Mosquito Page 14

  When we gets back from Galveston, we don’t go to the cantina, ’cause if they be thinking he immigration, then they might start thinking I’s immigration. We go to one of them little nightclubs in Texas City and he’s drinking gin and tonic and I got me a Budweiser. I keep waiting for him to ask me to dance, specially when they plays the tango music. I knows I’m a little bigger than him and he might not want to be on the dance floor with me. But when you dances the tango it don’t matter who bigger than who. Specially that tango that I calls the butt-out tango. Where you don’t tango upright but the woman kinda pokes her butt out. Delgadina when she ain’t learning intellectual subjects got her a tango class and have taught me the difference between the café style, which I calls the butt-out tango, and the salon style, where you tangos upright and looks classical, and then there’s different modern- and old-style tangos, and even military-style tangos. She say she ain’t got her a master teacher of the tango, ’cause you’s got to go to Argentina to get you a master teacher, but she say she got a pretty good tango teacher. So when they’s playing that tango, I wants to show him what I’ve learned, but he prefer to talk than dance. While he talking, though, I’m kinda daydreaming I’m doing the tango with him, and that we’s in one of them tango clubs in Argentina. And while he talking, it like his talking got a tango base to it. Then I’m daydreaming I’m tangoing with John Henry Hollywood.

  Did you know John Henry, there’s a whole social history to the tango?

  Naw, I didn’t know that, Nadine.

  Delgadina say when military rule come to Argentina, they prohibited the tango.

  No, I didn’t know that, Nadine.

  I’m an ignorant woman in almost everything else, but I knows how to tango.

  Why you keep calling yourself ignorant, Nadine? He pulls me toward him for a kiss. You’s a big sweet.

  I tries to hear the tango base in every music while John Henry dances like a master teacher.

  Freedom.

  Seem like he say something again about freedom ain’t being Madonna freedom and something about how they’s gotta be some kinda immitigable rules to African-American womanhood. Either that, or he say they ain’t no immitigable rules to African-American womanhood. He say another word but it sound like immitigable so that’s what I remembers. I’m trying to listen to him talk and listen to that music at the same time, listen to them tango rhythms, then they’s playing rap music and I’m trying even to hear the tango base in the rap, or the rap base in the tango. Seem like it Queen Latifah singing, or one of them female rappers rapping in the background, and his male voice talking in the foreground, and don’t it sound good, ’cause he got one of them deep-type voices, and I likes them deep-type voices, then it seem like Queen Latifah singing and she jump to the foreground and he rapping in the background, and then it seem like they voices blends into song.

  I kinda liked hearing him talk that talk, though, except I didn’t understand how you could tread proudly in the universe, though, unless you’s on Star Trek. Maybe that Whoopi Goldberg when she were on Star Trek could be up there, and she ain’t playing the role of no plebeian neither, treading proudly in the universe, but seems like you’s got a lot to do to try to tread proudly right here on Earth. Course I know he means that as a metaphor and that we’s got to see beyond the stars usselves. ’Cause y’all needs to be more ambitious.

  And I know you’re ambitious, Nadine, because of that steady glance you give a man, well, not just a man, but everybody. Some of my colleagues thinks African-American women are too ambitious and greedy and self-seeking, and even those that aren’t ambitious are greedy and self-seeking. And that’s an African-American man I’m talking about. Those aren’t the African-American women that I know.

  And then as if on cue there’s someone singing in the background. Some woman singing about the rent. Some woman singing about how a man gotta have a job if he want to be with her.

  But he act like he ain’t hear that singing. And then he be talking about how even womens got to invent themselves too, especially the African-American womens, but then it be sounding like it him want to invent me and not me myself. I do like that idea of me treading proudly in the universe, though. Then he just say I shouldn’t be driving no truck. And then he say something about my language. First I think he gonna say something about how he don’t like my language. How I gotta clean up my language and start talking like them secretaries and schoolteachers and bank employees. But then he say he do like my language. I know he’s dating me and all that, but just ’cause a man date you don’t mean he like your language.

  You know, before I met you, he said, I thought people that talked like you, you know, who used the vernacular, so to speak, although I use some myself every now and then, were unintelligent people, but with you, your intelligence shines through, even though you speak corrupted English.

  He said corrupted English or corruptible English or maybe even incorruptible English. I ain’t sure what he say, but I know he talking about my language. What that have to do with my intelligence? I’m asking. ’Cause I ain’t exactly sure what he talking about myself. ’Nother reason I liked that movie that me and Delgadina seen with that Denzel Washington, ’cause he was talking my language. Devil in a Blue Dress. ’Cause I told Delgadina that that the first time I seen a movie where somebody was talking my language. I mean, the one that was actually telling the movie, narrating the movie, and not just somebody in the movie. I didn’t much like the women in that movie ’cause they didn’t seem like true women to me, even the one supposed to be the central woman and love interest-type woman, but that Denzel Washington was talking my language. And ain’t nobody say he ain’t play the role of a intelligent man. But I’m still thinking about that treading proudly in the universe, though, ’cause I ain’t never had nobody to sweet-talk me like that. Now I likes to be called intelligent like any woman, even whilst I’m telling y’all I’m ignorant, but I ain’t never heard no man to talk to me about treading proudly in the universe. ’Cept telling me I shouldn’t be driving no truck. He be my almost perfect idea of a man ’cept telling me I shouldn’t be driving no truck.

  I tell Delgadina what he say, ’cause I want to hear what she got to say about a man that your almost perfect idea of a man ’cept for telling you you shouldn’t be driving no truck, so she say, You’ve got your own mind, Mosquito, but that’s some sweet-talk, I mean about the universe. I never had a man to tell me that either. Course the sweeter talk for me would be for a man to tell me I’m intelligent. Not that I need someone else to tell me who I am, but you know what I mean?

  I think she’s gonna tell me what I hears other women say, you know, defending themselves from the tyranny of men, how they don’t put up with mens telling them what to do and what not to do and all that, but she don’t say that. I know there’s plenty of men that done told her that she shouldn’t be bartending and shit, and not just Chicano men either, but every man, and I know she’s still bartending. And she’s still dating who she wants to, and even dating some of the same mens that tells her she shouldn’t be bartending. I call that Delgadina freedom. That man talking about Madonna freedom. Well, I call that Delgadina freedom. Me I didn’t stop dating him neither, but I just keeps driving my truck and then so he the one decide he don’t want the sorta woman stay driving her truck when he think she oughta be more ambitious than that.

  If I were of another generation, he said, I don’t think I’d be a social psychologist.

  You be a doctor or a lawyer?

  No. Something that would tell me better who I am or who I could be. For my generation, it was important that we work with people, you know. I didn’t go to one of the traditional black colleges that would’ve shown me other possibilities, more of the essence of who I am. The little community college I went to, we were either political science or sociology majors. I was lousy in political science, so I took sociology. I won’t say I was lousy in political science . . . I don’t have the logic of a politician . . . I know you shouldn�
�t be driving a truck. . . .

  Maybe he ain’t mean it the way I hear it. Maybe he just mean that driving a truck ain’t the essence of who I am. But it seem like once he got that idea he just keep telling me that ain’t who I am. And so when he say, You shouldn’t be driving no truck, me I just ignores that. I gots to drive my truck. I gots to. Even if he don’t think that’s the essence of who I am or who I could be. ’Cause that’s something I knows I gots to do. It always makes me wonder why people, and ain’t just mens, that always wants to try to make you stop doing the very thing you gots to do. I mean, if the thing’s a evil thing, you’s got to stop doing it. That’s why they’s got moral and civil and all kindsa laws for human beings. ’Cept doctors, if what them brochures say is true. But if the thing ain’t a evil thing, but it’s something that you gots to do. I don’t know why you gots to do it. Maybe it’s the closest thing you come to to what freedom mean. Your own idea of freedom. And don’t nobody want freedom for you. Not the true thing. And I ain’t talking about license or decadence. I’m talking about freedom, the true thing.

  I don’t know whether he say I shouldn’t be driving no truck ’cause he don’t see it as my essence or if he want me to stop doing my freedom thing. Course mens don’t always mean the same thing when they tell a woman she shouldn’t do what mean freedom to her. Some means women shouldn’t be doing they freedom, others means they womens, they own womens, shouldn’t be doing they freedom, and others means just you yourself. Course when you’s married people you’s got to have the same freedom ideal. But marriage is a unity and it’s got its own logic. Talking about the logic of political science. Marriage, it got its own language. I think it just the peculiarity of being human to want to colonize somebody else freedom idea. And I mean when that freedom idea ain’t a evil thing. Delgadina got her own thoughts on that freedom idea. I guess that bartending for her is freedom idea. Delgadina one of them people you don’t have to ask nothing, ’cause she’s always telling her opinions. Delgadina, she one of them real opinionated womens, you know. I gots my opinions, but I ain’t opinionated. I tells my opinions, but you still gots to ask me what I mean.

  So what did you say to him when he say you shouldn’t be driving no truck? asks Delgadina, scratching inside that mandarin collar.

  Nothing.

  That’s ’cause you want him to keep romancing you. Or, what’s that expression you like to use, Mosquito? Shaking your tree?

  I don’t say that that’s the truth. And about that shaking somebody tree. Maybe it depend on what kinda tree the man shaking. Maybe you don’t mind a man shaking your peach tree, but you don’t want nobody to shake your banana tree. You know what I mean? I just orders me another Bud Light. Nibbles me some of them pretzels and peanuts on the bar. Some of them corn chips. Some of that salsa with the mandarin oranges. Itching to light me a cigarette. Or ask Delgadina for one of her sage cigarettes. But she stopped smoking even those. Y’all know, her herb cigarettes. I ain’t talking ’bout that marijuana y’all.

  I used to be like that too, say Delgadina. When I was in my twenties. And she pour the Bud Light in my glass and go take another order and then she come back. She still looking like she in her twenties to anybody ain’t know her age. She wearing one of them really feminine-type blouses with smocking on it. It one of them mandarin-type blouses with the mandarin collar, like I said, and all but it got honeycomb-type patterns on it, kinda remind me of them solar cells. I’m always wearing them sweatshirts myself, but she’s always wearing them real inventive-type blouses. That ain’t to say I don’t consider myself as feminine as her, it just we’s got different styles, you know. And what look like them Native American sand paintings. I mean, she got on that blouse. Or them aborigine sand paintings, though them aborigines they’s Native Australians. She say she embroidered it herself, though, ’cause she really artful. She got another blouse she done embroidered a tree on it. Soapbark tree, she call it. She don’t embroider no ordinary tree, got to be a soapbark tree. Women has got they own peculiarities too. I guess to embroider a ordinary tree make her think she a ordinary woman. Course I don’t see nothing wrong with being no ordinary woman myself. They’s got them a whole symphony for the common man, but when the woman want to write the symphony she be wanting it to be for the uncommon woman. Like them people that wants to identify with the kings and queens in Africa. Now they might be identifiable with them African kings and queens, ’cause a lots of them were captured in warfare and sold into slavery, and that’s by Africans us ownselves. That’s the history that us don’t like to tell about. And they’s still selling them into slavery if them stories is true. Course when people does wrong theyselves it don’t exonerate the other peoples from they wrong. But every people is like that. That’s why they’s got they hero songs and stories—the idea of who they is. I might be descended from a king or queen myself, or some of them African noblemen and women. But what if I ain’t? Seems to me if you’s a true African, you’s just as proud if you’s descended from the common African man or woman. They’s some of us that’s descended from them European kings and queens. Them that wants to talk kings and queens.

  Anyway, Delgadina she give me one of them embroidered blouses, too, except with me one of them boabab’s on it and one of them sandarac tree, ’cause she be saying they’s African trees. Don’t go talking about my African tree now, I wants to say when she starts talking African trees. She the one told me about this tree called the monkey puzzle tree. I think she be signifying when she be talking about that monkey puzzle tree. And I be asking if that a African tree, and she be saying it a South American tree, but it sound like a African tree on account of that monkey in it, but I guess they’d got monkeys in South America, ’cause that’s the tropics. Then she talking to that man in Spanish and I hear the words loca and loco. I don’t know whether they talking about that crazy gringa or whether she calling the man she talking to loco. He got one of them oversize mustaches and wearing him a polo shirt and dungarees. He look kind of Indian as well as Mexican—I mean Indian from India, one of them rajahs. Got a kind of lean face and thick dark hair, a lean and muscular man. She talking to him and scratching inside that mandarin collar. I guess she been eating some of them jalapeños, ’cause like I said she allergic to them jalapeños. I know about that loco weed. I remember Delgadina and me was sitting in the municipal park and she picked up this weed and started chewing on it. She know a lot about them plants and know which plants is eatable and which ones is medicinal. She might be chewing on one of them plants. She also one of them container gardeners. She grows different kinds of plants and herbs in them containers, you know.

  That loco weed? I ask.

  Naw, it’s wild mustard. Yeah, that’s ’cause you want him to keep romancing you, she say, scratching inside that mandarin collar.

  I might want romance but I don’t need it, I says.

  That’s a good one, Mosquito, that’s a real good one, she say, and then she grab this little notebook she keep under the bar and jot it down. You a wit. I like wit.

  I ain’t never heard myself call no wit before, no whole-wit, but she taking one of them creative writing class at night at this community center and she always jotting down shit like that. She say she the only one in that writing class that know the different names of trees and plants and flowers, though. ’Cause the other ones they just call a tree a tree. She the one jot down all that shit them powers be saying, that Dickey and Tea Biscuit—I don’t remember him referring to her as Tea Biscuit, but Delgadina got that in her notebook—and that’s how come I remember all that shit them powers be saying, ’cause she let me read it in her notebook. You know, all that shit about the fried ice cream. She even put a monkey puzzle tree in one of her stories. She a real nice gal, though, that Delgadina. Grew up in a mixed neighborhood in Houston and knows how to socialize with all sortsa peoples, all different cultures and races, and can talk all sortsa people’s talk. I likes folks like that, though I ain’t like that myself. I socializes with some. An
d seem like the older I get, the fewer that some get. When I tell Delgadina that she one of my few acquaintance, she say, Mosquito, you ain’t no elitist, are you? I know she joking, but I still ask, What that got to do with it? ’Cause Delgadina she always talking about the community this and the community that.

  Delgadina she taking that creative writing class at the community center and she also been talking about going to detective school. I’m the one give her that brochure on detective school, and she say my going to that truck driving school influenced her to maybe try that detective school, and maybe that give her a sense of possibilities. Of course, me I’m thinking it that movie we seen about that detective. ’Cause after I seen that movie about that detective that’s when I got them detective brochures. Not that I ain’t seen movies about detectives before, it just this a movie about a African-American detective. I mean, private investigator. Before that creative writing, she took one of them acting classes. Is that ambition enough for you? ’Cept I know that ain’t what he mean by ambition. But like the song say, everybody want to be in show business. I tell Delgadina what that man say about greedy and she say she intellectually greedy but she don’t think she greedy greedy. Intellectual greediness, she say, ain’t the same thing as them other kinds of greediness. When she were taking this acting class, I did go with her to see one of them plays. Luis Valdez, I think she say the name of the playwright. Yeah, that Luis Valdez, ’cause she be saying he also a filmmaker and he supposed to be a important Chicano playwright and not just a playwright but a true vato and I don’t know what she mean by true vato. But maybe that like when African Americans usedta call someone a race man or race woman. ’Cause that’s supposed to mean you’s for the people. ’Cept somebody say they’s always a newer Negro, so that a lot of them race men and race women. . . . Well, you know what I mean. ’Cause a lot of them people that thought of theyselves as radical in the 1920s and 1930s, in the 1960s, for example, they was the old Negro. They’s always a newer Negro. I don’t know if them vatos is like that. And she ain’t just look at the play like a lot of peoples, she be jotting things down in her notebook. Be saying maybe she write her a essay on that play, ’cause Delgadina like that. The play it were in English and Spanish, enough English so’s the English-speaking people could understand it, enough Spanish so’s the Spanish-speaking people could understand it, though the English sound kinda like Spanish, or at least it be more of a jazzed-up English than a lot of the English you hear, or maybe jazzed-up ain’t the right word for that English. I don’t know if you should say Chicanified English. Or maybe Mexicanized English. But Chicano and Mexican ain’t the same thing, say Delgadina. Heard plenty of locos and locas in that play too. And gringos they ain’t called gringos they’s called gabachos. ’Cause I be asking Delgadina what a gabacho and she be saying that’s a gringo. I like that English they be speaking, I says. Kinda remind me of that Cheech, you know. I think I seen me one of them Luis Valdez’s films, ’cause I think that Cheech were in that. That Luis Valdez he supposed to have founded a famous Chicano theater company. I like that play, though it ain’t my culture. But then I’m wondering why people have to like they own culture. Them with dominant cultures, though, it seem like they’s freer to like or not like they own culture ’cause people ain’t say of them they just imitating someone else culture.