If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls
THIRTEEN
I DO
THAT
SOMETIMES
(part one)
“I want tacos,” Anigel announced.
She was searching for her purse and Russell said, “Can I go with you?”
“I’m getting tacos for all of us, so yes.”
Us all meant Russell, Rob, Chayne and probably Gilead when he showed up.
She picked up the phone and said, “Hello? I’d like to place an order. Uh, oh… yes… I can wait.”
She put the receiver to her breast and murmured, “Goddamn. This is gon be a moment.”
“I didn’t know you could call ahead,” Russell said.
“Of course you can. Hello. Yes. I would like…” and then Anigel rattled off something that was half in Spanish, said “Thank you,” hung up the phone and said, “Comon, let’s go.”
The El Camino was parked in the alley, and they rolled out from there onto Breckinridge Avenue, east, past his own house, and then even past Jason’s and now past the gas station on Market Street.
“Wait, you’re missing it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Anigel said, continuing down Breckinridge and leaving Market with its Kentucky Fried Chickens, Taco Bells and McDonalds in the distance.
“You passed Taco Bell.”
“Fuck Taco Bell,” Anigel swore.
She looked at Russell, mystified.
“You thought we were going to Taco Bell?”
They had turned south, and off Breckinridge, and now Russell didn’t know exactly where they were. It was a much less… white area of town, and now and again they passed blocks where two or three stores in a row were boarded up. A city bus trawled north of them, two girls got on, and Russell wondered with amazement that two girls could just hang out on this street, and then they were pulling into a Mexican grocery store and Russell realized he didn’t know what was going on anymore, so he said nothing.
He followed Anigel who placed her giant woven handbag over her shoulder, and they pushed open the door and swung into what was a grocery store to the left, but to the right was a terra cotta floored restaurant. Jaunty Mexican music full of guitars and fiddles and accordions was playing, and all sorts of people were there, but many were speaking in rapid fire Spanish. He wondered how bilingual Anigel was, but when they got to the counter, she said in very deliberate English, “Reyes, placed an order.”
The short brown girl who looked like she might have been a cousin of Anigel rattled the order back in Spanish, and Anigel, nodded and said, “Si.”
The woman gave her the price and Anigel paid it. The girl asked her a question. Anigel said, “Verde, verde. Asada.”
And then she motioned to Russell to follow her into the grocery store and said, under her breath, “We have to get our own beans and rice. Theirs are for shit.”
It reminded Russell of the old grocery store that had been on Market before they closed it and a Wal Mart up the road, and coming down the aisles of tortillas, Mexican cookies and boxes of things he could not identify, Anigel artfully tossed two cans of beans, and then in the next aisle two boxes of rice into her bag, as she went discussing with Russell the value of certain things, she saw, but rejected the Jumex juice and contemplated beer.
“I know you have the sense to not be helpful,” Anigel said.
“What?”
“Exactly. Don’t be helpful. Say nothing.”
“Done,” Russell agreed.
In line Anigel paid for the rice and beans and went back to the restaurant and cheerfully took the food that was in four hot bags. The girl said something in Spanish and Anigel answered in English, and they were headed to the car.
“Anigel?”
“Yes,” she said, strapping her seat belt on and taking a cigarette from the pack in the drink holder.
“Did you only pay for the rice?”
“But you saw that, Russell,” Anigel said, backing out of her space and driving back onto the street.
“You just….. deliberately shoplifted.”
“I do that sometimes,” Anigel said. “Their prices are entirely too high. They won’t make them lower if you ask, so you just have to take care of things yourself.”
She turned on the radio and headed north.
“Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can't you see?
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me
And I just love your flashy ways
Guess that's why they broke,
and you're so paid.
Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can't you see?
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me
And I just love your flashy ways
Guess that's why they broke,
and you're so paid!”
Anigel pulled a hand through her long hair and sang: “Ha!
“Look in that bag and get me a taco. Get yourself one too.”
Russell reached in the bag, pulling out a votive candle. “What the hell is this?”
“Our Lady of San Juan Los Logos.”
“Did you steal this too?”
“Did you see me pay for it?”
“No.”
“Then there’s your answer. Taco, please, And get some verde on it for me first. Cause I’m driving.”
Russell obeyed and then as he handed her a taco, said, “Is that caramel cheese corn?”
“Yeah, that’s for later.”
Russell helped himself to something in a flour tortilla that smelled better than anything he’d ever smelled and looked like nothing he’d ever tasted. The soft shell tacos they had at school were a very poor cousin, and he opened this up and poured just a little of the green sauce, then squeezed the lime over the fragrant chopped steak, chopped onions and cilantro like Anigel had directed. He handed it to Anigel and then took one for himself.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever had,” he said, and he realized they were already back on Breckinridge.
“Yes,” Anigel said. “Yes, I know.”
In the house on Curtain, in the kitchen, Anigel set down her great bag and pulled out the tacos, and three boxes of rice.
“I thought you got two and only paid for one.”
“I got three and only paid for one,” Anigel said.
And she pulled out three beans and two bags of popcorn and then a silver serving ladle.
“How….” Russell wondered.
“How what?” Chayne said.
Russell looked to Anigel.
She nodded, unashamed.
“Anigel….absconded with most of this.”
“I believe the word you used was stole.”
“Yeah, but---”
“You went to Rosale’s, right?” Chayne said, lifting the ladle and examining it.
“Right.”
“Oh, I get it,” Chayne said, “They’re entirely too expensive. Rob, com’on! Let’s eat.”
“Hip hip hurray
For your special choice today
Now let’s do our portion
To support your recent abortion!
“What the fuck is that?” Anigel said, offhandedly as she came down the stairs.
“We’re—” Rob started, but Chayne cleared his throat.
“I,” Rob said, “am making up greeting card poems for difficult situations in life that most card companies wouldn’t touch. I believe we could corner the market.”
“That’s… interesting,” Anigel said in a voice she didn’t even mean to sound convincing.
Rob cleared his throat and recited
“You never knew he’d hurt her
Now he’s doing time for murder
Sympathies on this occasion
Of your son’s incarceration.”
“Rob!”
“I know, the rhyme scheme is off, but—”
“I need you to go down to the store, take my wallet, follow this list explicitly,” for she had been holding one out to him, “and get me these things.”
He read them out loud, “Off brand Kotex, Midol, knock of Rose wine…. You can’t get them?”
“Clearly not.”
“Why not?”
“Read the list again,” Anigel said, imperiously.
Rob started, but Chayne said, “She’s on her period.”
“Oh” Rob blinked. “Well, I’ve seen the commercials.”
“The commercials?”
“Don’t women like to power through that? I mean they have all the commercials where the girls are playing volleyball and riding horses and—”
“Get up,” Anigel said, “and get my shit.”
She turned around and went back upstairs.
“Chayne,” Rob whispered, “it even has pink candles and incense on the list.”
“You heard her.”
“Will you go with me to make sure I don’t screw it up.”
“I think I’d better.”
Anigel’s mother had been far from perfect, but she had taught her, unabashedly what few mothers taught their daughters, the joy of taking up space, the insistence on it. Anigel enjoyed being a woman and suspected that many girls around her did not. Anigel did not apologize for being a woman. Every month she felt the shadow of it, the first twinges, the swelling of breasts, the beginning of cramping, something like a box snapping inside ,and maybe that was just her, and then the oh, fuck of it all, the first blood.
Since she had been fourteen, Anigel had looked with a strange thrill toward her periods. She felt the extreme discomfort of it, but not the unfairness. What was unfair was being expected to behave as if she were a man, to ignore this shit happening to her body that her brother or any other man for that matter, would wail like hell about if it happened to him. Her period was fine with her, even somewhat happy, as long as she was not expected to ignore it or make it more convenient for some stupid man, and even when you made it more convenient for your sisters or the nuns at school or your girlfriends, at the back of that shit was some man too.
Rob had done well. She could tell that Chayne must have helped. They would stay downstairs and use that bathroom and for the next few days she would have this one with the large old lion’s claw foot tub. The little table was set up, and the curtains were pulled. Pink and white candles with the smell of jasmine were lit as she lay up to her neck in hot water, smoking her Camels and drinking her wine and, yes, bleeding.
She had once heard someone say it was easier to fight for your children or your family than yourself. Anigel sensed this was true, but that was why you had to care for yourself. She had no parents to speak of, not parents who were parental, and she found it highly unlikely that she would have any children, so she had to mother herself and she took that extremely seriously.
Anigel had called Cameron on the phone as soon as she knew the time was coming.
“No practice today. None for the next few days.”
“Are you sick?”
Cameron was a sweet girl and prone to worry.
“No, I’m on my period.”
“So you just… take off?”
“Oh, every woman should,” Anigel said.
“Well… yeah,” Cameron said.
Then she said, “Well, Brad wasn’t able to tutor me yesterday. Maybe he can today.”
“Brad Long?”
“Yeah! I guess it is a small town.”
“Smaller than you know, little sister.”