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It was steamy hot in Dolly’s apartment, it always was. Nita was eating in a highchair getting to be too small for her, finishing coconut instant pudding and putting most of it into her mouth by now.
“Ahora comes como una santa!” Co
Dolly’s face was swollen with tears and she rolled up the ruffled sleeve of her blouse to show a bruise.
“Some john did this to you?”
“Geraldo did it!”
“Why do you put up with him? He’s bad to the core.”
Dolly sighed and rolled a joint in the licorice‑flavored paper she liked. “You know how when I got back from San Juan you told me I was carrying?”
Co
“I still do! I went, I got one of those tests? I haven’t had my time since then.”
“What did the test say?”
Dolly patted her belly. “I told Geraldo yesterday. He starts yelling at me, that it’s by some john. He starts hitting on me!”
“He makes me so sick. He makes you go with men and then he puts you down for it. It’s his kid. You came back from Puerto Rico with that baby.” She had known as soon as she saw Dolly.
Dolly drew herself up. “The johns are a business thing. Don’t put it down, I make good money. I don’t bring the johns here–I do them in hotels or at Geraldo’s. Listen, every woman sells it. Jackie O. sells it. So?”
“So how do you like it with them?”
“It’s a job.” Dolly sucked in the smoke, glowering. The minutes thickened between them. Finally she sniffled. “You hate yourself, you hate the trick. I never met one woman yet who didn’t hate every stupid trick.”
“Leave him, carita, leave him. Never mind him. He’s not worth your little fingernail.”
“He’s smart, Co
“So you didn’t take your pills in Puerto Rico?”
“I left them here. I didn’t even put them in my purse. I thought too it might be lucky, a baby made on the island. I want to have this baby, Co
“Why not? One child is lonely. Why not have another? You’re a good mother. You quit this whoring and have the baby.”
“He won’t let me! He says I got to have an abortion!”
“No.” Co
The phone rang. It was a john. Dolly ran off to the bathroom to fix her face and get herself together. Co
In a playground on Elizabeth, some little girls were playing red light, green light. She hunched against the wind, not deciding to walk closer, to stop and stare, but finding herself pressed suddenly into the fence. Brown‑ski
Two men wheeling a cart on the sidewalk looked at her, and one spoke laughing to the other. Tears were rolling down her face. Rotten dope making her sentimental. Crazy Co
A shadow across her. She began to get up but that hand was extended again. “What’s wrong? You’re weeping. Co
Shorter than in her dream, just a few inches taller than she would be, standing, he bent toward her, moon face, black turtle bean eyes, that gentle smile.
“I’m going crazy! But it could be the dope. Really powerful–”
“I’m here.I’ve been trying to reach you. But you get frightened, Co
“What do you want from me?” Childhood scary tales of brujos, spells, demons. A lot of garbage, but how could this boy creep into her dreams?
“Just to talk. For you to relax and talk with me.”
“Ha! Nobody ever wants to talk to me. Not even my caseworker, Mrs. Polcari. I depress her.” Co
He wasn’t dressed like a bum. Although nothing was new or flashy, his clothing was substantial and well made. Big heavy boots like the kids wore, black pants cut something like jeans, a red shirt she could glimpse at the throat, a worn but handsome leather jacket with no insignia of gang or social club but instead a pattern in beads and shells in the sleeves. He was without gloves and his hands she remembered. She would have liked to take the hand toward her and lift it to her nostrils. The skin was stained but not with nicotine. What kind of work would stain hands purple? Like the dye used to stamp grades on meat.
She made her voice harsh. “How long you pla
“I’d rather talk to you at home, if you’ll let me.” Luciente recoiled as an ordinary truck roared by. He covered his nose.
“No. Why should I? Who are you?”
“You know my name, Co
“Bright boy. What do you want with me?”
His eyes watering, he took a large bright intricately dyed handkerchief out of his pocket to dab at them. “You’re an unusual person. Your mind is unusual. You’re what we call a catcher, a receptive.”
“You like old women?” She’d heard of that but never really believed in it. She was scared but slightly, slightly intrigued.
“Old?” Luciente laughed. “Sure, only women over seventy. I’ll have to wait on you. Tell me, am I so scary? I’m not a catcher myself; I’m what we call a sender.” He kept staring past her at cars, at the buildings right and left, up and down like a jнboro just off the plane; like her own grandmother, who would pass into the street in downtown El Paso by crossing herself, refusing to look at the cars, and stepping straight off the curb as if plunging into deep water.