The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (38 page)

When she returned to her father's house to give light to her second child—who with the passage of time also inherited his father's face—Concha was obliged by her father to pack her and her boys' few belongings, and along with her father to emigrate north to the land of the
gringos
. When they arrived in Los Angeles, Concha was able to find work making ladies' girdles, thus paying for the considerable amount of food required by her two fat children. But when the old hags say “
Dios los hace y ellos se juntan
” how wise are their words, because when the second of Concha's boys was no more than two years of age, the poking front teeth and soft fondlings again made their way back into Concha's life. It mattered little that she and her family
were in a strange land far from Jalisco, and it mattered even less that they were surrounded by strangers, because her husband nonetheless found her. And since her heart had no limit to its love for her husband and because she was the essence of patience, she happily took him once again to her breast, even though this time her actions occasioned her father to suffer a seizure that caused him to die in his sleep one night.

Soon after that sad event it became apparent to all that Concha's husband had found himself to be a plant without roots in the lifeless land of the
gringos
. Once again Concha was compelled to pack her and her boys' things into a small cardboard suitcase, and along with her husband they responded to an ad in the newspaper that offered free car transportation back down to Jalisco, in exchange for sharing the task of driving an old Packard touring car.

The little family, along with the old
gringo
gentleman who owned the shabby and worn car, trudged first in an easterly direction on the American side toward Nogales, a small town straddling both Arizona and Sonora. The tiny party crossed the border there and continued on to Cananea, a rocky, barren town which is still in the state of Sonora, then on to Jalisco. In all it was a slow, harsh and hazardous journey, but Concha's husband flashed his smile during the arid daytime, and at night he murmured soft words into her ear as they made love in a small tattered canvas tent that flapped in the howling desert winds.

Now at her husband's
velorio
, as Concha sat looking upon his body, his head sheathed in bandages so that the three gunshot wounds would remain unseen, she recalled those incidents of so many years ago. She found, however, that inexplicably the years that followed their trek south blurred, and that the details were not as clear as the first part of her memories. She remembered, of course, that after their wanderings up there in
el norte
, she, her husband and her two boys had returned to their former town where they once again set up house, and where her husband returned to the job at the distillery. Her memory recollected that those years also brought two more pregnancies, each separated of course by the easily foretold absences of her husband. Concha could no longer tell who the women or the girls had been, but she, like everyone else in the town, knew that her husband had again managed to seduce and fill that woman or girl with wild promises of love.

Through it all, Concha had remained steadfast, forbearing, and above all virtuous because, not surprisingly, she sometimes suffered from the pangs of temptation during the long absences of her husband. She, even now as her husband was about to be buried, was not an old woman. On the contrary, she was yet a young woman filled with the drives of her sex, and it must be said that Concha was beautiful. She, however, fought off those demons and forced herself never to take notice, much less respond to the few but ardent advances aimed in her direction by some of the town machos. The truth was that she was more than irreproachable in goodness; Concha was a woman in
love. She was in love with the soft voice, the purred words, the seducing front teeth. Concha was in love with the nights she spent with her husband and she gladly would have given anything to spend the rest of her life having buck-toothed, fat little boys if only she could have prevented her husband from vanishing each time she was afflicted by pregnancy.

And of course it happened again—her husband's disappearances, that is—because even after her fourth little boy was born, and even though at the time she hadn't been pregnant, despite that, it had happened once more. It should be told, however, that Concha's husband really did not entirely clear out on that occasion, not the way in which he had done previously. Oh, he left Concha's bed and house, most certainly, but upon that last time Concha's husband did not bother to leave town. Instead he remained in full view living sinfully with a married mother of five children he had lured from the neighboring town of Arandas.

Even now at the wake, when the Remington revolver had done its work, now when Concha knew that the room was swirling with the murmurings and the hate-filled thoughts of transgressed men and women; even now, Concha still reeled under the weight of her confusion at the thought of his brazenness and gall, because the truth was that her husband had never before committed such an overt deed. And even though she refused to admit the painful truth, yet the wagging tongues had informed her of the couple's open violation of moral decency. Concha had been told in detail of how both her husband and the other woman promenaded in the town plaza, and of how they fondled and kissed one another publicly. Concha also had been fully apprised of the anger of the town's men and women—especially those women who, like Concha, were still in love with her husband.

“
Señora, lo siento mucho
. My deepest sympathy for you and for your small sons.” Concha was torn from her trance by the repeated words of condolences. “Believe me,
señora
, it must have been a case of mistaken identity, or perhaps it was a matter of envy because your husband was such a diligent inspector. It could be that perhaps he even refused a bribe. At any rate,
señora, lo siento mucho.
”

The hollow, condoling voices droned on and on with words that were meaning the opposite of what they uttered; words that were really saying that, yes, her husband deserved to die; that, yes, it surely must have been the hidden hand of a justifiably outraged father or husband or brother that had surprised the seducing jackal that morning as he stood waiting to cross a street. The muffled murmurs added to Concha's fatigue, filling her with an enormous desire to be left alone, to return to her solitude, to think and to remember. The yellow-brown faces whirled about her. The air in the room was rancid and stifling. It seemed to Concha that the women glared at her accusingly. Their looks seemed to place the full burden of blame upon her shoulders. She, who had been a loving, patient and forgiving wife. She, who had faced all rebuke and criticism and chastisement for the sake of her
husband, now it was as if she were being held responsible by those jealous females for the demise of their prowling debaucher.

The kerosene in the lamp began to empty, the wick sputtered and the light diminished. Men with large calloused hands took hold of their women and slowly the cortège of black shadows receded and the room began to empty. “
Buenas noches, señora Concha.
” “
Hasta mañana en el entierro
.” “
Qué Dios la bendiga y la guarde una santa.
” The funeral silhouettes made their way past the makeshift bier, past what used to be Concha's husband, past the four fat boys, past Concha. Slowly and with much hesitancy did the town's men and women leave the side of the prostrate and bullet-riddled body of Concha's husband.

“
Fue un cabrón,
” was the last muttered, muted insult cast upon the dead body.

Concha was finally left alone with her four boys. Her head was swimming with the day's events. Her body ached and yearned for rest. As she silently walked about the gloomy house locking doors and securing window shutters, she longed to forget that her husband's body would remain under the same roof with her. That thought made Concha anticipate the next day's sunlight with all her soul. Perhaps in the morning matters would look better; possibly life would hold out a different path for her.

She put her four fat, toothy boys to bed and entered her room. Concha's forehead was cold and clammy, as if the hand of death had laid a caress upon it, and her eyes were inflamed from weeping. She removed all her clothing and stood naked as on the day of her birth, remaining that way for awhile; perhaps for a minute, perhaps for an hour. Then she stooped over and picked up the bundle of ugly black clothing and took it to the wardrobe, which she opened silently and carefully. There on the bottom shelf was another packet, one carefully wrapped in an old canvas bag. As the young widow placed her mourning clothing down with one hand, she picked up the other wrappings, and with both hands unfolded it. It was the Remington revolver that her father had given her shortly before his death. His soft words still echoed in her memory, “Take this gun,
m'ija
. One never knows the future. I've taught you how to use it. Maybe the day will come when you'll see yourself forced to use it.”

Concha skillfully and deliberately clicked open the gun's chamber, and she saw that it was almost in the same condition as when her father had given it to her all those years before. It was the same, except for one detail: after this morning, there were three bullets missing.

Concha clutched the weapon with both hands, leaned her aching, feverish head against the closet door and whispered, “
Mañana será otro día.
”

Manuel Ramos

First Prize: Novel

Ojitos bonitos
que me están acabando
ojitos bonitos
que me están matando

“Ay, ojitos”

I don't recall all the subtleties and particulars and some of the events are screwed up in my head—out of sequence, out of synch. Hell, there were too many late nights and fuzzy mornings, and even back then I had a hard time keeping it straight. Life had this rough texture, like Velcro on a screen door. But there is one detail that stands out in my mind as clearly as if I was staring at her this minute, across the room, waiting for her to finish taking off her clothes. Those eyes—the round, moist, glowing brown eyes that will haunt me as sure as
la llorona
prowls dark alleys looking for bad children; eyes that will stay with me until Chicanos reclaim their lost land of Aztlán—forever. There are days when I look over my shoulder and I catch them watching me, driving me up the wall, chilling my skin, making me forget every other woman I knew or met or loved. I know those eyes.

And the blood. I remember the blood.…

Toby Arriega's jury came back in about forty-five minutes—guilty on enough counts to send him away for at least another eight years, maybe a little more if the judge hammered him with aggravations.

The trial had exhausted me. I was too old for this—taking on work simply because it walked in the door, busting my butt trying to find a witness to back up Arriega's alibi, pouring over police reports, talking to the names listed by the D.A., calling Toby's brothers and sisters for help, piecing together a defense out of nothing, and getting paid just enough to keep me on the hook until the trial was over. Then the damn jury took less than an hour to decide my effort was worthless.

It was a tough case from the beginning. I didn't particularly care for my client or his relatives. They were a hoodlum bunch from the Westside and they knew more about the criminal justice system than most judges. They had no qualms about cussing out their lawyer in the courthouse hallway.

I suggested to Toby that he cop out to one of the assault charges, but the old con would not go for it. He was already a two-time loser—what the hell did he care? He knocked over the convenience store, of course. What I couldn't understand was why he beat up the clerks and trashed the place. Toby denied the rough stuff and said wrecking the joint was the work of a kid, maybe one of the clerks, or another stickup man, angry that Toby beat him to the punch—in any case, it wasn't Arriega. But I couldn't prove that. The clerks fingered Toby, said he locked them up in the back room and pistol-whipped them before he rampaged through the aisles of dog food, loaves of bread, and comic books. And Detective Philip Coangelo finished the job with a very crisp and formal recitation of the incriminating remarks Toby had made when they busted down his door and dragged him away to the city jail.

I ended up in the Dark Knight Lounge, hunched over bourbon and beer, fed up with my scraggly assed existence as a borderline lawyer who represented guys who should have gone to the public defender, or housewives who finally had had it with their fat and usually unemployed husbands. Yes, I was feeling sorry for myself, almost as sorry as Toby would feel when they shackled him in the van for the long, quiet ride to Cañon City and the State Pen. At least he knew what he would be doing, and where he would be doing it, for the next several years. I didn't have a clue.

I finished my shot and ordered another, nursing the beer. My gut burned with the liquor's acid. My bones, from eye sockets to ankles, were sore. You'd think Toby had worked me over after the verdict came in. It was only my forty-one-year-old body letting me know, in the cute way it had, that I drank too much, ate all the wrong foods, represented too many of society's dregs, and let the little tensions of life overwhelm me. I stared into the bottom of the empty shot glass, looking for a sign, a hint, anything that might lead me into tomorrow with more than a hangover and an empty wallet.

“You look lousy, Luis. Ain't no big thing, man. It couldn't be that bad.” Tino Pacheco wasn't exactly what I had in mind. He was an old friend—damn, who wasn't?—but I had a hard time handling more than a few minutes with him. Unfortunately, Tino would hook into a person for days—months—and his edgy, tough-guy act eventually rubbed off on whoever was with him. Tino had this influence on people. He had a way to make a person talk and act crazy.