We Come to Our Senses by Odie Lindsey Read Free Book Online Page A

slick. Focus on telling a story .”
    THE pending violence between the Mexican couple is too real. I dive into myopic action: remove the hose from the pump, select the gas grade, unlock the gas cap, insert the spout. Remember a pitch I overheard, somewhere, about a band of Communists in the twenties who stormed the offices of the Los Angeles Times , slaughtering everyone on site. I think of the unassailable truth locked inside Marcy. Beneath the saline monuments in her chest she knew the idealism I was pitching, and she knew it wasn’t some elitist avoidance of sex or combat. Because I do know chicks. I do I do I do.
    Maricón! Puto! You’re no man, you limp pendejo motherfucker .
    I don’t dare look at them. Rather, I force myself deeper into memory as the gas fumes embalm me. I fix my eyes on the pocket watch, and inhale, and daydream.
    At my going-away party, she said, “Don’t get all Los Angeles on us.”
    â€œImpossible,” I replied. “You exist, here. So I’ll never really leave.”
    Malapalacas con grapacomundos y fucking stupid cohbomayaca!
    There, on the edge of the party guests, she hovers. She sparks and crackles and is a thousand times warmer than the California sun, but without a whisper of its dry suffocation.
    Ã“rale, homies , the Mexican woman says to the young vatos , and starts mocking her man. Look at the cabrón who thinks he can handle a real Chicana. Thinks he can—
    The pachuco slaps the woman in the jaw, and I am right back in the Valley. Full of fire and love and bad timing and southern manhood, I have a good idea about what to do now. I know exactly what to do now.
    He flicks his cigarette into her black hair, calls her a whore.
    â€œHey?” I shout at him. “Get away from her, man.”
    Like a gunshot he’s on me, the first blow knocking stars into my vision. He strikes and smashes until I fall, the grated parking lot ripping my chin. He then mocks my accent while kicking my ribs— Get-uh-way frum her may-un! The vatos cut up in the background.
    A kick to the head launches me beyond the liminal; I am home now, with her. I savor her electricity, respire her scent. Tangled up in a patchwork quilt, we watch the daybreak lighten the black-green Atlantic. We kiss, forever, beneath the dry rustle of palmetto leaves. Then I leave her. True story.
    Ferric saliva, alongside a “Hurry the fuck up, girl!” drag me back to Southern Cal. My ribs hurt so bad that I shiver. I try to stand up but my knees buckle, so I just kneel on the oil-stained concrete. Wipe the blood from my mouth, spit.
    I look up to see the Latina steal the last of my possessions from the car. She runs to join her partner in the golden convertible. They look at me and burst into laughter.
    â€œLater, bitch!” the woman yells at me, then kisses her man deeply. As the car peels out, she slings my pizza like a Wham-O. When the Cadillac meets the street, she hurls my script in the air. A litter of loose pages arch and flit in the couple’s wake, tumbling high against the backdrop of endless L.A. strip mall.
    Blending into the streetscape, highlighted by chrome and asphalt, I know this Mexican woman is no criminal. Rather, she is lovely, ethereal. Primed with personal agency. She steals my pocket watch and conspires to humiliate me, yet I can’t help but smile, and picture her a shade away from rediscovering some innocence, deep, deep inside.
    Because I know about chicks.

Clean
    THROUGH THE BATHROOM door I thanked Joy very much for her critique, and then stepped into the shower, which was scalding. No response came. I tucked my left arm behind my back, clasped my right wrist, and clenched. Forced myself to endure the temperature while staring down her beloved loofah. (This was all, of course, following shave and defecation, both of which had been peppered by Joy’s grooming suggestions.) Yes, I got in, tucked and clasped as always, and began to boil