The Moths and Other Stories (6 page)

“I do know, Alice.”

(Terry, I hear your voice floating on and on and on. It was my decision that seemed already decided for me. I don't have to
go through it. But here I am now, bringing out the money to pay. Lack of sleep, so early. That's why I don't feel good.)

“…and here is your receipt. Now that we have the business over with, I want you girls to fill out these forms…” I make neat “X's” in the boxes next to the word “no.” The girl sitting next to me begins to redden and her eyes melt. I don't know what to do so I smile and she returns it. Kathy enters again with some lemonade and wheat crackers. (Good, all I had this morning was a hershey bar.)

I sit on the toilet seat with a paper cup under me. Damn cold, and early. At last. (AH! The trickling of today's morning water.) The warmth of my urine makes my stomach turn. As I walk out with my warm paper cup, I glance at the waiting room. There are many girls now sitting and waiting.

The lid of the university opens up. Watercolored people slowly emerge, moving endlessly about the thick cemented walls. I want so much to disappear. I sit under the tree with my pile of books and look at the quiet people; they float like balloons. I hope everything will be better when he comes. Arrived as expected. No kiss, a simple smile. Sits next to me. For a moment, I feel resentment towards him. We begin a conversation and I feel myself replying but instantly forgetting what I say or hear. Sometimes I feel myself giggling at his remarks, while other times my head automatically nods in agreement to whatever he says. Then by the expression on his face, by the pounding of his heart that buries all other sounds, by the watercolors fusing into nothing, I realize I've told him I am pregnant.

“I don't know why, that's all.” And that was all it had come to. “Alice.”

Alice

“Alice. Alice Johnson.”

“Me.”

“My, that
is
a pretty dress. The name's Sharon and I'll be assisting the doctor in the procedure.” I smile. I follow her into a small doctor's office. Clean and white with silver objects that reflect my face in distortion. (Oh, God, my God, forgive me for I have sinned.)

“Shall I take off my dress?” “No, no need to.” I remove my clean underwear and place my feet on the stirrups with great caution. The thick paper under me crinkles. It is so cold.
Kathy enters the room while Sharon prepares the vacuum-like machine.

“Would you like me to stay with you? You
are
the first of the morning, y'know. (I know) I nod. She's a nice girl. She pulls my dress up a little more and removes my slip. Sharon is moving a utility table near the stirrups as the little elf begins to rub my thighs. The doctor enters the room. Cold. Her hands are very cold. “Relax. Think of something that you love.” Kathy continues rubbing my thighs. “Relax,” Sharon reasures me. “Relax,” the doctor demands.

“Tell me, Alice, so what are you taking up in school…
finally bonded drifting afloat i become, and how much i love it. Cold hands. Forgive me, Father, for I have
…Music. How nice! Are you into Classical or…
craft cradles me drifting farther away; and how much i love it
. The operation takes about 5 minutes. Now the doctor will insert…
the waves rock me into an anxious sleepless sleep. And i love. No! I don't love you, not you, God, knotted ball. I hate you, Alice
. What other instruments do you play?
brimming baptism waters roll. swell. thunder
. Relax, Alice, and try not to move again.
reaching up to the vastness. calm. i relax under the fluids that thicken like jelly
. i am still; my body is transparent and light, ounceless.

 

His quick-paced footsteps sounded throughout the hollowness of the church and grew louder as he approached the pew where she sat, cold and chaste as the stone shapes of the holy family. Her eyes had followed the silent figure of a shriveled woman performing the ritual of candlelighting before her ears became aware of his footsteps. The black-robed priest passed her, and soon the footsteps dissolved into the distance. He disappeared inside the dark vacuum of the confessional booth.

He entered the middle booth and waited for the first sign of early morning's sinners. The door to his left opened and closed. Leaning his ear near the small black-screened window, the priest waited until he heard the protesting creak the leather made when the heaviness of the sinner's knee rested against it before opening its panes.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been four days since…”

It was always the same monotonous whisper; man and girl and boy and woman—no real difference. They came to him seeking redemption; they had stepped into the realm of sin; they had all slapped his walls with hideous, ridiculously funny and often imaginary sins—and they all expected him to erase their sins, to ease their souls so that they could, with the innocence of a pure heart, enter into sin once again. The whispering tune of secrets hidden and finally banished.

“The dream, Father, I am still having that bad dream.”

“Are you dreaming unnatural acts?” He drummed his fingers on his knees.

“I think so. At least it is to me, Father.”

“Is it anything sexual?”

“No.” He wasn't listening, was he? “No,” she repeated. “It's like a nightmare. I close my eyes and there is darkness. I think I'm asleep, then…”

He heard movement.

“…then, my eyelids become one black screen. I anticipate a movie or something. While I am waiting, I begin to hear voices. It's my father, talking loud, his words loud and slurred. They're arguing about something. Something having to do with my mother, then…No. Something having to do with my father. I still see the screen before my eyes, but I'm so sleepy. Yreina, you know her, Father, my younger sister, begs me to pray to God to make the voices stop. But you see, Father, I can't because I'm asleep, and when you're asleep, you don't know what's going on. Everything is not real, and so the voices aren't real and I wanted it that way. By morning, I would open my eyes with no memory, nothing. So I wasn't supposed to know what was happening.”

She stopped there, and again he heard movement.

“Go on,” he heard himself say.

“I'm asleep; I see a speck on the screen. A faraway speck coming closer and bigger and bigger and closer and soon the speck shapes into a statue. Our Lord with His hands outstretched. I feel comforted, even if He is only a statue in the living room. I don't hear voices. Good. I'm asleep.”

Again there was silence. He hadn't had breakfast yet and his stomach gurgled in anger. She continued.

“There He stands. Solid. But what happened next I will never understand. I will never be able to forgive myself for letting it happen. I heard something, something loud. A bullet sound. It rang. The ringing visualized into a tail connected to the bullet sound. I saw it pierce the image, burst like a firecracker. Sparks. Pierce it into little pieces before my eyes, flashing light on the screen. I think I know what happened, but it's a dream. I'm asleep, you see.”

He's on the couch. Please, my God, he's full of blood. Wake up, Martha, quick, pleaseohmygod
…Someone broke a statue of Jesus—the one with His hands outstretched, and now he's bleeding on the couch. I heard the crash and the bones shatter like sparks from wall to wall, but I want to be left alone.
He's bleeding all over the
…I keep my eyelids cemented together and I wish I could stuff rags in her volcanic mouth.
But Yreina's an eruption. I heard the explosion, goddammit, so leave me alone. I was sinking into the mattress until I could barely see the tops of my warm sheets. Then, with the burst, I was vomiting on top of them. Stay asleep. So good to sleep. I act as if Yreina is just another addition to my sleep. I feel hands, cold and tight around my neck as Yreina screams
Wake up, Martha, jesusmío, Mama shot
…

The saloon consisted of various kitchen tables and chairs colored from egg-yolk yellows to checkered red and whites. Although it was the rainy mid-March season, deflated balloons and faded crepe paper remained on the ceiling as a reminder of a never-ceasing New Year celebration. Christmas lights shone against two mirrors on one wall directly behind the bar. The dance floor was a small area made up of cracked, unsettled tiles often caked with mud until Olivia cleaned them early the next morning. Olivia, the evening barmaid and morning cleaning woman of Los Amigos, mopped the floors with a thick heavy cloth connected to a mop stick. Her shoulders tired of pushpulling the mop; the ache soon dropped from her shoulders and concentrated in her legs and feet—those same dancing feet that patted the mud tighter into the cracks of the tiles.

It was the rainy season and business seemed slower than usual, for although there was still an even flow of customers, the tips dwindled to almost nothing. This time, however, Olivia didn't mind all that much; she looked forward to seeing the man who had, without knowing it, unburied her feelings of loneliness and at the same time given her anticipated pleasure by just being in the same room with her. Presently, he was the man she secretly loved.

She had not felt like this in a very long time; moonwarm and tender for another person. She loved once before, but not secretly. She lived openly with him, bringing forth two sons. And what a scandal that had caused! If she would have to live an outcast, she would do so for him. But he left one afternoon. The room was getting hotter.

Oh, but could he love. Love her anywhere, anyplace. She remembered when she thought her head had exploded and bled between her legs when he first made love to her on the
roof of her house. She could remember that slow-slap, faint-slap, almost monotonous-slap of her mother making tortillas in the kitchen right beneath them turn into an intense applause…and then she hated him, his two sons—thank goodness she gave them her name—and finally love itself. Her arms thrust the mopstick harder.

But Tomás. He was not a coward. Someday, she would have to let him know how she felt. But she couldn't, shouldn't wait too long. Already her youth was peeling off her face like the paint on the saloon walls. Olivia stopped to inspect the job. The dance floor was ready for tonight.

Olivia thought of her two sons as she locked the front doors of the saloon, proud of herself for being the only other person to hold the key to the establishment, and she smiled that smile when she remembered the roof incident. The key; just her and the old man. The old, tight, stinky sonofabitch, she thought. It was noon and the streets of Tijuana were flooded with puddles of muddy water. Two kids bathed near the street corner and the Saturday tourists waved like national flags along the sidewalks. The air was unusually fresh and she looked up at the sky. It will be a good night tonight, she thought as she hurried home.

Tomás's wife was a statue-tall woman with floods of thick black hair that reached to the folds of her buttocks. She watched her reflection in the mirror, brushing her hair with slow moving strokes. She enjoyed the luxury of time and the full view of herself. It was like a vacation long deserved, to stay at a place where she didn't have to make beds or clean toilets, or wash off graphic depictions of sexual acts penciled on the walls. Although he did not bring her on his trips across the border to Tijuana (using the excuse that it would be dangerous for her since she would probably be jailed along with him if he were ever caught passing
mexicanos
without proper papers), he asked her to come as far as Chula Vista. Perhaps he thought she needed the rest from her duties as wife and mother, and only in complete solitude did she feel like a woman. Too soon would the grape harvest return; the Fresno sun was almost mockingly waiting to bleed the sweat from all five of them. All five.
Mis niños
. Next time she would bring Martha, Yreina and Miguelito. She braided her hair. He had gone attending business in Tijuana and would not be back for two hours. He would pick her up later and they would go to
the saloon tonight. Tomás' wife wondered if that old barmaid (what-was-her-name-now?) still worked there and she wondered if Tomás left her, would she become like her? Weary of travel, she rested her body on the fresh-sheeted soft bed.

Olivia had always avoided looking at herself completely in the mirror; her eyes focused only on the part she attended to. She knew age was nesting. The short skirt revealed her skinny legs that knotted at the knees, and her small but protruding belly surpassed her breasts. Yet she tried making the best of it. With a low-cut blouse and wearing her hair down, she would not be called a vieja so often. Like an artist, she began creating her illusionary eyes with the colors of a forest.

Tomás's wife dreamt of houses. Big ones that would belong to all five of them. A color T.V. and an island. She dreamt of her mother, dozens of diapers blazing, and an invisible bird with huge wings.

Two large false lashes were glued expertly on her natural ones. The eyes were traced with liner and the eyelids finely painted with eye shadow. Done. She lit a cigarette and sat in front of the mirror, re-evaluating the masterpiece. Now, not even the make-up covered her deeper wrinkles. Olivia put her cigarette down, wet her fingers with her tongue, and rubbed away the chappedness of her elbows.

Tomás's wife stretched out slowly, awakening like a cat. It was later than she had anticipated; she hurried to unbraid her hair and continued brushing it as he entered the room, carrying a bag of sweet bread, two bright pink and green ponchos wrapped in transparent paper, and a toy rifle, resembling his own, for Miguelito.

“For the niños.” He laid the purchases on the bed. “Tomorrow we have to leave early. I'll have to return next week.” Only then will the gente be ready and waiting at Los Amigos.” To Tomás' wife this meant that he would not take her across the border and into Tijuana. She understood him well, although he said nothing; her vacation was cut short. Tomás unbuttoned his shirt, pulled off his dusty shoes, and went into the bathroom. There was a flushing sound of the toilet, then the rush of water in the shower. She put her hair
up in a bun, disrobed, and entered the shower with him discreetly.