“Mira,” Papá Grande says, pointing at the horizon. “The first finger of the sun. See how it reaches for us?”
He puts his arm around Mamá Grande, and she leans into him. We watch the sun lighting the sky, one finger at a time, like a fist unfurling.
“Paul?” Aunt Ceci says.
“Shush,” he answers, kissing her.
Then my aunt again: “Hermanita?” She’s reaching for my mother. Uncle Paul and my grandparents are between them, but Mom stretches out her arm and takes her sister’s hand. Fonzie and I are on opposite sides of all this, but I lean forward and catch his eye. He smiles back at me. We will probably never be alone again. We’ll move on, but I will always remember our last night in Yellowstone and that moment of sweet suspense.
Mi familia. We watch this sunrise in a land so far away from our homes in Texas. I guess we’re morning people after all.
ODE TO MY PAPI
by GUADALUPE GARCÍA MCCALL
In loving memory of my papi, el Señor Onésimo García (1940–2020)—
because you did so much to make us strong.
He could only give me one dollar
a week. On Fridays, when I’d serve him
dinner after work, he’d pull the single dollar bill
out of his worn wallet with weathered
hands—hands that had cut and transformed
mesquite, planks, shingles, tiles, and cement.
In cold, sleet, rain, and sun, my papi’s
weathered hands framed offices, erected hotels,
covered roofs, threw cement, built homes,
and helped put up a dam named Amistad
in Fort Worth, Galveston, Eagle Pass, Del Rio, and
every other town along the Rio Grande and beyond.
That dollar, he knew, would buy me
a billion galaxies, countless stars, oceans,
a rain forest, and miles and miles of desert—fictions,
dark and light, sweet and tart, all of them
affordable, within his means, pulled out
of the ten-cent bin at our local library.
Those books transported me. Since then,
I’ve traveled a long road, negotiated borders,
been recognized and awarded
gold medallions, plaques, and certificates
because those strong hands provided,
nurtured, made me feel loved, adored.
In giving me what little he could,
my papi gave me the universe.
THE BODY BY THE CANAL
by DAVID BOWLES
September of 1987 wasn’t much different from September of 1986. My dad was still gone, we were still living on food stamps and welfare, I was still the lone freak at my high school, trapped in this conservative border town, unusual even for the circle of outcasts that had formed around me. Every girl I dated dumped me. The teachers thought I was too smug for my own good. I crossed out the days on my calendar, counting down toward graduation. Escape.
Then the neighbors moved in downstairs, and everything changed.
It was a Saturday. Luis, Javi, and I were across the street at the Pharr Civic Center, taking turns falling off a beat-up skateboard we’d scammed off a rich white kid from McAllen.
“Is that a dude or a chick?” Luis asked.
I looked over at the thin, elegant figure struggling to pull a box from the trunk of an old sedan. Longish hair teased wildly. Knee-high boots with one-inch heels. Bangles, bracelets, and a bright pink Swatch on the left wrist. A satiny black shirt with a frilly collar. Lips bright with color. Eyelids shaded.
As out of place in this shitty neighborhood as a peacock among chickens. I knew the feeling.
“I dunno,” I said. But my stomach did a pirouette as the newcomer turned to look at us.
Boy or girl, the kid was beautiful.
And from my own experience, this town would do all it could to destroy that beauty.
“Only one way to find out,” Javi said, stamping on the back of the skateboard so it popped straight up. Snatching it from the air, he gestured with his chin. “Let’s go say hello.”
I was strangely conscious of my own appearance as we walked back across Kelly Avenue to the Section 8 apartments where I lived with my mom and little brother, Fernando. Torn Levi 501s. Turquoise canvas high-tops, off-brand. A random white T-shirt with purple blotches that had seemed gnarly when I bought it but now made me feel like a total poseur. Since it was Saturday, I hadn’t bothered to curl the bangs of my bi-level hairdo, which reached my shoulders in back.
I figured I looked a mess. Still, I got out in front of Javi and Luis, anyway. They were a little ranchero, always putting their feet in their mouths when meeting cool people, even though they meant well.
“Hey,” I said, waving as we approached. “Need any help?”
“Nah,” the newbie said, and I could tell he was a guy though his voice was soft. The homophobes at our school were going to have a field day. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”
“My name’s Oscar, by the way,” I added. “I live right above you, in two eleven. These are my friends Luis and Javi. They live . . . elsewhere.”
I waved my hand vaguely, and he smiled. Glints of amber in his eyes caught the morning sun, sparkling like gold. My palms began to ache.
“Ariel,” he said, pronouncing it in Spanish: ah-RYEL. “Ariel Ortega.”
A glance told me that the box he was balancing on the bumper was full of records.
“Cool look,” said Luis, who sported a crew cut because of JROTC. “Like a little punk, a little hair metal . . .”
“It’s gothic,” I said, and Ariel’s honey eyes widened. “A bit more Siouxsie Sioux than Ian Curtis, but still.”
Ariel tilted his head, and something fluttered in my chest. “Try Robert Smith. What was your name again?”
“Oscar,” I said. “Oscar Garza.”
There was a strange pause. Somewhere a whip-poor-will gave its plaintive cry. There was a skull ring on Ariel’s right hand, I noticed. His fingers were slender and manicured.
“Welcome to Pharr, Texas, bro,” Luis said. “We’re sort of the outsiders at the high school, so, yeah. You’ll wind up with us eventually.”
“Pardon me?” Ariel asked.
Javi gestured at the newcomer’s clothes. “Let’s just say you’re not the typical student.”
“But that’s okay,” I interjected, narrowing my eyes at my friends pointedly. “It’s a backwoods rancho, but it’s survivable. Just make sure the counselors put you in college prep classes with me.”
“With us,” Javi corrected. I heard him sigh, though I didn’t look away from Ariel. Couldn’t. There was a jingle as Javi fished his keys from his pocket. “Come on, Luis. I’ve got an afternoon shift at Starlite Burger. I’ll drop you at your uncle’s place on the way.”
“Wait, what about . . .” Luis began, but Javi had already walked over to el Moco, his dad’s green Impala. Luis glanced at Ariel and me. He took a knowing breath and nodded. “Órale, I’m coming. Nice meeting you, Ariel.”
* * *
~
I ended up helping Ariel set up his stereo after his mom, Gloria, found us talking music outside and invited me to lunch. She was pretty open about their situation: They’d been living in Austin, but Mr. Ortega was a drunken son of a bitch who wouldn’t leave her precious boy alone. Rather than returning to California, where her family lived, she was trying to throw her abusive husband off the scent by coming to the Rio Grande Valley.
I had seen a couple of Cure videos on MTV, but I’d never listened to a full album, so Ariel lowered the needle on their latest: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me.
“When they toured with Siouxsie and the Banshees,” Ariel explained, “Smith ended up taking over as guitarist for
the other band. Being a Banshee changed him, I think. If you listen to their earlier music, it’s kind of fake. Like he didn’t know who he was. She opened his eyes. And now just listen, Oscar. Just listen.”
I did. It was otherworldly, beautiful, haunting.
Smith started singing “Why Can’t I Be You?” and Ariel, who had been sitting cross-legged on the floor, couldn’t contain himself anymore. He leapt up and started to dance, his limbs lithe and balletic even amid all the frenzied post-punk moves.
I watched him, spellbound. His eyes caught mine, and he laughed, pulling me to my feet against my will.
I was a rocker. We don’t dance.
But I did. I danced with absolute abandon, laughing at the joy of it.
We fell back on his bed, breathless, as slower songs followed. He talked to me about the lyrics, about the band’s journey, the other groups I’d never heard of whose influences he swore he could distinguish.
“I play the guitar,” I said out of the blue. “Javi, Luis, and me, we’re trying to start a band.”
Ariel propped his head on his palm as he turned to look at me.
“What kind of music?”
I tried not to notice the feel of his breath on my arm.
“Don’t know yet. Rock, definitely. Metal, we’ve been thinking. But this . . .”
He laid his other hand on my arm.
“I know! I’m going to record you a mixtape, Oscar. Only the very best from my carefully curated collection. I am certain you’ll find inspiration.”
“Órale,” I said. “And I’ll show you the ropes at PSJA High School. I, uh, used to get bullied a lot, but I’ve figured out how to navigate the bola de rancheros there.”
“We’ll be each other’s guides, then,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made my pulse quicken.
* * *
~
As I had imagined, the usual suspects had all kinds of nicknames for Ariel. None were quite as creative as güero cacahuatero and mariposón, as I had been dubbed by the wannabe gangsters on campus. But I took Ariel to our counselor, Ms. Simpson, and helped him get the same schedule as Javi and me. Since he lived in government housing like I did, we rode the same bus, listening to music on his Walkman.
For a few weeks, life in those shitty apartments was actually a delight. Mom still worked her two jobs, Fernando still spent all his time across the breezeway with Speedy Espericueta, playing Super Mario Bros. on Speedy’s NES. But instead of stewing in my room alone, reading the bleak German and Russian novels that had been keeping me company in the depths of my depression, I now had a fellow freak to help while the hours away. Unabashedly, I spent time every afternoon with my new friend.
When I wasn’t hanging out with Ariel, listening to his amazing collection of LPs and reading the darker of the DC comics, I was up in my apartment, learning to play post-punk songs on my battered knockoff Fender. Javi and Luis still came to visit on the weekends, but the dynamic had changed. I could see that Ariel’s presence disconcerted them.
“Is there anything you want to tell us, dude?” Javi asked one night when we got on the phone together using two-way calling.
“About?”
Luis cleared his throat. “You and Ariel, Oscar. Feels weird, the way you keep shutting us out. We figure . . . maybe you like him. As, uh, more than a friend.”
“What?” I said, getting indignant to cover the panic welling up in my chest. How could they see through me like this? Was I that obvious to everyone? “Y’all never change. Always with your snide little comments about my clothes and hair.”
“No, Oscar,” Javi broke in. “That’s not it. Yeah, we’ve teased you, but if you really like him, that’s cool with us, carnal.”
“Whatever. Pinches rancheros. You just can’t handle a cool gothic kid from California.”
They hung up on me. I deserved it, I guess. But I couldn’t be honest with them. Better to pretend our little clique was being broken up by Ariel.
I wasn’t about to exclude him.
I was growing to need him.
* * *
~
After Ariel’s third week in Pharr, I grabbed my guitar and my sputtering amp and headed downstairs. As if he could sense me at the door, he opened before I knocked.
“¿Y esto?” he asked. “Are you planning to serenade me, Oscar Garza?”
I could feel my pale skin blushing beet red. “I just wanted to show you,” I said. “I learned it.”
“What?”
Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “Our song.”
Pausing only briefly, he gave me a sweet smile.
“Come in, then. This calls for something special.”
I went into his room and plugged in my guitar, sitting on the edge of his bed. He pulled the curtains closed and snapped a steel lighter open. I’d of course noticed the candles on his shelves before, but now he lit them, along with a stick of incense.
“Open your chakras, Oscar,” he said, giving a soft laugh. “Let the music flow from the All.”
Shaking my head and chuckling, I checked the tuning of my guitar and started to play. I’d slowed the tempo down and lowered the key to match my baritone better.
I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye as I sang.
Everything you do is irresistible
Everything you do is simply kissable
Why can’t I be you?
I didn’t even finish the song before Ariel stopped my hands on the strings, kneeling in front of me. His face was so close to mine, those lips that seemed to smile only for me, tears trembling in his eyes.
It had been months since my last kiss, back before Diana Alaniz had broken up with me.
And I had never kissed a boy before.
But I felt safe, safer than ever in my life.
I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his. Sweet and warm, like mango just plucked from a tree.
We took our time, savoring that taste.
* * *
~
Over dinner that evening, my mother shared gossip from work.
“There’s this drama teacher,” she said. “From Mission or McAllen or somewhere. He’s gone missing.”
Fernando shrugged. “One less teacher in the world? I’m not gonna cry.”
“Nando!” she scolded. “That’s a terrible thing to say. But you’re not letting me finish. They say he has the AIDS. That he’s a homosexual and kept meeting his lovers even though he knew he could get them sick too.”
I set my glass down, fuming in irritation. My mother was super religious. Ever since my uncle Samuel had come out of the closet back in 1980, she never missed an opportunity to mention how sinful his lifestyle was, how dangerous promiscuity could be, with AIDS and all the other “venereal diseases” that she liked to list like some sort of weird Rosary.
“Mom, we really don’t want to hear this crap.”
“Hey, some respect!” She glared at me. I already knew I reminded her of my deadbeat dad, the man she’d just divorced for abandonment. Every time I failed to live up to her expectations, she accused me of being just like him. “Anyway, they’re saying that his lovers found out and came up with a plan to kidnap him.”
Fernando looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Mom watches too many telenovelas.”
“I have no time for soap operas, Fernando Tomás Garza! I work myself to the bone long hours every day because your father ran off on us. So you boys just stay away from such sinful stuff, do you hear? Don’t make me worry any more than I already do about you two being here alone.”
I gave her a thumbs-up. “You bet, Mom. It’s all copacetic.”
It was her favorite word. Like a magic spell, it always calmed her down.
She crossed herself and kept eating.
* * *
~
After dinner, Ariel and I chatted on the phone for a while. He kept making vague references to our kiss. Part of me wanted to flirt too, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the missing teacher. Couldn’t get my mother’s stupid voice out of my head. So I told Ariel the gossip.
“Of course it’s a teacher,” he grumbled. “Sleeping around like a slut. That’s not what it’s about, Oscar.”
“No?” I said, though I had strong feelings about being faithful. I’d had several girlfriends since junior high and had never cheated on any of them.
“No. It’s about following our hearts. When your heart is drawn to someone, how can you give it to another? Or your lips? Or your body?”
For a moment I imagined him, elegant and beautiful, unbuttoning his shirt . . .
“You’re right. It’s just a sore subject in my stupid family. My uncle’s gay, and the rest of them, well, you know how Mexican men are about that shit.”
There was silence on the other end. Then: “Yes, Oscar. I’m very acquainted with it. My dad beat me enough times. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how Mexican men are toward folks like us.”
Folks like us.
My stomach flip-flopped. What was I? What was I doing with this boy?
Why now? What was it about Ariel Ortega that made me risk discovery?
“Oscar? Say something.”
“Ah, Ariel. I’ve, uh, I’ve got to hit the sack.”
“There’s no school tomorrow, sweet boy. It’s a holiday. But okay. Get your rest. Maybe we can hang out in the afternoon, yeah?”
I swallowed heavily, my mind a jumble. “Yeah. Sure we can.”
* * *
~
“There’s a dead body by the canal.”
I glanced up at Fernando. A couple of hours ago I had let him go across the breezeway to Speedy Espericueta’s apartment, just to get him out of my hair. Since there was no school, I was stuck babysitting an eleven-year-old who relished getting himself in trouble.
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