Into the Beautiful North(17)

“When I was on my master tour of the bowling alleys of the borderlands,” Irma said, rising and stubbing her cigarette out in Tacho’s coffee cup, “representing all of you—representing our home—our fine city—I went alone. What horrors did I face? I ask you. What horrors?” She made them jump when she bellowed, “ALL OF THEM!”

She leaned forward on her hands.

“Worse that I was convicted of one crime: being a woman! My efforts for the homeland were disparaged by your men and by you. Admit it! I fought with my bowling ball for all the women—and the useless men—of Camarones. And I did it alone! Yes or no?”

They muttered, “Yes.”

“Well, I was an illegal.”

Cries of shock. Uproar. Shouting.

She held up her hands.

“I may have a passport now. But then? I had no plans to cross that terrible wire! I was bowling in Mexico! But do you think for a minute that the call of athletics stops at some imaginary political boundary? Eh? What of the Olympics! I was called to bowl in the United States! For the honor of MEXICO!”

Her audience reeled, they rocked in their seats, they thrilled.

“I went into Los Yunaites! By God I did! I was showing them all! Mexican womanhood—I stuck it in their faces! I bowled at the Bowlero! I bowled at the Hillcrest! I bowled at the Aztec Lanes!”

This meant nothing to the gathered witnesses, but it sounded impressive. She could have been saying, “I bowled at the White House!” Maybe she had.

The point was, Aunt Irma had been a champion in Gringolandia, too! “And, like these dear girls, I did it for you, you doubters. You should be ashamed.”

Go, Osa! Nayeli smiled at Tacho. She was incredible!

“Do you think I would send these warriors—these brave girls and this fine heroic boy—into the north with no help? No succor? Are you insane! Good God—you ARE insane! First you ladies let yourselves be pushed around by your useless men for a hundred years. Then you let those men escape. Now you deny the future! To bold young women! You are not the new woman! You are shameful!”

She sat back down. She snapped her fingers.

“Get me some more coffee,” she told Tacho.

“I’m not your maid,” he said.

But he got up and got it.

Irma slurped it loudly and said: “I went there. I bowled Tijuana, you know! How do you think I got into the United States? Hmm? Did I sprout wings and fly? I could have if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t want to! No—I used my brain. Do you have brains? These girls have brains. Tacho… well, I don’t know about Tacho.”

She continued. “Do you think your little husbands, those whore-mongers, were the first to leave Camarones? Do you remember the name… Chavarín?”

Chavarín! He looked like Gilbert Roland or Vicente Fernández! He was their half-Basque fisherman! That mustache! Those two-tone shoes in shades of brown and crème, shoes that allowed him to glide across dance floors like a sweet outpouring of syrup!

Irma chuckled. “I was a mango in my day. Was I or was I not?”

“You were,” María agreed.

“I’ve seen the pictures,” Nayeli said.

“That must have been a long time ago, m’ija,” Tacho said, “because lately —”

Nayeli kicked him under the table.

Irma glared at him.

“I was the handsomest woman in Sinaloa,” she continued, “and Chavarín had the best mustache. He moved to Tijuana in 1963. Did he not? He did! What did I do? I’ll tell you what I did. I looked Chavarín up in the phone book. How many Chavaríns do you imagine there are in any phone book? Not many!”

The gathered populace was amazed by Irma’s brilliance.

“I called Chavarín! I went to his home! And when the time came, he drove me right across the line in his fine Lincoln Town Car. ‘US ceetee-zin,” he said, and I said, ‘US citee por sure!’ and they let us through! He told them I was his wife!”

Gasps.

The audacity of Chava Chavarín!

“That’s it! You need connections to survive and cross that border! I have connections!”

She rose again: all their eyes followed her.

“I,” she announced, raising her finger above her head like Fidel Castro, “have sent a telegram to Chavarín in Tijuana! The destiny of these warriors is already assured!”

They clapped for her. They sighed and spoke among themselves. María took Irma’s hands in her own.

Irma handed Nayeli a scrap of paper with the outdated telephone number LIB-477.

“Libertad,” she noted portentiously.

Ooh, liberty, the aunties thought.

Everything had taken on an air of Revolutionary Mexico.

“You will see,” Irma said. “The Americanos are kind. Friendly people. Generous people. They have quaint customs—they aren’t really, shall we say, sophisticated like we are. You can’t drink the water—it will give you diarrhea. But it’s very clean there. Good food. You’ll see.”

She stopped and pointed at all the girls, one by one.

“Your dead are buried here. You were each born here, and your umbilical cords are buried in this earth. This town has been here since time began! God himself came from Tres Camarones, and don’t you ever forget it. When the Apaches rode down the coast, burning all the cities, they stopped here and ate mangos and fresh pineapples! That crazy gringo general Black Jack Pershing came here looking for Pancho Villa! He danced with my aunt Teresa in the plazuela! In the hurricane of 1958, Don Pancho Mena was carried out to sea by the wind, and he rode a dolphin back to shore! And I won’t have some rude gangsters, or some exodus of weak-kneed men looking for money, ruin my hometown!”