The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert (2 page)

CRAYONS

During recess, I lugged the classroom’s bucket of crayons, color pencils, and markers with me. The class played kickball and I sat under the shade of a palo verde tree because of asthma. I arranged all the greens together, blues together and reds together. I continued until they were all in front of me in their chromatic families. Red represented anger. Pink meant passion. Blue mirrored the bodies of water on the planet. Greens expressed curiosity. Yellows owned the sun. Naranjas represented astronauts with Martian dust on their boots. Brown was my favorite. Brown represented the people I interacted with every single day. My grandma, my little sister, all the people gathered downtown waiting for the bus. In a floppy notepad, I wrote the name of every color down. I signed for them all and then I became the principal. I checked in on the classes. Were the blues perfecting the science of creating drinking water from cumulonimbus clouds? Were the pinks writing poetry? I checked in on them all and wrote down their progress. I took the green marker and drew little vines on the white bench behind me and then on my left hand and up my arm. Recess was over. I dumped all the colors back into the bucket.

I shoved the bucket underneath the crafting area. I went to my desk and saw a pamphlet on my desk. The same pamphlet was placed on each desk in the class. The school wanted us to sell cookie dough. Mrs. Rodriguez asked us to participate and told us to open our pamphlets. Inside, I scanned the potential prizes. There were sticker sets and water guns, but an art case clutched onto my heart. The art case was pristine. Enclosed within was a rainbow organization of markers, color pencils, crayons, and sharpeners all neatly established in assigned creases. This suitcase of colors could be mine.

When I got home, I crawled on the floor of the single unit scavenging for a pencil. My scabbed knees slid across the cement floor that collected dust easily and caused my coughing fits each morning. I reached under the bed and found a standard no 2. In the bathroom, there was no tub, only a shower. I crawled into the cemented space underneath the toilet and thought about neighbors who might theoretically buy from me. There was the Cubana next door, with her high heels and hair as bright as when you look into the sun. She was not home often. Like my mamá, she worked a lot. When they went dancing together, mamá would wear her black dress with the circular cutouts on both sides of her hips and the Cubana wore lipstick deeper than a bloodline. The Cubana called me ‘hermosa’ and I called her ‘muy amable’ because I thought it was rude to ask an adult for their first name.

I was never asked to sell anything before. Mrs. Rodriguez explained how the accumulated profits would help in funding the school, but I was enthralled by the art set. I tore paper from a notebook and taped six pieces against the front door. I took out an extra order form from my backpack and cut out the picture of the art case. I taped it to the center of my makeshift billboard. I drew a line graph, a bar graph and a pie chart on the display. I drew arrows in black crayon that pointed to the art case and stars in yellow crayon to signify stellar importance. I went to each door in our row of living units. I knocked and asked for adults to buy from me. Most of them didn’t answer. One woman answered and then asked me how a bucket of cookie dough would bring nutritional value to her bebé? I shrugged. I asked my sister if I could use her name to buy buckets of cookie dough. I pointed to the art set and explained that I needed to gain enough points for the prize and she nodded. I asked her what type of cookie dough she wanted. She nodded. I asked her if she wanted chocolate chip and peanut butter. She enthusiastically shook her head at me. I wrote her name out on each line and carefully calculated the amount of points needed to get the art set. I took her hand and helped her squiggle letters onto the signature lines with a pencil. I was so proud of my sister for understanding how this would benefit the both of us. Our eight piece set of crayons never detailed the true richness of blue in the desert sky or the brown depth in our hair.

Before class started, I turned in my order form to the office and the receptionist squinted at me, shook her head and said nothing. That morning, I brushed through my curly hair and it expanded beyond the padded shoulders of my passed-down sweatshirt. I smiled at myself as I brushed and brushed in front of the mirror. A girl in class told me my hair looked cuckoo ca choo. She asked me who did my hair and I told her it was my mamá. Recess started and I sat on the white bench under the palo verde tree. I traced the vines I drew on the bench the day before with my finger and watched the kids playing dodge ball. I didn’t take the coloring bucket outside with me. Recess finished and I sat quietly at my desk until school was over for the day. I picked up my sister from my grandma’s apartment on Alameda and we walked past fading billboard signs until we got to the empty unit. I locked us inside and cut up an apple for us to share. I pierced through my finger and watched the blood trickle into the dust beneath my bare feet. I told my sister that a bad guy cut my hand on my way to school and took my order forms. He didn’t want cookie dough, but he wanted that art set so, we wouldn’t be getting either prize anytime soon.

HAMMER

The line of twenty-four kids ahead of you shrinks as each person grabs an index card and obediently goes back to their seat. Your last name starts with a Z. You have adjusted to being last in alphabetical formations. The last card is waiting for you. Mrs. Espen announces the animal assigned and each one of you has been given the responsibility of deciding what to name it right then and there. You are all responsible for a storybook based on the assigned animal. Amanda Rosalia with the pink glasses and light up shoes names her Zebra “Ziggy.” Jaime Santos with the bowl cut and dinosaur shirt names his bear “Brownie”. The names continue to be announced and your palms are sweating. You link them together, open them toward you and look at the lifeline abuela told you about. You will live a healthy, productive life con el favor de Dios.

The next name is “Storm” for the stingray. “Mango” for the lion cub. “Henry” for the koala. You’re up next and the index card has a strange sea creature on it. You ask Mrs. Espen if it’s a mermaid. She smiles, braces covering her teeth, and says no. It’s a hammerhead shark. What do you want to name your hammerhead shark? Startled by the new animal shifting your perception on wildlife and evolution, you blurt out “Hammer!” Hammer the hammerhead shark by Jocelyn Zavala. Mrs. Espen has made the official announcement and you can’t take it back. Hammer will have to live with this label for the rest of her life so long as she exists in this story you make for her. Maybe she is one of those sharks who has been in trouble for her temper so “Hammer” stuck as a nickname. You don’t know yet. You have to go home and discuss with Abuela and Mamá.

Mamá is cooking fideo because she’s tired after a long day of moving pet food and merchandise around in her department. You help your brother and sister with their limes and then you squeeze half a lime into your bowl and warm your hands with the steam rising between the tomato sauce and noodles. Mamá tells Abuela about your cousin Stefani, who just turned ten. She is going to a private school and learning how to play guitar. She lives in Cali and auditions for commercials on the weekends. She’s the cousin who you saw on TV when the apartment had cable for a month. She disappeared from the screen after the cable did so, you watched
Dragon Ball Z
en español on channel 2 in between TV fuzz and Univision.

Stefani was Goku and you were Piccolo. She had resources to be more powerful than you, but you never doubted your own strength. Stefani represented good and you shifted from evil to virtuous depending on the episode. You thought of yourself as evil when you acted on aggressions that came to you at night. You broke the limbs off of dolls and repaired them with duct tape in the morning. You drew on the faces of your sleeping siblings with eyeliner and then helped them wash it off in the morning. Once, you wrote “shit” as “chet” on your little sister’s belly and told her to run up to mamá. Mamá was on the phone and yelled your full name (Jocelyn Esmeralda Mendoza Zavala) to help your sister get dressed for bed.

You finish your soup and ask Mamá and Abuela about story ideas for Hammer. Abuela suggests a story about Hammer being the Jesus of the sea. Hammer is the son of a carpenter and was born to a virgin mother shark. You tell Abuela that Hammer is a lady shark. You place your palms on your forehead and look at Mamá. Mamá suggests a story about Hammer as a shark who loses her memory. She is in the middle of the street under the sea, when she collapses and doesn’t remember who she is anymore. Hammer was supposed to marry an heir to a company that specializes in wedding dresses. You grab your notebook and pencil out of your dandelion yellow backpack and crack your knuckles. You scribble:
Hammer, I am going to make you see the sea in yourself.
You write and erase. You write and keep erasing.

The next morning, the classroom is full of carried voices and foot taps to the linoleum squares beneath small feet. The teacher makes her way toward the chalkboard and announces new vocabulary words that will make you sound like a college kid. This is how she pulls you in. The first word is “grotesque”.
Grotesque.
The second word is “idiosyncrasy”.
Idiosyncrasy.
You repeat the words after her so they can stick to your tongue. Try using these words today. Energize your vocabulary, she says. Next, she asks the class to get into a single file line and place their math homework on her desk. She collects the stack and puts it into her rolling backpack. She reminds the class about the story book assignment. She expects it on her desk tomorrow morning. The index card with Hammer’s picture is under your pillow. You thought Hammer would appear to you if you placed her beneath your sleepy head.

You search the library to look for more information on Hammer and come across articles of humans catching her relatives and displaying them like prizes. Humans attempted to tame Hammer’s kin even though she represents protection, with her strange head and white belly. On your walk home from the library, a pink arch labeled “Dulcería” catches your eye. You walk underneath and find yourself at a carnival. The building is painted in pink and white vertical stripes. “La Vida es un Carnaval” is playing out of a boom box sitting on the dirt with a bouquet of balloons attached to the handle. No one is there, but you hear laughter. There are carnival games behind glass windows. You press your forehead against the glass where rubber ducks float in a blue pool. You knock on the window in case someone is behind there. You look to your feet and see green arrows. They lead you past the window displays and into a room with a claw machine. The machine is filled with stuffed animals of sea creatures. Jellyfish and squid are stacked with starfish and sharks. You grab the joystick and aim for the sharks. It takes you three tries before the claw gets a grasp of anything. Finally, you win the hammerhead shark. You throw your arms in the air and jump around. You start dancing with Celia Cruz singing “Contrapunto Musical.” Confetti falls from above and the pieces that land on your tongue taste sweet.

When you get home, Mamá is making enchiladas verdes and she asks how your story is coming along. I figured it out in the Dulcería carnaval. Hammer reincarnated into a stuffed animal so I could meet her. Mamá laughs and asks you to get your brother and sister from the room upstairs. You go upstairs and see your sister sleeping on your pillow. You wonder if Hammer’s past self is in her dream, taking her on an underwater quest. You write about the carnival. You write about Hammer’s reincarnation. You decide to write more and more. Maybe a buddy cop movie with Hammer and a blue whale. Maybe hammer decides to go into space. You write these stories and read them to your brother and sister before bed. You write about Hammer every single day until you run out of ideas and have to focus on writing about yourself.

EAR TO THE GROUND

Soledad handed you a knife for Navidad. Let me show you how to use it, she said. She placed an apple on your head and told you to stand against the kitchen wall. She held onto the knife and shut one eye as she looked above you at the manzana. She threw the knife and it made a woosh sound into the bag of beans next to you. She praised you for not showing fear. She dug the knife out of the beans. You don’t have to learn how to use the knife, but it could be beneficial. She patted your head and you smiled at her. When the knife was back in your hands, you hid it under your pillow and ran into the living room to sit next to Soledad. You watched stop motion movies together. The images birthed butterflies in your belly because you thought you were watching someone else’s memory. You said this to Soledad and she told you she felt the same way. You both had Christmas sweaters on because Madre thought it was cute. You covered in penguins. Soledad covered in candy canes. You both ran for your matching red and green beanies and darted out of the house. You played tag around the pecan tree that marked the middle of the neighborhood. Soledad joked about magic powers in the tree.

“It talks to you if you put your ear to the ground.”

She crouched toward the dirt then, she placed the side of her face toward the earth. She slapped her knee and laughed. You tapped your feet on the ground with impatience and fear of tree roots grabbing them. Soledad sat with criss-cross legs and reached up at you. You helped her up and watched the tree branches stretching themselves out toward the moonlight. Soledad hugged the trunk of the tree. Once boredom hit, the two of you ran back inside and drank warm horchata from mugs shaped like lizards and played lotería while Madre cooked pozole verde.

In the summer, you sliced open the stuffed jalapeño toys your madre sold to the people waiting in cars to get back to the U.S. You sewed them back up by hand and never told your mamá about the notes you placed inside them. “Be cool, stay in school.” “Chill out, don’t shout.” “Hasta la vista, mamacita.” The jalapeño pepper wore sunglasses and had a huge grin with little arms that gave the buyer a thumbs up. Como, it was saying, thank you for taking me away from this border town. You helped madre a couple times a week with newspaper and a spray bottle filled with watered down Windex. She told you to run up to the car and don’t give them a choice, you spray the front window, take your newspaper and wipe that shit down before they can shoo you away. Look for U.S. license plates. Look for the gueros. They are supposed to be strangers, so they better tip you. Never refuse a tip from the blonde ones, but don’t let them touch you.

Years pass and you’re a woman now. This is what the eyes say on the walks home from the corner store. Sometimes men whistle. Sometimes they vocalize. You never give the satisfaction of eye contact. You have three knives on you. One by your side, one in your dangling earring and another in your boot. These are the material possessions that bring you peace of mind. You run errands for Madre during the day. She’s always tired, always in bed, but she says it is a phase for her. The TV light radiates on her smile lines and worry lines. She asks you where your sister is. Is she out dancing? ¿Dónde está? Is she at the library finding new books to read? ¿Dónde está mi hija? Soledad has been missing for two months.

You have talked to every single person in your neighborhood. You roughed up a couple of men who attempted to flirt with you when you asked them for information. One of them grabbed you by the waist and sniffed your ponytail, so you pierced into the middle of his hand with the blade in your earring. You cleaned the knife on your pant leg and asked him to talk. This was a power you were growing into. The other man asked you to listen to him. Neither of them knew who your sister was or who made her vanish from this tierra. There are rumors of a bus taking women away. That is all he knew. The wounded man, bleeding and screaming, wailed at you about his kids at home. You told him to be better. Take care of those bebés and help his mujer at home.
Be better, hombre.

Even though it’s the middle of summer, you wear all black layers so you won’t be seen en la noche and because you are mourning. During your investigation of the neighborhood, you run into your hermana’s ex-boyfriend. You shove him against coral painted walls. He makes a simple statement about the way you wear your eyeliner.

“Have you seen Soledad?”

“I haven’t seen her since we broke up.”

“Have you heard anything about women disappearing?”

He scratches his face and pink skin exposes itself.

“There’s a rumor about the local bus driver. Supposedly, he takes women to factory job interviews in the morning, but he never brings them back.”

Soledad was looking for employment because the restaurant she worked at was shut down. Your mom was working less and you were having very little luck finding somewhere to make money. Do you think she went to El Paso to find a job, mija? Creo que sí mamá.

Soledad’s ex shows you what stops the bus makes. The bus is painted like the Lineas de Juárez. Green and blanco como el flag pero sin la sangre. He tells you everyone knows about the buses, but they’re too afraid to say shit. In the morning, before the sun has shown up, you walk to the corner of Calle Cactus and Dalia. The second stop for the bluffing bus. The bright green bus arrives on time and you get on. You shake for a matter of seconds and look up at the driver. As you step on, you see another woman on the bus and you calmly ask her to get off. You grab for the knife in your boot and you caress the blade against the man’s Adam’s apple. You apologize to the woman as she steps off. “Que Dios te bendiga.” This is the only thing you can think to say.

You drag the man out. He is small. He has a gold chain with a cross around his neck. The belt looped around his waist has a buckle with gold flakes glistening against the sun forming a skinny line on the horizon. You are confused by his willingness to come along. He tries to introduce himself so you slice a shallow line into his neck. He doesn’t say a word after that. Inside the house, you tape him up to a chair and close the blinds. Madre’s TV is loud and you know she won’t get up. You go to her room and kiss her hands. You tell her to let you know if she needs anything. You step back out to the trapped man. You grab his face. Your fingers digging into his cheeks.

“You drove those women away. You drove them away from their families. Ya no existen en esta tierra because of you. ”

He spits at you. It oozes on the side of your cheek. You wipe it off and slap him repeatedly on the cheek with the full force of your body. He coughs out blood and looks up at you.

“I need income, niña. I have mouths to feed. I have grandchildren. Look in my wallet. I carry them with me todo el tiempo.”

You are tempted to dig through his pockets, but for money to give to Madre. You place a strip of duct tape over his mouth. You spit at his face and then go check on Madre. She ate the soup you made for her. She asks you for water. You fill up two glasses for her and place them on her nightstand. As soon as your sister was gone for more than 48 hours, you started figuring out how to provide for your mom. You stole food from the grocery store. You sold stuffed animals on the border.

One night, on your way home, you passed the giant pecan tree in the middle of the neighborhood. A pecan landed on your head and when you cracked it open, there were rounded sprinkles inside. You opened more, one of them had honey inside and another had pomegranate seeds inside. The last pecan you picked up had confetti inside and a photograph. It was of you and Soledad. She made bunny ears behind your head. You both screamed CHEESE at the same time. You covered in penguins. Soledad covered in candy canes. You couldn’t breathe or scream. You knew Soledad was gone.

After kissing Madre on the forehead, you go back to the trapped man and kick his chair over. You reach for his wallet and take out the photo of his grandchildren.

“I’m keeping this. I will pray for them. You can’t do shit for them while you’re in purgatory. ¿Me entiendes?”

You reach for the knife in your boot. You place it between your teeth while you pick the fallen man up. His hair thick between your fingers. You tilt his head back and he looks into your eyes. You twist his head around and to the side. You press the knife against the side of his head and his ear plops off into the palm of your hand. He screams beneath tape. You hold the ear between your teeth and grab his hair. You start to slice and rip some of his hair out. Once you’re done cutting off his hair, you place the ear inside his wallet.

“You will be trapped in a purgatory. You will sit in a cell and you will listen. You will listen to the mothers praying at night for their kids to come back. You will feel what they are going through until you deteriorate.”

You are shaking and tired. You take the photograph of his grandchildren and tear it in half. You drag him outside. You with your knives. Him with his ear in his wallet and his body taped to the chair. Blood follows you both to the pecan tree. You knock on the trunk, take the man’s shirt collar and throw him on his side.

“Did you know? If you put your ear to the ground, the tree will tell you the history of this neighborhood.”

The man is crying now. You’re crying too. You grab the photo of you and Soledad and crumple it in your hand. His crying stops and he starts laughing.

“Can you hear the joke too?”

You could never bring yourself to lie on your side and listen. You caress through your hair and start to braid it while you wait for the roots to grab him. It’s only a matter of seconds before you’re both gone.