Body and Bread (18 page)

“You acted like he’s from outer space. Besides, what in hell did you expect?” She slapped her forehead. “Don’t you know what those other guys would’ve done?” She rolled her eyes.

“How come he sat with us then?”

“’Cause Walter made him.”

I ordered three lime Cokes and two fries. I couldn’t explain that Tyrone’s accusation had made me think of my mother’s theatrics about Otis, and that Mary Jo was right: I had seen Tyrone as somehow different. “Why didn’t you stay with Walter?” I asked Mary Jo.

“Didn’t feel like it.” She craned toward the dashboard, checking cars several rows away. “Soldiers are all over you.”

“What do you mean?” I knew I sounded stupid.

“God, another virgin!” Mary Jo said, disgusted. “I thought Diane was the only one.”

Diane shrugged.

So Diane
had
been too shy to dance with Tyrone. “But you’ve done it?” I asked Mary Jo, feeling like a gawking neophyte.

“I been balled,” Mary Jo sprawled against the door, “twice.”

“What’d it feel like?” I said, unable to stop myself.

Two weeks later, I told them it was my turn. Mary Jo had taught me how to tease, so I’d let Harold Drumm rub my breasts, stroke down
there
until, huffing, he’d reached to unbuckle his pants. “I can’t,” I’d whined. “I really want to, but it’s just not right.” His whack at the steering wheel had been my favorite part. When he walked away, the bulge in his jeans had been a testimonial. My interest, though, had recently shifted toward Antonio Mendoza, a somber boy with dark, unflinching eyes.

That weekend was communion Sunday. Over the choir loft hung a Christ figure in a loincloth, limp, bleeding, nailed to a wooden cross. I fingered the silver cross I wore on a chain and recited the Lord’s Prayer by rote. This man, the son of God, had allowed himself to be arrested, beaten, crucified so I could get into heaven. At least, that’s what I’d been taught.

Twelve hundred years after Jesus’ death, Aztec captives had sprawled backward over a waist-high sacrificial stone. A nearby clay vessel had held still-beating hearts, that energy moving sun across sky. Gore, sacrifice to assure life. The gods had entered their statues like Christ’s Holy Ghost. Were the similarities between Baptist doctrine and Aztec theology coincidental?

Aztecs believed souls of the drowned went to a separate part of paradise. In return, the rain god required blood and tears, so they built a special chamber for him. When archaeologists uncovered it three hundred years later, they found children’s skulls, ribs, limb bones.

Sam had sacrificed a creature, its intestinal sac, instead of a heart, held toward the sky.

Maybe, I thought, adventure brought knowledge. Sam, who’d recently watched the Saturn space launch, would say risks cause change. Extremes alter the future. Before he moved to Austin, he’d quoted something about becoming indispensable by being faithful to your true self. I hated my parents’ prefabricated life.
Tlahzolteōtl
was supposed to inspire sin. My friends would help me coax the goddess into doing her magic.

Mary Jo, Diane, and I were in my car, watching
Hud
at the drive-in. “You don’t care about people,” Hud’s father said after Hud and his nephew staggered home drunk. “You don’t value nothing.” The old man’s voice was calm as he stared at his son. “You live just for yourself, and that makes you not fit to live with.”

I’m the one Dad ought to worry about
, I thought. The movie was almost over. I had to work fast.

“I thought of something to do,” I said, turning, draping my arm across the seat back. “This is different. Big.” They had to come. It had to be like church.

Mary Jo scowled, squinted toward the screen.

“Yeah, what?” asked Diane, giddy at the hint of trouble.

“A ceremony for Tlazoltit,” I said. Mary Jo had thought of the nickname. “For inspiration. Then I’ll have sex with Antonio.”

“How stupid,” Mary Jo said, wrinkling her lumpy nose. She pursed her lips, snooty. “Oh, yeah, and let’s have a parade too.” She groaned. “You’re pathetic. Just go fuck the guy.”

Diane stroked a curl, wrapped it around a finger.

“Mary Jo,
you’re
stupid,” I said. I turned toward Diane. “I’m a little nervous—okay?—and this’ll help.” I slapped the seat back. “I’ll pick you up at nine tomorrow night. Bring your flashlight and a Bible.”

“Yeah, all right,” said Diane, leaning forward, hugging herself. “But we can’t get hurt or anything...?”

“No, Diane,” Mary Jo said, exasperated. “She’s talking Girl Scouts. Sunday school.”

“Come on,” I coaxed Mary Jo. “She protected prostitutes.”

“Aztec Chicken Ranch,” Mary Jo sneered.

Diane laughed, spewing Coke.

“If you come, I promise you won’t be sorry,” I said.

“But nothing scary,” Diane said. “No sacrifices or anything.”

“Forever the wimp,” Mary Jo said, shaking her cup of ice.

Hud came through a banging screen door, shouting, “This world is so full of crap, a man’s going to get into it sooner or later whether he’s careful or not.”

I knew I was supposed to like the nephew, but Hud was visionary. Indispensable.

“Fun,” I said, thumping Diane’s head. “I promise.”

Each school day, I’d driven past the train station with its arches and stained glass window. A steam engine stayed parked on a side track visible from the street. A group of women had rallied the community to “save a piece of Nugent history,” so the engine had been restored, visited by elementary schoolchildren and the occasional tourist.

While stepping over the tracks on Sunday, I remembered something I’d seen a week after I’d hidden my grandfather’s money clip inside a pyramid of stones. A man had leaned against the rail of a caboose as it clicked over the trestle, away from the farm. When his white shirt merged with sky, a cow had meandered toward the barn.

Now, standing inside the steam engine, I ran my hands over the metal levers, knobs, figuring people cleared the area at night. Somebody could stoke the furnace for light and ceremonial effect.

I drove to a store owned by Mariana and Jaime Cardonas’ parents and bought mescal, a clear
octli
-like drink distilled from maguey leaves. When I set two bottles on the counter, they said Sam had recently been by to celebrate Jaime’s birthday. I pretended he’d also come to our house, and then I got busy trying not to wonder why he hadn’t. Three hours later, Mary Jo, Diane, and I each drank a Styrofoam cupful, the liquor stinging our throats while we drove to the station.

Three lights banked the main tracks, with none near the engine. Even in shadow, its giant wheels, bolts, towering sides seemed Herculean, cabalistic. I imagined it rumbling past, its mountainous metal frame crushing everything.

I’d loaded the car trunk with firewood. We each carried an armload as we crossed the tracks: me first, also holding a flashlight and lighter fluid, Diane last, clutching her monogrammed Bible. A stepladder boosted us into the engineer’s compartment where we threw our firewood into the furnace.

“This is fuckin’ stupid,” Mary Jo said, slapping dust from her shorts. “I can’t believe you talked us into this.” She checked her arms for scratches.

“This’ll help,” I said, pulling the second bottle of mescal from behind two pedals in front, near the corner.

Mary Jo sat cross-legged on the steel flooring, facing the furnace, the dash of dials and levers her backdrop. She swigged a gulp. “Okay, now what?” she said, passing the bottle to Diane.

Our bodies almost filled the cramped cubicle. Was this how my brothers felt while they chopped cotton together? “I need to light the fiery pit, of course,” I said, squirting logs with lighter fluid, adding twigs, newspaper. I lit two grocery sacks with my Zippo, threw them into the furnace. Flames and heat shot out. I slammed the steel plated door shut.

“Shit, we’re going to cook,” Mary Jo said, waving her hand in front of her face.

“It is hot,” I said, unbuttoning my blouse, dropping it on the floor. I unhooked my bra, even though I hadn’t planned to. Had
Tlahzolteōtl
made me do it? Diane blushed, hugging her legs. Mary Jo happily removed her top and bra, then baited Diane until she, giggling and covering her face, did the same. We leaned against our knees, pretending we weren’t hiding our chests. While they jabbered, I gathered our camisole, blouses, bras, used one as a glove when I unlatched the steel plate, and, picturing Antonio’s sinewy arms, threw everything into the blaze. The flames lapped teases of light over my friends’ lurching bodies. Diane said, “No!” Something popped, logs shifted, rumbling, and sparks snapped.

“Hey,” Mary Jo said, pushing my shoulder. I stumbled backward, my breasts bobbing, and Mary Jo blinked then pointed, laughing. “Titties,” she spread her arms, “in the temple of Tlazoltit.” She cupped her own, shook them at Diane.

Whimpering, Diane covered her mouth. Her snivels turned to cackles then she copied Mary Jo. “Tlazoltit,” she said, aiming her peewee breasts at me.

“
Tlahzolteōtl
,” I corrected, scared and half-naked, lost in metal, flames. “We’re beautiful,” I said, thinking,
Yes, this is who I am
. When I poured mescal on their heads, saying, “I anoint you,” they laughed and lapped the spill-off.

Diane licked Mary Jo’s cheek. “Gross, keep away,” Mary Jo said, bumping her head on a gearshift.

“Where’s your Bible?” I asked Diane. After she pulled it from underneath her leg, I turned to Psalm 100. “Make a joyful noise unto
Tlahzolteōtl
, all ye lands.”

Mary Jo howled; Diane joined in.

“Serve the goddess with gladness. Come before her presence with singing.”

“
Tlahzolteōtl
loves me, this I know,” Mary Jo warbled.

“For Mary Jo tells me so,” sang Diane.

“Enter into her gates with thanksgiving and into her courts with praise. Be thankful unto her, and bless her name.”

Another thump of logs, a burst of sparks.

I turned to Ecclesiastes, where I’d pieced verses together, knowing I could make the Bible mean anything. “There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean. The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.”

I pressed the book to my bare chest and reached toward a corner of the dashboard for another sack. As I peeled cellophane off a calf’s heart, Diane’s hand went to her mouth. “Eeeew,” she squealed. I held up the heart, and Mary Jo frowned, rolling her eyes.

“Go thy way,” I read, “eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with delight, for
Tlahzolteōtl
now accepteth thy works.” I closed the book, shoved the Styrofoam tray at Mary Jo. A steam engine shaped like a woman, three half-naked girls, a Phillips Food Mart calf’s heart: no blood sacrifice, but close as I’d get.

Mary Jo’s eyes widened; she cocked a fist at her hip. “You’re crazy,” she said as flames popped, fizzed.

Blood dribbled onto my wrist. I dabbed, coating my finger, then smeared my mouth, my chin. Did I look like the goddess? Would her spirit, like the Holy Ghost, move inside me?

Diane gaped, her expression a gargoyle’s face.

“Unbelievable,” Mary Jo said, pulling her hair back. She shoved her fingers into her back pockets, forcing her chest forward.

I imagined mine pressed against Antonio, his skin rubbing, our movements synchronized, rhythmic, his breath on my neck. Then I dipped into the blood, this time aiming for Mary Jo’s nipple.

“Damn!” she said, knocking my hand. She grabbed the calf’s heart. “Get back!” She tossed it, a red lump on its flimsy saucer, into the pit.

We leaned toward the furnace. Our flesh grew sticky, familiar, while the meat sizzled and smoldered, smelling of barbecue, turning crisp. Metal plates, knobs, and rims flickered, a room of mirrors, as a whistling rumbled, surrounding us.

When the furnace exploded, none of us died. Flames filled the compartment and knocked us backward off the train; smoke spiraled upward into the night.

From gravel several yards away, Diane whimpered. The fire now burned inside my ankle. Bones, I realized with relief, thinking of my father. I crossed my arms over my chest and rolled to the side, wanting to cry. Instead, I limped toward the voice.

Diane was alive, sitting sprawled between the tracks, her curls caked, matted. A gash ran from her scalp to her eye, the skin folded back, exposing raw underside. Welts, where skin had shaved off, covered her body, but nothing looked broken. I swallowed, tasted blood. “What happened?” she said as though I’d planned the explosion. “It’s like we…I guess we made her mad.” She hiccupped, wiped dirt from her knee.

“Where’s Mary Jo?” I asked, and Diane wailed, fingering her bloody head. I grabbed her shoulder. “Help me find Mary Jo.”

She tapped her cheek then noticed her uncovered breasts. When she fell chest forward, searching the station and street, I knew she was looking for her father. I hobbled across the tracks, calling Mary Jo, firelight guiding me.