s sorta a jack-of-all-trades, I guess. But it was during the Derby and he were working there, actually working with them peoples who were setting up this exhibition of black jockeys, you know, ’cause most all of them original jockeys was African Americans. . . .

  Yeah, I know. Now they got a lot of Hispanics. . . .

  I wonders why she use that word Hispanics ’cause she always be correcting people when they call her Hispanic and say Chicano. Anybody say Hispanic she be correcting them and say Chicano, it ain’t Hispanic it Chicano, she be saying and now she be saying Hispanic her ownself. She be always saying she ain’t no Hispanic, she a Chicano, and she be even correcting me when I be saying she the first Hispanic I met. You the first Hispanic I met, I says. Which ain’t exactly true ’cause they was a couple of Hispanics at that truck driving school. Don’t call me Hispanic, I’m Chicana. Well, I guess she say Hispanic ’cause they ain’t just Chicano Hispanics, they’s Puerto Ricans, and Cubans, and Latin Americans and other Spanish-speaking peoples.