The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert

by Rios de la Luz

  She settled into the leather seat.

  Lupe was going to be pissed.

  Estelita would never forgive her.

  She should have kept track of Alfonso.

  Child support would have helped Estelita.

  “Ey, how old are you?”

  His fingers invaded her crunchy curls. Sylvia could barely think and whispered a number.

  “Ey, that’s cool. You’re my sixteen year old girlfriend now, okay?”

  Sylvia refused to cry. Era dura because she had to be. It had come to Sylvia’s attention that women in Juárez meant nada, so what, if another Chicana went missing?

  Blue and red lights radiated through the windows. The shark car stopped. A police officer tapped at the window. This was one of the only times Sylvia felt relief in seeing a cop.

  The blood is gone. My body heat contains itself underneath a blanket decorated with the sun, la luna and the stars. My lungs expand with the crisp air flowing into me as I emerge from beneath the blanket. Candlelight illuminates the small woman who comes into the room to feel my forehead and caress my hair with warm wet cloth. The smell of spices from the kitchen and the scent of her rose oil bring me comfort.

  “No se que pasó mija, pero con el favor de Dios, tiene su salud.”

  I call her my new mother. Her name is Rosalina. We settle into a desolate town. Clusters of lonely clouds stick themselves on top of the sky. Stars swim and drown in between the nothingness en la noche. The residents are righteous and outrageous in their insights. Floral patterns settle over their chests, over their hearts and the softness of their human bodies. In Palomar, we tell each other stories to pass the time. The stories always evolve into rumors about the people in the town.

  The viejita who lives on the corner en la casa azul can tell the future. She has an old parrot who gives her formulas for the future. No one has ever stepped into her house, but I looked through the window once and I saw números in white paint all over her purple walls. I heard the pajarito demand galletas on the way to Delia’s. Delia sells churros and eggs to most of us in town. I heard the little bird shout

  “Uno!”

  “Dos!”

  “Cuatro!!”

  The pajarito said these three numbers slowly and then went into accelerated number shouting. I thought maybe he just never learned how to properly count.

  I fell asleep in Palomar and I woke up in El Paso en el futuro. Newspapers indicated 2010. In Palomar, it was 1952. I didn’t have any papers so I cleaned houses for ladies with big hair and overpowering fragrances. I worked with five other women. Cassandra was my favorite. She was blunt and adequately harsh on the white women we worked for. Behind their backs, we laughed about how they looked orange because even though they had money, they could never be melanin rich.

  Cassandra was my first kiss and my first fuck. We lived together through passing seasons. We raised succulents and laughed at each other as often as we could in between the reality of economic circumstances and our introspections. One night, after falling asleep in her arms, I woke up alone in 1974.

  With the windows rolled down, Sylvia looked up at the policía and out to the pavement, where she calculated her first grave would be.

  “Young lady, what’s your boyfriend’s name?”

  The gringo had his grip on her wrist and squeezed harder.

  “I don’t know.”

  Sylvia saw psychedelic spots and her head began to burden her shoulders.

  “Get out of the car.”

  The police officer pulled her out. The last time policía interacted with her, he followed behind her and her hermano before he finally searched the both of them on the basis that they were “acting suspicious”.

  Sylvia stumbled and breathed in the smog and the heaviness of her mortality.

  “We were patrolling the area and someone called and reported what happened.”

  Sylvia sifted through her thoughts and the viejito popped into it.

  The nearest bar is a miniature structure packed with men portraying masculinity behind mustaches. I drench my fragility in tequila until I can’t feel the hot tears possessing my face. Someone addresses me by “mija” so, I stare into him. He simply offers me pan dulce. I chuckle at him. He has a brown paper bag with sweet bread in it and here he is, at this macho bar in his vaquero gear.

  “I know I am in the past. I can tell by the fucking cars and the way you dress and I know she hasn’t even existed yet.”

  I tell him about Cassandra’s messy hair and her perfect eyebrows that had to be on point before she went out. He sighs and hands me a concha.

  “Come esto. You need to hydrate mija.”

  I chug water as he explains the science behind creating perfect pan dulce. We step into the parking lot where the sun shower from the morning dissipated back into the sky. The rhythm of my step stops. Someone has a grip on the back of my shirt’s collar.

  He shows me a small knife.

  He whispers something about being able to fix me.

  He says something about me being dirty, una cochina.

  Pasty vaquero puffs up.

  An alcohol induced altercation has me on the gravel. All I hear after that is “Run!”

  I know that Mister Pan Dulce is hurt, but I have to run.

  I run myself sober and the next morning, I wake up hungover in 1993.

  Sylvia didn’t look behind her. She could feel the egos disappear to the station. She spit the lump in her throat onto the ground. She clenched her fists, breathed deep and thought of Estelita. Walking to the bakery, she felt her pocket and the sweet bread wasn’t there anymore. She ran to look inside the shop and the viejito wasn’t there. She slapped the glass with the force of her body until her arms and hands stung.

  Inside the bakery, el viejito only had a second to recognize his limbs erasing themselves from time. Soon after, the donuts popped out of space and back into stardust. The pink spinning seats turned into nothingness. The infrastructure of pipes and little cucarachas blipped and blinked out of vision. Sylvia collapsed onto her knees in between yellow lines that were deleting themselves as though a backspace bar was clicking them off of the asphalt.

  On the bus ride home, Sylvia fell asleep and had a dream she was tripping over the border of Juárez and into El Paso. She looked behind her and saw the women who could never go home to their hijos or hijas.

  The first time I killed a man, I felt satisfaction. I knocked on the apartment window to my old room after putting a hole in his head and seeing the miniature version of myself disappear. Screams came from the bathroom, but I got Ruby’s attention. Ruby opened the window and told me she liked my curls. I asked her to give me the Super Nintendo control and I showed her the combos to press so she could be invincible as Orchid.

  CHURCH BUSH

  Sex advice filtered into my cranium from hidden Cosmo magazines. Men compared their balls to baby birds and licked spaghetti sauce off of nipples when they got home from work. There were thousands of manners in pleasing a man. I wasn’t interested in making men moan. I read through the magazines because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I licked the perfume samples. I circled the faces that struck me. I cut out these faces and stuffed them into my pillow in hopes of seeing them when I fell into sleep. Wet dreams delivered themselves to me in black and white. I avoided living with the sensation between my legs at all costs. I crossed my legs and took in deep breaths until I thought about something else.

  The Baptist church provided me with pamphlets of sexual defiance. You are a piece of tape. The more times you stick yourself to others, the less you will stick to your soul mate. You are a piece of candy. If some random man sucks on the candy, then stuffs you back into the wrapper, you become a sticky mess for your perfect gem of a future husband. Don’t get sucked on and don’t tape yourself to boys in class. You don’t sin on Saturday and then get forgiveness on Sundays. Jesus has no time for a promiscuous and pious dichotomy. I was neither pious nor promiscuous. The Sunday school teacher still made us
all sign an oath and stuff it into a box called the Virginity Package. She claimed she would deliver it to God in the coming weeks.

  Puberty created enchantment for older men with ramen noodle hair and teeth made for the gods. Puberty established shame. My period allowed me to draw the curtains for drama and made me feel like shit. Pads like diapers stuck to the bridge of my panties because I was petrified of tampons getting stuck inside me. This signifier of a fertile womb gushed out and sexuality remained sequestered in the deeper parts of my teenage brain. In public, my mom would shout at me when she saw a viejita who was slouching down to her knees. In her boxers and chanclas with socks, she yelled that my frame would hunch over like that if I didn’t straighten my back. No man would love my slouch or my sloppiness. Brush your hair and smile. When we got home, she apologized. Her mom used to say those words to her. She regretted saying them to me.

  I trembled when I heard songs about fucking on the radio. Church created a safety barrier from having to think about sex in a gratifying manner. Waiting until marriage was key. The concept of two virgins creating magical bodily connections on their wedding night was a prominent conversation at Sunday school. No one said anything about the messiness and malfunctions. No one described the odors or fart noises. Most of the time, I didn’t care about my sexuality, but I had my moments. I cared when I saw Kate Winslet naked in Titanic at the Dollar Theater on Paisano. I cared when I settled a couple of fingers inside myself during winter time to warm my hands at first, only to wake up to pruned fingers after a nap. I cared when I kissed Laura as a dare at a church retreat. I cared when Rosa laughed and pointed at my crotch during a sermon.

  My underwear was too big and the skirt I had on was too tight. My bush overcame the tightness of my skirt and created a puffy cloud over my pubic mound. I tried to press it down before we had to shake hands with new members of the church. Pat, pat, pat. I was frantic and continued to smack the fluff. The cloud remained. When I got home, I shut the blinds and combed through it. I gooped hair gel on it and tried to flatten it out. I sat in my purple fold-out chair with no calcones on and a cool breeze whispering to my crotch from the air-conditioner. Mom walked in and yelled something like “Ay, mija, this isn’t the Panocha Monologues. You can’t just sit with your legs open like that.” My face burned and mom handed my underwear over to me.

  “Mamá, I don’t think I’m normal.”

  “Why not, mija?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to mutter a word. She sat with me in silence and patted my head when she was done braiding my hair.

  “Take a warmth bath. Wash the gel out of her or him or whatever gender kids are giving their panochas these days. I’ll bring you some tea and I will turn on the X-Files for you okay?”

  Sunday school became fun because of Laura. We sat next to each other in the second story of the church and documented the number of women with anti-gravity hair. The average number being seventy-two. There was one Sunday where we both brought a bottle of hairspray and tried to give each other anti-gravity hair. Her hair was curly like mine so I decided to make her head into a nest instead. She braided my hair up and sprayed it to a crisp. We ran to the second story of the church and tried to hold back laughter as the pastor discussed white lies becoming habitual.

  “Do you ever lie to people?”

  Laura asked me this while tracing the curls in her nest with her finger. I told her I wasn’t sure what I would have to lie about. She took out her notebook and jotted down the number of people with gray hair below us. She counted the redheads. She surveyed for anti-gravity hair last. When the sermon was done, she handed me a piece of paper and told me not to read it until I got home. I couldn’t wait to get home. I ran up to my room and opened her note. It said “I like you.” Mom knocked on the door and asked me what I wanted for lunch. I held the note between my hands. I asked her to come in.

  “Mamá, someone left me a note. It says ‘I like you’.”

  She smiled and snatched the note from my hand.

  “Do you like them back?”

  My heart was thumping louder and louder. I tell her yes, but it’s a girl. Mom, it’s a girl who likes me and I like her back.

  “Okay then. You both like each other. That’s very sweet. What do you want for lunch?”

  I hugged my mom and my belly growled with butterflies and hunger.

  The next Sunday, I saw Laura and she looked away when I waved at her. I asked her to sit with me upstairs. I remember sprinting up the steps. I got there before she did and once she made it to the bench I simply said “YES.” I wrote “I like you too” into her notebook and erased it so the people above us could not see it. I motioned for a high-five and she smiled and we high-fived. I smiled through the sermon, although I can’t remember what the pastor was saying. The church felt comfortable and safe for once. It was because of the church that I met Laura.

  LA LOBA

  Darkness has shifted the desert air. I watch. The distance is enough. She cannot hear me. She’s wearing a red gown that drags behind her as she inspects the environment. She starts a fire. She’s wearing the mask of a quetzal with iridescent green feathers and a tiny yellow beak. She mixes mescaline powder and water into a bowl. She stirs with her hand and rolls orbs of green, lifts her mask and swallows. She waits in silence.

  She is not afraid of the creatures burrowed underneath the terrain. She has not looked over her shoulder to gaze at me. Women find me in their deepest moments. I form into wolf and let them pet me or hold me. When I first appear, I have no facial features. My face is a dark oval with silver hair lining where my head begins and where my hips end. I have frightened some into tears. I have terrified others because they thought of me as a monster. I am locked into a code. I can only transform for those who are truly lost. Otherwise, Las Manos in the desert erupt from beneath the earth and take them under. Fingers stretch up and petrichor invades the atmosphere. Todos los animales scurry away. Stars fade out of the sky and the eyes of my ancestors glow red as they watch these final moments. Las Manos are merciful. The captured are lulled to sleep before they disappear. I have seen Las Manos cradle those who expired.

  The bird woman has collapsed beside the fire. She’s digging into stubborn dirt. She isn’t here for anything spectacular. These are the things she says to me. She’s here because of her job and because of a man. She is here because she has floated between identities for years and years. She’s fucking exhausted. She cleans up after families who pigeonhole her. She forgot to clean one of the bathrooms. She forgot to dust the trophies accumulated by cushioned children. She forgot to respond as though her entirety was dependent on them. Then, there’s this man. She didn’t apologize for calling him in the middle of the night while he fucked around. He said it out loud. She was not important to him. Infidelity wasn’t the final line. He told her she was nothing. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself. She is just tired. She is going to nap with the nopales and La Loba looking after her. She is going to let the sun wake her up as the drugs wear off.

  Dust devils collect the whispers and final thoughts belonging to women and children of the sun. I lead the lost away from the depths of the desolation to an interstate or close to a horizon with twinkling grids. This is as much as I can do.

  LADY MESCALINE

  Via destiny, you sat next to your best friend, Laura, in the back of science class. Prior to text messages and social media, passing notes on college ruled paper sufficed. She scribbled fast and slid a corner of torn lines to you. It said, “YOU ARE XENA.” It was caps lock serious. You looked up to Xena and could not fathom someone looking up to you. Laura smiled. Dimples left craters in her cheeks.

  The first time you saw a crater, it was a tourist trap and the silence magnified as you stepped further toward the bottom. There were no conversations between your family members. Settled into a picnic booth, you looked into the crater and felt heavy.

  In moments of panic, you lash out. Pillows are the casualties. You were settled into bed with the love of
your life and the cartoon you usually laughed at made you cry. Tu amor let you be. He knew the story. The story of the step-father who showed you no mercy. The father of your brother and sisters. You were his target. You remember every feature of his face.

  Your two days off came with perfect timing. This gave you enough time to plot revenge. One time your sister called to ask him why you hated him. He told her he didn’t know. Hate is simplistic. You have dragged him along with you. He is chewed gum in your hair or chewed gum that you shit out after seven years. He is the filament of hair on your head that grows silver and brown, silver and brown. The moment you notice it, you rip it out. Sometimes, family members slip and talk about him. He’s created more children and you pray to an echo that he leaves them alone since they are biologically his. You are crystal on why you weren’t the exception.

  Under the influence of mescaline, you looked into a mirror and saw accuracy in the depiction of your being. Your hair strands extended above you, glowing and vibrating. Your eyes traveled through your timeline and grabbed those moments when people were kind. Laura was there with her notebook paper. Your cousin Omar was there with a water pistol. The bruja Letty, who told you anger was a valid emotion, was there too. They sat at the picnic table in silence as you caressed the bottom of the crater with the hands that crawled away from a man who could never understand why you refuse to forgive him.

  ESMAI

  Discs shift beneath the earth. Your dog is cautious, her eye on the photographs swaying from side to side, tapping louder and louder against the hollow wall. She whimpers, so you hold onto her. You pet her lightly and scratch behind her floppy ears. You kiss her head. Your back is throbbing from a 12 hour shift the day before. If everything crumbles, you hope you can dig your way out and find pain killers before your crushed softness sees the light at the end of a hollow tube. You run to the kitchen and swallow a pill dry. The dog is still watching the picture frames slow dance. Multiple family photos. Three of you and your mom. One of you, Great Grandma, Abuela, Mom and your sister. Four generations with crowns of flowers on their heads.