Mosquito Read online

  Gal, whoever you are, stop acting like a fool, and come on out from back there. Girl. Rascal. I know you ain’t no prairie fox. And you shore ain’t no chameleon.

  I’m wearing them camouflage britches, you know, and one of them golf shirts, you know, them sporting shirts with the alligator on the pocket, except mine ain’t got no alligator on it or crocodile neither, one of them bargain basement golf shirt. Got a kangaroo on that golf shirt, though I don’t know if it were made in Australia. They call ’em golf shirt, but I don’t play no golf. Delgadina, she like to wear them golf gloves, you know them gloves that got the fingers free, but she don’t play no golf neither. And I ain’t no chameleon neither. I beat on the top of one of them drums of detergent to scare her out of her hiding place. But it ain’t like scaring chickens. She don’t scare. One of them cunning womens. I shines the flashlight all along the back of the truck. Light don’t bend around the corner but I does. I jumps around the corner. Then I shines the flashlight in her face, but she don’t look dangerous. So I don’t use my stun gun. In fact, she look right meek. It ain’t the meekness of fear, though, but the meekness of someone that don’t want you to think they some strange bad woman.

  Course they’s plenty of women don’t care whether you thinks they’s some strange bad woman—I guess not when you got no stun gun though. I usedta think I was that kinda woman, the kind that don’t care whether they think you some strange bad woman. But not when they got no stun gun though. And stun gun don’t have to be real. Stun gun can be a metaphor. Like Delgadina always talking ’bout them metaphor. I be thinking she mean a real hermit crab, for example, and she be talking about a metaphoric one. She be describing the real hermit crab, soft-bellied crabs that carries around they armor, or rather them hermit crab they carries around the armor of another crustacean, like them snail or them mollusk, ’cause them hermit crab they don’t produce they own shell, not even like them spider crabs; they uses the shells of other creatures. That Delgadina she have got a obsession with knowledge. I guess so many peoples looks at her like she a hoochie woman she want to prove to them that she ain’t. Or maybe it ain’t to them she want to prove that she ain’t, but to herself.

  Anyway, she a twentyish woman with longish black hair—this meek-looking woman, not Delgadina—only thing bodacious-looking about her is that hair; coarse, long, rippling hair that she pushes out of her eyes, and she got big black eyes, them wide-spaced black eyes, intelligent-looking eyes, though, they ain’t them dufous-looking eyes you always see in the movies and on television on womens like that, even them that supposed to be high-class and got them chaperones and shit, got them dufous-looking eyes, but her she got them intelligent eyes that she scrinch up in the flashlight and then I shines the light on that belly. And they ain’t no wild animal eyes neither. I once heard eyes like that described as wild animal eyes. Overheard this man talking about this Italian woman—Italian, that pretty close to Mexican. I think the woman she from Italy in this movie, southern Italy, where the people almost looks Moroccan, ’cept the movie set in Germany though, and then this man he describe her wild animal eyes. Didn’t look like no wild animal eyes to me, look like human woman eyes. One of them intellectual-type movies that Delgadina likes, ’cause Delgadina she say it be based on a German novel; me I always likes them action movies. But Delgadina she like them intellectual movies and even them noncombatant movies. The major American actors, though, they’s them action heroes. But like I say, didn’t look like no wild animal eyes to me, look like human woman eyes. Though they’s some would say that wild animal eyes can be clever and cunning too.

  But what I got me back there ain’t no wily coyote or no prairie fox neither. What I got me back there is a pregnant Mexican woman. Though she look more like a girl than a woman. And twentyish to me is a girl. Her toes is bruised traveling in them guaraches, or them huaraches—is they guaraches or huaraches?—and her clothes and face and hair is streaked with sweat and dirty. She still squinting, so I turns the light back on that belly. That belly pretty big. She wearing them ragged baggy blue jeans—not them ragged baggy stylish designer rags them college girls wear looking like beggar’s holiday, the kind that shows they knees and even they ass, they buttocks, I mean—and one of them horse-blanket ponchos, but you can still tell that belly big. All them girls in them colleges they wants to look like the working class, and I’m talking about them elite-type colleges, I ain’t talking about just them working-class colleges. She look as much Indian as Mexican though and maybe even a little bit Chinese, but them Mexicans they’s supposed to be the cosmic race. Like them Brazilians, they could call theyselves the cosmic race. Like all that talk about multiracialism. We’s just a cosmic race. ’Cept nobody wants to identify with the African in the cosmos. That’s how I read that multiracialism myself. Delgadina say them whites that’s all for multiracialism just want to use the multirace as a buffer, you know. ’Cause somebody told them that in the next millennium the white people be the minority, so they wants as many people as they can to identify with them, rather than the other colored peoples. So now they’s modifying they racial purity myth, ’cause it’s in they best interest, so’s they can coopt the multiracialists to play white. I ain’t thought all that till after Delgadina start talking about it. Then she say she don’t know whether they model be South Africa or Brazil. ’Cept that Brazil ain’t no racial paradise; they just let more people play white than in America. I ain’t think Delgadina be talking like that, but she does. I be asking Delgadina what she is and she say, I’m neither black nor white. Ain’t that the same thing them multiracialists wants to say about theyselves. Course there’s many multiracialists that’s got Asian and Native American and every other race in them. America ain’t just black and white. But there’s still them that wants to portray America as just black and white. First they wanted to portray it as just white, then they wants to portray it as just black and white.

  And you can almost see that baby kicking, like it want outta it hiding place. I know a few things about birthing babies, but I don’t want her to birth no baby in the back of my truck. They always shows you them Mexican immigrants on television, mostly men though, scrambling up over that wall. I tries to picture her, pregnant, and scrambling over that wall they done built along the border. I don’t know how she get in my truck, ’cause they’s be bragging about putting up more and more patrols along the border and where they ain’t got more patrols they’s building more walls. Talking about that Berlin Wall and shit. Everybody supposed to be a Berliner on account of that wall. Then everybody be celebrating when they tore down that Berlin Wall. Ich bin ein Berliner. Everybody be wanting a piece of that Berlin Wall. Don’t know if they got a name for that wall on they own border. Be good if them Mexicans would build up that Mexico and then use that wall to keep the Americans out. Or the Norteamericanos. ’Cause we’s all Americans. We’s the Americas, so we’s all Americans. Or we could call usselves Turtle Islanders, like them Native American name.

  I ain’t from the Southwest originally. I ain’t from one of them border towns. I’m from Kentucky originally. Covington, Kentucky. So I guess you could say I’m from a border town—border between Ohio and Kentucky. ’Cause during the Civil War, they usedta call Kentucky a buffer state, talking about buffer, ’cause it a buffer between the North and the South. Anyway, I was on my way to Southern California like a lot of fools and I just settles in Texas City, Texas, and decides to go to one of them truck driving schools. I needed me a new air filter for my automobile and pulled into this gas station and seen me one of these truck driving school brochures. I seen them advertisements on television, but they ain’t never enticed me, then I starts reading that brochure. I guess that’s what they mean when they talks about direct advertising, them brochures. I even know a faith healer that uses one of them brochures. ’Cept she say she ain’t no faith healer, it’s just that other folks refers to her as a faith healer, ’cause that’s the way that they can comprehend her healing powers. But even she know the p
ower of direct advertising. When the mechanic was putting on the new air filter, though, I read the whole brochure and even called they 800 number. I don’t think that faith healer got herself a 800 number though. The voice on the tape say that that school is a licensed school and they got them dual-control trucks. Y’all know, that mean that either the teacher or the student can control the truck. And then it tell you about experiencing the freedom of being your own boss and shit. Then they tell you if you’s interested in the school to call a 900 number. Now that’s just to get people’s money. The 800 call is free, and then they tells you to call a 900 number, and then when you calls that 900 number they tries to keep you on the phone as long as they can so’s they can get your money. It ain’t really a scam, though, ’cause they say there’s a lot of fools that only thinks they wants to be truck drivers, and they say that 900 number helps to pay for all the calls they gets from fools. So, anyway, I says the only word of Spanish I knows, Buenas Buenas. I mean, to the woman in them guaraches.

  And she whisper what must be the only word of English she know, Sanctuary.

  Say what, girl?

  Sanctuary.

  Or maybe she say it in Spanish, but it one of them words that sounds like English, so I know what she saying. Then I say something about her getting all that guano in the back of my truck. She must be think I’m talking Spanish. ’Cause guano do sound kinda like Spanish, and maybe it is derived from a Spanish word, ’cause a lot of them English words ain’t English words. What the dictionary call etymology or some shit. Especially them Spanish words and English words that come from Latin is like speaking the same language. And then you’s got a lot of English words that’s Spanish, and ain’t just taco neither. English language especially that American language that supposed to be a cosmic language, ’cause they’s every other language in the etymology of America. Of course they’s them that wants to make American a purified language, like them French purists, ’cause them French is supposed to be the most purified purists about they language, even them African writers who writes in French have commented about the purified purity of the French language, and thinks that them African writers that writes in English have got more freedom, and they’s talking about the Englishman’s English, but true American is every language. But I’m looking at them guaraches, and I’m thinking ’bout the first time I seen me a real Mexican. One of them dark-skinned Mexicans, not them televised Mexicans or even them Mexican movie stars, though I seen me some true Mexicans on a soap opera once, and hair as kinky as mine. And then I’m thinking ’bout the first time I seen me a real Hawaiian. And the first time I seen me a real Egyptian. And ain’t at all like the American movies. That’s ’cause they didn’t want you to know that so many people in the world was colored, and even have the white people thinking that all the world look like theyselves. Like when me and Delgadina was in this bookstore and I started reading this book that had something to do with Negroes, ’cause at the time it were written we was called Negroes, and it was supposed to contain either a hundred or a thousand facts about the Negro, so one of the tales the man tells is about this white woman in the 1920s or 1930s who goes to vacation in Hawaii. So when she comes back to America, the people asks her, How’d you like Hawaii? and she answers that she like Hawaii well enough, ’cept them Hawaiians looks like niggers to me. I told my uncle Buddy about that story and he give a name to the man; I mean a name to the man that wrote that book. Me I was just reading the book, but didn’t think to put a name to the man that wrote the book.

  And then she say something else in Spanish, it kinda fast-talking Spanish, but ain’t as fast as that Puerto Rican Spanish I heard once in New York City, though I thinks I hears, Buenas Buenas mixed in with her muchachas—yeah, I know me that word too. You hear you plenty of muchachas in Texas City. And loco and loca, I know me them, ’cause Delgadina she always calling plenty of people loco and loca. Fools in love soon grow wise, loca, I hear her telling one of them girls, quoting that song, you know. And then she be telling her to take love easy, quoting another one of them songs. You be thinking all them books she read, she be quoting more of them books, but I guess fools in love understand them songs more easily than books on romance. If some fool in love I don’t think you quote Henry James to ’em. But they might understand some Dinah Washington song or Billie Holiday. Though this girl she don’t look like no crazy woman. Maybe she been crazy in love like a lotta young womens.

  I think maybe she one of them girls from the country towns, one of them Mexican country towns or one of them little Mexican villages. I starts to call them one of them sleepy villages, but I don’t know whether them Mexican villages is sleepy or not, though in the movies they’s always sleepy villages; every time the hero or the villain come into one of them Mexican villages it siesta time—siesta, I know me that word too, but I guess it as much English as Spanish; they have them they siesta, so they call them sleepy. Still there’s businessmen and consultants that says that the Americans theyselves can learn from the siesta, that if some of them would take a little siesta every now and then it would increase they productiveness. ’Cause in the American mythology you ain’t supposed to take you no siesta. But she look like she from one of them little villages and not one of them border towns or them storefront cantina girls, ’cause it ain’t sound like that border town Spanish, it ain’t no Tijuana Spanish, and it ain’t Spanglish, which they tells me is a combination of Spanish and English. That Spanglish you can almost understand. It ain’t called Spanglish though, they got they own Chicano word for it. Like some of them factory girls from across the border. Comprendo. I understand me that word too. And bicho, I heard me that bicho in New York City. I think that Spanish for bitch. I guess they’s as many bichos in New York as they’s muchachas in Texas City. Delgadina she be telling me not to call no Puerto Rican bicho, ’cause I guess that mean the same thing as bitch. And though them border town women they got intelligent eyes it that bold-eyed intelligence. Them kinds of freedom-loving women what ain’t meek-eyed ’cause they ain’t used to taking orders. Some of them womens looks like they used to giving orders, though they says the true freedom ain’t to give orders nor to take them. ’Cause a lot of people thinks that freedom is they’s supposed to start giving orders. That’s why I likes the kinda job I got, ’cause I don’t work for no company, I’m a independent contractor and ain’t got to give orders nor to take them.

  I says Buenas Buenas again and then I mentions all that guano on them sandals, them guaraches I mean. But maybe guaraches and sandals is the same thing, just got different names.

  I returns to the cab and pulls up into the truckstop parking lot, then climbs in back again.

  She start to rise up but I motions for her to stay behind the detergent drum, and her stomach’s growling in its own language. Naw, ain’t no coyote or prairie fox or horny toad that make that noise, them’s honger pains. I just got beef jerky, so I gives her that. I goes to the cab of my truck and gets the jerky and my thermos and comes back. I sometimes keeps jerky in the back of my truck, but sometimes them mens when they helps unloads my truck, they think that jerky is to be unloaded or is a favor, so now I keeps the jerky I wants to keep in the cab of my truck. She got them strong-looking teeth that can eat that beef jerky. Look like some of them Africans’ teeth I seen, them that chews them chewing sticks and chewing sponges, ain’t them that uses toothbrush and dentifrice. I be wondering whether them Mexicans got they equivalent to the chewing stick. And I pours her some hot chocolate from my thermos. It beefy-flavored hot chocolate, though, ’cause I mostly keeps beef bouillon in that thermos. And I got me some of that trail mix, you know the kind you get from them mail order health food stores, but she shake her head at that trail mix, like she think it cattle feed. I keeps that trail mix in the back of my truck, ’cause ain’t nobody want that trail mix. I starts to say, Good, sounding like that Sheriff Andy, or Andy Griffith hisself, but don’t that buenas mean good?

  Buenas. Buenas.

  She gulp that
hot chocolate down first, gulp down my whole thermosful like it stored energy and then she sucking on that beef jerky like it sugarcane candy. I know me sugarcane candy. And I got me one of them bottle water. She gulp that down. Got to water that baby too, and then gotta pee for them both. I peeks out of the truck to make sure I ain’t see none of them patrols; I see a green and white Land-Rover and think it a patrol, but it just a Land-Rover; then I goes around to the back of the truckstop with her. I tries to think of them names. If I were a professional smuggler, I’d be called a coyote, and she’d be a pollo. Yeah, I remembers that from a Cheech movie I seen. ’Cept in that Cheech movie, they just put all these polios in the back of a truck to bring them across the border. But you can’t just put polios like that in the back of a truck, ’cause of these border patrols. I guess they had false employment papers for them, ’cause that coyote made them peoples pay lots of money to smuggle them across the border. Maybe she paid a coyote to smuggle her across the border, then when she gets across the border she spot my truck and climb in. Delgadina know which Cheech movie I mean, ’cause she got every Cheech movie, even Cheech movies ain’t nobody heard of, except maybe Cheech hisself. And them that made the movie. After I seen that movie, though, I was calling everybody that wasn’t a Mexican a OTM—Other Than Mexican. You know how them whites likes to define peoples based on theyselves. If you ain’t white then you’s a nonwhite. Well, I be defining people based on that Cheech movie. And that’s even before I met Delgadina. Them what he call them border classifications, though. Mexican and Other Than Mexican, like them that he were referring to as “Chinese Indians.” Y’all remember that scene where Cheech disguised hisself as cactus, trying to get back across the border into the USA. He got stranded in Mexico without his citizenship papers, so he couldn’t prove he was a American, so he had to try to get back across the border like them pollos. So in one of them scenes, he disguise hisself as cactus, then them patrols disguises theyself as brush. He think he hiding in this brush and it turn out to be one of them patrol’s vans. He climbing into one of them patrol’s vans and think it brush. He trying to return from Mexico, you know, to East L.A. I even got me a sweatshirt say EAST L.A., and I ain’t even ever been to East L.A. Hola vato. And I knows how to order cerveza from that movie.