Like a Woman (2 page)

Like the Wind

Taylor's favorite job was stealing from Sears, working for her best friend Mario's uncle Enrique. Enrique had hated Sears ever since he'd gotten fired for pointing out to management that the tan blond workers seemed to be having way too much fun while the brown workers got all the shit jobs and early pink slips. So Sears was the usual target of choice, although Pep Boys and Montgomery Wards were also fair game. Taylor stole bicycles, clothes, electronics, tools, watches—anything she could grab and ride or run away with.

She and Mario had figured out pretty quick that, as a nine year-old white girl, Taylor wasn't followed around by security cops like her Mexican friends. So the kids would all separate before entering a store, Mario, Jesus, and Ricky going in one door and Taylor in the other, her hair combed, her pink blouse clean and pressed. Once inside, Jesus and Mario would start a fight, or Ricky would “get lost” and cry for his mama, or they would “accidentally” knock down the five-foot-high pyramid of Valvoline 10-40 motor oil cans. Once personnel went running to investigate the commotion, Taylor stuffed something in her jacket or, when she was lucky, hopped on a ten-speed or Sting Ray bike and just rode right out the door. “Like the wind,” Enrique would say. “That girl rides like the motherfuckin' wind.”

All she had to do was ride down the street until she saw Enrique's white van. If all was clear, he'd open the back doors and throw Taylor and the bike inside. If someone was after her, Enrique left the van doors shut, looked away, and she'd know to keep on riding, ditch the bike and start hopping fences. They never once got caught, although Taylor hopped a lot of fences.

Once inside the van, she and Enrique circled around to the other side of the shopping center to pick up Mario, Jesus, and Ricky down by whatever gas station they'd checked out beforehand, usually a Chevron or a Union 76, because Ricky liked the little orange balls they gave away. The boys would all pile in and brag about what they'd done to attract security and everyone would laugh. Taylor would tell them how she got away, and then Enrique would say, “Damn, you guys done good,” and tousle their hair. Then he'd light up a reefer for him and Mario to smoke and sometimes Taylor took a hit, too.

Taylor had that job until she turned thirteen and Enrique got drafted. Four years and she never called in sick, never missed a day of work. Enrique was an excellent boss. He taught Taylor tricks that would serve her throughout her life. Like never
act
like you're stealing when you're stealing. Act like you already own it, like it already belongs to you and somehow got misplaced on the shelf by mistake. “Ride that motherfuckin' bike like it's
yours
, girl,” he used to tell Taylor. “Not like you're stealing it from no goddamn pussy Sears store.”

Sometimes, Taylor got to see Enrique in action himself. Once, when his grandmother needed a new refrigerator, he brought home a brand-new Westinghouse double-door chrome handle with deluxe icemaker. First, he stole a pair of overalls from Sears that looked just like the ones the guys wore down at the Montgomery Wards warehouse. Then he sewed on a nametag—”Frankie,” he laughed. “Es un buen nombre, no?” Taylor watched Enrique check out the appliance section of the Van Nuys Wards a couple of times and then damn if he didn't just walk right into the store and come out the back a few minutes later wheeling a huge, shiny refrigerator on a bright red dolly. Stole the dolly, too.

Every time Enrique would tell the story of how he stole his grandmother's refrigerator he'd just laugh and say, “Ah sí, mi abuelita. We never did find out how el refrigerador de mi abuelita wound up at Montgomery Wards. Qué misterio!” He'd smile, his eyes crinkling up. “Pues,” he'd continue. “Once I knew the refrigerator was in the wrong place, I had to liberate it, no? Bring it back to my grandmother where it belonged. It's only right, you know. Es la verdad.”

Enrique was shot two months after being shipped out to Nam. Killed by friendly fire while he was out taking a piss, two days after his battalion finally got their ammo and were heading for the front lines. He never stopped talking to Taylor, though. Every time she stole a bike, she'd hear his voice whispering in her ear. “
Ride
that bike like the motherfuckin' wind. Ride it like it's yours.” When she'd walk into a bookstore, Taylor could hear Enrique's voice get real low and fierce. “Yes, chica,” she'd hear him say, “these books
belong
to you. Liberate one or two for me while you're at it. And, remember to share them with los niños, okay?
Some
one's got to redistribute the wealth, eh mija?”

Even as Taylor got older, Enrique was still right there with helpful advice. “Look like you belong,” he told her when she started stealing from the fancy department stores downtown, “
especially
if you don't.” When her clothes got too shabby, he warned her, “Niña, te acuerdas, only the rich can afford to dress poor.” In fact, it was Enrique's idea to start selling raggedy jeans to the hippies out in Griffith Park. Taylor and Mario collected worn out Levi's and work shirts from all the neighbors, pulling them from the hands of the mothers who first wanted to sew up the tears in their son's, brother's, husband's clothes.

“No, Mama,” Mario would say. “That's the whole point. You don't gotta sew this shit anymore. Taylor's gonna sell 'em to los hippies. They pay
more
money if the pants are torn. I
know
que está muy loco, Mama, pero es la verdad. Give them to me. You'll see.”

Every Saturday, Taylor and Mario took the bus down to Griffith Park and sold the raggedy clothes to the hippies at their love-ins and anti-war rallies. Taylor was dealing pot to them anyway, so it was pretty easy to set up shop. In fact, it was a great cover and explained any money Taylor might have on her if the cops rousted them. Mario stood out too much in the crowd, so he stayed clean, laid low, and watched, ready to cover Taylor's back if necessary. Every weekend, they brought home more money, and every Monday the women in the neighborhood went out to Sears to buy new jeans for their kids, new work shirts for their husbands.

One day, as they watched the kids head off to school in their brand-new clothes, Mario leaned up against Taylor. “Hey,
only the rich can afford to dress poor
, right?” he whispered.

Taylor looked at him, surprised. “Where'd you hear that?”

Mario laughed. “Hey man, you don't think you're the only one he talks to, do you? That motherfucker's been yappin' inside my head ever since he got shot. That cholo talks more now than when he was alive.”

Taylor shook her head. “No kiddin'?” she asked. “He ever sing that stupid-ass Dylan song to you?”

“Oh man,” Mario whined. “Only all the fucking time. Every time I even think about shaking somebody down or putting some of the hippie money in my own pocket, I gotta hear that guy singing,
to leeve out side the law, chu mus be ho-nest
…”

Taylor laughed. She'd heard that refrain on more than one occasion herself. “Come on,” she said, pushing Mario gently. “Let's go check out what those motherfuckers got on sale today down at Sears. Hey,
somebody's
got to redistribute the wealth. Right?”

death was just a fence away

it was in the place they had not paved that i spent most of my time. down in the hot, sandy wash, beyond the city park, filled with rocks and bottles, old abandoned shells of cars and men, where kids and lizards scurried, and the rest moved kind of slow. where i brought crumpled bits of lettuce to feed my neighbor's tortoise hidden in the brush. (it ran away! i said, with eyes as big as lies. the truth was i couldn't stand to see it poked, and when i read that turtles hate to have you even touch their shell, my body shivered with familiarity and i did what a child must do.)

once, as i fed the tortoise's old man mouth and watched its blinky eyes, i felt something else watching me, and turned up to face an exploding sun surrounding the huge gila monster i would come to know as friend. the new creature slowly backed into its ledge, and it took me months of sweaty practice to cease my rude and human stare that frightened all things wild. lying belly down in the hot, gravelly sand, in time i learned to soften focus, and soon my presence caused little more than a raised reptilian eyelid, and i could lie down nose to nose with the ancient gritty ones and ask them anything i wanted in a time both safe and slow
.

when the men arrived to put the freeway in, time shifted irrevocably. i could not find the wise, scaly friends that kept me in this world, and i wandered, my spirit broken as a bulldozed tortoise shell. i learned again to harden focus, glare out my intent, and never move too slow. and as i watched the freeway cars race by, sometimes held inside their cyclone cages, i noticed how the screaming sirens passed more quickly than they arrived, and i found my adolescent comfort knowing death was just a fence away
.

The Story of david

All she wanted was to get a look inside that open casket and see if David really was in there. Before he died, he had lived next door. He'd been hit by a car when he was seven but that wasn't what killed him. Last week Taylor had seen the medics wheel something out of the house. The ambulance had screeched up fast and loud, then crawled away slow, its sirens silent. Still, she needed to see for herself if the boy was in that box.

Taylor sat up in the front pew with David's family, the Doyles, sweating and squirming in her itchy yellow church dress, the dingy, permanently starched ruffles grating into her neck. She didn't think you were supposed to wear yellow to funerals but she only had one church dress and her mom said God didn't care what color her dress was.

“Well, if he don't care what color my dress is, then why should he care if I even wear a dress at all?” Taylor had asked, neither expecting nor receiving a reply. She hated dresses. She hated God. And she hated church. Unfortunately they all went together; plus now she had a hundred-degree day, a pee-leaking baby— David's little brother Bobby—on her lap, and an old man in a robe talking forever about Purgatory, captive souls, deliverance, and damnation.

Taylor felt Mike, the oldest of the six Doyle boys, nudge her shoulder. “Okay, we're gonna go look at him now.”

“What about the baby? He ain't supposed to see, is he?” Taylor whispered. She looked over at Mike's mom, sitting with her newly dyed black hair pulled back tight, staring out the crucified Jesus stained-glass window. Mrs. Doyle's hands gripped together in her lap, the fingernails all cut short except on the baby fingers where the slightly yellow nails curled long and crooked. Taylor shivered slightly, pulled the baby closer. Mr. Doyle sat next to his wife, alternately holding her elbow and wiping his palms on his pants, pulling at his tight white collar and looking for the door. He was a tall, thick man who moved slow and didn't talk much but could whip off his belt quicker than you could spit. Kids usually stayed out of his way.

“I don't know,” Mike said. “I guess you hold him while I look and I'll hold him while you look.” The borrowed grey suit hung loose on Mike's skinny frame. The pants were cinched up tight, revealing dark mismatched socks and his father's stiff black shoes. At thirteen, he was still waiting to grow into his ears, which looked even larger than usual with his new buzz haircut.

“Okay,” said Taylor. “I'll hold him first. But watch out, he's pretty wet.” She and Mike stood up, joining the slow-moving procession past the open coffin. Tommy, the next oldest, came with them, leaving the nine- and six-year-olds, Ryan and Sean, sitting stiffly on the bench by themselves, leaning like a couple of bowling pins left after a missed strike. Nobody moved to fill in the gap. Across the aisle, their neighbor Mrs. Jablonski gave a slight tsking sound, gathered up her girth and took the leaking baby from Taylor. Making her way over to the two boys, Mrs. Jablonski plumped herself down next to Sean. Taylor was relieved that the scent of rotting rose petals left with her.

Waiting for the line to move, Taylor watched Sean squint sideways up at the big lady holding his baby brother and squishing him up against Ryan. Taylor couldn't remember ever having seen Mrs. Jablonski without her hair curlers in. Blond at the ends, her hair turned into an orangey black up close to the scalp, reminding Taylor of David's favorite marble. She held back a smile as Sean wrinkled his nose and looked down at Mrs. Jablonski's legs, straining against the damp floral dress, forcing her knees far apart. Each thigh was bigger around than the whole of Sean's body. Taylor watched Sean look down at his own legs, skinny and straight, knees touching easily. He bounced them together a few times, glanced over at Bobby asleep in between the folds of Mrs. Jablonski's stomach and breasts, and then closed his eyes. Bobby snored softly.

Tommy, Mike, and Taylor moved up the line, closer to the open casket.

“He looks like somebody colored his face all up with crayons,” whispered Tommy. Taylor peered in at David's white, waxy body, lying stretched out straight, hands to his side, dressed in a Navy blue Goodwill suit. She'd seen enough animals die to know that bodies look different without their souls, and her mom had warned her that David wouldn't really be “there” in the box. Still, she hated to see him this way: head sculptured, lips painted, scars covered, body straightened out into the narrow child coffin. She longed to carry him outside and lay his body down on the grass the way he used to like—curled sideways, legs tucked up, crooked arms making a pillow for his head. Each day, after they finished exercising his legs, Taylor and Mike would set David up on his side so he could watch them play. Across the street, out behind Lucky's, the other kids would race his wheelchair against the shopping carts.

The best times were in the summer, when they could get David into the city pool. He loved the water and had gotten so he could use his arms pretty good, flapping them around like the busted-up crow Mike let Taylor feed worms to. David was so skinny that Taylor could wrap her fingers up around his chest, lacing each one in between a rib. She'd hold him up against her chest while Mike worked his legs under water, hollering out, “Yeah, King David! Kick it harder! Ha! I think the little fucker just tried to kick me in the balls!” David would laugh, his head rolling back against Taylor's shoulder, bumping her cheek. After his swimming lesson, Taylor would lay David out curled sideways on a towel so he could watch her and Mike practice backflips and cannonballs off the high dive.