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  This is a mission school, she repeat, like she talking to one of them elementary school childrens. And she straighten that hood she wearing, what they call a wimple. And she looking at me like she think I’m one of them elementary school childrens too, though like I told you I’m one big woman. And she a kinda smallish one. She remind me of one of them pilgrims in the storybook. Delgadina got a storybook from the Middle Ages with pilgrims in it, telling stories.

  But ain’t that kinda voice you mistake for anything but a woman’s, though. Ain’t one of them girlie voices some of them womens has. Ain’t one of them girlie voices, though she talking to me like she talking to a girl. But she got one of them high-pitched voices, like you could tune the upper keys of a piano with a voice like that. Usedta have me a boyfriend a piano tuner—actually, he moved pianos but could tune them too. Hear people’s voices like they keys on a piano. A lot of them people they didn’t mind him moving they pianos but didn’t want him to tune they pianos. Like when Delgadina she be studying Japanese, and I be listening to them recordings with her, them Japanese women have them high-pitched voices like that, and she be saying in Japan women have they own whole language, and them womens they always uses more especially polite form of the language than the Japanese men.

  And then she give some fancy name for the school, the nun I mean. I don’t remember the name except it got plenty of saints in it. Maybe them monks on the wall ain’t just monks but saints too. ’Cept that Sancho, he don’t look like no Saint Sancho. Look a little too impish to be a saint. No, not impish. Sly.

  Yes, ma’am, I knows it a mission school, I says, then I realizes you don’t call nuns ma’ams. Yes, I know it’s a mission school, I repeats. That a real nice hand-carved door you got there.

  I starts to ask her whether that monk is a saint too, but I don’t. Probably he the monk what founded this mission, ’cause they’s plenty of monks what founded missions, like them mendicant missions. Most saints, though, they says, begins as sinners.

  Yes, ma’am, I know it a mission school.

  Then she asks me whether I come there to apply for one of them housekeeping jobs that they done advertised, and say that they already hired they housekeeper. I didn’t come for no housekeeping job, that’s why I’m driving that truck, to get away from them housekeeping jobs. ’Cause every time they see me that’s all they see me for is to be they housekeeper. I don’t tell her that, though. I got me a girlfriend, housekeeper for one of them movie stars. Naw, ain’t one of them personal assistants, she a housekeeper. She the one try to entice me to come out there to California, to Hollywood. In fact that the name of my piano-tuning boyfriend I told you about, my piano-tuning boyfriend he name John Hollywood. John Henry Hollywood. Yeah, John Henry. And maybe even kinda look like the original John Henry. My girlfriend out in California telling me ’bout the first time she seen a palm tree and the first time she seen a beach and how at first she didn’t know that woman she were working for were a movie star ’cause she don’t go to them movies as much as me and Delgadina does. She don’t know she a movie star, just think she one of them socialite-type women till they at this movie studio and the woman standing in front of the camera before she realize this a movie star. When they first go in the studio she think maybe the woman being a socialite and all maybe she own some stock in the studio or maybe she the socialite friend of one of them movie stars ’cause a lot of them movie stars got theyselves socialite friends, ’cause being a movie star in the United States she say is kinda like royalty. The people might be trash anywhere else but Hollywood. That her word, ain’t mine. I ain’t tell y’all which movie star. She say that’s how come that movie star hire her, ’cause she ain’t knowed that movie star from Eve. And didn’t come in there brownnosing her like a lot of them other housekeepers she interviewed for the job. And she didn’t want none of them star-struck little girls, or none of them girls fresh out of college can’t get a job in their field so’s they becomes the housekeeper or secretary for some movie star, you know. Or none of them ambitious little gals that wants to be movie stars they ownselves like in that movie All About Eve. She a bitch with other people but she nice to my girlfriend. This is her talking. I think that’s on account of she insecure. A lot of these movie stars is insecurer than you’d think, Nadine. She call me Nadine. She likes to vacation in Scandinavia ’cause everybody there is blond, you know, and so they treats her like a ordinary woman. ’Cause everybody there is blond, you know, and good-looking by Hollywood standards. And it true, girl, ’cause more people turn they heads to look at me when we’s in Sweden and Denmark than they does at her. And I’m thinking they supposed to be looking at her ’cause she supposed to be this great beauty in Hollywood, but they’s looking at me. And I don’t mean looking at me like they does in the States, but looking at me like they thinks I’m gorgeous. Then the farther south we travels, down to the Mediterranean, the people turns their heads more to look at her and anything blond and looks at me like I’m just a common woman. In the Mediterranean, they considers the blondes the exotics, like in Japan. Except them Japanese knows who they own women are. They don’t raise them blondes above their own women, like some other mens does. She supposed to make a movie in that Japan too. You oughta come to California and see the world.

  Anyhow, the nun, she tug on her wimple. I said Naw I didn’t come for no housekeeper job, and then I asks her if she know anything about the Sanctuary movement.

  You know anything ’bout that Sanctuary movement?

  She look at me a moment, look at me like she want to see my registration papers, or maybe my citizenship papers, even them border patrol don’t look at me like I ain’t no citizen, or like maybe I’m one of them sly, cunning and shifty-eyed citizens, but still a citizen, and then she lift her eyebrows, and then she put her fingers to her lips and then she write down the name of this priest and he address. She don’t say whether or not he in the Sanctuary movement, she just write the priest name. And she sitting there with her finger to her jaw—she got them nice manicured hands; she ain’t wear no makeup, though, but she look like she keep them hands manicured—and looking like she really is outta that seventeenth or eighteenth century, like this nun in this painting I seen once, and the sunlight from the window almost give her a halo like in them paintings by one of them Dutch masters or maybe one of them Spanish masters. And she don’t ask me how come it’s me asking about the Sanctuary movement or what concern that movement is of mines, but that how she looking. Her face got them strange proportions. She got that broad forehead, them inquisitive small eyes, kinda almond shaped, even inquisitive little nose, but full lips. They calls them Hapsburg lips when they’s white people or Austrian lips. Seem like I read that somewhere. Most the nuns I seen in the movies and in them paintings always got them little thin lips. The odalisques and the voluptuous women got the full lips, but them nuns and the virtuous-type women got them little thin lips, ’cause I guess they associates them full lips with sensuality, which is the same as voluptuosity, but she got them full lips. Then her top lip it be sweating and she dabbing it with the inside of her sleeve. Talking ’bout strange bad women, she give me that look that want me to know she a strange good woman. Or what the opposite of strange. ’Cause good women ain’t supposed to be strange. Course in some of them cultures they would probably think her a strange woman. And she still looking like what concern the Sanctuary movement is of mines.

  But she do add, If you’re really interested in the Sanctuary movement, this is the person to talk to.

  And I starts to say I wouldn’t be asking about the Sanctuary movement if I wasn’t really interested in the Sanctuary movement. Like that professor in that class be asking Delgadina how come she interested in the Middle Ages. I guess that New World, it be having its own Middle Ages. She could study the Middle Ages in the New World. Ain’t have to study the Middle Ages in the Old World.

  But I just thanks her and ma’ams her again and takes that piece of paper, puts it in my shirt pocket and goes back
to the truck. Y’ain’t supposed to ma’am a nun, fool.

  But from the window I can see her talking on the telephone to somebody and maybe it that priest. Maybe she warning that priest. Be warning him about some spy or fool come asking about the Sanctuary movement. I watches the childrens play for a moment. Children, they be playing stickball and tag and airplane and whatever childrens play. Cute as thunder all of them. Girls got them long braids and boys them bowl-type haircuts. Maybe it that nun give them that bowl-type haircut. Some of them childrens got them Aztec faces, think that them Aztec faces. Seen that on that Columbus show too. Them Aztec or them Mayan faces or them Olmec faces. They talk about them Aztecs and Mayans and Olmecs like they’s just in the ancient world, but they’s in the world today. And one little girl she be wearing one of them colorful headdresses like them Mayans wear; they say them colorful headdresses supposed to tell their lineage, almost like the colors in them headdresses a form of writing. Lot of people when they think of them Mayan and Aztec and Olmecs, like I said, they think of the ancient world. But them Aztecs and Mayans and Olmecs they’s in the modern world too. Them Olmec faces they’s almost look like my face. But they got that sweet potato complexion. That yam complexion. They ain’t playing that Nintendo. ’Cept a couple of them kids sitting on the mission steps playing one of them board games—maybe Chinese checkers—or maybe them Mexicans and Native Americans got their own board games and maybe the real name of Chinese Checkers ain’t checkers at all.

  I’m itching to smoke me a cigarette, but I done give up tobacco. I’m allergic to that nicotine. I can still taste them jalapeño peppers, though. I wonder if you can dry them jalapeño peppers and smoke ’em. Delgadina say when she give up smoking tobacco, she smoke them herbal cigarettes made outta sage. Seen the recipe for ’em in some book. But that’s still smoking.

  And then she peeking at me out the office window, that nun, when I climbs into my truck. She peeking out the window and straightening her wimple. And then she comes to the door of the mission and calls all them children. I guess they’s supposed to return to the classroom, ’cause it supposed to be a mission school. I grabs me my bottle water and swigs. It’s that mineral water. Sposed to be that spring water from one of them springs like up at Saratoga Springs. But I seen a documentary on that bottle water too. Says that some of them is frauds, ’cause they fills up the water with that ordinary tap water and pretends that it pure, and a lot of fools buys it thinking it’s pure water. I’m thinking ’bout California and that movie star. I know when I tells Delgadina ’bout this girlfriend and her being housekeeper of one of them movie star, Delgadina, she say, So-’n’-so? I kinda look like her don’t I?

  She do kinda look like her, ’cept her hair ain’t blond. Me, I don’t kinda look like none of them movie stars, not even them African Americans, not most of them leading women types, and wonder what it must be like when you’s sitting in the audience and always be seeing people you kinda look like or even think you kinda look like. Well, in some of them African-American movies I spots womens that I kinda looks like, but then, they ain’t playing the leading roles or what they call the love interest. Some of them is playing the girlfriend of the love interest. And sometimes the love interest is even playing white, you know what I mean, is playing the roles that’s usually played by the white women in the movies, and the dark-skinned girls they’s playing the maid of the love interest, one of them light-skinned girls. Or the dark-skinned girl is the one that provides the comedy. I don’t never resemble none of them womens that plays the love interest, white or African American.

  Except once we come from this movie and Delgadina she says one of them characters reminds her of me. The movie is called The Bear, ain’t no human movie, a movie from the bear’s perspective, you know, and the human beings they’s the outsiders, so Delgadina, she says, That bear reminds me of you, the way he stood up to that wildcat. You remember when that big drunken gabacho came in the bar and sat down at the bar and looked over and seen you sitting at the bar and say How come our cantina let a big nigger like you in the place.

  Except Delgadina, she don’t say nigger but the man he say nigger. And looking at me like I’m one of them bad nigger not one of them good one. Like he think that just gringas or Mexicans supposed to come in this cantina.

  And you just give him that look, say Delgadina. You didn’t even have to roar like the bear in the movie ’cause that look roared. Roar? That’s what lions do. What do bears do? And then Miguel and Juanito brought you a beer on account of the way you stood up to that gabacho. Him, he was acting like it was his stage.

  Say what?

  She don’t explain what she means, she just say, And then you give him that look and he left the bar and went and sat in the corner, that gabacho, and then I seen him trying to talk to Miguelita and then Miguel and Juanito bought you a drink. They’re good vatos. But you remind me of that bear in that movie.

  And then he be over there pestering Miguelita and be asking her what a nice white woman be doing in a greasers’ bar and she be telling him she ain’t a white woman, she a Mexican just looks like a white woman. They’s plenty of white Mexicans that looks just like Miguelita, though most of them that frequents the bar is brown-skinned Mexicans. Then I hear her telling the fool I ain’t a spliv I’m a Hawaiian, ’cause you know I told her that story I read about what that white woman call them Hawaiians. She just over there playing the fool or playing that gabacho for a fool.

  I think she call them vatos, though, Delgadina. Hola vato. Yeah, I remember that from a Cheech movie. Miguel and Juanito, I mean. Vatos or gatos. I think one of them from El Salvador and ain’t Mexican, though. But if she call them good vatos, then to that man they must be bad vatos, eh?

  I watches them children return to the classroom, except the nun she got to pull one of them little wayward boys by the ears, then I study my road map, backs the truck up, and pulls off in the direction of town.

  CHAPTER 4

  THIS TIME IT ME THE ONE SURPRISE ’CAUSE I’M expecting a white priest and this a African-American priest. Leastwise on television when they tells you about the Sanctuary movement, they’s always some white priest. Ain’t even show no Mexican priest. He look though like he maybe mixed with Mexican or Native American or something, you know, the cosmic race, but he hair kinky as mines. He got one of them broad forehead. They say intelligent people got them broad forehead, though I don’t think people these days believe in that physiognomy as much as they used to. Few people tries to classify people as primitive people based on their physiognomy, but it ain’t the same type of individual physiognomy where they study individual virtue or vice in physiognomy. Like in one of them books I be reading in Delgadina’s library, which is what I call her bookshelf ’cause she got so many books on it, they be saying where gap-toothed womens supposed to be lecherous, and the gap-toothed womens I know ain’t no more lecherous than any other womens.

  His complexion look like honey and gingerbread. He got them kind of eyes look like them hieroglyphic eyes. I be sitting in this restaurant and hear this man trying to court this woman, be telling her she got them hieroglyphic eyes, you know, like them Egyptians. You got hieroglyphic eyes, he be saying, just trying to sweet-talk that woman, but he look like the kinda man be telling every attractive woman he meet she got hieroglyphic eyes. I guess them men they can have them hieroglyphic eyes too, but I ain’t about to tell no priest he got hieroglyphic eyes or to try to sweet-talk him. I ain’t no Catholic, but he still a priest. Of course when I first seen my friend Delgadina I be thinking she African American too, then she be telling me she Mexican American, I mean, Chicana. She didn’t just say she Chicana, but she be talking about Chicana and I realize she Chicana. Maybe she ain’t want me to think she African American so she start talking about Chicana. You know signifying, ’cause she don’t want to come out and say, I ain’t African American, if that’s what you’re thinking. And I didn’t think no African American be talking so much Chicana, though Delgadina say she kn
ow this African-American woman that specializes in Chicano literature and everybody be wondering why she ain’t specialize in African-American literature. Even Chicanos be wondering why she don’t specialize in African-American literature. Delgadina say she met her at one of them conferences on Third World literature at the University of Houston or one of them universities, and she was talking about Chicano plays. Even Delgadina say she be wondering why she so interested in Chicano literature and kinda suspicious of her. But she gave a good lecture on Denise Chavez. I ain’t ask her, Who Denise Chavez? Sound like the name of one of them labor organizers, though she supposed to be a literary woman.

  But like I said I’m expecting a white priest and this a African-American priest. And he still looking at me suspicious like maybe he think I’m one of them spies for the immigration department or them border patrols.

  Like I remember the first time I come to Texas City and I had me this date with this fellow and I didn’t know nothing ‘bout no immigration, nothing, ’cause in the part of the country I’m from you don’t have you a large immigrant community, though there’s a few Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking people, but they ain’t enough of them to be a threat to the so-called American values. We come in this restaurant-cantina and I notice that a lot of the peoples they like cleared out and remind me of them Western movie when the gun-slinger come in or the sheriff, even them Clint Eastwood movies or that movie Posse I think that the name of it that Mario Van Peebles movie, and them gambler and bandit types clears out of the saloon, and even the gringa clears out, that Miguelita, and then later I mentions it to Delgadina, woman that work behind the bar, and she say he immigration department. The peoples they can smell that immigration department, she say, and me I ain’t even ask him what he profession. We met at this trade show—actually he the one that pointed out the newfangledness of my newfangled flashlight. ’Cause I be standing up there saying this ain’t got no battery, where you put the battery? I ain’t talking especially to him but I’m asking out loud, This flashlight ain’t got no battery, where you put the battery? The trade show in one of them huge armory-type buildings, you know, and I’m standing there looking at this flashlight and wondering out loud where you put the battery. I’ve heard of them flashlights got their own built-in generator and am thinking maybe it’s one of them. He hear me talking to myself ’bout that flashlight and maybe he think I’m talking to him, or wants him to start talking to me, so he starts explaining to me about the newfangledness of that newfangled flashlight.