The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (27 page)

in there

the people lewd,

screeching and whining,

prescribed dopers,

street dopers

thieves;

the keepers,

as ever,

crazier than the inmates.

He knew his own,

but he wanted out … don't we all?

He wore a little black fedora,

a week's growth of beard.

Still running things,

pushing the system around,

using my visit to escape.

They wore long,

greyish white gowns;

I was staying over night

lying on a cot

with my face to the greenish wall.

A woman's cunt appeared through

a hole in the wall;

I fingered her wet clit,

turned on

feeling guilty

then he had to try to escape,

so he followed me out,

by the sleepy keeper,

down the long marble steps,

like out of a courthouse,

down to the street,

where I called the cop,

and turned him in

for the things he had done to me

out

here.

Then the dragon wound down the street,

the people in it having a good time

being Chinese

He and We made

Chicano

a

word

spoken

in tongues of fire.

One of the few words left

which activates minds

in Spanish, English,

Polish, French, German,

and

many other ways of speaking.

We did the job:

we made some minds have order;

some people took a name

but not mine

because I know

the labels

are for power,

for making a buck, a house,

a family

but not for self,

which has no name

tao tao not tao

the great nonsense syllable

jehovah

lt has no name,

no form nor color to show us,

but we sense, we know,

we think and form things,

so we made Him,

we

men

who have the power:

Buddha, Jesus, The Lord Krishna,

Marx, the Beatles,

all-the-same-one-fellah

Mickey Mouse, Aphrodite,

Zoroaster, Baalzebub.

Still

some

cannot do without

them,

the Father

Zeu'piter

Male Sky God

and

His Pantheon

mentioned

Above

Tijuana, Baja California, October 1983

Sitting in Galvan's state

car corner of Emiliano Zapata

and Cinco de Mayo

in front of

the Papelería Acuano

right in the byzantine heart

of Baja and the Border

twenty miles

and

twenty cultural

light years

from

home

             same weather

             same sky

             different smells

             different sounds

guy ambles across the street

newspaper clutched under his arm

white loafers, pants pressed

middle-class man

thinking hard about his thoughts

taking it easy on a Saturday afternoon

a

minute later

old poor man

trudging in rumpled khakis

and

faded blue suit coat

nondescript hat

and couple of days' beard

not sad

just anxious

just there

Galvan catches me trying to read

the street names

get in the car, loco

drive on to buy a sesame seed candy

and two kilos of corn tortillas

down the block

mouth-watering warmness

wrapped in butcher paper

we each eat two

moving through town

dodging

always dodging cars

and potholes

and the long line

to get

to

the

line

around the east gate

reserved for special cases

for special people

funcionarios públicos

and such

Galvan still has official papers

he pulls it off somehow

and we get to go around

only five cars

from the great divide

Enrique buys a newspaper

from a street kid on the line

and soon we get

to the grey US man

in the US grey uniform

who wants to know

our relationship

I sense that

friends

is not

enough

official business

university and government

counts

we cross to highway 805 North

into the first world

at 55 miles per hour

faster than the speed

of history

             same air

             same sky

             different sounds

             different smells

David Nava Monreal

First Prize: Drama

Encarcerated,
RAY
is forced to confront his past with the appearance of a mysterious cellmate known as
LUKE
. This excerpt from the play takes place as
RAY
begins to explain his real crime, a crime of emotion, committed against his wife,
DOREEN
, and their child,
LOLLY.

RAY:
(Sobbing. Has a need to explain.)
We was livin' in Bakersfield, California. I had just pulled a big job in Texas. There was money comin' out of our ears. Doreen was happy. She kept singin' Tammy Wynette songs all the damn time.
(Music grows louder.)
She was so fuckin' happy 'bout the baby. She'd go 'bout decoratin' the bedroom, puttin' flowers in the kitchen. I didn't like it. There was somethin' 'bout it I didn't like.
(Pause.)
When the baby was born it got worse. She just kept it at her breast all the damn time. She combed her hair. Cooed lovin' words to her. It was as if they were stuck together like siamese twins.
(Pause.)
I took to drinkin'. I liked the night life. The honky tonks brung me some good times.
(His story slowly dies out.)

LUKE: What were ya thinkin' 'bout when ya were drinkin'?

RAY: Nothin'. I just thought 'bout gettin' drunk.

LUKE: Wasn't ya thinkin' that ya was jealous of a litter baby?

RAY: I ain't never thought that! Doreen was crazy for that child. Tit wasn't a normal thin'. She took it everywhere. Wrote litter songs fer that baby.

LUKE: Wasn't she givin' ya no more love, Ray?

RAY: Doreen loved me all right. She said she did. But she just couldn't convince me that Lolly was mine.

LUKE: Whose was she?

RAY: Some motherfucker's. Some woman thief. Some past lover that Doreen loved mo' than me.
(Pause.)
I was goin' make her suffer fer her whoredom.
(Pause.)
But I ain't never kilt her.

LUKE: How'd ya geet even?

RAY: I done thin's to her.

LUKE: What thin's?

RAY: Thin's that ken really hurt a woman.

LUKE: Thin's like what?

RAY: I ain't gived her no love when her body craved me. I never gived her no money fer the baby. I spent all the money on liquor and I layed with every bitch I could find.
(Pause.)
I done got even, that's what I did.

LUKE: What did she do?

RAY: She cried, that's what.

LUKE: She never tried to leave ya?

RAY: Never. She just fall on her knees and begged me to understand. She told me there was no lover and that Lolly was mine and no one else's. She told me she was a good woman who loved no one but me. She even told me I was the first one.

LUKE: And what did ya say?

RAY: I called her a liar!

LUKE: And as time passed?

RAY:
(Pause. Slows down the verbal tempo.)
She started actin' real queer.

LUKE: Queer? How?

RAY:
(Louder.)
Just queer!

LUKE: Explain or I'll blister yore back!

RAY: She took to sobbin' all the time.

LUKE: Sobbin'?

RAY: Like a baby. When we lay in bed she sobbed. Her chest shook and her whole body trembled.

LUKE: And what'd ya do?

RAY: Nothin'.

LUKE: Nothin'? Ya didn't even give her comfort?

RAY: She was like a crazy woman. I didn't want nothin' to do with her. She'd fall on her knees and beg to me. She'd tell me to please believe that Lolly was my child. “Honey,” she'd say, “I ain't done nothin' with nobody but ya.”

LUKE: And?

RAY: And I'd laugh. I'd tell her that Lolly was a bastard and she was nothin' but a five-dollar whore.

LUKE: And that would make ya feel good?

RAY: Fer a while. Then there was a time that I felt better not even lookin' at her face.

LUKE: And the baby? What happened to Lolly dunn' this time?

RAY: She'd cry all the time like her Mama. She didn't have much to eat. Started lookin' real skinny and feeble lookin'.

LUKE: Did ya ever hit her?

RAY:
(Loudly. In protest.)
No! I ain't never hit that child!

LUKE: Ya ain't tellin' me the truth.

RAY: I ain't the kind of man to pick on children!

LUKE:
(Raising the whip above his head and striking
RAY
on the back.)
Tell me the truth ya son-of-a-bitch!

RAY:
(Recoils in pain.)
Leave me alone!

LUKE:
(Strikes
RAY
again.)
I said tell me the truth!

RAY:
(Screams.)
Leave me be, for God's sake!

LUKE:
(Holding the whip in the air.)
Did ya strike that child?

RAY:
(Sobbing. Trying to control himself)
I struck that child 'cause she irked me. 'Cause she sickened me to the pit of my stomach.

LUKE:
(Raising the whip a little higher.)
What did ya do to that child?

RAY: I slapped her.

LUKE: What else?

RAY: I done burnt her with cigarettes and made her sleep in the closet.

LUKE:
(Striking
RAY.
)
Ya scum son-of-a-bitch! Ya deserve to die!
(Strikes
RAY
again.)
That's not all ya done! Is it? Ya struck the child and tortured her mother!

RAY: I didn't mean to. My mind weren't rat.

LUKE: Yore mind ain't been rat all yore life!

RAY:
(Sobs. Is in great pain. He begins reciting the following speeches like a rosary. Like a sorrowful litany.)
It was in the last months that I knew what I had done. Doreen wouldn't talk no more. She just lay in bed or look out the window most of the time. Sometimes I even tried touchin' her, but she felt cold. Colder than ice. Colder than a dead body.
(Pause.)
Lolly was now two years old and the poor child could barely walk. Doreen would have her sittin' in the corner of the livin' room wearin' a bathrobe stained with food and shit. The child would just drool. When she'd seen me walk into the house she'd cry or hide herself away under the bed.
(Pause. Sobs.)
I knew I had done wrong.

LUKE: Go on!

RAY: Then a woman gived me a call one day.
(Pause.)
Doreen answered the phone. She gived it to me with tears runnin' down her face. The woman said she wanted to meet me at the restaurant where she done worked. I met her there at seven o'clock. She was a young girl, not more than nineteen. She sat me down and tells me that she just come from the doctor's.
(Pause.)
She told me she was pregnant and had gotten an abortion.
(Pause.)
She said I was the father.
(Pause.)
I had myself checked the next day. There weren't one thin' wrong with me.
(Sobs.)

LUKE:
(Raising the whip.)
Go on!

RAY: When I got home that night all the lights were on in the house. Everythin' was quiet. I took off my hat and put it in the closet. I called out to Doreen. I felt in my heart that I wanted to give her a kiss. I called out
for Lolly. She was my child … my baby.
(Pause.)
There was nobody home. I went into the kitchen and seen this note. It was Doreen's handwritin'. “Honey,” she wrote, “I love you dearly, dearly my love. Ya are my man. But I jest can't take it no more. I made ya mean to me, I'm sorry. I thought 'bout lovin' another man but somethin' inside me is dead. I feel twisted, honey. I had to leave. Please forgive me. Bye.”
(Pause.)
Then I went into the bedroom and there I seen them. Both Doreen and Lolly layin' in the tub filled with blood. My gun was on the floor. Doreen had put a bullet through the baby's head then turned 'round and kilt herself.
(Pause.)
They were both dead.
(Pause.)
A killin' of the spirit.
(Pause.)
Lolly's eyes were still open.
(Pause.)
She looked like a plastic doll sittin' on a shelf.

LUKE:
(After a long pause.)
I'm goin' beat ya till my arms fall off!
(Begins whipping
RAY
.)

RAY:
(Sotto voice. In a chant-like rhythm.)
Oh, Lord let this be forgiven. Cleanse me of this grievous sin that I have committed. This sin that stays buried in every innocent soul. That sin that is the root, the essence of man's inhumanity to man.

LUKE:
(Striking
RAY
.)
Yer the killer!

RAY: It was a killin' of the spirit.

LUKE:
(Continuously striking
RAY
.)
Son-of-a-bitch!

RAY:
(Chanting.)
It was a killin' of the spirit like the soljers who dies fer an idea. It was the killin' of the spirit like the old man that dies without a witness. It was like the killin' of a thousand spirits that die 'cause no one has food with which to feed their dreams. It was the killin' of heaven. Of human hope. It was the killin' of a mother and child.