The Madonnas of Echo Park (12 page)

“Appeared to you?” He leaned forward on a squeaky pivot in his chair. “I see. How did you know it was Our Lady of Guadalupe?”

“She told me she was the mother of all children.”

“Our Lady spoke to you?”

“I had a conversation with her.”

“You spoke with the Virgin Mary?” he asked, not a trace of disbelief or suspicion in his voice. “Can you describe her?”

“She had on a blue coat with stars on it, a red scarf over her head, a white sweater, and flat nurse's shoes.”

“Nurse's shoes.”

“Yes, it was a very basic outfit, nothing like the pictures in the murals around the neighborhood. Pressed, thick polyester. Almost like a pantsuit.”

“A pantsuit,” he said. “I see. And where did this ‘meeting' take place?”

“At a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard. That's where she spoke to me.”

“What else did she say?”

“She told me I didn't have to run along the solitary path I was on. And that'd she be back when I was ready to hear more of what she had to say. For being the mother of God, she was very testy.”

“Our Lady was testy,” he said. “I see. Did she say anything else?”

“No, but when she disappeared, there was a rosebush in a garbage can next to where she stood.”

“There were roses in the can?”

“No, Father, an actual rosebush growing out of the garbage can. This was before she changed my tears to rose petals.”

“The roses gave you tears?”

“My tears
became
rose petals,” I said, exasperated.

“I see,” he said. His expression never faltered, never betrayed an ounce of incredulousness. “And what question do you have for me?”

“Well, I've
seen
the Virgin Mary,” I scoffed. Wasn't my question obvious? “I want to know what I should
do
about it.”

He squeaked his chair back on that same rusty pivot, his brows furrowed together in a wrinkled clench. I half-expected its tightness would pop an answer right out of him.

“Beatriz, the Catholic Church has no standard response to Marian apparitions,” he said. “But I should also tell you my
abuelita
used to see Our Lady everywhere—when she was cleaning the house, making the coffee, at night when she put the
perros
out. I don't think I've met an
abuelita
yet who hasn't seen Mary at one point or another. I've never heard of Mary appearing in a pantsuit at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard before. That's a new one. Often, our mother appears in a long, flowing gown, saying very general, universal things. This is a personal vision.”

“Is that why I keep having the same dream?”

“Sure,” he said. “The overcoat could symbolize a desire for protection, for sanctuary, and no one offers more of both than Our Lady.”

“What should I do?” I asked.

“If it's been a few days and she hasn't visited you again, you may be out of the woods. Chalk it up to some bad
frijoles
and too much sun.”

“And what about the tears?”

He paused to clear his throat. “About that, I cannot discuss anything further with you.”

“Why? What I experienced was a miracle.”

“A miracle
if
it happened . . .”

“It
did
happen,” I said.

“People don't understand miracles,” he said. “They expect too much from them. Sometimes, a miracle is best when it is you that sees, and God that knows.”

Father Alemencio rose from his chair and walked me to his office door. “If you see Mary again,” he said, “take her advice: don't walk a solitary path. There are people out there who love you. I've met them. I know you will make the right decision.”

He returned to his desk, leaving the door open behind him. In the quiet stained-glass-lined vestibule, a gust of wind blew through the front doors of the church and wrapped itself around my skin like a cloak. I was covered in goose bumps, and in that moment, I could hear my grandmother ask me:
Who haunted you?

Father Alemencio said he had met those who loved me. I hadn't mentioned my daughter. What did he mean? This was a question whose answer I now felt I needed to hear. When I returned to his office, his door was locked, and I couldn't tell if it was he or the wind that closed it on me.

There are mornings in your life when you wake up earlier than your routine dictates, feel your body acting in a different way, and decide for an inexplicable reason you need to do something, a particular
thing,
to satisfy an innate desire for change. On the morning after I visited Father Alemencio, every inch of my skin was damp and clammy.

Who haunted you?

In a daze, I walked—it felt as if I floated—to the bottom step
of my front porch, where a bundled newspaper had been delivered to me by mistake. It was a copy of that day's
Herald Examiner,
with a front-page picture of a group of Mexican women and children dressed like harlots, standing on a street corner not too far from my house. I thought it was a story about a prostitution ring, but the headline next to the photo read:
CASE DROPPED AGAINST MOTHER IN “BABY MADONNA” SHOOTING
.

A young girl named Alma Guerrero had been shot and killed on this street corner at an informal gathering of mothers and daughters. This happened on the very same day, I noted, that I saw the Virgin Mary. One of the mothers was accused of throwing her daughter into the path of the bullet. The girl ducked, and the bullet struck and killed Alma. I'd heard nothing about this case—gang shootings happened every day back then—but a photo had been taken right before the bullet struck this child. The police examined the accompanying picture to see if this mother had indeed endangered her daughter, but they could reach no conclusion. The paper ran a caption that asked:
PUSHED OR PULLED
?
DECIDE FOR YOURSELF
. The photo was blurry and printed on newsprint, but I could make out the two women in question. They appeared locked in a tussle that left a strange and awkward space between them.

In between them, in that small space, was the Virgin Mary, dressed in the same outfit, staring at me with a benevolent expression of happiness and joy. There was no mistaking her.

I threw the paper to the ground. It was a warm, sunny morning, yet my arms were covered with fields of goose pimples. I grabbed the first overcoat I could find. When that proved insufficient to keep the chill off, I threw on another. Then two more, and in my slippers, pajamas, and four housecoats raced through the street to the corner where Alma had been shot.

There was a shrine set up next to a weathered steel utility box. It resembled a tombstone with
ALMA
spray-painted in red across its side and hundreds of homemade cards, drawings, stuffed animals, and
lit novena candles lined up against the curb where a galaxy of dark blood-red dollops drank the gray out of the concrete.

The candles flickered and burned themselves out. I didn't have to turn around to know who was standing beside me.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked over my shoulder.

“This is what loss does to a heart,” she said, touching the utility box. “The blood that runs through your veins should have been on this street, not Alma's.”

“That's absurd. You're the Virgin Mary. You're not supposed to say cruel things!”

“I speak in the words that are the easiest for you to hear me with,” she said and smiled.

“Are you saying I
want
you to blame me for that poor child's death? If it was her time, it was her time. She was dressed like a
puta
on a street corner!” I yelled.

“You speak to me like I am
tu niña,
” she said. “You talk too much.”

“Who are you to lecture me? You were sent here to protect me from evil, not chastise me!”

“I embrace those who embrace me but scorn those who profess to know my motives,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don't you know this? What kind of Catholic are you,
m'hija
? And why so many coats?” she asked.

“I'm freezing. But I'm sweating the old woman's sweats,” I said. “I've been through menopause once. You can't curse me with that again. Do you know what's wrong with me?”

“Without love, you are cold,” she said. “Without a heart, you are lost.
Tú sabes?
”

“No. You speak in riddles. I want answers. What about my dream? What about my daughter?” I asked.

The Virgin Mary smiled and shook her head. “Your daughter has been found,” she said. “It is you,
m'hija,
who are lost. I thought you were ready to hear what I had to say. But it was a mistake to appear to you. That happens sometimes; it's blasphemy to think I am perfect.
Another messenger will come to you. They will give you something that means nothing to them but everything to you without question or expectation. Then I will come and find you.”

“When? When will this happen, Mary? Please, tell me. Please,” I said. “I cannot apologize to you. It is not my way, but . . .” And I wept without reason, understanding, or shame.

“M'hija”
—she smiled—“you have much more crying to do before I find you again.”

She was gone, and a thick blanket of fresh rose petals covered the spot where she'd stood. I swept my hands through the petals in a panic, desperate to find some other clue or message, and cut my palms on glass pebble shards from the shooting. On the corner was a
mercado
called El Guanaco. I told the owner my tale. He saw my bloody hands and laughed. “Of course you saw Our Lady,” he said, “everyone's seen her out there on the utility box.”

On Sunset Boulevard, I begged sinners and devils alike to please listen to my story, come with me to the shrine to see what I'd seen. People brushed past, mocked me, pushed me aside; the chill on my skin grew worse. At a
tienda descuenta
there was a sale on two-dollar smoke-damaged peacoats. A day later, those coats were worthless; they no longer kept me warm. I purchased several more at the May Company downtown on Hill Street. Those coats lasted an hour or two before they no longer kept the chill away. With each passing week, month, and year since, too many to count, I have amassed a collection of coats whose warmth dissipates like cheap perfume. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes hours, but the warmth the coat gives me, the comfort it provides, vanishes, leaving behind another coat to add to an endless collection, stored in a large anteroom in case any one of them regains its ability to keep me warm.

Do you know how it feels to be burdened with a thousand coats and a fierce, numbing, camphoraceous chill running through your veins every waking moment? Each new coat holds promise, relief, then disappointment, frustration, much the same way each stranger
I meet holds the promise of being Our Lady's messenger, then reveals himself as someone humoring an old woman.

Some would call that kindness. I call it cruelty.

And now it's time for you to go.

I must stay here, in this very bus shelter where Our Lady appeared to me over twenty-five years ago, kneel on this weathered bench, rest my folded hands over the bench's back, and pray for her messengers' protection and guidance. They will have a difficult path, because evil watches your steps when you don't.

Your bus is coming, to take you out of Echo Park. But I am waiting, because that's what you're supposed to do when you're lost. You stay in the same place to make it easier to be found. And I know God is looking for me; when He finds a lost soul, he turns it into a miracle. How can I not wait, then, when miracles are everywhere?

L
ast name, Mendoza, first name, Efren, operator number 00781. Position: bus operator (BDOF) for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority, twenty-seven years. Metro is the third-largest public transportation system in America, with more than 4,400 bus and rail operators moving one and a half million riders a day. I drive two four-and-a-half-hour shifts a day, five days a week, and carry anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 passengers daily on my route, Line 200. My first shift begins at 4:41
A.M.
; last shift ends 7:53
P.M
. Part of the Metro “Local” bus line, 200 starts in Echo Park, a Mexican neighborhood, skirts along the edge of Los Feliz, an area for rich and famous whites, down a sharp turn onto Western Avenue, back across on Wilshire, through MacArthur Park, down Alvarado, and ends fifty-four minutes later in Exposition Park, a black part of town on the outskirts of South Central.

Aside from that short stretch through Los Feliz, Line 200 is an urban route with ninety-nine-cent stores, fast-food restaurants, and oases of crowded parking lots. There are 2,500 glass bus shelters throughout the city that cover passengers by day, the homeless and
crazies at night. Stops are marked every few blocks and at four major locations: St. Vincent Medical Center, MacArthur Park, USC, and the Coliseum slash old sports arena. The areas around St. Vincent and MacArthur Park are Latino; Mexican, some Salvadoran. A new influx of Koreans hit the area several years ago, but there aren't enough of them yet for tension.

The base fare is $1.25
(no
transfers) and nonnegotiable; nobody boards—no matter how tragic his sob story—without paying the full fare. I follow the rules. That ensures your safety and mine. I do not talk or text on a cell phone during my shift, make unexpected stops to accommodate passengers who try to board a half block away from the bus stop or at the stoplight, engage any of the riders in chitchat, or police any potential troublemakers onboard, though you'll find many bus drivers who do those things I've listed. I also do not deviate from predesignated routes, preapproved loading and unloading areas, prep checklists for prepull-out inspection at the division yard, rules for merging and turning, and most important, schedule times. My salary of $21.27 an hour relies on my punctuality (I carry a back-up watch; you are penalized if you are one minute late for your shift). It's a fair wage, one we had to go on several strikes—five during my time—to protect. Those socialist Che-worshiping
Reconquistadoras
complained these strikes hurt poor Mexican workers who cannot afford a car the most. You're a Mexican, they say, trying to bond with me by speaking Spanish. How can you turn against your own kind? they say. But they aren't my kind. They're not Americans. They're illegals, and the benefits to law-abiding Americans like me outweigh whatever inconveniences these people face breaking our laws.