Mosquito Read online

  This a new solar-powered flashlight, he say. See, this is the solar cells, and shit like that. Now they got even newer-fangled flashlights that got they own built-in generators, like I said.

  This solar-powered? I asks, picking up the flashlight, and he be explaining how it work, how the solar cells on it work, and showing me them solar cells kinda look like beehives, then he be saying how it space technology and the use of solar power in certain space vehicles that enable them to make that flashlight. The way he be talking about the space age I be thinking maybe he a rocket scientist. He a smaller-sized man compared to me but don’t seem to be bothered by my height and size at all. You know, like some mens they be insecure about a woman taller than they is. He one of them wiry-type men, dressed casual in one of them windsuits and baseball caps, though he talk like a professional man, like a rocket scientist, and I be thinking maybe he a schoolteacher, maybe a science teacher, or a professional radio announcer. Say he from New Orleans, but couldn’t get no job in New Orleans so he came west.

  And he be kinda shaking my tree, you know. Just a little bit. I got me a pretty sturdy tree. But sometimes the mens can shake it, you know. And he of the attractive persuasion.

  And then he talking ’bout that flashlight and solar power lead into him inviting me out to dinner—I thought he might invite me to a movie, but it’s dinner—so I recommends this restaurant-cantina. ’Cause you know, I don’t know the man from Adam though he right friendly, and they always advises you when you out on a date with somebody you don’t know to date them in a public place, especially in the modern day and age, and most of the peoples I know in Texas City is in that restaurant-cantina. Turn out he a social worker not no immigration department, but them peoples they think immigration department. ’Cause the next date when we goes to see this movie I asks, You immigration department?

  Why, are you an illegal alien? he jokes.

  Naw, and then I tells him how the people in the restaurant-cantina clears out when he enters. Like in them cowboy movies in them saloons, even that Mario Van Peebles movie. I don’t know if they got that stylized scene in that movie or not, though it seem like it in every cowboy movie. And he pretend like he ain’t noticed it. Though he do say that he like Mexican food.

  You know, like in them cowboys movies, I says. You know, them saloon scenes where the sheriff or even the outlaw come in and the peoples in the saloon clears out, except they’s always one or two fools that confront the sheriff or the outlaw.

  Naw, I’m a social worker, he say. A social psychologist actually. He says he works with a lot of Chicanos and Native Americans as well as African Americans. And then he go into detail about what a social psychologist is and shit and how he ain’t a psychiatrist, and the difference between a psychologist and psychiatrist, ’cause a lot of people thinks he’s a psychiatrist. Got his degree at one of them community colleges. And then he start defending the community college system and say how I oughta be more ambitious and return to college too, maybe one of them community colleges, ’cause the purpose of the community college is to educate the community. He be saying he ain’t like some men that don’t like ambitious womens. He likes ambitious womens. And to tell the truth he the first man I heard to say he likes ambitious womens, ’cause most of the men I know associates bitch with ambitious when it a woman. You know, they pronounces ambition so’s you can hear the bitch in it, especially when they’s talking to a woman.

  I been to truck driving school, I says. It sorta like community college, I mean if community college supposed to educate the community. And I consider myself the community. I mean, I ain’t the whole community, but you know what I mean.

  He be telling me how aside from being that social psychologist he a amateur inventor, that’s why he likes them trade shows, ’cause that one of his hobbies, inventions. Course I’m just a amateur inventor, a avocational inventor, and ain’t attempted to put any of my inventions on the market. But I guess my profession is inventions too. How societies invent and reinvent themselves. And then he start telling me about this book called The American Invention or some shit, about how America itself supposed to be a invention. I heard that America supposed to be an experiment, but I didn’t know it supposed to be a invention too. Say he working on a book his ownself about the sociology of identity and he have some theory of American identity he be trying to explain to me that he call the additive identity or want to apply the theory of additive identity to the social psychology of America but I ain’t make hide nor hair of it. He say he also the author of a book on hospital racism and patients’ rights abuse, which also another area of his expertise. He talk a little bit about that. From what he saying make it seem like when somebody go into a hospital, they’s gotta have they lawyer, they own security force, maybe even they own private army to protect themselves from them medical men and women.

  It’s not just people of color, he says. But when racism and rights abuses converge . . . There’s this group that sometimes sends in hospital spies. They pretend that they’re patients and document their treatment or try to retrieve documents or copies of documents. That’s usually after the abuses occur or complaints have been made, so the hospitals are on their guard. I consult with individuals on a wide range of areas where society, psychology, race, and politics converge.

  You sound like Delgadina when she’s talking human rights, I says. Some of them peoples sounds just plain crazy, though. I mean, they has positions of authority and pretends to be sane, but they sounds crazy they ownselves. It sound plain crazy, though. Naw it don’t sound crazy. Miguelita crazy, and she ain’t in no authority. What you talking about sound deeper than crazy. I believes you, though, ’cause they sounds just like them things Delgadina talks when she’s talking human rights. It sounds just like human rights.

  It’s all human rights, he says. That’s what it’s all about, human rights.

  He ain’t immigration department he a social worker. I tells Delgadina. A social psychologist and a human rights advocate, ’cept he put everything in the category of human rights. I tells Delgadina how he didn’t even seem to notice how the people in the cantina thought him immigration department, like in them Western movies. I mean, being a social psychologist. He say he ain’t a psychologist for the individual person, he a psychologist for the whole society. He says he works with individuals, but he say that he really think of hisself as a psychologist for the whole society. And he says that America is a invention. I always thought it were just a experiment myself. And he writing a book on the sociology of identity and have also done some work in hospital racism and patients’ rights abuses. I knows that they abuses mental patients all the time, like in the old Russia when they wanted to abuse people’s rights they would pretend that they was locking them up for psychiatric reasons. He be telling me they does it here all the time. You know, when we were in here he be looking over at that Miguelita and be saying that she remind him of somebody that he were an expert witness for. He tell a story that sound something like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, you know that movie about them abuses to mental patients. He don’t think she the same woman, though. He says he can tell me that story ’cause it in the public domain and ain’t confidentiality. He be looking at her like he think she that woman. I knows he wants to go over and talk to her and see if she that woman but I knows if he do that the vatos be thinking she need to be rescued, you know, so I convinces him that that ain’t her. Somebody named Tucker, though, he say her name, so it weren’t us Miguelita, ’cause her name Miguelita Delgado. I ain’t know her maiden name. But I just tell him her name Miguelita Delgado. I do ask Miguelita for myself whether her maiden name Tucker next time I’m in the cantina and she says, Sophie Tucker? So I knows she’s crazy. But I ain’t let him go over there ’cause them vatos too protective of Miguelita Delgado. He be telling me a lot of stuff, a lot of different abuses he see in his profession. ’Cept he ain’t a expert witness for the government types of people, he a expert witness for the individuals that is abus
ed by the government and official types. The way he be describing them official types, though, it be making me think of that movie we seen with Denzel Washington where he playing the detective and be talking about everybody peeing on his head and telling him it’s rain. You know that movie, Devil in a Blue Dress. About peeing on somebody’s head and telling them it’s rain. You is always telling me about them human rights abuses yourself. I knows what you’s saying but I ain’t always know what you’s meaning.

  You means they really does that? I asks him.

  Yeah. I can’t talk to you about the specific individuals. But that’s exactly the way it is.

  So you ain’t no social psychologist that works for no government?

  No. I’ve testified in too many cases against them, so I wouldn’t get any government clearance anyway. I have a private consulting company and I do work as an expert witness. I write books and I work with individuals and do various kinds of research.

  Just peeing on they head and telling them it’s rain.

  Say what?

  So I tells him ’bout Denzel. And then he start talking to me about Kafka, that the social psychologist book he working on now uses Kafka as a metaphor for various essays that he’s writing on social psychology.

  So you ain’t like them regular-type social workers?

  No. I have done that regular type of social work. Then I didn’t want to be part of the abuses, you know. The system. Then I started becoming aware of a lot of official abuses, you know. I thought I could work better with people on an individual basis, independent of the government.

  Delgadina she don’t say nothing, she just look at me like she think social worker or social psychologist or whatever and immigration department they the same thing, even if he do claim to work independent of the government, that that just his way of trying to camouflage hisself. Plus she seem like she ain’t like the interest he take in Miguelita, though I be wondering what Miguelita got to do with immigration. Even though I explains who he say he is, Delgadina still act like she suspicious of him.

  I tries to tell Delgadina some of them other things that we’s talked about and about him being a expert witness and about what seems like peeing on people’s head and telling them it’s rain, but she ain’t act like she’s interested or like I’m talking about ecology and environmentalism. ’Cept now even the civil rights peoples talks ecology and environmentalism now that they knows they’s a connection with racism. They’s even got they own environmental racism resources organization. So I don’t talk to Delgadina about de facto coercion and none of that other stuff I were talking about with that social psychologist. I don’t even give her none of them brochures he give me.

  And them abuses is going on right in America. They’s peeing on your head right here in America and telling you it’s rain. Except when it’s us own country, he say, the peoples just steps in line. Like when they was doing them medical experiments on them Tuskegee men. A lot of peoples remembers that. That them Herr Doktors over here in America ain’t no different from them Herr Doktors over there in Germany, and a lot of them even wrote up they experiments in them medical journals, like it were monkeys they was experimenting on instead of men.

  I orders me a Budweiser. Then I reads one of them menus that Delgadina got up at the bar. You can’t order nothing that’s on them menus; you’s got to go inside the restaurant part of the bar to order, but Delgadina keeps them menus on the bar, so’s to entice people to go into the restaurant and order something.

  German pancakes

  Prairie pancakes

  Mexican pancakes

  Oklahoma caviar

  Chocolate cheesecake

  Cilantro Chicken with Fettuccini

  I ain’t going to give you everything that’s on them menu, except that Oklahoma caviar I don’t think that that is real caviar. I be wondering, though, why somebody come in a Mexican restaurant and order German pancakes. And them Mexican pancakes is wheat tortillas ’cept some of them tourists buys more of them when they’s referred to as Mexican pancakes rather than wheat tortillas. Then they’s got a Mexican salad that’s made with beans and corn and green beans and that cilantro. Some people that frequents the cantina ain’t Mexicans or Chicanos, though, they’s Native Peoples. And Delgadina knows all them by name. She knows them by name and she knows them by tribe. She can look at any Native American and tell you what tribe they is. Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Apache, Osage, Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, and she can even tell you if they is combinations of tribes. For example, if somebody a Kiowa Apache, she say, He a Kiowa Apache. I knows the Native Peoples from the Chicanos, except for the Native Peoples that looks like Chicanos, but I can’t tell you the tribes of everybody. We’s even got a Comanche Apache Arapaho Kiowa. There’s one man that frequents the bar who say he a combination of Comanche, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Osage, Cheyenne, and Apache Apache. He got this story about how his peoples—all them tribes—banded together to fight the white men before the Civil War. He say he originally from Wyoming, but he prefers South Texas. He say the only reason them white men made treaties with them Indians during the Civil War was so’s it could free them to fight in the war. ’Cause them rangers and federal troops and soldiers and shit was fighting the Indians, so during Civil War the whites had to stop fighting the Indians and fight each other, so they made treaties with the Indians. Course the white claims it was the Indians that didn’t honor them treaties, and the Indians I means the Native Peoples claims it was the whites. ’Cept I knows about all them treaties the whites ain’t honored with Native Peoples, so I believes the Native Peoples claims myself. And he the one told me about Chief Nigger Horse. I thinks he signifying about me, you know.

  I’m sitting there at the table with him, drinking my Budweiser, listening to his tales of white men and Native Peoples in the Southwest, when he say something about Chief Nigger Horse.

  Say what?

  That was the leader’s name, an Indian leader in the Texas area. I ain’t even remember what he said about Chief Nigger Horse, ’cause I just hear his name. Chief Nigger Horse.

  I tells him that he can’t just say that Native hero’s name around just anybody.

  Then he say a lot of glorified things about Chief Nigger Horse and say he can’t change Chief Nigger Horse’s name ’cause that his name. I would like to hear about Chief Nigger Horse and the white mens hunting him in West Texas and Fort Concho. Texas—I think he say something about Fort Concho. Texas, and a place called Hidden Canyon and a place called Buffalo Springs and about a small log cabin that he got in West Texas and about a town called Monterey that he call Ray Town, but seem like every time he say Chief Nigger Horse all I hears is Chief Nigger Horse. And even had me a dream about Chief Nigger Horse, ’cause it seem like some Native Peoples from West Texas has a movie or a documentary about they West Texas hero Chief Nigger Horse, but the West Texas Colored People’s Association was picketing the movie on account of the Nigger in the chief’s name, so the people wanted the movie to be renamed Chief Horse or Chief Colored Horse, ’cause this were a group of colored people that still referred to theyselves as colored, but the Native Peoples kept insisting that they couldn’t change they chief’s name ’cause that were his true name.

  We don’t mind you Native Peoples maintaining the true name of your great Native American hero. Chief Nigger Horse, and there is fools amongst us who is even pleased that he chose to use a adjective derived from who he supposed is us, otherwise he coulda called hisself Chief Honky Horse, and we don’t believe that he hisself or his people that named him named him with evil intentions, says the president of the West Texas Colored People’s Association, but it is just giving these old buffalo hunters, the white boys of West Texas, the excuse to say Nigger, why it even gives colored people, who have stopped saying Nigger in civil society, the excuse to say Nigger, why I have heard white boys who wouldn’t dare say Nigger in my presence because they know I am the president of the West Texas Colored People’s Association ’cause they know us West Texa
s Colored People ain’t like them Other Colored People that ain’t from West Texas. I’s still got my great-grand-pappy’s Sharps buffalo gun and I knows how to use it, but even they feels free to say Nigger in my presence when talking about going to see the movie Chief Nigger Horse at the West Texas Palace Theater, and a lot of them is going to see Chief Nigger Horse, not because they is so fond of Chief Nigger Horse, or even esteems him ’cause it were their own peoples that joined the hunt after Chief Nigger Horse was it into Hidden Canyon? I don’t remember the exact history but it just gives these white boys the opportunity to say Nigger in civil society, even in the presence of them that ain’t like them Other Colored People that ain’t from West Texas. There is even them that says Chief Nigger Horse in my presence to try to signify that I am the Chief Nigger of the West Texas Colored People’s Association rather than its president. We calls ourselves the Tenth Cavalry and the New Buffalo Soldiers, ’cept now we’s an all-colored unit with no white officers. I’m the president, and I got a buffalo gun I uses. We might petition you Native Peoples, out of the esteem with which you are held in the Colored People’s Communities Everywhere, there’s even us who claims kin that ain’t kin and wouldn’t know a Kiowa Apache from a Navajo Apache, but if we hear any more of these white boys coming out of the Liquor Emporium talking about Chief Nigger Horse and his squaw, the one riding along with him on the Spanish mustang, at least in the movie, well, we ain’t the colored people of your dreams, we’s tough as a boot all hat and plenty of cattle do to run any river with big enough to hunt any bear and whatever else y’all white boys of West Texas likes to say about y’allselves.