Mosquito Read online

  I knows Simple and I likes Simple, I says, but I ain’t say simple self, I says natural self. But you has still got to discipline the natural self. And the natural self has got to be like jazz, ’cause there is complexities in America. I knows that Hughes’ Simple is a complex man, but he calls hisself Simple, ’cause they is peoples that don’t understand simplicity unless it is named. Me I thinks that Simple is as simple as the Invisible Man is invisible. Me, whenever I says the word natural I thinks about Africa, and elephants and hedgehogs and pygmies. I knows I ain’t supposed to put pygmies in the same category as them elephants and hedgehogs. And I knows I ain’t supposed to put elephants and hedgehogs before mentioning the pygmies. I has always put the pygmies above the elephants and hedgehogs, and I is always giving people the address of the Pygmy Fund to save the Efe pygmies. Ain’t I give you the address of the Pygmy Fund? I knows that the elephants and hedgehogs needs salvation, but there is everybody else to tell you about the elephant and hedgehog salvation and the funds for they salvation. I think that even you, Delgadina, has told me about elephant salvation and the salvation of the San Pedro River, ’cause them birdwatcher friends of yours is always watching birds on the San Pedro River. And even you thinks that every pygmy is the same pygmy. There is some of your birdwatcher friends that knows the names of four hundred species of birds and one hundred species of butterflies and thinks that every pygmy is the same pygmy. They goes to the equatorial Africa even to watch birds and knows every African bird—they’s birdwatcher but they even knows every minnow and snail and salamander on the San Pedro River—and they thinks that the first pygmy that they meets is the only pygmy in Africa. It don’t matter if they is in the Cameroon or Zambia and Zaire or anywhere in Africa. I knows there’s the Tswa and the Twa and the Mbuti of the Ituri Forest. In fact, I didn’t even know about the Efe till I learned about the Pygmy Fund. And there’s several other pygmy nationalities. I’ve never been to Africa but there is so many documentaries on the African continent that I sometimes thinks I inhabits Lake Tanganyika and the Ituri Forest myself. Sometimes I thinks I knows Africa from the west, the southeast, the east, the north, the south. They is pygmies they calls the true and unmixed pygmy, who must be the shortest people in the world, and there is them that is just pygmoids, like Monkey Bread, who has they height but the culture of America. There is probably pygmy American or American pygmies, but most of us ain’t know our tribe. The Mbuti pygmies in Zaire in the Ituri Forest, them is the pygmies that most of the television documentaries is about. I only knows as much about them as I hear, but there is books you can read about them. They ain’t only pygmies on the Learning Channel. I gots to find out more about that Pygmy Fund myself and whether it’s for true pygmies. They say the best funds is them that teaches peoples to fish. I knows them pygmies already knows how to fish, though. ’Cept they might be trying to teach them to fish like Europeans fish. I knows that them Europeans is fishing fools. They even makes movies about fishing and television shows and builds houses just to fish in. For them they is something sacred about fishing. They even fishes like that man you read to me say about Americans chewing gum, like it a act full of poetry.

  Un acto lleno de poesía, say Delgadina. That the Spanish I hears. But y’all that knows Spanish gots to say what it means. Delgadina say that supposed to be a famous Spanish essay about gum chewing. ’Cause for Americans chewing gum is just natural, but that Spaniard he wrote hisself a whole comic and cultural essay on the art of American gum chewing and what it say about popular American culture. Y’all that ain’t read that essay has got to read that essay. Even y’all that is interested in the subjects of race and class and culture can find something in that essay on chewing gum.

  I knows how to fish, I says.

  But I still be thinking he look like that Frito Bandito, though, but that’s why they got that Frito Bandito so you be thinking every Mexican a Frito Bandito. To tell the truth, when I first come in this restaurant, I be wondering which the Frito Bandito myself, though I ain’t tell Delgadina. When she returns where I am she says that the man wanted to know whether I’m an immigration officer. I start to tell her about that Maria but decide not to. She got that bodacious hair too, except but it shorter hair than Maria’s. Look kinda like Sean Young’s hair, you know, the actress. Except in them early movies that Sean Young have that long hair, like Maria, when she used to play in them B movies and kinda look like a Chicana. Lotta them gringa Americans look like Chicanas, ’cept you know they ain’t Chicana. If somebody tell you they Chicana, then you be looking at them like they Chicana. And you be having different ideas of who they are and they possibilities. That’s how come some of them changes they names. And they even gets to play roles with different possibilities. Now how that man think I’m immigration? And them border police, I just seen men border police, but maybe they got women border police. I think I heard about some woman that goes along the border with them mens hunting them Mexicans. I don’t know if that’s a true story, though. And all them border police they ain’t just gringos either, they got them some Mexicans or Mexican Americans, probably even African-American border police, but it seems like it’s mostly them gringos that thinks I’m smuggling.

  I remember once when one of them border patrols stopped me I started to say I ain’t smuggling nobody but myself. Course I didn’t say that, I just showed my license and my registration papers. I had to get out of my truck and open the back of my truck. Didn’t have no Maria in it, then, but he was making me feel like I was some kinda smuggler, even though I knew I weren’t. Then I be thinking about them fugitives and them good and bad slaves. Remembering something I’d heard about them good and bad slaves.

  When Delgadina taking that course on the politics of race, she be talking about how that matter of race suppose to complicate the matter of goodness. Like in the old days. Ain’t a good slave supposed to be bad and a bad slave supposed to be good? And what about them good and bad masters? There be some slaves talking good master this and good master that. And even heard somebody say that only good masters can make good slaves. A good master makes a good slave, that’s what they said. I mean, that you got to be a good master in order to make people into good slaves. But what they mean by good master, and it the same thing a slave mean by good master? But then others be saying if slavery itself is bad, then there can’t be no good masters. Then Delgadina be talking about Gypsy culture in Europe, and be calling the Gypsies the niggers of Europe. But then them Europeans makes a lot of peoples they niggers.

  To tell the truth, when you first came in here, when you first come into this cantina, that’s what I thought you were, Mosquito. I thought you were immigration, because aren’t many African Americans come in here. Some of the tourists come in here, but not many African Americans from the area. They go to the restaurant for the Mexican food, you know, like the ordinary tourists, some Texas natives, they’ll order the tacos and fried ice cream and chajitas and shit, but they don’t come into the cantina. A few drunks come into the cantina. And not too many women come in the cantina either, chica, unless they’re putas and you don’t look like a puta. At least you don’t look like a puta to me, though some of the men think you’re a puta. Even Mr. Delgado thinks you a puta, so Miguelita say she thinks. I told her to tell him you aren’t. But you know how men are. Every woman’s a puta to some man. I don’t think there’s a woman who hasn’t been thought a puta by some man, you know. Every woman’s got her puta story, believe me. Gringos come in here to slum, you know, and you weren’t acting like you were here to slum. And I know you’re no puta. So I thought you’re immigration. Or one of them social worker-psychologists, she jokes. Signifies. Then I’m talking to you and I know this is your first time in Texas City. And on your way to Glamourtown. Well, I’m glad you decided on Texas City. I like Texas City myself.

  Sometimes when I watches Delgadina in Mr. Delgado’s I’m thinking why she ain’t have her own cantina and be calling it Delgadina’s, ’cause she know all about that cantin
a. I ain’t seen that Mr. Delgado boss her or nothing, ’cause like I said I ain’t even seen that Mr. Delgado. I ain’t seen Mr. Delgado to boss Delgadina, but I ain’t seen Delgadina to boss nobody either. I suppose if they was someone else working the bar with her, one of them might be the boss to the other. Or maybe that Mr. Delgado trust Delgadina to boss herself. I remember I even thought that Delgadina name were Delgadina Delgado and that Delgado’s were Delgadina’s, but then they put the sign up that say Mr. Delgado’s to make sure. I guess, that peoples know they’s a Mr. Delgado. I ain’t seen Delgadina to give nobody orders, except a few drunks that needs to be give orders, like she be telling them that they’s had enough to drink. They’s times when she don’t serve me no more Budweisers, though usually I knows not to drink too many Budweisers my ownself. But I knows they’s women, probably womens just like Delgadina herself, sees they freedom in giving orders, in being the manager, the boss. Course some will say that a woman’s management style is different from a man’s. Even that movie about them working women suggested that the female management style were different from the man’s, and they had that work-sharing environment rather than that competitive work environment. But I heard me about this one town in Mexico where it the womens that rules, though I don’t know whether that a real town or a imaginary one. I think it were even Delgadina that told me about that town, so it must be a real town in Mexico, where it the womens that rules. ’Cause I didn’t read about it in the newspaper. That ain’t true freedom neither, though. I ain’t thought that much about that freedom myself, what it true meaning is, but if I thinks about it, probably that be my ideal of what freedom is. Ain’t to give orders nor to take them. Course, you’s still got to belong to the union, though. If you’s a workingman or woman. You’s gotta be organized. ’Cause them others is organized.

  Like I said, Delgadina she refuse to serve this vato any more liquor, not the vaquero, but this other vato. Instead, she bring him a cup of coffee. The restaurant serve all kinds of Mexican and Chicano foods, chilis and tortillas and fried ice cream and chajitas, like I said, and not that Taco Bell Mexican food, and it sells them soft tortillas, which Delgadina says is real tortillas. Authentic Mexican tortillas she say is soft, ain’t like them Taco Bell tortillas. I know, I says, ’cause I overheard that couple at the nature sanctuary, that Dickey and Tea Biscuit, least Delgadina’s notebook say that her name, be talking about them authentic Mexican tortillas and then I heard that other couple be asking the waiter why they tacos don’t taste like them Taco Bell tacos, ’cause them fools be thinking that them Taco Bell tacos is the real tacos. And they be thinking the real authentic tacos ain’t real tacos. And a lot of them even likes them Taco Bell tacos better than the real tortillas. I already know about them tortillas, I says, them authentic Mexican tacos. Y’all knows the difference between tacos and tortillas, don’t you? Tortillas is the wrapping for them tacos. They’s all pancakes. They don’t serve no food in the bar, though, except you know that bar-type food, corn chips and pretzels and them tortilla chips and peanuts and them you get free when you order a drink, and you don’t have to keep ordering drinks to get free food like in some of them cantinas; you order you a drink and then you can eat them tortilla chips and salsa. I think Mr. Delgado, he the owner of the bar, do that ’cause a lot of them vatos is unemployed and just got that migrant work. ’Cept Delgadina say there’s other Mexicans and Chicanos that ain’t agringada that come in there, ’cause she know one of them vatos an architect or some shit, though she say ain’t many middle-class Chicanos that come in that cantina, though a lot eats in the restaurant section with the tourists and gringos. Sometimes she got dishes of different kinds of salsa on the bar, though. Ain’t just salsa made with tomatoes and green peppers and jalapeños, but got papaya, pecan, and wild mushroom salsa. She say you can also put peaches and plums and any kind of exotic fruits in salsa. A lot of that salsa she makes herself. I told you about that salsa made with them mandarin oranges. They be calling them Mexicans and Chicanas the cosmic race. I guess that salsa a cosmic condiment or cosmic salsa.

  Borracho, I hear her say. Ebrio. But she call him that in a joking, friendly way. He come in there all the time and he trying to sell her his Harley-Davidson. He tell her she’d look good on a Harley-Davidson. One of them Softail Harley-Davidson. But I ain’t sure whether he call it a Softail for signifying or whether they really got Harley-Davidsons named Softail.

  Don’t pretend you don’t know I’m in love with you, I heard him say. I thought I heard him ask.

  Y su señora?

  Ain’t he the one trying to sell you that Harley-Davidson? I ask when she come back to the bar. Say what? she ask. I thought I heard him trying to sell you his Harley-Davidson. I ain’t tell her I also thought I heard him say he in love with her, ’cause he be saying that in English. Or maybe he be saying something to her in Spanish and I just think that’s what I hear. He be talking to her in Spanish, but that Harley-Davidson he be saying in English and that Softail he be saying in English. Then she say he trying to sell her his Harley-Davidson.

  But she say he ain’t the same one as the one trying to sell her that Harley-Davidson, and of course I don’t say it is him or the one that be saying he in love with her, ’cause I don’t want her to think I thinks all them Chicanos looks alike. When I showed her that picture of John Henry Hollywood, though, even she be thinking she know him from Houston. And when I tell her he ain’t from Houston, she still be saying he look like somebody she know from Houston. And be surprised when I tell her he my old boyfriend, ’cause she be saying he don’t look like my type or I don’t look like his type. Standing at the bar scratching inside her elbows from eating that salsa ’cause she allergic to them jalapeños in that salsa and telling me he don’t look like my type and I don’t look like his. I starts to ask her what sorta man she think’s my type, and what sorta woman she think his type, but a vato comes up to the bar and orders some drink and they start talking Spanish, but I kept thinking, He’s just her sorta man. He must be her sorta man. And she must be his sorta woman. And then I hear her telling him, Learn to be the master of yourself. Even the gringos aren’t masters of themselves. They conquer everybody else, but not themselves. If they’d learn to conquer themselves, they wouldn’t have so long a history of so many peoples complaining about they behavior. There’s this little village in Mexico where whenever they see a gringo coming, they hide. They just hide. Can you imagine? A whole village of people when they see the gringo coming, they just hide. ’Cause they know who they are. ’Cause they know who the gringo is. Every time we forget who they are, don’t they always remind us? I don’t hide when I see the gringo coming, though. But I know who they are.

  But Delgadina she say she don’t like to talk about the gringo, what the gringo doing. She says in a lot of her stories the gringo ain’t even in them. ’Cept there’s some stories you can’t write unless the gringo’s in them. She say the gringo like you to spend your energy thinking and talking about him and what he doing instead of use your energy for what you doing.

  Like that little village I’m talking about. They hide from the gringo, but when the gringo leave they little village, they go back to they village and do what they doing. And they got one of the nicest little villages in the whole of Mexico. I tell everybody about that little village except the gringo. We’s got to keep them safe from the gringo. We’s got to keep at least one little village safe from the gringo.

  Then I ain’t sure whether she telling me about a real little village or a little village in one of her stories or a little village in her imagination. Maybe she telling me about a metaphorical little village in one of her stories or her imagination. Cause I be thinking seem like they’s more fictional logic in that story than true logic. ’Cause what if the gringo decide he stay in that little village? They have to go and confront the gringo. They either have to ban him from they village or figure a way to integrate him into they village. Or some other logic of how to deal with that gringo. I know what
she mean, though. I’m such a big African, I ain’t hide from them gringos. Though I seen some of them hiding from me.

  He kinda look like Nat Perrison, I says.

  Say who?

  Man this woman usedta write and tell stories about. She would write one story about him and then she retell his story in another story. So he might appear in several stories, but he the same Nat Perrison. Kinda look like a vato, except African American.

  Oh, yeah?

  Then she go wait on another table. I’m thinking about them little villages in Mexico. Sometimes they shows them little villages on television, when them anthropologists goes into them little villages to study the people. They showed one of them little villages where the Spanish-looking people are the aristocrats and the Indian-looking people or the mestizos are the commoners. In some of them villages the Indian-looking people questions they status and starts rebellions, but in others they just plays the Sancho Panza to Don Quijote and don’t question theyselves being Sancho Panzas.

  Oh, yeah? she ask again when she come back to behind the bar.

  Yeah, I says, though I ain’t sure if she saying Oh yeah to the conversation she having with me or Oh yeah to one of them other conversations, ’cause she be talking to me then she be talking to one of them vatos or Miguelita, then she come back and be talking to me.

  She get a Mexican beer, the one with that Indian-sounding name, though she be saying they a beer factory in Mexico with that Indian-sounding name, and open it and I glances at that vaquero but he looking at Delgadina now and Delgadina take that glance and throw it back at him ’cause they always be some man in that cantina who want her for a love interest, and then she take that beer over to the gringa, then she come back and wipe off the bar again. That vaquero he looking at the gringa now, and then one of the other mens say something to him and must be telling him who the woman is, that that Mr. Delgado woman, the owner of the restaurant-cantina woman, that her name Miguelita, and that she ain’t no puta. That beach towel one of them Acapulco towels, though she say she ain’t never been to that Acapulco. She say she been to Mexico, even to that little Mexican village where the people hide from the gringo, and she like to go to them little Mexican villages the tourists don’t know about, especially them gringo tourists. She say they a lot of them little villages in Mexico that the tourists don’t know about, and she say in one of them little villages she say they was referring to her as the gringa—not the little village where they hide from the gringo but another little village—and she be trying to explain to them that she ain’t a gringa, she a Mexican American, a Chicana, but they still be referring to her as the gringa. She say in that little village all the people look like Olmecs, them ancient Mexicans. So to them she a gringa. But in most of them other villages she say they be thinking of her as a Mexican, but from America, even that little village where they hide from gringos, though she be saying there’s some that still consider Texas to be a part of Mexico. She be telling them she from Texas. And to them that still Mexico. ’Cause like I said it people that make them borders. I bet Texas don’t know it ain’t Mexico.