Mosquito Page 7

  Pierced earrings. I think I seen me them kind of earrings she wearing, that woman trucker, I’m mean, I’m telling y’all about that other woman trucker—them tiny slot machines and got movable parts like them real slot machines; you know, you buy them in them novelty stores. They especially got them in them novelty stores in Vegas. So them other novelty store they must import them from Vegas. Ain’t one of them skinny blondes, though, but more on the full-figured side. I be wondering if that like one of them tabloid journalism shows where they sometimes get them a actress or model—gotta be one of them full-figured models—pretending to be the real woman, but she say she the real woman. Man, he be driving a eighteen-wheeler he supposed to be a ordinary man, just a ordinary working man, but woman, she be driving a eighteen-wheeler and she ain’t no common woman. Like that woman I see sometimes on my route that wears her hard hat and works with them mens building them new highways. She be behaving like that job make her extraordinary, and she do behave a little more classy than them mens that works the same occupation. All them women they be talking ’bout that feminism. True feminism they be treating her like she just some common woman. That would be the true feminism. But then they’s feminist that would say that when mens do women’s work or traditionally women’s work, it elevates the work. Like that American Gigolo. Most of the womens you see on these routes, though, is them waitresses at the truckstop restaurants, you know, and most of them’s surprise when they first see me drive up in my truck and come into the truckstop restaurant. And ain’t all them beehive-wearing womens neither. Every time you see one of them truckstop womens on television, they’s always one of them beehive-wearing womens. In fact, most of them southern waitresses is most always them beehive-wearing womens. Beehive wearing and chewing gum. Delgadina say they’s a Spanish writer that even wrote a whole essay about gum-chewing Americans. Los Estados Engomados. They’s got some of them beehive-wearing womens, even chewing gum, but a lot of them is modern girls. Some of them even wearing them French braids. And ain’t all them ignorant types neither. Some of them they be studying for they GEDs, and some of them they even be asking me about truck driving school. I carry around some of them brochures and sometimes I gives them to different womens wants to learn about truck driving school. I got a lot of beauty school brochures too, ’cause the same people that owns the truck driving school owns the beauty school. And some of them they be even more ambitious than that, be wanting to become legal secretaries or start they own businesses. One of them she be talking about learning that legal shorthand, you know where they be using them stenographer machines. They call them machine stenographers, ’cause that different from what they call that Gregg shorthand. I tells them it be better if they learns them computers, ’cause courts all starting to use computers, but a lot of them schools they still teaches that legal shorthand and stenography. They’s even got classes that teaches you just how to transcribe that legal shorthand. Somebody else do the legal shorthand and then you transcribes it. She be showing me her textbook and it look like Greek. Well, them ain’t the only womens you see on these routes, to tell you the truth—at night sometimes you spots womens sneaking in the back of these trucks. You know what kinda womens I mean, and ain’t seeking sanctuary neither, or maybe they’s some of them that do consider that sanctuary. Shouldn’t say sneaking, ’cause a lot of them kinda womens don’t sneak.

  Come here, girlie.

  I know one of them girlies. She tells people to call her Panza, but I don’t think that her real name. Calls her tricks dinks. ’Cause I heard one of them other girls asking her if she want to have dinner and she say. Naw, I’m waiting for my dink. I think that Panza on her way to California too, or on her way from California and think them truck stops look pretty good around Texas City. I don’t know them other girlies by they names, though. Got on them skimpy dresses and high heels and shit. And makeup so thick it look like a mask. A few beehive-wearing womens and modern girlies too. And more of them French braids. A lot of them is real statuesque-type girls too, who don’t look any different from the Hollywood types. Only difference is they’s in Texas City and ain’t Hollywood.

  Trucker that mistook me for Nadine musta thought I was one of them, ’cause I was crossing the truckyard to go into the truckstop restaurant one night and this man call, Nadine, is that you? I can hear the music from his truck. He listening to one of them cowboy-outlaws, you know them country music singers that considers theyselves cowboy-outlaws. They’s got the gangsta rap, you know, but them country singers have also got they outlaws. Now one of my names is Nadine, like if you be asking the Rio Grande if it the Rio Bravo ain’t it say yes, so’s I answers, Yes, then realizes I ain’t the Nadine he mean ’cause he got this truck door swung open and curving his little finger, and so I says, Naw, I ain’t Nadine, and I ain’t Panza neither, and then I goes toward the truckstop restaurant and the next thing I knows this guy got hold to my arm and swung me around, then get a good look at my face in the light from that restaurant and say, Nadine . . . You ain’t Nadine. I thought you said you Nadine. I thought you Nadine. I am Nadine, but I ain’t the Nadine you mean, I says. I mean, I ain’t your Nadine. Man he look real foolish but kinda intrigued too—or maybe that just my conceit—and then go back to he truck. One of them beaver-toothed men and kinda look like Paul Bunyan wearing eyeglasses. At least the Paul Bunyan of the storybooks. And then I’m trying to think of who else he look like in the storybooks. Most of them is real men but they treats them like they’s mythological men. Don’t look like John Henry though. And me I weren’t even wearing none of them skimpy little dresses neither, wearing same camouflage britches I’m wearing now. ’Cept I had taken off my jacket, and had on one of them tank tops, ’cause it a hot night. You know them accordion-type tank tops. Him looking like a fool though and probably wasn’t even expecting me to be such a big woman neither. ’Cause I’m over six feet tall. When I come out of the truckstop with my sandwiches and thermos full of beef bouillon, I seen this woman climb up in he truck. Don’t know if that were the other Nadine or not. Wearing one of them little tight-ass skimpy dresses they wears these days, even them high-class womens, and high heel shoes make her look like she walking on stilts. Even them hippopotamus-butt women—them Nile hippopotamus—likes them tight-ass dresses. And wearing that carnival makeup.

  I shouldn’t be saying that about them carnival though, ’cause lots of them carnival women that works in these carnival shows, they knows a few things about putting on that makeup, ’cause one of them women I met at one of them carnival she be talking about how she got to reinvent herself from them different carnival sideshows. She be saying that she play the Unicom Woman, then she got to pretend she the Butterfly Woman, then she got to pretend she the Crocodile Woman, and she be telling me some of them makeup secrets like they do on television when they be showing you the makeup secrets of the stars. She got one of them little trailers just like a movie star trailer, except it a carnival star trailer and got all kind of theatrical makeup and carnival makeup and paraphernalia in that trailer. I was on my way to one of them trade show, and spotted one of them carnivals. They probably set up in front of the trade show so’s they could entice folks to them before they got to the trade show.

  Don’t look a thing like this Nadine, I mean the broad in the skimpy dress—I can call myself Nadine ’cause it is one of my names. Don’t look a thing like this Nadine.

  That same trucker I seen again when I was at the circus watching them jugglers. That carnival, you know, whet my appetite for the circus. I know it was that same trucker. Didn’t have Nadine with him, though, but the wife and kids eating cotton candy and butter popcorn. His wife ain’t got none of them beehive hairdos neither; she wear her hair blond and straight and kinda old-fashioned like in them days when the white girls usedta iron their hair, ’cause you know they wouldn’t be using no straightening combs. I always thought that was odd, right at the time when the white girls was ironing their hair, a lot of the African-American girls was kinking
theirs. I guess they both thought that they was being natural. And kinda look like them that be studying for they GEDs, I mean the woman with that old-fashioned hair. In fact, she kinda look like that princess that they interviewed on account of her truck driving, but a more slender figure. I don’t think she drive no truck though, ’cause he don’t look like the kinda man be wanting his woman to be driving no truck. In fact, he look like the kind of man don’t be wanting any woman to be driving no truck. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes, though I don’t know if he was mistaking me for that other Nadine again, or whether he was remembering that I wasn’t that Nadine.

  I’m munching on my own cotton candy and watching them jugglers and I’m listening to a couple behind me. You don’t want a wife you wants a quisling, the woman says. What’s a quizzling? the man asks. After the juggling act were the clowns. I’d been used to seeing just men clowns, but this clown act had women clowns too. Acrobat clowns. One clown and his daughter did trick riding, bareback on horses, and then elephants. What’s a quizzling? the man kept asking. And then he says, You’re a puzzling bitch all right. You prig.

  What’s a quizzling? I asks Delgadina when I got back from the circus, ’cause Delgadina she say she don’t like them circus. I think a quizzling got to do something with puzzles myself.

  Quizzling? That’s why I’m a bartender.

  But she still don’t tell me what a quizzling is, and I’m still thinking it got something to do with puzzles. I looks the word up in the dictionary, but the dictionary don’t say a meaning that I think that woman mean, so maybe she use the word quizzling but want it to mean something it don’t mean.

  Course I seen the two of them again years later, the quizzling and her husband, and she in one of them truckstop restaurants and done discovered that other Nadine, but that a tale for her to tell. And him still calling her a puzzling bitch, ’cause she don’t look much like no quizzling. And by then I know what a quizzling mean. But it seem that one of her girlfriends, a certain Beatrice McDowell, had been driving from Disneyland in L.A. back to Texas City when she spot him and this other Nadine in one of them truckstop restaurants, so when she get back to Texas City she call up the wife and tells her where she can find her husband and this other woman, so she go there to confront her husband and the whore slut bitch who insist she ain’t a whore slut bitch but as much a lady as she, the wife, is, but like I said, that’s another tale and a tale for her or the other woman that other Nadine to tell, ’cause I don’t think husbands much tells tales like that.

  Anyhow, the border patrol, like I said, they’s almost always stopping me to see whether I’m carrying any of that contraband and doing that smuggling. They’s caught some of them smugglers, mostly Mexicans, which ain’t to say it’s only Mexicans doing that smuggling, ain’t just smuggling people and drugs neither, but some of them’s smuggling parrots and even cactus and shit. Different exotic animals and plants. They’s supposed to have a lot of exotic animals and plants and shit that’s peculiar to Mexico. Delgadina roasted me some of them Mexican cactus. Taste pretty good with that salsa. Don’t know if she roasted me one of them rare and exotic cactus, though, probably one of them ordinary cactus. She say in some parts of Mexico, during the dry season, they call that starvation food. Well, I guess to the Mexicans them plants and animals ain’t exotic, even the exotic ones, but to the North Americans they’s supposed to be exotic, like that woman calling that fried ice cream exotic. Well, I guess to them Spaniards they’s supposed to be exotic, but not to them original Mayans and Aztecs and Olmecs, them original Mexicans. Like Delgadina be saying people ain’t exotic to theyself, but they’s exotic to other peoples, except she be saying them colonizers and shit they be trying to convince you to be exotic to yourself, to see yourself as exotic, and ain’t see them as exotic. That Mr. and Mrs. Powers, it’s us should see them as the exotics, like that Baked Alaska she be talking about. Baked Alaska sound more exotic than fried ice cream. To tell the truth, though, when I first seen that Delgadina, I be seeing her as a exotic, with all them glass beads she sometimes wear, and them skirts with peacocks and birds of paradise, but after she be lecturing me on that exoticism I stopped seeing her as exotic, but I do see that Miguelita as exotic. I tell you about that Miguelita later. But Delgadina she always be talking about that colonialism stuff and be calling us colonized and shit, be saying that women of color is colonized as women and people of color, where the gringa is only colonized as a woman. So us can’t be the same kind of feminists as gringo feminist, if us consider usselves feminists at all. She be talking about that Alice Walker word womanist, but then she be saying that womanist ain’t her culture neither, so she can’t be calling herself no womanist neither. Then she be calling herself a daughter of Juárez, but then that don’t express Chicana feminism neither. Then she say a name that I think mean the name of a Aztec priestess, but then she say that don’t describe her modern self neither. Most of the time she be talking colonized I be colonizing me one of them Bud Lights or some of them pretzels or some of that salsa. I know all about that colonization myself. But Delgadina she see the world like that: who be colonizing whom. And she even talk about the colonized colonizers. That’s the people that’s colonized theyselves and still be colonizing other peoples, or it’s them peoples that got a history of being colonized theyselves, but then when they’s the rulers they starts colonizing other peoples. Of course when I said I’m gonna colonize one of them Bud Lights she be saying I don’t understand that colonization, and I be saying she don’t understand signification. Course there’s some of them colonized people that wants to be colonized, like they say that Gibraltar. And then there’s that economic colonization. She say that most modern colonization is economic. That’s how the modern colonialists, the neocolonialists colonizes, she say. Then they can pretend they ain’t colonials. ’Cept they knows who they are. Least them in power does.

  I don’t smuggle nothing. I do got me one of the nayatl that Delgadina made that I lets sit in the window of my truck. Instead of one of them Kewpie dolls I have me one of them nayatl. Sometimes I think if I had me one of them Kewpie dolls or one of them plaster of paris saints maybe them border patrol wouldn’t consider me no smuggler. I knows I told y’all about them nayatl.

  Delgadina, like I said, she sculpts them nayatl mens, but I guess they musta got nayatl womens too. I guess I coulda asked her to sculpt me a nayatl woman, but I guess she have just got herself a preference for sculpturing them nayatl mens, or maybe the tradition in Mexico is to sculpture them nayatl mens. I don’t think that even amongst the Mexicans it’s only the mens that can transform theyselves. Or maybe they got another name for them when they womens. But the proverb say that people is as hard to understand as a melon, which don’t exactly make sense, ’cause seem like compared to human beings, a melon, even one of them watermelons, is pretty easy to understand. Unless it some type of metaphor, on account of ’cause a melon, even them watermelons, can’t explain itself and shit. Now don’t none of y’all come calling me no stereotype ’cause I’m mentioning them watermelons and signifying on ’em either, ’cause they’s native to Africa, them watermelons. I got ostracized once on account of favoring watermelons, but I ain’t going to tell y’all that story yet, and it wasn’t on account of me letting nobody photograph me with no watermelon, neither. I know there’s a rumor that whilst I was in the Southland sitting on my uncle’s porch eating watermelon some white tourists from West Virginia seen me and took my photograph and it were reprinted as a postcard that were sold throughout the Southland, and even up North and became the cover photograph of a neo-African satire called The Cosmic Pickaninny. I’ve read The Cosmic Pickaninny, but I know for a fact that the cover photograph ain’t me, nor am I depicted on any Southland tourist’s maps. Y’all heard what I said about the Old World and the New World. Well, y’all can follow my logic. I’m talking about them smugglers now.

  Anyway, some of them smuggles this exotic cactus. Cactus that’s just supposed to grow in Mex
ico, though I don’t know how a cactus can tell a border myself. Seem like a cactus that can grow in Mexico would cross the border and grow in the southern U.S. too, ’cause that supposed to been Mexico, what Delgadina she call Aztlán. I don’t see how them cactus and them parrots knows borders. Don’t even seem like them smugglers would even need to try to hornswoggle them border patrol to transport no cactus or them parrots neither. How a cactus or a parrot supposed to know Tijuana from Texas City? Like them ocotillo trees that grows in Mexico and the southern United States too; they don’t know they’s a border. Delgadina she say they’s people that eats roasted cactus, like I said, and I be wondering how that roasted cactus taste, and then she go to one of them Mexican stores and buy some fresh cactus and then she roast it. We drive out to the desert and roast that cactus ’cause she say you can’t roast cactus in no microwave and I be wondering why she buy that cactus in a store and ain’t be roasting the pure cactus from the desert, but she be roasting that store-bought cactus. And she even take Miguelita out with us into the desert to roast cactus too. Miguelita she the crazy woman, but I tell you about her.

  I seen me one of them parrot smugglers, though, one of them Mexicans. I think he be a Mexican. Border patrol had him spreadeagled against he truck, and had them green and orange and yellow parrots in them cages speaking Spanish. Sound like Spanish. Mighta been Portuguese. Mighta smuggled them parrots up from Brazil where they speak Portuguese, ’cause they supposed to have a lot of parrots in that Brazil; in that Amazon they’s people make a profession of being birdcatchers. They goes around the jungles of Brazil catching birds and selling them in the cities. Don’t know what make them think they can smuggle talkative birds like that, though. Had several birds in one cage, all colorful as orchids. Maybe they even smuggles orchids. They probably smuggles orchids, them orchids that grows just in Mexico. Maybe they call them helmet orchids. I’ve heard of them helmet orchids. Or maybe they just peculiar to Australia. I seen me one of them documentaries on Australia and they be talking about them helmet orchids. Wonder if they got cactus in Australia. Delgadina say her favorite orchid the peacock orchid. If they got a bird of paradise orchid that be her favorite orchid too.