Into the Beautiful North(5)
Aunt Irma wanted her to beat up men.
Missionary Matt had taught Nayeli a term for Tía Irma: Es muy hard-core, La Osa.
?Ay, Mateo!” Nayeli said out loud. He was on some glorious California beach, and she was at Tacho’s.
It was a job, at least. It gave her money for shoes or movie tickets at the cine. Since Matt had donated his Satellite laptop to Tacho when he left, the taquería had been transformed into an Internet café.
Nayeli sashayed in and tossed the broom into the corner.
“I’m going on el Internet,” she announced.
“Do you think I pay you to play on the computer all day?” Tacho scolded.
“Yes.”
“?Cabrona!”
Tacho was cranky like this with all the girls. It was part of his routine. A man like Tacho had to learn to survive in Mexico, and he had learned to re-create himself in bright colors, in large attitudes, thus becoming a cherished character. If you wanted to achieve immortality, or at least acceptance, in Tres Camarones, the best thing to do was become an amazing fixture. It was very macho to be a ne’ er-do-well, even if you were gay. That’s why mewling missionaries didn’t stand a chance. Being meek wasn’t macho. There was no legend there.
For years, the joke about Tacho’s “kind”—los jotos—was that they suffered from the affliction of “la mano caída.” The fallen hand, the cartoony limp wrist of the gay man in the common pantomime: just the phrase made people laugh. Except for Tacho. He didn’t accept being called “faggot” by anybody (except his girls), and he certainly didn’t feel that he was limp-wristed in any way. So he threw it back in their faces by naming his establishment the Fallen Hand. Genius! Even the most macho men in town had embraced him immediately, because he was wittier than they were, and because of this, somehow more macho.
That was years ago. Lately, the Mano Caída mostly attracted bored old ladies with very little money, or Nayeli’s troublesome bratty girls—and they never spent a peso. All they wanted to do was look at gringo boys on the Internet. He sighed. What a life.
At least he also sold women’s shoes from his back bedroom over on Avenida Benito Juárez. Nayeli wasn’t the only one who could work Mateo’s computer! Indeed, Tacho had found eBay, and he had begun his second career with the help of Tía Irma’s American Express card. Thanks to Tacho, Tres Camarones was now treated to a monthly visit from bright yellow DHL delivery trucks, an exotic touch that made the citizens feel cosmopolitan.
Tacho and Nayeli shared a lust for big cities—any big cities. They used the computer to spy on New York, London, Madrid, Paris. Sometimes, after work, they climbed on the roof of the restaurant to watch the bats. They made believe that clouds were the Manhattan skyline.
Oh no,” groaned Tacho, “here come the rest of them.”
The notorious girlfriends—what was left of them—were walking up the sidewalk. They were yelling, “?Adios!” to everybody they knew on the street. People in Tres Camarones didn’t say hello, they said good-bye.
Nayeli looked out and grinned. There were only three of them left, but they liked to brag that they were the best of the bunch. Cuquis Cristerna had moved to Culiacán. Sachiko Uzeta Amano had gone to Mexico City to learn how to make movies. María de los Angeles Hernandez Osuna was studying to be a doctor in Guadalajara. Now it was just Nayeli, Yoloxochitl, and Verónica.
Yoloxochitl’s phonetic Missionary Matt card read:
YO-LOW / SO-sheet
He called her “Yo-Yo,” which amused him no end. Her parents had been infected with folklore mania, a real danger among liberal Mexicans with college educations. Her father had made it through one year of university, and thus well-connected to his Toltec past, he and Yoloxochitl’s mother had decided to christen their off-spring with Nahuatl names. Fortunately for everyone, they’d had only two children. Unfortunately for her older brother, they had named him Tlaloc. Young Tlaloc didn’t enjoy being known as the Rain God—every time he went to pee, his friends made relentless jokes—so he changed the name to Lalo before he went north with his father to become nameless.
Matt had already known how to say Verónica, but just to make her feel good, he’d made a card out for her, too.
ver-OH! / knee-kah
Lately Yoloxochitl had been working as a pin tender at the three-lane bowling alley down by the statue of Benito Juárez. Verónica worked as a shrimp peeler in the stinking estuaries north of town. Neither one liked her job. Too much sweat. Yoloxochitl wore her faded El Tri rocanrol T-shirt and some gaucho pants Tacho had sold her for half price. Her mother had saved for a year to get her out of glasses; her contact lenses had unleashed the fashion model inside her. She was carrying another one of her paperback books. Yolo—as the girls all called her—was always reading.
As usual, everybody was staring at Verónica, the only goth girl in Sinaloa. She had made her face pale with various ointments and creams, and she had painted her eyelids dark, her lips black, her nails black. She wore a long black skirt that must have been stifling, yet she managed to radiate cool air when she walked by. Verónica ironed her hair so it hung down like a sheet of satin. Her hair was already utterly black, but she also dyed it with Black No. 1 rinse just like her heroes in Type O Negative, whose videos she’d seen with Nayeli on YouTube.