Mosquito Page 27
The waitress bring our orders, the padre and me. She bring them ordinary hamburgers like I likes, but she got them fancy dishes with the scalloped edges. He put mustard on his hamburger and I puts ketchup on mines. That salsa-style salad dressing is good. They could bottle it and call it a ketchup.
How’d you get the name Mosquito? I mean, you’re a . . . He put one of the napkins on his lap and put the other underneath his glass of Coke. I just keeps my napkins on the table, and lean into my plate when I eats. That way any ketchup that drips drips on my plate. I ain’t sure if that the etiquette way to eat or not, though. Big woman? I asks.
He pick up one of his french fries and chew. Yeah. He bite into his hamburger and some of the juice squirt onto his mustache, hamburger juice and mustard. He grab another napkin and wipe off his mustache. Then he eat some of his salad. He got some of that Italian salad dressing on his mustache and wipe it off with his napkin. Didn’t know padres had mustaches either, like I said, or maybe that’s monks. He got him a mustache look kinda like Santana’s mustache and you know that ain’t no fake mustache. He don’t get all the mustard off his mustache, but before I can tell him they’s still some mustard on his mustache, he wipe his mustache again and then look at the reflection of hisself in the glass. Then he look at me, the real me, not my reflection in the glass. Leastwise what I think it the real me. I glances at the girl with the nose ring. She pick at her nose ring and then pick at her nose and then she chomp another slice of pizza.
Well, a lotta kids used to tease me about the name Sojourner, you know. Of course, even a lotta kids, even African-American kids, they never heard of Sojourner Truth, you know. You heard of Sojourner Truth? Yeah? So anyhow I didn’t like being named Sojourner, you know. So anyhow I got sting by this mosquito and my hand swoll up ’cause it turned out I’m allergic to mosquitos, you know, signifying, like my friend Delgadina she allergic to jalapeños, and probably them habanero peppers too, I guess everybody they allergic to something. I’m also allergic to nicotine, that’s how come I quit smoking. I read this book on allergies, it’s really enlightening actually, like when you scratching your neck there, you could like be allergic to that mustard, you know, maybe not the mustard itself but some of them additive ingredients, you know, you could be allergic to that turmeric or that paprika they put in that mustard or maybe even to that mustard seed it ownself, but they got a lot of vitamins in that mustard, though, that vitamin A and vitamin C and that niacin, even got calcium and iron in mustard, and it’s supposed to be better for you than all that mayonnaise ’cause it ain’t got all that cholesterol, but anyway, so everybody, all the kids at school, just started calling me Mosquito, like a joke, you know, ’cause I’m the furthest thing from a mosquito. Then a lot of people just starts calling me Mosquito ’cause they thinks that’s my name Mosquito. Lotta people thinks that when I was young I was a little bitty thing, you know, one of them little bitty girls, and that’s why peoples started calling me Mosquito, you know. But I wasn’t no little bitty thing, I always been big. Was a big girl and a big woman. Kinda shy, though. A lot of people they be surprised at that, ’cause they thinks if you big you ain’t supposed to be shy. In fact, I don’t remember ever being called a little girl, though. She a big girl, they always be saying, and now a big woman. Of course when you a big little girl, you still a little girl. But I remembers going to the movies and they always be making me pay the adult ticket prices ’cause wouldn’t none of them believe I’m a little girl. That’s when I be about twelve, you know. This friend of mine, she out in California now working for a movie star, she come in the movies they know she twelve ’cause she look twelve, but me they be making me pay the adult ticket. And one of them ticket-taking women she be asking me ain’t I too old to be wanting to go see one of them cartoon shows, now though they got these cartoon movies for adults, but in them days the cartoon movies they was for childrens. And a lot of them be thinking I’m a teenager running around with this twelve-year-old girl, but me and Monkey Bread we be the same age. That my friend’s nickname Monkey Bread. If it were the modern day they probably be spreading some rumor ’bout us, me a big teenager, so they thought, be running around with this little twelve-year-old girl, but I were a twelve-year-old my ownself, just look like a teenager. Then when I got to be a adult, though, I’m still a big woman and all, but most people they be thinking I’m younger than my age. In fact, before she moved to California people be thinking Monkey Bread older than me. ’Cause this mutual boyfriend of ours he be asking me if I’m really Monkey Bread’s age and don’t believe me when I say we’s the same age. We started in the same elementary school together, the same first grade. ’Cause when you a adult and big you can look young, but when you a child and big you always looks older than your age.
Hmmm, he say. He sound like he humming. I’m waiting for him to ask me my age, but he don’t. He just look at me and humming like he think maybe he one of them mosquitos—naw, that a bumblebee hum—and then we just sit there eating them hamburgers and I’m leaning toward my plate, letting that hamburger juice drip on my plate and trying not to show too much ignorance, signifying on my Hollywood girlfriend. The padre he eat some of that salad and get that Italian dressing on his mustache. Didn’t I tell you with that Italian food you need a lot of napkins. He lick it with his tongue first, like a ordinary man, and then wipe it with his napkin. I thinks people be gaping at us, me sitting with a padre and all. And me not being no nun. The people they not gaping at this padre and this ordinary woman eating hamburgers, though, they mostly just be eating they pizzas and that stringy cheese. Be making me wish I done ordered one of them pizzas. Then I be thinking of me and that padre at the circus or one of them carnivals and him buying me cotton candy. I be thinking of introducing him to my carnival friend or taking him to the circus, but he a padre and probably wouldn’t appreciate the circus or that carnival woman be sitting there in her trailer telling him about how she can transform herself from a Unicom Woman to a Butterfly Woman to a Crocodile Woman just by using the right makeup, but he a padre. And then I be thinking maybe ‘bout us at the Kentucky Derby, but I don’t remember seeing no padres at the Kentucky Derby. Then I be thinking about him up on horseback and them priest robes just a-flying in the wind. ’Cept, like I said, he wouldn’t look like no padre except for that collar. And that mustache don’t look like no padre mustache neither. Bigotes, that the Spanish word for them. Maybe it just them white priest that don’t have them mustache, like I said, but even him the first colored, the first African-American priest I seen except for that African-American priest I seen on television the one adopted that boy and be advising African Americans to adopt more childrens. I picture him with a nose ring, this padre, and then I’m one of them African womens wearing a nose ring, them tribal African womens, not them detribalized ones. And then I’m wondering whether that celibacy a myth. I guess if you ain’t a true and orthodox Catholic you can have a thought like that. But whether you a true and orthodox Catholic or not, like I said, a padre a padre.
I glances around at some of them people eating lunch, and that girl with the nose ring again, but they ain’t studying that padre and me, and it just me preoccupied with that padre and me. I watches that girl with the nose ring lifting salad with her fingers, then she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and ain’t even using none of them napkins, and if it were a colored person doing that it would be ignorance.
I guess you know why I wanted to talk to you, he says.
I raise my eyebrows. How come?
The movement. We could use someone like you.
Now I’m chewing on my hamburger and dipping the bun in some of that salsa dressing, so I don’t say nothing right off, but I does look at the padre like he a fool, and I don’t think that no true and orthodox Catholic would be looking at no padre like he a fool. Of course, this man he ain’t no fool. I nibbles on a french fry. My truck, right. Like I told you, Padre. With Maria, that were a fluke, you know, her hiding in my truck and all. I thought
it were a prairie fox or one of them coyote or one of them horny toads, I mean horn toads, and then come find out I got me a pregnant Mexican woman. I ain’t interest in no Sanctuary movement, you know. Ain’t the slightest interest. I’m just a trucker. Maria, her hiding in my truck and all, that were a fluke. Plus, the border patrol they’s always inspecting my truck. I don’t know how come they didn’t inspect it when I was carrying that Maria. That was just. . . .
Naw, he ain’t no fool and I ain’t no true and orthodox Catholic, so we just looks at each other. He still got some of that Italian dressing on his mustache, but I don’t reach across the table and wipe it off for him like I would if he’s a ordinary man. Finally, he realize he got that Italian dressing on his mustache and wipe it off his ownself. And I’m picturing him on horseback again with them priest robes just a-flying in the wind and me a African woman with one of them nose rings. ’Cept I don’t think them priests rides horses and I don’t especially comprehend the aesthetic of them nose rings. I think they rides donkeys or mules, though, them priests.
I don’t mean carrying anyone across the border or even close to the border, he say softly. He dip one of his fries in mustard and chews. I mean, we don’t want you to bring anyone across the border.
Say what?
Someone sit down at the table behind ours and so he’s silent. We finishes our meal just chatting about the weather. Then I asks him who this Africitas.
Who this Africitas?
Africitas? What do you mean?
One of them books in your office. Name Africitas. Who this Africitas?
Oh, Africitas. And then he be telling me about how a lot of them early Latin writers was Africans and how they was a lot of Africans writing in Latin. Africitas of Apuleius and then some other Africans whose names I don’t remember.
I mighta liked Latin if I knowed that.
You took Latin?
Yeah, in grade school we all had to take Latin. They told us all ’bout Virgil and Horace and Cicero and Petrarch and shit, and how everybody used to write in Latin and shit, all them Europeans and them English they all usedta write in Latin, but they didn’t tell us about no Africans writing in Latin and I didn’t know about no Africanus.
Africitas.
I mean Africitas.
Africitas. Yeah, all the scholarly work used to be written in Latin. Bacon. Newton, even Dante he wrote his scholarly stuff in Latin. The Divina Comedias in Italian, though. A lot of creative writers started writing in the vernacular. But scholars didn’t use vernacular, they used Latin. The Jesuits . . . The Dominicans. The Dominicans used to be more scholarly than the Jesuits. That’s why they still use Latin names in science, you know, for scientific terms, I mean.
And they usedta have a lot of wandering monks in them days, didn’t they?
Yeah. He gives me a curious look. I studies the little lines in the corners of his eyes. And he’s got a mole or a freckle on his chin.
I remembers I had to write some poetry in Latin. I don’t remembers none of that Latin now. I remembers what I read aloud and learned to remember but I ain’t remembers none of that written Latin or that poetry. I was better at Latin than English, because I would obey the rules for Latin. I likes to make my own rules for English, ’cause it the language I speaks myself. I remember us had a history teacher who would make his own rules for history, because he wouldn’t teach the history that was taught in the history books, or he would say that that was not the whole history. My favorite class, though, was Latin ’cause I got to play the scholar, which I didn’t get to play in none of my other classes. But I remember this little boy he brought this nasty poem written in Latin, he wrote it hisself, you know, and everybody knew about this poem, you know, and we all thought that the teacher was gonna like whip him, you know—cause they whipped kids then—or send him to the principal, but she didn’t. She be like telling him it a good parody and shit and how like a lot of them wandering monks would like write these bawdy and licensed and blaspheming poetry and shit. And she were a colored woman schoolteacher, too, ’cause they had them that segregation in Kentucky when I were in school, that’s why it would surprise you that they didn’t tell you about no Africans writing Latin. But she didn’t whip him, she called it a parody and licensed.
Licentious.
And so we’s all waiting for him to get his paddling, though, and she be praising him and shit and be asking him where he learn about parody. I think that’s just ’cause he be the best Latin student and everybody be picking on him, you know, so then, he decides he’ll try to win everybody over by playing the bad boy, you know, and then the teacher she don’t want to believe that her best Latin student—the one that won the school Latin prize, ’cause even them colored schools in them days would give you a Latin prize, just like in that Dublin book, that James Joyce, you know, be talking about his character winning the Latin prize—is a licensed fool, she rather believe he a parodist. Anyway, I remembers we all usedta give usself Latin names and shit. Just put the us on us name and we think that make us Latin. Even Monkey Bread. Like that Africanus.
That’s a very astute analysis.
Say what? But if I’d heard about that Africanus Africitas I woulda liked Latin more. Seem like that being a colored school they be teaching you about Africans writing in Latin, don’t it? You woulda thought it being a African-American school they woulda taught you about Africans, but they didn’t. But we be using the same books as them white schools in them days, and they be giving us they secondhand books. The white schools they be getting the new books and we be getting they secondhand books.
What did you write about in your verse?
Aqueducts and courtyards and shit. To come to think of it, I guess you gotta be pretty good in Latin to write licensed poetry. You don’t have to know shit to write about aqueducts and courtyards and shit. And then I be telling him about that priest at that costume party. Then we leave the restaurant and cross the street to the municipal park. Sitting down on one of the benches, he start trying to recruit me again. But Maria, that were just a fluke, her hiding in my truck, I repeats. I ain’t interested . . . I mean, I’m interested, not to say I ain’t got no social conscience and shit, or ain’t ambitious, but I’m just not a joiner of movements, you know.
We help all sorts of people. The Mexicans, for sure. But also Haitians, political refugees of all sorts. Conscientious objectors even. Not just the Third World. Well, I guess anyone who needs to be a refugee sorta becomes part of the Third World, you know. We’re sort of like a modern Underground Railroad. In fact, there’s a book I’ll let you read called Sanctuary as Metaphor: The New Underground Railroad. I’m not the mainstream Sanctuary movement, though. Even those who wrote those books wouldn’t know about me. I do like to refer to us as the new Underground Railroad, though, for historical reasons. I’m only one of the conductors on that railroad. The cathedral is only one of the many stops on that New Underground Railroad. Stops on it may be cathedrals, farmhouses, ordinary houses, motels, hotels, restaurants. Anywhere can be a stop on our railroad.
That restaurant a stop on your railroad?
No. I’m just giving you examples. A conductor on our railroad could work in that restaurant, though. A conductor on our railroad could have any type of employment.
He take a book from out of his priest’s robes and give it to me. It one of them pocket-size books, so I puts it in my pocket. Then I takes it outta my pocket and scans a few pages. It be talking about the Immigration and Naturalization Service movement against a lot of them Sanctuary workers and seem like there be a lot of scholarly-type people in that movement: philosophers and theologians and historians and shit, and then they got some quote by a famous writer: Sanctuary is a human being. Any human being is a sanctuary.
Look like this a interesting book, I says.
Then there be another quote that say Sanctuary is a dream. How can sanctuary be a dream and a human being too? But maybe that Sanctuary can be whatever you wants it to be. And then the book even got
poetry in it:
Let us all rise up together
Let us call out to everyone!
Let no one group among us
Be left behind the rest.
I reads it out loud to the padre. That the Communist Manifesto, ain’t it? I heard about that. You a communist? Is y’all communists.
No. Actually, that’s from a very old book, a Mayan book, called the Popol Vuh. It’s much more ancient than the Communist Manifesto. It’s sorta like the Mayan Bible. It’s idea is that there shouldn’t be superior or inferior peoples.
But you’re superior to me, I says.
You’re talking about knowledge, not essence, not potentiality.
Well, whatever . . . This seem like a interesting book and it written in a style you can understand anyhow. I was reading Feeding the Guerrillas, though, and I just got the image of them other gorillas, you know, like them documentaries on television. But they has documentaries on television of them guerrillas all the time. Yeah. Warriors. Fighters. Sometimes we use gorillas as a code word ourselves for the other type of guerrillas. We might talk about feeding the gorillas when we really mean for someone to feed the guerrillas, or something else that has to do with the guerrillas.
Like that book Gorilla, My Love. If that was y’all it would mean Guerrilla, My Love.
He looked at me. Yeah, something like that. Actually, we do do something very much like that. With books, I mean. We’ve also been experimenting with something similar to Navajo code talking, you know.
Say what?
Actually Native American code talking, because a lot of Native American tribes were code talkers during the first and second wars. Choctaw code talkers, Comanche code talkers, Navajo code talkers, that’s something you don’t read about in the history books. In fact, I’ve been trying to find a history about them, or thinking of writing a history about them myself. But I think a Native American would be best at writing such a history, if one isn’t already written. I know it’s not in any of the standard histories.