Caramelo

—I need Toto up here, Father says, knocking on the hot box of the motor between his seat and Toto’s. —You forget Toto’s my navigator. And besides, he knows how to drive.

—I can help you with that, Father. Isn’t it my turn to drive now? Memo asks.

Memo’s been trying to get behind the wheel since he was a kid. Father gave in on the trip down and let him drive in the country, but somewhere before San Luis Potosí, Memo ran over a chicken. We had to stop the car, look for the owner, and pay her five American dollars, which Mother said was way too much. Father felt sorry for her. —She was just a kid, he explained. —And she was crying. Now nobody trusts Memo behind the wheel except Memo.

Father says, —It’s that they’re teenagers, Mamá. They don’t listen. Nobody listens to me anymore.

—But Lala just got a haircut. Especially for this trip, Lolo has to remind everybody. —Isn’t that right, Celery?

I blame Mother. She’s the one who complained and made me go get this dorky haircut. I wanted a shag, but because my hair is coarse and thick, the top sticks up like celery when it’s humid.

—Don’t pick on Lalita, Father reminds Lolo. —She’s your only sister and the baby.

The boys act like jerks, like it’s the funniest thing they ever heard in their life.

—So? So I’m not Twiggy, so what! I’m … Father, what’s that word for big-boned?

—¿Fornida? says the Grandmother. —Are you sure Celaya hasn’t got a worm? What this girl needs is injections. She’s turning into a man.

—Lala takes after her mother’s family, Father says. —The Reynas are all built like a mountain range. It’s their Indian blood. Pure Yaqui. Right, Zoila?

—How the hell should I know? Mother says, annoyed. She doesn’t like to be called Yaqui in front of her mother-in-law.

Memo and Lolo start singing “Mi mamá me mima …” to tease Toto, who is mother’s favorite.

—Wait till you guys get shipped to Vietnam, then we’ll see who’s laughing!

—Fat-Face is to blame for everything, the Grandmother says, not having understood a word of Mother’s rantings because Mother said it all in English. —I don’t know how he does it, but Fat-Face has always convinced your father to do horrible things!

—Like running away from home, and then sending for Baby to go north too. That’s how they all wound up so far from me, getting involved in business that was none of their business in my opinion.

^* During the Vietnam War, a draft lottery based on birthdates was instituted beginning in 1969. It aired on national TV. Whole families watched this lottery of death in terror, as 365 Ping-Pong balls came down the chute and announced if you were a “winner.” The birthdates of men between eighteen and twenty-six were drawn and posted in order of sequence. If you were one of the first 200, it was almost certain Uncle Sam would call on you.

^† Burrola and Don Regino Burrón are characters from the excellent Mexican comic book La familia Burrón, a chronicle of Mexico City life created by Gabriel Vargas. In a country where books are expensive and often out of reach for the masses, Mexico’s comic books and fotonovelas are aimed primarily at an adult audience, among them Mexican Mexicans and American Mexicans, as well as Mexican Americans and some ’Mericans trying to learn Mexican Spanish. La familia Burrón is remarkable because of its longevity. It began in 1940 and is still sold today in kiosks across Mexico. Every Tuesday—or is it Thursday?—a new issue appears on the newstands, but if you don’t get there early, you’re out of luck. Copies of La familia Burrón are sold in Mexican grocery stores throughout the U.S., though the issues are not as current. Thus, a popular request to someone venturing south is to bring back the latest issues of La familia Burrón!

^‡ —Lies! All lies, Mother says. —Nothing but a bunch of lies. He doesn’t exist.
—Who doesn’t exist?
—God, Mother says.
   She’s staring at stacks of her precious magazines she’s piled in a plastic laundry basket.
   —I can’t believe I saved this shit, she says.
   There are volumes of Reader’s Digest, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, and a year’s worth of National Geographic, a gift subscription from her sister Aurelia. “Apollo 15 Explores the Mountains of the Moon.” “Those Popular Pandas.” “Lady Bird Johnson’s White House Diary.” “Julia Child/28 Great New Vegetable Dishes.” “The Skirt-Length Problem/Ten Ways to Solve It!” “Do-It-Ahead Holiday Ideas/Food, Fashion, Beauty, Gifts, Needlework.” “Ralph Nader/Are Baby Foods Safe?” “A Guide to Christmas Gifts under Twenty Dollars.” “The Kahlil Gibran Diary.” “Adorable Animals to Crochet and Decorate.” “Fifteen Ways to Trim That Tummy.” “Twenty Scrumptious Dessert Recipes.”
   —You, Mother says to me in her that’s-an-order voice, —help me get this junk outside.
   The laundry basket is filled to the top and bulging, too heavy to pick up. We have to slide it to the back door, then thump it down two flights of porch steps to the backyard. I thought Mother meant to haul everything to the alley, but she heads for the garage, unlocks the padlock, and wheels out the Weber kettle she bought at the Wieboldt’s with her S&H green stamps. Mother feeds the Weber the first batch, douses it all with lighter fluid, and, with a little sigh, lights a match.
   It takes a while before the fire catches. The magazines are thick and let loose a pale, ashy smoke that makes you cough. Satisfied, Mother puts the lid on and then goes back inside. She makes her bed, washes the breakfast dishes, starts several loads of laundry, before we sit down to egg and hotdog tacos. Every once in a while she plucks the kitchen curtains aside and makes me go outside to feed the kettle more magazines. Mother isn’t satisfied till she can see the smoke unspooling steadily from the lid, a thin gray string.
   —Cripes, she mutters while peeling potatoes.
   When the boys come home later that evening they ask, —What’s burning?
   —My life, Mother says. Every time she talks like that, kind of crazy, we know to leave her alone.
   Memo wants to go out and take a look, but our mama grabs him by the hood of his sweatshirt. —Oh, no, you don’t. You eat your dinner, boy, and finish cleaning up your room, she says. And by the time he’s finished, he’s forgotten about the Weber kettle.
   There are unfinished embroidery projects she’s abandoned. There are paint-by-number sets. There are plants to repot and television shows to watch. But Mother doesn’t feel like anything. Nothing. Not even lying on her back and staring at the ceiling.
   It all started when December 20th popped up on a Ping-Pong ball, number 137 in the draft lottery, Toto’s birthday. Mother stops putting on her makeup, gives up setting her hair and plucking her eyebrows. She lets the Burpee seed catalogs pile up with the Chicago Sun-Times, and then throws them all out. She gains weight once she stops doing her daily exercises. Nothing interests her.
   Until the older boys bring home their college textbooks. She reads Freire, Fromm, Paz, Neruda, and later Sor Juana, Eldridge Cleaver, Malcolm X, and Chief Joseph. She begins a subscription to Mother Jones and The Nation. She tears out pages of political poetry and tapes them to our refrigerator. She listens faithfully to Studs Terkel on WFMT and pastes Spiro Agnew’s face on our dartboard. Mother clips the slogan of a national ad campaign and tapes it on the bathroom mirror: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

52.

Cielito Lindo