Loteria (14 page)

LA BANDERA

I
wrote most of the cards at the center. Now I’m writing
La Bandera
from a different room. I have three cards left, and I don’t know how it’s helped, but somehow I want to finish. Maybe this was a way for You to listen, which is really like listening to myself. A way for me to go to communion. I have to believe that if I keep playing it will be for something.

After Julia talked to me two days ago, I went to my room and packed my things and went to the office and said, “Julia.”

She was at her desk with her head in her hands.

“Call my aunt,” I said. “I want to go home.”

I’d talked with Tencha and tried to convince her that it would only be for a little while, then we could come back once she got her papers. If we could go, then let’s go. What are we waiting for? She looked at me and swayed, yes, no, yes, no, then said we could go down and stay with Buelo Fermín if that’s what I wanted.

The day we left you’d never know I was there for three weeks. In and out the days went, with those runny eggs in the morning and the television shows, and the other kids screaming. I didn’t leave anything for them to remember me by.

Sometimes I wonder if they told Tencha what they read in my journal. I don’t think they did because I would’ve been able to see it on her face. Or maybe I wouldn’t.

She always said to me, “There’s nothing illegal about him.
Es un buen padre
.”

And I know he is, but what about me? Am I a good daughter?

Most of the time she was asking questions, “You writing? Did you write something like I told you to?” But she never asked what, not since they took it. Maybe if she’d read it she’d say, “No, No, No, that’s not true.” But that’s what we do, right? We tell our own stories. We have our own
tablas
.

We were out of the center and I didn’t look back, not even at my desk or that stupid chair. That stupid desk where I built houses of cards and blew them down.

We’d been in the car for about three hours and I started to feel lighter, like if there was wind beneath us. The escort officer stayed far enough behind so that it didn’t feel like we were on a leash.

“You know what’s missing?” I said.

“
¿Qué?
Missing with what?” Tencha said. She was sweating like a glass of cold water. The window was down and the day was all dusty orange. “In
Lotería
,” I said. “You know what should be part of the deck?”

“What?”

“An eagle. How do you say eagle in Spanish?”

“Águila.”

“Like Tony Aguilar.”

“Yeah, but without the ‘r.’ ”

“Instead of the first card being
El Gallo
it should be an American bird, not a Mexican. Because you can’t count on roosters.”

“Mama, what are you talking about?”

“Eagles can fly, Tencha. The only thing
gallos
do is scream loud and fight.”

We drove farther away from the city and the land became less and less of anything. There were small towns we drove through with posters of Mexican Duvalín outside the stores we passed. But I didn’t see anyone walking on the sidewalks or playing in the parks. It was like they knew we were coming and hid inside to avoid being seen.

“When do the hills start coming?” I asked. “When do we go up and down?”

“Not until after the border,” she said. “When we get to Mexico.”

“I’m not going to have problems, am I? Like you in the States.”

“No, mama
.
You’re Mexican,” she said. “They’re not going to say anything. You can stay for as long as you want. And you can come back whenever you want. Don’t worry. I have your birth certificate.”

“But I was born here,” I said. And she didn’t say anything.

We stopped at a small convenience store and bought two Cokes and some
chicharrones
. The lady behind the register spoke to me in Spanish, and I looked at Tencha like if I didn’t understand. “You better start practicing,” she said. “No one’s going to speak to you in English.”

In the car, the road rippled and warped like if it were melting. We had to stop at a checkpoint, a place on the road where cars were waiting for an officer to let them pass. It moved forward every two minutes, so it seemed fine, but I felt sick to my stomach. Tencha turned the radio off so she could concentrate, even though she kept saying it was all going to be simple and fine and there was nothing to worry about. We stopped and I could see the officers open the trunk of a car in front of us. They talked to each other for a long time, then called someone on their walkie-talkie.

I looked out the window and saw something in the desert. At first it looked like a black trash bag blowing between the bushes. But I had to squint because whatever it was, it fell over and got up again, then kicked the dirt. “Look! Can you see that?” I said. Tencha looked out and squinted.
“¿Qué?”
she mumbled. Before I answered, I squinted again and tried to focus. If it weren’t for when it opened its arms and took two steps, like if he were carrying a crucifix, maybe I wouldn’t have said anything.

“There’s a man out there!”

“I don’t see anything,” she said. “You’re imagining it.”

I looked at her in that way she knew I was serious, but then, when I turned to him, he was gone. “He was there,” I said, pointing. “He must’ve fallen, but he was right there, I saw him.” She rubbed my thigh and said it was the heat. “Take a nap, mama. You’re tired. It’s the sun. Close your eyes.” I kept looking for him but I couldn’t find him. I knew I’d seen him, and so I opened the passenger door and stepped outside.

“Luz! Get in here,” she said, looking forward and back like if someone were coming. But I wanted to see him again, with his arms out to You. How could I not think of Papi at the sight of that man trying to walk? I was running away and trying to forget what had happened, but what if I couldn’t? What if I couldn’t forgive myself? I thought of Papi and how he made me, and how Mom made me, and how their blood is more mine than Tencha’s.

One of the cars in front of us made a U-turn and headed back from where we came from. The escort officer behind us turned his head to see it pass. I looked at the road we’d come from, the way it melted into itself from the heat, then looked at Tencha.

“What, mama?” she said.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have to. She knows me.
Somos iguales
.

“What are you thinking in that little head of yours?” she said, with a face that knew me more than I knew myself. Like if it wasn’t Tencha looking at me, but You.

I turned my head to the officer in front of us searching the trunk of someone’s car. Then to the car driving away behind us.

“What, mama?” she said. “What?”

I knew she might hate me and it’d be a long time before I saw her again. But it was either Mexico or the House of Hope. Maybe I was supposed to run away and open my arms and run through the desert like that man, looking up at You. The way Papi might be doing in his cell, not forgetting but trying to move forward.
Trying
to forgive himself. And maybe if I ran with my arms out You could take me and decide what to do with me. I looked at Tencha in that way you know us Mexicans know how, in the way You taught us. In that way that says I love you so much it hurts. So when I saw her looking at me like if she were seeing a ghost, I grabbed my backpack from the front seat and ran toward the officer behind us, waving my arms above my head and yelling as loud as I could,
“KIKIRIKIKI!! KIKIRIKIKI!! KIKIRIKIKI!!”

And he must’ve thought for sure that I was crazy.

LA LUNA

I
’m at
Casa de Esperanza
now, the house where hope lives.

Y me llamo Luz.
My sister
Estrella
, The Star
.

I figured I could keep waiting for Papi to get out since that’s all I’ve done. And when I’m done writing the cards, I thought maybe I’d send them to Tencha. That way she can read them and finally accept what happened. Because though I’m Papi’s daughter, I’m honest. That’s what she taught me.

When I think of Estrella I remember how she’d act silly sometimes when she was in a good mood, wet from the pool plopped on the sidewalk, looking like a girl watching television with her head up at the stars. I’d be like her, in the same position, supported by my hands with my butt on the ground, looking up at You. She said behind the face of the Moon, You were there. But she was acting silly and serious at the same time. She wanted to tell me You were right there between us. I looked at her face and saw You, the way she saw You in the Moon. She’d look at me, waiting for me to say something, then start singing “Pena, penita, pena,” and I could almost feel her heart come out of her skin. You and me and her, together in the way she looked at me.

It’s like that sometimes. I see You in people’s faces before they tell me something that means a lot to them. And that’s why I loved her, because I saw You there, in the way she looked at me. Maybe when she was looking at me she was looking at You?

One time, Tencha said to me, “Come here, come here,” like if I were some sort of dog. And I know love is expressed in strange ways, but still. Anyway, there I was, her little dog. She held me tight, and I couldn’t breathe. She said,
“Te quiero, Luz. Lo sabes, ¿verdad?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. And we looked up at the Moon.

LA RANA

A
nd who comes last,
La Rana
, the one who reminds me of the sounds we heard from the window when we were trying to fall asleep.

When we were little, when we were kids, we liked to sleep in Buelita Fe’s room whenever we got tired. We fell asleep with the television on in the living room while Papi and them were watching
Siempre en Domingo
. The wasps hit against the screen and the light outside turned lavender.

Buelita Fe had two beds. Hers was slanted because she had to keep her head above her feet, otherwise she’d snore and wake herself up. Luisa slept on that bed with me, and Gastón and Miriam slept on the other bed with Estrella.

We had never played the game before and I don’t remember who mentioned it. I think it was Luisa. All I can remember was her on top of me pushing her hips into mine like in the movies. That’s what it was, we were just acting like the adults in the movies. Her head tilted side-to-side like she was looking at puppies in a store window. Her tongue was out, and she kept asking, “Wanna make out?” “No,” I said. “You’re gross.” “It’s not gross if the actors do it,” she said. Then she’d get off me and tell me it was my turn, see if I could do any better. I looked over to Estrella and Gastón, and they were just looking. Gastón was lying on his stomach. He turned away like if I were going to flash him or something. But then he would turn around and keep looking. “Don’t act like you don’t want to do it too,” Luisa said. She opened her legs and squeezed me between her. And then I did it, because, so, we were just playing. We had our clothes on. But I was worried Papi was going to hear us from the living room and catch us. He was right there and the door was wide open. But the lights were out in the room, and we were in the dark.

I whispered, “Like that?” She said, “Yeah, like that. But do it harder like the men on TV.” So I did. But then the bed creaked and Estrella started giggling and Luisa said, “Shhh!”

“¿Qué hacen?”
Pancho said. He was still alive then.

All of a sudden it was like if some light had been turned on. And we stopped moving. That’s when I noticed how bad Luisa’s breath was.

I didn’t want the bed to creak again so I just relaxed over her. I felt like I was flattening her. But she didn’t tell me to get off, and we fell asleep that way.

Croooc, crooooc!

“What’s that?” I whispered. Gastón heard me and said, “It’s a toad, stupid.” “No it’s not. Toads live in ponds, stupid.” “No, you’re stupid.” “It’s a frog.” “Then why did you ask?” “Because I was asking where it came from, not what it was.” “Well, that’s what you asked.” “Shut up and go to sleep,” I said. And he did, and so did Estrella, and Luisa, and me. We went asleep to the sounds outside, then waited for the sounds to wake us.