had a little money to spend at the mall since I had taken some from Pop. I hardly ever bought anything besides food because Pop would start wondering where I had gotten money from if he saw new things in my room. Pop might start looking at his money clip, see all these new things, and start wondering. If he ever found out, it would definitely not be good. Even though Pop wasn’t like one of those fathers who punched their sons or burned them with cigars, he still slapped me if I messed up or didn’t show him or Mama respect.
Pop had these sandpaper hands from working on houses so much. I knew this because one time I had talked real ugly to mama, telling her Quit being a stupid hypocrite, because she wouldn’t leave me alone about skipping classes. She would sleep in until noon whenever she felt like it, and didn’t have to work so I thought, Who is she, bien mantenida, to be talking? When Pop came home that day, Mama told him what I had said, and he walked over to the kitchen table where I was eating some fideo with carne picada Mama had made for us. I thought he was going to yell at me, but no, he just walked over and slapped me in the face, which felt like being punched. All he said in this quiet voice was, You ever talk to your mother like that again it’s going to be worse.
That’s all he needed to say. I just sat there with a fideo noodle hanging out of my mouth, my face stinging, and knew I would never say anything like that to Mama again.
Ángel said, “Órale, let’s go to Rave. Brenda and Gladis were supposed to be there today, shopping.” I wondered if my ex was going to be there at Rave with them. I wasn’t in any kind of mood to see Llorona La Ex-girlfriend. I didn’t want to play the usual ghost games where we tried to pretend we didn’t exist to each other.
Karina Galán, who everyone called Llorona, the daughter of the Witch Woman Señora Galán had been out of my life for three months now and I was happy about it. La Ex was gacha, the things she had done to me. With all the things she had done, how she had almost killed herself in junior high, how she had taken the name of a ghost, some people would say she was bien psycha and should have stayed in Charter Palms where they put the addicts, nervous breakdowns, and attempted suicides. I had thrown down on so many fools for talking like that about her, but what hurt the most was when Ángel or Smiley or anyone in our circle started talking like this about her, even now that we weren’t together and despite how we had broken up.
The thing was, they didn’t know her like I used to, how we would talk, how she would show me her book of poems and get all nervous and look away while I read one, how she would ask me what I thought about her one day getting one of her poems with the art on the sides of the page published in Lowrider Arte magazine. She was the only one I ever talked to about reading and books and poems, the books I checked out at the library when Ángel and Smiley weren’t around.
All the others knew was the Llorona identity she had adopted. We had all heard the stories of La Llorona, each of our parents telling us the story to scare us into being obedient, to never sneak out of the house at night. The version of La Llorona I grew up hearing from my mother was about a woman living along the Río Grande who had fallen in love with a soldier. The soldier told her he loved her as well, but could never marry her because of her two children. Out of desperation and her desire to marry the soldier, the woman drowned her children in the river. When she told the soldier what she had done, how she was now free to marry, he was disgusted with her, called her a monster and then left the town. She went mad for what she had done. She had nothing, no children or a lover. In her madness, wearing the white wedding dress she had bought in anticipation of her marriage, she threw herself into the river, searching for her murdered children, drowning herself. Because of her sin, God didn’t let her into heaven and cursed her to forever walk along the river, weeping for what she has done, calling out, “Mis hijos, my children, where are you?” Each night she does this, never finding her own children, and satisfies her guilt by taking the children of others, making them her own. They are never seen again.
This is who Karina had become, a ghost named Llorona who dragged others down with her, the girl she had once been long forgotten. Would I see Llorona’s apparition today? I thought as I walked towards Rave. Would she drag me down with her?
Rave sold the spaghetti strap blouses, the mini skirts, the short shorts, the bright stomach shirts and the platform shoes all the bien buenas liked to wear, the ones where they could show off their pretty feet with the fancy nail polish.
The three of us walked up to Rave with its bright neon lights and clothes and some of the girls working there smiled at us as they hung up blouses and folded.
“Smiley’s here,” Brenda said as she came out of the dressing room, over the thumping techno Rave always had playing. Smiley got all red because he had been mad in love with Brenda since he was a seventh grader and she was an eighth grade woman. Smiley had always liked the bigger girls, but in Smiley’s eyes, Brenda was the queen of them.
Ángel said, “¿Qué onda, Brenda?” Like every dude we had ever seen around Brenda, none of us could take our eyes off of her. Brenda shows a lot of skin, and she had it all in the right places. Brenda’s big all over, but good big, the best kind of big.
She ran up to Smiley, wearing these green short shorts and this top without straps. Brenda went up and put her arm around him, and it always made me laugh how much bigger she was than him.
Smiley got even redder, and because he was so dark, you knew he was all embarrassed.
Brenda pulled him in closer and said, “How’s my Cositas doing?” She kissed him on the cheek, and because she was wearing these shoes with big heels, she leaned over him to do it. Her name for Smiley was Cositas, which literally meant Little Things. Whenever we wanted to mess with Smiley and how he was mad in love, we called him Cositas. We always joked about how if they ever hooked up together, he would tag on the restroom walls at school: Cositas and La Brenda, Together Forever.
Smiley looked down at his shoes and said, “Good, y tú?”
“You know me, Cositas. This girl’s always fine.”
“You got that right, girl,” Smiley said and made this face like a little kid who’s thinking about candy.
Brenda said, “Ay Cositas, you’re so cute. When we going to hook up?”
“Just say the word, Brenda, and I’m yours.”
“Ay Cositas, you’re so chulo and sweet, I wouldn’t want to ruin you for other women. You’d be with me and any woman after me would just be a cheap replacement.”
Smiley looked at her up and down, and said, “Ay ruin me, por favor, ruin me.”
Brenda touched the tip of his nose, all flirty like she always did.
All of a sudden, these two older vatos came up behind us from nowhere now that Brenda was acting all in love with Smiley. They didn’t smile or throw up their chin in greeting.
Ángel and I turned and looked at them, into their eyes. By not looking away, we gave them a challenge they had to respond to. This kind of situation, it can go two ways, and the way we wanted it to go didn’t happen as we were about to find out. I wanted them to lift their chins and keep them there, or spread out their arms, telling us Qué onda, without saying anything. Then, all of us would have gone outside to throw blows or bullets.
Brenda knew what was about to go down because she got between us and said, “Hey you all, this is my cousin Rey and his friend Eddie. They’re from Pharr. This is Ángel.” She put a hand on my arm and said, “And this is Cirilo, but we call him Güero.” Something changed in Rey’s eyes when Brenda introduced me, and he gave half a smile like he was saying, I know you. I know about you. What was up with that? The vato named Eddie
