by Gayl Jones
You just looking at California from the woman’s point of view, he say.
I be looking at the Kentucky River and at one of them riverboats, then one of them barges, then across the bank at Ohio, at the Cincinnati skyline, which were the tallest skyline I’d seen before I seen New York, then at the bridge stretching across the river, then at the horsetail plant. Now the first time he say that I didn’t know what he mean, but the second time he say that about my looking at California from the woman point of view I understand what he mean, or least, I think I understand what he mean—that if he the one ask me to go to California with him then we go to California, but if I the one be asking him to go to California with me he ain’t going to no California. Leastwise that what I think he mean. ’Cause they a lot of mens like that. They might have California dreams they ownself, but they ain’t going to California on a woman’s desire.
You told Monkey Bread we going together, ain’t you?
Out to California? I ask.
Naw, I mean us going together. Boyfriend and girlfriend.
Yeah, I says. I told Monkey Bread we’s going together, ’cause I ain’t no fool. I mean, I am a fool, but I ain’t that sorta fool. My mama didn’t raise that sorta fool. Of course, she say she didn’t raise no fool. What fool I am I gots to claim credit for myself.
He won’t say so, but he probably thinking that why that Monkey Bread be tempting and enticing me with that California, ’cause womens is like that. I be thinking about what men is like, even them good men, and he be thinking about what womens is, even, I suppose, them good womens, ’cause at least I don’t think that John Henry Hollywood be going with either Monkey Bread or me if he didn’t think we was good womens, though I guess they’s mens that go with womens that they don’t think is good womens, at least they idea of good womens. But if I be seeing California from the woman’s point of view, ain’t he be seeing womens from the men’s point of view. He pick up his fishing rod and put it back in the water. I guess them rivers in California be making this mighty river look like a creek, he be saying.
But them fish, though, them fish, though, seem like they be treating his pole like they think it the only one in the water. And he even be catching fishes, he tell me, ain’t even native to this stream. And he be catching them big fish. The fish I catches they all looks like pollywogs. He one of them large, muscular-type men with big hands and feet and one of them deep, melodious-type voices. Broad-shouldered as them Egyptians in them sculptures. Broad forehead and sorta Eskimo eyes. Or Inuit eyes ’cause they call theyselves Inuits. High cheekbones, dark complexion, full kinda reddish lips, but that they natural color. I think he right handsome myself, though Monkey Bread she think he ordinary-looking, ’cause she say she don’t like them pretty mens. I think he closer to handsome than ordinary-looking myself.
Delgadina and me, we watch them lovers lean toward each other, whisper something and then they rise.
You a strange bird, she saying now. She standing near the bar holding that handmade broom and spying at me. Running her other hand through her Sean Young hairdo, except her hair more kinky and curly than Sean Young’s. Delgadina got a thick head of hair but delicate, finely arched eyebrows.
I just sips my Bud Light and chews another pretzel. I just drinks Bud Light and not when I’m driving. When I’m driving I drinks one of them beer substitutes, one of them nonalcoholic beers. The kind the commercials say your mouth can’t tell it ain’t beer, but it sure can tell it ain’t Bud. I oughta write me one of them commercials. I guess everybody be thinking they can write them commercials though. And I should start taking that niacin, though, that Monkey Bread told me about.
I’m on my way to see that Melvin Van Peebles cowboy movie. They say that one outta three cowboys was a spliv. Course in them cowboy days people didn’t wanna be a cowboy. Cowboy s’posed to be a derogatory term. But then when they start to glorifying the cowboy they only want to paint the cowboy white. I done ask Delgadina if she wanna go see that movie about the Southwest, but she got her creative writing class at the Community Center. Started to ask Father Raymond, but he couldn’t pretend to be no priest and come to the movies with me. Still I guess priests go to the movies same’s regular people do, but priests probably only go to the movies with other priests or with monks. Be good to see some different-color cowboys, though. And cowgirls too. I don’t know if that movie supposed to have spliv cowgirls in it, but I know it got spliv cowboys and they’s the heroes of the movie. I think they got a African-American woman in that movie as the love interest, one of them mulatto types. In them real cowboy days you had you a range of African-American womens the same’s African-American mens, and probably not just mulatto womens the love interest.
Anyway, I’m sitting there drinking my Bud Light, thinking cowgirls and cowboys and the Southwest, and Raymond, and that African, and John Henry Hollywood, and my ex, and Delgadina still telling me I’m a strange bird. I’m waiting for her to tell me I’m a strange bird how, but she just keep repeating the fact that I’m a strange bird. Strange bird how? I be thinking. I sucks on one of them pretzels and then eats it. Small crunchy pretzels mixed in with those large soft pretzels. And I’m wondering where them pretzels originated. Pretzel, that sound like a German word, though I think Delgadina said that pretzel supposed to come from a Latin or Greek word, but that pretzel sound German, though, or Dutch.
Strange bird how? I asks. I nibbles one of the small crunchy pretzels and then dunk one of the large soft pretzels in my beer.
You just a strange bird, she repeat.
Then she finish sweeping up, put that broom in the corner behind the bar, wipe off the counter, and then come and sit down at the table and drink a little of that Bud Light, drink a sip outta my bottle.
You don’t drink, I says.
She a strange bird herself, being a bartender that don’t drink, though I guess there’s probably plenty bartenders that don’t drink. First I thought she one of them allergic to alcohol, but she ain’t. You a strange bird yourself, I says. But I guess it good to be a bartender that don’t drink. Probably plenty bartenders that don’t drink, ain’t they? ’Cept you eat up all the Neapolitan ice cream. Maybe the best bartender is them that don’t drink.
Yeah, but I’m kinda nervous. Gotta read my story to the writing class.
And Bud is moral support? I asks.
She look at me a moment, scratch her forehead. I glances toward someone peeking in the window of the cantina. Right, she say, and then she repeat that thing about me being a strange bird and scratch herself again like she do when she eating that salsa. You just pretend like you a borracha, though. I see how you just be sipping that Bud. I don’t think you come to no bars to drink, I just think you come for the atmosphere. You a strange bird.
At least I know a bird from a mosquito, I says, nibbling a small, hard pretzel and then getting one of them large, soft pretzels.
Then Delgadina take another sip of that Bud Light, straight outta my bottle. Don’t wipe the bottle off with her hands or nothing. Even in them cowboy movies when they drinks from each other’s bottles they always wipes off the bottle. Just drink straight outta it. And then she wipe her lips with the back of her hand, like that girl with the nose-ring that me and Raymond seen in that Italian restaurant. Maybe that girl what you call a primitivist. And then she scratch the corner of her mouth and start saying that prunes and prisms; she read in one of her books one of them nineteenth-century novels that if you say prunes and prisms it give you nice-shaped lips. But she probably also be saying it ’cause she gotta read her story to that writing class.
When I drives up to the Community Center, I see Father Raymond in front of the center stamping out a cigarette. He ain’t wearing priest’s robes but priest’s trousers and priest’s tunic and that backward collar. If he didn’t have that backward collar, he look like any ordinary man, good-looking man, but ordinary. But that the point of them backward collar. Except but he got on cowboy boots. I guess them modern priests can wear the
m cowboy boots. Modern priests in Texas anyhow. Otherwise people see them cowboy boots and say for sure that not a real priest. But this is Texas. And I just seen that cowboy movie and here another cowboy.
He told me he ain’t no priest. I’m thinking. But maybe this a real priest. Suppose this a real priest telling me he ain’t no priest? I thought he was truthful in telling me he ain’t no priest. But a lot of y’all knows me for the fool that I am. Is you is or is you ain’t my baby? I ain’t no Catholic, but I still don’t think no decent woman should be loving no priest. ’Cept of course he ain’t no true priest. Or unless they changes them laws of celibacy.
Didn’t know you smoked, I says, getting out of the truck. I just seen me the best cowboy movie. Melvin Van Peebles.
At first he look like he don’t know me and ain’t studying no cowboys. Like I’m some strange, forward woman. Maybe even one of them mad bad and dangerous to know types. Then he looking at me like I’m Mosquito. And then like Sojourner.
What are you doing here? he ask.
I’m picking up Delgadina, I says. She has her creative writing class at the Community Center.
Who’s Delgadina? Delgadina who?
My bartender. My friend Delgadina. You know I’m always talking ’bout Delgadina. My bartender friend.
Monkey Bread? That the one you call Monkey Bread?
No, Delgadina, my bartender friend, not my California friend. Monkey Bread’s my California friend. She the housekeeper for a movie star. Delgadina’s the bartender.
Oh, yeah?
You know Delgadina, my bartender friend. I’m always talking ’bout Delgadina. She got a creative writing class in there in the Community Center and I promised to pick her up after it. I just been to see that Melvin Van Peebles cowboy movie, and I said I’d pick her up after her class. That’s the best cowboy movie I seen. I don’t think it’s just ’cause it gots splivs in it. What about you?
I was supposed to meet someone here, but they didn’t show. When I spotted you, I thought. . . .
I’m spying on you? You want me to drive you anywhere?
Naw.
You get your friend to Canada? La mujer.
He lift a eyebrow. Yeah.
Them refugees ever give her any more trouble?
Naw. We’ve resettled them in different places. They’ve settled in Miami and she’s in Canada.
You like that love novel? You don’t see many African-American love novels.
He lift another eyebrow. Yeah, it’s pretty good.
I seen you read that quotation about what a black man got to do with love. I think the point must be that a black man can have everything to do with love like any other man. I thought you might like that book ’cause you be talking about that subversive love and shit. And that book supposed to be a love story. I like me tales about men and women. My friend Monkey Bread says I’m a romantic. They say it takes a romantic to know a romantic. Seems like I read that somewhere. Or maybe that’s Delgadina quoting one of them writers she’s always reading for that creative writing class.
Nur der Dichter versteht den Dichter; nur ein romantisches Gemut kann eingehen in das Romantische. . . .
Say what?
Hoffmann’s Don Juan.
Yeah, Delgadina likes them Germans. She say them Germans don’t got as long a literary history as a lot of them other Europeans, but they’s still got some of the best writers in the world, that Kafka, that Hesse, that Mann. That Goethe. That Goethe he supposed to be some type of genius. I read somewhere if they was giving them IQ tests in Goethe’s time he be some type of genius. I heard of that Hoffmann, but I didn’t know them Tales of Hoffmann was tales of romance. I don’t think I’m as half a pigeon for romance as Monkey Bread thinks I am, though.
He acting like he want to light up another cigarette. I glances in one of the windows and sees one of them karate classes. Sometimes they got them they karate classes in there, other times it aerobics. But you starts to see more and more women in them karate classes, and more and more men in them aerobic classes. I be thinking about that karate myself before I decide on that stun gun, ’cause, like I said, I never did like them classrooms. I wouldn’t mind learning that karate if you could learn it in one of them courtyards, like in the movies. They call them karate teachers masters, though, don’t they? I watches them in the window, they be kicking ass and then be bowing and shit. And women be looking like they kicking ass as good as them men and better than some of them. Usedta be a elementary school, the Community Center, but when the elementary school moved into a new building, they turned this one into a Community Center. ’Cept the true karate expert they supposed to prefer making peace to making war, like that wolf woman be talking about, la loba.
I starts to ask him more about that la loba when Delgadina come out of the Community Center. Hi, Mosquito.
Uh, this is Father Raymond, I says.
We’s almost standing too close for him to be a true padre, so I backs away a little bit.
Hello, I’m Delgadina, she say.
Hello.
Good to meet you.
See you around, say Father Raymond as Delgadina and I start toward my truck. Good to meet you, Delgadina.
Same here.
Of course, I’m imagining they already know each other, that maybe Delgadina she be a secret worker for the Sanctuary movement her ownself, and maybe even it Delgadina been spying on me telling them I’m somebody they can trust. And maybe even Delgadina be the one he suppose to meet here. ’Cause that Delgadina she do seem a lot more intelligent than most bartenders, and maybe a bartender just her camouflage, or maybe I’m just stereotyping them bartenders. Maybe all the time she be coming to the Community Center she be doing that Sanctuary work, though. But if they does already know each other, they pretends they don’t. But then if she were doing that Sanctuary work she wouldn’t always be inviting me to that class.
That the Carmelite priest you was telling me about? ask Delgadina as we get in the truck.
I glances at Father Raymond, who peeking in the window at them karate people, then he turn and watch us. They still be kicking ass and then bowing and shit. The instructor he a real Asian, but he got every kinda people in his class. Father Raymond he light up another cigarette, but don’t puff it, though. Maybe that lit cigarette a signal or something.
He a Benedictine, I says. Did you get butterfly shoulders?
What? She scratch her forehead. Say what?
Nerves. Your reading? I’m watching them karate people kicking ass and then bowing.
Naw. They liked the story mostly. ’Cept a few of ’em said I’m too preoccupied with being a Chicana, you know. And I should write universal stories or some shit. Gringo stories, that’s what they mean by universal, or gringa stories, even gringa stories can be universal now. We Chicanos are la raza cósmica, the cosmic race. We’re already universal. Some rangy girl in the class read this story about a mustached fish and everyone’s like praising it for its universality and I write about la raza cósmica and it ain’t universal. Someone even had the nerve to ask me why don’t Chicanos ever write about centaurs and unicorns and fauns and nymphs and Proteus and shit. But stories about adolescent sexual frustration, they’re supposed to be universal. Plus we got our Proteus and they call nayatl and they ain’t imaginary, they real.
Anyhow, I think she be saying nayatl or maybe she be saying nahuatal. I want to tell her about that wolf woman, la loba, or maybe she already know about her. La raza cósmica. I used to think exploitation began with the Spaniards, though, she says. With the Europeans.
Don’t it?
The Aztecs, they were exploiters too, I mean, the way they treated the Totonacs and the Tlaxcalans.
Oh, yeah? I guess everybody they be exploiting somebody.
Like even that documentary on Australia we seen, even them kangaroos exploiting each other—one kangaroo fighting another kangaroo. Looked kinda like that karate. But human beings ain’t kangaroos. And still you be wondering whether that instinct m
ake them fight like that or whether that the intellect. What them kangaroos be thinking when they gains control. But then one of them kangaroo don’t think of hisself as exploiting them other kangaroo. And wonder if them kangaroos makes a distinction between them aborigines, the original Australians and them immigrants. But Australia that supposed to be a prison, though, so most of them white Australians ain’t true and orthodox immigrants. Or whether them kangaroos makes a distinction between theyselves, ’cause they’s got them red kangaroos. But human beings ain’t kangaroos. I be just a-looking at that Australia ’cause it close to Tasmania.
Yeah. They used to rape their women—the Totonac and Tlaxcalan women—and have the Totonacs and Tlaxcalans pay high taxes and tributes and shit. Indians exploiting Indians and then the Spanish came and they treated the Aztecs like they’d treated the other Indians. Treated all the Indians like shit. That ain’t to say that you gotta excuse the Spaniards. But, you know what I’m saying. . . . What started me to talking that exploitation shit anyhow? But you know what I’m saying?
Yeah.
Everybody colonizes somebody.
Yeah.
But a gringo’s a gringo. A gabacho’s a gabacho. I like writing fiction, but my favorite stories are true ones, like the one about La Beata, the Blessed One. And the heroines of the war of independence and the revolution of 1910. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Santa Teresa de Avila. . . .
La Beata?
A curandera, a healing woman and a revolutionary too. . . . The opposite of machismo is hembrismo. . . . The Aztecs usedta have women priests, you know. Cuiatlamacazqui, they called ’em. In the beginning, the Aztec universe usedta be feminine . . . healers and midwives. . . . Then the masculine gods—I guess maybe a lot of universes usedta be feminine, you know. I guess it depends on who’s in power how the universe looks, whose interpretation of the universe. . . .