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Yolanda warms her hands with her breath,
lips chapped, her ankles bare—nipples hard as acorns under her bra, blouse,
lamb's-wool sweater...
under her coat and scarf. "Let's fuck; you wanna?"
No; she did not want to
"fuck." But instead
said:
"Wait." Fucking hurt—especially that first time—during
and after. Though 'later' she regarded it not-much-more-than... messy. "Got your period, or what?" She lied. "Just started." "Jesus." "Sorry." It is freezing out; her nose is
running. Or is it? She cannot tell.
Just in case, she wipes it with a flake-flecked sleeve. Green: WALK Yolanda's got this one leg shorter than the other. Walks with a limp. I tell 'er,
"Nobody even notices"; that's what I tell 'er. A big fat lie. You gotta be
cockeyed not to notice Yolanda's gimpy. But why make 'er feel bad? People al-ways makin'
Yo feel bad, way they gawk at 'er goddamn limp. "Remember the crayons, Yo;
in art class?" One of the stories Yo loves to tell. She's in first
grade. Tells how she trips, spills this pie plate full o'
crayons. They 's all broken, most of 'em peeled—couldn't
tell black from purple in the artificial light: no windows,
the art room just a portable at the playground's outer
fringe. Seems passin' out materials was some primetime deal,
kids wavin' choose-me hands, like
flashcards, hopin' to get picked. Yo got picked; which didn't happen
often on account of 'er limp. The art man, I guess, was
cool, liked misfits—even trouble-makers—so long as
their quirks showed up when they got down to work. Dressed in a doll-like hand-me-down frock, white stockings, and
'corrective' (that is to say 'ugly') shoes, Yolanda Vasquez runs the
gauntlet, i.e. hobbles down an aisle confined by overcrowded tables. She is plain, not unattractive so much as
unremarkable—save for her disability, which designates her "a cripple,"
inapt at winning friends. "I am doing well until I catch my sleeve on a chair—no telling how—and
that is when they spill; Crayolas in all directions." There is a pause in the general hubbub. Heads,
in unison, turn. Eyeballs gawk... for hours, or so crawls time to the
child who stands as stunned as a headlamp-transfixed deer. "I think I will die. I mean, I am only six years old and no one
in my class, my school is lame. But the teacher does not
laugh, or yell, or anything! He walks straight toward me, kneels on the floor,
and together—side-by-side—we pick up the crayons." And she goes back ev'ry Fall; do you believe it? Fifteen years; this guy 's still teachin' there. Calls 'er "Yo," like I do. Calls 'er "beautiful." Must be cracked; my Yo
's no beauty. She's no mule-face, either; I'm
not embarrassed or ashamed or anythin'; you know, bein' seen with
'er? Fact she's pretty. Sort of. To me, she is—which is prob'bly on account o'
how well I know 'er.
Gotta know a person inside before you say they're beautiful... which I told 'er once. Yo smiled. When she smiled like that, she was. But marriage? Ha! "Forget it, Yo. I'm not the marryin' kind." A shadow casts itself across Yo's homely
features, their moon-like luster shrouded as by a reminder she hopes her hope in vain;
Max will not
wed.
♫
Love A pop song blares from the juke box as Max pours ketchup
over fries, recalling the
hurt he caused—without really meaning to. (to hear song click juke box above) Marry Yolanda? Come on; no way!
Yo 's got this pie-in-the-sky idea 'bout us teamin' up. Not shackin' up—which I wouldn't mind; wants that we get hitched. In church. In public!
I tell 'er, "What the frig for? If you love me, love me. When you don't no more, we're through." That's how it turns out anyway, license or not. Max eats french-fry after french-fry, as the juke box CD wails.
It's crap like that puts 'em up to it—"Have You Gone." Song makes me puke. Yolanda's favorite. Which I can't figure out since it always makes 'er cry... Not over me, by the way; over that louse who popped 'er cherry. She's twelve. And, like all girls twelve, tried to act like seventeen. So o' course he fucked 'er. Then fucked 'er over. Tough luck. "Shit happens," the saying goes... And now she's scared to death ol' Max will do the same. The line of quarters Max has been feeding into the juke box is at its end. He jams the last one in and punches—for the umpteenth time—selection BB4. "You could do better," is what I tell 'er. She comes back with, "You could do better, is what you mean." Then clams up like 'the truth ain't nothin' but the truth' and Jo just swore to it. The fries go down mechanically—as have the burger and shake before them. Max high-signs the waitress and orders a diet Coke... returning, then, to his theme. The thing of it is, I like Yolanda... could say I love 'er. Easy to be with. Not bad to look at. And when she green-lights sex—which ain't too often—she's great in the sack. Though fucking outside marriage, Yo insists, is a sin. Makes a "exception" in my case on account o' I should know what I'm gettin'... after we're man and wife. I keep tellin' 'er, "No wedding. You want me, okay want me; we don't need pre-conditions for hoppin' into bed." So sometimes we get it on—even though she's serious when she says God don't like it. God, I can do without. It's Yo, I seem to crave: her smell, her softness, her sweet disposition and how she makes a man feel. I ain't all that likeable. The me part. The inside. 'Cept that's what Yo really falls for—qualities I don't have. "Max is very hot-headed; is true." "Yes, true also; he is aggressive, but not a bully. In his heart, he is kind." Yolanda leans against the pull, resisting both hairbrush and elder sister's counsel. "I can wait. Max is troubled, very worried that our love will not be lasting. This is only natural for a man whose home was broken." "No, his mother left. It was his father who raised Max and his one younger brother. Trust is everything. Maxwell learned to mistrust women at an early age." "Do you think so? I did, once. I am not certain, now. Men, I agree, are liars; mean and hurtful. But do men behave, in the end, any worse than we? I am lame, and I have suffered from people's cruel scrutiny, yet the glances most destructive have come from female eyes." "True; those soldiers were nasty. But they were stupid. And all three drunk. I could have ignored them, except for Max... Always fighting." On a dark city street where curbside drains are trash-clogged, storefronts armored, streetlights unavailing against the crime-infested night, walk three figures / sway three comrades / loom three boot-camp Marines dressed in high-top shoes, baseball caps, and camouflage-fatigues. "They are talking among themselves, very loudly, until spying us. Then their voices drop. We can only hear them whisper." In loose formation, closing ground on their isolated quarry, the triumvirate lurch off kilter in a slapstick parody of Yolanda's limp. "Such foolishness, I am thinking, intends to do no harm. Like children, they view mockery as an innocent form of fun... Max thinks otherwise." "Real comedians, you baboons
are; "Max speaks harshly. Things turn mean... Two are Max's own size; one very much larger. It is him who Max strikes first—delivers a kick—just below the waist." A battery of fists, with numbing contact, sprinkles the scene with gore. Max, victorious, staggers arm-in-arm with his vindicated sweetheart. "I do not like such violence, but you are right; the soldiers were deserving. And I must tell you honestly; it made me proud that Max fought and won." A chronology of virtue, is Yolanda's waist-length hair, a living record, grown from the day her first-love abandoned her—original sin; her fall from maidenhood's grace—until she swallowed pride, with bitter loneliness, and said yes to Max, trimming tresses, in secret—like Penelope unraveling her loom—hoping for redemption via Max (her second-only 'transgression'). Wants that I should make 'er a "honest woman." Max shoves his greasy plate aside, reaches for a cigarette, then remembers he has quit—at Yolanda's instigation. Not that she said outright she don't like me smokin'; just sort o' made it known. Like all this marriage bullshit—hardly says a word ('cept the once); Yo mostly hints. Leaves it up to me to decide what it is I want. By tonight. Propose to her, or else. Never spelled it out, but, boy, she made it clear. Tie the knot or cool it—meanin' cool our 'relationship'—which Yo describes as "stalled." "It is best we stay apart for a time. Both of us must think. Let us meet next Saturday. In the evening. Not before." Pique disguises panic, as Max mulls Yo's assertiveness, forcing him to concede she is 'his' neither to have nor to hold. Some thanks, eh? From day one I treat Yo like a friggin' queen, like she 's graceful no matter she 's gimpy, like she 's someone to be showed off. And she believes it. Not from the get-go, but gradually; I'm that convincin'. Got 'er so snowed she snows me. I'm the one should be playin' hard to get. Got muscles on my muscles. Earn a half-way-decent wage. Own a set o' wheels—vintage Buick—that women mostly die for. I'm handsome, for Chrissakes; Yo's not even average; nothin' extraordinary... 'cept for 'er tits—firm as hardboiled eggs after peelin' off the shells. On top o' which, the girl 's got grade-A smarts. Goes to night school—not for some bush-league G.E.D.; I mean college. Computer Science; do you believe it? She actually took apart and fixed my VCR! Don't know squat about engines; that's my department. But Yo 's got circuitry down. Oughta make damn good money, soon as she graduates. Beats the hell outta workin' 'er butt off at Sears. ♫ Have You Gone ♫ at last depletes its allocated quarters. The check arrives. Max pays it... buttons his suit coat... plops down a hefty tip... re-cinches his tie... pats the ring-box stowed inside the pocket of his herringbone vest... then exits Smitty's Diner, hothouse rose in hand. Could do worse.
* * *
♫ Have You Gone
♫
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