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By Alma Luz Villanueva (Feb 10, 2006) Alma Luz Villanueva presents a break-out session at the San Miguel Writers' Conference on February 25. Exepted here is a selection from her book Weeping Woman, La Llorona and Other Stories, published with blilingual press Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. It was a clear, beautiful morning on the California coast, slightly north of Santa Cruz. The surfers were out, the wind surfers were out, the sailboats, and the well-tanned, well-travelled, well-kept couple was out, going north to San Francisco to meet friends. They'd just returned from sailing the Mexican coastline, their Spanish improved, their perspectives improved. They were almost perfect and they knew it. They only disagreed about one thing. She wanted a child, just one. He didn't want any: "It'll ruin our lifestyle. Can you imagine sailing with a baby! Be real!" He dreaded her long silences. It meant she was going to brood again, about the so-called baby. He imagined it cutting teeth, relieving itself on endless disposable diapers, screaming for its food, and waves of revulsion passed over him. His father'd been trapped by his sons' births; it wasn't going to happen to him. Besides, he told himself, that's all the world needs, one more body. "Put on a Stones tape, would you, honey?" She stared out the window, listlessly, watching intense, green fields and row upon row of artichokes and brussels sprouts whiz by. In one field a group of people were bent over working. She saw some children huddled together in the back of an old truck. Though the sun was rising steadily, it hadn't reached the early morning frost yet, glittering on the broad, jagged artichoke leaves. "Why do you suppose those people have so many kids? Did you see those kids sitting in the back of that old, beat-up truck shivering to death? Probably haven't had breakfast yet..." "Would you please put the Stones on?" "I don't feel like hearing them right now, okay?" "Put something on, maybe that New Age tape." She reached for it and clicked it in. Its soothing tones threatened to calm her down, so she thought of the children shivering in the morning cold. She thought of their parents, probably ignorant, illegal aliens, she added with distaste. Why do they have so many children, absolutely stupid. Another group of brown people hunched over in the fields, but this time she couldn't spot any children. The New Age bells and flute created an eerie peace between them. Her usual visualization was swimming into her favorite cave in Baja. They'd anchored there for a week. The cave was small with ledges for sitting. She'd swim in, alone, with her usual thrill of terror, imagining Cave Monsters waiting in the far back where she couldn't go. Then, sitting on the ledge, adjusting her eyes, she'd listen to the slow hiss of the sea and dripping water all around her. Once, with secret pleasure, she swam into the cave clutching a favorite shell she'd found. On a piece of tape she'd written ETHAN OR MELISSA in black waterproof ink. She'd placed it on the ledge beside her and said their names in time to the dripping water. She'd wept, but in the cave everything was wet anyway. That night she was aggressive and passionate, and he congratulated himself on his masculinity, his good sense for bringing her here; swimming was so good for her. "The children in Baja looked pretty happy. People seemed to just eat from the sea. Why do you suppose those people come here to pick vegetables and live in shacks?" She saw his face, smooth with the music, tighten with anger. "Do you realize if those people didn't pick those vegetables-if the farmers, the owners that is, had to hire union help-we'd be paying about two dollars for a bunch of broccoli, one-fifty for lettuce, two for a pound of tomatoes, maybe more? Grow up, Lisa, that's life." Her throat tightened with an unnameable anguish. "What about those children freezing in a truck, what about their breakfast, what if they don't go to school..." "Lisa, that's not our problem. I'm not God or the president of the United States and neither are you. Do you want to pay two dollars for a bunch of broccoli?" Tears stung her eyes. Usually, she'd agree or she'd cry, and he'd comfort her with wise superiority. What did she know, stupid little girl. I'm the child in this relationship, she thought angrily. "Yes, I'd pay two dollars a bunch for broccoli, even three dollars a bunch if those people could live like human beings!" Her voice was firm, without a tremor. His mouth twisted, cynically; he'd been waiting for this. "Then, Lisa, those people wouldn't even be tolerated in this country. They'd ship them out of here quicker than you could say, 'One super burrito, hold the hot sauce.' They're tolerated, in so many numbers, so that we can have broccoli at seventy-nine cents a bunch and artichokes for a buck." He felt triumphant; she was speechless. She felt cold with anger, but clear and calm, as though she'd just faced the Cave Monsters and she were in the peace of the small cave with the pathetic shell: ETHAN OR MELISSA written in black waterproof ink. "Ron, what if we had children, and we had to go to Mexico with only what we could carry and pick food so that they could have credit cards and sailboats and come to our country to vacation..." "You're overexaggerating, as usual. First of all"-she wasn't succumbing to his impeccable logic, so reality it had to be-"we aren't going to have children, remember? So, that's an absurd hypothesis. It's not our karma to live in Mexico and come here to pick food for the citizenry..." "You mean, even if I got pregnant you wouldn't want it?" The black waterproof ink, ETHAN OR MELISSA, loomed before her eyes, startling her. "Look, Lisa, I've been meaning to tell you about this. I plan on getting a vasectomy next month or so. I wouldn't expect you to do it, so I've decided..." The flute rose high and pure, perfect, reminding him of his own near-perfection, as though echoing him, answering him, strive for perfection. "...that the karma and the genes end here. I guess that makes me the prototype." He smiled, pleased with himself. The soft, cave part of her wanted to sob and say, "What about Ethan and Melissa, what about the small, eternal cave dripping water, what about the Cave Monsters in the far back?" Instead, the steel she used only with others, rarely with him, rose in her. There was no music anymore, just the sound of the BMW motor purring with monotonous precision. "Why didn't you ever go into the cave with me?" "What cave, Lisa?" She caught him by surprise. He'd expected a clinging, weepy exchange and now she was talking about a cave. "You know, the one in Baja, where we anchored." "I prefer not to, that's all..." "You know, the other day I read in the paper that the farmworkers group, the one headed by that Chavez guy, is protesting the use of insecticides on the crops. The people who work the fields are getting cancer and birth defects, and he claims we're eating it-you know, the seventy-nine-cents-a-bunch broccoli is full of insecticides, good stuff like that." She thought of the shell with the tape stuck onto it; she hoped the tape had soaked off. She hoped the Cave Monsters had eaten it. She laughed, suddenly, and clicked the Stones into the tape player... "Paint it black, paint it black, you devil," a woman screamed. He wanted to hit her. How dare she, the stupid bitch, best him? He wanted to say, "We'll buy only organic from now on," but she was snapping her fingers to the Stones. She put the window down, letting the chill air into the warm car. "Maybe you are the prototype, after all, Ron!" She started to laugh in long peals of hilarity, letting the wind whip her hair, bringing tears to her eyes. |