and I cooked four eggs with cheese in butter and tortillas with refried beans. I’d fix myself a thick cup of Nescafé and go up on my open roof and smoke cigarettes and watch the horses and donkeys in the walled-in ranch that bumped up against my apartment. I’d go back down and take a huge dump. Then back to the bedroom to chant. I’m a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and member of Soka Gakkai International-USA. We chant the title of the Lotus Sutra, which translates as Nam (devotion to), myoho (the mystic law), renge (simultaneity of cause and effect), kyo (sutra, the voice or teaching of a Buddha). It’s based on the principle that world peace comes through individuals satisfying their desires and finding happiness. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo . . . As I chanted, the voices of my characters would begin to speak to one another. I’d chant until I couldn’t hold it anymore and rush to the computer to write the dialogue, and then build the scenes around that. The writing fictionalized the many tragedies of my childhood. The catharsis of writing about those things truly healed me deeply. As the book took shape I realized I was writing about my great yet flawed father, about his redemption. My goal was to write 1,000 words each day. I met that goal for forty-something days straight; sometimes I’d surpass it by a bunch. I’d finish writing by three or four in the afternoon and then go and eat. Then no matter how we’d left it the night before, I’d find myself walking toward the gallery to be with Enid. Even if I was so mad at her and didn’t want anything to do with her, I walked to her, my white snakeskin cowboy boots clicking on the stone sidewalk, and she’d be there and I’d help her close up shop and take her out for dinner and we’d walk the town and dance and drink and go home and she’d read my writing from that day and I’d listen to her laugh at the jokes in the dialogue and then we’d fuck hard into the night with her screaming so loud that I knew all my neighbors hated me. Enid helped transform my life into a rambling machine.
It went like that for over a month until I got scared of the feeling that snuck up into my heart each time I made that walk to the gallery. A feeling I thought I’d never feel again after the intense loves in my past. She was also afraid of what was happening and confessed that she had a boy back home in Mexico City who she was in love with. He didn’t want her, but she felt I should know she still loved him.
That stung but also gave me liberty. I went out the next night without her and met a crazy white lady in a bar called La Cucaracha. She was a raunchy ex-beauty queen from Georgia who’d married a Mexican matador, though he’d passed away leaving her a thirty-five-year-old widow. Everyone in town lusted after her, and she’d had affairs with several rich and powerful men. We made out near the piss-stinking bathroom, and when we came back to the bar, all the roughnecks in the saloon began to threaten my life. We left and went out dancing deep into the night. At about four in the morning, we were walking to her car when she noticed a new designer-clothing store and wanted to window-shop. I was pretty hammered and stopped with her. She was going on and on about how she wanted to buy some dress when I looked back to where we’d come from, and suddenly two surly little Mexicans rounded the corner with hostile gazes. I grinned at ’em, glanced back at her and joked, “I’m gonna get in a fight.”
I looked back. They sprinted directly at me. I readied and as the first closed in he reached back to punch me. When he swung I noticed a softball-sized stone in his hand. I ducked at the last second and the stone glanced me behind the ear. I stumbled forward into him, gathered and cracked him with a short right cross. He crumbled to the sidewalk. I went to kick him square in the head to finish him off but I was so drunk I missed. My foot sailed over his head. I slipped on the stones, flew up in the air, and landed flat on my back right beside him. The other one rushed at me as I jumped to my feet. The lady screamed. “What are you doing?” I yelled in her face. “RUN!”
The other one windmilled both his fists at me. The blur of wild motion threw me off. I caught his hand as it swung at me. Something sliced deep into the pad of my palm. Wet electricity splashed inside my fist. It didn’t click that he was cutting me. He hopped back and swung his other fist. I grabbed his hand in midair. Something sunk deep into my palm in almost the same spot. He yanked his fist away and what I assume was an ice pick stuck and pulled my hand with it. I unhinged my hand from the pick. His starved, yellow, junkie eyes told me he’d kill me if I let him. He lunged at me desperately and hit me in the ribs. I countered it with a left hook that crashed into the side of his head and wobbled him out into the center of the street. My cowboy plaid shirt hung off me in long ribbons. He’d sliced it to shreds. I ripped what was left of my shirt off. His friend got up and fumbled with the big stone. I lunged at him and he gave ground. The chick screamed at me: “Why are you fighting!” I turned and screamed in her face: “RUN! We’re getting mugged, bitch!” I’m not bleeding much. He didn’t get me good. The one with the box cutter and ice pick stopped staggering. I laughed at them and screamed, “I’m from Chicago, motherfuckers! I will fucking beat you both to fucking death right now!” They backed up. They argued with each other, then the one with the big stone came at me tentatively with the stone cocked and ready. I gave ground to him, waiting for him to swing that thing as the other guy grabbed at the chick’s purse. Finally he swung it at me. I dodged it and slammed him facedown into the stone curb. I rained down savage punches through his flailing arms; his head bounced off the curb. A whiny girlish scream poured out of him. I laughed and looked back at the chick. She wouldn’t let go of the purse! The guy finally gave up and rushed at me. I stood. Again I backed them down the street, taunting them maniacally. They argued with each other until one of them pulled a three-foot chain out of his pant leg. Really! How many weapons do you motherfuckers got?!
I sighed, shook my head, and said, “Let’s go, you motherfuckers are gonna have to fuckin’ kill me.” They glanced at each other, thought better of it, turned and ran away down the dark street.
I inspected my hand. The ice pick caused a puncture wound beside my lifeline. The box cutter left a two-inch slice along the bottom pad. I picked up my plaid cowboy shirt; it dangled in unrecognizable strands but there were only superficial scratches on my chest and stomach. We got the car and came back. I had a pack of Marlboros in my shirt pocket. I looked around and found them on the sidewalk. I laughed insanely and screamed, “You motherfuckers didn’t get a fucking thing!” Then I lit a smoke. Back at her place I realized that the guy had stuck me in the ribs with the ice pick. It’d gone in at a lucky angle and didn’t hit anything, but it could have easily popped my lung.
My bad karma didn’t end there.
Banged that crazy white lady and that led to a two-day drunk where I didn’t write a fucking thing. She just kept telling me I should help her write her memoir about marrying a matador. When I finally did get home I sat down to write and spilled a full cup of hot coffee on my keyboard. The screen went blank. It sizzled and smoke lifted off the keys. When it wouldn’t turn back on I realized I’d lost 40,000 of the best words I had ever written.
After I stopped screaming at myself, I wondered why all of this was happening. In a moment of clarity I found myself thinking about Enid. I realized I was deeply in love with her. She’d blown wind in my sails, she’d made me laugh like no other girl before her, and let’s face it, the sex was incredible. She was a city girl and all her sensibilities matched mine. She was in love with me too, and the power of that love had driven us apart.
I contemplated all of this as I drove around with the crazy lady to different bars; murderous stares targeted me each place we went.
Something kept telling me, what are you doing with this skank? You love Enid.
I’d been a coward in the presence of the purest love of my life, and all this darkness was the consequence of my cowardice. So I went to find Enid. We talked for a long while in the back of the gallery. I confessed I loved her and she did the same. A couple weeks later I ran out of money and we said goodbye with a kiss and my promise to return.
Luckily I salvaged my novel off my fried computer. Found work that winter and I came back to Mexico, but now Enid was in Mexico City. She helped me get a cheap apartment in a very dangerous section of La Neza
