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The Block Captain's Daughter

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

The Annunciation

Lupe

You can't believe the ninth month will ever arrive. But it will, and you know you'd better break the news without further delay.

Stretched out on the couch, watching a spider skittering across the ceiling, you say, "Precious one, the doctors took another picture yesterday. And it turns out ... well, it turns out that you don't have a pee-pee after all. You, my love, are a girl."

Placing your hands on your belly, you wait for baby to stir. Nothing.

You go on. "Little one, all the time I took coming up with a name for you—Jesús Paul—was in vain. So I set about finding a replacement, no easy thing."

You look across the living room at the TV set and bite your lip. Every afternoon—after long days of waiting on tables at La Tropical—you watch infomercials to unwind. The one you enjoy the most features a doctor in a white coat advertising plastic surgery procedures. Face and butt, abs and boobs. Only in America, you think. No need to be embalmed at death when you can be embalmed throughout life. The doctor carries on for half an hour. Surgery can improve a woman's self-esteem, he crows. It can even change the course of her destiny.

"Now listen up, mi preciosa," you say, stroking your belly. "After much prayer I've decided that your name will be Destiny. Destiny Jane Anaya."

The baby kicks not once, not twice, but three times. You have no idea if the baby understands a word of what you've said. Still, you worry. Thinking back to the names of your family in Mexico, you wonder if you've made a terrible mistake.

Adelina, Maudi, Encarnación, Consuelo, Lucinda, and Belén. There's even a Telesfora in there—a great-aunt who joined the Sisters of Loretto, where her name was changed to Crucita. The old-time names make you think of a cast-iron pot, unbreakable, with a lifetime guarantee. Destiny? For an instant it sounds light as cotton candy, too lightweight to pin the child to earth when she lands—a spirit no more, but a human being.

You feel around beside you in the folds of the couch and pull out your cell phone. You point it at the TV to turn it off—then catch yourself and reach for the remote on the coffee table. It has been this way for months—hormones scrambled, moods seesawing— leaving you unable to think clearly, especially at work where the gringos' orders have grown increasingly complex.

"Bean and cheese burrito, hold the cheese." "Huevos rancheros, egg whites only." "Tortillas, the kind without lard." "That's whole beans, please, not fried." Everyone's on one kind of diet or another. When you take orders you feel like a doctor scribbling out a prescription, life and death in your hands. What is the world coming to? The gringos believe in cholesterol the way Mexicanos believe in the existence of God. It's enough to make you ravenous.

You pull yourself up, go to the freezer, and take out two burritos, one for you and one for the child. Your mouth waters. You can just taste the trans-fatty acids.

"Hey Lupe, have a good one!" the mailman shouts through the screen door. "Y tu también, Juan," you answer.

For three days you've let mail pile up: phone, electricity, and gas bills addressed to Guadalupe Gabriela Anaya. Some days you wish you could take a blade to those bills, cutting your name, so heavy with history, into confetti. Five hundred years ago Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to a Nahuatl-speaking Indian. Two thousand years ago the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. Visitations, annunciations. You understand such things all too well. Like Juan Diego and Mary, you had no choice but to say yes.

You crossed the Mexican border into Arizona on foot, the phone number of a cousin's cousin hidden in your bra, the sun a broken compass pointing you for days in all the wrong directions—forcing you, finally, to curl up beneath a Palo Verde tree to wait for death.

"Hey Lupe. It's Juan again. Somehow your Time magazine got in the wrong bundle. I'll add it to the rest of the stuff. Better take your mail in. Someone will think you're not home and break in."

"Gracias," you say, opening the screen door. "It would be embarrassing, no? I was just elected Block Captain. I'm in charge of raising awareness about safety. My campaign platform was 'God helps those who help themselves.'"

You take the mail from the box as Juan moves on to the next house. Forgetting to lock your screen door, you return to your kitchen and set the burritos in the microwave. A few minutes later you take them, steaming, on a plate to a small round table covered with a lace tablecloth topped with a sheet of clear plastic. At the center of the table: a glazed, lime-green pitcher you spent a week's worth of tips on is filled to the brim with cold water.

After you curled up under the Palo Verde tree, you gripped your stomach to try to stop the cramping, which you feared was caused by drinking water out of a cattle trough. You fell asleep and dreamed of the things you'd seen on your journey: plastic water bottles scattered like headstones, empty sardine cans, a perfume bottle, toothbrush, toothpaste, a pocket Spanish-English dictionary, and a booklet of prayers to St. Anthony, finder of lost things.

When you woke up the stars shone like coins. They shone like the stars over China where the factory you had worked for relocated, leaving you and hundreds of women with no way to earn a living. Then one star fell so close you smelled it, then touched it. You put your finger in your mouth and savored: The star was made of lard, which you once spread on tortillas like it was butter, the main meal for you and your mother during the hard times. You pointed to the sky again and waited for another star to fall, but it did not. You thought of your mother. What will she do, you wondered, if I can't work and send money home? Even lard will be out of reach for her.

Phoenix is just around the bend, you said to the Palo Verde tree, only to realize no words had come out of your mouth. I will freshen up and apply for a job, you said, but again no words emerged. You closed your eyes and thought, I must be dead, and the words came out, sung sweetly in Chinese—your voice and those of hundreds of other women.

You made the sign of the cross and again fell asleep. You dreamed that your bones had turned to dust. In your dreams you heard the Palo Verde tree say, "Potential renal failure." And another tree answered, "Let's get her to the hospital in Tucson. Call the doctor from the church and have him meet us there." You dreamed you opened your eyes and saw a man and woman—your arms over their shoulders—walking you to a van.

"I'm Daniel," said the man, but you heard, Michael the Archangel. "I'm Shanti," said the woman, putting a wet rag on your forehead, as you rested your head on her lap. Like the man, she had fiery wings so large they hung out of the van's open windows. "We're from Southside Church," they said in unison, but you heard, Upon this rock you will build my church. "We're not going to turn you in to la migra," they said. But you heard, We were once strangers in the land of Egypt, therefore we must welcome the stranger.

"Lupe, it's Cory."

"Come in, come in. I'm sitting here daydreaming while my burritos are getting cold. Let me thaw one out for you."

"Sounds good."

"They're bean, cheese, and red chile—nothing too hot. But I want this baby to get used to the red stuff now. Otherwise she'll grow up to be a ketchup Mexican. It happens to the best of us."

"Good news, Lupe. Virginia doesn't need her stroller any more. Don't worry about buying one."

You pull Cory's burrito out of the microwave and touch it to see if it is warm enough. Perfect. "Gracias, chica, but I don't need it. The neighbor gave me hers. One of those fancy ones the gringos use to run around the golf course with."

You open the refrigerator and reach in the back for the bottle of Taco Hell salsa, in case Cory wants to spice up her burrito.

Someday, you think, you might tell Cory the truth. That you dipped into your savings and bought the stroller brand-new from KMart. That one of the things you saw in the desert was a stroller, abandoned by a mother and her child whose fate you can only imagine. Your baby will have a different destiny.

"Okay, Cory. Don't forget our vow. We're going to speak only Spanish for an hour every week. You're coming along so well."

"Ay, Lupe, how would I make it without you?"

"You'd make it just fine."

You fetch two glasses and the green pitcher, imagining that it is filled with wine that some miracle worker turned into water, clean and cool for you and Cory to drink as you lead her, word by word, into the Spanish language.

* * *

My Dearest Destiny,

What a strange thing it is to take on this letter, seeing as how my waters have yet to part that you might cross into our humble promised land of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Warnings first. I am terrible at talking on paper. Out loud I am good, for the life of the poor foreigner depends upon speech. In this land one must explain, explain, explain—to doctors, bank tellers, and bosses—lest they inject you with the wrong medicine or count your money out wrongly or order extra work for no extra pay. I have learned to line up my words as in a Scrabble game that I might score high and emerge alive. So it shall be for you, who are already ahead of the game.

Nowadays all the experts say that prenatal readings make for Ivy League-bound babies. So nightly I grit my teeth and read to you from the best-selling Harry Potter book. I can only hope to God that my womb is equipped with good speakers, that my efforts to smarten you up come to something. I am no fan of Harry Potter, preferring to read murder mysteries before nightly prayers. Oh well. When the doctor yanks you into the light of day and slaps you on the behind, may you cry out, Harry! Harry!

Let me say that writing to you is not my bright idea. I do so under orders from my dearest friends, Maritza, Flor, Cory, and Peter. Posterity! Posterity! I learned this word in their hounding me to do this. I considered and prayed. And it came to me that one day I will be sitting in my lawn chair on the porch with a weak mind and not much going on but swatting flies and cracking walnuts with the friends listed above. I might forget my own story. So it is that I am writing you this letter, with more to come, Si Dios quiere. I have decided to say yes to posterity.

Love,

Your Mama, Guadalupe Gabriela Anaya, Block Captain of Sunflower Street SE

What Saves Us

Peter

On our second date, we ponder the mysteries of insulin. "Just think," Cory says. "When you add beans to your meal, sugar digests slowly and moves safely into the bloodstream over a period of four to six hours."

She lifts the lid of her Crock Pot and salts the beans. She asks me to clear the kitchen table. It's piled high with obscure monographs detailing the effects of traditional indigenous fare on blood sugar imbalances, such as diabetes.

"Tepary beans, nopalitos, mesquite flour, prickly pear nectar, chia seeds," says Cory. "Chicano and Native American test subjects who have added these ancient staples to their diets are reporting remarkable improvements."

She leans back against the sink, arms crossed, and smiles.

"It explains everything, Peter," she says.

"Yes," I say, clueless.

She goes on as she sets out the silverware. "Every night now when I watch the news I see evidence that blood sugar levels of wealthy white males are fluctuating—and causing everything. Road rage. Refusal to fund after-school programs for children. Union busting and impulse bombing abroad."

"You're on to something, Cory, no doubt about it."

Now, I am of the opinion that capitalism run amok is at the root of all evil, but I have to show my solidarity with her, which I hope she'll find sexy. On our first date at El Patio I was so nervous I couldn't stop talking about Venezuela's offer to supply poor Americans with gasoline at a discount. By 8 p.m. Cory said she was tired. I walked her back to her apartment on Columbia Street, and we said good night at the gate.

I was surprised when, a week later, she asked me to her place for a meal. Which was a good thing. Because by the time we had made it through our second round of Corona beer at El Patio, I'd made up my mind that I wanted to marry her.

I'll admit it. I'm the marrying kind. Twice I goofed up. I married women too young for me, both red-headed Irish gals who didn't know the basics. Like the fact that the North American Free Trade Agreement has pushed millions of Mexicans off their lands, forcing them to come north to find work. Facts that sometimes keep me up at night, having imaginary arguments with anti-immigrant racists.

Cory's different from those other women. She knows a thing or two. Like how to cut a man open in three places: through the skull, the wrist, and the torso. Now you might wonder what Japanese sword fighting has to do with free trade. I'm not so sure myself, but suffice it to say that when she used Japanese words to describe the lethal dance that is Kendo, my heart quivered. "I've devoted my life to the sword," she said solemnly, running her hands through her short brown hair.

"Supper's just about ready," she says, flipping tortillas over the gas flame. "I hope you don't mind. I got these low-carbohydrate things. I'll blacken them a bit so they don't taste like cardboard. I'm trying to lose five pounds."

Most women don't realize they can lose five pounds in an instant just by standing up straight. Cory's at that age, in her mid-thirties, when women start to slump and cross their arms, as if apologizing for taking up too much space in a man's world. That's how I see it anyway. My mom was a big woman and not afraid to express herself. When my dad got drunk and beat her up, it was like he was trying to beat her back down to size again.

"You look good just the way you are." If only she could see what I see—a body with curves in all the right places, and rich olive skin that she doesn't cover up with makeup—which invariably goes orange on Chicana skin.

We sit down to our feast. I pause before picking up my spoon in case she believes in prayers before meals. Evidently not. She takes shredded cheese and rolls it in a corn tortilla like she's rolling a cigarette.

"So tell me, Peter. What brought you to New Mexico?"

I can hear in her voice that this is a test. I don't know a single native New Mexican who delights in the arrival of newcomers, especially those with money. I will have to set myself apart by telling her the truth.

"I confess, Cory, I'm a cliché. I moved to Santa Fe to start life over. To do what I couldn't get away with in my own hometown. Cocaine. Classes in shamanism. I had an affair with a married woman and justified it by saying I was tying up loose ends from a past life."

Cory puts her spoon down and laughs. Her dimples appear, and it takes everything for me not to reach out and rub my hand along her cheek. She laughs so hard tears squeeze out of her eyes. Strangely enough, I don't feel laughed at, so much as forgiven.

"I moved to Albuquerque when my money ran out, and luckily I found work translating documents for various businesses. I was able to subsidize my activism—translating for human rights delegations here and in Latin America."

"Nice," Cory says. She plucks her paper napkin from her lap and slowly tears it in two. She gets up to stir the beans, even though the Crock-Pot is turned off. "Lucky you," she says quietly. Something in her voice, so full of sunlight, has changed, as if a cloud has passed over it. "There's plenty of food," she says, as if I can't see the feast spread out before us.

"Yes, I am lucky. My mother was a high school Spanish teacher. When she died I inherited her car. The first time I used it, a week or so after the funeral, the radio blasted on—set to the local Spanish station. And I realized I'd lived all my life on the opposite end of the dial from my mother—National Public Radio, rock, rap. I signed up for a Spanish class at the community college the next day."

It's not a whole lot to expect someone to say "I'm sorry" upon hearing of the death of a parent, even if it's old news. Instead, Cory fiddles with her bottle of beer then pours an inch more into her glass. I feel like I'm at my Sunday Quaker meeting, but there's nothing blessed about this silence. I want nothing more than to apologize—to get on with this wonderful evening I hope will end with a kiss—but Cory has yet to name the sin of which I'm guilty. It's not fair.

"My father is not bilingual. But when he's sober, he's articulate. He's good at things English is good at, like threatening to sue. He's an attorney. I haven't spoken to him in years."

Cory says nothing so I go on. "He's a get-to-the-point kind of person. Not one to talk in rough draft, if you know what I mean. Not one to be vulnerable."

"More beer?" Cory asks.

"No," I say, imagining walking out of the apartment and slamming the door behind me. "On second thought, yes," I say, wondering if one day she will be my wife. Some Quaker I am. They make all decisions by consensus, and here I am of two minds, irreconcilable.

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Excerpted from The Block Captain's Daughter by Demetria Martínez. Copyright © 2012 Demetria Martínez. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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