The Moths and Other Stories (5 page)

Chano was angry now, nervous and upset. He put his bat down, spat in his hands and rubbed them together, wiped the sides of his jeans, kicked the dirt for perfect footing.

“Get on with the game,” Naomi shouted impatiently. Chano tested his swing. He swung so hard that he caused Juan, Tina's brother and devoted catcher, to jump back.

“Hey, baboso, watch out,” Juan said. “You almost hit my coco.” And he pointed to his forehead.

“Well, don't be so stupid,” Chano replied, positioning himself once again. “Next time, back off when I come to bat.”

“Baboso,” Juan repeated.

“Say it to my face,” Chano said, breaking his stance and turning to Juan. Say it again so I can break this bat over your head.”

“Ah, come on,” Kiki, the shortstop, yelled. “I gotta go home pretty soon.”

“Let up,” Tina demanded.

“Shut up, marrana,” Piri said, turning to his father to make sure he heard. “Tinasana, cola de marrana. Tinasana, cola de marrana.” Tina became so infuriated that she threw the ball directly at his stomach. Piri folded over in pain.

“No! No!” Sylvia yelled. “Don't get off the base or she'll tag you out.”

“It's a trick,” Miguel yelled from behind home plate.

“That's what you get!” This came from Lourdes. Piri did not move, and although Naomi felt sorry for him, she giggled at the scene just the same.

“I heard the ice-cream man,”

Lucía said. “You're all right, Tina,” Naomi yelled, laughing. “You're A-O-K.” And with that compliment, Tina took a bow for her performance until everyone began shouting and booing. Tina was prepared. She pitched and Chano made the connection quick, hard, the ball rising high and flying over Piri's, Lourdes', Naomi's and Lucía's heads and landing inside the Chinese Cemetery.

“DON'T JUST STAND THERE!!” Tina screamed to Lourdes. “Go get it, stupid.” After Lourdes broke out of her trance, she ran to the tall chain-link fence which surrounded the cemetery, jumped on it with great urgency and crawled up like a scrambling spider. When she jumped over the top of the fence, her dress tore with a rip-roar.

“We saw your calzones, we saw your calzones,” Lucía sang.

“Go! Lourdes, go!” Naomi jumped up and down in excitement, feeling like a player who so much wanted to help her team win, but was benched on the sidelines for good. The kids blended into one huge noise, like an untuned orchestra, screaming and shouting, Get the Ball, Run in, Piri, Go Lourdes, Go, Throw the ball, Chano pick up your feetthrowtheballrunrunrunthrow the ball. “
THROW
the ball to me!!” Naomi
waved and waved her arms. She was no longer concerned with her age, her menstruations, her breasts that bounced with every jump. All she wanted was an out at home plate. To hell with being benched. “Throw it to me,” she yelled.

In the meantime, Lourdes searched frantically for the ball, tip-toeing across the graves saying, excuse me, please excuse me, excuse me, until she found the ball peacefully buried behind a huge gray marble stone, and she yelled to no one in particular, CATCH IT, SOMEONE CATCH IT. She threw the ball up and over the fence and it landed near Lucía. Lucía was about to reach for it when Naomi picked it off the ground and threw it straight to Tina. Tina caught the ball, dropped it, picked it up, and was about to throw it to Juan at home plate when she realized that Juan had picked up home plate and run, zig-zagging across the street while Piri and Chano ran after him. Chano was a much faster runner, but Piri insisted that he be the first to touch the base.

“I gotta touch it first,” he kept repeating between pants. “I gotta.” The kids on both teams grew wild with anger and encouragement. Seeing an opportunity, Tina ran as fast as her stocky legs could take her. Because Chano slowed down to let Piri touch the base first, Tina was able to reach him, and with one quick blow, she thundered OUT! She made one last desperate throw to Juan so that he could tag Piri out, but she threw it so hard that it struck Piri right in the back of his head, and the blow forced him to stumble just within reach of Juan and home plate.

“You're out!!” Tina said, out of breath. “O-U-T, out.”

“No fair!” Piri immediately screamed. “NO FAIR!!” He stomped his feet in rage. “You marrana, you marrana.”

“Don't be such a baby. Take it like a man,” Piri's father said as he opened another malt liquor with a can opener. But Piri continued stomping and screaming until his shouts were buried by the honk of an oncoming car and the kids obediently opened up like a zipper to let the car pass.

Naomi felt like a victor. She had helped once again. Delighted, she giggled, laughed, laughed harder, suppressed her laughter into chuckles, then laughed again. Lucía sat quietly, to her surprise, and her eyes were heavy with sleep. She wiped them, looked at Naomi. “Vamos,” Naomi said, offering her hand. By the end of the block, she lifted Lucía and laid her head on her shoulder. As Lucía fell asleep, Naomi wondered
why things were always so complicated once you became older. Funny how the old want to be young and the young want to be old. She was guilty of that. Now that she was older, her obligations became heavier both at home and at school. There were too many expectations, and no one instructed her on how to fulfill them, and wasn't it crazy? She cradled Lucía gently, kissed her cheek. They were almost at Jorge's now, and reading to him was just one more thing she dreaded, and one more thing she had no control over: it was another one of Apá's thunderous commands.

When she was Lucía's age, she hunted for lizards and played stickball with her cousins. When her body began to bleed at twelve, Eloy saw her in a different light. Under the house, he sucked her swelling nipples and became jealous when she spoke to other boys. He no longer wanted to throw rocks at the cars on the freeway with her and she began to act differently because everyone began treating her differently and wasn't it crazy? She could no longer be herself, and her father could no longer trust her because she was a woman. Jorge's gate hung on a hinge and she was almost afraid it would fall off when she opened it. She felt Lucía's warm, deep breath on her neck and it tickled her.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered lovingly to her sister as she entered the yard. “Tomorrow I'll buy you all the ice creams you want.”

 

(At the moment, there are only two things I am sure of: my name is Alice and all I want to do is sleep. I want to sleep so badly that I am angry at their conspiracy to keep me awake. Why so early? I want to knot myself into a little ball and sleep. I will knot myself into a little ball and sleep. I will. I will become you, knotted stomach.)

finally bonded drifting afloat i become, and how much i love it. craft cradles me drifting far. far away. the waves rock me into an anxious sleepless sleep, and i love it—God, how much i love it. brimming baptism roll. swell. thunder. reaching up to vastness. calm. i relax beneath the fluids that thicken like jelly. Thickening. i am transparent and light, ounceless. spinning with each breath you exhale. i move closer and closer to the shore and i love it.

I rub my stomach because it aches. (Would I like to stay Alice, or become a mama?) I rub my stomach again as I sit on the couch (perhaps unconsciously hoping the rubbing will unknot my…my baby? No, doesn't sound right. Baby-to-be? Isn't the same. Isn't.) I sit, my arms folded, on a vinyl plastic couch which squeaks every time I cross or recross my legs. One of my legs swings back and forth. My breath is misty and I exhale hard to watch it form into smoke. Unfolding my arms, I lift my hands to my face and my fingers massage my eyelids. Blurred. Slowly focusing the room. A living room converted into a waiting room. Across from me a small fireplace. An off-white wall supports a single picture of snow and church. Dusty. Everything is dusty. In an isolated corner, a wire chair stands. Big room; practically empty. One dirty window pasted with announcements.

“I don't know why, that's all.” And that was all it had come to. “Now will you please stop bugging me?” Her voice
became thorny with these last words, and she was now more annoyed than hurt. How many times had she asked herself that same question which became implanted in her mind and soon germinated into a monstrous sponge, leaving no room for an answer?

He finally lifted his eyes off the lawn and shifted his glance to her face. Slowly, he continued, “It's the twentieth century…” Again he shook his head in disbelief and his eyes glanced over her shoulder and into nothing. “Why weren't you taking anything? You know better…” He paused, wet his lips and sighed. “You're a girl. You're supposed to know those things.”

“Don't. Don't. I don't know why.” She felt sorry for him and her voice became increasingly soft. “What do you think we ought to do?” He looked down at the blotches of dirt and grass, staring hard, as if the answer laid beneath.

“You'll have to get an abort…”

“Wait.” She couldn't breathe and she held her hand to his lips so that the word would not be mentioned out loud and therefore made a real possibility. “Let's…we gotta think this over.” There was a long pause between them. The wind blew weak leaves off the tree they sat under, and, she thought, weak leaves enjoy the moment of freedom faster, but they die sooner. She realized now, suffering from this heaviness on her heart, that the decision was ultimately hers and hers alone. Her eyes, that had first pleaded desperately under the tree, now looked upon him as a frightened child.

“Alice.” She turned to him and a reassuring smile appeared on her face. She hugged him tenderly and whispered, “You're just making it worse for both of us.” Hers. The wind blew a colder breeze and they comforted themselves with an embrace.

A girl with long stringy hair enters the room followed by a chilly draft that slaps me on the back (I hope I don't look that bad). She sits on the lonely wire chair. I smile at her with lazy lips, but the encouraging gesture is not returned. (Oily hair. Looks like she used mayonnaise for shampoo.) I belch out a giggle. (Alice—now's not the time to joke.) I keep swinging my legs until my heart swells and I choke—Oh my God…

My God, what am I doing here? Alone and cold. And afraid. Damn, dammit. I should have stayed a virgin. STUPID, stupid! Virgins have babies, too. Enough Alice. Keep warm, Alice. No sex, Alice. Punishing me. For loving, God? Fucking, Alice. Fucking Alice. Stop it, Alice. Alice. Grow up, not out.

Alice.

God isn't pregnant.

Alice.

“Alice. Alice Johnson.”

“Me.” I nod my head and smile. I think I'm going to win.

“Then you must be Cynthia Simmons.” The girl with the mayonnaise hair barely nods her head. “It sure is cold in here…” I smile in agreement. I don't feel like small talk. “My name is Kathy.” She resembles a small elf. A petite and skinny girl wearing an orange dress and white tights that gather at her bony knees. “…Follow me, please…” We follow her like zombies into another larger room. On one side, test tubes, desk lights, bottles; on the other, desks and telephones. The room was probably a kitchen before. Cabinets, like Terry's kitchen.

“How do I realize these things? Y'know the feeling. I was a whole invisible. I felt so light, I automatically took everything lightly. The responsibility of having a child didn't fit into my scheme of loving. To me, to me, Terry…” She paused to take another sip of jasmine tea. The light of the kitchen made a round, bright ring on the table where Alice put her cup down. “…love was satisfaction, happiness, and all that other bullshit, not babies.” Terry gestured mocking amazement with a dull smirk which impelled Alice to defend herself. “Babies, yea, sure, but not in the real sense. Not me.”

Terry sat across from her and munched on graham crackers throughout the evening. Alice searched for some evidence of sympathetic understanding from her, but all Terry seemed to do was munch slowly on a cracker, once in a while dipping it into her tea.

“Relax, Alice. My God, you would think it was the end of the world.” She said it with such an air of nonchalance that
Alice became angry, and yet comforted by her words. (Tell me what to do.) “How does Mike feel about it?”

“I haven't really told him…I mean, nothing definite. This is all so unreal.” She tried to hide the tears from Terry. A moment later Terry stood up from the table. Alice's eyes followed her to the living room. She picked up her phone book and, with the slowness of thick molasses, returned to her chair. She opened the book. “Here, take this number down…”

“What's this? Dial-A-Prayer?” Neither of them laughed. Alice copied the number down, hesitating to ask her what place it belonged to, but nonetheless trusting Terry's experience and age. She thought of Terry as an experienced woman at twenty-one. She was a big-boned female with high cheekbones that did not give her face away to any genre of feeling. Yet, Terry was sensuously beautiful. She was her own best friend and took responsibility for her actions. Her coolness in the hottest situations always troubled Alice. She knew Terry concealed all her emotions behind a facade, an almost perfect unbreakable mask, and she hoped to see the day her flowing warmth would turn into blazes unchecked.

Terry was Alice's best friend.

“It's to the Woman's Abortion Referral Center, in case…” and that was all it had come to.

“Why are you so sure I want an abortion?”

“You don't?”

“I just haven't made up my mind yet.” Terry picked up a cracker and munched on it. Alice knew what was coming.

“We both know you can't have a child. You're young and dreamy. That won't help you or your child any. Look, you'll stew and brood and feel pitiful and pray until your knees chap, but in the end, you'll decide on the abortion. So why not cut out all this silliness.”

“I wish it were all that easy. But you wouldn't know how it feels. I wish it were…” Alice couldn't finish the sentence. Instead she watched Terry's silent flowing stream of mascara crack the cheeks of her face. She reached down to get Alice's hand and patted it gently.