42 Years

“people rule” by Allen Morris

42 years.

42 years before the US government saw it fit to provide Teresa with her green card. I posted a selfie with her on social media, trying my best to be happy for my ma. 42 years and Samantha, this bitch-ass snake from high school comments, Another waste of our tax dollars. SMH. She and I used to play hookie, nursing a sprite bottle full of vodka at the beach. Ain't seen this bitch for over twenty years, ain't so much had a phone call with her alabaster ass, and now out of the blue, this snake comes a hither.

I used to hate writing in school, but before I knew it, I had written her a whole-ass essay, citations and everything. I even used a semi-colon and the word “however,” I was so heated.

I looked at my masterpiece, fully-loaded magnum opus, cocked back and almost pulled the trigger. Then, I had a better idea and hit delete.

 ***

The name is Jenny. I been illegal since before Yo-Yo came stomping into the nineties. I am not a Dreamer. Obama ain’t do shit for me. I remember studying for the citizenship test next to my kid cousin doing fractions. Nineteen and naïve enough to think that if I followed all the rules and explained the situation, they’d maybe let me slip inside the White House and sleep on the floor. I am forty now.

Alright, alright, I’m actually forty-four.

Didn’t even realize I didn’t have a social until I was in Utah. Ma sent me there when I was eighteen. She claimed she did it for my independence, but really, she wanted to get me away from Marsha, my boo, afraid the lesbian streets would swallow me whole as if I hadn’t fisted a couple of jotas and homophobes already. My Tia Eva got me a job working at a meatpacking plant. We’d leave at noon and not get home until half past midnight. Even in the summers, I’d leave the house in Timberlands, a poofy jacket and a hoodie on, gloves, and leg warmers. I would have even worn a facemask if it wouldn’t have scared the living shit out of the white people. It took me about two weeks to get sick of that shit.

I strolled up to a McDonald’s, ordered a McGriddle and asked for an application. When it asked for my social security number, I called my Ma. It was a Sunday, so I knew she would be open to a call. A high school English teacher once told me if I didn’t get off my lazy ass and start studying, the only place I’d be able to work in the future is a McDonald’s. Joke’s on her because turns out it would not have mattered if I was a fucking valedictorian. I wouldn’t even be allowed to work at a McDonald’s. Before that phone call, I had a vague plan of saving money for college and copping some financial aid. I wanted to study radio. I liked the idea of turning some knobs and whispering slick into a microphone. Say what you want about my looks, my voice always been sweet tea. Ask Marsha. I coulda been some sort of rapper if I wasn’t so shy.

I worked at that damn meat packing plant for two whole years before I said fuck it, packed my bags, and got the fuck out of Utah chasing Carmen, a woman who would eventually, after over a dozen years of what we called “love,” take a baseball bat to my car, leaving a glass spiderweb on my windshield, my face caught dumb as a fly in the shatter.

***

Ma sent me a picture via Messenger of herself hugging a green coconut snug as a baby in her right arm. She is back in El Salvador for the first time since she left decades ago. Her eyes literally glittered black with joy in a light broken by palm leaves. Her left arm is thrown around a woman I do not know. Cross on her neck, the woman eyes the camera coquettishly with a smile missing a front tooth. Some country bumpkin, I smirked, you can see her nipples through her yellow shirt.

Es la Cynthia, Ma messaged.

I choked on my mocha.

The last I saw Cynthia we kissed farewell underneath a mango tree in Jiquilisco. We were eight, collectors of heart-shaped rocks and muñecas made from mazorcas de maiz with dresses made of husks painted with our mother’s nail polishes. I didn’t even know I was a lesbian then. It wasn’t some girlhood romance. I just didn’t want to lose my friend.

We once hid in the same tree, clutched between a cluster of mangos, while soldiers battered a man beneath us. I didn’t want to watch, but Cynthia told me everything.

¡Están meando sobre su cara, Jenny! ¡Meando!

I don’t respond to my ma. I’m not even sure what I would say anyway. So I clocked back into my shift clerking at the law office.

Halfway through my first phone call at the law office, a client asked me if I’m okay.

I’m fine.

***

I scrolled through that snake Samantha’s profile and she’s the same dumb hoe she was in high school. Nothing but pictures of her manis, pedis, man, and poodle. The man looked like a total fuckboy. The fool’s name was literally Dick Powers.

PSA: If your name is Richard and you decide to go by Dick and not Rich, Richie, Rico, Rick, Ricky or any of the dozen other nicknames you could have chosen, you’re a fucking asshat.

Dick Powers’s profile looked like a jock’s school locker: photos of muscle cars, memes about beer and women, bro science about how to get gains. This was gonna be easy.

I used my stealth Facebook account, the one I use to spy on the exes who blocked me, where I was pretending to be a model named Tina Lopez, using photos I scrubbed from my prima’s Instagram accounts. She went through a thirst trap phase before getting a boyfriend and wasn’t on Facebook.

Hey, remember me? I typed. I hit send.

***

Ma sent me to Utah because, according to her, I snuck out of the house. I spent my entire adolescence practically living at friends’ houses and with the queers at the pier, sometimes not coming home until the next morning. I didn’t even go to class my senior year and still managed to graduate, thanks to a mix of packets and plagiarism.

I hadn’t seen Ma in two years. My junior year she peaced out to work at some restaurant in Hawaii. She moved back just in time to miss my graduation, her suitcase full of opinions about my friends and whatnot.

Here’s the deal: I didn’t sneak out. There was no shimmying out a bedroom window or waiting until some odd hour of the night to whisper my sneakers down the hall. Nah, I just walked out the door at 8pm and didn’t come back until after last call.

That’s not the reason she was mad though. She was mad I had hickies and lipstick on my neck.

 When she first called me a jota, I thought she meant the letter J. I tried to come up with the word she didn’t want to say. ¿Jugadora maybe, if by jugadora, she meant whore? ¿Some form of joder? She thought I was playing dumb when I asked her what it meant.

In Utah, I tattooed a J on the soft side of my left wrist. Tia Eva took it surprisingly well for a mormona, staring with curiosity on our drive to the meat plant. I shoulda prepared some sort of story for when she asked me why a J. It’s my favorite letter, I told her, as if that made any goddam sense. She smiled and told me her favorite letter was Y, but she would never get it tattooed.

***

I never expected them to legalize gay marriage, but when it happened, I could not stop myself from dreaming stupid shit. No, I didn’t have dreams of white wedding dresses and my handful of homegirls popping bottles to Pitbull. I didn’t dream of kissing Carmen on camera as reporters asked me, how does it feel? I thought of Cancun, all the trips and vacations I wouldn’t have to sit out of anymore. I thought of what sort of job I could get once my papers got in line. For a week, I imagined spinning old school records at a radio station. Queen Latifah. Tracy Chapman.

There I was, eating leftover Chinese for breakfast and watching the TV. Carmen was on the sofa, sipping a Corona.

Yo, Carmen, we can get married, I said, chewing my chowmein.

Why the fuck would we do that? Carmen laughed.

I stopped chewing for a couple of seconds.

Uh, taxes, I mumbled, I mean.

I mean, how do you think it would make Sasha feel if I started picking favorites like that? Or Ellie? Carmen turned around to look at me.

I let Carmen have Sasha and Ellie as long as I still got an evening a week for us to have a date night. By then, all that really meant was a night to watch a movie or run some errands together, but still, I was the one living with her, splitting the rent, fixing everything from the toilet to the AC. Didn’t that mean something? In my head, I was more than her roommate. I was her main. Thirteen plus years together, not all of it rosy, but that was all relationships.

It would make my life a lot easier is all, I mumbled.

I’m sorry what? Carmen said.

It would allow me to get citizenship, I said, trying to be louder without sounding upset.

Carmen looked at me thoughtfully.

I’ll think about it, she said, changing the channel and taking a long swig from her botella.

Call it whatever you want. Jealousy, trauma, pendejez. According to Carmen I was just abusive and controlling. Just don’t call it love. That’s not the reason why I stayed. I’m sick of calling it love.

Ma reassures me que me va pedir once her paperwork is lined up.

By now, I have learned to believe actions more than words. I visited Cali to see the fam seven times in the last 10 years. Ma hasn’t visited Washington once. She went to El Salvador instead.

***     

It took Dick a week to respond, but when he did, I was ready.

Hey Tina. Course i remember u. How u been? Miss your face. 

I took a deep, long swig of my latte. Dick ain’t never seen my face.

Hehehe. Glad you didn’t forget me. You had a lot to drink, I texted.

Hope I didn’t embarrass myself.

Oh, trust me, you didn’t. I added a kissy-face emoji.

It was a great night!

What you up to? I sent that with a picture of my prima at the gym, doing squats. I just broke my previous record today. Muscle emoji.

Fire emojis. Just finished pumping iron myself. He sent me a bathroom selfie at the gym of him flexing his right bicep, wearing nothing but a bathrobe on his waist.

Bingo.

I waited two hours to respond.

Don’t send me pictures like that while I’m on the job. It’s distracting. I sent an upside-down smiley face emoji. I’m on break in ten minutes though if you have some time. I can close my office door. Winky face emoji.

Close the door before you open this next one, he texted.

Bingo.

 ***

I met América at a yoga class shortly before breaking up with Carmen. The doctor at the clinic tried to dodge the issue, saying I needed to find “joyful movement” or whatever, but what she was saying boiled down to you need to lose some weight. So there I was, downward dog at a yoga studio ran by a Black doula who called herself Ishtar. She played lo-fi beats in the background and pretended not to notice when people cried mid-session. I was so beat after the first session that I nearly started snoring in corpse pose.

Hey, I think that’s my water bottle, América said after my second class. We have the same one.

I knew she was telling the truth because I remembered finishing the water in my blue water bottle halfway through class. I was so thirsty by the time class ended I didn’t think twice when I noticed it halfway full again.

Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I said. I made a silent note in my head to never return to the studio again after that faux pas.

América snorted. No worries, hermana. You owe me a drink though, she winked.

América had an undercut with long dangling curls, a watercolor turtle tattoo on her left bicep, and rose gold septum piercing. Glistening slightly, she carried herself like a flame, careful but self-assured, nonchalantly aware of her undeniable hotness.  

Carmen had always insisted we keep separate rooms, but by then, Sasha had moved into her room, where I could hear them make passionate love on a regular basis. Carmen and I hadn’t touched each other in over five years. I wasn’t bitter. I was mostly confused. And stoned. I was stoned almost all the time by then.

Wanna go to Kiki’s? It’s not too far from here, I said. I’ll buy you a drink.

Sounds good. I’m América by the way.

Damn, you come with your own air force? I laughed. The name is Jenny.

***

Tia Eva had a kid named Shayla. She was my favorite part of living in Utah back then. Whenever Tia Eva made her do homework, she would bring me my citizenship study guide because she hated studying alone. We’d turn the TV to some Angry Beavers and scribble answers during the commercial breaks, eating bolis and fruit roll ups.

One day, she asked me if she could use my computer to write her book report.

Go head, I said.

She was back up in five minutes. I had a room in the basement. 

That was quick, I said.

Shayla nodded quickly and rushed over to her room. I didn’t think much of it.

She never asked me to study with her after that. At first, I thought she was gaining some independence. I was playing Tomb Raider one night later that week when my virtual stripper emerged from the corner of her screen and shimmied her loose bra off. I watched dazed for a whole five seconds before I realized I hadn’t disabled her when Shayla used my computer.

I thought I had got away with it until one night Tia Eva and her husband Humberto placed a postcard on the table. It was a flyer from Paper Moon complete with glitter, voluptuous silhouettes, and a lesbian couple kissing on a pink crescent moon. It was the lesbian bar where I had found Carmen. They found it in the driveway.

¿Sos gay? Tio Humberto asked me.

Si, I responded, meeting his eye. Tia Eva and Tio Humberto looked down.

I took a deep breath, internally debating whether I should search for an apartment or try to move back to Cali.

Bueno, para mi no importa si sos gay, Tia Eva said holding her husband’s hand and meeting my eye. Sos mi sobrina y yo te quiero como seas.

Tio Humberto nodded in agreement, still looking down.

I was at a loss. She didn’t care if I was gay. She said she loved me unconditionally, which was way more than my mother had said when she realized I was queer. I tried to muster a smile, but the tears came first.

Solo no lo traes a casa, Tia Eva finished. Don’t bring it home.

I hugged them both, betrayal and gratitude kissing in my chest, the way Carmen and I kissed the night she told me about Sasha.

*** 

Dick’s dick is objectively hideous. Trust me, I'm not saying that because I'm a lesbian. I've seen enough dicks by now to know what a normal dick looks like. Look, I'm the last sort of person to body shame, but it has a grey oblong inch-long mole midway on the shaft with three red curls coming out of it. The crimson torpedo-shaped head gave it that menacing look that was always an immediate turn off as well. Dimly lit and in a dirty bathroom, Dick had provided me with the nuke I was looking for.

Hi Samantha, I typed, your baboon just sent me a picture of his naked chihuahua cuz he say your pussy chapped as french fries. I wish I could say this is a new low but remember that time you were so drunk you fucked a homeless guy because he won you a teddy bear at the pier? At least this is a step up from that I guess??? PS clean your bathroom. There's dirty socks on the floor and spit all over the mirror. Your momma raised you better. Tell Sheila I said hi.

For the record, I attached the picture and tagged her mom.

I was blocked within five minutes by all three of them and had my account deactivated within 24 hours, but not before all our mutual friends dragged the fuck outta her.

Totally worth it.

 ***

Obviously, I’m not great at forgiveness. I’d be lying if I told you I felt true joy when Ma told me she got her papers. I once keyed the car of a co-worker who refused to cover my shift after I covered hers twice. I treat Lingua Ignota as background music when it’s sunny out sometimes.
My therapist says that being compassionate towards others is supposed to help me be compassionate to myself. It’s just that I spent so many years covering up for Carmen, calling her anger “passion” or “feistiness,” blaming work for our lack of energy, blaming her partners for her—no, our—toxicity. When she mistreated a new lover, a mix of jealousy and relief made me turn a blind eye, as if a harm done to them was a kindness done to me. No amount of compassion can cover up her ugly shit. No, compassion showed me how little I was getting out of the relationship. Compassion helped me see those purple hazy days, making out on barstools, taking road trips to Wendover, and fucking ourselves into oblivion for what they really were. Our love was like a firework: deep-fried in color, illegal in some counties—a burning hazard that was brief and best in the dark. It’s only beautiful if you don’t care about birds’ panic attacks and their crash landings out of the sky.

I don’t know why I didn’t tell Carmen about América, but in hindsight, I think I was just sick of her steamrolling her way through everything in my life with her opinions and demands and needs. I wanted something that was mine and only mine.

I pulled into our parking spot in the lot around 2am after spending the evening with América. We were two months into whatever we were doing by then. I was smiling, listening to Toni Braxton when Carmen came howling.

After everything I done for you, you fucking played me! she hollered stomping down the stairs.

My immediate thought was Oh shit, what did Sasha do? until I saw she was looking directly at me. I stayed in the car with my hands on one-and-eleven like she was a cop. I was extremely grateful I didn’t step out of the car once I saw the bat.

Yoga my ass, you fat bitch, Carmen screamed. You out here fucking on some raggedy ass bitch.

That’s when the bat crashed onto the windshield. 

I had half a mind to run her over. I don't know why I didn't. Another part of me went on autopilot. I locked the doors and put the car into reverse.

Fuck América! she screamed, as I drove away. I only made it two blocks before the windshield and a panic attack made it impossible to keep going. I parked at a gas station and called América to come get me. 

I would come back for my stuff two days later with América and her brother, a security guard at a local nightclub who had his own gun. Carmen wasn’t home. Sasha looked at me as if I was criminal, chain-smoking on the sofa. She didn’t say anything at first but examined América like she was a fake dollar bill.

Just before I carried my final box out the door, she hollered, ey, Jenny! If you took anything that wasn’t yours, la migra will be paying you a little visit. She smiled and winked, blowing a perfect hex of smoke into the air.

 ***

Mom re-posted the picture of herself becoming a citizen the other day. She’s submitted paperwork for me to get my green card, but nothing had come in yet then. In the picture, she was hugging the American flag like Trump with the caption, soy muy orgullosa ser americana.

No matter how much I hate this country, I am proud of her. No matter how much she failed me, she deserves this.

***

Two years after getting my green card, I watched a documentary No Le Digas A Nadie. Turns out, there’s a law that allows victims of assault or sexual violence to get their papers. I thought of Carmen and the bat splintering against my windshield. I thought of the time Sasha picked a fight with the Samoan girls at the club and I left with a black eye. I thought of high school when some pirus jumped me for a fake chain a tia had gifted me not a week before.

My whole life I been getting my ass beat for free. I could have had my papers at sixteen. I could have had so much.

I punched a hole in the wall and scared the shit out of América. I felt awful. After flowers, cooking dinners for a week, after buying her a painting she loves to cover up the whole mess, I still don’t feel like I’ve made it up to her. I’m in therapy now and anger management. América wants me to consider going to community college, but I’m almost 50 y’all. The fuck I look like dreaming?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ricky Enrique Perez is a guanaco fiction writer and translator raised in the mountains. He’s a failed futbolero, a puppy papi, and a ganja grower.

about the artist

Allen Morris is a photo-process artist and educator based in Spearfish, South Dakota. He is an Assistant Professor at Black Hills State University where he teaches courses focusing on analog photographic processes, alternative and historic photographic techniques, and interdisciplinary practices.