Jacqlyn Cope. “Hey, Pachuca.” Continuation

Ama depends on me to help take care of my younger sister, Marcelina, when she is at work since my papa hasn’t been around. Everything has been harder for us since he left and the war hasn’t made it any better either. Ever since the Japanese attacked some military base last December in Hawaii Ama was forced to get a second job to pay for our rent and food. Commercials on the radio said that they wanted, “everyone to join the war effort” and Ama got a job at a factory assembling planes. That’s my Ama, a daytime airplane assembler, a nighttime waitress.

About two months ago, we heard that my primo, Ricardo, from Mexico, volunteered to go and fight. He was already in the Army, but he was chosen to be a part of the Aztec Eagles as a fighter pilot, which I guess is a special military unit. I still don’t understand that because Ricardo is in the Mexican Army and isn’t even a citizen here in the U.S., but they’re using Mexican soldiers to fight an American war. Ama has been worried because she thinks things will end badly and Ricardo might not come home. I try to make her feel better every chance I get, but sometimes I don’t know what to say. I don’t hate that my family needs me, but I wish I could be on my own sometimes and become my own person.

The single by Doris Day blasts from the department store that I pass, and the bells on the door chime together as people walk in and out:

“Gonna take a sentimental journey

Gonna set my heart at ease

Gonna make a sentimental journey

To renew old memories.”

            It reminds me that I still need to pick up leche for Ama at the corner store and it’s just another block down. I remember that milk is now 60 cents instead of 55 and I dig my hand into my coin purse to make sure that I didn’t forget to grab it off the counter at the apartment. Two dirty quarters and a shiny dime rest in my hand after my deep dive to the bottom past my chiclet and ruby red lipstick, lipstick Ama doesn’t know I have. I’m glad I didn’t forget like last time and have to walk all the way back home in the sun.

  My skirt starts to stick to my thighs and rides up a little over my knees as I constantly try to pull it down to sit correctly on my waist. There is a man across the street who turns his head at me. I feel his eyes staring from across the way. It is a feeling that only a girl or woman can explain. There is a creeping, inside an invisible third eye, that sits in the middle of the forehead. It feels like a hair stuck in the cornea of that eyeball that you know is there, but you can’t get it out no matter how much you try. This man makes my third eye twitch and squirm. I don’t look up but instead, focus on the sidewalk that is littered with spots of browned gum-like pockmarks or blemishes.

            “Hey, mamacita, nice legs,” he howls.

            My anxiety turns to fear instantly and I can’t get any words out of my throat. My eyes shoot up nervously, they look around, and I catch a glimpse of the man who called from across the street. His skin has already begun to redden from the summer day. Pieces of his brown hair greased back from sweat fall in front of his wrinkled forehead. He can almost be the same age as my papa. He wants attention, but I just want to run away from him.

“Baby, don’t be that way now. I like em’ sweet and brown like you. Don’t be shy.”

He starts from across the street where he had been leaning on a lamppost, holding his metal lunch pail, the one construction workers always carry, a lunch pail like my papa used to take to work.

“I said, hello. Don’t you know how to greet someone when someone says hello?”

Sandals sticking to a fresh piece of gum on the street, I pick up my pace to reach the stoplight ahead before the walking man runs out of time. I’m not fast enough.

His hand reaches out to grab me. His calloused palm wraps around my arm like a snake who is ready to shed his skin. I pull down hard feeling his rough hand scrape against me. For a minute I think of just running and not saying anything, but then I remember how Ruby is so confident and I am always the wallflower. I just swore that this year would be different and I mean it.

“Pinche gabacho!” I spit and start to run away from him, giving me some distance from his grasp.

A strength suddenly rises from inside me and I take my sandal and, God willing, I aim it at his crotch. It lands.

“Bitch!” he shouts.

Bending over he grabs himself like the fool that I thought he was and I sprint past him, with five seconds to spare for the walking man. There is still that fear inside me, my third eye, but I smile, one shoe missing, out of breath, and running towards the corner store to get the leche.

El Barrio de Montebello

The bell of the paletero man’s cart resounds like church.

I spot him on the corner on my way back, my carton of leche in hand.

The paletero man brings frozen treats to the barrio

but he knows how to transform.

He also brings fresh elote, with lime, chili, mayonesa, and cotija.

“That cheese that smells like patas,” Ama always says.

But I don’t care if my breath smells like feet.

I buy one and bite into the corn cob, lime juice dripping on concrete

and the concrete carpets every inch of my barrio

but it softens in places where homeless men take up a stake

and cradles them in used tissues, trash, and empty liquor bottles.

I pass the man I see every day on my walk back home from Montebello High

his skin bakes like rye bread in the sun but I don’t look away from him.

Instead, I offer the other half of my uneaten cob; he gives me a toothless grin.

Without him, it wouldn’t be home.

There’s clicking in the distance, children riding bicicletas, cards in the spokes.

Car exhaust breathes out along the necks of tired people as they come home from work

on farms, factories, in rich people’s homes, or in restaurants like my Ama.

Posters on telephone lines flap in the wind of Uncle Sam pointing

in the faces of anyone who walks by them

bolded letters yelling out “We Want You For the U.S. Army.”

High notes of a flute synchronize with the trumpet in jazz blues floating

into the street from people playing records in their living rooms.

I sidestep kicking my legs up and practicing my swing dance

and I almost stumble on a lifted square of sidewalk.

The roots of the trees even push their way out of their cages here.

Palm tree shade cuts out shadow on the ground and I lean against one for a minute

taking the sweat off my neck, I flick it into the dry air and the barrio drinks it up.