Mosquito Read online

  And a lot of them border patrol don’t believe it my truck neither, they be asking who truck this is and where my registration papers, and this my own truck, ain’t no company truck. And this ain’t no company truck hired out to me neither. I’m a independent contractor, I be telling them, this my own truck. Used to lease this truck from a company in New Boston, Texas, though, but now it my own truck. Always dreamed, though, of having me one of them custom-made trucks from Kron International. This ain’t no custom-made truck, but pretty good truck. A lot of them drive them company trucks. A lot of them in my union drives company trucks. I’m a independent but I still believe in the union. Course they say it ain’t the working man and woman’s country anymore. That’s what them Citizen’s Rights brochures say. Course they ain’t talking to me. ’Cause them same people be saying it ain’t my country neither. I been to them trade shows where these companies they be trying to hire them drivers, you know, and in the want ads they’s always got companies advertising for people to drive they company trucks. Some of them they even be teaching drivers and be saying they teach you to drive they company trucks for free, except you got to contract to drive they company trucks. But that ain’t no kinda independence. It be sounding like that indentured servitude, except I guess them people they be learning theyselves a trade. You gotta learn yourself a trade. Even them white-collar people now is learning theyselves trades.

  I thought of after getting me my truck driver’s training maybe getting a job teaching other truck drivers, but that ain’t no kinda independence either. I met me one of them what they call them industrial actors at one of them trade shows. You know, they learn them lines about how to introduce them new trade show products just like they be learning them a television or a movie script. That woman she be saying they’s a lot of competition for actors at them trade shows, as much competition at them trade shows she be saying as the legitimate theater, and in fact she be saying they’s actors that have worked in television, the movies, and legitimate theater that auditions for them trade shows. People know about them famous movie stars, but they’s a lot of working actors that ain’t famous. I usually just be listening to them people that gives them presentations about them new products and shit, but this one’s a spliv so I be talking to her and shit. She one of them light-skinned splivs. She the first spliv I seen that look well taken care of almost like that Mr. and Mrs. Powers couple, Dickey and his wife, but her background ain’t rich. She tall and slim and look like a model, in fact look like one of them splivs I seen on a soap opera, except on that soap opera they had her looking as plain as cottage pudding, but at the trade show she looking like a model. And wearing something look kinda like a space suit, ’cause I guess they wants her to look ultramodern or futuristic to hype they ultramodern and futuristic products. She be wearing her hair slick and straight and ain’t no nap in it, and that the first time I seen a African-American woman, even one of them light skins, with ain’t no nap in her hair either, or least look like it want to nap. I mean, they’s straight-haired African-American women, specially them with Native American in ’em, but they hair still look like it want to nap or want to curl. And I mean hers ain’t got a natural nap or a natural curl in it. She be saying how she learned how to understand her product, but she be saying a lot of them trade show actors or industrial actors, especially the ones that got aspirations for the legitimate theater they be talking about them products and don’t understand the first thing about them, like some of them computers and new-age technology and shit. A real intelligent young woman. She say she study that political science in college, though, and then she met somebody in a theater group and got interested in acting. Say she thought she might be interested in being a diplomat, why she study that political science, ’cause she seen that African-American woman who speaks Russian on television, except she didn’t learn Russian she learned Chinese, ’cause they didn’t teach no African languages, not even Swahili, ’cept she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be no diplomat in Africa, but then most of them classes she say you don’t learn nothing about international diplomacy just how to be a polemicist, at least at the college she was attending, but then she like being around creative people and be saying they’s something liberating about creative people. Then she discovered there ain’t many magnum opuses written for African-American actresses, or if they is magnum opuses they gives the work to only a few leading African-American actresses, so she got interested in the trade show circuit. They ain’t no magnum opuses for trade show circuit actresses, but she least gets to learn about modern technology. And she be saying how she learn about her product even before she goes to audition, ’cause she say they got to audition just like for them regular acting jobs.

  Y’all got to audition? I asks.

  ’Cause I’m thinking they just hires them for they looks. We’s standing over by the Coke machine ’cause they let them stop and drink Coke and go to the bathroom. Though she say sometimes at them trade shows they don’t even get a chance to go to the bathroom.

  Yeah, we got to audition. I still sometimes audition for the movies, but most of the time they don’t have roles I want. There really aren’t any good roles.

  They wants you to play a hoochie woman.

  At first she looks at me like she’s not sure what a hoochie woman means, then she says, Oh. yeah, that, but even when they don’t want me to play a hoochie woman, as you say, there still aren’t any good roles. Or they want you just to be a starlet, but not a real actress.

  I’m still looking at that hair that ain’t even look like it wanna nap, and I ask her where she from.

  Vienna.

  Naw, girl. You one of them Army brats?

  But she ain’t mean Europe, she just like to say that. I be thinking she from Europe, and maybe that explain why there ain’t no nap in her hair, but she mean Vienna, Virginia.

  Anyway, that border patrol be flashing they lights all in the back of my truck. He’s one of them uniform-wearing border patrols. They got them plainclothes border patrols too. But seem like them border patrol all got the same flashlight. I ain’t talking about when I’m carrying that Mexican woman. I mean other times when I’m in my truck. I don’t even know how she sneaked in my truck, or maybe somebody paid somebody not to look in my truck. But other times them border patrols they’s flashing they lights all in the back of my truck.

  What’s this?

  Industrial detergents.

  What?

  Detergents.

  Opening up them big drums and stick one of them dipsticks in them drums, make sure they’s full all the way through with them detergent. He keep lifting that dipstick up and then plunge that dipstick back into that drum. Then he have me open up another one of them drum and he test it with that dipstick.

  This ain’t no detergent, he say. He put his hand in it, scoop it up and smell it. I think he gonna taste it too. Then he sniff at that detergent again like he one of them prairie foxes his ownself.

  These detergents ain’t for everyday peoples, I explains. They’s for industry. Biodegradable. And them detergents they uses to sop up that oil on the beaches with. Like them oil spills they has in the Gulf all the time. These is industrial detergents.

  And I be wishing I had me that intelligent young woman from that trade show, that woman from Vienna, Virginia, to explain to him about these industrial detergents. She be telling him about the sodium perborates or whatever the detergent got in it, or maybe it biodegradable ’cause it ain’t got them sodium perborates in it.

  All this industrial detergents?

  Yeah.

  Let me see your registration papers.

  Yeah.

  He look at me as if to say, You one of them wise-gals, ain’t you? Like wise-guy, you know, except you a gal, ’cause I ain’t say, Yes sir. ’Cause I ain’t massa him. I believe in being polite to people, though. But some people they don’t want polite. They want you to massa them.

  CHAPTER 3

  I DON’T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THAT SANCTUARY
movement, like I said, but I do know where they’s this mission school run by this Carmelite nun, I think she a Carmelite nun, school that got mostly Native American and Mexican-American children and still look like it right outta the seventeenth or eighteenth century where they teaches them discipline and catechism and agriculture. Actually, I think it was the Indians taught the Spaniards agriculture, at least New World agriculture, taught them about that corn anyhow. In fact, supposed to be a lot of different foods, even medicines originates with the Native Americans, like Delgadina be saying a lot of that style that people think originate with the gringo cowboy that originate with the Mexican cowboy, but they’s got another name besides cowboy. Anyhow, that mission school teach them how to be artisans and shit, ’cause they show something about that on television during that Columbus celebration; them old Columbus celebration they just be telling you about that Columbus, but now you be learning more about them native peoples, ’cause a lot of them natives peoples they don’t celebrate no Columbus. Maybe Columbus discover the white man’s America, but he ain’t discover they America. And they America ain’t even America. Got they own name for it. It look part fortress and part cathedral that mission school, but they says that in them days the cathedrals was fortresses and the fortresses was cathedrals, ’cause nothing but pirates and invasions in them days. Them conquistadors, though, they would always come with the Bible and the gun. ’Cept that Delgadina say them Aztecs they was conquistadors too. But that the way the history of the world is, she say. Like them cathedrals on the coast of Spain and on them little Spanish islands, I mean this mission school, cathedral, fortress.

  So a cathedral it couldn’t just be a cathedral, had to be a fortress too, had to have not only them cathedral spires but them thick walls and turrets like them fortresses and supposed to have as many soldiers in them cathedrals as monks and priests and holy men. And maybe some of them monks turned into soldiers during the invasion and after the invasion went back to being monks. A monkish soldier or soldier-monk. Course a lot of them monks in Asia they knows that kung fu. They exercises the soul and the spirit and the body at the same time. But a lot of them learned men in them days supposed to be monks, I mean them learned European men, like that Albertus Magnus and the Venerable Bede and that Aquinas. Maybe the learned men in every early culture is priests and monks, or they culture equivalent to priests and monks. You hear about a lot of them nuns being learned women, ’cause they be saying in them days if you want to be a woman and be learned, then a lot of them be joining them convents, ’cause if they becomes wives a lot of them wouldn’t be able to continue with they learning, or they would have to learn just woman’s knowledge, or knowledge that were acceptable for a woman to know, like art and music and dance and poetry, but a lot of the learned men they’s monks too. Them that weren’t monks supposed to be alchemists and shit. I don’t know if there were any women alchemists, ’cause that’s science. Delgadina she took her one of them courses in the Middle Ages and told me about them nuns and them learned monks and she the only Chicana there in that class and the professor be asking her how come she in that class about the European Middle Ages like a Chicana ain’t supposed to be interested in Albertus Magnus and the Venerable Bede and that Aquinas, though I be wondering how come she be interested in that Albertus Magnus and the Venerable Bede and that Aquinas my ownself. That Delgadina read somewhere about the Renaissance man and want to be a Renaissance woman, but she be saying even amongst certain other Chicanos and Chicanas they be saying she agringada ’cause she be studying about that Albertus Magnus and the Venerable Bede and that Aquinas and ain’t even want her to read Don Quijote.

  And got one of them bell towers, that mission school. The whole fortress look like it whitewashed till you gets upon it, then it look like it been brushed with water from the Rio Grande or the Rio Bravo. Everything that dirty whitewash except for that colorful mosaic walk full of turquoises and reds and golds. Maybe that Quetzalcoatl in that mosaic. Or maybe one of them other Aztec or Mayan gods. Them Aztecs and Mayans now they got a different name for the same god. Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcán they supposed to be the same god. I think it Kukulcán. And they’s other Native Mexicans that got the same god and call him by yet another different name. Maybe everybody that believe in one God got the same god and just call him by a different name. Course there’s people that’s got little gods. In this movie I seen this man say even a banana could be a god. And then the white man ask him, How can you make a god out of something you eat? And ain’t they eat they God? Least in metaphor? Ain’t that they communion? And there’s peoples that say man himself can be a god, or woman herself. For some they’s got to progress spiritually to be a god, for others they’s just natural god-men and god-women. Or maybe there’s one god but that one god is made up of lesser gods. Delgadina she say she a monotheist, though. She say she just don’t like the idea of worshiping other people God or gods. She a Catholic, think, but sometimes it seem like she treat them saints like they’s gods. Or maybe they ain’t the same saints as the Catholic saints. I ain’t ask her much about her religion. I know they’s some type of religions that sound like some type of wine or some type of feast. But every religion probably sound like some type of wine or some type of feast. Unless it’s one of them religions with Science in it. But people don’t like it when you talk about they religion. Or anything they make into a religion. Race, religion, and language. Them’s the things that defines for people who they are.

  That look like it outta the seventeenth or eighteenth century too, that mosaic, or maybe one of them earlier centuries. And got one of them gargoyles too swinging from one of them towers and one of them lion guardants. But that gargoyle it look more European than Aztec or Mayan.

  Anyhow, I cross the courtyard where they’s childrens playing and go up the steps to the main building. The door open so I goes in and knocks on the office door which got a sign on it that say KNOCK. And another sign that say the same thing must be in Spanish and another sign maybe in one of them Indian languages. Mixtec or something. I heard about that Mixtec. And one of them French doors, though I guess maybe it a Spanish door and look like one of them hand-carved doors. But them French they’s supposed to influenced everybody all over Europe, that neoclassicism, so a Spanish door might be the same as a French door.

  Come in.

  She got one of them soft, high-pitched, gentle voices—kind that elementary school teachers has and peoples used to talking to childrens all the time, you know. Most of them, though, they even speaks to grownups with them voices.

  This nun she sitting behind her big desk shuffling papers. Behind her’s a wall of books, and to the right they’s this huge window where she can look out into the courtyard where the childrens is playing. It look like a modern window, like they done cut it into the wall of the cathedral fortress in the modern era, or maybe enlarged a little window, ’cause I don’t think they had no glass windows when that cathedral fortress was built and I do know them castles usedta have them little windows so’s the arrows couldn’t penetrate, when they try to aim they arrows at them little windows, ’cause you don’t see any castles with big windows, ’less they’s modern-day castles or them converted castles, ’cause in Europe they’s supposed to have a lot of castles that they convert into hotels. ’Cause a lot of them Europeans they can’t keep up them castles unless they turns them into hotels. I can’t read the titles of them books but a lot of them looks like them books and manuscripts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They’s supposed to had books in China, though, before they had books in Europe. The person invented paper a Chinaman, but Delgadina she be saying you don’t call a Chinaman a Chinaman you’s supposed to say Chinese. Unless you’s a Chinese or a Chinese American then if you want you can call yourself a Chinaman, ’cause I know I seen this book she reading where this Chinese-American writer call hisself a Chinaman, and Delgadina got another book called Chinamen. If you look Chinaman up in the dictionary it be telling you to say Chinese man.
r />   She looking all surprise when she see me come in there, the nun, like she ain’t spied me ’cross the courtyard, and she even looking kinda like she think maybe I’m one of them knife-toting womens. I’m a stun gun-toting woman, I guess, but don’t tote no knives, though I does like them Swiss knives, ’cause they always be having them newfangled Swiss knives at the trade shows and sometimes you can get you free Swiss knives at them trade shows. Wonder what sorta knife they use to hand-carve that door. I start to compliment her on that hand-carved door, like she done carved that hand-carved door herself. But maybe one of them Indian, one of them Native American, artisans done carved that door with one of them knives you see in them museums. She look out where they’s childrens playing in the yard, like I said, and look up at that picture of the Pope she got on her wall, on the other wall across from the window, ’cause them wall of books is across the whole back wall, and another picture of a monk but one that look more like that Benito Juarez, who Delgadina want to be the daughter of, and another monk that look like that Pancho Villa, no not that Pancho Villa, that Sancho Panza in the storybook ’cause Don Quijote he supposed to be aristocratic but Sancho Panza he supposed to be the ordinary common man except Sancho Panza supposed to learn some aristocracy from Don Quijote and Don Quijote supposed to learn some ordinary mannishness from Sancho Panza and then she tell me this a mission school, like I don’t know it. This a mission school, she say. I bet she even got some of the alchemy books amongst that wall of books. I be starting to ask her if there any alchemy books amongst that wall of books, ’cause I ain’t never seen a real alchemy book.