The Madonnas of Echo Park (9 page)

I don't remember how much time passed or how much more wine I sipped before I asked, “Mrs. Calhoun, why do you not like to talk?”

We sat by the sliding glass windows in silence, watching the dangling white baby bell blossoms shudder on the boughs of the tree.

The next cleaning day, a Walkman and a box of
¡Inglés Ahora!
tapes were on the dining room table along with an open invitation to lunch. My routine gave me time to listen and memorize the tapes; the lunches, time to practice. My improving English led to longer and more interesting conversations, but they didn't grow more personal. I was no better able to ask about her troubles, or share troubles of my own. Our chats were mirages, appearing to offer a kind of connection or friendship if I answered things correctly, then yanked away as she ran to another part of the house to retch behind a closed door or curl up on a bed and not move for hours or retreat to a bedroom when the doorbell rang.

What we did best together was share space. While I scoured the counters or washed windows, she'd sit nearby, often on that corduroy couch dressed in nothing more than her lavender bathrobe, and watch MTV with the sound off. Sometimes I'd watch along with her while I cleaned and saw music videos with ladies wearing nothing but underwear. These videos also had unbelievable stories to explain why the ladies were in their underwear. I laughed at most of them but would stop and watch whenever they played the video for a song called “Borderline” by Madonna. I didn't understand what the words in the song meant, but the video was a little movie about a Mexican woman not forgetting where she came from. I liked that.

Mrs. Calhoun seemed afraid to be alone. And I think I felt all this
silence wasn't healthy for her. Rick was never around, and whenever I tried talking to Mrs. Calhoun to break her silences, I'd be left standing there flushed and aggravated, unable to find the words I needed to have a real conversation with her. It was life with my ex-husband again, where silence was as close to honesty as you got.

Mrs. Calhoun was in the bedroom with a direct view of the grotto when I came in to practice another conversation with her. She was sitting on the bed in a stiff, upright Barbie doll pose, staring out the window.

“Mrs. Calhoun,” I said. “I would like to have a talk with you.”

“Your English has improved,” she said. “Do you know that?”

“No,” I said. “I try to listen more than I talk, but thank you.”

“Do you know what day it is today, Felicia?” she asked.

“Wednesday, Mrs. Calhoun.”

“It's the last day of spring.”

“Yes, I see. But I would like to have a talk with you.”

“I know what the reason is,” she said. “My husband promised your daughter a pool party.” She stared out the window again. “You can't start summer without a pool party.”

“I would like to talk about another thing.”

“We'll have it this weekend. Have Aurora invite all her friends. My husband will be there to make sure everyone has fun.” Where would Mrs. Calhoun be, I wondered, since I'd never seen her leave the house once.

“Mrs. Calhoun,” I said, “no, you don't understand me.”

“We can talk at the party,” she said and lay down on a pillow.

“No,” I said, and again, the English words failed me. In Spanish, I could make a man tremble, force a woman to bite her tongue. But not in English.
¡Inglés Ahora!
didn't have those kinds of exercises. “No,” I said, “no, give me one minute, please.”

“I want quiet right now,” she said.

“No,” I whispered, because she said she wanted quiet. And I left in silence because silence was what I thought she needed.

*  *  *

Aurora invited an even mix of boy and girl friends to take the bus with her on a warm Saturday up to Los Feliz, spoiling them with the promise of pizza
and
bus fare to and from the party. I was furious and insisted she had to use her piggy bank money to get everyone there. The driver who flirted with me was working that Saturday, and I asked if he could give Aurora a deal on the bus fare for twelve kids. He said they could ride for free if I went out on a date with him. Aurora overheard me refuse and called me a bitch as she dumped her piggy bank into the fare box.

When we arrived, Rick shook my hand, patted Aurora on the head, and after asking if any older boys were coming, pointed the children to a pool house for them to change. Aurora huddled with her best friend, Duchess, who wasn't swimming and didn't seem to enjoy the surroundings, while the other children took turns diving into the pool. Water splashed on the jacaranda tree's green fronds overhead, dampening the bright violet blossoms that peeked out from its branches.

Mrs. Calhoun watched the party from behind the sliding glass doors. “Come outside,” I said through the glass. “Beautiful day.” She smiled and waved her hands no, as if swatting away a fly.

“Can't overprotect her,” Rick said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Nobody can make her live a life.”

“You are her husband,” I said. “You can help her find a different life.”

“I thought I did that when I married her.” Rick laughed. “Listen, I want to ask you. I'm getting into the club business and need men who want to work. Where can I find some young, strong Mexican men?”

“You are asking me?” I snorted. “When you find one, let me know. I have a daughter that needs raising.”

Around lunchtime, a young Mexican arrived hefting six “real”
pizzas (not flour tortilla size) wrapped in a plastic tie strap atop his shoulders as though he was a pack mule. Rick led him over by the pool, instructing him to drop the boxes amid a ring of deck chairs. I thought I saw Mrs. Calhoun say something, but the sliding doors were closed and there was no one inside for her to talk to.

Fat drops of sweat plopped on the pizza boxes while the delivery boy set up paper plate and napkin place settings. Rick shadowed him, touching his forearms while he leaned over a table to grab a stack of napkins, whispering in his ear before he went back to the van for the rest of the food. When he returned, the delivery boy pointed at his watch.

“This guy needs to get going, Felicia,” Rick said. “I think I left my wallet in my swim trunks. Finish setting the food out, will you?”

The delivery boy dumped a stack of Styrofoam boxes in front of me on the table and was walking with Rick to the pool house when the sliding glass doors opened.

“No!” Mrs. Calhoun shouted.

The kids stopped laughing and playing. She took two small steps outside.

“Don't touch a thing, Felicia.
He,
” she said, pointing at either Rick or the delivery boy, who were standing side by side, “is to finish what he started.”

She went back inside and slammed the glass door shut, disappearing into the house. Rick ran to the pool house for his wallet while the delivery boy sulked by the table. He counted up Rick's money and stormed off to his van with that arrogant postargument strut my husband used whenever he knew he was wrong. I called the kids over to eat and brought two slices to Mrs. Calhoun's room.

Outside her window, the blossoms fell, a steady rain into the pool. Mrs. Calhoun was lying in a curled ball on her bed with her shoes on.

“Good morning,” I said and walked over to her nightstand, where I placed the pizza.

“Good morning,” I said and took off her shoes.

“Good morning,” I said and knelt by her side.

Mrs. Calhoun smiled. “Good morning,” she said.

“Would you have lunch with me?” I asked.

“Yes, I will,” Mrs. Calhoun said. We ate together as the sounds of a dozen children and my daughter's laughter, something I hadn't heard since the shooting, echoed through the house.

Alma Guerrero was a three-year-old girl who lived with her mother in a rough part of Echo Park, on East Edgeware Road. It was in the heart of a patchwork of hills blistered with junkyards and tin shacks made from leftover metal sheared off from the remains of disassembled World War II aircraft. This area belonged, at any one moment, to the street gangs White Fence, 18th Street, 13th Street, Diamond Street, Echo Park
Locos
, and perhaps the most terrifying gang in East Los Angeles, the Department of Urban Reclamation for the City of Los Angeles, which had marked off the land for a multimillion-dollar super high school/shopping mall/condominium complex that took years to construct and, a month after its inauguration, was condemned for being built atop a toxic stew of cancerous sludge that had steeped underground for years.

Alma used to dance with her mother outside El Guanaco, a
mercado
near Angelino Heights that sold rock-hard Twinkies, Colt 45s, and homemade tacos and burritos in the back. She and a half dozen other girls and their mothers gathered there on the corner spontaneously, then every Friday afternoon, when I recognized El Guanaco in Madonna's music video for “Borderline.” In the video, Madonna, dressed as a classic “Low Rider”
chola
in a forties-style hair bonnet, white wife-beater, long drape coat, and baggy pants that came up past her waist, had been kicked out of her
gringo
photographer boyfriend's fancy loft for spray-painting a streak on his sports car. Out on “her” streets again, Madonna walks past El Guanaco and is welcomed into the arms of her
cholas
hanging outside, who realize she has not
abandoned her
chicas
or her 'hood. They walk into the
mercado,
and after a selection at the jukebox, Madonna dances into the arms of her former boyfriend, a young Mexican guy who has pined for her throughout the video and represents the Mexican roots, the Mexican
life
she cannot turn her back on.

It started when I invited Ana Gomez from church to a
tienda descuenta
that had MTV inside to attract business, to try on new two-dollar dresses. When the video came on, I saw El Guanaco and pointed it out to Ana. It was visible on-screen for a few seconds, but she was as delighted as I was to see a place we walked by every day on television. There was something magical about it, a place in our neighborhood worthy of being on TV, and not because someone had been shot or killed. We agreed it would be fun to bring our daughters there, like a free tourist attraction we didn't have to travel hours on the bus to see. Aurora wouldn't come, but Ana's daughter did. Two mothers became three, then four. One sweltering Friday afternoon in April, seven mothers—the biggest gathering yet—met on the street corner outside El Guanaco with their daughters. I dragged Aurora there that day; being the oldest, she towered over the other girls dressed in their own Madonna-style outfits. Mothers and girls chatted together on a street corner in what was considered a dangerous part of town day or night, in loud, sassy conversations, both groups wearing acid-washed skirts, see-through mesh tank tops, traffic cone orange spandex tights, aquamarine ankle-high socks,
tangerine pumps, shiny silver crucifixes, lace gloves, and black rubber bangle bracelets that were called “promise bracelets” because of the way the bangles were made to crisscross in the shape of a heart across the wrist.

A portable cassette deck was balanced atop a mailbox, playing songs taped off the radio. Beer bottle shards were kicked into the street by unsteady pairs of high heels, and the girls made a runway out of the curb, jumping, singing, and dancing around a streetlight as if it was a maypole. Their mothers stood around them in a circle on
the sidewalk and on the street, clapping their hands to the beat and encouraging each girl to outdance the others
Soul Train
style. Alma wore an adult-size white T-shirt with Madonna's face on it and a pair of hot-pink tights. Her mother had wrapped a black leather belt with a silver hoop buckle around Alma's waist, turning the bottom half of the shirt into a skirt. Alma waved her arms and jumped in place on platform heels until her mother picked her up and swung her around the streetlight in short, ballerina-style arcs.

Over the hills, the smog above East Los Angeles reduced across the sky like skin on a boiling pot of milk. It was sunset, and the mothers decided it was time to go home. I wanted a picture—who would come to a tourist spot without one?—so I unwrapped a cheap Kodak Instamatic camera from its foil wrapper, lined everyone up against El Guanaco's graffitied walls, then dragged over a flirty old
abuelito
in a straw hat who had been sitting on his front porch stoop to take the picture. It'd only take a minute, I promised.

A chorus line of Mexican Madonna daughters knelt in front of their mothers wearing fierce, take-no-shit smiles, except Aurora, who resented being there and resented kneeling in front of me. The idea to come to the corner was mine, to get her out of her room on her spring break and stop her sulking about something that had happened at school, something about a young boy calling her a dirty Mexican and refusing to dance with her at a party.

Come with me, I said. I'll dance with you. There's this place where all the girls dance like Madonna, I said.

Dance on a street corner, Aurora scoffed. Oh, Momma, you don't understand, she said.

On the corner, I asked Aurora,
“Siéntate delante de tu madre, por favor,”
right next to Alma, so she would be the same height as the rest of the girls. Even in her flat sneakers, Aurora would have blocked me out.

“I don't want to,” she said in English. “I'm too old to kneel with the little kids. I can stand with the women.”

“No eres tan viejo para ser una mujer,”
I said.

“I'm not a little girl anymore,” she said.

There was a “hot and cold” argument between us. I shouted
en español,
Aurora snapped back in English. The mothers grew impatient and demanded the
abuelito
snap the photo.

A short distance away we heard the sounds of sirens and gunfire. In the choppy, rolling valleys of Echo Park, noise boomerangs in many directions. An ambulance siren sounding like it was on the next block could really be half a mile away, or a gunfight could be sending stray bullets right through your front screen door while your ears told you it was somewhere up in the hills. (You could die around here making these mistakes.) While the
abuelito
fumbled with the shutter button, two pairs of headlights approached over the horizon, as if the setting sun had broken into large marbles. Five loud gunshots in quick succession, not firecrackers or popping corn but deep hammer thrusts, cut the fleshy air. The mothers screamed, their voices angry, then terrified as they dragged their girls' baby high heels across the sidewalk to hide. Broken glass splashed across the street like ocean spray.