Somos en escrito The Latino Literary Online Magazine
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| Short Stories by Carolina Rivera Escamilla |
“Time of the Fattened Cows”
Extract from …after… Short Stories
By Carolina Rivera Escamilla
1976’s cicadas and their millions of babies take over all of nature with their unique sound emanating beautifully and possessively from bougainvillea trees dressed in yellow, pink, red flowering that let us know it’s the Easter season. Usually during Easter we would hang out at the Lago Coatepeque, a routine every year since I started storing up memories. We used to go by bus, but now that Papá has more construction work, and Mamá manages all the money, they finally buy a used red Ford pickup from a friend who was visiting from Michigan. In that red Ford pickup we travel quickly and easily to the lake to take walks, to climb fruit trees, and to swim. We build campfires and sleep lakeside, listening to the calls of wolves, coyotes, owls, and other birds.
This Easter of 1976 is different, though, in that our parents decide to depart with us for Mexico. This idea strikes us as amazing, as a fantastic journey. The possibility of such a departure day to a magical place only becomes real for us children the day Papá’s construction workers begin building a skeleton of wood and start covering it with canvas in the bed of the pickup. Papá does not want it made out of wood but of metal pipe to make it more windproof. However, it is too late for finding such material, as the supposed scheduled time for departure is running close. Papá’s adventurous expeditions seem always to require spontaneity. With only a week’s planning, the whole family, including the dogs, and one of Papá’s friends, Chele Pavián, a reliable construction worker, who happens to be walking along the road, will drive off to México. We are fourteen people, with nine passports, eleven of us children. One passport will supposedly cover four of us children. On short excursions, Mamá counts us every time we jump into the red Ford pickup. Papá designs and pays his construction workers to put a wood railing all around the interior of the bed of the truck for us to hold onto for our protection and stability, if we want to move around in transit. The railing is independent of the eventual canvas covering that forms a roof. “We are gypsies!” Papá announces, as we jump inside the back of the pickup. We have never seen gypsies, so Papá explains that they are people who wander around the world without permission, permits or respect for any borders. “Passports are just a bureaucratic way for governments to make money and to control lands and people,” he declares and then lets out a shrill whistle to call over the driver. The driver is the middle son from the Witch family, Los Brujos, in a time when we’re still at peace with them. We imagine all the people from the colonia coming out as we pass their houses to wish us luck on any journey as we set out on the Main Street, la Calle Principal. This year, the big journey to Mexico is in the middle of March, almost the middle of Easter vacation. Even though Easter vacation is only for a week, we find out we can bury our boring beige school uniforms and white socks under our beds for two weeks The last dry winds and hot burning rays of March dance on our heads and bodies, as we wait early morning outside in line for the passports at some kind of government building It’s the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this big building. My big and little brothers, my sisters and I look like we are dressed with hair combed for a birthday party. We are all wearing seriously sleepy expressions. Mamá carries our baby brother, eleven-months-old in her arms, while Papá presses forward in line in front of us. Estela and I walk around tending to little brothers and sister, as they make small noises, like cooing pigeons. As always in public, nothing escapes from our mouths as loud or as alarming as the noisiness we make at home. Angel and Reinaldo, my two older brothers, wear their wavy and curly hair long. Angel’s necklace and Reinaldo’s metal peace symbol dangling from a leather string loop around his neck over his tight shirt represent very much the latest in style. These brothers check on all of us from a distance, having expelled themselves from the line. We guess it not to be “cool” to be seen standing with us in the line with Mamá and Papá. Besides, my little brothers and sister are growing tired and hungry, and are complaining quietly about the morning coolness. Estela and I laugh because they are confused as to why we are even experiencing this morning’s cool breeze. In fact, even though the morning is nice and fresh, it has already been three hours since we have come here to wait in line, and the March sun is warming up to bake our impatient skin. Edwin scratches his head complaining that he has fleas. We laugh covering our mouths. He is saying this because he says he has just seen a street dog lying alongside the street. Sure enough there is a street dog that has lain down several meters away. “You don’t have fleas.” I walk over and kick the dog to get it to go away. The line moves slowly ahead and finally we are inside the building. It’s our turn for passport pictures. A man asks Mamá to group all the very little ones together. Mamá stands, Mauricio, Edwin, and Noe side-by-side, while the man brings a chair to seat baby Abraham next to them for the picture. One passport and one photo will be enough for all the littler ones. Next are individual pictures of Janet, Javier, Antonio, Estela, me and my hippie brothers, who fix their hair for a professional picture. Polaroid photos are distributed to Mamá and Papá. “Easy as things should be,” Papá says and leads us to another line. When the people in charge see how many children we are, they move fast for fear of so many littler kids, already giving signs that they might start crying at any moment. Within what seems like only minutes, Mamá’s bag carries our eight new passports. On the way back to the house, we notice purple morning glories that have recently appropriated our neighbors’ humble fences, along the dirt borders of Main Street. The whole family of eleven siblings beams greetings to the neighbors. March’s sun reveals its force against the corrugated metal walls and roofs of our colonia. People walk slowly Mamá’s three-and-a-half-months of pregnancy is starting to show. Some aunt says that Papá should probably wait for Mamá not to be pregnant, but we are all so used to seeing her pregnant, Papá probably dismisses her pregnancy as unimportant, and we children do not want to delay the adventure either. A day before the trip to Mexico, my sister and I go with Mamá to buy clothes for the trip. We go to Kismet, the place where my two older brothers buy their clothes. The store is always filled with the latest clothes, and the disco music is loud. Like my mother, I choose baby-blue bell-bottom polyester pants, but with small black polka dots on it, and a matching kite blouse. My sister gets the same outfit in yellow, as does my little sister in pink. Then we see the shoes. “Mamá, look at these shoes... they are made of wood!” So she buys three pairs of platform shoes, like hers On the morning we are supposed to leave for Mexico, the four of us females look like models out of a clothing catalogue, even Mamá with her slightly swollen belly. Mamá looks so tall with her baby-blue polyester bell-bottom pants suit and her platform shoes. She puts on bright carmine red lipstick and pink powder for her cheeks. When she smiles, her teeth look like they are inside a red rose. She looks happy. My father wears his navy blue suit and his blue tie with soft gray stripes on it. My little brothers are all dressed in bell-bottom polyester pants, too. My two older brothers are wearing bell-bottom blue jeans, each with a symbol of peace and love around their necks. “Yanet, put this on.” Mamá hands my little sister a polyester gray-blue color jumpsuit with red ducklings to put over her pink polka dots. The atmosphere is of great pride, like the energy of a national festivity. We seem like summer ants running from one place to another. Even Nata, our store credit lady, and the neighbors carry some of our excitement in their eyes and hands. We feel like dancing, exhibiting similar emotions among us, the travelers who are leaving soon. Just as we are ready to leave, we line up for a Polaroid picture---ten pictures actually. The older brothers and sisters help the smaller ones to fall into place in the pickup, and each one of us is supposed to be aware of his or her own bags with clothes. When everything is ready, and we are inside the pickup, we drive to Antiguo Cuscatlán to finish installing and adjusting the canvas and to fill the orange and blue plastic containers with extra fuel, containers that are with us in the back of the pickup The fuel containers are tightly wrapped in a rug and rope. “Do not let any fire around this or you will explode and the adventure will be over.” Papá lifts his hand looking up the sky. “It is our father’s sage advice,” he says In those photos, my little brothers hang from my mother’s pants, the smallest one crying---the others with sleepy faces. Papá distributes the pictures to the neighbors and to Tía Yita. “Keep it as a souvenir of the first big trip taken by one of the families of this Colonia Rubio. Next time it will be you.” My father behaves as though he is the first astronaut to the moon. He takes a handful of colones from his pocket and throws them to the kids who come to say goodbye to my little brothers. My sister, Estela, and I say goodbye to Mila, our friend, and we tell her, “We are going to bring you a picture of El Zorro, and we will tell him that you want to meet him.” Mila smiles and says, “Bring me one of the Beatles, too.” “Yes!” says my sister. I jump on the truck and ask my older brother, “The Beatles---do they live in Mexico?” “No, they are from England.” I jump down from the truck to tell Mila, “The Beatles are from England, but maybe my father will want to go all the way there. We will take a picture of The Beatles, and tell them that you like their music and their hair, but if we don’t go to England, we’ll bring you the picture of El Zorro only.” My two older brothers blow kisses and wave goodbye to their girlfriends, the daughters of the Witches, and the pickup takes off for Mexico. When I yell, “Papá, the canvas has flown off the back of the truck,” I inhale a face full of dust, that sticks in my throat, but who cares---we’re going to Mexico. Papá brings the heavy grayish-green canvas as a canopy to tie over the back of the pickup, to shelter us from the harshness of wind at high speeds and from any rains, as the covered truck also has to serve as our camp-out bedroom. I stick my head out one more time to say bye to everyone, including the street dogs that are chasing us and barking, until they get tired, and take their barking back to the colonia.
Our driver, El Junior Brujo Tavares, whose real first name is Roger, comes from the family up the street whose daughters date my older brothers. We have a strange relationship with this family. They seem more numerous than us: daughters, sons, cousins, nephews, nieces, and more people whose family relationships we cannot figure out. The family has big trucks that carry cows, pigs, and even horses. People resent them, as they take over, crowd, and often block the two main streets that make up the colonia. The streets are only dirt roads, and their heavy trucks, especially in the rain, have broken down both streets. The heavy rains make a constant mess everywhere, but especially where we are living, a hundred meters down the street from the mesón they inhabit.
Unfortunately, my older brother, Reinaldo is totally in love with one of these brujos’ daughters, and she is madly in love with my brother, too. “How do we separate them?” Papá asks. “There is nothing we can do to separate them. Forcing them apart would only make things worse.” Mamá says.
Mamá and Papá are not happy about this relationship. Since we do not know any other experienced drivers, Junior Brujo Tavares, who is always available to be a driver for Mamá, becomes our hired driver to take us to Mexico. Mamá thinks he is at heart a good young man. Unfortunately for him, Mamá La Bruja Grande, whose mouth is sharp like a Gillette razor blade, is corrupting him. Junior Brujo, under my Mamá’s direction and care, is like a good Mormon. Besides Angel and Reinaldo get along with him, and consider him a good friend.
Lago de Coatepeque in El Salvador is a volcanic crater
formed by eruptions more than 57,000 years ago.
formed by eruptions more than 57,000 years ago.
The construction worker, Chele Pavián, whose preference is really to sell coloring books and colored pencils, got this name from Papá, because Papá says he is like the white monkey from the zoo, who is considered by the public as both fearful and charismatic. Chele Pavián has even accepted that he looks like this animal. As we encounter him on the streets while leaving for Mexico, Papá asks him to get in the pickup, if he wants to go with us to Mexico. My sisters, brothers and I are not happy that he is joining us, as we are already cooped up in the small space of the pickup bed. Now this tall man, whose feet stink, is taking up a lot of space. We like him sometimes because he brings us notebooks, coloring books, and colored pencils. At about five-thirty p.m. we are finally heading for Mexico. Darkness soon falls. We like to lift our heads out through open seams in the flapping canvas to see how dark it’s all around outside. The sky is brilliant with stars above. In less than three hours we arrive at the immigration station between Guatemala and El Salvador. Only Angel and Reinaldo get down out of the pickup to assist our parents. We, who stay awake, see the yellow flicker of lights outside through the opening. On the way to the first border crossing, we are eating candies and other goodies. El Chele Pavián is watching us and throwing out nervous laughter from time to time, perhaps because we are getting close to the border of Guatemala with El Salvador, and he is not carrying a passport. During what seems an endless stop at the immigration checkpoint in Guatemala, even though it’s still early in the night, we stay inside the pickup. Mamá and Papá get out to bring the passports to authorities, while el Chele Pavián slips from the back of the pickup to walk the periphery of the border station. He is trying to hide from the immigration officers. After everything is finally checked out and approved, we start to enter Guatemala, and then Chele Pavián flags down our pickup about a half-a-kilometer into Guatemala. He jumps back into the pickup. It’s raining lightly, which we think is fantastic for us, as the unbearably feet-stinking stifling heat inside under that canvas lifts a little. After a couple of stops to relieve ourselves at the side of the road, and after traveling most of the night, we arrive at the border between Mexico and Guatemala and again Chele Pavián has to avoid immigration agents. The immigration officials are easy-going, as they check all our passports, and we leave. Chele Pavián uses the same plan to go around the border before dawn, but does not realize until later that he has to deal with a second immigration checkpoint inside Mexican territory in broad daylight. He no longer has an escape plan. Without knowing what to do, poor Chele Pavián, is panicked and follows Papá’s and Mamá's instructions to crawl under Mamá’s long maxi-skirt. Since Papá announces to the border agents that Mamá is pregnant and cannot easily get in and out of the pickup, the agent does not even care about seeing her. Once past this final checkpoint, we come to a village center, where we look for a place to park, to get out of the pickup to stretch and move about. Only then does el Chele Pavián come out entirely from under Mamá’s skirt.
There are a lot of people in this village who are buying things at an outdoor market Mamá, Papá, Angel, and Reinaldo go out to exchange our colones for pesos at the bank. We are getting frustrated due to the hot sun cooking us in the back of the truck like chickens in a pot. We are whining, and fights are starting among us. We two older sisters get out of the pickup, and roll the canvas back a little. Roger and Chele Pavián have no idea what to do with us, as they do not want to be responsible for us children. They slowly walk away to a park that is nearby. We can see Mamá checking on us from a distance. We all begin to calm down when everyone returns with ice cream for each one of us, bought from an old man passing by with his cart. Although happy to be eating ice cream, we make ourselves a sticky mess. Mamá looks like she is glowing like a ripe, red pomegranate. From carrying our youngest baby, she is tired, in apparent anguish, and pregnant. We continue to Tapachula, where we eat tacos, a new food for all of us. We like the park in Tapachula, surrounded by buildings. We see people sitting on benches, under the many trees. We sit to finish our tacos under what looks like a tamarind tree. We then get back in the pickup to drive down to a house where we see monkeys swinging, parrots singing, and children watching us. We park, and Mamá, followed by Papá, ask the adults on the property whether we might settle in for the night at the edge of their building, which has an open, partially paved, but dusty area like a soccer field where children play We eat dinner and sleep in the pickup. I wonder whether we’re almost like gypsies now.
The next day we awake, when it’s already bright outside, but still very early. We listen to the soothing sound of a creek. The sweet people of the house have made us a delicious breakfast with the same kind of skinny tortillas used to make the tacos we ate the day before. Mexican tortillas are different from ours that are thicker and smaller circles. With the tortillas we devour something called huevos rancheros over fried beans with spicy hot salsa, accompanied by cups of café con canela. Mamá thanks these generous people for their hospitality. We know from the style and taste of the food that we are some distance away from El Salvador. After brief contact with the creek to splash our faces, we continue our trip toward Mexico City. That is our destination. For us kids, we would have been happy to stay in Tapachula After three more hours of driving, we stop around one o’clock to shake out our legs in an arid place, a desert. Not far from us, a short distance into the hills next to the highway, we stop and step out of the pickup to see what look like giant animals. They are rocks and boulders, though. We imagine them as turtles, dinosaurs, pigs and other objects shaped from rocks. It’s more fun than looking for shapes in the clouds, because these shapes are here on earth, and might move, if we imagine hard enough. Angel sits atop what looks like a golden torta or Mexican pan dulce, and Reinaldo takes his picture. We children are not allowed to go up on these rocks. Only Roger El Junior Brujo, Chele Pavián, and my older brothers go out and over into the giant rocks. We just wave to them. They look like figurines, not like real people, on the big rocks. Finally, they descend and get back into the pickup.
We know we are about to arrive in Arriaga, when Papá starts yelling, “Look, look at that immense river.” He asks to stop the pickup. Roger makes a sudden stop on the edge of the road and is not very well parked. Papá gets out, runs around to the back of the pickup, and opens the tailgate. He tells us to get out and go take a swim in the river. He sounds excited, and we think for a second he is electrified, as though an electric current from just seeing the river has charged him through. Now he is not wearing his navy blue suit and his blue tie anymore. None of us looks nicely dressed anymore on the trip. We older ones jump out of the pickup, and run downward fast toward the river with an unfolding plan to swim with our clothes on. I walk instead of running. Even from fifty meters, the clear water of the river looks like a mirror. Neither Papá nor we bigger children think about Mamá and our driver in the front of the truck and our little brothers still sleeping in back at the time Papá asked to stop. Roger and Mamá wake up my littler brothers. Mamá asks Roger Junior Brujo to park the pickup better, and asks my littlest brothers to sit down, to hold onto the rail, and not to move until the truck is correctly parked. I hear all this as I walk down toward the river. I feel as electrified as Papá as I see the immense shimmering river.
Papá takes off his shoes, shirt, and pants and is already in the deep part of the river. My older brothers are partially undressed and swimming toward him. We girls are just dipping our feet in the water, when we hear a sudden loud bang and screams. We run up to the road, and see Mamá crying and my little brothers screaming. Javier is bleeding from the mouth. Papá, Angel, Reinaldo, and El Chele Pavián are almost already there, as they put on their clothes, run and climb at the same time. We see that the pickup has been hit and pushed farther up the road. Javier hit his mouth on the back of the truck cabin; Noe hurt his elbow. Mamá and the Roger El Junior Brujo are still seated in the cabin, but are moving. Mamá’s head is hurt. She hit it on the dashboard; baby Abraham is ok, still calm and happy in her arms. Two women step forward and identify themselves as daughters of a government official, as they gesture toward their vehicle. Javier is carrying Noe toward the tailgate. Papá helps Mamá to get out of the car, and Angel and Reinaldo help my brothers get down very carefully. Roger pushes hard to be able to open the driver-side door. The pickup is hit hard, knocked several feet within a few inches of the edge of the incline heading steeply down toward the river. The car has hit the truck hard, side-swiping the whole length of the driver’s side. The two women who hit us were responsible for the accident, but make us swear we are the guilty ones. “After all,” one of them says, “you are not Mexicans, and we are the daughters of the governor of Chiapas.” Their small car’s passenger-side is totally smashed up, but they are not hurt. Papá is still very electrified, and even offers the two women money. They decline and left us there right away. For us, there is no choice. We have to locate a mechanic to repair our vehicle. We all surround Mamá, while Papá, Chele Pavián, Angel and Reinaldo flag down a car to go look for help. Roger Junior Brujo stays with us. He looks so pale and lost, needlessly taking blame, as if he has shattered our illusions of him as a good driver. Mamá, who is paler than usual, passes the baby to Estela, and offers him a glass of water, and says, “This is not your fault. Thank God we are alive.”
Regardless of the heat, we do not go back down to the river. We stay with Mamá, seated in a bit of shade on the side of the road. We start counting the cars going by, until finally we see a big tow truck coming from the direction Papá and my brothers have taken to get help. We are directed to jump into another pickup that stops for us behind the tow truck. The men do what is necessary to tow our pickup. We drive toward the mechanic’s garage. In silence we look at one another. We see how hungry and tired we are in our bodies and faces. We look ahead at our red pickup and are sure the towed red pickup we are following will be crying soon, too, as it realizes that neither it nor we are going to see Mexico City Baby Abraham awakens after a nap on Mamá’s lap. We see him as we look into the cabin from the back window. His smile invites us to answer him with a smile, too. After an hour, we arrive at the mechanic’s garage, which is not at all close to a city or a village. The tow truck driver drops off the red Ford pickup under a tamarind tree that is full of leaves and dripping with fruit pods. Meanwhile, the driver of the second pickup drops us next to our wrecked vehicle. Four of us older ones help the little brothers and sister to get out of the pickup. The second driver waves to the owner-tow-truck-driver-mechanic of the place, and then drives away. The tamarind tree creates a lot of shade, and the sun is not as strong in the late afternoon as it was when we experienced the accident. The mechanic is the owner of the shop and lives at this place, which is only a little workshop with a little store attached to it, with a large patio in front of it. Papá arranges with the mechanic for us to stay overnight sleeping in our damaged pickup. We still have food we have purchased for the trip and can buy some things inside the mechanic’s store. We like the place because it has the big patio and we can keep playing until late. We lie on the patio counting the thousands of stars, which late at night are very visible. We gather and eat some of the ripe tamarind that no one else has thought to pick up. We sleep under this protecting tree. Mamá cooks over a small fireplace campfire Papá creates from bricks he has the boys carry from behind the mechanic’s garage. After three days of battling mosquitoes and sleeping under an open sky, the pickup is finally fixed. We hear Mamá quietly telling Angel and Reinaldo, “Go into the city of Arriaga to buy some souvenirs. We will be returning to El Salvador tomorrow, even though your Papá wants to continue.” Angel asks Mamá if he can take El Chele Pavián and Roger El Junior Brujo. At first she says softly, “Yes," but then immediately changes her mind, saying, "No, do not ask them to go. Just go with Reinaldo. They may find a way to follow you anyway, but do not tell them you are buying any souvenirs, because they are going to tell your Dad. No matter what, I have decided to return home tomorrow and not to continue this trip. Just pick up key chains and other little things for your sisters and little brothers.” She hands him a bunch of pesos. “This should be enough to buy everything." Angel, Reinaldo, Roger El Junior Brujo, and Chele Pavián return late night. We hear murmuring voices mixed with the sounds of mosquitoes. We dream a river passing through. In the morning Mamá gives my sisters and me pink, yellow, red, blue, gold, and silver thin bracelets that in the sunlight shine brighter than the stars of the Arriaga sky For my little brothers Mamá distributes hats, little cars made of aluminum, and key chains as gifts for our friends at school.
Going through customs on our return to El Salvador is easy. When we are entering El Salvador, Papá asks Roger to stop the car. Mamá reminds Roger to park well off the road There Papá orders us to stand beside the pickup. He removes the entire canvas from the wood skeleton so we can feel free in the open air. Once we are back in the pickup, Mamá gets out of the truck cabin and asks us, “Would you like to go to el Lago de Coatepeque?” We all scream yes like in a chorus of parrots. We arrive home at midnight. We never tell the neighbors what happened to us. Mila never asks for the Zorro photo, as though she understands our silence about the trip. We give her three thin red, blue, and gold bracelets. She likes them. Not even Roger El Junior Brujo gives away this secret. We cherish the fifty something shiny multi-colored bracelets (Mamá and Papá find them everywhere in the house for weeks.) and the starry nights from our trip to Arriaga, Mexico.
Carolina Rivera Escamilla, born in El Salvador, is an educator, writer, performer and filmmaker with a major in English Literature, emphasis in Creative Writing, at the University of California, Los Angeles. A Fellow in the PEN USA Rosenthal Foundation’s Emerging Voices Program, her story, “The Funeral,” was included in Strange Cargo, a PEN Emerging Voices Anthology in 2010. She is also director and producer of the documentary: “Manlio Argueta, Poets and Volcanoes.” For copies, visit www.carolinariveraescamilla.com or World Stage Press.