The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (23 page)

He had gone through the usual Chicano male initiation rites held at Santa Colby, an Ozzie-and-Harriett, two-bedroom house in Santa Monica, which a brown horde converted into a hallucinating den of first-generation E.O.P. [Equal Opportunity Program] undergrads drinking papaya tea and sangría, eating Quaaludes and tortillas, listening to Santana and Satie, talking about
Quetzalcóatl and revolution as we planned the next raunchy Molotov attack on the Greek fraternities and as we ditched Juan Gómez-Quiñónez's Mexican-American History-B class.

He picked me up in his rebuilt Volkswagen bug, La Cucaracha.

At the time I was living in Venice trying to eke out an enlightened existence on E.O.P. loans, macrobiotics, Crayolas, poetry, and a holistic relationship with Lynne Erlich, a Jewish-Russian-Mexican-Chicana poet who had just broken up with the lead singer of the 103rd Street Watts Band.

As usual, once in the belly of La Cucaracha, we became two phosphorescent rap machines unraveling new ideas for the sweltering lowlands of Aztlán.

Tomás's green eyes punctuated the plan: “Look, ése, I want you to meet Geraldine Kudaka when we get to the house. She's gonna do camera while I direct. Anyway, it's a Neo-Mayan Chicano urban thing. We'll talk about details later.”

I told him to roll down the window.

He had already been trying to teach me Ken-Po Karate and the heat was bloating my sore 130-pound-brown rice-fed bod. It was an interesting film concept, I said, but at the moment La Cucaracha and its envelope of air overpowered me.

Everything was too real. It was as if we were traveling inside of a Magritte painting, careening through a freeway made of cotton spiraling into a labyrinth of neatly scissored origami residences.

La Cucaracha whips through the maze. Tomás's green lights go on again: “Watcha, you are wearing khaki pants, okay? No shoes, no shirt, ¿me entiendes? You are walking through a tunnel with a hood over your face, but there is a way out. You are alone, groping through a dark cosmos, you hear voices, moans, things are clawing at you, you are trapped in a damp chamber of voids, secretions, and suffering figures. What do you think?”

I realize that the rap we had a couple of weeks ago at Santa Colby on the Mayan concept of the Underworld, Xibalba, is about to go on screen.

“And then,” he blurts readily, clutching the plastic donut he uses to steer the Cucaracha rocket, “we are going to tie you up on a boulder in a hiding place I know of in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's perfect for this scene.”

“What about Geraldine?” I ask. The wiry Chicano space pilot quickly responds: “Never mind, once we get you tied up, I want you to start screaming, snarling, shaking your head violently, left and then right.” “Uh huh,” I mumble, gazing at the architectural precision of the eerie landscape we are approaching.

Tomás continues, crouching forward. He looks like he's about to ski into the windshield. “Remember Anthony Quinn in
The Hunchback of Notre
Dame
and how he distorted his body?” he adds, on the verge of standing up and jamming his head through the roof.

“Simón, yeah, I know,” I ponder through the glass.

“Well, that's how I want you to move your torso and upper body while La Geraldine whips you.” He lifts his thin left eyebrow professorially as he elaborates, “You know, this is the most important part of the film.”

“You ain't kidding, carnal. It sure don't sound like ‘Viva Humpty Dumpty',” I quip and stare at him.

Tomás settles into his seat again. He appears to anticipate a negative vote on the film. I turn and look out the little window again. Everything looks so identical.

I think about contrast.

Last summer Tomás and I were walking through La Plaza Central in San Cristóbal de Las Casas after bribing a pilot to fly us to the Lacandon Jungle. I bought the day-old
Excelsior
paper from Mexico City. As I paged through it thinking of a shortcut to Comitán, the take-off point to the jungle, an odd rectangle of letters slipped into my mouth. I whispered,

“MUEREN VARIOS EN MANIFESTACIÓN CHICANA.”

Rubén Salazar is blown into careful confetti squares in the smokey web of the Silver Dollar Bar by the L.A.P.D. swat-pig.

I see a thousand stitches being sewn over the bleeding streets, tying up the swollen sidewalks like skin.

I think of Little John Angulo somewhere in Westwood writing his last metallic note on the jagged blue line of his left arm. And no one would hear his last poem of desire and no one would applaud his hard pride as he fixed his eyes on the dead wall forever.

La selva Lacandona appears.

José Pepe Chan Bol paces the makeshift airstrip at Naja in the heart of the Lacandon Mayas. He has come to accept malaria in his village like a predictable storm. He has become accustomed to playing Christian Baptist preacher and reciting the Bible from Maryland in the thatched-roof temple that his sons built. The only thing that bothers José Pepe Chan Bol is the air.

It smells like a fuse burning.

He can hear the green time bomb ticking among the vines of the forest. Near Chancala, he can hear Joaquín Trujillo, one of the government's Latino henchmen, drink post and stake out Lacandon land for timber, dolomite, and rubber. And not far from the airstrip, José Pepe Chan Bol can see where the fuse has scarred the earth, stripped the land, and left a road of stiffened patches for the next bulldozer from San Cristóbal.

But on the freeway of East Los [East Los Angeles, California], looking out of a luminous Aztlán space shuttle called La Cucaracha, no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I attempt to focus, I see no contrast.

I think of Venice again.

I could be eating some fluffy brown rice with a touch of tahini sauce with a half-glass of water. I could be in my closet converted into an art studio sprinkling glitter on my latest Chicano Matisse crayon nudes. I could be brushing Lynne's thick black eyebrows as I prepare to do one of the special Chicano-Bogart lines like, “What's a chavala like you doing in a cantón place like this?”

But I am here next to a kamikaze compadre zooming on a one-way mission to the gut of Aztlán as he unravels one of the aesthetic battle plans in the Chicano Movement's war against the Kapitalist dragon.

I crack open a bottle of warm spring water that I always carry in my handwoven bag, and take a swig.

“Check it out, carnal. Who's going to hear me scream and snarl à la Anthony Quinn under a dirty black burlap sack, humping on a rock in the middle of nowhere in a five-minute 8mm film done by some oddball from San Francisco regarding some kind of urbo-Mayan-Chicanoid chingadera that you came up with?”

I lean back. I look through the stained amber sunroof. La Cucaracha is on cruise control. Tomás peers at me with one eye as he scopes the freeway for the next off-ramp, humming one of those whimsical tunes you hum to paste desperate moments together. I lean over and whisper to the Aztlán pilot, “I love it, I love it.”

We break out into our Cinco de Mayo special mariachi yell and rattle out some of the finer aspects of the scenario. In no time we glide into the front emerald lawn facing the antique tan and square Victorian.

Alejandro Murguía is sitting on the bed with his back to the windows. He is a lean young man. He reminds me of a campesino that I met in Chiapas who said he loved to be alone in the fields of maíz and that he wasn't himself in the big towns like San Cristóbal. Alejandro is dark. He has the aura of a human lizard dressed in a silk suit. He appears elegant, motionless, and foreboding.

He lures out a few syllables, “How's it going, man?” I decide to do one of my one-word Bogart moves, “Suave.”

No one is speaking, although I can see through the corner of my eye that Tomás is gesturing wildly to La Geraldine about the film project.

The heat is unbearable. Everything has taken on a slick brush stroke of thin oil. Even the walls suddenly appear with a new glazy coat. We seem to be rotating around each other like carousel dolls.

La Geraldine comes over and slowly hovers over Alejandro. I want to think that they are lovers, but a distinct feeling takes hold of me—all of us look so out of place here. Alejandro stops the daze. “Look, why don't you come up to the city? We just took over a building, a place for artists and writers to live and work and get it together. ¿Qué te parece?”

Everyone joins in and talks about another battle plan in the Mission District of San Francisco. Alejandro mentions his essay on political theater, soon to be published by Pocho-Che Editions. There's only time for a cigarette, a few gestures. Suddenly, it is over.

I take another hit of mineral water.

I think about heading back to Venice. This old Victorian is a mystery. Who lives here, anyway? Maybe the basement leads to an underground chamber and the secret opening to one of the seven magical caves of Aztlán. Or maybe it's a classy depot for winos and Movement gente rented out by a Chicano Studies professor with tenure. Tomás and I walk out to the front porch. I look back. Alejandro seems to have moved only a few inches. You can see his steely profile against the brilliant white curtains. He studies Geraldine as she speaks. It is about 2:30 in the afternoon. No one is out.

La Cucaracha looks funny parked next to the plump line of 1952 Plymouths.

I can feel the giant tan checker-piece looming behind us as Tomás puts the car into third gear.

Margarita Luna Robles

Second Prize: Short story

April 15

M'ijo—

I don't believe this is happening. I've been so upset I can't eat or sleep. I don't know if I'll be able to go to work tomorrow. I don't even want to go outside of this house or even get out of bed. I can't face anyone. I can almost hear what everyone‘s going to say. Everyone always tells me you're up to no good, always in trouble, a real troublemaker. Some of the younger kids' mothers say you're a bad example for their kids. Then they look at me. I'm the bad mother, it's my fault.

God knows I've tried. I've worked so hard! Why do you keep doing this to me? I work to support you, on top of always having your meals and clothes ready and the house clean. I do it all for you! Maybe that is the problem—I do too much, I don't give you any responsibility. I do it so that you can study and be someone. I guess that's the end of your studies. You know how hard Tavo and I worked to get you into that school. They didn't want you 'cause of your record—now look!

This is bad all the way around. Mike's pissed off. I don't blame him. He's been more than a father to you, he's treated you right. Look how you pay him back.

Wait till your father hears about this. I haven't called him. Why should I be the one who always “gets it together”? Then no one appreciates it and I get blamed. Forget it. I quit. I can't take this anymore. I'm not going to talk to him. He doesn't care. He never took any responsibility for you after he left. I don't expect him to now. He's got three sons and a wife. He doesn't need the problems you make.

Randy, please tell me it wasn't you. I believe you. You're all I have. I have Mike too, but you're my baby. You and I have been through some times together. I can remember holding you so tightly while you slept, you were just a baby. I'd be so afraid of the dark I'd lay there crying, sometimes all night. Then I'd be afraid that I would die and there would be no one for you. I love you. I'm still here for you. I'm praying hard for you.
Be Good—
for me!

God be with you.

Love,
Mom

April 17

My dearest Randy,

I love you. I'm so scared. The police came by asking me all sorts of questions. I didn't know what to say. All I said was I don't know anything and that we were at a party in San Francisco. I said that I don't know my way around in the city so I don't know where the party was at 'cause I didn't know anyone there. I was so scared I started to cry. Then my dad got really pissed off and told them to leave and get in touch with our lawyer.

My parents are really upset about this. But it's not just this. They don't want me to see you anymore. They never have wanted me to see you. I wish they would leave us alone. I get tired of all this shit.

To top it off, your friends don't like you being with me. They always just ignore me, as if I'm not there. The girls don't even talk to me. They just stare at me, as if I don't belong there. I can understand that maybe they want to be with you, but it's not my fault that you want to be with me.

Randy, please tell me it's going to be all right and that you and I are going to be together. I love you too much to let you go. I don't want to be without you. I'll always be here for you.

Please write.

Yvette y Randy
PVM

April 18

Dear Randy,

How's it going, mi locote? What can I say except all this shit broke loose. The whole clica is acting like they got a stick up their ass. Everyone tries to be cool but they're scared. No one knows what happened. Three of our homies got picked up for the shooting at the Studio 47. No one from the barrio was there and Yvette told me you guys were in San Fra at a borlo.

See, if you had been with me your face would've been seen and you'd never have got picked up. The only trouble you'd be in would be with Yvette. But you could really work that out easy, the way you always do. I know it's none of my business but why her? She's so out of reality. She could be fucking white for all I know. Whenever you bring her around it's like she's smelling CACA.

Maybe you lay that trip on her, not to mix or hang out 'cause the “loca” may rub off on her. And she's so clean, so untouched by the barrio, and that's what you want. If that's what you're doing, that sucks 'cause I know and I have a good time when we're together. I know I make you feel good, cabrón. I also know it bugs you that I hang out with the vatos and I call it as I see it. The way I see it is I'm here. I'm waiting for you. Whenever you're ready.