Jamie Iredell's Blog, page 13

Skool

The quarter has begun and I'm back in the classroom. I'm teaching a comp class and a fiction workshop. Should be a good quarter, I hope. So far, my comp students seem really bright and into the work. They were supposed to read Wallace's "Tense Present" from Harper's a few years back, a long tome that is a review of a an American English usage dictionary, but through that discusses the politicization of language. I think they kind of got it. It's pretty thick stuff, and not easy reading for anyone, to say nothing of college freshmen. But I've had success with this essay in the past with the same age group, and I think they're certainly smart enough to "get" it. The bigger question is whether they actually made it all the way through the reading and if they retained any of the information. But we had a lively discussion yesterday about prescriptivism and descriptivism, politics and language, etcetera. I teach this essay mostly because I'm required to assign a public speaking component to the class, so they read this essay, which should give them ideas to work with in coming up with their own language usage presentation. They can talk about any aspect of the English language they'd like. Another reason to teach the essay is that it's an amazing essay (it's crazy how Wallace can make something that's usually so dull--language--so interesting, and funny). It's a great model of what the essay can and should do.

In my fiction workshop we're reading a collection of short stories, Something in My Eye, by Michael Jeffrey Lee, and Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard. What's interesting about this class is that it's mixed graduate and undergraduate. So far, the students seem to have really great ideas about Lee's stories. I'm really pleased with that, because they're expressing these ideas while at the same time expressing how perplexed they are about the stories and by Dillard's text. In one of my student's reading responses (they write one of these at the end of each week), she wrote that while the Dillard text is confusing and frustrating, it's showing her how much she has to learn and she's excited that she's being exposed to this work. That is the kind of attitude every college student ought to have when they come across work that doesn't immediately meet their preformed aesthetic sensibilities. So far they've also been writing a story exercise for each class session. Of those I've read so far, each has some pretty amazing ideas/sentences. I think these students are going to write some kick-ass stories and I can't wait to get into workshop.

I Am Guilty

. . . as one who has lambasted Atlanta's Mexican restaurants; however, at least in my experience, Atlanta has gotten better, and I've discovered places that have long been here.

In the past, in general, I've actually disdained East Coast Mexican food. In fact, I used to claim that the worst place in the U.S. to get Mexican food was New York City. That might still be true; in fact, in my experience, at least, there aren't enough Mexicans in NY to make for a decent restaurant. There's tons of other latin foods, of course, but not Mexican food.

But in the 10 years since I've lived here things have progressed positively. Not only have I learned about authenticas along Buford Highway, but numerous restaurants in the in-town area have sprung up with an authentic Mexican cache. Some are more so, like Mi Barrio on MLK. Others suit a particular kind if clubbing crowd, like the Prickly Pear Taqueria. But go during the day and avoid the nightime bullshit. In MIdtown, Senor Patron is brand new, and that had a decidedly Norteno style to its comida, but it's run by Indians (I mean of the subcontinental variety), so who knows? But I hear those guya are from SoCal, so there you go.

Probably the best for real Mexican food in ATL is still on Buford Highway. I'd try Tacos MIchoacan, or Carniceria El Progresso. But if you want to attempt a bridge of the lunch place and dinner time, try Mi Barrio. If you're interested in a clubby-type place, try Prickly Pear or Senor Patron. But the best place for authentic Mexican Food in ATL is probably some Mexican family's house or mine.

Nonfiction

For the past 10 months or so I've been writing a lot of nonfiction--not including the 3 years of work I put into my book-length nonfiction, a book called "Last Mass." The nonfiction I'm talking about are all short pieces. I've been publishing these in a few places. Here are some that I really like:


What Can Happen to You When You Read, at The Nervous Breakdown

13 Steps to Becoming a Barslut, and What Happens Afterwards, at Thought Catalog

A Brief History of Opiate Use, at Thought Catalog

What is "Bad" Writing?, at The Nervous Breakdown

Never Pay for a Cab This Way if You Can Help It, at Thought Catalog


Why We Need Superheroes, or, A Parental Theory, or What Was Just A Review of Chronicle Before People Were Murdered While Watching The Dark Knight Rises, at HTMLGiant


What You Can Learn from LSD, at Thought Catalog

The Shape of Ideas, at Thought Catalog

What Is a Jagger?, at The Rumpus

The Gods of California and North Carolina Fistfight in Heaven, at Thought Catalog

One Way to Survive an Abusive Relationship, at The Nervous Breakdown

How To Not Get Arrested For Driving While High On Crack And After Having Drunk A 

Bunch Of Vodka At A James Taylor Concert, at Thought Catalog

Explain Why You Do or Do Not Vote, at The Nervous Breakdown

How Unattractive People Really Are, at Thought Catalog

The Ten Most Disgusting Things I Ever Did While I Was a Smoker, at Thought Catalog

Why Porn Sucks (Pun Intended), at Thought Catalog

Not only does this serve as self-promotion, should anyone care enough to read these things, but this is also a way for me to see what all I've done, what kinds of themes run through each of these pieces, etcetera, because the most awesomest guy in the world--everyone knows that that's Kevin Sampsell--is publishing a book of my essays with Future Tense Books in 2013.

I'm Stoked

Apparently, I've hit an all-time low when it comes to traffic at this blog, and that, I feel, is an achievement.

On the other hand, eating leftovers at my house is def not to be cried about.


We had a couple porkchops in tupperware, a half-full bottle of orange juice, a half a lime, half an onion, a few garlic cloves, some cilantro, some tortillas, and dried pinto beans. With all that I made tacos de carnitas and charros. And that red stuff on top? That ain't tomato. Naw, son, we had a few chunks of watermelon left over too. Never knew watermelon would be so good on tacos, but lordy. It was a spicy, citrusy, watermelony partay up in this biatch.

Making Sopes and Chorizo etc.

I take a little corn masa and some water, add a little salt sometime, but usually not, because I try to cut out as much salt as possible. With this pasty mess I make sopes, which are kinda like really thick corn tortillas. Maybe think of them like corn fritters or dumplings. I make them round and flat, and they're a bit divot-ed on one side (this is the side that will hold all the goodness. There are lots of differnt ways to make sopes. Some people make huaraches, which are sopes that are long and ovular, and look a little like shoe soles, hence their name, which is what this food stuff kinda resembles. Huaraches are Mexican sandals, FYI.

I love Mexican chorizo. It's frickin delicious. Spanish and Portugese chorizo are completely different things. Mexican chorizo isn't dry and hard, like Spanish chorizo is. It is red and it is sausage, but it's not cured. It's raw and it's soft, and you fry it up, and all this fat comes out of it. It's made with a ton of paprika and other spices. It's usually pretty hot. It will clog your arteries. But goddamn, chorizon fried up good, a little crispy, is one of the best things ever.

I like to make my own beans. I soak them for a few hours, or overnight. Then I chop up onions and garlic and cook my beans up with that. I add a bunch of chili powder and cumin, and a little salt and pepper. I usually wait to add spice because my wife can't really handle that.

When I've cooked up these things I fry my sopes golden. After they've drained (the excess oil), they're easy to handle and upon them I place the goodness, which is the above-mentioned stuff. I plop some beans on there and add chorizo. Then you can add whatever you want, like pico de gallo and cilantro, or salsa verde and lime juice, or sour cream. Diced watermelon I have recently discovered is awesome with Mexican food. Seems fitting.

Anyway, that's the deal there. That's what I'm a eat.

Having a blog is so frickin cool, don't you think!?

Having a blog is so frickin cool, don't you think!?

So I guess the reason why I'm so bitchy about things is b...

So I guess the reason why I'm so bitchy about things is because I have this blog, at which I could/can publish whatever I like without editing it, but I still submit things to other websites. So I publish things at The Rumpus, at Thought Catalog, at The Good Men Project, at The Nervous Breakdown, etc. But it doesn't feel like BLOGGING to me, or even PUBLISHING, even though it is, essentially, the same thing. I don't know why I feel this way. Why am I sending things to other "magazines" when I could just publish them myself? I guess there's some air of legitimacy with an editor saying that whatever I wrote is worthy of publication. But don't I have enough confidence in myself? Don't I inherently believe that whatever I wrote is worthy of being seen either print or digital publication? Perhaps that's hubris. Whatever. Another whiskey!

Wow I have not done anything with this in a long time and...

Wow I have not done anything with this in a long time and I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it. So if you think otherwise--which I seriously fuckin doubt--say something. I guess. Jesus Christ I don't care if you do say anything who really gives a flying fuck about anything anyway?

Scallop Tostadas I Made the other Night

These were really good. It didn't hurt that right now in Atlanta the highs hover around 70 degrees and there's very little humidity and no mosquitoes. It's part of that one month period of time a year (two weeks in spring, and two in fall) when you can comfortably sit outside for dinner. So after Sarah and I got the baby down we each cracked open a Negro Modelo, shoved in lime wedges, and sat at the table on our deck listening to the birds and the whoosh of cars going by on 8th Street.

I made up some fresh pico de gallo, which is really simple: you just need tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh jalapeño or serrano pepper, cilantro, salt and lime. Dice everything up, squeeze in lime and add salt to taste.

I like to slice the tomatoes in 8ths, which makes the slices easier to seed. I seed them so that the pico de gallo doesn't get too watery, as when the little sacks surrounding the seeds burst (as they inevitably will when you mix this all together) is makes for some soupy stuff. I also like to pick the leaves from the cilantro, as I find the stems to be bitter and this step (while time-consuming as hell) makes for an even-textured salsa fresca, with no bits of chopped stems hanging around. It's good to seed your peppers, too. Most people think that the seeds in a chile are the spiciest part, but that's not true. The seeds actually have no capsaicin (the chemical compound that makes peppers peppery) in them at all. It's the white pith around the seeds, though, that has the highest concentrations of capsaicin. 
I fried some tortillas (see the post on tortillas and you'll be relieved to know that I didn't bother to make homemade ones) in vegetable oil till they were crispy and set them on some paper towels to drain any excess oil. I set some refried beans on to heat. 
I bought some 20-30 count scallops. So these weren't giant bay scallops, where you get about seven of them in a pound. Those big ones won't work all that well for tostadas. I also didn't have the really little ones, 80-100 count. Those might be fine for this kind of thing, but they're harder to cook evenly on one side each because there are so many and they're all so small. Flipping those is a bitch. Aesthetically, I like for scallops to have that golden sear on each side. So these scallops I sauteed in clarified butter. They cook for about four minutes per side. 
As the scallops cooked I spooned a bit of the heated refried beans onto my fried tortillas (now my tostadas), then plucked my scallops and fit about four to each tostada, then topped all with some pico de gallo. And let me tell you, on a beautiful spring day, sitting outside with your wife, and sipping a cold beer, these tostadas were one of the best appetizers to one of the best meals I've had so far in 2012.

Cecilia’s Roses

 The summer of 1958 a popular radio single was theEverly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do is Dream,” and when its steel guitars andharmonies sang from the speakers of the little transistor radio Ray had boughta few Christmases back, Cecilia Ordoñez grew impatient with the confines of herlife.For six years she’d drunk her morning coffee inthe living room and stared out the bay window into the motley grass of her tinyfront yard enclosed by the chain link fence, beyond the green artichoke fields,and she imagined the Pacific crashing into the sand at the beach. Then, thefirst morning when Cecilia heard “All I Have to Do is Dream,” she dumped hercoffee in the kitchen sink, slipped into a pair of pedal pushers, tied her hairwith a bandana, and settled on her knees to pull up tufts of the scraggly yardand toss them into the driveway.Mornings Cecilia arose from bed, put on thecoffee, pressed masa into tortillas, and cracked eggs into the heavy cast ironskillet. By the time she’d cleared away the breakfast plates, shooed José intothe bathroom to ready for school, and walked Ray to his truck and kissed himoff to work, her husband already appeared lost to the world of his job. “Have agood day,” she said. This, her only sentence of the morning, met a smile inreply as he backed out of the driveway, the tires flattening the slowly growingpile of grass and dark soil that Cecilia tossed out of her way as shedismantled the yard. After Ray’s departure Cecilia guided José—sevenyears old and in the second grade at Castroville Elementary—into his tinycotton slacks, saddle shoes, and white collared shirt and saw him off to walkthe three short blocks to school. With her husband and son gone Cecilia dressedin her weeding outfit and took again to the lawn under the foggy morning sky.The neighborhood had sprung up only two yearsearlier. The homes had been built according to standard 1950s California ranchstyle: single story, two bedroom, one bath, a two-car garage, and a large baywindow that looked across the street into the neighbors’ replicated livingroom. In other words, Cecilia knew that even if Ray was oblivious to heractivity in the yard, the neighbor wives were not.
As she pulled herself from her bed’s embrace shemoved delicately so as not to wake Ray from his half-hour extra sleep. Hersleeping husband looked a paradoxical combination of relaxed and frustrated,eyes closed, his mouth drawn in a frown. This expression characterized Rayperfectly. He worked hard, which was why they’d been successful enough to buythis house. He’d spent his evenings learning English, and forcing it uponCecilia, even to the point where he insisted English be spoken at home so thatCecilia—and especially José—would learn just as well as he did. Ray had workedhis way up to manager of the artichoke fields surrounding Castroville. Hissacrifice had been time spent with his wife and son, a sense of loss for theirold lives in Mexico, the culture they’d abandoned. If she hadn’t felt itbefore—at least she hadn’t recognized it—missing her husband rushed to her likethe shock of cold when she shrugged herself free from the warm covers of theirbed. At breakfast Cecilia tried to initiate a plan forthe weekend. “We should have a picnic,” she said. Ray shoveled eggs into hismouth. “We haven’t done anything since the Fourth,” Cecilia tried. In Julythey’d barbecued on the sand dunes in Marina. It was now September. “We couldget Rachel Islas to watch José.”“I want to go on a picnic,” José cried.“What are you talking about?” Ray said. “Whywouldn’t he come?” “I know you want to come, mijo,” Cecilia said toher son. She set her coffee on the table. “But Papa and I haven’t done anythingtogether in a while.”“What are you talking about?” Ray repeated. “You know what I mean,” Cecilia said. She tried tomake Ray understand. Would she have to tell her husband—in front of theirson—that she wanted “alone time” with him? “I still don’t see why we can’t do it together,”Ray said. “We could drive to Big Sur. Go to the beach. The fog burns off bynoon and it’s been warm.”Cecilia gave up, drew José a bath, and made surehe was getting undressed—lately he tried to avoid bathing—and walked Ray to histruck. She could try again, but Ray didn’t understand. He’d been so wrapped upwith work. Pezzini Farms had him covering three crews and he spent his daysdriving the fields, making sure his workers cut artichokes at a steady pace andfilled the trucks with heavy green loads. When he came home he ate dinner, readthe newspaper for an hour or two, and went to bed. His days had been so longcoming up to the harvest that lately he dropped into bed and in three minutesbegan to snore. “Ya tienes un buen dia,” Cecilia said, and she kissed his cheek. Ray frowned and grunted.“Yes, you have a good day, too,” he said, then backed out of the driveway andwas gone.Cecilia returned to the bathroom and found Josésplashing water playfully, but hardly soaping. She dropped the soap into thewater. “Let’s go,” she said. “Start scrubbing.”She stared at her boy’s little brown body, thistiny replica of her and Ray (no distinctive feature from either of them stoodout), the physical symbol of their life together. She filled with a combinationof overwhelming love and frustration. Since José had grown to walking andtalking age, Cecilia and Ray’s sex life had flagged and dissipated. Now,Cecilia could hardly remember when they’d last touched each other. Not apassing pat of the behind, not even holding hands during the Our Father at OurLady of Refuge (José sat between them), just the customary peck on the cheekwhen she saw her husband off to work each morning.
She hadn’t a clue what she was doing by pulling upthe weeds and grass in the front yard until it occurred to her that she wantedroses. She loved their long sturdy stems and sharp thorns, the soft, velvetyflower petals in full bloom, the tightly packed stiffness of the buds, theirfruity, delicious aroma. She’d been frustrated with the ugliness of her frontyard since she and Ray had moved in and hadn’t realized it, not even untilafter she’d begun tearing up fistfuls of the grass and tossing them onto thecracked and oil-stained driveway. Next to the Reynoso Supermarket on Merritt Streetsat ABC Hardware. From there Cecilia and Ray had purchased the rarely used pushmower, and the trowel and weeder that Cecilia now made use of to uproot thescraggly grass. Cecilia washed the dirt from her hands, the water browning asit circled down the drain in the kitchen sink. She straightened the bandana aroundher black locks, retrieved her pocketbook from the tiny table next to the frontdoor where it sat daily—unused—next to Ray’s far more transient wallet andkeys. She locked the front door behind her, and began her walk to ABC. The day was foggy—as usual in Castroville—andcool, with a slight breeze. In the distance, toward the sand dunes and the bay,workers grouped in the gray-green artichoke fields—polka dots of red, yellow,and white, their hats and bandanas on the flat green background—and Cecilia wonderedif she’d see her husband’s truck. She reached ABC and stepped inside the brightlylit store. A worker stood on a step stool replacing the incandescent bulbs withnewly arrived fluorescents. Cecilia blinked. Signs hanging from the ceilingdirected her to Gardening. The shelves were lined with colorful flower seedpackets. “Can I help you, ma’am?” The man who had beenhanging the new lights approached the head of the aisle. Cecilia gazed at the shelf, her eyes roaming, butshe couldn’t find roses, so she turned and was struck by the clerk’s presence.He stood about six feet tall, slender in his checked sport shirt and chinopants. His hair pomade slicked his thick blonde strands over his forehead. Hisface shone like a Thunderbird’s fender, his teeth gleamed like the chrome of abumper. He was a white man, perhaps Cecilia’s age. “Roses,” Cecilia said. She spoke English well, butaround white people she only spoke when she had to. She didn’t trust them.White people were Ray’s boss, most of her neighbors. Sometimes, when she kissedRay goodbye in the morning, she swore she caught a glimpse of the other wivesstaring out their windows at her with grimaces smeared across their faces.“Very good,” the clerk said. He approached slowand deliberate, slid his fingers over the smoothed creases of his ironed shirt.His fingernails were pink and clean, well maintained. Interesting, Ceciliathought, for a man. Ray’s fingers were gnarled from working on tractor engines,sliced and scarred from years of picking artichokes. This man’s fingers werelike hers, slender and soft looking, as though he spent his days cleansing themin luxurious soap. “You don’t want to grow roses from seed, do you?”Cecilia shrugged. The clerk smiled. “They’re extremely difficult togrow from seed. Most start from cuttings. We have some in the nursery.” Theclerk pointed when he said “nursery”, and it was obvious that he thoughtCecilia didn’t understand a word he said. Cecilia followed the clerk through the store’srear doors, which led into a greenhouse filled with plants and plaster gardensculptures. Tiny babes made to look mossy and weathered blew her kisses frombehind vines of blossoming verbena and African daisies. They stopped in frontof tiny green shoots, where the clerk selected a few to show. “These areAmbridge roses.” He showed Cecilia a tiny plastic tag depicting dense pinkclusters. Cecilia nodded, indicating that she liked these.Eventually, the clerk, whose name—according to thetag on his breast—was Jesse, held cuttings from four different kinds of rosesin a variety of colors: red, pink, yellow, and white. He walked Cecilia to the front of the store toring her purchases into the register. He paused, his beautiful finger hangingmidair and dangling like a worm as he looked at her. “Ever done this before?”he shouted. Whenever white people spoke to Cecilia—assuming that she didn’tspeak English—it seemed that they also assumed she was deaf.Cecilia shook her head. Jesse sold her, along with the rose cuttings, twoheavy bags of garden loam. He asked why she was planting roses. “Usually youpeople are so busy working you don’t have time to plant gardens,” he said. This prompted Cecilia to break her silence. “Myhusband works,” she said shortly. She wasn’t going to be reduced to what mostwhite people thought of Mexicans. But Jesse seemed to understand. He smiled again.Cecilia’s anger dissipated. She explained how she was tearing up the old lawnand planned to replace it with her rose garden. Now Cecilia had new shoots andheavy bags to lug home.“I can deliver them,” Jesse suggested. “Write downyour address and I’ll drop them off this afternoon.”
The next afternoon Nancy Ausonio visited whileCecilia kneeled in the front yard, still pulling out the tough old grass. She’dnearly cleared the lawn and the front yard consisted of bare grayish-brownsoil.Nancy Ausonio was Andy Ausonio’s wife—Andy workedwith Ray—and she lived across the street. She was a tall, thin Italian with alarge hooked nose. Whenever she talked, Cecilia noticed, she had a tendency toflutter her eyelids, so that she always looked unimpressed with any discussion.Cecilia thought that Nancy Ausonio put on an air of indefinite superiority overeveryone around her, and probably, Cecilia thought, this was enhanced wheneverNancy spoke to her, because Cecilia was Mexican. “My God,” Nancy Ausonio said, looking over thewaist-high chain-link fence that held in the front yard. “What have you done?”Cecilia looked up and swiped the back of her handacross her forehead, brushing away black curls. “Hello, Mrs. Ausonio,” Ceciliasaid. At one time, Andy Ausonio had been Ray’s foreman. But since then Ray hadbeen promoted and they were equals on the job. Still, Cecilia did not feelcomfortable calling Nancy Ausonio by her first name.“You’re tearing out your grass!” Mrs. Ausoniosaid, as if she’d come upon a terrible discovery. A smile spread across herlong face, her red lipstick cracking where it had not seeped into the folds ofher lips’ skin. “What are you planting?” she asked.“I don’t like grass,” Cecilia explained. Shegestured with her trowel.Mrs. Ausonio had her hands on her hips. She walkedcloser to where Cecilia kneeled. “I knew you were planting something, youknow,” she said.Cecilia raised her eyebrows at Mrs. Ausonio.“I saw him yesterday. That man,” Mrs. Ausoniofluttered her eyelids, “dropping off soil?” Her eyes held a suspicious gleam,and Cecilia said nothing. But Mrs. Ausonio filled the silence. “I saw himbringing the bags inside the yard. What do you plan to do?”Cecilia had worried that a strange man coming bythe house when Ray was at work might look suspicious, even if he was onlydropping off gardening supplies. Jesse had showed Cecilia the best way to gether cuttings started right. They filled the nursery flats with soil and plantedthe shoots. Jesse made sure Cecilia understood that the soil needed to staymoist and in the sunlight for the cuttings to take root. “Roses,” she said. “Lovely,” Mrs. Ausonio said, her hands still onher hips, her eyelids fluttering again. “I’d love to do something like thatmyself. But you know Andy. He won’t let me do anything to the yard.” She wavedacross the street at her own, perfectly manicured front lawn. “They’ll neveruse the darned thing, but it’s got to look perfect. What for? You tell me.”Cecilia shrugged. “Well, I just wanted to say hello, find out whatyou were up to over here. Good luck!” Cecilia gestured her goodbye with the trowel, sawthe time on the wristwatch Ray had bought for her birthday three years ago(just a year after his promotion to manager), and headed in to prep for dinner.
That night, after the dishes had been stacked inthe drying rack beside the sink, after Cecilia settled into bed next to thealready snoring Ray, she tried to nudge him awake. Ray mumbled. Cecilia pressedagainst her husband’s body, her chiffon nightgown pulled across her hips as sheslid over the cotton sheets. Ray was warm, as always. Cecilia usually grew coldduring the night, but Ray, stripped down to his boxer shorts, often sleptwithout covers. Cecilia draped her arm over his taught round belly, rubbingslowly. She whispered his name. He rolled over, his back to her, mumblingagain. The curtains were slightly parted and stars dottedthe sky, the fog temporarily, and unusually, absent tonight. The bluestarlight, little as there was, speared through the part in the curtains, ontothe crucifix hanging above their bed. The ceramic sculpture of Christ’s nearlynaked body shone faintly, the shadows of his ribs and kneecaps standing outagainst the stark white of his skin. Cecilia rolled back over to her side of the bed,perturbed. She ran her fingers over her legs. Her skin felt cool under thesheets, smooth and soft. She let her hands run up under her nightgown, to thewaistband of her underwear. She rubbed the slight hump of her lower belly, lether fingers drape between her legs. The bedroom door opened and José entered the room,whimpering. The boy had turned on the hall light, which awakened Ray. José complainedof a stomachache. Half an hour later, after consoling her son, Cecilia wasfinally settling to sleep, exhausted.
When the rose cuttings had taken root and grown acouple inches, Cecilia woke to a dark gray sky. Rain dripped from the eaves.She started the coffee. She stood in her living room, one hand on her hip,staring out the window at the puddles muddying up the now cleared front yard.She’d planned on planting her roses today. Now they would have to wait. Ray came into the kitchen for breakfast beforeJosé, which was unusual. Cecilia found the boy still in bed and when she liftedthe comforter to stir him, the vomit was already beginning to dry and it hadcaked down the side of the mattress. He cried when she lifted him from bed toclean him up. José wouldn’t be going to school today.Cecilia walked Ray to his truck under an umbrellaand Ray finally noticed the missing lawn, now that it had completelydisappeared. The last pile of grass and weeds sat in a puddle on the edge ofthe rain soaked yard waiting to be tossed into the garbage can. “Whathappened?” Ray said from the truck’s cab. He started the engine. “What are youdoing with the yard?” He frowned as he looked over Cecilia’s shoulder, but heput the truck in reverse. The yard couldn’t really concern him, Ceciliathought, as he never used it. “I’m planting roses,” Cecilia said.“Oh,” Ray said. He started to back out, thenstopped. “Get them planted before the whole yard’s a mess,” he said. Cecilianodded and returned to care for José.She spent the morning ignoring reruns of BuscandoEstrellas and rinsing out theceramic bowl José vomited into, keeping him warm and covered where he lay onthe couch, trying to get him to sip warm chicken broth. Finally, near noon hestopped getting sick and fell back to sleep. But outside the rain still poured.She tried to read, but couldn’t get past the firstpages of Diego’s Amor solo.Cecilia checked on José. He slept soundly, bundled up on the couch, his headslicked with sweat. If he wasn’t better tomorrow she’d take him to the doctor.She turned on the radio while she cleaned the kitchen and the Everly Brothers’“All I Have to Do is Dream” came on. She slipped into her raincoat and stepped into therain to look at her rose shoots. The rain didn’t show any signs of taperingoff. She’d forgotten that she placed the nursery flats on the tiny flagstonepath that wound around the edge of the house, under the eaves. The rainwatertrickled off the roof and dripped down onto the rose shoots. The plants bent underthe weight of the falling drops. They sat in half an inch of standingrainwater. She hoped they’d be okay. Jesse said to make sure the flats stayedmoist. Perhaps the rain wouldn’t hurt them. Nonetheless, she wanted to be sure.She wasn’t going to have done all the work of ripping up the weeds and grass,and paid for the shoots, only to have them ruined. Cecilia called ABC Hardware and she recognizedJesse’s voice when he picked up. “I’m calling about my roses,” Cecilia said.“They’re flooded.” “I see,”Jesse said. He sounded confused. “May I ask who’s calling?”Cecilia explained who she was, and recounted whenshe’d come to the hardware store and purchased the rose cuttings and soil. “Oh yes, I remember,” Jesse said. “They’re caughtout in this rain, then? I don’t think there’s a problem, unless they’re instanding water.” José moaned from the living room, where he lay onthe couch.“They are so tall, like, um.” Cecilia stumbledwith the words to describe the shoots’ growth. “About eight inches or so?” Jesse said. “I thinkyour roses are just fine.” “I want to be sure.”José gagged, and Cecilia knew he was dry-heaving. “I could come look at the roses to see if they’reall right.” “Thank you.”“I’ll come over tomorrow.”“José,” Cecilia called. She didn’t want to waituntil tomorrow, but if that was all she could do, she would have to. “Mama iscoming, José.” “You cannot come now?”” Cecilia said. “It’s onlyfour blocks.”“I suppose it is around lunchtime. I could driveover real quick,” Jesse offered. “I could look at the roses now.” “Aye,mijo,” Cecilia said, hearingher son cough. “I’m coming.” “I’ll be over in a few minutes,” Jesse said, andhe hung up. Off the phone, Cecilia jogged into the livingroom, guilty that she’d taken so long to get to José’s side. The bowl was dry.José had thrown everything up that he’d had inside him. He was pale and lyingon the couch. “Mi pobrecito,” Cecilia said. She swiped his forehead with a cool rag, and carriedhim to his bedroom. She wanted him to sleep, to try and rest the sickness out.When she came out of José’s bedroom, closing the door to a crack behind her,the doorbell rang.Jesse stood under the awning at the front door,the hood of his raincoat dripping. Under the hood, though, his hair was still neatlycombed and Cecilia could see the collar of yet another neatly pressed checkedshirt.“Are the roses around front?” Jesse said.Cecilia nodded. “I’ll take a look.” Cecilia checked José and found that he’d alreadyfallen asleep. His little chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly.When Cecilia re-emerged from José’s room Jessestood in the living room. He must have let himself inside the house. He’dremoved his boots and was using the bay window’s reflection to comb the rainout of his hair. “I moved the nursery flats,” Jesse said, not turning from thewindow. “They’re out of the rain. I think they’ll be fine.”Cecilia said nothing. She’d never been in a roomalone with any man other than Ray, or her father when she was a girl. WhenJesse moved away from the window, Cecilia stepped in front of it. Across thestreet the Ausonio’s window was right there, wide open. Cecilia pulled thedrapes closed and she felt Jesse behind her. “You want privacy?” he whispered. His handsgripped her waist.Cecilia stepped away and faced Jesse. “What areyou doing?” she asked.Jesse smiled, his teeth large and white. “What doyou mean?” he said. He moved toward her, his hands reaching for her waistagain. Cecilia stepped back and pressed against thedining room table. Jesse had his hands on her arms as he kissed her. His breathwas sweet, minty. His tongue wiggled inside her mouth. She smelled theclay-like scent of his hair pomade, a whiff of Old Spice. For a moment sheimagined herself as a cast member of Simplemente María and she gave in to the kiss, let Jesse’s handsfirm over her hips. But Jesse pressed hard against her, uncomfortable. Ceciliawas suffocating. She pushed back hard as she could, which was very little asher arms were pinned. She managed to slither out from between the dining roomtable and Jesse, through the entrance to the kitchen. “No,” Cecilia said. She was caught in the kitchen, and Jesse followedher. He smiled, and then frowned. “I thought this was what you wanted.” “My husband,” Cecilia said, but her sentence onlygot that far. Jesse took a step toward Cecilia, and Cecilia tooka step back. She wiped saliva—hers and his—from her mouth. Her back found thekitchen counter, and her hand the handle of a steak knife from the butcherblock. “I thought this was what you wanted,” Jesserepeated. He held up his hands as Cecilia brandished the knife. “Get out,” Cecilia said. “I’ll scream.”“I thought you might like this, you spic slut,”Jesse said.     Cecilia started to scream, but Jesse rushedforward and forced his palm over her mouth. She bit, tasted the salt of hisskin, the iron of blood, the meat of his palm like a cut of beef. The green andyellow of her kitchen wallpaper blurred, and then everything went black asCecilia closed her eyes and thrust and slashed with the knife. Jesse grunted.When Cecilia opened her eyes he was gone. Shestill clutched the knife. Her hands shook. José stood in his pajamas in the doorto the kitchen. “Mama, are you okay?” he said. He looked terrified. The sound of the rain beating down on the concretepath floated in from the open front door. There was no evidence that Jesse hadeven been there, except for the muddy outline of the boots he’d removed in thefoyer. 
That evening José still was not feeling well.Cecilia told Ray that she might have to get him to the doctor in Salinas. Raylooked concerned, checked on José in his bedroom. “He doesn’t seem to have afever,” he said, returning to the kitchen. Cecilia was checking the chicken in the oven. Sheused a knife to cut into the thick part of the breast to test its color. “We’ll see how he feels in the morning,” Ceciliasaid. She had instructed José not to tell his father about what had happenedthat afternoon. “We don’t want to worry Papa,” she had said. Neither José norRay would understand that she’d only wanted the roses. She had let a strangeman into her home. Ray would be furious if he knew. “I don’t want to have to pay a doctor if hedoesn’t need one. Children get sick like this all the time.” Ray said. “What’sfor dinner?”Cecilia felt her esophagus tighten. Ray could becheap. “Ya tiene enfermo. Problamente se necesita un doctor,” Cecilia said. Ray, still adamant about speaking English,continued: “Okay, okay. If he hasto see a doctor he has to. What are we eating?”“Pollito cebolla,” said Cecilia, adamant herself. “If he’s still sick in the morning I can drive youin very early, before work,” Ray said, about José. He sat at the table asCecilia brought over their plates. Cecilia nodded, they said grace, and ate insilence.
That night Ray scooted close to her in bed, butCecilia couldn’t stand the thought, even, of making love. She rolled away, saidshe was sleepy. The bedside light came on and Cecilia faced her husband. He wasup on one elbow, looking down at her. “It’s been a long time since we made love,” hesaid. “I know you’ve been wanting for us to have some private time. I’ve beenso busy. I want to make a good life for us here.” He paused. “La falta esmio por eso.”Cecilia didn’t know what to say. Her face musthave betrayed some confusion, frustration, something, because Ray said, “porfavor, no estés enojado conmigo.”“I’m not angry,” Cecilia said. “But I’m tired.”“Okay,” Ray said, lying back down, and reaching toswitch off the bedside light. “Can we try again? Maybe in the morning?”Cecilia nodded in the dark. She knew Ray felt itbecause he leaned over, kissed her cheek, and lay back. She didn’t think she’dwant to make love in the morning; she wasn’t sure when she’d want to make loveagain at all. She lay awake for an hour wishing there was some way she couldtake the Ray of this night and replace him with the Ray of a couple weeks ago.Maybe all she really wanted was attention from her husband, and the lack ofattention was why she decided to plant roses in the first place. And if shehadn’t wanted to plant roses, then she wouldn’t have met Jesse, and he wouldn’thave kissed her in the living room, and she wouldn’t be keeping this secretfrom the man she loved.
Wednesday morning José was still sick and Raydrove them the twelve miles into Salinas to the pediatrician. José had astomach virus and the doctor gave him a solution, which he did not want todrink, but forced down. The ordeal, including waiting for the one o’clock busalong Highway 183, through the artichoke fields, back into Castroville, tookfour hours. José was surprisingly quiet and passive in his trip to the doctor.In the past he put up a fuss when he had an appointment, like most children whodo not want to have doctors poking at them. But today José had been soacquiescent that it worried Cecilia. The superstitious Mexican in Cecilia madeher take José to Our Lady of Refuge for a blessing.The bus dumped them out on Merritt Street, acrossfrom the Giant Artichoke restaurant. They would have to walk a few blocks tothe church. She could walk the side streets and it would take longer, or shecould walk down Merritt Street and it was faster, but she had to pass ABCHardware. She would do it anyway. She wouldn’t spend her life hiding. This washer town as much as anyone’s. She and José walked down Merritt Street, the boyholding her hand, quiet as he had been all morning. The day was sunny and warm. Cars parked in frontof the street-side fruit stands, customers sliding back into their driver’sseats with baskets of strawberries. A young couple sat in their Plymouth, thewindows rolled down, the lyrics of a new hit song splashing out: “Not so longago, you broke my heart in two . . .” When Cecilia and José came upon ABC HardwareCecilia looked in the window. Jesse was helping a customer with what lookedlike a wheelbarrow purchase. He was rolling the barrow to the front of thestore. As always, he wore a neatly pressed checkered shirt tucked into hisslacks, his hair neatly combed up on his head. He looked toward the window asCecilia and José stood there. He looked flustered, embarrassed, and quicklylooked away, back to his customer, and he rounded the counter to ring him up.Just the sight of Jesse made Cecilia queasy.Finally, after José had been quiet all morning, he said, “We’re not going tosee that scary man, are we?” His tiny hand squeezed her larger one. Cecilialooked into the store for a moment longer, long enough for Jesse to takeanother long look back. He looked scared, and stared at her so long that hiscustomer (an older man with thin white hair) looked to the window. “Young man.”Cecilia could hear the old man through the window. “How much?” “No,” Cecilia said. “We’re not going to see him.”She and José walked away.                They finally returned home later that afternoon.Mrs. Ausonio had been in church, kneeling in a pew, her curly head bent intoher clasped hands. Cecilia led José into another pew and together they eachheld a side of Cecilia’s rosary, moving their fingers up a bead with each HailMary. The smell of old incense seemed to sneak into Cecilia’s pores, cleansingher. When Mrs. Ausonio stood to leave their eyes metand Mrs. Ausonio winked. It made Cecilia uncomfortable. People who sharedsecrets winked to one another. What secrets might Cecilia and Nancy Ausonioshare? Nancy passed on her way out, slinking a hand along Cecilia’s shoulder,whispering, “Hello, dear.” Cecilia imagined Nancy at home with Andy, herhusband, her eyelids fluttering rapidly, as she told him about the hardwareman’s truck parked in front of the Ordoñez house the other day, how the livingroom drapes had been drawn.Ray’s truck was in the driveway, which wasunusual. It was four in the afternoon. He didn’t get home from work until fiveor five thirty. Inside the house she found Ray in the kitchen scrubbing hisfingers with the bar soap. He’d tracked mud onto the kitchen tiles. The kneesof his workpants were dirty brown.Cecilia got José into bed, even though he said hewas not sleepy. “You rest,” Cecilia ordered. She returned to the kitchen. Ray was drying hishands with the dishtowel. “What are you doing?” Cecilia said, gesturing to themud all over the floor. “Didn’t you see when you got here?” Ray said,smiling. He put an arm around Cecilia’s shoulders. He walked her to the livingroom and drew open the bay window drapes. “I took the afternoon off and plantedyour roses,” he said. The cuttings had been spaced evenly in the dirt of thefront yard, the tiny shoots beginning to sprout their second and third sets ofleaves. Ray led her into the yard. He had spaced out theseeds according to color. He’d grouped the white and red together on one side,the yellow and pink on the other, the little plastic tags planted in theground, just as Jesse had planted them in the nursery flats, so that Ceciliaknew which roses were what. “There’s enough room to lay a path through them,”Ray said proudly. “I can get some stones from the hardware store and build awalkway through the garden.” Cecilia stared quietly and Ray said, “Aren’t youhappy? Did I do okay? I figured I knew what I was doing, working in the fieldsfor so long.”Cecilia held Ray’s face and kissed him. “Yes, querida,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”