Diane de Anda

My eighty-year-old aunt keeps talking about all these naked people kneeling in front of a cathedral somewhere in Mexico.  She repeats the story over and over again each time I call her on the phone, referring to the people as "primitives," faulting the priests for not telling them their bodies are sacred.   It happened many years ago, but she thinks it just happened and is a sign of the decadence that is enveloping the world, especially her ancestral home.  I try to tell her that this is a unique event, and that evil is not consuming the world.  But she will have none of it.  Instead, she tells me the story again, using almost the same words, as though pushing the words out over and over again is a sort of exorcism, flushing out the demon images that are rattling her soul.  

After I hang up the phone, I feel a need to go outside and stand in the sun.  It is February, but one of those bright, sunny Los Angeles days between the intermittent rain squalls.  The little dogs are dashing around the yard, wrestling with each other or flushing out birds who invade their trees.  The malamute is asleep with his feet in the air, the woolly bulk of his chest and belly warming in the sun.  I sprinkle the blossoms that are drooping in thirst, content that my reassurances to my aunt were genuine.

When I return to the kitchen, I see that my husband left his radio on when he left the house.  He keeps it on all day and night, NPR spilling into our house continuously, so it becomes part of the environment, like the stove or the paintings on the wall, and he doesn't even think to turn it off.  The announcer is talking about another suicide bomber, listing the casualties as I turn the knob.  The sudden quiet feels almost liquid, gently pouring over me. 

The mail is stacked up on the counter, so I edge the recycling wastebasket next to it and begin sorting.  The catalogs are piling up; everyone has sold my address over and over again.  I flip through some before tossing them into the bin, and toss out others without a glance at the contents--who needs silk longjohns in California anyway?  I rip off the last page before I throw them away, to shred my address and the numbers in the boxes that someone could use to order in my name.  When I rip the back off the Victoria Secret catalog, I expose firm young buttocks and long haired women with parted lips and dreamy eyes.  Maybe I'm getting too old I think, why would anyone want to wear a string up their butt?  There is little real mail, mostly requests from ten different charities; they have sold my name and address too.  We made all our big donations in December, everything we can afford; so I tear the addresses in half and dump them also.

An advertisement reminds me that today is the charge card sale at Kohl's department store.  I usually get a coupon with the lowest percentage off, ten or fifteen percent.  But today I lift the tab and find that I got the highest amount for the first time, thirty percent off of anything I buy today.  I hadn't planned on shopping, but find myself lured out of the house to the shopping plaza with the promise of double my usual savings.

When I get to the store, I'm prepared for the panhandlers; I've taken out a couple of dollar bills so I don't have to rummage through my purse at the door.  I never hand them change, even though that is all they ask for.  It seems kind of insulting, like I'm giving them crumbs.  One of the regulars is there, hunkered down crouched on his ankles with stringy dark hair salted with white strands sticking out below a dirty baseball cap.  His grizzly beard and sun worn face make it hard to know how old he is, but he's probably at least ten years younger than he looks.  He recognizes me as I give him the dollar; I'm a regular too.  

"Where's Butch?" I ask him.  "I haven't seen him in a long time."  

The man, whose name I don't know, shakes his head.  Butch is one of the few panhandlers who carries on a conversation.  A 200 plus pound Black man with golden brown skin, a neatly trimmed beard, and a deep resonant voice seated firmly in a wheel chair before the entrance of the different stores in the shopping plaza, he is an imposing figure known by all in the community.  Although his legs no longer work for him, the gossip blaming it on a gunshot wound to the lower spine, his arms and the furrows rippling from his brow into the expanse of his bald head animate his conversations.    He was different in our last encounter, drunk for the first time, and angry at the store management, threatening to return with a gun.   

After I check out, I decide to use the restroom before I exit the store.  The woman at the wash basin next to me is in her late twenties, maybe early thirties.  She is slender and long legged, her legs made to look even longer and slimmer by her short skirt and black stilettos.  They are just the kind I used to wear when I was younger, strappy and buckled around the ankle, painted red toenails peeking out under the nylons that slipped through the open toes.  Only hookers and a few of us with great legs wore them then; now all the young women do.  I make it a rule to give someone a compliment if I think it, so I tell her I think her shoes are great looking.  She smiles and thanks me then looks down at her feet and tells me how she got them at a bargain price.  Then I realize that they aren't leather, and she probably bought them at Payless, but she's young and can look good in anything.  I'm glad my legs are camouflaged beneath my black leggings as I wrap my red shawl around me to leave the bathroom.  

"Great shawl," she comments as she heads for the door.

I begin telling her it is made of alpaca wool which is warm, but light, but she keeps walking and moves out the door before I finish my sentence.

It's Valentine's Day in about a week, so I decide to stop in at the See's candy store and pick up some of the bags of chocolate hearts they only have this time of year.  It is difficult to move around in the small store, most of the space between the displays filled by the two long lines of people waiting to check out.  There is something new in the display carousel, something called a Scotch heart.  My guess is it means the dark chocolate is covering my favorite filling, caramel-covered marshmallows.  I step away from the display and show the clerk, who confirms my guess and mentions that there are no more in the back.  Another woman by the display has been listening and swoops down to take the remaining seven pieces before I can return to the carousel.  But her hand isn't big enough to hold them all, so I slide my hand under hers and catch the two that fall.  I look away, feeling too old to fight over candy and buy the three I have along with bags of dark chocolate hearts that are plentiful.

On my way to the car, my cell phone rings. I dig into my purse and catch it  on the third ring.  It's my husband; his voice is strained, and I can tell he's pacing back and forth while he's talking to me, because his voice has a jerking quality.

"You won't believe what happened to me,"  he begins.  "Some asshole creamed my fender in the parking lot and took off.  I'm sure there were lot of witness too; it had to make a big noise he hit it so hard.  Hell, it might even have messed up the tire!  But no one has stepped up, even when I asked around."

He takes a breath, and I take my chance to interject.  "God, I'm sorry.  Do you need me to come and pick you up or can you drive it?"

"I'm waiting here for the police to make a hit-and-run report, then I'll see about calling the insurance and Auto Club if I have to.  Just keep your cell phone on. I'll call or text you when I know what I need to do.  Got to go; the cops are just pulling into the lot."

I slip the phone back into a pocket in my purse which is slung on my shoulder, then try to zip it with the other hand.  I'm focused on jerking the zipper closed one inch at a time, so I don't notice that the roots from the ficus trees that line the sidewalk have cracked and lifted up a portion of the sidewalk in front of me.  The tip of my shoe catches on the raised lip and sends me hurtling forward in a racing skip and then onto my hands and knees.  My oversized purse and packages cushion the fall somewhat, but my whole frame feels the sudden jarring, and I stay immobile on all fours.  

A middle aged Latino man has left his family in the car and rushes across the parking lot to my side.  A mother and her teenage son with blonde spiked hair make their way down the stairs from an adjacent restaurant patio where they were sitting.  Hands reach out and help me to my feet.  The boy begins gathering my packages.

"Are you all right?" the woman asks, bringing my drooping shawl across my shoulders.  

The man is still holding onto my elbow and arm, not sure that I am steady enough yet to let go.

"I'm okay; I'm okay," I assure them, "just a little shaken up."  

"Why don't you come and sit in the patio for awhile?" the woman suggests.

But I realize that it was just a jolt, and that I am fine even though I may be sore tomorrow, so I just keep repeating, "Thank you, thank you, I'm fine, really, I'm fine.  Thank you all for helping me."  I look at the Latino male and add, "Gracias, seňor," and he answers "You're welcome."

The man insists on carrying my packages and helping me to my car.  He's about my height, but stocky with large hands, muscular arms, and thinning wavy dark hair.   He communicates mostly by gestures, lifting my packages, leading me across the parking lot with his arm, so I'm not sure how bilingual he is.  I decide to speak to him in Spanish as a sign of my recognition of our mutual heritage.

"Gracias por todo su ayuda," I tell him as he takes his leave once he is sure I and my packages are in the safety of my vehicle.

                                           ***************************

My husband arrives home about ten minutes after I do and enters the kitchen looking a little flushed.  I decide not to tell him about my fall, as he still seems agitated from the hit-and-run.

"What finally happened," I ask, "I never heard from you after the first call."

"Sorry, the truck was drivable, so I just finished the accident report and called the insurance.  It'll probably cost us our deductible, but they'll pick up the rest."  

As a reflex, he flips on the radio.  NPR is announcing the headlines for the upcoming news stories:  interviews with Oscar nominees, drug cartel assassinations in Mexico City, uranium enrichment in Iran, devastation in Haiti, child pornography ring on the internet, healthy chocolate for Valentine's Day.

He keeps moving about the kitchen, not really doing anything in particular.

"Why don't you go to the gym and work out now instead of tonight," I suggest, knowing he always comes home mellow after working up a sweat or a long swim.

"You wouldn't mind?" he replies.

"No, I think it would do you good," I say, thinking a room without the radio and his pacing around would do me good too.

In a few minutes he's grabbed his gym bag and slipped out the front door, forgetting to turn off the radio again.  I turn it off in the middle of a discussion of the global connections in the sex industry.  

The kitchen is quiet again except for the small dogs scratching at the back door.  I let them in then pull down a box of animal cookies, the red box with the circus animals on the sides.  I feed one a lion and the other a camel and then scoot them off to their beds in the hall.  I stack a half dozen animal cookies on the kitchen table for me, mostly lions and elephants, then pour myself a cup of green tea.  I sit for a 

while just holding the cup, savoring the warmth across the palms of my hands that have begun to ache slightly.  The kitchen starts to dim as evening approaches, bringing shadows, silent and cool.

The silence is broken by the ring of the phone.  It is my aunt again, asking me to go on my computer (she means the internet) and find out where she can write to someone about the scandal in front of the cathedral.  Then she tells me the story again, word for word, the hundreds of naked bodies, the priests no where to be found, the bodies sacred temples, the world in ruins.   "Globalization," she insists, "it's a world conspiracy."

I know she is telling me this to help me protect myself; she is worried about me out there in a world she ventures into less and less often.  But the images in front of the cathedral haunt her, and she describes them to me again before she hangs up.

It has been only about twenty minutes and my aunt has called again.  She is laughing on the other end of the phone.

"You won't believe what your uncle said," she began, still chortling.  "And they say he has Alzheimer's; he's quick as a whip."  

"What did he say?" I encourage, caught by her sudden change of mood.

"I was telling him about the pope taking a fall and hurting himself, and he looked at me and said, 'Where was God?'"