Qué tal, Flaca?
This is Ricky and immediately my eyes vomit tears.
I am am immense woman now, and look like a parade float presenting the
rigours of mental illness.
“Are you making fun of me?” I ask, swiping at the trough of black sludge
beneath my eyes with one fat paw.
“Never, Mamacita,” he says and I lumber toward him, my arms outstretched.
He falls into them and we murmur to each other about our days: his are long,
and punishing—he studies hotel management at night and works as a common
labourer the rest of the time.
Usually, I see him standing with a few other men, each holding their hats and
waiting to be picked up by the man in the El Dorado.
But today, he is free.
I have paid for Ricky’s liberty and intend to sit with him, on this golden afternoon
in early September, at the patio at Ronnie’s, and order one honey-colored ale after
another.
“Whew!” he says, sitting down and fanning himself with his copy of Venganza
des Angeles.
“I’m wiped out.”
I frown. Complaining is not part of our agreement.
Ricky is fast. “But not too wiped out to spend the day with you, mi nińa,” he
says and I shiver.
I am mother and child to Ricky: I am every woman, I think and purse my lips as
he paints them coral.
I extend my hand and he strokes it in small circles, telling me about El Paso,
Texas.
“I feared my father,” he says. “The man had a temper. Even though he only used
it on himself.
Tragic was the day he whipped his own ass for his insolence!”
“How bizarre,’ I say and cough, delicately.
This is my signal to change the subject and speak about me. About what beauty
is still visible, amidst my heft and advancing age; about amazing things I have done or
said, and how good I make him feel.
My haunches tighten.
“Bonita,” he says. “Have I ever told you how magical you are?”
He gestures for another round of the good tequila he is drinking three shots at a
time.
“Why, I’m not sure,” I say, my cheeks pinking.
I lean forward.
“Tell me more,” I say and begin to feel the effects of the sun and the beer, as
Ricky puts together a story in which I, dressed in miles of lace and white satin, appear
to banish the pain from his life; the drudgery.
“You and your little wand,” he says, rapidly smoking something from a cone of
tin foil.
My head is lolling.
Ricky calls over some friends. I buy everyone a round, and Ricky and I double
up our order.
The waiter, a frosty white man with a black conk and full beard, places the bill
before us and I leave him, as a tip, a lock of my hair twined around a two dollar coin.
“So romantic!” Ricky’s friends cry and I smile, bleary-eyed, at them.
They prod me with sticks on the street to keep me standing, and we stop at
Ricky’s orange GTO that cross-functions as a projector.
“Showing ‘Dazed and Confused’ tonight,” he says and they start singing.
I fall to my knees.
I am hot and sick; my sides ache from the pointed sticks.
“Take me home?” I say, but Ricky shakes his head.
“I’m off the clock,” he tells me.
“Tell me I’m a tiny princess?” I say and everyone laughs.
I look at myself in the window of the fish store.
In my wrinkly black dress, my belly hangs, low and distended; my vast legs end
abruptly at my pink ballet flats.
And my face!
Once gazed into by quivering, radiant boys, it is nothing but a spoiled tomato,
crested with a haze of grey-black hair.
Anger, my oldest friend, comes to my aid.
“Old twink,” I say to Ricky, and he looks away.
“Pathetic shoveler!” I say, backing away and the others begin throwing car
debris.
I am struck with a map of Sioux St. Marie, a pine-scented dangler and balledup, cheesy, foil.
“Chulo sucio,” his friends call me and exchange complicated handshakes.
Ricky is grimly quiet now.
I have traveled half the block as passersby impersonate the sound of a large
truck’s manoeuvres.
“I tried with you,” he says. “I know you’re lonely.”
I can barely hear him, but am filled with wrath once more.
“You tried?” I say.
“I’m like an angel. I am an angel,” I say and beat my chest.
“Walk away,” he says and one of his friends suggests, very loudly, that they
screen the film on my ass.
When I make it to Spadina I stand before an array of trussed, empurpled duck
parts.
To each I say, “Everyone hates me,” as I gulp at the air.
To the proprietor, I say “Ten egg rolls,” and sit down, my rear end swallowing a
stool, and watch the street.
When Ricky drives by I will rush out and throw fortune cookies.
Each one will say I am no good. But I needed you.
My gallant friend will snap them open and smile.
“Until next time?” he will say as I cry with gratitude, and observe, acidly that I
am here for him.
Whenever he needs something.
Lynn Crosbie is a writer who lives in Toronto and loves herbivores, brunets, fast songs, long walks to the Dollarama and cool whips.
You can follow here on Instagram HERE.