Mosquito Read online

  Delgadina kinda a social psychiatrist her ownself, though she ain’t got no degree in it. She a social psychiatrist of the Chicano and Mexican personality. She were discussing with me with subject of hermeticism or hermitism. She be talking about something she call hermitism. She ain’t named it herself, but she know the meaning of it, ’cause she be reading some book on Mexican psychology, she always reading them books, she talk about the people’s knowledge and the people’s learning, but always be reading them books, ’cept she don’t trust that book, she say, because she be saying it depict Mexican psychology as pathological and she be saying that Mexican psychology ain’t no more pathological than any other people psychology for a developing nation anyhow and maybe that hermit crab be a metaphor for it, that hermetism. She say you can take anybody culture and depending on the way you talks about it, you got yourself a pathological culture, like when you listen to them Europeans talk about American culture, and they ain’t just meaning the minorities neither. Or when them Japanese talks about American culture. Or when anybody that ain’t American talks about American culture, I mean them intellectual types.

  I remember ’cause when she started talking about that hermetism, we was sitting in one of them little cafés. Sometimes she like to go to this little café that have these outdoor tables. I think it kinda remind her of a French café. So we was sitting there and she start talking about hermetism. I gots to tell y’all about Delgadina. ’Cause I know a lot of y’all be hearing she Chicana and y’all be thinking Rosie Perez or even María Conchita Alonso or some of them others that have the Chicana flavor to they voices. Delgadina she sometimes have a Chicana flavor to her voice, but she ain’t possess it all the time. I think that because of the kind of community she grew up in Houston, where she heard every type of peoples speaking. Sometimes when she talking she be sounding like a gringa, other times she be sounding kinda like me, and other times she be sounding like Rosie Perez or María Conchita Alonso. I thinks that peoples refers to that as multilingualism, ’cept she be speaking English, ’cept she be speaking the same language. I ain’t know if Delgadina know she always changing her way of speaking like that. I know she know about that multilingualism, though, ’cause she be telling me that her folks in Houston when’s they’s talking about everyday things or talking religion they talks in Spanish, but when her daddy is talking business he talk in English, when he talking politics he talk in English or Spanish, or he mix English with Spanish, then when he be talking love talk with her mama he be talking Spanish. He be changing from Spanish to English depending on what kind of subject he talking about. ’Cept Delgadina herself she be talking English, but be talking different types of English. Course she be talking Spanish with them people in the cantina that speaks Spanish, but when she be talking English she be talking different kinds of English.

  When she be talking intellectual stuff she be sounding almost like a gringa, then when she be talking everyday stuff she be sounding kinda like Rosie Perez or like Maria Conchita Alonso—they’s movie actresses—or she be sounding like herself which is a Chicana flavor that’s her individual ownself, and sometimes when she be joking sometimes or kidding with me about something or specifying or signifying sometimes she be sounding like me. I gots to tell y’all that, ’cause otherwise y’all be thinking I ain’t know who Delgadina is. Course me myself I’d kinda like to hear her be talking intellectual and be sounding like Rosie Perez or like Maria Conchita Alonso. I guess she talk intellectual in Spanish, but I ain’t know that Spanish.

  Anyhow, I knows he, the priest not the social psychologist fool, thinks I’m maybe one of them spies for the immigration department, and I guess in these border towns they’s got plenty of spies and informers for the immigration department like during wartime or something. ’Cause Delgadina be reading me one of them short stories be talking about how people behave during wartime, and she be saying that how it seem like certain minorities behave with each other all the time. I guess she be saying certain minorities, ’cause some minorities behaves better with each other than others. And maybe she ain’t sure what kinda minority I am and don’t want to start no war. Signifying, you know. Well, I guess they always got them they border wars. Anyway, Delgadina be telling me about some of these gringos that go out along the border with they hunting rifles and actually do hunt Mexicans trying to cross the border and set traps for them too. I ain’t seen none of that myself, from my truck and all, but she say that it the truth. She gets along with all sortsa peoples, like I says, ’cept maybe gringos that acts like gringos. She say gringoism ain’t a color, it a state of mind.

  How do you know about the Sanctuary movement? he asks.

  I seen this documentary about it on TV. I got me one of them pocket TVs I got at this trade show. Actually, they was talking about this immigration lawyer, ’cause she was like trying to get this Cuban woman outta jail, you know, ’cause they didn’t know what to do with her, this Cuban woman you know, so they like just locked her up, like they just lock up a lot of these immigrants, you know, ’cause—I don’t mean them detention camps I mean they put this Cuban woman in jail. Seems like in different parts of the country they has started locking immigrants in jail that they don’t know what else to do with, you know. I prefers not to be inquiring about the Sanctuary movement myself. I don’t think they should put them in jail, though, I mean just because they is undocumented.

  He still narrow his eyes at me. They them hieroglyphic eyes like I says. So I just comes out and tells him my story, or tells him about that Mexican woman. Does this woman need an immigration lawyer? Here’s a list . . . He takes out a list of immigration lawyers from his desk drawer. First, he unlocks the drawer, though. Now his desk, one of them antique mahogany desk, almost as big as that Carmelite nun’s desk which make it look too big for this little office. Immigration law is. . . .

  Naw, she need a midwife. And ain’t no woman actually. Well, she a woman. But look more like a girl, though, I says. I guess she done come across the border so’s she can have her baby in the USA. She the one asking about Sanctuary.

  And where is this woman? he asks, returning the list of immigration lawyers to his desk drawer. Then he locks the drawer again.

  I looks around to see if he got any books on that immigration law but I just see these theology books, like I said. I figure they theology books, ’cause most of them in Latin. And books got them Latin names on them: Arnobius, Lactantius, Africitas and names like that. You can tell them Latin names. Like that Albertus Magnus. And few books on the history of the Southwest. Now them is in English. And got a few books in Spanish too. Got a book on Mexican cooking. And coupla that looks like they must be detective novels. I be thinking a priest be embarrassed to have them detective novels in his office. Actually, when I was thinking about trucking school, like I said, I was reading on them detective schools too, but me I ain’t no detective. I didn’t take none of them talent profiles, though, like Delgadina. But them detectives is always going around interviewing all kindsa peoples, then they wears them disguises and shit. And you gotta be a good actor to be a good detective. But I guess that like hiding—except hiding in plain sight. Ain’t that one of them detective rules anyhow?

  She out in back of my truck, I says. I carry industrial detergents and she hiding back behind one of them drums, you know, one of them tins of detergent. Industrial detergent, you know, come in these big giant tin drums. She out in my truck. Look like she swam the Rio Grande. I would prefer that she had not climbed in my truck after she got across the border, though, and had climbed in somebody else’s truck, but she is in my truck and is going to have a baby. Delgadina was telling me about the latch on my truck, but I ain’t never had no smugglers to smuggle theyselves into my truck. I’m kinda new to this border route, though. I settled in Texas City, but I usedta travel through New Mexico and Arizona and Nevada, but now I gots me suppliers and peoples that wants supplies in South Texas. In fact, Delgadina told me about them new peoples that wants my industrial deter
gents. I kinda likes staying in South Texas, though. I sometimes travels to different trade shows, though.

  Is her name Delgadina?

  Naw, it Maria. Delgadina the cantina woman. I mean the bartender in the cantina.

  Where is your truck?

  I tells him where I park it.

  Not there, he say, and he tell me where to park the truck where the truck ain’t conspicuous. Where that truck can hide in plain sight, I guess.

  And so I parks it in this little alley in back of the cathedral—alley so little I got to park up on the sidewalk—and when the priest come out he ain’t wearing he priest clothes, but look like one of them mens that loads and unloads my trucks at the factory docks and ports and shit and he carrying a flashlight, one of them old-fashioned-type flashlights, and I opens the back of the truck and he climbs in there, no stun gun or nothing, and he goes straight back there, but whispering something in Spanish, not Spanglish, so’s he won’t scare her, sounding like peoples does when they gentles a wild or skittish horse, ’cept in Spanish, and then him and that pregnant Mexican woman—I think I hears muchacha—they starts talking back and forth to each other in Spanish. He asks her questions and she gives him answers and I guess she give the right answers and then he start feeling her belly, not like no horse, though, and behave like him gentling that baby too, and then he help her outta the back of that truck, and he lead her in the back of the cathedral. But he don’t let me go in there with them, he wave at me to stay out in the alley, ’cause I guess they’s hiding places in there and he don’t want me to know where they are.

  You better stay out in the alley, he say. Got a voice sound kinda like that piano tuner boyfriend. John Henry Hollywood. I told you about my piano tuner boyfriend. Fact I heard his voice, then heard his name, before I seen the man. Me and my California girlfriend was sitting in this bar, you know, before she decided to go out to California, when we was still in Covington, Kentucky, though John Henry from across the border in Cincinnati, and we hear this voice and she say, That sounds like John Henry Hollywood. And then she call him by his nickname. Hello, Snooker. At least I think she be calling him Snooker, ’cause when she introduce him she introduce him as John Henry Hollywood and she always be calling him John Henry Hollywood. And you know I got to meet anybody name John Henry Hollywood, and so she introduces me to this old friend of hers. We dated each other for a while, like I said. I asked him if he wanted to come out to California with me, but he weren’t too interested in California, but then I figured he the sort of man want to be doing the asking he ownself; now if he had asked me to come out to California, we might be in California, but like I said, I started out to California, but just decided to settle in Texas City. He name John Henry Hollywood, but he ain’t show the slightest interest in that Hollywood. One of them manly voices, though. His voice it be somewhere near them deep keys. Them keys you play boogie woogie with. ’Cept you ain’t supposed to be looking at no priest and thinking ’bout that boogie-woogie.

  He start inside with the Mexican woman, and then he come back and explain, like he gentling that skittish horse again, that it for my own good that I don’t know where they are, and then he lead the Mexican woman-girl into them hiding places. But I knows it also because I figures he don’t trust me, though he trust the Mexican woman enough to give the Sanctuary. All he know it could be her the spy for them border patrol peoples, pregnant or not. And Delgadina she say they’s Mexicans that spies for them too. Ain’t just the gringos. She get real passionate when she be talking about them Mexicans that spies on other Mexicans, though she be pretty passionate when she be talking about them spies for immigration department. Passionate don’t just mean amorous or lustful like I always been thinking it mean. ’Cause one of them men come in the cantina and Delgadina be saying something about him being a passionate man, and I be asking her if they boyfriend and girlfriend for her to know him to be a passionate man and then she be looking at me like I’m a fool, then she realize it ’cause I only know me one meaning of that word passionate, and then she get out her dictionary and let me read the full meaning of the word. Then after I read it she explain that he passionate about the rights of undocumented workers. She ain’t no alien herself, no undocumented worker, like I say, she born in Houston. And she talking like the African Americans they the gringo too, and in the Southwest they’s African Americans that looks at them Mexicans and Mexican Americans like they’s second- or even third-class citizens, ’cause that gringoism a state of mind, but that social worker-psychologist him ain’t no gringo. Well, I guess from my description of him you know he ain’t no gringo. Still it seem like the true spies they be the innocent-looking peoples, gringo or not, they don’t have no sly-eyed spies. They gotta look innocent. Me and Delgadina, us couldn’t be no true spies, ’cept when I was a young girl, people be telling me I have them innocent-looking eyes, even young woman that Maria age. And Delgadina she got them young photographs of herself where she got them young-girl innocent eyes and them photographs taken in Houston, ’cause I can tell the Houston skyline and I know she from Houston. And she ain’t no immigration department spy neither, if that what y’all thinking. ’Cause they’s plenty we both knows is aliens—or pretty much guess that they is—and they ain’t been turn in. I still sees them in that restaurant-cantina. Unless maybe they’s all spies, you thinking.

  After he place her in the hiding place he come back out to the alley still in his dungarees and then he thank me for bringing her to them. Looking just like them mens that loads and unloads that industrial detergent at the dock. Still holding that old-fashioned flashlight.

  She calls you “mujer buena.”

  What’s that?

  Good woman. It means “good woman.”

  Oh, yeah?

  He still looking like he don’t know how much he should trust me, though, mujer buena or not. Still I ain’t as sly-eyed as some womens. I know buena mean good, so mujer that must mean woman. I wonder if they got sly, hieroglyphic eyes. He thank me again and looking like he want me to get off the premises, mujer buena or not. But he do give me he telephone number. He fish in his pants pocket for some paper, then he used this little bitty pen to scribble his number on it. He real secretive looking about it. I guess them Sanctuary workers got to be real secretive peoples, carrying around them little bitty pens and scraps of paper and shit. And I be thinking about them spy movies where that spy eats that paper, but most of them spy got that photographic memory, though.

  Here’s a telephone number in case you want to get in touch with us again. He saying us and them and we, he ain’t saying himself.

  This your telephone number? I asks, but I know it ain’t the same number the Carmelite nun give me.

  I puts it in my shirt pocket, a pocket that’s already bulging with a Bic pen, a stick of beef jerky, a pretzel, chewing gum and a little notebook. He say it ain’t the number of the cathedral, but don’t say whether it he number, and say if I have any more questions ‘bout the movement—just say movement don’t put no Sanctuary in there—or if I have anymore peoples for them I should call that number. I starts to ask him again if that he number but I don’t want to act no fool. I tells him I might have some questions about that one Mexican woman and that baby when she have it, but that that were a fluke them being in my truck and that I don’t intend to be bringing them any more them contraband, and that I don’t have no real interest in the Sanctuary movement. If all them borders was free you wouldn’t need no Sanctuary movement. But I guess all them borders can’t be free borders. That Canadian border, though, when I went up to that trade show, they just wave me into Canada. And of course anybody from Covington can cross the border into Cincinnati.

  He don’t say nothing. But then while we standing there this man he come in the alley. Long-haired type with his hair in a ponytail. He a Mexican I think. Or maybe a Native American. Another one of them cosmic-type men. Him and the priest they shake hands. The eternal revolutionist, the priest say, or something like that, then the
man he go into the back of the cathedral. Then the priest he look at me. What is your real name again? he asks.

  I ain’t remember telling him my real name, but I tells him.

  Sojourner Jane Nadine Johnson. But they calls me Mosquito.

  You don’t look like no Mosquito to me, he looks but he don’t say it. But then he looking, first person looking at me like he think I might look like that Sojourner. Got them masculine hieroglyphic eyes, like I says, but them thick lashes remind me a little of them Indonesian eyes. One time I went to see this troupe of Indonesian dancers with Delgadina, ’cause she a cosmic woman her ownself, and they uses they eyes to dance too. Well, anyhow like I’m saying, he’s looking at me like I oughta be Sojourner. And got them Indonesian-type hieroglyphic eyes. I guess eyes can be hieroglyphic and Indonesian too. Plenty look at me like they thinks I might be that Nadine. And since I been grown ain’t nobody looked at me like they thinks I might be Jane. But him he looking at that Sojourner. You don’t look like no Mosquito to me, he say.