Mosquito Read online

  To tell the truth I were about to take that Vietnamese woman out of there and put her in the back of my truck, though I ain’t speak that Vietnamese neither. Seem like I overheard her say something sound like Fock yo, and sound like clear English to me. Anyway, the Mexican woman she washes her face and hands from that Rio Grande, like I said. We call it the Rio Grande, but I heard that on the other side of the border they call it the Rio Bravo, ’cause I seen me a movie about the Rio Bravo. Our Rio Grande is they Rio Bravo. Or they Rio Bravo is our Rio Grande. Ain’t they a movie about the Rio Bravo? I be thinking it a different river. I be thinking the Rio Bravo a different river. Same river but different names. Like them people got aliases and shit, different people be knowing them by different names. Like a lot of these truckers got they CB radios, got they CB radio names. They the same person but different names, or them with them stage names, like that Tina Turner. But you be thinking it her real name and it her stage name. I guess I’m kinda like that river myself, though, ’cause they be people that call me Nadine and others that wants to call me Jane but don’t and a few that call me ’Journer. Of course I ain’t no river, I’m a woman. And them is all my real names. Mosquito, though. That’s what most calls me, like I said. Hey, Mosquito. Hey, ain’t you that Mosquito woman? Ain’t you that woman they calls Mosquito? I think them volcanoes in Mexico they got names like that too, ’cause them Indians they give them volcanoes one name and them Spaniards they give them another name. All them Latin American countries they’s supposed to have them active volcanoes, except that Honduras. Anyway, she wipe one of them Handi Wipes through her hair too till it glisten and then she braid it. She take a little Vaseline out of her pouch and put it on the Handi Wipe and then rub it on her hair and then rub some on her lips. Her hair look longer after she braid it. Tangled and shit it look like shoulder-length hair but braided it almost waist-length hair. Still a bit of the top of it stick up like one of them hoopoe birds. I think they’s called hoopoe birds. And she got them thick braids. And she wipe off them guaraches. And then she wipe her hands again. I whisks some more of that bat guano out the back of my truck and then wipes my hands on one of them Handi Wipes.

  Sanctuary, she repeat when I gives her them sandwiches and pours her some of that hot chocolate. I rinsed the thermos out in the women’s room so’s the hot chocolate ain’t got no more of that beefy flavor. I told you I got one of them streamlined space-age thermos, ain’t I? Harriet Tubman, she be liking that thermos too. Though me I got used to that hot chocolate with beef bouillon flavor and sometimes even mixes them. Pours the hot chocolate in there when they’s still beef bouillon. As for her, the young Mexican woman-girl, she bite into that omelet sandwich and sip some of that hot chocolate and then she show her teeth slightly which surprise me again they’s so clean and white. Like I told you, I only seen them Africans with teeth that clean and white, them that chews on that bark, that don’t use toothbrushes but has them chewing sticks. I seen me one of them chewing sticks when I was in Canada. I was in a immigrant African’s apartment, went into the bathroom and didn’t see no toothbrush and none of that dentifrice, just one of them chewing sticks and some of them chewing sponges. Ain’t seen none of them chewing sticks before, but I’d read about them. That bark supposed to be made from some special type of tree. I don’t know what kinda tree. Only African tree I heard of is the baobab tree. The sandarac tree. I heard of the sandarac tree. That supposed to be a African tree. But like I said, I ain’t no natural historian or no ethnobotanist neither. Be nice to know the names of them African trees though. Most everybody they be knowing the names of them African animals, them giraffe and them gorillas and them lions and them wildebeests. Ain’t even been to Africa and know the names of all them African animals. Bet they don’t know the names of them African trees. And probably don’t even know the names of many of the African peoples. Know the Zulu and the Masai and the Pygmies and the Bushmen. How many I know? Ashanti. Hausa, Chagga. Kamba, Bundu. Know they names. But wouldn’t know a Bundu if I saw one. But them wildebeests can’t fool me.

  We nibbles on them omelet sandwiches. Mexican omelets with onions, green peppers, pimentos and jalapeños. Them jalapeños little too hot for me, though, but I figures she like them jalapeños being Mexican. I ain’t mean to stereotype her, though. Delgadina she be telling me they’s some agringado Mexicans likes jalapeños but don’t eat them because they thinks they be stereotyping themselves, like African Americans that don’t eat watermelon, and they don’t eat them tacos neither. They likes tacos but don’t eat them. But she be saying they’s two kinds of stereotypes, though, them based on falsehoods and them based on some kinda reality, when they vulgarizes another people’s culture, so when people be running from them stereotypes based on some kinda reality a lot of times they be running from they own culture, they be running from theyselves. Like in Africa, North and South, you see them women wearing them headscarves, ’cause that’s part of either they culture or they religion. But then in America they be stereotyping that, even the Africans themselves, and just be thinking Aunt Jemima or they be calling people handkerchief head, and that’s they own culture or they own religion. But they just identify it with slave culture in America. Delgadina says she knows this Mexican American who likes African-American culture, or what he considers African-American culture—jazz and soul food and calls himself a Chitlins con Came Mexican. And what about a African American that likes Mexican food? That truckstop restaurant specializes in them omelet sandwiches and got one of them salad-type bars with different omelet ingredients. You can even put them chickpeas in your omelets and they even got them fruit omelets. So I guess whatever your culture, you can make you one of them omelets. Ain’t got no watermelon omelet, though. Delgadina she allergic to them jalapeños, but she eat them anyway. ’Cause they’s her culture. I guess.

  Sanctuary, she say.

  We nibbles on them omelet sandwiches. She look like she hungry, but she still eat that omelet sandwich real dainty, she don’t gobble it. She gulp down that hot chocolate, though, then she wipe her mouth on one of them Handi Wipes.

  Again she make that Sanctuary sound like Thank you. Me I ain’t no part of that Sanctuary movement, though I heard of it, ’cause I seen one of them documentaries on that movement on my pocket television, and knows what that Sanctuary mean. They be interviewing them Sanctuary workers and then they be interviewing some of them refugees. Some of them workers and refugees they be camouflaging and others they don’t camouflage. I guess it depend on whether or not they need they innocence protected. Seem like they all be wanting they innocence protected, though. And I heard of that other Sanctuary too. I also heard that name Sanctuary when Delgadina she be wanting to take me to the opening of this new Nature Sanctuary. She be talking about her culture, but she ain’t no stereotype. You don’t see no Mexicans on television going to no Nature Sanctuaries. I mean, no Mexican Americans neither. I guess if they have them Sanctuaries for people they be having them Sanctuaries for nature too, and they probably got more of them Sanctuaries for nature ’cause that’s how people are. If that Vietnamese women was a flower or even one of them flowering cactus plants, we wouldn’t be saying, You gotta speak clear English. We be having sanctuaries for her, even cultivating her in her own garden. Well, maybe not that one. Probably only American flowers. Born and raised in the USA. Unless they’s Native Americans, of course.

  Anyway, this sanctuary suppose to specialize in the plants of the Southwest. This couple who were sponsoring the sanctuary, a couple named Powers, they suppose to be sponsors of sanctuaries throughout the country, Delgadina say. Wealthy gringos, though the opening of the sanctuary were multicultural, because this wealthy couple, philanthropists, always insists on having they sanctuary openings multicultural, even before everybody was using the word multicultural. They used to use the word multinational, but then multinational started having too many imperialistic connotations. I remember standing at the refreshment table and listening to that couple, though. A slim, s
untanned, middle-age gringo couple, both in yellow bermuda shorts and paisley shirts, the woman wearing espadrilles, the man guaraches. Well oiled and wealthy looking. The kinda gringos you see in Miami. Delgadina say you can tell people who’s rich on account of they looks well taken care of. She don’t vilify the rich like a lot of working people, ’cause she say all the rich ain’t villains and all the working people ain’t the good guys. But them rich seem like they always likes to vilify the working people, though, or say they ain’t got no culture. Delgadina she be reading this book about the working class in academia, ’cause she say they’s a lot more of the working class in academia now, and that’s why you’s got this renewed Great Books movement, ’cause they don’t like the working class deciding what’s great literature, not to mention women and minorities. They seemed a shy couple, though, the Powers, except with each other. Delgadina say he made his money in mechanical engineering. I don’t see how nobody can make money in mechanical engineering, ’cause that don’t seem like a lucrative profession, but she say he own some kinda mechanical engineering company or some shit. He ain’t a little man. He got the physique of a man used to play football or some shit. I pictures him on the line of scrimmage, like in them 1930s photograph, and some of them men played with Jim Thorpe, you know, not Jim Thorpe himself but them others, but she look like the only game she play is miniature golf or pinochle.

  Would you like some ice cream, Dickey? I think she say Duckey at first, but it Dickey.

  Every time we come to a new sanctuary you ask me if I want ice cream, you know I don’t like ice cream.

  But this is fried ice cream, this is special Mexican ice cream. Try some of it, Dickey.

  I don’t like ice cream. Plus, how can they fry ice cream?

  Try it and see. I bet you’ll like it. It’s sort of like Baked Alaska, you know. Well, you should try something, darling. Try some of these nice Mexican tacos.

  They don’t look like Taco Bell tacos.

  Because they’re real Mexican tacos, and Taco Bell tacos are, well, Taco Bell tacos, American tacos. Remember when we were in that nice little Mexican village, the one Sophia told us about, these are the kind of tacos they had. But I know you’ll like this ice cream.

  I don’t like ice cream.

  You’ve got so many dislikes, darling, how can I remember them all?

  The sanctuary, it didn’t look like a sanctuary, it looked more like a desert. I asked Delgadina how come it looked like a desert and she said it was because it specialized in plants from the Southwest. And told me that most of the cactuses flower. That cactuses blossom. I kept trying to listen to Delgadina telling me about them flowering cactuses and even their names, but I kept hearing Dickey and his wife. I didn’t hear him say her name, but I kept imagining it was Jane, although Dick and Jane in the storybook weren’t husband and wife.

  And everything they have here is natural, Dickey, no artificial lakes like that other sanctuary.

  I thought that was a real lake. Didn’t they tell us it was a natural lake? Didn’t Sophia tell us it was a natural lake?

  I thought she told us it was an artificial lake.

  No, I’m sure she said natural lake.

  They oughta have an oasis, I told Delgadina.

  But that would be artificial, said Delgadina, who seemed also to be listening to Dickey and his wife. They don’t want anything artificial.

  Try some of this fried ice cream, said Dickey’s wife.

  I don’t like ice cream.

  Remember when I used to be as pretty as that girl in the peacock skirt?

  You were never as pretty as that girl, said Dickey. Though you could be wild and gorgeous when you wanted to be. Remember when we went to that Zulu village, and I bought you all those barbarous ornaments? All the women looked like they were wearing helmets and you tried to fix your hair like that.

  I glanced around to see who was wearing a peacock skirt—and it was Delgadina.

  Try some ice cream. Everybody likes ice cream. And this is fried ice cream. It’s exotic . . .

  Exotic? I heard Delgadina whisper, and then she told me the name of another cactus flower.

  Delgadina wrote all that down in this notebook she keep. She call it her cuaderno. I don’t keep no cuaderno myself. I remembers what the people said, but Delgadina put they descriptions in her cuaderno. She trying to be more descriptive, she say, but she ain’t trying to be too descriptive. She say she trying to use description the way they uses it in them Mexican and Spanish ballads. She say she were named after somebody in one of them Mexican ballads, but she say she ain’t nothing like the woman in that Mexican ballad, though. I remembers that woman commenting on Delgadina’s peacock skirt. I remembers that woman commenting on me too. About me being statuesque. About me wearing one of those fantastic headdresses. That’s what she referred to it as, not as a scarf but as a headdress. I just give her one of them steady glances, you know, like she know I know she talking about me, and don’t mind talking about Delgadina and me right where we could hear her. Delgadina, she don’t say nothing to them, she just tread proudly around the sanctuary, showing me the different cactuses and telling me they names. Sometimes she start strumming them glass beads she wearing. Seem like she strumming them, or touch them like they’s holy beads. I’m a truck driver, like I told you, and the onliest African-American woman trucker on this route. They’s plenty women truckers nowadays—though ain’t that many in South Texas. Seen me a documentary on one of them women truck drivers, ’cause what supposed to be ordinary for a man supposed to be extraordinary for a woman. She be in her truck, one of them eighteen-wheelers, giving this interview on television and they’s treating her like she ain’t no common woman. In fact, they’s treating her like she some kinda princess, some kinda royalty, which ain’t no common woman. Princess in blue jeans and a sweatshirt. Stringy blond hair she tie back with a rubber band. Actually she got her hair in French braids—what I hear them call French braids, but I can’t tell them French braids from them African braids—and then she tie them French braids back with a rubber band. I guess the French musta got that style from them Africans in France and then the Americans they be seeing the French with that style and be calling them French braids. Or maybe they know they African braid and just call them French braids ’cause they don’t wanna call them African braids. ’Cause you know a lot of they clients wouldn’t be wearing them braids if they call them African braids. I even heard some fool try to say it were the French that invented jazz. Now, if they didn’t have the true musicians to tell it differently, everybody be saying them French invented jazz.

  I asks Maria she still hungry. Course I don’t know them Spanish words for it. But she know what I’m saying. She shake her head no and wipe her mouth again on them Handi Wipes. She kinda pat her belly, like she saying that baby he seem like he well fed too. Then she kinda lean back against one of them detergent drums. I rolls up my trail mix and puts it behind one of them other detergent drums, but nods towards it, so she knows if she want some of that trail mix she welcome to it. Then I just sits back against one of them detergent drums. That Maria her features kinda reminds me of them Mayans. I can’t tell whether she a peasant or what. Her hands kinda got few blisters on them, but they ain’t knarled sunburnt like the hands of them womens that works in the fields. They’s dirt under her fingernails, but that seem like it from scratching her way across the borders.