August 24, 1993
Leaving my body has become an addiction. I keep wanting to leave it forever. I ask myself if it isn’t a death wish. I wonder. I used to feel desperate like this every time I fell in love with a man—and it never worked out. Why did I always need a man’s approval so desperately? It’s not that I ever let them know how I felt—not that it mattered. I was addicted to men until Salvador gave me his gift. Ever since that day, I’ve felt very free of them—and I don’t really miss them. I used to look at them all the time, always staring at them wondering what they were like. Men and cigarettes—it was as if they went together. And both were bad for me. But they were such exhilarating habits. Funny thing about addictions, you fall completely in love with them—that’s part of the problem.
But now this thing with leaving my body—it’s scary. What am I supposed to do? I get up in the morning and all I can think of is leaving my body. I keep hoping it will grow old in time—but it hasn’t grown old at all. It’s like being a god or an angel—except that I’m not sure I believe in either of those things. I don’t know what I believe in—I just know I can leave my body. And that I like traveling as if I were nothing but light. I used to think that the only ecstasy I’d ever know was the ecstasy I felt when I was with a man. I never thought I’d ever feel anything that approached joy. But this is joy. This is really joy.
And yet I’ve seen so much misery since I’ve arrived here. Maria Elena told me there was poverty here—I didn’t know how much of it there’d be. Last week, I read in the newspaper about a bleeding icon in Juarez. A man held up a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that had suddenly begun to bleed. A miracle, he said. The reporter had asked him why it was bleeding. “Because he feels our pain,” the man had said. I wanted to see that man. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to read his mind and understand what he felt. The newspaper named the colonia where the man lived. I asked Nena what a colonia was. She told me it was a district—like The Castro or The Mission in San Francisco. That same afternoon, I left my body to find that man and his bleeding Sacred Heart. It’s so easy to cross the border without a body. It should be this easy for everybody—that’s what I thought. Why not? Why the hell not? Somehow, the place where the man lived was easy to find. The man lived in a colonia with no electricity and no running water. Already, they had built a shrine for the bleeding heart of Jesus. There was a line for miles, and all of the pilgrims were poor, all of them obviously from the same neighborhood. And there were groups of people dressed in different garbs dancing in front of the bleeding heart. A group of men had evidently butchered a hog and were cooking portions of it over an open fire. Vendors were selling food and brooms and rosaries. I was moved because there was an innocence about them that I simply do not understand. At the end of the twentieth century, some still believed. But it angered me because I wanted them to make a revolution. They lived so close to such wealth and had nothing. In this neighborhood alone there were thousands of them. I went home reluctantly. I told Maria Elena what I had seen, what I had done. “Take me there,” she said, “I want to go.” And later she added, “It’s good that you take your body there, too.”
And so we found ourselves in that neighborhood again. I felt odd and conspicuous. Maria Elena and I are both Mexicans by blood, and both of us speak the language. But kneeling among the pilgrims, I was nothing more than a gringa. I know nothing of Mexico—nothing of poverty. The poverty didn’t scare Maria Elena—probably because she’d known it. It just doesn’t scare her. She went there as a pilgrim. I went there as a tourist. Maria Elena and I. as alike as we are, sometimes reside in different worlds. She tells me I’m holy. I tell her I don’t like that category of thinking. She smites. I smile. Sometimes, all we can do is smile.
“You can’t take off to Mexico just like that.” There was a mother’s tone in Maria Elena’s voice. Eddie could taste the resentment on his tongue as he heard her response to his and Jake’s plans to go to Casas Grandes. He was surprised at her response. He was even surprised at the taste at the base of his tongue.
“You’re not speaking to little Jake, you know,” Eddie said softly. He played with his coffee cup nervously. “I don’t see a problem.”
“Do you know where Casas Grandes is?”
“I looked on a map, damnit.” The voice was no longer soft.
“And do you have your permit to travel in Mexico?”
“I didn’t know we needed a permit.”
“Eddie, they’re a sovereign country—just like the U.S.”
“You’re being arrogant and snotty, wife.”
“You’re being arrogant and snotty. And don’t call me ‘wife.’ I hate that.” She picked up the baby who was wide awake and chewing on his hand. “Such a good baby,” she said to him. The baby smiled, “Handsome boy, rey de mi vida.”
Eddie listened to the lilt in her voice. Sometimes, he found her irritating. “We were having a discussion,” he said. “I hate when you interrupt our conversations and pick him up. He’s getting too big anyway.” He bit his lip.
“Babies should be held,” she said evenly, “and nobody ever gets too big to be held.” She handed the baby to him. “Here, you hold him.” She stepped back and looked at them. “Handsome men,” she said. She smiled at her husband. “It’s not that I’m against the idea of you and Jake going to Mexico—it’s just that you don’t know crap about traveling in a foreign country.”
“Oh, and you’re an expert on Mexico.”
“At least I’ve been there. At least I know the language. I don’t know everything—but I know something. Something, Eddie. This is the first time you’ve even been out of California—”
“So what? It’s a big state.”
“So what? So is Texas.”
“Texas sucks,” he wanted to say. “I know enough,” he said slowly, not quite softly.
“Yeah, well I know how to get to Casas Grandes. I also know you need a permit to travel into Mexico. Do you, Eddie?”
“What’s bugging you, Nena.”
“What’s bugging me is that you think you can go to Mexico at the drop of a hat—and you’re right, you can. And here we are, planning to build a goddamn wall on the border to keep “them” out. Did you read that in the paper? Did you read that? ‘Operation Keep Them Out’—”
“It isn’t called ‘Operation Keep Them Out’—”
“Well, it should be. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Why are we fighting about this, Nena? I agree with you. Jake agrees with you. You heard us discussing it last night. We’re as disgusted as you are. So why are you mad at us?” The baby’s peace seemed disturbed. At first, he made a few grunts, then broke out into a full cry. “See, you made him cry.”
“He just needs to be changed. I know my son’s grunts. Your turn to change him. And you didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go?”
“Oh, so that’s it,” he said as he placed his son on the counter. He felt the diaper. “You’re right—he does need to be changed. Hand me a diaper, will you?”
She walked into the utility room and returned with a clean diaper and some baby powder, “I want to go, too,” she said. “You didn’t even ask.”
Eddie said nothing, pretending to concentrate totally on changing his son’s diaper.
“Is it a brother thing?” she asked.
Eddie nodded. “Don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad.”
“OK,” she said, trying to soften her voice, “I’ll try not to feel left out. I’ll take you to get your permits this afternoon. That way you can drive straight through in the morning.”
“You’re a good sport,” he said.
“I want my brother, too,” she said. “And I haven’t even started to search—”
“Nena, we’ve been here less than a month. We’re not even finished working on the house.”
“Starting Monday, I’m going to begin looking. He can’t be far.” What if he’s dead, she thought, what if he’s moved? She took the newly changed baby in her arms and rocked him slowly. She looked up at Eddie. “You and Jake be careful, OK? Sometimes a cop wants a bribe—sometimes they stop you. Don’t get holier than thou. Jake won’t—but you will. Just give the man a ten—and drive, OK?”
“OK.”
“And call me.”
“We’ll be back by the evening.”
“Call me anyway.”
“I left last night.”
“Again?”
Lizzie nodded. “I just can’t help myself. It comes so easily. And by the way, it’s a hell of an easy way to get to know a new town.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Doesn’t it scare you?”
“You always ask me that. And I keep telling you it isn’t scary at all. It’s exhilarating. I actually went into a bar last night.”
“You what?”
“I went into a bar.”
Maria Elena looked at her strangely.
“What’s that look on your face.”
“You leave your body to go into a bar?”
“Well, no. I left my body just to leave my body. It’s like climbing the mountain because it’s there.”
“But to go to a bar?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“Where was the bar?”
“In Juárez.”
“What was the name of the bar?”
“The Kentucky Club.”
“I know that place.”
“You been there?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. It used to be a joint where hotshots hung out in the forties. Elizabeth Edwards, what the hell were you doing there?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I was sitting in my room trying to relax, and suddenly I could read Jake’s mind just by thinking of him. I didn’t want to know—I didn’t want to eavesdrop, so I made myself think of something else. You know, it’s like I feel that I’m going to find your brother one of these days. I’m going to see him and I’m going to know him. He was in my dream—I’d know him anywhere—and that woman, that older Mexican woman—I’m going to find her, too—I just know it.”
“What are you going to do when you find them without a body?”
“Follow them. Find out where they live.”
“What if you stay too long outside your body. Aren’t you afraid your body will die?”
“I might die when I’m in it—then what would I do?”
“Don’t be flippant, Lizzie.”
Lizzie took out a cigarette from her purse and put it in her mouth. She smiled at Maria Elena.
“You have no willpower. I can’t believe you’re starting up again. It’s you and Jake—you both have addictive personalities.”
“Yeah, but we’re fun. And can we skip the lectures?”
Maria Elena laughed without wanting to.
“So anyway,” Lizzie said dramatically as she lit her cigarette, “I was lying on my bed and I felt, well, peaceful—that’s the word. And I knew I was going to float away, and I wanted to, so I just went with it. It’s like being with a man that you just can’t resist. Which reminds me, I haven’t been with a man for years.”
“Years, Lizzie?”
“Well, yes—over a year, anyway. That’s a long time. Which reminds me, did you know this town has a whopping streetwalking business.”
“It always has. It’s nice to know some things stay the same.”
“And a lot of them aren’t what they seem.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Transvestites.”
“Oh, there weren’t any in San Francisco?”
“Oh, it doesn’t offend me. I’m just, well, surprised. I thought the border would be much straighter.”
“No, not straighter, Lizzie, just more underground.”
“So I got tired of following these guys around. And I figured your brother wouldn’t be in a bar.”
“So how’d you wind up at the Kentucky Club?”
“Well, I just wanted to cross the border—and once I was there, I didn’t know where to go—so I liked the name of this place and I just went in.”
“Too bad you didn’t take your body along. You could have had a drink.”
“Very funny. I don’t drink in bars—just restaurants.”
“Oh, a classy dame, huh? So, did you see any men you liked?”
“That’s not why I went in there. You think I’d leave my body behind if I were scoping out men?”
“So what did you do in there?”
“Listened to people talk. It’s a fantasy—and I can live it. It’s amazing. I’m the fly on the wall everybody always wanted to be. I just listened to people talk. It’s amazing how much bullshit is tossed around in conversation. And you know what?” She puffed out some smoke through her nose. “You know what I felt?”
Maria Elena stared at her and shrugged.
“Compassion,” Lizzie said, underlining it with her voice. “I liked these people. I liked being one of them. And you know what else? I stopped a fight.”
“You what?”
“You want to know how I did it?”
“Can you intervene like that?”
“Well. I did. These two guys—friends—they were talking, then all of a sudden one of them got mad, and the other got mad, too. Pretty soon they’re yelling at each other, and the other guy threatens to kick his friend’s ass from Juárez to Austin. And I thought to myself, oh great, here I am about to witness a barroom brawl. And then I thought, ‘Lizzie do something.’ So I just whispered in his ear and told him everything was fine and told him his friend was a good friend. I willed him to hear it. He put his fists down. And he seemed calmer. And pretty soon they’re having another drink and laughing.”
“You intervened. Is that moral?”
“Well, are you supposed to be doing things like that? I mean, you’re not exactly a guardian angel—you’re just this woman who leaves her body at home when she goes out at—” Maria Elena stopped in mid-sentence. “Well why not? How would you like to do me a favor, Lizzie?”
“Like what?”
“Will you do it or not?”
“Not until you tell me what it is.”
“I’m your best friend in all the world.”
“Cut to the chase, Maria Elena.”
“How would you like to follow Jake and Eddie to Casas Grandes?”
“What?”
“Can you do it?”
“It’s not a question of can I do it—it’s a question of why should I do it.”
“Because I’m worried. What if something happens to them? Who would it hurt? All you have to do is follow them there and follow them back—just to make sure they’re safe.” “I can’t,” Lizzie said softly. “It’s just—”
Nena stared at her friend. “I know that look, Maria Elena. You have that I’m-really-hurt-and-offended expression on your face. Well wipe it off. I’m not sure I could pull it off. I’ve never been gone for more than a couple of hours. And even if I could, it’s not right. They’re big boys. There are things they have to do without you or me standing over them to make sure they don’t get hurt. If they get hurt, you have to deal with it.”
“Well, I’m sorry I asked.”
“Don’t be angry, Nena. Please don’t be angry.”
“Let me be angry,” she said. “It won’t last long.” She left Lizzie to finish her cigarette in peace.