Reyna and friends getting ready to dance "La Bruja" May 2005
Characters:
Excerpts from Reyna Grande's Second Novel
ELENA
The sound of a harp penetrates my classroom despite these thick walls. The music is barely perceptible, yet I can hear the song so clearly in my head. As I tidy up my desk, I hum along to Tilingo-Lingo , the sound escaping from my mouth almost like a lament, or a sigh. Today was a particularly hectic day. The behavior of my students is worsening; they're becoming more defiant, more arrogant, as if they could sense that I am nearing my breaking point. They want to see me broken, to see me perish and vanish like the countless emergency-credentialed teachers before me. I finally collect my briefcase, lock the door, and head down the stairs to the main office to sign out. The music becomes louder as I approach the auditorium; the sound echoes against the walls.
After I sign out, I stand outside the auditorium; my feet refuse to go further, not until the music ceases, not until the tap-tapping sound of dancing feet stops. I enter the auditorium and hide in the darkness, watching the dance students begin to practice the steps to El Canelo from the region of Veracruz . The Cinco de Mayo assembly is scheduled in a few days, and Mrs. Rodriguez, the dance teacher, is working hard to have a good performance.
"Aren't they wonderful, Ms. Sanchez?" she asks as she walks over to me. I look back at the couples dancing. There's one student who catches my attention. He's a young man, of medium height and a slender build. He may be in his junior year. His face glows as if he were deeply in love, yet I know it isn't a young girl who causes him to feel this way, who makes his heart beat faster, his hands perspire. It is this dance which makes him feel this way.
"Who's that?" I ask her. His is the only unfamiliar face. I know all the students in the folklorico group, by face if not by name.
"Isn't he great?" Mrs. Rodriguez asks me. "I'm so glad I found him. I needed one more boy to complete my four couples, and I just couldn't find one. You know how boys are, always ashamed about dancing."
"How did you find him?"
"Mr. Espinoza brought him to me. He asked his class if any of the boys wanted to volunteer to perform in the assembly, and Fernando was the only one who did."
"I'm surprised he wasn't embarrassed to do it," I say.
"Me, too," she says. "But he showed up to practice yesterday ready to dance. And I was worried too, because he'd never danced before and I wondered how I would ever get him ready to perform in three days. But the boy is a natural."
I nod. As I watch him dance, I feel a tingling in the soles of my feet. It's as if the music struggles to break the invisible chains that bind them. I tell myself that I'm supposed to be impervious to the yearning, to the pain.
“Ms. Sanchez, you know you are welcome to take the group back anytime you want. I learned a lot from you being your assistant, and believe me, I would rather continue being your assistant than being the head teacher. This is your group.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rodriguez, but the group is yours. You've been doing a great job this past year.” I turn and flee the auditorium; the music trails behind me. Even when I reach my car, I can hear the faint echoes of El Canelo ricocheting in my head. I see young Fernando's black boots dancing before me. I can see his eyes looking at me still, as if he could lay bare the unspoken need inside me. To dance folklórico again.
My younger sister Adriana comes over my house later that day. As usual, she's dressed as if she just stepped off the stage after a dance performance. She's wearing a Mexican peasant blouse with puffy long sleeves and green thin ribbons adorning the front, a long flowered skirt, and green and pink ribbons weaving in and out of her black braids. Her golden hoop earrings complement the outfit. Adriana often says she's proud of her Mexican roots, but I insist that she does not need to look like Frida Kahlo to prove it.
She's come to drop off two tickets to her dance performance in a few nights. Belleza Mexicana, the dance group she belongs to, will be performing at UCLA for El Cinco de Mayo.
"Bring a friend, Elena," she says, "A guy friend."
I don't reply. She knows I'll go alone. I always do. There's no man in my life.
"Listen," she tries again. "Maybe you can go with my neighbor, Ben. He's going alone, too. Maybe you two can hook up."
"I don't need company," I tell her. I toss the tickets onto the kitchen counter and busy myself by opening a can of food for my two cats. They rub their purring bodies against my ankles as if they could sense my irritation. Adriana knows I'm uncomfortable going to dance performances. But she will continue to invite me, and I will continue to attend. That is the way things are. I look at her, at the make-up caked on her face, the coral red lips, the mascara layered on too thick.
“Well, I'm outta here. Gotta go catch the bus,” she says.
“Where's your car?”
“That piece of shit broke down on me again. I just started working a new job and I'm totally broke.” She bites her nails and tries not to look at me. She looks down at her feet instead. She turns her face a certain way so that I can see the thin scar on the right side of her neck peeking beneath a layer of make-up.
The silence is painful. She spits out a piece of nail onto the floor and then moves on to the next nail. I watch my cats eat. They're oblivious to the silence, to the weight of my guilt beginning to bubble up inside me, like it always does when Adriana's around.
“How much do you need?” I say, looking away from her scar. I try to ignore the images flashing through my head, but they are there, like an endless roll of film.
“I don't know, maybe two hundred.”
I walk to the dining room and grab my checkbook from my purse. I write a check for three hundred dollars.
She looks at the check but says nothing. She grabs her green shawl and flings it over her shoulders as she turns to go. “Well, I'll be seeing you then,” she says.
"Good luck at the performance," I tell her, swallowing the bitter taste in my mouth. I bend down to pick up my cats' empty food bowl to conceal jealousy creeping up on me. Yet, there's one thought that makes my jealousy diminish, that chases it back into the darkness. Adriana is a good enough dancer, but she and I know that she'll never be a great one.
Adriana smiles. I dislike her forced smile, the unnatural redness of her lips, the slanted eyes that look at me so indifferently, so uncaring. I hate the fact that she reminds me of my mother.
Because next week is my birthday, I have the guts to knock on the door this time. My grandmother opens the door, and right away I feel like a stupid fourteen year-old girl, scared shitless. She does this to me.
“What do you want?” she asks in Spanish.
“I want to see my father.” I try to stand up straighter.
“He doesn't want to see you. Now go.”
She tries to close the door, but I'm a young woman, and she is an old vieja. I push the door open and yell my father's name.
He comes to the living room, holding a beer in his hand.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
My mouth feels like if it's stuffed with a rebozo. I can't talk. I look at my grandmother. She's holding the door, one arm on her waist. Talk, Adriana. Talk.
“I—um. It's my birthday next week, and I was wondering if we can have dinner together at La Perla.” Too late, I realize that La Perla was my mother's favorite place to go. I bite my damn tongue. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He takes a drink of his beer and walks over to me. I can smell the alcohol in his breath. I look at him and I see the anger in his eyes. “Don't look for me anymore, do you understand? I don't want to see you. You and that sister of yours are not my problem. Get out of here, Adriana,” he says.
I look down at the floor. I turn my neck a certain way to show him the scar—show him what he did to me. But that shit only works on Elena. He pushes me out the door. I stand there and look at the wooden door in front of me for a few seconds. When the thunder hits the sky, I bounce out the porch and run out to the street.
Sin madre, sin padre, sin perro que me ladre.
Without a mother, without a father, without a dog to bark at me.
This Mexican saying was created just for me, I swear it. I rush down Avenue 50, rubbing my watery eyes so that I can see where the fuck I'm going. By the time I get to the bus stop on Figueroa, the rain has already started. I stand there and shiver in the rain, in the darkness, in my solitude. Goddamnit, why can't he love me? I'm his daughter. How long do I have to beg? What do I have to do for him to finally want me?
The headlights blind me for a second. The beams shine on the rain drops. I watch them fall in front of me.
“Wanna ride?”
I look at the man waving at me from the car. I don't know how many of them there are. It is too dark to see. I wrap my wet sweater tighter around me.
“Si o no?”
I look up the street. There is no sign of a bus. At this hour of the night, who knows if and when it'll come.
“ Como te llamas?” the man in the driver seat asks me as soon as I take a seat in the back with one of his buddies.
“Jennifer,” I lie.
“Where do you want us to drop you off?” he asks in Spanish. The red light turns green. He pushes the gas pedal and the car lunges forward.
“Drop me off in the corner of Fourth Street and Mott, please.” I say in Spanish. These guys don't speak any English. There are empty Budweiser cans on the floor and the car stinks of weed. The man sitting next to me looks to be in his late twenties. He's clean shaven but his hair is shaggy and badly needs a haircut.
“I'm Jose,” he says. I roll my eyes. The world is full of too many Joses.
“I'm Uvaldo,” the driver says then he points to the man next to him in the passenger seat, “and this here is Victor.”
I turn to look at the street in front of me. The rain is coming down harder now, and the wipers swish up and down trying to clear up the windshield, but failing. I put my cold hands in front of the back heater vent to warm them. My clothes are soaking wet, even my damn underwear. Uvaldo takes out a joint from his pocket and hands it to me to light it for him. I wonder why he didn't give it to Victor or Jose. When I hand it back he refuses and tells me to take a few hits. Part of me doesn't want to. I promised I wasn't going to do that shit anymore. But there's a pain in my chest I need to numb, and there are thoughts in my head I want to forget. I lean back in the seat and do as I am told.
Victor turns on the stereo and Chanilo Sanchez fills the silence with Nieves de Enero.
“You like Chanilo Sanchez?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I think back on my high school years and remember how most of the ESL kids I hung out with were crazy about Chanilo Sanchez, though the guy had been killed years before. I remember Hector. That motherfucker took my virginity in the storage room under the bleachers and then never looked at me again. The fucker loved Chanilo Sanchez.
I feel warm all over. The heaviness I felt in my chest eases up and now I can breathe. I feel as weightless as the smoke coming out of my mouth.
“So where are you guys coming from?” I ask. They are all wearing tight-fitting jeans, cowboy boots, and long-sleeve shirts. I can see their Tejana hats next to Jose.
“From a friend's house.”
“Do you like to dance?” Victors asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I'm a professional dancer.” It's true. I mean Eduardo only pays us for our Christmas performance at La Golondrina restaurant, but that still puts me in the category of being a paid dancer--that is, a professional dancer, right?
“Chale,” Uvaldo says. “So do you strip dance?”
I laugh. “No, tonto, I dance folklorico.”
“That's too bad,” Jose says. “I would've liked to have seen you strip for me.”
The guys laugh. The car exits the freeway and makes left turn. We're almost home. I hand the last of the joint to Jose, who quickly puts it in his mouth.
“So, you got a boyfriend, Jennifer?” Jose asks.
I try to sit up to look at him, but I don't have the strength to do it.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I'm a curious guy.”
“And what else are you curious about?”
“I'm curious to know how it would feel like to have your legs wrapped around me,” he says.
The guys burst out laughing. “Chale, Jose, you don't waste any time with the ladies, do you?” Victor asks.
We're now at the intersection of Fourth and Soto. The clock in the car reads 9:33. I tell Uvaldo to pull over as soon as he passes Roosevelt High School . My apartment is right across the street. All the lights are out in Ben's apartment, like I knew they would be. He's out of town until next week. I sigh, feeling disappointed. Victor opens the door and gets out of the car to let me out. The rain has now turned into a drizzle.
“I need to piss,” he says.
I get out of the car and thank them for the ride.
“Hey, how about letting us use your bathroom?” Jose asks. “I really need to piss, too. My bladder is going to burst.”
Even though my brain is numb with all that crap I just smoked, I am aware of what they are really asking for. I look back at Ben's dark, empty apartment. There's no one there to talk to.
“Okay,” I say. They cross the street with me and they follow behind me, drooling like dogs after a bitch in heat. My apartment is freezing, and it smells of rotten food. I have forgotten to take out the trash for a few days now. I light the candles and an incense stick while they take off their leather jackets and hats. Then they take turns using my bathroom. Fuck, I hope it's not too dirty.
“Do you have something to drink?” Victor asks while he walks around my living room looking at my Frida Kahlo paintings.
“Who's the ugly bitch?” Jose asks as he points at the frames.
“Frida Kahlo,” I say.
“Oh,” they say, but I know they don't have a clue.
“You know, I think she looks like Salma Hayek,” Uvaldo says. “I remember seeing a picture of Salma dressed like this Frida woman.” Uvaldo is messing around with my guitar. He puts it down carelessly on the end table and my guitar topples down to the floor. Cabron.
“You really have the hots for her,” Jose says as he parts my Frida bamboo curtain and goes into my kitchen. “Mira la Jennifer, she has some good stuff,” he says when he comes back. He holds my bottles of Tequila and Vodka I keep on top of the refrigerator. Jose hands everyone a shot glass and they all toast to me. Victor turns on the radio and starts dancing to Shakira. The guys start hooting and throwing coins at him. My apartment feels like a closet.
“What's wrong?” Uvaldo asks. “You look sad.”
I feel tears welling in my eyes. Damn alcohol. It's getting to me.
“It's nothing,” I tell him.
“Nah, you have a broken heart,” Uvaldo says. “I recognize the symptoms.”
“Yeah, you should,” Victor says, “all your girlfriends dump your sorry ass in a day or two.”
“We'll make you happy, corazon,” Jose says as he runs his hand over my arm. It is rough. It reminds me of my father's hands.
“Why don't we get going, guys?” Uvaldo says. He looks at me with tenderness, and I can almost see Ben in him.
“Nah. We can't leave her alone,” Jose says. “Dance for us, Jennifer,” he says as he pulls me up to my feet.
I shake my head. I don't want to dance. Jose hands me his shotglass and I down its contents in a big gulp. I feel my throat burning.
“Come on, Jennifer, dance for us.” Victor urges me on. Uvaldo stands by the door, as if he doesn't know what the fuck to do. Then the hombre in him takes over. He goes to clear the coffee table and puts the candles on the floor. Victor pumps up the volume and I let Shakira's voice take me out of myself. I see the way they look at me, see the hunger in their eyes. They don't know how much I want to be seen, how much I need my presence to be noticed.
The sane Adriana tells me I shouldn't do this. I don't need to stoop this low. “Have some pride,” she tells me. But the other Adriana, the other Adriana has this overwhelming need to feel wanted. Loved.
Don't do it. Don't do it .
I get up on the coffee table and begin to dance. My clothes come off one at a time. I see Uvaldo lick his lips. Jose puts his hand over his hardening dick. Victor's nostrils are flaring, his chest heaving. I see their eyes, their unblinking eyes filled with lust, with want. I let them hypnotize me. The power of those eyes focused on me fills me with warmth, and I forget the pain, and the loneliness, and the emptiness.
I smile. You see, Adriana. Someone does want you.
Reyna getting ready to dance El Jarabe Tapatio
It has become a ritual now. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and look at my tits. Do they hang lower than they did yesterday? Say, a centimeter more? I don't know. I cup them in my hands, lift them up and remember how nice they once were. A size 34 C, like fresh juicy grapefruits sprinkled with sugar. My virginal breasts. Don't people say breasts only sag if you breastfeed? What lies, what lies people say. I had no children to breastfeed.
When I come out of the shower my husband Eduardo is long gone. I look through the closet and try to decide what to wear today. Nothing looks right. My pants pinch my waist. My blouses outline every ripple of fat. Goddamnit. I need to lose weight. Finally, I put on a long gray skirt, a purple blouse, and my favorite gold earrings and matching necklace. I step over the mountain of clothes on the floor and the shoes scattered throughout the carpet. My cleaning lady Griselda is going to hate me. But that's why I pay her, to pick up my mess.
Today is Friday, and to kick off the weekend, after work I pick up Adriana and we head down to El Mercadito for some guacamole and Coronas. La Perla has mariachi every night at 7:00. A nice mariachi made up of good-looking Mexicans, some with pencil-thin mustaches like that of Pedro Infante or Jorge Negrete. De veras.
“How was work?” Adriana asks me as soon as she gets into the car.
I work at the AAA on South Figueroa as a sales associate. I tell her about my new client. He's missing an arm and, out of curiosity, I just had to ask him how and when he lost it. He was a good-looking fellow. Like an older version of Pablo Montero. Okay, a much older version. So I thought maybe he lost his arm in the war, or performing some heroic deed. But he tells me this very sad story about how not too long ago he got bitten by a cat. He didn't pay much attention to the bite, cleaning it sometimes with hydrogen peroxide, thinking that soon the injury would go away. But it kept getting worse and worse. And soon, his arm was so swollen he couldn't put it off any longer and went to see the doctor.
“And why didn't he go see the doctor sooner?” Adriana asks.
“Because he thought that a cat's bite was no big deal,” I say. He had been hurt much worse before. Stepped on a rusty nail once when he was walking around his yard bare foot. And nothing happened to him then, although his wife kept telling him he might get tetanus. So what was a bite of the damn homeless cat going to do to him?
The doctor said that a cat's bite is much, much worse than a dog's bite. Cats have a lot of bacteria in their mouths because they are constantly licking themselves, even their butt holes. So the bacteria had spread so much there was nothing to be done but to cut off the arm.
“That's a depressing story,” Adriana says.
I agree. But we keep talking about it all the way to El Mercadito, wallowing in the sadness of it all.
We go up to the third floor to La Perla Restaurant and order a bucket of Coronas. It's 6:45. Soon, the mariachis will come out and play those depressing Mexicans songs about love gone wrong, betrayal, vengeance, disappointment, solitude, and regret. Because of the cat story, Adriana and I are already in the mood.
“So are you going to be okay dancing on Sunday?” Adriana asks after she takes a big swallow of beer.
“I'll be fine,” I tell her, although I don't really want to talk about my damn knees. “The pain comes and goes,” I lie, because truth be told, the pain has been coming more than it has been going. It seems as if it's here to stay. The doctor has already told me I need to stop dancing. My knees can no longer take the pressure, he says. But how can I stop dancing? I've been dancing since I was six years old—and I'm thirty-six—so you do the math. What am I supposed to do now? Lie down and die? Folklorico has been my life. Folklorico is all I have known. That is the only tie that binds my husband and me. Without that, we have nothing.
My husband, Eduardo, who no longer notices me. Who only has eyes for his beautiful new dancers—the ones with many years of dancing still in their future—the ones with knees who feel no pain, whose faces have not been blurred by too many years of living. Like that Laura girl. Eighteen years old. Fresh and supple, like clay, eagerly awaiting for Eduardo's hands to shape her.
I look up and Adriana is looking at me with eyes half closed, as if the alcohol has already reached inside her brain and is now caressing it with a lover's hands. She's leaning back against the chair, every bit of her succumbing to her third beer. She is her mother through and through. That bitch Cecilia who used to be my friend until she ran off with that Narciso guy. I told her he wasn't named Narciso for nothing. Didn't she know the history behind that name? That Greek myth about that beautiful boy that was so conceited he fell in love with himself?
I warned her, but she didn't listen. Besides, truth be told. She didn't run away with him because they were in love, like everyone thinks. She was like a flea Narciso couldn't shake off. I wish I could tell Adriana about her mother, but honestly, I think it's better not to know. Let the poor girl romanticize whatever memory she has of her mother.
The mariachi starts playing its first song. The music enters my body and makes me tremble. My arms get covered in goosebumps. There's nothing like Mariachi music to dig into your soul and make you bleed.
We sing along with the mariachi, Adriana and I. She, with her perfect voice like that of Ana Gabriel. And me, with my off-key raspy voice that's sexy when talking but not when singing.We order another round of beer as soon as we finish this song about wanting to come back to the arms of a former lover. One of the men sitting at the table behind us gets up and walks up to the mariachi. He tells them something. The musicians nod and the man takes the microphone and gets on the stage. You can tell he's drunk already because he can hardly keep himself from falling. The Mariachi at La Perla allows customers to sing with it. This is something that appeals to people because there's nothing more exciting than singing with a real mariachi instead of singing in the loneliness of your shower stall with nothing to accompany you but the “shhh, shhhh” sounds the water makes.
So the guy starts singing, and my God does that make me wish I was temporarily deaf. He sings “Mujeres Divinas”. There's nothing for us to do but to sing along with him and hope that when the song is over he'll go back to his seat. But no. He takes a liking to the mike, and he follows up this song with “El Rey.” With money or without money, I do whatever I want, and my word is law. I don't have a throne nor a queen, nor any one to support me, but I'm still the king.
When the song is over he turns around and takes out this huge wad of money from his pocket. I think this guy has taken this song too seriously. He ain't no king. He pulls out several bills and hands them to the guitar player with the cute ass, who is the manager of the band. Satisfied by the generous tip, the musicians pick up their instruments. The music starts again to “Tristes Recuerdos.” Sad Memories.
Time passes by and I can't forget you.
I have you constantly in my mind, my love,
and even though I try to forget you,
every day I miss you more…
The customers shake their heads in disapproval. The guy is butchering this song, which by the way, happens to be one of Adriana's favorite songs.
“This is bullshit!” Adriana says. She looks at the bucket of Coronas in front of her as if seriously contemplating to go throw the ice water on him.
I say something but the guy is singing so loud it's hard to hear myself speak. Finally, Adriana gets up and heads to the stage. I'm already standing up, fearing she's going to do something rash—Cecilia style—like slap the man silly or kick him in the balls—but instead, she grabs the microphone from him and begins to sing.
I sit back down, mesmerized by her powerful voice, so strong and yet so tender, so full of something that makes you want to bear your soul to her. She is the hand that shakes you, that turns you inside out, so that you can reveal to her your most intimate thoughts, your innermost fears, until you admit that you are scared shitless of getting old, of giving up dancing, of being with a man who no longer loves you, of the ghosts of your dead children who come to haunt you in your dreams.
I am La Llorona, the weeping woman who drowned her children in a moment of rage. Except unlike her, I killed them before they were even born.