Tijuana Book of the Dead Read online

  • • •

  The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Bloodrock, Santana, The

  Guess Who.

  That smoker’s laugh everybody in 1969 thought was sexy: that

  laugh-cough rough

  in the depth of throat that was already racheting Tex Sherbet

  into the grave & working

  into Norma’s gentle chest.

  Smelled like onions, that gal, couldn’t get the stink of onions out

  of her hair, used up

  a bottle of Breck every other day, even musk oil

  when she dared be naughty like that

  had a time trying to overwhelm the grill. When she didn’t smell

  like onions

  she smelled like bacon, I swear, & all she really wanted to do

  was smell

  like the ocean, like one of those hayfield breezes that slip out

  of Kansas

  before the purple stormclouds & wave through

  fields like a flood you can see coming

  for twenty miles. But she didn’t get

  down to the beach—it would be a three-transfer bus ride

  by herself through those neighborhoods

  w/ those people, you know the ones

  I’m talking about Al. & I like

  to think some days after work, after

  she pulled off the hairnet, misted

  herself with cologne & creamed

  her arms from a milky jar, my old man

  would take her in his blood red Rambler

  & light her smokes for her

  before the hopeless freedom

  of black & white

  midnight seas.

  9.

  Old-time

  Rs,

  History-

  Afflicted

  Cldn’t

  Afford a cuppa

  Joe, so

  Went to the wall

  And sat out their days

  Beneath the Rip

  Van Winkle

  Mural some hack

  Painted all the way

  Down lane 16,

  Ol’ Rip

  Hisself

  Asleep

  Under a tree & those

  Frigging gnomes

  Bowling

  Their butts off

  And the ol

  D-timers

  Scratched away

  At crossword

  Puzzles of their

  Lives. Oh yes

  My ol

  D Man wanted

  To die

  Before he

  Became one

  Of them

  And

  By God

  He

  Did.

  10.

  My old man, leaking smoke from his nostrils.

  My next door neighbor catching my old man

  and Mrs. Sherbet & telling my mom.

  Tex dead and in the hole.

  Mrs. Sherbet gone in shame.

  No more

  Wayne Newton records!

  My old man, on swing shift, watching Norma,

  watching the swingers in the Rip Van Winkle Room

  & knowing if he could just get his organ in there,

  Norma would love him forever: a snifter full of tips, a line

  of tipsy honeys, and every time he played

  “Red Roses for a Blue Lady,” he

  could look down into the brutal light

  of the burger grill from where he played

  in mysterious red, and he would catch her eye—oh brother,

  I’m telling you Norma looked just like

  Patsy Cline—and he’d smile. He wouldn’t

  have to say a word, that look would say it all, that one glance

  would say Norma this one’s for you babydoll

  my sweet Oklahoma girl, it’s for you

  forever and only

  for you. My old man at the shoe desk

  shaking Quinsana into the shoes, dreaming

  of green: dreaming of mango trees in Sinaloa, of parrot-

  dizzy volcanoes

  in sugar cane vastness, of

  banda music chasing white egrets from the estuaries w/ their

  tuba blasts,

  of lime juice and banana slices in his fideo soup, of

  girls now dead 20 years who once danced waltzes & rained

  tiny sweat

  across his arms who became grandmothers and were buried in

  Tecuala,

  Nayarit.

  My old man, listing his compendium of sorrows, his ledger

  of regrets,

  among them: me.

  Hookers worked the glass-jeweled alley behind the Brunswicks.

  Pulled the chained doors apart enough to peek

  inside, to whisper tender offers overwhelmed

  by the machines. And Norma,

  never been to Chicago, never seen Paris,

  never been to New York City, never seen the Rockies,

  couldn’t wash the yellow off her fingers, couldn’t shake

  that cough,

  would have gone home, said she would, said she’d

  walk all the way home one day when she got good and tired

  of these 16 lanes. But she didn’t.

  She went to a small apartment in Normal Heights

  when they tore the Hillcrest down,

  & someone put her ashes on a Greyhound one day

  in a paper-wrapped box: oh hell, I am the only

  one left who remembers

  her name.

  Darling Phyl

  July.

  Fireworks tonight. This new life.

  I remember now

  That other life,

  The life below.

  Those ten

  Ement years.

  On our dead alley.

  And Papá gone out to screw

  Bowling alley waitresses

  Again.

  Mother too scared

  Of pachucos and winos and

  Gang-fighters and black men

  To go into the dark

  To the Shelltown park

  To watch the rockets.

  Papá had the 49 Ford

  Though Mom couldn’t drive

  Ten feet.

  So what

  Were we going to do

  Anyway, jump

  In the junky bus

  And ride one mile

  Through the concrete night?

  10 o’clock and Ma

  Wrapped us in blankets

  To keep mosquitoes off

  And we snuck

  Thru the bldgs to the

  Outside stairwell to the land

  Lord’s place and climbed

  Halfway up, cement

  Landing as cool as grass anyway

  And we ate ketchup sandwiches.

  She, a step above me,

  Head thrown back, eyes

  Up to the sky,

  Searching, seeing dead ancestors,

  Dead friends, seeing

  The mysterious man who

  Sent letters she kept hidden

  In her drawer—he called her

  Darling Phyl.

  Fireworks.

  But this is the real world.

  It’s almost funny.

  We couldn’t see a single firework.

  All we saw was the ghost plumes

  Of smoke angling away.

  We heard the thunder.

  All we saw was the color of the bombs

  Reflected in the smoke.

  The color, oh

  The color

  Lit the sky

  And Phyllis

  Dark as sorrow against it—

  The color

  Man it almost seemed

  Beautiful.

  HYMN

  Hymn to Vatos Who Will Never Be in a Poem

  All the vatos

  sleeping in the hillsides

  All the vatos

  say goodnight forever

  All the vatos
<
br />   loving their menudo

  All the vatos

  faith in la tortilla

  All the vatos

  fearing the alarm clock

  All the vatos

  Wino Jefe Peewee

  All the vatos

  even the cabrones

  All the vatos

  down por vida homeboys

  All the vatos

  using words like ranfla

  All the vatos

  waking up abandoned

  All the vatos

  not afraid of daughters

  All the vatos

  arms around their sisters

  All the vatos

  talking to their women

  All the vatos

  granting their forgiveness

  All the vatos

  plotting wicked paybacks

  All the vatos

  sleeping under mota

  All the vatos

  with tequila visions

  All the vatos

  they call maricónes

  All the vatos

  bleeding in the alley

  All the vatos

  chased by helicopters

  All the vatos

  dissed by pinches white boys

  All the vatos

  bent to pick tomatoes

  All the vatos

  smoked by Agent Orange

  All the vatos

  brave in deadly classrooms

  All the vatos

  pacing in the prisons

  All the vatos

  pierced by needle lightning

  All the vatos

  who were once our fathers

  All the vatos

  even veteranos

  All the vatos

  and their abuelitos

  All the vatos

  proud of tatuajes

  All the vatos

  carrying a lunch pail

  All the vatos

  graduating law school

  All the vatos

  grown up to be curas

  All the vatos

  never been to misa

  All the vatos

  Jimmy Spider Tito

  All the vatos

  lost their tongues in Spanish

  All the vatos

  can’t say shit in English

  All the vatos

  looking at her picture

  All the vatos

  making love all morning

  All the vatos

  stroking their own hunger

  All the vatos

  faded clear as windows

  All the vatos

  needing something better

  All the vatos

  bold in strange horizons

  All the vatos

  waiting for tomorrow

  All the vatos

  sure that no one loves them

  All the vatos

  sure that no one sees them

  All the vatos

  sure that no one hears them

  All the vatos

  never in a poem

  All the vatos

  told they don’t belong here

  All the vatos

  beautiful young Aztecs

  All the vatos

  warrior Apaches

  All the vatos

  sons of Guadalupe

  All the vatos

  bad as la chingada

  All the vatos

  call themselves Chicanos

  All the vatos

  praying for their children

  All the vatos

  even all you feos

  All the vatos

  filled with life eternal

  All the vatos

  sacred as the Sun God

  All the vatos

  Flaco Pepe Gordo

  All the vatos

  rising from their mothers

  All you vatos

  you are not forgotten.