Mama has always told me not to talk to strangers, not to walk around down town, and especially, not to sit by the street corner alone. She constantly reminds me that a girl of sixteen (as it was my birthday) is at the best age for rapists and plunderers to attack- weak, beautiful, defiant, alone. Her words never made much of an impact on me. I have, my whole life, dreamed of being attacked by pirates and taken to some dewy island with roses and at least one thunderstorm a day. I have never had any interest in anything else; writing, dreaming, and wishing about pirates was what consumed my life, besides playing a pirate or two, on stage. Living in the middle of the desert in California has always made my dreams seem impossible and nothing more than wishes that will always invade my sleep and writing. Still, I go against my mother’s words to be alone in hopes of some pirates losing their way completely and capturing me on their way back to the sea, ocean, or even a gulf, as long as a ship is there for us. Today, I thought I should try again- this would be the best birthday gift I could receive.
I sat on a street corner looking at my new leather covered family photo album, alone. (I had just received this album in the mail from my grandmother as a birthday gift.) I chose my street corner carefully, it wasn’t just any corner, it was the corner in the middle of town with people walking, riding bikes, and driving all around me- isolating me. Like the island I would soon be on. Alone. But not for long, I saw in the distance (after looking up from a picture of my great grandparents) a young Mexican man swaying and walking strangely in the middle of the eerily quiet and empty street
I went back to the album, hoping that he wouldn’t notice me there, or at least wouldn’t notice my staring at him. A car drove by, probably speeding, I looked up again and he was closer… swaggering nearer to the sidewalk now, though, instead of dead center of the usually busy road. I quickly began staring at the same picture I had been for the past two minutes; again hoping he wouldn’t see me… would walk right past.
“Hello,” he whispered, then said something in Spanish.
“Hi.” I looked up then looked back down as quickly as possible to stare at the picture in front of me- I was unable to focus on anything in the photograph. My heart was pounding so loudly that I could only wish that he couldn’t hear it. He sat down next to me and began looking at my album too… I have a four inch blade in the bag- how long do I wait until I should pull it out? I’ve never been in this situation before. Should I try to ru-
“You don’t speak a word of Spanish, do you?” He said in that choppy way people often do when they are not comfortable with the language they are speaking.
His breath hit me in a funny way… too close… it smelled like gin.
“No.” I shook my head without looking up and turned the page… the knife, the knife… we sat on the corner staring at the same picture for what seemed like hours- I was tense, but he was too drunk to know what he felt.
A loud noise thundered from behind me, I turned quickly to him.(Almost reaching for my bag.) He pointed to a flock of birds that had just fluttered from a tree to our left. I breathed again.
He laughed, “Whose family?” I was so preoccupied with the question of my knife, calculating how far away it was, that it took me some time to comprehend what he had just asked, although it was a simple question.
“Mine.”
“Oh.” We stared at the picture for a beat. He must have forgotten our earlier conversation… he said something in Spanish with a lot of “s” s in it. I stared at him, then turned the page.
“What… is it you are here?” At first the confused words threw me off course, so I made up what I thought he meant. I thought about telling him that I had run away from home and have no where to go; or making up some wild story about pirates and how they had captured me off the shores of Spain and that I was really a Spanish princess: “Bow down to me now!” but I did just tell him I didn’t know a word of Spanish…
“I’m just sitting here, enjoying the atmosphere.” This is all I could manage to get out of my mouth.
I couldn’t help but notice his clean appearance aside from the breath… he had a green Applebee’s t-shirt… must work there… tucked into his khaki pants and a red and green Applebee’s baseball cap: worn with the bill in the front, strange, no one wears them the right way anymore. I had not seen his glistening brown eyes before. Maybe I wouldn’t need my knife.
“Is this your place?”
No… I stole it… “No, I just sat here.” I smiled at him before hiding behind my hair and looking back down to a picture.
“Your padre? Father?”
“No, that’s my uncle… Mike.” I smiled again… imagining my uncle holding me there on the street corner; maybe protecting me from drunks and rapists, and drunk rapists. The knife.
He stood up, shaking. I ducked my head closer to my knees and placed my hand closer to the bag I had decorated- the bag with the knife. He took two steps backward, away from me- I loosened up a little, enough to lift my head to look at him. He was short, even when he was standing and I was not. I waited, staring into his autumn-brown eyes… they were seasonal. Someone rode by on a bike, sending my hair into the wind. If only she had stopped, she could have saved me from this drunk Chicano, but took no notice of me, or my companion.
This would be the opportune time for him to capture me, I noticed. (Having thought a lot about my capture before- but this wasn’t how the story was supposed to go…) No one was anywhere around.
“I am going this way,” he pointed to the square- in the direction of the ice cream parlor, “You?” A few Spanish words were muttered… what was he saying?
“I think I’ll just stay here.”
“You stay here, alone?”
“Yes… here, looking at my pictures.”
“Okay…” He grabbed my arm in a startlingly gentle way. He pulled me to my feet… my bag, the knife, I couldn’t reach it now. It was happening, I couldn’t let it happen this way. Where was his sword, his ship to take me to some uncharted island? Just my luck, captured by a drunk Mexican in the middle of town, instead of a pirate on the dock of an English sea.
He pulled me closer to him and I smelled the gin on his breath, “What is your name?”
“Chloe.” I told him… why didn't I tell him my real name?
“Goodbye, Chloe,” he said.
We stood for a moment and he stared into my eyes… please let me go.
He embraced me tightly, uncomfortably at first, but then easily. When he had let go, he kissed my cheek, pushed my hair away from my face with his hand and looked into my eyes again. I felt like I was in one of those old white and black flicks: the part before the lovers are parted forever. He dropped his gaze and turned back down the street.
He walked, more soberly now, into the ice cream parlor. I gazed, in a daze, at his disappearance.
The streets began crowding again slowly, drunkenly, with bikers, pedestrians, and cars zooming by, probably speeding. I looked back down at my photo album again. There was a purple leaf in the shape of a star, moving dreamily, carefully, drunkenly, in the wind. The leaf covered the picture of my uncle holding me as a baby. I took it all in- breathed, waited for my heart to stop beating the way it was.
I put the leaf in an empty picture sleeve at the end of the album… a picture of a new family member to add to my memories.
I may never be captured by my pirate horde that I await, but I have been captured by a different horde now. No swords, musketeer boots, or ships, but some spark in the eye did the same thing to me that my dreams always have done.
