Corazón de Mi
Vida, St. Teresa
[Heart of My
Heart, St. Teresa]
by
Bonnie F. McCune
Yolie and me,
we sneak out of Burger King about seven. After the dinner
rush, but before we have to do the crap at the end of the
shift.
“Gotta get our niños,”
I tell the manager. His mouth gets all scrunched together
like he has something up his ass. But what can he do? It
isn’t like he has people lined up outside his office
wanting a job. And me and Yolie, we’re real steady. Oh, we
may be late once in a while, but we show up regular. We got
to. Those babies need clothes and food, our mamas told us
even before our stitches healed.
Yolie and me’ve been tight since sixth grade. First year of
middle school, when we were the only Chicanas in the fast
reading group. We sat by each other in reading, huddled
together on the playground during lunch, walked home arm in
arm. Took turns braiding our hair, tried on make up,
whispered back and forth to each other what our big sisters
had let loose about sex, periods, boys and how to attract
them. And finally, at fifteen, we got pregnant together.
Was my mom pissed! Not Yolie’s. Her mom’s got so many,
what’s one more, she says. But my mom goes on and on about
Saint Teresa, how she named me for her so I’d choose the
right path, yadda-yadda. What a load! This guy showed me on
the computer at school, Saint Teresa, she was one wild
girlfriend when she was young. So I don’t bend my mind over
my mom’s bitching any more.
“Am I glad to get out of there,” Yolie says. “It was about
a hundred and fifty degrees in the back. And that bitch
Tina, I could see she was ready to play her little game
again. Diddling around filling the napkin holders so she
don’t have to scrub the floor or clean the stove.” She
strips off her Burger King shirt right there on Fifteenth
Street. We started wearing tube tops under our shirts at
the beginning of summer, partly to get cool as fast as we
can when we leave, partly to save time changing.
“So, how I look?” she asks, running her hands down the
sides of the tube.
“Good. Real good. You’re almost as skinny as before the
baby,” I say. Yolie always been thin but built on top,
got chichis
out
to there. That’s why guys always been hot for her, won’t
leave her alone.
“Yeah, but you should see my stretch marks.” She’s still
pissed I got none.
We cross the street to the bus stop and stand next to this
guy whose boom box is so loud it’s giving me a headache.
Yolie rolls her eyes and mouths “Ass hole.”
I say, “Let’s walk. It’s faster than taking the bus.”
We set off toward our casas
in
northwest Denver, dragging our bodies through the July sun.
It’s still so hot your feet kind of stick to asphalt in the
street, and the air shimmers over the surface. I’m really
moving. I don’t feel a thing, not the sun, not the
traffic’s shaking on the road, not sore muscles from
reaching and carrying at work. I’ve got a bubble of
anticipation in my gut that’s nearly ready to burst from my
throat.
“What’s your hurry?” says Yolie. “I’m gonna get heat
stroke.” She’s panting like a puppy. Trickles of sweat run
down the sides of her face and shoulders.
“Baby,” I say.
“Baby, nothing,” says Yolie. “The damn baby’s there all the
time. What’s up?”
I don’t look any where but the viaduct overpass we’re
starting to cross. It’s flung across the canyon below of
railroad tracks and metal skeletons for new buildings
called “lofts” instead of “apartments.” The overpass does
have a sidewalk for pedestrians, about a foot wide and
crammed between the crushed metal guard rail supposed to
save us from getting run over by cars and the web of more
metal of bridge supports that soar high in the air.
“I want to get to El Taqueria,” I yell over the roar of the
cars going past at six hundred miles an hour.
“To see Amando?” Yolie says. “Don’t you got a date with him
tonight anyway?”
“No, not to see Amando. And, no, I don’t got a date with
him. He just thinks ’cause he’s Miguel’s father, I should
drop everything whenever he shows up. He don’t own me.”
“Maybe it’s ‘cause he also thinks you two are getting
married.”
“Well, we ain’t. I haven’t decided. I’m too young to get
stuck in some cruddy two-bedroom apartment dropping a brat
every coupla years, only thing for fun watching tv and
going out for a beer once in a while. Maybe I wanna see
something different from this ’hood,
same people
every day, same dirty streets, same broken windows in the
houses, same music blaring from the doors.”
“You’re old enough, you loco.
What else is there to do?” Yolie’s guy disappeared when he
learned her baby was on the way. She never had a chance to
get married even though her mom and her had a fancy white
dress all picked out and her dad was talking to the priest.
“Anyway, Amando got a ‘tude. Thinks he’s tough shit, doing
me a favor by sticking with me. He’s not so great. Ain’t
even got a job.”
“If not to see Amando, then why?”
“Okay. I have like this kind of appointment with Lalo.”
“Lalo? That geek. You still hanging with him? I thought
when school let out, you gave him up. You don’t need his
help for tests and shit now.”
“Nope,” I say. “I want to see him.” I start scrambling down
the weed-choked embankment at the end of the viaduct,
fighting through broken bottles, shredded newspapers,
cigarette butts, used condoms, to cut off a couple of
streets from our route, a path over a lonely vacant lot,
then through the backyards of some neighbors. Yolie follows
me.
“Why you like him so much?”
“He talks to me about stuff,” I yell over my shoulder.
“What stuff.”
“Oh, about how he’s gonna study computers and what do I
think about what the mayor’s doing, things like that. About
St. Teresa, she was boy-crazy when she was young, but she
also had charm and imagination and intelligence, like me.
He acts like I have a brain, not just a cunt,” I say.
“Sounds boring. And he’s a dog. Don’t know how to dress at
all.” I stay silent. I think Lalo is very sexy, but in a
quiet Jimmy Smits kind of way. No, he don’t wear his pants
pulled low around his butt or have an earring or put on
those shiny shirts, but his eyes look right at you, like
you’re the only thing he’s seeing. I used to run into him
at the library, and he’d show me shit on the Internet, not
dirty stuff but answers to questions for class and then
places for moms, how many shots their kids should get, what
babies are like when their teeth come in. We’d giggle and
laugh and poke each other.
As Yolie and me cut through the Gomez back yard, ducking
under the laundry, Mrs. Gomez comes out. “Hi, girls. How
are the babies?”
Yolie is always ready to talk about Gabriela, like that
kid’s the only thing she’s ever done she’s proud of. She
yaps and yaps, how much Gabriela weighs, how she grabs her
spoon to try to eat her food, that kind of shit. I shift
from foot to foot. Is Lalo waiting at El Taqueria? Drinking
the iced tea he prefers to soft drinks? Licking sugar off
the rim of the glass? Pressing the cool tumbler against his
hot cheek? Is the waitress flirting with him, throwing him
bold looks from the corner of her soft dark eyes? Saint
Teresa, help me.
Sure is hot. I remember the day Lalo gave me a ride home in
a snowstorm last winter. Cold then. When we got to my
house, he parked his car and started talking about where he
was going to travel after he left school. Places where it
never snowed. Deserts full of nothing but sand and stones
and snakes and sun. Jungles with tangled trees and vines,
tigers hunting deer, sudden showers of warm rain. Talked so
real I could see the places in front of me and him in them.
Then he asked me what I was going to do. Until he
remembered and looked at my belly sticking out hard and
full as a baseketball.
“Guess I’m not,” I said, and I rubbed the lump that was my
baby. He was kicking like crazy in there, like he wanted to
jump out and join Lalo in a jungle.
“Not right away,” Lalo said. “But things can change.
Anything can change.”
And in that minute, I believed him. How could I not? His
hands, usually gripping a load of books or the straps of a
backpack, now stroked the steering wheel with fingertips.
His dark eyes, which in school stared hard and long at
teachers, now grew heavy as he seemed to be drifting away
from the car in front of my house into strange, different
settings. When he turned to me, it was like he invited me
to come with him.
Then he kept talking. And that man sure can talk. About how
the service could make life clean and straight-shooting. He
had an uncle who’d signed up who swore it was the best
fuckin’ move he’d made in his life. Steady good money,
rules and bosses that made sense, lots of space from people
who used to disrespect him. Lalo said his uncle was
planning to study computer repair; if you were interested,
free training in all kinds of jobs. A man could have a
great life and raise a fine family in the service.
I look around at the Gomez yard. Over here, a kid’s hard
plastic wading pool, its colored bottom making the water in
it look blue between the load of toys and the scattering of
yucky limp leaves floating on top. Then a long smear of mud
in a path to the square cement patio by the back door where
a bunch of white plastic lawn chairs look like they’ve been
abandoned the night before. Some rickety metal TV trays
still hold beer cans, and on the ground around their bent
legs scutter an empty tortilla chip bag and a bunch of
other junk. Nothing new or clean. It’s no different from
any yard, any house in this neighborhood. Sometimes this
‘hood looks like it’s the dumpster of the whole city, crap
all over the alleys. Smells like it, too. I never noticed
until I was pregnant. The greasy tang of fat floating in
the air as mamis fry tortillas or grill meat, the constant
tang of cilantro and chili made me sick to my stomach.
Then, one time Lalo talked about the air in Texas, how
clean it smelled, and how in the Army, trash don’t even hit
the ground before it’s picked up.
“We got to go,” I say, first in a whisper, then loud.
They keep talking. “And Miguel?” Mrs. Gomez says to me.
“How’s he?”
“Fine, fine.
Mrs. Gomez, we got to go,” I say.
Nope they keep talking. Their flapping jaws stir up the
only breeze in the city. Finally I pull Yolie’s hand.
“Hasta la
vista, Mrs. Gomez,”
I say, “los
niños, ya know,” and
actually drag Yolie away.
I tell her, “Girl, you made this short cut into a long
cut.” I race into my house and grab Miguel, feel his
diaper, not too wet, stuff him into his stroller, wriggle
my fingers at my mami, and am on my way out the door before
Yolie can finish putting on more lipstick. The screen door
bangs behind me, off half its hinges, and the crumbling
concrete of the front steps tries to trip the wheels of the
stroller. I’m used to dodging these screw-ups, so I fly.
Yolie pokes along after me. “Chill. Everybody will still be
hanging. The cafe won’t burn down.”
“Told you, I have this thing with Lalo. I was supposed to
be there at 7:30. His last night in town. He’s going into
the Army tomorrow.” Right now I don’t care if Yolie gets
pissed off at me, don’t care about my mom’s shout to take
the baby clothes to the laundromat, or if I’m uncool
jogging to meet a guy. I promised, I promised, I promised
to meet Lalo to say goodbye, to find out his new address, a
phone, even an e-mail. Yesterday he came into BK and didn’t
order nothing, not even a pop. He must have dropped by just
to swear that he wanted me to stay in touch with him. If I
don’t make see him tonight, he’ll disappear like a puff of
smoke, or a TV show you switch off and it’s gone.
I gallop down the street so fast, the baby’s head bounces
against the back of the stroller and he giggles. With each
step I chant, Saint Teresa, Saint Teresa. The evening wind
is coming up, and for a few seconds, through waves of dust
blown out of the gutter and off the drying lawns, I think
about me and Lalo and Miguel in an even hotter place, say,
Texas. In a little apartment, Lalo peeling out of his
uniform, me jiggling the baby and holding a beer for Lalo.
I can see the heavy, tasseled curtains at the windows, a
big mirror with gold trim over the velvet couch, on the
wall lots of pictures of us and Miguel and our families, a
major TV and entertainment center in dark wood with shelf
after shelf rising to the ceiling. I feel absolutely safe
but somehow excited, too, like I been drinking too much
Sprite and my ears are buzzing.
Way down the street by El Taqueria, I can see a group of
people standing out front or propped on their cars,
smoking, sharing a soft drink, but I can’t tell if Lalo is
one of them. Coupla them got their radios turned up real
high with songs rocking the air. Closer, closer, I’m
breathing really fast and humming along with the song. Then
I see someone come out of the cafe, tall, thin and graceful
as a young cat, he gets into a car, that’s Lalo’s car, oh,
no, and pulls away off down the road, going the other way
away from me and Miguel.
For a minute I can’t inhale, can’t see, can’t talk or feel.
Miguel beats at the air with small fists as if he’s the
challenger in a fight, which brings me back to life. “Now
see what you did,” I shriek at Yolie. “He’s gone. He
thought I stood him up.”
Yolie shrugs. “No big deal. One man is pretty much like
another.”
Now she’s leading and I’m dragging behind. I feel like
crying. Goodbye, Texas. Goodbye, little apartment with a
thirty-six inch TV, king-size bed, tiny crib for Miguel in
his very own bedroom. We come up to the cafe, and there’s
Amando, talking and bragging like he always does. Miguel
starts whimpering, and I pick him up and pull out a piece
of chocolate for him to suck on.
After Amando shoots the bull for a while with his friends,
he comes up to me. “There’s my mamacita.
How you doing? Ready to party tonight?” He grabs me around
the shoulders and squeezes me.
I shrug. “I guess.”
The baby screams and rubs his face with his hands. His fat
cheeks, mouth, and chin are covered with sticky chocolate.
“What’s wrong with him?” asks Amando. “Need more candy?”
“Naw, he’s teething. Fussy. Maybe running a temp. Maybe I
shouldn’t go tonight.”
“Don’t
be loco.
Give him to me.” Amando takes Miguel and jiggles him up and
down. “That’s my hijo.”
Miguel yells louder and spits chocolate-colored drool all
over Amando’s shirt. Amando hands him back faster than you
can flip a tortilla.
“We got to go talk to my mama first, before we hit the
road,” says Amando. “She wants to know how many people from
your side coming to our wedding.” He strokes my arm,
nuzzles my neck, something he’s done since the first time
we got together. I used to think it was sweet, kinda
protecting me, kinda putting moves on me. Guess that’s why
I started doing it with him last year. He wanted me so bad
and I was curious.
I’m still wiping the spit off Miguel. It’s making his plump
rosy cheeks shiny. He’s trying to stick all ten, fat,
chocolate-covered fingers into his circle mouth at once.
Everything about him is round—his head, the tip of his
nose, his eyes, his cheeks, all over his body—like he’s
made of a bunch of squishy balls all molded together.
“Hey,” says Amando. “The wedding? We can get my cousin’s
band for nothing.”
I look at Amando and can see some of Miguel’s roundness in
him, his belly, his chin. No lie that he’s Miguel’s father.
Lalo’s kid would be skinny and long, with eyes so big you
can fall in them, and a nose and chin like a statue. Then
I’m staring down the street in the direction of Lalo’s car,
then over the tops of buildings, past the mountains, at
nothing. “Whatever,” I say.
Copyright 2009 by Bonnie F. McCune