The darkness in San Antonio drops like a blanket over the city after the colorful symphony has crossed the Texas sky. It is a sky so big, you would think that everyone underneath it could live in harmony.
I shift my body trying to get more comfortable in the lawn chair. The webs pinch my back. I sit alone in the backyard of my daughter’s home. I change positions again, uncomfortable under the weight of knowledge that my age brings me.
My daughter peers through the night and spots the red tip of my cigarillo. I know she sighs at the old woman—black felt reservation hat with the beaded hatband, pulled over low on my forehead, long hair loose down my back and held together at the back of the neck with a leather thong.
Once I braided my hair as a good wife and as a good employee. Now, no more. My vanity has left me nothing but my hair to show off and I love the feel of it on my skin.
From the other side of the house, Luz, my oldest granddaughter, approaches with hair brush in hand. Since her victory at the spelling bee, family and friends have been putting their desires for la causa, for La Raza, on her shoulders to carry on stage with her.
At fourteen, she is still wearing her baby fat, but womanhood is sneaking out in ways that make her parents worry. She waves the hair brush in the air. I smile and nod. The moonlight on her face shows the growing fullness of her lips and the thick lashes over eyes the same brown as the tequila I drink from my glass. She steps behind me and unties the leather string. She grabs hold of my hair in one hand and brushes the snarls out, working her way from the tips up to my head.
My daughter shakes her head and retreats into the kitchen as I suck on the cigarillo held between my lips. My granddaughter leans over my shoulder and breathes in. I slap my shoulder and she jerks away, laughing.
Luz is full of the devil, ready to go out in the world and stamp it with her being. She fills my heart with joy. She yearns for adventure, yet sadness fills the shadows. I know; all mothers know, as we watch our young ones buck heads with the world, that bruises and scrapes are sure to occur. Most of them heal over quickly. Others are remembered forever.
“Tell me a story, Abuelita,” Luz whispers in my ear as she sweeps the brush through my hair.
“Once when I was a young girl—your mother was little—I worked in a restaurant, making tortillas. I was so proud that I had a job. I remember being really proud of the tortillas I made.”
“You going to teach me how, Abuelita?” Luz lengthens her stroke on my hair.
“Sí, mijita. I can teach you.”
Flour, a pinch of salt, a spoonful of baking powder. The hand disappears under the flour. In a steady rhythm the ingredients are sifted together. White puffs tease the nose, the hand is coated in white.
A scoop of lard is dropped in the middle, squeezed into the flour. Flour bits ooze through the fingers. Fingers move in a repetitive motion, the mind slipping into meditation. Grasping, squeezing, dropping, grasping, squeezing so the muscles on the hand make the veins disappear, kneading the lard into the flour, making the ingredients a crumbly mix.
Grabbing the hanger, I hook my clean uniform on the locker door handle. My co-worker, Carmen, who has just finished her shift, frees herself from the embroidered-uniform blouse and pitches it into her locker.
“Aura, did you see Lucy Ricardo last night? She was in trouble as usual.” Carmen chuckles at the memory. “I don’t know how that Ricky puts up with her. All the men I know would have given her a good whack against the head by now.” Carmen, twenty-six, two years older than me, slips her arms through the sleeves of her leopard-skin blouse.
I join in Carmen’s laughter. I hang my blue cotton dress on the hook in the locker, then pull off from a hanger a blouse with delicate stitching across the front. “These outfits are for the birds.” I struggle to pull the peasant blouse over my head. “How they expect me to cook with this thing falling off my shoulder all the time is something I can’t figure out.” I pull my black, waist-length braid out from the back of my blouse.
Carmen laughs. “That’s the point.” She’s jerking on a pair of jeans, with rhinestones up the sides of the legs.
“I’m a mother of seven. Why do they want me in this getup?” I fluff the multi-gathered skirt of different colors on the hanger.
“Be thankful that you’re not like the skinny Chicanas with the big chichis,” Carmen holds her hands in front of her chest as if she is holding watermelons. “Them, they want standing at the front door for the customers to see. Us, we give the food a home style look. We are the mamásitas that have cooked for generations. Remember the motto?”
We both recite together, laughing, “Authentic before all else.”
Carmen holds up a hand and slips on three rings, then does the same thing with the other hand. “I had my break today. But I think they’re expecting some kind of huge party tonight. So take it easy as long as you can.”
I think: Tell me how I’m supposed to take it easy standing on my feet for eight hours. To Carmen I ask, “Did the boss or his wife come in at all?”
Carmen shakes her head. “Because of the party, they’ll probably be coming in tonight.”
“Híjo. Everybody loves Mexican food.”
“And Mercuries is the best place to get it,” sings Carmen. “Where you get served authentic Mexican food by blonde waiters.”
“This place goes out of its way to make the customer feel like they’re in Mexico with the paintings on the walls of the rolling hills with prickly cactus.”
I chuckle. “And don’t forget the huge black velvet pictures of bull fighters and vaqueros just like in my living room.”
“Ay, me too. What good Mexican home would be without it’s velvet picture of Elvis.” Carmen fluffs her hair. “What I like the most is that the waiters wear white cotton pants that show their underwear.”
“At least the bus boys are Latinos. I guess we could have it worse.”
“You been in front of that grill too long, amiga. The heat’s fried your brains.”
I drop the full, gathered skirt over my hips. “Como no. I saw a movie the other day. One of those westerns. You know what I mean, where all the good cowboys are gringos and are going to save the poor Mexican farmers. When they ride into town, there’s always some fat mexicana sitting alongside the road with a dozen little children running around her, making tortillas on a hot rock. Don’t matter what town or how many times they ride in, she’s sitting there cooking those tortillas with that brood of kids.”
Carmen steps into her high heels and says, “Let’s hope the boss doesn’t see that movie. He’ll have us cooking on a hot rock to make the place more authentic.” We laugh.
Small portions of warm but not hot water are poured into the bowl with one hand while the other hand continues to mix the ingredients. The knuckles are deep canyons of powdery dough. The hand immerses, squeezing, blending, molding. The masa takes shape.
A handful of flour is splashed onto the counter. The masa is dumped from the bowl onto the dusted counter. A white glob of soft, elastic dough. Both hands slap, pinch, squeeze, punch, work in unison. The sound of wet masa sticking to the counter. Lifted, dropped, and lifted again.
The door to the employee’s room opens and a man’s head appears. “Everyone decent?”
Carmen swings her valise-size tote bag onto the bench and opens it. “You wish, cabrón.” Carmen says to me, “Enrique, oh, excuse me, Pancho. They stand him out front like a wooden Indian. See, more proof. Our floor manager is authentic.”
From the door, Enrique says, “Too much laughter coming from in here. You should get here early enough to get dressed and be out at the grill by your starting time.” He looks at his watch. “Time is money.”
Carmen turns to him. “We’re not like you. We’re not willing to work for nothing just for a pat on the head from the master.”
“Just wait.” Enrique leaves.
“¡Pendejo! Who does he think he’s kidding?”
I pull at Carmen’s arm. “Take it easy, Chula. He can make trouble for you.”
“Ay, Aura, you’re such an innocent. He’s already forced me into the supply closet and offered me a deal.” She smacks her lips as she freshens her ruby-colored lipstick.
“A deal?” I slip on her white loafers with the cushioned pads inside for the long hours ahead.
“Bed.” Carmen shakes her head at the innocent look on my face. “If I go to bed with him, I’ll get a raise.”
“¡Ay, Díos mío!”
“Raise! He can’t even change the menu without calling the owner to check it out first.” Carmen snaps the cosmetic bag shut and drops it into her tote bag.
I toss my purse and the hanger into the bottom of my locker and clang the door shut. “Cuidado. Just be careful.” I twist the padlock dial several times and let it go. Tossing my jet-black, waist-length braid over my shoulder, I straighten my back and stick my chin in the air. “My public awaits me.”
Carmen laughs, holds open the door and bows. “At the grill today, presenting Doña Morales.”
The rolling pin is a smooth, round, wooden piece about a foot long, sanded and oiled. Juices from the masa seep into the wood. The palote acquires a glossy exterior. Dark from long use. Smoothness comes from the hands gripping, clasping, rolling over the wood in a constant motion for many hours. Incomplete is a wedding shower without the bride-to-be receiving at least three palotes. The bride knows the palote comes in handy for chasing people around the house.
People are ushered to wooden tables set for four that run alongside the wall. Bright red-and-white-checked tablecloths cover the tables. The patrons sit on straight-back, slatted wooden chairs. Linda Ronstadt sings softly in the background. The salad bar sits behind me, an entryway on either end. People make their own salads from the restaurant side of the food bar and watch me also. With my back to the customers, I stand at a small wooden counter rolling out the tortillas and cooking them. The area is visible to the dining room for all to see that the tortillas they receive at their tables are fresh and hot off the grill.
A young wife nudges her husband and points. “Oh, look how she does that. She’s so efficient.”
“Too bad you couldn’t learn how to make those pancakes. We could have some at home instead of always having to buy them.”
“Oh honey, you know it’s in their blood.” She smiles and gives me a little wave.
Crew cut hair, in a white shirt and tie, he nods and smiles at me. “Hell-lo,” he pronounces slowly.
With a twist that could break the neck of a chicken, a chunk is broken off from the huge lump of dough. The hands knead each chunk, rolling it under, making smooth round patties of dough, bolitas de masa, lined up in a row on a long, flat metal tray.
The people that are visible in the pass-through appear as waving images behind the curtain of heat radiating from the three-by-two grill. One ball of masa is taken from the tray and placed on the counter.
The hours feel like days; the minutes refuse to pass. I cannot sneeze, scratch my nose, or fix my hair. I’m not even allowed to sweat. I can’t move from the counter, and going to the bathroom takes permission from God. My feet itch, and I rub one foot against the back of the other leg, not even getting close to the itch, not stopping the itch, just ruining my hose.
I let the tension slide out through my hands as I continue to roll. The movement of the palote in my hand reaches all the way into my back and fills the space that is my body, while my mind filters through the parts that are my real life. I have learned to blank out the people milling through the restaurant, only seeing the small space in front in me. The noise from the restaurant becomes a scratchy old record playing in the background of my thoughts. I list all the chores I have to get done before I might have some time to spend with my sketch book.
The palote is rolled over the masa in brisk, short snaps of the wrist, going repeatedly first straight, then to the right and then to the left. The masa stretches in the direction of the pressure. As the masa flattens, the stroke of the rolling pin lengthens.
The arm muscles rolling the palote on the masa stretch against the skin, forming ridges and hollows. The strokes pull on the dough as the muscles pull on the arm. Every few strokes, the tortilla is lifted, turned slightly, and dropped back down onto the counter. The palote rounds out the edges, stretches the dough, making a perfect circle of food.
The waiters wear white shirts with wide, red sashes wrapped around their waists that hang down the sides of their legs. Often sash tails get caught under a tray or pinched between chairs causing no end to the disarray. The waitresses also wrap their waists with red sashes, the end hanging lower than the gathered skirts they wear. Their peasant blouses, held around the shoulder with a red ribbon, slip at the most crucial times.
“Waiter! Waiter!” A man with a foghorn for a voice yells until a waiter appears at his table. “Here. Give this to the little lady making the tortillas. These are the best tortillas I’ve ever tasted.”
I wonder how he would know, since he drank more than he ate. But I smile politely when the waiter drops my tip into a glass on the shelf above my head. The man winks as his elbow slips off the table. I pray that he has gone home long before I get off work.
Domingo, a busboy, steps from the edge of the salad bar. In Spanish he says, “My wife is picking me up. If your husband is not here when you get outside, sit with my wife in the car until he gets here, so you do not have to face the dangers by yourself.” He walks around me and through the double swinging doors into the kitchen.
I stare after him, gratefully, even more so when I hear the voice boom over the heads of the patrons calling for a waiter again.
I grip the palote, preferring the palote I had brought from home over the rolling pin the kitchen provides. I imagine the palote flying across the room, and hear the clunk it makes as it bounces off the head of a customer. I would explain to the gringos that it’s in my blood to throw things.
The tortilla sizzles as it is dropped on the hot grill. The second tortilla on the grill is flipped over, then the third is checked, and the fourth is placed in the styrofoam tortilla holder and set on the pass-through into the kitchen. As each container fills with a half-dozen hot tortillas, a waiter grabs it off the counter of the pass-through to put on the table.
Masa is rolled out. The three tortillas on the grill are flipped, and the warming holders are filled in a fluid sequence of motion. Hands move automatically. Sight and smell are the regulators. Mind in a trance. The doing is all there is.
The night finally eats up the time on the clock. I smile. I will make it through another night without quitting. Then I hear the words. I’m not certain if they are the words I thought I heard, so I listen carefully.
“Hot rocks, yeah. I’m telling you. It was a documentary or something. I don’t remember exactly. But at home they cook those tortillas on hot rocks.”
“Then it must be true.”
I turn around and watch the two white-haired ladies pile veggies onto their plates. They catch me looking at them and they wave as they go to their table.
I grab my palote and sacrifice the last bolita de masa, rolling it to a too-thin consistency so that it tears when I lift it. I drop it into the trash on the way to the locker room.
After being in front of the grill for eight hours, flipping tortillas and rolling masa, the smell of the food is lost to the nose. But the fragrance that entices hungry customers to order more than what they can eat is the same smell that sticks for hours after work.
The smell is in the hair, on the clothes, even on the skin. The masa is under the fingernails; the hairs in the nose are white from the flour. A thin layer of grease from the grill covers the skin.
The art of making tortillas is taught. Women were making tortillas for the conquistadors from Spain in ancient times. The secrets, the skills, the basic ingredients are handed down from one generation of women to the next. These skills know no borders, no state lines, no international boundaries.
There is a loud crash as the locker room door bounces open against the wall. “Everybody in here. Out! Now!”
Still barefoot, I fear a fire and reach into the locker for my purse.
“Freeze. Let me see your hands.”
Recognizing the tone of the voice, I raise my hands slowly above my head and turn around. In front of me stands a man with a crew-cut in a tan uniform, aiming a gun at me. “Get out here with the rest of them.”
In the dining area, all the bus boys and cleaning crew are huddled together—everyone that is Latino. The rest of the employees are leaving through the front door after having their IDs checked.
A big man, very round around the chest, is bearing down on the oldest bus boy, a man of fifty. He was the one who had offered me safety in the parking lot. I heard that he has six children at home. I know he speaks English, just enough to tell a customer that he will get the waiter.
“He doesn’t speak English,” I interrupt the interrogation.
The uniformed man, his black hair shiny and slicked back off his forehead, rears his head up and approaches me. “Who are you?”
“Aura Morales. A U.S. citizen.” I hold my head up proudly.
The thin man who pulled the gun on me in the locker room leaps to attention. “Lieutenant, I caught her hiding something in the lockers.”
“No, sir.”
I would smile at the look the man gives to his subordinate, except I know how much trouble I am in. “I wasn’t hiding anything. I thought there was a fire and I wanted to get my purse.”
“Anybody ever tell you you talk too much?” He leans over me, his eyes as hard as pebbles in a shoe, his mouth a thin smile.
I want to say yes. I want to name all the people who have said those exact same words. But nobody else would laugh with me. This one can and might hurt me. I remain quiet but hold his stare.
“You know all these people?”
I look around. “Pretty much. Some just to say hello to.”
“Tell me their names.”
“Can’t you ask ’em yourself?”
He takes me by the arm and yanks me in front of the men and points. “Start.”
“¿Tu nombre? Por favor.”
The grey-haired man bows his head. “Domingo Chávez.”
“Ask him where he lives.” The officer jostles me a bit to stay in command.
“¿Donde vives?”
“Con mi hija en el barrio.” Domingo keeps his eyes on the floor.
“He lives on the Westside with his daughter.”
“How long has he been here?”
“¿Que tanto tiempo tienes aquí?”
Domingo hesitates then answers, “No más de un año.” No more than a year.
“He’s been here all his life.”
The officer shoves me back into the group, making me stumble. “I understand enough to know ‘un año’ means one year.” He signals to his troops. “Take ’em all in. We’ll question ’em at the station.”
I step up to him. “Wait. I can prove I am an American citizen.”
“Yeah.”
“In my purse. I carry my birth certificate with me. But it’s in my purse.”
“You expect me to believe something that you can purchase at any corner in the barrio? Take her along with the rest.” He turns his back on me.
“But my children are expecting me home soon.”
“You should have thought of that before you had so many that you lose track of them.” He walks away.
Along with the rest of the men, I am herded outside to a gray van. The windows on the back doors are covered with criss-cross bars. The open doors click shut after we are all crammed inside. The van reeks of vomit and sweat. A young man begins to cry. An older man hushes him with a stern voice.
At the station, they stick me into a holding tank. The women, who were rounded up that night in their short skirts and sheer, skin-tight tops, check me over. I keep my hands loose at my sides and my chin level. I catch and hold for a few seconds the stare of each woman in the cell, then step into a corner, staring at the gray wall through the bars.
The painted gray bars of the cell sting my hands with their coldness. I reach out to a guard walking by. “Aren’t we allowed one phone call?”
“You’re heading back home. By tomorrow morning, you’ll be eating tortillas with your family.” He pats his generous stomach.
“But the phone call?” I speak to his retreating back.
“White bread and phone calls are for Americans.” The door clangs shut, cutting off the light. All the women in the cell laugh.
I huddle in a corner, willing myself to disappear. The night is long, my bare feet cold.
Tortillas hold much food, wrapped around and tucked. They stay soft for a long time, unless they are left out, then they become hard, brittle. They can be reheated in the oven or over a flame. Always the taste is different.
The orange morning sneaks in the small window of the jail cell, pale and weak. I watch the sky, wearied and red-eyed, not having slept all night. My body aches from huddling in the corner. My feet are numb from the cold floor. And I’m hungry. A hot tortilla would taste good.
Two unfriendly officers bring breakfast which consists of sliced white bread, weak coffee, and runny eggs with no chili.
Several hours into the morning, the man from the night before and three other officers come and unlock the men’s cell. They shout at the men, “All right, everybody in single file. Time to go back to Ole May-hee-co.” The three officers laugh.
The older men follow the example of the younger men because some of them don’t understand what is being said.
As they approach my cell, I reach out through the bars for the dark-haired man. “Please, let me call my family and let them know what’s happening.”
The man frowns, his thin smile disappearing, and brushes my hand off his arm. “We never allow calls to Mexico.” He waves the other women back, and unlocks the door.
“I am American.” I grip the bar. “I belong here.”
The man points to the end of the line. “Step out or we’ll come in and get you.”
I scan the faces of the officers and see their excitement at the idea of my resisting them. I step out of the cell and follow the line out through the door. At the end of the hallway through the open doorway, we are being packed into a pale, green bus for the free trip back to Mexico.
As the landscape rushes pass, I refuse to cry. I refuse to let the guards see me cry. I sit by myself on the seat. Domingo Chávez sits on the seat ahead of me. Every time the guard walks by and stops near me, he swings his legs out into the aisle and watches him, steadily, unblinking, until the guard moves away. I nod thank you.
I stare out the window, waist-high grass swaying in the breeze. It will be a short trip, I know from the pleasure trips I took with my family. I stare out the window, each mile tearing me away. I stare out the window, the land flat and red. I wonder who fixed my children breakfast this morning. I stare out the window, mountain range in the distance. Even the smells change as we move away from my home. I stare out the window. All I can see are the faces of my children and my husband.
A family meal is complete only with the cloth-covered bundle of tortillas passed from one person to another. Each diner takes a tortilla, uses it to scoop food, or to eat rolled up with butter. The mother stands at the stove, making sure that the tortillas are hot and fresh and plentiful for her family.
Tortillas, one constant since the time of Aztec Kings. The one memory every Latino child carries into adulthood is that of a woman in the family cooking tortillas. Tradition. A staple. Familiar as a mother’s goodnight kiss.
I flag the air in front of my face with my hand to swat off the mosquitoes. They are buzzing a melody against the black quilt of the night. I peel away from the back of the lawn chair. The wide, plastic webs stick to my sweaty back.
Luz stands beside me, brush gripped in both hands, starting with eyes full of tears. “Did they bring you back?”
“Hitchhiked. An Indian family picked me up. After they heard my story, they brought me all the way home. I rode in the back of their pick-up with the children. They said they understood what it meant to be taken from your home.” I touch the brim of my hat. “The eldest gave me his hat after he put the dream catcher on it.”
Luz sits on my lap and snuggles against my stomach. “Do you think I can wear your hat to the spelling bee next weekend?”
“Chulita, you have all you need already here.” I tap her head. “You already have all the answers you will ever need here.” I put my hand over her heart. “You are a woman. You will be the best. That is all anyone can ask.”
Luz talks into my chest. “So many people will be disappointed if I lose.”
I put my hand under her chin and raise her face to me. “Then let them do it. Lots of people talk, but very few stand up in front of everybody and do what has to be done. You have the courage to show up. That’s what counts.”
Luz blinks back at me and opens her mouth when we hear her mother’s words from the darkness. “It’s getting late.” Luz’s mother fans the air in front of her face. “There are too many mosquitos out here.”
Luz wipes the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, gets up, and stands next to her mother. “Abuelita was helping me with my spelling.”
“¿Cómo?” She looks at me, then eyes the empty glass of tequila on the table. “It’s late. Time to go to bed.” She kisses the top of her daughter’s head and shepherds her back to the house with an arm around her shoulders.
I trail after them. At the door of the house, Luz looks over her shoulder back at me. “Thanks, Abuelita, for teaching me.” She winks and laughs as she runs into the house to her bedroom.
My daughter stares after her daughter then looks at me. I smile, the cigarillo dipping. She throws up her hands in surrender and follows Luz.
I puff on the cigarillo. Through a blue haze of smoke, I look up at the sky, touch the brim of my flat-brimmed hat, and nod thank you.