Mosquito Read online

  The gringa? I ain’t really told you about the gringa. The crazy gringa. I mean I’ve mentioned her name Miguelita and kinda told y’all about her, about her being a crazy woman that even the social psychiatrist psychology know a crazy woman, you know, Miguelita, though he think she a crazy woman named Tucker and she a crazy woman named Miguelita Delgado, but I ain’t exactly told y’all about her. They’s only three of us womens that frequents this cantina: Delgadina, ’cause she the bartender, the gringa and myself. Occasionally one of them putas comes in the cantina, but they don’t frequent it, ’cause Mr. Delgado discourages the presence of putas on his premises. Sometimes Delgadina gets her broom and chases them out, other times she just say whores gotta work too. She kinda ambivalent about that whoredom, like a lot of womens, though I guess there’s a lot of mens ambivalent about that whoredom, too, but Mr. Delgado ain’t ambivalent about it at all. There’s another rumor about Mr. Delgado, that he finds other employment for them putas so’s they don’t have to be putas, but I don’t know if that’s a true rumor. I ain’t never met that Mr. Delgadino myself, I mean Mr. Delgado, but he the one put the sign in the window NO SOLICITING and that mean whores too. When I first seen the gringa I thought she was one of them gringa whores from South Texas, though, but she ain’t, she the wife of that Señor Delgado who owns the cantina, like I said. Always sitting in the corner of the cantina drinking that Mexican beer. Gotta have that Mexican beer. Not no Bud Light for her, always that Mexican beer or pulque or one of them margaritas. She don’t even drink that German beer, and this cantina got plenty of German beer, ’cause Delgadina be saying a lot of Germans settled in South America after the war, and Mr. Delgado don’t import the German beer from Germany he import it from South America. I ain’t never seen Señor Delgado myself, like I said—I calls him the invisible Chicano—but everyone know she his wife. At first Delgadina say she didn’t like the gringa, or maybe just the fact of Señor Delgado he marrying hisself a gringa. She never liked to see the good ones marrying them gringas or even them Mexican or Chicana womens that looks like gringas or tries to look like gringas, ’cause she say a lot of the good ones that don’t marry gringas be getting them Mexican women or Chicanas that looks like gringas, though it seem to me a Mexican woman that naturally look like a gringa, got as much a natural right to look like a gringa as them that look like the Native Mexicans, I mean as long as they ain’t got that gringoism state of mind. The bad ones treating every woman like some chingada—seem like I heard Delgadina use that word for whore—they should marry themselves gringas in her opinion. The ones who know how to treat a woman should get themselves good Chicana wives. They’s plenty of Chicanas that’s wifable women, she be saying. But a lot of the good ones, she say, likes to get theyselves them gringa wives or as close to the gringa as they can get. And she be talking about one of her favorite Chicano movie and television stars, got him a wife who look like a gringa, though she Chicana. One of them blond-haired Chicanas. And you know she be sounding like she want that man for herself, or want a man like that to want a true Chicana like herself. And you know she be sounding just like them African-American womens when they be talking about them African-American mens getting themselves them gringas. ’Cause I know my girlfriend out in Hollywood be telling me how a lot of them Hollywood types be marrying gringas or the lightest thing they can get. Or can afford, ’cause that’s Hollywood, you know. That why she say she like her that actor Denzel Washington—Delgadina say it his name I likes, ’cause I don’t say it like a name, I says it like a metaphor—cause he got him a real African-American woman, but then I be thinking can’t them light ones be real African-American women too? It must depend on what the mens motives is, if they’s genuinely in love. ’Cause that love got its own logic. And maybe it just her seeing them with the lightest thing they can get that ain’t gringa and they’s in love. They tries to put that Denzel with the lightest thing they can get for him, she said, but he a true man with his own true mind about a woman. Leastwise that who I thinks he is.

  Denzel, Denzel, Denzel, I says to Delgadina. There’s a Denzel Washington movie. You want to go see Denzel?

  I don’t think Denzel movies is all that, she says.

  This Devil in a Blue Dress.

  Okay, she says. You don’t say Denzel like it a name, though, you say it like it a metaphor.

  Metaphor for what?

  I don’t know. Whatever Denzel means to you, I guess. I like Edward James Olmos, he’s my favorite actor and person. I’ve even written him a fan letter, but I don’t say his name the way you say Denzel. The day they forget who Denzel is, you still be saying Denzel.

  Cause Denzel is Denzel.

  Then she go with me to Devil in a Blue Dress. Delgadina watches the movie, but she don’t behave like she think it all that. Me I thinks Denzel is all that. After the movie I goes into the bathroom, and there’s some other women of color in the bathroom talking like they think he’s all that. Then one of them starts talking that talk that you sometimes hear women of color talk.

  Now I ain’t the kind of woman to say that our mens can’t have every type of womans they wants, from Swedes to Eskimo womens to Indians from India to them in Hong Kong, just like that James Bond, but you know what I’m saying, girlfriend. How come some of our mens places all the world’s womens above usselves when he’s got all the world’s womens in his own womens.

  That wasn’t a white woman, that was a colored woman. Girl, sorta like those Creoles in New Orleans. You weren’t watching the movie. She’s a colored woman, but just a high-toned type of colored woman who looks like a white woman. In fact, I saw her in a movie where she played a white woman. Some of the other people watching the movie thought she was a white woman. I know she plays a lot of roles that are reserved for white women.

  I know she’s playing a woman of color. We’s all the world’s womens in usselves, I mean in ourselves, that’s what I’m saying. Now I know you know what I’m saying, Nadine.

  When she says Nadine, I wants to peek out of the toilet stall to see who this other woman named Nadine, but I just stays in there and listens. And to tell y’all the truth the woman talking to Nadine kinda reminds me of Monkey Bread, the kinda way Monkey Bread talk.

  But I likes me them men my ownself who likes women that don’t conform to the Hollywood aesthetic, and that got they own aesthetic. I think that Denzel, at least the Denzel I thinks I know, have got his own aesthetic. That’s ’cause he seems to me like a man who knows who he is. ’Cause he could have him some of them hoochie Hollywood women. Course there’s people who’ll think I must ain’t got my own aesthetic for liking Denzel so much that I turns him into a metaphor. I’m reading this book on the African aesthetic and what it says is that most of us New World Africans still have a mulatto aesthetic.

  I ain’t the only one thinking of Denzel as a metaphor, I’m thinking. I wants to see who them womens is, but when I gets out of the stall. Delgadina standing there putting on some lipstick. I wants to ask her if she heard them women talking about Denzel. She still looking like she ain’t think the movie or Denzel is all that.

  I’m thinking that the woman that played the love interest in the movie kinda look like a combination of Delgadina and Miguelita, the crazy gringa. But after Delgadina discovered the gringa was sorta crazy, she began to feel kinda protective toward her, in fact most of the peoples that frequents the bar feels protective toward her, say Delgadina. I guess that why that man be explaining to that new vaquero who wife she is. She ain’t just any gringa puta, they be saying, she Mr. Delgado’s wife. She weren’t originally crazy, or rather when Señor Delgado first married the woman she were only in the first stages of some kinda psychosis, say Delgadina, except but Señor Delgado didn’t know that, he just in love with the woman, I guess ’cause she didn’t behave like none of them other gringas, didn’t have that gringoism state of mind. She supposed to be a daughter of privilege, say Delgadina, but when Señor Delgado met her she were selling them slave bracelets and biker
jewelry out on the Avenue. Like a lot of them gringa rebels. But Delgadina say she used to work as a tour guide or translator or some shit in Paris, not Paris, Texas, but Paris, France—I be telling Delgadina they got a Paris, Kentucky, too—and a real daughter of privilege. But even being a daughter of privilege, she don’t act like none of them other gringa. ’Cause even Señor Delgado, she say, used to think a gringa a gringa till he met this gringa. Especially these Texas gringa, who got they own history of gringoism. She say they’s even African Americans in South Texas that’s got they own brand of gringoism, like I told you, and she be saying that another reason she knew I wasn’t from South Texas. Then after they got married she developed more and more of her psychosis. Delgadina don’t call it a neurosis like a lot of them gringa womens, she say when they got psychosis they always call them neurosis, especially them daughters of privilege, but she call this a psychosis.

  I think she was in one of them abusive relationships, says Delgadina. I mean before she met Mr. Delgado. ’Cause Mr. Delgado tender toward her. I think she’s Mr. Delgado’s first wife, though he’s much older than she is. Though some people say he has a wife in Mexico. But I think she’s his first wife. Anyway he seen her selling that biker shit and them slave bracelets and she wasn’t acting like the ordinary gringa, you know. I think it’s that more than Miguelita herself that he’s in love with, the fact that there’s a gringa who’s not a gringa, you know.

  Of course, he’d say he’s in love with her. But I don’t think it’s Miguelita myself. I think she’s a metaphor for the possibility of what gringos and gringas could be like. I don’t mean the craziness in her. But the Miguelita that transcends her craziness. There’s people say that racism is a form of insanity it ownself. And ’cause it’s a form of insanity you gotta treat it like you treats other forms of insanity. Course the people that has it thinks they’s sane. And like other forms of insanity the people that has it don’t even know they’s got it. Or they denies they’s got it. Or they invents other words for it. ’Cause they don’t recognize it for what it is. Course there’s them that’s got it and proud of it, you know.

  But then, like I say, they got married, Mr. Delgado and this gringa Miguelita, honeymooned in Mexico, then returned to South Texas, and then she started developing this psychosis. Ain’t no paranoid psychosis or nothing like that. It kinda like a split personality, except the other personality is more of a alter ego or some shit, say Delgadina. She know all about them alter egos ’cause she say in her creative writing class they always be creating them alter egos. One character she be saying might be a alter ego for another. ’Cause she be saying nearly every story they read for they creative writing class it got a alter ego in it, don’t matter what culture the story is, seem like they’s always a alter ego. Say the alter ego might be a main character or a minor character. I ain’t never been to none of them creative writing classes, but she did take me to one of them poetry readings or some shit, and then they had one of them receptions for the poet. I was thinking that it would be a Chicano or Native American or even a African-American poet, but it was a Welsh poet. But that Delgadina. She even the first one read me about the Wife of Bath and in it own English, which is true English but ain’t modern English.

  What she say now?

  Talking about her husbands, calling them worthy men.

  Anyway, this gringa she have her a alter ego. Her name is Mickey, but her alter ego name Sophie. Delgadina be saying Sophie is Mickey’s alter ego. Except Sophie, Delgadina say, is also a real person, ’cause she have seen letters from a real woman name Sophie, some French woman, ’cause the letters is postmarked all the way from Paris, France. They in French and sometimes that Mickey even read them to her. She know a little French, ’cause I even seen that Delgadina herself trying to write some poetry in French, but that Mickey translate them into English, them letters from that French woman I mean. She ain’t read none of them letters to me, that Mickey, so I can’t verify that her alter ego Sophie is based on a real woman name Sophie. And Delgadina she be wondering whether that Mickey talk to Mr. Delgado about that Sophie as much as she do to everybody else. But that alter ego, she be saying that be like if she were my alter ego or I were her alter ego. And she be saying that sometimes a character is the alter ego of the author and not another character. And I be wondering whether an author can be the alter ego of a character, and she be saying maybe in what they call that metafiction, which she say is fiction about fiction.

  But peoples in the cantina don’t call her Mickey now. Ever since they started feeling protective toward her they be calling her Miguelita, which mean I guess the same thing as Mickey except but in Spanish. And I think it mean Little Mickey ’cause it got the it a on it, like that vatito it mean little vato. And Delgadina say that her real name Mickey, that’s why they don’t call her Miguela but Miguelita, plus Delgadina say she more a Miguelita than a Miguela.

  I’ve heard drunken vatos that don’t know who she supposed to be to call her other names. Pancha or Panchita Chapopote. Or maybe she the kinda gringa that reminds me of other women.

  I don’t know about that Pancha or Panchita Chapopote, but I know about that Sophie—not Sophie Tucker—cause sometimes when I ain’t talking to that Delgadina I take my Bud Light to Miguelita’s table. Everybody that sit down at that table she start to telling them about her alter ego, that Sophie, though like I said I don’t know if she be telling Mr. Delgado about Sophie. In fact, she mostly never tell anybody about herself, it mostly always about that Sophie unless telling them about that Sophie is telling them about herself, like in the storybooks. Miguelita’s a smallish woman with big bluish-green eyes—Delgadina says they’re contacts—and yellowish blond hair and it look like her hair been colored to get that yellowish blond, though Delgadina say she a natural blond. And it ain’t that straight blond hair, it that kinky and wavy-type blond hair. She’s slender but her cheeks are plump, her chin plump and rounded and although she must be in her thirties, maybe the same age as Delgadina, she look like she still got her baby fat. She kinda remind me of a cartoon.

  Then Miguelita start talking about them wines. She doesn’t even know the difference between a Beaujolais and a Bordeaux, so I say how can you be a French woman, Sophie, and don’t know the difference between a Beaujolais and a Bordeaux, that seems like a contradiction in terms to me, so I sent her the ordonnance des vins. You shouldn’t be French and not know the ordonnance des vins, you know, that’s almost like being Catholic and not knowing the catechism. I’m going to ask Sophie if she knows the catechism. The ordonnance des vins? Oh, you know, Mosquito, like with oysters and fish you can have Muscadet, Quincy, Alsace, Chablis; with liver a good Sauterne, Jurançon or Montrachet blanc, a Gewürztraminer; with red meats, a Pauillac, a Margaux, a Vonay, Nuits-Saint-Georges; with cheese, Pommard, Hermitage, Musigny, Pomerol; with patisseries, that’s pastries, ice cream, and then you got you your sweet wines: Malvoisie, Muscat, Grenoche; with poultry and your white meats, a Saint-Amour, Saint-Estephe, Saint-Julien, Saint-Émilion; and then you got to know which ones to serve frais and which ones chambre, that’s room temperature. It’s all very complicated, Mosquito, and of course that isn’t even your whole ordonnance. I’m not going to bore you with the whole ordonnance, but everyone should know the ordonnance des vins, certainly every French person should know, certainly Sophie should know. I mean she doesn’t even know a Bouzy’s a champagne. And I’m teaching Delgadina the ordonnance des vins, though you don’t much need to know the ordonnance des vins in a Mexican cantina. But I keep telling Sophie she ought to be more like Delgadina. Delgada’s real bright for a Mexican.

  Delgada?

  That’s her name.

  You mean Delgadina.

  That’s her little name, but Delgada, that’s her true name. And she’s real bright, I don’t mean for a Mexican, I mean she’s real bright, our Delgada, she’s real bright. Sophie says Americans always think that she’s Mexican, not just when she’s in America but when they meet her in France,
and she has to keep telling them that she’s French. In England they always know she’s French. The English rather see the French the same way we see our Mexicans. French women who resemble English women are always thought the most aristocratic.

  A couple came and sat at the booth behind us. Miguelita scratched the tip of her nose and turned as if she were talking more to them than to me. The man look like a gringo, but she woman look kind of Italian, or like one of them Mediterranean womens. Miguelita is a small woman with a lot of kinky blond hair. A lot of white womens with hair like that straightens they hair, but Miguelita keep hers kinky. I likes that she keeps her hair kinky myself. I think the kink is natural, but I ain’t know whether the blond is natural. She got a creamy-type complexion, blue-green eyes, a small nose, and full lips. They’s kinda irregular full lips that makes her look like a cartoon character or a comedian, at least about the lips. Usually she wear a pink-type lipstick, though her natural lips is pink.