La estación
Estella Gonzalez
Chola Salvation*
I’m just kicking back, drinking my dad’s Schlitz when Frida Kahlo and the Virgen de Guadalupe walk into our restau- rant. La Frida is in a man’s suit, a big baggy one like the guy from the Talking Heads but this one’s black, not white. All her hair is cut off so she isn’t wearing no braids, no ribbons, no nothin’. The only woman thing she has on are those hand earrings. I read in Mrs. Herrera’s class that Pablo Picasso gave her those earrings because he thought she was a better painter than her husband.
La Virgen looks like my tía Rosa in the picture she sent to Dad. She has blonde hair, lots of white eyeshadow, and she’s wearing chola clothes. You know, tank top with those skinny little straps, baggy pants and black Hush Puppy shoes. And she has on this lipstick like she just bit a chocolate cake. Her hair is so long, it touches the back of her feet. Her bangs are all sprayed up, like a regular chola, but she wears a little gold crown. A bad-ass vata loca sitting at the counter right in front of me.
At first, I don’t recognize them but the moment I see Frida’s unibrow and La Virgen’s crown, I know. I really know for not smoking.” I suck on it while La Virgen holds up a lighter.
“¿Qué ondas, comadre?” Frida says, smiling. “Whassup?” One of her teeth is missing and some of the others are all brown. No wonder she never smiles in her paintings. I don’t know what to say, so I just take another swig from the beer I have behind the counter.
“Are you a shy girl?” La Virgen says. “Don’t you know us, esa?”
“Man, sure I know you guys,” I shout. I always shout when I’m a little buzzed. “You want some coffee or something?”
“Un cafecito y un platillo de menudo.”
“¿Y tú, Friducha?”
“How about some pozole y unas cuantas tortillas de maíz,” she says.
So, I serve them their menudo, pozole, tortillas and cof- fee. They tell me they’re here to give me some advice: unos consejos.
“And believe me, you’re going to need the advice, preciosa,” Frida says. “Because your crazy Mami is going to let you have it with this whole quinceañera bullshit real soon.”
La Virgen nods and takes another puff.
“We’re here to tell you, you better watch out,” La Virgen says. “So we have some rules for you to live by. You know, like those Ten Commandments Father Jorge taught you.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t about God, Jesus or some other Catholic laws,” Frida says, ripping up her last tortilla.
“It’s about you, homegirl, and about your pinche parents and this quinceañera they wanna force down your throat,” La Virgen tells me. “You probably don’t wanna hear it from me, especially since your mom is always throwing me in your face, saying how much you’re hurting me every time you don’t listen to her . . . but I want you to hear it from me, not something your mom picked up from your abuela.”
I pull up a chair. I’m puffing away, the smoke relaxing me. I don’t even feel sick, like those stupid films at school say you’re supposed to. It’s Sunday and Mom has been at church since 6 am. She usually stays away until about 10, because she sells buñuelos and tamales out in front of the church to peo- ple getting out of Mass. The restaurant’s empty except for the three of us. I go over and lock the door, close the blinds, turn over the “Closed” sign and scooch a chair in between my comadres.
Frida leans over to me and takes my hand. La Virgen smiles with her chocolate brown lips.
“Hermosa Isabela, your parents say they just want you to be a ‘decent’ girl,” Frida says. “They want you to grow up with all those bourgeoisie ideas. If you have to drink to protect your soul, then do it. Just stop with the cheap beer. You’re bet- ter off drinking your father’s tequila.”
Then she pulls out a bottle of El Patrón Silver and three shot glasses. She fills the little glass to the top for me. I take it down in one gulp, and it burns at first, but soon I’m on my second shot, trying to keep up with La Purísima Virgen who’s drinking the stuff like it’s water.
“How ’bout another?” she asks, handing me another cigarette.
I notice her nails. They’re painted blue, covered with little gold stars. It looks like she’s holding a galaxy in her hands.
“How about taking up smoking?” Frida says. “Sí, I know I’m encouraging vices, but at your age you need all the help you can get. How about drinking? I have no idea when I started but before I knew it, I was challenging Leon Trotsky to tequila shots. Pobre cabrón, he was no match for me. Not
even in bed.”
Then she asks me if I’m still a virgin. When I tell her I am, she shakes her head.
“Pobrecita shy girl,” La Virgen says. “What? Did your mamita tell you to wait ’til your husband popped your cherry?”
Man, she’s rough. If she wasn’t La Virgen, I’d just think she was another one of those high school skanks. But she’s La Virgen. She knows everything and she’s just telling it like it is.
“She told me only sluts had sex before they got married,” I say. “Those types of women end up pregnant or putas.”
They both look at each other and laugh again. Frida laughs so hard, she starts rolling around on the floor, kicking her feet. When she gets up, she’s wiping tears from her eyes.
“Listen, preciosa,” La Virgen says. “I don’t know if you know this, but your little pinche saint of a mother had already started fucking your dad when she was fourteen. But she made the mistake of getting pregnant. Her mamá, tu abuela, hadn’t bothered to tell her about what girls and boys can do when they’re hot for each other.”
“If you decide to take up with men, be careful!” Frida says. “Capitalist, communist, they’re all the same. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up like me or, even worse, your mother. I loved a man, a great artist, who just couldn’t respect me as a wife. ‘Fidelity is for the bourgeoisie,’ Diego would say. Well, thanks to the bourgeoisie, I painted the most miserable pieces of art ever. Maybe men aren’t so bad . . . now that I think about it. Yes, men are another worthy vice.”
Just then, the two of them start arguing over who’s fucked the most men.
“Well, cabrona, you started like three thousand years before me,” Frida gives in.
La Virgen smiles, sucks on her teeth and says, “Yeah, way before Johnny Cortez, I’d already had about 50,000 papacitos. Mmmm, maybe more.”
“At least I had Trotsky,” Frida says.
“And you’re proud of that?”
Frida’s unibrow scrunches up, and I think for sure she’s going to throw her cigarette in La Virgen’s face. La Virgen ignores her, makes a toast to men.
“Ya, cállate,” Frida tries to shut her up. “Can we get back to helping Isabel?”
La Virgen laughs like she’s won this one.
“Here are some more tips, homegirl,” La Virgen says. “Listen up, chica, because we made them up especially for you.”
Rule #1: Don’t get pregnant. Have as much sex as you like, but don’t get pregnant. Not until you really, really wanna. Believe me, I had four hundred sons and a daughter. That was a lot of work. What’s worse is that this gang of three, some father, son and ghost, took over my gang while I was spending all my time raising these kids. Now look at this mess!
Rule #2: Go to school. You’re gonna have to work the system. Why do you think I appeared like this little virgencita with the cutie pie face to Juan Diego and that fat bishop? I’m working this game, chica. Now, look at me. From Chiapas to Chicago, you see me everywhere: murals, tattoos, books, art. Yeah, Lupe’s Ladies are all over. Like that crazy vato John Lennon once said about Los Beatles, “We’re bigger than Jesus Christ.”
Rule #3: You’re in charge of your panocha and don’t be afraid to protect it! Some guy is always gonna try to get into your pants, no matter how much you don’t wanna. Even your sweet papacito. Yeah, don’t think we don’t know about him. If you have to kick some ass to teach him some respect, do it.
Rule #4: Spread the word. We need to get the word out to all our homegirls and our homeboys, especially the homeboys. Maybe they’ll quit with all this macho shit they keep hearing from their families. I think Chuy and his papá may be causing all this.
Rule #5: We’re all indias. Don’t let your mom fool you. No one’s a hundred percent. Be proud of the indígena inside of you. I know your old lady is down on you for behaving like an Apache, but believe me, we can’t all be blonde and blue-eyed. Your mom heard the same lies about the white girls being the only ones worth anything from her own mami, a pure blood Tarahumara. Morena, you’re beautiful too. Check my little brown self out one of these days, hanging in my gold frame right near the altar. I have the place of honor, not these other little wimpy Marías.
I’m wasted but I get the rules down. Suddenly, Frida puts her arm around me. She points to the paper skeletons I hung in a corner for Día de los Muertos.
“Look at those skeletons dancing. They’re waiting for you, you know. Before you know it, you’ll be fifty instead of fifteen and you’ll wonder where your life went. Don’t listen to those crazy sons of bitches you call your parents. You better start fighting them off now before you end up like those baby rats your mother found and drowned.
“Don’t you have any friends, muñeca? That’s strange for a girl your age, you know. At your age, I already had a boyfriend and was hanging out with my clica. If you had more vices, you wouldn’t care so much.”
Frida downs another shot of Patrón. Man, she wasn’t even sweating.
“This is the most important thing I wanted to tell you: Ms. Herrera thinks you have a good eye for art. I bet you draw circles around your classmates. What do you think? Maybe art should be your vice. That would really drive your parents crazy, because they wouldn’t understand. Smoking, drinking and fucking—those things they understand, be- cause that’s what they grew up with, that’s what they lived. Art will be your world. You can create your own reality. Then you can escape this capitalistic quinceañera caca they’re trying to feed you.”
Frida lifts the bowl to her mouth and slurps the rest of her pozole. La Virgen takes another drag from her cigarette, drops it on the floor and stubs it out with her foot.
“Listen, preciosa, you’ll probably think I’m a miserable pig, but you have to do something before your parents de- stroy you. Take this advice from me, La Friducha, whom you say you admire so much. Just forget about Father Jorge, all the tías and tíos, and just go with your gut. Believe me, you don’t want the Pelona to get you while you’re living some kind of middle-class hell. You’ll thank me for it later.”
Frida stands up and looks at her watch.
“Wait for me, cabrona,” La Virgen says as she pulls out her compact mirror and puts on more chocolate brown lipstick.
“Just because you like going around painted like Bozo, doesn’t mean I have to wait,” Frida says. “We have other carnalas we gotta help.”
“Hey, I’m not the one going around with a mustache over my lip and eyes.”
“Pinche puta. You wanna take it outside?”
“Tranquila,” La Virgen says. “I’m just kidding, homes.”
They’re leaving. I know if I ask them to stay, they won’t. If they meet Mom, they’ll kill her.
“We have to go,” La Virgen says. “Another carnal needs our help. What? You never knew about my bad-ass chola side? Chica, in this crazy world sometimes you don’t have a choice.”
Before they leave, they both kiss me on the cheek. Frida hugs me real hard. La Virgen leaves me her last cigarette so I can remember her whenever I look at it. I see the brown lip- stick mark where she sucked on it.
“Adiós, muñeca,” Frida says. “Don’t forget the rules.”
I cry so hard after they leave because I know I won’t see them for a long time. Just after they disappear, Mom shows up holding a white dress.
“M’ija, look what I bought you. Isn’t it beautiful?” she says.
Mom’s been shoving the whole thing in my face since I turned fourteen. She even gets the tías to nag me about it. Dad doesn’t do it so much but he’s starting to get on me about my weight. It never bothered him before, but now it’s always, “Why can’t you fix yourself up? Get out and do something. Pluck your eyebrows. What man is gonna want you?”
Yeah, I’m too fat and ugly for other guys, but not for him when he starts touching me in the shower or when he feels me up in the car. He never says nothing. He just looks at me the way other guys look at the girls at school. La Virgen’s right. I have to protect my panocha even from my own dad.
Then, here comes Mom with her stupid quinceañera dress and all her dumb ideas about a big party with mariachis and everything. All that stuff costs, and I know they don’t have the money. Even I know our crummy restaurant barely cuts it every month, now that there’s a Pollo Loco on the corner.
Frida and La Virgen were right. Mom just wants to show off how well she raised me. Please. She can shove it. Just like that stupid white dress. Who told her to buy it anyway?
“Mom, I told you I don’t want a quinceañera.”
“But don’t you want to wear this and look beautiful in front of your friends?”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“Ay, no seas tan sangrona,” she says, calling me stubborn and shoving the dress at me.
I throw it back at her and run back to the house. Dad doesn’t even look up from his soccer game when me and Mom run right between him and the TV. I run into my room but can’t lock the door in time. She just pushes the door real hard and busts in.
“¡Niña malagradecida!” she says. “Ungrateful brat! This dress cost me $300! Do you think I’m just going to throw it away?”
She still has the dress with her. As I try to hide in the closet, she grabs me by the shirt and starts slapping me.
Then I slap her back, and that’s when she loses it. She takes a step back a little and then punches me in the gut. When I fall doubled over on my bed, she grabs me around the waist and sits me up. That vieja is strong for a short woman. It’s her Tarahumara Indian blood. She’s always bragging about how all her strength comes from her blood.
“A chingao, is that cigarette smoke I smell on you?” she grumbles, sniffing like a hound. “Where did you get them? Did you steal them from your father?”
I wait for her to slap me again, but she just picks up the dress and hangs it on the door. I lie down because I feel like barfing.
“You used to be such a good girl, so obedient, and now, como un pinche apache!”
She comes right up to me, leans over and tears down my Frida Kahlo poster, “My Birth.” It’s my favorite poster, and she knows it. But it’s always bugged the shit out of her because it’s not one of those pretty pictures of a puppy with big sad eyes or a ballerina girl. No, my poster shows a dead mother with a dead baby hanging out of her between her legs. It shows everything, even the mother’s vagina covered in black pubic hair. What I really like about it is the painting of the Nuestra Señora de Dolores hanging over the bed. She’s the real mother, because like all mothers, she’s always in pain and makes everyone around her feel it. Mom calls it disgusting and starts ripping it into little pieces.
“There,” she says when she’s done. “Maybe you won’t hit your own mother next time.”
Before she leaves, she turns to the little bust of the Virgen de Guadalupe hanging over my door. I hear her say something stupid, like “Ayúdame, Virgencita.”
After she leaves, I lock the door, grab the bust and throw it out the window. That stupid dress. I wasn’t about to look like a big white whale for her. Just because her comadres’ daughters had theirs doesn’t mean I have to go through this. She’s not fooling me. This is about her. She wants to let everybody know her daughter’s like all the other daughters, ready to get fucked. It’s not bad enough that I’m fat and that everybody makes fun of me at home and at school, but now Mom wants to embarrass me in front of some crowd at church. Anyway, who’s going to be stupid enough to be my escort? Tina’s my only friend, and she dropped out of school last year and moved out to Coachella with her mom. So, I hardly see her.
Jesus, I haven’t been to church for weeks now, so who cares? Dad never goes. He just stays home and watches soccer games. That’s why I never take showers on Sundays. ’Cause I know the moment he hears the water running, he’ll come right in to feel me up. One time I locked the door, and he got so mad, he almost broke the door down. When Mom got home, he told her some bullshit lie that I shouldn’t lock the door because I might slip and fall, and nobody would be able to help me. Of course, Mom believed it. He says it’s my fault because I’m fat. He’s doing me a favor because no boy is gonna want some fat slob like me. He says it’s my fault that Mom gets so mad at me, she won’t fuck him. So I have to at least let him touch my tits and pussy. That’s the only good thing for him about my being fat. At least I have big tits.
I grab some scissors out of my drawer and I start stab- bing the dress. Then, before I know it, I cut it up into little pieces, even the big lace bow on the dress’s butt.
I don’t care. Just like Mom doesn’t care about punching me in the belly or calling me a pinche apache. So what if it cost $300? Who asked her to buy it?
When I see all these little pieces of white on the floor, I freak out. They just sit there all shiny and white, staring up at me. I feel like I killed something.
I know it’s a sign from the Virgen because the white shreds remind me of all the little stars on her hands. I’ve gotta get out. I feel real crazy and macho at the same time, like Dad when he gets drunk. This time I’m not gonna chicken out. This time, it’s for real, and I’m not coming back. So I dig out some money from under my bed, pack up my duffel bag and jam to downtown LA. When I get to the Greyhound, I hide out in the bathroom until 2 in the morning and catch the first bus to El Paso.
I wake up the next day to a stinkin’ pile of sweat. God does that fat lady smell. Her hair is all stringy and half her ass is over on my side of the seat. Yeah, she’s fat like me. Maybe I stink too. That really bums me out. Maybe it’s me that’s smelling up this whole bus. I look over the seat in front of me. Naaah. Other people look like they stink too. The next stop, I’m gonna wash my pits just to make sure. I could use some of that fancy soap I stole from Mom. She always got pissed when I tried to use it. I loved the way it smelled, like that perfume in J.C. Penney’s. It smelled even nicer than Dial.
I look at the fat lady’s watch. It’s barely 10. The guy at the bus station said we wouldn’t get to El Paso until 8. Shit.
When the bus stops, at Blythe this time, I go wash my pits, my feet and my neck. This lady walks in. She’s crying, looks like she’s been punched in her eye. I pack my stuff up real fast.
“M’ija,” she says to me, “you have some tissue?”
“Nah,” I say. “There’s some toilet paper here, though.”
“Could you get me some?”
I get her some.
She’s wiping her face, and her eye looks Chinese because it’s all slanted and almost closed.
“Don’t ever get married, sweetie,” she says, like she’s laughing.
I just try to walk real slow to the door.
“Don’t ever marry a guy who drinks,” she says. Now she’s crying real hard
“My dad drinks,” I say, then I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Yeah?” She turns to me. “So did mine.”
I just get real scared when she tells me that. She sounds just like Mom. I feel like getting on that bus and driving it to El Paso myself. When I get back on, I sit way in the back, right next to the toilet, so I don’t have to hear that lady cry. Jesus, when the hell are we getting out of here? Outside, it’s just red rocks and hills, sometimes little bushes. There’s barbed wire all over the place, as if anybody would want to climb over that. It’s so fuckin’ hot on the bus, but I won’t take off my sweatshirt. I just have my muscle shirt on, no bra. I’m not trying to be sexy. I just forgot to take any bras with me. Anyway, I see this slimy guy look at me weird I don’t need anybody hassling me right now. Of course, when the bus gets going and I get up, some asshole has to say something.
“Hey, fat ass, can you get your stomach out of my face?” some old woman says.
“Fuck off,” I say. “I’m just trying to get my duffel bag.”
The stupid lady punches me in the gut. I fall over on the guy who gave me that weird look. He cops a feel when I try to get up. I almost pop him one, when the bus driver stops the bus.
“Hey, you! Don’t start any trouble or I’ll leave you right here.”
I roll my eyes real hard, grab my duffel bag and head back to my seat. What else can I do? The last thing I need is for him to leave me here in the middle of nowhere or maybe call the cops. After digging around my bag, I find the picture of Tía Rosa sitting on her boyfriend’s lap. She’s holding a cigarette. Looks like he’s squeezing her. A big margarita glass sits on the table next to them. She’s laughing. Her lips are red-red, like a Crayola crayon, and her hair is short and gold, like Blondie’s.
On the back of the picture she wrote: “Con mucho cariño y amor para mi sobrina Isabela, de parte de tu Tía Rosa. Aquí estoy con mi novio Pablo en el restaurante Ajúúa! Visítame cuando quieras. Mi número de teléfono es 13-16-57. Mi direc- ción es Avenida 16 de Septiembre 3555, Juárez. Los espero.”
That’s her address: Avenida 16 de Septiembre in Juárez. I wonder if she wanted to invite all of us, or just me. I guess she thought I’d be coming with Mom and Dad. I don’t think she really liked Mom, though. One time, at a party, Tía was dancing to a cumbia, “Tiburón, Tiburón,” with Uncle Beto. She looked like that statue of Our Lady of Fatima with her small angel lips, dark eyes and pale skin. She wore her short blue dress. Mom was in the kitchen serving the carne asada Dad had just cooked up outside.
“Vieja sinvergüenza,” she said when I walked in with all the paper plates. “Your aunt just likes shaking her butt in front of everybody.”
“She’s a good dancer.”
“She should be helping me in the kitchen.” “Where’s Tía Amelia?”
“She’s helping your father cook the steaks.”
A little while later, I saw Uncle Beto taking Mom by the hand and trying to make her dance. Mom laughed, shook her head. Dad tried to take out Tía Rosa, but she said no and walked outside to the patio. Instead of going back to the party, he came after me, but I split into the patio with Tía Rosa. She was sitting there smoking and singing, “Zandunga.”
“¿Qué pasa, muñeca?” she said.
I could smell her Coco Chanel perfume mixing with the smoke. “Nothing.”
“Want a cigarette?”
“Yeah!”
I took a little puff. I still believed my dumb health teacher when she said smoking made you sick. I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of Tía, so I just made sure not to breathe in too deeply. We just smoked and listened to all my other aunts, uncles and cousins whooping it up in the house. I just wanted to sit there and smoke forever. Tía just kept singing until Uncle Beto came out looking for her.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said, lighting up another cigarette. “What a pain in the ass.”
“Can I have another one?”
“Already? Why are you smoking so much? You’re only thirteen.”
“I don’t know. I just hate being here.”
“Me too.”
“Tía started singing another Mexican song. Beto came out again, and this time she got up. After a while, Mom came out looking for me and told me to “play” with my cousins. Jesus, I was thirteen. It’s not like I was playing with pinche Barbies. I went back into the house and the first thing I saw was Dad dancing with my baby cousin Evelina. At first, I couldn’t believe it was him. Everybody was dancing real fast and jerky to a cumbia, but he was dancing slowly so he wouldn’t step on Evelina’s little shoes. I remember I wanted to cry so bad, I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and just sat outside waiting for everybody to leave.
Before Tía left, she gave me another cigarette and asked me to go visit her. That was before she and Uncle Beto divorced. After the divorce, Mom never let me go and visit her. Dad told me the same bullshit that Tía Rosa was a vieja sinvergüenza. Uncle Beto married some other woman he’d met at a cabaret and didn’t visit us anymore.
No big loss. I never liked the fucker anyway.
I can see from the bus window that outside it’s getting brighter and hotter. I break out my notebook and start drawing an old chola with big feathered hair. First, I draw her skinny, then I draw her fat like me, with big boobs coming out the sides of her muscle shirt. When I look up, everything looks melted. I close my eyes and try to forget about the stink and the crying. I pretend like I’m dead and I finally go to sleep.
After getting to El Paso and crossing the bridge to Juárez, I take a bus I think goes by Tía’s house. I get off on September 16th Street, right where the bus driver tells me. All I smell is rotten mangoes and car fumes. It’s so hot out here, and my pits are already dripping. God, I forgot how poor everybody is here, especially the indios and the little kids. Mom was always hassling me about throwing me out with the indios. There ain’t that many in East LA. Now I know why she thought it was a big deal. Jesus, they’re really poor. I see a mother and kids sitting on the sidewalk. She’s dividing up what the kids have brought in begging.
I once knew a guy named Indio. All the kids used to call him that. I think his real name was Arturo. He used to hang out with all the other winos on the corner of our block.
“Pinche indio,” Dad used to say. “All they ever do is beg and drink. They don’t know the meaning of work.”
I always wanted to ask Dad why he said that. Mom was half Tarahumara and I know Grandma, Dad’s mom, was pure india. One time when I braided my hair just like Laura Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie,” he called me a pinche india fea. He was pissed. I look at my braids now. They’re like the baskets I see for sale on the sidewalk.
God this place is dirty. I don’t want to look at the little Indian girl with her little brown girl face selling chiclets in her yellow dress so bright she looks like a sun. She walks back to her mom, who’s now sitting on some steps. The woman starts yelling at her.
The little girl runs back to me. Poor kid. Her mom probably beats the shit out of her if she doesn’t sell enough of those stupid little gums.
“Niña, dame dos paquetitos.”
I give her a quarter, even though I know I better save my money. I hope I don’t have to stay at some motel or something. What should I tell Tía? Should I tell her about Mom and the dress? What if she sends me back to LA? I hope she doesn’t make me go back. What if she calls the police? Then I’m booking it, because there’s no way I’m staying in a Mexican jail! Well, if I can’t stay here, I’m going to Mexico City and visit Frida’s house. Maybe I can hide out there for a little while. At least I can see that before I have to go back. Jesus, I don’t think I can hold out until I’m eighteen.
Maybe if I told Tía about Mom punching me? But then I’d have to tell her why. Shit. Maybe she’ll understand because she hates Mom too. I think she does. I wonder if she knows Mom thinks she’s a slut. I don’t know if I can tell her about the dress. Jesus, it stinks here. Or maybe it’s me. I haven’t showered in “n days. Maybe I should tell her about Dad. I can’t believe I’m here. I hope I don’t have to go back. Mom’ll kill me for sure.
“¡Oye, mamacita!” a male voice slurs.
I keep walking real fast.
“¡Tú! ¡Gordita!”
I see some guy with a cowboy hat waving at me. Jesus fuck. Now he’s walking alongside me.
“Bonita, ¿estás sola? ¿Quieres un novio?”
He looks at me the way Dad does when he feels me up. Cowboy guy has a skinny Pedro Infante mustache and he’s wearing this thick belt with a huge belt buckle like Dad wears. Shit, my shirt’s all sweaty and I know I stink that fat stink. But fuck this, not this time. I’ll pop him with my duffel bag if he gets any closer. Cowboy guy’s voice sounds far away but he’s still walking right behind me, making kissing noises. God, I don’t wanna faint out here. I spot a church and walk in real fast.
It’s nice and cool but it’s so fucking dark. I can’t see anything except the altar. I book it right up the middle, sit right up in front with some old ladies and bow my head like I’m praying. I just whisper, whisper, whisper, look around. I don’t see him. Then this old lady next to me starts poking me with her elbow.
“I know you’re not praying, esa,” she says. I look at her hands and see those little stars on the nails.
“Virgencita,” I sigh. “You scared me. I thought you were one of these viejas.”
“Hey, some of these veteranas are my homegirls,” she says.
She’s wearing a black rebozo but I can see the little points of her crown sticking up on her head, through the black.
“Virgen,” I say, “you have to help me.”
She takes me to the side of the church where all the short candles are in front of a saint’s statue.
“¿Qué pasa?” she says.
“It’s this cowboy guy,” I say. “He’s after me.” I start to cry. I don’t know why. I hardly ever cry.
“Is he after your panocha?”
“Yeah,” I say. “He was making kissing noises and “calling me ‘Mamacita.’”
“Let’s go.”
When we push the door open, I see him right there, across the street from the church.
“He’s right there,” I tell the Virgen, “with the cowboy hat.”
She starts crossing the street and does one of those shrill whistles, with her fingers in her mouth. It’s so loud I can hear her even when a big bus passes right in front of me. Cowboy Dude smiles his little mustache smile and starts walking over to us. La Virgen looks him up and down, like some guy she’s about to dance with. La Virgen whips off her rebozo and hands it to me. Something shiny sticks out of her pants. It looks like a gun. When she pulls it out, it looks just like that gun in the Dirty Harry movies. Everybody clears out, even the little indio kids. Cowboy dude just stops still, drops his little smile. La Virgen starts waving her cuete around in front of Cowboy Dude’s face, then she puts it right up to his mouth.
“Bésalo,” she says, telling him to kiss it.
Cowboy Dude just opens his mouth like he’s gonna say something.
“Bésalo, cabrón,” La Virgen says and cocks the gun.
Her tiny finger doesn’t look strong enough to squeeze the trigger, but I know she can pop that cuete faster than any cowboy. Cowboy Dude puckers up and kisses the gun. A little kiss.
“Como besas a tus mamacitas,” La Virgen says, meaning, “Like you’re in love.”
He kisses it again. This time though, he frenches the barrel.
La Virgen smiles, puts her cuete back in her pants. Cowboy Dude’s legs keep shaking even as we start to walk away. Suddenly, he tries to jump her but only falls down screaming. He’s grabbing his crotch and rolling around on the sidewalk. La Virgen looks back at Cowboy Dude, spits right on his face and gives him a good kick in the ribs. All of a sudden, there’s a crowd of indias around us with their little kids. Some of them are laughing and making the sign of the cross on their heads and chests. Down the block, there are a couple of Mexican cops staring.
La Virgen takes back her rebozo, now green and covered with gold stars. “Keep this,” she says, handing me the huge gun.
I stick it in my duffle bag as she grabs my arm and pushes me across the street, straight into a purple taxicab.
“Templo Chola Tattoo,” La Virgen tells the cab driver. “You’re gonna need it,” she says, lighting up a cigarette for me.
“Here, drink some of this,” she orders, handing me a bottle of Hornitos tequila.
I take a little sip and almost throw up.
I can see the cab driver staring at La Virgen every time we stop. Hasn’t he ever seen a chola before? When we get to the tattoo place, Frida’s waiting for us at the front door. This time she’s dressed in a long skirt and her hair’s braided up and wrapped around her head.
“Hola, muñeca,” she says hugging me.
I almost fall, I feel so dizzy. “How come we’re here?” “Because your tía works here,” Frida says.
Inside, I see the blonde woman in my picture working on this big, fat guy’s back. She’s wearing glasses, and he’s wearing thick black shades so tight, a little bit of fat hangs over them. I see some women sitting down next to the white, white walls. All around, cartoon pictures hang. My head feels like it’s buzzing. It’s so bright inside, I want to shut my eyes.
“Hola, amores,” Tía Rosa says, not looking up from the fat guy’s back. “Ahoritita les ayudo.”
All I can hear is the needles buzzing. Two other guys are helping my aunt. I think one of them is her boyfriend Pablo, because he has his long black hair in a ponytail and doesn’t look old like Uncle Beto or Dad.
“Frida?” Tía Rosa says. “Lupe? Who do you bring me?”
Tía Rosa knows my comadres? I guess she would know them.
“We bring you Isabela,” Frida says. “She needs a tattoo, maybe two, to save her.”
“Save her from what?” Tía Rosa says.
“From her mother and your brother Rodolfo,” Frida says, pulling out a big black book from behind Pablo.
Tía Rosa finally looks like she recognizes me. She grabs my arm and takes us into a back room. On the walls she has pictures of La Virgen and little candles everywhere. On one side is a poster of Frida with a skull on her forehead. I can tell Tía smells the tequila on my breath as she gets in my face, looking closer. She lifts her hand and caresses my cheek.
“Did he touch you?” she asks.”
“I nod and start to cry like a baby. Then I unload, telling her everything about Mom, the dress and Dad. She gives me some water mixed with sugar.
“You gave her too much tequila,” Tía says.
“It was Lupe,” says Frida.
“She’ll need it, if you’re gonna give her a tattoo,” La Virgen says.
“We’ll do that later,” Tía says.
I want to get a tattoo so bad, but I pass out before I can look through the book Frida hands me.
“Why did ya come over to this hellhole?” Mousy says.
We’re watching the hookers walk up and down the street in front of the nightclubs, trying to find johns. I see the little Indian girls begging the American tourists for money, trying to put on their sad faces, making their little lips puffier and sadder. I can smell old meat and blood from the butcher shop next door.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Tía lets me smoke as much as I want to. Anyway, she says she’ll teach me how to be a tattoo artist.”
“You could have learned that back in East Los,” she says, passing me her roach.
“No thanks,” I say. I tried it once and it made me feel like shit. I think it was laced with Angel Dust or acid or some homemade shit. I’m not chancing it anymore. I’m sticking to cigs and booze, for now.
“At least my old man can’t feel me up in the shower anymore.”
“Your old man did that? ¡Pinche asqueroso!”
We can hear Mousy’s grandfather playing his accordion in La Rondalla club. His name is Don Ramón and he still plays even though he’s pushing eighty. It’s sad seeing that old man holding that heavy old accordion and pushing its buttons. Don Ramón is accompanied by two friends so old, they look like they’re gonna bite the dust real soon. He has to support Mousy and her mom while her dad’s out in California. Supposedly he’ll send money back to them. For now, Mousy works at the laundry, washing and ironing clothes. Shit, I’d rather go to school than burn my hands washing clothes in Clorox.
“What time is it?” I ask Mousy.
“It’s almost time for the brujas to come out.”
“I better get back to the house, or Tía’s gonna yell at me again for not getting to school on time.”
“You’re lucky. I have to get my ass out to the laundry by 5.”
“See you tomorrow, homegirl.”
When I walk into the house, my cousins are wearing out the Atari I got real cheap last week at a secondhand store in El Paso. Noel keeps bugging me for a Walkman, but I can’t get one for cheap like the other stuff. Evelina always wants a saladito from the corner store. I walk to the kitchen and warm up a tortilla. There’s a scorpion on the wall, so I break out the heavy huarache Tía uses to kill them. She won’t use Raid because it stinks. Yeah, this whole place is worse than my place in LA, but at least Tía doesn’t treat me like some punching bag or her personal puta. I even take showers on Sundays now.
As soon as I walk into the kitchen, I see Pablo looking through some of my drawings I left on the table. I feel my stomach getting all tight and I start sweating. Why do guys think they can do whatever they want? Why can’t they keep their fuckin’ hands to themselves? So I grab the cuete out of the duffel bag. Shit, I forgot how heavy it was. That’s okay. I can use two hands like that Angie chick does on Police Woman.
“Freeze, motherfucker!” I say, real tough, pointing the big ol’ gun at his head.
Poor Pablo. I think he’s gonna shit right there. He puts the drawings down real slow.
“Cálmala,” he says. “I was just looking at your drawings, esa. Your tía asked me to do a tattoo for you, so I thought I could use one of these.”
I don’t know if I’m just surprised or what. Before I can think, I drop the stupid gun, and I’m lucky it doesn’t go off, because the police down here don’t fuck around.
Pablo’s cool. He doesn’t freak out about the whole thing, but I know my tía’s gonna trip. Pablo lets me keep my gun and promises not to go through my stuff again without my permission.
“Keep it in Templo’s backroom,” he says. “That way the kids won’t get to it.”
Shit, I forgot about my cousins.
I follow him out to the tattoo parlor and stuff the Virgen’s gift in the drawer of the little table where Tía keeps crap, like pencils, old 8-track tapes and other stuff. I ask Pablo to tattoo La Virgen in her chola clothing on my shoulder. He’s never seen her like I’ve seen her, so I draw a quick sketch of her.
“Hmmm,” he says, looking at my drawing real close.
Can he do it? Or does he think my drawing’s a piece of crap? I’ll really shoot him if he tells me that. Instead, he gives me a paper cup with some yellow stuff.
“Drink it … a little mescal,” he says.
The tattooing burns like hell, and even the mescal doesn’t help. What keeps me goin’ is that Pablo tells me Tía wants to teach me how to handle a needle so I can do my own tattoos, maybe work with her and Pablo here in the Templo.
“Órale, esa,” Frida says when I tell her about Tía teaching me how to tattoo. “Let me see your arm.”
At first, I feel all proud about my crazy Virgen.
But Frida throws my arm down and growls, “What about me, cabrona? When the hell are you gonna put me on your arm?”
Fuck, I didn’t know artists could get so pissy. But she’s my carnala, and I owe her some blood. So now, I have the Virgen on my left shoulder and La Frida on my right. The next one I’m getting is the old lady I drew on the bus. She has big feathered hair and is holding her big cuete, almost as big as La Virgen’s. She’s dressed in Frida’s suit and one of those old-school hats with two peaks. On her shades, you can barely see this wanna-be Pedro Infante guy she’s getting ready to shoot.
“That’s a firme tattoo, esa,” Mousy approves.
I’m standing next to her, trying to fill in the rebozo on her “Adelita” tattoo. It’s so hot in the salon, I’m just wearing my bra and muscle shirt. Tía doesn’t care and, besides, I want to show off my tattoos.
“Is it the Virgen de Guadalupe?”
“Yeah, but she’s different. See? No cutie-pie face for her.”
“She’s blonde?” Mousy says, like I made a mistake when I drew her.
“She’s a chola, mensa. She’s just dyed her hair, but she’s still a morena.”
Mousy moves her head closer to my shoulder. “Oh, check it out,” she says. “She’s wearing Dockers and everything.”
“Yeah, she’s one of us, a vata loca.”
“Who did it for you?” Mousy says.
“Pablo, but I drew it first. See my picture? It’s right up there, next to the jaguar. It’s in the black frame next to my Frida Kahlo.
“Who’s Frida Kahlo?”
“She’s my comadre,” I say. “She saved my life. See, she’s on my other arm.”
Mousy’s my third tattoo since I started at Tía’s salon. I’ve been working on her “Adelita” tattoo for two hours already and I’m still not finished. I have to finish her before I catch the bus to El Paso. Then I have to do my homework and get my lunch ready. Shit. I have so much to do. Plus, I need a cig. Tía won’t let me smoke inside the salon because she wants to keep the place sanitary. It’s not a toilet, she tells me.
The phone rings. I know it’s Mom again, trying to get me to go back home. No way. She says if I don’t go back home, they’ll come and get me. Go ahead and try. I go back to my tattooing and forget them.
I’m trying to fill in Adelita’s hair. I’m so into it, I don’t hear anything except Diana Ross breathing heavily on “Love Hangover” over the speakers. Then I smell garbage and rotten meat from the butcher shop next door. I think it’s Maritza who’s opened the front door because she’s my next appointment, and she wants a bleeding heart on her tit.
“¡Cabrona!”
It’s Dad. He’s wearing his Dodgers cap and he’s standing in front of the open door. He looks half asleep, his eyes bloodshot. Don’t know if it’s the trip or if he’s been drinking. My stomach feels real tight, and I want a cig real bad.
“Get in the car,” he says, jerking his head.
Shit. Where’s Frida? Where’s the Virgencita?”
“Who’s that?” Mousy says.
“Dad.”
“Motherfucker.”
I see Frida walk up to my mother and lean into the car window. Mom just sits there like the car’s still moving. I want La Virgen to come in and make Dad French her gun like Cowboy Dude. I want her to pop that cuete until teeth, blood and pieces of lip fly out of his head. But she’s nowhere to be seen. Not this time. Frida’s just leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette. Is she still mad about the Virgen tattoo?
“Isabela!” he says real hard.
It’s like that time I put my hands up to cover my tits in the shower before he grabbed them. He walks right up to me. And I make like to ignore him and just keep working on Mousy’s tattoo. I hear him suck in his breath when he sees the tattoos on my shoulders.
“¿Me oístes, cabrona?” he says, grabbing my hair.
I almost stab Mousy in her eye. She gets up real quick and runs to the back room.
The next thing I know, I’m drilling that needle right into his hand. He gives me a good slap on the ear as he backs off. I’ve still got the needle.
“Rudolfo! ¡Por Dios!”
It’s Mom. She’s standing at the door with Frida and La Virgen.
“Get out,” he says. “Get back in the car.”
“Isabela,” Mom says, wiping her red face. “He misses you.”
“The only thing he misses is grabbing my tits.”
I’m looking at Mom straight in the eye. Mom blinks like she doesn’t understand. She’s worse than a kid. More like a baby, same as Dad. She starts saying something about Tía forcing me to stay with her, changing me into some puta so that everybody can laugh at her. Her hands open and close, open and close.
“If anybody’s gonna turn me into a puta, it’s Dad,” I say looking at him.
Dad’s mouth hangs open. “Hija de la chingada,” he says and whips off his belt.
That’s when I know he’s drunk because he always acts like a puro macho cabrón when he gets pedo.
“Go ahead,” I say. “I’m sick of you treating me like I’m your little whore.”
“Don’t say that, Isabela!” Mom cries.
“Dad comes at me again. This time I grab one of those big candles, one with the picture of the Virgen, and I smash it on his head. There’s glass and blood all over the place. I feel like throwing up and choking at the same time. Dad just looks at me like he doesn’t know who I am. Blood drips down from all over his head to the floor.
“You’re not my daughter anymore,” Dad vows.
“So?”
“Don’t ever come back.”
“Fuckin’ straight, I won’t.”
He reminds me of “Carrie” with all that blood covering his face. Mom just keeps crying. I can’t understand what the hell she’s saying. I grab another candle, just in case. … Mom and Dad turn and start walking out the door. They don’t even look back at me.
Mousy comes up to me. She’s holding my gun. I laugh because it’s too late, and she’s not holding it right. It’s so heavy Mousy can’t even lift her hand. I guess they never showed Police Woman down here. I stick it in her pants and cover it with the top of her shirt.
“Keep this for me, vata,” I say. “I may need it later.”
She tries to get me to the back room, but I just wanna sit down on my barber chair and watch Mom and Dad drive away. I wait for Frida and La Virgen, but I know I’m not gonna see them again for a long time. After about five minutes, I go to the door and turn over the “abierto” sign.
*From the book: Chola Salvation, Arte Público Press, 2021
https://artepublicopress.com/product/chola-salvation-2/